Masque (The Two Monarchies Sequence)

by W. R. Gingell

  “Your movements have been accounted for all night: Lord Topher’s, on the other hand, have not.”

  Laughter welled up inside me. “You suspect Lord Topher? My lord, let me reassure you; Lord Topher is not your murderer!”

  “How long were you with him?” The question had a touch of steel to it. Did Lord Pecus not like to be cheeked in official interviews, I wondered, curling a plait around my finger and regarding him limpidly, or was something else in the wind?

  I gazed at him long enough to make his lips tighten, and then said helpfully: “You might want to speak to the footman who was manning the doors of the ballroom last night. He saw Raoul with the Duke of Horn just moments before I met with Lord Topher again; after which Lord Topher informed me that Raoul had gone to the blue saloon. I believe you said Raoul was murdered only minutes before we found him.”

  “Why did Lord Topher feel it necessary to tell you where Sir Raoul was?”

  “Possibly because I was looking for Sir Raoul,” I observed. “Of course, he could have been lying in wait simply in order to tell me, but I rather doubt it. Mostly I think he wanted to dance with me.”

  There was a twinkle of amusement in Lord Pecus’ jade eyes again, which I acknowledged with a small, prim smile. It was nice to know he wasn’t a stuffed shirt after all.

  “And what was your first impression upon entering the blue saloon?”

  “That someone had spilt a glass of wine on Delysia’s new carpet,” I said soberly, all desire to laugh fading like dew on a sunny morning. “I thought that I should clean it before the stain set: and there was Raoul.”

  My fingers, which had absently been unravelling the last of Marissa’s tiny braids, ceased to move; and it was not until Lord Pecus, his gaze averted, said: “Would you like a moment, Lady Farrah?” that I realised tears were gliding warmly down my cheeks. I pulled myself together before Melchior found it necessary to put his arm around me in the sometimes irritatingly older brother way he has. Melchior is a dear, but I felt that I was at a disadvantage facing Lord Pecus as it was, and I positively refused to do so while being cuddled comfortingly in a male embrace.

  “I beg your pardon, my lord; my thoughts were wandering. Please continue.”

  Lord Pecus, who had been thoughtfully gazing at his loosely clasped hands, flicked a quick look at me. “And Lord Topher, my lady?”

  “Lord Topher was never in the room without me. I sent him out to fetch Delysia, and once he went dashing out into the garden to see if he could find the killer. In fact, even I am possibly a better suspect than Lord Topher.”

  “If you could do more with magic than twiddle locks,” Melchior said, with brutal honesty. “Sorry, Carrots; but the kind of skills needed to do what our murderer did are beyond your ken.” He thought about it, and added: “For which I am profoundly, profoundly grateful.”

  Lord Pecus made a stifled sound as I glared at Melchior, and said in a rather more strained tone of voice: “Thank you, Lady Farrah. I have no further questions for you.”

  His voice was a dismissal, which I chose not to recognise. Instead, plaiting the last of my hair and twisting it up into a practical coronet while Lord Pecus watched in what seemed to be a kind of interested speculation, I inquired: “Has your investigation turned up anything interesting, my lord?”

  Melchior openly grinned: he would have expected nothing less.

  Lord Pecus treated me to a prolonged, thoughtful gaze and said politely: “It’s too early in the investigation to say, my lady,” which of course meant that even if he did know something, he wasn’t saying. I looked up to find his eyes laughing through a suspiciously straight-faced mask, and only just prevented my brows from rising in sudden surprise. So Lord Pecus was not above playing the dense Guv’nor, was he?

  Consequently, it was with a buzzing, busy mind that I said: “Of course! How silly of me! Good day, my lord; good day, Melchior.”

  I thought Lord Pecus looked disappointed, and suspected that he had been anticipating an argument.

  Melchior said affably: “Oh, there’s no need to go, Carrots: Pecus and I were just about to send down for some er, tea and biscuits.”

  Glausian whiskey, I mentally translated, briefly weighing the chance of either of them accidentally dropping something interesting during the conversation against the significantly better chance of them both guarding their speech until I was gone. Annoying, but unsurprising.

  “Thank you, but no,” I said decidedly. “Enjoy your tea. By the way, Melchior, congratulations on the new addition to your staff! I believe her things have already been moved to the servants’ quarters of your royal suite: she was simply overjoyed! I’m sure you’ll find her just as useful as you hoped.”

  I beamed a smile into Melchior’s thunderstruck face, favoured Lord Pecus with another as I set my hat at a saucy angle over one eye, and took my leave of them.

  As I descended the stairs beyond the royal suite, the butler was just beginning to toil his way up with a tray, upon which sat a decanter of the best Glausian whiskey; and, insultingly, two glasses. Melchior had known very well I would not be staying.

  So I said, with parting malice: “Thomas, his highness has changed his mind. They will take sweet tea and biscuits instead of whiskey. Try to find those lovely flowery biscuits that Lady Quorn’s cook does so well, I believe his highness is very fond of them.”

  Thomas, with his usual mournful sigh, descended the one step he had taken, and said in measured tones: “Very good, my lady.”

  *

  I was still chuckling to myself when one of Delysia’s army of footmen presented me with my gloves, which Marissa must have sent down as a last token of affection. I did wish I could see Melchior’s face when the tea and biscuits made an appearance.

  “Thank you, er-”

  “Daubney, my lady,” supplied the young footman helpfully. His fresh, clean-shaven face seemed familiar, and it took only a moment longer to recognise him as the footman who had directed me to Raoul last night.

  “Daubney! Of course! You were very useful last night.” There was a wicked tingle of mischief in my mood this morning. Giving into it, I said: “I find myself short of a maid this morning, Daubney. If you have no pressing household matters to attend to, I am in need of your services.”

  As much as a well-trained footman could, Daubney manifested enthusiasm. “Yes, my lady! I am entirely at your service.”

  “Very well, follow me,” I said, and sailed blissfully out the door with the delicious knowledge that when Melchior and Lord Pecus wanted to interview Daubney, they would find him unaccountably missing. Perhaps it would make them think twice about excluding me from an investigation that was eminently my right to assist in, if not by friendship to the victim or merit of sagacity, at least by merit of being first upon the scene.

  The triad was bright and warm outside, heating the worn cobbles of the ambassadorial courtyard to such an extent that they fairly radiated warmth and brought a sleepy feel to the air that was untouched by any breath of wind. I found it necessary to bite back a series of successive yawns, and the few people on the streets moved slowly about their various businesses, caught in the stickiness of the day.

  I had brought along a reticule as if I were about to go shopping, but once out the gate I turned briskly to the left, and followed the main road that would lead me, in time, to the parade grounds of the Glausian Horselords.

  Daubney looked doubtful, but was too uncertain of himself to inquire if I had mistaken my way, and I continued without enlightening him. The horselords should be finished their morning maneuvers by now, and ready and willing to talk to me. During peace time there was not much for the militia to do, and despite all the training and maneuvers that the almost obnoxiously active horselords could squeeze into a day, the only real duties they had were their morning parade and a rotating guard of the royal palace.

  As I approached the barracks there was a whoop and a shout, and the small gatehouse door was flung open with a resounding cra
ck!

  “Isabella! You’ve come to marry me at last!” said Curran’s voice exuberantly. “Or have you come to take my little Paladin for a ride?”

  “If that is the name of your new horse, then certainly not!” I said firmly. I still remembered what had happened the last time I tried to ride a horse. No doubt Curran did also, because he was grinning openly.

  “He’s a sweet little thing, nothing like that scrawny, savage beast of Miryum’s. Never trust a white horse! They bite, one and all!”

  “I remember!” I said, quite tartly. “I also remember that you all stood laughing at me, and I distinctly remember trying to salvage what I could of my new hat from the beast! Without help, I might add!”

  “I remember the box on the ear you gave me!” promptly said Curran.

  “That was bad of me,” I allowed. I patted the afflicted member, much to Daubney’s wellbred surprise. “But it was my favourite, and it took me a week to make it just right!”

  “It was a good, hearty blow,” Curran said, pursuing the subject with some glee. “I could almost have mistaken you for one of the horseless regiment. Well, besides the clothes, of course.”

  “Enough of your tomfoolery!” I said. I had no desire to go into the matter of the horseless regiment- Lacunan soldiers who fought hand-to-hand, weaponless, and, as their name suggested, horseless. They all, male and female alike, wore black bodysuits that were decidedly skin tight, and I didn’t trust Curran on the subject of skin tight suits.

  He said: “Spoilsport!” and grinned.

  “Where are the others?” I stepped past him into the barracks, wrinkling my nose at the smell. Daubney, well trained as he was, didn’t show by blink or grimace that he noticed.

  “Stable. Polishing and saddling up.”

  “Curran, I am not dressed for riding.”

  “Maneuvers,” he said, shrugging innocently.

  “Don’t give me that! I’m perfectly well aware that you can put off the midday maneuvers for as long as you like. This is important.”

  “But I do so like watching you try to ride! It’s painful, yet entertaining.” He maintained the innocent expression for another, sorely tried moment, and then grinned. “Oh, all right. But the ambassadorial poker will have to stay here.”

  Daubney didn’t so much as look at him. My goodness, the man was well trained. “What are your orders, my lady?”

  “I think you’ll be more useful to me here,” I said thoughtfully. He was a young man who noticed a surprisingly good deal, and Raoul had spent most of his time in Glause here with the horselords. Perhaps there was something worth overhearing that I would not learn from the horselords. They liked me, and I liked them, but I was under no illusions as to their not cheerfully lying to me if they felt it was in their country’s or their regiment’s best interests. If and how they lied to me would serve to show me if Glause itself were involved in Raoul’s murder.

  “You’re up late’o’day,” Curran said, opening the stableyard gate for me.

  “Unavoidable misfortune,” I replied, a little absently. The stableboys do their best, but when horses are allowed to roam free, a certain amount of unpleasantness is inevitable, and it needed all of my attention to safely navigate the cobbles without soiling my shoes. The other horselords couldn’t be far away: I could distinctly hear a rendition of Nelly-O being performed in a far from tuneful tenor, to the accompaniment of jeers and insults. Brennan never could be convinced that he did not have the voice of an angel, and not even five years with his regiment had cured him of singing while he tended to his horse. I had the feeling that he regarded them as an unappreciative public who would one day warm to his charms, and in the meantime learned to dodge horse-shoes and hammers with great alacrity. I often wondered if this practise had not stood him in good stead in battle, since he certainly seemed less scarred than the others.

  “There seems to be an animal in pain,” Curran growled, hunching his shoulders as we walked closer. Harness jingled and heavy hooves thumped the ground the nearer we got, and insults of a less than savoury nature began to distinguish themselves through Brennan’s warble. “Excuse me while I put it out of its misery.”

  I allowed him to stride ahead and disappear around the great stone wall of the stable. Brennan’s singing abruptly ceased in a wild cacophony of shouts that rose in a crescendo to the accompaniment of the sound of a waterbutt being overturned. When Curran reappeared, his right arm and the whole right side of his blue tunic were soaked into midnight blue, a circumstance which I thought it better to ignore.

  “Come on in, Isabella, I’ve put him out of his misery.”

  I entered the corral to find Brennan, as I had expected, still crawling out of the water butt. By all appearances he had been dumped head first into it. Now it lay on its side in a puddle of dirt and horse dung, with Brennan’s legs protruding comically from it. The other horselords, ignoring it as a common, everyday occurrence, were variously polishing and saddling at differing points around the stable.

  “Don’t let Curran convince you to ride Paladin,” said Miryum, without looking up from the silvery bit she was polishing. “He’s a fiend in horse form.”

  “I have no intention of riding Paladin,” I said, eyeing with disfavour the simply enormous black horse that was watching me with a knowing gleam to its nasty black eyes. “And if that is Paladin, I object to your description of him as little, Curran!”

  “Not a bit above eighteen hands!” protested Curran, approaching the beast with what I considered to be most inadvisable casualness. In an odious display of duplicity, the animal coquetted and even pranced; trying, no doubt, to lull me into a false sense of security.

  “I know your sort!” I said to it severely. “You, sir, are the sort that eats hats! I will not be charmed.”

  “Now you’ve hurt his feelings,” Curran said reproachfully, but Miryum only grinned.

  “To what do we owe the pleasure, my lady?” She put aside the bit and reins, and wiped her hands on a rag of cloth. “Not that we’re not always glad to see you, of course. But with the conference this afternoon-”

  “I’m afraid this is business rather than pleasure. I need some information. Is there anywhere private we can speak?”

  Miryum gazed at me for a deliberate moment, and I could see her weighing up the odds of me asking for privileged information, and how she could courteously refuse if I did. At last she shrugged, and said: “We have wards. The stable should be safe. What information do you need?”

  “There are a few things I am not going to tell you,” I said carefully, deciding that honesty – after a fashion – was the best policy. “I am not going to tell you that there was a murder at the ambassadorial palace last night. And I most certainly cannot tell you that it was Raoul who was murdered.”

  The horselords looked at each other with troubled eyes. Even Brennan, struggling up from the water butt, sat himself down quietly on a hay bale without attempting revenge on Curran.

  “You think we had something to do with it?” he asked, slicking damp curls back with one hand.

  “No,” I said, and was pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn’t a lie. The horselords had been surprised- and dismayed, if I was any reader of faces. They wanted this merger as much as Annabel wanted it. Together Civet and Glause were strong; apart, we were disastrously isolated. “But you might know something of it.”

  “Raoul wasn’t with us for very long,” said Katrina, a tall, dusky brunette. There was a crease between her straight brows, and her hands were clasped between her knees. I had had my suspicions of her and Raoul: Curran said it was because he was the only man she had met who was taller than her, but I had watched them sparring, and I had no doubts that it would have ended in marriage.

  “He was restless, watching the crowd. I think he was meeting with someone.”

  I nodded ruefully. It was nothing more than I had expected, but it still hurt to think that Raoul had been a traitor. “Did you see who it was that he met with?”
<
br />   She shook her head: the other horselords followed suit.

  “Saw him with the Earl of Horn later on,” Curran volunteered, and Emmett, beside him, nodded a close-shaven head in silent assent. “That was when we were leaving.”

  “That fits the timeline,” I said, sighing. “Keep your ears to the ground for me, will you? Tell me if you hear anything: rebel movement, someone taking credit. Lord Pecus may question you, but I doubt it; Melchior and Lord Quorn want it kept quiet for as long as possible.”

  Miryum nodded soberly. “I can put out some inquiries, but if Lord Pecus is heading the investigation himself he’ll get to hear of it.”

  That put me at a momentary standstill. “He’s that good?”

  “He’s persistent, and he’s clever,” she said. “Besides, he knows the right channels, and people are afraid of him.”

  “I don’t want to cause any trouble for you,” I said thoughtfully. “Perhaps it would be better if you merely keep your ears open. I’ll take care of the inquiries myself.”

  They looked subtly relieved, and I had a moment’s misgiving: I was going to have to walk very warily indeed. Drat Lord Pecus! He was becoming a recurring, not to mention inopportune, motif.

  “How was he killed?” Katrina asked quietly, as I turned to leave. Her eyes were unemotional and distant, but her hands remained clasped and white-knuckled, and I was not deceived.

  “Magic,” I said briefly. “If Lord Pecus is to be believed, the darkest and most skillful.”

  Miryum frowned, and even Curran, light-hearted as he was toward danger, looked uneasy. “Did you touch him?”

  “Lord Pecus? I believe not.”

  Miryum shook her head. “No, Raoul. Did you touch his body?”

  “Yes.” I began to have the uncomfortably sinking feeling that Lord Pecus had not told me quite everything. “I helped Lord Pecus remove something from Raoul’s person. What’s amiss?”