by Alex Bledsoe
“Whoever’s behind it,” Kern repeated. “And just who is that?”
“I’m not sure yet. One person can’t be doing all the dirty work, but Bob Kay insists it’s still the work of one hand.”
“Megan Drake, just like I told you,” Kern said. “Bob’s always had a thing for her. Not a romantic one, but he sees her behind every misfortune. He probably thinks she makes all the bad weather. And he may be right, she’s a brilliant young woman.”
“Young? I thought she was older than Marcus.”
“Everyone’s young to me. And, yes, she’s a couple of years older, so she’d be … let me think … around thirty-five by now.”
“What does she look like?”
“Average. You wouldn’t look at her twice if you met her. Probably wouldn’t remember her the next time you saw her.”
“And she’s in exile?”
“Oh, yes. And every knight memorizes her portrait because in Grand Bruan, she’s to be killed on sight.”
“That’s harsh for a princess, isn’t it?”
“It’s not harsh for a traitor.”
I nodded. Everything was pulling together, except for one final element: motive. “Bob says she hates Marcus because his father raped their mother. Is that true?”
“That he did it? Yes.”
“But is it why she hates Marcus?”
“You’ll have to ask her.”
It was one more evasive answer than my patience could stand. I slammed my right hand on the table so hard all the glassware jumped. “I’m asking you,” I said quietly.
Kern tried to hold my gaze, but couldn’t. He picked up a pestle and began to grind the powder in the mortar. “If I tell you, you can’t—”
“No strings. This island has yanked my chain enough, and I’m about to yank back.”
He looked down and his long white hair fell to either side of his face as he spoke. “Has anyone mentioned a man named Kindermord to you?”
“The name’s come up a few times. Who is he?”
Kern’s voice was numb, flat, and matter-of-fact. What he told me was horrifying, and disgusting, and made perfect sense. It was the motive that explained everything. He concluded, “Choosing the lesser evil is still choosing evil.”
We stood in silence. The weight of his revelation demanded that moment of respect. At last I said, “An army was headed to Nodlon. Medraft was in Astolat ahead of it. That means I have to get Jenny to Nodlon fast.”
“Why? What can she do?”
“She’s the wild card. I don’t think the murderer even knows she exists. With her, I can show that the queen is innocent of treason.”
“Won’t Elliot prove that?”
“By strength of arms, yes. But I’ll prove it for real.”
“And prove the king a fool.”
I shook my head. “No. All I have to do is show that Spears has a wife who looks like the queen, which means Jennifer had no motive for killing Patrice, or trying to kill Gillian.”
That was all true. But an equally big motivation was so that she could see Elliot one last time before she died. It might make up a little for my failing to protect her. At least I could tell myself that I did something.
Kern looked at me steadily. “It’s unlikely she’ll make it there alive. Even if you left right now.”
“We are leaving right now, or at least as soon as possible. And she’ll make it. I just need some Cameron Kern magic.”
“Magic,” he practically spat. “You mean those deceptions of the ordinary and the obvious that morons call magic.”
“Whatever they are, I believe you can use them to help me. And her.”
A scream of bone-deep agony, even muffled by walls and distance, made us both jump. Kern said, “I can’t save her. Do you know how shatternight works? It dissolves the nerves, from the tips up. So the longer it works, the more painful it gets. It’s like boiling inside. If it reaches the big nerves, the ones in the spine…” He shook his head. “I can’t imagine enduring it.”
“What can you do?”
He opened the book, removed the feather place-marker, and turned some more pages. “I can almost kill her. I can mix something that will slow down her body’s processes, which will also slow the shatternight. She’ll appear dead to all intents and purposes, but when you give her the antidote, she’ll wake up. Unfortunately, she’ll be no better off, and her life will run out then just as it would now. But it would give you time to get to Nodlon.”
Another groan reached us. There was a knock on the shed door and a distraught Amelia said, “Cammy? She’s hurting so bad, I don’t know what to do.”
“Just hang on,” the old man said. “I’m mixing something right now.” To me he said, “I’ll also give you something to send her on her way, if you think it’s the right time.”
“That’s not my call, it’s hers.”
“She may not be able to make it.”
“I still can’t make it for her.”
“Then I hope you like watching pain.”
I clenched my fists. Then it suddenly registered that I could clench my fists. I looked down at my right hand, and while it was still black-and-blue, the swelling was totally gone. I’d even pounded the table with it and felt no pain. I held it up to the light. “The hell?” I whispered.
“You broke your cast. Need a new one?”
I was still puzzled. “No, I … guess I don’t.”
“You know, that’s one thing those moon priestesses can do that I could never figure out. They can make a bone knit in a fraction of the time it should take. They call it magic. But there’s no such thing, is there?”
The weight of this final revelation made me suddenly very tired. I leaned back against the door and closed my eyes. So there it was: I’d known no one when I came to Grand Bruan, and it appeared that was still true.
chapter
TWENTY-FIVE
In a little while Kern held up two small bottles. One was open, the other corked and sealed with wax. The liquid inside the open one was clear, the other deep forest green. He said, “You wanted magic? I give you the power to raise the dead.”
I said nothing. I was way past irony.
He shook the bottles so the liquid in them sparkled. “I’ll give this to her now,” he said about the clear one. “The other is for when you want her to come out of it.”
I took the sealed bottle and put it in my jacket’s inner pocket. The nice thing about expensive clothes was that they were loaded with little compartments like that. “And you’re sure this will work?”
He glared at me in annoyance. “Fuck, no. I’ve never done this before. I don’t have a goddamned lifetime’s accumulation of apothecarian knowledge.”
“I was just asking.”
“Well, you got your answer, didn’t you?” he muttered as he put away the various ingredients. He’d been through a lot, too, I reminded myself.
We went back into the cottage. Amelia sat on the bed beside Jenny and held her hand. The stitched wound no longer oozed blood, but Jenny was still bathed in sweat, and her knuckles were white where she gripped Amelia’s hand.
The tall girl stood and pried herself free from Jenny’s grip. Kern knelt beside the bed, touched Jenny’s forehead and neck, then leaned down to listen to her breathing.
Amelia sniffled next to me. I would’ve put my arm around her shoulders to comfort her, but I couldn’t gracefully reach that high.
“Jenny,” Kern said softly. “Can you hear me?”
She opened her eyes and looked wildly around, terror in her face like a little girl’s. I’d never felt so helpless in my life. She said, “My fingers and toes feel like they’re burning.”
“I know,” Kern said. “It’s the poison from the knife that cut you.”
“Am I going to die?” she whimpered. “Please, tell me.”
“I can’t say for certain,” Kern said. “But … probably.”
Her eyes welled with tears. “How soon?” she asked in a tiny voice.
He forced himself to meet her gaze. “I don’t know. But not long.”
She turned her head and cried silently into her pillow. Amelia, also crying, sat on the opposite side of the bed and stroked her hair.
Abruptly Jenny tried to sit up. “I have to see Elliot one last time. Can you send for him?”
“I’ve got a better idea,” I said. “I’ll take you to him.”
She looked at me with the hope of a man in the desert wondering if the oasis is a mirage. “You will? You promise?”
“I promise.” For her sake I managed a no-big-deal smile, as if I took dying women to find their husbands every day and twice on holidays.
Kern handed Amelia the bottle. To Jenny he said, “Drink this. It’ll help you sleep. Amelia will stay with you. And when you wake up, you’ll be with Elliot.”
Amelia put the bottle to Jenny’s lips and she drank it in one swallow. Almost at once her face visibly relaxed, and her heaving chest began to slow down. Her eyes slowly closed.
“I’ll get her dressed,” Amelia said. “You men wait somewhere else.”
Kern nodded toward the door and I followed him out once more, this time into the sitting room. He lit his pipe and took several furious puffs, pacing in the small space like a bull in an outhouse. Once again I found myself backed up to the closed door. Through it I heard Hoel’s continued cries of pain and outrage.
“That little peckerhead son of a bitch Agravaine,” Kern snarled, his words accompanied by blasts of smoke. “They say poison is a woman’s way, did you know that? That’s probably why he used it. Kill them with their own weapon of choice. Even a total stranger.”
“He thought she was the queen,” I said. “He didn’t know about the switch.”
Kern looked up at the ceiling and blew a thin, narrow column of smoke at it. “It didn’t matter. For Dave, if a woman wasn’t on her back or her knees, she was out of line. He killed his own mother, did you know that? Caught her in bed with another man.”
“Another man besides her husband, or besides Agravaine?”
Kern touched his nose to say I’d caught the crucial detail.
“Did he kill her with poison, too?”
“No, he chopped her head off. Medraft used his influence to keep him from hanging for it.” Kern laughed coldly. “It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
I felt the poetic justice of what I’d done to him. “He won’t be hurting any more women.”
Kern looked at me from the corner of his eye. “No, and he won’t give you any more information, either. Think maybe you acted too rashly?”
The roomful of smoke was beginning to mellow me out, and I didn’t want that. “I’ll regret things when I’m your age. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go talk to the survivor for a moment.”
Hoel stopped moaning and glared up at me as I emerged from the cottage. The sun had moved past its zenith, and he was not in the shade. His sweaty skin was pale from blood loss, and his exposed hands were purple. His sword, still stuck in the earth between his legs, reflected a vertical bar of light on his face.
I ignored him, walked a few steps away, and took a long, deep breath. Partly it was to clear out the giggleweed, partly to annoy Hoel. It did both.
“I can’t feel my fingers, you asshole,” he hissed, recovering a bit of his soldier’s bravado. “Loosen the goddamn knots. I’m not telling you squat until you do.”
I took in the scene of pastoral carnage. The two dead men lay where they’d fallen. A crow perched on Agravaine’s chest and pecked at the stump of his neck. The remaining pair of military horses grazed placidly alongside the ones from my wagon. Where the grass was taller, it waved in the gentle breeze.
“You hear me?” Hoel’s struggles made the wagon creak. “I’m a Knight of the goddamn Double Tarn, you can’t intimidate me.”
I picked up Agravaine’s severed head by the hair, with its smashed and ruined face, and plopped it beside the sword in front of Hoel. “Your friend had an attitude with me, too. Look at him now.”
Hoel sneered up at me. “I remember him being taller.”
I slapped him so hard his head slammed against a wheel spoke. Fear mixed with his hatred when he glared back at me. “You’re a big man with someone who can’t fight back. Untie me, then we’ll see how tough you are.”
“I am going to ask you questions,” I said carefully. My chest was so tight with fury the words came out as a wheeze. “Answer them, and you’ll live through this day.”
“And if I don’t?” he sneered mockingly.
I pushed his bruise-colored pinkie back until it snapped. His hands weren’t as numb as he thought. His scream startled a flock of birds from the nearby trees.
“Nine more fingers and ten more toes,” I said. “Plus a mouthful of teeth and a couple of balls. I sure do hope you keep trying not to be intimidated. Now: who sent you here?”
He glanced at the severed head. “Look, we just followed Agravaine. He outranks us, we have to do what he says.”
“Like when you ambushed me in that courtyard at Nodlon?”
Hoel nodded and tried to laugh. “We were just delivering another love poem from General Medraft to the queen, we didn’t even know you’d be there. We just had standing orders that if we saw you again, to make sure you didn’t cause any more trouble.”
“Standing orders from who?”
He tried to hold it back, but when I reached for his hand again, he broke. “A woman. I don’t know who. I never saw her face. She had on a cloak, but you could tell she was a woman.”
“What did she say?”
“I didn’t hear.” I reached for another finger and he added quickly, “No, seriously, she never spoke to me or Cador. She only talked to Agravaine.”
“I thought he hated women. But he took orders from them?”
“She didn’t give the orders, she just relayed them from Medraft. At least, that’s what I figured.”
“Why did Medraft send him secret orders?”
Hoel laughed. “The general had Agravaine convinced he’d be seneschal when Medraft took the crown. I didn’t believe it, but I figured I might get some advancement if I went along.”
“So Medraft is planning a coup.”
Hoel nodded. “Agravaine said Medraft knew something the king would never want to get out publicly. He was sure he’d even abdicate to keep it quiet. Medraft just had to wait for the right moment.”
“What was it?”
“The moment?”
“The secret.”
Hoel shook his head. “I don’t know. Really. As far as I know, Medraft never told Agravaine, either.” Hoel nodded toward the cottage. “I guess it was about that woman inside. That isn’t really Queen Jennifer, is it?”
“Depends on who you ask,” I said. But it confirmed what Kern had told me. That act of perversion and violence had started a whole chain of events long before I got to this wretched little island, but I’d be goddamned if I wasn’t the one who was going to stop it. And make sure the murderers involved paid. If I survived that long-ago whorehouse massacre for anything, it was for things like this. “Does Medraft have troops?”
“Yeah. He’s been bringing in mercenaries and soldiers from the Spatelo islands. They’ve been smarting ever since Marcus ran them out.”
“What about the rest of the Knights of the Double Tarn?”
“They’re outnumbered and out of practice. But they’re all with Marcus, no question.”
“Except you three loyal men at arms.”
He looked down and said nothing. I wondered how truly loyal the other knights would be if they knew what Marcus had done. I realized that’s exactly what Medraft was counting on. He knew nothing about the switched Jennifers, which meant I had a hole card. If I could figure out when to play it.
“Next question,” I said. “What exactly were you supposed to do with Spears and me when you found us?”
He swallowed nervously. “We, ah … were supposed to make sure Elliot did
n’t show up to defend the queen.”
“You three losers against him?”
“We weren’t going to fight him, we were going to tell him the king had moved the trial to Motlace.”
“And me?”
“We were supposed to, ah … eliminate you. Then bring your head back to Nodlon.”
“How did you know to find me here?”
Again that nervous swallow. “We made one of the stableboys tell us. Agravaine spoke his language.”
I knew which stable boy they meant. “He was a little kid.”
Hoel looked desperately guilty and fearful. “I know.”
“You killed him, didn’t you?”
“Cador did,” Hoel said quickly. “Agravaine held him.”
“And you just stood there and watched.”
Hoel’s words spewed forth in an attempt to save his life. “I was just following orders, I didn’t have a choice, I’m a soldier. You were a soldier once, weren’t you? I can tell. We have to do what we’re told, even if it’s awful. A soldier who goes against his orders is a traitor, right? Right?”
Despite my best efforts, I recalled that eager little boy’s bright face. “Was it quick?”
Hoel knew what I meant. He didn’t answer.
I slowly drew his sword from the ground, its hilt and pommel still gummy with Agravaine’s drying blood. Dirt stuck to the blood at the tip. The horror on Hoel’s face as the blade rose above him filled me with my own icy joy.
“I have an order for you.” I gripped the hilt with both hands.
Hoel swallowed. “Anything.”
I smiled. “Go to hell.” Then I split his skull down to the bridge of his nose. It took a long time for his corpse to stop twitching.
“That was for you, Jack,” I added, even though no one was alive to hear. I hoped wherever he was, the boy could now rest easy.
chapter
TWENTY-SIX
I left Hoel’s sword outside by his body and went into the cottage. Kern was gone, and the bedroom door was closed. I took off my jacket, went into the kitchen, and found a bucket of water and some soap. Washing my hands did nothing about the blood splattered on my clothes, but I couldn’t help that. I also washed my face and wet down my hair. My beard was starting to grow back. It had been three days since I had a bath, and I could smell it even if no one else could.