by Alex Bledsoe
One of the knights standing guard called, “Someone’s coming, sire!”
Kay peeked outside. “Medraft,” he spat.
Cheers from the direction of the mercenaries grew louder. Armored horses approached and rattled to a halt outside. The tent flap was flung aside and two mercenaries entered, their eyes darting around to scope out any threat. They wore reasonably clean clothes and their hair was slicked down and neatly parted, like children forced to attend a civic function. It didn’t make them look any friendlier.
They stepped to either side of the opening. One held the flap while the other gestured for someone outside to enter.
It was “Dread Ted” Medraft. He wore his Double Tarn knight show armor and stood stiff and proud. A boy carried the end of his bloodred cape so it wouldn’t drag on the ground. Two more spit-polished mercenaries followed him in; the four soldiers took up positions at each of the corners.
Medraft frowned a bit at the coffin, but only momentarily. “Queen Jennifer, Sir Thomas,” he said coolly. His gaze finally settled on Marcus. “King Marcus.” No bowing or kneeling, not even a nod. “Or rather, Uncle Marc.”
Marcus said nothing. Gillian stepped between the two men and said, “General Medraft, you’re a traitor to your kingdom, and possibly to me. I challenge you to defend yourself.”
He swung a glove to slap the younger man, but Medraft blocked it with his forearm. “Don’t be an idiot, Tommy. I don’t know for sure if I’m your bastard or not, but this is not between you and I. It’s about our lovely queen, and her attempted murder of one of our fellow knights. I’m here to see a trial by combat. Now where, I wonder, is the queen’s champion?”
“Not so fast,” I said, loud enough to get everyone’s attention. This was the crowd I’d been waiting for. “Before anybody challenges anybody to anything, I have a story to tell you. You all know pieces of it, but only one person here knows it all.”
“You, I suppose,” Queen Jennifer said scornfully.
“Actually, no. But someone here does.”
Then I spun, pulled my sword, and grabbed the boy who’d been holding Medraft’s cape. I yanked him into the open, kicked his feet out from under him, and put the tip of my sword beneath his chin. I bent back his wrist to immobilize him. He lay still, flat on his back.
In drawing my sword I’d inadvertently slashed the tent’s roof. A shaft of sunlight fell on the boy’s face. I saw no fear, only rage and frustration.
“I think,” I said coolly, “you should introduce yourself.”
chapter
THIRTY-ONE
The tavern had grown chilly as I told my story. No one had stoked the fire, and it had died to almost nothing. My mouth was dry from all the talking, and my winter-chapped lips were starting to crack. I picked up my mug.
The crowd leaned in closer as if I might whisper the next part of the story. In the dead silence I heard the wind whistling outside. I’d never had so many eager faces turned my way, and it was kind of funny. The last of my ale bit at the raw spots on my lips, but it felt great going down my parched throat.
“And?” Gary finally prompted. I could see his breath.
“Yeah,” Sharky added. “Who was the boy? Is he Kindermord?”
I held up my hand. “I’ll get to it.”
The room groaned its collective disapproval. Even Liz rolled her eyes. I winked at her and grinned. “Somebody better get the fire going again before we all freeze to death,” I added.
“So did you know then who did it, Mr. LaCrosse?” Sharky’s daughter Minnow asked.
“Who did what?” said Emmett the fur trader. “Is this still about that knight who died?”
“That’s the thing, it never really was,” I assured him. “And I didn’t know everything, but I knew most of it. By the time I got to the tent, I knew who did it, and why, and how. Although there was still one big surprise left.”
“What was the secret Kern told you?” asked Mrs. Talbot, my landlady. She knitted winter tunics on the side, and her current project had grown considerably since I started my story.
“How did Marcus and Medraft really die?” Drucker the gambler demanded. “I mean, I know they did die that day, all the songs say so. Right?”
“And who is Kindermord?” Sharky said, sticking tenaciously to his question.
“I’ll get to it all, I promise.” Angelina put my fresh drink down on the counter so hard a third of it bounced up and splattered the wood. I picked it up and sipped it before adding, “So … has anyone figured it out yet?”
“Figured out what?” Gary demanded.
“Would it help if I told you I already met both the murderer of Sam Patrice and the mastermind of everything else before I left Nodlon Castle to go to Blithe Ward?” I said.
“What?” Callie said. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Because I didn’t know it myself at the time.”
“The ballads all say it was Ted Medraft,” she insisted. “He killed Marcus because he couldn’t have Jennifer, but Marcus gave him a moral blow before he died.”
“You mean a mortal blow, honey,” Liz gently corrected.
“I bet it was that girl Iris,” Angelina said.
“No, I will say that,” I said, unable to keep the sadness from my voice. “It wasn’t Iris.”
“What gave it away?” Ralph demanded.
“The one absolutely impossible thing that happened,” I said.
“Finding two identical Jennifers?” Gary guessed.
“No. That was unlikely, but it wasn’t impossible.”
Liz snapped her fingers and said, “Your hand healing so fast?”
“No. Although that was a clue. But it wasn’t impossible.”
“That stupid Lord Huckleberry thing actually working?” Angelina said.
I laughed. “I can see why you’d think so, but no.”
Their eager faces now looked blank, and they exchanged puzzled glances.
“So the woman you called Dark Jenny is who’s in the coffin outside,” Angelina said without her usual disdain. Even she was now caught up in my story.
“No, don’t jump ahead of me.” I stood to stretch, and hands grabbed me to hold me in place, along with cries of protest.
“Hey, hey,” Liz said, slapping the hands away. “Don’t be rude, now. He’ll finish it.” She smiled at me the way a crocodile smiles at a calf drinking from the river. “Or at least he will if he knows what’s good for him.”
“I will, I promise. I just need to go upstairs for a minute and look at my notes again. This was complicated, and I want to make sure I get it all correct. It’ll give everyone a chance to get fresh drinks. Not on me this time, though.”
They grudgingly parted to let me visit my office. This time Liz followed, and I didn’t protest. She closed the outer door after I lit the lamp and said, “You don’t need to check your notes.”
I sank into my chair. “No.”
She perched on the edge of my desk and crossed her legs. “You’re just not sure if you want to tell the whole story.”
I took her hand. “How did you get this smart?”
“I’m not smart, I just know you. There’s something you don’t want everyone to know, and you’re trying to think of a way to finish the story without including it.”
I shrug-nodded. The danger of a smart girlfriend was that you couldn’t easily fool her.
She leaned down to look in my eyes. The lamplight made her impossibly lovely. “Then tell me. I’ll help you decide.”
“I can’t tell just you, they’re waiting.”
She got right in my face. “Let them. You don’t owe them. For that matter, you don’t owe me. But I would like to find out what happened, and I know you’d like to finish telling the story. So tell me, leave in everything, and then decide if you want to tell them.”
After the kiss I said, “I’m sorry you had to hear about Iris.”
“Long time ago,” she said dismissively.
“You sure?”
&
nbsp; “Positive.”
I got my office bottle from my desk and poured us each a drink. As we touched mugs, the impatient voices downstairs grew louder.
“Better make it quick,” she said.
I agreed.
chapter
THIRTY-TWO
“Go to hell,” the boy snarled as if he might bite me. Spittle collected at the corners of his mouth.
“Probably,” I agreed. “But not today.”
I moved the tip of my sword to his forehead and flicked it at his hairline. His hair came off, and Jennifer shrieked. Then she, and everyone else, realized it was just a wig. Long dark hair was pinned flat to his scalp.
I’m not sure I’d ever had a more dangerous captive. I moved the sword’s tip to the front of his tunic, keeping the pressure on his bent wrist. “If you want to retain your modesty, you’d better be more cooperative.”
The hatred in his eyes didn’t change. But his face did, rippling and becoming more feminine as we all watched. It only took a moment before someone, in this case Marcus, exclaimed the obvious.
“Megan!”
To this day I’m not entirely sure how she did it. Common sense says it was simply a supreme actor’s skill, combined with a moon priestess’s knowledge of substances and the kind of hatred only the righteous can feel. But it could very well have been some kind of magical glamour, because her true face bore no resemblance to that of the boy she’d just pretended to be. She was a woman near forty, neither beautiful nor homely, but as Cameron Kern had originally said, someone you wouldn’t look at twice. The perfect template for any disguise.
“Megan Drake,” Bob Kay whispered in wonder.
“And Polly, the old lady by the road who patched you up,” I said. “And Elaine at the Astolat tavern, who had all her teeth. And Rebecca, the queen’s attendant.”
“What?” Jennifer gasped. I could imagine her terror now.
Megan smiled. Her face changed again, to that of Rebecca. “Right under your nose, Marcus,” she said in Rebecca’s voice. “And you say there’s no magic in Grand Bruan.”
“And one more. Not a made-up identity this time, but a nice young serving girl named Mary who wore her prettiest dress to serve the queen.” I kept the sword at her throat. “Add a few cosmetic bruises and no one could tell the difference. Especially with the real girl out of the way in the sewer.”
“Let my mother go,” Medraft said calmly. It was the kind of calm that made weak men flee.
“I’d sooner kiss a scorpion,” I said. “Why don’t you take your sword out—slowly—and give it to Bob. Then tell your men to get out.”
He might’ve been discussing his boot laces. “And if I don’t?”
I nicked Megan Drake’s cheek. She gasped but didn’t cry out. “Let’s see your goddamned glamour hide that.”
“Oh, my friend,” Medraft said even more quietly, “that’s a debt to be paid.” But he took out his sword and placed it on the table beside the coffin with such deliberateness that it didn’t make a sound. He nodded at his bodyguards, and they departed.
“Get his sword, Bob,” I said. “Then tie this woman to a chair. Keep her hands where we can see them.”
He did, using strips torn from the tablecloth, and I kept my sword at her throat until she was secure. I said to her, “If you say anything out of line, I’ll gag you. If you try anything funny, I’ll kill you. I mean it.”
“I believe you,” she said simply.
Now it was just me and a tent full of tense men and women trapped between two armies itching to go to battle for the fate of a kingdom. No pressure. I put away my sword and said, “I suppose you wonder why I’ve asked you all here.”
Despite everything, Bob Kay loudly choked down a laugh.
“It’s because I’m going to tell you a story,” I continued. “If I get something wrong, I apologize. I wasn’t there for some of it. But the broad strokes will be right.
“I’ll start with what I know for certain. A few days ago, a poisoned apple ended up on a tray in the queen’s possession. It was intended for Thomas Gillian. Before it got to him, though, a serving girl named Mary held it, and a new knight named Sam Patrice snatched it by mistake. He died in front of everyone in Nodlon. Some folks said the queen was responsible, some said I was. Neither was the case. I think we all know now who was behind it.”
Gillian said to Megan, “You wanted to kill me?”
“No, I—”
“Not a word,” I snapped at her. To Gillian I said, “Yes, she wanted to kill you, but that wasn’t the main point. And once it all went south, three groups got involved, all working at cross-purposes. One was the nobility, desperate to exonerate the queen in order to preserve the status quo. They decided I was guilty. The second was the Knights of the Double Tarn, long suspicious of the queen’s fidelity, and convinced she was guilty. The third was the king’s exiled sister, her son, and a trio of disloyal knights trying to salvage their original plan.”
No one said anything.
“My presence was what really screwed things up,” I continued. “The attack had been aimed at Gillian, but Patrice, another knight, would do almost as well. And if I hadn’t rushed to try and help Patrice, it might’ve still worked. Let that be a lesson about no good deed going unpunished. Then, when I started actually investigating things, the original plan had to be abandoned and covered up. That’s when the second murder happened. The serving girl who held the poisoned apples was quietly killed and dumped in the drainage tunnel beneath the castle.”
“She was?” Kay said in surprise. “We questioned her.”
“No, we didn’t. She was already dead. We questioned Megan here. She painted on some fake injuries and a lot of acting and fooled us both. She put the blame back on Jennifer by convincing us Agravaine tried to protect the queen. After all, why would a knight beat up a lowly kitchen girl if she didn’t know something important? And we fell for it.”
“How do you know all this?” Drake said coldly.
“Because when I found Mary’s body after we’d supposedly talked to her, there wasn’t a mark on her face. Not a scratch. Which was impossible. The only explanation was that we hadn’t questioned Mary at all. And once I figured that out, I realized how closely Mary, and Rebecca, and Elaine all resembled each other. Same height, same size. So when I met Polly, I knew exactly who she was.”
I let that sink in. Megan sat with her chin up, her eyes focused on nothing.
“So the queen was charged with treason, and once again my presence gummed things up,” I continued. “Kay sent me to fetch Elliot Spears, which Megan wanted to avoid at all costs; after all, Spears was unbeatable on the field, and a victory would end the plan once and for all. Megan left Nodlon ahead of me and made it to Astolat, where she planned to meet her son and explain the new situation. He, meanwhile, had amassed an army that would arrive at Nodlon just in time to witness the queen’s conviction and execution, catching King Marcus at his weakest point.
“When I got to Astolat before Medraft, she disguised herself as a poor tavern whore and tried to get me into a back room. Luckily I didn’t fall for it, but I did see Medraft arrive, and the dust from his approaching troops.
“I got away and made it to Blithe Ward. Elliot set off for Nodlon, while I got another task: deliver something important to a safe hiding place. Thanks to Dave Agravaine and his pals, I failed at that.” I grabbed Megan’s chin and forced her to look up at me. “And that pisses me off, Princess.”
“I’ll shed a tear when I’m old,” she said.
I released her contemptuously and resumed my story. “But I did kill Agravaine and his pals. They missed their rendezvous, so Megan assumed Elliot had dealt with them. She disguised herself as Polly and waited to intercept Elliot on his way to Nodlon. She had a wounded Bob Kay to use as bait. It says a lot about her that she didn’t trust an entire army of battle-hardened killers to deal with one man and felt the need to do it herself. But instead of Elliot arriving, I did, and she tagged along
to learn what had happened. She probably would’ve killed me then, except she didn’t know who was in the coffin. When we got close to Nodlon, she disappeared. Until now.”
My fury rose as I looked at her again. “I knew it was you last night. I should’ve just killed you on the spot. Be glad I didn’t.” Be glad, I thought, that Cameron Kern made me second-guess my instincts.
Drake stepped between Megan and me, towering over us with his considerable regal presence. He touched her cheek, smearing the blood from my cut. “You should be glad you didn’t, Mr. LaCrosse,” he said quietly. “She’s still a princess of the realm, and we’ll settle this according to our codes of law. Untie her, Bob.”
“I’m not done,” I snarled, my temper barely under control. “We haven’t gotten to Kindermord yet.”
“This is not the place to discuss that,” Drake said in the same soft voice.
“Oh, I think it is,” Bob Kay said. Loudly.
Everyone looked at him.
“I’ve been hearing that name for years,” he continued. “I overheard you and Kern talking about him, right before Kern stomped out of court. Every time I asked you who it was, you blew me off.”
“It’s never been the right time,” Drake said, as calm as if discussing which fork to use for his salad.
“Fuck the right time!” Kay shouted. He gestured with the sword. “Do you know what your precious nephew’s army has done? They’ve massacred everyone in their path. Men, women, children, even the goddamned farm animals!”
Marcus turned to Medraft. “Is this true?”
Medraft had no problem meeting the king’s gaze. “Shock-and-awe is a well-known tactic, Uncle Marc. With the queen compromised, someone has to step in and keep order.”
“Then your coup has already failed,” Drake said. “The people will never trust you now.”
“Sure they will,” Kay spat. “Because he made sure the survivors knew it was all done in the name of good King Marcus Drake.”
“They’d never believe that,” Drake said.
“They will when they see the bodies,” Medraft said coolly.