by Barb Hendee
Wynn was in no mood for this. “We have work to do. Now get out of the way.”
Shade didn’t budge, so Wynn stepped around her with almost complete certainty that the dog would not bite her and pull her back. She was thankful to be proven right. Though Shade snarled as she followed, Wynn stepped out and immediately saw something more was wrong.
In addition to a standard guard at each end of the passage, there was now a Suman guard in a long yellow tabard standing in front of Osha and Chane’s door.
What happened during the night?
With growing alarm, she walked up to the Suman blocking the second door along the passage. He was young and clean-shaven and stared straight over the top of her head.
“Please step aside,” she said. “I need to speak to my guards.”
He didn’t even look down, as well as acting as if he had heard nothing.
“You cannot keep me from my companions,” Wynn insisted. “Please move aside.”
He continued staring over the top of her head.
As Wynn looked around in frustration, her gaze stopped on the next door, the one to Nikolas’s room. She strode there, with Shade following closely, and knocked.
“Nikolas, may I come in?”
No one answered, and Wynn’s confusion and alarm grew. She tried the door’s handle and found it unlocked. Hesitantly she cracked it open.
“Nikolas?”
Again no answer, and she pushed the door inward to find both beds made and the room empty. Nikolas’s pack was still on the floor at the end of the far bed.
What was going on?
Turning around, she fixed on the Suman guard blocking Chane and Osha’s door. And she started toward him again.
Footsteps carried up the passage from the stairs, and then Nikolas stepped up and around the corner, with Aupsha right behind him. Both looked exhausted. At the sight of Wynn and Shade, Nikolas halted just short of Wynn’s room.
Looking over his shoulder at Aupsha, he said, “You have delivered me. You are dismissed.”
His tone was surprisingly cold, almost regal, and it left Wynn wondering what position Nikolas had played growing up here—perhaps not one of the nobility and yet not a servant. His manner was quite different from that of the young man she’d come to know at the guild.
Without a word or any visible reaction, Aupsha turned and left back down the stairs.
Nikolas walked right by the Suman guard and whispered to Wynn, “My room.”
Puzzled even more, she followed him in, and after Shade entered, she closed the door.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “Why is that Suman guard out there?”
Nikolas ran a hand over his face, and perhaps a bit of the old Nervous Nikolas resurfaced. “It seems Chane and Osha somehow slipped out of their room last night and went . . . exploring. Chane was caught somewhere near the back of the keep, though not Osha, who came back on his own later. They are both in trouble.”
“Slipped out? Those idiots!”
Yes, Chane, always thinking he knew best, had a tendency to “go exploring,” but Osha should have known better. He’d understood that they could not give the duke a reason to throw them out—or so she’d thought. Then something else occurred to her.
“Nikolas . . . how did you learn of this?”
“Sherie,” he answered, and then swallowed, looking miserable. “Try not to worry. She won’t let you be sent away—or at least she’ll do what she can. I did what you asked, and I tried to speak to her, but apparently Captain Holland was informed of Chane’s and Osha’s wanderings . . . and he informed Sherie. There’s tension between the keep guards and these new Sumans, who’ve been here only a few moons.”
Wynn found that suspicious, but she had more important questions. “Did you learn anything else from the duchess, anything about how the message was sent and who carried it?”
Her persistence with that one question might soon be suspicious as well, but she had to ask.
“Not much,” Nikolas answered, with a shake of his head. “It’s all so strange. Either she doesn’t know or won’t tell me, but I get the impression she’s at a loss for how it was done.” He glanced away. “It’s . . . difficult to speak with her, but at least she thinks I’m here to help Karl.”
“What else did she say?”
The pain in Nikolas’s face faded slightly as he frowned. “My father decided to send for me while he and Aupsha were in a self-imposed isolation. Apparently they’d gone into the villages to see if they could help. When they returned, Karl ordered the guards to open the gate for them, but then he had a fit. He was so angry that my father placed himself and Aupsha in a quarantine to end the matter.”
“So the duke didn’t know they had left the grounds . . . or how?”
Nikolas shook his head again. “I would guess not.”
Wynn found that another odd puzzle, but, not wishing to interrupt Nikolas’s thoughts any further, she remained silent.
“While they were locked away,” he continued, “servants left their meals by the door. One night my father spoke through the door and asked a servant to bring Sherie. Of course she came, but when she arrived, she found a small paper-wrapped package outside the door. My father asked her through the door to take it to the north wall and throw it over.”
“Wait—what?—throw it . . . ?” Wynn began, and then said, “Never mind; go on.”
“She did as he asked, but why would he ask this? It must have contained the message for me and the one for Premin Hawes, but how could anyone know it was there, outside the wall? The only people who could have were Sherie, my father, and perhaps Aupsha, since she was locked away with my father.”
Wynn sank onto the bed nearer the door. What she’d heard did explain how Jausiff got the message past the gate guards but not how it was retrieved and delivered to Calm Seatt. Aupsha had the right height for the messenger and the would-be thief who breached the Stonewalkers’ underworld. But there were others here of the same height and build, and she had been locked away with the master sage.
“I’m sorry,” Nikolas said. “I want to help my father with Karl, but that seems to be all Sherie knows.”
“That must have been difficult for you,” she replied. “You did your best, and now we need to get Osha out of that room.”
Then she realized she’d omitted Chane. She was used to his lying dormant until the sun set, and thankfully Nikolas didn’t seem to notice the slip.
“I can’t help with that, but Sherie might,” he said. “She was going to speak with Karl, so I’ll try to catch her.”
Wynn nodded in relief, for she couldn’t think of anything better or safer. She and Shade followed Nikolas out into the passage and as far as her own door. He walked swiftly to the guard at the top of the stairs—a different one than Wynn remembered from the night before. This one had broad shoulders and graying hair.
“Lieutenant Martelle,” Nikolas said. “I need to see the duchess.”
The guard nodded once.
That Nikolas knew the keep’s people by name and position told Wynn that he must be respected here, at least, for being Jausiff’s son. The guard stepped out of sight onto the stairs as he called down, “Comeau? You there?”
A moment later Martelle stepped back up into view with another guard and nodded to Nikolas as he gestured to his companion. “Guardsman Comeau will escort you to the duchess, Master Nikolas.”
Wynn sighed in frustration, for even Nikolas was not allowed to walk around by himself. As the young sage and the new guardsman vanished down the stairs, she turned to face the Suman guard. Perhaps she could try something a little . . . louder?
She ignored the guard and called out, “Osha! Are you all right?”
The guard barely had time to scowl when the door jerked inward and opened. Osha tried to take a step out, but the Suman had already
whirled, with a hand on his sword’s hilt.
“Get back,” the guard ordered in Numanese.
Osha didn’t move.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Wynn exclaimed, tired of all this, and then remembered Nikolas’s mention of odds between the Sumans and the keep’s guards. “Lieutenant Martelle?” she called toward the stairs. “May I please speak to my personal guards? I promise that we all shall remain in the guest quarters.”
The lieutenant stalked a few steps down the passage, eyed her once, and looked at the Suman guard in obvious annoyance. “Let her in.”
The Suman glowered back but hesitantly stepped aside.
Wynn wondered about the chain of command in the keep. Was the old guard still considered the final authority? It seemed so . . . as long as the duke wasn’t present.
Wynn waved Shade ahead and hurried in as Osha stepped back and closed the door once they were all inside. Chane, fully clothed down to his boots, lay stretched out on the far bed. Without breathing, he looked dead for all practical purposes.
Osha looked as exhausted as Wynn felt.
“What in the seven hells were you two doing last night?” she whispered harshly in Elvish. Likely their little excursion had been Chane’s idea, but he wasn’t awake for her to chastise.
Osha ignored her bit of temper and answered calmly, “Looking for the guarded door Shade saw in the duke’s memory.”
That just irritated her more. By what Shade had shown her, the door was probably underground, and Osha and Chane clearly hadn’t made it that far before being caught. Still, what had they found? And when she asked . . .
“Not a door . . . or not the one you described for the majay-hì.” Osha ran a hand through the messy hair at the crown of his head to push it back before he continued. “We reached a passage at the keep’s back near its rear wall. I heard shore waves close by and saw a light down the dark passage ahead. The undead . . . Chane . . . said it was a sage’s crystal. I saw the elder sage with a metal object in hand, and he appeared to be searching the floor, though he stopped often, as if looking at the object he held. Another tall person was with him and holding the crystal, though I did not see that one’s face. Both were fully cloaked and hooded. Then footsteps rose in a side passage. I looked around the corner toward that sound, and a sharp breeze struck me from behind. When I turned back in to the main passage, there was no light, and no one appeared to be there anymore.”
He went on to explain how he had evaded capture and inspected a locked door with a sentry window at the passage’s end, and how there was also an archway to the right and another locked door down a parallel set of stone stairs.
Sometimes Wynn forgot he’d once been an anmaglâhk trained to be a spy if not yet an assassin.
“And you found no one left in the passage?” she asked.
Osha shook his head.
Tired as Wynn felt, she knew all this was somehow important. “Close your eyes,” she told Osha, “and try to remember as much as you can of what you saw.” She reached down to touch Shade at her side. “Show me.”
A dim passage appeared in Wynn’s mind as Shade passed whatever Osha strove to remember. In a matter of moments, Wynn saw most of what Osha had described. She felt the wind, and then, indeed, Jausiff and the tall companion had somehow escaped. When she saw the dead-end passage and the locked door leading outside, she was certain it was not the same door that Shade had seen in Karl’s memory.
“That’s enough.” Wynn shook her head. “Nikolas told me that when Jausiff and Aupsha were in quarantine, Jausiff called for Sherie. She was told to take a package left outside the door and throw it over the north wall. Whoever the messenger was retrieved it before heading for Calm Seatt. That’s how the two-letter message got out of the keep without the guards or the duke knowing.”
Osha absorbed her words, turned, and took a few long paces. “I would guess that the companion in the passage must be the old sage’s servant, Aupsha. As to the message being thrown over the wall, I cannot see what this means.”
“Well, we know Jausiff and Aupsha are up to more than helping Karl,” Wynn countered. “And he and she are the ones sneaking around, searching for something that the duke and possibly the duchess know nothing about.” She crossed her arms in frustration. “Somehow Jausiff and his companion got out of a passage with two locked doors . . . one leading downward, perhaps under the keep.”
“How long were Aupsha and Jausiff isolated?” Osha asked. “Who was outside the keep and could retrieve and deliver the letters? Someone from one of the villages, perhaps contacted while Jausiff was there?”
Wynn uncrossed her arms. “Yes, there might be—”
“Why does Karl not want anyone going into the villages?” Osha cut in. “Because of plague or fearing the lack of that being uncovered? If the latter, did Jausiff know there was no plague? If not, then why not send the message while he was outside the keep? And—”
“Enough, Osha!” Wynn interrupted. “I know we have a lot of unknowns.”
He asked all the right questions but simply too many at once. He also tended to change whenever Chane wasn’t part of the discussion. He became more certain, more willing to throw out thoughts and ideas . . . more forceful and more impatient. Yet somehow all of this felt like a distraction to Wynn, as if Osha wanted to make it all seem futile in the moment.
But why? Was there something else he wanted from her?
“Perhaps Karl’s reaction upon their return caused Jausiff to send the messages,” she suggested. “If so, that would be a reason why he did not send them until he came back. It would also mean he might not have thought to arrange for someone to retrieve the package thrown over the wall.”
Osha shook his head. “No, if he had discovered there was no plague and then wanted to call for his son in dealing with the duke, he would . . . I would have arranged the messenger before returning to the keep. There is also the possibility that the duke might have known there was no plague, using that lie to control the movements of everyone here. If so, the duke would have known the old sage’s reason for self-quarantine was a lie as well.”
For an instant Wynn felt as if she were arguing with Chane again, and she fell silent to look at Osha. Much more had changed in him and left her wondering how a year with Brot’an might have altered him in other ways.
“Yes, much has changed,” he whispered, “for both of us, it appears.”
A sudden sadness washed over his long features . . . except for his eyes. His gaze flicked once toward Chane.
“You know most of why . . . for me,” he added, “but as for you . . .”
Wynn began to ache inside.
There was too much to tell, most of it hard to explain, and some of it she didn’t dare try. And here and now wasn’t the time.
“You have overstepped your authority!”
At that harsh female voice outside in the passage, both Wynn and Osha looked to the door, and Shade went for it first. Wynn rushed over, relieved by the interruption. She cracked the door enough to look out without the risk of anyone outside seeing Chane’s current state.
Both Nikolas and the duchess stood outside as the latter tore into the Suman guard, who had at least sidestepped away from the door. Lieutenant Martelle, with poorly hidden satisfaction, stood a few paces behind the duchess. And there was Aupsha, stoic as usual, two steps farther down the passage toward the stairs.
“I do not care what your superior ordered,” Sherie continued, closing on the Suman guard. “You are not part of the keep’s forces. You are dismissed—now!”
In profile, the Suman was expressionless, but he glanced at Martelle, who in turn settled a hand on the hilt of his sheathed sword.
It was obvious to Wynn that the keep’s standard guards obeyed anything the duchess commanded. Perhaps they trusted her judgment more than they did her brother’s, considering the foreign interl
opers that the duke had brought to this place.
With a slow bow of his head, the Suman guard turned and walked away toward the stairs. Lieutenant Martelle watched that one’s every step. Maybe there was more than simple tension between the keep’s guards and the Sumans?
Wynn was about to thank the duchess for the assistance, when something else caught her eye.
As the Suman guard passed Aupsha, he turned his head toward her. Even with his back to Wynn, he obviously kept his eyes on Aupsha until he passed beyond her. She did not return his glance and remained attentively watching the duchess.
Wynn was too caught up in that brief moment and was startled when the duchess turned on Martelle.
“You and your man are dismissed as well,” Sherie said. “I will take responsibility for our guests.”
“Yes, my lady,” the lieutenant answered with a nod. As he left, he waved to the guard at the passage’s back end to follow him. The duchess turned to face Wynn in the half-opened door.
“I apologize. After speaking with Nikolas earlier, I went to see my brother, who is . . . unwell this morning. I came as soon as I could.”
She, too, appeared tired but was pristine in attire and bearing. Her blue-black hair was combed to hang evenly over the shoulders of a burgundy gown. She also seemed less rigid this morning, regardless of formality. When she’d spoken Nikolas’s name, there was almost no bitterness. Then again, perhaps that was only because of so many other complications she had to address. Either way, it appeared that Nikolas’s attempt to speak with her had not been the disaster he’d envisioned.
“Aupsha and I will walk you down to a late breakfast,” the duchess added.
Wynn was still uncertain about her status here. “So . . . you’ve dismissed our guards, but for how long?”
The duchess stood with her back perfectly straight. “With my brother indisposed, I am in charge. You will be treated as guests, so long as you remain within the keep’s upper floors or the courtyard. Do not try to go anywhere else and avoid the duke’s private Suman guards. They are . . . protective of his privacy and act quickly, without consulting Captain Holland or Lieutenant Martelle. As long as you avoid the lower levels, this should not be an issue.”