Nightfall stopped the proper distance from the king, knelt, and bowed his head to his chest. He remained in position, waiting for Rikard to speak. His other senses kept him keenly aware of every movement of king or guards, though he did not bother to focus. A sudden attempt to harm or kill him seemed the least of his worries now.
After a period that seemed excessive to Nightfall, Rikard spoke, but he addressed the guards rather than the man he had summoned. "Away with all of you. I wish to talk with Sudian alone."
Nightfall held his pose, listening to the hiss of movement and the gentle, scarcely audible rattle of mail under tunics. Heavy footfalls tracked the far side of the rows of benches then came together to approach the door. One by one, the sentries filed from the room. Yet, Nightfall could tell, without vision, that Volkmier still had not obeyed.
King Rikard waited until the door clicked closed before addressing his chief prison guard. "Alone, Volkmier."
Now, Nightfall heard the swish of fabric as Volkmier obviously made some grand gesture of respect. “Sire. I will not leave you unprotected.”
Nightfall could not help smiling at the familiar words, glad his position hid his expression from the others.
King Rikard sounded annoyed and impatient. ‘“I’m in no danger from Sudian. Go."
Volkmier only repeated. “Sire, I will not leave you unprotected.”
"It is not a request. It is an order."
"And I am loyal to your orders, Sire. Most so to the one that I will not leave you unguarded among men I do not know. Sire, I will not leave you unprotected.”
Only concern for his own fate kept Nightfall from laughing at the irony. He remained still, not even bothering to sneak a look at the insistent guardian. He could judge mood and intention well enough by tone alone.
"Very well," King Rikard said at length, sounding much like his youngest son. "Stay, then, but do not listen. Words spoken in private must remain so." Finally, he addressed Nightfall. “Sudian, guard your tongue."
Nightfall rose and raised his head, an action allowed by the king’s acknowledgment. He guessed that the king intended that he say nothing in Volkmier’s presence that would reveal his persona or the oath-bond, but the warning seemed unnecessary. The first he could not do as a condition of the magic; the second disclosure would do him more harm than good. He recalled the captain’s warning from the parapets, the honest rage behind the vow still vivid: "If you give me the slightest excuse, I’ll shoot you dead and revel in it."
King Rikard shifted, as if to flex every colossal muscle on his warrior’s frame. He riveted his gaze on Nightfall’s face. "Did you kill my son?"
Nightfall stared, frankly stunned. This question he had not anticipated in any version of his speculation. "What?" Surprise shocked amenity from him, and a long while passed in quiet before he added, "Sire."
Volkmier’s eyes and nostrils widened. As commanded, he feigned deafness in that he took no action nor made any comment.
Rikard repeated, "Did you kill my son?"
"Your son, Sire? Prince Leyne Nargol?" The suggestion seemed too ludicrous to contemplate.
The king became relentless, though patient. “Yes. You killed him, didn’t you?” The tone was flat, indicative of a rage so massive there could be no containment.
Nightfall knew he could say nothing King Rikard would believe. Guilty or innocent, he had no choice but to deny the allegation; yet he harbored no hope that he might be trusted. "No." He met the eyes of guard and king with level honesty. “Sire, you know I couldn’t have."
King Rikard rose. He spun suddenly, hands clenched, back to Nightfall. At last, it seemed, anger had driven him even beyond speech.
Nightfall waited patiently beneath Volkmier’s ceaseless scrutiny.
The king knelt, fishing something from behind his seat that clanged as he moved it. He tossed several objects to the floor: first the torn, brown and green cinch strap that had belonged to Sir Takruysse, then four pieces of two different sparring swords. As each item struck the wood with a clatter, he studied Nightfall’s reaction to them.
Nightfall raised his brows slightly, eyes tracing every movement. The display told him much he did not like, though it did not surprise him. Only one man could have learned of his tricks in such detail and would gather the physical evidence, one who could read his mind.
King Rikard produced one more item, a battered, bloodstained work of steel and leather that had once formed a helmet, the one Leyne had worn in the final tourney. Now Nightfall could see that someone had thinned the crown to a half or quarter thickness which explained why Sander’s single blow had proven fatal. Rikard’s voice sounded choked and uncharacteristically feeble. “Do you know these things, Sudian?”
Nightfall saw no advantage to lying. "Yes, I do, Sire." Gilleran’s intention and purpose seemed abundantly clear. Like so many others, he had easily copied Nightfall’s methods, using the similarities to ascertain guilt. It only remained for the sorcerer to devise some explanation of how Nightfall had escaped the constraints of the oath-bond in order to murder the crown prince of Alyndar. King Rikard clearly expected clarification, so Nightfall supplied it. "Sire, I admit I rigged the cinch strap and the swords. In my situation, I believe most men would have done the same. But my later attempts to cheat failed, and my master won every contest from that time without my help." He met the shrewd, dark eyes with an expression at least as somber. "Sire, your younger son has more ability than you or he or anyone gives him credit for."
Volkmier fidgeted, obviously troubled.
Nightfall hoped the guard was responding to the confessions of fraud rather than his own words. His time with Edward suggested that royalty despised any comments that put their past judgments about anything in doubt. "As a ruler, there’s nothing wrong with Prince Edward Nargol that age, a few confrontations with reality, and some lessons from his father couldn’t fix."
King Rikard’s eyes narrowed, but he remained too preoccupied to take offense from Nightfall’s speech . . . yet. "You’re avoiding the question."
Nightfall fell silent, expression open with uncertainty. "The question of the helmet?"
"Yes."
"Sire, I had nothing to do with it."
The king said nothing, only stared with a look that encouraged Nightfall to continue.
Nightfall shrugged. "There’s nothing more to say, Sire. Even had I need or reason, you know I could not have harmed Prince Leyne in any way."
King Rikard relented slightly. "I don’t believe you intended to kill him, only to eliminate him as competition for Ned.”
Nightfall saw no cause for arguing the point. "Your Majesty, I can’t deny that I considered ways to give my master an advantage, even over his brother. But I never touched that helmet."
"No one else had cause to do so, aside from Prince Sander, whose honor I would not disparage."
"Nor I, Sire." Nightfall would not shuffle guilt onto an innocent, no matter how obvious a target. He kept his gaze steady, knowing few things bespoke guilt as completely as restless eyes. "I didn’t survive this long by painting myself bullseye yellow and writing ‘I’m guilty’ on my forehead nor am I foolish enough to skirt the edges of magic that could—”
The king made a sudden, cutting gesture that hushed Nightfall. Clearly he had said more than Rikard wanted Volkmier to know.
Nightfall continued more carefully. "Sire, when you consider the goal as murdering Leyne rather than winning the tourney, the list of suspects becomes much longer. Whenever the answer seems too obvious, look to the source of your information.”
"I’ve heard enough!" King Rikard kicked the helmet, sending it skittering across the floor. It crashed against the wall, now riddled with new dents. “You’re a killer, and I was an old fool to trust you near either of my sons."
Volkmier tensed, awaiting a direct command.
Nightfall instinctively mimicked his actions for the same reason. When no edict followed, he broke the excessive quiet that followed the king’s d
isplay of violence. "Sire, if you truly believed I murdered Leyne, you wouldn’t have called me in to ask. You would only have meted punishment.”
King Rikard’s face purpled. “Don’t gainsay my motives. Who in the Father’s blackest, coldest, empty hell do you think you are?"
Nightfall dodged the question, preferring to finish the meeting before anger drove the king to irrational action.
"Sire, am I under arrest?"
"I haven’t decided yet." King Rikard studied the assortment of ruined objects on the floor.
"Then, Sire, perhaps I can make your choice simpler.” Nightfall turned his gaze to Volkmier, meeting sharp green eyes beneath a fringe of red bangs. He had faced off with the chief prison guard twice now, neither an experience he wished to repeat. "I perceive danger to Prince Edward here. If anyone tries to keep me from him, I’ll have no choice but to fight my way free in any way I can. You may lose a guard or two. At best, I’ll get the quick, painless death that seems the most I can hope for at the moment." He glanced back at Rikard who had retaken his seat, obviously calmer. "If you free me, you know precisely where to find me if you change your mind."
Volkmier prodded for his next course of action. "Sire?"
King Rikard scrutinized Nightfall as if to memorize every detail. He lingered longest on the eyes, and Nightfall met him stare for stare. He had told only the truth, boldly forthright, and nothing about his story could or would vary in the future. "Dismissed, Sudian."
Volkmier frowned, maintaining the verbal distance he had promised but obviously confused by his king’s choice. "Sire?"
King Rikard addressed his guard, switching to an unrelated matter to emphasize the finality of his order. "Volkmier, send someone to tell Edward I’ll meet him in the North Tower chapel right away." He turned some of his aggravation inappropriately on his captain. "I need some time alone with my son. I presume you’ll trust me with Ned and won’t force yourself on us."
Nightfall turned and headed from the Great Hall of Alyndar without looking back.
King Rikard watched Nightfall leave, sensing rather than seeing Volkmier’s alert presence still poised to protect him. Guilt knifed through his belly, and he regretted the annoyance his own befuddlement caused him to channel against one of his most loyal servants, one into whose hands he had placed the defense and defenders of Alyndar. In no mood for apologies and intolerant of displays of affection, he expressed his regret in the form of including Volkmier in his considerations. "What do you think?"
Volkmier paused, apparently trying to divine the purpose of the question. "At your request, Sire, I heard nothing."
Rikard dismissed his previous order with a wave. "Surely you have an opinion about Edward’s squire."
The guard’s chief hesitated longer. Then, he spoke his mind, surely realizing his relationship with Alyndar’s king had gone far beyond the testing stage. "I have many opinions about him."
The king raised his brows, sincerely interested. He trusted Volkmier’s wisdom as well as his physical competence, though never so much as he had Leyne’s. "Speak your mind.”
Volkmier assessed Nightfall. "No simple peasant’s son, that one, Sire. He has a nimbleness and quickness about him that suggests an acrobat, juggler, or dancer. Or perhaps a sailor." He shook his head. “But then, too, he has a vigilance that seems innate. I’ve only ever seen that about a fighting man, though he doesn’t appear to have the strength or size of a warrior." Volkmier put all of his clues together. "If I had to guess, Sire, I’d say a farm boy. An animal farm. The type that’d use his off-time to slip into the pastures to ride stallions and bulls for sport."
King Rikard wearied of the taboo he had created. "You may speak freely with me about the events that transpired here today. What do you think of what he said?"
Volkmier relaxed along with the conversation. His stance returned to attentive normal, freed of the rigidness he had adopted for Nightfall. "I believe him, Sire."
The short, direct reply startled Rikard. "What?"
"Sire, I didn’t understand much of the conversation, so I can only judge from tone and expression.” A strand of sweat-plastered orange hair slid free of his helmet to sprawl across his forehead. "But every line of his attitude, every set of his face, and, most of all, the eyes bespoke integrity."
The words surprised King Rikard. He paced around his chair, trying to process the information in the light of what he already knew. He, too, could not deny an inclination to trust Nightfall’s claims, this time at least; and many of the demon’s words struck home for him as they could not for Volkmier. He had trusted his chancellor too completely and too long to believe a lying, traitorous stranger first; yet, when it came to matters involving Nightfall, Rikard had already seen a side of Gilleran that seemed disparately cold. Is it possible that Leyne’s death was an accident? Could some other a jealous noble or an enemy of Alyndar have switched the helmet? Could it be that Gilleran drew the wrong conclusion, worse, used the opportunity to lay the blame on a man he hates? King Rikard shook his head to clear it from a line of thought that seemed ludicrous. To believe the word of a criminal over that of a long-loyal retainer seemed madness. Maybe, Gilleran just made a mistake. "What if I told you Sudian was a man experienced in deception and trickery?"
Volkmier stiffened, obviously taken back. “Sire, I would have no choice but to say he fooled me; but I’m in good company." He stroked some object in his tunic pocket, roughly rectangular in shape. "Or, perhaps, Sire, I’m just influenced by this." Thrusting his hand inside the pocket, he drew out a book. The dyed purple cover and its decorative swirls in silver leaf identified it at once as Leyne’s journal. "Forgive me, Sire, for bringing up such matters before the funeral, but the time seems right. Would you mind, Sire?"
King Rikard stopped before his chair, eyes narrowing with uncertainty. “This is germane?"
Volkmier explained. "Sire, it’s Leyne’s impression of Sudian."
Rikard dropped into his seat. Leyne’s ability to assess people and their intentions had always impressed him. He wanted to hear, but the grief was still too fresh. Leyne’s words in the voice of another man, opinions that survived beyond his death. He closed his eyes, picturing his most beloved son as the author of Volkmier’s speech. "Go ahead."
Volkmier cleared his throat. "It’s dated the fourteenth day of the Month of Plenty."
Two days before his murder. King Rikard felt tears sting his eyes and angrily banished them as weak and foolish.
Volkmier read: ". . . Finally met Sudian face to face. Must admit I mistrusted him at first. Felt certain those timid features and boyish dedication hid a greed only a prince’s gold could satisfy. Am thrilled to know I judged him wrong. The changes in Ned are nothing short of miraculous, the kind of self-control and understanding that could only come, l thought, with decades of experience. His dangerous exuberance has gained direction, now nothing short of determination. No doubt, Sudian is the cause. I tested the promises of loyalty I mistrusted and now find them as genuinely solid as the bond between my father and myself . . ." Captain Volkmier trailed off. "He went on to talk about the contests. Do you want to hear more?"
The king’s lip trembled, and he resisted speech until he felt capable of hiding his weakness. "No, not now." He reached for the book. "I’ll read the rest in private, when other matters don’t compete for my attention.” He reached for the journal, and Volkmier passed it to his king.
Back in Alyndar’s corridors, Nightfall navigated from habit, his thoughts riveted on the events in Rikard’s courtroom. Hope died, leaving only the familiar, bare spark that had allowed him to survive since childhood; yet that seemed more mockery than tool. His mind found the loophole, as it always did. Once the necessary grief-sharing and services had concluded, he would find some way to talk Edward into sneaking away from Alyndar for another attempt at landing. Duke-heir Willafrida seemed his most likely possibility once again. With Leyne gone, the duke could no longer set his sights on Alyndar’s eldest prince. Surely, Edwa
rd could learn to love her.
Yet, even discovering a solution did not lift Nightfall’s spirits. His time with Edward had taught him the difference between living happy and merely living, and survival had become a poor motivator when it meant condemning Edward, Kelryn, and himself to lifelong bitterness. Though not quite ready to discard the possibility of another means of landing, the best solution seemed obvious. Surely, Nightfall could find a way to antagonize King Rikard, Gilleran, or his retainers into murdering him before the oath-bond took him. Then, Edward and Kelryn could make a happy life together, even without the support of Alyndar’s king.
Nightfall continued toward Prince Edward’s quarters, persisting in his personal war now only from habit. It made sense to know the best result at any specific time; but, when the solution was permanent and extreme, to act before necessity seemed senseless. For now, he would follow the demands the oath-bond set on him, and his own heart when possible, and hope the possibility of dying violently would remain when the time came for final, irreversible decision.
Nightfall trotted up the winding staircase. The oath-bond had remained at baseline, nagging without driving, throughout his time away from Edward. Now, as realization of the length of time he had left the prince came to the fore, it amplified to a disquieting buzz that reminded Nightfall of the danger posed by the sorcerer who had cast the spell. Having a better feel for the players, Nightfall pieced together the various motivations for creating the situation that trapped him. Gilleran’s intentions had seemed clear nearly since the beginning; he had found a means to all but ascertain possession of Nightfall’s soul and natal gift. Likely, King Rikard’s choice of execution, even for a criminal as notorious as Nightfall, would have precluded Gilleran’s ceremony. By talking the king into the oath-bond, Gilleran had assured his prize and, at the same time, placed the youngest prince at the fate of a practiced and conscienceless killer.
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