by Sharon Shinn
It might have been ten minutes more that we sat in the carriage, pretending to sleep, while the noises from outside indicated that grooms were unhitching all the horses and leading them away. Our own vehicle rocked a little as the team was released. The motion made Elyssa sit up and place a hand over her mouth as if smothering a yawn. Then she slid across the seat, unlatched the door, and cautiously stepped out of the carriage. The echo and I were right behind her.
I got one quick look around the stable yards—which consisted of a cluster of large wooden buildings, fenced corrals, piled bales of hay, and muddy grounds—before someone noticed us and let out a yelp. Suddenly we were the center of a group of curious men, all dressed in rough workman’s clothes and sporting a great deal of facial hair.
“My lady,” said one, a big-boned middle-aged fellow who had an air of authority. My guess was that he was the head groom. He offered a deferential nod, but he was frowning. “How do you come to be back here?”
“I must have fallen asleep on the ride home,” she said plaintively. She looked around apprehensively. “I don’t even know— Where am I?”
“At the palace stables, my lady,” the head groom answered. Looking over his shoulder, he issued a sharp command to the others who just stood there staring. “You lot get back to work now.” Then he addressed Elyssa again, “It’s just a short walk around the north wing of the palace there—you see?—and you’ll be almost at the front entrance.”
We all made a quarter turn to see where he was pointing. The palace reared up behind us, enormous and imposing, its terra-cotta walls looking fire-warm in the afternoon sun. From what I could tell, we would need to follow the long curving wing all the way around to make it to the courtyard in front.
“Oh, I don’t think I can walk that far,” Elyssa said breathily. “I’m not feeling very well. Isn’t there a closer way in?”
He hesitated and then gestured toward an ivy-covered wooden fence that appeared to be a demarcation line between the bustle of the stable yard and the more civilized serenity of the palace grounds. Through an open gate, we could see the back wall of the palace, though the angle of the sun blurred it with dense shadow. I could barely make out a plain, narrow door set into the stonework of the lower story. “See right there? That’s the nearest door,” the head groom said. “But it’s always locked unless someone’s on his way out to come to the stables.”
My heart tripped and then picked itself up and leapt into a frightened sprint. This is the door Marco told her about. She said she wouldn’t help him, but she’s thinking about it. The only reason I could control my breathing was that Elyssa remained so calm.
“Oh, yes, I see it,” she murmured gratefully. “And I see a little bench there, right to the side. Could I just sit there awhile? Maybe someone will come out in a few minutes and I can step in.”
“Maybe,” he said doubtfully. “Why I don’t have one of the boys go tell Lourdes you need assistance? She’ll send someone right away.”
Elyssa moved off, stepping daintily to avoid the patches of mud and piles of manure dotting her way. The echo and I followed with equal care. “I don’t think that’s necessary, thank you,” she said. “I’ll just sit there until I feel well enough to walk around to the front.”
I could feel the head groom watching us as we made our way through the gate in the vine-covered fence and onto the palace grounds. Elyssa maintained the drooping posture and slow pace of someone claiming to feel faint, but her eyes darted around with interest, noting places a man might take cover if he was trying to avoid being seen by anyone from the palace or the stables. I could tell, because my eyes were glancing around just as rapidly as hers.
I was not surprised when Elyssa walked all the way to the door and pulled on its brass handle just to be sure it was locked. It was. She regarded the door for a moment in silence, as if wondering how else it might be breached, then made her way to the nearby bench. She sat on one end; the echo and I crowded together on the other end, trying to make sure we didn’t accidentally touch her.
I figured Elyssa wouldn’t want to stay there long—the day was hot, and she was not a patient person—but I also figured she wouldn’t have to. I assumed that the head groom had instantly dispatched one of his underlings to the front of the palace and that Lourdes herself would soon be sailing through the door. I guessed that Elyssa was counting on the same thing. For this plan to work, she would need to know how to find this door from inside the palace, and I was very sure we had never been to this region of the building before. From the scents drifting around us, I was guessing we were not only near the stables, but also the middens. Only servants would be familiar with these particular passageways.
We had been sitting there for a much briefer time than I had expected when the door did, in fact, swing open. But it wasn’t Lourdes who stepped out. It was the stocky, sinister shape of the king’s inquisitor.
He looked straight at us—as if he had known we would be there, though the expression he managed to fix on his face showed mild astonishment. He came directly over and offered a slight bow. “Lady Elyssa,” he said. I couldn’t tell if there was anything in his voice at all—doubt, suspicion, concern, surprise. Anything. “Is something wrong?”
She produced a wan smile. “So stupid. I fell asleep in the carriage on the way back from the gardens and ended up here at the stables. I was just sitting for a few moments until I felt strong enough to walk to the front entrance. It feels so far away!”
“If you will accept my escort, I’ll take you in right here through the servants’ door. I warn you, the passageways are narrow and you may encounter a few unpleasant odors.”
“Oh, would you? But I hate to divert you from your own tasks.”
“They can withstand the delay of a few moments,” the inquisitor said as he helped her to her feet. Neither of them glanced back to see if the echo or I needed assistance.
“Your hand is cold,” he remarked as they paced slowly to the door. “That’s not a good sign on such a hot day.”
“No, I think I might need to lie quietly in my room for a few hours,” she said.
He pulled the door open and we all stepped through, then waited as he turned to reset the locks. These included a dead bolt as well as a heavy chain that made a grim clinking sound when it was put in place. Then he took Elyssa’s arm again and we continued down the haphazardly lit corridor. The inquisitor was right; the hallway stank of rotting food and what might be sewage, and it was dark and uneven besides. Elyssa covered her nose with one hand, and the echo and I did the same, but it didn’t really help.
“I would apologize,” Malachi said, “but I am certain you must have similar reaches in your manor house in Alberta.”
“I suppose so, but I have never been to them!” she replied with a faint laugh. “But I am not complaining! I am grateful to learn of the shortcut.”
“That’s the laundry room,” he said as we passed an open door where the much more welcome smells of strong soap and damp air came drifting out. “And most of these rooms are for storage. Linens and furniture, primarily.”
“It seems provincial to exclaim, ‘How big the palace is!’ But its size truly is impressive,” she said.
“Yes, it is a remarkable building filled with remarkable people,” Malachi replied.
Neither of them made any additional effort at conversation for the rest of the short walk, which eventually took us directly into the great foyer that opened off the main entrance. I supposed every hallway on the ground level at some point led to this space. Elyssa surreptitiously glanced around to note what signposts could lead her back to this specific passageway. There was a tall vase full of dried red flowers and a small brass plaque hanging on the wall. Otherwise, there was very little to distinguish it from a half dozen hallways branching off from the main foyer.
“Thank you so much,” she said, sketching the barest hint of a curtsey. “I know my way from here.”
“Then I will return to my own pursu
its,” Malachi said. “I hope you feel better quickly.”
Elyssa made her way to the stairwell slowly, as befit someone who felt faint and fragile, and even clung to the bannister as we climbed the stairs. But she crossed the threshold into her bedroom with her usual quick step, throwing off any pretense at being ill.
She didn’t seem pleased to find Gretta already in the room, arm in arm with the injured echo, but Gretta was beaming.
“Look who’s up and on her feet again!” the maid said as the echo wobbled where she stood. From what I could tell, the creature wasn’t favoring her wounded leg and didn’t appear to be in any pain. “I think she’s healed! You can bring her down to dinner tonight!”
“Splendid,” Elyssa said. “It was the only thing missing from my life.”
“Did you enjoy your time at the gardens?”
Elyssa laughed shortly. “Not entirely.”
“It’s very warm,” Gretta agreed. “Would you like a cool bath? Or would you like you to lie down for a while?”
“I’m fine,” Elyssa said irritably. “Just—put the echoes somewhere I can’t see them, and then go away. I can’t think with everyone crowding around me.”
Elyssa’s back was to the maid, so she didn’t see the other woman’s sour expression, but Gretta just said, “Yes, my lady.”
A few moments later, the echoes and I were in our sanctuary behind the screen, perched on our beds, and listening to Elyssa pace. Obviously, the conversation with Marco had upset her—well, it had upset me, too.
She wouldn’t help Marco harm the prince, would she? She had told him the truth. She didn’t care about this war, she didn’t care about anything except herself, and she wouldn’t risk her own reputation—her own safety!—by colluding with an assassin. And she knew how closely the inquisitor was watching over the palace grounds. Surely the fact that he had showed up so swiftly this afternoon had served as a reminder of that fact.
So she wouldn’t help Marco. Would she? But that didn’t mean Marco wouldn’t find another way into the palace.
I had to talk to Jordan.
But there was no opportunity to speak to Jordan that night, at dinner or afterward as we all gathered to hear a concert that Cormac had arranged. Jordan spent most of the evening with Darrily on one arm and a Banchura triplet on the other. He did manage to give me one quick look and a warm smile, but before I could even mouth the words I need to talk to you, Darrily claimed his attention again. She was a striking woman, with a face marked by both intelligence and humor; opals glowed against her dark skin like tiny moons against a night sky. But at that moment I hated her even more than I hated Elyssa.
“You’ve got your third echo back, I see,” Deryk said, dropping into the seat next to Elyssa’s when there was a short break between musical performances. “That must make you happy.”
“Do you think so?” she replied.
He laughed. “Well, it would make most people happy. You’re just unnatural.”
She tilted her head to one side. “Am I? I find it hard to believe I’m the only noblewoman in the history of the Seven Jewels who has found her echoes to be tiresome.”
“They tell stories about some ancestor of the king’s inquisitor. A high noble who didn’t like his echoes, either.”
“What did he do about them?”
Deryk shrugged and settled more comfortably in his chair. Beside him, his echoes did the same. “Had them all killed, so they say.”
She turned her head to regard him. I was staring at him, too, but my expression was horrified, while hers was suspicious. “Is that really true?”
“I don’t know. It happened a hundred years ago or more! But it certainly seems like something Malachi would do, so why not one of his relatives?”
“Well. I’ll have to remember that,” she said.
Lady Cali, sitting in front of them, turned around just then. “Shh. The next musician is supposed to start!”
Elyssa rolled her eyes but obediently fell silent, and we all pretended to listen to the flautist who performed next. But Elyssa was bored, Deryk was idly scanning the crowd, and I was trying to recover from my shock.
Had one of Malachi’s forebears really killed off his echoes? Had he been punished for the act, or did no one care? Had he simply gotten rid of the echoes because he considered them inconvenient—or had one of them developed a sentience that the noble found distasteful? Did Jordan know this story?
How could he believe I would ever get free of Elyssa?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
There was no opportunity to speak to Jordan the following morning, either, as he did not join the activity that had been organized for the day. A fleet of carriages had been requisitioned to ferry more than half of the visiting guests to a set of ruins on the northern edge of the city.
“I honestly cannot imagine anything more dreary and pointless,” Elyssa complained to Deryk and Nigel, who shared our carriage. “Why would anyone want to go see such a thing?”
“Because it’s historic?” Nigel said doubtfully. “Letitia and Lavinia said the place is very picturesque.”
“They’ve been there before and they’re going back?” Elyssa demanded. “I simply don’t understand.”
“You could have stayed behind in your room,” Deryk pointed out.
“Like the delicate Lady Marguerite, who seems to have a headache every other day?” Elyssa said with some malice. “I don’t want people thinking of me as some die-away invalid.”
“That’s not fair,” Nigel said. “If she doesn’t feel well—”
“I like her,” Deryk said. “But I agree. She seems sickly.”
“So I will trudge around these stupid ruins with vigor,” Elyssa said with such emphasis that both men started laughing.
The site, when we finally arrived, was indeed picturesque in a dramatic, mournful way. It held a series of crumbled buildings made of weathered gray stone, all enclosed by a tumbled wall of the same material. The site had apparently been a fortified castle at some point, the last outpost on the road that led across the mountains to a host of unfriendly nations. King Edwin had built the place and installed his most trusted vassal to oversee a small army and be the first line of defense against an invasion.
“They say Edwin kept the lord so well-funded that he couldn’t possibly spend all his money on upkeep,” Cormac said as we followed him across the uneven ground and peered into the fallen shapes of dairy houses and soldiers’ barracks. “The story is that there are crates of gold hidden all over the property. People come from every province in the kingdom, searching for treasure. But as far as I know, no one has found more than a coin or two.”
“Well, that does add spice to the tour,” Elyssa said, picking up her skirts and heading toward the castle itself. A few of its walls showed damage where window or door openings had enlarged to great gaping holes, but for the most part, the building was intact. Indeed, we could hear the laughing voices of a handful of nobles who had already entered and started exploring. Some even appeared at windows two and three stories up, waving to the rest of us. I assumed that meant one or two of the internal staircases were still safe to use.
We spent a couple of hours with the rest of the party, winding our way through the old stone passageways, wondering aloud how people must have lived several hundred years ago, poking around under loose floorboards looking for treasure. A wagon full of servants had accompanied us, and they served a light lunch, spreading it out over dozens of blankets arranged on the unkempt lawn. The weather was cooler than it had been yesterday, and the breeze rolling down off the mountains in the distance made the day altogether delightful. Even I forgot to fret. Even Elyssa seemed to enjoy herself.
Everyone seemed tired but happy on the ride back; no one in our carriage spoke much, but no one seemed to mind. So it was quite a shock, when we all cheerfully disembarked in the palace courtyard, to find some of the inquisitor’s men waiting to whisk Cormac away—and to find the rest of the palace guests milling around
in disbelief.
What is it? What happened? What’s wrong? Did you hear? It can’t be true!
We all crowded around Darrily, who had opted not to join the excursion. But all I heard the Pandrean woman say was, “She’s been arrested for the murder of Lord Jamison.”
Apparently, half the others hadn’t caught the news, either, because many of them pressed forward and cried out, “What did you say? Who’s been arrested?”
“Lady Marguerite,” Darrily said, raising her voice and speaking very plainly. “Arrested for killing Jamison. She says he tried to assault her, and she fought back, and he fell in the lake. She says it’s not her fault.”
“But then why didn’t she tell anyone?”
“She was afraid no one would believe her story.”
“Well, I don’t believe it!” someone exclaimed, but others shushed him.
Another voice rose above the babble to say, “Hold on a moment, though. Wasn’t there an echo killed in the struggle, too? But Marguerite’s got all three of her echoes with her, doesn’t she? I mean, I never counted, but—”
“She has seemed to have three echoes,” Darrily confirmed. “But one of them has been her maid! Pretending! All this time!”
That announcement provoked a storm of disbelief and another round of questions. I was too dumbfounded to catch everything the others said. A servant? Acting as an echo? For the entire two weeks that we had been here? How could that be possible? Yet, as I knew from my own experience, most people paid almost no attention to echoes. They didn’t look closely at echoes’ faces, they didn’t notice whether or not an echo precisely mimicked the original’s actions. If the imposter made no sudden, independent moves that were drastically different from the original’s, the deception could probably be successful for a long time.
I squeezed my eyes shut. The card game. The night Deryk had spilled his wine on Marguerite, and his echoes had spilled wine on her echoes—but only one of her echoes had leapt up in response. Had that been the maid, unable to control her instinctive reaction? But moments later, the other two echoes had also come to their feet in a leisurely, uncoordinated manner. Marguerite might have one imposter among her shadows, but the other two were a little independent as well.