by Alex Bledsoe
I tried not to react when it hurt, but I didn’t fool her. “Will my hand be better than his nose?”
She smiled. “Don’t worry, I’ve treated this kind of thing on the battlefield many times. You’ll be fine. And I know a neat trick.”
By now the cloth around my hand and wrist had begun to stiffen. She produced a sword hilt, the blade neatly removed, and pressed the grip into my injured palm. “Now hold this as tightly as you can while the bandages harden. That way the cast will set in the right shape. You won’t have as much wrist movement, but you also won’t drop it every time you parry a blow.”
I did as she instructed while she cleaned up the remaining cloth strips and leftover plaster. In a few minutes, she removed the hilt from my hand, and sure enough, the cast retained the shape of my grip.
“See?” She put the sword hilt back on its shelf. “You won’t win any swordsmanship awards, of course.”
“I wouldn’t on my best day.”
She handed me a black sling. “If the pain gets too much, use this to keep your hand above your heart. It might also remove the temptation to use it as a battering ram. But the more you can stand having it down, the faster it’ll heal.”
I put the sling in my pocket and hopped off the table. “Not bad. Where’d you learn to do that thing with the sword, anyway?”
“I apprenticed during the last years of King Marcus’s military campaigns, doing battlefield triage. If a soldier wasn’t dead, he needed to be able to return to the fight. I worked this out myself.”
“Was your teacher a moon priestess?”
Her eyes flashed with a surprising degree of anger. “No. Medicine is a science on Grand Bruan, not some superstitious hocus-pocus.”
In every other kingdom I’d visited, moon priestesses were respected as healers. “I’ve seen them do some pretty amazing things,” I said cautiously.
“Yeah, well, knowing you have to stop the bleeding is easy. Understanding where the blood comes from is a hell of a lot harder.”
“I’m not trying to pick a fight, you know.”
She took a deep breath, then sheepishly smiled. “Sorry. If your fingers get numb, come see me immediately. It means either your hand’s grown more swollen or the cast is too tight. Either way you could end up with gangrene.”
“Oh, I can practically guarantee I’ll need to come see you.”
She flashed those magnificent eyes at me. “You don’t give up, do you?”
“I will if you really want me to,” I said seriously. And I meant it. I gave her a moment to respond, but she let it pass. “So can I ask you something off topic?”
“Off which topic?” Her smile returned full strength.
I smiled back; heck, I grinned like the last man alive after a three-day battle. “It’s about Queen Jennifer. What kind of woman is she?”
“Out of your league, I’m afraid.”
“No, seriously. You said you’d seen her true nature, and I need some insight. This place has more secrets than flies on a manure wagon, and I don’t know who to trust.”
“You seem to trust Bob Kay.”
“Sure. He has the keys to my shackles. And I trust you.”
Her eyebrows went up. “That a fact?”
“You know it is. But after you two, I’m flapping in the breeze. Drake seems decent, but he’s thrown his lot in with Jennifer, who”-I glanced at the door to make sure no one stood waiting for the doctor and overheard me-“I definitely don’t trust.”
“Why?”
The words to tell her about the previous night left my brain, passed through my throat, and made it all the way to my teeth before I choked them back down. “Instinct,” I said instead.
“You really think she’s a poisoner?”
“It’s a woman’s way. No offense.”
“None taken. It’d be my way, too. We all use the talents we’re given.”
“And, no, I don’t think she did it. But that doesn’t automatically mean I trust her. How well do you know her?”
Iris wiped her hands with a towel. “Hm. I first met her right after I’d finished my apprenticeship. They were both really young, you know. We all were. Marcus was crowned when he was fifteen and married Jennifer when he was seventeen. And that was… wow, nearly twenty years ago.” She shook her head at the passage of so much time. “When did I get to be thirty?”
“Do you like her?”
She laughed. “Who I like is completely beside the point in this job. But between you, me, and the mice in the walls, no. Not at all. Okay, wait, that’s not entirely true. I didn’t like the snotty little girl Marcus courted. The woman she is now… she’s different. Stronger. More dedicated.”
“What changed?”
Iris shrugged. “Who knows? Back then she was a teenager. Now forty’s peeking over the horizon. People change a lot in those years.”
Again I wanted to tell her what I’d overheard the night before, but decided to hold back until I better understood the Grand Bruan dynamics. I trusted Iris, but my instincts were not infallible. “So do you think she could do what she’s accused of? Poison a knight as a warning to the others?”
Her face crinkled delightfully as she thought about it. “The spoiled girl Marc married?” she said at last. “Yes, I can believe it. But the woman she is now? No.”
“I see. Well… thanks. I have to meet with the king again, so I should probably be going.”
A touch of mischief again shone in her eyes. “I would like to check the cast before you leave to go back to wherever you came from. So we’ll see each other at least once more.”
“At least. And after that?”
“After that is after that.” She tossed the rag into a bin. “I’m a military doctor. I go where the battles are.”
I held up my bandaged hand. “I doubt I could manage a whole battle, but I could put on a hell of a skirmish.”
She laughed and shook her head. “I’d love to discuss tactics with you, but I have work to do. I will see you later, though.” And the kiss she gave me was the best promise I’d ever had.
As I wound back through the castle corridors behind Bob Kay, my wrists again secured, I scanned every hallway junction for Agravaine’s crew. They never appeared. If they weren’t hunting me, what were they doing?
TEN
By the time I met again with the king and queen, my cast itched something fierce.
I joined Bob Kay and the royal couple in the same room where Jennifer had received us the night before. Once again Bob wound up the slack in my manacles, just in case. Drake greeted us dressed in casual trousers and an old favorite shirt with the sleeves ripped out to accommodate his considerable arms. Jennifer wore a simple dress and a lone strand of pearls, and her hair hung loose and unadorned. The queen’s maids, including Rebecca, had withdrawn to give us privacy. I wondered if they were listening behind a door, or peering through a hidden peephole. I’d gain nothing by embracing my paranoia, though.
Drake bolted the door behind us. “So, we seem to have both a murder and a public relations crisis. I believe if we resolve the first, the second will take care of itself.” He nodded at my hand. “Iris fixed you up, I see.”
“She did.” I hoped he would also tell Bob to release me, but that didn’t happen.
Instead he continued, “So we’re agreed there’s a murderer in the building somewhere, who wants to make the queen look guilty.”
“No,” I corrected him. I’d finally pondered my way through something that had bothered me all along. “Even as a frame, this is a poor job. There are lots of kingdoms where the queen might kill someone with impunity, but not this one. We know murdering Patrice wasn’t the goal, and neither was killing Gillian or framing the queen.”
Jennifer spoke for the first time. “Then what was the point, Mr. LaCrosse?”
I shook my head. “Haven’t gotten that far yet. I suppose it could just be a way to disrupt things. Sow dissent. Start people talking. And whoever planned it didn’t care if someone had
to die.”
“Or they simply wanted Gillian dead,” Jennifer said. “Why must there be a plot behind it?”
“Gillian has his enemies, sure,” Kay said. “Every soldier does, especially one as prominent as he is. But he fights in every tournament; they get their shot at him.”
“ If they’re the sword-and-sandal type,” I said. “If he pissed off a bard or someone’s lady-in-waiting instead, though, it’s unlikely they’d meet him on the field. But I still don’t think killing him was the main thing.”
Drake told Kay, “I like what your man LaCrosse says. I think the target of this is, ultimately, sedition. Someone wants to topple the crown, but indirectly.”
“Thanks,” I said, “but it’s only one theory. There’s also the idea that the queen did it and deliberately made it look amateurish and sloppy so she’d have plausible deniability. That’s a pretty good plan, too.”
“I am not a killer,” Jennifer said. Her glare at me was so cold I needed a sweater. “How often do those words have to be said?”
“ Please, Jennifer,” Drake almost snapped. I wondered what they’d been discussing before Kay and I arrived. “No one here thinks you’re a killer.”
Jennifer did not back down. “Are you certain?”
I caught Kay’s eye and wondered if we should slip out. He minutely shook his head.
Drake put his palm against her cheek. Their size difference made the gesture even more tender. “This is exactly what he wants, Jennifer. You and I at each other’s throats. The Knights of the Double Tarn looking at each other suspiciously. The nobles convinced there’s a cover-up of something.”
Jennifer would not be calmed. “Who’s ‘he,’ Marc?” It was half-taunt, half-accusation. She pointed at me. “This man? Some disgruntled knight? Your old friend Kindermord? Someone else none of us know?” She stared up at him, daring him to answer.
Drake started a little at the name Kindermord, but only a trained observer such as me would notice. The name also made Kay purse his lips a little. Drake recovered instantly and said at last, with more patience than I expected, “Jennifer, this isn’t helping.”
“You’re still going to hold court?” Kay interjected.
Drake nodded and turned away from his wife. Her gaze followed him with something very like contempt. “First thing tomorrow morning. We’ll let everyone speak, get their grievances into the open. No secrets.”
A sharp knock sounded from the door. Everyone except Drake jumped. Kay strode across the room and opened it. “Who the hell is knocking on the king’s private-”
He stopped suddenly. Thomas Gillian waited just outside. He wore shining dress armor and stood at ease with his hands clasped behind his back, polished boots apart. “Your Majesties, I offer my sincere apologies for this interruption.”
“Tom,” Drake said patiently, “we’re kind of in the middle of something. Is this urgent?”
“I believe it is.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Kay said, and stepped outside with Gillian. He didn’t shut the door all the way, but they spoke in low tones none of us could hear. I risked a glance at the queen, but her expression was unreadable.
Kay came back into the room and closed the door. He grimly faced Drake and Jennifer. “Gillian wants to speak to both of you,” he said darkly. “He’s got some of the others with him.”
“Show them in,” Drake said, sounding perplexed at Kay’s tone. “If it’s so important he-”
“Maybe you should speak to him alone,” Kay suggested. “I’ll tell the others to wait in the hall.”
Drake’s eyebrows went up at the interruption. “No,” he said firmly. “That would just spread more rumors.”
Kay started to protest again, but thought better of it. “You’re the king,” he said wearily, and returned to the door.
He stepped aside as Gillian and three other knights entered the room. Like Gillian, the soldiers wore their best go-to-court clothes and were clean and neatly shaved. In unison they knelt before Drake. The metal shin guards on their boots clanked against the stone floor.
“Permission to rise?” Gillian said.
Drake frowned a little at the formality, but he went with it. “Yes. Welcome, Sir Thomas, Sir Harold, Sir Peter, Sir Jordan.”
Gillian and his companions stood. He held his chin rigidly parallel with the floor. Ironically, he conveyed far more of royalty’s innate nobility than Drake. “Sire, I have come to a deeply troubling conclusion about yesterday’s attempt on my life.”
Drake crossed his arms. “And what’s that?”
“Sire, I have reflected on my past misdeeds, my deepest sins, and those whom I have wronged. In each case, I considered those affected by my actions and their possible desire for revenge. I have come to the conclusion that none of them could possibly have been involved.”
There was a moment of silence. “And?” Drake prompted.
Gillian nodded at me. “This man is clearly not the culprit, despite what the nobles may say. I have expressed this certainty to the other knights, all of who agree with me. With the usual three exceptions.”
“Dave Agravaine,” Kay asided to Drake. “And Hoel and Cador, of course.”
Drake said to Gillian, “I have to say my conclusions are pretty much the same as yours.”
Gillian nodded. “I would expect that, Your Majesty. You are a wise and intelligent man. But I and the other knights have come to an additional conclusion that you will no doubt dispute. Yet we are convinced it is the case. We believe,” Gillian concluded, his words utterly devoid of passion, “that the queen, already morally suspect for her past conduct, was behind the entire event.”
Drake showed no reaction, Kay sputtered in outrage, and Jennifer hissed, “That is absurd!”
Drake shushed everyone with a small wave of his hand. Except for the red flush of anger, he showed no outward sign. His voice remained steady. “So why would Jennifer try to kill you, Tommy?”
Gillian’s composure broke slightly, and for an instant, no longer than a bee’s wingbeat, real emotional pain showed. Then it was gone. “After much thought and prayer, I believe the queen intended to murder me as a warning to those who have publicly discussed her past conduct.”
“Tommy!” Jennifer gasped.
“How dare you!” Kay thundered simultaneously.
“Quiet!” Drake snapped. The effort to control his temper caused sweat to pop out along his hairline. Through clenched teeth he said, “That’s a very serious accusation, Gillian.”
“Yes, sir,” he responded. The knights behind him had neither moved nor spoken and, now that the king’s wrath was about to boil over, seemed anxious to be mistaken for furniture.
Kay had no regal image to maintain. “Why in the hell would the queen want to kill you?” he demanded. “ You never gossiped about her to anyone.”
Gillian turned just enough to meet Kay’s eyes. “That is true, Sir Robert. But the first rumors of the queen’s misconduct came from the Knights of the Double Tarn. I have achieved some prominence in that organization, second only to Elliot Spears. Therefore, by killing me, the others would be frightened into silence.”
“Tommy, you’re my friend. ” Jennifer’s disbelief and hurt certainly sounded genuine. “We’re family.”
“Indeed, Your Majesty, I once thought so.”
“Tommy, be reasonable,” Drake said, still calm. “You can’t seriously think Jennifer would go to such lengths just to quiet some rumors.”
“And those rumors are ancient. ” Jennifer’s voice shook with emotion. “I’ve had no opportunity to be indiscreet with Elliot in years. And I never have been.”
“I regret my lack of conviction in your response.” Gillian’s gaze did not waver.
“So what do you want me to do, Tommy?” Drake’s voice rose as he spoke. “Lock Jennifer up? Burn her at the stake? Chop off her head and stick it on a post? Would that satisfy all of you? Or do you just want to pass her around, so that what one knight got, you all get?”
By the end Drake was roaring, and Gillian’s three pals wilted under this royal onslaught. But Gillian was unbowed. “When you hold court tomorrow, sire,” he said in the same infuriatingly even tone, “I will ask to settle the matter in trial by combat.”
Drake laughed humorlessly. “No one’s settled a dispute that way in years. We have courts and laws now.”
“That is true, and were this any other crime, I would expect nothing else. But this is a crime of both treason and blood betrayal. As she said, the queen is also family. As such, this can only be expunged through spilled blood. Mine, or the queen’s through her champion.”
“Tommy, please,” Jennifer said, and approached him. Tears shone on her cheeks. “Look at me. I’ve known you since before you could shave. You’ve been my friend and confidant. How could you believe this of me?”
He turned those blank, serious eyes on her. “I assure you it was not an easy decision. And it broke my heart to admit it to myself.” Then he faced Drake again. “Because of the seriousness of the accusations, I ask that the combat be scheduled as soon as possible. Since Elliot is not here, I must insist that we not wait for you to summon him. You must choose a champion from among the knights present.”
“I’m not choosing anything,” Drake snapped. To the three silent witnesses he added, “Nor am I denying Gillian his request.” He stood to his full imposing height, and his voice grew official. “But since it involves the crown directly, I am claiming royal prerogative and will take the day to think it over. I suggest all of you do the same. If you go through with your intention to raise the issue at court… I’ll make my decision then.”
“As you say, Your Majesty,” Gillian said. He knelt again, and the three men with him followed suit. They stood and strode from the room without waiting to be dismissed. The door closed behind him with a solid, funereal thud.
“I don’t believe that,” Kay seethed. “Who the hell does he think he is?”
