by T. O. Munro
“And using your sword?”
“To throw the blame elsewhere, nothing more.” Kaylan sucked in a breath. “But then what of the brothers Leniot and Tybert, they might hope to curry favour with Rugan by discrediting the Lady Niarmit.”
“It is an odd way to do it, by killing his grandmother.” Hepdida’s thoughts were filled with the Prince’s dark expression and furious response to the Deaconess’s findings. “He must have been fond of her in some way. He was very angry about it at the council.”
“Yes,” Kaylan nodded, stroking his chin. “Very angry when the murderer was not unmasked by the Deaconess.”
“So what do we do?”
“We could do nothing, my Princess.” Kaylan stared across the winter garden. “As Sorenson said, we are all exonerated and we should just get on our business.”
“But you won’t do that will you, Kaylan.”
He shook his head emphatically. “A murderer walks these halls. A murderer who stole my sword to implicate me and who knows that part of his plan has gone awry. It would be neither safe, nor wise to do nothing.”
“What will you do then?”
“You may be right about the Lords of Oostsalve. While I do not think they are blessed with much wisdom, to murder their host’s beloved grandmama would stretch even their stupidity to new depths.” He shook his head at the thought and then gave a slow satisfied nod of resolution. “I will see what I can find out about the Bishop’s man Fenwell and also that thin faced curate. The one is too silent, the other too proud.”
“And what do I do while you are finding out?”
“You, my Princess?” He looked at her in surprise. “Nothing. This is a murderer we are talking about, may be even more than one. They are my kind, not yours, so let me hunt them down.”
“They will be alert to you Kaylan. It is you they tried to frame,” she reminded him.
“But still, my Princess, this is my kind of work. Now, let’s resume our lesson.”
Hepdida picked up the knife again with doubt tugging at her mind. Kaylan’s theories had a seductive plausibility, but then Kaylan’s words always had the ring of truth no matter how true or false they were. Fenwell, the Bishop’s dumb manservant, made an unlikely murderer. Yet leaving any pursuit of the matter to Kaylan alone? She did not like the passive part he had cast for her and she drove that frustration into her first lunge.
It drew a dodge from Kaylan, an easy sidestep, but still he had to make it. He gave her a nod of encouragement. “Better, my Princess.”
***
“I do not need an escort to bring my news, bed slave,” Willem growled at Kimbolt as the two guided their mounts around the great boulders at the opening to the Gap of Tandar.
“Nor do I, but she bid us both come when the task was done,” Kimbolt snapped back.
“Maybe she means me to stop the orcs from taking a bite out of your lily smooth hide.”
“Maybe she means me to help you with the numbers when you run out of fingers to count on.”
The big outlander lunged across in anger. Kimbolt tugged in his reigns to jink his horse left and Willem was left grasping at air and struggling not to topple out of his saddle. “I should gut you now, bed slave.”
“You’re welcome to try.” Kimbolt’s tone was light, but his heart was racing. His fingers tightened on the hilt of the sword Dema had given him.
Willem settled back in his saddle, the threat forgotten, though more like from fear of Dema’s reaction than of Kimbolt’s. The outlander spat and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “You may not remember what you were bed slave, or realise what you have become.” The outlander glared at him with loathing. “But I do. You better pray the lady never falls, for if she does, I’ll make sure you follow her into hell, piece by bloody piece.”
“That day will never come,” Kimbolt shot back with a confidence he did not feel. He had fretted on Dema’s deployment, selecting for herself the path of greatest risk. The desire which drove him now was less a matter of conveying their detachment’s complete success, and more about reassuring himself of Dema’s survival.
“Those days always come, bed slave. To all of us.”
A whiff of orc on a gust of wind had them both spur their horses up the muddy pass. The spears of Dema’s command caught the sun as a column of orcs came into view trudging down the Eastway. “Where is the lady?” Willem asked in a voice which, for all his bold words, was tinged with alarm.
“There!” Kimbolt pointed with relief to the back of the column where the tall figure of Dema strode in splendid isolation, her hair writhing and seething.
Outlander and bed slave galloped towards her. She looked up at their approach when they were still many yards off and brought her hands quickly to her face. With a blood chilling shiver Kimbolt realised she had been unmasked until then.
Willem seized the first word. “Lady Dema,” he said in some surprise. “Why do you walk at the rear of your soldiers?”
She laughed. “These are not soldiers to be led, Willem, they are cattle to be driven and I have told them as much.” She said something then in orcish loud enough for the rear ranks to hear and, while they stiffened, they did not turn to look at her. “We could have broken their lines if these turd eaters had more courage. You might have found us then at the top of the pass feasting on the bones of Rugan’s guards.”
“Lady Dema.” Willem looked at her in puzzlement. “This was the diversion, surely, not the main attack?”
She scowled back. “I know well what plans were laid, Willem. Yes this was the diversion, but it was also an opportunity and one which these gutless spawns of shit have squandered.” Neither Kimbolt nor Willem dared intrude on her fury, so the horsemen walked in silence beside the Medusa at the rear of the resentful orcs. When at last, Dema spoke, it was a rebuke. “Well you pair of mutes, I swear you did not ride all this way to ask me what the plan was again. How went it with the dandified necromancer?”
“Success attended us, Mistress.” Kimbolt blurted out good news. “We pinned down the pickets with our archers, while Galen’s necromancers drove full five thousand ravenous zombies up the channel of the Forburn. By the time Ambrose realises what has happened it will be too late, the undead will be far into Rugan’s lands, feasting on his people.”
At last Dema smiled and Willem scowled that he had not been the one to please her. She clapped Kimbolt on the leg and said, “it seems that news cheers you quite as much as it cheers me, Kimbolt.”
“It cheers me that a well laid plan should bear fruit so fully. Those zombies will be harbingers of despair and distraction to Rugan’s people.”
“Aye, and come the spring, Lady Dema, we will hurry up the pass with more pain for the half-breed’s people.” Willem chipped in with his own happy offering.
The Medusa’s smile was tinged with a little sadness. “I hope, Willem, I have done enough to make safe my place at the head of the invasion, if I can bear to wait that long.”
“The Master would never take this command from you,” Kimbolt assured her.
She looked up at him and he tried to hold her sparkling gaze despite the nausea that gripped his stomach. She saw the strain in his face and looked away with another friendly pat on his thigh. “Come Kimbolt, walk with me. Willem, ride on and tell Odestus to break out the best wine and fresh meat. These orcs have fought hard and well, they deserve a reward.”
***
“Good day, Lady Maia. It is a cold morning isn’t it?”
Tybert’s companion looked up sharply at Hepdida’s greeting her expression as cold as the frosty air. The Princess pulled her own cloak firmly around her shoulders. It had been just an impulse, seeing the Oostlander woman sitting alone by the fountain in the courtyard, a sudden inclination to vary the fear seasoned boredom of these past days with a little inquiry of her own. Hepdida had seen little of Niarmit and Kaylan, each pre-occupied with business they would not share. The Princess’s solitary strolls around the palace had brought little of interest until this oppor
tunity to speak with the Lady from Oostsalve.
“That’s a lovely stole, you have,” Hepdida gushed. “Is it mink?”
“We haven’t been introduced,” Maia said, flicking her fan open despite the freezing weather.
“Oh,” Hepdida frowned and then offered her hand. “Hello, I’m Hepdida.”
Maia looked askance at the extended hand. Hepdida wondered what horrors the lady must see lurking beneath her fingernails. “You are not used to the ways of court are you, child?”
“I’m fifteen.”
Maia looked over her fan at Hepdida’s defiance until the Princess dropped her hand unshaken to her side. The lady gave a sudden smile and a sweeping gesture to the seat beside her. “Come, child, you may sit with me a while. You are a curious creature aren’t you?”
“I like to find things out, yes,” Hepdida agreed, her gown providing little insulation from the cold stone.
“That’s not how I ….” Maia stopped herself. “Lord Tybert tells me you have had an interesting and varied life in those fifteen years.”
Hepdida shrugged. “I was just a servant girl.”
“But in a great fortress with all those soldiers, I am sure you have a tale or two to tell.”
“You don’t see much when working in the castle kitchens.”
“And to be a prisoner of orcs! That must have been an adventure! I’ve never seen an orc.”
“My mother saw her first orc in Sturmcairn. She was dead less than a minute later,” Hepdida said slowly, discomforted by the eagerness in Maia’s tone and the faster beat of her fan.
“Quite so, I’m sorry for your loss.” The condolence came out flat, her fan slowed. “Still, now the Lady Niarmit claims you for a Princess and you certainly begin to dress like one.”
“Have you known many princesses?”
“The parties of Oostsalve are full of fine ladies, as fine as any princess this side of the Eastern Lands.” She gazed towards the fountain, seeing a memory, and said with sudden candour. “I miss the parties.”
“Were you sorry then, when Lord Tybert was sent here?”
“I am my Lord’s spiritual adviser,” she said daring Hepdida with a glare to so much as blink at the title. “I go where he goes. But I miss our friends.”
She gazed around the cloistered courtyard and then, encompassing the whole palace with a broad sweep of her fan, declared, “Even beauty such as this can become dull without companionship.”
“Why did Tybert have to come here? Surely Lord Leniot would have been delegate enough for their father’s cause?”
“Prince Rugan was most insistent, I understand. If the father could not come, then nothing less than both sons would suffice.”
Maia stood up and offered her hand for Hepdida to kiss. The Princess touched her lips to the Lady’s cool skin and fresh perfume. “I am glad we are friends, Miss Hepdida. You must come to my chamber this evening. I may have a gown you could borrow, I think I have seen you wear that dress before.”
“You are too kind, Lady Maia,” Hepdida ground out.
“Nonsense, in exchange I would simply hear more of your exciting life. I’m sure my Lord Tybert would too. We may miss our friends, but are always interested in making new ones.”
Hepdida watched her walk away with such smooth elegance that she seemed to glide across the stone path.
“What did she want, my Princess?”
Hepdida gave a yelp of alarm at the sudden enquiry at her shoulder. “Kaylan!” she exclaimed at the thief who had slid unnoticed into the seat vacated by the lady of Oostsalve.
“Well?”
“She wants to lend me a dress,” Hepdida snapped. “Where have you been?”
“Father Merlow will have a thick head this morning, you’d think he’d have a better stomach for drink after all that Goddess day mead.”
“And what of your head, Kaylan?”
“Thom is not the only one with a gift for illusion my Princess. I drink less than it appears.”
“So what did you find out?”
“The young priest thinks very highly of himself and rather lowly of everyone else.”
“I could have told you that.”
“Including his disdain for his master, the Bishop?” Kaylan said. “Father Merlow believes the Bishop is insufficiently guided by the Goddess and more moved by his admiration for the Lady Isobel, Regent and mother of the boy prince. A woman that Berlow says his master would do anything for.”
“Sure, every underling thinks his master is a fool. Try living among the servants, Kaylan.”
“Yes, and what of the manservant Fenwell,” Kaylan lowered his head to share the precious information. “Merlow tells me, he was a gift to the Bishop. He had previously been in the Lady Isobel’s service, in her family’s service since before she married. But he joined the Bishop’s retinue late, almost as they were leaving on this embassy.”
“What of it?”
“Things that change, my Princess, things that change.” Kaylan waved a finger at her. “That is where we prise open the truth. When people do things they had not done before, or when the stories they tell change from one moment to the next.”
“So what does Fenwell say?”
Kaylan shrugged. “I don’t know yet, he is a difficult man to locate, always either busy or unseen or both. But I will have him and the truth will out, all his history and any instruction he may have been given by Sorenson.”
Hepdida looked at her hands. Would it really be that simple, a bishop driven by infatuation to a heinous crime? But then again it wouldn’t be the first time. Her own birth was proof of that. The thought brought a short laugh to her lips which drew a frown from Kaylan.
“You are amused, my Princess?”
“No, Kaylan, it was nothing.”
***
“Hello, my dear.” The Lady Maia approached her hands outstretched to grasp Hepdida’s. The Princess’s reservations melted at the warm greeting as she was drawn into the sitting room of the Oostsalve delegation. It was a mirror image of her own quarters, with doors to private chambers off to each side and a balcony with an aspect over the western gardens. A folding screen was set in a corner and over its decorated sides hung the skirts of a handful of fabulous dresses.
“Is Lord Tybert joining us?”
“He is resting,” Maia said. “He likes to take a short nap in the early evening, he says the night is no time for sleeping and I agree don’t you. When else could one party? Fear not, he will rise shortly. He was delighted when I said you would visit us, there is much he would ask of you.”
Maia leaned back, her hands clasped infront of her, her gaze sliding up and down Hepdida. “Yes, that dress is just not quite you and this must be what, the third time you’ve worn it? No? Not the fourth?”
Hepdida felt small, the gifts of the Lady Giseanne suddenly seemed ungenerous and she could not help but notice how the lady Maia had changed her own attire since they had spoken that morning. “No, come while Tybert sleeps away, let us try these on, I think the cerise first.”
Maia seized the garment in question and waved Hepdida behind the screen. The Princess hesitated, her modesty not entirely reassured by a mere three fold sheet of stretched canvas between her and a woman she spoken to for only the first time that day.
The lady misunderstood her reluctance. “Oh, would you like some help to dress, Miss Hepdida? I had just thought, with your upbringing as a servant, you might be used to putting on gowns yourself.”
“No I can manage, thank you,” Hepdida hurried past her.
In truth she struggled with the garment, its hooks and eyes were of a design new to her which, with its clinging fit, made it difficult to squeeze into. She was particularly anxious not to rip the fabric and over all this careful silent exertion, Maia kept up a constant chatter about this party or that friend and how utterly modern they were, as though to be at the crest of all fashions was the only virtue of consequence.
At last the deed was done and she stepped
from the screen to bask in Maia’s pleasure at the creation she had wrought. “Oh yes, Miss Hepdida, that is most certainly it.”
“You think so?” Hepdida turned obediently to display the effect from all angles. It covered less than the other dresses she had borrowed and despite her tugging, it still showed the ends of some scars which Grundurg had left beyond her face. “I would like it to cover those marks though,” she looked at one long white line that snaked down from her shoulder. “A shawl perhaps?”
Maia shook her head in dismay. “A shawl with this gown, you are fifteen not fifty, Miss Hepdida.” She came close to inspect the mark, holding first Hepdida’s arm and then turning her head to look at the marks that were on her cheek. Hepdida shivered and stepped back as Maia ran a finger along the wounded skin.
“I have creams and salves that could colour those, Miss Hepdida and maybe give a little darkening of the wisdom of age to your fine pale skin. But do not be embarrassed by your scars. Lord Tybert says such things give a person character.” She laughed a little too squeakily. “You must have plenty of character.”
The door opened behind them and Hepdida saw a look of alarm cross Maia’s face. She turned round to see Sir Vahnce garbed as ever in black, striding into the room. For an instant she saw the man’s face before he froze his expression into inscrutability. He had not looked happy.
“Sir Vahnce,” Maia stammered. “I was not expecting you back so soon.”
“Evidently. My business was concluded earlier than I expected. What is the girl doing here?”
“And Lord Leniot?”
“Gone in search of a card table and a carafe of wine.” Denied an answer by the lady, Vahnce directed his question at Hepdida. “What are you doing here, girl?”
Hepdida shrunk before the intensity of his question. “I am trying on dresses,” she gulped. “The Lady Maia offered.”
The knight’s quick eyes took in the screen, and the close fitting borrowed gown. He scanned Hepdida up and down and then called out, “Tybert!”
Leniot’s brother burst immediately through the door beside the screen. The bearded lord was fully clothed and alert, but ill at ease with his brother’s companion. “Sir Vahnce, how may I be of service?” he fawned, looking across for support to the Lady Maia.
