The Disappearance of Winter's Daughter

by Michael J. Sullivan

  The door to the library was open, and Royce walked in. What wasn’t windows was bookshelves, though there weren’t many actual books. Most of the shelves were filled with painted plates, potted plants, intricately carved boxes, models of sailing ships, and even skeletons or stuffed figures of small animals set in poses. A large map hung from the ceiling above the fireplace’s hearth, where a meager fire halfheartedly burned. The duke stood at one of the windows, looking out at the night sky. He was a balding, plump man, the sort that might have been strong and stocky in his youth, but years and wealth had transformed him. He was barefoot, wearing only a long nightshirt that exposed the gray hairs on his calves.

  “My lord?” Royce ventured, trying his best not to sound like a thief. The duke failed to react and continued to stare out the window. Royce inched forward as if sneaking up on a skittish rabbit that might bolt. “Duke Leopold?”

  The man turned. “Oh,” he said. “I see.” He nodded some understanding that eluded Royce. Perhaps he thought he was there to retrieve dishes or turn down the bed.

  The duke lifted a decanter filled with an amber liquid and poured some into a crystal glass. He held up the decanter in offering.

  Royce shook his head.

  “Do you mind if I . . .” He didn’t wait for approval, and drank, then took a deep breath. “I’m ready.”

  “For what?” Royce asked.

  “You’re here to kill me, right?”

  Royce was stunned.

  “You look surprised.”

  “I ah . . .”

  “What else could you possibly be doing in my residence unannounced this late at night just before the crowning? And your cloak and hood—well, it just screams killer.”

  At least someone is awake in here. That’s what separates the duke from the chambermaids—paranoia.

  “Not going to get any complaints out of me,” Leo said. “Honestly, you’re doing me a favor.”

  “I’m not here to kill you.”

  The duke looked over with an expression that could only be described as annoyed. “No?”

  “No.”

  “That’s disappointing.” He turned. “So, who the blazes are you, then? And why are you here?”

  Footfalls rushed up the steps.

  Royce pulled the parchment from his belt and held it out. A moment later soldiers burst into the library. They would have to wait.

  “To give you this.”

  The duke stared at the parchment, puzzled. “What is it?”

  “A letter,” Royce said as a guard stepped toward him. “From your wife.”

  He waited in what they called the parlor, but Royce saw it as just another overly polished medium-sized room with too much art and too few chairs. He was left to himself. No guards watched, the door was open, and he hadn’t been shackled or tied. No one had even tried. This was a good thing for everyone involved. After reading the letter, the duke had ordered his thugs to let Royce go. Then Leo Hargrave had merely asked him to wait. Royce appreciated that it hadn’t been an order. He’d actually used the word please. Nevertheless, waiting wasn’t something Royce was fond of, especially as the night was short, and there was so much left to do if Hadrian was to be extricated from the pickle barrel he’d jumped into. Roland had been ordered to wait as well, but then he was called up for questioning, leaving Royce alone. That had been some time ago.

  The Estate had many paintings. In that room alone, there were eight. Only one caught his eye: the portrait of a man who was unmistakably Leopold. The work was exquisite, and Royce felt uneasy, as if the painting were an actual person in the room with him. The sensation was so pronounced that he went over to inspect it. His eye caught the artist’s signature: SHERWOOD STOW. Should have known.

  Royce had no idea what Wyberg was telling the duke, and that made him uneasy. Just being in an expensively appointed room filled with carvings of elephants and deer, not to mention a silver tea set, made him jumpy. He didn’t stay in places of this sort, but he did often visit, and he couldn’t help noticing how easily the carvings would fit under his cloak or avoid calculating what a small fortune they would bring on the black market. The room was chilly despite the fireplace because no one had bothered to light it. This left Royce sitting on the velvet-and-wood chair, feeling the cold seep in and wondering why he was still there.

  He thought I was here to kill him. If this job had turned out the way I had expected, I would have been.

  Royce pictured two different paths running side by side, so close, yet so different. He’d come to Rochelle to kill Leopold. That’s what Gabriel Winter had wanted. Make that goddamn duke and all those working for him bleed. Turn the Roche River red for me, for me and my Genny. Royce had arrived on that road, but somehow he’d gotten off it. Now he was on another path, but the duke had assumed he was still on the first. Royce felt as if he’d performed sleight of hand, so subtly that the world itself had been duped.

  I was duped, too.

  Even as he sat in that cold, empty room, he could see himself on the other path. I would have stood behind the duke as he stared at the stars and slit his throat—careful to catch his glass so it didn’t shatter. That reality feels more authentic than this one. That’s what I should have done. That’s what I was supposed to do.

  Royce found it surreal that he should be standing beside that path, looking down and seeing a history that didn’t happen. His trajectory had altered course, just a smidge, a tiny tilt, but it was enough to change events from bloodbath to letter delivery.

  Were you expecting a finger?

  Royce had been expecting a whole lot of fingers and even more heads. Instead, he sat in a luxurious room, waiting on the ruler of the city to . . . he had no idea. That was the problem with this new path. Royce didn’t know where it went. He’d never gone this way before. Just as he was deciding that waiting on a duke was about as smart as listening to Hadrian, the duke showed up.

  The man was dressed, but not in the finery Royce would have expected for a ruling noble. Wearing a crisp shirt, waistcoat, and casual trousers, he looked more like a modest merchant. He was followed by half a dozen men, who were better dressed but appeared worse for wear. Whereas they looked as if they had just woken up, Leo Hargrave beamed as if born again. Bright and smiling, he strode up to Royce and nodded.

  “So, old man Winter hired you,” Leopold said and studied Royce’s face for his reaction.

  Royce didn’t give one.

  “He hates me, you know. You’re in the Black Diamond, right?”

  Royce remained silent, his sight shifting briefly as Roland entered. For better or worse, Wyberg was his advocate, his lifeline out of this, and it was reassuring to see he was still there. This way when the bastard betrayed him, Royce wouldn’t need to hunt him down to slit his throat.

  “Doesn’t matter,” the duke said, and then chuckled. “And you can relax. Right now, you’re my best friend, and I owe you.” Leo shivered. “Why is it so cold in here? Did they leave you so ill attended? Idiots.” The man scowled, then lifted the parchment in his hand, grasping it as gently as if it were a newborn. “My Genny is alive.”

  “She won’t be if you don’t—”

  “I know,” Leo said. “It was all in the letter. Grant the dwarves the right to work. Give the Calians the right to trade. Bestow on the mir the right to exist. Not something I can simply change overnight. Guilds are powerful things but Genny . . .” He shook the letter again. “Never a dull moment with her around and never a moment’s peace. The woman was already working toward those ends. She was fixing the problem that is Rochelle. She’s a businesswoman, you see. Rochelle is a horrible tangle. This city is choked with regulations and procedures, layers upon layers of protocol, and ages steeped in narrow-minded intolerance. She doesn’t know anything about such things. Had no idea of the impossibility of the task. That’s the way with her, you know. Don’t ever tell that woman she can’t do something. She’ll take it as a challenge. In this case, she came up with a plan where the existi
ng members of the merchant and trade guilds will receive a percentage of the money earned by the Calians and dwarves. She also indicated that if they refused, I should raise taxes on trade goods. Nothing speaks to businessmen like money, or someone threatening theirs. And as it turns out, the daughter of a Colnora merchant baron is fluent in such matters. She was getting close to an agreement, but then she disappeared.”

  “I need to get back,” Royce said. “I need to bring proof you’re planning to do something.”

  “Yes, I know. Genny mentioned an uprising. Lovely handwriting.” He grinned. “She has these pudgy little hands, but her penmanship is beautiful. Years of keeping books, she told me.”

  “What proof can we provide?” Royce pressed.

  The duke gestured at his companions. “These gentlemen are leaders of the city’s merchant and trade guilds, the ones Genny met with. They are quite eager to assist, especially after I explained that if my wife dies, I’ll charge them as complicit in the murder and execute every last one of them.” Leo focused on the sleepy men and glared.

  “The king will condemn the murder of prominent merchants,” one of the men said.

  “What king?”

  The man looked uncomfortable.

  “Don’t worry,” Leo smiled. “I will definitely hold a trial immediately following your deaths in order to get to the bottom of this conspiracy. And while we are doing that, you can voice your concern to his late majesty King Reinhold when you see him.”

  I like this guy, Royce thought. “Guess we’d better get going.”

  “Captain Wyberg will go with you. Good luck . . . Royce, is it?”

  He sighed and nodded.

  “Royce,” the duke said to himself as a curious, thoughtful look came over him. “I’ve heard that name before.”

  “Let’s go,” Royce told Roland and quickly headed for the door. He didn’t want to discover what revelations the duke had uncovered.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The Morning After

  With nothing else to do, Hadrian had fallen asleep. He woke to the first light of dawn spilling down the wooden steps from the shack above. The three of them were still huddled in the stone cellar. Griswold sat where he’d always been, hunched up with knees high, his long beard pooling on his lap, demonstrating the patience and unruffled composure of a rock. He still had the dagger, out and ready. Seton had curled up beside Hadrian using him as a pillow, her hair creating a pool of blond across his lap. He guessed she’d done it for warmth, or perhaps as a precaution against treachery while she slept.

  No one can steal me away without waking my protector.

  For Hadrian, who was cold, cramped, and couldn’t feel his hands, the beautiful mir was a wonderful comfort. In the newborn light that gave everything a spotless purity, she was something more than beautiful, more than a woman. In the same way, the first snowfall of the year was more than snow; both were transcendent.

  She’s so light, like having a cat sleep on me. Hadrian had always felt that cats were picky, untrusting things. Being fragile, they had to be. Whenever a cat sat on him, Hadrian felt special, as if the animal approved, and their acceptance was some sort of gift. Makes a body feel worthy of something to have a cat trust you that much.

  Hadrian didn’t feel worthy. I did one good thing. How quickly does a pure drop of rain disappear in a muddy lake? How many did I kill that night? I don’t even remember. In her story, he was a monster who came to slaughter and maim. Hadrian had few illusions about those days, and his memories only got worse the farther he traveled east where civilization was little more than an inconvenient philosophy. Still, he’d never really seen himself as evil.

  But I was. Maybe I still am.

  He looked down. Her eyes were closed, her body rising and falling gently, silently. Maybe she was a hundred years old and had witnessed and even participated in atrocities of her own. Maybe she had closets full of horrible regrets. Who didn’t? But in that forgiving light, she was as innocent as a newly budded flower, and she was his savior.

  Cats don’t sleep on monsters, do they?

  Noises turned Griswold’s head and woke Seton. They all listened: voices coming from outside. The sound soaked through the walls of the overhead shack and dripped down through the gaps in the floorboards, conversations impossible to clearly hear. Identities were equally vague. Men and women were all Hadrian could reliably discern. Not many, two or three perhaps, but they were coming closer.

  The dwarf climbed to his feet. “Either your friend’s back or time’s up. If he’s betrayed us . . .” He pointed the dagger at Hadrian, an old, dull blade. Is it the same one he uses to carve figurines? After seeing him with his family, after looking at the beauty he created out of wood, Hadrian found it hard to believe Griswold could kill. But Hadrian had been wrong before.

  Maybe in a society of stoneworkers, wood carving is an indication of insanity. Griswold might be the sort of crazed killer that no one suspects. Hadrian had met a few of those. Young soldiers, usually the quiet ones that he worried might not be up to the task, revealed a different side on the battlefield. Normally constrained by social pressure, they felt a sense of freedom in combat that they never encountered in daily life. Killing, the ultimate taboo, became a necessary relief to the building pressure to conform. After the fight, they went back to their shadow life, but the taste of blood worked like an infection. They were the ones who volunteered for missions but fell into trouble after the war. Killers hiding in plain sight; pots boiling with sealed lids. Griswold might be like that.

  Hadrian felt Seton stiffen as if she’d had the same thought, and then the mir got to her feet as well, her eyes on the dagger.

  “That was the deal he made,” Griswold told her.

  The noise grew louder. Then footfalls hit the floor of the shack, thumping on the ceiling above.

  “Hadrian?” Royce yelled.

  Griswold shuffled away from the stairs and toward Hadrian.

  “No!” Seton moved with surprising speed, thrusting herself between them and raising her hands, putting up the defense Hadrian couldn’t.

  Griswold’s expression was grim, not gleeful. And Hadrian was pleased to see it. At least he doesn’t want to kill me—or maybe it’s just her he regrets killing.

  “Stop!” The order came from the stairs where Selie Nym descended. “Griswold Dinge, you put that dagger away! Right now, you hear?”

  “Why? What’s happened? Where are Mercator and Villar?”

  “Mercator Sikara is dead,” the Calian woman said.

  This did nothing to improve the dwarf’s attitude, and his expression went from grim to angry.

  “Was it the small one who did it?”

  Royce joined her at the bottom of the stairs and Griswold took a tighter grip on the dagger. Hadrian got to his feet.

  The dwarf let out a heated growl. “What happened to Mercator. I don’t see—”

  “That’s right, Griswold, you don’t see anything!” The widow was furious. “Mercator Sikara was murdered. And it’s all your fault!”

  “My fault? Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve been here, with them, all night.”

  “Mercator was torn apart by a golem!”

  She could have hit the dwarf with a bucket of water and gotten the same response. He stopped not only his movement toward Hadrian but even his breathing. A fortunate turn for Griswold, as by then Royce was past the widow, and Alverstone was out and ready to say hello.

  “Drop the dagger or lose the hand,” Royce ordered in the sort of voice that allowed no hesitation or argument.

  Griswold let his blade fall and backed away, but his eyes were still trained on Erasmus’s widow, still aghast.

  “Damn it,” Royce cursed, kicking the blade away and frowning at the dwarf. “They never pick the choice I want.”

  The dwarf had backed up all the way to the wall, retreating from more than Royce. “I don’t understand. How could a golem kill Mercator?”

  “You tell me, you little bearded excus
e for a mole rat!” The widow was filled with fury. “Erasmus had always been against using those things, those evil, disgusting creatures, and now . . . now . . .” She took a deep breath to compose herself. “Who have you taught that evil sorcery? Do you see what price has been paid? Mercator is dead and so is my Erasmus!”

  “He killed your husband!” Griswold pointed at Hadrian.

  “He didn’t.” Seton looked at Selie in desperation.

  The widow patted Seton’s cheek. “Honey, do you think I would believe anything coming out of his mouth? Erasmus’s face was damn near chewed away. What happened to my . . . to my . . . that wasn’t done by any man.”

  “I—” Seton began.

  The widow was done with her but not with Griswold. “You’re the only one who knows . . . the only one who . . .” The widow put her hands to her hips, her eyes narrowing to the sort of slits archers used when targeting small prey. “Hundreds of people saw a golem in the plaza last night! That stony monster climbed down the side of the cathedral, smashed into the gallery, and tore that poor woman apart. First my Erasmus, now Mercator. All because—”

  “It wasn’t me. I was here with them.” He gestured toward Hadrian and Seton.

  “But you showed others. You’re the only one who knows how. Who else did you teach that vile black magic to? Who else can raise a golem?”

  Griswold bowed his head. “Just three of us, only three. I had to, you see, as a kind of safeguard. A way to ensure no single person, no one sect had more power than the others, and so each race would have equal power. I was one, your husband another . . .”

  She glared. “Who was the last?”

  “Villar,” Royce said cutting Hadrian’s bonds free.

  The dwarf’s eyes indicated agreement.

  “Mercator figured it out,” Royce said. “He never left any note with demands. He used Leopold’s lack of action to fuel dissent and his bloody little war. He was trying to stop us from getting to the duke. Mercator tried to talk him out of it, but it didn’t go so well.”