The general gave what Torin felt was an unnecessarily snide smile. “I expect that criminal activity has increased with all the added population?”
Taking pleasure in getting rid of that smile, Torin replied: “Actually, such activity has decreased. Lord Albin was very well respected, even by the criminal element of Cliff’s End.” He didn’t add that half the population was recovering from their addiction to a designer drug, nor that the Guard had been particularly aggressive with the unlawful element since Hawk died.
Dru shook his head. “Yeah, mostly it’s just screwing with commerce. Half the businesses are more active, the other half have practically shut down.”
Torin winced. He knew that Dru’s wife Zan’s child-care business was suffering, as several of the children she usually cared for were being pressed into work for those businesses that were more active, and several others didn’t require Zan’s services because they had shut down and so could keep their kids at home. Already angered by the death of his partner, Zan’s troubles had made Dru challenge Danthres for most pissed-off person in the squadroom.
The door with the gryphon crest suddenly opened, and three people exited the office. The first two, walking side by side, were a short, stout man and a tall, ethereal woman. They were in fact the same height, but it always appeared to Torin that the broad-shouldered King Marcus was shorter than his wife. Queen Marta also had much better posture than her husband, which aided in the illusion. Torin had, of course, been in the same room as the king and queen many times during the war, though he’d never gotten this close nor been introduced.
Torin noted that the king’s beard—which was thick and brown during the war—was now trimmed to a small goatee, with his hair also cut much closer to his scalp than it had been a decade ago. The greatly reduced hair was no doubt due in part to how much gray was now in it. The king also had a misshapen nose, the result of being broken during the battle at Hobgoblin’s Run, and large ears. A glamour would have concealed both the nose and the gray hair, but the king apparently chose not to use one.
The same could not be said for his queen. Marta’s face was magnificently beautiful, with deep brown eyes, full red lips, and exquisitely coiffed hair that were all far too perfect to be anything but the product of magick.
One step behind them was the even shorter and stouter Lady Meerka. Like the other two, she wore all black, the color of mourning. Torin noted that, though Lord Albin had always, as far as he knew, worshipped Wiate, his widow did not wear a black rose in her hair, as was traditional for women of that faith grieving for their dead husbands.
As soon as the door had opened, all the guards, both royal and castle, stood at attention.
“You’re sure you won’t reconsider, Lady Meerka?” the king was saying as they came across the threshold.
“Quite sure, Your Highness.” Meerka was almost shuddering as she spoke. “I have no interest in the inanity of politics. Numbers, at least, I can make sense of. People remain a mystery, and I fear I will drive the city-state to ruin if left to run it. My son can handle things just fine.”
Torin frowned. He had assumed that Lady Meerka would take over the full governing of Cliff’s End. She had been handling the city-state’s finances ever since the crash a little under a decade ago, and indeed was at least partly responsible for the economic prosperity that the demesne had enjoyed since. But all he knew about Blayk, their oldest son, was that he’d been living in Iaron for the past five years.
King Marcus paused when he saw the captain. “Ah, General Osric. Sorry, it’s technically Captain Osric now, isn’t it? It has been a long time.”
“Too long, Your Highness.”
“You’ve done fantastic work here, Captain. All the reports on the Castle Guard have been exemplary. In fact, we’ve been looking into how to replicate what you’ve done here in Iaron, Barlin, Velessa, and Treemark.”
“I wish you luck, Your Highness.”
Torin had to conceal a smile. He knew that tone of Osric’s—he didn’t believe it. And Torin could understand his skepticism, as Torin himself shared it. The Castle Guard was very much Albin’s brainchild, and only had succeeded because of the lord’s dedication to the concept. It also helped that Osric was equally dedicated to it, to the point where Albin hadn’t really been hands-on the past few years.
The king looked down the line of guards on Osric’s left. “These are your lieutenants?”
“Yes, Your Highness,” Osric said.
Lady Meerka added, “They are the detectives who solve the more complicated crimes in the demesne.”
Osric indicated them with his left hand. “May I present Lieutenants Iaian, Tresyllione, ban Wyvald, Dru, and Grovis.”
King Marcus had nodded at Iaian and Danthres, but once Osric introduced Torin, the king’s gaze fixed on him, which made him a bit apprehensive.
“So you’re ban Wyvald.”
Swallowing, Torin said, “Ah, yes, Your Highness, I am.”
To his right, Torin could see Danthres trying very hard to not smile in glee at Torin’s obvious discomfort with being singled out by a monarch.
“I recall you from the war. By name, not by face—you see, shortly after you joined up, we received an official notification from Myverin that you were a fugitive and were to be returned to the Council at once.”
“What?” Realizing instantly that the outburst was a breach of protocol, Torin quickly added, “My deepest apologies, Your Highness, I am very—very surprised by your words. I did not realize that the Council had deemed me a fugitive.”
“Well, they did.” The king actually grinned. “And no need to apologize. It’s always nice when someone breaks protocol for a moment. You see the funniest facial expressions that way.”
That didn’t exactly make Torin feel better. “If I may ask, Your Highness, why did you not fulfill the Council’s warrant?”
“Several reasons. I was in the midst of a war, and was reluctant to part with any able-bodied soldiers. I was reliably informed by your commanding officer—” He shot Osric a smiling glance. “—that you were an excellent soldier and an asset to the 17th. And Myverin has no standing army, no military or law-enforcement personnel worth mentioning, and no formal treaties with us, so I didn’t really see how they could enforce their request. I see that Myverin never did get you back.”
“No, Your Highness. My father attempted a personal appeal for me to return a few months ago, but to no avail.”
“His loss is Cliff’s End’s gain. The demesne is lucky to have you—to have all of you.” He cast his glance to the other lieutenants. “Now come. Let us go and wish our dear friend Lord Albin well on his way to be with Wiate.”
Torin stood back at attention. King Marcus and Queen Marta continued down the hallway, followed by Lady Meerka right behind them. The general from the Royal Guard then turned on his heel and followed behind Lady Meerka on her right, and Osric did likewise at virtually the same time, marching behind the lady on her left.
They continued in that vein, two by two, Royal Guard on the right, Castle Guard on the left, except for the six extra royals, who marched two by two to bring up the rear. Torin found himself marching side by side with one of the two women, a human with hair as red as Torin’s own, and eyes as green as the trees. Like the king, she had a misshapen nose, as well as a scar over her left eye that kept that eye half shut. Torin wondered how she dealt with attacks on her left.
Slowly, they marched out through the unusually empty castle corridors. Most everyone was already out in the park, waiting for these final three to arrive. Sir Blayk—Lord Blayk now, Torin thought—was already out on the dais that had been constructed on the far end of Jayka Park, along with the rest of the lord and lady’s family, including Blayk’s brother, Sir Doval, and his sister, Madam Juliana, and their spouses and children.
Until they came upon the door to the rear balcony, the walk from the office was very quiet, the sound of footfalls echoing in the corridors being the only noise. But as
soon as one of the pageboys opened those doors, Torin’s ears were assaulted by a cacophony of sound from the park.
The good eye of the woman next to Torin widened and she let out a small gasp when the doors were opened.
The park was packed to the brim with people: humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, and gnomes, all jostling each other and crammed close, and making incredible amounts of noise. Cliff’s End was always a loud place, and Torin had experienced some of its most vocal events, from Jorbin’s Way during midsummer to the docks at noon when the fishing boats all came in, to the celebrations when it was the birthday of either the lord or the lady.
This had them all beat. Torin saw Danthres in front of him briefly move both hands to her tapered ears, which were far more sensitive due to her elven heritage, before lowering them again quickly.
Around the periphery of the park was a large wooden construction. At the far end was the stage, which included the body of Lord Albin on a table (and surrounded by the blue tinge of a Preservation Spell to keep the body in the same state it was in shortly after Sir Rommett found him a week ago) and a dozen or so chairs, all but three of which were occupied by various members of the nobility, including Sir Rommett, as well as Lady Meerka’s surviving family. Standing behind them were two guards and three people holding trumpets.
Radiating outward from that dais around the perimeter of the park was a large catwalk that was the height of three humans, or two and a half elves. Guards in both black and gray were interspersed at regular intervals around the catwalk, and Torin was sure there were plenty in the crowd as well. The catwalk also enabled the king, queen, and lady, as well as their honor guard, to reach the stage from the castle without being mobbed.
His companion’s green eyes were going all around the catwalk, so Torin assumed her astonishment was at that rather than the people. Quietly, he said, “The material and time to construct that were donated respectively by the Lumber Guild and the Carpenters Guild.”
She turned to glance at Torin with her scarred eye. “Donated? That’s unlike a guild.”
“Lord Albin was very well loved. Plus, one of his last acts was to approve a change in the tax structure that the guilds had been asking for for months.”
The woman shook her head. “Of course.”
As soon as the king and queen stepped onto the catwalk, the three trumpeters raised their instruments and blew a fanfare. The crowd suddenly grew quieter, and they all turned around to look up at the king and queen as they walked slowly around the catwalk on the left toward the dais.
As soon as the fanfare ended, someone started applauding, and it spread through the crowd like a fire. The cheers and clapping was even louder than the susurrus of noise that had preceded their arrival, and this time Danthres kept her hands over her ears, protocol be damned.
Torin followed behind Danthres and alongside the red-haired woman all the way down the catwalk to the dais, where Lady Meerka’s family were all now standing in deference to royalty. Captain Osric led his people to stand behind the chairs assembled on stage left, while the general and his dozen officers stood behind the chairs on stage right. The king and queen walked past the magickally preserved body of Lord Albin, each pausing for a moment to place a hand on his arm, then walked to their seats.
Once the king and queen sat down, so did everyone else. Torin and the other guards, of course, remained standing.
Aleta lothLathna stood on the far end of the catwalk, surveying the crowd from her high vantage point with some intensity. The elven woman was working her third straight shift, having volunteered to be on loan to Gryphon Precinct (which covered the region in and around the castle; Aleta normally served in Dragon Precinct, the middle-class district) during her off-time to help in the final preparations for getting Jayka Park ready. The prep work for either hosting the king and queen or a state funeral would be considerable, and that this was both merely compounded the problems.
A bit to her right, one of the Royal Guard made a snorting noise, and said, “I’m impressed, you’re not gaping.”
Her gaze still being cast over the crowd, Aleta asked, “Gaping at what?”
“Marcus and Marta. Most of the rest of your compatriots are openly staring.”
Aleta shrugged. “It’s hardly my first time in the presence of royalty.”
“Ah, yes, you worked for the Elf Queen, didn’t you?”
At that, Aleta finally turned to look at the guard. He had a completely bald head, but a thick beard, and an amused smile. He had the symbol of a shield over the left side of his chest, denoting his rank as that of a lieutenant. “How did you know that?”
He pointed to his neck. “I fought in the war, and I know what that tattoo means.”
Frowning, Aleta tugged at the collar of her armor. Usually it covered the neck tattoo of the word in Ra-Telvish for “Shranlaseth,” the name of the elven special forces that she had been part of in the Elf Queen’s service, before the queen herself disbanded it for reasons neither Aleta nor any of her comrades had ever been able to divine.
She turned to look back at the crowd. “I’m not here to gape, I’m here to make sure everything’s secure.”
“And is it?”
“No.” Aleta indicated the crowd with one hand. “During training, one of the things the shishook taught us was that discrepancies are what you should pay attention to.”
The lieutenant’s tone had gone from friendly and amused to annoyed. “I don’t see any discrepancies, I just see everyone cheering at the sight of royalty.”
“Not everyone.” Aleta hoped for the king and queen’s sake that this unobservant idiot wasn’t typical of the Royal Guard, though she refrained from saying so out loud. “There’s a woman down there who’s dealing with a crying infant. There’s a couple kissing each other. There are two dwarves arguing with each other. And there are the three halflings who tried to stand on each others’ shoulders who fell, and the people around them helping them up. But that’s not what concerns me.”
“What does?” The guard now sounded concerned.
“Four people.” Aleta pointed at each of them, who were interspersed at different spots in the crowd, but all fairly close to the dais. “They’re not looking at the king and queen, and they’re not being distracted by any of the other things I mentioned. They’re looking at each other. All four are regularly maintaining eye contact.”
“Mitre’s bones,” the guard muttered. “I hadn’t even noticed that.”
While ranks were not completely equivalent between the Castle Guard and the Royal Guard, a lieutenant in the latter still outranked a guard in the former, so Aleta once again held her tongue. Instead, she looked around for one of the runners, guards assigned to take messages back and forth. Finally catching sight of one, she signaled him, and he came running over.
It was Abrik, one of the Gryphon Precinct guards. “What’s goin’ on, like?”
“There are two humans and two dwarves in the crowd. The humans are both brown-haired, one with a beard and—”
“They’re moving!” the lieutenant barked.
Glancing over, Aleta saw that all four of them were trying to push their way closer to the dais. The humans were having less success than the dwarves, who took advantage of their smaller size to weave in and among people. By this time, King Marcus, Queen Marta, and Lady Meerka, as well as the latter’s family, had all sat down, and the top-ranking members of the two sets of guards were standing at attention behind them.
Looking back at Abrik, she went on. “The bearded human’s wearing a red tunic. The other one’s clean-shaven and is wearing a black sleeveless tunic. The two dwarves both have white hair and beards, and one is wearing an eyepatch.” Her angle and the dwarves’ long hair and beards made it impossible to make out anything beyond that.
Abrik’s mouth hung open. “What was the middle part, again, like?”
Aleta snarled, remembering that guards assigned to Gryphon or Unicorn only had to deal with minor nonsense involvin
g the upper classes, so brains weren’t always necessary. “Never mind, stay here and take my post. I’ll run the message down.”
“But—!” Abrik held up a finger, but Aleta was already running down the catwalk toward the side of the dais where Captain Osric and the Castle Guard lieutenants stood. She went around behind them so that she could speak without anyone in the crowd or sitting on the stage noticing.
“Captain, Lieutenants!” she whisper-shouted at their backs.
Both Captain Osric and Lieutenants Iaian and Tresyllione next to him turned around. They were closest to her, and given that the crowd was continuing to cheer and applaud, Aleta wasn’t surprised that they were the only ones who heard her.
“What is it?” Osric asked in a similar whisper.
“There are four people in the crowd who I believe have hostile intentions. I’d like to have them removed.”
“Based on what?”
Iaian, who’d become friends with Aleta since the incident with Yarbanig, said, “I’d trust her judgment, Cap’n.”
Osric shot him a look, then he scowled, rubbing his unusually clean-shaven chin. “Very well. Iaian, Tresyllione, go with her and grab another guard and remove them.”
Aleta contained a sigh. She’d been hoping not to have to work with the halfbreed, but she supposed that she couldn’t afford to be choosy. Another Gryphon guard, Micah, was positioned nearby where the catwalk met the stage, and Aleta grabbed him.
Quickly, Aleta described the foursome. The dwarf with the eyepatch was already clearly visible pushing his way forward through the crowd.
Tresyllione pointed downstage a bit. “Red tunic?”
Aleta followed her gaze and recognized him, also noticing the other human just to his left. “Yes, and the other human’s there.” After indicating the human in the black tunic, she moved into the crowd toward the red tunic. She wasn’t about to entrust the halfbreed with that.
Pushing her way past people to get to the man, she finally got in sight of him just as he was unsheathing a Thevit dagger.
Gryphon Precinct (Dragon Precinct) Page 2
