by A. F. Dery
He could no longer resist the temptation to glance at her and a glance was all he had intended to give. But her blue eyes blazed, her color was high, her usually full lips were pressed into a thin line that could not conceal her frown. When he sought to catch her gaze, she pointedly looked to his left, staring holes into approximately nothing.
Kesara, he realized with some astonishment, was angry. At him. He wondered guiltily if she had somehow suspected his less than loyal thoughts of a moment ago before quickly dismissing such a foolish thought. Had she not said herself that she was not a mind reader? And that was one thing he was sure Graunt would have let on about, if it were so.
Thane turned back to the crowd, torn between proceeding as he knew he should and taking Kesara aside to find out what the matter was with her. But of course, he knew where his duty lay. He put his personal feelings firmly to one side and said clearly to the chief magistrate, “Please call in the first person for questioning.”
The list was not a very long one; Eladrians generally kept to themselves as a rule. It came as no surprise to Thane, certainly, when his chief steward was brought before him first. He was taken to stand behind the small stand usually reserved for petitioners, facing Thane and the row of magistrates, the murmuring crowd to his back and a soldier to each side. He wore a vaguely stunned look that Thane suspected had been on his face since his men had escorted him here. The soldiers had been strictly instructed not to reveal their purpose to the individuals in question or permit them to speak amongst themselves before they could be questioned.
“M-my lord?” Darius stammered. “I fear there has been a mistake...I have no petition to make, my lord.”
“Your name, please, for the record,” Thane said calmly.
“Darius en’Heran, my lord,” the steward said. He quickly brushed a lock of blond hair out of his eyes with a shaking hand.
“Your position in my Keep, Darius?”
“I am chief steward of the domestic staff, my lord.”
“The entire staff?” Thane knew the answer, of course, but formalities were what they were.
“All but the kitchen workers, my lord. They are their own domain.” Darius seemed to be gaining a little confidence, however confused he was at his presence there.
“I commissioned you with a specific task yesterday, Darius. You were most prompt in fulfilling it for me. Would you care to explain it?”
Darius relaxed visibly. “Of course, my lord. You asked me to compile a list of all workers who have been within the Keep since the employ of Kesara Jonril, who have also had communications or contact outside of Eladria.”
“How many persons are on this list?”
“A dozen, my lord.”
“And how is it you were not on this list?”
Darius stared at him like a startled deer. “I beg your pardon, my lord?”
“You have had no communication with any person outside of Eladria, Darius?” Thane’s voice was soft, but cold. Darius grew very still, his face paling as the implication sank in.
“It-it was an oversight, my lord...I simply did not think...I mean, surely I am not under suspicion...I thought you knew I was not the tratior!” Darius spluttered. He gripped the sides of the stand and it trembled between his hands. Thane was a bit taken aback by the display of emotion: Darius was no soldier, that was clear.
“Protocols must be followed, Darius,” Thane chided. “Dreadfully sloppy not to include yourself, when you are a Keep worker who did have communications outside of Eladria. But pray rectify the matter now. Who have you been in contact with?”
“I communicate with all the suppliers of household goods from outside our country- for the housekeeping, of course. Anything to do with the kitchens is their jurisdiction, as it were.”
“How many are those?”
“Perhaps a dozen different suppliers.”
“Where are they located?”
Darius listed three of Eladria’s neighbors. Malachi’s holding was notably absent.
“Do you have any personal contacts outside of Eladria? Friends? Family?”
“N-not really, my lord.”
“How does one not really have friends or family outside of Eladria?” Graunt remarked. Thane glanced at her in surprise and she gave a slight nod of confirmation. Oh Darius, Thane thought, unaccountably disappointed.
“W-well, my lord, it is only that I do not speak with her, you understand, I have not written to her or seen her for many years, I assure you I scarcely consider her kin-” Darius babbled. His eyes were so wide the whites stood out all around his brown irises.
Thane glanced at Graunt and she gave another almost imperceptible nod. Truth.
“Who is this ‘she,” Darius?” Thane asked gently.
“M-my sister, but truly, my lord, it’s been so long, she married a merchant from Marcelles,” he blurted. Another nod from Graunt.
“Do you have any additional information to supply that might aid us in uncovering the traitor, Darius? Anyone come to you asking you to pass on correspondence along with your own, for example, or asking questions about how to do so? Perhaps asking questions about Mistress Jonril?” It felt odd to use her surname, which he had never even heard before a very different person had announced it in this same hall.
“No, nothing about correspondence, my lord,” Darius said slowly. “Another servant did ask after Kesara, how she was getting along and if she would-” Suddenly Darius stopped, his face going white. “Oh gods, if she would be coming to the judgment day...she said I ought to invite her, that seeing Eladrian justice firsthand might keep her behaving.” Darius shook his head rapidly. “My lord, I had no idea it meant anything...I mean, I still don’t, do I, but-”
“Who?” Thane asked, very quietly. But the blood was suddenly roaring in his ears, a war hound who had caught a promising scent.
“Cook!” Darius said.
The crowd behind him erupted. Thane gestured to one of his men by the doors and tried to focus on his breathing. Stay calm, Eladria. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything. It isn’t a proof of guilt, by any means. Graunt’s words of warning about leaving Kesara with the kitchen workers rang anew in his ears. He couldn’t understand how it was even possible one might resort to such unheard-of treachery for mere dislike of the girl. Cook had barely even had her-
“Which Cook?” Thane demanded through the cacophony. Darius had no trouble hearing, though. He had been staring at Thane in mute horror since the admission had fallen from his lips.
“T-the old one...I’m sorry...the last one...”
Thane gestured again, impatiently. That made more sense, he thought. Kesara had spent most of her employ being overseen by the former Cook, Eva.
The one who had lost her position after trying to put the Ytaren in the path of his headache-fueled temper.
“I’m an idiot,” Thane muttered under his breath. He didn’t think anyone would be able to hear him over the din, but Graunt gave a loud snort.
“Eladrian women are still women, more’s the pity,” Graunt said, just loud enough for him to hear. He could hear the amusement in her voice. Thane scowled, Darius jumped, the soldiers on each side of him raised their weapons threateningly at their charge and several persons in the front rows of seating gasped.
He barely stopped himself from adding to the chaos even more by sighing his exasperation.
Thane motioned for Darius to be taken to the side as Eva, formerly Cook, was brought in. Her round face was ashen, her eyes darting around uncertainly as she was escorted to the stand.
Thane appraised her for a moment, still struggling to keep himself calm. She somehow looked older than the last time he had seen her, her face more drawn, the lines around her brown eyes deeper. Still, the thought of her being the traitor twisted something inside him. She had been Cook for years, had been an unseen constant in his life. This turn of events disturbed him more deeply than he could say.
So instead, he said what he could, as clearly and distinctly as poss
ible. “Your name, madame.”
“Eva en’Garl,” she said weakly. She twisted her fingers together on top of the stand, her brow furrowed in evident confusion.
“Your position in my Keep?”
Eva stiffened a little, but answered without hesitating, “I am Cook’s second in the kitchens, my lord.”
“How long have you been in my employ, Eva?”
“Why, since your father’s day, m’lord. Must be nearly thirty years gone now.”
Thane swallowed hard. “Thirty years, Eva. Have you had any sort of contact in the past year or so with anyone outside of Eladria?”
Eva stared at him a moment. “Well, yes, m’lord. I..er...I used to be Cook, and did all the ordering for what isn’t made here in Eladria.”
“No personal contacts? Friends, lovers?”
At the last word, Eva’s chin came up. “O’ course not, m’lord. I’m a loyal Eladrian, as well you should know.” There was a thinly veiled note of accusation in her words that Thane didn’t care for, but before he could respond to it, he heard Graunt clear her throat none too subtly.
His eyes narrowed. “You have had no personal contacts outside of Eladria in the past year? Yes or no?”
“No, m’lord!” Eva said firmly.
Now a cough that sounded suspiciously like a laugh from Graunt.
“Supposedly, Eladrians will not lie to their ruling lord. It is a point of honor for us,” Thane remarked off-handedly, as though speaking to someone else. “But it seems I am the first betrayed and the first lied to as well. Have I served our kin so poorly, Eva, as to deserve such a distinction? Have I given any of you any less than all I am? Have I not loved this country with whatever there is in me that can love?” His words had dropped into a mumble that he knew was probably undecipherable to those present, but he didn’t care. His throat suddenly ached. How could this be happening? How could everything he had held true about his own people, the people he had led since he was a boy of fourteen, possibly be so wrong?
“We will adjourn a few moments,” he said in a normal tone to the chief magistrate.Then to his men, “She goes nowhere, understand? Nor any of the others that must be questioned. They will not speak, they will not move.”
His soldiers saluted at once and he strode from the room, his heart breaking. He made his way through the side hall and down to a round, sparsely furnished room that had once been someone’s office. There was a wooden table to serve for a desk and a couple of chairs, a small, empty fireplace and nothing on the walls. When he’d been a boy, one of his father’s advisers had used it, and it had looked much different to him then. Better furnished, for one thing, with paintings of scenes from Eladrian history on the walls. He had loved those paintings, most of them depicting great battles. He wondered idly where they’d gone, if they had belonged to the man who had worked here or if he’d simply taken them when Thane had dismissed most of his father’s staff.
He knuckled his eyes, hoping he’d wake up from this nightmare. He recalled Malachi telling him once how naive he was for a supposed warlord. The older man had laughed at his friend’s “innocence” and Thane had thought it nothing more than mockery about his inexperience with women. Now he was seeing those words in a whole new light and he wondered if the whole Court laughed at his stupidity when he didn’t know it.
I thought I knew everything, he thought sadly. Or everything I needed to know.
“Thane? My lord?” a soft voice intruded on his inner tirade and he wheeled towards it without thinking, his hands falling from his eyes. Kesara stood leaning against the doorway, her wide eyes the only reaction to his movement.
“You should be off your feet, Kes,” he said. “Whatever you’re mad about, it can’t be that pressing, can it?”
Kesara tilted her head, regarding him curiously from the corners of her eyes in a way he’d noticed before put him in mind of a bird.
“Why do you do that?” he asked abruptly, his curiosity momentarily overriding his self pity. “It’s very strange, that thing you do with your head.”
Kesara gave a startled laugh, straightening up. “I can see better when I don’t quite look at something straight on. It’s a racial feature.”
“Your peripheral vision is better? Huh,” Thane said. He wondered briefly what that could mean in a battlefield application, but quickly banished the thought for another time. “Why exactly would you want to see me better?”
“Why wouldn’t I? I’m trying to understand why you left like that. You looked upset,” Kesara said. “You still do...I think.” She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and he took a step backwards, motioning to one of the remaining chairs.
“Sit down, Kes, for gods’ sakes,” Thane said crisply. She obeyed and he added, “Of course I’m upset. Everything I thought I could take for granted about the people I’ve lived my entire life in service of, as it turns out, was just a pretty fantasy. I thought it was impossible for an Eladrian to engage in the petty betrayals of other peoples. Wrong. I thought Eladrians did not lie to their lords. Wrong again!”
“Most Eladrians are loyal and honest, though. Most of them would lay down and die for you without thinking twice. Would you really dismiss that because of one exception? No one’s perfect, regardless of where they were born,” Kesara said philosophically. Thane snorted.
“This isn’t just one exception, Kes. I find it hard to believe that she could have betrayed me alone.”
“So you’ve tried her and found her guilty already, then? You haven’t even heard what she has to say for herself yet,” Kesara pointed out. “This is the Eladrian sense of justice?”
“Maybe the Eladrian sense of justice is another nice fairy story,” Thane said bitterly. “But no, you’re right, she must be heard out before I reach a decision. You have to admit it’s not looking good, though. Are you aware you only came to my tower the day we met because she meant for me to kill you for her?”
“I was under that distinct impression, yes,” Kesara said dryly. “It’s common knowledge that only certain servants are allowed in your private rooms, my lord, and there’s no question I wasn’t one of them.”
Thane grunted. “She lost her position as Cook because of what she did.”
At that, Kesara looked startled, her eyebrows almost disappearing into her hairline. “Really? That was because of me? I mean, really?”
“Is that so hard to believe? She tried to kill you. Maybe she wouldn’t have been holding the ax, but she might as well have been. She said she only wanted you banished when I asked her about it, but I have never exactly been known for my rational and clear thinking behavior in the throes of those damned headaches. She knew that. She counted on it. I thought her demotion was a sufficient penalty, given that no harm was actually done, and...no offense...but you are a foreigner, and I didn’t exactly know you very well.” He was horrified to realize he had started to blush, the tell-tale heat spreading up his neck. He examined his fingernails as though suddenly recalling the critical importance of immaculate hygiene for Dread Lords on judgment day, sparing himself her reaction to this revelation.
“Ah. I see,” Kesara said flatly. “And I suppose it really isn’t so hard to believe when you put it like that. After all, you know me better now and still don’t hesitate to use me as bait without my knowledge or consent.”
He looked at her against his will, so great was his astonishment. She was staring at him with her lips set in a grim line, her arms crossed over her chest.
“Eh? Bait? What is this?” he asked, confused.
“You wanted me here today so badly not to see the vaunted ‘Eladrian justice’ but because you intended to flush out the traitor, and how better to increase the odds than to have me there, just as I was the first time?” Kesara gave a slight shrug without unfolding her arms. “It makes strategic sense, my lord.”
“It may well do, but that’s not why I wanted you to come. I wanted you to see justice done on your behalf,” Thane protested, surprised that he felt a l
ittle hurt at her rather unflattering assumption.
“Then why didn’t you tell me that? My lord,” Kesara asked quietly. Thane sighed.
“Perhaps I thought you would not agree to come if you knew it had to do with you. Don’t ask me where I would even get such an insane idea,” Thane said dryly. “Couldn’t be maybe the natural consequence of having to live in a keep full of xenophobes or anything.”
Kesara seemed to ponder this a moment, looking away from him. “I’m a little surprised you’d think of that,” she admitted. “Are you sure you didn’t make that up just now?”
Again Thane snorted. It was turning out to be that kind of day. Kesara looked back at him, but her arms fell away from her chest, her hands finding each other in her lap. “The fact remains, we don’t yet know what actually happened, however plausible your speculations are. And I don’t think these judgment days would have the reputation they do if that didn’t matter to you. I don’t think so many people would come to see you decide their fates arbitrarily or because you had a good guess.” Her voice was gentle. “Of course, thinking has never been my strong suit, so please correct me where I’m amiss, my lord.”
Thane chuckled without humor. “No, you are right. But even if Eva is somehow absolved...I have still been betrayed and lied to when it ought not to have been possible. Or so I thought once. What am I to do about that, Kes? I’ve given them everything. I’ve lived each hour for them.” Again he inspected his fingernails, not quite able to bring himself to watch her reaction. It wasn’t fear, he told himself. Just no need to indulge in unnecessary aggravation at this point.
“And you did so because you thought them better than all the other people in the world?”
“Well, in some ways, yes. In others, no. I never thought fidelity would be an issue with one of my own kinsmen. Now I feel like quite the fool, to be honest with you.” And he wondered then why he was being so honest with her. It somehow felt right to be, though, not that his feelings had ever held him in very good stead when it came to females.
