"Not right away," Hector said. "They couldn't run in that water. Ye had boots, and it took time. He coulda hid in the water. Hollow a reed, put it in his mouth, breathe through it. City men wouldna see him."
Stowe was about to deny that, but he didn't. If Hector had crawled under the surface of the water, he would be invisible. It was a good plan, but it didn't feel right. Too risky for a man who would sit days in a tree.
"But I think something else," Hector said.
Stowe gazed over at him. Hector looked natural here. The mud blended with the tree bark. Even the whites of his eyes reflected the silver lights flickering through the leaves above their heads. Hector, a creature of the Marsh, as alien from Stowe as the Fey.
The lights struck Stowe as odd. He had never seen lights that flickered in a perfect circle before. If he had had time, he would see if the man had tried to pull leaves from the branches higher up.
"This man rooting through the Marsh," Hector said. "Nearly killed a crane. I splashed, scared the crane. We don't kill them, ye know."
Stowe didn't know. He wasn't even certain what a crane was. But he nodded anyway.
"The man, he wasn't from here. Too tall. We got no one that tall."
"Did you get a good look at him?"
Hector shook his head. "He was as far from me as the road. But he didn't know customs. And he was thin. Normal thin, not like someone who ain't eaten."
"Could you see his skin? Was it dark?"
Hector held out his arms, and gazed down at them as if they would provide the answer. "No darker'n mine."
Stowe frowned. For a moment, he had thought Hector was describing a Fey. Then he looked at Hector's arms, covered in mud. The deep, dark brown of the Kenniland Marshes. Islander skin wasn't that color. Islander skin would reflect like sunlight off water.
"Like your skin now?"
"Ain't no one with good sense gonna spend time in the Marsh without covering his skin."
Stowe took that as a yes. Tall, thin, dark. Not knowing the customs. "Carrying a bow?"
"Had the arrow lined and the crane in his sights. Fine shot, that man."
"You think he killed the King?"
Hector shrugged. "Seems right."
"Do you know where he is now?"
"If I was him, I'd be long gone. Ye gave him time, ye know. If he hid. Ye all come to the village like something's on your tail, and all of ye come. No one stays by the Marsh. No one watches to see if someone comes out of hiding."
Stowe heard the tone again. City people. City people who were too stupid to know better. But they were panicked and frightened, and Stowe, at least, hoped that someone in the village would have told him he was wrong, that Alexander wasn't dead, that Alexander had merely fainted from pain.
No one had told him that.
And he had let the killer get away.
So far.
"You didn't see the man leave or where he was going, did you?"
"He was farther north," Hector said. "The palace says the Marshes start here, but they really start north a ways."
"When was this?"
"Day or so after ye hit the village. I wouldn'ta thought nothing of it if it weren't for that crane."
North. Toward Jahn. A Fey had come down to the Marshes to murder the king. A perfect murder. It would look like disgruntled peasants. Alexander had been wrong. Even with Jewel in the palace, the Fey would never give up.
But to murder Alexander. Where would it get them?
It would get Jewel closer to power.
Which meant Nicholas was in danger.
A sense of urgency Stowe hadn't felt before filled him. All this time he had wasted. The palace didn't know, and it would take him days to get back there. Days, even if he sent his swiftest messenger ahead.
He was trembling. "Anything else unusual about the man? Anything at all?"
Hector closed his eyes and frowned. A piece of mud flaked off his forehead and fell on the collar of his shirt. He didn't seem to notice.
Then he opened his eyes, but his stare seemed far away. "His hair," Hector said finally. "I ain't never seen hair like that on a person. It was black as a cat's and it run to his shoulders. First I thought it was mud, but if a man had mud in his hair it wouldn't blow with the breeze."
That it wouldn't. Stowe didn't need any more. He had all the evidence he needed.
A Fey had murdered Alexander.
Nicholas was next.
The war wasn't over.
The second round of fighting had just begun.
THE CORONATION
(One Day Later)
FOURTEEN
Charissa's arms ached. She was polishing the silver railings behind the huge dais. The light from the two story window had faded, and someone had lit torches around the room. One of the butlers had left for candles so that each work area would be illuminated.
Three days to clean the Coronation Hall. Three days to make it spotless. Didn't the gentry know that sometimes what they asked was impossible?
The Master of the House had agreed without conferring with the Master of the Halls. He had been appalled. No one had used the Coronation Hall in centuries. Coronations were held at the Tabernacle --had been for every King except a run of Constantines five hundred years before. Constantine the First had built this section of the palace, and he had tried to wrest control from the Rocaan, even, some said, tried to have the Rocaan killed, although Charissa thought that part a story. One of the chamber maids had told Charissa the entire history of the Hall as they were polishing the brass rails near the door.
That had seemed like months ago, even though it had been a day. The entire palace staff --except for the kitchen staff --had focused on preparing this room, and it would still be a close call to have it done by noon the following day. No one had looked in the hall in years. It had been taken off the cleaning roster when the dead King had been a baby, maybe before.
The Coronation Hall made the Great Hall seem tiny. The chambermaid, whose name was Lis, had told Charissa that the Great Hall had been built first, centuries before this part of the palace, and that you could tell in the way the room was put together. Finally Charissa had asked Lis how she knew so much, and Lis had smiled. Lis didn't work in the palace. She worked for Lord Enford, and his wife taught the servants to read, and actually let them have time in the library. Lis had found a liking for history, especially history of buildings, and had learned everything she could about them.
But Lis had moved to a different part of the Hall that afternoon, and Charissa had lost her companion. The woman who worked beside her now was elderly. She had come from Lord Miller's estate where they frowned on talking at all. Charissa had thought all places were the same, but she soon discovered that she preferred working in the palace to places with rules like Lord Miller's. Lord Enford's estate sounded frightening in its opportunities. What would a woman do who could read and who knew history? It did little for Lis. She had to leave her family and let them continue to farm. Charissa at least got room, board, and wages which she could send home.
Charissa sighed and sat back on her heels. She hadn't realized until she moved that her knees hurt too. The woman beside her kept stopping and putting pressure on the small of her back. Charissa at least didn't have to worry about that. She was young, and she was sturdy. She had to be. She had worked for days straight with only a few hours sleep a night.
The Master of the Hall let everyone have a bit of sleep. He said it made them fresher, more able to see and attack the dirt. Charissa wasn't certain. She always felt more tired after those naps, as if the time away allowed her body to assess its aches and pains.
She rubbed her neck and glanced around. Men hung from scaffolding, cleaning the arches, and shining the windows. Women huddled on the floor, polishing the gold, silver and brass that covered everything. Washer women had scrubbed the large floor each day, and had finally gotten the grit off of it. They were still scrubbing, and would until the butlers supervised the tables. That, someone
had said, would be around dawn. Charissa hoped to be in her room by then.
The Hall did look better than it had. When she had first seen it, she thought the cleaning task impossible. Spider webs hung from the arches like gossamer sheets, and the dust was so thick that inches of it covered everything. The great miraculous two story window was hidden under layers of dirt and grime, and the seats on the second floor balconies were broken and rotted. When the Master of the Hall had shown the chambermaids the areas to begin polishing, Charissa had thought he was joking. The tarnish was so thick and black it looked as if it had been burned on.
Now the Hall gleamed. Even under the torch-light, the brass rails sparkled. The silver around the base of the window revealed its etchings. The floor was an expensive marble, imported from Nye, and the arches were white stone. When the Master of the House placed the red runner along the center of the floor, and leading up the stairs to the coronation platform, the Hall would be perfect.
Even so, the details weren't done. Whoever had designed this hall had never thought of the people who had to clean it. Tiny bits of silver and gold, small curves under the arches, rotted wood supports beside the stairs. Detail after detail after detail. It seemed that the group got one large thing done only to discover a hundred smaller problems underneath.
"Group Five! Food!"
Charissa looked up. She was in group five. The Master of the House stood in the double arched doors, his hands on his hips, surveying the work. He had been the one to issue the food call. He supervised nights, while the Master of the Hall had taken days. The system was supposed to give at least one of them sleep, but it hadn't worked that way. Neither of them had rested since the work began and they looked it. Everyone would have looked that way if one of the butlers hadn't suggested the numbering systems --marking the workers off into ten groups --and having the groups rotate.
She tucked her polishing cloth in the pocket of her large apron, and stood slowly. She had learned on the first long day that rising too fast could hurt. This time she was glad she rose slowly. Her right ankle had gone to sleep.
She braced her weight on her left leg. The elderly woman paused long enough to say sourly, "It'll be a long time to Group Eight."
Charissa almost volunteered to let the woman take her place in Five, but the comment seemed designed for the kind of response. Charissa said nothing at all.
The tingling in her ankle had stopped. Group members from all over the hall were getting off scaffolding, setting down cleaning equipment, brushing dust off aprons. Members of Group Four were filing back in. They still looked tired, but the food had refreshed them somehow. Charissa's mother used to say that food was sleep, and Charissa hadn't known the truth of that statement until this project.
She wiped off her skirts, and walked down the steps. Young Prince Nicholas --the King now --would walk up those steps in the afternoon, looking slender and strong and handsome. He had never forgotten her. All those things that had happened to him, all the people he had met, all the servants he had seen, and he still smiled at her when he saw her and greeted her by name. They had only had one conversation years ago, when she had told him about a strange cat that talked Fey and about the changes in an old Master of the House. But the Prince remembered that conversation. Sometimes she would dream that instead of taking her hand on that afternoon so long ago, he had reached over and kissed her. Then she would be queen now instead of that ugly Fey woman.
Dreams, dreams. Charissa's mother used to say that dreaming would only bring her sadness. Chambermaids never became Queen. Queens came from other countries --Nicholas's mother had come from Nye --or from the peerage, like King Alexander's beloved second wife. Not in all the history of Blue Isle did chambermaids become Queen.
Charissa knew. Lis had told her.
Charissa was almost to the arched doorway. The walk was a long one. It took her twice as long to cross this Hall as it did the Great Hall. The Master of the House was frowning at her. He waved his hand impatiently, as if by moving the air he could move her. She bowed her head and hurried past him.
She had little to complain about with this Master of the House. He treated her well, unlike the man before him, the man she had talked to the Prince about. That Master of the House had made her do things to keep her job, things the Prince said she would never have to do again. If she ever had the problem with anyone in the House, she was to come to him. She half-wished the new Master had tried something so that she had an excuse to see the Prince.
The corridor was warm compared to the Hall. The Hall would never be warm. There were no fireplaces. It wasn't even worth the try.
Voices whispered behind her, and she braced herself. She recognized the tone of the whisper. A person couldn't work in the palace since she was eleven without knowing that sound. Someone important was coming.
She let out a small sigh. This visit would probably delay her dinner. And she hadn't eaten since midday.
She turned, grabbing her skirts in preparation to courtesy and froze in mid-movement. Nicholas. Young Prince Nicholas. Nicholas, the next King.
He was slender with broad shoulders made broader by the jerkin he wore. His clothing had evolved since he married --he had stopped wearing open blouses and started wearing the tight jerkins of the Fey. He wore tight brown breeches that disappeared into his boots, and Charissa had to force herself to keep from looking at the bulge between his legs. His face had narrowed --he appeared to be eating less --and he had deep shadows under his eyes. His long blond hair was loose and curled around his shoulders. Instead of softening his appearance, the hair strengthened it.
The Master of the House hurried to Prince Nicholas's side, and bowed. The others bowed as well, and stood when the Master stood. Charissa had been too stunned to move. The Prince--the King--noted her, and smiled.
She smiled back.
The Master glanced at her, then moved between her and the King. Nicholas.
"Tis welcome ye are, Sire."
Nicholas nodded. "I came to see how the preparations are going."
The double arched doors stood open. The work inside had stopped.
"I will na lie to ye, Sire, tis been a hard few days."
"That it has," Nicholas said softly.
"But we'll have it for ye, we will."
The others had moved on, anxious to be away from the new King. The old King had been volatile when work wasn't getting done. Everyone expected the new King to be the same way. Charissa tried to tell them otherwise, but no one listened to her. She cleaned the west wing, they said, but had no real interaction with the royal family.
"Good," Nicholas said, but he sounded as if he didn't really care. His whole being slumped forward as though he were having difficulty standing upright. The Fey woman should have tended to him, but the Fey knew nothing of nurture.
"Been polishing and working since we got the word, Sire," the Master said. "Ye'd na a believed this place, what with all the --"
"Tis sure I am his Highness dinna wanna know how much dust grows in the dark," Charissa said. The Master shot her a horrified look, but Nicholas smiled.
"Charissa," he said.
Charissa took a few steps forward and curtsied as best she could. "Tis good ta see ye, Sire."
"And you," he said.
She kept her head bent, her gaze on his booted feet. They walked around the Master's foppish shoes and stopped in front of her. The new King's touch on her chin was light. He raised her slowly until she faced him.
It had been years since she had been this close to him. He smelled of leather and the potpourri the housekeeper insisted line the closets. Grief had taken a toll on his face. There were lines near his eyes she had never seen before.
"Ye look tired," she said.
His thumb traced her jawline and then he let his hand drop. "Sometimes, Charissa, I think I'll never sleep again."
That Fey woman. No one could sleep with something that angular and dangerous in their bed. "I --we --was all sorry bout yer da."
"My da." Nicholas's smile softened. Behind him, the Master was shaking his head furiously. Charissa decided to ignore him. "Yes. I'm sorry about my da, too."
"But tomorrow, tis important for ye."
He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "They never tell you that important days often come because of sad ones."
"Charissa!" the Master said. "Ye got ta get to the kitchens."
"Let her be," Nicholas said without turning. "I'll make sure she comes back when she is supposed to."
Of course he wouldn't, but it wouldn't matter. He was King now. No one could yell at him.
The Master put his hands on his hips. He looked as if he were about to yell again. Nicholas glanced at him.
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