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Kishori was barely in Keelweard an hour before she heard the rumors. People claiming to be the young Sigor king and his sister had visited the duke. And someone who said he was Caedmon Aldred had been with them. People at the taverns and inns thought it very odd, and more than a little suspicious, because these “royal” visitors had now disappeared again. Some people wondered if they had been frauds and had run away when they were found out.
The queen’s men back in Formacaster had given Kishori the name of a man to see in Keelweard, but she wanted to look around on her own first. The less she depended on these people, and the fewer of them who knew her name, the better.
At an old inn called The Ploughman, she was talking to one of the bar wenches about the rumors, when the girl suddenly pointed across the room and said, “If anyone knows the truth, it’ll be that fellow over there.”
Kishori looked and saw a big, strapping fellow with dark brown hair and creamy skin, poring over a stack of parchment while sipping a mug of ale. “Who’s that?”
“That’s Rodger Cuthing, our duke’s son and heir.”
Kishori bought a bottle of whiskey and then sidled over to the empty table right beside Lord Rodger. “You look so serious, my lord. Wouldn’t you rather enjoy yourself a little?”
He looked at her and grinned. “I wouldn’t say ‘no’ to some of that whiskey, if you’re offering.”
It had been a long time since she’d been forced to do this in order to eat—back in the starving days before she had met her husband. She didn’t like to think about those days, and she didn’t want to do anything that she couldn’t tell Jon about. But at the same time, she had to get back to him before she could tell him anything. And she couldn’t get back to him until she finished this job.
She poured Lord Rodger a glass, and they drank a toast to “New friends.” He told her he liked her dress; she’d chosen it specifically for the low-cut bodice, and judging by the way he was staring, that was exactly why he liked it.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked. He put a hand on her knee.
“Of course, my lord. You know, I’ve always wanted to see the palace here.”
His hand slid up her thigh. In her mind, she said, “Oh, Jon. I’m so sorry. I’ll make this up to you.”
“As it happens,” he said, “we’ve got plenty of empty guestrooms at the moment. What are you doing this weekend?”
She reached over and toyed with the laces of his shirt. “I don’t believe I have any plans. And...I hear your guests have all left.”
“Which guests are these?” He pulled away from her.
“Perhaps I was misinformed,” she said quickly, trying to move closer again.
He finished his whiskey and stood, gathering his stack of parchment together. “Thank you for the drink, madam, but I’m afraid I have remembered an important appointment.”
“Oh, blast it all,” muttered Kishori, resting her head in her hands as he rushed away. She was badly out of practice, and she’d been far too forward. She wouldn’t have made that sort of mistake a decade ago.
That was the closest she came all day to learning about the duke’s mysterious visitors, and by nightfall, she had to accept that she needed help. So, following the directions the queen’s men had given her back in Formacaster, she went across town through a heavy snowstorm to a grubby little alleyway, where a peeling red door led up to a tiny apartment over a cobbler’s shop. The stairwell smelled of boiled cabbage and mildew, and the plaster was flaking onto the floor.
The man who opened the door, however, was dressed in rich black velvet, and had a neatly-trimmed black beard. He was not fat, precisely, but there was enough spare flesh on him to make it clear, along with his clothes, that this sad little apartment was not where he usually lived.
“You must be Kishori,” he said. “I was told you might drop by.”
“And you are...Elberic?” she asked.
“Elberic, Sohn von Ulric,” he said, with another little bow. “At your service, madam.”
He was an Odelander, but his Myrcian was perfect, without a hint of an accent. The queen’s men had said he worked for Bischof Lothar and was the Glaube Church’s agent in Keelweard. But for the time being, at least, he was on the Gramirens’ side.
He poured her some thick black malt beer and they sat at a rickety little table, talking by the light of a half-hooded safety lamp. She told him about her encounter with Rodger Cuthing, and how she had failed in her attempt to seduce his lordship.
“It’s just as well,” said Elberic. “No doubt this was Earstien’s doing—a way for you to preserve your chastity. There is no need for such extreme measures.”
Kishori would have been annoyed, but she had a feeling he was probably right. “So, were the Sigors really here or not?”
“They were most assuredly here,” said Elberic. “I spoke to some soldiers who witnessed the young king giving a comically bad extemporaneous speech. If he and his friends had been imposters, they would have been better prepared. They have left now, though.”
“And where did they go?”
Elberic frowned into his beer. “I am not entirely certain. One of our people in Newshire thought that Edwin was at Rawdon, but that appears to have been a case of mistaken identity.”
“Too bad.”
“Yes, it is. In any case, one of our men who came west through Allenford told me a most alarming story this morning. Apparently, some of our fellows—if we can call them that, for they were little better than bandits—were surprised and slaughtered in a church. The survivors claim they were overpowered by a small party of travelers, and that one of the party was armed with a royal sword.”
That was the best lead Kishori had gotten all day, so she spent the night on Elberic’s floor, and then early the next morning, they rode east up the river road as fast as their horses could carry them. By late afternoon, as the sun was stretching out their shadows over the snowy road in front of them, they spotted Allenford, and they hurried over to the little stone church.
Something horrible had happened there. Eight new graves had been dug in the frozen earth, and inside the sanctuary, Kishori and Elberic found the preost directing a group of deacons and parishioners in cleaning up blood that had been splattered everywhere.
“Uleflecht protect us,” said Elberic, bowing his head. “Who would do such a thing, desecrating a house of Earstien?”
The preost heard and rushed over. “To be honest, these fellows—Earstien grant them Light—got what was coming to them. They dragged those poor girls in here, and their bodyguard, too, and I wouldn’t even like to think what horrors they were going to inflict on them all.”
“Poor girls?” asked Kishori. “What did these girls look like, exactly?”
The preost described them: all three on the shorter side, with dark brown hair. One of them had darker skin, “Like you, madam,” he said, looking at Kishori. “And you, too, sir,” he added, nodding at Elberic.
Did he mean the woman was Sahasran? Or did he mean Odelandic? Kishori was often mistaken for an Odelander back in Montgomery.
Elberic asked about the knight who had been with the women, and it seemed he had been a big fellow, well over six feet, with huge arms.
“Are you sure there wasn’t a boy, too?” Kishori asked. “He would have been thirteen or fourteen. Maybe a squire to the knight, perhaps?”
The preost shook his head. “No, madam. Only four of them. I’m quite certain of that.”
Some of the townspeople disagreed, though. They said there had been eight people, or ten, or two. Someone had seen strange lights in the sky and swore there had been a sorcerer with the party that escaped. But one thing everyone agreed on, however, was that the group had escaped to the east, into the woods.
“Heading toward Leornian,” Kishori said, half to herself, looking away over the fields. It made perfect sense. The Duke of Leornian had long been a Sigor supporter. He had suffered terribly for it, and everyone knew he was no friend to the Gramirens.
As Kishori and Elberic wandered back to their horses, the Glaube agent said, “I’m sorry you had to see that. The blood and gore in there, I mean.”
She gave a rueful chuckle. “Believe me, that’s not the worst I’ve ever seen. I was in the Loshadnarodski War.”
He raised an eyebrow. “So was I.”
“No! Really?”
“I was a fool, and I left the seminary for a time to join the Myrcian army. They were recruiting mercenaries and I wanted...adventure.”
“I was on the other side, I’m afraid,” Kishori said.
“Then perhaps your fight was more honorable than mine.”
“I suspect not. It was dreadful.” She shook her head, feeling the shame all over again.
“At least in the end, it led me back to Earstien,” said Elberic.
“In the end, I met my husband,” said Kishori, smiling, as they reached the horses.
Elberic gave her a hand into her saddle. “Then it was a blessing in disguise for both of us.”