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“Holy Finster. I know that woman.” Kishori handed the spyglass to Elberic and pointed.
“Which one?” The Odelander raised the glass to his eye.
“The one with darker skin. That’s Lady Rada Kaur. Her mother was a Loshadnarodski princess. Her father was a Sahasran diplomat who converted.”
Kishori and Elberic had pushed on through the storm, even though sometimes they had to inch along, leading their horses through the drifts. Then the sun had come out, on a day like spring. All the snow melted, and they had been able to make up time. So much so, in fact, that they had very nearly caught up with the four perpetrators of the church massacre. The three women and one man were riding across the Aldred Bridge, into the ancient city of Leornian. Kishori and Elberic stood on the riverbank, barely a quarter mile away, hidden from view by the tall reeds.
“Is she a friend of yours?” Elberic asked.
“No. We barely knew each other. But I remember her from the war, all the same.”
“Very curious. That’s Lady Hildred Cuthing, daughter of the Duke of Keelshire, on her left. But the woman on the right is definitely Elwyn Sigor. What on earth is a Loshadnarodski royal doing with a Sigor princess? One would think they would hate each other after the war.” He looked at Kishori and smiled. “Then again, sometimes with Earstien’s help we manage to put aside old antipathies.”
“Very true.” She smiled back. “You’re sure that’s Princess Elwyn?”
“Yes. Bischof Lothar sent me to Briddobad with a message two years ago, offering an alliance with the Sigors. They unwisely turned down the offer. Be that as it may, I met the princess at a reception at the Pradivani Palace. Dozens of other people were there. I doubt she remembers me at all.”
“But the important thing,” said Kishori with a sigh, “is that Edwin really isn’t with them.”
She and Elberic walked up the riverbank, retrieved their horses, and rode over the bridge, debating where the Sigor boy could possibly have gone. They could easily have overtaken their quarry, but as they rode through the bustling town, they stayed back at least a block.
The princess, Lady Rada, and their companions turned into Addle Street, where many of the richest mansions and most important merchant houses were located. Traffic here was slow, with dozens of big carts rumbling along, full of everything from tinware to wine casks.
“This is the way to the Bocburg,” said Elberic. “They must be here to see the duke.”
But several blocks before they reached the old castle, the four riders stopped at a small, decrepit inn called The Good Knight.
“Odd place for them to stay,” said Kishori.
She and Elberic waited a few minutes and then went into the inn to ask for a room there, too. Unfortunately, the innkeeper claimed he had no more space. “A party of four just took my last two beds,” he said. “You’ll have to go elsewhere, I’m afraid.”
“Just as well,” said Elberic, as they headed back out to the street. “I have a contact here—a Gramiren agent. I know she’ll find us a place to stay, even if she is obliged to turn out another guest in order to do it.”
They continued on along Addle Street, past enormous marble townhouses with wide shaded porticos and big half-timbered storefronts with overhanging second stories. After a few blocks, they rode by the massive front gate of the Bocburg. The ancient castle had once been the seat of the Kings of Leornian. Now it was the home of a mere duke, but it still projected an air of wealth and unstoppable power. The guards at the gate, wearing the Dryhten family livery, looked stern and serious. Not the sort of men who would let a girl in for a smile and a kiss.
“We’ll have to think how to gain access,” Kishori whispered.
“Hopefully our contact will have some ideas,” said Elberic.
From the castle, they continued east on Crown Street, until Elberic took them up a small alley and stopped outside a picturesque old tavern with sagging wood framed windows and a slate roof covered in moss. By the front door, there was a sign in black and gold letters informing passersby that this was the “World-Famous Sparrow & Shield,” which had once been “Ye Favorite Haunt of Edmund Dryhten, First King of Myrcia.” Farther down, another, smaller sign invited guests to sample, “Our Allenford Ale,” “ye Oasestadt Omelet,” or “ye Haydon Marsh Casserole.”
Inside, the tavern was packed, with dozens of fat merchants and their bejeweled wives rubbing elbows with gawking farmers in town for the day and dressed up in their best clothes. The tavern girls weaved their way between the tables, carrying giant platters of food and half a dozen mugs of ale at once. Kishori noticed that one of the women had dark hair, a silver paper crown, and a dress with the Dryhten arms. Another had blonde hair (obviously a wig) and the arms of Haydonshire. And yet a third had a curly red wig and the arms of Keneburg.
She asked Elberic why the girls were dressed this way, and the Glaube agent blushed. “The girls represent Edmund Dryhten’s various conquests, you see.” He pointed at the brunette. “His wife, Queen Maud.” At the blonde: “Cliona, Countess of Haydon.” At the redhead: “Duchess Shaela of Keneburg.”
Kishori shook her head, astonished. “I’m...not quite sure whether to be amused or revolted.”
They took a seat, and soon the girl dressed as Queen Maud came over. When she saw Elberic, one of her penciled eyebrows went up, and she said, “I’m guessing you don’t need to hear about our specials today. Give me a few minutes, and meet me out back.”
There was a little courtyard there, with a rain barrel and an herb garden, and the woman led them over to the far side, nearer to the stables. Elberic introduced the woman as Lucy Rankin, and as she dropped a curtsy, she removed her dark wig and paper crown, revealing a head of thick blonde hair.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, grinning at Kishori. “You’re wondering why I’m not playing the Countess of Haydon. Well, if you had your choice, wouldn’t you want to be a queen?”
“I suppose so,” said Kishori.
Elberic said they needed a place to stay, and Lucy Rankin immediately found them a pair of rooms over the stables. “These usually get rented out by the hour, if you know what I mean,” she chuckled, “but I’ll let you folks have them for the night. Or as long as you need them, either way.”
Elberic decided he needed a bath immediately, and while the servants brought up pails of hot water to his room, Lucy showed Kishori to the other little bedroom.
“I hope I didn’t spoil anything by putting you two in separate beds,” said Lucy, with a little grin.
“What?” It took Kishori a second to see what the woman meant. “Oh! Me and him...? Earstien, no. I’m married, you see. But it’s kind of you to think of it, anyway.”
Lucy nodded. “I can respect that. Elberic would be quite a catch for any girl, I think. But maybe not for you. Or me, either, for that matter.”
“Oh? Are you married?” asked Kishori.
Lucy looked out the window. “I almost was. I’ve been working here since I could hold a bucket and work the pump in the yard, you see. First mopping the floor, then doing the dishes, then cooking the food, then serving it in the common room. Anyhow, during the Loshadnarodski War, a lot of soldiers came through. One of them happened to take a fancy to me, and I took a bit of a fancy to him, too. But....” She held up her hands and shrugged.
“But he was killed,” said Kishori softly. The uncomfortable thought occurred to her that she might have been the one who had killed him.
“He was killed,” Lucy confirmed. She wiped her nose. “Fucking Sigors and their fucking war.”
“Fucking Sigors,” agreed Kishori.
Lucy pretended to straighten the pillows and the covers on the bed, and Kishori went and examined a little watercolor of “The Aldred Bridge at Sunset” while the poor woman got herself under control again.
“Anyway,” Lucy said finally, after taking a deep breath, “the point is we should take things as they come, I suppose. Don’t leave things for tomorrow, I mean.” She smiled. “If you honestly want to stay faithful to your husband, then you’re a damned good woman. But at the same time, well.... I like Elberic, and I can see the way he looks at you. I’m just saying that if you wanted to live for the moment, this might be the moment you’re waiting for, if you see what I’m saying.”
She left after that, and Kishori sat on the sagging old bed, looking out the window and staring at nothing in particular. Was Elberic really in love with her? She hadn’t noticed any great passion on his part, but then this Lucy woman knew him much better. Maybe there were signs Kishori had missed.
For a few minutes, she thought about Elberic, trying to imagine how he would kiss. How he would make love. How that beard of his would feel on her if he went down between her legs. How he would smile at her in the morning when they woke up together.
“No, no, no!” she thought, pounding her fists into the pillow. Here she was, hundreds of miles from home, and the only reason she was doing any of this was to earn the right to go back to Jon. Her husband was waiting for her. He was probably frantic. What would he think if he knew his dear little wife was sitting in a seedy room behind a tavern, pondering adultery?
But at the same time, Lucy was right. And she was more right than she probably knew. Kishori thought of those eight men, sliced to ribbons in the church at Allenford. Elwyn and Rada and their two companions had obliterated those Gramiren men with no more thought than if they had been rats or mosquitoes. And now Kishori and Elberic were chasing those same heartless killers. Frankly, her odds of living through this weren’t very good. If all she had left on this earth was one night, or maybe two, did she really want to spend it cold and alone, staring at a window and a bad watercolor of a bridge?
On the other hand, if she had only one or two nights left in this world, that meant she would be going to the next one pretty soon. Maybe to be reborn with her actions determining whether she was an insect or an angel. That didn’t bode well. Cheating on one’s husband probably earned a girl an instant demotion to a lizard or a snake.
Or maybe she would face a final judgment by the awful creator god of the Ivich churches—the one she’d sworn to believe in when she married Jon. Would Earstien understand why she had broken her vows right before the end? Probably not.
Kishori thought of the lessons she had taken with their local preost before converting. She remembered him talking about how there was disagreement between Ivich theologians as to when exactly a sin occurred—whether at the moment you thought of the idea, or when you committed the physical act.
“It has to be the physical act,” she told herself. “It’s not a sin until I actually do it.” She jumped up and changed into the best dress in her luggage—a black gown with a tight-fitting bodice. Queen Muriel’s men had given it to her, along with all the clothes she had on this journey, and it fit perfectly. Almost a little too perfectly, in fact. It made Kishori feel like she was on display.
“I’m not going to do anything,” she thought. “I’m going to talk to him, and we can see where it leads. I can always say ‘no’ later on.”
She left her room and knocked on Elberic’s door. But no one answered. A passing servant girl informed her that he had gone to the common room for supper after his bath, so Kishori hurried downstairs and across the courtyard.
It took her a few seconds to spot him—the room seemed as busy as ever. But finally she did. He sat in a dark corner booth, squeezed in quite close with the serving girl who had a red wig. The one dressed as Duchess Shaela of Keneburg. The girl was leaning in to talk to him, and he was leaning in to answer, laughing and grinning like he’d never found anyone more fascinating in his life. Kishori saw that the girl had a slim white hand on his leg under the table.
“Ah, I see.” She turned and walked back to her room.
It wasn’t a disappointment, precisely. She said a little prayer thanking Earstien—or whatever gods there might be—for saving her from making a stupid mistake. But even so, it was an anticlimax, and she couldn’t help feeling that she’d missed out on something that would have been new and wonderful, even if terribly, terribly wrong.
She fell asleep that night thinking of her husband, but in her dreams, she was with Elberic, lying on the altar of that stone church in Allenford, while he knelt down, parted her thighs, and started licking at her while he worked his fingers in.
Before the dream could get really good, there was someone shaking her, and she woke to find Lucy Rankin staring down at her, white-faced and wide-eyed. The candle in her hand was shaking. “You’ve got to wake up,” the woman hissed.
“What’s happened?” Through the window the sky was still mostly dark, but there were streaks of gray and red in the clouds.
“It’s Elberic.” And the way she said it made Kishori’s breath catch.
They went down the hall, and Lucy unlocked Elberic’s door to reveal a dreadful scene. The Glaube agent was sprawled on his bed, fully clothed, but with the silver hilt of a knife projecting from his right eye socket. His other eye was wide open, and his mouth gaped in a wordless scream. Blood had matted in his beard and stained the blankets under him.
“Who did this?” cried Kishori.
“No idea,” said Lucy, her voice breaking. “I...I don’t know what happened. One of the maids said she heard voices in here. She thought it was you—”
“It wasn’t. I was asleep.”
“I know. But who was it, then?”
Kishori told Lucy how she had seen Elberic with the girl pretending to be Shaela.
Lucy scowled. “That’s not possible. Rita was playing the duchess yesterday, and she left work right after you arrived. That had to be someone else wearing her costume.”
The knot in Kishori’s stomach tightened. Someone had deliberately hunted Elberic down. Had it been Princess Elwyn? Lady Rada? No, they were staying on the other side of town, and they had no idea that Kishori and Elberic were even following them, let alone where to find them. And that meant there was a new player in the game that none of them had anticipated.
“We need to talk to all the girls,” said Lucy. “We’ll find out if anyone saw anything. In fact, we can start right now, and after we’ve—”
“The first order of business,” said Kishori softly, “is to examine the body.”
She went over to Elberic and slowly drew the knife out. The blood had nearly dried, and it came up in crusted clumps, along with bits of what remained of the eyeball. Lucy took one look and vomited in the chamber pot.
Kishori, who had seen much worse things in the war, wiped the blade clean. It was slim—barely the width of her little finger, and shaped like a needle. Useless as a fighting weapon, it had been made for one thing—killing quickly and quietly. A professional assassin’s tool, no doubt. She turned it over, looking for a maker’s mark, but there wasn’t one. That in itself was significant. It was an expensive knife, well made and well-balanced. Normally the smith would be proud to put his mark on a blade like that. But not if he was working for a client who didn’t want to leave anything that could be traced back to her.
Why leave the knife behind, then? The hand that put it there could easily have pulled it out again. And a professional assassin could have used it for a different job later. So whoever had done this was wealthy enough that she didn’t have to care about losing an expensive knife. And she had left it there on purpose, in order to send a message. Or to convey a warning.
Lucy knelt by the bed and started trying to clean the blood off Elberic’s face. “What do we do?” she kept saying. “What are we supposed to do?”
A very good question, and Kishori knew that the sensible answer was to run. Someone wanted her to leave the Sigors alone and looked ready to kill her if she persisted in following them. There was a third party involved here—one that Queen Muriel’s men hadn’t bothered to warn her about. That meant that either the Gramirens didn’t know about this third party, or they had deliberately concealed it. So she was either working for incompetents or liars.
That knot in Kishori’s stomach was so tight she could hardly breathe. If she continued her mission, she would probably die. If she ran, then she would never see Jon again, because the Gramirens would certainly kill him. It was an awful choice, but at the same time, it was easy, because Jon was a good and decent man, and keeping him alive was worth dying for.
She went over to Lucy and put a hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Go get me some more blankets. Then I’ll wrap him up while you get a cart. We’ll take him to the river. Hurry, now, before the sun comes up.”