The High Prince of Devall absorbed this, then stated, ‘Could such women have insinuated themselves in the palace, then acted in covert conspiracy?’
‘Highness, no! They are no more than unskilled children.’ Shai’s tremulous smile came and went as she added, ‘The oldest of them is barely fourteen years of age. The girls make up beds, and sweep cobwebs from corners the older drudges can’t reach. The strongest ones haul the hot water for the laundresses, and probably stoke the fires under the cauldrons that scald your evening bath water.’
Prince Kailen agreed that the hirelings posed Anja no threat. ‘The girls are the offspring of farmers known back to the seventh generation. They don’t read or write. I doubt any one of them has travelled a step past the riverfront market, and Taskin himself runs the inquiry to make sure they are of good character.’
The heir apparent of Devall frowned and changed tack. ‘What about Princess Anja? Lady Shai, you know her, none better. Did she show no sign of tension, no change in habits?’
‘By glory, you men!’ Shai regarded her paired escort in amazement. ‘Princess Anja is madly in love! Every habit she had has been thrown topsyturvy, which left every one of us guessing.’
‘What about make-up?’ the foreign prince pressed. ‘Did her Grace use more powder or eye paint than usual, perhaps to mask signs of strain?’
‘Of course she would, silly! For excitement, not strain!’ Shai dealt the lowcountry prince’s wrist a light slap with her veil, as though he were a dense-witted brother. ‘Any maiden offered a match such as yours would take pains to maintain her best looks. Particularly her Grace, who never cared if she freckled from too much sun, or scratched her skin in the brambles.’
The Prince of Devall looked down, perhaps abashed, his ringed hands clasped in tight anguish. ‘I want her back, safe! You must know, she is dear to me. Scrapes and freckles notwithstanding, I love her for her sharp wits, and her reckless humour, and for the sterling kindness that makes Sessalie’s people adore her.’ He glanced up, his features drawn to wounded entreaty. ‘I could search my whole life and not take a finer woman to wife, or bring home a stronger queen for my realm. I need Anja because she has captured my heart, until I could look at no other.’
Shai touched her crushed veil to her lips; her violet eyes welled with tears. ‘Oh, your Highness, I see how you cherish her. Don’t you think I would give anything to restore her Grace to your side?’ Shoulders bowed, she struggled to master her grief. ‘Nothing I know could have caused the princess to leave us. Beyond any doubt, she must be in the hands of someone who seeks Sessalie’s ruin.’
‘You didn’t notice anything amiss?’ Prince Kailen pleaded, low-voiced and equally desperate. ‘Anything, Shai, no matter how small. That one little detail might hold the clue to safeguard the princess’s life.’
As the maiden shook her head in distress, the High Prince of Devall entreated, ‘Think carefully, lady. You may not be aware, but last night, one of the palace drudges was found dead, with no mark on her of natural causes.’
Shai widened filled eyes. ‘Mercy on that poor woman, and upon all of us, for our failure. I’ve told Taskin I know nothing again and again!’
Torn raw, Shai appealed to Prince Kailen. ‘Your Highness of Sessalie, I scarcely saw her Grace more than a moment, and only from a distance since the Prince of Devall rode with his train through our gates! On that hour, the princess was giddy, even breathless with excitement. I swear by every bright power above, she could not have suspected the least shadow of danger. She had but one thought, one dream, on her mind. That guiding star was the name of his Highness of Devall, who came to lay claim to her hand!’
‘That’s quite enough!’ cracked an intrusive aged voice. ‘Your Highnesses, yes! Both of you.’ A stick-thin old matron invaded the grotto, fierce carriage as upright as any commander laying into brash recruits.
‘The Duchess of Phail,’ Prince Kailen murmured, a wry curve to his lips. ‘Don’t let her fool you. She’s a treasure with steel principles, and an unbending penchant for kindness. Used to rescue the frogs I brought home in my pockets, and box the ears of the pages if she caught them at bullying spiders.’
The elderly woman bore in, her porcelain-fine frame stiff with outrage. ‘Can’t you rude brutes see a thing with young eyes? Lady Shai is already devastated. Your badgering questions just add to her heartbreak without helping the princess one bit.’
‘Lady Phail, we are going,’ Prince Kailen said, his hands raised in abject surrender. ‘Trust me, we respect Lady Shai and have no desire to savage her feelings.’
Lady Phail gave a snort through her patrician nose. ‘Well, that broth of tears has already been spilled!’
Her disgusted glance measured one prince, then the other, as though she debated which of the pair most deserved to be thrashed with her cane. In the end, Shai’s distress put an end to debate, inept male minds not being wont to give ground for any wise woman’s sensibilities. Lady Phail ploughed straight on past, clasped her frail arms over the weeping woman’s bowed shoulders, and delivered a glare like a lioness.
‘Get along, boys! You’re making things that much worse with your gawping.’
Hazed past the finesse of his lowcountry manners, the High Prince of Devall bowed and beat a retreat. Kailen, no fool, snatched his sleeve as he turned, and deflected his course down a bypath that wound through the shrubbery. The tactic was timely. Past the screening of leaves, a bouquet of coloured silk flashed in the midday sunshine. Bertarra’s carping rose loudest over the chorus as the other court ladies descended to console Lady Shai.
The heir apparent of Devall glanced over his shoulder in bemused appreciation. ‘Your sister rules that shark pack of harpies?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Kailen grinned. ‘With all of our mother’s cast-iron charm.’ As though his sore head had begun to relent, his blue eyes brightened with fond memory. ‘Bertarra’s scared green of her.’
‘Well, I see how your sister acquired her strong will.’ Broken out of the fringing border of evergreen, the Prince of Devall approached the stone arch leading back to the sanctuary courtyard. ‘We’re no closer to finding where Anja might be.’
‘Well, you’ve satisfied one point,’ said Kailen, dispirited. ‘Lady Shai doesn’t know anything.’
‘That,’ said the high prince, ‘or else she’s a consummate actress.’
‘Lady Shai?’ Prince Kailen glanced sideways in unbridled surprise. ‘She’s intelligent, and no fool. But she’s never dissembled, not once in her life.’
The gate’s shadow fell over them. Gloom darkened the heir apparent’s maroon velvet to black, and muted the shine of his rubies and gold studs. His profile, trained forward, showed no expression.
‘The suspicion’s unfounded,’ insisted the crown prince. ‘When my sister played pranks, it was always Shai’s face that got her Grace into trouble.’
‘Not this time, to our sorrow.’ The heir apparent of Devall stalked towards the steep stair and began his descent, his fierce steps ringing on the carved granite. ‘You do realize, I will find her Grace, no matter the means or the cost. If an enemy has marked her out for a target, I shall not rest until they are smoked out. Your realm’s honour and mine are as one in this matter. As Devall’s High Prince, I promise this much: when we catch the man who has dared to lay hands on my beloved, I will see him sentenced to the ugliest death allotted by law in my realm.’
By the change in the watch, Commander Taskin had questioned the wine steward’s boys and ascertained that none had seen the sorcerer’s mark on the broom closet. The bottled vintage brought upstairs for the feast had been fetched in the late afternoon the day prior. No one but the drudge who swept and mopped tables had occasion to visit the cellars during the evening. The old woman who was dead of an unknown cause, since the king’s most learned physician had encountered no proof of a poisoning.
The patrols ridden out to search by the river had lamed a good horse, finding nothing. By now, any trail would be choppe
d to muck, since the seneschal’s move to involve the crown council had posted an official note of reward. Brash adventurers from all walks of life scoured the brush, and talk of a scandal ran rampant. Princess Anja’s plight was bandied by drunks in the taverns, while half of the Middlegate merchants tied black streamers to their doors, given over to premature mourning.
Taskin, short of sleep, weighed out his next options. He dreaded to face another interview with the king, with nothing conclusive in hand. The prospect of forcing a house-to-house search raised his temper to an edge that his officers knew not to cross. They shouldered the orders he saw fit to dispatch, and assigned men to the tasks without grumbling.
Jussoud sensed the subdued atmosphere in the palace wardroom upon his delayed return from his morning call at the garrison. The commander, he learned, had sent the day sergeant to grill the gate watch for the third time.
‘Bright powers, they saw nothing,’ the wizened old servant who polished the parade armour confided. Evidently the gallery above was not occupied, which loosened his garrulous tongue. He spat on his rag, dipped up more grit, and talked, while the helm in his hands acquired the high shine expected of guards in the palace precinct. ‘Last night was a botch-up. All those carriages, coming and going, filled with greatfolk, and each one with their grooms and footmen and lackeys? Can’t keep tight security on the occasion of a royal feast. Anybody forewarned and determined could have slipped in through Highgate unremarked.’
Jussoud set down his burden of remedies, hot and out of sorts from his uphill trek through unusually crowded streets. ‘Where can I find the commander?’
‘Himself?’ The servant returned a glance, bird-bright with sympathy. ‘He’s up the east tower with Dedorth’s seeing glass. You think you’re going up there?’ The oldster pursed his lips in a silent whistle. ‘Brave man. Tread softly, you hear? Last I saw, our commander was in a fit state to spit nails.’
Dedorth’s glass, at that moment, was trained on the fine figures cut by two princes, descending the steep avenue of stairs leading down from the Sanctuary Taskin addressed the officer who stood in attendance without shifting his eye from his vantage. ‘I want a watch set to guard Lady Shai. Also get two more reliable men and assign them to stay with the crown prince. Right now, soldier! As you go, tell the sergeant at large in the wardroom I plan to be down directly’
‘My lord.’ The officer strode off down the steep, spiralled stair, armour scraping the stone wall as he gripped the worn handrail. His footsteps, descending, faded with distance, then subsided to a whisper of echoes.
Alone in the observatory’s stifling heat, as the noon sun beat on the bronze cupola, Taskin swung the seeing glass on its tripod stand. Its cut circle of view swooped over the alpine meadows, then the scrub forests that clothed the rock pinnacles under the glare of the snow line. He scanned the folds of the glens, then the deep, tumbled dells with the leaping, white streamers of waterfalls. Deer moved at their browsing, tails switching flies; hunting peregrines traced their lazy spirals on outstretched slate wings. A mother bear drowsed near her gambolling cubs. Of human activity, he found none.
The trade road, repeatedly quartered, had yielded nothing out of the ordinary, and Dedorth, closely questioned, had been little use, immersed through the night in his vacuous habit of stargazing. The old scholar had not learned of the upset at court until his sleepy servant had fetched up his breakfast at sunrise.
By then, Princess Anja had been over ten hours gone.
Taskin laced frustrated fingers over the bronze tube of the glass. His circling thoughts yielded no fresh ideas; only rammed headlong against his enraging helplessness. Accustomed to direct action, and to successes accomplished through competence, the Commander of the Guard chafed himself raw. Scores of men at his fingertips, and an open note on the king’s treasury, and yet, he could find no lead, no clear-cut outlet to pursue.
King Isendon’s anguish tore at the heart. Taskin fumed, empty-handed, stung to empathy each time he encountered his own daughter, secure with his grandchild at home. Never before this had the quiet realm of Sessalie been rocked to the frightening rim of instability. The very foundation underpinning his life seemed transformed overnight to the tremulous fragility of cobwebs. Nor had the gossip of merchants and farmwives ever carried such a poisonous overtone of potentially treasonous threat.
The bitter sense gnawed him that he dispatched the king’s horsemen over black ice, with no point of access to plumb the deep current that endangered the firm ground under their feet.
‘Powers!’ Taskin whispered, prisoned by the close air, with its bookish must of dried ink and unswept cobwebs, ‘let me not fail in my duty to Isendon, to keep his two offspring from harm.’
Far below, the latch on the outer door clanged. A deliberate tread entered the stairwell. Taskin marked the step as Jussoud’s, the muted slap of woven rush sandals distinct from the hobnailed soles of his guardsmen.
Loath to be caught in maudlin vulnerability, the commander spun the glass and reviewed the vigilance of the garrison watch on the crenels of the lower battlements. He found no man slack at his post, under Mykkael, which lent him no target upon which to vent his trapped anger when Jussoud reached the observatory.
Unmoving, his attention still trained through the glass, Taskin opened at once with a reprimand. ‘You are late, by two hours.’
Jussoud leaned on the door jamb, his empty hands clasped. His reply held slight breathlessness from his climb, but no surprised note of rancour. ‘If you’ve been at the glass since the midday gong, you’ll have seen the press, above Middlegate.’
‘I need not see, to imagine,’ Taskin answered, now stubbornly combing the warren of streets by the Falls Gate. ‘The seneschal’s been very busy, all morning, setting stamps upon royal requisitions.’
‘So I observed,’ said Jussoud. ‘Every man with a grandsire’s rusty sword is abroad, seeking reward gold and adventure. They’ll be clouding your evidence.’
‘If we had any,’ Taskin snapped, suddenly tired of watching the anthill seethe of the commons. ‘Two leads, both of them slipped through our fingers. A dead drudge and a drowned seeress. The loose talk claims Mysh kael killed them. Did you listen?’
‘To what purpose?’ Jussoud sighed. ‘Could his talents enable a sorcerer’s work? I don’t know. Logic argues the desert-bred’s not such a fool. Capable of setting a death bane, or not, why should a man with his training strike to kill in a way that would cause a sensation? As for the seeress, he had been in the moat. I saw his damp clothes cast off on the floor where he left them. For a murderer who supposedly drowned an old woman, he had taken no trouble to hide the incriminating evidence.’
Taskin lifted his head, his regard no less ruthlessly focused as he abandoned the seeing glass. ‘Mysh kael’s true to his oath to the crown, you believe.’
‘If I had to set trust in surface appearances,’ Jussoud admitted, reluctant, ‘the debate could be carried both ways.’
‘I sent down a lancer to bring the man in. He is also delayed, by now well beyond the grace of a plausible excuse.’ Taskin straightened, all business. ‘Do you know what became of him?’
Jussoud stared back, his grey eyes unblinking. ‘He waylaid Mykkael in a darkened stairwell.’
‘Fool.’ The commander’s long fingers tightened on the seeing glass, sole sign of his inward distress. ‘He’s alive to regret?’
The healer nodded. ‘Unharmed, and unmarked, in fact. Mykkael stopped him cold with a blow that stunned the nerves that govern involuntary reflex. Then he used direct pressure and cut off the blood flow through the arteries to the brain only long enough to drop your guardsman unconscious. I find that sort of efficiency chilling, a precision far beyond any nightmare I could imagine.’
‘Barqui’ino drill alters the synapses of the mind.’ Taskin stepped back, leaned against the stone wall, while the pigeons cooed in liquid murmurs from their roosts in the eaves overhead. ‘Then you’ve seen this desertman use skills that
can kill, and leave no telltale bruise on the corpse.’
Jussoud said nothing. His sallow skin shone with sweat in the spilled glare of sun off the sills of the casements.
‘Where is my guardsman?’ Taskin said, his probe delicate.
‘On his feet, under orders, as far as I know still searching the town for the captain.’ Reliant on trust earned through years of intelligent service, Jussoud dared a tacit rebuke. ‘Shaken as your guard was, and exhausted after a night of rigorous duty, he was more afraid to return empty-handed. His search at this point will scarcely bear fruit. Mykkael left the garrison, masked under your officer’s purloined cloak. The garment was found later, draped over the drawbridge railing. Even the keep gate watch could not say where the captain went, or what he pursued on his errands.’
Taskin grimaced. ‘I’ll have that guard recalled. How many more men should I send to accomplish the charge of fetching Mysh kael uptown for review?’
‘None.’ Jussoud absorbed the commander’s surprise, unsmiling. ‘You won’t have to collect Mykkael, even if his stiff-necked pride would allow it. The captain asked me to deliver his report from the garrison, and to add, he will meet you himself at the Highgate. You can expect him in person by mid-afternoon.’
The older campaigner’s silvered brows rose. ‘How arrogant of the upstart, to dictate to me. What facts has he chosen to deliver, meanwhile?’
Jussoud recited, choosing Mykkael’s own words, and clipped sentences that did not elaborate. The close details he had overheard from the garrison’s watch officer shed no more useful light on the knotted problems at hand.
‘Nothing and nothing,’ Taskin snapped, eyes shut through the pause as he gathered himself. His ascetic face looked suddenly drawn against its lean framework of bone. Then his eggshell lids opened. Direct as forged steel, he said. ‘So much for bare facts. Now say what you think.’