Page 38

Chapter 38

The guards of the king’s hall refused to let Malo or me partake in the search for the poisoner. Whether the prince or anyone else had been attacked, we were not told: the guards kept us confined to our chamber, and all we could do was sit and listen to the shouts and cries in the halls beyond, and Gorthaus’s dwindling breath.

Malo tended to Gorthaus, cursing and swearing as she applied her tiny worms to her throat and arm. I assisted her in doing so, pulling Gorthaus’s uniform away to free the swelling, and eventually moving her body into a better position, though I had handled the fresh dead before in my service, and knew from the feel of her that Gorthaus was likely among them now.

Ana callously told us not to bother—“Surely you can hear that fucking girl’s breathing stopped long ago!”—but Malo was resolute: “I am a warden, true, but an Apoth first. If there is a chance I can breathe life into this flesh, I will try.” Yet after an hour of ministrations, Malo sat back from the body, sighed, and drew a symbol in the air beseeching the attention of Kesir, the deity of forgiveness. Then she began to pluck her worms from Gorthaus’s body and return them to her vial. “We may have need of them yet,” she muttered, “given how black this night feels.”

Finally a captain of the guard came to our chamber. He brought with him one of his subordinates: a sweaty and terrified-looking fellow whom I identified as the guard who’d escorted Gorthaus to our chambers. Stammering, he told Malo his story, and she translated his words for us.

“He says he was sent to fetch her from the guest chambers,” said Malo.

“By whom?” demanded Ana.

“Satrap Darhi,” said Malo. “He did as he was ordered, and got her and walked her across the great hall, then down the passageway to this chamber. But…then another guard came walking toward them, wearing a steel cap and a cloak. This second guard bumped into Gorthaus as she walked, and she cried out. The man mumbled an apology before hurrying down the hallway. Then Gorthaus and this fellow here came the rest of the way to this chamber, and…Well. We saw what happened.”

Ana snarled, “And what did he look like, this guard who simply bumped into Gorthaus?”

Malo listened as the man rambled on, then translated: “He doesn’t know, for it was dark and smoky in the passageway. He saw the cap, the cloak, the beard, and little else. He does think the beard was rather light colored. He has given this description to the satrap, and they search for this man now.”

“A light-colored beard!” said Ana. “Fucking hell. Get these damned fools out of my sight, so I can think!”

I escorted the guards from the room. Then we stood in the smoky chamber, too dismayed to speak.

“He has already slipped away as quickly as he came, I’m sure,” said Ana. “But he was here. He was watching. And he did not love it when I called for Gorthaus to come to me, after speaking with Pavitar and Darhi.”

“He realized you’d figured it out,” I said. “That you’d seen Gorthaus was the traitor, and she’d tell us all she knew.”

“Of course. He needed just a tiny bit of poison, and a needle, or a thorn. Something that would cause only a slight bit of pain, but not enough to cause alarm.”

Malo glowered into the coals of the fire. “I should have noticed how she kept rubbing her arm.”

“Yet even if you had, it would have done no good,” said Ana. “Even a drop of kerel in the blood is fatal. Once the heart swells, all is lost.” She shook her head. “The opportunity to catch him is gone as quickly as it came. I doubt if even your nose could find his scent, Malo, if it’s been trod upon by so many other guards—true?”

“True enough, ma’am,” she admitted. “If I’d been freed at the start, I might have found him. But he has muddied his trails before. Even if I’d leapt after him, I might have been led astray.”

“That is so,” muttered Ana. “We are helpless once again and can only wait for news.” She waved a hand at the window. “Please shut that, Din. The aroma of the nenuphar blossoms in the waters beyond distracts me terribly.”

I did so. The only light in the room now was the glow of the fire. I took down a tapestry and cast it over Gorthaus’s body, then stood by the door and waited.

—

Eventually we were escorted by guard back to the main hall. There we found the prince, Darhi, and Pavitar waiting for us, all looking quite shaken, and accompanied by guards in a wide array of dress and armors. Some even appeared to be wearing sleeping clothes beneath their jerkins. I guessed that the emergency had pulled many off their duties, no matter where or when.

Darhi said, “To my sorrow, we have found no hint of this mysterious guard. All our guards and soldiers and staff have been accounted for, and we have confirmed that at least two people can identify each man as himself. There are no unknown faces here. This poisoner, whoever he was, is now gone.”

Ana fumed for a moment. “And the servants?” she demanded.

“We now do the same for them,” said Pavitar. “But there are so many more that it shall take some time.”

“Naturally, your delegation shall no longer be held,” said Prince Camak, “since we know that Kardas, being still bedridden, could not have been the one to poison your signum.”

Pavitar stuck his nose in the air, unrepentant despite having been proven so terribly wrong. “Yet I must ask,” he said brusquely, “why would someone poison the girl at all? She seemed of no importance to me. The deaths this poisoner has brought about here make no sense.”

“Is he a madman, perhaps?” proposed Darhi. “Poisoning at random?”

There was a taut silence. I studied their faces, keenly aware that any of these men might be Pyktis’s partner, and thus might know of Gorthaus’s treachery, yet their expressions gave me nothing.

“I cannot yet say,” said Ana. “But I would like to have all your accounts. For you were all in the castle at the same time as this poisoner, correct? Did you see any sign of anyone unusual?”

“I was alone in the reliquary, sitting vigil with my father,” said the prince. “No one passed through that chamber—but then, he would have had no need to. Few come there.”

“I was in the great hall, working to convince the nobles to grant your delegation freedom,” said Darhi. “I saw no one strange, though I was engaged in deep conversation.”

“I spoke to the nobles as well,” said Pavitar gruffly, “but I argued to keep them, of course.”

“Was that in the great hall, sir?” I asked.

“No. I was in the clerestory, in the floor above. But those rooms are small, and I am sure I saw nothing.”

Ana nodded, then sighed. “Then we shall review the guards and servants. Then we must escort our people home, before another falls dead here.”

The servants and guards trickled in one by one for Malo and me to review. Their health was shocking, being gaunt and sickened creatures, and their teeth were in a horrid state, if they had them at all. I engraved the faces of each, sniffing at my vial. Darhi had been right: nearly two out of every fifteen was a twin, or even a triplet, with many faces repeating almost exactly, or echoes of their features found in others. I guessed that, given that childbirth was so difficult here in Yarrow, the number would have been even higher if more infants had survived. I also saw what he’d meant about the kings’ imperial brides: here and there I spied a hint of Kurmini features, or Rathras, or even Tala, like myself. The experience was quite surreal, to see so much familiar in this strange place.

Yet none resembled Pyktis, or at least the Pyktis I knew from the drawing. None seemed the right height, nor the proper build, nor did any of them obsessively tap their fingers. They were an anxious lot, wary of so much attention, but they seemed innocent.

I watched Malo’s face as each one came before her. She sniffed and shook her head each time— Nothing of note.

We thanked them for their time, then let them go.

By now it was near morning. The prince, Darhi, and Pavitar escorted us outside, accompanied by some three dozen guards. “What shall we do now?” the prince asked Ana. “Is there nothing you can give us to help us find this man? For he might still be lurking here, somewhere.”

“We could give you wardens, Your Majesty, and Apoths,” said Ana, “and many practitioners of our arts to crawl throughout your hills and halls and attempt to track him down. Yet I feel you would not take this, sir—true?”

The prince solemnly shook his head. “Would that I could. But many doubt my reign now. If I were to permit the Empire to flood the valley with your people, the outcry would be so great that I would hardly have a kingdom at all at the end of it.”

“Of course,” sighed Ana. “Even if I could give you his exact description, Your Majesty, even one so precise that it would make identifying him a simple thing…well, it may do little good. It seems he is so adept at changing his likeness that he could always appear as someone else entirely. I can give you no more advice than to step with caution, have your food and wine tasted, and do not sleep unguarded. In the meantime, I shall pursue my own inquiries in the city.”

“And you shall share what you know?” asked the prince. “You will tell me what you find of this man?”

“Of course, Your Majesty.”

“Then I thank you,” he said gravely. “If you can give me anything precise, I can call my people to action. But until then, I can do no more than pray for luck and the kind attentions of the fates.”

—

Malo and I spoke little as we worked with the Yarrows to harness the Treasury horses and lead the shaken axioms from their captivity. Prificto Kardas was now somewhat conscious but still had to be carried out in a sheet, his face dappled with broken blood vessels. Once the Treasury carriages had departed, we loaded into our own and followed.

Still we did not speak. The death of Gorthaus hung over us like a cursed blanket from a folktale, bewitched to bring sickness: both because of the awfulness of her murder and the awareness of how it had robbed us of so many answers.

“Din,” said Ana finally. “Tell me all you saw of Darhi’s interview. We’ve not had time to discuss that yet.”

I did so as quickly as I could, sniffing at my vials. When I finished, Ana asked, “So Darhi had a very strong reaction, Malo, when he was asked about the Treasury negotiations?”

“He did, ma’am,” said Malo. “The scent of his sweat changed, and I swear I felt his pulse leap within him. Very strange, I think, to have the negotiator react so when asked a simple question about his negotiations.”

“Because, I assume,” said Ana softly, “his negotiations are not simple at all. There are secrets there as well, I feel. The question is…are they known to Pyktis? Do they matter? Or are they mere ephemera, in this most complex of places? I shall have to think on it.”

We rumbled along in silence, with Ana’s face turned to the window. For a long while, she did nothing but sit there, hardly breathing. She only shifted once, when she emitted a discomfiting, glottal click from her throat; then another. I wondered if she was so dismayed by our investigation that it quite literally choked her, but I did not think so: this clicking seemed a very different thing.

Then she began to tremble, yet it was strange. The entirety of her body did not quake, but rather she shook in distinct, isolated segments: the twitch of a muscle in her shoulder, then the flutter of a cheek; a quaking in some ligament of her neck, then a quiver in her thigh. I studied her, this pale, skeletal, shivering figure sitting bent upon the carriage seat, and for some reason I began to feel distinctly uneasy. While Ana often did many queer things, I had never seen her behave like this. Perhaps she truly was unwell from so much exposure to the wider world.

She finally spoke, yet her voice was again strangely deep and resonant: a different voice entirely, almost. “Did I ever tell you, Din,” she said softly, “of the case of the cooper in Branilin?”

“I don’t believe so, ma’am.”

“It was an investigation I consulted on, some years ago,” Ana continued, still in that queer, deep voice. “Three young boys murdered in the countryside there, over the course of six months. They were found lying in open fields, spoiled and sullied. They were from different homes, found in different places, taken at different times. No one could make any sense of it—until a fourth boy was found, bricked up in the wall of an old house, his body dashed with lye. And so we wondered—why was this one treated differently? Why would the killer work so hard to hide him? But then, the answer was obvious…”

The rumble of the wheels. The shiver of the trees against the dark sky.

“Because the killer was familiar with him,” I said.

“Exactly,” said Ana. “The killer had a personal connection to that one, so he felt compelled to hide him deeper. Once we knew this, we found the killer quickly—the dead child’s uncle, a lowly cooper, whose mind was corrupted beyond description.” She leaned back in her carriage seat. “I do not know why Pyktis has chosen to kill the king. But…he has worked very hard to obscure his movements about this deed, has he not? No one knows how the poison got in that cup. No one has seen any hint of the man in those halls. He even made himself vulnerable, emerging from the shadows to poison Gorthaus. So much effort! Which makes me wonder, for this one…”

“If Sunus Pyktis has a personal connection…to the king of Yarrow?” asked Malo.

“It may be so,” whispered Ana. “It may indeed be so.”

The mai-lamps shuddered outside as we made a turn, and then the beryl-tinted lights of Yarrowdale congealed in the distant darkness.

“When we return to the city,” said Ana, “I want you both to go through every possession Gorthaus ever touched, be it in a vault or in her chambers. Perhaps there is some clue as to where our six crates of poisonous reagents now lie.”

“What shall you do in the meantime, ma’am?” I asked. “Is there any report or meal or aid I can give you?”

A gleam of her smile in the dark. “A kind thought, Din. But no. I will wait for Kardas to awake. Then I will summon you both…and Thelenai. For I shall have much to discuss with all of you about the path ahead—which only narrows, I feel, toward most unpleasant places.”