A mirror from one of the keep’s foyers was leaning against the wall, stripped of its precious metals; the metals were beaten like an old frying pan. An anvil rested near the hearth. Shards of at least one broken clay container littered the table, which was stained with some sort of sticky residue. Then there was the smell. It was almost unbearable. A breeze came through the open window, alternately stirring up smells of tempered metal, stale vinegar, and some unidentifiable chemical smell that was sharp and bit the back of her throat. It also reminded her of how the air smelled just after a lightning storm. About the only thing neat and clean in the room was the Viscount’s luggage, which was neatly stacked against the wall and free of dust.
Something crunched under her feet. Glass was scattered around the table. She bent down to move the pieces around, recognizing the various colors and hues from the crystal glasses used for holiday banquets.
A fresh breeze stirred the room and she was reintroduced to the awful smell of death. It was then that something underneath the table caught her attention and she turned to look.
She cried out and jumped back. There, underneath the table, were the bodies of four bloated rats, complete with squirming maggots.
Though covering her mouth and trying not to get sick, she couldn’t help but stare at the creatures out of a morbid curiosity. Unlike any rats she’d seen around the keep before, these had white fur, and their big staring eyes were colored red, blue and green. One of them had one green eye and one red eye.
“My goodness, would you look at all this,” said a voice behind her.
Aimeé shrieked and jumped back to her feet.
There was Anna, who also shrieked and jumped.
“Damn you, woman! What were you thinking sneaking up behind me like that?” Aimeé all but shouted, slapping Anna on her arm.
“I heard you scream and got worried.”
Anna perused the room herself while Aimeé’s heart calmed down.
“Looky here,” Anna said, bending over and retrieving a piece of metal from the floor. She held the slender piece of steel for Aimeé to see. Its edge was sharpened, and there was a hole at one end where a bolt dangled, and a little below that were bits of gold-colored metal clinging to the end. None of that, however, was what Anna meant for Aimeé to see. Engraved on the surface of the metal was the name
Peredur
.
“We have to tell Mark,” Anna said.
#
“You found this where?” King Mark asked, examining what was left of the pair of scissors in his hands.
“In the Viscount Loki’s apartment, m’lord,” Anna replied nervously. Though Aimeé stood at her side in Mark’s study, Anna took the lead, being the older maidservant. “We really wouldn’t have trespassed into his rooms like that, except there was that awful smell coming from there, and well...” She started to explain the situation one more time, but Mark put up a halting hand.
“And all the other items you mentioned are still there?” he asked.
“Yes, many of the expensive items from around the keep, m’lord, but they’ve been broken or had all the rich parts removed. Much of the stuff was also personal belongin’s like these scissors, which everyone knows that Sir Jon and Sir Peredur were always arguin’ over. Come to blows almost they did. Just like Willy’s pottery wheel, which he blamed Patrick for takin’.”
Mark formed a steeple with his fingers and scrutinized the piece of metal.
Aimeé felt the need to say something, and added, “We don’t mean to be meddlers or anything, but we thought you should know.”
Mark leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling for some time. At last he said, “Anna, Aimeé, entering a Guest’s apartment without permission is a very serious offense, but considering the circumstances, it will be overlooked. Take better care next time, and I trust that you will keep this information confidential for now. Thank you, you may go.”
They bowed quickly and hurried to leave the room. On the way out, however, Aimeé paused.
“Sir Mark,” she said, approaching tentatively. “There is another matter I wish to bring to your attention.”
Mark gestured for her to continue. Anna hovered at the door, looking with disapproval at the younger maidservant.
“It’s Sir Patrick, he’s been missing for days now. I take care of his room, and I know he hasn’t been back to change his clothes or anything. Perhaps you should send someone to go looking for him...”
Mark squeezed his eyes shut briefly, his mouth forming a tight line. “Mademoiselle de la Chasse, Patrick is a grown man. He can take care of himself. I’m sure he will turn up soon enough. Right now I have more pressing matters, so, if you will excuse us.”
Red faced, Aimeé bowed and left the room with Anna.
When the maidservants had gone, Corbin stepped forward from the assembled knights. “What do you think, Mark?”
Mark drummed his fingers on the bureau. “It confirms what we’ve known all along. Loki is a scoundrel and has been stirring up trouble—in more ways than one.” He looked at Sir Geoffrey, who looked down. “But this doesn’t exactly confirm him as a killer. Just a compulsory petty thief, which in my experience is a mild idiosyncrasy among nobility.”
“But it does prove he could be asked to leave,” Brian McCabe offered.
“But if we let him go now, then we could be losing our only opportunity to bring him to justice—if he really had anything to do with Father Benis’ death,” Waylan pointed out, and this brought on a loud debate among the Avangarde while Mark weighed the possibilities.
“Enough,” Mark almost shouted. “We’ll ask the bastard to leave.”
“But Mark...”
“But nothing. Our first duty is to the safety of the Guests. If there is any chance that he is a threat, we should remove him. If we incarcerate him, and we are wrong, we run the risk of seriously offending him and the Benefactors who wrote his invitation here, and thus damaging the integrity of Greensprings. If we tell him to leave, then we still risk offending many people, but it will be nothing in comparison to locking him up. If it turns out he is responsible for the death of Father Benis, then it may be possible to apprehend him later...away from the Guests.”
The Avangarde assented to Mark’s wisdom in the matter.
Mark stood and strapped on his sword.
#
After their audience with Mark, Aimeé parted ways with Anna and took some time with her thoughts. The adventure in Loki’s apartment had distracted her from her other problems, but she soon found herself dwelling on them again. She found herself at the stables caressing Siegfried’s neck.
“What am I to do?” she asked the horse, as if expecting a more honest reply from the animal than from anyone else. “I wish you could talk, boy. Maybe you could tell me Patrick’s deepest thoughts, make some sense out of him for me. You are his best friend. I heard the stories how you took care of him in the forest when he went hunting the wolf. Any other old horse probably would have run off and left him. But not you, you actually found him...” A spark lit in her eye. She looked at the big horse as if seeing him for the first time. “I bet you could find him again, couldn’t you?”
Siegfried tossed his head.
Aimeé looked about, and the glimmer in her eye faded. “It’s a crazy idea. There are too many people about, it’s not like anybody would allow a maidservant to walk out the gate with a nobleman’s horse.”
Her prospects changed, however, as a commotion in the courtyard drew her attention—and everyone else’s.
#
The Viscount Loki and his toady, Minion, returned home.
Loki went to his luggage, opened one of the valises and extracted a medium-sized wooden box, which he took to the table. He swept its surface clean with his sleeve.
“Minion, I know I’ve been spending more time with the Lady Katherina than here, but it wouldn’t have hurt to spruce the place up a bit while I’m gone, and...” He paused, feeling something at his feet. He looked underneath the table and made a face. Bending over, he extracted one of the dead rats by its tail. “And to think this whole time I thought that smell was you. Do something with that, will you?” He tossed the creature at Minion.
Minion, who was distracted as usual, instinctively caught the carcass when it was flung at him, but juggled it like a hot potato when he realized what it was. He juggled it right out the window, a disgusted look on his face.
Loki rolled his eyes. “A nice surprise for whomever is walking beneath the tower. Please dispose of the others as well.”
As Minion moved to obey, Loki opened the wooden box with reverence. Inside, lying in a nest of velvet, was a glass globe. This one, unlike the others they had laboriously created, held a cemetery diorama, complete with little tombstones, a dead tree, and even ravens perched on a branch. Loki lifted it from its bed and held it in a stream of afternoon sunlight. He admired it, tilted it one way, then another, letting the clear fluid inside gently stir the white flakes that covered the scene like snow. He was careful not to shake it too hard.
“What does this to them, I wonder?” Minion asked, holding the last rat out the window.
Not taking his eyes off the bauble, Loki answered, “Exposure to the primal powers of the universe.”
Minion froze after tossing the rat.
“Will that happen to us?” he gulped, remembering the colorful fire that danced on his body during the conversion of precious metals.
“Certainly,” Loki said while withdrawing a cloth from his pocket. He polished the globe. “If you’re a rat or some other such base creature.” He looked down his nose at Minion with a grin. “I don’t know about you, but
I
don’t have anything to worry about.”
Wiping his hands on his shirt, Minion came forward and peered at the bauble in his master’s hand. “You never told me what this one is for. I know the other two have something to do with opening the magic door to the fairy world, though I don’t understand why we need two of those.”
“In order to have a bridge, you need two points, the near side, and the far side, correct?” Minion shrugged and nodded. “The other two baubles are those points, which will go on either side of the portal at the lake.”
Minion scrunched one eye shut and scratched his head. “Bridge? Where are the ropes and wood that make the part you walk on?”
“In this case, it will be energy.” Loki rolled his eyes when he saw that Minion didn’t follow. “Very well, magic then.”
Minion nodded, a dim light flickering in his eyes.
“This one,” Loki said, raising the bauble in his hand, “is also a point for a bridge.”
“Where will that bridge be?”
“Right here, connecting this world with the other world, to draw them together. Like a fisherman drawing his boat to land with a rope.”
Minion’s head-scratching turned to fierce temple rubbing and now both his eyes were squinting. “If this is one point for a bridge—or rope—where is the other bauble? We didn’t make any more.”
“The place we’re going to, on the other side of the magic door at the lake, is its own point, its own bauble.”
Minion shook his head as if trying to clear water from his ears.
Loki laughed. “Don’t you worry about it. It will all be clear soon enough.”
“And why did you put the little graveyard inside?”
Loki smiled and winked. “Just my own little touch. As I said, soon all things will be made clear. Speaking of which, that time is almost upon us. Start packing our things.”
Minion beamed and gestured to the neatly stacked luggage. “We are ready now.”
Loki nodded approvingly. “Then prepare and load the carriage. When you have finished with that, go find the Lady Katherina and inform her that our secret outing will be tomorrow.”
“You still intend on bringing her?”
“Oh yes, I have special things in store for her.” Loki froze, his bauble polishing coming to a stop. His long ears perked up and moved on his head. “We have some company,” he said nonchalantly. He gently placed the bauble back in the box and closed the lid, then rose from his seat, crossed the room and secured the box in the valise from which it came.
No sooner had he done so, and there came a rough knock at the door. Loki looked to Minion and jerked his head towards it. Minion went to the door and turned the knob.
King Mark barreled in and knocked the little servant out of the way. The other Avangarde filed inside behind him, and stood about surveying the room, finding it just as the maidservants had described.
Mark turned to the Viscount, who returned his gaze smugly.
“And what do I owe this unexpected, but noble visit, my liege?”
Mark threw out his hand. An object spun and flashed in the air, then buried itself upright in the table. It was the suspect piece of metal that was one half of a pair of scissors.
Loki did not flinch, but gazed calmly at the taller man.
“Why thank you, but I already have a pair somewhere hereabouts,” he said.
“You have been stirring up trouble the moment you arrived. You need to leave, now,” Mark said.
“Well, if you insist. It’s quite a coincidence actually, I was about to leave soon anyhow,” Loki said foppishly. “On the morrow I will...”
“No, now.”
Loki’s eyes narrowed and his foppish smile faded. “I’ll leave when I am good and ready, Sir Mark.” He turned his back on the Steward.
Mark reached over and grabbed the Viscount by the collar, threw him against the wall, and put his face up to Loki’s. “
You will leave now
.”
#
Loki and Minion were frog-marched down the corridor to the courtyard. Loki’s face was a fuming mask of rage. Avangarde walked before and behind them, giving them plenty of space. Keep staff formed a train behind the group, carrying the Viscount’s luggage. All save one: the little valise that housed the glass bauble. On this Minion maintained a death-grip. He sweated to keep up with the long legged strides of his master and the Avangarde who escorted them. Crowds of curious Guests and staff were beginning to form as the two former Guests were steered across the courtyard to the stables.
“You will all pay dearly for this,” Loki hissed under his breath, then turned to his servant. “Minion, are all the Avangarde in the keep today?”