“I wish you no harm, Queen Elena. I only wish to return home.” Never mind home was Monoea.
“You don’t comport yourself like a simple soldier. What is your standing?”
“I am a…bounty hunter, Your Majesty.” Though he’d planned it, the lie felt odd on his lips.
“You pursue escaped convicts and the like?” Queen Elena asked. “Take them to barons for judgment? Or do you kill them?”
“Murderers, mostly,” he answered. “And I do bring them in alive, when I’m able.”
“On behalf of whom?” Reavan asked. “Certainly not the Crown.”
“Nor
Khel Szi
,” Geord muttered.
This was trickier. He could hardly blurt out the Monoean King. “On behalf of whomever hires me. Citizens, noble Houses, barons. I’m not surprised Heir Geord didn’t recognize me. My work is…sensitive. I often must conceal my identity.”
Elena arched her eyebrows and lifted her chin. “You work for Va Khlar and his ilk?”
Draken tried to read her expression and settled for shaking his head. “No, Your Majesty.”
“He’s a mercenary, then,” Captain Ilumat said. “Worse than a pirate.”
Before Draken could protest this, the Queen spoke again. “Are you quite successful in this work?”
The truth would serve. “I’m considered one of the best.”
“I do have your fealty, correct?” Elena lifted a hand as Geord rose yet again, his mouth open. “I am not accusing Brîn of open rebellion, but their resentments against the Crown are widely known.”
Known over the sea to Monoea, even. Osias laid his hand on Draken’s shoulder, urging an answer. But he was cousin to the Monoean King, had sworn oaths to him as kin, as a bowman, and as a Black Guard. The next words did not come easy.
For Lesle, he thought. “I am loyal to the Crown,” Draken answered, swallowing the last of his vacillation. It left a sickness in his gut, like he’d drunk something distasteful. “I am loyal to you, my Queen.”
She graced him with a brilliant smile; things were going her way after all.
“Still, I would ask you honor me with the opportunity to gain your trust,” he went on.
Reavan sat straighter, eyebrows raised. Osias’ hand tightened on his shoulder.
“What need have you to prove your trust?” she asked.
“I have not the need,” he said. “But I believe you fair need me.”
Draken’s throat had gone very dry. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea after all. Start shooting arrows at him and his eyelids would barely flicker, but he wasn’t cut out for this sort of verbal sparing. Something in the way Elena stared him down reminded him to his bones that this was a woman who could order his immediate execution on a whim. He didn’t doubt she was capable of it.
“Your plotters may yet linger in Auwaer,” he went on, continuing the court’s determination to keep the details of the attack secret, “for you know all who have traversed the Palisade in the past days. To persuade you of my loyalty and worth, I offer to find them on your behalf.”
Reavan’s mouth tightened into a deep frown. Queen Elena propped her chin on her hand and stared unblinking at him.
There. He’d gone and done it. He braced himself for guards to drag him to the cages. The entire room fell into the kind of silence that permeates bones and slows blood flow.
“Aye, Draken,” Elena said at last. “I should like you to do it very much.”
Chapter Eight
D
raken dropped down on their bed later in the evening, the previous turmoil in his stomach replaced by the warmth of confidence. He stretched out his bruised chest by folding his arms under his head. “I reckon they won’t be killing me quite yet, now that she’s given me a job.”
“That is the Ocscher-wine speaking,” Osias said. He sat down on the bed next to Draken. “Why would you ever offer to do such a thing?”
“I appreciate your concern, but hunting rebels and assassins is what I do.” Draken resisted the urge to move away from Osias, whose hip rested against his side. “Back home, that is.”
“You do not know Mance ways,” Osias pointed out. “And you do not have your weapons. What if the assassin attacks you?”
Truth, he didn’t even have a knife. He rubbed his fingers together, recalling the feel of his bow in his hand, the sight of arrows raining from ship rails at his command. “I have you, don’t I?”
“Aye, that you do,” Osias answered, but he didn’t look happy about it.
“The assassin must be Mance,” Setia said as Osias rose to close the shutters against the deepening night chill.
“What makes you say that?” Draken asked.
“Two reasons. First, the Ocscher-wood arrow. Secondly, only someone with glamour would be able to move about the Bastion undetected.”
“Who else has magic like that?”
“Moonlings,” Setia answered. “But they’re too small for longbows.”
“Still, there are plenty of them about,” Draken said. He recalled Reavan’s prisoner in the woods. She’d surely been a Moonling bound for slavery.
Osias sat back down on the bed. “Aye. There is much to consider. I sense another magical person, and it’s not just the arrow and the web. If he is Mance, then you will need my help.”
Draken arched an eyebrow at Osias. “That arrow could have been stolen in order to mislead us. And what makes you think the assassin is a ‘he’?”
“Good thought. I’ve no reason to believe that the assassin is male, except that the Mance all are. And I suppose the assassin might be someone else, pretending to be a Mance.” Osias considered Draken. His face looked wan in the dim torchlight. “What made you think of it?”
“I told you.” Draken sat up and swung his feet back to the floor. Though he had a night’s sleep ahead of him, and he was groggy from the wine, he could barely contain his anxiousness to start the search. “This is what I do.”
***
Was the pounding in his head or outside the door?
Both, Draken reasoned, and recalled where he was before shouting at whoever it was to go away. He scrubbed his hands over his face, untangled himself from Setia, and rolled off the bed. Once upright, he paused to let the spinning room come back into stasis.
Captain Tyrolean was just lifting his fist to knock again as Draken opened the door. Two Escorts stood behind, leathers shining with recent polishing, tabards spotless.
Draken squinted at them, and Tyrolean appraised him in turn. “We’ve been assigned to assist in your inquiries.”
This was something he hadn’t counted on, but he supposed he should have. Maybe Osias had been right about the Ocscher-wine causing complacency. It certainly had worked over his head.
“Tell the Queen I appreciate the help. I’ll call on you should I need you,” he said, slipping out into the hallway and closing the door. He leaned against it for support, feeling the carved wood press against his bare back, and watched Tyrolean take in his many scars, including a couple from a brutal whipping as a child slave.
“The Queen sent us, here, now,” Tyrolean said, as if that settled it.
Draken sighed, supposing it did. “All right. Come back later, though; we’ve just woken.”
The other two Escorts gave each other sidewise, knowing smiles.
Draken took a step. “Do you have something you’d like to say?”
“Nothing,” Tyrolean answered, glancing back at his Escorts. “We’ll call for you after breakfast.”
Draken went back inside and reported the news. Osias stretched his long arms over his head and sat up. Even tangled, his hair shone like old, polished silver. “Maybe they’ll be of help.”
“No,” Draken said. “They’re just here to keep an eye on us. Tyrolean doesn’t trust me.”
“I suppose we don’t have a choice,” Setia said. She stretched and the covers slipped down to reveal her breasts.
Draken thought of the smirking Escorts and turned away to his ablutions.
***
“The first thing I want to see is the roof,” Draken said, once they’d eaten and been collected by the small party of Escorts.
Tyrolean shook his head. “No use in that. My patrols found nothing.”
“Captain. Queen Elena assigned you to assist me. So. The roof. Please.”
Tyrolean stared at him, eye to eye because they were of a height. Draken was uncomfortably aware that Tyrolean was armed and he was not, but he wasn’t about to let it keep him from asserting himself.
“Careful, pirate,” Tyrolean murmured.
Draken didn’t answer, but he didn’t back off either.
Tyrolean turned so quickly his green cloak snapped, and he led the way to the stairs. The guards in the tower lowered their bows, saluted Tyrolean by touching fist to chest, and regarded everyone else with stony silence. Draken noted how closely they studied each of their faces as they passed.
“How many Royal Escorts serve at the Bastion?” Draken asked.
“One hundred in peace time,” Tyrolean answered.
“I imagine they know the faces of the others who serve, if not many of the names,” Draken said.
“Every Escort Captain assigned to the Bastion commands at minimum five horse marshals and fifty servii—”
Draken’s brows climbed. “And all of them take a turn at protecting the Bastion?”
“When it is necessary, aye.”
Draken felt a pang. In Monoea, an elite fighting force protected the King. It was an earned position, gained through service and trust. He’d planned on being elevated to their ranks within two Sohalias had his career continued on the right path, even leading the Royal Guard someday if it pleased his cousin. This didn’t make sense. Why in Khellian’s name would Elena allow just anyone to guard her? Why would Reaven allow it?
“And the assassin might have used glamour,” Osias reminded Draken. “Green cloaks are not so difficult to acquire or conjur, as you may recall.”
Draken sighed. The assassin operated under cover of hundreds of soldiers in and out of service at the Bastion, and not only that, he might have a magical disguise. Brilliant.
The Bastion roof afforded a grand view of the gray stone city crossed with its white gravel roads, which, after a cursory glance, Draken ignored. He walked the length of the roof, passing five bowmen, and turned the corner. When he stood where the assassin had shot from, he knelt and stared across the courtyard. The roof was low enough he could see through the doors, but the black-walled throne room was in shadow. He revised his previous judgment of the foolishness of the Queen. Not a ghost of the white throne betrayed its location. Even a well-aimed arrow required a leap of faith or shared, immediate recognizance. He thought of how Osias had read his mind so early on and frowned. Could all Mance do it?
“Mind-talking?” he mused under his breath.
Tyrolean’s impatience lacked only a tapping foot. “What?”
“One can’t see into the throne room from here,” Draken said. He gestured for the captain to kneel next to him, which he did with reluctance. “It’s too dark. Does Elena, sorry, Queen Elena. Does she always sit in the throne when she’s in there?”
Tyrolean narrowed his lined eyes but didn’t take his attention from the open doors across the courtyard. “It
is
the throne room.”
“Right. But she didn’t sit right away,” Draken said, stroking his bristled chin. “Not that day. She spoke with Lord Marshal Reavan first, near the door. Why not take a shot then?” He rose. “Is there another way up here?”
“No. Only the tower stairs.”
They crossed the roof to the outer edge to look over the shoulder-height wall at the murky moat below, fronted by its spiked fence. Nothing marred the surface of the water; it was still and quiet in the shadow of the Bastion. “What’s in it?” Draken asked. “The moat?”
“Errings.”
Draken grimaced. No getting past those snapping jaws and dagger teeth. “Well, he got up here somehow, and disguised or not, I doubt he strolled past your sentries in the tower. I’ll wager you know to a man how many are appointed to the roof.”
“Ten to a side when we’re under threat.”
“And the day of the attack?” He knew the answer; he’d counted the first moment he’d walked into the Bastion. He wanted to see if Tyrolean did.
“One at each corner, ten positioned over the gate.”
Draken frowned at him. “With her father assassinated? I’d think Lord Reavan might have increased security, don’t you?” Gods, Reavan wasn’t just spiteful, he was incompetent. Doubly dangerous.
Tyrolean stiffened. “It is not mine to question my betters.”
“It is if you value the Queen’s life,” Draken said. He ignored Tyrolean’s surly glare and strode along the outer wall, forcing the others to step quickly to keep up. Except for small drain holes, the black stone looked impenetrable to climbing.
“Even if our assassin had glamour, it would be suspicious for him to walk the roof and stop here, truth? When I watched your sentries the day of the attempt, they kept moving.” He gave Tyrolean a sidewise glance and let derision tinge his voice. “Of course, it was after. During the attack, they must’ve only been still standing at the corners, as you said.” And truth, they had been.
“Aye,” Tyrolean snapped, crisp enough to sharpen a sword.
“They are observant, I’ll give you that. I had arrows trained on me at any given time.” Draken was fully aware he was showing the lay of his gamestones, but he needed information badly enough to let Tyrolean know he was observant, too. He lifted his chin. “Do your Escort patrol the street down there?”
“The errings in the water are patrol enough,” Tyrolean said. “They’ll eat a man in the time it would take to climb that fence.”
“What are you looking for, Draken?” Setia asked.
“I don’t know yet,” Draken said, running his hand along the top of the honed black wall as he walked around the corner. The buildings on the street below backed to the Bastion, as if to provide privacy. He felt a scrape in the stone under his hand and paused to look at the quiet street. Realization snapped into place.
“Of course. A grappling hook, on a line. If he was already in the building, he came out that window,” Draken said, pointing at the scrape in the stone. “Tossed the line up, caught it here. He knows no one patrols down on the street but the errings. Here, and here. Scratches.” Draken suppressed a smile. “You have heard of such a thing, aye?”