Authors: Barbara Ann Wright
A loud voice from the hall heralded her father, and he swung open the door mid-sentence, a clerk on his heels. “With our fondest wishes for your continued prosperity, King Einrich Nar Umbriel of Farraday, etc. etc.” He turned, and the rapidly writing clerk nearly ran into him. “Write up two copies. There’s a good man.” After shutting the door in the clerk’s face, he rubbed his hands together. “Well, my love, still at it, I see. I thought you decided on gold last night.”
“Gold and bright blue would look nice,” Katya said.
“Too heavy,” Ma said. “I want something light and airy, something unreflective of our current situation.”
“What color will you wear?” Katya asked.
“Coral.”
“Well, that’s out.” Da dropped into an armchair. “Can’t have my wife matching the bunting.”
“Thank you, Einrich, very helpful.”
Katya smiled as she watched them. “Very light blue?”
“I’ve a mind to send you away with all your blues.”
“
Can
I go?”
“You won’t be paroled that easy, my girl,” Da said. “Might as well move along the old color wheel.”
Katya thought of Starbride and her frothy dresses, trying to remember their various colors. “Mint?”
“Mint.” Ma stared into space for a moment. “Mint and…white. Or cream? I knew you’d get a taste for this, Katya.”
Da snorted. “A taste for mint. Ha!”
Ma shifted the piles of paper and fabric off her lap. “I’ll have to talk to the decorators, but mint…”
A knock sounded on the door, and Katya groaned. She’d hoped she would be let go for the morning, but if something else about decorations had come up…
“Come,” Da called.
Crowe slipped inside. It couldn’t be good news if his pinched expression was any indication. “The courier I sent to Layra has returned.”
“And?” Da sat forward. “What news?”
“Layra is not at her farmhouse. According to her neighbors, she left a few years ago…with her son.”
“Son?” Ma asked. “She married after she left the Order?”
Crowe cast a glance at Katya and then at her father. Katya looked at Da, and she saw that he knew what she did, that Layra and Roland had been involved. “Da…”
“Catirin,” Da said slowly, “there is a possibility the child might be Roland’s.”
She blinked for a moment, silent. “Layra and Roland?” Color bloomed in her cheeks, and her eyes flashed as she stood. “And you knew about it? All that matchmaking I went through for him and you knew that he was…And with a commoner!”
Katya rolled her eyes. “That attitude would be why he didn’t tell you, Ma.”
Ma rounded on her. “You knew as well? You were a
child
, and you knew?”
“No, no.” Crowe stepped forward. “She found out recently.”
“He told
you
, Crowe?” Ma asked. “Who else?”
“Roland and I were in the Order together.” Crowe frowned. “I was his confidant in many things, commoner though I may be.”
Her face softened. “Crowe, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply…”
Crowe bowed. “No need for apologies, Majesty.”
“Yes, yes, yes, very well,” Da said. “Back to the point, please. So, these neighbors claim Layra had a son. She could’ve had a child with someone after Roland died. It needn’t be his. And you can’t be thinking such a child could have anything to do with our current troubles. Why, even if he is Roland’s, he has to be a boy younger than Maia.”
“Too young to be any of our guests in the cells.” Katya tapped her chin. “If Layra is involved, why would she side
with
Carmen Van Sleeting’s children?”
“Banding together against those responsible for the deaths of people they loved,” Ma said. Tears glittered in her eyes, but she didn’t shed them. “Oh, poor Roland. And that poor boy, too.”
Katya patted her mother gently on the back. “Crowe, pass Layra’s description along to the Guard. We’ll watch for her at Reinholt’s reception and then at the ball.”
Crowe bowed. “It will be done.”
“Ma,” Katya said, “I think you’ve got to parole me now. I need to speak to the Order.”
“Go, go. You’ve given me mint. Your part is done. See that your own clothes are in order, though.”
“I won’t match the bunting, rest assured.” She rose and followed Crowe from the room, her mind racing. “Spirits, Crowe, what if Roland has a son that’s involved in all this? Maia’s brother! Spirits above!”
He stopped and caught Katya’s good arm. “We should not mention this to Maia.”
“Crowe, if you lie to her again—”
“I know, I know, but this may turn out to be nothing. We have no proof.”
“We can’t wound my poor cousin like this again.”
“We must. She’ll need her head in the days to come. We mention Layra and the son, but not their connection to Roland. Not until it’s all over, Katya. You must see the sense in this.”
Katya rubbed her temples as a headache began to grow. “What if the son appears and dies in a fight, killed by his own sister, maybe? We take him alive, Crowe, if we see him. No matter what.”
“Agreed.”
“And after it’s over, we tell her everything. If she wants to walk away, leave the Order, we let her.”
His mouth set into a thin line, but he nodded. “There’s something else.”
“
More
bad news?”
“I found the locations of seven of our suspects for the bearded man.”
A shiver of excitement passed along Katya’s spine. “Wonderful!”
“Five within the city and two just outside. Inside, most work for organizations, but two are hooked to prominent households. One outside works for a dowager duchess, and the other is attached to a chapterhouse seeking enlightenment through beauty.”
“Do those prominent households belong to nobles?”
“Yes, and they both keep rooms in the palace as well as houses in Marienne.” He put on a wry smile. “One is Lady Hilda Montenegro.”
“I always thought of her as an opportunist but never a true villain.”
“What better disguise for a villain than as a lesser villain?”
Katya thought back to the flirtations, the cleavage, the obviousness that made up Lady Hilda. “Now that I think about it, such wantonness was too good to be true.”
“Too good?”
“Ha! We need to divide up the Order and check these places out.”
“Of course. And Starbride?”
“What about her?”
“She needs to be on one of the teams, Katya. She’s the only one of us who’s seen this man in the flesh. The rest of us can go on a rough description, but she’ll need to see any true candidates.”
There was no way to rationalize the choice. If Katya agreed, she would be deliberately putting Starbride in danger. But as Starbride said, Katya had invited her in. It was too late to start closing doors. “I’ll go and ask her now.”
“I’ll gather the Order.”
It went as Katya knew and feared it would; Starbride was not only ready but eager to help. She wore a heavy cloak over the Allusian outfit Katya had given her as the Order set out into the city, and her face shone with anticipation. “How did you get Dawnmother to agree to let you go alone with us?” Katya asked.
“I didn’t tell her about the Order, if that’s what you’re asking. I said you needed my help finding one of the kidnappers. Averie convinced her that the two of them would be more useful sifting through servant gossip in the palace.”
“Our ladies and their secret lives.” Katya pointed ahead. “Crowe and Pennynail have the horses around that corner.”
“Do we need them?”
“Some of us more than others. We’re splitting. One party is taking the candidates outside of the city, and the other is taking those inside.”
“Which will I be in?”
“Mine, of course.”
“Is that wise? Won’t we be thinking of one another the entire time and not of what we’re supposed to be doing?”
Katya’s mouth opened and closed as she tried to think of a protest. She needed Starbride with
her
to be sure she was protected, but what did that say about her trust in her Order?
“Katya,” Crowe said when they reached him. “A word.” He walked her several steps from the others. “I don’t think you and Starbride should be on the same team. You’ll distract one another.”
“She just said that.”
“Don’t get your feelings hurt, just see the sense.”
After a moment, Katya nodded. “I suppose I must.”
“Good.”
By the spirits, though, she’d give Starbride the safer mission. “Starbride, Maia, and Pennynail,” she said as she returned, “take the locations in the city. Crowe, Brutal, and I will explore outside of the city.” She gave the first three a long stare. “If you find him, don’t engage him.”
“We’ll ride straight for the palace,” Maia said. “Don’t worry. If it looks clear, Pennynail or I can stick around to spy.”
Katya gave Starbride one last pointed look. “No unnecessary risks.”
Starbride bowed. “As commanded.”
“Don’t enjoy yourself too much. I’m counting on you.” She trusted Pennynail and Maia to do their jobs, and she had to trust them to keep Starbride safe, though she ached to go with them, and as they parted, Katya found again that absence did not equal lack of thought. Her gut clenched as her party rode through the city gates and into the forest.
Many times, she came within a heartbeat of turning around. Her world snapped back into focus when the first crossbow bolt flew at them from the surrounding trees.
“Ambush!” Brutal cried.
Katya pulled her feet from the stirrups, slid to the ground, and dove into the bushes. Crowe tripped, and Brutal put one large arm around him and half helped, half threw him into cover. The horses clattered off down the road. As another bolt sailed over Katya’s head, she knew they’d made the right choice to dismount. Staying on the horses might have carried them away from combat, but they’d be sitting targets on the way.
Ignoring her throbbing shoulder, Katya drew her rapier as the forest went quiet. Brutal and Crowe settled beside her. A quick glance revealed no one behind them, but the undergrowth was thick in the shallow ditch. Katya held her breath and listened for movement. Crowe pulled a pyramid from his satchel, and Brutal took the spiked mace from his belt.
“We’ll take your purses, make you lighter for the walk home,” someone called from the other side of the road. “Your money or your lives. It’s an easy choice.”
Katya glanced at Brutal and Crowe. “Robbers?” she whispered.
Crowe shrugged. Brutal rubbed his chin, a hopeful gleam in his eye. Well, here was a chance to vent their frustrations at last. “Come and claim them,” she said loudly. She bent close to Crowe. “Flash bomb.”
He nodded, and Katya heard what she was waiting for, a footstep on the gravel road. Katya and Brutal shielded their eyes as Crowe lobbed a pyramid over the bushes. The clunk of a crossbow sounded just before the flash went off, and as the light died, Katya and Brutal sprang from the bushes. The crossbowman knelt in the middle of the road, his weapon at his feet and his hands over his eyes. Four swordsmen leapt from cover behind him. They rubbed their eyes and squinted, but the bushes had shielded them from some of the flash.
Brutal punched the crossbowman in the side of the head, almost casually, and the man fell in a heap.
“It’s a thrice-bedamned pyradisté!” one of the swordsmen said. All four stood dressed in dirty homespun and leather, with several days’ worth of whiskers on their smudged faces. The one who’d spoken brushed the sandy-blond hair out of his eyes. “That’s not…fair!”
“Life is hard for a band of thieves.” Katya waved the tip of her rapier at them. “Come on if you’re coming.”
Sandy glanced at the others and licked his lips. The eldest of them nodded at the bushes behind Katya. “Your pyradisté didn’t come out with you. Maybe he only has one trick up his sleeve.”
“One way to find out,” Brutal rumbled. “I’ve always wondered what makes a man a thief. Come and teach me, brothers.”
Sandy licked his lips again and then ran away. The two who hadn’t spoken shifted their feet. “Coward!” Eldest said, but he didn’t take his eyes off Katya and Brutal.
“Enough of this.” Brutal stepped forward. Eldest moved to intercept him with more skill than Katya would have credited. The other two, one with a mangy fur mantle and the other with a bright green cloak, rushed her.
Katya brushed aside Mangy’s initial thrust and skipped to the side, not wanting to let Greencloak flank her. Greencloak didn’t try for any such subtlety, however. He came on like a whirlwind, hacking and chopping as if he wielded an iron bar instead of a sword. He made mewling noises as he struck, and his eyes were bloodshot and terrified.
Katya didn’t block his attacks as much as divert them. His blade was heavier, and his ferocity could have knocked her rapier from her hands or snapped the thinner blade. She angled his swings wide of her body, and her shoulder sang with the effort. For all his lack of grace, Greencloak kept her attention away from Mangy, and Katya knew she had to take the first opportunity.