Wrath Of The Medusa (Book 2) (23 page)

Hepdida shot awake in a cold sweat.  She could smell him, still smell him, surely it was not a dream.  Grundurg’s foul odour washed over her cloying at her nostrils.  So many times he had loomed over her, with his thin bladed knife or worse.  She shook her head, it was a dream, only a dream.  The orc was dead.  Niarmit had killed him.  She padded out of bed and pulled open the door to the sitting room.  Niarmit’s room was beside her own.  She took the few steps towards the heavy door reaching for its handle.  No.  She would conquer these nightmares alone.  She walked to the balcony.  The carefully crafted elegance of Rugan’s gardens endured even in the winter moonlight, shadows of empty trees made intricate shapes across the lawns.

She hugged herself and tried to guess the hour from the height of the bright star Croen above the Eastern horizon.  Niarmit had tried to show her once, on another night that the dead orc had awakened her.
  She screwed up one eye and held out fist and thumb to gauge angle as she had been taught, but recollection of the exact method eluded her.

Sleep too, seemed to have fled her mind.  She gathered a shawl about her shoulders and padded softly out of the door to the sitting room.  They were quartered in the heart of Rugan’s palace.  Each
of the suites of rooms opened onto a common covered gallery which ran around three sides of a central courtyard.  In the centre of the courtyard a fountain shot a perpetual jet of water high into the air.  Hepdida felt the faint touch of its spray on her cheek and turned to walk around the gallery. 

The first door she passed was the nursery where Giseanne had let her play with baby Andros.  She looked towards it with a smile at the happy recollection and then frowned.  The door was ajar
.

She took a barefoot step towards
it and pushed at the door’s carved surface.  It swung noiselessly open.  There was a guard just inside the door, sitting, not standing.  She nearly tripped over his legs on her way into the outer day nursery.  She looked down, at him. He was still, too still.   A dark spreading stain seeped towards her toes from beneath the fallen guard.  She stepped back away from the body.  The wall came up behind her with a thump that echoed in her chest.  She edged away but her foot struck something that rolled.  She looked down. It was a staff an old wooden stick its curved head worn pale with constant handling. Breathing was difficult, movement impossible.  She let her gaze trace the length of the stick in the soft moonlight.  There was a thin old hand by the staff’s other end.  The thundering of her heart was deafening, the only muscle in her body to escape the paralysis of panic. Her eyes followed the line of the body, the old elf sprawled sideways on the floor a point of steel protruding from her chest, the pale rug beneath her discoloured with a dark pool of blood. 

The body g
ave a grunt, a lurching exhale as the blade was pulled free from behind and the crouching figure at Kychelle’s back stood up, the dripping murder weapon in his hand.

“No, no.” The words whispered from Hepdida’s throat, her breaths out of time with her speech. Heart heaving, lungs fluttering. 

The figure straightened.  His eyes met hers in the half-light even as she shook her head in a desperate denial.

“This is not ho
w it seems, my Princess,” said Kaylan.

No muscle would answer.  Hepdida tried to scream but every mistimed shout came on an inward breath giving only the gasp of budding hysteria.  Kaylan, her friend Kaylan, stepped over the body of Kychelle, blood dripping from his short sword and clamped his other hand across Hepdida’s mouth. “I need you not to scream, my Princess,” his whisper was an unnerving island of calm in the midst of the nightmare she had stumbled on. 

She
clutched at that straw. Maybe she had never woken up from Grundurg’s dream. Maybe this was just part of some layered phantasm.  Maybe if she tried really hard she could wake up in her own bed.

“My P
rincess, I will take my hand away but you must not scream.  Do you understand?”

Kaylan’s hand was warm against her mouth, the wall was cold at her back.  This was too real for dreaming.  She nodded.  He took his hand away.

“Kaylan, what have you done?” she hissed.

“This is not my doing, Princess.”

“I saw you, kneeling over her, pulling your sword from her.”

“I didn’t put it in her though. T
he old lady is cold, long dead before I got here.  Touch her, feel for yourself.”

Hepdida
shook her head violently.

“I swear, m
y Princess, I did not kill her, or him,” he nodded towards the guard.

“Swear it Kayla
n, swear it!” she whispered.

He looked her steadily in the eye.  “On my Lady Niarmit’s life I had no hand in these two deaths.”

“We must tell Niarmit then.” Relief flooded over Hepdida with that realisation.  Niarmit would know, she had half turned to go when Kaylan grabbed her arm.

“No,” the thief hissed.

“She will know what to do,” Hepdida whispered back inspiration making her insistent.

“No, she cannot know,” Kaylan equally urgent softly rebutted her.  “This is complicated, it will look bad for me and the Lady Niarmit would have to lie for me or let the murderer’s plans unfold as they had intended.   We cannot let her know more tha
n she can freely speak of.  My Princess this must just be our secret.”

A whimper passed through Hepdida’s lips.  “
Kaylan, please, oh by the Goddess swear you had no part in this.”

He rested his hand on her shoulder and met her gaze.  “
By the Goddess and on my Lady Niarmit’s life, this is not my doing.“

She gulped and nodded.

“Now quickly, back to our rooms.  The nurse and the baby have not stirred in their chamber yet, but I would not say how long our luck will hold. Quick and soft my Princess, you first.”

“Hepdida, are you in here?”

The P
rincess tried not to stir at her cousin’s voice, she tried to maintain the illusion of sleeping safe within her own bed despite the hushed urgency that was plainly audible beyond her bedroom door. There had been a voice calling for Lady Niarmit, Quintala languidly demanding on what grounds, some whispering around the name Giseanne and then doors slamming, hasty footsteps.  And all the while Hepdida pretended to be asleep.  Her eyes were clenched shut against any sudden intrusion, though real rest had quite eluded her in the hours since she had left Kaylan and slunk back into their quarters.

Incoherent images and thoughts had chased each other around her head filling her mind with fruitless worry.  Kaylan, honest Kaylan, Kaylan the honest thief? Kychelle the awful woman, dead
.  He had sworn he had not done it.  A horror had not struck her so close to home since Grundurg had put an orcish shield spike through her mother’s face in their own kitchen.

“Hepdida!” Niarmit’s voice again, louder commanding her to awaken.  Quick footsteps across the marble floor. “Hepdida?” quiet this time, hesitant, fearful. The lightest touch pushed at Hepdida’s shoulder.  She rolled with it, stretching her arms in a pretended yawn.

“What is…“ the question stalled on her lips as she saw her cousin’s haunted expression.

“By the
Goddess!” Niarmit seized her in a ferocious hug, crushing the younger girl against her chest so hard Hepdida could feel the thundering of her cousin’s heart above her own.

“
Why are you trembling?” Hepdida mumbled into Niarmit’s shoulder.

“
I thought for a moment ….” Niarmit shook her head as if to lose that thought. “Cousin, you choose a fine night to escape those dreams,” she laughed.

Of course, Hepdida berated herself.  ‘Do nothing different,’ Kaylan had said, and here she was
feigning her first undisturbed night’s sleep since Niarmit had cut Grundurg’s head off.  “I did wake up,” she tried to conjure a hasty credibility to shroud her lie.

Niarmit’s eyebrows
rose, her expression tense with expectation.

“But
then I went back to sleep,” the Princess tried to quash her cousin’s curiosity. “I thought I should try to stay in my own room for once.  There was a dream, but it was all right this time.  It was one I’d had before.”  She was proud of the last detail, a little elegant gilding to her deceit.

That
pride evaporated as Niarmit observed drily, “you’ve had them all before, Hepdida, many times.”

“Well, maybe I’m just learning to manage them on my own,” Hepdida snapped back.  She pushed herself into a sitting position, smoothing down the covers to avoid her cousin’s gaze. “Wh
at did you want me for anyway?” she asked the eiderdown.

“
Get dressed. You’re to come to the council chamber, Lady Giseanne would speak to us all.”

“But I’ve said my piece to the delegates.
  They cannot want to quiz me about it again.”

Niarmit shook her head.  “This is not about that other business. All the delegates and princes and their retinues are to attend the Lady Giseanne in ten minutes.  Hurry and get dressed.”

“Oh,” Hepdida said.  Then, when Niarmit seemed to expect more she added, “What is it about?”

The Q
ueen shrugged.  “Lady Giseanne will explain it all.  Just get ready quickly.”  She made to leave, but paused in the doorway.  “I’m glad you’re trying to deal with your nightmares,” she said.  “It is very brave of you.”

Hepdida gave a weak smile
but her cousin still waited, until the Princess felt driven to ask, “is there something else?”

“Hepdida,” Niarmit said.  “You know you can tell me anything.
Anything at all?”

Hepdida turned aw
ay from the bright green eyed gaze. She felt her cheeks and ears flushing red.  “I know I can,” she told the bedclothes.

Niarmit closed the door softly behind
her, but not before Hepdida heard a brief exchange in the outer sitting room. “The Princess is well then?” Quintala asked.

“She slept,” Niarmit replied.  “She slept through it, thank the
Goddess.”

There was a sombre atmosphere in the council chamber, more crowded than it had been when Thom and Hepdida had given their accounts of the Dark Lord’s invasion.  They sat in little groups on the high backed wooden chairs which Rugan’s flunkies provided.  The Prince of Medyrsalve sat in his own ornate throne, the Lady Giseanne at his side and beyond her the Deaconess Rhodra. 

Niarmit
was at the centre of her party.  At Giseanne’s bidding she had named her associates, the illusionist and Princess to her right and the Seneschal to the left.  While they were already known to the others in the room, Hepdida watched how the curious eyes of the others had settled on Kaylan.  Niarmit had called him her trusted companion and a fellow warrior in the struggle to free Undersalve.  Hepdida had seen the Lords of Oostsalve exchange a look and Leniot mouthed to Tybert, ‘the thief.’

Hepdida had tried to catch Kaylan’s eye as she scurried along the corridor in another borrowed dress, but the thief had granted her the
smallest courtesy of a smile before they had entered the council chamber and now he was subjecting the other delegates to his own intense scrutiny.

Across the room the Bishop Sorenso
n had been joined by a thin faced curate called Merlow and a grey suited manservant called Fenwell.  The curate dared to meet the gaze of any who would look his way. The manservant eschewed any attention bestowed on him by his master’s peers, staring resolutely at the floor.

The Lords of Oostsalve h
ad an entourage of two.  Leniot presented Sir Vahnce, a slim man clean shaven olive complexion fastidiously clad in black doublet and breeches. While Leniot described him as a close confidante and adviser, Thom muttered that he was known as little more than Leniot’s drinking and gambling partner.

Tybert’s associate was a woman.  Hepdida guessed her to be a little older than Niarmit, but dressed with striking attention to fashion and to detail.  Despite the hurried summons her blond hair was piled elegantly high to show off a pale neck. 
An elaborate cape and dress made the most of a full figure that would have made Hepdida’s mother seethe with jealousy.  Tybert had introduced her as the Lady Maia, his spiritual counsellor whereupon Quintala fell to a fit of coughing in the midst of which Hepdida was sure she heard the word “whore.”

The introductions done it was Sorenson who asked the obvious question.  “Will the Lady Kychelle not be joining us, Madam Regent?”

“She will not.” Giseanne glanced across at her husband, who had been slumped in his chair glowering at each of his guests in turn.  At Sorenson’s question he stomped to his feet, shaking off Giseanne’s restraining arm.

“My Grandmother will not be joining us because she has been murdered.”

“My Lord!” Giseanne cried. “We agreed to say as little…”

“Bugger that!” Rugan called as the ripple of shock at his news ran around the room.  Hepdida tried to look quickl
y from one face to the other gauging their reaction to see who was genuinely surprised and who was not.  Sorenson’s jaw had dropped, the curate was frowning, Fenwell still stared at the floor.

Leniot and Tybert were exchanging a look, but of what
? surprise? Understanding?  It was not shock, not quite amusement, but the news had intrigued more than alarmed them.  Vahnce’s eyes flicked quickly around the room and settled on Hepdida with a stare of enquiry scarcely less piercing than Niarmit’s.  The Princess looked to the floor and hoped the blush would not reach her ears or pique the gambler’s interest.

“My grandmother has been murdered in m
y own halls, stabbed in the back in my son’s day nursery.”

“My Lord Prince,” Rhodra
added her voice to Giseanne’s word of caution.  “The less we divulge now the more chance we will have to uncover the truth of it.”

“The truth of it!” Rugan cried.  “The tru
th of it is simple, one of you, guests in my home, have wrought this foul deed.  You are all quartered in the fountain courtyard. The guards at the ends of the galleries have given convincing accounts that no-one passed by them in the night.  He who struck the blow or she, came from one of those within this chamber.”

Sorenson coughed. “My Lord
Prince, I grieve for your loss, the Petred Isle is a poorer place for the Lady Kychelle’s death.  But forgive me, I thought your palace had wards in place, magical alarms which is why we had liberty to bring our arms in safety within your private chambers.”

Rugan blinked at the wall behind Sorenson.  “The wards failed,” he said thickly.  “Last night the wards failed and in that unguarded moment an assassin has struck.”

“When last we met in this chamber,” Leniot mused aloud.  “I recall words being exchanged between the Lady Niarmit and poor Kychelle, a blow was struck.  Injured pride is a powerful motivator for mischief, is it not?”  He let the question hang in the air, all the while staring at Niarmit.  Hepdida looked across at Kaylan.  The thief made no move towards her but the Princess could see he had gone deathly pale.

Niarmit was calm in her own defence.  “The Lady Kychelle and I had settled our differences since then and when we last spoke had parted most amicably
.”

Tybert gave a snort of derision, while his concubine fanned her face at speed.  Giseanne interjected.  “I was there at that meeting and can vouch for the Lady Niarmit in this matter.  However, it was not the purpose of this meeting to conduct an investigation or a trial.”

“Forgive me, Lady Giseanne, may I ask a question?”

Hepdida spun round at the unfamiliar voice.  It
was Vahnce who had spoken, slipping from Leniot’s shadow to pose a question in a soft eastern accent. 

“Sir
Vahnce, you may ask, but whether we can in wisdom answer it is another matter.”

“If the wards were not functioning, is it not possible for an assassin to have entered from outside the build
ing, to have come across the gardens?”

“Past all my guards?” Rugan spat his disbelief.

“There is much in this night of sorrow which beggars belief, my Lord Prince,” Vahnce went on, oily smooth.  “We should not be too swift to dismiss any possibility, however remote.”  Behind him Hepdida saw Tybert and Leniot exchanging puzzled looks.

“Are we sure that the Lady Kychelle was the intended victim?” Sorenson
pinned down a thought that had been eluding him for some moments.  “You say this heinous attack took place in the nursery.  The young Lordling, Andros, he is…?”

“Baby and nurse are well, they were in the night nursery and slept through the entire
attack,” Giseanne assured the Bishop.  “However, all avenues will be explored in the investigation and certain precautions must now be taken.”  She swept her hand towards the plump cleric at her side.  “Deaconess Rhodra will speak to each of you in turn today.  With the aid of the Goddess’s blessing she will determine who speaks true and if any should lie.  I would hope for your co-operation that the truth of this dreadful matter can be swiftly uncovered.  The Goddess knows, terrible as poor Kychelle’s murder is, there are still greater concerns which demand our attention before we may be granted respite in which to grieve.”

“Amen to that,” Niarmit said.