The Death of Dulgath Read online

  The abbot lifted the lid and revealed the contents—a piece of cloth.

  Green, black, and blue plaid, the material seemed to be a simple shawl or small blanket. Clearly old, it was faded, tattered, torn, and badly frayed around the edges. The fabric was lovingly laid out and tacked in place so its full width was visible, like a tapestry.

  “After his battle with the demon,” Augustine said, staring down into the golden box, his hands reverently clasped before him, “Bran the Beloved took off his shawl. In the morning, he left it behind. This is the One True Thing, the proof of my words. We believe this shawl—this very bit of cloth you see here—was handed down to Bran from Brin. If so, it would be older than the Novronian Empire, older by far than the Church of Nyphron, even older than Percepliquis. This is the Shawl of Brin.”

  In that dark grotto, next to the gold case held up by those eerie stone hands and bathed in that pure white shaft of sunlight, Hadrian did feel a sense of awe. A presence of the mystical crept over him, raising goose bumps. An old blanket in a box was what he saw, but what he felt was an intersection with eternity, a window on a world beyond, an impossible wrinkle in reality—a footprint of a god.

  No one spoke for several minutes. They stood transfixed by the simple woolen cloth, as if they were holding their own internal conversations with it, with themselves, and with Maribor. Then, without another word, the abbot closed the box, breaking the spell. He led them back out into the daylight of the tranquil cloister.

  The sun felt good, reassuring. Everything was normal again. Still, no one spoke, and Hadrian took another drink from the pool. This time he splashed water on his face, then looked around.

  Is it possible that some ancient hero really did fight and defeat an old-world demon on this mountaintop? Is this valley really blessed in some way? Hadrian pictured telling Royce that story and once more felt the grass beneath his feet.

  His doubt must have registered, because Abbott Gilcrest patted him on the arm reassuringly and said, “Don’t worry, my son, if you don’t believe in Maribor and the blessings he provides. Belief in him isn’t a requirement. It doesn’t stop him from believing in you.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Lady Dulgath

  The room they had lent Sherwood Stow was on the third floor of the south tower, and not as nice as Royce and Hadrian’s at Caldwell House. The space was smaller and had but a sliver of a sea-facing window, which left it gloomy. With three of the walls made from stone, the place was as comfortable as a dungeon. In his explorations, Royce had discovered better rooms left vacant. Perhaps those rooms had been occupied when Sherwood arrived, or they were reserved for the coming of the king and his entourage. Or maybe whoever had assigned Sherwood’s room wanted him to leave as soon as possible.

  The artist had been provided with a bed, but even though evening drew near, no one had bothered to freshen the linens. Broken rocks of yellow ocher and ruddy iron littered a small table in the corner. A tiny hammer and a metal file lay among the debris. Hammer-sized impressions on the surface of the table suggested Sherwood held as much respect for his accommodation as those who had provided the room had shown to the artist. Chicken bones littered the floor near the chamber pot. Near misses, Royce guessed. From the rancid smell that greeted his nose upon entering, Sherwood’s pisspot hadn’t been dealt with any better than the bed.

  “I don’t get visitors,” Sherwood said with a mix of irritation and embarrassment. He picked up the discarded bones, crossed the room, and dumped them and the chamber pot’s contents out the window and into the sea. When he turned back, a look of shock flashed across the painter’s face.

  Royce didn’t suffer from a lack of situational awareness. Some people—most people—walked around oblivious to nearly everything. How they survived more than a week was a curiosity to him akin to why turkeys had wings. In Royce’s profession, being surprised was the same as being dead, so catching him unaware was a rare thing. Seeing the stunned look on Sherwood’s face, however, Royce was certain someone had been hiding in the corner as they entered. Cursing himself for his stupidity and expecting the worst, Royce whirled while reaching for his dagger.

  No one was there, just the artist’s easel and paint tray propped in the corner.

  Sherwood moved to the easel as if he’d forgotten Royce was in the room. He reached out and touched the tripod, running his hands over the surface of the paint-splattered wood. “Impossible.”

  “What is?”

  Sherwood untied a rolled-up canvas pouch. It unfurled, one end dangling from the easel tray. The thing was a sort of carrying case for paintbrushes, with little pockets for each. There had to be two dozen brushes neatly stuffed into the compartments. “They’re all here.”

  Sherwood opened the lid of the tray and gasped. He jerked back as if a snake had been hiding there. Reaching out, he timidly touched each of the pigment bottles. Then he picked up the paint-smeared palette and stared at it. “It’s…it’s…” he repeated, shaking his head. “This is the same palette. The paint it’s…I just don’t understand.”

  “Your easel, your paint, your room, what’s not to understand?”

  “These don’t exist anymore, or I should say they didn’t—none of them. Last night Lord Fawkes went into the study and destroyed it all. This easel was snapped into half a dozen pieces, and the paint vials were shattered against the walls and floor. And this…” Sherwood held up the palette. “This was broken in two. But it’s all here now—not a mark, not a blemish.”

  “No blemishes? There are dents, scrapes, and paint splattered all over that thing.”

  “Yes!” Sherwood spun, holding up the palette like a tiny shield. “I know every mark, every drip of paint. This isn’t a replacement or a replica. This is my old easel. These are my old paints.”

  Sherwood’s eyes went wide with thought. He turned and scanned the pigments again. “Beyond the Sea…it isn’t here.”

  “That’s because I have it.” Royce held out the bottle.

  “Yes.” Sherwood took the vial and put it in the gap where it belonged. “This doesn’t make sense.”

  “Ponder it later. I have questions, remember?”

  Sherwood faced him with a giddy smile. “Sure. Whatever. What do you want to know?”

  “Tell me about Lady Dulgath. What’s she like? What are her habits? Her interests? Her—”

  “Her hair isn’t black.”

  “I’m actually more interested in—”

  “People don’t know that,” he went on, staring at Royce in earnest. “They would if they paid attention, if they looked close, but people don’t. Everyone is so focused on themselves they never really take the time to look at others and rarely see them.”

  Royce sensed Sherwood was one of those quirky spigots that started by chugging and spitting out blasts of useless, dirty water. But after you pumped it a few times, it vomited the good stuff. He decided to continue to coax, to see what came out. “So what color is her hair?”

  “Brown.”

  “Looks black to me.”

  “It’s what I call soft black, but it’s really a very dark brown. You can see it when she stands in front of a window on a sunny day. The light gives her a golden halo as it passes through the individual strands. Her eyes aren’t really brown, either. There’s a hint of gold and even a little green in them.”

  “I’m not interested in painting her.”

  “But that’s how I know her. That’s how I understand her. She doesn’t have black hair and brown eyes like everyone else, because she isn’t like everyone else. She isn’t like anyone else. You can hear it in her voice. She drags her vowels, puts emphasis on the wrong syllables, as if she’s from another country. But I’ve been to all of them, and I’ve never heard the like. Just looking at her you can see the differences. She’s only twenty-two, but she has an old soul. Her not-young soul is visible through those not-brown eyes. She betrays it in the way she moves, the way she acts. Each step, each shift is poised and filled with total
confidence. She’s fearless in the command of her body. This confidence bleeds out in her voice and the directions she gives her staff. Firm, strong, but kind and compassionate, she has wisdom far beyond her apparent years. And courage!” Sherwood chuckled at the absurdity, as if Royce had just accused Lady Dulgath of being a coward.

  “I once saw her stop a fight between two soldiers. One had a busted, bleeding nose, and he had just drawn his sword. The other man’s face was red with rage, and he howled in anger. Everyone else—big men, some of them armed—backed away. She marched right up and slapped one and then the other. Just slapped them. I couldn’t believe it. I don’t think anyone could. She did the same sort of thing with an unruly horse.”

  “She slapped it?”

  Sherwood chuckled again; the man was in a decidedly better mood than when they’d first met. “No, but…well, the animal was rearing and kicking, and Nysa—I mean, Lady Dulgath—showed no hesitation. She laid a hand on the animal’s neck. The horse relaxed—calmed right down.” Sherwood continued to stare at the easel, then blinked and laughed again. A self-conscious smile pulled at his lips.

  Royce remained quiet, waiting to see if Sherwood would continue. Just as he thought the artist was finished, he spoke again.

  “She’s sad,” Sherwood said at last. “Lonely, I think.”

  “Her father just died.”

  “It’s not that. I arrived before he died. She was melancholy then, too. She actually took her father’s death well, very stoically. Still, there’s a regret that hovers around her. That’s the thing I notice the most about her. She wears it like…like you wear that cloak—hides behind it. That’s what makes her so hard to see.”

  Sherwood went on to speak of Nysa Dulgath with an awe that only infatuation—deep and fresh—produced. Sherwood was likely on the verge of declaring that the lady inhaled with more acumen than mere mortals, and yet…

  Heat and cold don’t bother you nearly as much as they do your friend, but ice, snow, and boats—oh, ships!

  If she had added dogs and dwarves to the list of things he avoided, Royce would’ve concluded she knew him. And the comment about water…Royce could swim, he’d had to on a few occasions, but he avoided lakes, rivers, and the ocean. He hated having no solid ground to stand on. Boats and docks were somehow worse. They messed with his balance and made him sick. He’d never told anyone. Weaknesses were things only the stupid advertised. Nysa Dulgath knew his just by looking at him.

  Royce spotted the cloth-covered painting behind the table. “Is that her portrait?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I see it?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s not done.”

  Royce considered looking anyway, but he’d seen plenty of portraits hanging in the halls of the wealthy, usually pudgy men and pasty women. He simply wasn’t that interested. He’d learned what he came to find out. Sherwood wasn’t a threat to Lady Dulgath—he was in love with her. Royce had suspected as much from the moment the painter threw a fortune in blue pigment at him in her defense. Now he was certain. With their deal concluded, Royce was content to leave the artist alone with his easel mystery. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he should have looked.

  Climbing the ivy was even easier the second time.

  Lady Dulgath was in her bedroom. He’d seen the light come on before he started his climb and made no effort to conceal his approach. Even so, the odds of anyone seeing or hearing him were slim. Practice and experience had made his stealth habitual. Cats—even when not hunting—were damn hard to hear.

  She wasn’t in bed.

  Lifting his head above the sill, Royce saw Nysa Dulgath sitting at the little desk, her back to him. She was wearing a different gown. This one was white and off the shoulder, drawing attention to the smooth dark-olive skin, and—he didn’t care what Sherwood said—she had black hair.

  He studied her.

  The first time he’d met Lady Dulgath—he hadn’t really noticed the woman herself. Instead, he’d seen the accumulated assumptions he’d built while riding to Maranon. This time he watched more honestly and found a beautiful woman. Slender, tall, relaxed in her body—Sherwood was right about the poise and confidence. She was just sitting at her desk, but she sat straight, ankles crossed. The movement of her hands and arms as she used a quill was—

  “Are you here to kill me this time?” she asked without turning.

  Royce slipped through the window and perched on the sill, his feet dangling inside the room but not touching the coiled rug that covered half the floor. “No. Why would you say that?”

  Lady Dulgath set her quill down and turned halfway in her seat, throwing one arm over the back of the chair. Long hair covered the side of her face, obscuring one eye and blanketing one shoulder. The candle behind her gave it a pleasant shine. “Because no one hires an assassin merely to plan a murder. Was it Bishop Parnell or Lord Fawkes who hired you to kill me?”

  She knows!

  “Actually, they did hire me, but merely to provide them with a plan.”

  “Which they will execute?”

  Royce shrugged. “Probably.”

  The degree to which Royce had misjudged this noble woman was earthshattering. He’d made bad guesses before, but he almost always overestimated his enemies. This time he’d pegged his target as a careless, negligent, oblivious child; he’d mistaken a fox for a hen.

  “Since you obviously know people are plotting your death, why haven’t you bothered to take precautions?”

  “Mister Melborn, is it? Ruling a kingdom doesn’t equal unfettered power. Take for example the Church of Nyphron—the chief sponsor of my elimination. I have no power to remove any of them. They don’t work for me. Only the king can order such a ban, and he won’t. This leaves me with an assassin on my windowsill—something that ought to be only a metaphor.”

  “And yet you don’t seem the least bit frightened.”

  She rolled her shoulders, shrugging off the hair. “You just said you weren’t here to kill me.”

  “And you believe the word of a killer?”

  “Maybe I’m just not afraid of dying.”

  “Everyone is afraid of death.”

  “Says the deliveryman. And yet you make a business of it.”

  “I used to make a business of it,” Royce clarified, then wondered why he bothered. She didn’t care, and neither should he. “And people are not afraid of death happening, just of it happening to them.”

  “So you aren’t a killer anymore?”

  “Not an assassin.”

  “Ah.” She nodded. “Now you merely advise others.”

  “This is an unusual job.”

  “No doubt.” She brushed the hair away from her face, looking at him clearly with both eyes. “How would you kill me?”

  She was being provocative, trying to push him off balance. She took great pleasure in that, enjoyed attacking and watching him retreat. “I’d slit your throat while you slept.”

  “You’d sneak up here while I’m in bed, catch me unaware, but…that didn’t work so well last night…or this.”

  “I wasn’t trying very hard.”

  “Right, of course, normally you succeed because—because of your special secret.”

  “Let’s not go there again.”

  “Why not? Are you afraid to learn something about yourself?”

  “I know myself quite well, thank you.”

  “No, you don’t.” Nysa stood up. The light of the desk’s candle behind her left the lady’s features in darkness, but the bright white of the gown practically glowed. “You think you’re a man, but you’re better than that.”

  “Better? Last night you called me an elf.”

  “You are.”

  “And you call that better? Where I come from, that’s about as low an insult as there is.”

  “Where I come from, it’s the highest form of praise.”

  Royce leaned in and peered at her with a disagreeable smi
rk. “I hadn’t noticed Maranon holding any affection for elves. In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen any since coming here.”

  Lady Dulgath bit her lip and turned away.

  A point scored.

  Royce could see what had so overwhelmed Sherwood. Lady Dulgath had an allure that even he couldn’t deny. It didn’t help that she looked a bit like Gwen DeLancy: same shapely figure, dark eyes, and dark hair. Some time ago Royce had realized that he judged the beauty of all women by how much they resembled Gwen, but there was more to Nysa Dulgath’s appeal than that. She was younger and lighter-skinned than Gwen, but they shared the same intoxicating sense of mystery. In a world of mundane predictability, they were intriguing riddles—rain in sunshine creating rainbows.

  “If you’re not here to kill me, then why climb my ivy? Were you hoping to catch me dressing?”

  Royce rolled his eyes.

  “Sorry, I’ve never met an assassin. How would I know what you do? But if peeping wasn’t your aim, what is?”

  “Trying to figure out why someone wants you dead.”

  “No, that’s not it.” She showed him a smirk of her own. “You’re deciding whether I deserve to live. You’re trying to determine if it’s worth the money to tell them how to kill me. You didn’t have any problem doing so when we first met, but second thoughts have crept in since last night. And now—now you’re undecided—on a windowsill, so to speak.”

  “You can certainly wring every drop out of a metaphor, can’t you?”

  She got up, spun halfway around on her left heel, and went to the bed. Sherwood was right about the way she moved. She didn’t so much walk as glide, and that heel spin she did was as elegant as a dancer’s pirouette.