The Death of Dulgath Read online

  “Rumors can’t be trusted,” Royce told him.

  “No, of course not.” Fawkes glanced toward the front gate. “Still, I doubt our good sheriff knows about that incident or realizes he may owe me his life. As I recall, that dead noble was a high constable. Knox should be more careful. One doesn’t buy poison and handle it without gloves. A fine and dangerous instrument deserves respect. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Absolutely.” Royce nodded. “And now that you mention it, I do seem to recall something about that rumor. Happened in Medford, didn’t it?”

  “Why, yes, I believe that was the place.”

  “I can see why you were concerned about the sheriff, but just so we understand each other…the man killed wasn’t just a high constable; he was also the king’s cousin.”

  Lord Fawkes escorted them inside Castle Dulgath’s stables, which were situated beyond the cleft wall and down the road where the land flattened out enough to be safe for horses. Made to appear like a fancy cottage, the stables had twelve-paned windows and an interlocking-brick floor. The place was cleaner than Wayward Street—even cleaner than The Rose and the Thorn despite Gwen’s hard work. The building didn’t smell like a stable. There wasn’t a trace of manure nor a glimpse of straw. Chandeliers hung from a high ceiling, and the doorways benefited from decorative molding. Horses lounged in stained oak stalls with black-painted metal gates. Each wore a tailored blanket, and in front of every bay sat a large, beautifully crafted trunk.

  “Nice barn,” Hadrian remarked, looking up at the tongue-and-groove ceiling.

  “Adequate,” Fawkes said with a bulging lower lip and a curt dip of his head. “Dulgath doesn’t have the resources, talent, or inclination to indulge in serious equestrian endeavors. I realize you meant it as a jest, Hadrian, but in Maranon, this is hardly impressive.”

  Lord Fawkes strolled along the long row of gates and stopped outside the stall where a horse stood cloaked in a beige warming coat. Large, black eyes spotted Fawkes, and a white head poked out through the opening in the bars designed specifically for that purpose. The lord cooed, made kissing sounds, and scrubbed the horse’s neck. “This is Immaculate—she’s mine.” Fawkes opened a small pouch on his belt and palmed out a sugar cube. The horse snatched up the treat, smacking her lips with a loud, hollow thumping clap of appreciation.

  “Why are we here?” Royce asked.

  Annoyance flashed across Fawkes’s face but was instantly stripped and replaced by a warm smile. “Not a fan of horses?”

  “I like riding more than walking, but I prefer women for the friendlier stuff.”

  “Ha! Well said. Still, a good horse can be a blessing from Novron.” He patted Immaculate’s neck fondly. “No one understands our love, do they?” he whispered loud enough for them to hear, then turned away with a grin.

  Fawkes moved to the next stall, which housed an entirely black horse, this one with a snow-white velvet blanket. The horses were so perfect, so uniform in color; Royce wouldn’t have put it past these pretentious people to dye the animals. Even the horse’s hooves were pitch black. Fawkes reached down and flung open the chest. Inside, a saddle rested on a stand beside a folded blanket, a bridle, and a lead. The saddle was two-toned, tooled leather with an embroidered suede seat and shiny brass fittings. It had the fixed head and lower leaping head of a sidesaddle, which accounted for its plush luxury, although Royce imagined Lord Fawkes’s saddle to be just as ostentatious.

  “This is Derby, Lady Dulgath’s mare. And this”—he lifted the sidesaddle—“is Her Ladyship’s as well.” He held it up to them.

  “It’s very nice,” Hadrian said.

  Fawkes chuckled. “Look at the cinch.”

  Royce tilted his head to peer at the fabric band that dangled down. Unlike the dual D-rings he and Hadrian tied leather straps to, this one had a set of buckles hidden under the saddle flap. Made of wool, this girth band was bright white.

  “Again, very pretty,” Hadrian said.

  “It’s new,” Royce noted.

  The lord grinned. “Good eye.”

  Fawkes dropped the saddle, closed the chest, then walked to the far wall, where an open barrel stood. Reaching inside, he withdrew a near-identical girth strap. This one was sweat-stained and lacked the fluff of the other.

  Royce took it from Fawkes and examined the edges—crisp and clean up to a point and then ragged where the wool banding had torn. Hadrian looked at him expectantly. “Someone cut it a little more than halfway through. The rest tore while riding.”

  Fawkes nodded. “Lady Dulgath was shifting from a three-beat canter to a four-beat gallop when it happened. She took a nasty spill. Thankfully, she wasn’t jumping at the time, although she was setting up to do so. The strap broke during her practice ride for the Dulgath Steeplechase of Roses.”

  Fawkes retrieved the strap from Royce and dropped it back in the barrel.

  “So that’s two,” Hadrian said. “How did they try to kill her the third time?”

  “Poison,” Royce replied.

  Hadrian and Fawkes looked at him in surprise.

  “How did you know?” Fawkes asked.

  “I didn’t, until just now, but it seemed likely, given the azaleas in the courtyard.”

  “Those pink flowers are poisonous?” Fawkes said as if Royce had shattered a childhood trust. “They’re so beautiful.”

  “And toxic. When I was with the Diamond, a common practice was to send a bouquet of azaleas in a black vase as a warning to other guilds that might be encroaching.”

  “We should have those torn out immediately!”

  “Don’t bother. They don’t pose any real danger to anyone but dogs or maybe children. There are a lot of poisonous flowers—chrysanthemum, lily of the valley, hydrangea, foxglove, wisteria. Eat any of them and you’ll get sick but probably won’t die. To do someone in, you want hemlock—eight leaves will kill you. Monkshood is excellent because it absorbs through the skin and leaves no trace. Belladonna is also nice; just one leaf or ten little berries will do the job. Old Bell is a favorite of female murderers because they always have it on hand. Rubbing the leaves on their cheeks makes them rosy. Later, you can brew tea with the same leaves and rid yourself of a troublesome husband. The best choice, of course, is arsenic, but finding some is nearly impossible, and making the extract is difficult.”

  “Then why did you think she’d been poisoned?” Fawkes asked.

  “Because you aren’t dealing with a professional. Dropping a block of stone and cutting a saddle strap is pathetic, lazy work. I don’t even think the killer is a novice. What you’re dealing with is a first-time idiot. A lot of people have heard azaleas are poisonous. So if you’re a moron, but looking for a means to bury someone, those pretty blossoms would be hard to resist. I’m guessing the countess was sick recently?”

  Fawkes nodded. “We were enjoying breakfast, and she complained about a burning in her mouth. She was eating a pastry at the time, then she drooled a bit and vomited. Disgusting.”

  “She has a taster now?” Royce asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And what makes you think that this feckless would-be killer has given up and hired a professional?”

  “Rumors, mostly. Well, that and the fact that nothing has happened lately. I don’t know anything about these sorts of things, but my guess is it would take time to find the right man, have him travel down here, and plan the deed. That’s why I’m glad you arrived. So how would you go about killing Countess Dulgath?”

  Royce shook his head. “I don’t know—yet. You’re right about proper planning. Things aren’t to be rushed if they’re to be done right.”

  “When will you know?”

  “I need to get a feel for this place, observe Lady Dulgath’s habits, find her weaknesses and vulnerabilities. A good assassin is like a good tailor—everything is fit to order.”

  “So this could take a while.” Fawkes sounded disappointed.

  “Well, like you said, if it didn’t she’d be dead
already, so I wouldn’t complain. Given that I’m in a race here, I should get to work.” He turned to Hadrian. “Can you get us a room or something in the village while I take a look around?”

  “You can stay in the castle,” Fawkes said. “There are extra rooms, and I’m sure I can convince Wells about the value of having you there.”

  Royce shook his head. “I’d rather retain my autonomy and perspective. But that does bring up a point. We need an alibi, an excuse for being here.”

  Hadrian looked around them. “What about horse traders or trainers—something like that?”

  Fawkes shook his head. “In these parts, horses are our religion. And a layman can’t fool the devout.”

  “Besides,” Royce said, “it has to allow us to poke around and ask questions without drawing attention.”

  “Maybe Payne could say you’re deacons of the church?”

  “Most of the town saw me flash my swords,” Hadrian said. “By now the other half has heard the story. One guy thought we might be Seret because we were helping Pastor Payne. Could we play off that?”

  “Swords? Helping Payne? What are you talking about?” Fawkes asked.

  “When we arrived, the townsfolk were going to tar-and-feather him. Seeing as he was our client, I thought it was best if they didn’t,” Royce said.

  Fawkes nodded. “The people around here are not overjoyed with the church, though that will change now that Bishop Parnell is building a ministry. I wouldn’t advise posing as a Seret. The military arm of the church are fanatics and its best not to get on the wrong side of their kind. But that does give me an idea. What about…”

  “What?”

  “Well, we could use the incident to our advantage. You saw a crime being committed and stepped in. We’ll make you sheriffs.”

  “W-what?” Royce asked.

  “Yes, of course. I’ll talk to Knox.”

  “I won’t work for him,” Royce declared.

  “In a way, you already do,” Fawkes said. “But you’re right, he didn’t seem too taken with you. That’s fine. I’ll tell you what. I’ll say that the two of you are special royal constables sent by the king himself to investigate attempts made on Lady Dulgath’s life. It makes perfect sense. Vincent is scheduled to visit here in the next few days to review the fief, accept Lady Dulgath’s pledge of fealty, and renew the homage. It’s only sensible he would want to send his own men to ensure his security, if not hers. Yes…” Fawkes grinned. “Two royal constables—you’d have authority to go anywhere and question anyone.”

  “How do we prove it?”

  “I’ll vouch for you and talk to Wells and Knox—convince them it’ll help protect Lady Dulgath, and they’ll need to back me up if anyone asks. I can be quite persuasive when I need to. We’ll draw up some official-looking papers with Vincent’s signature. Almost everyone here is illiterate, but if it looks official, and if I, Wells, and Knox confirm your story, they’ll believe.”

  “Constables?” Royce muttered more to himself than them. He’d played roles in the past: shopkeepers, tradesmen, soldiers, tax collectors. Once he’d even impersonated an executioner—he was good at that one. Never had he imagined acting as the chief law enforcement official of a realm. The notion left him unsettled, like being asked to eat human flesh.

  “Appropriate, too,” Fawkes said, and threw his arms out to remind them of their surroundings. When they didn’t show a hint of understanding, he explained, “The word constable comes down from imperial times, when the officer responsible for keeping the horses was the count of the stable. It’s like a sign from Novron.”

  Royce agreed. He just wasn’t certain what was on that sign.

  Chapter Six

  The House and the Bedchamber

  While riding by himself back to town, Hadrian concluded something wasn’t right about the village of Brecken Dale. He felt it in that faint, absent way he noticed the first kiss of a cold—nothing specific, nothing he could point to, just a general sense of things being askew. Seeing the pretty berries along the trail reminded him of what Royce had said about them being poisonous. Could he have been on to something or was that just another example of Royce being Royce? Over the last couple of years, Hadrian had witnessed many Royce-being-Royce moments and developed a truism about his partner’s unique brand of paranoia and cynicism. Offered help was either an insult or a ploy. Needed help was a con or a ploy. Pretty much everything was suspected of being a ploy of some sort, except perhaps admitted exploitation, which Royce oddly identified as honesty.

  Believing the worst of people, of the world in general, was a trap too easy to fall into. Hadrian had fought beside soldiers who’d developed similar views. Such men saw evil and virtue as concepts of childhood naïveté. In their minds, there was no such thing as murder, and killing was just something you did when circumstances warranted.

  A terrible way to live. What good is a world—what is the point of living—if generosity and kindness are myths?

  Royce, like everyone, saw what he looked for, what he expected to see. Hadrian looked for goodness and believed he was better for doing so.

  Who doesn’t want to live in a brighter world?

  He rode along a short wall that decorated rather than protected one of the many stacked-stone farmhouses. Farmers always built from what was at hand, and being tucked between the toes of old mountains, the fields had to be a veritable quarry of rocks. As a blacksmith’s son, Hadrian had never suffered the trials of turning the soil in Hintindar, but he knew many who did. Most came to his father with mangled plows, battered mattocks, and anguished faces. Rocks were as much a curse to farmers as the weather.

  Only two things can be reliably grown—rocks and weeds. He’d heard the saying repeated by the villeins in his childhood village of Hintindar whenever spring threw up another crop of each. And every year the walls surrounding the fields got higher and longer. There had been a time when he wondered if those walls would seal him in.

  Noting the height of the wall he now rode beside, Hadrian couldn’t help but wonder why it was so short. Once more that feeling of strangeness descended, underscoring the notion that everything about the town was off, askew.

  No, not just askew, awry.

  Approaching the twin oaks that marked the southern boundary of the town, he noted how they resembled a pair of porch pillars. These broad columns, however, were clad in dark bark and hid beneath a canopy that cast deep, wide shadows. The hollow—the dale—where the village clustered was a leafy pocket at the base of the ravine where that singular road from the outside entered the Valley of Dulgath.

  Outside. Already Hadrian thought of things in such terms as here and beyond here, as if he were in a different place from everywhere else, from normal. On this, his second visit to Brecken Dale, he thought the gathered ivy wasn’t simply decorative and pretty but a blanket that hid everything. The sound of Dancer’s hooves on the stone road echoed in the hollow.

  Everything echoes. Noises bounced back off the ravine. Not even sound escapes.

  When he reached Pastor Payne’s ramshackle hovel, the old man was outside, pulling loose boards. More than a few had come free and teetered in a stack next to him.

  “Hey there,” Hadrian called. “Could you recommend an inn? I’m going to get a room for myself and Royce.”

  “This town doesn’t have one. At least none I could recommend. Your best bet would be Fassbinder’s place.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Fassbinder is a soap maker, but his two boys died last year. It’s where I stayed my first night, but now Bishop Parnell has arranged for this”—he gestured toward the shack—“wonderful abode. He’s assured me the new church will be the envy of the region.”

  Hadrian tried to imagine Royce taking supper with Fassbinder and his wife. He didn’t relish night after night of awkward silence.

  “How about something a bit more public. A tavern with some lodging, perhaps?”

  “There’s Caldwell House, but as I said, I wou
ldn’t recommend it.”

  “Why wouldn’t I want to go there? Do they have bugs or something?”

  “Worse. It’s down by the river near the square where we first met.” Payne’s arm stretched out, one bony finger aimed downhill toward the center of the village, where the ivy and old oaks grew the thickest. “A house of sin and debauchery.”

  “They sell beer then?”

  The pastor’s response was an irritated pfft, which Hadrian took as yes.

  “I stay away from the river. The far side is godless; that’s the bad side.”

  “What’s over there?” Hadrian lifted his head. A depression snaked through the far side of town, where he imagined a river ran. Beyond roofs and gables, he saw only trees and a hill.

  “Nothing—nothing of any worth.”

  Hadrian had trouble reading clergy in general; they always managed to project a disconnected yet knowledgeable attitude—less than helpful when gauging reliability.

  “Fassbinder is up that way,” Payne told Hadrian, pointing toward the majority of the freshly planted fields to the south.

  “Thanks.” He dismounted, preferring to walk through the remainder of the village and guessing Dancer appreciated the gesture.

  The sun was in the middle of the sky and warm—another beautiful day in Maranon—but few people were out. A pair of boys and a dog chased sheep in a high meadow up the ravine, and a woman drew water from the central well, but he didn’t see anyone else. Two doors closed as he approached, and the shutters on nearly every house abutting the street were sealed.

  He hoped the pastor wasn’t watching him as he turned downhill toward the river.

  On that day the village market was open. The dale’s version was small, airy, and lined with stalls and carts selling salt, spices, leather goods, candles, copper pots, and brass buttons. Caldwell House wasn’t hard to find. The building sat on the corner of THIS WAY AND THAT, which was a confusing sign, given that five separate lanes came together at the same intersection; two, however, were only small pathways. One of these led to a reclusive home surrounded by a stand of trees, while the other marked the entrance to what Hadrian thought must be Caldwell House, easily the largest building in the village.