“Tayu? Thank you, Mrs. Tern. That’s quite helpful.”
Tayu regularly purchased night irises from the wife of the man who was running messages for Ardwulf’s killer? What did that mean?
****
By the time we got back to the castle it was nearly dinner time. I was told that Myrick was still questioning the officers. Grimwulf had been fed, and Callis was still in the infirmary. Francis was in town and Brin was either spying on Grimwulf or she had gotten tired of it and left it for the guardsmen to do.
It was time to talk to my cousin. The whole day had passed since he’d been detained. While it was acceptable for me to leave the questioning of the duke’s officers to Myrick, I felt this responsibility was mine alone. I wasn’t in a hurry, maybe because I was a little afraid. Even with four guards all armed with crossbows and swords, I was nervous as I stepped into Grimwulf’s suite.
He sat on a sofa in the front room, leaning back with his eyes closed. A half-eaten turkey leg sat cold on the table. The wine was untouched. His eyes opened as soon as we entered. Shifting his bulk to the edge of the couch, he stared at me. I stared back, but only for a moment. There was a desk in the room and I leaned against it. Crossing my arms, I waited.
Myrick had given me a piece of advice: don’t talk first. No matter how long you have to wait, he had said, make Grimwulf speak first. That way he would already be inclined to talk when I began asking questions. It wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. I must have waited ten long minutes, and the whole time I wanted to fill the uncomfortable silence with my voice. I held back. It reminded me of letting one’s clock run when playing a timed game of chess—it makes your opponent worry about what you have in mind.
“Well, are you going to tell me what this is about or not?” Grimwulf finally asked.
I looked up and nodded, “Of course. It is about murder.”
“I’ve murdered no one. Your treatment of me and mine is outrageous. I sought only to help you.”
“A dock worker named Skerrit Tern was murdered early this morning. Do you know of the man?”
“No. Why would I know this dock worker?”
“Because your officers killed him. And because he had been secretly receiving messages from Bleakmoor Castle and delivering them to parties here.”
I looked for a reaction in him, but Grimwulf was studying my face, looking for what—the truth?
“I don’t know anything about that,” he said after a full minute had gone by. “What evidence do you have of this?”
In a general way, I laid out the evidence: the bargeman that Myrick had found, the gemstone missing from Fenris’ sword, the hair. Grimwulf listened in silence.
“And lastly is the very fact that you are here,” I said. “In order to have arrived when you did, you would have had to leave Bleakmoor days before my messenger arrived. You knew about Ardwulf’s death because you caused it! Admit it!”
“No! I told you, my intelligence told me about the incident. My advisor Callis, received the report and we left at once. Your accusations are groundless.”
“I don’t think so. As soon as you arrived, you proposed acting as my regent, another shameless ploy to seize the throne. And if not you, then who else? Myrick is questioning your men. The truth will soon be out. Have a nice evening, cousin.”
I stormed out, angry at his denials. Lies were to be expected from someone who would murder their family, but I had hoped for more—some admission, or at least some slight indication of guilt in his face or bearing. Myrick should interview him next; he had more experience and would see things that I missed.
****
I was exhausted. I had eaten very little and had been up since well before dawn. There was much to do still, but I needed rest. I had good people working for me and I trusted them to do their jobs. I washed, put on my bedclothes, and had my dinner brought to my room. I tested the food with Francis’ potion and ate while watching the light fade over Lake Marie.
I have always liked to read before bed. I lit the lamp on my nightstand and crawled into bed with a copy of Rado Umpkin by H.P. Prand. I read about a chapter, until my eyes began to get heavy. Finally, I set the book down next to the lamp. I leaned over and blew out the flame. A wisp of black smoke rose up from the glowing wick. Very briefly, I noticed a scent like almonds instead of oil.
It was brief, because a moment later I was distracted by my inability to breathe. I was choking, suffocating. I tried to get out of the bed and get help from the guardsmen at the door, two rooms away. I only made it three steps. As I simultaneously fell to the floor and into blackness, I realized very clearly that I was about to die.
Chapter Eight
The County of Scrytch is located in the Glenash Province, a mountainous, well-forested region in the southwestern portion of Pozzelby. Though there is considerable mineral wealth in the county, the Blue Mountain dwarves control most of the mining interests in the region. This has limited the options of the human residents of the county as the area is too rocky for easy farming. Hunting and trapping is the primary source of human income in Scrytch.
Excerpted from J.R. Grimble’s, Pozzelby: A History
I awoke slowly and immediately wished for unconsciousness to take me back. My head felt like someone had opened it up, beaten my brains with a tiny chisel and hammer, and then shoved everything back inside in a rush. My stomach was worse; queasy did not even begin to describe how I felt. Opening my eyes to the light of the infirmary was like inviting red hot wasps to lance their ways into my head.
I shielded my eyes with my hand until the sharpest pain passed and the acute nausea receded slightly. I groaned weakly and heard excited voices around me respond to the noise. I kept my eyes squinted and looked around. I was in the infirmary, on a bed, with several people crowded around it.
“He should feel better shortly,” said a voice that I recognized as Francis’. I hoped that he spoke the truth. “Dexter, can you hear me?”
“Ugghh.”
“That’s a good sign.”
Mercifully, in a few minutes I did feel a little better. The pain in my head had receded to a dull throb and my stomach felt no worse than it had when I had eaten too many sugar cookies last winter solstice. I sat up.
“Easy there,” Francis said. “Go slowly.”
“What happened?” I asked. “The last thing I remember was reading before bed.”
“You were poisoned.”
“How? I’ve been using your potion.”
“I have to run some tests, but it appears as though it was a two-stage poison. In this case, one stage was introduced as a harmless ingredient in your food, thus the potion did not react. But then another compound, also harmless by itself, was placed into the oil in your lamp. When the two combined they synthesized into a strong poison that, among other things, shut down your lungs.”
“How come I’m still alive?” I asked.
“A combination of dumb luck and Brin.”
“Brin?” I looked around and saw Brin sitting on an empty bed. She nodded.
“I was coming to tell you that Duke Grimwulf hadn’t done anything to report on and that I was going to bed. I came in by the wardrobe—they all know about it now. You were on the floor and your face was blue. You wouldn’t say anything to me. I saw the anti-poison potion on your table. I poured it into your mouth and got the guards. They were pretty surprised to see me. But they got over it pretty quickly, for adults, and men especially. They took you to the infirmary and I got Francis.”
Now Doctor Ahem came to stand by my bed.
“Francis arrived just in time. You were too far gone for my medical expertise to save you, but he had a potion that neutralized the effects of the poison on your body,” said the doctor.
“But, you would have been dead before I arrived if Brin had not thought to feed you some of the potion in your room. That slowed the effects of the poison enough for me to g
et to you,” Francis said.
“It sounds like a group effort,” I said. “I’m grateful to all of you. How long has it been since I was brought here?”
“Not long, an hour perhaps,” Francis said. “It is not even midnight. You should be fully recovered by tomorrow morning, but it would probably be a good idea to remain here until then. I’ve provided Doctor Ahem with some medicines in case you start to feel unwell again.”
“Okay, thank you.”
Francis left, presumably back to the Gardener’s Tower. Layred Vu, Myrick, and Tayu were also present, but left after saying a few words. I thought about the night irises and Tayu. In her position, she would have access both to the food coming out of the kitchens and the lamps in my rooms. She also wore sandals. No, she could not have been the one in the perfume stores; she had been in my suite at the time. Still, could she be involved? Emotionally, I rejected the idea of Tayu’s involvement in all of this, but rationally I could not rule it out.
There had been about a dozen guards in the infirmary when I had awakened. All but four left. Doctor Ahem wanted Brin to leave, saying that I had to rest, but she balked at the idea. She promised that she would be no trouble and would just sleep in one of the empty beds. The doctor did not believe her and threatened to have the guards remove her until I overruled him and said that she could stay. She stuck her tongue out at the doctor, but true to her word, quietly settled down into a bed near mine.
Doctor Ahem also remained in the infirmary. He sat in a large chair in one corner, perfectly still and his eyes half closed. I could not tell if was sleeping or awake. The only other person was Grimwulf’s advisor, Callis. He was in a bed across the room, asleep or unconscious, looking much like a skeleton as he lay there not moving at all except for the slow, shallow rising and falling of his chest.
I slept fitfully. My dreams were troubled by visions of my father and brothers screaming in the night, and shadows that were deadly cold. I saw two swords—mirror opposites of one another. And then something was chasing me through fog. I could never quite make out what it was; it stayed right at the edge of my vision, And the harder I tried to run, the slower I went. I could hear it breathing, feel it coming closer and closer, waiting for the inevitable pain of fangs entering my flesh like needles, injecting me with hot poison...
My eyes opened suddenly and I found myself staring into the wide-open eyes of Callis. I sat up, thinking I might still be dreaming. No. Brin was asleep on the bed next to me. The four guards were by the door. Doctor Ahem was fiddling around inside of a cabinet. Callis was still on his bed, but his head had rolled to the side and his eyes were full open and appeared to be looking right at me. However, when I moved they failed to follow me, and the old man’s drawn features never changed.
I got out of bed.
“Your Highness, you should be resting,” said the doctor. “I have something here that will help you sleep.”
“No! Thank you, doctor, but I feel fine.” The last thing I wanted right then was to be in a drugged sleep with creepy Callis staring at me, especially not after the dreams that I had been having. “Doctor, what time is it?”
“Not quite four-thirty, Sire. As your doctor, I must insist that you lay back down. You are pale, sweating profusely, and obviously weren’t resting well.”
“He’s right, King Dexter,” said one of the guards, a Corporal Crotts if I remembered rightly. “You’ve been tossing and turning and talking in your sleep all night.”
“Could you make out what I was saying?”
“A lot of moaning mostly, and it sounded like you were talking about someone having killed the king. No wonder, we’re all broken up,” the corporal said.
Doctor Ahem held out a glass with a small measure of clear liquid. “Here, Sire, doctor’s orders.”
I felt an irrational urge to knock the glass from the doctor’s hand but instead, I simply held my hand up.
“No, thank you. Again, I feel fine. Brin, get up.” She slowly opened her eyes, quite normal sized when not being magnified many times over, and swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood, no questions asked. She put her glasses on and stared at me, waiting for me to go.
“Corporal, I’ll need two of your men to escort us back to my suite.” I said.
A short time later, Brin and I were out of the infirmary and in my rooms. I was still in my bedclothes so I dressed. It was almost five, early, but not too early to start the day. I told the guards to have breakfast sent up. While we were waiting for the food to come, I remembered what I had heard the previous day.
“Brin, General Till told me yesterday that your father is on his way here. He might get here today, tomorrow at the latest.”
Her nose wrinkled and she shrugged, “Good for him. I’m sure that he won’t want to see me.”
“You don’t think so? Do you want to see him?”
“Absolutely not! I hate my father. If I see him, I’m going to pretend like I don’t. He’ll want to see you though, I’m sure. He’s only coming because he wants something. Don’t you dare tell him I said ‘hello’ or anything like that.”
“Fine. I won’t; don’t worry,” I told her, sorry I had brought the subject up.
“It’s not like he ever wanted me after all,” she continued. “He probably won’t even recognize me. He never used to talk to me and then sent me away as soon as my mother died. But you know what, I wanted to go. I wanted to go as far away from him as I could. I would have gone to Kellington, I would have gone to Angren to have gotten away from him.”
“Okay, I get it, you don’t like your father. I won’t bring him up again.”
“Good.”
“Fine.”
“Alright.”
“Thank you for saving my life.”
“You’re welcome.”
****
By eight o’clock I could already tell that the day would be brutally hot. No breeze was coming off of the lake and the humidity was overbearing. There was a stand of dogwood trees higher up Mount Crowl, releasing its cottony seeds into the air in such a profusion that it appeared to be snowing. It was lovely, but apparently dogwood makes me sneeze.
Foremost on my mind this morning was talking to Tayu. I had to ask her about the night irises. But first I went to the cells in the tower to check on the four officers of Bleakmoor. One of the guardsmen informed me that Myrick was currently interrogating Captain Destrel. I decided that I would leave and come back later. On my way out, I was stopped by Lieutenant Ring, one of my officers, who was entering as I was leaving.
“King Dexter,” he said. “Duke Grimwulf’s advisor was released from the infirmary. Doctor Ahem says he is well enough to rest in his assigned quarters. I have him confined per orders. Doctor Ahem has requested to have access to the advisor’s quarters twice daily to administer medication and to monitor his condition.”
“That’s fine. Thank you, Lieutenant.”
I looked for Layred Vu and was told that he was in with General Till getting a report on the approaching retinues. I probably should have gone in to learn the latest but I didn’t feel like talking to Tabor Till just yet. I had nearly died last night; I wanted to wait until at least lunch to hear from the dour general.
Tayu was not in her office. Apparently no one had expected me to be up and about considering the events of the previous evening. I decided to go down to the docks to find Andyn Hull. With an escort of several guardsmen walking a discreet distance behind me, I headed down to lake’s edge.
A fusta-style galley with a dozen oarsmen per side and a single mast with furled sails was tied up, unloading a cargo of flour, nails, corn meal, and fish from the coast. Men in the employ of the castle were loading the casks and crates onto carts. I hoped that one of these was Andyn Hull. The ranking soldier among the six castle guardsmen was a woman, tall and muscular with long black hair, named Sergeant Serria. I asked her to go and locate Andyn Hull and bri
ng him to me.
One of the other guardsmen was Dimit Tolly, whom I had already met.
“Private Tolly,” I said. “I notice that there aren’t many women in the guard or the army, but everyone I’ve met has rank.”
“Yes, sir. It’s deserved, sir, for the most part. Take Sergeant Serria, every inch of six foot, fights as well as any four men, and sharp as a Pulgh knife.”
“Yes...she seems rather serious.”
“Well, these are serious times, Sire. And we are protecting the king you know. It isn’t like we’re guarding the back door of the brothel now is it? Shel...Sergeant Serria, I mean, she’s a serious sort, but not without her sense of humor. Takes a while for it to show; a good year, maybe two.”
Sergeant Serria returned with an older man with broken capillaries in his nose.
“King Dexter, this is the foreman. He says Hull didn’t come to work today.”
“That’s right, Sire,” the old man said. “He’s all broken up I reckon over poor Skerrit. Andyn’s most likely to be at the Tameny Bar in the hollow. It’s an hour on foot, but not far t’all if you’ve horses.”
“Thank you foreman,” I turned to my guards. “I guess we should have brought horses. Do any of you know how to get to this Tameny Bar?”
None of the men did.
“I do,” said the sergeant, a little reluctantly. “I don’t drink there,” she said to her men. “I grew up in Blue’s Hollow.”
It took twenty minutes to walk back to the castle, get to the stable, ready the horses, and get underway. The hollow was on the western side of Mount Crowl, closer to that which they called Pilot Mountain. The hollow was hard to see from the main trail; it was a creek valley with fairly sheer sides. If Sergeant Serria had not known where to turn off, I never would have noticed it. But once in the valley, Blue’s Hollow was bigger than I would have imagined.
“About thirty families live in the hallow,” the sergeant said. “Maybe two to three hundred people. Tameny’s is at the closest neck of the hollow along the creek.”