“I see,” was all Grimwulf finally said.
He seemed bigger as he climbed down from his horse and stood before me than he had from horseback. Grimwulf Morbrick was not only as hairy as a bear, he was as massive as one too. His sword was still in his hand. Surely, now would be a good time to run, I thought. But I held my ground. Did he mean to kill me? Probably, if he had killed my family as I now was convinced he had. My hand slipped down to the pommel of my own sword, the dirk that Myrick had given me; it was a pathetic, laughable thing compared to the gigantic sword that Grimwulf carried. My stomach flip-flopped.
Grimwulf put away his sword. I felt mildly relieved, but was still drenched in cold sweat. He stood over me and put both of his hands on my shoulders and looked down into my eyes. There was no discernable emotion in his gaze and it seemed to go on and on. Was he going to strangle me with his bare hands? I wasn’t sure of anything right then.
“I see a lot of your father in your face, but you are your mother’s child,” he said.
“King Dexter!” said a voice from behind Grimwulf.
He let go of my shoulders. (Had his hands just started to tighten at the end?) The duke turned and I had to move slightly to see past his bulk. Standing in the road was Myrick. I can’t begin to describe the sense of relief I felt, seeing him then.
“Duke Grimwulf,” Myrick said. “What are you doing here?”
“I have come to attend the funeral of my cousin and was just making the acquaintance of my cousin, Dexter. I assume there will be a funeral service for my kinsmen. No official word was sent.”
“Because of the nature of the deaths, it was felt that it would be best if the funeral was a small affair. You are welcome here of course. No one would dream of keeping you from the funeral of your kinsmen. Please, accompany us back to the castle and we will secure accommodations for you and your men. It is just the six of you?” Myrick asked.
“Yes, I traveled lightly for time’s sake. There is only myself, my advisor, Callis, and my four officers.”
“King Dexter, you may ride with me,” Myrick said.
I climbed up behind the man of Pulgh. We rode in silence to the castle. In the light of the castle grounds, Duke Grimwulf was no less fearsome a figure. His eyes were cold and serious, befitting his namesake. His arms looked like thick, weathered tree branches, and his body was as thick as many an old oak. His beard covered most of his face, but it could not hide a long scar under one eye and another across his forehead. Fortunately, I did not have to deal with him anymore that evening. Myrick pulled the first two guards that we encountered aside.
“The king is very tired. See him safely to his suite,” Myrick told them. “My King, with your permission, I will tend to the needs of Duke Grimwulf and his men.”
“Yes, thank you, Myrick. Duke Grimwulf, it was a pleasure to meet you,” I managed to say. “We will speak tomorrow. Now if you will excuse me.”
“Of course, King Dexter,” Grimwulf said.
As I walked away, I was quite impressed with myself for getting out that last little speech. As Myrick had said, I was exhausted and my tongue felt heavy and too large for my mouth. Then I thought about what I had said; why had I said that I would talk to that frightening man tomorrow?
****
“Say aaahhh.”
“Aaahhh. Doctor Ahem, I feel fine, honestly.”
“Mmm hmm, you let me be the judge of that. I believe in regular checkups. I’ve seen hundreds of cases where the patient felt fine one day and dropped dead the next. It never would have happened if they had been getting regular checkups,” the Doctor told me. “The last king was the same way. He never liked to have checkups either. Look what happened.”
“It isn’t the same thing. King Ardwulf was murdered.”
“He was? Are you certain?” the doctor seemed genuinely puzzled.
“Yes, doctor. You knew that.”
“Did I? Have you suffered from any recent delirium?”
“No.”
“Lethargy or apathy?”
“No.”
“Spasms of any sort, any sort at all?”
“None.”
“Unusual pains?”
“Only in my rear,” I muttered. “No, doctor, no unusual pain.”
“Dryness, wetness, chapping, or chilblains?”
“None of the above. Doctor, really, I feel quite fit,”
“Yes, you do appear to be the picture of health. It just goes to show you what preventative medicine will do. Very good. I’ll come back in a few days to check on your progress.”
I escorted the spindly physician from my room. The poor man was a mess; he nearly dropped his pack three times exiting and his sandal caught in my rug pitching him forward. I barely caught him in time to keep him from spilling himself all over my floor.
Once Doctor Ahem was on his way and out of sight, I let the guards know that I needed to go to Francis’ tower. Corporal Billik insisted that I have an escort, so he and Tolly accompanied me.
As was usual, I left the guards waiting at the bottom of the tower and went up alone. Francis was seated at a desk that had not been there during my last visit. I knocked lightly on the cracked door and he looked up. He smiled, but it was a sad smile.
“Dexter, come in please. I spoke to Layred Vu this morning.”
I stiffened, some of the anger that I had felt last night crept back. I took a seat across from him. Our chess board sat unused on a little table in the corner of the room.
“Dexter, before I say anything else I want to say that I am sorry, very deeply sorry, for having to lie to you for so long. Your father made me swear not to tell you. But now that Arden is...dead...there is no point in keeping the truth from you any longer.”
“It is true then, what Layred Vu said about my mother?”
“Yes. It is true. But you must believe that your mother loved you a great deal. She never liked your father’s lie, but since you were living with him, she accepted it.”
“But why did she leave? Why couldn’t she have stayed with me, or at least come to see me?”
“Your father would not allow her to come. He loved her very much, but when she left he became bitter. He said that he could not bear to see her if she would not remain,” Francis told me. “And it was impossible for her to stay.”
“Why? What was it that made it impossible?”
“She has a great deal of responsibility. She is, well, she’s a witch.”
“A what?”
“She is a witch, but not just any witch. Her coven is one of the primary magical forces for good in Pozzelby. She is the head, of course. It requires a great amount of travel.”
“Travel?”
“Yes, she has to move around a lot. And she tends to associate with a fairly unsavory element in her work. It’s no way to raise a child.”
“So she is still alive?” That was what I really wanted to know.
“I believe so. I haven’t heard anything to the contrary and I think that I would have if something...unfortunate...had happened.”
“How can I contact her? Surely you must have some way.”
“I have already tried. You remember the crow? I wasn’t sending a message home. I was trying to get a message to Emily, telling her what was happening. The bird will find her if she is alive, which I believe she is, but it might take time. So far, I have heard nothing back.”
I sat back, considering. If Francis had already tried to contact her there wasn’t anything else for me to do on that front. Not yet. I believed what he had told me. Despite the years of lies, I still trusted him. When I thought back, I could not remember a single instance when Francis had said my mother was dead. He never disabused the notion, but never actually supported it. Every time that I brought her up, he would grow vague and change the subject.
So, what was my next move?
“Chess?” I asked.
My friend grinne
d and brought the board.
“Have you learned anything new in those books?” I asked. Francis was holding out two fists. “Right.” He opened his right hand and revealed a black pawn.
“A little. The circle does not seem to conform to the design of any of the summoning gates that I have found in Nightshade’s book. I believe that it is a more limited type of gate, perhaps a means of communication. I could be wrong though. Magical gates are not my bailiwick.” He moved his queen’s pawn forward two spaces.
“Is there anything in either of those books on shadow magic, or withsperi?” I asked, moving my king’s knight.
“Not that I have found. I am going back to the library this afternoon. I will ask Jonathan.” He brought his queen’s pawn up one more space.
“Is Porknoy going with you?”
“No, Porknoy left for Earmund this morning. Layred Vu said that he had mentioned it to you.”
“Yes. I might need to have him repeat back everything he told me last night. After the news about my mother, I really wasn’t listening.” I moved my king’s pawn up two squares.
“Understandable. I’ve asked two of the soldiers that we brought from Earmund to come along. Brin asked if she could come too. I told her that she could.”
“Brin came to see you in your tower?” I was mildly surprised.
“She did. Interesting child. You and Brin have something else in common now—both of your mothers are eminent witches, were, in Brin’s mother’s case. It’s a shame, she was a lovely and talented woman. A member of your mother’s coven too.”
“Are you certain that Brin’s mother is really dead? I mean, I thought my mother was dead.” I said hopefully.
“No. Brin’s mother is really dead. I attended her funeral and saw the body. There is no doubt. It’s your move.”
Yes, it was. It was always my move.
****
Myrick and Layred Vu ate lunch with me in my suite. Taking time to be detailed, we relayed everything that had happened in the few days since Myrick had left. He seemed particularly interested in the tracks.
“I wish you had been here,” Layred Vu said. “You probably would have been able to tell more from the footprints in the perfume stores.”
“There are probably still tracks in the hidden passages,” I suggested. “We were careful not to tread on them, and I am certain that Francis and the others will take the same precautions today.”
“I will look later,” Myrick said. “A print in the dust on stone does not yield as much information as a print made in softer ground, and new dust may have obscured what was there. It is something though. The discovery of Nightshade’s library is a remarkable thing. To think that it has been hidden away for three centuries, while still being used by its original owner. Amazing.”
Layred Vu plucked a purple grape from a bunch with his long, thin fingers.
“But tell us of your investigation. You were only gone a matter of days,” he said to Myrick.
“I did not feel that it would be prudent to be away overlong. As Duke Grimwulf would appear to benefit the most from the elimination of the House of Davin, I started for Bleakmoor. I was not convinced about the theory of Grimwulf as conspirator. But still, he seemed to have the strongest motive.”
“You did not have time to get to Bleakmoor and back,” Layred Vu said.
“I only had to go as far as Goodford. There, I learned that for a month prior to the attacks regular messages were taken back and forth from Grimwulf’s castle to Pozzelby Castle and back. The messages were conveyed along the Ipex River by barge. I actually spoke with the bargeman who had accepted the messages made the deliveries.”
“He was forthcoming?” I asked.
“Not at first. He was quite fearful. It had been made plain to him that the messages were secret and rather sensitive. Apparently he had been threatened quite convincingly that if he talked about them to anyone grave consequences would result.”
Layred Vu smiled. “But you were able to convince him where his best interests lay?”
“Of course. In the end, he decided that an immediate threat trumped a distant one. He was not altogether honest at first, but we eventually came together and worked out the truth. He swore that he received the messages at night, from an unknown, hooded man. He did not know the man’s identity, but said that it had been made clear that the man represented the duke. All he could tell me was that the man was short and rode a dark bay stallion with three stockings and a star.
“Once he received a letter, my informant told me that he would deliver it, along with his goods, to Pozzelby Castle. He said that he had been instructed to put it into a crate of whatever he was carrying and to mark the crate with a chalk mark in the shape of a chevron. The bargeman told me that the same man always picked up the marked crate.”
“Did you get a description?” Layred Vu asked.
“Yes. A good one. The marked crates were always picked up by a dockworker with salt and pepper hair and beard, who was barrel-shaped, and missing the little finger of his right hand,” Myrick said.
“I don’t know of such a man off-hand, but I can easily find out,” said Layred Vu.
“What happened to the bargeman then?” I asked Myrick.
“He had been well paid for carrying the messages. I suggested that he should take a holiday for his health. I suggested that Oakshire was nice at this time of year.”
“Myrick. Wasn’t one of Grimwulf’s officers riding a dark bay stallion with three stockings and a star?” I asked.
“Yes, one of them was indeed riding such a horse.”
****
I decided to hold a dinner for Duke Grimwulf. One of the perks of being the king was that I had a finely appointed, private dining room. I was seated at the table’s head, doing my best to look confident. Considering that I had nearly wet myself when I had first met Grimwulf last night, anything was bound to be an improvement. The guest list included Duke Grimwulf, his advisor, his four officers, Myrick, Layred Vu, Tabor Till, and Francis. Brin had wanted to come, but I had told her that she couldn’t. I did not think it would be a good idea considering Grimwulf’s presence. She hadn’t taken it well. She had called me a ‘self-important ass’ and had stormed off. I had promised to make it up to her, but she had not been in the mood to listen. I hoped that she would get over it by tomorrow, but for tonight I needed to focus on the dinner.
The first course was cheeses from Norl and Shorik, fruits from the Torrey Coast and Unity, and local brandy. I was unused to alcoholic beverage, so I sipped grape juice instead. There was the usual small talk made as we ate. I tried to refrain as much as I could and observed Grimwulf and his men.
Coarse was the one word that would best describe my cousin. He was blunt, aggressive, and quick to speak his mind. Once he had a little drink in him, he was also quick to laugh and, I hate to say it, likeable. I had to keep reminding myself that he probably had my family killed.
Callis was a painfully gaunt old man with a completely bald head. He did not drink the brandy, I noticed, but stuck to water. He said little.
Grimwulf’s officers, a Captain Destrel, Captain Tormey, Captain Fenris, and Lieutenant Nerull, also said little but partook of the drink with the rest of the men. Captain Fenris had been the one riding the dark bay horse.
I had suggested arresting Grimwulf and Captain Fenris to Myrick and Layred Vu earlier, but they had felt that such action would be premature.
“It may be better to keep them under observation while I track down their contact here. They have put themselves at our mercy by coming here. It would be best to have as much evidence as possible before arresting the duke,” Layred Vu had said.
I had grudgingly agreed. To me, arresting them now would be akin to capturing an opponent’s queen early in the game. Still, Grimwulf’s move in coming here was beyond my understanding, so perhaps caution was called for. If he had come with an army, that would
have made more sense to me. Something occurred to me.
“Can we say for certainty that Grimwulf doesn’t have an army nearby?” I had asked.
“Tabor Till has men manning our outposts. Runners would have been sent if any large forces had entered Pozzelby province,” Layred Vu had answered.
I was uneasy—my opponent’s attack was hidden, but I knew that it was there waiting to be discovered. I decided to probe Grimwulf a bit.
“Duke Grimwulf,” I said as the first course was cleared from the table. “Your arrival was unexpected. In order for you to have gotten here so quickly, you must have left Bleakmoor before my messenger arrived.”
“Indeed. If I had waited for your messenger Ardwulf’s body would be ash long before I arrived. Bleakmoor is far from Pozzelby, my King.”
“I know how far it is. The messenger should have arrived at your castle today. The funeral is not for four more days. How did you know about King Ardwulf?” I asked.
Grimwulf threw back his head and laughed—at me, I felt. Would he have laughed at my uncle? I thought not.
“Cousin Dexter, you are young still, otherwise you would know that every noble, whether king, duke, or earl has their own means of gathering news. Surely, some others have come to pay their respects?”
“No one as of yet,” I said.
“Cowards then,” Grimwulf said. “It is a bad thing, the murder of a king. It makes everyone fearful. The new king must be strong and demonstrate his strength to keep control of the land.”
I was angry and uncomfortable with Grimwulf’s insinuation.
“I have things well in hand.”
“I am sure that you do, cousin.” A second course was brought in—barley soup, bread, and ale. “You set a fair table, I’ll say that.”
Grimwulf picked up his bowl with both hands and gulped down the entire contents. Brown soup ran down his face and caught in his beard, which he wiped away with the back of his hand. He picked up his mug and took a large draught of the ale and set it down hard. Then Grimwulf opened his mouth and cut loose with a tremendous belch. He looked quite satisfied.
“My compliments to your cooks. More ale!” he yelled to a nearby servant.
“Duke Grimwulf,” I said between sips of my own soup. “Forgive me for being blunt, but I had understood that you had never been particularly close to King Ardwulf. I had even been led to believe that there might have been some animosity between the two of you. I find it strange that you came with such haste to mourn his death.”