Blood and Memory (4 page)

He
is not dead! Wyl lives
! a voice spoke to Fynch. The boy’s world spun and his head began to throb. He saw only swirling gray mist, but he heard the words clearly. Then the mist cleared briefly and he saw a small town. At its fringe were fields and fields of hops. He had no idea what its significance was.

Find him. He walks in another body now
, the voice urged.

The swirling sensation dissipated as fast as it had arrived and the voices of the people in the chapel sounded sharp again. Fynch steadied himself, the pain intense and shock reverberating through his body as he tried to think about what he had heard through Knave. He knew now the dog was the reason he could hear the voice. He just did not know why. Fynch felt distracted and nauseated.

His mind was in turmoil. If Knave’s information was correct, then they were needlessly grieving over a man who was not dead.
He walks in another body now
. Had it truly happened again? Had Wyl Thirsk become the person who killed Romen Koreldy? Valentyna deserved to know but what could he say to her? She would not even hear him out. Valentyna was liberal in most ways and he would describe her as tolerant—certainly of his views on magic—but she was not a believer. The Queen would probably banish him as well if he started raging about transference into another body. No. This he would have to keep to himself for the time being.

The Queen was still speaking when the voice left him. “…and Liryk, I want that woman—that Hildyth creature—at the palace by sunset tomorrow. Bring her before me. Did many other people at this place know?”

Liryk was grateful for the Queen’s tact at this moment. “Several. But none would know Koreldy. He was a stranger. It was not crowded either, so those to whom the gossip has spread would probably not even know his name. Simply that a man was killed.”

“Good. Your men will spread the rumor that this man was Briavel’s prisoner but that we had granted him a new life across our borders. So far this is true. The seed you will plant, however, is that we have no other option but to suspect a Briavellian loyalist took offense at Koreldy’s actions at the tourney and took it upon himself to rid our two realms of a troublemaker. Make sure everyone understands how keen Briavel is to pursue the betrothal—no official word, mind,” she cautioned, emphasizing her own quiet despair at such a thought by cutting the air with her hand as she gave her warning. “Tell the story into a few inns where loose mouths lurk. I will provide coin. Allow the story to become warped as it is retold, fret not that it comes out any which way. So long as people believe it was purely an internal problem.”

“Why?” Krell asked, unable to follow his queen’s rapid line of thought.

Liryk could not help but give a grim smile of appreciation. He nodded a bow. “Inspired, your highness.” Then he turned to his companion. “Because, Chancellor Krell, if it’s supposedly our own work, the word will die quickly. There is less intrigue to the death of a prisoner than the assassination of a noble—particularly a noble we supported. More importantly, however, in designing this, our queen has deflected any potential damage to Briavel. Whether or not the person we suspect is behind this, he can only be privately grateful to her majesty for being so without guile, accepting blame on Briavel.”

“I see,” the Chancellor replied, impressed. “Your majesty has inherited her father’s quick mind for strategy.”

Valentyna gave a brief, harsh laugh. “Oh, I do hope so. We’re entering challenging waters, gentlemen, and we shall need all our wits to navigate the safest channel.”

Both men nodded their agreement.

“What of the body, your highness?” Krell asked gently.

The Queen sighed, inwardly proud that she had so far held on to her grief in front of these men. They were obeying her now as they would have obeyed her father. “Liryk, for anyone who may inquire, you can say Koreldy’s body was buried quickly in an unmarked grave. Make out you left it for others and so it passes down the chain of command until no one really knows who took responsibility. Give the impression that neither do we care.”

“Yes, your highness.”

“Krell, you and I will prepare the body. Who can we trust?”

“Father Paryn is a good man, my queen. He will help us give Koreldy some dignity.”

“Dignity, yes,” she said, seeing once again Hildyth enjoying her evening’s work with Romen. “He will be buried at a private ceremony. No one is to speak of it with anyone other than Father Paryn. Krell, please make arrangements for a site near my father.”

“In the royal plot, majesty?” His tone carried sufficient surprise that she knew he was not happy with such an arrangement.

“Yes,” she said firmly, eyeing him. “He deserves as much. He fought to save my father’s life. He certainly saved mine. He was also…” She paused, forcing herself to stop what was about to be said. She took a breath. “This is what I want.”

“As you wish,” Krell said, bowing.

“Liryk, what of the men who accompanied you?”

“All reliable, your highness. If you’ll excuse me I shall round them up now and make our orders clear.”

“Each to be promoted and paid double salary this moon cycle. They are to understand their silence is appreciated at the highest level.”

He nodded and bowed before taking his leave.

“Clothes,” Krell muttered. “I should organize some fresh garments for him.”

Valentyna looked again at Romen’s beloved body in his dusty traveling clothes.

“Please. He looks best in dark gray,” she said. “It sets off his eyes,” the Queen added softly, the sorrow in her voice thick.

Krell looked sharply at his sovereign and then away. The expression of pain on her face was too raw. He knew she needed privacy.

“At once, your highness. I shall go find Father Paryn now,” he murmured before leaving quietly.

Valentyna heard the door of the chapel close. “Lock it, Fynch,” she begged. “I need some time,” and she broke down, her soft cries heartbreaking as she bowed helplessly over the cold corpse. No longer a queen, having to follow protocol or keep her emotions in check, but a young woman grieving over the death of the man she loved.

“His killer took his bracelet as well,” she said through her tears. She felt no shame with Fynch.

“Yes, highness, I noticed. But it was worth nothing. He admitted to me his sister had plaited it for him…the beads were hers from childhood.”

“A trinket yes, but worth everything to Romen, I imagine, and still more to his killer.”

“How so, my queen?”

She shrugged. “I suppose further proof that he is dead. Anyone who knew Romen would have noticed he always wore that tiny bracelet.”

Fynch nodded, remained silent.

“He looks so peaceful,” she admitted. He saw she had refastened the shirt buttons to hide the brutal wound.

“Asleep even,” he ventured.

“Yes. Except Romen was never still, was he? He had a special energy. We shall never again hear his laugh or that way in which he mocked everyone with gentle affection.”

Fynch took a chance. “If I suggested this was simply a dead body, not a real person, what would you say?”

She looked at him, disturbed, wiping away the helpless tears. “I would call you cruel. Why would you suggest such a thing when you know how I feel…felt about Romen?”

It was pointless pursuing this conversation, but he tried anyway. At least later he would be able to reassure himself that he had. He swallowed. “Although Romen’s corpse lies here before us, I don’t believe the man you knew…the man you loved, your highness…is dead.”

She looked at him, aghast. “Fynch, whatever are you talking about? Stop, now. This is hurtful.”

He sighed, dropped his head. “Apologies, highness.”

She wanted to retain his friendship. She could not lose Fynch as well and yet here she was pushing him further away. Valentyna moved swiftly beside him and then crouched so she could look directly into his large, serious eyes.

“No, I am sorry. He is dead because I banished him. This is my cross to bear—not yours. You would never have done this to a friend, but, oh my dear Fynch, I am bound by duties and royal protocol. And I am so scared. I don’t want to marry Celimus but it seems I have to. I have never loved anyone like I have loved Romen. I don’t think I can bear to live without him because I know that every day I will grieve for losing him, pushing him into danger.”

Fynch knew she would not have to. If only she knew it was Wyl she truly loved. “I understand. Really. I think I’ve got it straight in my mind why you did what you did.”

“It’s your forgiveness I seek. I don’t want to lose you, Fynch. You and your strange dog there are my closest friends in the world. Without Romen I have no one I can trust to care about my feelings. Those who surround me are good people—don’t get me wrong—but they are looking to forge a peace with Morgravia and I’m the key to that union. My needs, my desires, my hopes and dreams don’t come into it. With Romen’s death I feel as though I’ve lost all control over my own life, mad though that might sound to you.”

Her words touched him. “Then you must trust me.”

“I do.”

“And understand what I must do,” he added.

She noted the grave tone. “What must you do?” she asked, frowning.

“I’m leaving, your highness.”

The shock of his words stopped her tears. “No! Why?”

“There is something I must pursue.”

“Fynch, speak plainly. Tell me,” she commanded, searching his open and guileless face for clues.

“You cannot understand.”

“Make me.”

He smiled. It was shy and rare, full of kindness. “I cannot, your highness. I have tried before.”

She took a deep and audible breath, then laid her hands lightly on his shoulders. He could feel them trembling from her pent-up emotions. “Is this about Wyl Thirsk…and what was it? Romen taking on his duties…his desires—you said you felt his presence.”

Fynch nodded. His expression was somber. “More than that but I cannot explain yet.”

“Magic.” She spoke the word as if it were poison in her mouth and felt his thin shoulders shrug beneath her hands.

“Just trust me,” he repeated.

“But where will you go?” There was a plaintiveness in her voice. “Please don’t leave me, Fynch.”

“To track down Romen Koreldy’s murderer,” he said.

The Queen rubbed a hand over her face. He could not tell whether it was with frustration, anger, despair, or a combination of all three.

“But you are a child,” she said, hating to state the obvious and working hard to keep her voice level.

“All the more reason I shall go unnoticed, your highness. Who would bother with a child?”

“And your purpose?” she blurted out, irritation spilling over, sarcasm evident in her tone.

If Fynch noticed he did not react. He spoke evenly. “I mean to see his killer with my own eyes.” He kept as close to the truth as possible, for lies did not come naturally to him.

“And?” She stopped just short of shaking him.

Fynch was silent. She waited, knowing he was considering how best to answer her. He was always very careful with his words, rarely making a casual remark.

“I will decide, then,” he answered, annoying her further with the cryptic reply.

Inside, her emotions were tumbling around. Fear and grief threatened to undo her and now Fynch’s news left her numb. She did not know what to say that might stop him from leaving. So she stood and turned away, her voice harder now. “It’s your decision and you will be missed. Will you remain for the burial?”

“There’s no point,” he said quietly, and she refused to give that notion any credibility by answering it. “No, your highness, I prefer to leave immediately, unless you wish it differently.”

“I do. We must honor him.”

“It’s not even him anymore, your highness.”

“Stop it, I beg you,” she beseeched, the pain of his words cutting through her.

Fynch’s gaze was unblinking and honest. “Once again I ask for your faith. I will not let you down. Neither will he,” he said, nodding toward the corpse.

Valentyna wanted to scream at him, shake his bony shoulders and push some sense into his head. She did neither. “I shall spend some time with him alone, if that’s all right. I insist on your presence at the burial.”

He bowed but she had already turned away from him.

The burial was as raw as it was swift. The body was surrounded by small candles that would be permitted to burn themselves out. A few spoken words, a simple prayer, and Father Paryn was asking the attendees to lay their gifts in the casket so Koreldy’s spirit might move beyond while his body remained surrounded by possessions from those who had cared for him. Liryk laid a blade. He now dearly wished he had given Koreldy one—perhaps he might have saved himself if he had. Krell laid a quill, the symbol of his duties for Briavel. It was all he could think to leave with a man he had not known well but had respected. Fynch cut off a twist of his own hair and one from Knave. He laid them on Koreldy’s chest.

Finally, Valentyna pressed a small wreath of mint, basil, and lavender bound with one of her own ribbons and intertwined with a thong he used for his hair beneath Romen’s crossed hands. That this wreath was heart-shaped was missed by no one.

May it remind you of where love’s first tentative touch embraced us
, she cast silently, hoping his spirit might hear its echo.

Two soldiers, trustworthy men who had accompanied Liryk and Koreldy on their fateful trip into Crowyll, slid the heavy stone slab across the tomb in which Romen had been laid. It was unmarked.

Valentyna lifted her head. “No one is to ever speak of this.” She eyed each of the men who stood with her. “Or I shall have his tongue cut out. This is a secret that Briavel holds.”

They nodded as one.

“Thank you, gentlemen,” she said, relieved that she could trust them.

Fynch was the last person to leave the crypt. As he stepped out into the brightness of day, he was momentarily blinded, but as his eyes adjusted he noticed a soldier making fast passage toward the small, curious group of people standing outside the chapel.

“What news?” Liryk asked, all formalities dispensed with. It was one of his most trusted men.