By Divine Right (7 page)

I’d heard men speak of Laidir’s air, of the effect of being close to one ordained by Aer to hold the power of life and death over a nation. “I fell and the flagon flew from my hands.”

The king gave me a slight smile. “Toward the duke and the marquis from a mere pace away. That’s quite a coincidence. You’re fortunate it was empty.” Hazel eyes stared through me as if I were a shadow man made of gossamer.

“Your Majesty, he caught it.”

“Stop,” Laidir commanded, leaning forward until he could have touched me. “What exactly did you see?” he asked, as if his words had the power of compulsion.

“Something that shouldn’t have been possible,” I said. “The duke caught the flagon by the handle, which was facing away from him.”

The king waved away my concern, but his gaze remained intent. “Come now, master reeve, the Orlan family are all excellent swordsmen even if they do not hold a physical gift. The talent for motion runs deep in their family. Is this the extent of your concern?”

I shook my head. “No, sire. The duke took the flagon out of midair in his right hand while holding his goblet with his left.”

Laidir shrugged as if I’d yet to convince him. “Too many bodies blocked my view and your own perceptions might be skewed.” He assayed a brief smile. “You appeared to be busy falling to the floor at the time. Is this why you came to court?”

I took a deep breath and accepted the burden of the accusation I intended to bring. “Your Majesty, two gifts have gone free in the last month—one of craft within the Orlan province and one of beauty in your city. Can an ungifted man move faster than the eye, Your Majesty?”

The king’s mouth pulled to one side, and he turned away from me to look out the window. “Are you sure, Reeve Dura?”

I didn’t hesitate. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

The smile dropped from him as he turned to face me again and his gaze bored into mine. “You had just taken a blow that must have
caused you considerable pain and you were in the midst of falling. Are you certain, Reeve Dura?”

I nodded, but doubt wormed its way into my memory. Was I?

“The duke is not known for his gentle treatment of servants,” Laidir said. “Were you frightened?”

I swallowed. “Aye, Your Majesty.”

He nodded. “And yet, frightened, struck, and in the midst of falling, you tell me that you are certain enough of what you saw that you wish to accuse the most powerful duke in Collum with gift stealing?”

I gaped, blinking, not knowing how to respond.

Then he smiled. “You see how untrustworthy memory is, Reeve Dura? In a matter of minutes, armed with no more than the right to examine you and with a mere three questions, I’ve caused you to doubt your version of events that took place no more than minutes ago.”

“Duke Orlan is trying to duplicate the gift of kings, which is yours by divine right.”

“Divine right, you say? Those are old beliefs for an older time, before the northern continent tore itself apart in the wars of the gifted, before those who held those rights committed themselves to slaughter as completely as the would-be usurpers.”

“But the gift came to you free,” I said. “In the tradition of the church and all its orders, that signifies that Aer intended you to have it.”

His brows lifted. “I doubt that the Orlan family would see it that way since it came from their family. Your speech is more becoming of a priest than a reeve, Willet Dura.”

The old longing washed over me again, like the pain of emptiness that surpassed hunger. “I missed my orders by a week, Your Majesty, called to serve you in the last war against Owmead. Once I’d spilled blood, the Merum order would no longer allow me to complete my vows.”

The king shrugged as if my grief were of no moment. “The Vanguard would have welcomed you,” Laidir said. “There are any number of warrior priests in their ranks. Or if you no longer desired to bear a weapon you could have become a Servant.” His smile pulled to one side. “And the Absold would have accepted you for the price of repentance.”

I wondered that the king of Collum should care, but I answered the implied question just the same. “Your Majesty, how can I explain? Once the Merum priesthood became unattainable, I no longer felt worthy of the position with any of the orders.” That wasn’t the whole truth. As if his presence dragged it from me, I amended my confession. “The other factions of the church do not practice the haeling as the Merum do. My time as a postulant wedded me to an idea that I couldn’t surrender.”

Laidir nodded. “I understand, but what shall we do about the duke?”

I tried not to gape at his question but failed at it. “Sire, can you not just have him killed? He’s taken upon himself more than the gift of his family. One of your court musicians lies dead at his hand.”

The king had already started shaking his head before I finished. “I have the tenuous accusation of a minor reeve before me, Willet Dura, against all the wealth and wiles of Collum’s most powerful family.” He shook his head. “Your charge will ring hollow. Duke Orlan is a strutting peacock who shows open disdain for all around him, the throne included.”

Laidir’s eyebrows rose, questioning. “I require proof. Of all the people in the throne room, you are the only one who thought to watch the duke for evidence of a physical gift.”

He sighed. “But there is more at stake here. The duke is the second-most powerful man in the kingdom. He commands the allegiance of a full third of the nobles in my court and through them, nearly half the resources of Collum. If I bring an accusation against him without proof, true or not, I have weakened my rule. If Owmead commits to war again, the duke, by virtue of his men at arms, will control the kingdom whether or not he sits the throne.”

“What can I do?” I asked him.

“What you can do is up to Aer,” Laidir said. “What you
will
do is up to you. Duke Orlan is no fool. His mind is more subtle than it appears. If what you charge is true, he’s probably aware of his mistake in court tonight. You’re in danger, but if I put guards around you, he will know I suspect him.”

Misgiving filled me. “How may I serve you, Your Majesty?”

Laidir nodded. “Only two gifts have gone missing. Without the rest, Orlan cannot pass the church’s tests for the throne. This provides a measure of time in which we can act. Your intervention tonight
was timely. Most of the men under arms loyal to me occupy the line of border castles to the south. If I cannot prove his guilt, then I will blunt his ambition.” He smiled. “Let us see how Orlan responds once my men fill Bunard and his are ordered to the border.”

“You believe me, Your Majesty?”

Laidir mustered a smile. “Aye, too many coincidences align in favor of your argument, but I require proof. Serve the duke at court each night as ordered and tell me of anything you learn.” The king moved to a cabinet along the wall where he opened a drawer and withdrew a purse. “Information can be costly.” Pressing it into my hand, he turned to the red-haired guard. “Take him, his back will require attention.” The king gave me a last admonition. “Despite the duke’s order for you to serve him each night, he might very well have his men hunt you down. Stay with Galen until dawn.”

I left in the company of the guard, walking upright to avoid breaking my wounds open again. “Who is Galen?” I asked.

The guard’s voice rumbled down at me like a pronouncement from heaven. “The king’s physician.”

“Hmm. Hmm. This is going to sting a bit.”

I sat on a high stool within Galen’s apartments, two levels below the top of the tor where Laidir held court. The sloshing sounds of a bottle being shaken came to me, then the soft pop of a stopper being pulled.

His voice came from behind me. “I’m getting a bit tired of stitching up servants. The duke and his men are turning me into a seamstress. Brace yourself.” A burning sensation hit me almost as greatly as the original strokes that laid my back open. I hissed a sound like water dousing a fire.

“You have a gift for understatement,” I said once I could breathe normally.

A chuckle drifted over my shoulder, and I felt a push against my back, but no discomfort. “The balm deadens the pain,” he murmured, “but only after it makes you relive it. I’ve asked my alchemist to reformulate the mixture without the use of spirits, but so far he’s been unsuccessful.”

I drew a shuddering breath. “Have you tried a better?”

Galen laughed. “Myle is the best. He’s gifted and incredibly talented as well, though somewhat difficult to work with. If a different mixture can be found, he’s the one to find it.”

I turned my head, careful not to disturb Galen’s embroidery. “Would he know anything about poisons?”

Galen paused in his needlework. “That’s a dangerous question, master Dura. Who are you planning to poison?”

I shook my head. “No one.” In that moment I appropriated an informal title that Laidir had implied moments earlier. “I’m the king’s reeve.” I assumed the king’s physician would be loyal but, even so, thought it best to hedge my speech. “A man died some time ago from a stroke. The circumstances of his death made me question whether it was natural.”

“Hmm,” Galen said in a tone that might have accompanied a shake of the head. “Most poisons are actually medicines taken to
an extreme, but I’ve never heard of one that could mimic a stroke. If anyone would know if it could be done, it would be Myle, but getting the information out of him will be a challenge.” He blinked at me beneath bushy eyebrows that made him look like an owl. “I did say he was difficult to work with, didn’t I?”

“I’m a reeve. He’ll talk to me,” I said.

“No,” Galen said. “You don’t understand.” He sighed. “And any explanation I offer probably wouldn’t do it justice. You’ll just have to see for yourself.”

He quieted, and sometime later I jerked when he tapped me on the shoulder. Somehow he’d managed to wrap my wound without my knowing. “That’s the effect of the balm,” Galen said. “It will help you sleep. There’s a pallet over there.” He pointed to the corner.

I stumbled to the promise of slumber as if it offered some deeper salvation than just rest and lay down, my body going lax almost before it hit the pallet.

Galen’s hollow-eyed visage filled my vision when I awoke the next morning. I saw him cast a look of relief out the window as he drew a deep breath and released it, whispering from him in a long sigh. But fear tinged his relief.

“Willet Dura,” he said, “do you know me?”

I almost laughed at the question except for the seriousness behind it. “How well can one man really know another, master physician?”

He didn’t laugh, but I saw tension ease from his shoulders. “You’ve spent the night trying to leave, staring through me as if I didn’t exist.” He gestured at the door leading back into the hallway of Laidir’s tor. “If it weren’t for the lock, you would have left two hours after midnight.”

Fear cleared the sleepy fog from my brain between heartbeats. I’d tried to night-walk, which meant someone in the city had been murdered. It might not have anything to do with the Orlan family, but I didn’t believe it for a second. By now the duke and his men would have noticed their man at the library had gone missing. That, coupled with his mistake in court, and it seemed more than plausible that Orlan wanted to mimic the gift of kings as quickly as possible. How far was he from completing it? Did he have it already? Curse
it—I knew I was moving too slowly, but I had no idea how much time I had left or even if I had any at all.

I lifted my head to see Galen staring at me as if he’d asked me a question and I’d refused to answer. What had he said? Yes. The lock on the door.

“Since the last war, I’ve been a night-walker,” I said, praying to Aer the physician would accept that lesser truth, but he shook his head.

“No. Even the nobles, inured to pain as many of them are, struggle with the aftereffects of war. I’ve watched men rise from their beds and dress, their eyes fixed on some horror of their past, drawn to walk the streets of the city searching for an answer. This is something different.”

I needed to leave, but something within Galen’s speech or manner promised an answer of sorts to my greatest dread and need. Outwardly, I shrugged. “It sounds the same to me.”

He shook his head, his gaze boring into mine as if he could find some other truth behind my eyes. “Those men wake up when called, startled to find themselves removed from the comfort of their beds. I couldn’t wake you, Willet Dura.”

An answer of sorts. “Perhaps it just took a bit longer,” I said.

He shook his head. “I didn’t wake you.” The king’s physician pointed out the window. “I’d ceased calling your name hours ago, but when the first light of the sun touched you, your mind returned.”

I’d been trained for years to be a priest, but even the most casual adherent to the faith could see the implication made plain in Galen’s words. He seemed trustworthy, but I’d already confided everything I knew of my secret to Ealdor and I knew the old saying as well as the next man: Three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead.

“Each man’s response to war is different,” I said, nodding toward the door.

Galen gave me a reluctant nod, his owlish eyes blinking twice before he turned and fished the key from around his neck. His soft question followed me like a curse into the hallway. “But is it war you’re responding to?”

I kept to the most populated parts of the tor, following in the footsteps of the crowd of servants who’d awoken well before their
masters. During the descent, as I traversed one set of broad stone steps after another, I debated my next course of action.

I could search out Myle, the alchemist, the man who might be able to link Orlan to Ian’s death or I could report to Jeb and try to find out whether the person murdered the previous night owned some gift that had supposedly gone free.

When I reached the bottom level I set my steps toward the higher merchants’ quarter. Deep inside where I wouldn’t have mentioned it to anyone, I thought of the times I’d seen Lady Gael walking that same route early in the morning, and I hoped to see her again.

It probably wasn’t the best way to make a life-or-death decision, but I consoled myself with the assumption that even if the murder was tied to Duke Orlan, all I would find was the crumpled form of some unfortunate who appeared to have had a stroke. I sighed. Reeves couldn’t prevent murder, we could only investigate it.

I registered every face on the way, searching for anyone who might be following me, but looking for Lady Gael as well. After asking for directions to Myle’s shop twice, I came to a low, squat building of stone without seeing pursuit or her.

Smoke poured from an open window, and the smell of sulfur hung heavy in the air. The clank of metal implements being moved escaped from beneath the door as I rapped my knuckles on it. The ruckus continued unabated, and I raised my fist to knock harder.

“That won’t work,” a voice said from behind me.

I turned, a dagger in my left hand and over a foot of steel pulled with my right before her face registered. She took no alarm to my reaction other than a slight widening of the eyes and a step back to place herself beyond reach of my sword.

“I’ve never seen a court servant seek out an alchemist before. I so enjoy it when my suspicions prove well-founded,” she said. “Do you work for the castellan?”

I didn’t have time to try and resurrect a façade she hadn’t believed from the first, but trust had become a habit hard to come by. “Just a man with questions, my lady,” I said. “A friend told me Myle is the most skilled alchemist in the city.”

She shook her head at me, and I gave myself permission to enjoy the way her hair flowed with the motion. “He won’t talk to you.”

So Galen had said. For some reason it sounded more plausible coming from her. “Will he talk to you?”

She nodded. “What incentive do you have to offer?”

Her response took me off guard. “I’m common born, as your sister pointed out, and the two of you wager more in an evening than I could earn in months. What could I offer one of the kingdom’s nobles?”

Her lips shaped a smile without showing teeth. “Information is a commodity everyone possesses in
some
measure. Let’s start with your name and occupation.”

“Start?” I said. “I’d like to know the end as well. Tell me how much of this commodity you require.”

She pointed at the door. “Feel free to unlock Myle’s mouth on your own if you choose, but if you frighten him, he’ll never talk in your presence.” Then she nodded. “You see, I just gave you a piece of information. The expectation is that you’ll reciprocate.”

I’d seen merchants bargain before, some of them working the transaction so closely they worked in fractions of pennies for the product, squeezing the last ounce of profit from their negotiation. I had a feeling Lady Gael rarely lost on a deal.

“My name is Willet Dura, and I’m the king’s reeve,” I said. “Why are you here?”

She smiled a bit broader this time. “Myle mixes colors for me. The king doesn’t have a reeve, he has a castellan, and you’re not him.”

“I’m a reeve,” I said simply, my face heating at the correction. “Usually, I work the crimes in the poor quarter.”

“So they don’t think much of your skills, master reeve,” Lady Gael said, “or else they wouldn’t banish you to the dregs of the city.”

“They’re not dregs,” I said, my tone sharp. “If their visages don’t show the image of Aer so clearly as some, then perhaps it’s His way of getting us to look more closely.”

Now her smile showed teeth and the mocking tilt to her head had vanished. “You can tell a lot about a man by offering an insult to what he values.” She walked past me. “Reeve Dura, our negotiations are over. Don’t talk directly to him unless he talks to you.”

Gael opened the door to the small stone workshop.

“He doesn’t lock his door?”

She smiled at my surprise. “Myle deals in any number of powders and potions that can be fatal to the ignorant. Only a very great fool would attempt to harm him in his workshop.”

When I stepped inside, I stopped to gaze at the interior. Twice now, Myle had been described in the terms people reserve for those
who possess extreme talent as well as the genius a gift bestows, but I doubted whether such a collection of chaos had ever been assembled before. Bowls and implements littered the high tables and shelves without regard to order. Stoppered jars showed a collection of powders and liquids that ran all across the far wall and occupied space on the floor. At least half a dozen mortar-and-pestle sets could be seen on a small centrally located table. A fireplace fed a kiln with a small bellows next to the window. Missing chips of stone from the hearth and wildly colored burn marks on the bricks testified to the fact that on several occasions Myle’s preparations had yielded violent results.