Drakenfeld (47 page)

It slotted in with so many other things: the fact that neither of them had married; that Lacanta pretended to bed other people, but never actually went through with it; the reason she had taken
part in the staging of her own death. It had never occurred to me that, one day, Lacanta may have wanted to return to Tryum, albeit in a different guise.

‘Drullus was an actor that the king associated himself with – you know, on his trips down-city. He confided in Drullus. He told him about your relationship with each other, and
Drullus in turn told me.’

She shook her head. ‘Drullus is just a nobody. How could he have known? Licintius would never have said anything to a mere actor.’

‘It’s called incest, Lacanta, no matter how you dress any of this up.’

Lacanta could no longer meet my gaze.

‘This is what you planned,’ I continued. ‘You hoped to return one day, with a different hairstyle, new clothes, perhaps different jewellery and make-up. Combined with another
name, you hoped that no one would notice.’

Still she said nothing; still she avoided my eye.

I crouched down beside her, and searched for a more gentle approach. ‘You saved yourselves for each other, isn’t that right? You were fooling a city so that you could get away with
your illegitimate love. And you killed a poor innocent priestess to dupe a nation.’

‘You shouldn’t be so smug,’ Lacanta snapped.

‘Meaning?’

‘We had help,’ she replied.

‘I imagine that it’s the kind of task that cannot be done alone.’

‘No, you don’t understand – we had help.’ She paused. ‘From a Drakenfeld.’

Lacanta gave me a suddenly confident look, not quite a smile – something more sinister than that. My heart sank and I closed my eyes for a moment, but there was no avoiding it. At the back
of my mind there had been a nagging doubt about how my father had come into so much money, a doubt that also led me to think that he may have found the missing priestess and was the reason she
remained missing.

‘So now what will you do?’ Lacanta sat back and took on a different, more arrogant manner entirely. Here she was, back in control, the one with power. ‘Will you want to
implicate your precious, beloved father in all of this? It will ruin his lovely reputation. It will ruin your delightfully honest family name. And do not think I won’t mention it to as many
people as I possibly can.’

‘Tell me what he did.’

I knelt beside her, allowing her to continue, almost at a whisper.

‘We needed a body in place of mine,’ she said, ‘someone who looked like me. Who better than someone who deals in such matters as missing people, skilled in the knowledge of how
easy it is for people to disappear from the city. Someone who, on occasion, locates them on behalf of others.’

‘An officer of the Sun Chamber,’ I breathed.

‘Your father was badly in need of money. In exchange for supplying us with someone who might look like me, we would give him ample amounts to pay off his debts.’

Which explained the sudden arrival of money.

‘It took him many weeks until we could find someone who would fit. He killed himself not long after. The quiet, moralistic ones are the worst – one never quite knows how they will
react under pressure.’ Her face became more spirited now, her voice warmer, kinder. ‘But it does not have to be this way, Drakenfeld. We can both take our secrets with us. No one has to
know any of this. You can leave here now and no one need ever know about the shame on your family. You will have my word on that.’

The veterans took it in turns to watch Lacanta, though I respected her right to privacy – she said it was indecent for a woman of her position to be stared at by such men
and she was right. So Leana handily volunteered to spend the night in Lacanta’s room, watching over her. We cleared her room of her possessions and anything that could be used as a weapon. A
dagger was found beneath her pillow.

Nearby I noted another three books on Destos, one of which was a more detailed piece of travel writing, though much like the one I had seen in her room in Optryx. Was one of these the object
removed from her room, leaving a mark in the dust? Concealed in another book was yet another piece of paper, with more clear and obvious script than the paper I’d originally found, but it was
updated and much easier to follow. This time there was no doubting it was a map.

Without Leana present I was careful to use the apothecary’s herbs I’d brought with me. The tisane certainly calmed my mind enough for me to have faith in herbs for a night – it
made a change from having faith in gods so that they did not punish me. On deeper reflection, Polla might have agreed. The herbs might not always work, either, but since I had been taking them
regularly I had not experienced anything notable in my sleep. The world was full of uncertainties but, thankfully, for the first time in a long while my seizures were the least of my concerns.

Sleep came easily. It was peaceful and deep, the best for weeks. I woke up refreshed and saw everything with a heightened sense of clarity.

After an initial debate between myself and Callimar, we decided to wait a couple of days in the villa with Lacanta while our agents did their work. If there had been regular contact between the
property and the king’s men, then our soldiers would intercept any carriages or horses travelling to the property. At first it seemed strange that Lacanta had brought such a small entourage
with her, but perhaps she had wanted as few people as possible knowing the plan.

The men with her, it transpired, were all eunuchs. We only found out when one of them stripped himself naked before Callimar’s men and pleaded with them not to hurt him. A lot of people
who find themselves in captivity tended to do that when they had run out of options and become desperate.

We permitted Lacanta to walk in the gardens, both inside the property and out, with an armed escort. There was no reason to be needlessly cruel while waiting for her sentencing. Whenever she
did, however, I decided to accompany her. Sometimes people would tell me strange things when they were more relaxed and sanguine about their fate. Her talent for conversation, when she opened up to
me, was beguiling. It was obvious she was far more well read than myself, so before the beautifully serene view I merely let her talk more so that I might learn one or two things about the gods and
the stars.

The conversation turned again to my father’s involvement, and she asked me how I could so easily bring shame upon my family.

I reminded her that it was not I who brought the shame in the first place, and that I forgave him.

‘Polla, I’m sure, will see that my emotion is kept out of such decisions when the time comes. Besides, given there is shame in my family, it only seems fair to correct that. Polla
would approve. I hope.’

‘What is so special about your goddess that makes you regard her so highly?’

‘Nothing, I suppose, which is exactly why she is special. She encourages me to cast light into dark places, to investigate matters in the physical plane as best as I can, to the best of my
abilities and to the benefit of Vispasia. She enables me to think on my own, to question everything. We respect our gods and goddesses like we would our own parents, but Polla seems to be a goddess
whose advice is constantly effective. Her scriptures are practical, not judgemental; her priests and priestesses full of useful advice.’

‘She sounds far more pleasant that Trymus. His priests seem more concerned with perpetuating his own glorious myths and moral absolutes than with advice.’

‘You spoke of shame on my family,’ I said, ‘but do you have no shame about your sexual unions with your own brother?’

I expected her to say nothing, to look away, but instead she began to justify her actions. ‘We shared a mother and a father – it hardly seems much of a bother to share a bed as
well.’

‘The gods disapprove,’ I replied. ‘The laws of nature disapprove. But, more importantly, the laws of Vispasia also disapprove.’

‘Laws and gods . . . they do not understand matters of love. Our union was one of deep affection, full of tender and caring gestures. How many marriages in the city can claim such
enjoyment? Not that many, I’ll wager. How many women can claim to be so happy? Again, far too few. We have always been close, Licintius and I. The first time we slept together, it felt so
perfectly natural – the most natural thing in the world, in fact. We merely had to create the pretence that it was not going on.’

‘I could never connect your very austere room, and the fact that no one could actually claim to have been sleeping with you, with the reports that you flirted with everyone around you, and
led a rather wild social life. It simply made no sense.’

‘Well, now you know,’ Lacanta said.

‘It’s such a shame that an innocent priestess had to lose her life over it. So many people have ended up dead because of your actions.’

‘Who else?’ she asked, quite surprised.

‘You realize General Maxant is dead?’

‘No . . . No, I didn’t. What happened?’

She could have been lying about her ignorance, but I told her anyway – that he was murdered, that it was staged to look like suicide. I admit to still not knowing why Maxant died. My
suspicions were that the king had silenced his general for knowing too much, but there was no proof of this.

Lacanta told me that she did not know Maxant well enough, but he seemed an honest if somewhat dull person. ‘Hardly a man one could have a meaningful conversation with,’ she said.
Lacanta received little contact from Tryum and knew nothing of what was going on there. I tried to question what the arrangement was between her and her brother, how often they might meet up, but
she was not forthcoming on the details.

In the end the clouds began to move in, bringing in a gentle, sideways rain that I first mistook for sea spray. Our conversation had, for the moment, reached an end. Together we headed
inside.

Five long, repetitive days later we received notice that one of the most senior Sun Chamber officials was already on their way to the villa from Free State, and they would
arrive the following evening.

Upon receiving the message, Callimar looked at me and muttered, ‘You realize I’ve never even met a Sun Chamber commissioner, let alone worked with one?’

‘Well, don’t look at me like that,’ I replied, ‘neither have I.’

‘Why are they sending her and not an administrator, or a commander?’

I shrugged. ‘Maybe they fancied a holiday in Destos.’

We waited another six days, as it happened, due to the rough weather around the coast. The storms were glorious: forked lightning ripped between clouds in the late afternoon in
a way I hadn’t seen for years. However, the mornings were deceptively calm, allowing me to wander the local paths and discovering several plants that Lacanta said grew only in this
region.

No incidents had occurred with her: she had been an intelligent and polite companion, and not at all as I had expected. It was obvious to see how she would have worked her brother’s
policies through the Senate so effectively, and made the hearts of many a senator skip a beat or two in her company.

On the morning of the sixth day, an entourage of Sun Chamber officials and soldiers were spotted approaching, so Callimar – strangely nervous – arranged for his
veterans to tidy the place up as if it was on military parade. We saw to it that Lacanta was put in her room with two guards; her eunuchs, too, were under watch.

The rest of us stood on the front lawn, looking up to the dirt track, waiting for the arrival of our officials.

Eventually, they came: there must have been twenty horses at least riding down to meet us, with a dozen soldiers on foot. On the horses rode officials in resplendent Sun Chamber robes: largely
black or dark colours, but with bold, yellow detail, and a huge embroidered golden sun upon the chest and back. They passed the line of trees and down into view, the officials at the front riding
towards where we were standing.

One woman raised her palm for the entourage to stop. A man behind slipped off his horse and moved around to ease her down to the ground. She must be the commissioner.