Echoes of Betrayal (69 page)

“That’s … that’s not right,” the cook said. “It should be the same all through unless it’s gone bad. But farron doesn’t go bad; it keeps for years, and we’re careful. You can see by the box there’s been no moisture in it.”

“Do you know where this came from?” Kieri asked the cook.

“Not exactly,” the cook said. “As I told Lady Halveric when she asked, so much came in before the wedding, from so many people. I remember the steward bringing it down: there were four cakes of farron, a very expensive gift. They looked best quality, untouched—you can see here, on the outside, the color, the smooth surface. They were dry, or I swear I wouldn’t have kept them, expensive as they are.”

“What is that other color?” Kieri asked Larchwind.

“Not farron,” she said, frowning. “It’s melfar, related to farron but not safe to eat. It’s known to cause sheep and cattle to lose their young.”

“Could someone have gathered the wrong one by mistake? Do they grow together? Look alike?”

“No, sir king. Though related, the flowers are a different color, and they are never found in the same place. More to the point, you see that the melfar is hidden, wrapped round with the purple farron.”

“So … it was intentional.”

“It must have been,” Larchwind said. She turned to the cook. “Have you ever seen melfar or its flower parts?”

“No, but I’ve heard of it. I know farron is always purple-red.”

“You said there were four cakes of it,” Kieri said to the cook. “Did you use the other cakes in the wedding foods?”

“Yes, sir king … it’s traditional for both spring feasts and weddings, and this was both … I only thought to make it better, I swear—” The cook started sobbing and through her sobs went on: “I—I put a whole cake in the fruit filling for the pastries—for the color and the flavor both—I didn’t see anything wrong with the color, but we were so busy … and another in the steamed grain …”

“I’m not blaming you,” Kieri said. “But we must find out who sent it or—if that person should have transported it innocently—who made it.”

“Melfar is not common,” Larchwind said. “Nor is farron. Whoever made those blocks had to know where both grow, obtain enough of each, and then make the blocks. I suspect—but do not know for certain—that this person gathered the flower parts personally, as farron is expensive.”

The steward looked in his records for anyone who had donated farron. That took hours of poring over the records, donor by donor. Finally he gave Kieri a name. “Only one gift of farron: four blocks of farron were donated along with a barrel of apples by Selmud Granil, a farmer on Sier Tolmaric’s steading.”

“A farmer?” Kieri said. Sier Tolmaric was not the richest of the Siers; those holding a farmstead would have less, and a barrel of apples sounded more reasonable than four cakes of expensive spice.

“Perhaps he carried it in for his Sier,” the steward said.

“I will speak to Sier Tolmaric.”

S
ier Tolmaric, summoned to Kieri’s office, stared in apparent shock and dismay. “You think my farmer did
what
? Selmud? He couldn’t have. First, he couldn’t buy that much farron—he hasn’t the money—and second, he hasn’t been off his land all winter.”

“He came to Chaya with the apples,” Kieri said. “He could have visited the market.”

“I don’t believe it. Do you know what farron costs? He doesn’t
have it, I tell you! And if you’re wondering if I sent such a gift: no. I could not afford it either. I sent meat on the hoof for the feast. Bullocks and sheep.”

“Then how—”

“Someone slipped it into Selmud’s contribution without being noticed,” Sier Tolmaric said. “It’s vile, is what it is. Whoever did this was willing to poison many people to harm one.”

Kieri wished he could see the inside of Sier Tolmaric’s head; the man seemed outraged at the poisoning, only reasonably indignant that his farmer had been suspected. Was that true?

“It was the elves,” Tolmaric said. “It must have been. None of your human subjects would do such a thing, sir king. And it’s elves who don’t care about humans—about human children. They’ve not done one thing to help, have they? Just like before. And making sure a human would be blamed—it’s just like when your mother was killed, sir king. Just the same.”

And just what Kieri could expect to hear from Tolmaric after his earlier outbursts about the elves. Tolmaric had reason—or thought he had reason—to dislike and distrust elves. It was true the elves hadn’t offered any help—hadn’t identified the poison, hadn’t shown any interest in doing so. But was that guilt?

“Sier Tolmaric,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm, “I know you have long-standing resentment of elves—and a reason for it—but in this present instance, I must be very careful. The gift was listed as coming from your steading and a particular person. I believe you when you say he could not have afforded such a gift; I believe that you yourself had nothing to do with the poisoning. But from your innocence to the guilt of elves is a long, long stride. I am not willing to accuse them. Yet.”

“But you’re
our
king,” Sier Tolmaric said. “You’re what we hoped for, all those years since your sister died—yes, half-elf, but a man who could—who would—stand up for us. You lived as a human all those years, not influenced by elven magery.” Tolmaric’s expression was pleading, and his hands reached out.

K
ieri was still struggling for words to convey to Tolmaric the complexity he himself perceived, when he felt the taig shudder as if it felt a blow. Almost at once, the room filled with the glamour of the elvenhome and the force of the Lady’s anger.

“You invited Kuakkgani!” she said without waiting for a greeting. Waves of power washed toward him; he ignored them. He was aware of Tolmaric standing open-mouthed to one side, and hoped the man would keep silent. “You know what I told you,” the Lady went on. “We do not allow Kuakkgani in this land—they are disgusting!”

“You did not help us find the poison or the poisoner. The Kuakkgani did,” Kieri said. “Our child died, and others as well, and you did nothing.”

“There was nothing to do but grieve,” she said. “The child was already dead.” Her voice had softened a little but still held an arrogance that angered him.

“
Nothing
to do?” Kieri said. “When the Kuakkgani were able to find the poison quickly, to prevent more being poisoned, women whose unborn children would have died if it had not been discovered? If you had been willing to help, others now grieving might have life still within them. But you were not even within call.”

“The Kuakkgani are—” A string of elven he did not understand but for “filthy” and “against the taig.”

“Grandmother,” Kieri said, and paused.

She glared at him but said nothing.

“Let us be clear,” he said. “You are the Lady of the Ladysforest, and where elven matters in the elvenhome are concerned, I have nothing to say. But where humans in Lyonya are concerned, and where my own children are concerned, I am the king, and I will choose what seems best to me. You knew about the poison and the grief we felt. You offered no advice; you offered scant comfort. Thus I did not seek your opinion and do not seek it now.”

“But they are—”

“They have found the source of the poison: someone put cakes of farron mixed with melfar among the gifts brought for the wedding feast.”

“Melfar!”

“I see you know what it is.”

“Yes … but who? Who brought it? What grudge do they have against you?”

“The person among whose other gifts it was listed did not—
could
not—have brought it. Someone else put it with his. We know that much. And we are beginning to suspect what manner of being might have done so.”

“What manner of—you cannot mean you suspect elves!” Her eyes glowed, almost dragon-like, Kieri thought. Her power intensified; Tolmaric crumpled to the floor, hands clutching at his head.

“Are you sure it was
not
elves?” Kieri asked. “Your own daughter attacked and killed, your grandson stolen away … You must have enemies, Grandmother. Certainly gnomes, and for all I know among the elves, too. Orlith’s murder—”

“That was a human. That must have been a human! Maybe that man!” She pointed at Tolmaric. “He has always hated elves; he probably killed Orlith to keep you from learning more, and he could have poisoned Arian and the other women to blame it on us.”

Don’t be ridiculous
came into Kieri’s mind, but the Lady would not hear that, he was sure. Instead he said, “Sier Tolmaric is an honorable man and has reasons for his dislike of elves—the torment you inflicted on his father and grandfather. His family is poorer because of that, and the scathefire ran across his lands while you were away and could not help defend us.”

“I apologize for that … I have already …”

“To him? For his losses? Are you going to grant him what I asked: land to replace what was lost? You have answered nothing about that, and I have asked again and again.”

“It doesn’t mean he didn’t do it,” she said.

“He did not do it,” Kieri said. “He did not kill Orlith because he was here, in Chaya, in the palace itself, when Orlith was killed, and he had no reason to poison us and kill our child. The humans in my court, Grandmother, are not my enemies. I have enough elven magery to know that for certain. Some are stubborn, some are slow, not all agree with me … but they are not enemies.”

“And you think we are.”

“I think some of you may be. Or it might be other beings—iynisin, perhaps. I’ve met those before.”

“It cannot be. Such do not exist here.”

Kieri’s patience frayed; he struggled with himself. “Something is wrong, Grandmother, and you must know it—and I need to know it. I believe you intend me no harm, but you keep secrets … you go away and do not come back … you do not answer my simplest questions. If you were human, I would think—” He stopped short. Could he tell her what he really thought, that she was impaired in some way, unfit to rule? She was the Lady; she was so old he could not imagine what her real age might be—old enough to see mountains grow and seas rise and fall, as the dragon said he was. An Elder of Elders, and his own grandmother …

“You would think what?” she asked. She seemed to grow taller, more beautiful, more powerful; her glamour wrapped around him, heavy as water. Then, even as he struggled against it, her eyes widened, focusing past him, and her mouth opened.

War-honed reflexes acted; he had ducked aside and whirled, reaching for his sword, when a sword hummed through the space where he had been. Another presence—elven?—and his first glimpse was of an elf he had never seen, as tall as the Lady. He had his sword out then, the green jewel in the pommel glowing. The elf now aimed his sword’s point at the Lady and extended his other hand to Kieri.

“You will not move,” he said to Kieri; to the Lady he said, “Flessinathlin … dear lady, has it come at last? And is this puny mortal your champion?”

Kieri felt a weight of malice added to the Lady’s glamour … and felt that glamour fade. The elf’s face, those perfectly shaped bones, that exquisite beauty, held an expression of such viciousness that the beauty seemed even more unreal. He had never felt such before around elves—strangeness, yes, but not this.

“You should not have divided your power,” the elf said to the Lady. “Once you were stronger … but now? I think perhaps you are not. And this one is your grandson, so I hear. How delightful it will be when he is blamed for your death. All your fawning little subjects will take care of him for me, and then … even the Kingsforest cannot withstand us.”

The Lady’s larger semblance had faded, leaving her slightly shorter than the other. With a sensation much like a bubble popping on the skin, Kieri felt the elvenhome presence disappear. With that, he could feel the malice of the other elf even more strongly. Only—it was not Sinyi, but iynisin.

“We will not be interrupted by any of your subjects,” the iynisin said to the Lady. “Or yours,” it said to Kieri. “Not that they could do me any harm if they were here in a crowd.”

From the corner of his eye, Kieri saw Tolmaric move slightly, shoulders tensing, one eye opening.
Don’t
, Kieri thought at him. Tolmaric wasn’t armed, and if the Lady’s glamour had felled him, the iynisin’s power would surely overwhelm him, too. Whether it was his thought or Tolmaric’s or the iynisin’s power, Tolmaric relaxed again, eye closing.