Hunter's Season: Elder Races, Book 4 (6 page)

“I’m not here to gawk,” Niniane said shortly.

The man’s head jerked around. “Your Majesty—my profound apologies—”

“Forget about it. Focus on your patient. Is he—will he—?” Niniane’s voice stopped abruptly as she clenched a fist in Xanthe’s uniform sleeve.

The physician turned back to his patient. He said tersely, “I don’t know. With respect, please leave us to work now.”

“Yes, of course,” Niniane whispered.

Xanthe put an arm around the smaller woman’s shoulders, hugging Niniane tightly against her side. She did not know if she did so for Niniane or for herself. She could not look away from the man on the bed. His bare, well formed chest was mottled with sword gashes. A blackened bruise disfigured fully half of his still face, and oh gods, all that blood.

Xanthe had seen such terrible wounds before. Most of those who had suffered them had died. Riordan disappeared in a wet haze as her eyes filled. She cleared her throat and said huskily, “Come, let’s find a sitting room.”

“Of course,” Niniane whispered again.

Riordan’s major domo had just shown them to a sitting room when Tiago blazed into the house. It took some effort to endure the Wyr lord’s presence when he was in a rage. Xanthe retreated as Tiago enfolded Niniane in his arms and asked her questions filled with quiet urgency.

Xanthe stepped out into the hall and looked for the major domo. When she found him, she asked, “How did it happen?”

He looked at her with red rimmed eyes. “We don’t know, ma’am. The Chancellor was late. Well, he almost always works late these days. Tonight he was later than usual. He always tells us, you see, whenever he has an engagement or is detained. He’s a thoughtful lord, a good lord.”

“I know he is,” she whispered.

“But he didn’t come, and he didn’t send word. Finally I sent two servants to look for him. They found him in the park like this. It was clear he had fought. There was blood everywhere. I sent for the physicians then to the palace.”

Rage whipped through Xanthe, its sting as harsh as a cat-o-nine tail. “Why did he not have guards with him?”

The major domo blinked rapidly. “It was not his way. He said it was such a short walk from the palace grounds to his doorstep, he felt stupid calling for a guard every time he made the journey.”

She pulled herself up short. The major domo did not deserve her rage. The people who attacked Riordan did. She nodded to him and left him with a quiet word of thanks, returning to wait with Niniane and Tiago in the sitting room. They didn’t seem to mind when she reappeared, but she went to the window anyway and pretended to stand guard there.

The dark hours trickled by and turned to the bleak gray before dawn when the major domo stepped into the open doorway. “The physicians ask that you come,” he said.

Niniane and Tiago rushed out of the room and raced up the stairs, with Xanthe close behind. She followed them into the bedroom and closed the door behind her on the anxious faces awaiting in the hall. Her hands shook. Any moment now, she thought, I will be sent out to wait with the others.

But no one seemed to notice or care that she was in the room. The physicians didn’t know who she was, and Tiago and Niniane paid no attention to what she did. They were both focused on the man and woman who were tiredly washing up at basins that had been placed on a nearby sideboard.

“He’ll live,” the woman told them. “But he almost didn’t. I was certain a couple of times that his spirit had left his body.” She looked at them. “His injuries were severe and extensive, and we did the best we could but there’s only so much we can do. It may take several hours to a day for him to regain consciousness, and he’ll need to convalesce in peace and quiet. No work and no stress, not for a few sevendays at the very least. He’s a strong man, and he used a lot of that to survive. Now he’ll need to rebuild that strength.”

Xanthe did not truly hear anything past the first two words. As both Tiago and Niniane asked questions and the doctors answered, she slipped like a ghost around all of them and approached the unconscious man on the bed.

She was an expert at murder, and this was how murder was done—by gaining the trust of the people around the intended victim so that you become commonplace, a fact of life like an armchair or a side table. Then no one questioned you when you came close. No one saw as you slipped the stiletto between the ribs, or dropped the poison in the drink.

Or attacked a man in a small neighborhood park.

She looked down at the noble face of the man who lay so quietly, his black hair spread on the pillow. He did not look peaceful. He looked worn and deeply ill, his closed eyes bruised with dark shadows. The coverlet had been pulled up to his bare shoulders. Sometimes when the injuries were so severe, a physician simply had to stop healing because an abused body could only take so much Power coursing through it. This must have been the case with Riordan, for she could see the uneven bump of bandages underneath the covering.

No one was watching, and it was, after all, such a simple thing she needed to do. She reached out a hand and touched his temple, feeling the pulse of life underneath the pads of her fingers. Then, tenderly, she stroked the silken black hair from his forehead. It was the most audacious thing she had ever done, stealing this one moment.

Some extra sense made her turn her head. Niniane stood a few feet away, staring at her. The Queen’s gaze was very wide and startled, and far too perceptive. Xanthe snatched her hand back and cleared her throat. Turned away. Turned back again. She was in an agony of embarrassment.

Niniane stopped her by simply putting a hand on her arm.

Meanwhile, Tiago saw the doctors out the door and closed it firmly on everybody else again. He turned back to join Niniane and Xanthe, looking down at Riordan.

“We’ll have to investigate everybody,” he said. “That includes everyone in his household, of course, and his staff at the palace. The neighbors will need to be canvassed.”

“I know who did this,” Niniane said through set teeth.

“You think you know who instigated this,” Tiago corrected as he slanted a dark look at her. “It could have actually been carried out by almost anybody.”

Xanthe said, “We came through the park where his servants found him. It is a small neighborhood space, with a few trees and benches, and a little shrubbery around the edges. There is almost no place to hide. If someone lay in wait for him there, they would have looked out of place. And there would have been the sounds of the attack. No one heard or came to help him, so it is likely the inhabitants of the neighboring houses were out at some function. His attackers probably watched and waited for just such a time.”

Tiago and Niniane both regarded her with thoughtful, set expressions. “There were any number of dinners and parties this evening,” Niniane said.

“I’ll track down who received which invitations, and which ones they attended,” Tiago said.

“Sir, your grace, please give me leave to investigate this,” Xanthe said between her teeth.

“No,” Tiago said. “This hunt is mine.” He looked at down Niniane as he rubbed her back. “He cannot remain here while I investigate. We will need to move him to the palace where we can guarantee his safety, at least until I clear his servants.”

Niniane remained focused so intently on Xanthe, she had to control the urge to twitch. It was impossible to tell what the Queen was thinking. Would she say anything about Xanthe’s inappropriate behavior? Perhaps Niniane might even dismiss her. Xanthe braced herself.

Niniane said to her, “You have a cottage, about an hour’s walk outside the city.”

Whatever she expected, it hadn’t been this. She blinked, and said, “Yes, your grace.”

“It is quiet there? Away from major traffic of any kind?” When she nodded, Niniane looked up at Tiago. “What about neighbors?”

He tilted his head, considering her. “I got a good look at the land when I flew out there. There aren’t any neighbors in sight of the cottage. The nearest one is a farm some distance away.”

“I think we should take Aubrey there,” Niniane said. “The cottage is quiet and out of the way. Until you finish investigating his palace staff and his household servants, the cottage would be the safest place for him. Xanthe can tend to him and guard him, and nobody will ever think to look for him there.”

Astonishment held Xanthe so frozen she didn’t blink, or breathe.

Tiago murmured to Niniane, “There you go again, not following a logical path from A to B then C. You always leap to some part of the alphabet that’s a complete surprise to me, and yet it makes perfect sense.”

A ghost of a sparkle came into the Queen’s exhausted gaze. She asked, “It’s a good idea, isn’t it?”

“It’s an excellent idea. I can take him to the roof, change and fly him there. I’ll cloak myself so that nobody will know. He’ll just vanish into thin air.” He looked at Xanthe. “You will do it, won’t you—guard him until we have found those responsible for this?”

Xanthe’s hands shook as she turned to stare at Riordan’s still face. He would be in her home, where almost no one ever came. He would convalesce in her bed. She could make certain that he was safe.

“Oh, my lord,” she whispered. “Yes.”

Chapter Four

The Depths

He woke.

Pain and exhaustion pinned him. He lay in a strange bed, in a strange room. The day was unusually quiet. There were no sounds of carriages or distant voices, just the occasional call from birds. Sunshine slanted in through a partially shaded, open window. Wind wafted gently into the room. There was a doorway to another room, where another open doorway showed flagstones and the edge of green grass.

Strange covers were drawn up over his chest and arms. They bore down heavily on him. He tried to move and couldn’t, and while he was trying, he fell asleep.

When he woke again, daylight had almost faded completely. It was much cooler and the room was filled with deep shadows. He recognized nothing about the scene except for the pain he was in. His bones ached, a deep insistent throb, and he was still exhausted.

An echo of clashing swords drifted through his memory. Probably someone had kidnapped him. He found it hard to care at the moment, except if he was not dead, the whole event would turn into another long, dreary saga.

He closed his eyes and drifted.

The memory of the swordfight came back, stronger and clearer. The park, late at night. A triad of attackers. He fought hard, and he might have had a chance except for that first crippling blow that struck him from behind.

If he hadn’t sensed something and started to turn, the blow would have killed him. As it was, it cut through several major muscles in his back. Still he had tried, putting viciousness into every thrust and parry, while his defeat flowed down over the back of his legs in a hot red tide and he knew he was going to die, and really, in some ways, the realization was a relief.

A quiet noise broke through the memory. Someone moved around in the other room, and his eyes flared open again. Of course he wasn’t alone.

A slim straight figure appeared in the doorway then stepped into the room. The waning light fell on the familiar features of the Queen’s new attendant, Xanthe Tenanye.

Bitter disappointment lanced through him, and a sickeningly familiar sense of betrayal. He said savagely, “Better me than the Queen, I suppose, or have you taken her too?”

A smile had begun to spread over her face, and something had lightened her gaze. She froze, both smile and light dying. Expressionless and calm, she said with exquisite politeness, “You have been unconscious since the attack last night. I will need to check your bandages soon, my lord, but that can wait until the morning. There is broth and bread. You may not yet feel ready to eat, but it would be good if you could drink some broth. You almost d—you lost a lot of fluid.”

Almost died. Yes, that sounded about right.

He fixed his gaze on the ceiling’s rafters. Since he was not really suicidal, and he had not died, he supposed he’d better take in some sustenance. He would need strength for the upcoming ordeal. He bit out, “Very well.”

She seemed to hesitate. Then out of the corner of his eye, he saw her bow her head and leave the room.

Why had she started to smile? That look in her eyes. She looked like he had kicked her in the teeth before that perfect, polite wall of hers had come down.

Come to think of it, why was he bandaged?

His assailants had not fought to overcome him. They had fought to kill him.

Realization stung him. He said, “Xanthe.”

He could not put much strength into his voice, but she heard him anyway and appeared again in the doorway of the bedroom. This time she remained in shadow, and he could not see her face, although he knew what she would look like. Perfect, expressionless.

“I am an old fool who has let himself become ruled by bitterness and disappointment,” he said tiredly. His meager strength was waning fast again. “I apologize for the conclusion I leapt to so erroneously. You did not deserve that.”

She moved forward quickly, coming into the light, and there was expression back in her face, shimmering in her eyes. “Please do not distress yourself, my lord. You have been badly injured, and you awakened to find yourself in a strange place with no explanation.”