Shana Abe (29 page)

“I had some”—she could see him search for the right words—“
concerns
when I entered our chambers and found you missing.”

His fingers were whitening around the knight from the strength of his grip. Kyla swallowed nervously.

“All for naught,” she said.

“Really?” The pawn stopped spinning, leaving it slanted across the board, head to her, the white tip of the scythe pointing up to the air. “Was it indeed all for naught, Kyla? This afternoon not only do I find that my wife has deliberately disobeyed me, but also that she has dragged two children into a very dangerous game. My wife, who, as you know,”—he gave her a feral smile now, and she saw again that blazing cold in him unveiled—“has recently suffered a severe blow to
her head. She might not be thinking clearly. She might have gotten lost in the labyrinth of tunnels. Some of them go all the way down to the ocean, down to the caves under the castle, did you know that?”

“No, I—”

“Of course not. Or perhaps my wife hadn’t gone off on her own, after all. Perhaps she was taken. Perhaps the man who hit her before had come to finish the job. Perhaps he had found the tunnel and pushed open the door, heavy as the wardrobe was. Perhaps he had killed her while she was sleeping and hidden her body behind the walls.”

She sat up in the chair, shaking her head in denial, eyes wide. “You don’t understand—”

The knight shattered into pieces behind her, an explosion so unexpected that she cried out, then covered her mouth with her hand. It took her a moment to realize that it had shattered because he had thrown it, hard against the wall behind her.

He was staring down at his hand. It was trembling slightly. He blinked down at it, as if it had done something astonishing all on its own.

Kyla had shrunk back into the chair, hand still over her mouth. Roland looked up at her slowly. “You don’t know what it’s like,” he said. His words were thick and slurred, as if he were talking through a mouth full of wool.

She shook her head at him. Her hair fell down around her eyes.

“You don’t know,” he repeated in that strange voice. “The blackness. It’s empty.”

She was caught in a peculiar world—part of her was terrified of him, part of her wanted to comfort him. What was he talking about?

Roland paused, bending over at the waist as if in pain, hiding his face from her. But as quickly as the moment came it was gone; he seemed to come out of his trance, standing up, walking briskly to the panel that was still open in the wall.

“Come,” he said in his normal voice. Another command. He held out his hand.

Kyla made her decision. “I will not stay trapped in that room any longer.” She folded her arms over her chest, hoping she looked more certain than she felt. “It is plain to see that I am not ill. I have not gotten lost in tunnels, nor killed by … by anyone!”

He waited, saying nothing, leaving her to feel slightly silly at her own stand. But she had come this far, she wasn’t going to give up yet. “I saw them, Roland. I saw the men. There are two of them.”

“You saw their faces?” She felt his attention hone in on her with sharp speed, pinning her in place.

“No, not that,” she admitted. “But I did see them from a distance. I saw them walking. I know their height, I know their size, their hair color. I know their voices.”

“I see.” Roland took a few steps toward her, leaning his arms over the back of the chair facing her. “And what do you propose to do about it?”

“When I come down to sup I will have an opportunity to look for them again. Everyone will be there for the evening meal, isn’t that right?”

“Everyone but you,” he said, unsmiling.

Something in her, that last bit of willpower to maintain her dignity, splintered apart.

“I am coming down for supper or you will have to tie me up to keep me away,” she snapped.

“Don’t tempt me!”

She stood up, pushing the chair out of her way. “You can’t stop me!”

“You have no idea what I can do,” he said coldly, towering over her. “As a matter of fact, I can stop you. I can do anything to you that I want.”

“Why?” she burst out. “Why are you doing this? Why are you so—” Before more words could come tumbling out—or worse, the tears clogging her throat—she clapped her hand over her mouth again, appalled at herself, at her loss of control.

Roland watched her, unmoving, then bowed his head and rubbed at his eyes. “Why indeed?” he muttered to himself, sardonic.

She deliberately pulled her hand down, controlling the tears, clenching her teeth together.

“All right, you win,” he said, sounding weary. “Come to dinner with me. Why not? Let the whole world take aim at you.”

Kyla shook her hair out of her eyes. “Don’t worry. I’ll be taking my own aim first.”

“Wonderful,” he replied, but his tone said
catastrophe
.

T
he cook, not anticipating the arrival of the countess at the dinner table, had nevertheless scrambled to serve something special to please her.

“Gruel.” Kyla lifted her spoon up to let the thin, gray liquid dribble back down into the bowl. “How thoughtful.”

“Your delicate appetite, you know.” Marla took a hefty bite of the roasted chicken seasoned with thyme and rosemary, then actually smiled at Kyla’s envious look. “If you don’t eat it, Cook will be so disappointed.”

On the other side of her, Elysia tugged at Kyla’s sleeve. When Kyla looked down, the child casually rested her hand on the top of a mastiff’s head. The animal was drooling happily under the table between the two of them.

Kyla looked around from under her lashes. Marla was talking to Harrick. Roland had gone to Duncan’s table, where he was leaning over and talking. His back was to her.

Without looking away Kyla took the bowl and lowered it under the table, holding it steady for the dog. Thank goodness the head table was not on a dais.

She placed the now-empty bowl back up on the edge of the table.

“More chicken, please,” said Elysia brightly.

The great hall was as crowded as Kyla remembered, people gathered together on the long benches, loud conversations, laughter. So many people. How was she ever to find the men she sought?

Roland finished talking and turned around to seek her
out. She met his look just as a platter of chicken was set before her. She shook her head slightly to indicate she had not yet spotted the men. He turned away again.

She, apparently, was not the only one looking. Careful examination revealed two or three soldiers near all three of the entrances to the room, all standing around while they ate or drank, talking, laughing just like everyone else. Yet she noticed how they covertly scanned the room as she did, how they periodically looked to Duncan or Roland, and then to the other men on the other sides of the room.

There were so many men with black hair, even more with brown. Since almost everyone was seated it was impossible to tell anything from height. And the din of voices drowned out any individual sounds save those very close at hand, such as Harrick leaning around Marla to offer Kyla a serving of stew.

She took it with an absent smile, her eye suddenly on one particular man—not a soldier, from the dress of him; a farmer, perhaps. Rough tunic, nothing unusual about him, except that the way he turned to speak to a woman beside him sparked some recognition. It was so uncertain. His features were plain, his hair was black, true, but so was the hair of each of the four men next to him. She might have met him when she first arrived, she wasn’t sure. But something about the way he moved …

No. Impossible to tell. She could hardly condemn a man for the way he shrugged his shoulders, an awkward sort of heave beneath the tunic. If only she could listen to his voice.

She had half risen from her seat with the unformed notion of strolling over there when a commotion erupted near the far entrance, the soldiers there abandoning their pretense of jocularity to surround the person who was trying to come in.

After a moment they let him pass. He went straight to Roland and gave a deep bow.

Naturally Kyla didn’t know him. But he was dressed warmly for the weather, his tunic and hose spotted and stained with what might have been water, perhaps from the splashings of a boat.

Marla put a restraining arm on Kyla, pushing her gently back into her seat, mistaking her reason for rising. “No need
for alarm. It’s John Campbell, one of the lieutenants. He must have news from the mainland.”

Roland and the lieutenant were joined by Duncan, and then the three of them walked out of the room.

Marla put a hunk of bread on Kyla’s plate; the chicken and the stew were already gone. “Interesting,” she said. “I wonder what has happened.”

Harrick smiled. “No doubt you will find out one way or another soon enough.”

“No doubt,” Marla agreed.

Elysia bent her head over her plate, unusually without comment, Kyla thought. She felt a tingle of alarm creep through her.

All three men reentered the room and split in different directions, Duncan going back to his table, the lieutenant joining another group of young men. Roland headed purposefully for the main table. The volume of noise dimmed for a brief moment, then swelled anew.

“What news, my lord?” asked Marla, all poise and steadiness, after he had taken his seat.

Roland took Kyla’s hand, reserved but with that glimmer of concern she had come to recognize in him. The alarm curling in her chest grew stronger.

“What news?” She echoed Marla’s words.

“My man has just come from London. There have not been any significant revelations in the case of your mother.” He looked away, lost in thought. “But something of some importance did happen, something I think you would wish to know. It seems Lady Elisabeth de Corbeau has taken her life, my dear.”

Kyla stared at him, the words spinning around her. Lady Elisabeth? Dead, by her own hand? She found herself shaking her head.

“It’s true.” Roland frowned across the expanse of the hall. “A few days ago. She seemed somewhat despondent before, I am told.”

Kyla flashed on the image of Lady Elisabeth, congratulating her on her marriage, smiling with polished grace in the
face of the unusual circumstances. Lady Elisabeth, sending over an entire wardrobe of gowns for her when she realized she had none. Lady Elisabeth, with the kind eyes and the concerned questions, her mother’s dear, dear friend.

It was a strange kind of a shock, losing someone who actually had not been all that well known to her. To Kyla she had been more of a living extension of the life Helaine had led, another person who had known her mother and loved her. Now another person gone from this world.

“Took her life.” Marla repeated the words sadly.

“No.” Elysia spoke for the first time, drawing the attention of all of them. “What the lady took was her peace.”

And then she bent her head down again and continued eating.

Another baffling riddle from this fey child, one that no doubt made sense on some obscure level—Kyla was learning that all of Elysia’s comments had some hidden truth to them, no matter how innocently presented—but this time she didn’t know what to make of it, and knew better than to ask. Elysia would only widen her eyes and smile, or shrug, or turn away. Kyla couldn’t focus right now on anything but the awful fact of it. Lady Elisabeth, dead.

The meal was ending, and by the time she had gathered herself enough to recollect the man with the black hair, half the hall was empty, everyone else milling around, servants cleaning up.

Harrick had left, Marla had taken Elysia back to the nursery with the other children.

Roland, of course, had stayed with her, no longer eating but slowly drinking his wine, silent in the ornate chair next to hers, staring out at nothing she could see.

She didn’t wish to go back to her rooms yet. It might have been that this was her first taste of freedom in almost a week and she was loath to give it up so readily. It might have been she felt a little too shaken still to spend the rest of her evening alone in quiet contemplation.

It could have just been, surprisingly enough, that she wanted particular company right now. That she wanted to be with Roland.

Yet her goblet was empty; her plate was already gone. She debated whether to interrupt Roland’s thoughts with her discovery of the man who might or might not have been part of the duo they were looking for, but before she could, Roland slanted a look toward her.

“Care to see the stars?”

She did, very much.

He took her out of the great room to one of the many side rooms lining the main hallway. This one looked much like the rest, with a bit more decoration—a large, squarepaned window with fragmented reflections of the two of them against the twilight; tall tapestries with tiny stitched people and long fringes; a checkered, tiled floor of granite, she would guess, white and blue-gray, immaculate.

Roland went to the fireplace and pushed a booted foot against a particularly vicious-looking black-iron dragon on the grate.

A section of the checkered floor opened up, magic in the dusk, revealing a set of stairs descending to blackness.