? ? ?
“And how is the queen, may God give her good health?”
“Well enough in body, Pasevalles, but prey to fearful dreams.” Simon folded the letter and slipped it into his purse. He had an ache in his stomach that felt like hunger, but he knew it was not.
“As are we all sometimes, Majesty. The land of Sleep can be a terrifying place.”
The king nodded. Whatever had smothered and silenced his dreams of late, Simon knew very well the terrors that could be found on the Dream Road. “In any case, I am sorry I’ve kept you waiting, Lord Chancellor. You look as though something is troubling you, too.”
Pasevalles shook his head. “I am not troubled, sire, but only being cautious. I am told that you have asked Tiamak and Aengas, the Northern Alliance factor, to speak to the prisoner.”
“That Hernystirman kitchen servant who stabbed Eolair? Yes. Aengas speaks his tongue. Between you and me, I am concerned that he may not be the simple madman everyone has assumed.”
“Majesty?”
“I told you of the strange reception we had from King Hugh. And Eolair has heard disturbing things, too.”
“Of course, Majesty. I also found it troubling.”
“A part of me wonders whether Hugh might fear Eolair’s influence—the Lord Steward is a popular man in Hernystir.”
Pasevalles looked troubled. “You think Hugh might have tried to have Eolair killed? I will be honest, sire—that little madman seems a very clumsy tool for such a dangerous task.”
“I know, I know. But these are perilous times and I trust Tiamak’s judgement.”
“As do I,” the chancellor said. “But what of Aengas? Do you trust him as well?”
The king gave him a look that was half surprise, half frustration. “What? Do you suspect him of something as well?”
Pasevalles frowned. “I suspect no one, Majesty. I am just cautious—as you would wish me to be, I think. The factor arrived from Hernystir on the same day as the attack on Eolair.”
“But they say the criminal has worked here in the Hayholt kitchens for years.”
“Of course, sire. I only mention it because in times like these no assumption is safe. That is why I ask what we know of Aengas.”
Simon found it difficult to keep an even temper. “By the Tree, Pasevalles, you are too suspicious. I know and love Tiamak as well as I do any man, and he tells me that Aengas is worthy of our trust. Is that not enough?”
In less exalted settings than a meeting between king and chief minister, Pasevalles’ small movement would have been called a shrug. “Of course, Majesty—it should be more than enough. But as you and the queen yourselves told me on your return, everything is different now. I only ask the questions my position demands that I ask. Please forgive me.”
“Don’t, Pasevalles. You make me ashamed. Of course you are right to be careful.” He sighed. “But in the end I must trust someone or I would go mad. I trust you. I trust Eolair. I trust Tiamak. I trust the queen.”
“Yes, my king. I too trust Lord Tiamak, both his goodness and his judgement. If he vouches for Aengas, that is enough.”
Simon’s bleak mood had returned. “Now I am worried too, but not about Aengas. I hope Tiamak will be careful of that kitchen worker, if the creature is truly mad.” He was thinking of some of the moonstruck folk he had met in his youth, the peasant girl Skodi and even Miri’s father, King Elias, in his last months. “Madness can lie hidden, you know. Like a snake under a rock. But when you lift the rock and the sun falls upon it . . .” He thrust his hand forward like a serpent’s bite, and accidentally knocked his empty cup clattering onto the stone flags. Pasevalles silently picked it up, and when the king waved his hand for it, wiped the lip of the cup on his doublet before returning it.
When the king’s cup had been refilled, he and lord chancellor finished the rest of their business. When Pasevalles had gone, Simon sat back in his chair and ignored the courtiers waiting for his attention, his thoughts on a very different path.
Miriamele’s letter had made him think about their lost son—a grief no less painful for being familiar—but it had also reminded him of his own childhood, when the castle had seemed as big as the world and when nobody had paid much attention to the comings and goings of a mere kitchen boy. The memory gripped him and would not let go.
“Where is my little girl?” he muttered to himself. “Where is my lion cub?” Simon got to his feet and looked around. Courtiers leaned forward, each hoping that he or she was the one the king sought. To the king, though, the throne hall seemed strange and unfamiliar; for an instant or two Simon could almost believe he was a child-spy once more, poking his nose into places he should not be.
Yes, I will find my granddaughter, he decided, ignoring the polite, expectant faces that surrounded him. It will do my heart good to see her and to hear her voice. My son is lost to God and my grandson has gone far away—for good or ill—but I can at least find my Lillia and keep her close.
Tiamak found it easiest to walk behind Aengas’s litter: the shoulders of its four brawny bearers all but filled the narrow corridors beneath the guardhouse. “I know nothing much beyond what I’ve already related,” Tiamak said. “He is a kitchen worker from Crannhyr who has been here in the Hayholt for many years—long before Hugh took the throne in Hernystir. My wife attended to him back in Feyever when he fell into a fit. His name is Riggan.”
“That means ‘headstrong,’” said Aengas. “It may have been only a nickname, but he has certainly lived up to it.”
It was a small enough jest, but Tiamak was not in the mood to be amused. In fact, almost nothing about the task pleased him, although he supposed it was a good thing to have something else to think on for a little while beside the endlessly puzzling, frequently terrifying Treatise on the Aetheric Voices.
“Just ahead, masters,” said the shuffling jailer, a man almost as large as Lord Aengas and only slightly more nimble. “Don’t know why we’re still keeping him. They should have had him doing the rope dance. Murdering poor old Lord Eolair . . .”
“The count survived and was able to ride out on his horse the next day, for which we are all grateful,” said Tiamak. “In any case, I’m told this man is quite mad.”
“Mad? Could be. But we could do with a few less mad ones like him. You don’t put a collar on a mad dog, and you don’t keep a fellow like this alive.”
Tiamak frowned at this easy conclusion. “If he had been hanged already, then we could not come to question him.”
“Well, then, I’m sure you know best, my lords,” said the jailer. “Still, what can you learn from a madman?”
What indeed? Tiamak wondered. After all, his wife Thelía had spoken to the fellow at length while the royal company traveled across the Frostmarch, but she had still been shocked to learn of Riggan’s attempt on the lord steward’s life. Tiamak himself thought it was doubtful this aged scullion could be a spy for the Hernystiri throne, let alone an assassin directed all the way from the Taig, but after the murderous attack on the Sitha envoy and now another against Count Eolair, he could understand why Simon was taking nothing for granted.
? ? ?
The prisoner was a small man, not much bigger than Tiamak himself, though stockier. He had been badly shaved by his jailers, which gave his head a crooked appearance, and was also bruised from the struggle in which he had been captured, but he did not seem to have been too badly harmed.
When Aengas questioned him his responses sounded reasonable, though Tiamak could not understand the words. “What does he say?”
“Much, but with little sense. ‘How can I face her when we are all finally set free? I failed her! She summoned me!’ and other complaints of that nature. In short, someone summoned him, but he failed to attend them.”
“‘How can I face her’ . . . ?” Tiamak shook his head. “Who does he mean?”
Aengas laughed. “I speak Hernystiri, my friend, not the language of madness, whatever some may say about me.”
Tiamak turned to the prisoner. “Riggan, I am Lord Tiamak. Can you understand me? I want to talk to you about what happened. Who summoned you?”
He shook his head violently, but when he spoke again his voice was mild.
“He says only that he has failed her,” Aengas translated.
“Her, her—and this is not the first time he has spoken of ‘her.’” Tiamak frowned. “He told someone else it was the Morriga who spoke to him. Ask him if he still believes that.”
“The Morriga?” Aengas was clearly surprised. “The Crow Mother?”
“Yes, he spoke of her when my wife tended him. Please, ask him.”