Jan ca’Ostheim
“THE PEBBLE ON THE LEFT EYE—that’s the signature of
the White Stone. How she entered Rance’s apartments, we don’t know.
The door was locked when Paulus arrived; the windows are all
latched from the inside.” Eris Cu’Bloch, Commandant of the Garde
Brezno, shook his head. “I’m sorry, Hïrzg. He was long dead when
they found him. There was nothing to be done.”
A raw, sickening fury
enveloped Jan. He stared at Rance’s body on the bed, the pebble
still over his left eye, his right clouded and open. Paulus
ci’Simone, one of Rance’s trusted assistants, sat with his head
bowed and hands clasped between his knees in a chair. In the outer
room, the door to Rance’s apartment hung askew on its hinges from
where it had been broken in by the palais staff, and occasionally
one of the staff would walk past hurriedly, face
averted.
“There’s blood, but
not enough,” Jan commented.
“No,” cu’Bloch
agreed. “Nor does it look like he struggled much with his
attacker.” He lifted Rance’s bloodied nightgown: it had been sliced
open along the side by a sharp knife, and Jan could see the long
cut on the man’s side, but the cut was not so deep as to have been
fatal. “If you look closely, you can see a dark, oily substance in
the cut. If you touch it, it burns. I think the blade that did this
was poisoned, though with what . . .” Cu’Bloch shrugged. “I don’t
know of a poison that works quickly and effectively enough that
Rance wouldn’t have had time to defend himself, but perhaps the
White Stone does.”
Jan pressed his lips
together. “Cover him,” he said to cu’Bloch. “Paulus, he was this
way when you found him?”
Paulus lifted his
head and nodded mournfully. “Yes, my Hïrzg. Rance was supposed to
go over the day’s kitchen menu with me at First Call, and when he
didn’t arrive, I knocked on his door and found it locked. He didn’t
answer our calls, so I found two of the staff gardai and we broke
in. I saw him in his bed, just like that, his skin cold . . .”
Paulus stopped. His eyes glistened suddenly and a tear tracked down
his face. “We called for the Commandant and you.”
“You don’t know how
the White Stone might have gained entry?” Commandant cu’Bloch
asked. Paulus shook his head.
“It doesn’t matter,”
Jan said. “This was the White Stone. She’s here.” He
scowled.
She’s here. As she’d been here when Hïrzg Fynn had
been assassinated. He felt as if his hands had suddenly gone cold:
that death had been his matarh’s doing. It had been Allesandra
who’d hired the White Stone; he’d learned that to his disgust, and
that had been one of the reasons he’d abandoned her and the
Holdings when the moment had been there to reunify the
empire.
And there had been
the even more terrible realization that Elissa—who had vanished the
same terrible evening that Fynn had died—had been the White Stone.
He had wanted to deny that; he’d wanted to tear that knowledge from
his head and remember only the Elissa he’d loved.
He glanced again at
the body on the bed, the bloodied sheet covering Rance. “Where’s
Rhianna?” he asked suddenly. “Has anyone seen the girl? Bring her
here. Now.” Cu’Bloch gestured, and one of the garda in the room
rushed back out. Jan heard Rhianna’s name being called in the
corridor.
In truth, he expected
the answer to come that she could not be found, that she had
vanished from the palais. That would explain everything. And the
assassination . . . Could it have been Allesandra who had again
hired the assassin? Rance had always advised flatly against any
reconciliation with Nessantico; Sergei would certainly have
mentioned that to Allesandra. Could Allesandra have wanted Rance
dead as a result? Or could the White Stone’s client have been
Sergei himself, ridding himself of an obstacle? Rhianna had been
there when Sergei had met with them; she could have overheard, or
perhaps Sergei could have given her some signal that told her to
murder Rance . . .
The possibilities
spun in his head like kitten-tangled yarn, the threads of his
thoughts so interwoven that he couldn’t find the ends of them.
Cu’Bloch was talking to Paulus, but Jan heard nothing of it. When
he heard footsteps in the outer room, he turned. The garda had
returned, with Rhianna and another garda, a face Jan vaguely
recognized—was he named Enid? Emero? Emerin? Rhianna was gazing
around her as if confused, glancing back at the broken door, then
seeing Jan, the Commandant, and Paulus.
“My Hïrzg,” Rhianna
said, curtsying deeply to him. “I was told . . . You wanted . . .”
She was looking past him now, to the bed and its covered form. Her
hand went to her mouth as her eyes grew wide and frightened, and
the garda with her put his arm protectively around her. The gesture
made Jan scowl. She has a lover here,
then? “Oh, no! By Cénzi, is that . . . ?”
“Yes,” Jan told her.
“Rance has been killed. The murderer would have us think that the
White Stone did it.”
Rhianna seemed to
stagger, her legs unsteady, and the garda held her more tightly.
“The White Stone . . .” Jan watched her; her stunned reaction
seemed genuine. He saw her lower lip trembling as if she were about
to cry. Then she seemed to shake herself, and her gaze went
quizzical. “Why does the Hïrzg wish to talk to me?” she asked.
“Where were you last
night?” Jan asked her.
“Why, I was with
Emerin,” she said. A flush crept up her neck from under the collar
of her robe. “He and I . . .” She stopped. “My Hïrzg, you can’t
possibly think . . . I was with Emerin all night, and Vajiki
ci’Lawli and I were on excellent terms.”
“Hïrzg, may I speak?”
Emerin asked. He had straightened, tugging at his nightclothes as
if it were his uniform. Jan glared at him. He nodded. “It’s true
she was with me,” he said hurriedly.
“You never slept,
then?” Jan asked. “You watched her all night?”
Emerin’s blush
matched Rhianna’s. “Yes, I slept, my Hïrzg. But I sleep very
lightly. Everyone knows that—ask Rhianna. Or better, ask my fellow
gardai at the barracks. The slightest noise wakes me, and I never
woke last night. Rhianna went to sleep before I did, and she was
still asleep this morning when you summoned us here.”
“Indeed,” Jan said.
“Then neither of you know anything of this?”
They both shook their
heads simultaneously.
“You don’t know
anyone who would have wanted Rance dead?”
Again, he received
the same response. Jan pursed his lips, staring at Rhianna.
So like her . . . She would not look at
him; she kept her face down, gazing at the floor. Her hands were
coupled together as if she were praying, and Emerin’s arm never
left her shoulder. “All right, then,” he said. “We will be
questioning all the palais staff. Someone must know something. If
anything occurs to either of you, no matter how minor, you will
immediately tell Commandant cu’Bloch. Is that understood? Paulus,
you also.”
Rhianna curtsied
again; Emerin gave a salute; Paulus rose slowly from his chair.
“You may all go,” he told them. Rhianna and Emerin hurried away;
Paulus followed more slowly. Jan glanced back at
cu’Bloch.
“Do you know
something I don’t, my Hïrzg?” the Commandant asked.
“No,” Jan answered.
“It’s just that Rhianna . . . She’s new to the staff, and frankly,
Brie doesn’t like her for some reason.” He saw cu’Bloch’s chin lift
slightly at that, and his eyes seemed to nearly smile. Jan ignored
that. “You know this garda she’s involved with?” Jan asked the
man.
“Emerin? Yes. He’s
someone I’ve been watching for promotion—a good young man who seems
trustworthy. And he’s right, my Hïrzg; he has a reputation as an
extremely light sleeper. I believe him. Besides, if the girl was
somehow the assassin—and she seems rather young to have that kind
of skill—I doubt she would have stayed.”
Elissa didn’t stay. She fled . . . Jan grunted
assent. He looked again at poor Rance’s covered body. “I leave this
to you then, Commandant. Interrogate the staff; see if anyone has
seen or heard anything that could lead us to the White Stone or the
person who hired her—and if that path seems to lead back to
Nessantico, tell me immediately. No one here in the palais can rest
easily now. We will proceed with our plans to leave for Stag Fall
tomorrow; I’ll have Paulus take over Rance’s position for the time
being.”
The Commandant
saluted as Jan left the bedchamber with a last glance at the
bloodstained bed. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe Rhianna’s uncanny
resemblance to Elissa was more in his head than reality; after all,
it had been a decade and a half since he’d last seen Elissa. Would
he even recognize her if her saw her now? Did he truly remember
what she’d looked like or was he romanticizing the memory he had of
her? Perhaps he was only seeing what he wished to see.
Down the corridor,
Emerin was talking to Rhianna. She glanced at Jan as he exited
Rance’s chambers, looking quickly away when she noticed his
attention. It was difficult to tell in the dimness of the servants’
corridor, but the look on her face as she turned . . . it wasn’t
the fearful respect he usually saw in his staff’s faces; it was
something else, something more wistful and possessive, and he
wondered at that as he made his way back to his own apartments,
trying to decide how he was going to tell Brie and the children
what had happened.
