Sergeant Major Paddy Glynn had just made the rounds of the walls enclosing the palace complex. Now he sat alone in his small office, eating lunch: rye bread with cheese, a bowl of barley porridge, a big mug of sassafras, and a side dish of prunes. The siege was still in effect, kind of, because until the 1st Rifles left its positions outside, Paddy was letting no one in or out without a pass, and there were almost no passes.
Colonel Bonde was back in a guest suite, Ensign Wu with him, but Bonde was upset with it. He wanted the same suite he'd had before. Brookins had explained that the old one was being cleaned and painted—the rugs had even been hauled out for cleaning. If the colonel wished, he could visit it. And at any rate it would be ready for him the next day.
At that, Bonde had settled into a black mood that perplexed even Wu. He wouldn't say what was wrong, only that Brookins was toying with him. Luis was still the go-between for Brookins and Manty, and Manty wouldn't remove his troops until Bonde's complaints had been satisfied. Luis said he'd certainly try, if Bonde would say what was wrong. He'd even bring him to the gatehouse and let Manty try to get it out of him.
That wasn't good enough, Manty had answered, but at the same time he'd calmed down.
Manty had also been making a big point of his greater time in grade, and that Fong needed to obey his orders. Fong had replied he was following the general's orders—which put him under Luis's command. Then, with Luis's agreement, Fong had moved his 2nd Rifles to the military reservation four miles north of the city, out of Manty's ready reach. Manty was welcome to come after them, of course, but he'd have to bring his company, and chase the 2nd Rifles all the way to the wilderness. Which meant abandoning the siege.
A ridiculous mess. Paddy felt an urge to slap the snot out of Bonde, but that would accomplish nothing except exercising his own exasperation, and cause God knew what further problems.
His clerk came to Paddy's door. "Sergeant Major, sir, Mrs. Hah, the housekeeper, wants to talk to you. She says there's something suspicious about Colonel Bonde's old quarters."
A rush ran over Paddy from scalp to knees. "Let her in, Issa. Oi'm interested."
Half a minute later the tiny housekeeper stood before his desk. "Mr. Sergeant Major!" she said. "This morning girl come to me. Had been in Colonel Bonde's old suite. Someone did coupling on bed. Stain on sheet. Also, whiskey bottle on table. In toilet, trapdoor raised, one lamp gone." She paused meaningfully, holding Paddy's gaze. "Also, one person not come work today. Must be somewhere in palace. He work that suite yesterday."
A trapdoor raised. And someone missing. Paddy got to his feet. "Thank you, Mrs. Hah. Just a minute." He went to his door and gave instructions to his clerk. Ten minutes later, the formidable sergeant major, with two armsmen, were tagging behind the birdlike housekeeper, across the quadrangle to the royal residence, headed for the suite she wanted him to see. On the way, they picked up the chief of building maintenance, a raw-boned, strong-looking older man who would know the buildings, service facilities included, at least as thoroughly as anyone.
Together they looked at the evidence Mrs. Hah had reported. It was obvious from the disturbed dust in the crawl space that someone had exited via the trapdoor. It seemed to Paddy the trapdoor was too small for him, certainly given the cramped space it led into. He turned to Mr. Gonsalves, the maintenance chief. "You say there's a service passage back there. How else can we get into it?"
"There are several ways. I can show you. But when we get there, then what? The honey man walks it every day, up and down, carrying buckets. It wouldn't be possible to track someone."
"Show me," Paddy said.
So Gonsalves took them down corridors and stairways to a long service dock; the far end was where the honey wagon parked. Stacks of nested five-gallon copper pails stood nearby waiting, cleaned and shiny, lids stacked beside them. Gonsalves opened a door and they went inside, into a landing at the end of a passage. Stairs led up and down.
"From the second-floor passage there is no other exit than the stairs," Gonsalves said. Then paused in afterthought. "Except—someone could enter any rooms or suites where the crawl-space trapdoors were unbolted. But if they came downstairs, it would bring them here. Then they could leave the building. If they went up, they would come to a dead end."
"And if, from here, they went down those stairs?" Paddy asked gesturing.
"They lead to the cellar. There is nothing there but storerooms."
Paddy stood frowning, feeling his muse nudging. On a ledge stood a row of oil lamps, like covered gravy boats with ears for carrying. One was lit. He used it to light another, then led off down the stairway to the cellar level, the others following. At the bottom there was only one way to go. He took it, eyes prowling, twice opening sidedoors into storerooms, where he expected and found nothing of interest. Farther on he opened a door into—not a room but a cramped, dead-end passage, perhaps five yards long and five feet high. Wide enough for Paddy's big shoulders, but little more. It might have seemed an abandoned beginning of something, had it not been walled, floored and ceiled with stone and mortar.
"What's this for?" he asked.
For a long moment, Gonsalves didn't answer. Paddy was about to prod him, when the man spoke. "It's . . ." He gave the sergeant major a deeply troubled look. "I cannot say," he whispered. "I am sworn. I myself dug it, hauled out the dirt and laid the stonework, all by night. It took a long time. I expected to be killed for what I knew, but instead His Majesty gave me my position, God bless him." He crossed himself, then gestured forward. "Go. See for yourself."
Paddy peered, scowling, then in an awkward crouch entered. The dank air smelled like a newly dug ditch. Or grave. This is it, he told himself, though what it was . . .
The dead end was an apparency. Actually the tunnel turned right, then left. Beyond the second turn, the floor lowered two steps, but the overhead continued level; now Paddy could walk upright, barely. He'd gone fifty yards farther before he made out something ahead on the floor. When they got there they found two bodies, the first a young woman in an armsman's uniform.
Gingerly he turned her head. One of the princesses. Elvi. She seemed to have started back out, but a tree root had caught her foot, and tripped her. Probably, he thought, she'd struck her head. She wasn't stiff. She might still be alive.
Behind her, nearly at the tunnel's end, was a man with the rigor of recent death. He lay on his back, his face with a hint of surprise. There was no sign of what had killed him, nor visible blood.
Mrs. Hah bent beside Paddy. "That Harald Andersen," she said. "Boy who beat rugs."
Paddy turned him over, and on the back of his neck saw blood. Saw the wound. Whoever had stabbed him knew what they were doing. Had struck from behind, upward into skull and brain.
Then he peered at the stones overhead. The round one. "An escape hatch?" he asked.
Gonsalves nodded. The center stone was about twenty inches in diameter. Paddy reached up and pushed. It did not raise easily, or readily move aside. Something was on top of it. He let it back down. "What's up there?" he asked. "Something's sitting on the stone."
"There shouldn't be."
"Do you know where it is?"
"Yes, sir."
"Yer going to carry the princess to the infirmary. Oi'll carry the dead man. Then oi want you to go look at this exit from outside. By yerself, saying nothing. See what the trouble is."
Paddy shouldered the corpse, while Gonsalvez lifted the princess in his arms. Wondering if she might still be alive.
(Luis)
They took both Elvi and the corpse to the infirmary, and sent for me. The palace physician confirmed her identity, and when I got there, I confirmed the corpse's identity: Halldor Halvorsen, Elvi's sweetheart, the lordling son of a baron.
Elvi was breathing, and had a pulse. A slow pulse. The physician, her cousin Koivun, could find no evidence of injury beyond a bruised chin. When I saw her, she lay on a cot, covered by a blanket. Her clothes were folded on a table, her boots beneath it. Her belt bore a sheath, and I drew the stiletto from it, a slim sharp wicked-looking thing. Expensive. There was no gleam to it though; it needed cleaning. Blood had congealed at the juncture of blade and cross-guard. I touched the blade. It was slightly sticky. The murder weapon, I did not doubt, and presumably Elvi was the murderess.
But why? A lover's quarrel? Did it matter? I had more important things to deal with, but my muse was telling me to have Elvi questioned.
"Paddy," I said, "have someone bring Carlos to me."
"Oi'll get him myself," he said, and was on his way.
I could have gotten her conscious; the procedure was simple enough. But when she woke up, she'd recognize me, remember me from the Zandria Road, and wouldn't cooperate if her life depended on it.
When Carlos arrived, I took him out of the room—a hysteric in a coma might register our conversation—and asked him to waken and question her. Find out how she'd come to be in the palace, and what she'd been doing there. I paused. What was I leaving out? "Oh, and Carlos, address her as 'Your Majesty.' "
He cocked an eyebrow at that, then grinned and nodded.
I hoisted the corpse and carried it off. There wasn't a priest on the premises, so I lugged it to a service gate, where the guards let me out, then walked down the street with the remains of Halldor Halvorsen over my shoulder, to the offices of the archdiocese. A junior priest met me, and scurried off round-eyed to fetch Father Akimoto. Akimoto recognized my uniform—it did not please him—but he accepted jurisdiction of the dead man. He would, he said, have a corpse washer deal with it.
I nodded gravely. "While I'm here, father," I said, "tell me how Archbishop Clonarty is doing. Sergeant Major Glynn feels terrible about what happened to His Reverence."
Akimoto had his own emotion about that: anger. He was Carlian, and I Higuchian.
"His reverence is recovering," he said, enunciating stonily.
It seemed to me aural healing would be useful, but the good father would not be friendly toward Higuchian procedures. So I simply told him more about what had happened. "Sergeant Major Glynn had already jailed the jailor. But by then the archbishop was in a state alternating between apathy and terror; he could do nothing at all for himself. He'd become unable even to use his waste bucket. The sergeant major himself scrubbed the cell, hoping the activity would bring the archbishop out of his terror. And when it did, to a degree, it was Glynn who brought soap and clean water and cloths, and coaxed the archbishop to bathe himself. Which after a bit, with privacy, he did. It was then the sergeant major sent for you. He's a good man, Glynn is, a man truly of God."
This hadn't seemed to accomplish much, but I went on. "When His Majesty went insane and began ordering executions, the whole government came unhinged. There was fighting in the corridors. Men were wounded. Two died. It was the sergeant major who got it stopped, and took over the palace until Colonel Bonde agreed to be regent."
I paused. "The kingdom was already at war, you understand. The Dkota had arrived. Presumably that contributed to His Majesty's madness; he couldn't accept a world in which his peace treaty could be so cynically used to destroy the kingdom."
Akimoto's face and voice remained cold, hostile. "The archbishop should never have been locked up!" He bit the words out; a zealot all the way. I wondered if he'd really heard anything I'd said. "Indeed he shouldn't," I replied, adding silently house arrest, yes, but not the dungeon. "Sergeant Glynn's intention," I went on, "was to get the archbishop out of harm's way until the immediate danger had ended. Then, amidst the turmoil and confusion, he was forgotten. There's nothing more I can say, except that we regret what happened. I've already notified Norlins. I suggest you do the same."
Akimoto's aura seemed unchanged.
"My Order has effective healing procedures," I added. "If you wish, I will arrange to have His Reverence treated."
"We will continue to look after him ourselves."
"Of course," I said, and left. I'd expected nothing better, but I'd done what I could. And it might, at some level, set small roots.
Later Grosman told me some things I hadn't known. Akimoto had arrived with the archbishop's hairbrush, sandles, and white robe. Clonarty, in a voice quavering but imperious, ordered the priest to stay out; he wasn't done washing yet. He washed for a half hour longer, requiring more buckets of water, stopping only when Grosman told him he must either leave or stay overnight. Then Akimoto dried and dressed his archbishop, and led him out, Clonarty with his cowl raised, his face hidden.
When I heard that, I understood better Akimoto's bitterness.
When I got back to the palace, Gonsalves was waiting to tell me what he'd learned: a small stone shrine to Saint Carl had been placed, no doubt inadvertently, on the passage's round flagstone lid.
From there I visited the infirmary, to talk with Carlos about Elvi. Before deposing her under oath, he'd interviewed her on cube without her knowing. She'd wondered where she'd been, and what had happened to her, and what he told her was true, but not the whole truth. She'd fallen, he said, and struck her head. Then he'd asked how she'd come to be in Hasty—that the last the palace had heard, she'd been in protective custody at Zandria.
She told him she'd returned to assume the throne, and that Colonel Bonde had agreed to be prince consort.
"When did he agree to that?" Carlos had asked.
"Three or four days ago."
Carlos raised an eyebrow. "You have him, you know."
I told him to inform everyone in our com circle, then left.
As things worked out, it was four hours before I was ready to visit Arvid Bonde. First I talked to Djati and Uuka in their cells, with Lord Brookins and Captain Ylvessalo as witnesses. Then I then went to get Manty.
Manty wasn't interested. He didn't trust me at all, not even when I told him I had a new proposal for the colonel, one I felt sure he'd accept. Especially he didn't trust me when I refused to tell him what the proposal was. What broke his resistance was my utter certainty, and my avowal that I asked it only so he could witness that the proposal had been made, in case somehow the colonel rejected it, or Brookins had second thoughts. Then I sealed it by covering his butt for him; I sent a messenger to Fong, ordering him to ride in and stay as a hostage with Manty's second in command.
When we walked into Bonde's sitting room, he had two friendly faces to look at: Wu's and Manty's. I had Brookins and Ylvessalo with me. Opening with a slight bow, I addressed Bonde as "your lordship." "I have a proposal for you," I said, "one I think you'll find hard to refuse. But first—we've found what you left in your previous guest suite."
His expression had been sternly imperious. Now he sneered. "I doubt it," he said.
"She tells us she intends to rule as king—not queen, but king—and has promised to make you her consort."
That shook him; especially the word "king." No one but Elvi could have told us that. He didn't much change expression, but he paled, and his aura shrank. Manty looked thunderstruck; he had not missed the Colonel's loss of color. Wu stared literally open-mouthed.
Still, Bonde's reply hardly lagged at all. "True," he said. "With Mary in a nunnery, Elvi is next in the succession."
"When did she propose this to you?"
Though he stared distrustingly, he failed to see the trap. "Three or four days ago. I don't remember exactly."
"Then her father was still alive."
For a moment his self-possession broke. "He . . . uh . . . she . . . was predicating a future when His Majesty would have been tried, and forced to abdicate."
"Ah. Apparently you're unaware that Captain Uuka is under arrest. He and I have talked, just today." My smile finished him. "And of course Captain Carnes. You asked Carnes to tell Uuka you wanted Eldred disposed of. Uuka in turn told Djati, and provided the poisoned wine."
Bonde was in shock now, near collapse. Manty glared at him.
"Now for my proposal. If you confess to ordering the murder of Eldred Youngblood—King of Sota, your uncle by marriage—I will recommend a trial before a special court. A court consisting of relatives no more than twice removed from the king or his deceased wife. They will also be your relatives. I believe you'll find more mercy there than in an Assembly of Dukes. In either case, if a court sentences you to death for the crime of regicide, the Princess Mary shall have the power to spare your life."
Arvid Bonde stood utterly defeated.
"I believe she is a young lady of considerable compassion," I added. "And if it comes to that, I will recommend her mercy. You have these witnesses to my word."