“That’s okay,” I said quickly, hoping the unwanted mental image would soon fade. With a forced smile I added, “You know, I’ve always wanted to play the lute.”
Back in the cottage, Kern relit his pipe and I again demurred a puff. He handed me one of the two lutes. “Okay, first get used to the weight.” His eyes narrowed. “Hey, you’ve held one before.”
“I’ve tried.” The knuckles on my good hand tingled in anticipation of the whacks I used to get from my music tutor.
He plucked a few notes. “Try that.”
I leaned against the wall; there was no way I could play trapped in those chair cushions. I imitated him, hitting the right notes but with no rhythm. It had nothing to do with the cast.
He winced. “Try again.”
I did.
“It sounds like a chicken caught between two millstones,” he said.
“I do have a bad hand.”
“Maybe your ear needs a cast, too.” With that he gave up on me and began plucking the strings. He sang in a surprisingly strong, youthful voice. Riding my steed, Giggling the weed, Shining knight, you better watch your quest. Bandits ahead, dragons behind, And you know that lady just crossed my mind…
With no warning the door burst open and Amelia and Jenny staggered inside. Both were damp, drunk, and cackling in delight at some joke. Amelia’s robe was open, and the towel around Jenny threatened to fall away at any moment. I wondered if she’d notice.
Amelia filled the room with her larger-than-life feminine presence. She held up the now empty wine bottle she’d claimed before and announced, “We’re dangerously close to sobering up. And nobody wants that.”
Kern grinned, his pipe clenched in his teeth. “Help yourself, ladies.”
Amelia bowed, her sizable, unrestrained bosom jiggling with the motion. “Why, thank you, kind sir.”
Jenny was unsteady on her feet and heavy-lidded. She regarded me with a damp, measuring gaze that told me she’d left her inhibitions back in the cave. “Well, hello,” she said throatily. “You want to pick up where that kiss last night left off?”
“Ah- HA!” Amelia cried as she found the bottle she sought. She stood, wrenched the cork out with her teeth, and spit it into the fire. She turned up the bottle and took a long, sloppy swallow. The liquid spilled down the sides of her mouth, trailed down her neck, and dovetailed into her cleavage. She extended the bottle toward Jenny.
Jenny reached for it, then said suddenly, “I need to sit down.” The words were thick and heavy; evidently she wasn’t used to real drinking.
Amelia put her arm around the other woman’s bare shoulders and held her up. “We’re going to lie down,” Amelia said. “Anyone care to join us?” She looked directly, blatantly, at me.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said.
Amelia shrugged and turned to Kern. “What about you, Cammy?”
“You know I’m always up for adventure.”
“Just a minute,” I said. I took Jenny’s face in my hands. Her eyes were red and watery and her mouth hung slack. Her hangover would be vicious. “How drunk are you?”
“Not so drunk I need a babysitter,” she slurred.
“Do you want to go with them?” I pressed, nodding at the other two. “You don’t have to, you know.”
“Why not? Might be fun. Something I’d never do at Blithe Ward.” Her home castle’s name barely escaped her thickened tongue.
Amelia led her into the bedroom. The tall woman looked at me over the top of Jenny’s head and licked her lips as the door closed.
Kern stood and stretched. “Sure you won’t join us?” he asked, as casually as if inviting me to go fishing.
“She’s drunk. They’re both drunk.”
“Oh, don’t be such a square peg. You sound like that hypocrite Marcus. No one’s making anyone do anything.”
“That won’t make her feel better when she sobers up.”
“Join us, then, and make sure she has nothing to regret.” He winked, and I really wanted to punch him.
Kern went into the bedroom. Through the open door I glimpsed four bare female feet at the end of the bed, one set significantly larger than the other. Then the door closed.
I immediately went outside; I damn sure didn’t want to overhear anything. The horses raised their heads from the trough. They were still hitched to the wagon so I let them loose to graze in the clearing. I climbed onto the wagon’s seat. The sun was almost directly overhead, and I put on Jenny’s discarded hat against it.
Kern said I knew all the players and the pieces. So I sorted them in my mind. If Megan Drake was truly stage-managing things from off the island to avenge both her mother and her sisterhood, as well as take out the lover who once jilted her, she had to have agents in the king’s inner circle. Her son, Ted Medraft, was one, but he was nowhere near Nodlon when Sam Patrice died. Medraft pulled Agravaine’s strings, though, and Agravaine had been there. Yet how could he have done it? If he’d been around the apples, someone would have seen him. So if he did it, he’d have to use an agent as well. That was a lot of fingers pulling a lot of strings, and the puppets could easily get tangled.
This all assumed Marcus was the ultimate target, and that it wasn’t just a simple murder plot gone wrong.
And how did the absurdity of two identical Jennifers, one light and one dark, fit in? And what if this was all about the Jennifers and had nothing to do with Marcus?
No, that didn’t work, either. They hadn’t tried to hurt or kill Jennifer, they’d tried to publicly embarrass her, something that could’ve been accomplished much more easily by revealing the prenuptial switcheroo. So that secret, so far, was still safe. So it had to be a plot to get at the king through his queen.
But wait: Megan Drake was a moon priestess, just like the queen. I knew nothing of their order’s rules, but this kind of betrayal seemed uncharacteristic of the ones I’d known elsewhere. Unless-that word cropped up a lot-Megan Drake had gone against her sisterhood in her quest for revenge.
And beneath all this confusion, literally, was the unmarked body of an innocent young woman who’d been beaten to pieces hours before. Among my various chains of improbabilities, that was my lone impossibility.
Unless…
And I got it. Again literally, it had been right in front of me all along. At one point even close enough to touch.
Then I heard the whinny and rattle of approaching riders.
TWENTY-THREE
Through the trees I saw movement on the road that led only here: three men on horseback. In a moment they’d reach the clearing, and I sat in plain view. I had no time to make it to the cottage, where my sword still leaned against the wall, so I threw myself flat in the bed of the wagon. I pulled the hat over my face and crossed my ankles so that if they did see me, they might think I was some sleeping farmer. Since I still wore expensive, if dusty and wrinkled, court clothes, it was one of my weaker disguises.
None of the riders spoke as they approached. Their spurs jingled, and leather armor creaked. I expected to hear Tom Gillian’s voice saying I’d missed my deadline, and he was here to collect my head. I hoped I’d have time to explain.
One of the three dismounted, groaned as if he’d been in the saddle a long time, and said, “Now what?”
A familiar distorted voice replied, “Sped out. Ib dey try anything, kill dem.”
I felt a huge rush of relief that it wasn’t Gillian. I hadn’t realized how truly scared of him I was until then.
“But Kern’s a wizard,” said a voice I now recognized as Cador’s. “He probably already knows we’re coming. He probably knows why we’re coming.”
“Don’ be a candy ass,” Agravaine snapped. “He’s juss an obe man. He’s gop as much ‘magic’ as I hab in my ass.”
Hoel, the one who’d dismounted, yelled, “Hey, Cameron Kern! Come out in the name of King Marcus Drake, and bring the man LaCrosse with you!”