‘Of course you know all about that, don’t you?’ I said. ‘You’ve had a while to become familiar with it.’
‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘The actors told me everything, Lacanta, all the details – so there’s no point in denying it. You’ll only waste our time.’
‘And how could actors have possibly seen anything?’ Lacanta fell silent, before muttering, ‘We were so careful. No one could have seen a thing.’
I frowned at that, trying to discern her meaning. ‘Does the name Drullus mean anything to you?’
‘Nothing at all.’
Confused, I began to analyse her words. Lacanta thought I was talking about something else entirely – not the king’s relationship with Drullus, but of another relationship. By a quirk of fate, she’d just made a confession about something I had never thought to question.
It slotted in with so many other things: the fact that neither of them had married; that Lacanta pretended to bed other people, but never actually went through with it; the reason she had taken part in the staging of her own death. It had never occurred to me that, one day, Lacanta may have wanted to return to Tryum, albeit in a different guise.
‘Drullus was an actor that the king associated himself with – you know, on his trips down-city. He confided in Drullus. He told him about your relationship with each other, and Drullus in turn told me.’
She shook her head. ‘Drullus is just a nobody. How could he have known? Licintius would never have said anything to a mere actor.’
‘It’s called incest, Lacanta, no matter how you dress any of this up.’
Lacanta could no longer meet my gaze.
‘This is what you planned,’ I continued. ‘You hoped to return one day, with a different hairstyle, new clothes, perhaps different jewellery and make-up. Combined with another name, you hoped that no one would notice.’
Still she said nothing; still she avoided my eye.
I crouched down beside her, and searched for a more gentle approach. ‘You saved yourselves for each other, isn’t that right? You were fooling a city so that you could get away with your illegitimate love. And you killed a poor innocent priestess to dupe a nation.’
‘You shouldn’t be so smug,’ Lacanta snapped.
‘Meaning?’
‘We had help,’ she replied.
‘I imagine that it’s the kind of task that cannot be done alone.’
‘No, you don’t understand – we had help.’ She paused. ‘From a Drakenfeld.’
Lacanta gave me a suddenly confident look, not quite a smile – something more sinister than that. My heart sank and I closed my eyes for a moment, but there was no avoiding it. At the back of my mind there had been a nagging doubt about how my father had come into so much money, a doubt that also led me to think that he may have found the missing priestess and was the reason she remained missing.
‘So now what will you do?’ Lacanta sat back and took on a different, more arrogant manner entirely. Here she was, back in control, the one with power. ‘Will you want to implicate your precious, beloved father in all of this? It will ruin his lovely reputation. It will ruin your delightfully honest family name. And do not think I won’t mention it to as many people as I possibly can.’
‘Tell me what he did.’
I knelt beside her, allowing her to continue, almost at a whisper.
‘We needed a body in place of mine,’ she said, ‘someone who looked like me. Who better than someone who deals in such matters as missing people, skilled in the knowledge of how easy it is for people to disappear from the city. Someone who, on occasion, locates them on behalf of others.’
‘An officer of the Sun Chamber,’ I breathed.
‘Your father was badly in need of money. In exchange for supplying us with someone who might look like me, we would give him ample amounts to pay off his debts.’
Which explained the sudden arrival of money.
‘It took him many weeks until we could find someone who would fit. He killed himself not long after. The quiet, moralistic ones are the worst – one never quite knows how they will react under pressure.’ Her face became more spirited now, her voice warmer, kinder. ‘But it does not have to be this way, Drakenfeld. We can both take our secrets with us. No one has to know any of this. You can leave here now and no one need ever know about the shame on your family. You will have my word on that.’
Questions and Waiting
The veterans took it in turns to watch Lacanta, though I respected her right to privacy – she said it was indecent for a woman of her position to be stared at by such men and she was right. So Leana handily volunteered to spend the night in Lacanta’s room, watching over her. We cleared her room of her possessions and anything that could be used as a weapon. A dagger was found beneath her pillow.
Nearby I noted another three books on Destos, one of which was a more detailed piece of travel writing, though much like the one I had seen in her room in Optryx. Was one of these the object removed from her room, leaving a mark in the dust? Concealed in another book was yet another piece of paper, with more clear and obvious script than the paper I’d originally found, but it was updated and much easier to follow. This time there was no doubting it was a map.
Without Leana present I was careful to use the apothecary’s herbs I’d brought with me. The tisane certainly calmed my mind enough for me to have faith in herbs for a night – it made a change from having faith in gods so that they did not punish me. On deeper reflection, Polla might have agreed. The herbs might not always work, either, but since I had been taking them regularly I had not experienced anything notable in my sleep. The world was full of uncertainties but, thankfully, for the first time in a long while my seizures were the least of my concerns.
Sleep came easily. It was peaceful and deep, the best for weeks. I woke up refreshed and saw everything with a heightened sense of clarity.
After an initial debate between myself and Callimar, we decided to wait a couple of days in the villa with Lacanta while our agents did their work. If there had been regular contact between the property and the king’s men, then our soldiers would intercept any carriages or horses travelling to the property. At first it seemed strange that Lacanta had brought such a small entourage with her, but perhaps she had wanted as few people as possible knowing the plan.
The men with her, it transpired, were all eunuchs. We only found out when one of them stripped himself naked before Callimar’s men and pleaded with them not to hurt him. A lot of people who find themselves in captivity tended to do that when they had run out of options and become desperate.
We permitted Lacanta to walk in the gardens, both inside the property and out, with an armed escort. There was no reason to be needlessly cruel while waiting for her sentencing. Whenever she did, however, I decided to accompany her. Sometimes people would tell me strange things when they were more relaxed and sanguine about their fate. Her talent for conversation, when she opened up to me, was beguiling. It was obvious she was far more well read than myself, so before the beautifully serene view I merely let her talk more so that I might learn one or two things about the gods and the stars.
The conversation turned again to my father’s involvement, and she asked me how I could so easily bring shame upon my family.
I reminded her that it was not I who brought the shame in the first place, and that I forgave him.
‘Polla, I’m sure, will see that my emotion is kept out of such decisions when the time comes. Besides, given there is shame in my family, it only seems fair to correct that. Polla would approve. I hope.’