"I've a fine galleon for you to use should you decide on an ocean voyage for your honeymoon," Egdril said as he settled himself in the saddle for his journey home.
"Why, that is most gracious, Egdril," Prince Jamas said, trying to control the eagerness of the royal handshake. He released himself before his arm dropped off and stepped back as a discreet signal that Egdril should finally leave.
"And if you drowned on your honeymoon?" Grenejon whispered in his ear as the royal party clattered out of the courtyard. "Laurel gave me all the details we need about sudden deaths among Mauritian nobles. You'll want to hear them. Clever. All occurring after the ungood second wife married Eager Egdril, all different, all easily explicable, and all eight men just as dead as the next one."
"Elucidate," Jamas said as he led Grenejon back to his office where he was going to look over the ancestral jewels with a view to resetting those most likely to suit Willow's dark beauty.
"Baron Ricaldo was a fine horseman and the stallion he was riding could have leaped a ravine twice the width of the one they were found in. Found halfway across, in fact. As if something had caused the horse to misjudge the leap or have a sudden heart attack. They seem to have dropped like a couple of stones. Considering the depth of the ravine, it was difficult to disentangle the mashed corpses."
"He was the first?"
"Yes, Willow's father. He didn't much like Queen Yasmin but then he had gained much favor from Egdril by finding him eager and willing bedmates." Grenejon grinned lasciviously. "The second one took longer. Duke Kesuth began to experience nausea and nothing could ease his discomfort. Or permit him to retain any food. You might say he died of starvation."
"Poison is often the tool of females," Jamas said, waving at Grenejon to close the door behind him.
Niffy was sitting in the sun on his desk-on the list of wedding guests, to be precise, beside the flat velvet boxes and leather cases that held the ancestral jewelry.
"No poison could have that effect, or so I'm informed," Grenejon said.
"Go on."
"Admittedly, shipwrecks are hard to arrange because storms at sea are chancy, but Count Lansaman was an accomplished sailor and quite capable of managing his sloop in the roughest weather. He and all hands, including-this is significant-both his heirs perished in waters too deep to raise their vessel."
"Now that would have taken some doing, Gren. Arranging a storm at a propitious moment. We don't have many practicing sorcerers with that capability."
"Hmm. That we know of," Grenejon said pointedly. "However, let me note that Lansaman was Egdril's chief financial advisor, and he thought that the king shouldn't spend money building a pleasure garden for the queen when a larger hospital was urgently needed. So he drowned."
"Go on."
"Count Mataban did not wish to betroth his daughter to Egdril's choice for her-to one of the Bosanavian kinglets."
"I should think not," and Jamas shuddered, "living in felt tents on the move all the time and in that frightful climate. So what happened to Mataban?"
"He was attacked in his own gardens-he was an ardent horticulturist-by an assassin."
"A renegade Bosanavian who had taken offense to the slight?" Jamas suggested.
"Exactly, and the man was found hanged in his cell before he could be questioned."
"If, indeed, the queen is responsible, she's thorough and… tidy."
"And you're prepared to marry into jeopardy?"
"I'm marrying Lady Willow, not her step-aunt."
"Who, after she's heard the report on the amenities of Esphania, is very likely to wish to annex it to Mauritia."
"We are forewarned. What of the rest of them?" Jamas asked.
Grenejon ticked them off on his fingers. "One unexpectedly killed in a tourney. Another was done in out hunting by a particularly savage female lynzur. There aren't that many lynzurs left in our world. Another had a heart attack, and the last developed a debilitating ague and died of fever."
"And nothing common amongst them…"
"Save that the queen liked none of them for one reason or another."
"And you think I'll be… put down… as easily?" Jamas laughed but Grenejon frowned angrily.
"I don't think 'easy' applies, my Prince. But I'm going to take a few safeguards. Like this." Grenejon held up a heavy silver ring of simple but elegant design: a flat cut peridot sparkled brightly. "The stone changes color when in proximity to any known poison." He took Jamas' right hand and slipped the ring on the forefinger. "Just where it will be close to any food you eat and any drink you drink without everyone knowing you are protected by the sigil."
Jamas was deeply touched by Grenejon's thoughtfulness as well as the gift itself. It fit his finger as if it had always been there.
"I've got the armorer making you the finest mesh, capable of deflecting arrow or dagger… at least long enough for you to grab your own knife. And the kennel master has been training a barguas-hound to sleep in your room…"
"You know I don't like dogs in my bedroom. Besides which, Niffy is quite enough of a private guard."
"We shall guard your every minute, my Prince," his equerry said staunchly, his back straight and his jaw obstinate.
"Not every minute, surely, Grenejon." And the prince winked.
"JAMAS! PLEASE be sensible!" the Baron Illify roared.
Niffy meowed.
"You see? She's volunteered for the other minutes," Jamas said and gave her an affectionate caress before he started to open the jewelry boxes. "Now, help me decide which of these Willow will like?"
"You should do the wedding guest list first," Grenejon said.
"What? And disturb Niffy when she's so comfortable? No, we do jewels first, then we'll get on with the notables."
THEY GOT ON with both tasks. The jewels were sent to be reset or cleaned, and the invitations were dispatched: many by special couriers. The replies flooded back almost by return of the post riders. So heavy was the traffic of heralds-as if folks feared a late response would deprive them of their designated places-that guards had to direct the flow in and out of the castle gates, which had previously always been adequate for daily traffic.
The church was cleaned from belfry to crypt-not, Grenejon remarked, that anyone (and he nodded significantly at his prince) was likely to visit such a malodorous and doleful place.
"You never know," remarked Cambion, the second equerry called in to assist his prince and Grenejon. "When m' sister got married last year, we found knickers and stuff for weeks afterwards." When he saw the severe expressions on the faces of prince and head equerry, he blushed and hastily added, "Of course, at a royal wedding…"
"There will be far more discards and in far more unlikely places," Jamas said, keeping his expression so stern that for another long moment, Cambion didn't realize he was being teased.
Riding about in the city, Jamas found himself amused and pleased by the energy of the inhabitants, all determined that no one could find fault with any household or public place. Not a hovel was left un-freshened with limewash, and larger buildings had their masonry scrubbed by diligent teams. Baskets of flowers hung from street lamps, and corners or front windows sported at least a bright potted plant.
"I should get married more often," Jamas remarked when he saw special feeding stations erected well away from the cathedral plaza so that pigeons would be enticed from their usual haunts and not soil the wedding crowds.