Somehow, the murder in Bistari had made Brail suspicious of her, perhaps of all Qirsi.
In a sense, his refusal to answer her questions about this journey to see the king told her precisely why they had come. Her duke knew of the conspiracy, and while she hadn’t thought him bold enough to take such action, Fetnalla suspected that he had come to Solkara to ask the king directly if he had ordered Chago’s assassination. She would have given nearly anything to know Garden’s answer.
Unfortunately, the morning found Brail as withdrawn as he had been the previous day. Aside from instructing her to gather Orvinti’s soldiers in the castle courtyard and have the stable hands prepare the horses, he said nothing to her. He barely even looked her in the eye.
When all was ready for their departure, Brail led Fetnalla toward the king’s hall, intending to find Carden and Chofya, thank them for their hospitality, and bid them farewell. They were still in the courtyard, however, when the bells in the castle’s cloister abruptly began to toll, the sound echoing loudly among the stone walls. Almost immediately, the king’s guards swarmed into the courtyard, surrounding the men of Orvinti and demanding that they drop their swords.
“What is this?” Brail asked, striding toward one of the older men, who wore a captain’s star on each shoulder.
“My apologies, Lord Orvinti,” the man said. “I know only what I was told by the archminister.”
“And what was that?”
“That I was to raise the alarm and then find you and your men.” He glanced at Fetnalla, who had followed only a step behind the duke. “The minister, too.”
“You don’t know why?”
“No, my lord.”
Brail glanced back at Fetnalla, a question in his pale blue eyes.
“You say this came from the archminister?” she asked the captain.
“Yes.”
“Where’s the king?”
“The king is dead,” came a voice from behind them.
Fetnalla and the others turned to see Pronjed walking toward them, accompanied by perhaps twenty more guards. His white hair fell unbound to his shoulders and his face looked wan and lean. Wrapped as he was in a fur-collared cape, he looked like some yellow-eyed buzzard from the southern moors.
“Ean save us all,” Brail whispered.
“How did he die?” Fetnalla asked, shuddering slightly, as if Bian had brushed her cheek with a frigid hand.
“It would seem that he took his own life,” the archminister said. “Though I find that difficult to believe.” He faced the duke. “He used the crystal blade that you gave him last night.”
All the color drained from Brail’s face, leaving it as white as Fetnalla’s hair. “I’m so sorry,” he breathed.
“Are you?” Pronjed asked. “Perhaps you’d like to tell me what you and the king discussed last night. What did you say to him that would make him do something like this?”
“Nothing that I can think of,” the duke said, looking past the minister toward the windows of the great hall.
“What was it that brought you to Solkara, Lord Orvinti? What did you and the king talk about?”
Before Brail could answer, Fetnalla laid a hand on his arm and pointed toward the doorway at the base of the cloister tower. The queen was there, stepping into the courtyard with the prelate. He held one of her hands, and had his other arm around her waist as if he were supporting her. But it almost seemed to Fetnalla that she led him, and that he was the more frail of the two. Chofya’s face looked pale, but her cheeks were dry and her eyes clear. If she had been weeping, she hid it well. She still wore her bed robe, which she pulled tightly around her shoulders, and her dark hair was still tangled with sleep.
Seeing Brail, Pronjed, and the soldiers gathered in the middle of the courtyard, the queen hurried toward them, concern knotting her brow.
“Your Highness,” the archminister said gravely, bowing low.
The others did the same.
“We grieve with you, Your Highness,” he went on a moment later, “as does all of Aneira. We have lost a great man and glorious king.”
“Thank you, Archminister,” the queen said, her voice even.
Brail stepped forward and knelt before her. “Your Highness, I don’t know how to express to you how sorry I am for your loss, and how much I regret my role in this tragedy.”
Chofya stared at him, clearly puzzled. “Your role, Brail? Carden did this to himself.”
“With the dagger I gave him.”
She actually managed a smile, looking more beautiful in that moment than Fetnalla had ever seen her.
“He wore a blade on his belt as well, Brail. If the one hadn’t been at hand, he would have used the other. Now please stand. Your obeisance isn’t necessary.”
The duke stood slowly. “You are kind, Your Highness. The kingdom is fortunate to have you.”
She glanced around at the soldiers, her eyes coming to rest at last on Pronjed. “Why are all these guards here, Archminister?”
“The king is dead, Your Highness, and Lord Orvinti and his company were preparing to leave Solkara. I wished to speak with them before they did.”
“Do you intend to take them as prisoners?”
Pronjed’s eyes darted briefly to the duke before returning to Chofya’s face. “No, Your Highness. But the duke was the last man to see the king alive.”
“I thought a servant brought the king wine after the duke returned to his quarters.”
“Well yes, but-”
“So you don’t believe the duke is guilty of any crime.”
The Qirsi’s face reddened. “No, Your Highness.”
“Then dismiss these men.”
“I must object, Your Highness,” the archminister said, his voice rising. “Even if your husband was alive when the duke left him, Lord Orvinti was the last person to speak with the king before he killed himself. I think we ought to know what he said that might have caused His Majesty to do this.”
“I don’t believe the king killed himself because of anything the duke said.”
“But you don’t know that for certain.”
The queen straightened. “I don’t wish to discuss this in front of Carden’s men, Archminister. Please send them away.”
Pronjed nodded reluctantly, then commanded the captain to dismiss the guards. As the men slowly dispersed, a wind knifed through the courtyard, making Chofya shiver.
“Perhaps we should discuss this in the castle, Your Highness,” Brail said. “You should be by a fire.”
The queen shook her head. “I don’t want to go in there.”
They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence, still waiting for the soldiers to leave the courtyard. Fetnalla kept her eyes fixed on the queen, but she was conscious of Pronjed standing beside her, his hand resting lightly on the hilt of a short sword. She had known the archminister for nearly six years, and in all that time, she had never once felt at ease in his company. In part, this was because of his position. She might have been first minister in Orvinti, but he was the most powerful Qirsi in the kingdom, and he carried himself like a man acutely aware of his own importance. But more than that, he struck her as having more in common with Eandi nobles than any man or woman of her race she had ever known. Her mother would have said that he had a warrior’s heart. Like a young Eandi court lad new to his power, Pronjed always seemed to be eager for a fight, be it with another minister, another Aneiran house, or another kingdom. Most Qirsi in the courts of dukes and kings in the Forelands found themselves tempering the aggression of those they served. Pronjed, she was certain, had fueled it. It might have been why Carden chose him as archminister, but Fetnalla couldn’t help but think that he was a man to be feared, a man whose fundamental instincts were at odds with the needs of the kingdom.
“You may have heard, Lord Orvinti,” the queen began, when the four of them were alone in the castle ward, “that the castle’s master surgeon was garroted yesterday.”