“You’re not going anywhere,” Royce told him with a certainty that made Albert believe it. “I need you gathering information.”
“I appreciate your confidence in me, but … here.” Albert held out a coin purse. “There’s twenty gold tenents for a job I secured while at the party. It’s yours to do with as you please. The person who hired me will never find me where I’m going. I don’t think I’ll be able to show my face in Melengar, or possibly all of Avryn, ever again. I’m thinking of going south, Delgos or perhaps Calis.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Royce repeated, ignoring the purse.
“And what if I’m arrested?”
“Albert,” Hadrian said. “You’re overreacting. No one is after you. Besides, you’re one of us now. We wouldn’t let them hang you.”
Hang me? The thought chilled him.
“You don’t think they’d really-” But of course he did. Why else would he have said it? “And how could you stop it? The two of you are so cavalier about everything! I don’t mean to be insulting, but please understand that you’re just two men-they have an army. I’m sorry this is all…” Albert threw up his waterlogged hands, spraying liquid off the cuffs. He was befuddled, lost for the proper words to describe the extreme absurdity. “I’m leaving.”
Royce stepped between him and the door, his face inches away, and when he spoke it was barely above a whisper. “The king’s men might be after you. If they are, they might question you. If they absolutely must find a scapegoat, they might choose to pin a crime on you. But if you walk out that door and Gwen is executed as a result…” He licked his lips, and his eyes glared, unblinking. “Maybe you should take a tour of the city’s fountains on your way out of town.”
Albert didn’t move. He barely breathed and Royce continued to watch him like a cat hoping the mouse would run.
“We really could use your help, Albert,” Hadrian said, his voice so pleasant and casual that Albert was disoriented. These were very strange people. “I promise you, we’ll have your back. If anything happens, we’ll be there.”
When the viscount replied, he spoke quietly, haltingly, and at a slightly higher pitch than usual as he dragged each word out with a struggle. “What is it you want me to do?”
“Good man,” Hadrian said, clapping him on the back and drawing him away from Royce and the door.
“What do you want him to do, Royce?”
“Find out all you can about where Gwen and the girls are being held. If you hear anything-anything at all-about plans for their execution or release, get back here as fast as those new shoes will let you. Understand?”
He nodded. “Okay.”
“If I’m right, we won’t have to do anything.”
“And if you’re wrong?” Albert asked, not at all certain he wanted to hear the answer.
“Then Hadrian and I will have to go in and get her. I’m hoping it won’t come to that.”
“I agree,” Hadrian said.
They planned to go get her-to rescue a whore imprisoned by the king of Melengar after the queen was murdered. The two of them. Common thieves nonchalantly challenging the might of an angry monarch. Albert was employed by madmen. Who did they think they were?
Except for the soot stains, the ash, and the still-rising smoke, the room was as Amrath had left it. Nothing had been burned, not the carpet, not the swan mirror, not the bed where he had found Ann beneath covers as if sleeping. If an army had breached the walls, he could comprehend her death, and he would mount his horse, lift his axe, and ride with the storm. But this. Some invisible monster had slipped into their bedroom and smothered his sweet Ann. A beast that he could still smell, whose poison he breathed as he lay holding her.
“Your Majesty?” It was Valin this time, knocking softly on their door.
“Go away! Leave us alone!” he tried to roar, but his voice, scorched by the smoke, was raspy and vicious.
“But, sire, it’s not healthy-”
“Go away!”
“Just let me come in. I’ll-”
“I swear I’ll beat to death anyone who enters this room.”
The king pulled his wife closer. If he closed his eyes hard enough, it was almost as if nothing had happened. Almost as if he hadn’t left her on the one night in her whole life that she really needed him.
He couldn’t see much anymore. He hadn’t stopped crying since he saw her, since he entered in disbelief and rushed over to try and wake her up. He chased them all out, throwing chairs, stools, and tables. If he’d caught anyone, he would have ripped them apart. He had become a real bear, a wild bear, a wounded and dangerous bear.
Amrath was having trouble breathing. His chest ached as his heart was crushed and torn, consumed in misery. In the silence of the bedroom, even the absurd haunted him.
Why did I say it depended on if you were ready to go to the party?
“Of course I love you, Ann. I’ve always loved you-I’ll always love you. I should have said so. I was being a fool, making a stupid joke.”
The tears continued to seep out of his closed eyes and leak across his cheek into her lovely hair.
“Your Majesty.” Leo this time. Then the door opened and Alric and Arista stumbled through, their cheeks wet, eyes red.
“Will you kill your own children?” Leo called out.
Before he could rise, they rushed toward the bed. “Father?” Arista was out in front, ahead of Alric, whose sight was fixed on his mother.
“You shouldn’t-” He coughed again. “You shouldn’t be in here. You should-” He doubled over and started to vomit.
“Get him out!” Leo ordered. “Get all of them out of this damn smoke, or we really will lose our king!”
CHAPTER 22
King Amrath stared out the shattered window of what had once been his council chambers. Now a gutted, scorched-black cave, it stank of smoke and death. Long black tears ran so that even the stone walls cried. The rain continued, weeping for the loss as the king looked out of his ruined home at the city below. The king had no more tears to shed.
The ache was still in his chest, a crushing sensation as if someone had punched a hole through his ribs and squeezed his heart. The rest of him was just numb. He still had trouble breathing. Leo had likely saved his life by sending his children in, but the king wasn’t sure if a thank-you was appropriate, nor was he at all certain his trouble breathing had anything to do with the smoke.
But he was still king. He still had responsibilities. Leo and Braga were steering the kingdom as best they could, but they still needed him.
The meeting had begun with a tally of the dead. Remarkably only a little over a dozen people perished in the fire, mostly servants who worked the upper floors-Drundiline, his wife’s favorite handmaid, and Nora, the kids’ nurse. Their loss was tragic, but Amrath hardly noticed. He still puzzled at how Ann’s bedchamber was hardly touched by the fire, but Arista’s room was nothing but a blackened shell.
“Your Majesty?” Leo said softly.
“What? Sorry, I…”
Leo smiled sadly. “Never mind. Go on, Chancellor.”
Braga nodded. “It was Richard Hilfred who set the fire but Exeter who ordered it.”
“As I tried to warn you, Your Majesty,” Saldur said.
The bishop’s voice irritated him. By not heeding his counsel, Saldur was blaming him for Ann’s death. There was too much truth there not to hate the cleric for pointing it out.
“As far as I have been able to determine,” Braga said, “Lord Exeter had long plotted to take the throne. I suspect he may have murdered Chancellor Wainwright, hoping to obtain the chancellery. When you appointed me to that position, he apparently decided to take action.”
“And where is Exeter now?”
“He’s dead. Butchered in Gentry Square.”