Gene Wolfe - An Evil Guest

“Here!” she called, and recalled saying the same thing in school.

He hurried down. “Where were you hit?”

“On the head, but my cheek hurts worse.”

For a moment his small chromed flashlight played on it.

“It’s a powder burn, I think.”

He nodded absently, already rummaging in his bag.

His nurse arrived, a tiny Japanese. After her, like elephants following a hare, came five hulking warriors with pistols and short black assault rifles.

Cassie dropped Hiapo’s pistol into her robe’s other pocket. “Look after her first.”

“There are times,” Dr. Schoonveld murmured, “when even royalty is not obeyed. This is one of them.” He swabbed her cheek with a soft something that he dipped into a fluid that was neither water nor alcohol.

“She’s dying!”

“That is so. It may be also that I kick her so that faster she dies.”

“She may be able to tell us something.”

“Lies, Your Majesty. Only lies she tells.” Dr. Schoonveld motioned to his nurse.

“I feel sick,” Cassie said, and as she spoke realized that it was so.

IT was almost dawn when she returned to bed. That bed had been made in her absence, with clean sheets and clean pillowcases. The drapes were closed over the window that the first shot had broken, though its broken pane remained. Outside it, a massive warrior with a black rifle scanned the terrace. She had expected not to sleep at all, but fell asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow.

In the corridor outside two men sprang to attention, their bare feet silent on the thick carpet, their rifles rattling as they presented arms. The door — hadn’t she locked it? — opened and closed again, softly.

She heard the snick of the bolt, and knew the embrace of large, strong arms and the spicy scent of some cologne. A rough voice, kind and almost familiar, said, “Go back to sleep, Cassie baby. You’ve had a tough night.”

And she did, feeling warm and safe.

HE was gone in the morning, but there was a note on the pillow next to hers.

My darling, I have been married twice but I have never loved anybody the way I love you. No woman I have ever known has been as beautiful or as brave and good. I am a king but I will kneel at your feet very soon. Last night I held you in my arms. I can’t wait to hold you again. Did you feel my kiss? I’m hungry for yours!

Bill Reis held up his hand. “I’m giving you my word, Kandy. I will not attack the Storm King, or his city, with depth charges. Or attack them at all without telling you what I plan.”

King Kanoa nodded and thanked him.

They were gathered around a circular table in a room she had not seen before, King Kanoa, Hiapo, Reis, and Cassie herself. She had said not long ago that she could not be certain she had locked her bedroom door, but thought she had.

Now Reis returned to it. “What about the bolt? Did you use it, too?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then that settles that. She was carrying lock picks, though to pick that lock she’d have to be good with them. What about the outside door, Cassie?”

“I locked it. I know I did.”

Hiapo rumbled, “It was opened before the woman I shot came out, O High King. I see that it is opened. I was not watching when it open. I think our high queen does it.”

Reis nodded. “An escape route. She’d try to get to the beach and into the water, I think. Kandy?”

“I concur.” Looking thoughtful, King Kanoa cleared his throat. “I talked to Iulani. She was the maid who was shot at.”

“She wasn’t hit,” Cassie put in.

“She was grazed, Your Majesty. Nothing serious, just tore the skin. Had it been a bit to the right...”

Reis asked, “What did she have to say?”

“She hadn’t known the door was locked, and said it wasn’t locked when she opened it. She had no key, she says.”

“That fits. This woman — we need something to call her.”

“The assassin? Good as anythin’.”

“Right. The assassin picked the lock, came in, and shut the door behind her leaving it unlocked. Another escape route in case Hiapo came in from the terrace.”

“Devilish good locks those are, Bill. Warren and Hardcastle? Best in the business.”

Cassie said, “She’s a woman, then. I thought so.”

Reis flushed, his big face — already sunburned — redder still. “We’ll call the doctor in before we’re through.”

“Fine. Then I want to know why King Kanoa doesn’t think she picked my lock.”

He adjusted his huge frame in his oversized chair. “Don’t seem likely, that’s all. Little bit of a thing, eh? Tallish for a Yank, but thin. Saw an expert try to pick a Warren and Hardcastle once. Rare book room. Librarian chap had locked himself in and shot himself. Body in there putrefyin’. He gave it up, eh? The expert chap. Ten minutes or so. Said it could be done but might take all afternoon. Drilled it out instead. Had a diamond-coated bit for the job, and needed it.”

Cassie nodded.

“Assassin would be on her knees out in the hall, with people goin’ up and down. Silly twit to try pickin’.”

Reis said, “Then how’d she get in, Kandy?”

“Walked in, I’d say. I talked to Iulani. I say that? Well, I did, and she aired out the room before Her Majesty retired. Open windows, open terrace door, eh? Let in the fresh air. Let in the assassin, too. Easy as pie, ’cause Hiapo here was watchin’ our queen and not her room. Little bit of a thing, dark clothes, hid in the shrubbery sneakin’ from terrace to terrace soon as the sun was down. Peeped into the room, saw Iulani was gone, and popped in through the door. Not just a bedroom, is it?”

Cassie shook her head. “There’s a bathroom and a — I don’t know what you call it. A little private sitting room with big windows. A room for getting dressed and having my hair done with lots of closets, and a kitchenette.”

“There you have it.” King Kanoa raised his hands as if presenting a tray. “Dozen places to hide. She hid in one and waited ’til you’d gone to sleep and things quieted down. Then out she popped, unlocked both doors, and had a talk.”

“I want to talk to her, this spy the Storm King sent here to threaten me.” Cassie turned toward Reis. “Can I, Wally? Please?”

He nodded. “Before dinner, if you want. But I want all four of us to talk to Dr. Schoonveld first.”

Cassie took a deep breath. “That’s great, but I want to talk to you, too — to talk to you for a long, long time when the two of us are alone.”

“I will give you answers to the best of my ability,” Dr. Schoonveld said as he and Cassie left a warm bright terrace for a corridor redolent of antiseptics, a corridor that seemed filled with cool twilight. “My answers are not apt to be satisfactory. Of this I warn.”

“Why is that?”

“Let me repeat myself. It is because there are many things I do not know but wish to know. I have sent DNA to Amsterdam, but there is yet no report. This is one example of many.”

“I’ll start with an easy question, one nobody asked in the big meeting room or whatever you call it.” Much to her own surprise Cassie found herself wishing for a pencil and notepad. “What’s her name?”

“It is easy, Your Majesty. I do not know.”

“She won’t tell you?”

“She has told me half a dozen, none of which I credit. Most recent is Diana Diamond. Do you like it?”

Cassie shook her head. “Just for the record, I really am Cassie Casey. For lawyers it’s Cassiopeia Fiona Casey, but I’ve been called Cassie all my life.”

“You I credit. Perhaps I would credit Diana Diamond also, if so many others had not preceded it.”