Alex Bledsoe - Dark Jenny

“No, it’s okay,” Mary said. “I want to help.” She looked up at me with the tiniest spark of renewed defiance in her battered eyes.

I asked gently, “What happened to the rest of the apples?”

She looked blank and thought for a moment. Finally she said, “I don’t know.”

“All right, that’s enough,” Dr. Gladstone snapped. She put her hands on her hips and gave us both a hard expression that would’ve done credit to a North Sea berserker. “This girl’s coming back to the infirmary. If I even smell a knight in shining armor trying to get near her, I’ll show you what an angry doctor can do to one of you walking meat sacks.” She turned away to stow her gear back in her bag and added, “And you-come see me about that hand in about three hours. It should be nice and painful by then.”

“Miss, I’m truly sorry,” Kay repeated to Mary. “We’ll make sure you get the best care, and those men will pay for what they did to you.”

Mary nodded, but her eyes had gone glassy again and I had no idea if she really heard his words.

We went back into the main hall. Once the door shut behind us I asked Kay, “Do you know her? That doctor, I mean.”

“Sure. Iris Gladstone. She was with us on a couple of campaigns back before Marripat Hill when she was still a girl apprentice. She stitched up a cut on my back once.”

I nodded, resolved to seek out this Iris Gladstone later whether my hand hurt or not. Assuming, of course, I wasn’t locked up awaiting execution. “She’s tough.”

If Kay knew what I meant from my overly appreciative tone, he let it pass with a shrug. “Field doctors have to be. Since peacetime, she’s trained healers to go out into the country, opening their own practices.”

“You don’t use moon priestesses?” That altruistic but secretive sisterhood operated hospitals in most parts of the world.

“There are no moon priestesses on Grand Bruan,” Kay muttered. “They’re against the law.”

I was about to ask why when I spotted Agravaine and his pals huddled conspiratorially near the main door. When they saw us, they looked away, then at the ground, then slunk off into the crowd.

“Those guys really push it,” Kay said. “Now what?”

“Let’s go talk to the queen before Agravaine has a chance to get to her.”

“The queen?” Kay said, and sounded startled. “Why do you think Agravaine would go to the queen about any of this?”

I looked at him in genuine surprise. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Humor me.” The suspicion in his voice added the unspoken, Unless you’re more involved than you’ve said.

“It’s simple. Who else would’ve sent him to intimidate a key witness whose testimony implicates the queen? That girl is the one link between the queen and the apples. Another couple of minutes and they would’ve had her convinced apples didn’t even exist. And even if the queen didn’t personally send them, they were surely doing it on her behalf.”

Kay nodded. “Pretty simple when you explain it that way.”

“My question is why? If all the other Knights of the Double Tarn are against the queen, why are those three on her side?”

Before Kay could answer, a new voice yelled, “You!”

DeGrandis, his cheeks reddened with wine beneath his face powder, waddled toward us. “That’s close enough,” Kay warned when he was about ten feet away.

He pointed one frilly yellow sleeve at me. “Why is that man running around loose? He’s a murderer! We’ve heard all about him and his crimes, from a very reliable source!”

“This gentleman,” Kay said in the voice he must’ve used on the battlefield, “is not running around loose, as you can see.” He rattled the chain between my manacles. “And he’s under my sword at the moment.”

“Well, I assure you we will not allow him to leave Nodlon Castle,” DeGrandis snapped. His chins wobbled with outrage. Behind him, his fellow nobles muttered encouragement from a safe distance.

Kay wasn’t impressed. “You’ll do as you’re told for the moment. Now please rejoin your friends and await an official announcement. Sir.”

DeGrandis gave me a look as if I’d snatched the last piece of pie from the table, then returned to his group. Among them, Lord Astamore resumed weaving the mendacious tapestry of my criminal exploits.

“Thanks,” I said to Kay. “He might’ve rolled right over me if he got too excited.”

Kay nodded. “Yeah.” Then he frowned and, in the same difficult pleading tone he’d used when he asked me to help, said quietly, “So do we really have to go see the queen?”

I wanted to smack him in the forehead. “ Yes, we have to see her. Come on, don’t get dense on me now. She may be the queen, but she’s also a legitimate suspect, and if you’re going to have a real rule of law, it’s got to apply to everyone. Isn’t that what Drake’s grand design is all about?”

“She’ll take it personally.”

“That’s not our problem.”

“And she isn’t the best person to antagonize.”

“In my experience, people only feel antagonized when they have something to hide. If she had nothing to do with the murder, she shouldn’t get upset.”

“Maybe that’s true,” Kay granted.

“And I’ll be polite. I know how to behave around royalty.”

“Oh, it’s not you I’m worried about.” He managed a wry, tired smile. “You get to leave Grand Bruan when this is all over; I have to live with her.”

Immediately after the murder Queen Jennifer Drake had withdrawn to her chambers, using her royal prerogative to override Kay’s order that no one leave the great hall. The queen couldn’t really be expected to mill about with the nobles under circumstances like these, and given the tension between her and the knights, she wouldn’t want to subject herself to their constant scrutiny. So while I had waited in the closet for interrogation, Kay made sure she was safely locked in upstairs before he came to me.

I followed Kay through a door behind the thrones and up a stone, spiral staircase. The stairs were padded, the better to protect delicate royal feet.

Kay pulled me aside just before we emerged onto the next floor. He inserted the key in the disk, and the chain wound back up tight, pulling my wrists together. “Nothing personal, but you will be in the presence of the queen, and you still might be a murderer.” He took a dagger from his belt and made sure that I saw him slip it, hilt-first, up his sleeve. A single flex and it would be in his hand; another flex and it would be in my back.

“Sure,” I said. I couldn’t argue with his logic.

“And I have one request. Please don’t mention what I told you about Elliot Spears.”

“Why would I?”

“I can’t imagine. I just wanted to be clear on it.”

“Being curious is my job, you know. Now I have to ask.”

He considered his words before speaking. “Remember I told you that Elliot doesn’t come around very often? It’s because he and Jennifer had a very loud, practically public falling-out. No one knows for sure what started it, but barracks gossip says one of them broke off the affair.”

“Which one?”

“Depends on who’s telling the story. She never talks about it, though. And he’s not around to ask.”

“So if I mention it, she’ll just say, ‘No comment’?”

“No, if you mention it, she may hand you your teeth.”

I was intrigued, but for the moment it didn’t seem a priority. “Okay. I won’t bring up Spears.”

“Thank you.” He seemed more afraid of this woman’s disapproval than Agravaine’s swords back in the service room.

When we emerged onto the landing, two armored sentries guarded her door. They saluted Kay and stepped aside as we approached. Kay knocked, and one of the young handmaidens opened the door wide enough to peer out. She had blond hair, an ample bosom thanks to the cut of her gown, and slender hips. “Her Majesty is not to be disturbed,” she said.