Alex Bledsoe - Dark Jenny

“Oh, I can practically guarantee I’ll need to come see you.”

She flashed those magnificent eyes at me. “You don’t give up, do you?”

“I will if you really want me to,” I said seriously. And I meant it. I gave her a moment to respond, but she let it pass. “So can I ask you something off topic?”

“Off which topic?” Her smile returned full strength.

I smiled back; heck, I grinned like the last man alive after a three-day battle. “It’s about Queen Jennifer. What kind of woman is she?”

“Out of your league, I’m afraid.”

“No, seriously. You said you’d seen her true nature, and I need some insight. This place has more secrets than flies on a manure wagon, and I don’t know who to trust.”

“You seem to trust Bob Kay.”

“Sure. He has the keys to my shackles. And I trust you.”

Her eyebrows went up. “That a fact?”

“You know it is. But after you two, I’m flapping in the breeze. Drake seems decent, but he’s thrown his lot in with Jennifer, who”-I glanced at the door to make sure no one stood waiting for the doctor and overheard me-“I definitely don’t trust.”

“Why?”

The words to tell her about the previous night left my brain, passed through my throat, and made it all the way to my teeth before I choked them back down. “Instinct,” I said instead.

“You really think she’s a poisoner?”

“It’s a woman’s way. No offense.”

“None taken. It’d be my way, too. We all use the talents we’re given.”

“And, no, I don’t think she did it. But that doesn’t automatically mean I trust her. How well do you know her?”

Iris wiped her hands with a towel. “Hm. I first met her right after I’d finished my apprenticeship. They were both really young, you know. We all were. Marcus was crowned when he was fifteen and married Jennifer when he was seventeen. And that was… wow, nearly twenty years ago.” She shook her head at the passage of so much time. “When did I get to be thirty?”

“Do you like her?”

She laughed. “Who I like is completely beside the point in this job. But between you, me, and the mice in the walls, no. Not at all. Okay, wait, that’s not entirely true. I didn’t like the snotty little girl Marcus courted. The woman she is now… she’s different. Stronger. More dedicated.”

“What changed?”

Iris shrugged. “Who knows? Back then she was a teenager. Now forty’s peeking over the horizon. People change a lot in those years.”

Again I wanted to tell her what I’d overheard the night before, but decided to hold back until I better understood the Grand Bruan dynamics. I trusted Iris, but my instincts were not infallible. “So do you think she could do what she’s accused of? Poison a knight as a warning to the others?”

Her face crinkled delightfully as she thought about it. “The spoiled girl Marc married?” she said at last. “Yes, I can believe it. But the woman she is now? No.”

“I see. Well… thanks. I have to meet with the king again, so I should probably be going.”

A touch of mischief again shone in her eyes. “I would like to check the cast before you leave to go back to wherever you came from. So we’ll see each other at least once more.”

“At least. And after that?”

“After that is after that.” She tossed the rag into a bin. “I’m a military doctor. I go where the battles are.”

I held up my bandaged hand. “I doubt I could manage a whole battle, but I could put on a hell of a skirmish.”

She laughed and shook her head. “I’d love to discuss tactics with you, but I have work to do. I will see you later, though.” And the kiss she gave me was the best promise I’d ever had.

As I wound back through the castle corridors behind Bob Kay, my wrists again secured, I scanned every hallway junction for Agravaine’s crew. They never appeared. If they weren’t hunting me, what were they doing?

By the time I met again with the king and queen, my cast itched something fierce.

I joined Bob Kay and the royal couple in the same room where Jennifer had received us the night before. Once again Bob wound up the slack in my manacles, just in case. Drake greeted us dressed in casual trousers and an old favorite shirt with the sleeves ripped out to accommodate his considerable arms. Jennifer wore a simple dress and a lone strand of pearls, and her hair hung loose and unadorned. The queen’s maids, including Rebecca, had withdrawn to give us privacy. I wondered if they were listening behind a door, or peering through a hidden peephole. I’d gain nothing by embracing my paranoia, though.

Drake bolted the door behind us. “So, we seem to have both a murder and a public relations crisis. I believe if we resolve the first, the second will take care of itself.” He nodded at my hand. “Iris fixed you up, I see.”

“She did.” I hoped he would also tell Bob to release me, but that didn’t happen.

Instead he continued, “So we’re agreed there’s a murderer in the building somewhere, who wants to make the queen look guilty.”

“No,” I corrected him. I’d finally pondered my way through something that had bothered me all along. “Even as a frame, this is a poor job. There are lots of kingdoms where the queen might kill someone with impunity, but not this one. We know murdering Patrice wasn’t the goal, and neither was killing Gillian or framing the queen.”

Jennifer spoke for the first time. “Then what was the point, Mr. LaCrosse?”

I shook my head. “Haven’t gotten that far yet. I suppose it could just be a way to disrupt things. Sow dissent. Start people talking. And whoever planned it didn’t care if someone had to die.”

“Or they simply wanted Gillian dead,” Jennifer said. “Why must there be a plot behind it?”

“Gillian has his enemies, sure,” Kay said. “Every soldier does, especially one as prominent as he is. But he fights in every tournament; they get their shot at him.”

“ If they’re the sword-and-sandal type,” I said. “If he pissed off a bard or someone’s lady-in-waiting instead, though, it’s unlikely they’d meet him on the field. But I still don’t think killing him was the main thing.”

Drake told Kay, “I like what your man LaCrosse says. I think the target of this is, ultimately, sedition. Someone wants to topple the crown, but indirectly.”

“Thanks,” I said, “but it’s only one theory. There’s also the idea that the queen did it and deliberately made it look amateurish and sloppy so she’d have plausible deniability. That’s a pretty good plan, too.”

“I am not a killer,” Jennifer said. Her glare at me was so cold I needed a sweater. “How often do those words have to be said?”

“ Please, Jennifer,” Drake almost snapped. I wondered what they’d been discussing before Kay and I arrived. “No one here thinks you’re a killer.”

Jennifer did not back down. “Are you certain?”

I caught Kay’s eye and wondered if we should slip out. He minutely shook his head.

Drake put his palm against her cheek. Their size difference made the gesture even more tender. “This is exactly what he wants, Jennifer. You and I at each other’s throats. The Knights of the Double Tarn looking at each other suspiciously. The nobles convinced there’s a cover-up of something.”

Jennifer would not be calmed. “Who’s ‘he,’ Marc?” It was half-taunt, half-accusation. She pointed at me. “This man? Some disgruntled knight? Your old friend Kindermord? Someone else none of us know?” She stared up at him, daring him to answer.

Drake started a little at the name Kindermord, but only a trained observer such as me would notice. The name also made Kay purse his lips a little. Drake recovered instantly and said at last, with more patience than I expected, “Jennifer, this isn’t helping.”