Drakenfeld

A Cliffside Villa

Night came and we moved down the hill towards the villa – myself, Leana and the veterans, who were all prepared for combat with their armour strapped tightly and clutching short swords. The road sloped gently at first, before turning into a dirt track taking a more precarious zigzag down towards the sea. There were cart tracks here, indicating regular traffic, perhaps for food or supplies, or even an important guest or two.

Swiftly, we spread ourselves out into a thin line, three veterans hurrying ahead, and the rest of us deliberately lagging behind.

Down through the trees I could see that the location below was precisely as the agent described. It was one of the most wonderful places imaginable. The light of the moon indicated where the sea ended and the cliff-side gardens began, but the tidal roar seemed to come from everywhere. The building itself was a large, square whitewashed structure, with a gap in the middle for more formal gardens and a fountain, the top of which we could see easily from our elevated approach. The cliffs extended up either side and, out to sea, stood an outcrop of rock that looked like the arm of a god reaching for the moon.

Towards this serene retreat, a second faction of the veterans abandoned the road and slunk down between the trees, heading for the rear of the property. That left Leana, myself, Callimar and one other soldier. We left the track and headed around to a side wall. I heard a muffled noise to one side, but then nothing more.

Moments later, one of the other veterans trotted towards us holding a blade. ‘From a guard, now dead. It’s a Detratan short sword, standard military issue.’ He threw it to one side.

‘It’s definitely her then,’ I said, with more belief than ever.

We waited for the other veterans to confirm that all the guards had been dealt with, before moving on to gain access to the property.

All the soldiers headed around to the front and shortly would set to work busting down the double doors. Meanwhile, myself, Leana and Callimar scaled one of the rear walls using rope. I must admit I was not as agile as I used to be and, with every lurching grip of the rope, I could sense Leana’s disapproval.

I landed inside, just about avoiding a large rose bush, and stepped into the wide ornamental garden. We drew our swords, and walked towards the rear of the villa, when I heard an explosion of wood. Screams came, followed by the emergence of several cloaked figures who came dashing towards us. They stopped running and looked around, some with panicked expressions; a few of the others tried to hide their faces from view. The rest of the soldiers filed in behind them and formed a long line with their swords at the ready. The gathered throng realized they were surrounded and there was nowhere for them to run.

I stepped forward. ‘My name is Lucan Drakenfeld, officer of the Sun Chamber, and this is General Callimar. I believe you’ve just met his Sun Legion veterans. A woman known as Lacanta, sister to King Licintius, is being kept hidden among you. We wish for her to be handed over immediately.’

No one answered. Callimar marched forward and grabbed a middle-aged man, who fell to his knees so Callimar had to drag him along on the grass in front of the line of captives. ‘Right, let’s not piss about!’ Callimar shouted. ‘If no one answers us, this one loses a hand. If no one answers again, he loses a foot and so on. You get the idea.’

Wearily I asked the question once more, and again no one said a word.

Callimar wasn’t bluffing: under the moonlight, he knelt beside the man, whose hood fell back to reveal a gaunt, pale face. Callimar stretched out the man’s arm, pressed his hand down on the grass and, with two hefty chops, hacked into the arm.

The man wailed in agony, collapsing sideways as his blood surged across the grass. Callimar reached back to grab the man’s foot, and pulled it aside with phenomenal strength, toppling him, still screaming, onto his back.

‘Ask again!’ Callimar shouted.

So I asked my question again.

At this point, a woman in a shawl moved forward and pleaded with us to stop. ‘He meant no harm. Please, just leave him alone.’

I marched over to her and pulled back her hood. The woman’s hair had been cut short not that long ago, and I was struck by how startlingly similar she was to the murdered priestess.

‘Lacanta,’ I breathed.

We assessed each other, neither of us having worked out what we’d do should this situation arise. Relief overwhelmed me. This supposedly dead woman had filled my thoughts and defined my actions ever since I had returned to the city. Now here she was.

Leana stepped in alongside me, pointing the tip of her sword at Lacanta’s face. ‘Let’s question her inside.’

Lacanta stared defiantly along the blade.

‘Callimar,’ I called back. ‘We need to ensure any accomplices are kept somewhere safe for now.’ I faced Lacanta, still talking to him. ‘We’re going to take her into the house.’

Lacanta regarded me with nothing but a cool, distant fury.

We discovered a pleasant room inside the villa. The doors opened to face the sea, and a soldier stood guard outside to prevent anyone escaping.

I let Lacanta feel free enough to recline on a couch, while I paced around the room scrutinizing the trinkets, goblets and other tableware, marvelling at the objects. The villa was every bit as resplendent on the inside as it was on the outside, with a breathtaking level of detail on everything, from silver cups to carved chairs.

Leana drew up a chair alongside Lacanta, then lit a few candles and lanterns nearby. She moved one nearer the table in order to cast a light on the royal face. Again I was taken aback by how much she resembled the priestess.

‘Did he have to cut off his hand?’ These were the first words to come from Lacanta’s lips, addressed to any one of us in the room.

Clearly she had been used to making decisions. Her voice was strong yet soothing, her pale green eyes rather disarming. There was a beguiling quality to her face; it was one of striking symmetry and balance. The words and descriptions of others had led me to form opinions of her personality and of her tone. I had fabricated her entire character in my mind, but now there was the need to start all over again.

‘I didn’t think he would cut it off. You know soldiers.’ I inched away to examine the frescoes on a wall. Another silence passed. I was happy to let any impatience get the better of her.

‘What will you do with me?’ she asked, watching the silhouette of the soldier outside the doors.

‘We must wait and see,’ I replied. ‘You were involved in the murder of an innocent priestess. Yet your brother has done a splendid job in fooling the city and the Senate of Detrata into thinking you were very much dead. To my understanding and experience, the law is not clear on these matters. Alive or dead you are, however, physical evidence of the dishonest actions and words of a king, to his people and his Senate, so you will return at some point to Tryum. You might find you’re not as popular as you were when you had been supposedly killed.’

The sea continued to churn at the cliffs below, booming into the distance.

‘For now, we have plenty of time to process the strange actions of your brother. His lifestyle was certainly interesting; his activities rather curious, as were his strange antics down-city.’ I stared at her more closely, and recalled Drullus. ‘Not to mention his lover.’

She was visibly taken aback by my comment, so I stayed with that line of questioning.

‘Of course you know all about that, don’t you?’ I said. ‘You’ve had a while to become familiar with it.’

‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘The actors told me everything, Lacanta, all the details – so there’s no point in denying it. You’ll only waste our time.’

‘And how could actors have possibly seen anything?’ Lacanta fell silent, before muttering, ‘We were so careful. No one could have seen a thing.’

I frowned at that, trying to discern her meaning. ‘Does the name Drullus mean anything to you?’

‘Nothing at all.’

Confused, I began to analyse her words. Lacanta thought I was talking about something else entirely – not the king’s relationship with Drullus, but of another relationship. By a quirk of fate, she’d just made a confession about something I had never thought to question.

It slotted in with so many other things: the fact that neither of them had married; that Lacanta pretended to bed other people, but never actually went through with it; the reason she had taken part in the staging of her own death. It had never occurred to me that, one day, Lacanta may have wanted to return to Tryum, albeit in a different guise.

‘Drullus was an actor that the king associated himself with – you know, on his trips down-city. He confided in Drullus. He told him about your relationship with each other, and Drullus in turn told me.’

She shook her head. ‘Drullus is just a nobody. How could he have known? Licintius would never have said anything to a mere actor.’

‘It’s called incest, Lacanta, no matter how you dress any of this up.’

Lacanta could no longer meet my gaze.

‘This is what you planned,’ I continued. ‘You hoped to return one day, with a different hairstyle, new clothes, perhaps different jewellery and make-up. Combined with another name, you hoped that no one would notice.’

Still she said nothing; still she avoided my eye.

I crouched down beside her, and searched for a more gentle approach. ‘You saved yourselves for each other, isn’t that right? You were fooling a city so that you could get away with your illegitimate love. And you killed a poor innocent priestess to dupe a nation.’

‘You shouldn’t be so smug,’ Lacanta snapped.

‘Meaning?’

‘We had help,’ she replied.

‘I imagine that it’s the kind of task that cannot be done alone.’

‘No, you don’t understand – we had help.’ She paused. ‘From a Drakenfeld.’

Lacanta gave me a suddenly confident look, not quite a smile – something more sinister than that. My heart sank and I closed my eyes for a moment, but there was no avoiding it. At the back of my mind there had been a nagging doubt about how my father had come into so much money, a doubt that also led me to think that he may have found the missing priestess and was the reason she remained missing.

‘So now what will you do?’ Lacanta sat back and took on a different, more arrogant manner entirely. Here she was, back in control, the one with power. ‘Will you want to implicate your precious, beloved father in all of this? It will ruin his lovely reputation. It will ruin your delightfully honest family name. And do not think I won’t mention it to as many people as I possibly can.’

‘Tell me what he did.’

I knelt beside her, allowing her to continue, almost at a whisper.

‘We needed a body in place of mine,’ she said, ‘someone who looked like me. Who better than someone who deals in such matters as missing people, skilled in the knowledge of how easy it is for people to disappear from the city. Someone who, on occasion, locates them on behalf of others.’

‘An officer of the Sun Chamber,’ I breathed.

‘Your father was badly in need of money. In exchange for supplying us with someone who might look like me, we would give him ample amounts to pay off his debts.’

Which explained the sudden arrival of money.

‘It took him many weeks until we could find someone who would fit. He killed himself not long after. The quiet, moralistic ones are the worst – one never quite knows how they will react under pressure.’ Her face became more spirited now, her voice warmer, kinder. ‘But it does not have to be this way, Drakenfeld. We can both take our secrets with us. No one has to know any of this. You can leave here now and no one need ever know about the shame on your family. You will have my word on that.’