The Sword-Edged blonde

TEN

Wentrobe gave me directions to the spot where Phil originally met-or found, rather-Rhiannon. It was deep in the woods on the royal hunting preserve. I could’ve gone with Wentrobe, or Sergeant Vogel, or even Phil, but I wanted to see it alone. I needed some time away from Arentia City and the palace to sort through what I’d learned, and not learned, from the queen.

The preserve was usually a bastard to sneak onto and off of. But I’d learned a lot of the old trails when I was a kid, and it seemed the current crop of guards knew even fewer of them than they had back then. I only had to duck off into the trees once to avoid an oblivious game warden on patrol. Poaching only became an issue when there was some famine, and Arentia was anything but starving.

It seemed unlikely I’d find any clues after six years, but I still wanted to see the place. I was reasonably certain that the plot surrounding the mysterious queen originated in her life before Phil met her; and since she claimed to remember nothing prior to that meeting, I had to work backwards from day one.

I found the area easily enough; a soft, low clover-covered hill in a clearing next to a stream. A good hunter like Phil would’ve checked this area for deer tracks, because the slope down to the water showed several in sharp, clear relief. I dismounted and tied my horse to a low branch; the beast looked at me with her typical equine arrogance. She seemed to have no trouble changing her loyalty from whichever border bandit owned her before, to me. Fickle tramp. I walked up the hill, scanning the ground for… I had no clue what.

The blue and gray clover flowers shone in the bright sun, and a light breeze made them wave a little. I sat down and surveyed the stream, the forest, even the sky. They all seemed normal, as any crime scene would after half a decade. Especially when you’re not sure of the nature of the crime.

I picked one of the gray clover flowers. I stared at it, and something went ping way back in my head. I couldn’t quite drag it forward, though, and sat there for a long moment until it hit me.

Clover doesn’t have gray flowers.

I bent and looked at the plant very closely. A gray one grew next to a purple one, and other than the color of the blooms they were identical. Then I stood and looked at the whole hill.

Atop the rounded peak was a circle of gray clover about nine feet across. From one point, a narrow trail of the gray flowers led down the hill into the woods. The trail ended at the leaf litter, where the overhead branches blocked the sun.

A large crow cawed from a limb overhead and flew away into the forest. My eyes inadvertently followed the movement, which seemed to sparkle like the birds I’d seen on Rhiannon’s window sill. On the tree he’d vacated, a trail of silver-tipped moss grew in a narrow, thick line down the trunk, in the dead center of a burn scar from an old lightning strike. It, too, disappeared under the leaves. When I kicked the litter away, I saw that the moss continued in an unbroken line along the ground, green and alive despite being covered. I followed it, knowing it would eventually turn into the trail of gray clover. It did.

Okay, I’d found a clue. But it told me nothing. Actually, it took away some certainties, so it was more of an anti-clue. Eddie LaCrosse, reverse investigator.

So, divorced from its context, what did this tell me? Something apparently came down the tree, across the ground and landed on the very spot where my pal Phil had found his bare-assed bride, and left a trail conducive to the growth of slightly off-kilter flora. Had the lightning scar been there before the moss? Could whatever left the trail have also split the bark of the tree? I’d seen burning rocks fall from the sky; I’d seen lightning. I’d encountered all manner of animals that flew. What combination could result in what I now saw? Nothing came to mind. Except the obvious idea that Queen Rhiannon herself had left the trail after she’d fallen from the heavens and crawled out into the sun. But I wasn’t ready to put my weight behind that.

“Hey!” a harsh male voice said behind me. “Hands where I can see ’em!”

I slowly complied. “I’m not a poacher. I’ve got authorization to be here.”

“Not without me knowing about it, you don’t,” the voice said much nearer. I hadn’t heard any steps; the guy knew his way around the forest. Suddenly I also recognized the voice.

“Terry?” I said. “Terry Vint?”

“Who’s asking?” he said, now right behind me.

I grinned. “Someone you still owe three bucks to.”

“I don’t owe anybody any money.”

“Not money bucks. Deer bucks.”

He was silent for a moment. “Eddie LaCrosse?”

I turned. Terry’s dad had been the head warden when I was a kid, and Terry had run around with Phil and me whenever he could. Now he was older, and had inherited his father’s lean leathery look along with his job. But the smile was all Terry.

“Well, goddamn,” he said, and lowered the crossbow he’d held pointed at my back. He wore the warden’s camouflage clothes and carried a short sword at his waist. His hair was mostly white, a combination of gray and sun-bleached blond. A deep scar marked the left side of his neck. “You are the absolute last person I expected to see here. When did you get back?”

“I’m not back, and you haven’t seen me. I’m working on something private for the king.”

“Private?” he repeated, puzzled. Then he nodded. “Ah. The mysterious Queen Rhiannon.”

I waved at the hill. “This is where they met, isn’t it?”

“Yep. I was with him that day, although he’d gone ahead to scout for tracks. He’d already found her by the time I caught up.”

“Do you remember anything unusual about that day?”

“Other than finding a drop-dead gorgeous blonde laid out naked like a picnic?”

“Yeah, other than that.”

“No. But I noticed some weird stuff afterwards.”

“Like what?”

He nodded toward the hill. “See anything strange about the spot?”

“Besides the trail of gray clover that turns into silver moss and runs up that tree?”

“Not bad. Clover doesn’t grow gray flowers, and moss doesn’t grow silver tips, yet here they are. Like they’re marking a trail, wouldn’t you say?” Without waiting for a response, he walked over to the moss-lined tree. “And I’ve got something else to show you, that I never showed anybody. Tried to show the king once, but he couldn’t be bothered. Haven’t looked for it in a few years, so it may not be there, but let’s see…”

He walked to the base of the tree and began kicking away the leaves. In a few moments he’d uncovered an area of bare, dark dirt about ten feet square, bisected by the silver moss. “Whadda ya think of that?” he asked, gesturing at the ground.

He’d uncovered a line of carefully placed rocks marking the impression where something big and heavy had hit the ground. Weather and time had blurred some of the edges, but the rocks, placed soon after the initial impact, clearly showed the object’s unmistakable outline. The trail of silver moss ran right through it.

“It looks,” I said obviously, “like a horse fell out of the sky.”

“Yep,” Terry agreed.

“Horses don’t do that, as a rule.”

“Not usually.”

“I don’t suppose anyone saw a horse fall from the sky, turn into a beautiful woman and then lay down in the grass to wait for passing royalty to pick her up?”

“Horses generally don’t do that, either.”

“No,” I agreed. “So Phil never saw this?”

“ Nobody else has seen it. I marked it out after the hubbub died down, figuring some day someone might want to know, and pretty much forgot about it myself.”

I looked at him. “It might be important that you forget again.”

“Hm. I got a pretty good memory. Except when I drink.”

I grinned. “Well, let’s get to work on your memory, then.”

T ERRY VINT HAD inherited his family home from his father, and moved his already-considerable brood into it. I counted five children playing in the yard, and when Mrs. Vint came out the door, she held the newest future woodsman in her arms. For such a prolific breeder, Shana Vint was still very attractive in an earthy, sensual way that went well beyond physical appearance. I imagined that, had I married her, she’d have spent a lot of time knocked up, too.

Terry introduced us, then he and I adjourned to chairs in the back yard beneath the shady trees. Shana brought us two tankards and a big bottle of wine, poured the first two drinks and then left. We could hear the children playing in the front yard, and the smell of dinner drifted from the kitchen.

“So you came all the way back from wherever you were to help the king get his wife off the hook?” Terry asked.

“He wants me to find out the truth,” I responded. I didn’t feel comfortable giving out more details than I had to.

“I thought she was caught red-handed. Literally.”

“That’s true,” I said. “But sometimes things aren’t exactly what they seem to be.”

He looked at me. “You’re being cagey with me, Eddie. And I guess that’s okay, we haven’t hung around each other in twenty years, we probably don’t have much in common anymore. Me, I got my home, my five sprouts and my wife, and no ambition to be anything else. I mean, I like Phil, and the queen was never anything but nice to me. But it’s hard for a parent to find a lot of sympathy for her. You got any kids, Eddie? Wife, family?”

I shook my head.

“She killed her own child. Pretty brutally, from what I hear. The king’s got to do the right thing by his people, or he’ll lose ’em. He’s only the king because everybody acts like he is.”

Terry’s political insight, while accurate, didn’t help me much. I turned over the known facts in my head, looking for ways they might connect. So far, though, the threads eluded me.

I threw out a wild card. “You ever heard of anyone named Epona Gray?”

He thought it over, and his response seemed genuine. “Nope.”

Something else nagged at me, another of those small off-kilter details, but this time I couldn’t catch hold of it. The wine unsurprisingly didn’t help, although I made sure I thoroughly explored that option before I left.

I was a little wobbly by the time I excused myself from Terry’s hospitality. I had to hug each of his five mobile offspring in turn, while the baby settled for a simple kiss atop his fuzzy head. Terry’s wife was even more attractive once I got some alcohol in me, so I knew I’d picked the right moment to leave. As I rode away, Terry stood behind her nuzzling her neck, which made her smile. I wondered how soon she’d be pregnant again.

The best view of the sunset anywhere in Arentia was from a certain part of the castle roof, where you could see for twenty miles in any direction. The roof was higher in other places, but in none of those could you also drink yourself stupid in peace. Phil and I had used the spot often as teenagers, and now we sat with our backs against a chimney, two empty bottles beside us, and a third destined to join them.

Phil took a long drink then passed the bottle to me. “I can’t do it, Eddie,” he said. His eyes were heavy, but otherwise he betrayed no sign of the fact that he was almost, as they say in the provinces, too drunk to fish.

“You gotta,” I repeated. We’d gone around this issue for nearly the entire three bottles, and I was at the end of my patience. “You’re only king because everybody acts like you are, you know.”

He ignored my stolen wit. “Could you do it?”

“I could if there was a good reason. Think about it, man. If you don’t let whoever did this think they’ve succeeded, then they’ll just try something else. This way, they’ll be off guard.”

He looked at me seriously. “Ed, that’s my wife you’re talking about.”

That made me mad, and yet again I almost told him about Epona Gray. Each time, though, Rhiannon’s words about love rang in my head, and somehow this made me keep it to myself. “Hey, y’know, you’re the goddamn king. You don’t want to take my advice, then I’ll just pack my stuff and go home.”

“C’mon, Ed, I’m serious.”

“So am I!” I was drunk enough to take his resistance as an affront to my professionalism. “You asked for my help, you know. I didn’t come bustin’ in here sayin’, ‘Oh, Phil, you must listen to me!’ I can go back to my old job and be quite happy.” I started to get to my feet.

“Whoa, man, sit down,” Phil said. He grabbed my arm and pulled me back hard against the chimney. “I didn’t mean anything by it, it’s just… how do I sentence my wife to prison when I know she didn’t do anything?”

I met his eyes as well as I could. “I wouldn’t say she hasn’t done anything. I don’t think she’s been honest with us, for one thing. But I’ll bet my left nut she didn’t kill your son.”

He took another drink. In a small voice I’d never heard from him before, he said, “I miss him.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say to that.

“Losing Janet was tough,” he continued. “And you’d think it would somehow, I don’t know, prepare me for losing P.D. But it didn’t.”

I took a long drink from the bottle.

“You ever think about her?” he asked me. “What she’d be like now?”

“Nope,” I lied.

“Think you would’ve married her?”

“Nope,” I lied again.

“Mom and Dad never blamed you, you know. Never. Neither did your dad.”

I stared at him. “You talked to my dad about it?”

“After you ran off, I felt bad for him. I used to visit him while he was sick before he died. He wanted me to tell you, if I ever saw you again, that he regretted all that stuff he said.”

“That a fact.” You failed to protect the goddamn princess of the goddamn country, he’d roared. If you’d died too, then maybe we’d have some dignity left, but you couldn’t even do that right. “Well, he always tended to speak before he thought.”

“Something I noticed you don’t ever do.” He took another drink. “What do you really think happened, Eddie? To my wife, to my son? Please, man.” The pleading was so honest it damn near broke my heart. I never expected to hear Phil beg anyone, let alone me, for anything.

“I think,” I said carefully, “that your wife knows more than she’s telling, and that someone from her past, from before you met her, is out to get her. I don’t know why they picked now, and I don’t know why they chose this particular way.” I took another drink. “And that’s why she has to go to jail. I have to do some poking around outside Arentia, and that may take a while. I need all the cover I can get. The best cover is to let whoever did this think they got away with it.”

“But I can’t even tell Ree.”

“ Especially not Ree.”

“She’ll think I hate her.”

“And so will everybody else, which is the important part. She has to believe it, or no one else will.”

“How long will you be gone?”

“As long as it takes me to find the answers, or at least find better questions to ask.” My sympathy got the better of me. “I’ll go as fast as I can, Phil. I promise.”

We stopped talking then, but kept drinking. Eventually we staggered downstairs, gave each other drunken hugs and stumbled off to our respective rooms. Mine kept spinning whenever I lay down, so I paced for a long time, trying to burn off enough buzz to get to sleep.

I snuck back out and made my wobbly way to the royal portrait gallery, where paintings of the Arentian rulers and their families had hung for generations. I wanted one look, just for a moment, to see if my memory had embellished itself or if she’d really been as beautiful as I recalled.

The gallery was dark, of course, since it was the middle of the night, but the moonlight shone through the huge windows and illuminated the paintings on the opposite wall. I’d entered on the far end, where the legendary founder of Arentia, King Hyde, began the progression. I quickly moved down to the most recent paintings.

And there she was. Dark hair cut shorter than was fashionable at the time, framing a face that was still a little too round to be striking. And yet she was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Never mind that she was a child when this was painted, barely two months before her death; I’d been a child, too. Both of us sixteen, full of the certainty of our own immortality. And the moonlight in the painted eyes seemed an especially cruel reflection of the trust I’d once seen in them, a trust I failed in the most horrendous possible way.

Hell, Janet, I wanted to say. I did the best I could. I’d do it all so much better now.

The painting was too high on the wall for me to touch. I stared at it for a long time, marveling at how accurately the artist had captured her smile, the cocky tilt to her head, the way she’d lean her weight onto her right hip as if readying for a scrap. We should’ve had a lifetime of scraps; but we never even had time for one.

I fell asleep fully dressed, and dreamed the worst dream ever, of Janet screaming for me to save her while the men who’d killed her laughed at me. I hadn’t had that dream in years, and hoped the wine would dull my head enough to avoid it now. I awoke in tears, but luckily no one was there to see it.