The Sword-Edged blonde

TWENTY-SIX

The sky grew lighter in the east by the time I left the Dwarf’s estate. As I crossed the yard toward the gate, the monkeys in the trees stirred and hooted at me. The noise was both loud and somehow arrogant. I bet the neighbors loved this guy.

I was numb in every imaginable way. I walked out in a true daze, not caring if anyone saw me. Since I was splattered with dirt and blood, and carried something that would have been impossible to explain, only dumb luck or divine guidance got me out of the house and down the street unseen. I even left the gate open, out of some perverse desire to show off my gory handiwork.

I shambled along the curb toward my horse. If anyone saw me, they must have assumed I was some drunken reveler returning home. Lola still waited patiently under the tree branch, although a ticket stuck over my saddle horn warned me against leaving my horse on the street in the future. She snorted and pawed nervously as I approached, overpowered by the smell of blood and violence around me.

“Shh, girl, I know, just take it easy,” I murmured. She quieted down but still watched me closely, especially the package I carried wrapped in part of a fancy tablecloth. If animals are as sensitive as some people say, this object must have well and truly terrified her.

I climbed onto her back and nudged her into the street. It was bright enough to see the city below us as we descended toward it, and the sails of ships in the harbor glowed pink with the dawn. I passed a milk wagon laboring its way toward the mansions; I hoped it wasn’t the day the milkman collected his bills.

In my room, I undressed and stuffed all my bloody clothes, even my boots, into the fireplace. There wasn’t much kindling available, since most travelers didn’t use fires in the summer, but the owner accepted my story that I needed to sweat out a case of the sniffles and scrounged up some extra wood for me.

The intense heat and perspiration helped me reconnect to the world outside my addled head. I lay naked on the floor in front of the hearth, shivering despite the fire, and let my mind go back over the night. It wasn’t pleasant, but I knew if I tried to deny it, or rewrite it as I had Janet’s death, it too would blindside me in the future. I was through lying to myself, about anything.

Eventually I fell asleep. At first my dreams mingled Janet’s awful death with what I had done at the Dwarf’s mansion, but suddenly all that fell away and I found myself, surprisingly, standing outside Epona Gray’s cottage. The sun was bright, and multicolored birds flitted through the air leaving trails of shimmering sparks. The little building was neat and intact.

The door opened, and Epona emerged. She was staggeringly beautiful, her dark hair loose and shiny and her skin radiant. She was barefoot and wore a flowing, low-cut gown. Her eyes twinkled with amusement. She crossed her arms and leaned against the lintel. “So you figured it out.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Neither of us lied.”

“I know.”

“And you believe it?”

An emotion I couldn’t identify swelled in me. My vision blurred with tears. “I believe it. I believe you. I believe in you.”

She laughed, but gently. “Please, Eddie, don’t get maudlin on me now. You still have a lot of work to do. But you fought down the darkest things within you, and you deserve a rest. So take this as a gift.”

Three of the shimmering birds flew down and hovered, like hummingbirds, before me. I held out my hand, and one of them tentatively came forward, nudged me with his tiny beak and then settled into my palm. At the instant of contact, I felt lighter, younger and happier than I could ever remember. All the weight of guilt, self-doubt and regret left me. I think I cried out.

But whatever happened, it woke me up. The position of the sun through the window told me it was well past noon. My muscles ached, and my joints popped as I uncurled from my fetal position. The fire had done its job and consumed all my incriminating belongings, and was now reduced to smoldering coals. I spread the ashes so they would extinguish on their own, and poured water in the basin so I could clean up.

I looked at myself in the mirror, pale and still shaky, and accepted that the person I saw there had indeed done the things I had done. The weight of a lifetime of deceit was gone, and I recalled Epona’s magical bird from the dream. Had it been a genuine vision, or just my own mind rationalizing me out of my despair? At this point, I could accept anything as real.

I washed up, put on some clean clothes and my extra pair of boots, packed the rest of my stuff and prepared to leave. I took special care with my souvenir from the Dwarf’s house; an awful lot depended on it reaching its destination. Just as I tossed the bag over my shoulder, someone knocked at my door. I knew it was Bernie before I opened it.

He wore a neat, pressed official uniform and was freshly shaved. His eyes were cold and professional. “Leaving town?” he said without even glancing at my bag.

“Good morning to you, too,” I said as I stepped aside to let him enter.

“It’s afternoon,” he snapped, and closed the door behind him. “You know where I’ve been for the last five hours? Up on Brillion Hill investigating the murders of Clarence Canino and Gretchen Paltrow. Some delivery man found ’em dead on a back porch, and the folks in that part of town like to feel safe. So they expect an arrest to happen quickly.” His eyes swept the room, taking in the fresh ashes. “Know anything about it?”

“Nah. Tanko gave me a bogus address. The number didn’t even exist.”

He held out his hand. “Let me see it.”

I looked him in the eye. “I threw it away.”

He walked to the window and opened it. “It’s hot as my fat wife’s armpit in here,” he muttered. The salty wind lifted the curtains and stirred the ash in the fire as it made a breeze up the chimney. Bernie knelt by the hearth. “Buttons in with the coals,” he said. “Somebody burning clothes?”

“Not much firewood this time of year.”

He looked up at me. “Did you kill ’em, Eddie?”

I shook my head. “I shot Canino, but the girl killed him. He gutted her before he died.”

“What about the Dwarf?’

I shrugged. “Apparently he doesn’t exist.”

“You mean anymore.”

I smiled. “Bernie, if I’d killed the guy, I’d tell you. You know that.”

“We found a whole house laid out for special access. We found clothes cut to fit a dwarf. We found an awful lot of blood in the wine cellar, and what looked for all the world like a fresh grave. But when we dug it up, no one was in it.”

“And you think I did all that?”

“Somebody did.”

I went to the window and looked out at the clean, twinkling ocean far below. “Bernie, I swear to you, I didn’t kill anybody. Not Canino, not the girl, not the Dwarf. I’m not saying I wouldn’t have, just that I didn’t. And that’ll have to do you. I’m still working for my client, so I can’t tell you any more than that.” I turned to face him. “I’m going to leave now, unless you plan to arrest me.”

He nodded at the window. “Lean out a little and look to the north.”

I did, and saw a dark plume of smoke rising into the sky. It came from one of the warehouses along the docks. “The Dragonfly?”

“Yep,” he nodded. “Already burning down. The fire crew is down there trying to save the other warehouses, the legitimate ones. No telling how many bodies we’ll find in there.”

I felt a brief pang for spike-necked Allison, but her fate was out of my hands. “Hm. Quite a coincidence.”

“And you had nothing to do with that, either?”

“Not a thing.”

Bernie ran his hand along the mantel above the fireplace. “I got no reason to doubt you, I suppose. And nothing to really hold you on. In a few months, I may decide you’ve done me, the city and the common good a big favor.” His eyes snapped up to meet mine. “But for right now, I’d just as soon you left town. Quietly. And don’t come back for a visit before winter. By then, I should be your pal again.”

I nodded. I didn’t offer my hand, and neither did he. I left without another word.

I returned quietly and quickly to Arentia. I took a room above a pub in one of the far-flung suburbs of Arentia City. I wasn’t yet ready to approach Phil; at least one major task remained to be accomplished. But I needed reliable, discrete assistance.

I didn’t know how to reach Sir Michael Anders directly without giving myself away to the rest of Arentia’s officialdom. But he’d been quite free with the details about his young lady friend Rachel, and I recalled her highborn family from my own youth. I sent a messenger boy to her requesting she forward my confidential request to Anders. It took several days, but eventually he showed up at the pub, dressed like any other tradesman on a day off.

He sat down next to me at the bar without a glance, and when the bartender moved out of earshot said softly, “You look awful.”

“That’s because I work for a living,” I murmured back. “We need to talk; meet me out in the barn in ten minutes.” His nod of assent was so slight I barely caught it.

I paid for my drink and went behind the building to the stable, where Lola stood patiently in her stall. I picked up a brush and stroked her neck and mane while I waited for Anders. He arrived casually, although I knew he’d verified that no one followed him. If I hadn’t been alone, he would have feigned confusion and asked for directions back to the main road.

He leaned against the door of the stall. “Hey, that’s the same horse you stole in Pema.”

“Yeah.”

“I thought you would’ve made horse stew of her by now.”

“She’s not so bad. Better than some people I know. Excluding present company.”

“Thanks. So what’s so urgent you had to worry my girlfriend to reach me?”

I stopped brushing Lola and looked at him seriously. “I need a huge, possibly career-ending favor from you.”

He didn’t blink. “Like what?”

“I need to get in and see Rhiannon alone.”

He chewed his lip for a moment before saying, “I guess you know about her sentence.”

“Just what I’ve heard second-hand.”

“The king imprisoned her for life at the main city gate. Her cell is built into the actual wall itself. During the day she has to come out into a cage, sit on a stool and basically take any shit anyone wants to throw at her, symbolic or literal. At night, she’s locked into her chamber. The guards are forbidden to let anyone else near her; even they can’t speak to her except to give instructions. I know them; they won’t bribe, and I’d hate to take them on in a fight.”

“Can we trick them?”

He shook his head. “If it were any other prisoner, maybe. Not this one. She’s all they have to worry about.”

“I have to see her alone, Mike. I can’t tell you any more than that right now, but it’s the only way to get Phil back his son.”

It took a moment for this to register. He only reacted with his eyes. “The prince is alive?” he whispered.

I nodded.

“And you know where he is?”

I nodded again.

“Then why aren’t we going to get him?”

“Because he’s safe where he is. If we bring him back here, I have to be sure there won’t be another try on his life. And to be sure, I need to be alone with the queen.”

Anders nodded. He climbed onto the stall gate and idly swung back and forth, like a thoughtful adolescent. Finally he said, “I outrank them. I can order them to leave their post. It won’t stay secret for long, though.”

“I don’t need long. Twenty minutes will be enough.”

He stepped back to the ground. “You’re right, I’d be risking my career to trust you. If you let me down, my new job will be kicking your ass.”

I grinned. After the sleazy folk I’d met in Cape Querna, working with Anders was like rain on a hot afternoon. “Fair enough.”

We scheduled our jailhouse visit for the following evening. The next day I entered Arentia City on foot with the rest of the proletariat during the morning rush. I wanted to see Rhiannon’s public punishment for myself.

The walls around Arentia City dated from a time when their strength meant the very survival of the culture. Fifteen feet thick and thirty feet high, they now served mainly as traffic control, funneling pedestrians and wagons onto the four main thoroughfares. Every few years a city commissioner or busybody noble would suggest either tearing down the old wall or knocking extra gates in it, but nothing ever happened. For one thing, it would mean redesigning all the money, which prominently featured Arentia City’s walled skyline.

The wall, though, wasn’t a solid barrier. It housed a network of passageways and rooms designed to shelter soldiers under battle conditions. One of these rooms had been remodeled and secured to function as Queen Rhiannon’s permanent prison cell. It contained a cot, a small table and the basics of toiletry, but nothing else was allowed. She could have no comforts or personal belongings at all. Food was delivered through a slot, and dishes passed out the same way. She was issued one candle a month.

Her cell opened straight out of the wall on the city side. A metal cage bolted to the stone enclosed the doorway and the space in front of it, where a crude stool became her new throne. The exposed sides allowed the citizens an unobstructed view of their fallen queen when, every day, she emerged at dawn to take her place in the cage and endure her public punishment.

In the time I’d been gone, a cottage industry had sprung up around the queen and her crime. Two books had been rushed through scribing, and there was talk of a major theatrical production. A singer named Stephanie something was packing them in with her song about Rhiannon. An enterprising artist had produced a line-drawing parody of the queen’s official portrait, modified to show a tiny foot hanging from her mouth. He sold this image on flags, tunics and ale mugs.

Folks working the early shift had made the queen’s morning humiliation part of their breakfast routine. A hundred people had already gathered around the cage by the time I reached it. Some sipped tea and nibbled on toast, others exchanged gossip or greeted old friends. It felt more like a temple social than a public shaming.

Then a hush spread through the crowd. The metal door inside the cage opened, and Rhiannon emerged from her cell. She was now gaunt and pale, with dark circles under her eyes and hair frayed and ragged with neglect. She wore a dress made entirely of old muslin rags haphazardly sewn together. Her bare feet and legs were dirty. She shuffled to the stool without looking up at the crowd.

I stayed far enough back that I doubted she’d either spot me, or recognize me if she did. I saw an awful lot of sympathy on the faces of the folks watching, who’d witnessed the gradual breakdown of the once-proud beauty. As far as they knew, she’d committed one of the worst crimes imaginable, but that had happened out of sight, in the great castle that looked down on them. Her slow decay in the cage was front and center every morning, and I doubted anyone could see it day after day and not feel something.

Rhiannon settled onto the stool. The frayed dress revealed generous amounts of skin, but there was nothing erotic about it. She was too drained and insubstantial. Finally she looked around at the faces, some of which must have grown familiar. Her eyes shone with either fever or tears. She lowered her head and her posture collapsed as she prepared for the day’s abuse.

No one spoke at first. Some folks muttered “bitch” and “murderer,” but not loudly enough to be identified. A few walked away in disgust. Had the novelty of tormenting the queen worn off so quickly?

Then four teenagers, two well-dressed rich boys and their adoring, giggly girlfriends, wormed their way to the front of the crowd and pressed their faces against the bars. They hooted and laughed at the despondent queen. Rhiannon glanced at them for a moment, then cast her eyes back down.

“Hey, do you know how a baby is like a grape?” one of the boys loudly asked.

“They both give a little whiiiiine when you stomp them!” the other boy cackled.

The girls laughed as well. A few onlookers tittered or glared at the kids, but most of them simply looked elsewhere. No one spoke up for the queen.

“Hey, you know what’s pink and spits?” one of the girls asked. “A baby in a frying pan!”

Again they laughed. And still no one chastised them or defended Rhiannon. She sat, head down, hands limp in her lap. My own temper raged at these amoral punks, but I reminded myself that, for them, Rhiannon was guilty of a truly ghastly crime. This was part of her legal punishment. Still, the cruel enjoyment they got from it turned my stomach, and I saw from other faces in the crowd that they felt the same way. But no one stepped forward to do anything. Including me.

“Come on, this is booooring,” one of the girls said, and pulled at her boyfriend’s arm.

“No, wait, I got one more,” he said. “Why do you stick a baby in a boiling cauldron feet first? So you can see the look on its face!”

Satisfied that they’d asserted their moral superiority, they pushed their way through the crowd to the main road and disappeared in the traffic. A ripple of relief passed through the spectators. “Goddam spoiled brats,” one man muttered. “Assholes,” snarled another.

Rhiannon hadn’t moved. She remained hunched over, small and weak and broken, a shadow of the glamorous prisoner I’d seen only weeks earlier. Her filthy hair hung stringy and loose, where previously it had shimmered like gold.

Murmuring conversation resumed around her, and the watchers drifted away to their respective jobs. Finally there were too few people for me to hide very well, and I turned to depart. Although we’d only met once, I couldn’t count on her not recognizing me. I couldn’t count on anything about her.

Movement caught my eye. A tiny bird dropped from its perch on the bars across the top of the cage and hovered for just a moment beside Rhiannon’s slumped form. I couldn’t see if it touched her or not. Then it skittered away back into the sky.

Rhiannon took a deep breath, and suddenly sat upright. She tossed her unkempt, dirty hair from her face and looked out at the watchers. It was as if somehow the bird had given her a shot of energy, or as the one in my dream had done, taken away a big chunk of her anguish.

I recalled the birds on her windowsill in the prison tower the day I met her. Had they been the same kind? The same birds that lurked around Epona Gray’s cottage?

I discreetly hung around the area for the rest of the morning and watched the other watchers. Most people simply ignored Rhiannon, and she paid them no mind. She occasionally looked around or changed position, but most of the time she just sat, head down, immobile.

The resemblance to Epona Gray had been strong before, but now it was uncanny. Rhiannon had lost so much weight that her once-show-stopping curves had straightened into angular lines, and the occasional ragged cough spoke of potential illness. Like Epona, she was dying. Unlike Epona, I might be in time to help.

When a summer storm hit shortly after lunch she sought no shelter, but remained on her stool as the rain beat down. I gathered it was the closest thing to a bath she got. As I watched from beneath a shop awning, she cupped her hands and drank the collected water. She raised her face to the sky, eyes closed, and let the rain pummel her. In the gray light she looked blood-drained and colorless.

My thoughts turned to Phil, ensconced in his luxurious castle. I didn’t have to see him to know his condition. He was in agony as well, knowing his wife and child were suffering and unable to do anything to help them, except trust me. Trust the guy who’d caused his sister’s death.

I had a theory that explained how the woman in the cage could be both Epona Gray and Rhiannon. If I was right, I was a goddamned genius. If not, then it was a cold, heartless universe and I didn’t want to live in it anymore.

Thunder boomed overhead. Rhiannon flinched.

I would know soon.