The Sword-Edged blonde

NINE

Getting discreetly into the prison tower took some finesse. I had to dress as a guard and go through the motions with the shift change; hopefully no one watching noticed the second shift had six men instead of the usual five. Once inside and divested of my helmet and armor, I was led up the stairs and frisked very thoroughly by the matron entrusted with the imprisoned queen’s care. Since she outweighed me by a good thirty pounds, I didn’t complain.

Then she snapped out the rules. “Sit in the chair by the door and keep its back against the wall. Don’t pass anything to the prisoner or accept anything from her. If she reaches through the bars for any reason, pull the cord by the chair. It drops an iron barrier between you and her. If you violate any of these rules, you’ll be arrested.” Despite my friendship with Phil, I had no doubt she meant it.

Finally, weapon-bare and winded from the climb, I was let into the cell that took up the entire top of the tower. The visitor’s area was a narrow section blocked off by bars. On the other side of them, staring out the window, stood Queen Rhiannon of Arentia.

She wore a prison tunic that was too big for her and didn’t do a damn thing to make her unattractive. Her golden hair was tied back in a ponytail, and of course she wore no make-up. Three small, shimmery birds sat on the sill as if they expected her to feed them.

She had her back to me when I entered, then turned and gazed at me with calm eyes so blue it was like looking directly into the sea. And it was a look I knew.

I just stared. If she’d had two heads and bat wings, I don’t think I could’ve been more surprised. The door slammed shut behind me, and the noise snapped me out of my moment of shock. The shiny birds, startled, flew away. “ Eppie,” I said, my voice flat with shock.

She frowned. “Eppie,” she repeated, as if it were some strange greeting. “Do I know you, sir?”

“Epona Gray,” I said in the same blank, astounded tone.

Her eyes looked around the room, as if to make sure I was speaking to her. “Is that a color? Are you here to paint?”

I dropped heavily into the chair. All my careful theories and concepts vanished. “No,” I said.

After a long moment she pushed self-consciously at the tunic’s hem and said, “You’re staring at me, sir.”

“Yes, I am,” I agreed.

“It’s rather rude, don’t you think?”

I continued to stare for a long minute before I finally asked the only question I could. “Don’t you recognize me? I’m Eddie LaCrosse.”

She nodded. “Philip’s friend from childhood. The one who was there when his sister was killed.”

“No!” I exclaimed. “Cathy Dumont’s friend! Thirteen years ago, remember?” I spoke more quietly, although I still felt like I was shouting. “You and I got to know each other very well, remember?”

She looked me over, then said, “I’m sorry, sir, I have no memory of you. Perhaps without the beard-”

“ I had the beard then! ” I shouted for real, and she backed away from the bars.

“Please, sir, you’re scaring me,” she said, and wrapped her arms around herself. “I swear I don’t know you. Could you possibly be mistaken?”

Even the voice was the same, with that slight trill of amusement under everything. “Maybe so, if you don’t have a horseshoe-shaped scar on the inside of your left thigh, and don’t enjoy having the back of your neck licked.”

She blinked, startled. Now she was politely outraged at my insolence. “Sir, I assure you, I have no memory of you.”

“But I’m right, aren’t I?”

She turned away from the bars, and a red shine crept up her face. Only the best actresses, or con artists, could manage a blush on cue. “About the scar, yes. About the other… I don’t feel it would be polite to say.”

My heart began to return to its normal rhythm, although I was sure it had burned a good six months off me in those brief moments. “So the name Stan Carnahan doesn’t ring a bell? Or Andrew Reese?”

She shook her head and looked down. “Didn’t my husband tell you? I’m an amnesiac, Mr. LaCrosse. My life began six years ago. I recall nothing before that.”

The woman I’d known as Epona Gray sported straight, dark hair, and as they say, I was mighty damn sure it was her natural color. This Queen Rhiannon had cascading, wavy hair the color of sunbeams. Moreover, if this was Epona Gray, she didn’t look a day older than when I last saw her. Could this be a relative? A daughter, perhaps?

But no, the resemblance was too close, too identical. Every instinct told me this was the same woman. “So you never went by the name Epona Gray?”

“I can’t say for certain.” She met my gaze with those big, innocent eyes that could probably convince the devil he needed an extra blanket. “I suppose it’s possible. The name Rhiannon just came to me shortly after I awoke. I assumed it was my own, but I could be wrong. No one’s suggested another one until now.”

I took a moment to regain my composure, and began again. “All right. We’ll assume for the moment that I’m mistaken, although the resemblance is astounding. I’m here to help Phil, who wants to know the truth about what happened the night your son died.”

The confusion and queenly reserve were instantly-almost as if on a well-rehearsed cue-replaced by a touching vulnerability. “You have to believe me, Mr. LaCrosse, I’m innocent. I didn’t kill my son.”

I was on firmer ground now, questioning a suspect. “Then who did?”

“That’s just it, he’s not dead,” she said urgently, and stepped toward the bars. She caught herself just before touching them, apparently remembering the rules. “I’d know if he was. I’m his mother, I’d be able to feel it. But no one believes me. They’re too busy convicting me to make any effort to find him.”

“ I believe you,” I said.

“Do you?” she almost cried.

I nodded, my practiced cool bouncing off her histrionics. “The body in that coffin was not your son. It wasn’t even human, probably a monkey or something. But that doesn’t get me much closer to knowing who’s behind this, or what to do about it.”

Relief, fear, desperation and finally cagey intelligence played over her exquisite face. I’d seen that same sly look on Eppie Gray, too, and it took all my concentration to stay on topic. The breeze through the window blew a strand of golden hair in her eyes, and she absently tucked it behind her ear. “Then what may I do to help you, sir?” she asked.

“Here’s what I think happened. Somebody hates either you or Phil an awful lot to go to this much trouble. And since this couldn’t have been a spur-of-the-moment thing, it was probably someone who’s had a grudge simmering for a long time. Maybe even further back than six years.”

Her eyes met mine, and there was no denying their candor. “Let me tell you my version of how I met Philip, Mr. LaCrosse. I awoke in the woods, lying in the sun in a patch of clover, naked and with no memory of anything except my name. Philip was hunting, and he’d broken away from his guard, and found me.” She held my gaze. “And that is truthfully my earliest memory, as ludicrous as it may sound.”

“Phil always knew how to meet the girls. So were you injured?”

“No. I seemed to be fine. I always seem to be fine. I’ve never even been sick a day since. I was only in labor for an hour with Pridiri. I can’t explain it.”

Epona’s voice rang in my memory. Ripping myself open reminds me there is life. “Maybe you’re just living right. So have you pissed anyone off in the last six years?”

“No one of whom I’m aware. We lead a very sedate life, for royalty. And I don’t really participate in the government, I’m more of a public relations person.” She smiled, but her eyes remained sad. “There are schools named after me, did you know that? They’ll probably change that now, though.”

If this was genuine, her real personality showing through, then I was baffled. It was like she had none of the skills everyone else in the world had developed to mask her emotions; whatever she felt came through as pure and clear as sunlight after a summer rain. I felt bad questioning her, like you might feel kicking a puppy. And that annoyed me. If she was Epona Gray, she was reeling me in like a suicidal bass.

“Then let’s try something different. On the night of the, ah, incident in question, why did it take you thirty minutes to get from the dining room to the nursery?”

She blinked in surprise. “It did?”

“People know when you left, other people know when you arrived. I could crawl that distance in half an hour, so why did it take you that long to walk it?”

“I don’t know.” She seemed genuinely surprised by this information.

“Nothing unusual happened? No one accosted you or spoke to you or anything?”

“No. In my memory, I went straight to the nursery. You’re right, though, it couldn’t possibly take that long.”

She overdid the sincerity just a hair, but it was enough for me to catch it. She knew something she wasn’t telling me. I decided to change tactics.

“Look,” I said, resting my arms on my knees, “I don’t know what the hell to do here. I want to help Phil, but I’ve got jack to go on. Nobody hates him, nobody hates you, so why the hell would someone go to this much trouble? And if they did get into the nursery undetected, why fake a murder? Why not just go ahead and kill the little bozo? No offense.”

I watched her closely, but the only thing she let show was confusion. With all apparent honesty, she answered, “Mr. LaCrosse, I don’t know.”

I sat back. So much for polite tactics. “You’re lying to me.”

“You think I’m this Epona person,” she said.

“I don’t know. I do think something scares you so bad that you’d actually prefer people to think you’d killed and eaten your son.”

“That would be insane,” she said to the floor.

“If you’ll be honest with me, I promise I won’t tell anyone else. Not even Phil. And if he’s told you anything about me at all, you’ll know that’s true. I keep my word.”

She looked down at her bare feet for a long moment, one elegant toe tracing idle circles on the stone floor. Finally she asked, “Are you helping Philip because of what happened to his sister?”

Epona knew about it, and it also made sense Phil would tell his wife. However she found out, though, it was still a low blow. “I want to help because he’s my friend,” I said through my teeth.

I stood. I really wanted out of that room, and a big drink, in that order. When I reached for the door, she cried, “That’s all? You’re leaving?”

I almost laughed. “You either can’t or won’t tell me what I need to know, Your Majesty, so this is pointless. I’ll have to do this without you.”

“You’re going to find my son?” Now she sounded hopeful.

“I’m going to find out the truth. Because like I said, Phil’s my friend. If I find your son in the process, great. If I find out why you’re lying to me, I’ll be sure to let Phil know so that he can decide if it’s for a good reason.”

Of all things, that finally broke her facade. “No!” she almost screamed. “You can’t tell him-” Then she caught herself.

But I was already across the room, clutching the bars and inches from her face. “Tell him what? ” I hissed. “I know you’re Epona Gray, or at least you used to be. You know me. Who did all this? And why? ”

Tears rolled down her face, and she wrapped her arms around her upper body. “What I know, just as I know the sun will rise tomorrow and that a dropped apple will hit the ground, is that I’ll die if Philip doesn’t love me.”

“Do you love him? ”

“Oh, God, yes,” she sobbed. “With all my heart. Like I could love no other man.”

Enough time had passed that this statement inspired no jealousy. Well, okay, only a bit. “Then who hates you? ”

She didn’t answer, just repeatedly shook her head. She began to cry in earnest, and sank to the edge of the hard bunk, still hugging herself. I smacked the bars in frustration.

“When I find out the truth,” I almost snarled at her, “it better be damn well worth all this shit. Eppie.” Then I turned and knocked to be let out of the room.