“Yes. Her leg was troubling her.” The old nurse had said so in the carriage, afterward.
Lena placed both hands on the windowsill and leaned out. “She’s grown frail since I last saw her. I’m glad she wasn’t on the bridge. I’m not sure she would have recovered as well.” She leaned out even farther and Cas, afraid she would tumble out in the wind, reached for her cloak and tugged her back in.
He turned. Father and daughter fell silent, looking at him expectantly. “You gave the servants the day off,” Cas said.
“Yes.” Master Dimas’ chest puffed out, magnanimous. “I thought they would enjoy the celebrations. They are hard workers.”
“Papa is very kind,” Hellin added.
“Very,” Cas echoed. “If there were no servants about, how would someone enter the back courtyard?”
Hellin said, “They could use the servants’ gate. It leads around the side of the building. We use it for deliveries and such. Or one could come through the gate in the back wall. It leads directly to the lake and the alleyways.”
“The servants’ gate and the back gate,” Cas repeated. “Were those locks also broken?”
Silence. Once again, father and daughter looked at each other.
“They were not,” Master Dimas said at last. The boom had gone from his voice. Caution had taken its place.
“Strange,” Cas said. “How would someone access the attic door if they could not even get into the courtyard?”
Lena offered, “He could have climbed over the back wall?”
“Yes!” Master Dimas seized on that explanation. “That is true. He climbed the back wall.”
“When?” Cas asked. “A royal naming ceremony is rare, even in the capital. We’ve never had one in Palmerin. There would have been people gathering by the lake a day, two days, before then to claim their spot. There would have been crowds right outside your wall. Someone climbing the wall would have been seen.”
More silence.
“We really could not say, Lord Cassia,” Hellin said quietly.
Why had Cas come here today? Lena had wondered. He had come because Ventillas had spoken to Master Dimas, had taken him at his word. And therein lay the problem. “Master Dimas, do you know a toll keeper named Izaro?”
Neither the rice merchant nor his daughter could mask their shock. The question had come from nowhere. Cas had meant it to.
A man came by. He took the toll. He took my chickens.
Were you . . . ?
Dead? Not yet. He came in long enough to hunt down the coin. Didn’t say a word to me. Wouldn’t give me water when I asked. Took my axe, too. Heard him tell his girl to gather up the birds.
Who was it?
That fat rice merchant. With the curly hair. Dimas.
“You do know him.” Cas leaned against the window ledge. For Lena’s benefit he said, “Months ago, you both visited the home of Lord Ruben’s toll keeper, who was ill from plague. You took the chickens from his yard. The same ones, I think, that are now in your courtyard. You took the coin he kept beneath his floorboards. You stole from a dying man, Master Dimas, and then you left his body for the dogs.”
“How could you possibly—?” Hellin began before her father’s look stopped her.
Lena stood very still, listening.
Master Dimas’ face had turned an alarming red. “I’m afraid, Lord Cassia, that I am very insulted. Very insulted! Your brother will hear of this—”
“If that is your wish,” Cas said mildly.
That stopped Master Dimas. Suspicious, he said, “What do you mean?”
“I’m not here about Izaro,” Cas said. “There’s something about this archer that you’re not telling us. I want to know what it is.”
Hellin wrapped her arms around herself. Master Dimas came farther into the attic. The open window had let in the cold as well as the wind. It did nothing to stop the sweat beading his forehead. “I did not know what she intended. I swear it.”
“She?” Lena turned shocked eyes on Cas.
Cas had not been certain. But he had wondered. It could have been a woman that day, standing by this window.
Master Dimas took off his velvet cap and used it to mop his face. “A woman stopped me on the street three days ago. She was a visitor from Elvira, she said, who wished to see the procession. But she did not like to stand by the lake with the rabble. Might she have use of my attic chamber? She could see it would have an excellent view. It would only be for a few hours and she would pay handsomely. I said yes.”
Cas said, “You left a stranger alone in your home?”
“Not the whole house!” Master Dimas snapped. “Just the attic. I left the servants’ gate unlocked. And the attic door. There was nothing for her to steal except the chickens . . .” Color flooded his face as he heard his own words. Sullenly, he finished, “She did not look like an assassin.”
Lena said, “What did she look like?”
“Rich” was his blunt response. “She was a widow. Or at least she looked like one. She wore black. Her dress. Her veil.”
Cas and Lena shared a grimace. A veil. Frustrated, Cas said, “You did not see her face.”
“No.”
Cas turned to Hellin. “Did you speak with her?”
“I did not,” Hellin said to the floor. “This will ruin us, Lord Cassia. If people learn we took payment from a prince killer—”
“The prince is alive, no thanks to you,” Lena said with little sympathy. She turned to Master Dimas. “You didn’t see her face, but you heard her. Did she sound young? Old?”
“Young. Like you.”
“And she was from Elvira?” Lena pressed.
“She said so.”
“What does that mean, sir? You didn’t believe her?”
Master Dimas hesitated. “Her Oliveran was perfect. Without the patois. It was . . .”
“Too perfect?” Lena guessed. “A second language, perhaps?”
A shrug. “Maybe, Lady Analena. I don’t know.”
They did not know what the archer looked like. They did not know where she came from. Cas said, “What name did she give you?”
“Madame Faustina. What?” Master Dimas took in Cas’ expression, then turned to Lena, who looked as stunned as Cas felt. “Who is Faustina?”
No one answered. Cas’ mind raced. Faustina. The little prince’s trusted nurse. The archer might not have known that the nurses had been switched at the last moment. Had her aim been true after all? But why would anyone want to kill an old woman?
“Here, take this.” Master Dimas fumbled with the purse at his belt. He came forward, holding up a coin. “She left it on the window ledge.”
Cas took the coin, Lena leaning in for a closer look. On one side was the royal emblem, the bull and the pomegranate flower. The other side depicted the Oliveran god Zacarias. An ancient god, worshiped long ago when Oliveras was still a pagan kingdom. He was pictured with two heads attached at the back of the skull, one facing forward to the future, the other looking back to the past. Zacarias, Cas remembered, was the god of doorways and transitions, of new beginnings. He said to Lena, “Do you recognize it?” Because he did not.
She shook her head. “It’s not from the mint. I’ve never seen it before.”