“Good,” she said, and then put her hand gently on my shoulder. “I had to ask that, you understand? Adran will ask and she will want it to be you because it will be easier for her. Do not worry. I will not let her force the blame on to you. When she questions you say little and let me answer.”
I nodded. My throat was too dry with fear to speak. I had seen how swiftly traitors were dealt with here, and this was a timely reminder of the danger we lived in, danger I had almost managed to forget.
Adran’s rooms were on the top floor of the keep. A suite of three: a reception room, a dressing room and a bedroom hidden behind them. She waited in the reception room, one of the most beautiful rooms I had ever seen, full of heavy pre-imbalance furniture and hung with thick tapestries to absorb the constant draughts of the castle. Adran paced backwards and forwards, barely looking up as we entered. Behind her stood Aydor, Neander the priest in his bright orange garb and white mask, Daana ap Dhyrrin in his finery of gold and squawking lizards and Nywulf the squiremaster.
A chill ran through me. My master would not be able to protect me now. In front of Adran she could be Merela Karn, assassin, but in front of these witnesses she could only be a jester, and jesters were forbidden to speak in company. Adran intended me to take the blame and did not want my master getting in the way. The queen slowed her pacing and came to a stop before me, straightening her back so she could look down on me.
“Did you do it, boy?” she said gently. “No one would blame you. Tempers among the young can become frayed and Kyril could be impetuous. We know you and he have had run-ins, that you did not get on.”
“Has something happened to Kyril?” I said. Her hand flashed out and slapped me across the face, leaving stinging heat on my cheek.
“Don’t use that glib tongue on me, child.” Her face was inches from mine. “Kyril is dead, and you know it because you killed him. Maybe a bit of rough and tumble was too much for you, or maybe you thought he was sniffing around that doe-eyed stablegirl you keep chasing after.” She stepped back. “I don’t really care why you did it. But you did kill him. Admit it to me now in front of these witnesses and it will go far easier for you than if I need to have the truth pulled from your bones.” I could barely speak and, absurdly, my embarrassment at hearing Drusl named was greater than my fear. “Are you shocked that I know about your little infatuation, boy?” she said. “You shouldn’t be. I know everything that happens in this castle because it is my castle.” She lowered her voice. “That is how I know you killed Kyril.”
“I did not kill Kyril, Queen Adran.”
“Who did then?” She screamed the words into my face. “Who else would want him dead?”
“I don’t know. But I did not kill Kyril, Queen Adran.”
“If the young blessed says he did not do this thing, my queen,” said my master, “then he did not.”
“Be quiet, jester,” hissed Adran. “You have no right to speak here.”
“My queen,” said Daana ap Dhyrrin. “Death’s Jester may speak out of turn, but she is right. Girton may not have liked Kyril but he does not possess the martial skills to best him.”
Adran had not been as clever as she thought in inviting witnesses here. She may have stopped my master from speaking in my defence but it also meant she could not reveal that I was quite capable of killing Kyril without leaving a mark on him. If she did she would expose who I was, and that she had lied to her court and put an assassin among the squires. No blessed would support her if they thought she was considering the murder of their children—which is how it would appear. These men gathered in the room saw me only as a clumsy boy. The idea I was a killer must seem ludicrous to them.
“What about Rufra then, Nywulf,” said Adran. “Rufra is skilled and he is friends with Girton. Where was Rufra this night? Out in the darkness acting from a misplaced sense of honour?” I saw alarm cross Nywulf’s face, but it was only there for the briefest second before it was gone, replaced by a mask as blank as that of the priest standing next to him.
“Rufra was with me, Queen Adran,” he said slowly and deliberately. “He was revising tactics until late and then he was locked in with the rest of the squires as you have ordered.”
“And yet Kyril wasn’t?”
“Kyril has special dispensation from your son to leave the barracks when he wishes.”
Adran’s fists were bunched in frustration.
“So what then, he just dropped dead?”
“People do,” said Nywulf. “Even the heart of the strongest may burst without warning.”
“Not the sons of the powerful!” she shouted. “Not in my castle and not under my care!” She walked over so she was close to me. “Maybe I should send you to Kyril’s family anyway.” I moved so the queen’s shoulder blocked my mouth from the sight of the others, though I could still see them.
“I am an assassin, Queen Adran,” I said in the Whisper-that-Flies-to-the-Ear. “I would kill your guards and escape. I would make you look weak.” She stared into my face and for a moment I thought she was going to hit me again. Behind her I could see Neander, his expressionless mask fixed on me.
“Daana, Nywulf, you may go,” she said. Her intent stare did not waver from me, and it felt like she was reading my spirit. “Send Heamus to me.”
“Yes, my queen,” said Nywulf. Daana ap Dhyrrin said nothing as he left, but his lizards squawked noisily as if amused by the drama around them.
Once they had left Queen Adran turned to Neander.
“Your opinion, Neander?”
The priest pushed up his white mask and wiped his face with his sleeve. “I doubt this boy did it.” He nodded at me, and it was as if I ceased to exist for Adran. “Daana is right: from what I’ve heard he can barely hold a sword.” There was something in his tone that was wrong, as if he knew this was a lie, and I wondered if Queen Adran confided in the priest. “Kyril’s family will not be pleased by their son’s death but they have other sons, and maybe if their boy died a hero that would ease their grief a little? It may even tie them to you, depending on the circumstances.”
Adran brought her thumb to her mouth and chewed on the nail as she paced backwards and forwards again, her gown swishing and sparkling in the candlelight. She stopped and turned to her son.
“Aydor.”
“Yes, Mother?”
“Where is the slave who found Kyril’s body?
“Heamus put it in the dungeon, Mother. He did not think you would want others to know about Kyril’s death.” She nodded, and the door creaked as Heamus came in and bowed low.
“Heamus,” said Adran before he could speak, “talk to the captain of my nightguard and tell him to find three guards whose loyalty he doubts. Find well muscled ones if possible. I want them removed from the barracks, quietly mind. Then bind them, gag them and put them in a cart.”