“You need them alive, my queen?” The old Landsman sounded tired, beaten.
“It doesn’t matter as long as no one knows we have taken them. Tell him to take the slave that found the body and the corpse of the boy and put them in the cart also. A covered cart, mind. Then he should drive the cart out to Barnew’s Wood. Early this morning I want you to put on Kyril’s armour—you are a similar size—and ride out to the wood with Aydor. I want everyone to see you leave, but you will keep the visor of your helmet down. Neander will make sure Daana ap Dhyrrin and Nywulf know not to mention Kyril’s death to anyone.”
“Very well, my queen,” he said and left the room followed by the orange-clad priest.
“We’re not going to hurt Girton?” said Aydor. Plainly, he was disappointed in my continued existence.
“No, Aydor, we are not going to hurt Girton any more today,” said his mother. “Neander was right. Kyril’s family may feel some obligation to us if their son dies a hero in our cause. You and Heamus, posing as Kyril, will ride out to Barnew’s Wood. When you get there, if the slave and those guards still live, cut them down. I If they are already dead slash the bodies with your blades, but it must look like they died in a fight. Then you will put Kyril’s body back in his armour and drive a sword through him.” She stared out of the crystal window. “Do it more than once. A few survivable wounds and a lethal one. It should seem to any that see him that he went down fighting hard. Then, Aydor, you will bring his body back over his mount—scar the animal too. Heamus will come back with the cart and my captain. I will send a messenger later to Kyril’s family and tell them he gave his life to protect his beloved heir from bandits.”
“Very well, Mother.” He bowed and I could see a smile on his face. The idea of cutting down a few defenceless men appealed to him.
“My son, come here.” Queen Adran put out her arms as if to hold her son. He let her hold him, briefly. Then she leaned back and touched his face with her hand. “My beautiful boy,” she said gently, “I am afraid it cannot look like you simply walked away from this.”
“What do you mean—” he began and his mother’s other hand flashed up, slashing him across the face with a dagger. “Dead gods, you mad bitch!” he shouted as his hand came up to the wound. Blood ran freely down his face.
“A scar will look good on you,” hissed his mother, “and when, one day, you meet Kyril’s family and take their oath of loyalty you can truthfully say you got that scar when their boy died.”
“It hurts,” he said.
“Be a man, not a child, Aydor. If you think becoming high king will be pain free you are a fool. This is only the start. Now leave us. You have work to do.”
He slammed the door as he left and Queen Adran stared at the wood as if the whorls of the grain would spell out her next move. “Merela,” she said eventually, “come and look at Kyril’s body with me before they take it. I dislike a mystery and you know more of death than most. You can bring your boy if you must.”
We followed Queen Adran through the veins of the castle—like most old keeps it was riddled with secret passages so the powerful could go unseen. Kyril’s body was on the dungeon level in a clean room where statues of age-of-balance kings had been carved into the wall. Most had lost their stone hands, feet and noses, and rather than looking like kings now looked like criminals, mockingly crowned and fresh from punishment. A granite block made a table in the centre and was covered by the yellow and purple Mennix flag; Underneath the flag the contours of a body rose and fell; the yellow parts reminding me of the sourlands, the purple of night. Adran pulled the flag away and I watched in silence as the slight material of the flag drifted slowly to the floor to reveal Kyril. He looked smaller in death.
“Kyril,” I said.
The queen turned her stare on me. “Did I ask you to speak?”
“No.” I stared at the floor like a slave.
“No, Queen Adran,” she reminded me.
“No, Queen Adran.”
“Good. This is poor Kyril, Merela. Once a friend to Aydor and now a problem to me.” She stepped over to the table, placing her hands on the stone at either side of the boy’s head and staring down into his face. “He was an unpleasant character and given to leering at anything with a bust, but he would have been useful.” She turned her gaze from the body to my master. “I have not asked as it was not convenient before: did you do this, Merela?”
“What do you think?” My master brought her hands up, palms outwards, fingers spread in the gesture used to show surprise when storytelling. The movement involved enough of a pause to make her next words obviously disrespectful. “Queen Adran.”
Adran stayed where she was and stared at my master. “You look ridiculous in that costume.”
“To some. But others find it distressing, and it pleases Xus the god of death, which is fitting, considering the moment.”
“I am sure, Merela, you no more believe fairy tales about gods than I do.” She touched Kyril’s still face. “Is Nywulf right—did this boy’s heart really burst? Death is your domain.”
“Is it really?”
“Don’t!” Adran slapped her hand on the stone slab, the noise echoed around the mortuary room. “I am not in the mood for silly jester games, Merela. Tell me how this boy died.”
My master stepped closer to the corpse. In my mind’s eye I had built Kyril up into something monstrous and huge, but dead he was just a boy and a boy who looked younger than his sixteen years.
“Girton,” said my master, “take your knife and strip him.”
“No.” The queen held up a hand. “Undress him if you must but don’t cut his clothes off. His family may want them returned and I want the only cuts in them to be from the sword that kills him.”
“Very well.” My master smiled at Adran’s choice of words as she started to unbutton the boy’s jacket. “Girton, some help, please.”
Though I have been the cause of many corpses I have been close to remarkably few of them for long and I was surprised by how heavy and cold Kyril was. His unwieldiness made getting his clothes off a struggle, when we finally had him undressed my master called for more light. I held a torch while she looked over the body. First she manipulated the neck to check for breaks and then she used the span of her hand as a measure to methodically check every part of the pale, almost blue, skin of his body for puncture wounds. The flickering torch made the shadow of her hand jump, spider-like, across the corpse. She found nothing on his front but a bruise over his heart, though it was a yellow that made me think it was days old. She sniffed at it, but the dancing torchlight hid her face and she did not seem to come to any conclusion, only bit her lower lip and glanced at me. Then we turned him and she checked his back using her hand as a measure again. Lastly, she had me turn him back onto his front and put her nose close to his mouth while I pushed, first on his stomach and then on his chest.