Phras had left the duke’s body before they had burned it.
“Was she a demon?” asks Rhema.
“Maybe,” says Cal thoughtfully. “There’s only one way to find out.”
The body lies supine, deflated, blue eyes staring upward.
“Thank you both,” Lilac rasps again, smiling at Rhema this time.
And even though it hurts him to do it, with a pain so intense it’s physical, Cal releases her hand and steps away from the queen. There is work to do.
To His Grace Grand Duke Goranic
from the
Ambassador to Montrice
Your Grace,
I feel the urgent need to report a strange and secret ritual that members of my household witnessed in the early hours of this morning, in the Montrician capital.
Intelligence from the castle had informed us that during the night, a lady of the court—indeed, a member of the queen’s bedchamber—was intercepted in an attempt to murder Her Majesty Queen Lilac. This lady, I am told, was disarmed and put to the sword. It is all an upsetting business, and my informants ventured a number of conflicting theories. These Montricians, I fear, are not to be trusted as sensible witnesses, and I will endeavor to discover more before writing to Your Grace again.
What I feel able to tell you now is this: One of my castle informants arrived at the embassy today before dawn, and alerted my staff to a ceremony about to begin outside the city walls. Two members of my household went there in suitable disguise. The body, they report, was burned on a pyre while a group of elderly women cloaked in brown murmured and then chanted incantations. These women are, I understand, members of the fabled Hearthstone Guild, though they look quite different from our own Guild members in Stavin.
My staff was mystified by the procedure and said it was more like an exorcism than a funeral rite. The chanting continued long after the body had begun to turn to ash and only the bones were left and the sun had risen in the sky. Perhaps it might behoove Your Grace to consult with the members of the Guild in Stavin to discover what they know of this?
The death of this lady was not the only mysterious death at the castle in recent days, and the place seems both cursed and dangerous. The court of Renovia and Montrice is an unhappy place, and Your Grace may want to consider recalling this mission altogether. At least we understand now why so many of their subjects are fleeing to Stavin.
I remain your faithful servant,
Ivanis, Ambassador to Montrice
—III—
The Assassins
Chapter Thirty-Three
Caledon
The sun is up, and Cal stands by the still-smoldering pyre. The winter field is bare, all dark furrows of tilled soil flecked with dirty snow. In the distance skeletal trees mark out the line of the horizon, the foothills that lead to Montrice’s mountain range. What remains of the fire is black and ashy, easily covered by the next snowfall or blown away by the next strong wind. With this wintry weather, in a day or two there’ll be no trace of the ritual that took place.
Most of the others are gone now, apart from two elderly Guild members surveying what’s left of last night’s fire. Rhema is pacing the boundary line, picking through some debris. There’s nothing to find there, Cal suspects, but Rhema isn’t one for sitting around. She’s trying to make something of this stakeout in a field outside the capital, because otherwise they’ve wasted most of the night here, and accomplished nothing.
They’d brought Marguerite’s body here in a white shroud, to burn in the fire of Deia as custom demands, supervised by Guild members who materialized from the streets of Mont and the nearby villages’ houses without any summons. They all sensed the possibilities, he supposed, that Lady Marguerite’s death offered. By burning her body before the sun rose, the Guild could force the demon’s spirit free of her form and destroy it once and for all.
But after Lady Marguerite’s dead body was set alight, nothing extraordinary happened. The Guild members kept up their chants for over an hour, circling the pyre again and again, till Rhema announced she was feeling dizzy. The incantations summoned nothing.
Lady Marguerite was Duchess Girt, but she was no demon. But she must have had help to have infiltrated the court so well and to have maintained her disguise. Daffran must be right. There must be at least one Aphrasian secreted in Castle Mont.
Once the sun is up, there’s no reason to stay. Cal signals to Jander