Sacrifice: The First Book of the Fey (67 page)

“Morning duties meeting,” Agnes said. “Yesterday. He dinna show for this morning. We made do.”

“Not well enough,” the butcher mumbled.

“What?” Nicholas asked him, even though he had heard.

“Beg pardon, Highness,” the butcher said.

“Has he ever missed your morning-duty meetings before?” Nicholas asked.

“Nay, Highness. The house would fall apart without it, you know, and then we would all be in bad trouble.” Evadne. She kept her eyes downcast as she spoke to him.

So they thought they were in trouble. He stared at them for a moment, wondering if he could use that fear, then despising himself for the thought.

“Well, you’re not in trouble now,” he said. “You’re merely helping me solve a mystery.” He suppressed a sigh. He would have to interview the entire household staff if he wanted a straight answer, and he didn’t have the energy for it that evening. When he finished there, he would have to go to his father. He took another sip of mead.

“Have any of you found anything odd around here recently? A stack of bones, a large spot of blood? Like the time we found the bones next to Stephen in the corridors.” He spoke to Evadne on that one because he remembered her standing in the shadows, a mop and bucket beside her, her face tight with fear.

“Not since the invasion, Highness,” she said, turning pale with the memory.

“Did you find more than that in the palace during the invasion?” he asked.

“Beg pardon, Highness,” Agnes said, “but ‘twas a mess. We had ta work for three days just ta get the bodies and blood outta here. Then we could start on the cleanin’ and repairs.”

“But did you find more?” Nicholas asked.

Charissa tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I helped the master of the hall clean some out of his chamber,” she said softly. “He asked me not ta say nothin’, but I guess it dinna hurt.”

“He asked you not to say anything?” Nicholas squinted. What an odd request. “Had he ever asked you that before?”

“No,” she said too quickly, a flush building on her cheeks, “he never asked me.”

Nicholas stared at her, not sure if he wanted to pursue the issue. Finally he said, “When he asked you to keep quiet before, was it about personal matters?”

Her flush grew to a deep, painful red. She nodded once.

“Not anything like this.”

She shook her head.

“Was there blood?”

She took a deep, shaky breath. “A lot.” Her voice was soft. “Near the door. I wiped it up, and I was thinkin’” —her voice trailed off and she took another deep breath— “I was thinkin’ how he couldna slept in there the night before, the smell was so strong.”

“Smell of blood?”

Again she nodded.

“But this was the night of the invasion. Do you think anyone slept?”

She shrugged.

Nicholas gripped his mug tightly, feeling the ceramic strain beneath his hands. Bones in the stable the night of the invasion. Bones in the palace. Bones near the gate, and blood, lots of blood. Then two men, reliable men, disappear on the same day. That day bones appear in the Tabernacle, but no one is missing. The details were connected, but he wasn’t sure how.

“And you saw nothing strange yesterday. Nothing that made you just the littlest bit nervous?”

“Beg pardon, Highness.” Charissa curtsied again, keeping her bright-red face low. “But I’d like ta talk ta ye alone if I could. I seen some things. ‘Twould be best if I dinna say here.” She glanced at the others, and they all watched her, curiosity on their faces.

He was familiar enough with the camaraderie downstairs to know that it was based, in part, upon gossip. Any fuel to the gossip might damage or build reputations.

“I wouldna talk ta her alone, Highness,” the butcher said. “She’s known for talking with her skirts around her waist.”

Nicholas suppressed a smile. “And what harm would that do to me?”

The butcher leaned his head back as if he just realized what he had said. “None, I guess, Highness. But it wouldna be good for the lady, Highness.”

“If she already has a reputation, then maybe a few minutes alone with me will improve it.” Nicholas stood and extended his hand. She took it hesitantly. Her fingers were coarse and work roughened. He squeezed them, but glanced at the people standing around him. “You others need to search this place once more, see if you find anything new about the master of the hall. I want you to bring to me first thing tomorrow morning the people who saw him last. If he can’t be found, we’ll appoint a new master then.”

“Aye, Highness,” they said in rough unison.

He gripped her hand tightly, then tucked it in his elbow as if she were a great lady. With her beside him, he left the kitchen. He took a torch from the corridor wall and led her into the Great Hall. The weapons looked menacing in the flickering light. He set the torch in the torch holder above the state chairs and bade her to sit. Then he sat beside her.

“You know something else?” he asked.

“Beg pardon, Highness,” she said, running her hand through her hair, a nervous gesture that he found very attractive. “I need me job, and what I have to tell ye sounds a wee bit crazy.”

“You and the master of the hall were lovers, weren’t you?” Nicholas asked, unable to suppress the question.

She shook her head, eyes downcast. The flush was back, deep and painfully red. “Not lovers, Highness, though I—spent some nights in his chamber.”

Nicholas frowned. This was beyond his experience. Why would a woman be in a man’s chambers if they weren’t lovers? “I don’t understand.”

She waved a hand, as if she couldn’t control her emotions. “I just wanted ta keep my position, Highness.”

Nicholas sucked in a breath. Never had he imagined anything like this went on in his own home. “And he threatened you?”

“Not since the invasion,” she said. Then she looked up, as if she was afraid that Nicholas would punish her for the answer. “He’d been nicer since then.”

“Nicer?” Nicholas’s head was spinning. Nicer. “He hurt you?”

“Nay, Highness.” Her eyes were filled with tears. He took her hand. Her fingers were cold. “He just made it clear that if I dinna—do what he wanted, he would have me dismissed. And I couldna have that. Me ma uses me allowance for the others, she does.”

He blinked. He thought he had known the world of the servants. He had been wrong. “You have no father?”

She shook her head. “He died when my sister was a wee one. We got a small farm, and me little brother tries to keep it, but he was only seven when Pa died, and me ma was ill. So I come here. I have ta stay, Highness. Please.” Her hand was shaking. He rubbed it with his own.

“You’ll stay,” he said. “I’ll guarantee it. If anyone gives you trouble, you come see me.”

She blinked and a tear fell. He wiped it off her cheek. “Thank ye, Highness,” she whispered.

He was sitting close enough to feel her breath on his face. The butcher’s words came back to him, and for a moment he wondered if this wasn’t a way of manipulating him. He squeezed her hand again, and let it go.

“Now,” he said. “Tell me what you meant by ‘nice.’ “

Her smile was shaky. She wiped a second tear off her cheek with her wrist. She swallowed. “After that morning with the bones,” she said, “he dinna ask me ta his room again.”

“Not ever?”

“Nay, Highness. I—ah—I asked him if I done something wrong, and he said no, he had other things ta think about now, and he dinna need me anymore. I asked if I still had work, and he told me I was a silly one ta worry that.”

“So he stopped being intimate with you,” Nicholas said, more to himself than to her. The chill from her hands had filled his entire body. “Did he pick another girl to be with?”

She shook her head. “It—beg pardon, Highness—but it got ta be a joke with the maids. They wondered if maybe the Fey had took his—his—you know.”

Nicholas rubbed a hand over his face. A change of pattern. Just like the groom. Just like Stephen. Finally something to warn the Rocaan about. He would send a message in the morning.

“But other than that, he was normal?”

She rubbed her hands on her skirts, then sighed. “Nay, Highness. He wanted ta know what people heard, and when no one had any news, he got angry. He was gettin’ real angry at me, because I do the west wing where the chambers are, and he thought I would hear more gossip than I did. I kept tryin’ ta tell him that no one was in the chambers when I came, and if he wanted gossip, he should tell the chamberlains, but he dinna like that.”

“Gossip,” Nicholas said. He nodded. “So what did he do when he was angry at you?”

“He yelled at me, Highness. And the other day he threw my duster clear across the floor—“ She brought her eyes up to him as if she were flirting with him. But he recognized the look. She was measuring him.

“This is what you wanted to tell me. What you didn’t want the others to hear.”

She nodded. “But I’m not crazy. I want ye ta know that. I’m not.”

“All right,” he said. “I’ve heard you talk. You seem fine to me.”

“When he threw my duster, it landed in front of a cat, and he started yellin’ at me for letting a cat in. I dinna let the cat in, and I told him so, and he told me ta get it out anyway.”

Nicholas was leaning forward as she spoke. Miruts had seen a cat before he disappeared too.

She was watching Nicholas intently. “When I went ta get the cat, it run ta the Master and up his leg and—here’s what’s crazy—it started talkin’ ta him.”

“Talking?” Nicholas asked.

She nodded. “I swear. But it wasn’t Islander. ‘Twas Fey. I heard enough of them bastards ta know what it sounds like. And I said, that’s an awful strange meow, and he said, forget the cat, he would take care of it. So I left and went around the corner and watched him, and he took the cat up to his chamber. And I never did see him again after that.”

“The cat spoke Fey?” Nicholas said.

“I know it sounds crazy. That’s why I dinna want the others ta hear. But I swear. I swear.”

Stephen had said, on the day of the invasion, that the Fey had powers that Islanders didn’t. But he never said they could turn into cats. He did say they could take over men’s bodies and make them do their bidding. Maybe they could do that with dumb animals as well.

“Do you remember what the cat looked like?” Nicholas asked.

She frowned. “ ‘Twas orange.” Then she shrugged. “It looked like a cat.”

He patted her hand, afraid to touch her any more than that. Then he smiled at her, wishing she didn’t have a reputation with the staff, wishing that he were like his grandfather, a man willing to roam the lower halls. But his father had told him that bastards threaten a dynasty, and the best way to avoid bastards was not to make them at all. Before the Fey arrived, Nicholas had hoped he would have a wife by now. But the dynastic concerns had disappeared under the weight of the war. Perhaps he should figure a way to revive them.

He stood and offered her his hand to help her up. Then he thanked her and started to follow her as she left the Great Hall. But he stopped himself. Better that he didn’t know where her quarters were. Better that he let her disappear back into the bowels of the palace, to deal with her problems, her life, and her livelihood. He had promised her that he would help her if she needed it, and help he would.

But right now he had bigger concerns.