The Gully Snipe (The Dual World Book 1) (43 page)

Gully shook his head from side to side slowly. He cared little for swordsmen or conspiracies or confessions or whatever seemed to be occupying everyone else. All that mattered, all that burned in him, was that Krayell was alive. The serpent was alive while his beautiful and delicate Mariealle was dead. Whatever else there was, good or ill, made no matter to him.

The balding man had gotten closer and closer, though, until he was studying Gully from uncomfortably near.

“I beg your pardon... who are you?” asked Gully wearily.

The old man started back in embarrassment, but the smile on his face was very sincere. He said, “A man forever in your debt, my dear sir, for saving Prince Thaybrill, for keeping him safe, for... bringing him home.”

Gully did not feel interested enough to press for a different answer.

“But that answer does not tell you what you wish to know,” said the old man as he started studying Gully closely again and then glancing curiously over at Thaybrill. “I am Nellist Dibronde. I am the Archbishop of the church of Iisen. You are in my home, good Bayle, within the Nighting Chapel.”

The Archbishop turned to Thaybrill and asked him, “You say Krayell referred to your friend, Bayle, as a phantom? He claims to have killed him?”

Thaybrill put a supportive hand on Gully’s shoulder and replied, “I have never seen fear in his eyes the way I saw it this night, merely on sight of Bayle!”

“Are you acquainted with the Domo Regent, good Bayle? Have you met in the past?” asked Nellist.

“No,” said Gully resting his face in his hands. “Never. He thought I was you, Thaybrill, before you returned with your dagger. He said I, you... I mean, looked terrible for your ordeal, but he unquestionably mistook me for you,” added Gully.

Thaybrill rubbed his chin in thought. “Perhaps his eyesight is not what it used to be!”

Gully could not tolerate the idle and pointless talk any longer. He leaped up and said angrily, “I cannot stay here! This talk is mindless! I must go into the crevasse. I must...” His eyes started to sting and water and his throat almost closed. “I must fetch Mariealle’s body. I cannot... I cannot leave her there!”

Thaybrill stood and pushed gently, but firmly, on Gully’s shoulders. He said kindly, “Sit, Bayle. You cannot go to fetch her, nor do you need to. Dunnhem has already sent men to enter the ravine where it is shallow next to the Bonedown and to retrieve her body, even now in the middle of the night.”

Gully sat back down, feeling useless. He tried to wipe away the stinging in his eyes.

“His eyesight is not under suspicion, my prince,” said the Archbishop.

“Pardon?” said Thaybrill.

“The Domo Regent’s eyesight is not deceiving him.”

“I fail to understand, Nellist.”

“Indulge me, Your Highness. And Bayle, you too, please. Come.”

Nellist led both of them to the wall on the far side of his room to a mirrored glass that hung there, surrounded by an ornate gilded frame. It was a luxury Gully knew of, but had never seen one before for himself. The Archbishop stood both the prince and Bayle side by side so they could look into the glass together.

The Archbishop said, “Look at yourselves and see if you see what I see...”

They studied their faces next to one another for a moment and it began to dawn on them.

The Archbishop commented, “Bayle, you are perhaps a little more slight in weight than the prince, but the face is the same.” He gestured up and down the length of their height. “You have the same height and build. The resemblance is uncanny.”

Gully, past the novelty of seeing his own face so perfectly reflected, saw that the Archbishop spoke true. His hair was shorter than Thaybrill’s, but the same color and texture. They shared the same eyes and nose. All of the features that he studied seemed to correspond exactly. And yet, not quite. He saw that his cheeks were a little wanner, his build a little gaunter as the old man had said.

“Thaybrill, you said Krayell claimed to have killed Bayle? Years ago, correct?” asked Nellist. Even Dunnhem was now sidling around and stretching to get a better look at the two of them to see for himself.

“Yes.”

“Did he refer to you by name, Bayle?”

“No, he did not call me by any name except Thaybrill’s,” replied Gully.

The Archbishop turned away in thought, drumming his fingers nervously on a gargantuan and ornately bound codex laying on a nearby table. The title on the cover of the book was so elaborate and deeply adorned that Gully could not even discern the letters to try to read it.

“Beljehn,” said the Archbishop, turning without warning to an acolyte standing so quietly in the corner that Gully had not even taken notice of him. The young man could be aged no more than 14 years. “Go and fetch Almonee. Wake her if you have to. Tell her it is of extreme importance.” The young boy bowed his head and dashed away on his task.

“Almonee?” said Gully in surprise. “The half-crazy beggar woman? Is that the Almonee you speak of?”

“You have met her?” asked Nellist.

“I do know her,” said Gully. “I give her coins when I can. She and my foster mother were friendly to one another. What has she to do with any of this?” Even the mention of Almonee’s name barely managed to pull Gully’s attention enough to distract him from the burning stone in his gut.

“She was not always as you know her now. She was the nurse-maid to the king and queen until Sophrienne died. Well... I suppose I now should say until the queen was murdered, may her soul find peace in the sky watching over all of us! Stars have mercy! Our king and queen were both murdered at the hands of this vile man! The very stain of greed and wretchedness made into a man, living amongst us for all these years! When Sophrienne died, Almonee lost most of her wits and scrambled those that remained. But I and some of my elocutors have continued to see after her since then. We make sure she is faring as well as possible, but she is quite independent, even in her state.”

The Archbishop began to ask the same questions again, and Gully’s mind sank into itself. He saw, repeating over and over, the last glimpse of Mariealle’s hair, the red on her throat, as she fell with hand outstretched.

There was an additional commotion, which Gully ignored, when several more loyal swordsmen arrived, saw Prince Thaybrill with their own eyes, and were given assignments by Dunnhem. For Gully, it was all noise and motion in the corner of his eye as he ignored it and sank deeper into his despair.

At one point, while several of the guards were conferring with one another, Thaybrill placed his arm around Gully’s shoulder and said into his ear sympathetically, “I am so very sorry, Bayle. I know you feel as if you went over that wall with her, or that you wish you had. She will be remembered as a heroine of the realm, one who gave her life to defend the safety of the Iisendom.”

Gully closed his eyes and tried to hold the tears back while Thaybrill sat quietly with him.

The next thing Gully knew, he heard a sharp voice almost shouting at him. “Ho there, Bayley boy!! Yeh got yerself caught up this time, aye! Here ye are, caught up!”

“No, Almonee,” said Gully lifelessly as he saw her pointing at him and grinning a toothless grin.

“Bah! Here ye be!” she said, smacking her lips with a crazed glee.

The Archbishop interrupted her, “Good Bayle, I am much vexed by the words of the Domo Regent. He is not one to take giddy flights of imagination, confusing people and seeing ghosts, as he would seem to have done tonight. It simply is not in his character to do so. Thaybrill tells me you grew up in the Ghellerweald with your father, is that not true?”

“Yes, it’s true,” said Gully with little interest.

“What of your mother?”

“I do not know whom my mother is.”

“But you lived with your father until he disappeared when you were 9 years of age.”

“Yes. Except... well...” Gully glanced at Thaybrill, and took a deep, sad breath. “I’m not sure what to believe, but there are some... you’ve heard me speak of the patriarch, Thaybrill... that believe that the man who raised me was my adoptive father. He seems to have good reasons to believe it, though, and I am wont to believe it as well. So whom my real parents may be, I do not know.”

“How many years of age are you, Bayle?” asked the Archbishop.

Gully thought for a moment. “Well, I’m...” he stopped and his brow furrowed as he thought about it. “I’m of twenty years now, Archbishop.”

“The same as Prince Thaybrill, whose birthday was yesterday, when he was to have been crowned. When is your birthday, do you know?”

“It is strange. I only realized it when you asked. My birthday is today, or at least it will be when the morning comes.”

The Archbishop took a step back in shock. His eyes narrowed and he said, “One day apart! The coincidences are too much for chance! You are sure that today is your birthday?”

“Yes, the one my father always told me,” replied Gully.

As they spoke, Almonee, hobbled closer to Gully and trained her yellowed eye upon him. She looked sideways at Prince Thaybrill and then drew back. Her mouth fell open and her eyes widened like she was now the one seeing a ghost. “It cannot be!”

She stepped back up to Gully, and pulled him violently down by his ear so she could study it closely, so close that Gully could smell the raw potato she must have had for dinner on her breath. Almonee shuffled over to Thaybrill and tried to do the same to him.

The Archbishop warned her sternly, “Mind your manners, Almonee! Remember whom he is!”

Almonee grunted and pulled at Thaybrill’s ear anyway.

She muttered to herself, “The nose, aye! The eyes, colored the same. The ears be identical. I lost me crown! I let it be stolen away!”

She began bawling out loud, “The night me most loved queen passed, giving birth. I be sworn to secrecy! Told I would hurt the realm if I spoke, would throw all into chaos! But the ghost has come back to haunt me!”

“What do you mean, Almonee?” said Bayle.

“The Domo Regent took him, said he was still-born. Took him from me hands to bury him in secret!” she wailed. “Said to never speak naught of it for the good o’ the kingdom, under pain o’ death! The queen was failing, and I let him to tend to her!”

The Archbishop said, “Are you saying the queen gave birth to two children that night?”

Almonee screeched at Thaybrill, “Yeh tunic! Take it off! Take it off! Let me see!”

The Archbishop was about to warn Almonee again about transgressing against the crown prince in such a way, but Thaybrill held his hand to stay Nellist’s censures. He removed the worn black cloak he was wearing and then the tunic.

Almonee started pulling at Gully’s as well, her bony fingers much stronger than he would have ever guessed. “Off! Take it off! Must see!”

When Thaybrill had removed his tunic so that he stood bare-chested before her, Almonee turned him and looked at his back, on his right shoulder-blade. She pointed for all to see. There was a small birthmark located there, one shaped like a bee and no bigger than a swallowstamp.

She examined Gully’s shoulder blade the same, while he clutched at his father’s pendant and attempted to look over his own shoulder to see at the same time.

“The same! ’Tis the same!” she shrieked and started shaking almost violently.

She looked at the two of them, broken again at the memory of so many years past. “He said yeh be dead! Stillborn!”

She clutched at Gully’s arms, tears beginning to flow, as she sobbed, “I sent yeh to yer death at his hands! I killed yeh, good boy Bayle! Yeh’ve haunted me for years, like a kind star walking amongst us, and too daft to even see it am I!”

“Almonee!” shouted the Archbishop. “Calm down and explain what you mean!”

Almonee’s sobs subsided slightly and she said through her despair, “The birthmarks are identical!” She pointed at Gully and said, “He is Thaybrill’s twin! The one claimed stillborn that night and taken in secret as part of the wicked Domo’s plan! But all too alive today, thanks be to his blessed father’s protection!”

Gully stepped back from her in shock, unable to hold all that had come to be in one night.

Almonee grabbed his arms again, digging into them with her fingernails, and shouted, “Yeh be Thayliss veLohrdan, boy!”

The Archbishop clutched at Almonee’s arm and said, breathlessly, “Think back with care, Almonee! Who was born first?”

“There be no need for care! That night has burned the backs of me eyes ever since, it has!” She turned to Thaybrill and said, “Prince Thaybrill... This be yer twin brother, Thayliss, born 22 minutes before you!”

Almonee fell to her knees at Gully’s feet and shrieked, “He took yeh thinkin’ yeh be the only child, and I let ’im! I cannot be forgiven for this! I sent yeh to yer death! Sweet stars o’ night, what have I done? What’ve I done?!” She cried miserably for the deception she had not prevented twenty years earlier.

Gully stepped back and saw the shocked look on the faces of Thaybrill, the Archbishop, Dunnhem, and all the others gathered around while Almonee sobbed and clutched at his feet in agony. His mouth hung open, he could no longer draw a breath into his chest, and his heart beat in a panicked drumming.

The Archbishop gaped at Gully and his voice became no more than a whisper in the silence. “This revelation makes you the true crown prince of Iisen!”

Gully felt that surely that his mind had left him. He shook his head in utter horror at what the Archbishop had said. His jerked his tunic and surcoat up tight against his chest, and his whole body began to tremble. His heart felt like it would surely beat through his chest at any moment.

Thaybrill moved slightly, began to step forward, and said, “Thayliss—”

Before another word could come out of the prince’s mouth, out of anyone’s mouth, Gully turned and fled as fast as he could.

Gully wandered the dark streets of Lohrdanwuld at their quietest, before the people rose early to begin their day before dawn. His mind was twisted around everything that had happened, all that became too much to bear at one time, and he had to be alone and away. His stomach and heart felt eaten away by the guilt inside of him, but he had still managed to be resolute enough to sneak out of the Folly unchecked. Dunnhem had attempted to go after him, out of duty and concern for a new member of the royal family, but Gully evaded him quickly amongst the shadows of the castle grounds.