Centaur of the Crime: Book One of 'Fantasy and Forensics' (Fantasy & Forensics 1) (36 page)

I nodded in the affirmative.

“Did I not predict strife in your future? Treachery? Treason? Blades, beaks, and talons?

I nodded again.

“And did I not see the bars of the palace dungeon at the end of your journey?”

I nodded a third time.

“You know something, Master Seer?” I asked.

“Yes?”

I patted him on the shoulder.

“You’re okay with me.”

The old soothsayer’s mouth shut with a snap. He looked thoughtful for a moment, processing what was probably the first kind thing anyone had said to him in years. Zenos’ expression softened. He bared his yellowing teeth in a broad smile.

I returned that smile, with interest.

Ask anyone who knows me.

I don’t need a Staff of Stunning to knock someone for a loop.

Chapter Forty-Four

Two days after Thea pulled the army back across the Andeluvian border, Benedict’s son Fitzwilliam finally arrived at the palace. I didn’t get a chance to meet him. Instead, I was serving my time under house arrest, courtesy of Bob McClatchy.

But the day after my probation hearing, I came home to find a large parchment satchel sitting on my dining room table. It turned out to be a summons for the coronation of Fitzwilliam, he of the line of the ‘Good and Noble Benedict’. And it came complete with a rather nifty looking pair of gold medallions. One to be used as an RSVP. The other would serve to teleport me directly to the palace on the evening of the ceremony.

I sent the reply back, along with a gift I’d purchased specifically for Liam.

A few days later, when I crossed back over, I was much better dressed for the occasion. I cut a good figure in an aquamarine-colored evening gown, one with the right shade to set off my eyes.

Benedict’s son certainly didn’t complain. He certainly gave my curves the royal once-over, and then some. The new king shared his father’s noble, sad countenance, though the shoulder-length hair that framed the younger man’s face was bright gold instead of wintery silver.

“I hereby pledge my life to uphold the laws of the realm,” Fitzwilliam recited, before the assembled humans, griffins, and centaurs in the palace’s great hall. “May fate smile upon my reign, and the reign of all in my line of noble blood.”

The pronouncement made, Albess Thea swooped down from the hall rafters, the golden circlet of Andeluvia’s crown grasped tightly in her talons. She placed the crown atop Fitzwilliam’s head to the sounds of raucous cheering and applause.

I joined in too, clapping wildly. Tears brimmed at the corner of my eyes as Benedict bowed, and then exited the great hall to a final, brassy flourish of trumpets.

The court’s musicians started up, choosing to play a lively tune on what sounded like a quartet of flutes, a pair of tambour drums, and a flatulent alphorn. Though the pitch of the music seemed questionable to me, several of the nobles took to the vacant stage and began a courtly dance.

The vast wooden tables in the hall were cleared to make way for the coronation’s massive first course. Servants put out huge silver platters piled high with carved roast meats, fresh fruit, tureens of stew, and elegant looking rounds of pastry.

I didn’t see anything resembling mouse tart, but I wasn’t about to push my luck. And I hadn’t come for the food, in any case. From the moment of my arrival, aside from Benedict himself, I’d been surrounded by a bevy of fawning courtiers and minor nobles.

What I really wanted was to find my friends.

Royal guards threw the high, narrow arched doors open to let the assembly spill out into the green, grassy expanse of the courtyard. The weather had turned warm and humid, but unsettled. The sun played hide-and-seek between passing rain showers. Red and blue canopies dotted the spaces between the hall and the palace’s outer wall, providing shelter from the occasional drizzle.

It was under one of these swathes of canvas that I spotted a bright gleam from halfway across the courtyard. I worked my way between clusters of chatting humans and centaurs, or the occasional stern form of a griffin. As I drew closer, I made out Shaw’s noble profile and Liam’s slender deer form.

“Dayna!” Shaw said, shuffling to his feet. “’Tis so good to see thee. My heart has been rent asunder by thy absence.”

“That goes just as strongly for me, Dayna,” Liam said in agreement. I knelt, stroked the little Fayleene’s side, and then elicited a purr from Shaw as I scratched his forehead.

“I missed both of you,” I said honestly. “More than you could know.”

My finger traced the line of bandages that ran along one of Shaw’s brows. The swelling had gone down enough for the griffin to see again, but many places on his flank and neck had lost patches of fur or feather. A wide arc of plaster encased the bones of one wing, immobilizing it.

“I see where thy gaze alights,” Shaw rumbled. “Hardly pleasant, but soon, I shall fly again. In the meantime, I shall bear my wounds without notice.”

“Don’t let him fool you,” Liam chimed in. “He’s been scratching and picking at the bindings like a young chick in molt.”

Shaw scowled. “Dost thou wish to end up on a griffin’s dinner platter, princeling?”

“Now, now,” I said reproachfully, “I thought we were beyond that.”

“As always, I jest,” Shaw declared. “I would never harm my friend.”

“That’s good to know,” Liam said.

“It is the truth.” Shaw nudged Liam’s flank with his beak. “See, Dayna? At most, he is but one-fourth of a meal. And all that bone one must gnaw through–”

That made me bust out in a laugh. It felt good. I raised a hand to indicate the gleaming gem I’d seen from across the way. It had come from a diamond stud earring I’d purchased for Liam. Said earring nestled securely in the piercing the Department of Fish & Game had bestowed upon the Fayleene prince.

“I’m glad you liked my gift,” I said. “Your wound was the only one I didn’t think anybody knew how to heal. So I thought you might want to turn it into a…well, what my world calls a ‘fashion statement’.”

“What a marvelous turn of phrase!” Liam said. “I will say that it has attracted the attention of many a doe. Which is quite flattering, as far as it goes.”

I sensed a slight hesitation in the prince’s voice. I gave him a questioning look. He nodded at me, pawed the ground once, and went on.

“It is strange. I have never been truly welcomed in the Fayleene herd before. Now, the does who shunned me raise their tails enticingly when I walk by. I feel torn in two about it.”

“Thou shouldst never feel mixed at the prospect of an eagless who wishes to make chicks with thee,” Shaw said, though in a gentle tone.

“With me? Or with the ‘hero’ that I have become?” Liam shook his head. “Even given all the dangers faced, I’ve never been happier than in our group. The only group who accepted me…before. Does that not sound odd?”

“Mayhap it does. But, who knows the ways of a doe?”

“Who indeed?” I agreed, as I spotted a familiar silhouette perched high above, on the palace’s battlement. “Forgive me, but I think I see someone else I must talk to.”

Liam and Shaw bade me go, with a promise that I’d return once the second course of food had been served. I carefully picked my way up the rain-slick stone steps until I arrived on the upper level. On one side, the land fell away from the palace in the broad sweep of the valley.

The other faced inwards, towards the busy courtyard. Thea’s vast claws grasped one of the stone pillars that jutted out of the battlement. She watched the revelers below intently, only swiveling her head in my direction with a soft ‘hoo!’ as I took a seat next to her.

“I wondered how long it would be before you joined me,” Thea said warmly. “Doubtless you have many questions.”

“Only one,” I replied. “I figured that you knew who killed Benedict and Kajari. But…how?”

The Albess made her owlish equivalent of a chuckle. “Blind chance and illness, my dear child. These things do happen, you know.”

“I am familiar with them,” I said, straightfaced.

“I take it that you noticed the owl rookeries, located far outside the walls of this palace?”

I nodded in agreement. I thought back to the first ride I’d taken out to the Grove of the Willows. I’d spotted an enormous tree house, perched high in the branches off to one side of the road. “The Legislature” was all that Duke Kajari—Magnus—had said about it.

“We Parliamentarians prefer to roost in many wild places. To balance out the hours spent hunched over ink and vellum. So it came to be that I had found shelter and sleep in the dark nook of a tree. A willow tree, to be exact.”

“You were at the Grove of the Willows on the day of the murders,” I breathed. “But…that happened during daylight hours. When you were sleeping, right?”

“No, my dear. In my age, I find it hard to fly straight, to stretch my talons, to pass my water. And aside from these…” Thea looked owlishly embarrassed as she added, “Aside from these ailments…I have
insomnia
.”

I paused, considering. Thea meant it when she spoke of chance and illness. Magnus had executed a near-perfect murder. And had been foiled, when all was said and done, by an insomniac owl.

“On that note, I must leave you be,” the Albess declared. “Others with a need for privacy seek you out even now.”

And with that, Thea launched herself into the air. A couple of fluttering, ragged wingbeats later, she soared off and over the side of the outer wall. I got up and brushed the dust from my gown as I heard the familiar clatter of equine hooves.

The sound resolved itself into a centaur, but not the one I expected. Skallgrym Angbor of the House of Friesain appeared at the top of the steps. His stern face bore the raccoon-like pattern of two black eyes, and his nose had been taped to a short wooden brace in order to help it heal straight.

“You are alone, Dayna Chrissie,” Angbor observed, in his gruff voice. “That is good. There is something I must do.”

And with that, Angbor brought his rough, calloused hands together as if in prayer. He recited a short verse of what sounded like poetry under his breath. And then he bowed low, so low that the long brown and gray plaits of his beard dangled dangerously close to the floor.

“Angbor, I don’t…” I began, “Is this one of your customs? I don’t recall Galen telling me about it, I’m sorry.”

“Sturmgalen would not have told you, since he has never seen it,” Angbor said as he completed his bow and looked at me in complete and utter seriousness. “I have just made an oath of gratitude to you. Should you ever need help from my realm, you only need speak. Even if someday in the future, I am no longer King of the centaurs, this oath shall be honored.”

“It is I who should be honored,” I said, before I did a double-take. “Wait. Even if you are ‘no longer King’? Does that mean you are…”

“I am King again, yes,” he said, a trifle grumpily. “That son of mine has well and truly avenged himself upon me. Not only did he defeat me to gain the title of dread liege, he decided to humiliate me further. By giving me back the title without letting me challenge him for it!”

“I guess that’s what Galen thinks of as ‘tough love’, Angbor,” I said, trying to be sympathetic.

“Perhaps it is. And perhaps, someday, I will understand where I went wrong in raising him. To give him that streak of viciousness!”

I rolled my eyes at that, but I let it pass. “Regardless, I am grateful for your oath. There was no need to thank me for proving your innocence.”

At that, the centaur king let out a fiery snort. “You really do not understand my kind, do you, Dayna Chrissie?”

“What do you mean?”

“I could care less whether a bunch of gormless Andeluvian noblemen thought I was guilty or not!”

But Angbor’s expression softened, even under the shiny mask of bruises and cuts. He reached out and placed a hand on my shoulder. His palm radiated warmth, just like his son, Galen. He continued, this time in a voice so soft that I had to strain to hear the words.

“Dayna, I am thanking you for bringing the one who killed the Good King to justice. Despite all that has gone on between human and centaur, I counted Benedict…as my friend.”

A second set of hooves clattered on the steps. Galen appeared at the entryway of the battlement’s stone path. He made a short bow to Angbor as he spotted the two of us.