The Death of Dulgath (23 page)

Climbing the ivy was even easier the second time.

Lady Dulgath was in her bedroom. He’d seen the light come on before he started his climb and made no effort to conceal his approach. Even so, the odds of anyone seeing or hearing him were slim. Practice and experience had made his stealth habitual. Cats—even when not hunting—were damn hard to hear.

She wasn’t in bed.

Lifting his head above the sill, Royce saw Nysa Dulgath sitting at the little desk, her back to him. She was wearing a different gown. This one was white and off the shoulder, drawing attention to the smooth dark-olive skin, and—he didn’t care what Sherwood said—she had black hair.

He studied her.

The first time he’d met Lady Dulgath—he hadn’t really noticed the woman herself. Instead, he’d seen the accumulated assumptions he’d built while riding to Maranon. This time he watched more honestly and found a beautiful woman. Slender, tall, relaxed in her body—Sherwood was right about the poise and confidence. She was just sitting at her desk, but she sat straight, ankles crossed. The movement of her hands and arms as she used a quill was—

“Are you here to kill me this time?” she asked without turning.

Royce slipped through the window and perched on the sill, his feet dangling inside the room but not touching the coiled rug that covered half the floor. “No. Why would you say that?”

Lady Dulgath set her quill down and turned halfway in her seat, throwing one arm over the back of the chair. Long hair covered the side of her face, obscuring one eye and blanketing one shoulder. The candle behind her gave it a pleasant shine. “Because no one hires an assassin merely to
plan
a murder. Was it Bishop Parnell or Lord Fawkes who hired you to kill me?”

She knows!

“Actually, they did hire me, but merely to provide them with a plan.”

“Which they will execute?”

Royce shrugged. “Probably.”

The degree to which Royce had misjudged this noble woman was earthshattering. He’d made bad guesses before, but he almost always overestimated his enemies. This time he’d pegged his target as a careless, negligent, oblivious child; he’d mistaken a fox for a hen.

“Since you obviously know people are plotting your death, why haven’t you bothered to take precautions?”

“Mister Melborn, is it? Ruling a kingdom doesn’t equal unfettered power. Take for example the Church of Nyphron—the chief sponsor of my elimination. I have no power to remove any of them. They don’t work for me. Only the king can order such a ban, and he won’t. This leaves me with an assassin on my windowsill—something that ought to be only a metaphor.”

“And yet you don’t seem the least bit frightened.”

She rolled her shoulders, shrugging off the hair. “You just said you weren’t here to kill me.”

“And you believe the word of a killer?”

“Maybe I’m just not afraid of dying.”

“Everyone is afraid of death.”

“Says the deliveryman. And yet you make a business of it.”

“I
used
to make a business of it,” Royce clarified, then wondered why he bothered. She didn’t care, and neither should he. “And people are not afraid of death
happening,
just of it happening to
them.
”

“So you aren’t a killer anymore?”

“Not an
assassin.
”

“Ah.” She nodded. “Now you merely advise others.”

“This is an unusual job.”

“No doubt.” She brushed the hair away from her face, looking at him clearly with both eyes. “How
would
you kill me?”

She was being provocative, trying to push him off balance. She took great pleasure in that, enjoyed attacking and watching him retreat. “I’d slit your throat while you slept.”

“You’d sneak up here while I’m in bed, catch me unaware, but…that didn’t work so well last night…or this.”

“I wasn’t trying very hard.”

“Right, of course, normally you succeed because—because of your special secret.”

“Let’s not go there again.”

“Why not? Are you afraid to learn something about yourself?”

“I know myself quite well, thank you.”

“No, you don’t.” Nysa stood up. The light of the desk’s candle behind her left the lady’s features in darkness, but the bright white of the gown practically glowed. “You think you’re a man, but you’re better than that.”

“Better? Last night you called me an elf.”

“You are.”

“And you call that
better
? Where I come from, that’s about as low an insult as there is.”

“Where I come from, it’s the highest form of praise.”

Royce leaned in and peered at her with a disagreeable smirk. “I hadn’t noticed Maranon holding any affection for elves. In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen any since coming here.”

Lady Dulgath bit her lip and turned away.

A point scored.

Royce could see what had so overwhelmed Sherwood. Lady Dulgath had an allure that even he couldn’t deny. It didn’t help that she looked a bit like Gwen DeLancy: same shapely figure, dark eyes, and dark hair. Some time ago Royce had realized that he judged the beauty of all women by how much they resembled Gwen, but there was more to Nysa Dulgath’s appeal than that. She was younger and lighter-skinned than Gwen, but they shared the same intoxicating sense of mystery. In a world of mundane predictability, they were intriguing riddles—rain in sunshine creating rainbows.

“If you’re not here to kill me, then why climb my ivy? Were you hoping to catch me dressing?”

Royce rolled his eyes.

“Sorry, I’ve never met an assassin. How would I know what you do? But if peeping wasn’t your aim, what is?”

“Trying to figure out why someone wants you dead.”

“No, that’s not it.” She showed him a smirk of her own. “You’re deciding whether I deserve to live. You’re trying to determine if it’s worth the money to tell them how to kill me. You didn’t have any problem doing so when we first met, but second thoughts have crept in since last night. And now—now you’re undecided—on a windowsill, so to speak.”

“You can certainly wring every drop out of a metaphor, can’t you?”

She got up, spun halfway around on her left heel, and went to the bed. Sherwood was right about the way she moved. She didn’t so much walk as glide, and that heel spin she did was as elegant as a dancer’s pirouette.

The dress added to the drama of the movement, made of something shiny, satin, perhaps. It caught light from both the candle and the moon, rippling like waves on a still, night pond.

Ghostly.
That was the word that came to mind. She sat on the bed and crossed her ankles again, this time folding her hands in her lap and pulling her shoulders back as if posing.

Maybe she is. Maybe she’s trying to seduce me, flashing her big eyes in the false hope that it will save her life.
Something told him he was wrong even before he’d finished the thought.
I’ve got to stop thinking she’s like everyone else—she’s a fox, not a hen.

“Since you’re on the sill about me,” she said with a grin, “I’ll offer a defense and see if I can persuade you to grant clemency.”

“Knock yourself out.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I’m sorry…what?”

“Go ahead, state your case,” Royce said.

Nysa stared at him a moment longer, then used both hands to hook her hair behind her ears. Straightening up once more, she asked, “Did you know that the Dulgath family is the oldest continually ruling bloodline in Avryn?”

“That’s not likely to sway me. I’m not big on tradition.”

“It’s my life on the line. Grant me a little leniency.”

Royce shrugged and, expecting a long tale, curled up in the frame of the window. Putting his back against one side, he drew up his feet and placed them on the other.

“Let’s see.” Lady Dulgath tapped her chin and tilted her head toward the ceiling, as if she were trying to spot something very small or very far away. “About three thousand years ago—close to that—when the Great War ended and the Novronian Empire was born—”

Royce interrupted. “We really need to go back that far? Seriously?”

She ignored him. “Before the war, no one had ever come this far west. After the war, everyone did. A rush of people searched for fertile lands. Maranon was perfect. Mehan—the capital of Maranon—was originally the name of a prominent clan from that time. They were the first here and had taken the best fields. The latecomers went farther west. As you can see, we’re up against the ocean in this valley, so those who settled here were the late and undesirable—outcasts. They were led by a man named Dul. He was so poor he nearly starved to death and was so horribly thin people called him the Ghast. This would’ve been right about the same time that the first stones of Percepliquis were being laid. Dul the Ghast led a miserable band of about a hundred members of Clan Mehan to this valley, which they found beautiful and rich.”

“And they lived happily ever after,” Royce finished for her.

“Not at all. There’s a reason Dul the Ghast and his followers were undesirable—they were idiots.”

This made Royce smile.

Nysa returned the grin.

“They had no idea how to take care of themselves on the frontier. When they exhausted the supplies they’d brought, they found themselves in desperate need. Back then—this was before Novron died, before his cult grew—people worshiped spirits believed to exist in nature: trees, rocks, bears, that sort of thing. In desperation, Dul and his dying people began begging the spirits of nature to save them. Dul probably never expected anything to come of it, but what he didn’t know was that there really was a spirit dwelling in this valley, and the spirit heard him. Overnight everything changed, and that guardian spirit has watched over the House of Dulgath ever since.”

“Are you saying that’s why you’re not concerned? Because you have a magical guardian protecting you?”

“I guess you could say that, yes.”

Royce had no trouble believing her sincerity. Nobles and wealthy merchants were known to believe in ghosts and good luck charms. He once knew a silk merchant who had been convinced his dog of nineteen years was still alive. He would go down on one knee and pet thin air while making cooing noises at it. The odd thing was that his wife had died the same year as the dog—but she had never visited. A guardian spirit didn’t surprise Royce at all, and normally he would’ve accepted her story as another example of wishful stupidity, except…

Fox, not a hen.

“Okay, so that answers why you’re so relaxed. It doesn’t explain why everyone wants to kill you.”

“A few years ago, the Nyphron Church came for a visit. Five of their leading bishops were traveling from province to province, preaching to the noble families about the importance of restoring the faith of Novron. They came here and weren’t pleased that the Earl of Dulgath wasn’t receptive to their belief in restoring the old empire.”

The Earl of Dulgath? An odd way for her to refer to her father.

“They wanted his assurance that when the time came, he would cast his allegiance to an emperor of their choice. We’ve never worshiped Novron here. Even when we were part of the empire, we gave only lip service. This tiny valley has its own ways—old ways—and we’re set in them. Old Beadle told them that he wouldn’t cooperate.”

Old Beadle?

“The earl was a problem, a rock in their road. A big, unmovable stone. Sadly, he didn’t have the same life span as most rocks. When he died without a male heir—just a delicate, young, inexperienced girl—the church saw an opportunity.” She shook her head and sighed. “But alas, the countess was no more pliable than the earl. So in the intervening years they found someone more amenable. Lord Fawkes will allow them to pull his strings, all while thinking he is the one in control.” She shook her head again. “So foolish. Now the stage is set for the final act in their little drama, The Death of the Last Dulgath.”

“And none of this frightens you because you’re protected by the magical woodland spirit of the valley. Do I have that right?”

“You’re the expert on killings. You tell me. They’ve tried three times now. How hard can it be to kill a delicate young girl?”

Something in the sound of her voice—not arrogance, but confidence—disturbed Royce, like hearing a deer howl or a rabbit roar.

“An interesting tale, but I’m not persuaded. I’m no fan of the church or nobility. It doesn’t matter to me who rules. The lives of those at the lower rung remain unchanged. I’ve decided, and I’m going to tell them how I’d kill you. I want you to know that.”

“How considerate of you.”

“Of course, should that ivy be cut down and a sentry posted to patrol the yard, such a thing would be a lot harder. And if you locked your door and posted another guard outside it, anyone looking to end your life might be out of luck.”

“You’re not a very resourceful assassin, are you? I should think there would be cleverer ways than climbing in a window.”

“Simple plans work. Every moving part is a potential failure point. Besides…” Royce shrugged. “Not a lot of incentive in this job. I’m just here to get paid. That’s all that matters.”

“Is it?” she asked, getting up.

She stood before him with her weight on one hip, arms limp at her sides. She had a predatory stare in her eyes. Royce found his muscles tensing. The look was threatening.

Is she thinking of pushing me out the window? No, that look isn’t violent—it’s inviting.

He’d seen that stare before, usually on prostitutes working a room. Gwen’s girls donned that expression frequently, but none ever looked at him that way. They aimed their weapons at the loud and the drunk, the ones throwing money away like silver fountains. No one ever stared at Royce.

Nysa locked eyes with him and smiled, soft cheeks growing round.

“I think you’re curious,” she told him.

“About what?”

Not a shift, not a blink. “About me, certainly, but even more about you. I can see doubt in your eyes. You don’t want to believe what I said, but the truth is impossible to ignore. Your problem is that you’ve lived with lies your entire life. What choice was there? Everyone agrees that elves are dirty, worthless, lazy, ignorant vermin. In a world without a dissenting opinion, how could anyone expect to judge fairly? The question before you isn’t,
How could I be one of them?
but rather,
How could I have ever believed I was only a man?
”