and the fun had gone out of the game. “No, I’m just supposed to confirm her suspicions about you. I’d say I have.”
“You don’t have any proof,” he protested, but there was no juice in it.
“This isn’t one of your king’s law courts, Ken. Your money is actually her money, and we both know it’s the reason you married her. And if she wants to, she can take it all away. That would put a crimp in the ol’ lifestyle, now, wouldn’t it?”
He nodded, his eyes freshly wet. “What does she want?”
“You on a shorter leash.” I recalled homely, tearful Lady Fiona as she told me of her suspicions about him. This jackass’s infidelity had damn near broken her naive heart. “So go home, Ken. Be nice to your wife. Be grateful for her, in fact: she’s rich enough that she could have had you killed. You’re a lucky man.”
He was about to reply when we heard the horns announcing the imminent arrival of Queen Jennifer Drake. “May I stay for dinner?” he implored in a tiny voice.
I shrugged. “Sure, why not? But keep it in your pants, Ken, or I might just have to cut it off so your wife can lock it up somewhere.”
I followed him back into the great hall. We joined the neat rows of revelers standing on either side of the long table to watch the pageant of arrival.
A dozen tough-looking men in shiny show armor bracketed the royal table. This was a contingent of the famous Knights of the Double Tarn, trained in this very castle and trusted with accompanying the king’s most valuable property. But these were no raw recruits; they were veterans of Drake’s campaigns, old enough to have fought under the king in the wars of unification. They now served as overqualified bodyguards.
The big main doors faced directly west, so the evening sky provided a glorious backdrop. To the cadence of a fresh fanfare, two small girls spread flower petals along the path the queen would take. Next came a dozen fresh graduates of the knight training school, who flanked either side of the flowered walkway.
Four exceptionally beautiful young women appeared next, daughters of Drake’s allies sent to serve his court and perhaps snag a suitable husband. They kept their heads demurely lowered as they stepped in pairs to either side of the door.
At last, accompanied by a longer, fuller blast of horns, Queen Jennifer Drake strode into the room.
It was worth the buildup.
She had wavy brown hair loose around her shoulders and enormous green eyes above a delicate nose and full, wide lips. Her emerald-green dress clung exquisitely in all the right spots. From the sparkle, I guessed that just one tasteful earring probably cost more than I made in a year. She was only in her thirties but radiated the power and assurance that always shone from rich, beautiful women. She’d been queen for her entire adult life and had settled gracefully into the part.
After pausing to be admired, she proceeded at that slow, measured royal pace down the length of the room. She made eye contact and nodded to various attendees as she proceeded. If it was insincere, it was a good act, because she kept up an almost constant murmur, greeting people by name and acknowledging bows and curtsies. Part of any queen’s job is to keep the people on her husband’s side, and Jennifer Drake had mastered it.
When she reached the royal table, two of her maids pulled out the chair, another took the queen’s trailing cape from her shoulders, and a third tapped the goblet with a silver knife to get everyone’s attention. As if anyone in the room watched anything else.
Queen Jennifer smiled. It wasn’t quite as bright as the summer sun. In a rich, commanding voice she said, “Lord and Lady DeGrandis, my friends of Nodlon Castle, Marc and I thank you for hosting this event. As you know, this special dinner is being held in honor of the brave men dedicated to our country’s service who learn the skill of arms inside these very walls. We owe our peace and prosperity to the soldiers trained at Nodlon, and we wish to show our gratitude.”
The polite applause grew more intense wherever the queen’s eye happened to fall. She waited patiently until it faded.
“To continue, I’d also like to introduce my escorts for the evening, who have accompanied me all the way from our main court at Motlace for this occasion. They are the country’s champions, and my personal friends. They have proven their valor more times and in more ways than I can say. And someday, the men trained at this very spot will fill their ranks. So lords and ladies, gentlefolk all, I give you the heroes of Grand Bruan, the Knights of the Double Tarn.”
To another blast of horns, the men snapped ramrod straight, hands clasped behind their backs, eyes fixed on a spot slightly above the heads of the crowd. The sound of their boots striking the stone floor in unison rang out.
I noticed a couple of the knights cast decidedly uncomfortable glances toward the queen, as if something in the ceremony bothered them. But before I could pursue the thought, something else caught my eye.
Yet another beautiful young woman stood outside a serving door. She held a silver tray loaded with apples, and as I watched, a newly minted knight at the end of the line surreptitiously snatched one from it. He grinned at the girl, who blushed and returned the smile. No one else seemed to notice.
And that’s how it starts, I mused. In a year’s time this girl was likely to be a disgraced single parent living in squalor and supporting herself and the knight’s bastard child with the very physical beauty that led to her downfall. Within five years she’d be reduced to simply begging, and by the time her illegitimate offspring was ten, she’d be dead. And all because she caught the eye of some handsome knight at a banquet.
I shook my head. Wow. When did I become so completely cynical? No wonder I didn’t have many friends.
“And I have a special gift for one of our most notable knights,” Jennifer continued. “Sir Thomas Gillian is my husband’s cousin and was knighted on our wedding day. Since then, he has proved himself in both combat and kinship as a worthy knight indeed.” She gestured with one delicate hand, and the girl carrying the fruit started toward her at a slow, ceremonial pace.
“As anyone who’s ever hosted him knows, Tommy has a taste for apples,” Jennifer said with a smile. “The first thing he always asks is, ‘How may I serve you, Your Majesty?’ followed almost immediately by, ‘Are there any apples about?’”
There was polite laughter at this.
“Tonight, in his honor we have apples that I picked myself in the royal orchard and brought personally from the palace, so that everyone, including Thomas, might truly know the esteem in which he’s held.” The girl knelt before the queen, who selected an apple and motioned for the honored knight to step forward.
Gillian was roughly the same age as the queen, with long black hair pulled back in a ponytail and the kind of solid, square build that served well in battle. As she handed him the apple, there was a moment of grim, serious eye contact completely at odds with the frivolous situation. It reminded me of the uneasiness I’d noticed earlier in the other knights. Then he lifted the apple to his mouth.
Just before he bit into it, a ragged cry of pain filled the room. The young knight who’d earlier snatched the apple from the tray fell forward onto the stone floor with a wet, painful smack. He immediately went into violent convulsions.
With cries of horror, the demure lords and ladies bravely scurried away from him. The veteran knights, as such men will, immediately drew their weapons and looked for the next threat rather than aiding the victim of the last one. Most of the new soldiers followed suit, although several just froze.
I pushed through the crowd in time to see the young knight stop thrashing and lie completely still in that final, unmistakable way. His eyes were wide-open, and his tongue stuck out between his teeth.
I knelt beside the man-hell, a boy, with a beard that was no more than a few ambitious wisps and a neck still dotted with pimples. Black foam oozed from between his clenched teeth, and his body had already so swelled so much that his thin show armor could barely contain him. His hand still clutched the apple.
I pried the piece of fruit from his fingers, careful to use a handkerchief so I wouldn’t touch it, and sniffed. Under the normal juice smell was the distinctive pungent odor I expected. Poison.
In the silence, a voice I instantly recognized called out, “That man killed a knight!”
I looked up sharply. Between the pale faces at the front of the crowd, Lord Astamore glared at me with a mean, triumphal grin. “He slipped him some poison! I saw it! Don’t let him get away!”
“He’s a murderer!” another man cried.
“Yes, I saw it, too!” chimed in a third voice
