looked at the ground for a moment. “A message came in early this morning. I transcribed it myself. Catherine reported to my wife that she miscarried.”
Owen gasped, then hugged his arms around himself. “I… I should feel horrible, but I feel, I guess, relief? The child, Highness, if there was a child, was not mine. I didn’t want to think of Catherine as having broken our vows, but…”
“But you allowed for the possibility.”
Owen nodded. “You know as well as I that our relations have been strained, but I’d never let myself think of infidelity. Marriage vows are sacred…”
Vlad grasped the man by both shoulders. “Owen, this is my fault.”
“Highness…”
“At least in part, a very large part, because I asked you to lie to your wife. I told you that I did not trust her, and that led you to question whether or not she was worthy of trust.” Vlad looked him in the eye. “And now you will have to keep more secrets from her, at least until we sort Bishop Bumble out. You can’t ask her who pressured her, but you must be alert for any sign.”
“I understand.” Owen’s eyes narrowed. “If Catherine did have a lover, if she had taken one while I was gone, you would tell me, wouldn’t you?”
Vlad hesitated, letting his hands fall to his sides. “Not without good reason. I would not cause you pain, but neither would I allow you to be humiliated.”
Owen took a half step back. “I guess, in your position, that is what you must do.”
“If you ask me directly, I will not lie to you.”
“Does she have a lover?”
I hope to God I am not wrong. “Not to my knowledge.”
“Thank you.”
“That is not something for which you should be thanking me.” Vlad turned and patted Mugwump’s flank. “The second matter is of the identity of the person who gave the orders to deploy Count von Metternin and the people from Fort Plentiful. There are three possibilities. The Count said the message had come through in my hand, but I know I did not send it. However, I could not discount that by some trick of magick and location that the message might not have traveled to him before it was sent: a journey through time. So, last evening, I took his transcript and transmitted it, in case that was the solution.”
Owen’s jaw dropped open. “I never would have imagined…”
“I’m quite certain that is not the solution. Tharyngians have speculated about temporal translocation for a long time and have dismissed it. I hope they are right, or we should be fighting the same wars over and over again. Still, I had to be thorough.” The Prince opened his hands. “This leaves us, then, with two other possibilities: an unknown but friendly individual who is known to us but chooses to be hidden, or an unknown person who has access to great magicks and, for purposes unknown to us, chose to help us win the fight.”
Owen arched an eyebrow. “Like the woman Kamiskwa saw? Someone who wanted Rufus to fail?”
“Yes. When I spoke with Rufus, he referred to himself as Sun’s Whisper, and suggested unequivocally that he was controlling Rufus. I accept that there was someone else inside Rufus. We cannot discount the idea that this Sun’s Whisper has enemies among the Norghaest, and that his enemies might have access to messages moving between thaumagraphs.” Vlad canted his head slightly. “I do not think this is the solution, but I cannot discount it, nor can I discount the chance of the Norghaest learning of the thaumagraphs.”
“Of course, Highness.” Owen ran a hand over his jaw. “Figuring out who it was on our side shouldn’t be hard. Needs to know magick, have some military training, have access to a thaumagraph, and training on how to use it. And has to know your hand well enough to mimic it. I would think this latter point would be the most difficult.”
“Congratulations, you have defined the problem as I did.” Vlad shook his head. “Unfortunately, I can’t pinpoint anyone who fulfills those parameters.”
A grin spread across Owen’s face. The Prince found it pleasing and a bit unsettling. “I think, Highness, that’s because you are too close to the solution.”
“I must be, because I don’t understand what you’re suggesting.” Vlad smiled. “Who is it?”
“The most dangerous military leader in Mystria, Highness. The individual with the longest history of service to the Crown. He uses magick, and likely knows you better than anyone else in the world.” Owen looked beyond the Prince. “There’s only one possibility. Mugwump himself gave the order to attack.”
Chapter Sixty-three
20 June 1768 Bounty Trail Temperance Bay, Mystria
While Owen was anxious to get back to his family, he welcomed the leisurely pace of the return journey for a number of reasons. Each day the party shrank as family groups and squads split off for their homes. The leave- taking was bittersweet and different than it had been after Anvil Lake. These people had lost friends and gotten wounded fighting an enemy they’d never heard of before, and likely never would hear of again. Many of them still had no real idea who the Norghaest were, though the impression that they were from the far, southwest deserts had taken hold. While the people had won a great victory-and probably would never understand how great it truly was-there was no sense of history about it.
They had just come out to defend their homes and support Prince Vlad as he defended Mystria. As causes went, it wasn’t a great one and yet, it was one for which people were more than willing to give their lives. That alone made it special, and the grim satisfaction on the faces of those who headed home suggested they understood that fact even if they still weren’t clear on all that had happened.
Because the Fifth Northland had ridden ahead, and passed through to Temperance Bay more than a week before the force’s main body, local people came out to see the spectacle of returning troops. Because of the odd weather, and it being so early in the year, farmers didn’t have much to share with the troops, but they shared what they could. By agreement, the Prince accepted something, and then the children and wounded got offerings, while the rest just watched and cheered. Especially joyous were those times when soldiers found their families waiting for them. Owen secretly hoped Catherine, Miranda, and Becca might be waiting for him, and was certain the Prince’s family would greet him before Prince Haven.
The prolonged journey allowed Owen time to wrestle with the problems he’d discussed with the Prince. He didn’t think too long on the question of Catherine’s infidelity simply because it had become moot. Bumble, or someone else, had pressured her into tricking Princess Gisella. Catherine had to know that Gisella had a secret. Owen had to be on guard not to reveal what he knew, and had to learn what she did know. Until that matter was settled, she had to be considered utterly untrustworthy. In that case, her fidelity and their marriage really did not matter.
What he did realize was that he would never abandon her, nor would he humiliate her. He would endure whatever life threw at him simply because he had taken vows and, more importantly, had two daughters to raise. Mystria was a magickal land that had given him a future. He owed it to his new home to raise his girls to be daughters of Mystria. It didn’t matter that Becca was not his blood; she was his responsibility. Just as the Prince had asked him to look after his family, so Owen would look after his own.
The journey gave him a great deal of time to think on the puzzle of Mugwump. Owen had been proud of his conclusion and the Prince’s surprised reaction had tickled him to death. Vlad had stammered and stared, then paced. They discussed the facts. Mugwump had been born into military service and had fought in wars for nearly seven centuries. He used magick to fly. If his use of magick for flight was a natural process, Owen guessed the dragon might well have been equipped to hear, for lack of a better term, the messages being sent. His residence at Prince Haven would have allowed him to experience all of the early messages and, since mimicry was not unknown among animals, it was not hard to postulate that he could have learned to send messages that appeared to have been sent by Prince Vlad.
Supposing that Mugwump had the ability to hear and send messages also accounted for the ghost messages. It occurred to Owen that those might have been Mugwump’s first attempts at forming messages, but then an even more interesting and terrifying thought came to him. The Prince had reported that when they flew together, Mugwump would make vocalizations. What if the ghost messages were magickal vocalizations which were meant
