everything we can to find the monster who did that to her.”
“Do you have a personal interest, Nathan?”
“No, Majesty. What we know comes courtesy of the sorcerer’s lame efforts. Her name was Phyletia Plens. She was the adopted daughter of Herald and Janna Bors. They identified the body. They say that her real parents had a chance encounter during the excitement back when.
Phyletia was not a happy child. She ran away sometimes.
This time she didn’t come back.”
Inger made a growling sound. This was more information than she wanted. “Nathan!”
“Majesty, more than anything else… We could reap the whirlwind if we don’t protect the children.”
“Yes.” Inger had a child of her own.
What she did not understand was why Nathan Wolf, unmarried and childless, was emotional y engaged. She asked.
“Majesty, I can’t explain. I don’t have the words. I just know that whoever did that to Phyletia Plens was a soul uglier than a savan dalage.” His intensity pleased Inger, though its foundation remained obscure.
She asked again.
“I doesn’t matter. Al we can do for her, now, is mourn her.
But another girl is missing. Hanna Isodor. She disappeared just before Plens turned up. She’s the same age, similar background, same physical description.” Inger started to speak. Nathan gave her no room. “Also missing is a Carrie Depar, almost thirteen, different physical description. She’s been
gone five days. She told friends she was going to run away with her boyfriend. They didn’t know who the boyfriend was.”
“This could change everything even though it has no strategic significance.”
Nobody in the provinces gave a rat’s ass whether the Queen protected Vorgreberg’s children but Vorgrebergers certainly did. Protection was the reason kings and nobles existed. The protected worked hard to produce surpluses in kind and coin to support a warrior class meant to defend them from predators external and internal.
In most kingdoms, much of the time, that mutual obligation was under stress, humans being the despicable beasts they became given any opportunity. But what was happening here was the nightmare that lurked in every parent’s heart.
There was no denying it. The Boogerman walked among them.
Angered, Inger summoned Josiah Gales, Babeltausque, and Doctor Wachtel to join her and Wolf.
She seated them and Wolf at a table her husband had used when he wanted his henchmen to brainstorm. “We have to handle this fast. I don’t know how but we have got to find the man who tortured the Plens girl. If we don’t we’l lose Vorgreberg, too.
I’ve had an inventory run. It revealed two things. First, the servants have been stealing from us. Second, we should begin eating the horses to save their grain for a possible siege. Which we might withstand for as much as six days.” Colonel Gales coughed, meant as a signal. It was heavy, liquid, and disturbing. He remained far from recovered.
The Queen stopped jabbering. “Josiah?”
“Cleave to the problem at hand. Don’t look into the gloom just yet.” “Of course. Gentlemen. We have a monster among us. How do we find him? Babeltausque?” The sorcerer shifted uneasily. Gales and Wolf looked at him like they dared him to open his mouth. Both had been in Greyfel s service a long time.
Inger had heard rumors, too. “Wel ? Wouldn’t you understand this kind of mind better than anybody?” Babeltausque asked, “Is there the remotest chance that your cousin has been getting out at night?” That was wel -played. Inger would relive her experiences as a comely lass in a household where wickedness was routine and Dane of Greyfel s was one of the more wicked players.
Gales and Wolf kept on eyeing him darkly.
He tapped into his courage. “Torture isn’t what moves me. I never harmed anyone. I only love them til they break my heart.” Gales and Wolf donned contemptuous smiles.
Inger seemed appal ed.
What a screw up. He had used the present tense.
What mad, self-destructive force compel ed him to indict himself that way? Was he so conflicted that he would set himself up to be convicted of another’s monstrous behavior?
Wachtel looked eager to get that word out. He might betray himself in his haste.
“Al of you, listen. I did not harm Phyletia Plens. I didn’t know her.
She is nothing to me. Was nothing, in that way. Look for someone else.
As Her Majesty noted, there may be no hunter better than I.
Doctor, sit.
Relax. We’l be here a while. Tel us, has this happened before?” The old man took his time. Final y, he nodded.
“Sadly, you are correct. There have been similar incidents, the most recent before your arrival. Things were more confused back then. No one had attention to spare for an anonymous child who probably brought it on herself.”
“Anonymous?” Babeltausque asked.
“She turned out to be El ie Wood, a runaway, in flight from an abusive father. There was another one, seven or eight years ago, named Tefe Black, thirteen and pregnant by her father or one of her brothers. It would have been a marvelous scandal if there hadn’t been a war on.” Babeltausque nodded. “Their deaths touched you.”
“They were children. Nobody loved them. They were tormented by their own kin first, then a monster consumed them. No one cared. No one but me. And I was powerless.
Not even Michael would take it on.” Tears fil ed the old man’s eyes. The others were amazed. Babeltausque said,
“Black isn’t a common surname, is it? It sounds Itaskian.
Right? Mr. Wolf, didn’t we run into that surname somewhere recently?”
Wolf looked blank. “I don’t think so.”
“The butcher. In the shop where the Heltkler girl left the beer.”
“His name was Black? I don’t recal that.”
“Maybe I didn’t mention it. Neighborhood gossip says Haida Heltkler was an abuse victim.”
“The butcher?”
“Maybe too obvious. He wouldn’t destroy the girl physical y.
He would be feeding a different need. He would be the unwanted lover.
Someone else would be the punisher. Someone close to the butcher.
Let’s find out if Tefe Black was related. If so, we’l look for the man Black’s girls ran to… Doctor?”
Wachtel seemed to be choking.
...
“That isn’t particularly subtle,” Nepanthe observed, watching over Varthlokkur’s shoulder. “You said you don’t want people remembering you.”
The Unborn was making a night progress over Sedlmayr. “This is the time when little plots wil come to life.
Radeachar wil discourage them.”
“What wil you do about what’s happening in Vorgreberg?” She meant the girl-kil er.
He sighed. He did care. He was appal ed. But there were only so many hours and no way everyone could be saved.
There were bigger issues. And those people were not idiots. They could manage if they wanted.
“And tel me this, husband. How can you eavesdrop in Castle Krief but not on Haroun or Mist?”
“We lived in Castle Krief. I know every inch. Every inch remembers me. And I bespel ed the place before we left.” And he could eavesdrop on Mist, when conditions were right. But Mist insisted on making it difficult now that she knew it could be done.
The truth was more technical but that was the gist.
