“What was it about the queen’s body that upset you and Bolt?” he asked.
The image of the queen, unclothed and facedown in her coffin rose in my mind. “She broke her neck, but it wasn’t any dwimor’s doing.” I briefly wondered why neither Gael nor Bolt had spoke of this to him, but I couldn’t think of any reason he should be left in the dark.
“How could you know that?” Rory pressed.
It took me a moment to remember he’d been guarding the door. He hadn’t seen Chora’s body. “She had identical cuts above the back of each knee. Deep.”
Rory had never shouldered the burden of serving Collum in its wars against Owmead, but he’d picked up a lot of experience on the streets of Bunard. “The killer hamstrung her? Why?”
“That’s what I’d like to know,” I said, “but I don’t think a dwimor would bother with trying to disguise the queen’s death as an accident.”
Rory shook his head. “But that doesn’t make any sense either. For that to work, someone would have had to plan her death ahead of time.”
“Possibly,” I said. “Or they’d have to possess the resources to improvise on the spot. That means they’d have to remove the queen’s body before anyone could see her.”
“And then guard the body with the cosp so no one might see how she really died,” Gael added, her voice hard.
Rory checked the hall around us, though his physically gifted hearing would have picked up on anyone following. “The Archbishop,” he said.
I stopped. “Possibly not.” I turned to Gael. “He wasn’t close enough to so quickly arrange her death, but the queen’s advisor was. He never left her side.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Bishop Gehata. But he could be working for Vyne.”
I nodded, holding up my hand. “Aer have mercy, I’m tired, but I have to find a way to touch him.”
A few moments later, we arrived at court, Rory preceding us to scan the crowd for any who might not be visible to others. We stepped into the silvered hall and the kaleidoscope it produced. Gael put her hand on my arm. “Speak of evil . . .” she murmured.
I looked up to see Bishop Gehata moving toward us through the crowd, attended by a half-dozen cosp.
“And it appears,” I finished.
Chapter 29
Bishop Gehata and his attendants came through the crowd, the assembled nobility parting for them like the waves coming off the prow of a ship. The bishop’s eyes flicked to Bolt before they resumed inspection of their intended target. Me.
“This can’t be good,” I said.
I tried to assume a relaxed pose, but the linen binding my wound kept me from taking a deep breath, and the strain of remaining upright made me sweat. Chances were the bishop wouldn’t be taken in by any stories of dalliance between Gael and me.
At five paces, I copied the genuflections the rest of the nobility offered him, careful to match them exactly. When I straightened he stood before me, almost close enough to touch, but not quite.
“Greetings, Lord Dura,” the bishop said. “Lord Rory. Lady Gael,” he nodded.
“Bishop Gehata.” Gael curtsied with enough grace to make the movements of the cosp look awkward.
The bishop turned a slow circle, catching the eye of the nobles leaning in around us. “I wonder, Lord Dura,” he said without looking my way, “if I might have a word with you—privately, of course.”
The nobles around us melted away, each finding some reason to be engaged elsewhere. I recognized the expressions they wore—fear, followed by relief—had seen them any number of times in Bunard when Duke Orlan or his wife threatened me.
The bishop’s guards encircled us, ostensibly to ensure our privacy in the middle of the throne room, but the space between my shoulder blades started to itch. On the dais, Bolt watched us as he observed court, trapped there by a line of nobles claiming to hold the gift of kings. With the queen’s death, Gehata held temporal power in Cynestol, and Errant or no, throne room or not, everyone else submitted to him.
“To what do we owe the honor and pleasure?” Gael said, sliding her arm through mine, a motion that might have been intended to convey protection.
The bishop smiled. “The Archbishop is too ill to attend court. He sends his regrets.”
I kept myself from gaping while my heart struggled to free itself from my chest. “The Archbishop is ill? Is it serious?”
Gehata tempered his ever-present smirk. “The Archbishop is old. Every illness is serious.” He surveyed the throne room. Most of the nobility shied from his gaze. “How goes the search for the heir?”
Around us, the cosp tightened their ring, edging closer.
If I’d noticed it, Gael couldn’t have possibly missed it, but she kept her gaze on Gehata. “I wouldn’t know, Your Eminence.” She nodded toward the dais. “I will be happy to ask Errant Consto, if you wish.” Her arm loosened in mine, but instead of moving away, she shifted her weight to the balls of her feet. No one inside the circle of the bishop’s guards could possibly have misinterpreted her stance.
“Hardly necessary,” the bishop said. He turned to survey the nobles with amused disdain. “It’s doubtful in the extreme he will find the heir here. If one of the nobles present held the gift of kings, I’m sure they would have presented themselves before now. Few of them realize that the last Errant is not the sort of man whose favor can be purchased with a few blandishments and empty promises. They lack the character to comprehend men of absolutes.” His gaze landed on me. “Do you know the liturgy, Lord Dura?”
I nodded. “I was one week from taking my orders when the call from my king came to muster for war,” I said. “Once I’d
