I sank into my chair. “No.”
She perched on the edge of my desk and crossed her legs. “You’re just not sure if you want to tell the whole story.”
I took her hand. “How did you get this smart?”
“I’m not smart, I just know you. There’s something you don’t want everyone to know, and you’re trying to think of a way to finish the story without including it.”
I shrug-nodded. The danger of a smart girlfriend was that you couldn’t easily fool her.
She leaned down to look in my eyes. The lamplight made her impossibly lovely. “Then tell me. I’ll help you decide.”
“I can’t tell just you, they’re waiting.”
She got right in my face. “Let them. You don’t owe them. For that matter, you don’t owe me. But I would like to find out what happened, and I know you’d like to finish telling the story. So tell me, leave in everything, and then decide if you want to tell them.”
After the kiss I said, “I’m sorry you had to hear about Iris.”
“Long time ago,” she said dismissively.
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
I got my office bottle from my desk and poured us each a drink. As we touched mugs, the impatient voices downstairs grew louder.
“Better make it quick,” she said.
I agreed.
THIRTY-TWO
“Go to hell,” the boy snarled as if he might bite me. Spittle collected at the corners of his mouth.
“Probably,” I agreed. “But not today.”
I moved the tip of my sword to his forehead and flicked it at his hairline. His hair came off, and Jennifer shrieked. Then she, and everyone else, realized it was just a wig. Long dark hair was pinned flat to his scalp.
I’m not sure I’d ever had a more dangerous captive. I moved the sword’s tip to the front of his tunic, keeping the pressure on his bent wrist. “If you want to retain your modesty, you’d better be more cooperative.”
The hatred in his eyes didn’t change. But his face did, rippling and becoming more feminine as we all watched. It only took a moment before someone, in this case Marcus, exclaimed the obvious.
“Megan!”
To this day I’m not entirely sure how she did it. Common sense says it was simply a supreme actor’s skill, combined with a moon priestess’s knowledge of substances and the kind of hatred only the righteous can feel. But it could very well have been some kind of magical glamour, because her true face bore no resemblance to that of the boy she’d just pretended to be. She was a woman near forty, neither beautiful nor homely, but as Cameron Kern had originally said, someone you wouldn’t look at twice. The perfect template for any disguise.
“Megan Drake,” Bob Kay whispered in wonder.
“And Polly, the old lady by the road who patched you up,” I said. “And Elaine at the Astolat tavern, who had all her teeth. And Rebecca, the queen’s attendant.”
“What?” Jennifer gasped. I could imagine her terror now.
Megan smiled. Her face changed again, to that of Rebecca. “Right under your nose, Marcus,” she said in Rebecca’s voice. “And you say there’s no magic in Grand Bruan.”
“And one more. Not a made-up identity this time, but a nice young serving girl named Mary who wore her prettiest dress to serve the queen.” I kept the sword at her throat. “Add a few cosmetic bruises and no one could tell the difference. Especially with the real girl out of the way in the sewer.”
“Let my mother go,” Medraft said calmly. It was the kind of calm that made weak men flee.
“I’d sooner kiss a scorpion,” I said. “Why don’t you take your sword out-slowly-and give it to Bob. Then tell your men to get out.”
He might’ve been discussing his boot laces. “And if I don’t?”
I nicked Megan Drake’s cheek. She gasped but didn’t cry out. “Let’s see your goddamned glamour hide that.”
“Oh, my friend,” Medraft said even more quietly, “that’s a debt to be paid.” But he took out his sword and placed it on the table beside the coffin with such deliberateness that it didn’t make a sound. He nodded at his bodyguards, and they departed.
“Get his sword, Bob,” I said. “Then tie this woman to a chair. Keep her hands where we can see them.”
He did, using strips torn from the tablecloth, and I kept my sword at her throat until she was secure. I said to her, “If you say anything out of line, I’ll gag you. If you try anything funny, I’ll kill you. I mean it.”
“I believe you,” she said simply.
Now it was just me and a tent full of tense men and women trapped between two armies itching to go to battle for the fate of a kingdom. No pressure. I put away my sword and said, “I suppose you wonder why I’ve asked you all here.”
Despite everything, Bob Kay loudly choked down a laugh.
“It’s because I’m going to tell you a story,” I continued. “If I get something wrong, I apologize. I wasn’t there for some of it. But the broad strokes will be right.
“I’ll start with what I know for certain. A few days ago, a poisoned apple ended up on a tray in the queen’s possession. It was intended for Thomas Gillian. Before it got to him, though, a serving girl named Mary held it, and a new knight named Sam Patrice snatched it by mistake. He died in front of everyone in Nodlon. Some folks said the queen was responsible, some said I was. Neither was the case. I think we all know now who was behind it.”
Gillian said to Megan, “You wanted to kill me?”
“No, I-”
“Not a word,” I snapped at her. To Gillian I said, “Yes, she wanted to kill you, but that wasn’t the main point. And once it all went south, three groups got involved, all working at cross-purposes. One was the nobility, desperate to exonerate the queen in order to preserve the status quo. They decided I was guilty. The second was the Knights of the Double Tarn, long suspicious of the queen’s fidelity, and convinced she was guilty. The third was the king’s exiled sister, her son, and a trio of disloyal knights trying to salvage their original plan.”
No one said anything.
“My presence was what really screwed things up,” I continued. “The attack had been aimed at Gillian, but Patrice, another knight, would do almost as well. And if I hadn’t rushed to try and help Patrice, it might’ve still worked. Let that be a lesson about no good deed going unpunished. Then, when I started actually investigating things, the original plan had to be abandoned and covered up. That’s when the second murder happened. The serving girl who held the poisoned apples was quietly killed and dumped in the drainage tunnel beneath the castle.”
“She was?” Kay said in surprise. “We questioned her.”
“No, we didn’t. She was already dead. We questioned Megan here. She painted on some fake injuries and a lot of acting and fooled us both. She put the blame back on Jennifer by convincing us Agravaine tried to protect the queen. After all, why would a knight beat up a lowly kitchen girl if she didn’t know something important? And we fell for it.”
“How do you know all this?” Drake said coldly.
“Because when I found Mary’s body after we’d supposedly talked to her, there wasn’t a mark on her face. Not a scratch. Which was impossible. The only explanation was that we hadn’t questioned Mary at all. And once I figured that out, I realized how closely Mary, and Rebecca, and Elaine all resembled each other. Same height, same size. So when I met Polly, I knew exactly who she was.”
I let that sink in. Megan sat with her chin up, her eyes focused on nothing.
“So the queen was charged with treason, and once again my presence gummed things up,” I continued. “Kay sent me to fetch Elliot Spears, which Megan wanted to avoid at all costs; after all, Spears was unbeatable on the
