Dragon Prince 02 - The Star Scroll (51 page)

“They’d have no qualms about doing the same to you.” Ostvel surprised his only offspring by pulling him into a rough embrace. “Forgive me for snapping at you. You did the right thing.” He released his son and sank into a chair. “So we have proof of a sort.”

“Of a very poor sort. Kleve never actually told me his suspicions. And I never got close enough to the house to see who was in it besides Kiele. I didn’t see Masul. I didn’t see him kill a Sunrunner.” His hands clenched, his rings bright arcs between whitened knuckles. “Father, for all I know Halian is in league with Kiele, and has been keeping me away from you on purpose. I don’t trust anybody and that scares me.” He paused, shaking his head. “The most we can do is tell Rohan and Sioned. Maybe they’ll be able to confront Kiele with it and frighten her off somehow.”

“It would only put you in danger by letting her know that you saw something you shouldn’t have. I can’t risk you, Riyan. I won’t risk you.” Looking directly into his son’s eyes, he said, “You’re all I have left of your mother.”

Rarely had he heard Ostvel even mention the woman Riyan barely remembered. He swallowed the ache in his throat. Standing beside his father’s chair, he studied the worried face, the cloud-gray eyes. “What do you think Mother would have done?”

Ostvel shrugged, uncomfortable with the emotion. “If you knew how many times I’ve asked myself that over the years since she died. . . . She probably would have said exactly what you have.” He shifted position and went on, “We—Maarken and I—took Pol over to the Fair again for a little while today, and only had to keep our ears open to hear all the latest rumors. Masul is, he isn’t, he couldn’t be, he ought to be, how long will Rohan let him live. . . .” Ostvel slammed his fist on the arm of the chair.

“It seems to me that the length of Masul’s life depends entirely on Masul himself,” Riyan murmured.

“Try convincing others of that. They don’t know our High Prince the way you and I do. He’d cut off his own arm before he’d make a surreptitious or dishonorable move against this pretender.”

“And tell us it’s practicality that stays his hand, not any particular nobility on his part.”

“Accuse him of being noble and he’ll laugh in your face. It has to do with freedom.”

“Whose?” the young man asked, bewildered.

“His. Don’t worry,” he added in sympathy. “I don’t completely understand it either. What he says is that when you take action, you trap yourself into that action. But by waiting and seeing how things develop, you keep your options open. You’re free to choose what to do—or what
not
to do.”

“You’re right. I don’t understand at all.”

“I think it goes back to his first
Rialla,
” Ostvel mused. “He did certain things that trapped people into doing certain other things. But he got trapped, as well—and he didn’t much like it, I can tell you. What you have to understand about him is that he’ll never use us. He knows exactly what we’re made of, our strengths and weaknesses, and makes his own plans accordingly. But he’ll never trap us into doing things. It was done to him and he hated it. With Rohan, you’ll never do anything for him that you wouldn’t have done of your own will. He won’t twist you all awry getting you to do what he wants. But because he knows who and what you are, you’ll do it anyway.”

“He really is the
azhrei,
” Riyan said, half in wonder. “A dragon waits to see which way the herd will run before he begins his hunt.”

“I suggest you do the same,” his father warned. “You’ve not been away so long that I can’t still tell what you’re thinking. You’ve your mother’s eyes, you know. She never could hide much from me. Don’t even consider it, Riyan. Rohan and Pol must meet this man in public and discredit him in public, or Pol’s claim will never be secure.”

“Pity,” Riyan said briefly.

“Whatever you’re thinking, I forbid it,” Ostvel warned.

“I wasn’t thinking anything, Father.”

“Good. See that you continue not thinking it.” The storm clouds in his eyes cleared a little. “Sit down and talk to me of other things. I’m sick of plots and politics. How did you like returning to Clutha’s service? Has he treated you well?”

Riyan answered with stories of his time at Swalekeep, finding relief equal to his father’s in discussion of matters no more weighty than the best method of saddle breaking a horse or the antics of Halian’s illegitimate daughters. But though much of him relaxed into easy conversation, a deeper part of his mind was working out ways he could continue to observe Kiele—as his fostering prince had, after all, commanded.

He found his opportunity later that day. Lady Chiana required certain things at the residence in Waes, and had enlisted Prince Halian as escort on the ride. This was a piece of rather transparent guile on her part, for if Halian was with her, he could not be elsewhere listening to persons who doubted her royal birth. Riyan, whom Halian had once again appropriated from Clutha, went along with them and listened stolidly to their flirtation. All the arch comments and teasing laughter Chiana lavished on Halian were things long since directed unsuccessfully at Riyan; he was privately amazed that she varied her technique not at all from man to man. But Halian swallowed all of it as if he was the very first ever to rise to her bait. Riyan felt rather sorry for him, but he was contemptuous too. The prince was welcome to her, and much joy might she bring him if he was fool enough to make her his wife.

On arrival at the residence, she tossed her reins to Riyan as if he were nothing more than a groom and gave him casual permission to attend to his own pursuits. Halian waved him away, intent on Chiana.

Riyan watched the pair mount the steps to the main doors, thinking sardonically of Kiele’s probable reaction to having her home used as a whorehouse. Chiana was no idiot, he’d give her that; there were servants aplenty inside to witness the amount of time she and Halian would spend alone, probably locked away in an upper chamber with access to a bed. If Halian thought he’d be getting Chiana for free, he was in for a shock. Riyan shrugged and helped stable the horses, exchanging idle chat with a friendly groom who knew him from his stay here.

After a brief debate with himself, he rode to the manor house outside town where Kleve had been killed. He reined in before it, lips pursed and brow furrowed. Sunlight poured down the roof like a glaze of warm honey, wildflowers sprang up from the surrounding grasses; it did not look like a place of death. Tethering his horse he opened the door cautiously and went inside.

The rooms were as empty as when he’d inspected them the night of Kleve’s death. Nothing had been touched—the bedclothes were still tumbled and the used crockery stank of rotted food. Riyan shook his head over the fool’s errand he was engaged in. If no one had returned to tidy the evidence, chances were there was no evidence to be found. But he had to try.

The afternoon yielded faint dark stains on the floor that might have been blood, and other signs of hasty abandonment he’d missed last time—a shirt kicked under the bed and forgotten, a woman’s earring under the table where candlelight hadn’t caught it but sunlight did. It had to be Kiele’s. But short of ransacking her jewel coffers for the other one, there was no way to prove it. Besides, she would have disposed of the matching earring the instant she’d discovered she’d lost this one. But evidence was here, all right—which made him revise his original interpretation of the disorder. No one had returned because no one dared. Perhaps he’d disturbed something in his search that night, warning the occupant to flee at once. Perhaps he had even been seen entering or leaving the house—and if that was true, he marveled that he was still alive. Riyan pocketed the earring and continued the hunt.

Toward dusk he found usable evidence stuffed into a closet at the back of the house. Riyan’s active imagination prompted speculation that a piece of clothing or some other article belonging to Kleve had, like the shirt and earring, been forgotten in a panicky departure.

But he was not prepared for the bundle of heavy wool in the closet, stiff with dried blood, wrapped around a towel that contained three severed fingers.

Riyan dropped the grisly bundle, backing away in horror. A cry clotted in his throat. Stumbling, half-blind, he ran for the sink and vomited up everything in his stomach. When he was empty and exhausted by the violence of his reaction, he pumped water to wash his face. Sight of his own water-polished rings made him gag again.

It seemed forever before he could make himself go back. The blanket lay where he had flung it, the pattern of red and yellow crusted over with dried blood. As for the towel—Riyan knelt, trembling, and forced himself to touch a finger, to begin removing its ring. Andrade would want them, he told himself over and over. Andrade would want them as proof.

But then he stopped, staring at the plain circles around the severed fingers.

Kleve had worn six rings, marking him as adept at using both sun and moons. But on the bloodied towel before him were three fingers wearing only two silver rings.

He sucked in a great lungful of air, steadying himself. His father had told him that Sioned had somehow recovered one of the gold rings; it was how they learned of Kleve’s death. It must have been from the left first finger—missing from this grim collection. The other gold was gone from the right thumb. It was the proudest ring of all, the fifth that signified full Sunrunner status. He could see the white circle on dead skin where the ring had been worn for most of Kleve’s life.

Where was that fifth ring?

Riyan pushed himself to his feet and went to the window, flinging it wide to let clean air in. Then he got a fresh sheet from the stack in the linen cupboard and used it to wrap the evidence. He took another sheet and folded the blanket in it—thick red-and-yellow wool, Cunaxan weave, that had undoubtedly shrouded Kleve’s corpse while it was carried away. Masul was said to be tall and strong, with broad shoulders and muscles enough to make the burden a relatively light one. And Riyan felt sick again at realizing that while he himself had been poking around the manor house, Masul had been depositing Kleve’s body somewhere for the scavengers to find. Why couldn’t Masul have returned while Riyan was still there? He bitterly cursed the missed chance—then gulped and acknowledged that the Goddess had been watching over him that night.

But why had Masul not sliced off Kleve’s hands completely? Even if he’d taken all the rings, there would have been marks around the fingers left by the sun. Without hands, nothing could identify him as
faradhi.
An instant later the answer was obvious. A corpse with missing hands could point in only one direction: the murdered Sunrunner.

Still, Masul had neglected to dispose of the severed fingers; a stupid mistake. No, a fatal one. Had he trusted that after once finding nothing, no one else would come and make as thorough a search as Riyan had just done? Had haste made him careless? Had he not dared come back here or had his own arrogance betrayed him?

Riyan wondered what poor terrified person had found Kleve’s body. But he knew why no one had come forth with the information. Who wanted to be connected with the death and desecration of a Sunrunner? How the gold ring had found its way to Sioned was a mystery he gnawed at while stuffing the sheets into his saddlebags. Perhaps someone had gone looking for Kleve or heard a rumor, or the remaining rings had been taken from his fingers for sale. It didn’t matter much, and Riyan told himself to stop questioning the Goddess’ good will. She looked after her
faradh’im;
that was all he needed to believe in. What was important was the terrible evidence lashed securely into leather pouches.

He returned to the house and washed his face and hands again, shivering. It was dusk; Chiana and Halian would be impatient for his return. He stuffed the sheets with their terrible contents into his saddlebags. A gallop through the crisp evening air blew away the horror and fanned his anger. He would see Masul dead for this, and Kiele with him. They had murdered a Sunrunner. He hoped Andrade would match their viciousness when she decided the manner of their deaths.

Halian and Chiana had ridden back without him. Riyan shrugged, caring nothing for any punishment the prince might decree for his dereliction of duty, and stayed at the residence long enough to down two large cups of wine before riding back to the encampment. He did not stop at Meadowlord’s light green tents, but instead made straight for the High Prince’s pavilion.

Riyan went past Tallain without a word. He bowed and swept a grim gaze over his father and Rohan, who fell silent as he threw the saddlebags on the desk.

“Proof,” he said curtly.

Ostvel opened the leather bags and caught his breath. Rohan said nothing as the contents were placed before him. He studied them for a long time, then met Riyan’s eyes.

It took only a few moments to tell the story of his afternoon. His father looked murderous. Rohan’s eyes kindled with a slowly gathering fury that, if unleashed, would destroy everything in its path.

“One of them has the other ring,” Riyan finished. “I’m sure of it. My guess is that it was the fifth, gold for the right thumb, the Sunrunner’s ring.”

“Too big for Kiele,” Rohan murmured. “But Masul’s size. Yes.”

“If he dares to wear it, we have him.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps.” Rohan folded the sheets over and replaced the bundles in the saddlebags. “Your father has told me the rest. But I must give you an order now as your prince, Riyan—something you may find difficult to obey as a Sunrunner.” He held Riyan’s gaze with his own. “Say nothing to Andrade of this. Nothing.”

He felt no conflict. “I was your man the day I was born.”

The blond brows arched slightly. “Not even a fleeting qualm? Andrade won’t be pleased by that. Whatever you may be to me, you are partially hers.”

“
All
that I am, my prince, is yours,” Riyan said with simple dignity.