“That must have been difficult for you,” she replied. “You did your best, and now we need to get Osha out of that room.”
Then she realized she’d omitted Chane. She was used to his lying dormant until the sun set, and thankfully Nikolas didn’t seem to notice the slip.
“I can’t help with that, but Sherie might,” he said. “She was going to speak with Karl, so I’ll try to catch her.”
Wynn nodded in relief, for she couldn’t think of anything better or safer. She and Shade followed Nikolas out into the passage and as far as her own door. He walked swiftly to the guard at the top of the stairs—a different one than Wynn remembered from the night before. This one had broad shoulders and graying hair.
“Lieutenant Martelle,” Nikolas said. “I need to see the duchess.”
The guard nodded once.
That Nikolas knew the keep’s people by name and position told Wynn that he must be respected here, at least, for being Jausiff’s son. The guard stepped out of sight onto the stairs as he called down, “Comeau? You there?”
A moment later Martelle stepped back up into view with another guard and nodded to Nikolas as he gestured to his companion. “Guardsman Comeau will escort you to the duchess, Master Nikolas.”
Wynn sighed in frustration, for even Nikolas was not allowed to walk around by himself. As the young sage and the new guardsman vanished down the stairs, she turned to face the Suman guard. Perhaps she could try something a little ... louder?
She ignored the guard and called out, “Osha! Are you all right?”
The guard barely had time to scowl when the door jerked inward and opened. Osha tried to take a step out, but the Suman had already whirled, with a hand on his sword’s hilt.
“Get back,” the guard ordered in Numanese.
Osha didn’t move.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Wynn exclaimed, tired of all this, and then remembered Nikolas’s mention of odds between the Sumans and the keep’s guards. “Lieutenant Martelle?” she called toward the stairs. “May I please speak to my personal guards? I promise that we all shall remain in the guest quarters.”
The lieutenant stalked a few steps down the passage, eyed her once, and looked at the Suman guard in obvious annoyance. “Let her in.”
The Suman glowered back but hesitantly stepped aside.
Wynn wondered about the chain of command in the keep. Was the old guard still considered the final authority? It seemed so ... as long as the duke wasn’t present.
Wynn waved Shade ahead and hurried in as Osha stepped back and closed the door once they were all inside. Chane, fully clothed down to his boots, lay stretched out on the far bed. Without breathing, he looked dead for all practical purposes.
Osha looked as exhausted as Wynn felt.
“What in the seven hells were you two doing last night?” she whispered harshly in Elvish. Likely their little excursion had been Chane’s idea, but he wasn’t awake for her to chastise.
Osha ignored her bit of temper and answered calmly, “Looking for the guarded door Shade saw in the duke’s memory.”
That just irritated her more. By what Shade had shown her, the door was probably underground, and Osha and Chane clearly hadn’t made it that far before being caught. Still, what had they found? And when she asked ...
“Not a door ... or not the one you described for the majay-hì.” Osha ran a hand through the messy hair at the crown of his head to push it back before he continued. “We reached a passage at the keep’s back near its rear wall. I heard shore waves close by and saw a light down the dark passage ahead. The undead ... Chane ... said it was a sage’s crystal. I saw the elder sage with a metal object in hand, and he appeared to be searching the floor, though he stopped often, as if looking at the object he held. Another tall person was with him and holding the crystal, though I did not see that one’s face. Both were fully cloaked and hooded. Then footsteps rose in a side passage. I looked around the corner toward that sound, and a sharp breeze struck me from behind. When I turned back in to the main passage, there was no light, and no one appeared to be there anymore.”
He went on to explain how he had evaded capture and inspected a locked door with a sentry window at the passage’s end, and how there was also an archway to the right and another locked door down a parallel set of stone stairs.
Sometimes Wynn forgot he’d once been an anmaglâhk trained to be a spy if not yet an assassin.
“And you found no one left in the passage?” she asked.
Osha shook his head.
Tired as Wynn felt, she knew all this was somehow important. “Close your eyes,” she told Osha, “and try to remember as much as you can of what you saw.” She reached down to touch Shade at her side. “Show me.”
A dim passage appeared in Wynn’s mind as Shade passed whatever Osha strove to remember. In a matter of moments, Wynn saw most of what Osha had described. She felt the wind, and then, indeed, Jausiff and the tall companion had somehow escaped. When she saw the dead-end passage and the locked door leading outside, she was certain it was not the same door that Shade had seen in Karl’s memory.
“That’s enough.” Wynn shook her head. “Nikolas told me that when Jausiff and Aupsha were in quarantine, Jausiff called for Sherie. She was told to take a package left outside the door and throw it over the north wall. Whoever the messenger was retrieved it before heading for Calm Seatt. That’s how the two-letter message got out of the keep without the guards or the duke knowing.”
Osha absorbed her words, turned, and took a few long paces. “I would guess that the companion in the passage must be the old sage’s servant, Aupsha. As to the message being thrown over the wall, I cannot see what this means.”
“Well, we know Jausiff and Aupsha are up to more than helping Karl,” Wynn countered. “And he and she are the ones sneaking around, searching for something that the duke and possibly the duchess know nothing about.” She crossed her arms in frustration. “Somehow Jausiff and his companion got out of a passage with two locked doors ... one leading downward, perhaps under the keep.”
“How long were Aupsha and Jausiff isolated?” Osha asked. “Who was outside the keep and could retrieve and deliver the letters? Someone from one of the villages, perhaps contacted while Jausiff was there?”
Wynn uncrossed her arms. “Yes, there might be—”
“Why does Karl not want anyone going into the villages?” Osha cut in. “Because of plague or fearing the lack of that being uncovered? If the latter, did Jausiff know there was no plague? If not, then why not send the message while he was outside the keep? And—”
“Enough, Osha!” Wynn interrupted. “I know we have a lot of unknowns.”
He asked all the right questions but simply too many at once. He also tended to change whenever Chane wasn’t part of the discussion. He became more certain, more willing to throw out thoughts and ideas ... more forceful and more impatient. Yet somehow all of this felt like a distraction to Wynn, as if Osha wanted to make it all seem futile in the moment.
But why? Was there something else he wanted from her?
“Perhaps Karl’s reaction upon their return caused Jausiff to send the messages,” she suggested. “If so, that would be a reason why he did not send them until he came back. It would also mean he might not have thought to arrange for someone to retrieve the package thrown over the wall.”
Osha shook his head. “No, if he had discovered there was no plague and then wanted to call for his son in dealing with the duke, he would ... I would have arranged the messenger before returning to the keep. There is also the possibility that the duke might have known there was no plague, using that lie to control the movements of everyone here. If so, the duke would have known the old sage’s reason for self-quarantine was a lie as well.”