There was a pause as everyone stopped to consider that.
“Perhaps I sent the lieutenant away too soon,” Suiden said. He motioned to a trooper who had on more clothes than the rest. “Bring Slevoic back up here.” He turned again to Groskin as the soldier pounded down the stairs. “As Sro Laurel has pointed out, Rabbit has had several attempts on his life and all you can natter about is hexes and what’s unnatural. Murder is unnatural.” His green glare swept the hallway and everyone in it. “You shriek at a hair in your soup while you dine sitting on a muckheap.”
“But sir—” Groskin tried.
The flames leapt up again in Suiden’s eyes. “You disobey a direct order and leak restricted information. You incite the men against Rabbit and are neck-deep, unwitting or not, in a plot to murder him. You encourage insubordination.” He took a steadying breath but roared anyway, the windows rattling. “And because of your gross stupidity and willful blindness you are made the House of Dru’s dupe!”
“Sir,” Groskin tried again.
“Don’t bloody ‘sir’ me. I took you on, Lieutenant, when no one else would—”
Groskin’s head went down.
“—but I’ll be damned if I’ll wink at subversion by my lieutenant.” A faint cry came from the first floor and heads turned. Suiden stopped in midtirade and frowned, moving over to the banister. We caught the sound of running feet, growing louder until the trooper skidded into the bottom step. “Sirs, come quick! It’s—Come quick!”
Thoughts of hexes and subversion (along with blankets, clothes and women healers) were forgotten as we all rushed downstairs. Slevoic’s guard lay on the floor of the room, a lump swelling on the side of his head, his knife and sword gone. The royal physician pushed past the crowd at the door and knelt down beside him.
Suiden turned and shoved us all out of the room. “Quick, search the embassy. I want Slevoic found—not you, Rabbit.” I skidded to a stop as the rest of the men scattered in different directions, Jeff barely missing crashing into me. “I’m not chancing you and Slevoic being alone, even for a few moments. With me.”
He started down the hallway towards the front door, Jeff and I behind him. But we didn’t get very far before another shout went up from the courtyard. We spun around and ran out an open side door, sprinting past the fountain to the gathering crowd in the vegetable garden—and came to a slamming halt. A moment later Javes arrived, pushing to the front, his eyes wild as he stared down.
“Who—” Javes began. He turned to me. “Who is it, Rabbit?” I shook my head as I felt my hands start to tremble again. “I don’t know, sir.” Javes looked over at the troopers who had come out after us. “Who’s missing?” They also shook their heads, their eyes wide in horror, and Javes snarled, “Well, bloody do a count!”
There was a quick count as more men poured into the garden, and then someone called out, “Basel, sir. Basel’s missing.” He must have been gathering his herbs for breakfast when he translated.
“Sixteen points,” Jeff said, goosebumps all over his skin although the new day was already hot. “Back home I would’ve hunted him and mounted his head on my wall for all to see.”
The white stag’s antler spread was impressive.
“To us his kind are sacred,” Laurel said from behind me, “and we would have revered him.” The Faena walked over and crouched down beside the deer but it was obvious that there was nothing he could do, as Basel’s eyes were already filming over. Flies buzzed both at the gaping slit in his throat and the blood-soaked ground. “Bringers of Spring,” the cat said, his voice soft. “They leap down from the heights, Lady Gaia riding on their horns.”
“Lady Gaia?” Javes asked.
“The fertile earth,” Laurel replied.
I noted footprints leading out the garden gate that led to a throughway between the embassy and its next-door neighbor. I then looked back at Basel’s body crumpled in the small space, and measured distance. “But why kill him? He couldn’t have given any sort of fight at all. There wasn’t room.”
“Oh so innocent Rabbit,” Javes said. “Why did Slevoic do his best to torture you for three years? Because it gave him pleasure.” The captain also looked at the tracks going out of the garden gate, his face tired. “I suppose he escaped through there.” He sighed and started herding us back into the embassy, but stopped as he caught sight of Suiden. Behind the captain was Groskin, his eyes fixed on Basel, and next to them was Esclaur (still blanket draped) flanked by the two royal guards and the healer. She came up to Basel’s body and stared down at it, then shook her head, her eyes sad.
“It’s not your fault,” Javes said to Suiden. “No one would have guessed this.”
“Something to tell Basel’s family,” Suiden said.
The gate opened and we all turned, but it was only a couple of the lads supporting the throughway’s duty guard between them. “Found him in there, sirs,” one said. “Slevoic hit him from behind good and proper.” They pulled up short when they saw the dead stag.
As the captains and physician moved to check on the guard, I knelt down beside Laurel. The Faena softly sang a lament and I closed my eyes to pray, only to have them fly open as a gasp ran through the troops. Basel, in man form, stood next to his deer corpse, the early morning sun shining through him, the full moon a pale shadow in the sky. The wind blew softly and I smelled sweet grass and rich loam, as if I were once more behind a plow. Pushing my hair out of my face, I looked down and watched as green shoots pushed through the dirt where the stag’s blood had run into the ground.
“Lady Gaia mourns as the moon season is come,” Laurel murmured.
Chapter Thirty-seven
It finally dawned on Ryson that hitching his wagon to the lieutenant’s star hadn’t been very bright and for once he didn’t make a bad situation worse by his chronic stupidity. He was helped by Captain Suiden placing him under guard—this time with four soldiers, armed to the teeth.
“I don’t want to see you, hear you, or smell you. Is that clear, trooper?” the captain asked Ryson, who nodded frantically.
“Yes, sir. Basel saw us, sir,” he said, anxious to redeem himself, and maybe distance himself from the cook’s murder.
“Saw what?”
“He was in the garden last night when Lieutenant Slevoic and I got the spiders. The ones that were in Rabbit’s room. Basel asked us about it later.” He flinched away from the captain’s face. “Slevoic told me it was a joke, sir. To remind Rabbit that he was nothing but a puking—uh, a farm boy from the Border, no matter what the king called him. I didn’t know they were so poisonous.”
“Venomous, soldier,” the healer said, watching Ryson with a fascinated eye. “Poisonous is what you bite, venomous is what bites you—and you would’ve found out quickly how venomous they were if one had.”
“Was Groskin there, trooper?” Suiden asked.
Ryson shook his head hard. “No, sir. Though Lieutenant Slevoic said to say he was.” He slid a look at Groskin. “He said to say that Groskin was involved from the beginning …” Ryson’s voice faded again as his brain once more informed his mouth that maybe he should shut up.
“They’ve both got porridge for brains,” I said. “Groskin for trusting Slevoic, and Slevoic for thinking Ryson could keep a secret.” My mind skittered over the possibility that Basel had been killed because of Slevoic’s animus towards me.
“Oh, I don’t know, Rabbit. Ryson did all right until today,” Javes said. He eyed the weasel. “What do you mean, ‘from the beginning’? What beginning?”
“Later, Javes,” Suiden said. “We have to get the ambassador to his audience with the king.” But he also gave Ryson the eye. “Afterwards, though, we will chat.”