Phil sat heavily against the wall. “My God. I don’t understand all this…”
I scooted the coffin aside and sat beside him. “It’s a setup. I suspected it when I realized how long it took your wife to get from the banquet to the nursery; no way it should take thirty minutes. Something happened to her.”
“But… what? And why?”
“Only she can answer that.”
He turned to me. “If this counts as good news, what’s the bad?”
“The bad news is that someone wanted it to look like your wife killed your son so badly that they’d go to all this trouble. They were able to get into and out of this castle with no one noticing it. Even if he’s not dead, your boy’s still gone. Somewhere out there, you’ve got one hell of an enemy.”
“ Who? Arentia hasn’t been at war for nearly fifty years. The crime rate’s lower than it ever has been. We don’t even have a death penalty anymore. And I don’t mean to sound egomaniacal, but everybody seems pretty happy with the job I’ve been doing.”
“Maybe it’s not you, then. Maybe it’s her.”
He nodded; I’d expected him to resist the idea. “That’s the only possible explanation. Like you said, that’s the picture inside the frame.”
We replaced the coffin and the cover, then resealed it with some cement from my bag. I stood and stretched my back, then put my hand on the wall for balance while I pulled on my hamstring. My eyes fell on the name chiseled into the capstone next to Pridiri’s, and suddenly a razor sliced out my heart. “Shit,” I whispered.
Phil turned. “What? Oh… damn, Eddie, I’m sorry. I didn’t think about it. I was so far into my own problems, I didn’t-”
“It’s all right.” I turned away, shaking like I’d been drunk for weeks, and seriously considered smashing my head into the other wall just to banish the unbidden images of her laugh, her touch and, worst of all, her screams.
Phil didn’t say anything for a long moment. Finally he said, “It’s weird to think she’d be thirty-five now.”
“Yeah.” He was her brother, after all, he had the right to talk about her.
He put a strong hand on my shoulder. It reminded me of the way my dad’s hand had felt there. “If you need to-”
I cut him off. “Can we go now? I need to talk to your wife.”
He tilted his head back against the wall and let out a long breath. “Okay, but… I don’t know how much help she’ll be.”
“Why not?”
“There’s something about her that isn’t widely known.”
“What’s that?”
“She doesn’t- claims she doesn’t-remember anything from before the day we met.”
NINE
Getting discreetly into the prison tower took some finesse. I had to dress as a guard and go through the motions with the shift change; hopefully no one watching noticed the second shift had six men instead of the usual five. Once inside and divested of my helmet and armor, I was led up the stairs and frisked very thoroughly by the matron entrusted with the imprisoned queen’s care. Since she outweighed me by a good thirty pounds, I didn’t complain.
Then she snapped out the rules. “Sit in the chair by the door and keep its back against the wall. Don’t pass anything to the prisoner or accept anything from her. If she reaches through the bars for any reason, pull the cord by the chair. It drops an iron barrier between you and her. If you violate any of these rules, you’ll be arrested.” Despite my friendship with Phil, I had no doubt she meant it.
Finally, weapon-bare and winded from the climb, I was let into the cell that took up the entire top of the tower. The visitor’s area was a narrow section blocked off by bars. On the other side of them, staring out the window, stood Queen Rhiannon of Arentia.
She wore a prison tunic that was too big for her and didn’t do a damn thing to make her unattractive. Her golden hair was tied back in a ponytail, and of course she wore no make-up. Three small, shimmery birds sat on the sill as if they expected her to feed them.
She had her back to me when I entered, then turned and gazed at me with calm eyes so blue it was like looking directly into the sea. And it was a look I knew.
I just stared. If she’d had two heads and bat wings, I don’t think I could’ve been more surprised. The door slammed shut behind me, and the noise snapped me out of my moment of shock. The shiny birds, startled, flew away. “ Eppie,” I said, my voice flat with shock.
She frowned. “Eppie,” she repeated, as if it were some strange greeting. “Do I know you, sir?”
“Epona Gray,” I said in the same blank, astounded tone.
Her eyes looked around the room, as if to make sure I was speaking to her. “Is that a color? Are you here to paint?”
I dropped heavily into the chair. All my careful theories and concepts vanished. “No,” I said.
After a long moment she pushed self-consciously at the tunic’s hem and said, “You’re staring at me, sir.”
“Yes, I am,” I agreed.
“It’s rather rude, don’t you think?”
I continued to stare for a long minute before I finally asked the only question I could. “Don’t you recognize me? I’m Eddie LaCrosse.”
She nodded. “Philip’s friend from childhood. The one who was there when his sister was killed.”
“No!” I exclaimed. “Cathy Dumont’s friend! Thirteen years ago, remember?” I spoke more quietly, although I still felt like I was shouting. “You and I got to know each other very well, remember?”
She looked me over, then said, “I’m sorry, sir, I have no memory of you. Perhaps without the beard-”
“ I had the beard then! ” I shouted for real, and she backed away from the bars.
“Please, sir, you’re scaring me,” she said, and wrapped her arms around herself. “I swear I don’t know you. Could you possibly be mistaken?”
Even the voice was the same, with that slight trill of amusement under everything. “Maybe so, if you don’t have a horseshoe-shaped scar on the inside of your left thigh, and don’t enjoy having the back of your neck licked.”
She blinked, startled. Now she was politely outraged at my insolence. “Sir, I assure you, I have no memory of you.”
“But I’m right, aren’t I?”
She turned away from the bars, and a red shine crept up her face. Only the best actresses, or con artists, could manage a blush on cue. “About the scar, yes. About the other… I don’t feel it would be polite to say.”
My heart began to return to its normal rhythm, although I was sure it had burned a good six months off me in those brief moments. “So the name Stan Carnahan doesn’t ring a bell? Or Andrew Reese?”
She shook her head and looked down. “Didn’t my husband tell you? I’m an amnesiac, Mr. LaCrosse. My life began six years ago. I recall nothing before that.”
The woman I’d known as Epona Gray sported straight, dark hair, and as they say, I was mighty damn sure it was her natural color. This Queen Rhiannon had cascading, wavy hair the color of sunbeams. Moreover, if this was Epona Gray, she didn’t look a day older than when I last saw her. Could this be a relative? A daughter, perhaps?
But no, the resemblance was too close, too identical. Every instinct told me this was the same woman. “So you never went by the name Epona Gray?”
“I can’t say for certain.” She met my gaze with those big, innocent eyes that could probably convince the devil he needed an extra blanket. “I suppose it’s possible. The name Rhiannon just came to me shortly after I awoke. I assumed it was my own, but I could be wrong. No one’s suggested another one until now.”
I took a moment to regain my composure, and began again. “All right. We’ll assume for the moment that I’m mistaken, although the resemblance is astounding. I’m here to help Phil, who wants to know the truth about what happened the night your son died.”
The confusion and queenly reserve were instantly-almost as if on a well-rehearsed cue-replaced by a touching vulnerability. “You have to believe me, Mr. LaCrosse, I’m innocent. I didn’t kill my son.”