The blue and gray clover flowers shone in the bright sun, and a light breeze made them wave a little. I sat down and surveyed the stream, the forest, even the sky. They all seemed normal, as any crime scene would after half a decade. Especially when you’re not sure of the nature of the crime.
I picked one of the gray clover flowers. I stared at it, and something went ping way back in my head. I couldn’t quite drag it forward, though, and sat there for a long moment until it hit me.
Clover doesn’t have gray flowers.
I bent and looked at the plant very closely. A gray one grew next to a purple one, and other than the color of the blooms they were identical. Then I stood and looked at the whole hill.
Atop the rounded peak was a circle of gray clover about nine feet across. From one point, a narrow trail of the gray flowers led down the hill into the woods. The trail ended at the leaf litter, where the overhead branches blocked the sun.
A large crow cawed from a limb overhead and flew away into the forest. My eyes inadvertently followed the movement, which seemed to sparkle like the birds I’d seen on Rhiannon’s window sill. On the tree he’d vacated, a trail of silver-tipped moss grew in a narrow, thick line down the trunk, in the dead center of a burn scar from an old lightning strike. It, too, disappeared under the leaves. When I kicked the litter away, I saw that the moss continued in an unbroken line along the ground, green and alive despite being covered. I followed it, knowing it would eventually turn into the trail of gray clover. It did.
Okay, I’d found a clue. But it told me nothing. Actually, it took away some certainties, so it was more of an anti-clue. Eddie LaCrosse, reverse investigator.
So, divorced from its context, what did this tell me? Something apparently came down the tree, across the ground and landed on the very spot where my pal Phil had found his bare-assed bride, and left a trail conducive to the growth of slightly off-kilter flora. Had the lightning scar been there before the moss? Could whatever left the trail have also split the bark of the tree? I’d seen burning rocks fall from the sky; I’d seen lightning. I’d encountered all manner of animals that flew. What combination could result in what I now saw? Nothing came to mind. Except the obvious idea that Queen Rhiannon herself had left the trail after she’d fallen from the heavens and crawled out into the sun. But I wasn’t ready to put my weight behind that.
“Hey!” a harsh male voice said behind me. “Hands where I can see ’em!”
I slowly complied. “I’m not a poacher. I’ve got authorization to be here.”
“Not without me knowing about it, you don’t,” the voice said much nearer. I hadn’t heard any steps; the guy knew his way around the forest. Suddenly I also recognized the voice.
“Terry?” I said. “Terry Vint?”
“Who’s asking?” he said, now right behind me.
I grinned. “Someone you still owe three bucks to.”
“I don’t owe anybody any money.”
“Not money bucks. Deer bucks.”
He was silent for a moment. “Eddie LaCrosse?”
I turned. Terry’s dad had been the head warden when I was a kid, and Terry had run around with Phil and me whenever he could. Now he was older, and had inherited his father’s lean leathery look along with his job. But the smile was all Terry.
“Well, goddamn,” he said, and lowered the crossbow he’d held pointed at my back. He wore the warden’s camouflage clothes and carried a short sword at his waist. His hair was mostly white, a combination of gray and sun-bleached blond. A deep scar marked the left side of his neck. “You are the absolute last person I expected to see here. When did you get back?”
“I’m not back, and you haven’t seen me. I’m working on something private for the king.”
“Private?” he repeated, puzzled. Then he nodded. “Ah. The mysterious Queen Rhiannon.”
I waved at the hill. “This is where they met, isn’t it?”
“Yep. I was with him that day, although he’d gone ahead to scout for tracks. He’d already found her by the time I caught up.”
“Do you remember anything unusual about that day?”
“Other than finding a drop-dead gorgeous blonde laid out naked like a picnic?”
“Yeah, other than that.”
“No. But I noticed some weird stuff afterwards.”
“Like what?”
He nodded toward the hill. “See anything strange about the spot?”
“Besides the trail of gray clover that turns into silver moss and runs up that tree?”
“Not bad. Clover doesn’t grow gray flowers, and moss doesn’t grow silver tips, yet here they are. Like they’re marking a trail, wouldn’t you say?” Without waiting for a response, he walked over to the moss-lined tree. “And I’ve got something else to show you, that I never showed anybody. Tried to show the king once, but he couldn’t be bothered. Haven’t looked for it in a few years, so it may not be there, but let’s see…”
He walked to the base of the tree and began kicking away the leaves. In a few moments he’d uncovered an area of bare, dark dirt about ten feet square, bisected by the silver moss. “Whadda ya think of that?” he asked, gesturing at the ground.
He’d uncovered a line of carefully placed rocks marking the impression where something big and heavy had hit the ground. Weather and time had blurred some of the edges, but the rocks, placed soon after the initial impact, clearly showed the object’s unmistakable outline. The trail of silver moss ran right through it.
“It looks,” I said obviously, “like a horse fell out of the sky.”
“Yep,” Terry agreed.
“Horses don’t do that, as a rule.”
“Not usually.”
“I don’t suppose anyone saw a horse fall from the sky, turn into a beautiful woman and then lay down in the grass to wait for passing royalty to pick her up?”
“Horses generally don’t do that, either.”
“No,” I agreed. “So Phil never saw this?”
“ Nobody else has seen it. I marked it out after the hubbub died down, figuring some day someone might want to know, and pretty much forgot about it myself.”
I looked at him. “It might be important that you forget again.”
“Hm. I got a pretty good memory. Except when I drink.”
I grinned. “Well, let’s get to work on your memory, then.”
T ERRY VINT HAD inherited his family home from his father, and moved his already-considerable brood into it. I counted five children playing in the yard, and when Mrs. Vint came out the door, she held the newest future woodsman in her arms. For such a prolific breeder, Shana Vint was still very attractive in an earthy, sensual way that went well beyond physical appearance. I imagined that, had I married her, she’d have spent a lot of time knocked up, too.
Terry introduced us, then he and I adjourned to chairs in the back yard beneath the shady trees. Shana brought us two tankards and a big bottle of wine, poured the first two drinks and then left. We could hear the children playing in the front yard, and the smell of dinner drifted from the kitchen.
“So you came all the way back from wherever you were to help the king get his wife off the hook?” Terry asked.
“He wants me to find out the truth,” I responded. I didn’t feel comfortable giving out more details than I had to.
“I thought she was caught red-handed. Literally.”
“That’s true,” I said. “But sometimes things aren’t exactly what they seem to be.”
He looked at me. “You’re being cagey with me, Eddie. And I guess that’s okay, we haven’t hung around each other in twenty years, we probably don’t have much in common anymore. Me, I got my home, my five sprouts and my wife, and no ambition to be anything else. I mean, I like Phil, and the queen was never anything but nice to me. But it’s hard for a parent to find a lot of sympathy for her. You got any kids, Eddie? Wife, family?”