“I’m sure you can. I’m no slouch myself. I took out Stan Carnahan once, too.”
It was small, but I saw the muscles in his cheek tremble as he clenched his teeth. “Who?”
“Let’s move this along. Once upon a time, you washed up on an island and, like most sailors, behaved very badly to the lady who lived there. Bad luck for you that she turned out to be a goddess. She made you into what you are now, and I’m betting you’ve been waiting for your chance to get her back for it ever since. You knew she’d reappear somehow, somewhere, so you kept your eyes and ears open. Maybe that was the whole reason you developed this underground criminal network of yours. You eventually caught wind of her little experiment in the Ogachic Mountains, and paid a bad man a lot of money to insinuate himself into the group. Then you sent a nice girl named Cathy to deliver your little ‘gotcha’ present. And you did get them, all of them, including the goddess who let herself be human enough to die.”
In the candlelight, his expression changed from amusement through anger until, at last, he seemed about to cry. “How do you know all this?” he asked, his voice raspy with emotion.
“Because I was there, too, on the night it happened. And I made sure your bad man didn’t walk away.”
“But she died, didn’t she?” he whispered. “She did die?”
I nodded.
He sighed with relief. “For a minute I thought… well, it doesn’t matter. She died.”
I shook my head a little. “You’re a freak in more ways than one. One lethal revenge wasn’t enough for you. Because the lady really was a goddess, she showed up again, as the queen of Arentia. You weren’t going to trust proxies like Stan Carnahan this time, so you wangled an invitation to a state function in Arentia City. I know how it works, with enough money and a couple of connections it wouldn’t have been too hard. Canino was the actual guest, though; he took you along in your monkey suit.” Blond man with the ugly chimpanzee, Vogel had written in his report. “When the queen left the banquet, you slipped away after her. You confronted her somewhere between the main hall and the nursery.” You’re right, though, it couldn’t possibly take that long, Rhiannon had said. “But after all that time, all that effort, she didn’t even remember you, did she? She saw the same thing I do right now: some little, pathetic monster. That must have pissed you off no end.”
I could imagine his rage, confronting the woman he believed had done this to him and having his grand moment of revenge spoiled by her amnesiac blankness. He swallowed hard, and his eyes grew shiny. “I just wanted her to kill me,” he said softly. “I thought that when she died before, I would, too. But I didn’t.”
“Sure. You had a ‘plan B,’ though,” I continued. “You drugged her and got her loopy enough to let you into the nursery. You took her baby out hidden in the suit; you probably doped him up a little as well, just to keep him quiet. You took advantage of what was at hand in the castle to set up the murder scene, and used the meat and bones of one of your pet monkeys as the final touch. Then you disposed of the baby until Rhiannon decided she remembered you. But that never happened, and never will.”
He shook his head, and it dislodged one tear down his cheek. “I’m no baby killer,” he said.
“I never said you killed him.” Andrew was a decent man, with a kind heart and the ability to feel love, Epona had said. “I know exactly where you left him. You see, I can count to six, even when someone says it’s five.”
“Then why haven’t you told the bitch?” he snapped petulantly. He sounded for all the world like a teenager caught out past curfew. “I’m sure she’d be just delighted to know her brat wasn’t really murdered.”
“I will. Once I take out that insurance.”
He laughed chillingly, shook his head, then suddenly his eyes opened wide. He snapped his fingers and stared at me. “Wait. I know who you are. Yeah. King Philip’s childhood friend, let me think… LaCrosse. Edward, the current Baron LaCrosse.”
This bothered me a lot more than I let on. How the hell could he know that?
His demeanor changed almost at once, and his smile grew vicious. “I know a fair bit about you, too. Golden boy gone bad, as I recall. You let a bunch of trail raiders rape and murder the princess of Arentia.”
I tried to minimize it. “Old news.”
“To some, maybe. But a fellow like you doesn’t get over something like that, ever.” He waddled toward me, and the candlelight illuminated his cold, malevolent grin. All trace of the hurt victim had vanished. “When you’re built like me, you learn pretty quickly that the only thing stronger than muscle or steel is information. And I know something about that day I just bet you never told anyone.”
I barely got out the words, “Nothing to do with this.”
He continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “You’re more responsible for the death of the late Princess Janet than you ever let on. See, there were over a dozen thugs involved that day, and by the time they were finally chased down, a couple of them had left and been replaced by new men. One of those veterans ended up working for me, and he told me a very interesting story.”
This couldn’t be true. The Arentian army had hunted down and slaughtered all of the ones I hadn’t killed. It was in the news broadsheets. I’d read about it myself. I even identified some of the bodies.
“He said they were riding down the road minding their own business, on their way to a job in Hefron and not even out to cause any trouble, when they passed the spot where you and the princess were picnicking by a lake. One of his buddies made a pretty rude comment about the young lady.”
Like black bile boiling through a thin crust, that afternoon came back to me. I felt the glorious sunshine, smelled the flowers, saw Janet’s tears of happiness when she accepted my proposal of marriage. Then they rode past.
I’d do her from behind, the big bearded guy said loud enough for me to hear, and the rest of them laughed.
“You got all irate about it and acted like you were some hotshot,” the Dwarf continued.
I’d jumped to my feet and yelled, Hey! You apologize to the lady!
“They intended to ride on, assuming you were some local farm boy showing off for his girlfriend. But you wouldn’t let it go.”
Eddie, forget about it, Janet had said. It’s no big deal. Don’t let it ruin the whole day.
“You hopped the fence and drew your sword.”
Eddie! she’d yelled, more annoyed than frightened. Stop acting like an idiot!
“You challenged the guy who’d made the remark to a duel, right there on the spot.”
Fancy sword you got, the bearded guy said, and took a lazy swipe at me with his own weapon, intending to just smack me with the flat of his blade. But I parried it, and stabbed him in the heart. The entire fight took seconds.
“And when you killed him, that’s when the rest of them got pissed off.”
Holy shit, he’s dead! a greasy little guy had exclaimed, bending over the fallen man. Then he looked at me. You son of a bitch, he was just goofin’ around!
“You were tougher than they thought, and you took down a bunch of them before they finally got you under control. By then everyone was freaking out, and they took it all out on your girlfriend. They made you watch, too, then thought they’d killed you. But they were wrong.”
Shit, she’s dead, one of them had said, rising from Janet’s body, his groin covered in her blood. Then so’s this asshole, another one replied, and drove his sword into me. He missed my heart but got my lung, and I felt like I was burning alive inside my chest. Janet’s eyes were open, and one of the men nudged her head with his boot so that it lolled to the side and stared at me. I gagged on my own blood and felt it run down my chin.
“When they found you, they called you a hero, didn’t they? But you always knew better.”
The Dwarf’s words grew distant, even though he was three feet away. My heart was so loud I could barely think.