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The king stepped forward to examine the Treasurer’s body. Just as he clasped his hands behind his back, Riona noticed that they were trembling badly. He was fighting to keep his expression neutral, but the loss had to be hitting him hard. Treasurer Cathal had been his closest advisor. “It just… It just doesn’t seem like him…” he murmured. “None of it does.”
Riona stepped into the hall and started toward the exit, seeking a moment away to absorb all that had happened over the last several hours. Most of the rooms she passed were only sectioned off with archways draped in thin, gauzy curtains, and she caught the silhouettes of writhing bodies in her peripheral vision. A few had wider archways where a handful of beady-eyed men lingered, hooting and hollering as they watched the people within.
One caught Riona’s arm and yanked her close to him, a hand rising to squeeze her breast. “Beautiful girl,” he slurred, his breath sour with the scent of cheap ale. “How much you charge to open those nice legs of yo—”
He froze when the tip of Riona’s eudorite pendant cut into the soft flesh of his neck, drawing a slender rivulet of blood. She’d taken it off and wrapped the chain around her hand the second she’d arrived at the brothel. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but it was better than nothing. The man’s eyes widened in fear. Even in his inebriated state, he understood that one wrong move would mean his death.
Riona smiled. “You should take more care when speaking to ladies. We’re not all as helpless as we seem.”
His throat bobbed, causing a second trail of blood to join the first. Behind him, the others didn’t so much as glance in their direction, still focused on the entertainment inside the room. “Apologies, milady,” he mumbled. “Didn’t mean nothin’ by it.”
Riona pushed the man away, disgusted. He stumbled into the person behind him, who cursed and shoved him back. She ignored their bickering, continuing down the hall and out the building’s main doors. A fresh breeze swept over her, chasing away the stench of blood and cheap perfume. She pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of her gown, wiped the blood from the edge of her pendant, and clasped the chain around her neck.
The links in the brothel’s hanging sign—which bore the face of a bear, cheekily stylized to resemble a man and woman locked in passion—squeaked as the wind sent it swaying.The Bear and the Maiden.Riona approached the carriage she and Domhnall had taken and idly patted one of the horse’s necks as she surveyed her surroundings. The wooden buildings were low, narrow, and looked as if they were seconds from crumbling to a pile of kindling. The cobbles in the street were cracked and uneven, and sewage pooled in the depressions.
What brought you here, Cathal?she wondered, running her fingers through the horse’s thick mane. If he’d wanted someone to warm his bed, there were several more reputable pleasure houses he could have chosen. And if he’d wanted more than that, he could have had his pick of the noblewomen in court. Any one of them would have leapt at the chance to marry the king’s right-hand man.Of all places, why this?
Grief swelled within her. She’d always liked Cathal. Whenever she’d accompanied her father to court events as a child, he had found a way to sneak her a treat from the kitchen. He had always been kind—eager to tell her a new joke or story or challenge her with a riddle. She tried to hold that image of him in her mind, rather than that of his bloody, battered body lying on the mattress inside that seedy brothel.
Everything about the situation was odd. If Cathal and that Faylen girl had indeed fought, who had tried to poison him at the banquet? Poisoning was a cold, calculated method of murder; the grisly scene inside the brothel was anything but that. Riona would bet every jewel she owned that the poisoner had followed Cathal to the brothel and ambushed him there. Then he’d made Faylen disappear.
The king and his son emerged from the brothel then, wearing identical troubled expressions. King Domhnall merely glanced at her and gestured for her to climb into the carriage, too grief-stricken to care about the impropriety of her presence at a pleasure house. “I must discuss what has happened with the council,” he murmured as he and the prince climbed in after her. “The funeral must be planned, and someone will have to fill Cathal’s position until I choose a permanent replacement.”
“I’ll do it,” Riona blurted. Tragic as it was, this could be her chance at freedom. If she did her job well and secured favorable alliances with the northern countries, her uncle would have to grant her the position permanently. “I want to help. I can do the work around my obligations with the suitors. I’ll start by corresponding with Percival about settling the border disputes.”
“No, no, Lord Winslow or your father can manage Cathal’s responsibilities. You’ll be busy enough with the suitors.”
“But—”
“Please, my dear, not today,” King Domhnall said softly, his voice so thick with grief that it halted the objection on Riona’s tongue. “Let us make it through the funeral without arguing.”
The driver snapped his reins, and they rode in silence for a while, watching the buildings grow larger and grander, the streets wider and cleaner. Eventually, Riona said, “I don’t believe that Faylen killed him.”
“Nor do I,” her uncle sighed, “but I believe she witnessed the attack. Master Kaiden has already sent orders to the guards at the city gates to check everyone trying to leave the city, and to the city patrolmen to search the area around the brothel. Alive or dead, we will find her.”
* * *
“What do you mean, heburnedall his records?”
“They’re—They’re all gone, Your Majesty,” a young guard named Art stammered as he led them through the halls toward the Treasury. The sleeves of his uniform were rolled back, his hands and forearms streaked with soot. “Everything has been destroyed save for the documents he left with this morning. Niall and I assumed they were materials for his meeting.”
Prince Domhnall shot Riona a confused look before turning to his father. “Did Master Kaiden or his men find any documents with the body?”
“No, nothing.” King Domhnall flagged down a passing guard and instructed him to send word to Kaiden about the missing documents, then turned his attention back to Art. “Was Cathal acting oddly this morning? Did he give you any reason to believe anything was wrong?”
“No, Your Majesty. He seemed shaken when Niall and I told him of the prince’s poisoning, but anyone would have reacted the same way. Although… He did refuse breakfast this morning. He wouldn’t even open the door to let the servant in, just shouted that he didn’t need food and left about half an hour later. He couldn’t seem to get out fast enough. I assumed he was running late for his meeting.”
He wasn’t running late,Riona thought, a terrible sense of certainty coming over her.He was fleeing.
But why to the brothel?
When they arrived at the office, Art pulled out a heavy iron key and unlocked the door. The king entered and stopped just beyond the threshold, taking in the sight before him with a mixture of confusion and disbelief. Riona glanced at her cousin, who looked every bit as perturbed by the sight as his father. She had never set foot in Cathal’s office before, but she had caught glimpses of its interior in passing. The desk was usually laden with stacks of papers, scrolls, and books. Now, it was not merely pristine; it wasbarren.Not even a scrap of parchment rested on its worn, ink-stained surface.
While her uncle stepped further into the office, circling the desk as if willing some explanation to appear from thin air, Riona followed Prince Domhnall to the other side of the room. A cot was crammed into the corner, tucked between two bookshelves.
“I still can’t believe Cathal slept here,” Riona said, picking at the rumpled sheets. “He lived ten minutes away.”
“That’s what he said when he requested the cot, although he managed to make it sound like a far distance.”
