She let go of me and tottered a few steps to sink down on the edge of the bed. Her fingers fumbled at the laces of her kirtle.
‘Let me do that for you,’ I offered. She raised an eyebrow at me. ‘With no thought of more than that!’ I assured her. ‘Molly, just to have you sleep beside me every night is the fulfilment of my dream of years. Time enough for more when you are not exhausted.’ I loosened the confining laces and she sighed as I eased her out of the garment. The buttons on her blouse were tiny things made from mother of pearl. She brushed my clumsy fingers aside to undo them, then stood. She was very unlike her tidy self as she let her skirts fall on top of the discarded clothing. I’d found and brought to her a soft nightgown. She pulled it on over her head, and it tangled on the holly crown that was in her hair. I lifted it gently free and smiled as I beheld the woman my lovely Molly Redskirts had become. A long ago Winterfest came to my mind, as I’m sure it did to her. But as she sank down to sit on the edge of the bed again, I saw the furrows in her brow. She lifted a hand to rub her forehead. ‘Fitz, I’m so sorry. I’ve ruined all I planned.’
‘Nonsense. Here. Let me tuck you in.’
She gripped my shoulder to stand and swayed as I opened the bed to the linens for her. ‘In you go,’ I told her, and she made no saucy reply, but only sighed heavily as she sat, then eased over onto the bed and lifted her feet after her. She closed her eyes. ‘The room is spinning. And it’s not wine.’
I sat down on the edge of the bed and took her hand. She frowned. ‘Be still. Any movement makes the room spin faster.’
‘It will pass,’ I told her, hoping it would, and sat very still. I watched her. The candles burned steadily, releasing the fragrances she had imbued in them over the summer past. The fire on the hearth crackled, flames consuming the carefully-stacked logs. Slowly the lines of discomfort in her face eased. Her breathing steadied. The stealth and patience of my youthful training sustained me. I gradually eased my weight and when I finally stood beside the bed, I doubted that she had felt any motion at all for she slept on.
I ghosted about the room, extinguishing all but two of her candles. I poked at the fire, added another log, and set the fire screen before it. I was not sleepy, nor even weary. I had no desire to return to the festivities and explain why I was there while Molly was not. For a time longer I stood, the fire warming my back. Molly was a shape behind the mostly-drawn bed-curtains. The flames crackled and my ears could almost sort the kiss of the driven snow against the windows from the sounds of the merrymaking down below. Slowly, I took off my festive garments and resumed the comforts of my familiar leggings and tunic. Then silently I left the room, drawing the door slowly closed behind me.
I did not descend by the main stairs. Instead, I took a roundabout path, down a servants’ back staircase and through a deserted corridor until finally I reached my private den. I unlocked the tall doors and slipped inside. The remains of the hearth-fire were a few winking coals. I woke them with a few twists of paper from my desk, burning the useless musings of that morning and then adding more fuel. I went to my desk, sat, and drew a blank sheet of paper toward me. I stared at it and wondered, why not just burn it now? Why write on it, stare at the words, and then burn it? Was there really anything left in me that I could only trust to paper? I had the life I had dreamed of: the home, the loving wife, the children grown. Buckkeep Castle respected me. This was the quiet backwater I’d always dreamed of. It was over a decade since I’d even thought of killing anyone. I set down the quill and leaned back in my chair.
A tap at the door startled me. I sat up straight and instinctively looked about the room, wondering if there was anything I should hastily conceal. Silly. ‘Who is it?’ Who but Molly, Nettle or Riddle would know I was here? And none of them would have tapped first.
‘It’s Revel, sir!’ His voice sounded shaky.
I stood. ‘Come in! What is it?’
He was out of breath and pale as he pushed open the door and stood framed in it. ‘I don’t know. Riddle sent me running. He says, “Come, come right now, to your estate study”. Where I left the messenger. Oh, sir. There’s blood on the floor there, and no sign of her.’ He gasped in a shuddering breath. ‘Oh, sir, I’m so sorry. I offered a room, but she said no and—’
‘With me, Revel,’ I said, as if he were a guardsman and mine to command. He went paler at my snapped command but then stood a bit straighter, glad to cede all decisions to me. My hands moved instinctively, confirming a few small concealed weapons that never left my person. Then we were off at a run through the corridors of Withywoods. Blood spilled in my home. Blood spilled by someone besides me, and not Riddle, or he would have quietly cleaned it away, not summoned me. Violence in my home, against a guest. I fought the blind fury that rose in me, quenched it with icy anger. They would die. Whoever had done this would die.
I led him by a roundabout path that avoided passages where we might encounter guests and reached the estate study after interrupting only one indiscreet young couple and scaring one drunken youngster looking for a place to doze. I berated myself for how many people I had let into my home, how many I knew only by face or name.
And Molly was sleeping alone and unguarded.
I skidded to a halt by the study door. My voice was hoarse with anger as I took a nasty knife that had been strapped to my forearm and shoved it at Revel. He staggered back a step in fear. ‘Take it,’ I barked at him. ‘Go to my bedchamber. Look in on my lady, be sure she sleeps undisturbed. Then stand outside the door and kill anyone who seeks to come in. Do you understand me?’
‘Sir.’ He coughed and then gulped, ‘I have a knife already, sir. Riddle made me take it.’ Awkwardly he drew it from inside his immaculate jacket. It was twice the length of the one I’d offered, an honourable weapon rather than an assassin’s little friend.
‘Go, then,’ I told him, and he did.
I drummed on the door with my fingertips, knowing Riddle would recognise me by that, and then slipped in. Riddle straightened slowly from where he had crouched. ‘Nettle sent me to find a bottle of the good brandy she said you had here. She wanted to offer some to Lord Canterby. When I saw the papers on the floor, and then the blood, I sent Revel for you. Look here.’
Revel had brought the messenger food and wine and served it at my desk. Why had she declined to go to a guest room or join us in the great hall? Had she known she was in danger? She’d eaten at least some of the food, I judged, before the tray had been dashed to the floor along with a few papers from my desk. The falling wine glass had not shattered but had left a half-moon of spilled wine on the polished dark stone of the floor. And around that moon was a constellation of blood stars. A swung blade had flung those scattered red drops.
I stood up and swept my gaze across the study. And that was all. No rifled drawers, nothing moved or taken. Not a thing out of place at all. Not enough blood for her to have died here, but there was no sign of any further struggle. We exchanged a silent look and, as one, moved to the heavily-curtained doors. In summers I sometimes opened them wide to look out onto a garden of heathers for Molly’s bees. Riddle started to sweep the curtain to one side, but it caught. ‘A fold of it is shut in the door. They went this way.’
Knives drawn, we opened the doors and peered out into the snow and darkness. Half of one footprint remained where the eaves had partially sheltered it. The other tracks were barely dimples in the windblown snow. As we stood there, another gust swept past us, as if the wind itself sought to help them escape us. Riddle and I stared into the storm. ‘Two or more,’ he said, surveying what remained of the trail.
‘Let’s go before it’s gone completely,’ I suggested.
He looked down woefully at
