It had taken so long for Sir Edwin to work his way up the stairs that Ari started to cling on to the hope that time had frozen outside her door. The chatter drifting through the walls proved otherwise, until the wait was over. The door closed behind Sir Edwin with a click, even though there was no lock on it. Perhaps it was a click that only Ari could hear.
The options on her shoulders descended, like the previous ones had done, leading to the summoning of the coroner who stood before her now, breathing warmth onto his one ungloved hand.
Ari’s thumbs traced Xs and Os across her fingertips, flutter-light kisses, an ingrained memory that had become a habit detached from meaning, a good-luck charm that was supposed to take her away from her unwanted realities. No new paths appeared. Instead, the instruction she’d seen before swung down from the ceiling and parked itself between her and Sir Edwin.
===Pick a suspect to accuse.===
She shaped her hands into fists. Perhaps she should knock the daylights out of Sir Edwin instead of knocking on one of the options, waiting for it to unlock the gate to a new day. But she knew she couldn’t.
The dashes had turned into shackles, winding itself around her wrists, darker and colder than the bracelet that drew on Claribel’s wind magic.
---Coell and Nanny Jesse.
---The Church.
‘My lady, good to see you again,’ said Sir Edwin at length, breaking the silence that had also made itself at home between them. ‘When I put together the most dashing of outfits this morning, I was rather hoping that you wished to speak to me because the fair maiden Fabia’s had a change of mind.’ He ran a hand through his blue-dyed hair, brushed and oiled to a gleam. ‘Do you know what she said to me when I came across her earlier? That she’d marry me over my dead body. I was hoping that we could reach a compromise and do it over someone else’s dead body. I have plenty. But alas. You have another one too.’
She nodded, afraid of the words that’d fall from her lips. She had no proof and an excess of question marks, stuck between the choice that felt more untrue and the choice that’d mark her a heretic.
‘I’ve had a look at the man,’ he continued. ‘Fabia suggested that he’d seen a suspect to Tristram’s murder, therefore had been poisoned, most unfortunately under your roof, my lady. I have to say, the good maiden Fabia remained so unflappable whilst I examined the body. It really was quite remarkable! Looking at the state of the man, talking to your chambermaids about his symptoms before death – dizziness, vomiting, chest pain – and looking at the time of the year, I would guess that this is a case of monkshood poisoning.’
Wrong! She wanted to scream, but the options tugged at her instead. Wrong, because while monkshood root could be harvested in October to disguise as radish in midwinter, it hadn’t been Thos’s heart that’d failed him first. She’d clutched at the heartbeat in his upturned wrist past his final moments, and it’d never danced an erratic beat before slowing to a stop.
‘Fabia seemed to disagree, but she is no expert. I will summon Master Clement or Master Strond if there is further doubt, though I believe we have other matters to discuss. What are your thoughts on the implications of this death, my lady? Does it point to a certain culprit?’
Ari sought out Claribel, who floated nearby, mouthing back to her silently, pointing at neither of the options that now bit into the rug.
Sir Edwin frowned, bent down, and smoothed out its corners. A breath caught in her throat. For a tantalising moment, she thought he’d prove that it wasn’t all in her head, that he’d question the absurdity of it all and cut through the chains that she couldn’t break with a gust of his wind-formed blades, but he simply straightened and repeated his previous words. ‘What are your thoughts on the implications of this death, my lady? Does it point to a certain culprit?’
‘I… am not sure either,’ she spit out between clenched teeth. The chains yanked at her. Falling, she grasped ‘The Church’, only because it felt wrong to accuse Nanny Jesse.
[Chosen path: Accuse the Church]
Half-baked ideas tumbled from her lips, no matter how hard she fought to swallow them. Sir Edwin’s frown deepened, but not at the giant sign shimmering between them, framed by miniature fireworks. When the last line of her deluded rant against Archbishop Benedine faded into silence, the sign blew up in a giant ball of fire. A spark nipped at Sir Edwin’s ungloved hand, forcing him to stagger back. He stared at his fingers, clouded by confusion. ‘Blasted ants. One must have escaped.’
‘It wasn’t an ant,’ said Ari, then gasped as the power to speak her own words returned. ‘Listen, I–’
‘Is that really who you wish to accuse, my lady?’
‘N–’
‘“It’s the truth, Sir Edwin. You know it too. It all adds up.” Is that what you’re about to say? I’ll tell you what adds up… You. You, accusing just about anyone else to clear your own name,’ he spat, whether it was out of anger or because something else was forcing those words out of his throat, she didn’t know. Reaching within his gambeson, he extracted his other glove and shook out a blue rose petal. Out fell three dead ants, too large, too red. ‘Do you recognise these ants?’
Not personally. But that was too flippant for the look that he’d pinned on her. Fire ants. She recognised them, and recognised them as ones to avoid.
‘It puzzled me, finding them on Tristram’s body,’ he continued, ‘because they are not often found in Eirene. No. Not even in the whole of Ventinon. It is found in Rernin. You happen to have a knight who’d been rather close to a certain princess from Rernin. I have crossed swords with him not many steps from where we are now, I believe. His involvement with her since their pilgrimage together is quite the talk – and I’m sorry to say that he seems more successful in his endeavours than I have been in mine with fair Fabia – but that could all be a coincidence, couldn’t it? After all, so many ships are arriving for the tournament alone. Why couldn’t there be fire ants from Rernin here, in Eirene? But then, where else have I found them, despite looking in every patch of soil I pass? Nowhere, except on your roses.’
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Zarto and Sir Edwin, huddled under her window. She peeked into the gardens now, finding no trace of the musician. Zarto, who’d clawed his way into riches and fame from her world, who’d signed his name on Claribel’s fake marriage certificate. ‘I–’
‘As I’ve said to you before in the crematorium, the fire ants are the maggots’ predator, so the time of Tristram’s death is most likely to be earlier than we’d assumed. Unfortunately, you were not forthcoming with me even when I showed you my hand, my lady. It is too late for your confessions. Let me give you an account of how things really happened. Let us tell a story about a certain Lady Claribel from House Aquilon.’
The room darkened, and Sir Edwin breathed the shadows onto the walls.
On the morning before the day that Malory was to be burned, Lady Claribel made her way to La Petite Mort. She had one clear goal in mind: to convince Tristram to come to Malory’s aid.
Why, you may ask?
Two things. First of all, Lady Claribel saw Malory as a sister she’d never had. Her relationship with Lord Marinell is loving, but due to his eccentricities and the physical distance between his life in Aquilon and hers in Eirene, Lady Claribel craved close, familial relationships with others. From other accounts, Lady Guinevere, who used to serve as her lady-in-waiting until her own engagement, fulfilled some of those needs, but Malory was different.
Malory was a young girl without her own loving family. She needed looking after. Lady Claribel is in the habit of looking after others. She taught Malory needlework, painting, skittles, and the things that Malory’s brother should have, but didn’t teach her: horse-riding, hunting, chess. Malory spent many happy hours at Wingshill House. Any of Lady Claribel’s household can corroborate this account of the matter. In fact, make that any noble in Eirene worth their salt. It is no secret.
Secondly, Lady Claribel did not believe Malory to be possessed. It is clearer than ever that she did not, because she believes that there is a conspiracy around Archbishop Benedine.
Yes, she was determined to stop the burning. From the time of the accusations against Malory up until that very morning, she’d written letters to the Pope, desperate to prove that Malory was exactly the same as she’d remembered, all of which were, unbeknownst to her, intercepted.
In a last-ditch effort, she went to Tristram again – yes, again – to make a different case. She’d often go there, dressed as a milkmaid, believing that the attendants couldn’t tell. The attendants wanted to cover for her at first, loyal as they are to regulars. Remember? How did they describe the mysterious figure seen with Tristram the day before his supposed time of death? Blond, muscular, tall, wearing boiled leather armour and wine-red hose. He was also scarred and terrifying.
Enquiries all around the city drew up no other witnesses to a man of such distinct characteristics. But we must remember: when we lie to cover up for a friend, and a coroner presses us for details, there’s an instinct to create a lie as far from the truth as possible. What is the opposite of a man, blond, muscular, tall, who’d be identified with the colour red? That would be a maiden with dark hair and a slight body, who was associated with blue.
When pressed again, Madame Lucretia intervened with a different account. She confirmed that the two had met several times before, but whilst the unnamed milkmaid would often beseech Tristram to write letters, Tristram was more interested in his drink and whatever conspiracy Hesperus was selling him – parallel worlds built by the same Creator that he claimed as a greater danger than the Khurammians.
On that fateful day, even though the attendants were trying to grant them privacy, they could hear the milkmaid accost Tristram with words such as ‘breakout’, ‘escape’ and ‘decoy’. One of the attendants with a glass eye kindly informed them that their words could be overheard, and provided them access to a brick building at the back of their garden, usually used to store their weapons. They did not wish to disturb the pair, but when the attendant checked back that evening, several quivers of arrows had been knocked over, with a patch of soot in the middle of the floor. They also managed to collect one torn ribbon from the milkmaid’s dress, which would be easy to match to any milkmaid attire that might be found in Lady Claribel’s manor.
Silently, he laid out the evidence along the table. One by one, they screamed out Claribel’s guilt.
[Evidence: letters to the Pope.]
[Evidence: account from Madame Lucretia.]
[Evidence: milkmaid’s ribbon.]
<…> The silence hung between them too. Claribel’s eyes were frozen on a fourth piece of evidence, as if the meaning of the world was locked into its dulled facets.
‘I don’t know what happened after the milkmaid parted ways with Tristram, and I don’t know where she hid Tristram’s body, but I do have this.’
[Evidence: pink gem fragment.]
The blue slime that dripped from its surface reminded her of the fake Lady Oriana, sitting next to her during the burning. Was this a fragment from a golem?
‘That night, there was an attempted break-in into Malory’s cell. A failed attempt. When I spoke to the holy guards who’d stood guard, they claimed that all the assailants escaped, leaving only this. The rest is my conjecture. To build a golem, all you need is gold and skill. We all know that you are not in short supply of gold. As a Lower Warden of the Guild of Mages, you must be more skilled than Lady Oriana, whose greatest powers seem to be hunting and wearing beavers on her head. I would not be surprised if this manor contained a secret stairway to an alchemist’s workshop. Might I have the honour to conduct a search, so that we may unearth the thing that moved Tristram’s body and attempted to rescue Malory?’
Claribel opened her mouth, a pale reflection in the mirror. Ari didn’t have to hear her thoughts to read the words on her lips. No. No. No.
But did you do it?
Because during the night that Sir Edwin described, Ari was still living the life of Becky, picking out inoffensive cardigans, folded among her Trojan Threnody t-shirts, unaware of the flames that awaited.
Did you?
No. No. No.
‘May I?’
‘No.’ Ari glared at him, at the words in between them that were now shifting into something new. Gone were the fireworks and all hints of colour. There were only wisps of darkness, blacker than Ari’s mood. ‘No,’ she said, all Ari, no Claribel.
[You see the Royal Coroner reach for a tin whistle to summon the royal guards. You know where this leads. Prison. Pyre. If you’d made better choices along the way, would you be standing here?]
‘NO.’
The message morphed into a toothy grin. Sir Edwin paused, mid-accusation, finger pointed at the phantom mouth. ‘What, in the name of the Fated One, is that?’
‘May the Fated One savour us,’ said Ari, or was it Claribel? And the darkness swallowed them all.