Courtship proved difficult for Lucius. The first day he arranged to meet with Felicia was a week after she got the news of her father, not for lack of interest but to give time for Lucius to arrange an investigative party to head south. Golden still shadowed the boy and had taken up residence in the local temple district. He made no claims to divinity, but his simple knowledge of scripture gave him a home both performing rights for the Shepherd as well as assisting during disputes of a more legalistic nature. His exchange in the desert had given him the tools he desired, but not the power to use them, and it would be much longer before he could break open the seal upon the world even for himself alone. In fact, when Leomund explained what Vi had done, he fell into a malaise and spent a week drinking until the nuns berated him enough. While he was the key figure that would head back to Rackvidd, Lucius arranged for a small cohort of soldiers to accompany him from among those with a desire to return to their families.
And then he had to postpone his evening with Felicia, though he spent it at the theater regardless.
He prowled the backrooms of the Quartz Bowl along with Theo and the Gorgon Blade, interrogating the actors and picking through their props, though there were few true suspects. The company had been performing a rendition of The Wayward Knight when the lead actress collapsed, during her famous plea to the angel Acheliah. Even though it had been merely an afternoon rendition, presaging the evening event, the gossip had already swept through the city with more than a few viewers shaken by the convulsing woman upon the stage as crew rushed to her side.
She was not the one to die, however. It was the director of the play who was found dead mere moments later. Because The Wayward Knight was considered a cultural touchstone, the director was assumed to be a royalist, though the lead actor bluntly answered, “Politics? The play’s a love story with a good duel in the end. The people love it and he loved money. He’d have put on an eastern style kabuki farce if he could have convinced the actors to crossdress for it.”
Perched upon a vanity desk, the Gorgon Blade frowned. She was the youngest of the Warden Blades, barely an adult. Born out of wedlock to the Montisferro family, however, she had been given proper martial training and her blessing was of particular note to the king. She could blind her foes, which had limited application in war but was so potent in a duel that she had been banned from all martial tournaments before even being allowed to enter one. She asked, “But you have women. Why would the men crossdress?”
The actor winced and wrung his hands. “It’s a foreign style,” he said.
Lucius said, “The plays are typically about when somebody has done something stupid, so they have the idiot put on a dress and bad makeup, then all the other actors have to pretend it doesn’t look ridiculous.”
The Gorgon Blade clapped her hands together. “I get it, so you put big burly men in ladies clothes. Lucius, they should do one of the siege of Rackvidd. You could even play the lead! It’d be great to see you stabbing some oaf in a skirt.”
“Rey,” Theo said, his voice cold. “I think the late director made the right decision by avoiding current events, don’t you agree?”
“Yes, of course,” she answered immediately.
“We can speculate about motive, but method is more concrete,” Lucius said, gesturing to the glass jar that had been found in the director’s office. It hadn’t even been hidden. After a taste test by Lucius, who had no particular reason to fear poison and liked demonstrating that fact to the Warden Blades, he had identified it as a compound of opium.
“It’s medicine,” the actor said, dabbing sweat away with his kerchief.
“Do you perform surgeries back here?” Lucius asked and the man shook his head.
“Josephine, she has attacks like what was seen on stage. Her body will shake like a spirit is possessing her. We’ve taken her to priests but they say nothing is wrong with her. We know the drug is addictive, but that’s why the director kept it, only ever giving her a taste to smooth things over. It tends to keep the attacks from happening, but she only takes some for the big shows, when there’s lots of people.”
Theo picked up the jar and turned it over in his hands as he spoke. “So, you have this drug that you have very little reason to need. No normal person would be expected to have this, and it just so happens that it matches the way the director died. Lucius, you’ve been in opium dens, haven’t you? You take too much of this stuff and your heart stops, correct?”
“That is correct, but my experience is of a more surgical nature. I’ve had limbs amputated more than a few times as you may recall,” he said, getting a queer look from the actor before recognition struck him.
“So,” the Gorgon Blade said, slumping against the wall. “What are we wasting our time for? This is nothing more than accidental suicide.”
Theo set the jar back down. “Because this troupe was slated to perform for the king in a few week’s time. And what show were you going to be putting on for him?”
The actor said, “The headliner show was to be The Wayward Knight, and we were awaiting requests from the king whether to additionally prepare The Witch Hunts, Journey Into The Mist, or another request at his pleasure.”
Theo thanked the man and then took the director’s wine goblet. He handed it to Lucius, “Would you mind?”
He took the goblet and peered at the port wine swirling in the bottom. “You think he took it this way?”
“How else would he have?” Theo asked.
Lucius didn’t offer him the alternative, and neither did the actor. “I could, Theo, but perhaps I should provide better evidence than merely stating the fact. If I were to drink this, you’d have nothing but my word one way or the other. If I take this to an alchemist, anything dissolved into it could be removed.”
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Theo scoffed. “And then what? They’re word has more weight than yours?”
“Their word is the integrity of the academy, responsible for educating half the nobility in our kingdom,” Lucius said.
Theo held his gaze and said, “Fine then. Rey, accompany Lucius on his way to the alchemists. I’ll continue the investigation here. I’m curious if there’s overlap between this and our recent professor.”
“Searching for a mythical stigmata?” Lucius asked, although he agreed with Theo that it wasn’t a suicide.
“A theater likely isn’t the most secure of buildings, but there is a different kind of security in people. If somebody came back here to poison the man, somebody would have seen them, and if not then a stigmata must have been at play. I suspect we have a face changer of sorts.”
Lucius nodded as he listened. Rey, the Gorgon Blade, slid off the desk to leave, but he stopped at the door. “Theo, remind me what your stigmata is?” he asked.
The head of the Warden Blades had moved to the director’s book collection and begun inspecting it. “Eiditic Memory. Why do you ask?”
“Common men typically need to write down details if they wish to remember them. I think I’ll be putting in a few requisitions. And perhaps you should remember that regular people don’t typically recall things they found unimportant,” he said, and left the director’s room. He didn’t leave the theater immediately, but headed to the staging room. When Rey asked why, he sent her into the lady’s rooms to fetch Josephine.
The actress was beautiful, but stricken and much of her makeup had been ruined by tears. She composed herself with the skill due to her profession and asked, “What is it, sir?”
“I’m not here to accuse you of anything. Just to give you a recommendation for your condition. There’s a doctor that works in the Hospital of The Ascended Saint, his name is Samuel. If you describe your condition to him, I believe he can prescribe better medicine for you.”
She crossed her arms over herself and checked how close any of the other actors were. “Non-problematic?” she asked in a quiet voice.
“Yes, unless you prefer it that way.”
“What’s your name?”
“Lucius.”
“I may have to thank you, Sir Lucius. Is that all you came for though?”
He swirled the goblet. “Just on my way out actually. I was supposed to see your performance tonight, hopefully things will be running again soon,” he said and left.
Rey shadowed him and when they emerged into the snowy streets, she asked, “What was that? Buying favors?”
“Of course. The best seats in the house are kept in reserve. They don’t want to have to kick somebody out to seat the duke or something. But, if the play comes and the seat is open, then it goes to a friend and I quite like the idea of being that friend.”
“When the king said you were a conniving bastard, I never imagined he meant it this way.”
Lucius laughed. “The king only knows me by report, like the ones you send about me.”
“I don’t send reports about you,” she said, almost making him stumble off the sidewalk as he turned. “Only Theo does.”
“Good to know. I must say, most of you don’t strike me as the kind of killers you’d think the king would use to keep me in check.”
“You’d just kill those kinds of people. And don’t think I won’t do it if I have to. Whoever kills you will be made the lord of the Solhart territory.”
“Want to try your luck?” he asked, turning to glance back at her. The last thing he saw was her smirk before he was blinded. An instant later, there was steel to his throat and his hand was around her wrist. She wasn’t pressing it into his skin and he didn’t crush her arm.
“Just checking,” she said, releasing the magic from his gaze and pulling back. “Also, without justification, we all think the king would renege on the deal. Might even lock us up for murder.”
Lucius let go of her and continued on to the academy. “So you’re in it for the money and status. That’s good to know.”
The girl laughed. “Think you can outbid the king?”
“Only if he were to do something extremely stupid with the royal treasury. Have you ever been to the alchemical labs?” he asked as he headed into one of the industrial districts of Forum.
Rey shrugged. “I don’t even really know what alchemy is. Dad always called it nonsense witchcraft for people who wished they were gods.”
He laughed at her answer and guided her in among rows of stone longhouses like giant bricks laid beneath the sun. Chimney pillars belched smoke into the sky as fuel was continually shuttled in for everything from cook fires to smelting furnaces. The district had become a refuge for the original students of the academy, where no nobility would soil their feet save for one. He knew the building he sought, a fresh-built expansion turning four old structures into one fortification with a new blast furnace at the heart. The doors had been flung open and heat billowed into the street. The slate roof hid careful arches of stone built to an exact geometry that would make a castle crafter envious, now stained black.
A cry went up from voice to voice as Lucius stepped into the workplace and many greasy workers swung their arms through the air in greeting. Ultimately, one of their member came rushing over, peeling out of layers of leather coats and gloves until the petite form of Kajsa was revealed from the smithy cocoon. “Lu! How’s the baby?”
“Being a menace in the library, or so I’m told. You’re welcome to stop over any time, you know.”
“I was there just the other day you know.”
“That was two weeks ago,” he said, much to her shock. “Don’t worry about it, you’ve avoided my mother so far. We’ve just about entirely vacated the manor until she leaves. Came to ask for a favor though.”
“What kind of favor? We’re in the middle of melting a new batch of ore and trying a new way of separating the impurities. The liquid metal is too hot for me to touch, of course, but we’re hoping this time if we pour it into a salt bath that I’m already applying my stigmata to, the metal will be separated from the contaminants.”
“Won’t take but a moment. Could you separate this?” he asked, handing her the goblet.
“Wine?”
“Laudanum.”
Her brow furrowed. “Where did you get this from?”
“A crime scene, would you mind?” he asked, nodding his head back toward his shadow.
She sighed and assented, quickly pouring off pure water from the goblet into a glass. A moment later, she returned the goblet containing only opium and the residue of fermented grapes.
Lucius handed both to Rey. “Why don’t you return this to Theo? You can taste the water for yourself. It’s pure as springwater.”
“Purer,” Kajsa corrected. “Springwater actually has some bits of earth in it.”
Rey took both with a frown. “Why do I have to?”
“Because I’m done. I’m calling it a night. This was supposed to be a personal day for me, but here I am running errands for a man not half as smart as he thinks he is and a quarter as smart as he’s conned people into thinking he is just because he can recite facts,” Lucius said as he departed from the workshop. When she followed him back out, he added, “And I won’t forget the price of your loyalty is one small territory.”
Rey asked, “Is that supposed to be a threat or an offer?”
“Both.”