No One Noticed the Cat Page 5

  “I’ve a fine galleon for you to use should you decide on an ocean voyage for your honeymoon,” Egdril said as he settled himself in the saddle for his journey home.

  “Why, that is most gracious, Egdril,” Prince Jamas said, trying to control the eagerness of the royal handshake. He released himself before his arm dropped off and stepped back as a discreet signal that Egdril should finally leave.

  “And if you drowned on your honeymoon?” Grenejon whispered in his ear as the royal party clattered out of the courtyard. “Laurel gave me all the details we need about sudden deaths among Mauritian nobles. You’ll want to hear them. Clever. All occurring after the ungood second wife married Eager Egdril, all different, all easily explicable, and all eight men just as dead as the next one.”

  “Elucidate,” Jamas said as he led Grenejon back to his office where he was going to look over the ancestral jewels with a view to resetting those most likely to suit Willow’s dark beauty.

  “Baron Ricaldo was a fine horseman and the stallion he was riding could have leaped a ravine twice the width of the one they were found in. Found halfway across, in fact. As if something had caused the horse to misjudge the leap or have a sudden heart attack. They seem to have dropped like a couple of stones. Considering the depth of the ravine, it was difficult to disentangle the mashed corpses.”

  “He was the first?”

  “Yes, Willow’s father. He didn’t much like Queen Yasmin but then he had gained much favor from Egdril by finding him eager and willing bedmates.” Grenejon grinned lasciviously. “The second one took longer. Duke Kesuth began to experience nausea and nothing could ease his discomfort. Or permit him to retain any food. You might say he died of starvation.”

  “Poison is often the tool of females,” Jamas said, waving at Grenejon to close the door behind him.

  Niffy was sitting in the sun on his desk—on the list of wedding guests, to be precise, beside the flat velvet boxes and leather cases that held the ancestral jewelry.

  “No poison could have that effect, or so I’m informed,” Grenejon said.

  “Go on.”

  “Admittedly, shipwrecks are hard to arrange because storms at sea are chancy, but Count Lansaman was an accomplished sailor and quite capable of managing his sloop in the roughest weather. He and all hands, including—this is significant—both his heirs perished in waters too deep to raise their vessel.”

  “Now that would have taken some doing, Gren. Arranging a storm at a propitious moment. We don’t have many practicing sorcerers with that capability.”

  “Hmm. That we know of,” Grenejon said pointedly. “However, let me note that Lansaman was Egdril’s chief financial advisor, and he thought that the king shouldn’t spend money building a pleasure garden for the queen when a larger hospital was urgently needed. So he drowned.”

  “Go on.”

  “Count Mataban did not wish to betroth his daughter to Egdril’s choice for her—to one of the Bosanavian kinglets.”

  “I should think not,” and Jamas shuddered, “living in felt tents on the move all the time and in that frightful climate. So what happened to Mataban?”

  “He was attacked in his own gardens—he was an ardent horticulturist—by an assassin.”

  “A renegade Bosanavian who had taken offense to the slight?” Jamas suggested.

  “Exactly, and the man was found hanged in his cell before he could be questioned.”

  “If, indeed, the queen is responsible, she’s thorough and…tidy.”

  “And you’re prepared to marry into jeopardy?”

  “I’m marrying Lady Willow, not her step-aunt.”

  “Who, after she’s heard the report on the amenities of Esphania, is very likely to wish to annex it to Mauritia.”

  “We are forewarned. What of the rest of them?” Jamas asked.

  Grenejon ticked them off on his fingers. “One unexpectedly killed in a tourney. Another was done in out hunting by a particularly savage female lynzur. There aren’t that many lynzurs left in our world. Another had a heart attack, and the last developed a debilitating ague and died of fever.”

  “And nothing common amongst them…”

  “Save that the queen liked none of them for one reason or another.”

  “And you think I’ll be…put down…as easily?” Jamas laughed but Grenejon frowned angrily.

  “I don’t think ‘easy’ applies, my Prince. But I’m going to take a few safeguards. Like this.” Grenejon held up a heavy silver ring of simple but elegant design: a flat cut peridot sparkled brightly. “The stone changes color when in proximity to any known poison.” He took Jamas’ right hand and slipped the ring on the forefinger. “Just where it will be close to any food you eat and any drink you drink without everyone knowing you are protected by the sigil.”

  Jamas was deeply touched by Grenejon’s thoughtfulness as well as the gift itself. It fit his finger as if it had always been there.

  “I’ve got the armorer making you the finest mesh, capable of deflecting arrow or dagger…at least long enough for you to grab your own knife. And the kennel master has been training a barguas-hound to sleep in your room…”

  “You know I don’t like dogs in my bedroom. Besides which, Niffy is quite enough of a private guard.”

  “We shall guard your every minute, my Prince,” his equerry said staunchly, his back straight and his jaw obstinate.

  “Not every minute, surely, Grenejon.” And the prince winked.

  “Jamas! Please be sensible!” the Baron Illify roared.

  Niffy meowed.

  “You see? She’s volunteered for the other minutes,” Jamas said and gave her an affectionate caress before he started to open the jewelry boxes. “Now, help me decide which of these Willow will like?”

  “You should do the wedding guest list first,” Grenejon said.

  “What? And disturb Niffy when she’s so comfortable? No, we do jewels first, then we’ll get on with the notables.”

  They got on with both tasks. The jewels were sent to be reset or cleaned, and the invitations were dispatched: many by special couriers. The replies flooded back almost by return of the post riders. So heavy was the traffic of heralds— as if folks feared a late response would deprive them of their designated places—that guards had to direct the flow in and out of the castle gates, which had previously always been adequate for daily traffic.

  The church was cleaned from belfry to crypt—not, Grenejon remarked, that anyone (and he nodded significantly at his prince) was likely to visit such a malodorous and doleful place.

  “You never know,” remarked Cambion, the second equerry called in to assist his prince and Grenejon. “When m’sister got married last year, we found knickers and stuff for weeks afterwards.” When he saw the severe expressions on the faces of prince and head equerry, he blushed and hastily added, “Of course, at a royal wedding…”

  “There will be far more discards and in far more unlikely places,” Jamas said, keeping his expression so stern that for another long moment, Cambion didn’t realize he was being teased.

  Riding about in the city, Jamas found himself amused and pleased by the energy of the inhabitants, all determined that no one could find fault with any household or public place. Not a hovel was left un-freshened with limewash, and larger buildings had their masonry scrubbed by diligent teams. Baskets of flowers hung from street lamps, and corners or front windows sported at least a bright potted plant.

  “I should get married more often,” Jamas remarked when he saw special feeding stations erected well away from the cathedral plaza so that pigeons would be enticed from their usual haunts and not soil the wedding crowds.

  Once the traffic of speedy replies slackened, carters and carriers arrived with wedding presents. The third largest reception room joined the second to display the gifts pouring in from both kingdoms. Some, of course, had to be refrigerated in the icecaves which were already preserving wedding feast supplies. Others met with some ridicule, and there wer
e dozens of duplicates, but as some of these were useful items, the donors received gracious thanks.

  The bride and her entourage arrived a good ten days before the wedding, with such a baggage train that Cambion was heard to remark aloud that he hoped there would be enough closets in the west wing for everything.

  She’s not coming,” was the first sentence Lady Willow whispered in the ear of her intended.

  “Oh?” Jamas held his fiancée slightly away from him, looking into her eyes to see if there was a diminution of her anxiety. Despite the dark circles under them, he thought she looked marginally less tense.

  “She is pregnant and will not trust herself to being jostled in a coach.” Willow paused a beat. “She made my own mother stay behind with her and sent her sister along.” Willow actually wrinkled her nose up at him. “To act on behalf of both. It was mean of her to keep my own mother, even if Mother is very good with gestational vapors.” Willow sighed with regret. “At least I was allowed Laurel.”

  “Ah, Lady Laurel,” Jamas said, taking the hand of his sister-in-law elect and pulling her into his side to give her an affectionate kiss.

  “Don’t think you’re marrying the pair of us,” Laurel said with a little laugh, but his attention had pleased her for her eyes sparkled.

  Then Jamas noticed that she was surveying the assembled. Her eyes became focused and he saw that she had been looking for Grenejon.

  The equerry, who had been giving directions to a stylishly dressed older woman, hurried to his prince and the two ladies.

  “Lady Willow, your obedient and faithful servant,” Grenejon said with a deep and respectful bow which he then turned in Lady Laurel’s direction. “I am yours equally, Lady Laurel. Countess Solesne is anxious to whisk you both away to your apartments to rest.”

  Willow let out an exasperated sigh. “I have never fainted in my life, and I am certainly not fatigued by the journey. Sollie does worry that I won’t be in looks on The Day.” Her voice was almost merry but then her face clouded as she saw who was approaching their quartet from the other large travelling coach. She laid her hand on Jamas’ arm, her fingers pressing fiercely. “Prince Jamas, may I make known to you, Fanina, Duchess of Glebes?”

  Jamas was seized with an intense desire to say, “No, you may not!” as the small, very elegant lady swayed daintily toward him. She was not unattractive but there was something about the expression in her face or the set of her eyebrows or the masculine squareness of her jawline that was somehow repellent. Or maybe it was the acquisitive squint with which she surveyed the courtyard. Jamas raised her from her graceful but shallow curtsey—his rank, if not hers, decreed a fuller obeisance—and wanted to rub his fingers of the moisture left there by her plump little hand.

  “My brother at law, Egdril, King of Mauritia, will be here shortly,” she said in carefully precise vowels. “He decided to ride through this charming little city.”

  “It’s not little,” Cambion complained later when they reviewed the arrival. “And to announce him like that! She’s not a chamberlain or anything. To act as if we wouldn’t know who he was or where he came from!”

  Grenejon suggested that she either had a speech impediment which her careful enunciation was covering or that she had learned the language late in life.

  “I’d bet she came from a very humble origin and had a dreadful twang,” was Jamas’ notion.

  However, on the steps of the castle, he had to prolong the welcoming ceremonies until Egdril and his honor guard clattered into the court and could be officially greeted.

  The countess had taken her charges away to the west wing, and the prince and his equerries perforce had to exchange pleasantries with Duchess Fanina. This was not easily done, for she came across as a contentious, critical, patronizingly unpleasant person, and there were many long pauses between comments, with prince and first equerry sharpening their ears for any sound of the approaching royal troop.

  Egdril finally charged into the courtyard with his royal honor guard, and Jamas almost embraced him for rescuing them from Fanina. Jamas was not the only one to notice that Egdril didn’t much like his relative by marriage. But protocol was acquitted and they could begin the festivities concomitant with such a felicitous occasion.

  If Jamas thought he’d have much of his fiancée’s company, he thought wrong. They still had to steal moments together— generally on the dance floor—to the point where Countess Solesne was heard to remark that she hadn’t ever seen the Lady Willow dance so often.

  Duty required Prince Jamas to take Duchess Fanina to the dance floor at least once. Although it was the custom for ladies to wear gloves at formal dance evenings, she did not. He had to take her plump moist hands in his. That was the first time the ring changed color. Immediately after he had seen her to her chair, he excused himself and scrubbed his hands vigorously until his ring resumed its normal shade.

  “Know much about contact poisons, Gren?” he murmured to his equerry at the next available moment.

  Grenejon’s eyes rounded. “Since I don’t, I shall repair that ignorance. Mangan had a full library on such affairs, I believe.”

  Jamas noticed enviously that his equerry was able to leave the dance floor with the Lady Laurel. Whenever he and Willow tried the same maneuver, someone followed them: the countess, Egdril, the duchess, Frenery, or someone.

  “I’ve only kissed you four times since you got here,” Jamas said, holding the slender body of his intended tightly in his arms. That wasn’t as satisfactory, in some ways, as kissing her, but evidently it would have to do. He found he could put a lot of loving in such an embrace in front of all the eyes on them.

  “We shall have some time together soon,” she said, her body answering his.

  He smiled down at her. “So you do love me?”

  “More than I thought possible,” she replied fervently, and he sighed. Seven more days until he had her to himself, legally and irrefutably.

  The days eventually passed, and he was being dressed in his wedding finery, resplendent with gold and silver in the vibrant dark green that was Esphania’s color.

  “You look every inch a fine prince, Jamie,” Grenejon said, brushing off an imaginary speck from his shoulders.

  “You’re not at all shabby either,” Jamie replied, for Gren wore an equerry’s formal dark blue with a modest silver trim. “Is all in train?”

  Grenejon winked, grinning from ear to ear, and patted his left slit pocket.

  A polite tap sounded on the door, which Grenejon opened to Prince Temeron, who looked excessively nervous and obviously uncomfortable in his finery. He also looked remarkably like his cousin, the prince, which was somewhat natural since they were closely related. They were the same height and build, Temeron being younger by some eighteen months. But his blond hair curled—and had been barbered—like the prince’s, and their profiles were much of a kind.

  “Tern, you look splendid,” Jamas said, striding forward to shake his second cousin’s hand and reassure the lad. Temeron had not yet been informed that he was now the crown prince although Jamas had decided the boy had better leave his ancestral home, high in the northern mountains, and get eased into Esphania court procedures and policies.

  “Came to tell you we’re all assembled now, sir…”

  “Jamas, lad, Jamas,” the prince reminded him, and Tern blushed. He had been seconded as a groomsman along with the Moxtell sons and brothers, Grenejon’s two younger brothers, and the Fennells.

  Swinging the door wide open, Jamas looked out at the colorful assembly for each wore his family’s heraldic colors. Every one of them was six foot or more and athletic in appearance. Even Temeron had a martial bearing.

  “We’ll make a fine show,” he said, nodding approval.

  “A fine show indeed,” Grenejon murmured for the prince’s hearing alone and chuckled.

  “Easy now, the doing’s yet to be done,” and with that the Prince of Esphania strode forth to his wedding.

  Awedding is a
wedding, and that of a popular prince is even more an occasion for rejoicing. This wedding also included the prince’s official coronation and that of his bride. Fortunately, he could and had chosen the short forms so he could get to the important part of his wedding sooner. Everyone in Esphania was there, except Niffy, who had other plans for this day.

  The bride arrived precisely on time, on her uncle’s arm, looking so ethereal in her gauzy dress and lacy veil that Jamas thought his heart would burst. He was not ashamed to find tears in his eyes.

  It seemed to take forever for the procession to bring her to him, for she had twelve attendants and two flower girls and two lads bearing on one pillow the rings and on the other the coronets. Jamas eyed the two boys most severely. They were the sons of Duchess Fanina, and obnoxious little scuts, or so he had found out when he caught them mercilessly mistreating puppies in his stable. They rolled their eyes when they saw him watching and started taking their duties more seriously.

  Then, finally, King Egdril bestowed the Lady Willow’s hand in his. Lady Laurel took her place beside her sister and Grenejon, as best man, turned by his prince. What no one else but the participants and the celebrant knew was that this was a double wedding ceremony: Laurel had agreed to Gren’s persuasions.

  The ceremony, with Willow’s slender fingers tightly clasping Jamas’, seemed to be over all too soon, and he was kissing his bride. Grenejon would have to wait to perform that ritual when the wedding party retired to the chancel to sign the register, but Bishop Wodarick had accepted their whispered responses to the usual wedding vows. If his blessing was more expansive, taking in the other pair, no one noticed it particularly.

  As best man, of course, Grenejon had to escort the maid of honor, and that was when they exchanged their rings.