Part 39 (1/2)

”Koya, don't be an idiot. We know who did it. This ridiculous farce can only satisfy your own curiosity and boredom.”

”Shut up, Barris.” The musical voice lost almost nothing of its tenor. ”Durrel didn't kill Mother. You only wish he had.”

My eyes swung from sister to brother. There was tension here, but without more information, I couldn't be certain of its source. Or its significance.

”Do let's sit and discuss this like civilized people.” Koya led me to a delicate, carved bench and settled beside me, but Barris lingered at the fringes of the room, like a suspicious dog that didn't want to let me out of view. ”Can I offer you some refreshment? Vrena, precious, bring us some wine,” she called to an out-of-sight servant.

”No - really, I'm fine.” I hadn't forgotten that one member of this family had already been felled by poison, and the suspects were still at large.

Koya looked at me oddly for a moment. ”I'm sure you have questions. And we have nothing to hide,” she added pointedly, looking at her brother.

I glanced from sibling to sibling, realizing just how out of my depth I was. I had no experience investigating crimes; committing them, yes, but never reconstructing them, piece by piece, backward in time. The thing I really wanted to ask was who had had me arrested, but I kept that tidbit close. It might be more telling to see what they did if I didn't mention it. Instead I seized on the first thing I thought of. ”I thought there were four children.”

”The twins live with the family in Tratua,” Koya said. ”Leys and Reton. They're thirteen, and Mother felt it time to expand their horizons.”

”She wanted them out of the way of her and her new plaything, you mean.” Barris had moved from glowering to pacing, and he practically pounced on Vrena and the wine when they appeared.

”You didn't approve of the match with Lord Durrel?” I said.

”As if Mother ever courted anyone's approval. Here -” He gestured for me to follow, and, curious, I stood and trailed after him out of the room, Koya and the dogs behind us. Barris led us to an open breezeway, where a ma.s.sive portrait of a woman and her young son stared out onto the water.

”It's a Fioretta,” Koya said at the same moment Barris said, ”Does that look like a woman who cared what other people thought?”

I studied the woman in the portrait, a thick, proud figure in a stiff clay-colored gown, with blond hair drawn severely back, and startling pale eyes glaring out from the canvas. The boy - Barris, probably - looked just as defiant. Koya had much of her mother's stature, and the unnerving direct gaze, but she was more delicately built.

”Why did she marry Lord Durrel?” I couldn't imagine what that clay woman could have seen in a boy her children's age.

”To be Lady Decath, of course,” Koya said. ”A n.o.ble t.i.tle, not to mention a n.o.ble heir, was the one thing Mother didn't have.”

Since we were being so candid, I forged ahead with my next indelicate question. ”And where were you both when she died?”

”I was dining with my grandfather,” Koya said promptly. ”It's exactly an hour's sail between Grandfather's house and Bal Ma.r.s.e, and I a.s.sure you at least a dozen witnesses can place me there all evening.”

I knew a thing or two about alibis. The more precise and elaborate one was, the less likely it was to be true. ”At two o'clock in the morning?”

Barris frowned. ”What?” His voice was gruff.

”Your mother was killed in the middle of the night. Her maid saw someone leaving her rooms at that hour.”

”The dinner ran late,” Koya said simply. ”We had . . . family matters to discuss.”

”What about the curfew?”

She gave a broad smile. ”We're Ceid. The curfew doesn't apply to us.”

Of course it didn't. ”And you, Master Ceid?”

Barris set down his gla.s.s. ”Unlike my sister, I don't find your questions entertaining, and I have no intention of continuing this conversation.”

Koya sighed daintily. ”Unfortunately,” she said, ”despite his efforts to suggest otherwise, my brother is entirely innocent. He was at home in Tratua when Mother died.”

”Wait. You don't live in Gerse? Do you keep a house in the city?” The Ceid owned properties from the Seventh Circle to n.o.b Circle. Maybe edgy Barris's quarters would be worth checking out.

Barris gave me a chilling look. ”I did,” he said. ”The Decath own it now.”

I realized he meant Bal Ma.r.s.e. ”Lord Durrel got your family home in the marriage settlement? Why?” What reason would a family as cozy and rich as Durrel's have to l.u.s.t after an ugly, hulking lump of stone like Bal Ma.r.s.e?

”My mother's house,” he said. ”She owned it outright. And you would have to ask the Decath, since she's no longer able to explain it.”

”And you're convinced that Dur - Lord Durrel is guilty?”

”Well, who else? It was common knowledge Decath was only after her money. He was the last person seen with her before she died, and they'd been arguing.”

Koya turned to me. ”Anyone could see my mother and Durrel were a dismal match. Oh, the theory was sound, but once they were actually pinned together in the same house, well . . . it doesn't always work out like the strategists plan.”

”Do you mean to parade all this family's shames before a stranger?” Barris said savagely. ”Very well then, let's talk about your own failed marriage.”

”Hardly failed,” Koya said brightly. ”Celyn, my husband is Stantin Koyuz. Perhaps you've heard of him.”

Oh. That was an interesting development, and I should have known it. Wealthy merchant Stantin Koyuz, who had to be decades Koya's senior, was infamous for breaking the hearts of younger sons of n.o.ble families. But marriage was mandated by Celys's law, and it was difficult for a man to advance in Gersin society without a wife - at least in name. Looking up, I saw Koya regarding me, the same placid smile still on her face. I suddenly had the very uncomfortable feeling that she knew every thought inside my head. I didn't like it. I dropped my gaze.

”I can a.s.sure you, Celyn, that my marriage has nothing whatsoever to do with what happened to my mother.”

”Of course,” I mumbled, changing the subject. ”Who do you think is responsible for your mother's death?”

”My mother,” she said simply.

”Then you think it was suicide?”

Barris barked out a laugh, absolutely mirthless.

”Certainly not,” Koya said smoothly. ”I only meant, it must have been something she was involved in. My mother was a very skilled woman. And one thing she did particularly well was make people unhappy. Now, I wouldn't call them enemies, exactly -”

”Enemies?” That was a strange choice of words.

”I'll make a list.” Koya fluttered off to fetch paper and quill. She returned and spread the paper across her lap, writing with a swift, swooping hand. ”This first name is my grandfather, Mother's father. He was opposed to the marriage -”

”Because he thought Decath was too young,” Barris broke in. ”Koya, what are you doing?”

”He was opposed to the marriage,” Koya continued as if her brother hadn't spoken. ”But I doubt he'd kill anybody. Although . . .” She paused thoughtfully, then wrote another name. ”You should look into her business a.s.sociates. Durrel was always trying to become involved in Mother's interests somehow, but I'm afraid he didn't really understand how things work in this family. Now, she was intimate with the Corsour family, although Emmis Corsour was no match for Mother, and she'd been seeing rather a lot of an Alech Karst recently -”

”Koya, enough!” Barris crossed the room in long, determined strides and whipped the paper from her hands. Ink splattered her hands and gown, but she just regarded him with the same patient, composed expression. ”My sister is a bored, unhappy girl, just looking for some amus.e.m.e.nt,” he said to me. And with that, he tore Koya's list into pieces, which he dropped, one by one, into the pooling candle flame.

”Why, brother, whatever's the matter with you?”

”I believe this meeting is over. Mistress Contrare,” he added with icy politeness, ”please allow us to offer our personal barge to return you to your . . . home.”