Part 24 (2/2)
Luvix wiped the blade on the bedsheet, and a stain appeared. Then he reinserted the dagger into his boot, walked to the door, unlocked it, and left, closing it behind him. Wad noticed that as soon as his back was turned, the illusion of a stain on the bedsheet disappeared. There had been no blood or brains on the dagger, and therefore none on the sheet, and now that Luvix was not watching, Bexoi no longer needed to maintain it.
No doubt he is going to a place where Sleethair can see him. Then she will return here and discover the body, screaming and bringing everyone to see.
”We have a few moments,” said Wad quietly. ”Will they find the bed empty? Or you alive in it?”
The Queen withdrew her face from the viewport and turned to look at him. ”I have shown you what no other has seen,” she said.
”And I, you,” said Wad.
”You are a Gatefather,” she said.
”And you are a Lightrider,” he said.
”I have concealed it from everyone, all my life. No one knows in all the world but you.”
”Hull knows something of what I am,” said Wad.
”And you let her live?”
”She would not betray me.”
”Will you you betray betray me me?” she asked him pointedly.
”If you doubt me,” he said, ”give me back that vial of poison and I will drink it now.”
A smile came to her lips. ”On my doubt alone, you'd choose to die?”
”Not until I saw you safely through the gate and back in your room,” said Wad. ”I would not want you to languish here, if I'm not as strong as I think, and the gate dies with me.”
”I will have to talk more with you,” she said. ”I'm not sure what to do with a confidant-I've never had one before.”
”Talk to him,” said Wad, ”and he will talk to you.”
”Oh, my,” she said. ”The two most silent people in the castle, and here we are chattering like biddies in the henyard.”
”What will they find?” asked Wad again. ”A dead clant? Or a living queen?”
”I think the living queen,” said Bexoi. ”Let Luvix wonder what happened to his lovely murder. Let him try to guess. Let him, in fact, try again-now that I know a place where I can go. The gate will be there?”
”Always open to you. And I'll leave your viewport here as well, so you can control the clant.”
”I don't really need that,” she said.
”You can see through the clant's eyes?”
”I'm very good at it.”
Wad looked back through the viewport. The body of the clant was still intact, still naked and beautiful, still empty-eyed and stained with the blood that had spilled out onto the cheek. ”What a perfect creation,” he said. ”And how clever of you to pretend that your weak affinity for birds was all you had.”
He felt her brush past him as she moved back toward the gate. ”How do I find it from this side?” she asked.
”I left it s.h.i.+mmering,” said Wad. ”Since no one can see it from this side except someone who has already pa.s.sed through it.”
She doused her light. Sure enough, the s.h.i.+mmer was there, a single spot in the stone. She touched it with her finger, pushed through it. She turned her face to smile at him just before she disappeared.
He stayed to watch. The clant simply vanished. Then Bexoi turned her back to him as she let the robe fall from her.
Naked, she turned back around, shaking her head. No doubt she realized that Wad had already seen her naked self-clant, and that if he chose to observe her nudity, he could choose vantage points anywhere in her chamber. She could never hide from him, so there was no reason for her to try.
And now that he knew he loved her, he deliberately chose not to look at her naked body. Instead he watched the door.
It opened. Sleethair came back in, accompanied by a lone soldier in the uniform of Gray-no doubt the same conspirator who had stood watch at the door. Luvix would not have involved more than these two, besides himself.
They looked at the bed. At Bexoi sitting there, exactly where Luvix had said he left the murdered clant. Both her eyes were open and undamaged.
”I thought you had gone for the night,” said Bexoi. ”And what is he doing inside the door without my invitation? Put yourself under arrest, man. You will be sent back to Gray as soon as I tell my husband of this breach of propriety. Consider yourself lucky that I do not have you flogged.”
The soldier ducked out at once.
”I'm- I'm sorry to bother- bother you,” said Sleethair.
”Well, now that you're here, stay the night,” said Bexoi. ”I had a strange dream and it has left me wakeful and restless. Here, beside me-spend the night with me.”
”But your majesty, I...”
Wad waited to see what excuse she would come up with, for of course she was desperate to get to Luvix and tell him that he had not killed the queen after all. Or to accuse him of lying to her. Or simply to get out of Na.s.sa.s.sa.
Sleethair got into the bed beside the queen.
”Usually you smell like Luvix,” Bexoi said coldly. ”But tonight you smell like vomit. Are you ill?”
”Yes,” said Sleethair-almost eagerly. Wad knew she was thinking: This is my excuse to get out of the room!
”Well, I'm glad you emptied out whatever was bothering you. If you need to puke again, you can do it over that side of the bed onto the floor and then clean it up yourself in the morning. I will not be left alone tonight.”
And that was that. Wad stifled his laughter. Let Luvix spend a miserable night wondering what has gone wrong, why there was no outcry when Sleethair ”discovered” the body. Let Sleethair spend a sleepless night beside the woman she conspired to murder. With any luck, Luvix will go ahead and kill the hapless soldier without finding out that Bexoi is alive-and then Sleethair will wonder if he would have killed her, too, as soon as her usefulness was over.
I saved her life, thought Wad, by taking the poison and then coming here to give her warning. But she might well have saved her own life without any help from me, even if it meant causing the traitor to burst into flame as soon as he drew the knife, or make the poison burn up and evaporate completely when he opened the vial.
Bexoi still had the vial, come to think of it.
Wad gated back to the kitchen then, and took his place among the nest of sleeping boys behind the stoves.
The next morning the castle was abuzz with the tragic news that Sleethair, Queen Bexoi's chief lady-in-waiting, had died in the night. Those who had seen her vomiting attested that she was quite ill, but that they had thought her much recovered. Meanwhile, Luvix was seen looking haggard and haunted, and when he departed that afternoon to return to Gray, everyone chalked it up to his grief for his mistress's death-for that that secret had not been well kept at all. secret had not been well kept at all.
Wad came to the queen three nights later, after things had quieted down. As soon as her new lady-in-waiting closed the door, Wad came down the wall from the ceiling. Again, he said nothing.
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