CHAPTER
1

Dubric Byerly, Castellan of Faldorrah, sat alone at a small table in the castle kitchen, his mangled breakfast congealing before him. He sipped his tea and frowned as he poked a chunk of sausage with his fork. Having spent the past half bell toying with the food on his plate, he worried he had wasted too much time pretending to eat. The beginning of an inquiry always seemed disjointed to him. Finding the first clue, the first mistake, the first hint of guilt.

Responsible for the safety and well-being of Lord Brushgar's demesne, Dubric tried to make his presence felt on a regular basis in all areas of the castle. But as he glanced up from his plate, he wondered if he had eaten too many breakfasts alone in the kitchen. The staff gave him a wide and respectful berth as they hurried through their labors, but none gave him a second glance. Could they be too used to him? Was that the problem? Maybe so, but he had to start somewhere.

Dubric contemplated the uneaten food on his plate, he watched the kitchen staff, and he glanced out the window at the blossoming dawn. He looked anywhere but at the ghost that stared at him, silently wailing.

He had woken before dawn to find the slashed horror of a scullery maid's corpse standing beside his bed. Her gaping spirit still stood before him in a uniform drenched and dripping with blood. He could not recall her name and had no idea where her body might be. He only knew that she had been murdered, in his castle, and that he would see her pained and tortured apparition until he put the matter to rest. Cursed by the Goddess Malanna after his wife's murder forty-three summers before, Dubric had long struggled to ignore the horrid images of wrongful death.

The ghosts came to him in the darkest part of night, in the brightest days of high summer, whenever they happened to die. The spirits would stare at him, their glazed eyes pleading, knowing he alone saw them, saw their torment, and would do his best to avenge them. A praying man would thank the Goddess that he saw only those murdered within the range of his responsibility and no others. But Dubric had denounced religion the day Oriana died and had never looked back.

The scullery maid was his fourteenth ghost, and he had ultimately solved all of their deaths, except one. He thought of his one failure for a moment, then pushed the guilt away. She had been dead for so long, more than thirty summers, and her ghost would likely walk the castle halls for all eternity.

Dubric sighed and toyed with his eggs, the fork clutched in his burn-scarred hand. In his sixty-eight summers he had found most murders to be violent yet simple affairs. Drunken fights gone awry. Spouses who erred in judgment. Lapses of reason while in the throes of extreme anger. Revenge. Uncomplicated crimes of passion, hate, or greed. Hundreds of people lived in and around the castle and occasional bloodshed was to be expected. He had solved the murders quickly, brought the killers to face justice, and continued with happier aspects of his work. But he hated the ghosts. He often wondered if he solved their murders to find justice for their deaths, or merely to get the spirits out of his sight. He hoped it was for justice, insisted in his heart it was for justice, but on this blustery morning in late winter he was far from certain.

He watched the kitchen bustle with activity as scores of folks scurried through their work. A butcher lugged in the third freshly slaughtered ewe of the morning. The herbmonger from the village argued over the price of his spices. Servitors grabbed breakfast trays and dashed away in their hurry to feed their masters. Cooks stirred, fried, and chopped. Scullery maids scrubbed. Bakers baked. Dubric watched them all for signs of stress, of nervousness, of someone stealing glances his way. None did. All seemed as oblivious to him and the scullery maid's demise as they were to her ghost.

He glanced at the ghost and wondered what to try next. She had been murdered, that much was obvious, but was not missing. Yet. He did not want to appear crazy, paranoid, or—King forbid—guilty, so ordering a castlewide search was out of the question until someone noticed her absence. Besides, for all he knew, her body had been dumped in a privy or destroyed. She was a scullery maid, he was certain of that, and logically his search should begin in the kitchen. If no one from the kitchen was to blame, then who?

The thought died in an instant and he paused, his fork poised over mangled eggs, as a sharp, cold pain behind his eyes signaled the arrival of a new responsibility. Another ghost, this one a milkmaid, flickered into view beside the scullery maid. Both screamed at him in silent terror. Oh no, not two. He swallowed and tightened his fist around the fork to keep it from trembling as he looked at the new arrival. The second ghost was Elli Cunliffe, an orphan who had been left on the stoop fifteen summers before.

He set his fork beside his plate and wiped his mouth with a fine linen napkin. What a mess.

"Leavin' already, m'lord?" Pitta, the herald's wife and morning kitchen master, looked at him with eyes as soft as her plump body.

He forced what he hoped was a calm smile. "That I am. I have much to do today."

She gathered up his mess and smiled as well. "You've never been one to shirk, sir. Hope you have a pleasant day."

"As do I," he said, knowing it was impossible. He took one last sip of his tea. The dairy barns were on the other side of the castle, outside the west tower. If he hurried, and had any luck at all, the other milkmaids would have overslept and Elli's killer might still be there with the scullery maid tucked under his arm.

Keep on dreaming, you old goat. About as much chance of that as the cows becoming excellent witnesses.

He set aside his tea, straightened his tunic, and tried not to appear to hurry across the kitchen.

He walked past the butcher, dodged a lackey carrying a sack of potatoes, and paused near the baker's ovens to allow a trio of scullery maids to hurry by with trays of dirty dishes. "Mornin', sir!" a voice called from beside him.

Dubric turned and hid the cringe he felt at the delay. Everyone knew the baker's assistant loved to chat while he kneaded bread. But he was a decent fellow. What could a greeting hurt? "Good morning, Bacstair. How are you this fine day?"

"Doing fine, sir," he said as he raised his forearm to wipe a sheen of sweat from his brow. The mound of dough flexed, stretched, and rolled under Bacstair's expert pounding. "Otlee tells me you've passed him in history and mathematics. He's hoping to make senior page soon."

Copyright © 2004 by Tamara Siler Jones