Chapter 39: Rain

Clara felt her heart in her throat as she climbed up the stairs toward the despondent Iris, with Warren following behind.

“What’s happened to Ricardo, my lady?”

Iris tried to speak, but only a pained moan came out.

Warren faced Conrad. “Lord Conrad. I am the inquisition’s representative in Westwick. If something has happened, I need to know.”

Conrad bit his lip and refused to meet Warren’s eyes, but he nodded. He led them up toward the fifth floor.

Clara’s heart hammered with each step they took, thumping violently against her ribcage. It pounded so hard that it drowned out everything else. There was something seriously, deeply wrong.

I shouldn’t have celebrated.

She stumbled in her haste, but Warren caught her, and they continued in silence. A cordon of von Rhenia guards stood on the fourth floor, preventing anyone from going further up, but they let the party through as soon as they saw Conrad and Iris.

Conrad led them to the west wing of the fifth floor, where the duke’s staff had been staying—the von Rhenias themselves, and Ciarán, had taken the rooms in the east wing.

Clara had become familiar with the layout over the past week, thanks to her duties as a servant of House von Rhenia. At first, she thought they were going to Ricardo’s room, arranged so he could keep watch over the family better than he would have been able to at the distant garrison. But Conrad kept walking, stopping only in front of the next door over.

Dame Rowena’s.

Two von Rhenia guards flanked the entrance to her room. Their faces were severe, and they both had their weapons drawn. The cracked door hung at an angle, one hinge torn from the frame. The wood around the lock had splintered inward.

“In here,” said Conrad. His voice was flat, but there was an unmistakable stiffness in the way he moved his neck.

Clara and Warren stepped through the broken doorway. Iris tried to go in, but Conrad held her arm. “Sister, you shouldn’t see this.”

Clara thought the girl would protest, but she just nodded meekly.

The suite was large and lavishly furnished, befitting a hotel of the Westwick Plaza’s reputation. Yet as fancy as it was, the décor had been thrown around, as if the room had been violently ransacked.

Duke von Rhenia and Lochlann were inside talking, but turned to Warren as soon as he came in. The duke’s face was a shade of white paler than usual, and Lochlann’s eyes jumped between Clara and Warren skittishly, with none of his usual confidence. Ciarán was sitting curled up on the carpet, holding his knees tightly to his chest and biting his nails. He looked so small, and his eyes stared into nowhere in particular.

Clara had to force herself to breathe. There was a nigh-insurmountable pressure closing in all around her, like she’d felt under the Pope’s mass silencing spell.

A lone chair sat in the center of the room. Rowena was in it, slumped forward against a thick rope wound around her torso and her arm, binding her to the chair’s back. Her chin rested against her chest, her eyes were closed, and her breathing was a labored rasp. There was blood on her uniform and on both of her hands.

And in front of her, on the floor—

Major Ricardo lay face-up on the carpet. His dress uniform was dark with blood, so much of it that the burgundy fabric had turned almost black.

A short sword was buried in his throat.

It had been driven in just below the jaw, angled upward with precision.

Clara’s legs stopped working, and she fell onto her knees.

No.

He was fine.

Just a couple of hours ago, they’d been laughing together. He’d made a dumb joke about her lodging objections. He’d gotten her a drink. They’d clinked their mugs together.

“Ricardo,” she whispered. “Why?”

It had started raining outside, and the chill from the night air felt colder than she could have imagined.

Warren knelt beside the body.

“He was found like this,” said Duke von Rhenia. “We heard sounds of fighting, so I had the door broken open.”

“And you believe Dame Rowena to be the culprit? Is that why she’s tied up?”

“Isn’t that obvious?” Conrad answered immediately, clenching his fists. “It’s her sword, and they were the only two people in the room.”

Clara forced herself to look at the short sword. There was a golden wolf on its pommel, and a matching scabbard on the floor near Rowena.

“Rowena wouldn’t do this,” said Ciarán, his voice cracking.

Conrad glared at him. “You can’t be sure of that.”

Warren stood up and moved from Ricardo to Rowena. “What happened to her?”

“Passed out, I believe. From the smell on her, she must have had a lot to drink. I had my guards bind her as a precaution.”

“A prudent decision, Your Grace. With your leave, I will escort her to the garrison when the city guard arrives. We can question her when she wakes up,” said Warren.

Righton had been eerily composed the entire time. Of course, unlike everyone else in the room, his lack of a connection to Ricardo would make it easier to process, but still, seeing a dead body firsthand ought to be shocking for everyone, especially when the cause of death was a gruesome stabbing. Faced with her own unsteady breathing, Clara was envious of Warren’s ability to keep a cool head even in a moment like this.

Duke von Rhenia nodded.

Ciarán rose in protest. “You can’t do that to her. She’s my personal knight! I am a prince of the Holy Kingdom of Arcadia!”

Lochlann put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Brother. We must let justice take its course. If Dame Rowena is innocent, she will surely tell us so when she awakens, and confirm it under the Blessing of Truth. Then, she can return to your side.”

Ciarán pushed his brother’s hand aside, but didn’t say anything else.

Clara’s gaze fell on Ricardo again. The carpet beneath him had darkened in a wide, uneven circle. He looked so peaceful with his eyes closed. If she could just focus on his face, it was almost as if he were still—

“Casewell.” Warren cut through the fog. “You are shaking. Perhaps you should wait outside with Lady Iris.”

She looked down at her hands. They were trembling so violently she had to press them against her thighs to steady them.

Focus. Assess the situation. Look at the evidence.

She turned to Duke von Rhenia. “Your Grace.” Her voice came out rawer than she had intended. “May I examine the room? And Major Ricardo’s room, as well.”

Conrad stepped forward. “You cannot be serious. I won’t have Ricardo’s belongings ransacked by a maid. He’s… He deserved better than that. What could a maid possibly—”

“Let her.” The duke’s tone left no room for argument. “You have until the city guard arrives.”

Conrad clicked his tongue. Clara rose to her feet with some effort. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and forced herself to think.

Ricardo’s rapier was still sheathed at his hip, untouched. If he’d been attacked, he hadn’t drawn his weapon. Either he’d been caught completely off guard, or he hadn’t perceived a threat—both could be possible, with how much he’d had to drink.

She moved to the short sword. The golden wolf on the pommel meant it belonged to someone in the royal household’s direct service, and there weren’t many of those in Westwick. Probably only Dame Rowena and Lochlann’s personal knight, a stern man she’d seen around Claves a few times.

Then the room itself. Clara turned slowly, cataloguing. Near Ricardo, a side table lay overturned, with the remains of a shattered ceramic washbasin on the floor beside it. At the back of the room, one of the windows was open. She looked out and saw the back street. There didn’t seem to be anyone around outside, which made sense, given how late it was.

Clara looked at Rowena again. There were no visible wounds. If the blood wasn’t hers, then it was Ricardo’s. But when Father Leofric brought her back to the room, she could barely walk, with how much she was slurring and stumbling. Could she really have overpowered Major Ricardo in that condition? Then again, Ricardo had been drinking too. And for all Clara knew, he’d drunk even more after she left.

From beyond the broken door, she heard Iris crying softly.

Clara did one more pass around the room and saw nothing besides toppled furniture and a wide, mostly empty closet. She looked at Ricardo one last time. His face, even in death, carried an air of steady reliability.

‘If you are ever in need of a favor, consider me in your debt’.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Then she turned away and stepped through the doorway.

Duchess von Rhenia was kneeling down in the hallway, holding Iris tightly within her arms. Emma stood to the side, pale and shaking. Clara gave her a serious nod, then went into Ricardo’s room next door. Conrad followed behind her, watching her every move with suspicion.

In terms of size and decoration, Ricardo’s room was much the same as Rowena’s, except his wasn’t a mess. There wasn’t much in it, since most of his belongings would be at his permanent room at the garrison.

The bed was made, but there was a depression in the sheets and the pillow that showed someone had lain down recently. A traveling trunk sat at the foot of the bed, closed but unlatched.

She moved to the desk. She could feel Conrad’s gaze boring into her back as she began sorting through the papers on top of it. Most of it was mundane paperwork—reports from the garrison, a note about training schedules, a letter from a Claves instructor about the exhibition match, a brief note from the duke confirming the security arrangements for the family. Clara set each one aside.

Then she found it. An envelope bearing a broken von Rhenia seal, addressed to Major Ricardo in precise handwriting. She opened it. Inside was a single sheet of paper.

Ricardo,

I hope this letter finds you well. Per your request, the items are enclosed. I trust you will handle them with appropriate care. I await your confirmation with regards to the paperwork.

Your presence on the estate is sorely missed.

With regards,

Priscilla

Clara almost gasped. The items. Were they Stella’s pills, the ones Priscilla had saved? Ricardo had said the courier would deliver them this week, so the timing made sense. Were the pills here?

“What is that?” Conrad was at her shoulder.

“I’m not sure, my lord. It appears to be correspondence between the major and the head maid about some household matter.” She did her best to keep her voice even.

Conrad’s narrowed eyes lingered on the letter, then on her. “So you’re saying you went through the trouble of asking my father to come in here, and you don’t even know what you’re looking for?”

“I’m looking for anything that might clarify what happened tonight, my lord. Sometimes the tiniest details have the greatest relevance.”

“What happened is obvious enough.” He scoffed. “There’s a reason why Dame Rowena, despite her skill, is relegated to being a bastard prince’s knight.”

“And what reason would that be?”

“Her temper. She’s a brute. You can see it in how she fights. She has the strength, but hardly the finesse, relying far too much on her base impulses. She must have been furious at losing the match to Ricardo, and the inebriation did the rest.”

“But that doesn’t explain why Ricardo was in her room in the first place. She’d retired hours before him.”

He shrugged. “We’ll have the truth when she wakes, one way or another.” Then he turned to examine two swords Ricardo had left by the wall, one broad and long, and one short, just like Rowena’s, but with an eagle in the pommel instead of a wolf.

Clara began searching for the pills. She opened the trunk at the foot of the bed, but there were mostly spare uniforms folded with military neatness. Besides that, she found a pair of riding gloves and a small leather-bound journal, which, on a quick run-through, seemed to contain only training logs and notes on guard rotations. She checked the closet, running her hands along the empty shelves and hangers, then knelt and looked under the bed, under the desk, and behind the nightstand.

Nothing. No pills, not even a pouch or a box. Whatever Priscilla had sent, it wasn’t here.

“Are you quite finished?” asked Conrad. His voice was sharp, but his gaze was still set on Ricardo’s swords, and his fists were clenched.

Clara stood and brushed off her apron. She left Priscilla’s letter on the desk—she’d been tempted to take it with her, but with Conrad here, that would be far too risky.

“Yes, my lord. Thank you for allowing me to look.”

He gave a stiff nod and waited for Clara to walk out. It seemed the city guards had arrived and were now speaking with Warren and Duke von Rhenia. Iris, Emma and the Duchess were nowhere to be seen. Clara doubted Iris would want to make the walk back to Claves in the current circumstances, close as it was, so they’d probably use extra rooms at the hotel.

Warren was giving instructions about Rowena’s transportation to the garrison; despite the commotion, the knight was apparently still passed out, so they were making arrangements to question her tomorrow.

Clara used the time to gather her thoughts. Ricardo had been investigating Stella’s past at her request, pulling on threads related to the orphanage and the pills. And now he was dead, apparently from a drunken fight with an obvious suspect. Were these two connected?

Was this because of me?

The thought hit her like a truck. She leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes.

If I’d never asked for his help, if I’d never shown him the letter, would he—

“You.” The quiet voice was Ciarán’s. The boy was standing next to her, while Lochlann had joined the conversation with the Duke, Warren and the guards.

She curtsied, pushing her previous thoughts away. “How may I be of service, Your Highness?”

“You will come with me to the garrison tomorrow. For Rowena’s questioning.”

She raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, Your Highness?”

“I heard what you did. In front of the Pope, and here at Westwick, too. You shall do that for Rowena, as well.”

“Your Highness, with all due respect, Major Ricardo was a knight of House von Rhenia. I’m not sure I can—”

His eyes fell to the floor, and he clasped his hands together. “Please. I don’t know what else I can do for her.”

In that moment, Ciarán Ó Conail Mhór looked even lonelier than Clara Casewell.

“I cannot promise to defend Dame Rowena. But I will be at the garrison, Your Highness—I imagine I will have to accompany Lady Iris there, anyway.”

The boy pursed his lips, and his frown eased slightly.