I raised my eyebrows. “No. I know nothing of your laws. But I suspect it is not a fine and some form of charitable works.”
“No, it is not. It is being boiled alive.”
I recoiled. “You have savage laws.”
“These are savage times.”
“No, Aleksey, they are not. Not in most other places I have lived.”
“You live here now.”
“Until I have helped your father, yes. Then, trust me, I intend to return as quickly as I can to somewhere else. Anywhere else.”
He appeared a little put out by my response. I think I wanted him to bemoreput out by it, and because he wasn’t, I added spitefully, “You and the rest of your family would not be subject to such punishment. I assume you reserve the harsh laws of your country for those of lesser station?”
He looked more frankly at me. “Then you assume wrong. We are all subject to the same law.”
I felt a chill wash over me. “Even the torture I witnessed on my journey? The burning? The… impalement?”
Still watching me with that maddening intensity, he nodded. “Any man caught in such a compromising embrace would be punished according to the crime, yes. You would think that such a law would put any man off such perversion, would you not?”
He was telling me something here of great import. I desperately wanted to be away from him to think it through, but Father Cavil made another unfortunately timed appearance. “His Majesty has graciously agreed to see you, sir.”
I swallowed a retort that, as I was trying to save his life, the king’s graciousness was superfluous. Aleksey turned on his heel and began to stride away back down the long waiting room.
CHAPTER 6
LATERTHATevening, I sat in my study with a pen and small notebook, trying to order my thoughts. I had given my patient an incredibly detailed examination. In complete privacy, except for the presence of Jules Lyons, I had made the king strip. I examined him closely. I took some samples of his blood, which I planned to look at under the microscope, and I examined his stools and urine and hair. I had no doubt that he was being poisoned, but I was no further forward with determining by whom. I had questioned him more closely about his habits and routines. It was an impossible situation: people surrounded him all the time. I began to suspect that the prayer ritual was more to gain a little peace and quiet for a few hours than it was for devotions. He could not say where his food came from. Even when ordered that it was to be prepared under strict observation, it passed through many hands before it got to his mouth.
Basically, anyone could be poisoning him. I could not, as I had so easily with Lord Salisbury, identify a culprit and isolate him from them. I made a list of suspects. It turned into a list of everyone I had met since I arrived in the castle, with a number of dashes added to represent servants and other people I could not name but who all had unlimited access to my patient. He even had one servant apparently responsible for collecting and replacing his chamber pot on the hour, every hour. Some people’s lives did not bear thinking about.
Beside each name, I noted my thoughts about this person: whether I felt they had any motivation to kill a king. It was depressing. Everyone in some way or other benefited from his death. It was inevitable, I suppose, given he owned everything and controlled everything. It was like my observation at luncheon; the king absent allowed everyone to move up a place at table, metaphorically and otherwise. Assuming, of course, that people wanted to eat closer to the seat of power…. Perhaps they didn’t. What if someone didn’twantthe increased responsibility of moving up or out of a comfortable niche? Aleksey, for example….
Why did my thoughts always return to him? Perhaps because I could hear him at that very moment in the room next to mine. It sounded like he was bouncing a ball off the wall, but another explanation for the rhythmic thumping had occurred to me. Aleksey, then. If the king died, he would become heir to the throne, a position much more agreeable to some than being second in line, as he currently was. Did he have that much ambition for power? Had not almost his first words to me beenmost of us are trying to leave? Why would he say that about his own country to a complete stranger he had no expectation of seeing again unless it was true? Wanting to leave was very different from committing regicide to gain power. Perhaps I could cross him off my list? But then there was Anastasia. Perhaps she was the power behind a would-be throne. What princess would not rather be queen? Eliminate her rivals one by one? Perhaps she had not been the ingénue she had appeared. Perhaps my pathetic attempt to charm her to annoy Aleksey and appear not concerned by the discovery of his engagement had merely given her the opportunity to fool me and appear what she was not.
I looked over my list. I could cross no one off; everyone was suspect. It rather left me with only one option: I would have to isolate the king from everyone and everything here at the castle. If I had him entirely to myself, he would recover. I doubted he would ever be the vigorous man he had once apparently been, but some semblance of health and life could be returned to him. I was determined to try. But it had to be all or nothing. If I left any gap in my regime, any access for someone to reach him, then it would appear as if my methods had failed. Ridding the body of poisons through sweat and the application of certain foods worked. I knew this. I had proved it to myself and others many times. But… how did you isolate a king?
Either I mistook a knock for the rhythmic banging I had been trying to ignore, or Aleksey did not knock when he entered my study. I filed this away, making a mental note not to be doing anything in my rooms that might embarrass me should he repeat such behavior. Not only did he come in without waiting for me to give him permission, he began to wander around touching things, examining them. I did not fear for my notes, even though I had written him in as a possible suspect, for I had written in my own shorthand. Not only would it be entirely indecipherable to anyone who pried, it was usually entirely indecipherable to me.
Finally he glanced over. “How long have you been back?”
“I’m sorry?”
“I thought you might come and find me and tell me what your examination uncovered.”
I genuinely had not considered this. Thinking everyone a possible murderer, I had forgotten that there might also be a concerned son. “I’m sorry. I should have….” He heard something in my voice, something that told him my news was not good. Before I could say more, he glanced at me despairingly.
“Not here. I can’t stay inside a moment longer; I will go insane. Do you ride? Of course you do. You rode here. Would youliketo ride? Now?”
I stood up, laying down my notebook. “Yes. I would. Shall we ride to an inn?”
He jerked his head back, and I heard the implication in what I had said. “I’m hungry!”
“Oh.” He chuckled. “In that case, yes, I will take you out so you caneat. Is our food not to your liking? But I would rather eat at an inn anyway. Come, what do you need?”
I grabbed my coat, pulled on my riding boots, and I was ready. We took the stairs toward the stables, Aleksey in the lead. My ability to navigate around the castle was still severely limited. I glanced behind me. “Where is the wolf thing?”
He narrowed his eyes, as if communing with the damn beast. “Faelan, thank you for asking, is visiting with your horse.”
