Count Malodorous had gone the colour of pea soup which was not becoming at all. “She lies!” he roared back. “You cannot trust her! Everyone knows she is the daughter of a snake charmer and who knows who else and moreover she has a child out of wedlock!”
Nobody gasped because as the Count had already said this was not new information.
“You are wrong!” cried Euphrenadora. “I have twenty six children out of wedlock and they are all very happy. I enjoy having children out of wedlock very much. But I could have a hundred twenty six bastards and itwould not change the fact you came here tonight to murder Crown Prince Krystian and seize the throne of Lithandria for yourself!”
Now Count Malodorous was the colour of pea soup left to turn cold and go lumpy and unpleasent. “You have no proof of this.”
“Oh contrair!” Euphrenadora darted forward and pulled a jewellry box from where it was hidden in the Count’s pocket.
He snatched for her but it was already too late. “Nooooo!” he howled.
Euphrenadora opened the box and showed the King and the Queen and Prince Krystian and the Chamberlain and the nearest guests who were all craning their necks the stolen blue diamond cravat pin. “Count Malodorous meant to return this to his highness but it has been treated with a undetectible and deadly poison.”
“I say again,” said Count Malodorous again, “you have no proof of this.”
“There is a very simple way to check.”
Before the Count could stop her Euphrenadora lunged at him and cut him on the back of his hand with the sharp tip of the cravat pin.
And at that moment you could have heard a cravat pin drop in the ballroom.
Everyone stared at Euphrenadora. Had she made a terible mistake?!
Then Count Malodorous gave a wet gurgle, bloody foam spurting from his nostrils as he writhed about in hideous agony and then fell to the floor where he thrashed in his death throes for along time. At last he was still, contorted in a pose of unspeakible anguish, his mouth frozen in a crimsun O.
“I rest my case,” said Euphrenadora.
Then there was a shriek of outrage from somewhere among the guests and Lady Nightsbane rushed at Euphrenadora wielding a bone dagger. Euphrenadora immediatly pulled the rapier from her stocking and stabbed Lady Nightsbane through the heart and she fell down dead next to her former lover.
So the Crown Prince was not poisoned by the blue diamond cravat pin, all the bad people were summerly dispensed with, Lithandria was saved and it was all thanks to Euphrenadora! The King and Queen and all thepeople of the kingdom were very grateful to her and made her a Knight of the Realm.
Prince Krystian however was very sad because he had truly fallen in love with Euphrenadora when she was in disguise as Lady Dominika.
“I’m sorry,” she said, patting his hand gently. “But you must marry and stay here to look after the kingdom because you are the Crown Prince and that is your job and it is also what you are suited for.”
“But I love you, Euphrenadora!” he cried his eyes, which were exactly like the famous and now no longer stolen blue diamond of Lithandria, filling up with tears. “You are the bravest and most beautiful woman I have ever met and so clever and your skills with both small sword and rapier are unparallelled.”
It was all true but Euphrenadora was not one to boast. “We will always remember each other” she said. “But you must also be a good husband to your wife.”
“I will,” promised Prince Krystian. “But may I first have a kiss to hold in my heart forever?”
“You may,” said Euphrenadora and they kissed and it was a very nice kiss and nearly as good as all the other exciting things Euphrenadora had done in her life.
Then she said goodbye to Prince Krystian and left Lithandria for her next adventure.
Chapter 25
By moonlight, the church looked cold, washed away to nothing but greys and shadows. Of course, Thomas had been here after dark before, at Midnight Mass for many years, but there was candlelight for that, all a-glitter, and voices raised in joyful song, bodies pressed together to warm so much old stone. Now, though, it was simply a room. One that, as Thomas paced its confines, felt empty.
He wasn’t sure he’d truly slept in days, possibly even weeks. Mornings, evenings, afternoons, they could have been anywhere, anywhen, and he had stumbled through them, smiling when it was required he smile, nodding when it was required he nod, offering words by rote, like the psalms he had learned as a child, with no reference to their meaning. The nights, though, the nights were interminable. In the rectory, the ticking of every clock had become a blade, cutting his life into a thousand scattered pieces ofafter Micha. It was mostly a need to escape the noise, and the silence, and to pass the time, the too much time, that had driven Thomas from home. Once he might have believed that the fact his steps had led him to the church meant he was seeking guidance, or even comfort. Now he did not know what he sought. If anything.
He paused before the altar but did not ascend the steps. He was not, in this moment, a priest, and he had never felt less of one. When had he learned to find joy here, purpose, a kind of peace? And how had he lost it just as swiftly, just as inexplicably?
Where are you,he wondered.
And could not have clarified who he was asking for.
Thomas had been taught, and fallen naturally into, a brisk, practical English Protestantism. He’d found little use for what he thought of as papist effusions and discouraged his parishioners from anything even slightly resembling them. There was, after all, enough in life already to demand your supplication. No truly loving Father should want that from His children.
