The Soul Mirror by Carol Berg Read Free Book Online Page B

nighthawk, trilled plaintively.
    “I believe we can go back now.” Duplais stepped away and straightened his doublet.
    The Fassid and two others lay dead. My eyes dwelt on the bloodslathered bodies only long enough to see that neither the leader with the shaped mask nor the man with the earrings was among them. I hoped they were collapsed around the next bend.
    A broad-chested, mustachioed man, his sweating skin the rich golden tan of long-brewed tea, moved from one body to the next, kicking them to elicit signs of life. He carried himself soldierly, and his leather armor was spangled with steel plates, which spoke of true battle experience, so my father had taught me. But his hair fell all the way to his jaw—most unsoldierly. I knew why when his head whipped around at our approach. Slow and purposeful, he drew his black locks behind his ears—horribly mutilated ears.
    I quickly dropped my gaze, my skin flooded with shame. Only a determination to decency forced words out of me. “Captain de Santo, it appears you and your”—I glanced about in vain for the rider in black—“friend saved our lives. Thank you.”
    “I was asked,” he said, jerking his head at Duplais, “else I might have thought different.”
    My father had done this. To hide his own duplicity, Papa had made a distraction of de Santo, once captain of the king’s guard, by accusing him of jeopardizing the king’s life. He had badgered and bullied and rushed the captain to judgment, cropping his ears with an ax, thus condemning him to everlasting humiliation and disgrace far worse than the pain of the mutilation. It had cost a good soldier his honor, his livelihood, and his family.
    De Santo had testified at Papa’s trial, as I had. I hoped bearing witness against his tormentor had restored his honor in his own mind, even if no one in the world would ever see past the testimony of his cropped ears.
    “The others got away?” Duplais was examining the bodies, yanking off the masks, searching for anything to identify them.
    “The shadow man took after them,” said de Santo. “The henchman’s skewered already. I doubt he’ll tell us aught when he stumbles. I stayed back, lest they’ve friends about.”
    Indeed, moments later, the black horse dragged a fourth body—that of the man with the earrings—into the trampled glen.
    “No luck with the leader?” said Duplais.
    The “shadow man,” dressed and cloaked in the color of midnight, shook his head. A black silk scarf wound around his face and neck hid all features save his eyes, and a flat, wide-brimmed hat shielded those from view. As soon as de Santo untied the rope, the rider moved off into the trees, denying me any chance of identifying him in the future, except that he was more graceful in the saddle than any horseman I’d ever observed. More even than Ambrose, whom my father had forever sworn to house in the stable.
    Duplais yanked the mask off the newly arrived body.
    “Welther!” The name popped out of my mouth the moment the scarred cheek and bristling jaw came into view.
    “Who?” Duplais’ question rang sharp as a bell strike.
    “Welther de Ruz. One of my father’s aides, years ago.” The burly soldier’s stares and insinuating smiles had blighted a year of my girlhood, until Papa noticed my increasing reluctance to leave my bedchamber. “My father dismissed him for impropriety. Not . . . kindly.”
    “So these might be your father’s rivals, and yet . . . tell me, damoselle, did you recognize the leader?”
    Glad he didn’t force me to dredge up more, I answered readily. “The Norgandi? No.”
    “What if the accent was false?”
    False? I tried to think back to the Norgandi’s diction. The dialect had been pervasive and perfectly accurate. And without seeing the man’s face—Heaven’s lights, the mask! At the trial Duplais had described a mask worn by the villain he called the Aspirant, the man he judged to be the ringleader of the conspiracy—my father.