Free Devlin's Justice by Patricia Bray Page B

to sweep, she’d found a strange stain underneath.
    “Being a dedicated worker, she brought a bucket and scrubbing rag to clean the marble floor. But when water hit the stain, it turned red and smelled like blood. Frightened, she replaced the carpet and came to me with the tale.”
    “What did the King say?” Didrik’s voice was rough.
    “The King no longer speaks directly with me,” she said. Indeed her position at court grew more perilous every day. “After some discussion the Royal Steward agreed to let me inspect the room. He explained that the carpet had been replaced because it had been stained when a chamberman dropped a bottle of Myrkan red. I checked the floor, but it had been scrubbed with lime. You can see the outline of a stain, but whether it was made by wine or blood no one can tell. The maid apologized for her foolishness and the waste of my time.”
    “And was she a young girl, given to flights of fancy?”
    “She had served at the palace for nigh unto thirty years. After the incident she quit her post and was said to have joined her family. I hoped to speak with her once she was free of the palace walls, but have been unable to find any trace of her, or of this so-called family.”
    The maid was not the first of those to go missing. Two of the guards who had been on duty the night of Devlin’s return had failed to report to the barracks after their shift had ended. She had used their disappearance as an excuse to search the city, but so far her efforts had yielded nothing.
    “But what of the soul stone? Surely that will tell us where Devlin may be found,” Stephen said.
    “Robbers broke into the Royal Temple on the day after Devlin returned. They stole the gold vessels, and the silken robes worn by Brother Arni on the high feast days. The mosaic was chipped, as if someone had taken the soul stone, but there were also traces of dust on the floor below,” she said.
    When the Chosen One died, the soul stone crumbled into dust. In itself it had no value, so there was no reason for the mosaic to have been vandalized. Not unless someone was trying to conceal the evidence that Devlin had been killed.
    Common thieves should not have been able to enter and leave the palace compound without being discovered, which argued that they had had help from someone inside the palace. Perhaps from some of the guards that she commanded.
    Didrik had reached the same realization. “There is a traitor in the Guard.”
    She gave a bitter laugh. “A traitor? There may be dozens. There are few left that I can trust. Embeth. Lukas. Oluva. It is not just the new recruits; many of the veterans appear to have divided loyalties. Even Lieutenant Ansgar is suspect, for he is the one who commanded the watch on the night Devlin was to return.”
    Didrik blinked in disbelief. “Ansgar? When did he become a lieutenant?”
    “When his predecessor was killed. King Olafur recommended promoting Ansgar, and I was forced to agree.”
    At the time, Ansgar had seemed a safe political choice. An unimaginative man, but one who would scrupulously follow every regulation. She had not thought he had it in him to turn traitor.
    Yet Ansgar had been the one to approve the change of the watch schedule, allowing two new recruits to man the western gate, despite her standing orders that the novices were always to be paired with a veteran. When questioned, Ansgar had explained that the guard originally scheduled for the watch had taken ill, and he had simply assigned the first person he could find to cover her watch. He had not realized that he had assigned two novices together until she had called his attention to it, at which point he had profusely apologized.
    A simple, reasonable explanation. Ordinarily she would have thought no more of it. Except for the fact that the mix-up had occurred on the night she believed Devlin to have entered the city. So had it been an honest mistake? Or was Ansgar playing a deeper game?
    Her suspicions were enough