Seisyll turned as Alyce entered with the two boys, and the queen tearfully held out her arms to her son. Brion ran to her, burying his face against her waist, starting to cry at last as his mother shed more tears of sheer relief.
Krispin held back at first, then pressed past Seisyll into the room beyond and stared at the dead Isan as his mother silently embraced him. Meanwhile, in the queen's chamber, her other ladies were staring at Alyce, Vera and Zoë among them, their eyes begging her to say that none of this was real. All had been weeping.
«Majesty, I don't think Prince Brion has taken any harm», Alyce managed to murmur, not looking at Vera or Zoë. «Krispin seems fine as well. Is Lady Brigetta…»
The queen bit at her lip and looked away, holding her eldest more tightly. «Dear child, there was nothing we could do. And your sister —?»
Alyce shook her head, lowering her gaze and choking back tears. Beyond the queen, Zoë gave a sob and Vera went even paler than she had been, but dared not show the true extent of her grief.
«Dear God…», the queen murmured.
Alyce drew a deep breath. «What has happened to Lady Muriella?»
«I don't know», the queen said dazedly. «She ran from the room, heading toward the main keep, and I heard guards running in that direction a while later…
«But, do not tarry here, dear Alyce. Go to your sister, by all means. I am so sorry! Oh, that spiteful Muriella! Why did she do it?»
Alyce only shook her head and fled — but not to her sister, who could not be helped in this world, but to see what had become of Muriella.
The castle was in an uproar, with armed and angry soldiers moving everywhere, purpose in their looks and strides. When Alyce could make no immediate sense of what was happening, she caught the sleeve of a passing sergeant who usually had kind words for her.
«Master Crawford, please — can you tell me whether they have found the Lady Muriella?» she asked.
«No time now, m'lady», he grunted, shrugging off her touch and hurrying on. «She's run up the north tower, she has».
He was gone at that, ducking into a turnpike stair to clatter after others also headed upward. Heart pounding, Alyce followed, gathering up her skirts to climb as fast as she could, stubbing her toe on one of the stone steps and nearly sent sprawling.
She heard shouting as she ascended, and a woman shrieking, and — just before she reached the final doorway onto the walkway along the battlement — a renewed chorus of shouted demands by heated male voices, punctuated by a woman's anguished scream that faded and then was cut short by the distant, hollow thump of something striking the ground far below.
«Christ, I didn't think she'd jump!» one of the men was saying, peering over the parapet as Alyce pushed her way among them.
«Well, she has saved herself from hanging or worse», said another, cooler voice.
Steeling herself, Alyce forced herself to peer between two of the merlons studding the crenellated wall, down at the crumpled heap of clothing and broken bones now sprawled in the courtyard below, where a pool of blood was rapidly bleeding outward from Muriella's dark head. Gagging, she turned away, one hand pressed to her lips and eyes screwed tightly closed, grateful for the hands that drew her back from the parapet.
«Lady Alyce, you needn't look at this», someone said, not unkindly.
«She killed my sister, and Lady Brigetta», Alyce managed to whisper, before gathering up her skirts to flee back down the turnpike stair. «And she killed a little boy…»
By the time she got down to the courtyard, a crowd had gathered: soldiers and courtiers and servants and a stranger in priest's robes, who had just finished anointing the body. Seeing him, Alyce pushed her way through the crowd and stood there, numbly staring down at the dead woman, until the priest glanced up at her.
«Child, there is nothing you can do», he said, closing his vial of holy oil.
«And there is nothing you can do, either, Father», she replied in a low voice. «Do you know how many lives she has taken today, besides her own?»
The priest's face tightened, but he said nothing, only shaking his head.
«She poisoned three people, Father», Alyce went on, outrage in the very softness of her tone. «She murdered two innocent women and an innocent child — and very nearly killed another child. It could as easily have been one of the royal princes! And you would absolve her of that?»
A uneasy murmur rippled among the onlookers, and the priest slowly stood, looking her up and down.
«Are you not one of the heiresses of Corwyn, a Deryni?» he said coldly.
«What difference does that make to the three she killed?» Alyce snapped. «Does it make them any less dead?»
A soldier leaned closer to the priest to whisper in his ear, and the priest's face went very still.
The deaths are regrettable, of course — as is hers», the priest said. «But it is up to God to judge her — not me. And it is not the place of a Deryni to instruct me in my duties».
Alyce only shook her head and turned away, closing her eyes to the sight of him and the dead Muriella. She could hear the muttering following her as she made her way out of the crowd. When she found her way back to the garden arbor where she had left her sister, the body was gone, but as she glanced around in dismay, one of the gardeners approached her awkwardly, cap in hands.
«Monks came to take her away, my lady», he murmured. «Brother Ruslan said to tell you that she would lie in the chapel royal tonight. I'm very sorry. She was very kind, even to a mere gardener».
She stared at him blankly for several seconds, then gave him a grateful nod. His name was Ned, she recalled, and he had always had a gentle word for both her and Marie.
«Thank you, Ned», she whispered.
In a daze, she made her way to the chapel royal, where two black-robed monks were setting up a bier in the aisle before the altar. But of any bodies, there was no sign.
Forlorn, not knowing what else to do, she knelt at the rear of the chapel and said a prayer for her sister's soul — and for Isan, and for Brigetta, and even for the wretched Muriella — then rose and went forward to where the brothers worked.
«Could you tell me where the bodies have been taken?» she asked.
The older man looked up pityingly and gave her a neutral nod.
«You'll be asking after the women?» he said.
She inclined her head in return.
«We're told that some of the sisters from Saint Hilary's are looking after them», he informed her. «But they'll lie here tonight. Except for the one who took her own life, of course».
«What about the boy?» Alyce asked dully.
«There was a boy as well?» the younger brother asked, shocked.
Mutely Alyce nodded.
«Dear Jesu», the elder brother whispered, as both crossed themselves.
«In all fairness», she forced herself to say, «I do not think the boy was meant to die — or the second woman. Or the one who planned the deed — God forgive her, for I cannot. I can only imagine that it was conceived in unreasoning jealousy, and went disastrously wrong. The poison was meant for my sister alone, but four now lie dead as a result of this day's work». She shook her head. «I'll leave you to your duties», she murmured, as she turned and fled.
Grief urged her to look further for her sister, but reason reminded her of other duties to the living. Lady Megory had lost a son, and the young princes had lost a comrade. She returned to the queen's solar to find Richeldis and her ladies helping the bereaved mother wash and prepare her son's body for burial.
Comforted by Zoë and Vera, Alyce wept with them and watched as they tenderly laid young Isan Fitzmartin in the queen's own bed, where the ladies would keep watch beside him during the night. A little while later, now accompanied by Zoë and Vera, she withdrew again to find the body of her dead sister.
They found both Marie and Brigetta now lying in the chapel royal, where the sisters from Saint Hilary’s-Within-the-Walls had lovingly prepared the two for burial, laying them out upon a bier strewn with rose petals. Each had been dressed in her finest gown, crowned with a floral wreath and veiled from head to toe with fine white linen, like brides arrayed for their bridegrooms. Alyce was reminded of the veil Cerys Devane had worn for her novice profession at Arc-en-Ciel; but Marie had never sought such a life.