Lora of Two Worlds

Amid the screaming, a shadow dropped clean into the window frame. A fire-striker in his hand whispered up, a brief tongue of flame, and was gone.

In that heartbeat of light, his bright black eyes caught the masked man’s position.

The intruder’s heart jolted, he hauled the rope with all his might: An attack on the Count’s house would get one chance, and only one. There wouldn’t be another.

Thwip-thwip-thwip-thwip-thwip!

His one chance died in five finger-length arrows.

Lora, the noose around her neck, had managed to grab the rope, but she’d been choked nearly to unconsciousness.

As she heard Carl screaming her name and sprinting toward the gallery, the rope went slack. She fell over backward.

Servants with torches poured in. The room blazed. Maids lit the oil lamps. They saw the intruder, on the floor, dead.

Carl helped Lora up. Roland and the others burst in: ”Little sister!”

”I... I’m all right...”

Lora turned her head, and saw a youth in common cloth bending over the masked man, picking something up.

The boy straightened, turned to Gareth, and went ”ah-ah”, showing him what he’d found, then, grinning, tucked it into his own pouch.

”Amos, that was fast. I’ll give you a big merit. Next time I’ll take you to camp.”

Gareth clapped his shoulder, bent, and lifted the mask. He searched the body, apart from the dagger and the rope, a short knife in the boot, nothing.

Alvin went over, clapped Amos’s shoulder too, gave him a thumbs-up: ”Amos, you live in the front courtyard. How did you get here faster than us?”

Amos pointed to the gallery lanterns, made a gesture like ”cover”, then ”look.” Everyone understood:

He’d just put out the lanterns that were supposed to be out, and was coming back to check he hadn’t missed any. He’d been near the Long Gallery, had seen the torches running.

”We all underestimated this. Two attempts on the little sister in one day, this is no small matter.” Alvin looked at Lora sitting dazed on the couch, his brow knotted:

”We were too careless. We nearly lost her.”

”Lora...”

It was Father and Mother, running in. Mother saw the masked man being carried out and nearly fainted. She sat on the couch and gathered Lora into her arms.

”Outrageous! A general’s house, a man breaks in and you don’t even catch him until he’s in my daughter’s bedchamber! Do you think Stephen, do you think the Count of Odenheim is already in his grave?!”

”Father, this is my fault. We’ve been too long at peace. The house got careless. The Grand Princess’s mansion is right next door on the east, neither house has watched that side. Someone slipped in through the gap.”

At the far end of the wall between the two mansions, the back alley where the waste collectors came, there was a small postern gate that no one ever used. Alvin, worried:

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”The assassin and whoever pushed my sister into the river must be the same party. Is there something she knew, something we don’t know about? Pity she’s forgotten everything...”

The Count sat down. He looked, heartbroken, at the red wheal around his daughter’s neck. His eyes burned. Afraid of scaring her, he kept his voice low:

”We won’t sleep, and neither will the house next door. Go fetch Felix. I want to ask him how exactly he’s been investigating.”

Roland jumped up to run the errand, and took a shortcut.

At the end of the wall between the two houses stood an old peach tree.

The tree was over twenty years old. It had stopped blooming and fruiting two years ago, and had begun to show dead branches. Because its canopy spread evenly over both courtyards, the boys had used it as a ladder for years, no one had had the heart to cut it down.

Roland took two strides up the trunk and vaulted the wall.

”Mother, today on the boat, someone really did try to kill me. I didn’t fall in by myself.” Lora lifted her head from Mother’s arms, low:

”It’s my fault I’m useless. I can’t even remember what the killer looked like.”

At her pitiful face, Carl could have kicked himself to death. He turned to go. Alvin barked: ”Stop, where are you going?”

Carl didn’t look back: ”Back for the scripture. I’ll sit here and copy it tonight. Let’s see who dares come back!”

”Alvin, double the patrol. Two extra shifts. Until we catch the culprit, the house guard is at maximum. And move two of my personal bodyguards to my daughter.” The Count, calm now, issued orders one by one. He looked at his children:

”The House of Odenheim, since the wars of the old King’s reign, lost its men on the battlefield almost to extinction. We were quiet for generations. In my generation we began to rise again. We’re not what our forefathers were, but we won’t be trampled.

Lora, the Odenheims still have men of iron. Whatever danger there’s, it shouldn’t fall on you. Today you suffered. For now, you stay in the house. Not one step outside the gate. Can you do that?”

”Oh.”

Outside was dangerous. Beat me with a stick, I’m not going out.

Gareth, turning the short knife over in his hands for a long time, handed it to Alvin: ”This isn’t army issue. At first light I’ll go to the ironmongers and ask around. But if not the army, who else would have a quarrel with us?”

Everyone fell silent.

If you said no enemies, Father was a royalist; then the household faction was the enemy. Father was a hawk; then the doves were the enemy.

If you said enemies, Father supported the investiture of the six-year-old Prince Ewan as Crown Prince; then Prince Ambrose, who coveted the throne, and Valentin Voss, who wanted to control the court, both qualified.

Living in the two capitals, in the whirlpool of royal power, when and over what you’d made an enemy was never in your own hands.

Lora, in Mother’s arms, looking pathetic, was thinking clear as a bell:

Find the killer, start on the boat.

I’m only a girl. Even if Marquess Legard wanted to give Father a bloody nose, as an old court fox he’d never go after a child. That’s hitting anywhere but the snake’s head, and getting bitten for your trouble.

So, as my older brother had said, the original Lora had heard or seen something the Odenheims couldn’t be allowed to know.

Tonight’s killer was just afraid she’d remember, and wanted to silence her first.

”I think, whether his weapons or his martial arts, he wasn’t a professional. Otherwise he wouldn’t have missed her, and he wouldn’t have died to Amos’s sleeve dirk.” Gareth went on analyzing.

”She dodged? Isn’t that exactly what the daughter of Odenheim ought to do?” Father said, matter-of-fact:

”And don’t underestimate Coltrain’s sleeve dirk. Before he was hurt, two of you together couldn’t have taken him. For ten years he’s done nothing in this house but perfect that one weapon. You think it wouldn’t hit hard?”

Coltrain? The brothers were all warm with the little mute. Who was he?

Lora was still wondering when hurried steps came at the door, Roland, leading Felix in.

Felix wore a plain oak-green cotehardie, his hair in braids held by a single emerald pin, like a scholar lodging at a temple, reading for the exams.

Felix came in and bowed:

”Uncle. Aunt. I heard a noise over here. I didn’t know it was Lora’s room, an assassin? Is she ”

”What ’is she’?! She’s still in shock! You’re the sheriff of Lohenheim, you’ve been investigating all day and you can’t even keep the cousin next door safe! I’ll tell the King tomorrow, you can stop being sheriff!”

Mother, Margaret, emptied all her fury onto her nephew.

Felix, red with shame, lifted his head and glanced at Lora, still in her aunt’s arms. Lora, quick as a wink, blinked one eye at him: I’m fine.

That was...

He didn’t hesitate. He bowed again to the elders:

”If I can’t bring the culprit to justice, I will resign the post.”