Royal Blood by Una McCormack

Author:Una McCormack [McCormack, Una]
Language: spa
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101905838
Publisher: Crown/Archetype
Published: 2015-09-08T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter

7

The footsteps had stopped. ‘Come on,’ muttered Clara. ‘Put us out of our misery…’

‘Don’t say that!’ said Emfil. ‘I don’t want to die.’

‘They might not kill,’ said Clara.

‘We’re witnesses to murder!’

‘This might not be the murderer—’

‘We’re in the middle of nowhere! Who else is it going to be?’

Fair point, Clara thought. But who would have murdered the ambassador? Was there anyone who would gain from that? Conrad wouldn’t; neither would Guena. Aurelian? Perhaps, if he wanted to send a message back to Conrad, but for all his flaws, Aurelian didn’t strike her as the kind of man to kill in an underhand fashion. He would prefer the open field, the sword in his hand, riding towards the enemy. Could this have been the act of one of his followers, acting on their own initiative?

‘Perhaps they’ve come for us,’ said Emfil, and gave a low moan. ‘Oh, how could we have been so stupid? This was always the plan, wasn’t it? Send us off into the middle of nowhere and then send someone after us to murder us.’

‘No,’ said Clara firmly. ‘The Doctor wouldn’t let them do that.’

‘The Doctor isn’t here!’

The crunch of footsteps began again; much closer now. Then a head appeared over the edge of the hollow – a dark head of hair – and a man lowered himself down to join them.

It was Lord Mikhail.

He was no longer dressed in his finery, but for his long journey. He had laid his hands upon a sword somehow, Clara noted, although she doubted that Aurelian would have let him keep one. Perhaps he had friends in the city, who had armed him secretly before he left. It struck Clara that for a man who had been sent away from his home, he seemed to be much more at his ease here in the mountains than he had been in the city.

‘If it was at all your intent to be quiet,’ Mikhail said, walking towards them with his hand around the hilt of his sword, ‘I can assure you that you were failing. Were you not concerned that Aurelian may have sent soldiers to make sure you left?’ He looked around and then, inevitably, he saw the bodies. He recoiled, and murmured something under his breath.

Clara said, ‘Are you responsible for that?’

He looked at her angrily. ‘What kind of man do you think I am?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Clara, honestly. ‘I’ve only ever seen you losing your temper with your uncle. I know you’ve been banished. And so you might be wanting to find a way to buy your way back into Aurelian’s favour.’

‘I do not want his favour,’ Mikhail said. ‘I want nothing from him. And if this was the price…’ He shook his head. ‘Of course I did not do this evil thing – and nor, for that matter, do I believe that Aurelian would do this. He may not be a wise man, but neither is he a murderer.’

He took a deep breath, and then crossed over to the bodies, and began to search them.

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