Jory Lanfear's Arc

Chapter 4 of 7

Jory could not let the old lord have Eleanor. So he went looking for the thing that would end the match for good. The queen gave him leave. Her son Rowan rode with him, bored of hunting and hungry for trouble. They crossed to the north together, to the land Lord Caspian Mordaunt ruled. Jory wanted proof the man was dangerous. He wanted the king to see it too. They started at the dead. Behind Mordaunt's hall stood two gray headstones, carved as one. Ysella. Isolde. Both named beloved wife. Both gone young. Jory read the words and felt cold. "Two," he said. "Not one." Rowan crouched by the stones and traced a cracked letter. "My sister's meant to be the third," he said. He did not smile. That was how Jory knew the prince was afraid. The queen had come north herself to lend her weight. Mairona met them inside, plain in travel clothes, no crown. "I asked the servants who tend the graves," she said. "One remembers a man. A cousin. He came for both funerals and spoke to no one." She stated it flat. "Find the cousin. Find what he carries." The cousin was Lord Egan Ó'Keeffe. He held lands near Mordaunt's and shared his blood. Jory knew the name. Ó'Keeffe had once sought Senara Murray and lost her without a fight. A hard man who wasted no words. Jory found him at his own gate, watching them ride up with gray eyes that gave nothing back. "You've come about Caspian," Ó'Keeffe said. Not a question. He did not ask them in. He stood in the door and looked at the queen a long moment. "Your girl is promised to him." "She is," Mairona said. "I mean to stop it." Ó'Keeffe went inside. He came back with a letter, worn soft at the folds, sealed in dark wax now cracked through. "He wrote this to me," he said. "Years ago. After the second wife died." His jaw worked once. "I kept it. I told no one. That was wrong. I have carried it since." He held it out to Jory. Jory broke the rest of the seal and read. The hand was Caspian's. The words did not hide. He wrote of both women. He wrote of what he had done and how no one had ever asked. Jory's throat tightened. He passed it to the queen. Mairona read it twice. Her face did not change, but her hand shook. "This ends the match," she said. "The king cannot argue with his own ink." Rowan took the letter and read over her shoulder. For once he made no joke. "He confesses to killing both," he said. "And Father wants Eleanor to be number three." Jory held the proof he had come for. But Ó'Keeffe spoke again, quiet. "Caspian knows I have it. He is already riding south."