the haunted kingdom by Charles E.J. Moulton (best detective novels of all time .TXT) 📖

more hard was it that he lived in a world where his daughter had laid abducted in a stoney floor as a result of an extended family quarrel. Alexander knew that somewhere this peace was to be found in spite of the quarrel, even if he had to go to hell to find the answer. He could protect her back then. Now she was a grown woman.
She was on her own. That scared him.
“Who is Nina Ray?”
There was no answer to that question yet. Soon there would be an answer. The puzzle that had a missing piece was close to completion. Screams would again echo though the halls of the kingdom.

Thursday, April 30th, 1422 A.D.,
Nocturanian Forest Female Warrior Camp

To the forest queen it was a participation in a silent war and it was clear that Adnicul felt the Forest warriors were the best ones for the job. They, as forest warriors, had always been at edge with both countries and always found ways to cross the borders without their consent, as the Callenias really existed as a forest in both countries that rarely could be crossed except by these peoples, so agreeing to compromise this neutrality would demand a contribution from Adnicul himself. It was said among so-called common folk of both cultures that the forest actually was a gateway between dimensions and Nocturania nothing else than a step closer to Hell. In actual fact nothing less than the truth, said the common folk. The queen knew the real truth. She was one of the few who did. In actual fact, the Rumzils of the gateways appeared nowhere else but in Nocturania. With their waddling frame and hundred fangs they were certainly the guardians of the underworld and no less. The forest warriors were the only ones they feared. Their mutual battle for territory gave them skill to hunt and kill gave them credit that no one could better understand when they had the winning cards in their hands, and when to use their position as middle-men between the two cultures. The figure wearing the black cloak had rode three entire nights and four days to get back here. She was a prime rider and as such she had been educated in the skill of waking sleep, which was a form of conscious trance and very useful during long rides, but her last session had made her so overly concentrated that stepping off the horse now at the end of the ride had made her agitated. As soon as she saw the camp, she rode to the main tree. At this time of year about five o'clock the queen would probably be in the middle of a beauty session, which was a good thing for the invited messenger. She could listen patiently if she was being 'groomed' for evening baths. The prime rider tied the horse at the bottom of the tree at one of the great loops. There were four other horses tied there. She hung the food sack around the horse's throat and climbed up to the planks toward a fat head guard, wearing a leather vest. He was an unshaved bloke with the characteristic Bular tattoo of the warrior code on his left arm. The dragon with the seven crosses. He picked his teeth with a knife while looking her up and down. He sucked with his tongue something that caught in between them, cleared his throat.
"Name?" His voice sounded like rough sandpaper on hoarse mountain rock. She took off her hood, a blond woman with brown eyes. She was dashing in every way, complexion fair and faintly bleak. Eyes sparkling like those of a deer.
"Nina Ray." Her voice was tender and high, but the intonation was ice-cold.
"Password?"
"Darkness rules only after the queen passes."
He gestured with his head and continued picking with his teeth, grunting. Nina passed and stopped nine feet away and turned around toward the unshaven man.
"Is the queen busy?"
He turned around and looked at her. She knew that this man had probably never done anything else in his life than checked passwords and delivered services to the queen. Not that Nina could see why the queen would want to woo such a hairy beast. He picked his teeth. Then he shook his head. Another grunt. "What is she doing?"
"Being groomed." the man grunted.
"Anyone with her?" He held up five fingers. Grunt. She half-smiled and looked to the heavens.
"What does that mean?" He started picking his nose with the knife and Nina had to cringe.
"Four ladies and one groomer," he spat again. A groomer was a male servant who made the queen feel good. He was like a temporary husband and slave, if only for a moment.
She nodded suspiciously and started walking away. He kept looking at her. She stopped and looked at him.
"You don't speak much do you?"
He put the knife in his belt and grinned. "What is there to say?" He thought for a second, licked his lips and put his tongue into his left cheek. "… to a sweet girl like you … with such a nice …”
He looked her up and down and rested his eyes on her bosom, displayed by the open cape. “… face?"
"What's your name?"
The grin disappeared for he knew what that meant. He folded his hands and backed up a step.
"Manuel." The big man looked down.
"Well, Manuel," Nina said, walking up. He grinned again. "With better manners and a diet you might be chosen for a better task than fetching the queen's slippers."
When coming into the throne room the groomer she had chosen had given her the royal treatment for an hour, massaging her feet and legs with the vegetable oil. One by one, the riders were brought to her in turn to give her tea, fetch her a meal, massage her or report their achievements. She sat upon a podium with a view toward three windows. The four riders, all hoods down, were blonds all, every one wearing the eagle in back. The brown haired groomer was muscular and seemed to perform his task with utmost joy, a clear half-smile crowning his lips. The U-formed room had fireflies in closed lead glass jars all over, the room buzzing in light green neon. The queen, dressed in dark green from top to bottom, her black hair tied in a bun in back lay on a sofa of bamboo. She had studied the characters of her riders on their steps. The fourth rider, Luisa, had arrived before Nina and was to be excommunicated for treason. She had shown her face to an innkeeper on the way here. When let loose in the forest it was sheer luck if she survived at all and made it to Prosperania without the Rumzils feasting their eyes and tongues on her. If they did, she was as good as dead. The queen spoke slowly and calmly.
"Good evening, Nina!"
"Good evening, your highness!"
"Do you have a message?” The queen’s voice was soft, gentle, yet hard and cold as steel.
"A broken carriage near the capital, your highness." She lifted her head, sighed, and continued, matter-of-fact. "A dead horse, a sad deliveryman, seven barrels of beer destroyed, a worried king that rather hurried home than directly gave the man comfort himself. Rumours of Prosperian involvement."
“How is Alexander?”
Nina smiled. “Distraught.”
“And the princess?” the queen hissed.
“The princess is a very protective soul who blames her sister for her husband’s lust.”
"She will soon meet her maker.” the queen whispered. “The queen is pleased with you, Miss Ray. Seven successes means a promotion. Collect your reward at the lower camp." The queen paused. "Fetch me some more oil. It is on the table next to the mid window." She nodded. The queen smiled.
She walked up and had to pass Luisa to get the oil and saw right away that this girl was excommunicated and soon would be on the run. All riders were sisters and as such cared for one another. The victims were not at all important, but a fellow rider had a strange sort of sympathy for another rider and hoped that she would make the case and be able to come out alive. It did happen. Some came back to the camp with a dead Rumzil and it was promptly roasted. Luisa stepped away. The groomer got the oil and continued his treatment.
"What else, Nina? You mentioned the king and his worries, what is your verdict?"
"The king chose the crisis of his family above the accident, but invited the old man to Iuventus for replacement of his losses. This means he has too many problems at once, so we are slowly reaching our goal. Adnicul’s goal.”
"Any loss for the king serves our cause and gives us subjects. Good work."
"Thank you, your highness."
"You may leave for collection."
Nina bowed and exited, but turned around again to face the queen. She still had her eyes closed. "Yes, Nina?"
"Excuse me, your highness, but I think that you shall know that your guard, a man by the name of Manuel, resorted to cleaning bodily fluids in my sight and giving me seductive comments. I wanted to deliver you this news personally." For a moment those green eyes opened, flashed, considered the information. The groomer pulled away his hand before the queen closed her eyes and pulled it back.
"He shall be flogged. You are at leave."
Nina left, passed Manuel, climbed down and walked across the dusty plain from the large tree to the lower camp, a simple one story hut, made of hay and thick oak branch. Smoke was steaming out of the chimney; food was being served to the rider elite. About six girls were there, enjoying wines, eating food, personal groomer by their side. They pretended to be queens, for not only the queen had so called groomers.
The good messengers, too, could have a good slave for a night if they were good enough. A brown-haired Hispanic one named Pedro waited for her when she arrived at her personal table.
Although she knew his yarn was probably a lie, she enjoyed him all the same. Soon, it would be time to return.
She was looking forward to confronting her majesty Princess Belinda Winsletenna, heir to the throne. Back at the royal Nocturanian palace Rigor Mortis, Lucinda was sitting in an arched cellar all by herself by a bubbling kettle of the potency brew for coming trials. She uttered one simple phrase over and over again to herself, even though she was gloomy yet, hope lingered inside her.
“Revenge shall have the taste of succulent surprise.”


CHAPTER THREE: NINA RAY

Thursday, April 30th, 1422 A.D. – 167 days left until the promise kept

Belinda had always felt that Patrick was promiscuous because he needed more attention. She knew that he had hoped to gather more attention than he had as a child. She also knew that once she came along things became different for her brother. Her siblings loved her, there was no question about that, but Belinda had been smart and talkative from the start. Soon enough she made a valid career as a royal child and had impressed her father by honesty, her fearlessness of telling the truth. The insecurity came later, no question, and that insecurity had come from terror. Back then, though, she had been afraid of nothing.
Patrick was afraid of being overseen and thought that he had to compensate the lack of attention from his father by getting it somewhere else: from loose women. He was certainly getting attention now only maybe it wasn’t the kind of attention he wanted. Shuffling along next to