Chapter 12
Say what you will about the Velvet Vikings, but the women know how to pick a venue for their delusions of grandeur.
The Royal Palace courtyard here in Stockholm, Sweden, hums with tourists and ceremony.
Guards stand at rigid attention, drums echo from somewhere deep inside the palace walls, and the scent of somebody’s expensive perfume mixes with the salt air drifting in from the harbor.
The morning sun warms the cobblestones beneath my feet as I stand between Wes and Marina, watching the book club prepare for their next ritual.
Bess and Nettie have already wandered deeper into the crowd, and I’m not the least bit worried about them. They blend right in with the shirtless-Viking-lover set.
Well, Nettie blends. Bess tolerates.
Magnus floats over and settles in beside me with the giddy energy of a man holding front-row seats to his favorite show.
“Oh, this will be delicious. Mortal women declaring themselves royalty while one of them is a killer. I adore your species. So much fire packed into such soft, perishable packaging. If my hands still worked, I’d volunteer for a closer inspection. ”
“My species?” I inch back and gawk at him for a second. The man is dead. If anyone’s species is up for debate around here, it’s his.
“What’s happening?” Wes asks quietly, watching the group with the wary focus he gets whenever he suspects we’re up to something.
Smart man. We are, in fact, up to something.
“It’s just a book club ritual,” Marina explains. “This is a very committed crowd.”
“Committed to what?” Wes looks genuinely perplexed.
“Viking aesthetics and questionable decision-making,” I’m quick to tell him.
Sienna has just instructed the group to step forward one at a time and declare what sort of Viking queen they would be. Because nothing honors a murdered founder quite like a round of competitive self-coronation.
Poppy Lindgren steps forward first. She’s wearing crimson linen that wouldn’t dare wrinkle, her honey-blonde bob is perfect despite the breeze, and her whole energy radiates calm competence in soothing, spa-quality waves.
“I’m a devoted queen,” she says, her voice warm and steady. “I serve with strength through loyalty. I earn respect through dedication to my people.”
Her smile is gentle. Her posture is impeccable. She could be accepting a peace treaty on behalf of a grateful nation. I’d trust her to rule my country. Then again, I once trusted my ex, Stanton, to behave himself at a dental cleaning, so my judgment comes with an asterisk.
And loyalty is a lovely sentiment. In my experience, it’s also the first thing to go missing right before a body does. Or a set of marriage vows.
Stanton again. The man is versatile that way.
“Now there’s a queen,” Magnus murmurs, watching Poppy with open appreciation. “Composed. Controlled. Gracious under pressure. A woman like that would be magnificent to unravel. Give me one evening and a barrel of mead, and that crown would be on the floor by moonrise.”
I bet it would. Death has clearly done nothing to humble the man.
Several book club members nod approvingly. Someone actually sighs. I recognize that sigh. It’s the sound a woman makes when she’s mentally redecorating a throne room.
“That was good,” Wes observes.
“Very good,” I agree.
And I, for one, am thrilled Poppy showed up this morning, mostly because she’s next on my list of suspects to butter up. It’s so much easier to grill a woman when she delivers herself to the grill.
Freya steps forward next, all dramatic black braids and enough silver jewelry to anchor a small boat, wearing black leather despite the morning sun and looking like she cleaned out Valhalla’s gift shop and left a scathing review on her way out.
Marina leans my way. “I really like her style.”
“Me too,” I say. “I couldn’t pull it off, but I’m glad someone can.”
“I’m an unconquered queen,” Freya declares, lifting her chin in defiance. “I bow to no one and answer to nothing but my own truth.”
I nod. “Now that I believe.”
There’s fire in her voice, a challenge tucked inside it, and a barely contained fury wrapped up in all that silver and leather.
“Now her I trust,” Magnus says. “She wears her anger honestly. I could work with a woman like that. In my day, we called that much heat foreplay.”
I’ll agree with the first half—the anger worn honestly. The foreplay portion I’m leaving right here on the cobblestones where it belongs.
Although it does beg the question, just what is Freya so angry about?
And she was plenty angry the night Astrid died.
I watched her arguing with the woman mere hours before Astrid met her demise.
Freya would be the obvious killer. Although if I’ve learned anything in my scant time as an amateur sleuth—and an accidental one at that—it’s that the obvious suspect is rarely the one holding the poison.
“Fear makes better subjects than love ever did,” Freya belts out, and this time she earns a gasp from the crowd.
Fear. There’s a campaign slogan for you. I make a mental note that Freya’s queendom would not come with a suggestion box. Or exit interviews.
A few book club members trade glances, and not the friendly kind. Freya’s words didn’t land as a declaration. They landed as a threat, and judging by the wide eyes and the sudden interest in personal space, these women think she’s good for it.
Sienna looks as if she’d very much like to move the ritual along, with the expression of a woman watching somebody belch during a funeral.
Instead, she holds up a hand, clutching her purse, her frizzy auburn hair escaping its headband in wild spirals.
She hesitates a beat, and her face flushes pink behind her round glasses.
“I’m a merciful queen,” she says with a touch of pride, and the crowd lights up with applause.
“Mercy didn’t serve Astrid well,” someone mutters from the back, although I can’t quite make out who.
Silence crashes over the group like a rogue wave.
Wes and I exchange a look. Marina clears her throat.
The drums inside the palace keep right on pounding, blissfully unaware.
Even the nearest royal guard manages to look uncomfortable, and that man is paid handsomely not to have a single facial expression.
Sienna’s cheeks go the color of a steamed lobster. Women shift in place. Sienna tries to restart the festivities, but nobody is listening anymore. They’re all thinking about Astrid, about mercy, about how their tyrannical founder ended up crushed by an ice Viking of her own commissioning.
Dead tyrants cast long shadows, it seems.
Which raises a different question entirely. What did mercy have to do with Astrid in the first place? If the woman was the despot everyone keeps hinting she was, whose mercy failed her? Or better yet, who finally ran out of it?
Poor Sienna. Whatever else she may or may not be, right now she’s a substitute teacher whose class just turned on her in front of an actual palace, and my heart goes out to the woman.
“Oh dear,” Magnus says, cheerful as can be. “Someone in the back just reminded the entire flock that their leader was not, in fact, merciful. Bold move. Astrid never forgave a slight in her life. That woman tended her grudges the way other people tend houseplants. Watered daily and thriving.”
I frown up at him. That’s an awfully specific portrait from a man who swears he never met her.
He catches me staring and develops a sudden interest in the architecture.
Figures.
“This is fascinating,” Marina whispers beside me.
“This is a disaster,” Wes corrects, but he’s watching with the same intensity I am.
I’m about to respond when I notice Nettie has gone missing from the crowd. It takes me all of three seconds to find her.
She’s standing directly in front of one of the royal guards, a tall, muscular slab of a human being in blue and gold, and he hasn’t moved an inch since we arrived.
There’s a whole row of them stationed along the palace, each one doing his level best to convince us he’s furniture.
Rumor has it they’re not allowed to acknowledge the public.
Not a nod, not a blink, not so much as a flicker of judgment, which frankly makes them the most patient men in Europe.
Nettie is about to test that.
Oh no.
“I love a man committed to stillness,” she announces to him, to us, to the greater Stockholm area. “It shows discipline. Dedication. And incredible core strength. And honey, you know what they say about a man with a strong core. He never quits before the job is done.”
The guard doesn’t blink.
“How long have you been standing here? Ten minutes? Fifteen?” Nettie continues her line of questioning, and she’s gathering an audience while she does it.
Three different women have their phones out, recording.
“I once held a plank for thirty seconds and thought I was dying. Imagine what the two of us could accomplish in a full minute. I’ll bring the mat. ”
Still nothing. Somewhere in Sweden, this man’s commanding officer deserves a medal.
“Nettie,” Bess calls out. “Leave the nice guard alone.”
“What? I’m admiring his professional commitment!”
Bess folds her arms. “You’re admiring his thighs.”
“A woman can appreciate both!”
“Not from six inches away, she can’t.”
“Six inches is a respectful distance!” Nettie hikes a thumb in my direction. “Ask Trixie. She married security. She knows the protocols.”
I hold up both hands. “Leave me and my protocols out of this.”
And here I was complaining that no one asks for my opinion.
Wes has the strained look of a man running the numbers on whether a citizen’s arrest counts as an international incident. It might honestly be the gentlest way to get Nettie out of this courtyard before Sweden handles it with paperwork and a small van with bars in the back.
Marina has her phone out and is filming right along with the rest of them. She’d call it documentation. I’d call her a woman who appreciates evidence.