“The good news—the great news—is that leaders of both factions agree that no one was responsible for the killing of the king, except for the king himself,” Gunztar said. “It was well-known the king was a heavy drinker and that he would often stroll in his private garden at night. The most obvious explanation is that the king was drunk, collapsed into the kingsflower planter, and the plant pulled him under. When he awoke, he tried to escape and followed the tunnel to his death. The garden was part of his private residence and he was a bachelor; no one looked for him until his staff went to wake him in the morning.”

“Didn’t anyone at the time think to look inside the plant?” Abumwe asked.

“They did, of course,” Gunztar said. “But it was not until much later, when more obvious places were searched. And by that time, there was no trace of the king. It seems that he may have wandered down the tunnel by that time and was either dead or too injured by the fall into the cave to call for help. The bones show his spine was shattered in several places, consistent with a fall.”

Wilson, who remembered Tuffy chewing on at least a couple of other bones aside from the rib, kept quiet.

“This is good news because one continual sticking point between the factions has been finding some way to finesse the disappearance of the king,” Gunztar said. “The question of blame and responsibility are still sore subjects. Or were. Now they no longer are. During our discussions, the head of the pro-king faction provisionally apologized for blaming the agitators for killing the king. The head of the agitator faction provisionally expressed sorrow at the death of the king. As long as it sticks, the job here has become substantially easier.”

“Wow,” Wilson said. “And here I thought that the disappearance of the king was just a convenient excuse already warring factions were using to go after each other.”

“Of course not,” Gunztar said, turning toward Wilson and thereby missing the flush that drove itself up Waverly’s neck and face. “To be certain, the factions were ready to fight. But our civil war would not have lasted so long, nor have been so bloody, had one side not accused the other of regicide. And so the Icheloe owe you a particular debt of thanks, Lieutenant Wilson, for what you have done for us today.”

“If you thank anyone, you should thank Ambassador Waverly, Praetor Gunztar,” Wilson said. “Without her, I would never have found your lost king. After all, she is the one who brought Tuffy.”

“Yes, of course,” Gunztar said, bowing in the Icheloe way to Ambassador Waverly. She, still furious at Wilson and yet also aware of how he had just transferred credit for the praise to her, nodded mutely. “And that, I’m afraid, brings us to our bad news.”