by J B Lucas
“True,” commented Selban.
“So who else?”
“No one, milord.”
“No deliveries, no messages, no couriers for or servants with Igna?”
“No, sir.”
“When did Marlan arrive?” asked the spymaster.
“Now he seems a strange beast,” muttered Selban. “Bit of a legend in his adolescent, but failure afterwards I say.”
“Shush, Selban. We don’t want to hear your traumas.”
“Well, milord, he came the night before. He was going to the Quinton glanced party with Lady Igna.”
“‘With Igna’? Or do you mean ‘as well as Igna’?”
“With her, I should imagine.” He coughed, smacked his loose mouth and glanced at both in turn. “He was dining with her the night before.”
“That was Marlan?” asked Selban.
“Of course,” said Bobban, “I thought that you both knew.”
“Well, it was a very dark corner where they sat,” stated Loreticus. “Unusually dark.”
“Oh, that’s right,” said Bobban, regarding the ceiling in reminiscence and nodding. “They put out the candle on account of his headache.”
“On account of her husband more like,” chuckled Selban.
“Different rooms?” asked Loreticus. Bobban nodded. “Different methods of arrival?” Again, the innkeeper nodded. “Doesn’t make sense. Why on earth would he introduce himself over her body? Why not run?”
“Perhaps he needed to collect something from the room?” suggested Selban. “Perhaps he wanted to say goodbye. But he didn’t seem so very hurt by her passing.”
“No. Is he still here?”
Bobban shook his head.
“He was just packing this morning,” he said. “He’d paid for one night longer, but then he was off to catch the coach home. Said that this was a bad omen for his visit.”
“Unusual,” said Loreticus. He stood up, stretching his back with both his hands behind his hips. “Well, the next steps are clear enough. Selban, send a runner to stop Marlan boarding any postal coaches to the north. There won’t be one until lunchtime. I’m going to find Tyba.” He turned towards the door, then turned back to innkeeper. “How do you know Tyba, Bobban?”
“I’d never met her before,” he replied. “A nice new face in my tavern. Was I honestly going to refuse extra business?”
*
Tristofan was waiting outside the tavern when they walked out the dusty, hot room.
“Good morning, my young gentleman spy,” said Selban. “Anything new overnight?”
“Well, yes, sir,” said Tristofan. “I thought that it might be worthwhile to take a peek at Lady Igna’s home and talk to some of her staff. At least, her husband should be invited down to the capital to talk to you.”
“Wise,” commented Selban.
Tristofan glanced at him, then at Loreticus, with his bright brown eyes excited.
“Well? Is he here?”
“My man sent someone else instead,” stated the young agent. “The Purgandan domestic servant.”
A tall man, older, slim, wrinkled, stepped in from the street. Until that moment, he had employed the slave’s trick of invisibility, and suddenly he was in front of them.
He bowed.
“Is the lady truly dead?” he asked in a thickly accented baritone.
“Yes,” replied Loreticus.
“Then good. We are a better people without her in our number.”
When Marlan arrived at their tables, the servant was just leaving. Loreticus and Selban exchanged glances, digesting what they had learned.
“Captain Marlan,” greeted Loreticus, standing and extending his hand.
“Lord Loreticus.” A nod of deference, nothing more. There was no anger or guilt in the captain’s expression.
“Sorry to interrupt your journey home. If you get in trouble for being later than expected, my apologies. I’ll write to your superior.”
Marlan brushed aside the offer, obviously on edge but trying to retain his nonchalant mien.
“Why the rush home?”
“I didn’t want to be here,” said the captain simply. “I wanted an end to this sordid affair.”
“That certainly is the right word,” stated the spymaster. “You forgot to mention that small aspect of your relationship with the victim, who you ‘weren’t really friends with’, if I remember your phrase properly.”
“Cheap, spymaster. No, we weren’t friends. Lovers most of the time, strangers to each other the rest.”
“But you seemed to be comfortable enough to dine together in public. You were an established couple in my judgement.”
“Yes and no. She wanted to be out together that evening, down in the tavern where everyone was gathered and having fun. I could understand her desire to have a different atmosphere from that of her stifling home.”
“And what type of man would you be if you were scared to be seen in public with her?” asked Loreticus.
“Indeed. So a compromise was made in which I could sit in the darkest corner of the room, out of view of anyone who might know me.”
“Or know her.”
Marlan nodded ponderously. He sat down, resting his elbows on his knees, and took his chin in his hands.
“What a mess,” he stated.
“Did you think that her husband would come to find her? Was that what worried you?”
“Not the fight,” replied Marlan markedly with his country brogue. “That didn’t worry me. The scandal worried me. My superior is a zealot, and me beating or killing the husband of my lover in public would ruin my career and as such my finances.”
“Did you ever meet her husband?” asked Selban, leaning forward from the bench opposite. He opened his knees, then closed them swiftly.
“No, but I have heard the stories of his abuse. Beatings, verbal offenses in front of the servants and guests. Threats if she left him, even if she dared to stay too late at the market. He was not a respectable man.”
“And that justified her finding solace in you?” asked Loreticus in a soft voice.
“In my eyes it did,” said Marlan.
The spymaster nodded.
“And how did your romantic evening go? You said that you had your own room, but you obviously shared hers.”
“Of course, I had my own room,” snapped Marlan.
“Both sides of the bed were crumpled,” said Loreticus, “and she wasn’t tall enough to have messed up the foot of the sheets.”
“Why not?”
Loreticus smacked his lips as if to put a stop to the style of conversation, a gesture indicating his building frustration.
“Were you in her bed that night or not?”
“Yes.”
“Did you sleep in your own bed at all?”
“No.”
“Do you know how she was killed?”
“A blow to her head, I thought,” replied Marlan.
“Indeed. It is my expectation that the weapon of choice was a military mace.”
“Really?” Fright crept across the captain’s features. He goggled at Loreticus, then back at Selban. “I didn’t kill her.”
“Then where were you when Selban knocked on her door? Hiding somewhere?”
“No, of course not.”
They stared at each other for a moment, and Loreticus watched as the thoughts running the captain’s mind reflected on his face.
“Be here tonight, please,” he said. “There is a coach for Salles tomorrow morning that you can take a place on.”
Marlan nodded, this time abruptly, then turned and stormed out into the tide of merchants and customers outside. Loreticus gestured to Tristofan, and the young agent moved with subtle speed to follow the man.
Chapter 5
“Good gods,” yelled Selban, “put on some clothes.”
Aerix had received them in the house’s atrium, where he was bathing in the sha
llow impluvium. He lay spread-eagled, basking in the sun, the water reaching up to his torso.
“Not for you, Selban. Never for you.”
“What exactly are you doing?” asked Loreticus.
“I don’t see much hot sun in the mountains, and I don’t get many privatenesses at home. So I decided it would be best to enjoy both at once.”
“It’s not private here,” stated Selban, gesturing desperately towards himself, then Loreticus, then the servants.
“Ah, but my mother isn’t here to bang my ear drums,” replied Aerix. “She scares me more than anybody else. Even makes me get out of the bath to take a piss. No wonder my father ran into battle first.”
“Would you have dressed for other guests?” asked the spymaster.
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll take it as a compliment.”
“I can’t imagine you having a mother,” stated Selban. “I thought people like you just, well, appeared.”
The spymaster sat on a bench, gesturing a nervous servant to pour him some sweet water.
“I don’t care if the pool is cold,” muttered Selban. “You’re a little too confident of your manhood.”
“Maybe. Never.”
“We need your help with a puzzle,” said Loreticus, indicating to Selban to sit and be silent. “Who is Tyba?”
The barbarian rolled on to his front, his enormous torso sending waves over the edge.
“Oh dear gods,” muttered Selban and turned his face away. “Arse.”
“Thank you,” replied Aerix with a nod.
“I don’t think you understood me,” said Selban sadly.
“And Tyba?” interrupted Loreticus impatiently.
“Tyba? Why are you asking me?”
“Because she was your guest.”
Aerix took a deep breath in, then laughed.
“She is an expensive, if morose, prostitute. I thought that she might bring me some luck.”
Selban chuckled.
“Where did you find her?”
“I don’t know.” He gestured towards the servant, who shot his naked master a glance and kept his eyes firmly away from him. “Chinchong here found her.”
“So, you can help us find her again, can you Chinchong?” asked Selban.
“Yes, sir.” He coughed. “My name is Cottan.”
“Then Cottan, please make sure that your master here brings her to the tavern tomorrow morning soon after breakfast.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Clothed,” added Selban.
*
Loreticus and Selban sat on the edge of a fountain in the emptying market outside The Indigo. Dusk was not far away. The traders were packing up their money and goods and bartering food with each other for the night.
“So what have we got?”
“Six people with the opportunity to kill the woman. I don’t believe one of them, don’t know another, don’t trust two others, and I’m quite attracted to Dasha.”
“Thanks,” remarked Loreticus. “Very helpful.”
In front of them, shady rhomboids fell across the side of the tavern, cutting the window and the staircase into a jigsaw of sharp shadows.
“I think that we forgot something quite important,” said Loreticus. “Where’s the mace?”
He turned, gazing out across the market, seeing the butcher, the carpenter, the paper maker, the spice merchant, the hinge and lock craftsman. One stall stood empty, and the spymaster stared at it for a long moment, wondering why it was deserted so much earlier than the others.
“The mace was dropped over there,” he said, pointing towards the corner near the stall. “In the rubbish I reckon. Find it if you can and bring it to me. I’ll get some wine, and I’ll be at the tables in front of the tavern waiting for our guests.”
“You know who it is?”
“Yes, of course I do now. Do you want to know?”
“Yes, but not yet. I’d rather enjoy the surprise with everyone else.”
Loreticus stood up, and his agent rose with him. As he started to walk, Selban kept step.
“Aren’t you going to find the mace?”
“That’s what my guild is for. Think I’d go rummaging in that pile of rotting food? I had a bath yesterday, remember?”
“Ah yes, your club.”
“Guild,” growled Selban.
“I am not a man with a remarkable sense of the dramatic,” began Loreticus, “and at times, my sense of logic disappears in the weeds. So, I’ve brought you all here on the basis of a couple of simple assumptions.
“First, that Lady Igna’s murderer is here with us. Second, that no-one, no matter how disciplined or full of other secrets, can hide their dishonesty as they hear their crime detailed before an audience.”
It was an especially hot morning. The windows were shuttered for privacy, and the lack of air circulating in the room made the guests damp and uncomfortable. Tyba stared quietly at Aerix, disgruntled by the need for her impromptu arrival. The gigantic man simply smiled and gazed back at her, unaffected by her judgment.
Coya and Dasha sat at different ends of the table, the former arrogantly staring out of the window with fake disdain, the latter rubbing off a grey smear on the bridge of her thumb.
Marlan glowered silently, preening his ego as he imagined all the others judging him.
Bobban brought a platter of bread and wine, and before anyone else could partake, Selban’s broken-nailed fingers reached out, rifled amongst the different pieces of food before finding the morsel of his choice. With a swoop, his dirty mitt immersed itself and the bread into the oil dish. The other guests who had started towards the source of the delicious smells recoiled with mixed expressions.
Aerix huffed, then reached for the least tainted crust.
“Now, we’re all proud people, so let me state that what I mention in this room stays in this room. Any gossip,” here he eyed Marlan and Tyba deliberately and slowly, “will be met by my displeasure.”
Selban sucked his teeth noisily and glanced around the table, watching the different guests as if at the theatre.
“We know the following happened on the night of the cards. First, six of us sat at this table and played and drank in half-ignorance of the presence of the victim and her lover, Captain Marlan of Salles. The captain here had extinguished the candle on their table because although her violent and spiteful husband was already dead by her hand, he was not aware of it and was scared of the man’s wrath.
“And so Bobban laid out an elaborate dinner for us, and most of us were drunk by the top of the night. One remained sober from drink, the young guest Tyba. Her profession had taught her to be prepared for surprises, and besides, she wanted to check the young prince’s belongings for something to boost her retirement stash.”
“Good luck with that,” laughed Aerix. “The devious bastard took it all.”
“Indeed,” stated Loreticus. “I took all of his ready cash so that the prince would be reduced to a simple job rather than a potential victim of mugging.”
“I’m not a ‘job’,” muttered the barbarian. “I’m a delight and an unforgettable experience.”
“You’re a noisy fool,” laughed Selban, and Aerix gave him a surprisingly warm smile in return.
“But Lady Igna was not here as a victim,” stated Loreticus. “Marlan, you had no need to be worried about discovery by her husband. He was lying lifeless on the floor of his library at his home. A fire that had been set in the basement was curbed before it spread to the whole house, and Igna’s poisoned spouse was left as evidence of her betrayal. As was the open secure box, with sheets of bankers’ bills and debt contracts.”
“Damnable tergiversation,” muttered Aerix.
“I’m not sure–” started Selban.
“Yes it is,” interrupted the barbarian.
Loreticus glowered at them both, and then he continued. “Lady Igna was here to collect more money before she moved on to
her unknown destination. First, she collected from a mark a fat purse of gold in exchange for her silence. Imagine, the very cousin of the distinguished blackmailer Ferran paying hush money to a country amateur.”
Coya settled deeper into her seat and regarded her lover with a subtle glance.
“Now, let me offer a slight diversion here. Coya didn’t see her attachment as a crime or an embarrassment, rather she considered that this might be an excusable way to bring the secret to light. Instead she called Igna’s bluff that afternoon and warned her with the threat of death not to talk to her lover. A threat like that from one of the Ferran clan is not to be taken lightly. So Igna took it literally, instead making sure that the secret was on public show that night.
“And so, had Marlan’s paranoia to extinguish the candle not hidden our neighbours, Coya might have been pressured by her more fearful lover to settle with the wicked woman. And so, I’m sure, when Coya caught Igna’s arrogant eyes that night, she felt violence was the only escape from her predicament.
“But she perhaps did not have the time to carry out any promise of assassination. Igna simply was taking too many risks and making too many enemies on her escape via the capital.”
Loreticus walked and put his hands on the back of Marlan’s chair. Selban slowed his chewing.
“What do you think, Selban? Who do you have your money on?”
“Wonderful,” roared the agent, his open mouth revealing bread plastered to his teeth and tongue. “I rarely work it out as fast as he does,” he explained quickly, addressing the crowd. “My money is on Marlan. He looks miserable. I say he found out that she was leaving him, and having lost his chance of future riches from her purse, he decided to bash her on the head.”
“Can I put a bet down?” asked Aerix. Loreticus shrugged.
“I reckon it was Coya. My ring says it was her.” He slapped down a wide gold band with small engravings running its circumference.
“Why me?” she asked.
“Because I’d love it if you had. You’re such an interesting woman, and I just think that this would add to your appeal.”