by J B Lucas
“My appeal?” She smiled, then chuckled with a shake of her head. “You really are a barbarian.”
“Let’s test those theories then,” said the spymaster. “Tyba, you’re an expert at reading men. Tell me what you see in Marlan’s face as we go through the events of the night.
“Bobban,” he called, “you said that you heard noises from her room when you were tidying up after we had all left, and Selban had fallen asleep. What did you think it was?”
“Well, an argument. Possibly a romantic fight.”
“Nonsense,” came Marlan’s rebuke.
“And you’re sure that it came from her room?”
“No, but they were the only guests, milord, so I assumed that it must have been in there.”
“Tyba, what do you think?”
The woman examined the spymaster, then the captain with her shrewd, soft eyes.
“Guilt, but more remorse. Dislike of something.”
“Fair enough,” said Loreticus. “So you two went to bed for a final night. You see, I think Marlan is more of a northern boy than he likes to reveal. He would have been too proud to have fought a lover who had broken up with him. Rather, he would have wanted to finish the situation as cleanly as possible to get on with his life. Plus, he wouldn’t have the threat of her vengeful husband hovering over his head, endangering Marlan’s position as a rural grandee in the militia. I don’t believe that it was him.”
Marlan made a gesture of acceptance with his head, opening his hands as if to show his cards.
“Damn it,” spat Selban, reaching out to push Aerix’s gold ring back to the barbarian.
“It seems I didn’t know her as well as I thought,” the captain said in a flat voice. “What an idiot.”
“You’re no different from every lover,” smirked Coya. “But it’s true. Dying was the most popular thing that woman did.”
“Coya, however, was busy with her lover,” interrupted Loreticus. “She might have intended to have Igna killed the next day and to have recovered the incriminating evidence that lay in the woman’s possession, but Igna was murdered in the time gap between Bobban’s return with the fresh bread and the maid’s discovery. Coya had been travelling from the edge of the capital all the way back to her home near the palace. That trip alone would have put her out of context, so I’m afraid, my big prince, you lose to me again.” Loreticus reached down and snatched up the ring. He tried it on, and it simply slipped off his finger. “It’s meant for fatter fingers,” he stated and threw it back to Aerix.
“Manly fingers.”
“Now, during the drinking after the games, our dear Tyba snuck off to rearrange her dress, wasn’t that so?” asked Loreticus.
“Yes,” said Tyba quietly.
“What do you think I see on your face now?”
“Guilt. Worry.”
“Correct,” said the spymaster. “You knew this tavern well, and Bobban’s admission that you were new wasn’t such a slip of his memory. Perhaps you had longer hair or a different look last time. You snuck into Igna’s room and saw the papers. After Aerix’s pitiful, desperate, foolish but inevitable loss to me, you thought that this was a gift from your personal gods. So you left a note for your conspirator of the find, and then you came back to the table.”
“A note?” asked Selban. “A conspirator?”
“In a vase,” replied the spymaster.
“Ah.” The agent lifted a finger as the epiphany struck.
“But she was with me all night,” stated Aerix. “Well away from here. And I can personally vouch that she was well within my eyesight all the time.”
“Well, I’m sure you fell asleep at some point,” said Selban.
“Some of us have exceptional endurance.”
Tyba rolled her eyes.
“You snore,” she said simply, “and you sleep a lot.”
“Right.” Loreticus stood back and said simply, “None of you murdered her. As much as you wished her dead, perhaps because you had a personal grudge or you saw her treasure or you couldn’t imagine her with anyone else or whatever urge took over you at the time, none of you swung the mace.”
“Then who did?” asked Coya. “And why did you bother to bring us all here?”
“Who invited you all that night?”
“Bobban.”
“And I had to watch you all to see who the conspirator with Bobban was. I thought that it might have been Dasha, perhaps Coya, maybe even Marlan. But it was simply an opportune thief.”
Bobban stepped back towards the kitchen door, a strange expression curling his face downwards.
“Doors,” shouted Selban, and the main door, the stairwell and the kitchen entrance were suddenly filled by Tristofan and his guild mates.
“A plot from the start by the innkeeper and his original guest,” stated Loreticus. “Igna gave you the guestlist in exchange for a share of the yield. But when Tyba alerted you to the loot in Igna’s trunk, you realised that there was a different option.” He stared at Bobban. “I know, this was for your sick wife. I understand the need for funds, but you could have asked me.”
“So it was Bobban and Igna shouting that woke me up?” asked Selban.
“Absolutely.”
“But why wasn’t Marlan in her room to prevent the argument from ever starting?”
The spymaster turned to the captain.
“I went out for a walk after she had fallen asleep. I was…emotional.”
Aerix shook his head in an animal wiggle, as if he was trying to understand a new language.
“You knew that she had killed her husband,” stated Loreticus to Bobban, “simply from the deeds in her trunk. You knew that she was due to break up with her lover. You knew that she was blackmailing Coya. She had no one to turn to in the capital, and she was at your mercy.”
“She didn’t think that I would do anything. She was cold-blooded enough to kill her husband, whilst I was trying to comfort my wife. It wasn’t fair that she was a murderer whilst I am a worthy man, and she had snatched the riches whilst I was going broke.”
“So you took the mace from Marlan’s room and threatened her.”
“She laughed and turned away from me when I came back, so I hit her as hard as I could.”
Loreticus sat down and folded his arms.
“You lot can go,” he said to the guests at the table.
“Oh, no it’s fine,” said Coya. “This is very interesting.”
“Not to be too self-centred,” said Aerix, “but why invite me?”
“Because you always lose lots of money,” stated Selban. “And he wanted to keep myself and Loreticus here. We being here would have scared off any random militia or guardsman who happened to wander in.”
“So what now?” asked Tyba.
“Go. All of you go,” said Loreticus. “Leave us with the innkeeper. But remember your promises from when you sat down. One word of this sordid affair or each other’s embarrassments, and I’ll tell the world the name of your lover or that your lover left you once she had her money or that you’re a degenerate gambler.”
“And me?” asked Tyba. The spymaster gestured her to stay seated. The others slowly got up and walked towards the main door, which had now been opened to let in the noontime sunlight and the sounds and smells of the human melee outside. On his way out, Aerix pointed to the blackeye on the boy by the door and winked, slapping the young agent on the shoulder
Loreticus took the seat opposite Selban and waited whilst Tristofan dunked Bobban into a chair at the far end of the table.
“You want to be a wealthy woman?” the spymaster asked Tyba and continued without waiting for a response. “You have a nose for finding things, and I always need more gossip and knowledge. So you can simply go. But tomorrow Selban will come talk to you about what you might do to help the empire stay safe and indeed how the empire rewards its loyal agents.” She stood up, and as he caught the gleam in Selban’s eye, Loreticus
changed his mind. “Actually, I’ll send Tristofan. Tomorrow. Don’t run away; this is to your benefit, girl.”
She made her way out, peeking behind her briefly, at Loreticus, at Bobban, then at Tristofan.
“Don’t wear your best tunic,” stated the spymaster after the door had closed again. “Try to be a little more forgettable when you visit whorehouses.”
He turned his gaze back to Bobban.
“My old friend, you’ve made a mistake, and you’ve embarrassed me.”
The innkeeper hung his head, his hand wrapping his temples.
“You’re a fool. I’ll arrange for a servant to be with your wife for as long as she is with us. She’ll not be in pain, and I’ll ask my physician to call in on her. She certainly should not suffer because of an overly protective husband.”
Bobban smiled, his old, chubby face wet from quiet sobbing.
Loreticus examined him, reading the emotions on his face, the currents of thoughts behind the man’s eyes. Suddenly the spymaster’s talent turned on itself, dropping such a ball of grief into his stomach that it felt like he’d been kicked.
“It was self-defence,” suggested Selban, watching his master’s expression. “She was going to run off without paying her dues, and she threatened him with a knife when he caught her. It was the only thing he could do not to leave his wife a widow.”
“So be it,” said Loreticus. “Find someone else to run The Indigo whilst you take a few weeks to keep your head down, please.”
The spymaster and his agent stood up, then turned and left the tavern, with their three acolytes following at their heels. The main door opened again, stayed open, and cast a long rectangle of sunlight into the dark tavern, lifting dust, catching the boot of the sobbing innkeeper.
“Nothing’s easy, Selban,” said Loreticus. “At this moment, I’m both guilty and vindicated. What’s to be done?”
“Stop being such a ponce,” came the reply.
Loreticus stood at the edge of the terrace, watching the guards on the palace walls, the lamp lighters outside, his eyes finding the small corner of The Indigo, which was all that was visible from his rooms.
“You know what you should do?” asked Selban. He was lying on a long seat, drinking as usual, watching the clouds as they moved towards the waterfall of the sunset.
“What?”
“Call on Dasha.”
“Why on earth would I call on her? She’s a taken woman.”
“As if that has stopped you before,” chuckled Selban with thick sarcasm.
“If I’m meant to meet her again, I shall,” he said. “But there’s no point breaking something like that. Coya’s not such a bad beast.”
“You, my old friend, just like to have someone unattainable to think about every day. Don’t worry; there’ll be a new face tomorrow or next week. There always is, and it’s not a bad way for you to live.”
“Shut up, Selban.”
“Too close to the bone?”
“No, just too wise for you, you oik.”
THE LORETICUS INTRIGUES
BOOK IV
THE EMPEROR’S MARTYR
J.B. LUCAS
First published in Great Britain in 2018 by J.B. Lucas
Copyright © 2018 J.B. Lucas
The moral right of J.B. Lucas to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
Chapter 1
Tilke rested her back against the wall, feeling the bricks catch on the warps of her outfit. This was supposed to be an in-out mission, which meant that she had to be home within an hour, bathed and back at her kitchen table with her mother and father.
Like any kill, however, there were certain technical complications, which had meant a planning session with her siblings this afternoon. The target was a merchant, based in the capital but from one of the tribes in Surran. He appeared to be unprotected by bodyguards in his house, and from the testimony of his paid lovers, he was not the most athletic chap in town. Tilke had therefore presumed that the access and approach would be straightforward.
The complexity came with his body shape. He was large in all aspects – a great heaving creature, with a bald head and hairy shoulders. The diminutive assassin’s choices were therefore simple as defined by her limits – knife or poison. Anything that might require a test of strength against her pendulous target would inevitably fail, so Tilke had ruled out smothering him in his sleep or strangling him with a garotte around his neck. Somehow those methods brought back childhood memories of myths of ancient heroes fighting huge tentacled sea monsters.
Tilke had instead chosen a particular blade for the job. It would make sure that the kill was made and otherwise act as a good defence should something go awry.
She squatted in the narrow strip between the wall of his compound and the back of his house and listened to the merchant's snores through his window. The rhythm of his breathing paused and broke, followed by a snort, cough and smacking of loose lips. Tilke peered in through the window. He was set perfectly, facing away from her, his torso a colossal lemon shape, narrow at the hips and the neck. The side of his soft throat lifted and concaved, offering her a deep stab through all the necessary veins and arteries.
The killer climbed in, unnaturally flexible in her moves, her feet touching the floor so silently that the other hidden guard in the room didn't stir. He was the other executioner hired for the night, another assassin waiting for her to arrive.
Tilke stalked towards the wheezing figure on the bed, the loose shape of his girth melding with the mattress, his naked form curled into an embryonic pose. Tilke stood over him, looking for a pulse in the thick neck. She drew the broad knife from her belt, its shape, pointed at the beginning, then quickly swelling out to become a slick-edged triangle. One hand lined up the tip with the kill spot, the entry point which would allow the blade to start its wide split, and the other hand hovered above the hilt to drive the metal in.
Tilke smacked her hand down, the polished razorblade slicing through the human matter as if it were racing through soft bread. The merchant's eyes popped wide open, his voice silenced by a split throat. The assassin put her hand on his temple, pushed his head flat to the pillow and pulled out the knife in a swift reverse. Contract performed.
She looked up as something else in the room moved. In front of her, on the other side of the large square bed, stood up abruptly an ethereal soldier in ash-coloured clothes, relaxed and menacing. Had he just watched the entire operation without interrupting her? What did he want? To claim the kill to get a reward?
The man moved suddenly. His arm lashed out, a spiked chain whistling at her face. She blocked, and the spikes stuck to her flesh. He yanked back savagely, loosening skin and cloth.
Before he could wind her again, Tilke retaliated and threw her knife over the fat man, burying it in the guard's chest. He grunted, staggered and tried to pull it out. It was lodged, caught on a rib. The man looked up, angry, sloppy.
Tilke stepped forward, dropped her fingers under the edge of the bed and drove up with her legs, defying the inertia of the portly corpse, setting it rolling down towards her attacker.
Her rival spent a second too long in indecision before he moved, and his foot was flattened by the fleshy boulder tumbling over the edge.
Tilke turned and ran, kicking down chairs and tables to block his access. With one foot on the window sill, propelling her fingers on to the top of the white external wall, she looked back and saw the man throwing something. She heaved herself up, then felt a crack in the back of her right thigh. Then she was over and into the street, crawling away, broken and bloodied, back towards home.
*
Loreticus stood next to Sempus and considered the corpse in front of them. Loreticus strained his jaw from side to side, loosening a permanent clench
"It seems, dear Loreticus, that someone is in trouble."
"Other than the corps
e here?" responded Loreticus testily. "I didn't realise that you'd switched from dissecting bodies to sewing up logic."
"Well, I'd be worried about whoever hired her, I'd say. Her family will be looking for answers, and the contract buyer is going to be the first on the list. Look for another body tomorrow morning, I’d say, and you’ll have the case solved for you," avowed Sempus, oblivious to Loreticus' expression, which was pregnant with disapproval. "But this is a particularly curious case, dear spymaster," coughed the physician. He lifted up her cloth gloves from a side table. They were stiff and pungent with caked gore. "Not her blood."
"No?" asked Loreticus. "What makes you think that?"
"She didn't bleed much on her hands," testified Sempus superciliously. “Wounds on her forearm and thigh, but neither deep enough to cause this sort of drenching.” He drew back the sheet that had until now covered the dignity of the young girl. "Tilke of the Eduan Family of Assassins." He gestured at a tattoo on her ribs. "Eleven kills to her name." He indicated the eleven dots under the tattoo. "So not a novice, but not ready for retirement."
"Out on a kill, got caught, got killed?" asked Loreticus, folding his arms and peering at the tattooed dots. "I'd be annoyed if it were twelve kills, and I didn't get the opportunity to get the last one put on. I'd end up a ghost out of sheer frustration."
"Yes, well," muttered the physician with a delicate glance. "You always have been particularly obsessive."
"Thorough, Sempus, thorough. But I've been told that she was successful in her work," said Loreticus, then caught a small belch in his hand.
The plump physician stared at the spymaster.
"Would you like to lie down yourself?" asked Sempus.
"Why on earth would I do that?"
"Well, Loreticus, you look like you were out very late last night. Perhaps you need a little sleep before you dig into a new case?"