by Sarah Remy
After Mal recorded the mass’s weight in his journal, he used his ebon knife to slice a piece from the globular mass. He placed the sample into a clear vial of brandy wine preserve then capped it tightly, sealing it away for further study. Then he returned Greta’s cold intestines to her belly before sewing her flesh carefully back together. By the time he’d finished with needle and catgut, and cleaned his hands, Avani was peppered with gooseflesh and missing the season’s unceasing heat.
Mal pretended not to notice her shivers, but she could feel his amused sympathy through the remnants of their link. Almost she relished the connection, but for the underlying wrongness that reverberated along the edges of his compassion.
“Hennish leather,” he teased. “Warmer than silk, more practical in a vocent’s cold-room.”
Avani ground her teeth to keep them from chattering.
“Just show me,” she growled. “Before I freeze to your floor.”
Mal laughed but complied. Gently he turned Greta from back to stomach, his touch competent but compassionate as if the corpse was still capable of self-respect. Avani knew better. The spirits she’d encountered seemed to care not at all about the shell they’d left behind.
“She’s not here,” Mal said as he adjusted the corpse so Greta lay on her right cheek. He shut her staring eyes then smoothed her thin hair.
“I know.” But Avani caught herself squinting into the corners of the room in search of Greta’s ghost.
“Do you see them everywhere now, I wonder? The legions of the dead?”
“Nay.” Avani hugged her ribs tightly. “It’s not as bad as that, yet. I hope it never will be.”
“As do I.” Mal’s mouth went flat. “For your sake.” He blinked and shook his head, and then walked his fingers down the dead woman’s spine. The yellow stone on his thumb, twin to the one hanging around Avani’s neck, flashed.
“You see the discoloration here,” he continued after a moment, “on the backs of her arms, and legs, and on her buttocks. Like bruising, but different. The blood settles in the lowest parts of the corpse, after death. She was lying on her back, when they discovered her, the stiffening in her limbs just beginning to relax.”
“Discovered her where?” asked Avani.
“In an alley off a back street, just east of the Fair. Hastily hidden beneath a scant scattering of garbage. Whoever killed her wanted her found quickly.”
“Why?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Mal’s shoulder brushed Avani’s arm. His body radiated heat. He smelled, as he always did, faintly of apples. “But it was well-done, and efficient. Up through the ribs and into the heart. Left the knife in the wound to minimize blood spray.” He shook his head. “Greta’s the second such I’ve seen in a handspan of days. The first was called Michael Moonstone; he was a prostitute of some repute. They found him on Whore’s Street, not far from the apartment he called home. Murdered with his own belt knife, up through the ribs and into the heart, as I said. Also skillfully done. I’m afraid this killer knows what he’s about.”
“He.” The small, blue-edged hole was almost lost in the folds of the old woman’s skin just below her armpit. Anyone else might have missed it but Mal was no stranger to death. “A man did this?”
Mal reached below his slab. He pulled a simple linen shroud from a basket, unfolded the fabric with a snap of his wrists, and covered Greta’s body, leaving only her face visible. He tucked the sheet around her shoulders, hips, and feet, then went to wash his hands at the pump in the corner of the room.
“She’s not tall,” he replied as water splashed. “But by all accounts she was strong for her age. She liked to ride, and hunt, and—if I recall—had a tongue on her acerbic enough to tan hide.” He dried his fingers on a flannel, brow furrowed. “A kill from behind and around like that, it’s not difficult if you know what you’re doing, but he—or, yes, she—would have had to get an arm around Greta’s throat, bend her backward. There are bruises beneath her chin, but they’re minimal. She didn’t struggle for long.”
“Why would someone do such a thing? Murder an old woman with one foot already in the grave?”
“I’m on my way to ask Belmas the same,” Mal said, making for the door. “I suspect he may know a thing or two about it, especially as the knife I pulled from Greta’s side bears his device on its blade. Coming?” the vocent inquired. “Could be a diverting afternoon. It’s not often I get to accuse bedridden barons of contriving to murder their wives. Renault will be incensed.”
“Nay. You’re enjoying yourself,” Avani accused. “It’s unseemly.”
“As you wish.” Mal tossed her a grin and a wave before vanishing down the hall, leaving Avani alone with the baron’s wife.
“Bless you,” Avani told the shrouded corpse sadly just in case the woman’s spirit lingered somewhere out of sight. “Be at rest, if you can.”
Admiral Baldebert caught up with her at sunset as she perused crocks of fresh honey beneath a beekeeper’s brightly colored tent. The beekeeper was a new addition to Wilhaiim’s busy Fair; a young woman with hair white as the moon and unusually delicate features, she’d lately become the darling of many unattached yeoman. Avani, who appreciated good stock, thought the woman’s honey was an incomparable treasure.
“This one is the clover,” the beekeeper said, pointing Avani toward a small blue crock. “I kept it aside for you, as I know it’s your favorite. I’ve not got much of it left, I’m afraid, now that the best flowers are fading.”
“Ah, honey. Nature’s elixir. A cure-all for every ailment. Also a staple on my tea tray, although tea, as such, is decidedly difficult to come by in this city.”
They had exchanged few words but Avani knew him at once from the sharp edges of the syllables on his tongue. Baldebert’s accent sounded like home and made her pulse jump. She turned, relieved to see the admiral had not escaped the palace alone; Russel stood guard at his back.
“I’ve not had real tea since I was a child,” Avani acknowledged. “Even Deval cannot get a good supply in. The leaves are as precious as gold.”
“More precious, in Roue.” Baldebert inclined his head. “I’ve met Deval; your king introduced us. I believe he thought yon island tongue would make me feel more at home.”
“Deval sent you after me?” Avani asked, amused. She knew her friend lately preferred the temple library to the company of other people.
“No. I spotted you all on my own. You’re one of a kind. I enjoy rarity.”
Standing at Avani’s elbow, Baldebert made a show of casting a professional eye over the crocks on the beekeeper’s table. The lass tossed him a flirtatious wink, but he didn’t appear to notice. Two steps behind, Russel scanned the evening crowd for threat. Most of the people hurrying past seemed content to attend their own business, but several stopped to scowl and mutter. Russel chased them away with a sharp word. Baldebert paid them no mind at all.
“This, the clover, is indeed well-done.” He dipped a finger in sticky nectar. “It’s the color that gives it away. And, of course, the taste.” He thrust the finger in his mouth, sighing loud pleasure. “Perfection!”
Over his shoulder Russel grimaced, embarrassed by the man’s affected airs. The beekeeper hid a laugh in her hand. But Avani caught the glitter of guile in the admiral’s desert eyes and wasn’t fooled.
“It’s yours, then, Admiral,” she said. “My gift to you.” She drew the correct number of coins from her pouch, setting them on the beekeeper’s waiting palm. “Take it with your tea and think fondly of Wilhaiim.”
Baldebert puffed in honest pleasure. “It happens I have a few leaves to spare, carried across the Long Sea, come to me by way of the Black Coast.” He clutched her hand and executed a tidy bow over her fingers, nose to knuckles, blond curls flopping. He straightened. “Have tea with me tomorrow, in the garden Renault’s set aside for my private enjoyment. My gift to you.”
Russel shifted uneasily. The beekeeper watched Baldebert’s little courtship w
ith avid fascination.
“Yes,” Avani said. “Of course. Thank you, my lord.”
“‘Admiral’ will do.” He preened with enthusiasm, adjusting the medals and ribbons on his captain’s uniform. “Tomorrow, then. I look forward to it.”
He clutched the crock of honey to his breast as he marched away, Russel trailing after. The beekeeper smiled, delighted.
“Look out for that one, my lady,” she warned. “He’s a heartbreaker, I can tell.”
But the chandler in the tent next door glowered. He spat onto the cobbles, narrowly avoiding boots and skirts.
“A menace, you mean,” he said. “And a pirate. He deserves to be hung like any other thief, for stealing away our vocent. Just you wait. Wilhaiim will have retribution.”
Avani selected a ragged chunk of dripping honeycomb from an earthenware bowl on the table. While the beekeeper secured the dripping treat in a small jug, Avani studied the busy Fair crowds. What she saw made her heart clench in undiluted sorrow. For although they’d stopped the Red Worm before the plague had savaged the city entire, relief was bittersweet. The flea-borne disease had been particularly virulent amongst the enfeebled and the young; it had taken Wilhaiim’s newest generation alongside the city’s eldest.
The Fair—deserted while the Red Worm ravaged the city—was running again. At first glance the crowds seemed unchanged; merchants and customers called robust greetings back and forth, while roaming minstrels plied their most cheerful tunes. But their boisterous noise did not make up for the lack of children’s laughter or infants’ cries.
Almost everyone in the crowd had lost someone to the plague; most of the families in the city were now childless.
“It’s a perilous time,” the beekeeper agreed, catching concern writ clear across Avani’s face. “All them mums and das without their babes to hug close at night—why, they’re looking for someone to blame.” She slanted her head in the direction of the chandler’s stall. “You’d be wise to warn your new friend: the city’s not in a forgiving mood. He’d best be on guard.”
“But Roue had no hand in the Worm.”
The beekeeper shrugged as she passed Avani her honeycomb. “Who’s to say? They took milord away, didn’t they? Him who could have saved all those lost babes. Took him from us when we needed him most.”
She looked at Avani across her wares, fierce and clear-eyed, a different woman from the coquette she’d appeared in Baldebert’s presence. A chill ran up Avani’s spine.
“Oh, I mean the pirate no harm myself, for all that I lost a niece and two nephews and my sister’s not come out of her cottage since we sent their bodies into the temple fires. I’m not that sort of woman. Like my gentle bees, I’ve no heart for vengeance.” She wiped a sticky hand across the front of her apron, shaking her head. “But there are others who speak of blood for blood. Tell His Majesty. Roue should hurry home across the seas, and soon.”
The beekeeper’s warning kept Avani awake long into the night. She tossed beneath the summer-weight blanket she’d loomed from skeins of fine-combed wool. The wool was a gift from Peter Shean’s wife; a rare, soft variety produced by the long-legged, black-muzzled sheep found on northern foothills. Avani had once dreamed of having such sheep in her own pasture on Stonehill Downs. It seemed a distant aspiration now, as she fidgeted on the wide bed in her sumptuous chambers, so very far from her small cottage on the bleak crags.
She threw off the blanket and lay spread-eagled on the mattress. Heat and worry pressed heavy on her chest. The chamber was as dark as the backs of her eyelids, the air too still. She could smell the aromatic perfume of the honeycomb emanating from the shallow bowl in front of the gold-skinned idol on her hearth. Honey for protection and braided sweetgrass for purification. As she’d laid the offerings at the small statue’s feet, she’d asked for blessings upon Wilhaiim and upon the spirit of the poor old woman who’d been murdered and left like so much refuge in an alley. Avani knew Greta, at least, would now rest easy in the Goddess’s arms.
She’d asked, also, for the Goddess’s quiet shelter against Mal’s battered mind but as she breathed slowly in and out, Avani could feel the vocent’s power beating like the wings of an angry bird. She’d confined him to one corner of her skull, but if Mal wasn’t careful he would soon overflow her walls. She knew he’d be mortified if he realized he had so little mastery over his boundaries. He was a proud man, already disheartened by Renault’s new tendency to treat him gently. She dreaded the explosion of temper that would come when he discovered his growing loss of control.
Chapter 2
Liam knew he was being punished.
Armswoman Lane had been kind to him once, when he’d first come with Avani from Stonehill. The armswoman had taken him into her care, taught him pages’ duties, and how best to serve at Mal’s side. She’d put a wooden sword and then later a practice blade into his hand. She’d schooled him with the other lads and lasses as if she truly expected him to someday grow past page into a soldier and Kingsman.
He’d heard that Lane had mourned his loss when she’d thought him taken for good across the Long Sea. It was true she’d clutched him hard against her broad chest when he’d returned home all in one piece. Liam had been grateful beyond words for her gruff welcome.
The truth was he’d counted on her support and understanding when he’d fled Lord Malachi’s service.
In that he was badly mistaken.
She’d let him into the barracks and given him a cot in the dormitory with her remaining pupils. Before the Red Worm there had been ten times that number under the armswoman’s tutelage. Now there were just the three—two lads and one scrawny lass—and row upon row of empty mattresses and too much silence. Liam didn’t have Mal’s way of seeing dead people. He was glad of it; the quality of the dormitory’s stillness made him think the ghosts of all those lost pages might still hang about near their empty beds.
Lane hadn’t boxed Liam’s ears when he’d admitted to running away, but he could tell she wanted to. She’d coughed, snarled, and called him a coward, but she hadn’t laid a hand on him. He’d been grateful for her restraint, until she’d turned about and done much worse.
“Morgan, Parsnip, and Arthur.” She made the three pages line up against the dormitory wall, pointing at each as she’d given Liam their names. “The last of the lot, but not any worse for it. They’re yours, now. Make them into good soldiers.”
Liam goggled. Morgan, Parsnip, and Arthur stared back doubtfully.
“They’re hardly old enough to hold a sword,” he’d protested in disbelief, but Lane had only sneered.
“Morgan knows his way about a wooden blade,” she said. “Parsnip worked in the kitchens until her mum noticed she’s a deft hand with her papa’s ax. Arthur, here, he was sent to me because he’s got a fondness for fisticuffs.”
“I can break a man’s nose.” Arthur—a sturdy lad half Liam’s height—smirked. “I have done, twice now. Although it’s much easier just to kick ’em in the groin.”
Something of Liam’s horror must have shown on his face because the armswoman laughed. “Arthur’s mum used to work in a house on Whore’s Street,” she explained. “Arthur learned early how to handle a man too far gone in his cups.”
“Hit ’em in the mouth or punch ’em in the balls,” Arthur agreed. “Pain shuts a man down real quick, it does.” He furrowed his brow as he studied Liam. “I’ve heard about you. I know you from the marks on your hands and face. Is it true what everyone says? Were you raised up by barrowmen?”
Liam bit his tongue to keep from recoiling. Armswoman Lane clapped him on the shoulder.
“These three will show you a thing or five, as well, Liam,” she said. “They’ve had their share of sorrows this last season, but they’ve stood up and stood strong. You’ll do each other good, I think.”
Liam glanced away from the expectant faces. “I don’t want to,” he said. The lass—Parsnip—giggled at his honesty. Lane only grunted.
“You ask for m
y help, you do me a favor in return,” she chided. “This is the favor I choose. It’s this or go back to your master where you belong.”
“Or back to the Downs,” Liam challenged, speaking aloud the frightening idea he’d kept close to his heart for weeks. “Nothing to stop me just up and going home.”
The armswoman snorted. “If that was your plan you wouldn’t have come running to my doorstep,” she hazarded. “Besides which, you’re not growing into the sort of man who leaves his mam behind when she needs him most.”
Morgan was gaping, Parsnip nibbling a ragged thumbnail, and Arthur grinning his anticipation. Liam couldn’t help but recall the ragtag urchin he’d been when Avani had rescued him from the Widow; hardly younger than Lane’s last pupils, he’d watched Stonehill burn, seen his world turn upside down. Avani, although not his mam in truth, had become the family he’d so desperately needed.
“I don’t mind your scars. I think they’re interesting,” Parsnip ventured when Liam continued to stare, mute. “I don’t care if you’re a barrowman. You’ve got kind eyes. You’re not shouting, though I can tell you want to, and I know who you are, too. I know you went to war far away and brought our Lord Vocent home to us on a tall ship full of gold.” When she grinned Liam saw the lass had a gap where she’d somehow lost all four of her front teeth. “I’m very good with an ax. Do you want to see what I can do?”
Liam’s knowledge of ax-work was limited to chopping wood and killing chickens. Parsnip fought with a light double-headed weapon that still looked far too heavy for her thin form. Muscles corded in arms and legs bared by her summer shift. She clenched all ten fingers around the ax’s long handle as she used the weapon to block and block again and then—serpent quick—relieved Morgan of his practice sword with a sharp yank and pivot.
She did this four times in a row before Morgan, sweating in the heat of the practice yard, called mercy.
“She is good for her size and age,” Lane said into Liam’s ear as they watched the lass share a flagon of water with her sparring partner. “They’ve been barking at my heels to have her in the infantry just as she is, on the halberd, but a lass that skinny’s got no place in the ranks. So I’ve kept her back until she bulks up some. Besides, Arthur and Morgan need some coddling, yet, and she’s as handy at that as she is the poleax.”