by Barb Hendee
“Fish pie,” she said to Tris.
“Hmm?” he replied absently. As usual, he probably didn’t care what he ate.
“Made from trout caught in the stream this morning,” came a voice from beside her.
She looked over—and up—into the dark brown eyes of a young man. He was beardless and slender, not much taller than she, and wore an expression as drawn and worn as all of the others’. When he smiled, it didn’t last, though he seemed open and friendly.
She didn’t smile back but answered, “I like trout.”
“Better get some while it’s warm,” he said, and led the way.
Mari first looked to Tris, nodded to the table, and headed over. If she didn’t remind him to eat, he might forget. Handing him a bowl, she pointed to the pans of fish pie.
The young man waved her ahead, stepping aside. “I’m Guardsman Farrell. Sergeant Orlov said the captain gave you quarters here. Who are you?”
As he was blunt enough to catch her off guard, she stalled in dishing up her bowl.
“Mari,” she said. “This is Tris. He doesn’t speak your tongue, so you’ll need to talk through me instead. We’re here to help find out what’s been . . . has happened, and why.”
She expected his eyes to widen, narrow, or something. Instead he looked at Tris.
“Is he the one some call the hunter, the Dead’s Man?”
She hadn’t anticipated answering questions instead of asking them. Chatter around the food table died off and others were now watching and waiting.
Mari didn’t like so many eyes on her. “Yes,” she answered.
Farrell nodded and turned to filling his bowl. “Good. We’ve been waiting for the captain to get some real help.”
He wasn’t smiling in the slightest anymore.
The captain hadn’t sought out her or Tris, but Mari wasn’t going to correct this soldier. She studied the other men as she again waved in Tris to fill his own bowl. How much of this talk had he followed so far?
Farrell ducked behind her to the table’s other end and grabbed several mugs by their handles with his free hand.
“You and ma’lord can sit with me, Rafferty, and the sergeant,” he said, tilting his head toward a nearby table.
She half turned her head toward Tris, lowered her voice, and switched to Stravinan.
“We’ve been invited to sit. What’s your first question?”
He stepped around her, handing her another bowl he’d filled. “Get their separate accounts of what happened to those who died. We need information to uncover who the spirit was in life.”
“In life? Does that matter?”
“Yes.”
He did not elaborate. When she looked back, Farrell waved her over as he settled at a table with two others.
She recognized Sergeant Orlov and nodded to him. The third man was about Farrell’s age but with paler, freckled skin and carrot red hair. She went to join them and pulled out a stool for herself.
“This is Rafferty,” Farrell supplied, motioning to the redhead, and then turned to Orlov. “It’s what you thought. Captain’s sent for the Dead’s Man, though he mustn’t have realized who these two were when they arrived. Mari there”—he nodded to her—“says the hunter can’t speak much of our tongue, so talks through her.”
Orlov raised an eyebrow at Mari. “So, that’s what you do for him? I wondered.”
She tensed, almost went for her dagger; then a hand closed on her forearm.
Mari turned her eyes on Tris at his touch. He showed no reaction and barely shook his head once. She realized she’d almost lost control—of herself and the conversation—before even asking the first question.
Orlov was going to be trouble. Questioning these men wasn’t going to be the same as with the villagers. Peasants looked at Tris with a different kind of fear, as someone to be obeyed, and for reasons not connected to him being noble.
These were soldiers on the edge and kept isolated too long. Farrell looked slightly embarrassed by Orlov’s insinuation and had better manners, but no one at the table looked impressed by Tris, let alone afraid of him.
Mari’s puzzlement over their lack of reaction to sitting with a noble quickly passed; after all, his title didn’t put her off. Quite the opposite. And now she had to take back control of the discussion.
“When did all this start?” she asked.
“Start?” Orlov poked at his food. “Fourteen—maybe fifteen—days ago. That’s when we found Jamison dead in his bunk.”
“No one saw what happened to him before then?”
“No,” Rafferty answered, this time through clenched and crooked front teeth. “Nor the next, when we found Dixon.”
“The lieutenant was different,” Farrell cut in. “When Curran died . . . it was different. He was screaming before the end about something white coming at him, through him, and he couldn’t stop it.”
All three men fell silent, though Orlov still pushed loosened fish bits about his bowl.
“Henrik went the same way, said the same thing,” Farrell went on. “And then the colonel, may the gods rot him!”
“Lower your voice,” Orlov warned.
“Why?” Farrell asked. “The captain’s in charge now, and the sooner he makes colonel, the better. I’m not answering to anyone but him, not in this or anything else.”
Mari felt she was losing control again. But at least they were talking freely, and there might be something to learn from that. Shifting only her eyes, she noticed Tris hadn’t eaten a bite.
“What was that last comment about the captain?” he whispered.
Mari whispered back Farrell’s exact words, and Tris looked around all three at the table.
“So the colonel will not be replaced by someone of current rank from the outside? The captain will be promoted and given permanent command?”
The three men fixed on him and clearly hadn’t understood him. Farrell was the first to look to Mari, and she repeated both questions in Belaskian.
“Yes,” Orlov answered in strange relief.
“That leaves other ranks here unfilled in the change of command,” Tris continued. “Will someone else be promoted to lieutenant in the meantime or later?”
When Mari translated, Farrell nodded. “Most likely. The council of nobles and upper officers usually promotes from within.” He straightened up with visible pride. “We’re all chosen for a reason, the best riders, trackers, and bowmen. Only the best patrol the border of the Warlands.”
Mari stalled for too long, and Tris tapped her leg under the table with one finger. She translated the answer and felt his tension before looking at him. He said nothing more.
Something troubled him—something she’d missed—and she couldn’t ask with the other three present. Tris dropped his head, picked up his fork, and began separating pieces of fish from the crust.
It seemed he had no more questions, which made Mari wonder what he’d learned that she hadn’t from his questions and the answers.
Looking about, she saw others were dishing up, heading for stools, or sitting and talking in low voices, but she fixed on one man by instinct. Tall, solidly built, with thick, red-brown hair that hung to his collar, he had handsome features and dark green eyes. Right beside him sat one of the three women, by far the youngest and the most beautiful.
She had a mass of wavy black hair down well past her shoulders and the pale coloring of one who’d never worked much outside. Her red gown was cinched tightly. She never looked at anyone but the man beside her, and Mari had seen that kind of hunger before. The woman smiled playfully at him, picked up a spoon in the bowl with a scoop of food, and slipped it into his waiting mouth.
Mari dropped her own spoon, and her gaze, slightly sickened by the display. She looked up after a hard breath through her nose.
“Do you know him?” she
asked Farrell, cocking her head.
Farrell straightened, looked over, dropped his spoon, sat back, and crossed his arms.
“Not you too?” he said, frowning at her as if she were the one fawning over that lout. “Orlov said you’d asked about Bródy. You look smarter than that.”
Mari began to heat up. What was he suggesting? Before she could shoot something vicious back at Farrell, many heads within view began to turn elsewhere. She couldn’t help but follow all that attention.
Another young woman with silver-blond hair and a sky blue dress stood near the common room’s outer doorway.
Guardsman Rafferty snorted with a brief smile. “This should be interesting,” he half whispered.
“Why?” Mari asked.
Rafferty barely glanced at her. “That one never comes midweek, and he’s usually better at keeping any of them away from Sabine. Bródy’s in for it now and not for the first time.”
Mari looked back to see the young woman in blue scan the common room. Her gaze halted on the handsome guardsman and the dark-haired woman in red.
So that was Bródy, and what had Rafferty called the dark-haired one? Sabine.
Sabine had already spotted her opponent.
Her vapid, lovely face turned cold in a way that put Mari on guard. The hate in Sabine’s eyes went beyond anger.
This woman was capable of violence without regret.
Mari realized she held her breath. She let it go and waited for an ugly scene to explode—but it didn’t. Bródy finally noticed Sabine’s glare and followed it. Instead of remorse or even fright, he smiled at the newcomer, instantly got up, and strode across the room.
“Elora,” he said as if nothing was amiss.
The rest of their talk was too quiet for Mari to catch beneath the murmurs and whispers of all others in the room. The girl, Elora, acted agitated at first, and whatever she said came fast and sharp.
Mari let a little of her other form rise and listened in as the room’s other sounds grew louder as well. And caught only a few phrases from Bródy over the other noise.
“. . . finishing some business . . . friend of my mother . . . can’t talk now . . . on leave tomorrow . . . the Gray Dove for wine . . . can’t wait to see you . . .”
And all the while, Elora’s anger appeared to drain, until she smiled at him, glanced at Sabine with a puzzled wrinkle of her brow, and turned to leave.
Mari just stared. How could any woman be that gullible?
“Oh, blind gods!” Farrell breathed in disgust. “They believe anything he says.”
“That one won’t be as easy.” Orlov jutted his chin toward Sabine.
Mari continued looking over as others around the room looked away, as if eager not to be noticed staring while Bródy strode back to his table, still smiling. Sabine watched him coming, and her simpering smile was gone. He sat and grasped her hand, speaking to her too low to hear, but he was still smiling.
Mari couldn’t hear what they whispered.
“Those two deserve each other,” Farrell said quietly. “One no better than the other, but I pity any other girl who gets near him.”
“Why?” Mari asked, though she felt she already knew.
Farrell shifted uncomfortably. “Just the way she acts, as if owning him. But no matter his hunts elsewhere, he always goes back to Sabine, though he had one other recently who was a bit different from the others. I felt sorry for that one—kindhearted and not so much a fool.”
“Brianne?” Mari blurted out without thinking.
Farrell’s eyes widened a little.
Tris nudged her. “What are they saying?”
She ignored him and remained fixed on Farrell.
Farrell shrugged. “Yes, Brianne. She seems to know what he truly is and cares for him anyway. I’ve had the feeling Bródy might throw off Sabine for her, but if Sabine ever got wind of that . . .”
He shook his head.
Tris nudged Mari harder this time, and she quickly translated. She was about to press Farrell about the last time he’d seen Brianne when Tris spoke again.
“I need something to drink. Come with me.”
Mari looked at his bowl, and from what she saw, he still hadn’t eaten a bite. So he wouldn’t need something to drink. Still, he got up and walked off toward the food table. Frustrated by the interruption, she stood and followed.
He stopped beside the long table’s near end, looking toward the room’s entrance without touching a mug or pitcher. Mari ducked around to face him.
“What?” she whispered.
It was two breaths before he answered. “We may have been wrong. These deaths may not have been caused by a spirit . . . by someone already dead.”
He sounded almost angry, and his comment took her off guard. But as she thought about it and all that she’d heard, it made some strange sense. But how, if not why? And even if, why would that upset him? Catching a living killer would be less trouble than catching a dead one.
But the victims—or those who’d lived long enough—said something “white” attacked them . . . passed through them.
“How?” she whispered, though no one else could understand them speaking Stravinan.
“I have seen it once before,” he answered just as quietly. “Heil and I were called to a noble manor in Droevinka. Four sons, three had died, leaving only the youngest. All three died of a wasting sickness, and before their deaths, they claimed to have been attacked by a spirit.”
Mari said nothing to this, though she leaned a little to catch sight of Sabine with one eye. She glanced back toward the entrance as well. Still, none of this made sense, for why kill off others who’d had nothing to do with Bródy’s rutting ways?
“All three described the same grotesque image of a bloated ghost with red eyes,” Tris went on.
He stopped, as if reliving this event.
“And?” Mari asked.
“The youngest son had studied herb lore and created a toxin to induce hallucinations. And with that, it took only suggestions to make his victims believe in what they saw. At the same time, he was slowly poisoning them.”
Mari shivered. Tris lived in an ugly world. Her own was no paradise, but most of her struggles involved her own survival. It wasn’t hard for her to see what the youngest brother was after.
“Youngest” really meant “last” in succession.
She didn’t even have to say it.
Tris nodded once to her. “He wanted his father’s title, eventually, and would not likely have risked applying the same method to his own sire. Though Heil and I discovered the truth, there was nothing for me to hunt.”
At this last, he sounded bitter, but she kept thinking on his story—and the events happening at this barracks.
“Yes, but what kind of poison could make someone look as if they’d starved to death so quickly?” she asked. “Where would it come from or how would it be made?”
“Heil would know that, not I.”
Mari pondered this further. She tilted her head to one side. “Such an act would take someone very clever, with great knowledge.”
“Does anyone here strike you as that clever?” he asked.
Mari hesitated. “No, not that I’ve met.”
“People can be deceiving.”
Mari stared up at Tris. Yes, they can—or they think so.
His brow wrinkled. His lips parted and—
The outer door slammed open, startling both of them.
Mari spun about as all soldiers in the room stood suddenly with a racket of scooting stools.
Captain Stàsiuo stood in the entranceway. Without looking back, he came through the door, calling out, “At ease.”
The captain headed to the table nearest the door, still empty and with one chair instead of stools. He dropped there, and a young guardsman hurried toward t
he table.
“I’ll get your dinner, Captain,” that one called.
Tris lowered his gaze to Mari. “Come and sit. I need to speak more with him.”
Mari didn’t move. “He speaks Old Stravinan, so you don’t need me.”
Tris frowned. “What? Why?”
The story about the deadly ruse of the nobleman’s son still lingered for her.
“I need to track something else,” she said. “I want to hear more from Farrell and Orlov.”
His frown deepened. He glanced over toward the table they’d left and back down at her.
What now? Was he feeling protective again?
“Stop it,” she whispered. “Talk with the captain on your own. We can learn more this way than with me following you around.”
She turned away, heading back to where they’d started.
“If we get separated,” he called, “meet me in our quarters.”
Mari didn’t answer, didn’t look back, and grew even more unsettled by the notion of her own prey watching over her.
—
Tris still waited and watched as Mari left to rejoin the three soldiers. He knew he could not stop her and that she could look after herself. And still he watched, even as she settled on a stool again.
Then he walked to the captain.
“My lord?” Stàsiuo rumbled.
With a slow breath, Tris pulled up a stool to sit where he could face the captain and still see Mari.
Stàsiuo was young for a captain, let alone commander of a border garrison. He was a guarded person from what Tris could guess, yet his men appeared loyal to him, even to expressing preference over the deceased colonel.
Had someone orchestrated this change of leadership? Or was some other purpose the goal of these recent deadly events?
“Stàsiuo,” Tris began slowly. “An unusual family name.”
“My friends call me Stasi. You can call me Captain.”
So this man did not care for nobles . . . or perhaps just the Dead’s Man himself.
Tris ignored the slight, turned the other way, and nodded toward where Mari sat with Farrell, Orlov, and Rafferty.