Nothing but Tombs

by Tim Stead

Quinifa took it. “I can live by that,” he said.

  They walked on in silence. Now she just had to hope that there were no southerners watching the road.

  20 Dardanel

  The south tower was the steward’s. It was an unusual arrangement, but it had served both Callan Henn and King Skal in the past. It was a narrow tower, and the stair that ran all the way to the roof had only one door off it. That door led to Dardanel’s bed chamber. Within that chamber a spiral stair led upwards to another room. This was the steward’s workshop. The workshop door was the sort of door that kept people out.

  Dardanel stood next to a long table. On the table lay the body of Lord Umber. All the lord’s clothes had been removed and Dardanel was probing carefully in the dead man’s mouth with a long stick.

  “Anything?”

  The steward froze. He had trained himself long ago to react to shock in this way. His hands were so often in the middle of some delicate operation that a sudden jerk could mean catastrophe. He recognised the voice. It was Lord Henn. He allowed himself to breathe out and removed his probe.

  “Only the obvious,” he replied. “Did you lock the door below?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “He was stabbed,” Dardanel said. “But if I were a gambling man, I’d say he was drugged first.”

  “Because there was no sign of a struggle, from any of them?”

  “Correct.”

  “Have you identified the poison?”

  “No. Hence the gambling remark, though I am inclined to believe it was a gas – just enough to make them sleep through anything.”

  “But the door was bolted. The shutters were closed.”

  “Yes.” Dardanel began an examination of the nose, holding a candle stub as close as he dared and peering in. “Did you smell the clothes?”

  Callan closed his eyes. “Like camphor,” he said. “The whole room smelt of it.”

  “Yes, like camphor, but sharper, and burned.”

  “That’s right. What was it?”

  “I have to do tests, if I can find enough residue. I think it was white ivy root. They powder it and make it into incense. It would have the desired effect.”

  “They?”

  “Duranders. This killing was done by an Abadonist, obviously.” He watched Callan’s face change. There was almost no way you defend against somebody who could step into a locked room while you slept.

  “What can we do?” Callan asked.

  Dardanel was Telan. He’d grown up knowing a lot about Duranders, his people’s traditional enemy. There had been peace since the Great War, a peace brokered by Narak and Skal but, like most Telans, Dardanel had never abandoned his distrust of their mage-kind neighbours.

  “The killings required the poison. That suggests one person did it, so tell them to sleep with the windows open. Or you could move them all. The Abadonist would need to have seen the room he wants to step into, so moving them to the cellars might work, but you don’t know how much of High Stone the assassin has seen.”

  “They won’t like open windows,” Callan said.

  “Then they can die. Look, it works like this. They have a thing called a far kettle. It has a spout. The Abadonist makes a small window into the space they want to poison and burns the incense in the kettle, putting the spout through the hole. That’s why they don’t get affected by the drug. If there’s a breeze in the victim’s room the poison will be diluted to the extent that it doesn’t work.”

  “I suppose we could post guards under the windows. I’ll have to tell them.”

  “I know. But if you tell them the Abadonist will know.”

  “You think he’s here, in High Stone?”

  “He knows too much about the place to think otherwise.”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not.”

  Callan looked at the body, but he didn’t seem to be seeing it. Dardanel guessed that he was thinking. He considered his employer to be bright in a slow sort of way, but nothing like King Skal, who had trained him. Nevertheless, he liked Callan Henn. If the man had a fault it was that he trusted too readily. He had even been foolish enough to marry a Durander, albeit a talentless one. That one detail made Dardanel cautious when dealing with his master, and he was little better than frosty when he was forced to speak to his mistress.

  “You will do more tests?” Callan asked.

  “I will be finished by this evening.”

  “Then I will tell the lords what has happened, what we suspect and suggest that they take precautions. It would help if we knew the motive behind the attack. I cannot see how a Durander would benefit from helping Alwain.”

  Privately, Dardanel thought there might be another motive behind this – something more personal. He just couldn’t say what it might be. Callan went on.

  “I will try to discover if anyone has been in all the rooms, or at least in Lord Umber’s chamber. Whatever happens we must make it difficult for the killer to repeat their success. We can search for the far kettle.”

  “Remember,” Dardanel warned him. “Durander mages always have two skills. You don’t know what you’re dealing with.”

  “I will be careful,” Callan said.

  He left. Dardanel waited until he heard the door close and lock in the room below. There was so much to consider, so many hints and clues. Why attack the northern lords here in High Stone? Why do it at all? The armies were away, riding south with all speed and the death of their lords would be unlikely to change that.

  He picked up a sharp knife and ran it down Lord Umber’s wrist, cutting into the flesh. He scraped out a sample of congealed blood. If White Ivy root was the culprit there should still be a trace here. He added a measure of chalk salt to the blood and mashed them together. He placed the mixture on a metal plate over a candle and waited. If the essence of the root was in the blood the white crystals would turn green.

  While he waited, he examined the stab wound again. It had been made by a long, thin blade – almost a spike. A single blow had done the damage, the point driven through the heart. Perhaps he was wrong. It almost seemed that there was no passion in this at all. The killings had been efficient, almost mechanical. He tried to picture the scene. The assassin would have come through their Abadonist’s door with a lamp, perhaps. He would have gone to the bed, placed the blade over Lord Umber’s heart and thrust downwards. Then, with hardly a pause, round to the other side and the same on Lady Umber. After that, the children. He found it difficult to understand how a man could coolly execute sleeping children. The why was easy. The intent was to wipe out the line.

  Dardanel looked back at the metal dish.

  Green.

  So he had been right about that. Tonight he would sleep upstairs in the workshop. The only other men who had been there were Callan and King Skal. It was probably the safest place in the castle.

  21 The King

  The guards outside Degoran’s chamber wisely stepped aside as Narak strode past. He threw the doors open and found the King lying on his bed surrounded by physicians, but even as he entered Narak could hear the King’s protests. He pushed the clucking men aside and sat on the foot of Degoran’s bed.

  “King Degoran, how do you fare?”

  The king was sitting propped against pillows. He looked pale, his lips bloodless and white, but his eyes looked clear enough.

  “Narak, thank the gods. I am better now. It was no more than a turn, a flash fever, but I am better now.”

  Narak raised an eyebrow. “Really? You look like a corpse.”

  The king smiled. “Better than I was.”

  “Who is chief amongst these crows?” Narak asked, waving at the cowed gathering of physicians.

  “Tortigan is my private physician. These others are his apprentices.”

  Narak studied the doctors. One of them was better dressed than the others and older by a couple of decades. “You are Tortigan?”

  “I am, Deus,” the man replied with a dignified bow.

  “What is the king’s ailment, Tort
igan?”

  “I suspect a natural poison in the food he ate, Deus. There was vomiting, and stomach pains, and shortness of breath.”

  “His food was not tasted?”

  “It was, Deus, but the taster ate only a mouthful and the king has a healthy appetite. An intended poisoning would have affected the taster. I have theorised that the amount in the food was not fatal, and therefore not intentionally introduced.”

  It was a rational enough explanation, but there was no evidence to support it.

  “How long ago did you eat?” He asked the king.

  “Two hours, perhaps a little more.”

  “And the bowls and food are long gone, I assume?”

  Degoran shrugged. “As far as I know.”

  “Indeed,” Tortigan said. “We sent down to the kitchens and found the bowls cleaned and the scraps eaten by the kitchen boys.”

  “And they, too, suffered no ill effects?”

  “None that we could detect, Deus, but the amount was small again, and so would not have affected them. But we have preserved the vomitus.”

  Narak had his doubts. Kitchen boys tended to be small, and the king was a well built, tall man. His own study of poisons had demonstrated a clear link between dose and size.

  “Perhaps later,” Narak said. He had no particular desire to paw through the king’s vomit. “What did you do after you ate?”

  “I spend an hour on the terrace, as is my custom, and then I studied papers of state until the sickness took me.”

  “Did you eat or drink anything?”

  “No.”

  “And on the terrace, you used your bow?”

  “I did, and I have to say I shot rather well today.”

  Narak smiled. Now he understood. Degoran had the habit, as many archers do, of touching the feathers of the fletching with his tongue before shooting.

  “Show me your tongue,” he said.

  The king stuck out his tongue, and sure enough, there was a faint discolouration there just above the tip. Narak pulled out a small knife.

  “Stay still,” he said.

  The king shut his mouth. “What are you going to do?” he asked.

  “There is something on your tongue,” he said. “I want to scrape a little off, see if it has a scent.”

  “Then be careful,” Degoran said. “I’m fond of my tongue. I use it for all sorts of things.” He stuck it out again and closed his eyes.

  Narak leaned forwards and carefully scraped the edge of the blade across the tongue, an action similar to shaving. He put the knife under his nose and inhaled.

  “Well?” the king leaned forwards.

  Narak offered the blade to Tortigan and the old man took it and sniffed. “I smell nothing. Perhaps a hint of spice, but nothing I can identify.”

  “Fortunately, my sense of smell is somewhat more acute,” Narak said. “Guard?”

  A man stepped forwards.

  “Run and fetch the king’s bow and all his arrows.”

  The man glanced at Degoran, the king nodded once and the guard departed at a run. If Narak was right, and he was almost certain that he was, he had uncovered the plot that the boy Bard Enric had set in motion. Mariet Unsella had said that it had to do with arrows, but not with shooting the king. If the boy had observed the king shooting, and there was every chance that he had in the days before Alwain’s degradation, then he would have seen the king lick the feathers on his arrows. Narak had to admit that it was a clever plan. It had failed because the feathers could not, apparently, hold a fatal dose of the poison selected.

  “May I enquire as to your thoughts, Deus?” Tortigan ventured.

  “Wait for the arrows,” he said.

  But Degoran was quicker. “You think someone poisoned the fletching,” he said.

  “Shall we wait and see?” Narak suggested.

  “Someone will pay for this,” Degoran muttered. Narak guessed that the king was more than usually distressed because his one remaining pleasure had been violated. Narak had banned him from hunting and mostly confined him to the castle until he had swept the city. Archery was his last escape from duty that did not involve eating, and eating was somewhat tainted by the threat of poison.

  The guard returned with a heavy quiver and a bow. Narak took the quiver and drew out a few arrows. He sniffed at the fletching and passed one to Tortigan.

  “Do you smell it now?” he asked.

  The old physician held the feathers gingerly under his nose and sniffed several times. His eyes widened.

  “Tillus!” he said. “It’s made from the shell of the green blister beetle. Just a pinch is enough to kill a man.”

  “The fact that it is a powder saved the king’s life,” Narak said. “They either dusted the arrows with it or made a paste and painted them, but either way, when it was dry, most of it was knocked off in carrying the quiver to and from the terrace.”

  Degoran looked angry. “Does this mean I’ll have to stop shooting?”

  “Nobody can forbid you that pleasure, King Degoran,” Narak said. “But I suggest you keep your weapons here in your room and have the fletchings cleaned before and after you shoot.”

  Degoran nodded, somewhat mollified. “But you will find and punish the people who did this,” he said.

  “I already have the names of the conspirators,” Narak said. “One has fled the city, but the others are still here. I will deal with them according to their degree of guilt. The real danger, however, is the man who poisoned the arrows. I will seek him with some urgency.”

  “Do that, please,” Degoran said.

  Narak left him and went back out into the streets of Golt. The plot had been a clever one. If not for the poor choice of poison it would have succeeded, and that meant Narak would have failed. Now he must question two young girls. It was a task that he did not relish. One of them probably knew enough to warrant an unpleasant death at the hands of the king’s torturers. Degoran was a decent man, but a king couldn’t let such things go unpunished and Narak had already overstepped his bounds with the Whitedale boy.

  He walked to the Veranna house, which was closest. He rapped on the door. While he waited he inspected the front. It was a modest building by Golt standards, its tower rising barely ten feet above the peak of the roof. Veranna was not a great lord.

  The door opened the width of two hands and a woman’s head appeared in the gap.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  “To see Lord Veranna,” he said.

  “He’s out.”

  “And the family?”

  “None of your affair, I’m sure,” the woman said and began to push the door closed. Narak caught it and forced it open. The woman stepped back, fear on her face. “What do you want?” she demanded. “Matty! Matty!” she shouted.

  A middle-aged man bustled out from the back of the house, a wooden club in his hand. He was thick set, but running to fat.

  “I will speak with Lady Veranna,” Narak said.

  “Not without his lordship’s word you won’t,” the man, Matty, said. “Now you leave or I’ll see you off with this.” He waved his club.

  Narak sighed. Technically the man was right. It was improper to call on a noble lady unless you were either known to the family or had the lord’s writ to do so. Narak, however, had always considered himself an exception to the rule.

  “Put that away,” he said. “I am Wolf Narak, and I will speak with Lady Veranna.”

  Matty might be loyal, but he was stupid with it. He took a swing at Narak. It was about as effective as attacking a lion with a feather. Narak caught the club and ripped it from the man’s hands. He snapped it and threw it aside.

  “Now,” he said to the terrified servants. “Must I seek her myself or will you tell her that I wish to speak with her.”

  “She’s not here,” the woman said, cringing back against the wall.

  “Well, why didn’t you say so? Is Ama here?”

  “The child? Why would you want to speak to the child?” />
  “Because the purpose of my visit concerns the child,” Narak said. “Now is she here?”

  “No, she ain’t,” the woman said. But that was a lie. Narak stared at her.

  “I will wait in the receiving room. Go and fetch her,” Narak said. He left them to do what he said and went into the room. It was small, but reminded him a little of his private study in Wolfguard. He hadn’t been back there for fifty years, but in so long a life the memory was still fresh. He must have spent decades in that room reading books, thinking, wondering about his place in the world. There were books here, too, and he idly browsed a shelf of histories while he waited. Most of the books were ones that he already owned, but there was something new on the second war and he picked that out and thumbed the pages.

  A squeak from the door’s hinges told him that he had company, and he turned to find himself facing a terrified sixteen-year-old girl.

  “Ama?”

  She nodded, not able to find her voice. Narak felt sympathy, but he was not here to be kind.

  “I am Wolf Narak,” he said. “I know that you were party to Bard Enric’s plot to kill the king.”

  “It was just talk,” the girl said. “We didn’t do anything. We just talked.” It was true, or she thought it was. Ama had no part in the plan’s execution; that seemed certain. But Narak pressed for more detail.

  “No,” he said. “An attempt has been made on the king’s life in exactly the manner that you and your friends devised. Did you speak to anyone about it? Was anyone else involved?”

  “It was Bard’s idea,” Ama said. “I thought he was just trying to impress us. Mariet Unsella was there, and Enali Canterissa. Just three girls and Bard. It was just talk.”

  Truth again, and desperation. Sometimes Narak regretted that he engendered so much fear. It was often useful, but recently he had regretted it more often than not.

  “You did not think that Bard would translate his words to deeds?”

  “No. No. To kill the king? Why would he?”

  “Did Bard say who he would use inside the castle?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Try.”

  Ama closed her eyes. “He said he had a friend in the castle, that’s all. Just a friend.”