Retribution (Drakenfeld 2)

by Newton, Mark Charan

  ‘My beliefs are not important.’ She then steered us to a central table positioned directly beneath a skylight made of clear glass. Around this thick wooden table were three curved rows of stone benches, much like a theatre, only on a far smaller scale.

  Sulma Tan had brought with her two middle-aged male officials, who were clothed in red silk trousers, black silk jackets with high collars, and long white socks. They lingered by the ledger at the back, ready with a reed pen to make notes as she spoke. Myself, Leana and Sulma Tan gathered around the covered remains of the bishop.

  ‘There’s not much hope for a recovery with this fellow,’ I said, pulling back the cloth.

  One of the men gasped and muttered something incomprehensible as I uncovered the head carefully, before discarding the sack to one side.

  ‘By Astran,’ the other breathed. If these men had come here to study, they were clearly not that familiar with corpses.

  ‘Ah, it is so.’ Sulma Tan clasped the edge of the table. She asked one of the other men behind to run out to retrieve the other limb. In the meantime, we continued stripping back the fragments of cloth, exposing the body piece by bloodied piece.

  ‘You have the stomach for this?’ Sulma Tan asked us, and she was being sincere.

  Leana gave a short laugh and said fiercely, ‘Lady, we have seen worse. I first met Lucan wandering around a field of corpses.’

  That was putting things lightly. Our paths met during the aftermath of a most bloody battle. Her friends and family – and her husband – had been wiped out in the war. In the intensely hot location of a massacre, she had asked me if I needed a worker. I was an excuse for her to leave those horrors behind, to try to forget what could not easily be forgotten.

  Sulma Tan continued to cut away at the final fragments of the bishop’s thick woollen clothing, until his flesh was fully exposed. Leana helped pull away the strips of material and discarded them in a metal bucket underneath the table. Sulma Tan retrieved a small metal tray, containing water and a cloth, and began to ever-so-gently wash away the detritus from the torso. The water soon took on the colour of the blood and dirt.

  Now and then the queen’s second secretary would lean away to avoid the stench, and eventually she ordered one of the note-taking officials to open the room’s windows, allowing in a refreshing salt-tang breeze and the absent-minded chatter from a nearby courtyard.

  The skylight above created harsh shadows, so Sulma Tan asked for three lanterns to be moved in order to see the gruesome details from all angles.

  ‘Most disturbing,’ I muttered, as it became apparent what had happened to the bishop.

  ‘A sick mind was at work here,’ Sulma Tan added.

  The bishop’s body had not just been severed at his shoulders and neck, though that would have been a terrible enough way for him to have been killed. In addition to this, and though it was difficult to make out fully, there were well over a hundred cuts across the various surfaces of his skin, which had long since started to transform in colour to that of a green-tinted bruise.

  There were a couple of skin blisters, too, but it was unlikely that these were related to the method of his murder. I tried to imagine the bishop’s final moments, being slashed repeatedly – though not all that deeply. It was as if he had not been allowed to die straight away. The murderer wanted to inflict pain upon him before concluding the matter brutally.

  Sulma Tan said something quietly in her native tongue, perhaps a prayer – I couldn’t quite discern it – and she shook her head. She turned to one of the officials and asked him to bring in a physician. I noted how she asked for a physician, as if there were more than one – quite unlike the royal palace of Optryx in Detrata, where such individuals were generally rare.

  After Leana placed the head alongside the body, we all stared at the reunited pieces for a little while longer. Sulma Tan asked how we came by the remains, so I told her of our evening escapades and just how we came to find the body so soon.

  ‘I must confess,’ I said, ‘that the bishop seems to have rotted too much for me to glean anything useful from him. This is certainly beyond my level of skill.’

  ‘Yes, the real expertise is on its way.’ Sulma Tan nodded thoughtfully. ‘It has been a long time since I’ve had training in dissecting the human form, especially since my tools tend to be a reed pen and ledger these days.’

  ‘In my experience, it isn’t often one finds such attention to detail in a murder,’ I said. ‘Usually a killing is done quickly – a cut throat in the dark, or a blade to the heart. Murderers want to get away, cover up their crime or flee the scene of the crime. Get the job done quickly in a back alley, if possible, and then get out. But here we have so many lacerations across the skin, not to mention the issue of dismemberment, which on its own would take a lot of time to complete. There was consideration here.’

  ‘A butchering, of sorts,’ she replied.

  ‘A torture,’ Leana added.

  ‘Both,’ I replied, and turned to Sulma Tan. ‘Has anything like this ever happened before in the city, some archaic religious ritual perhaps?’

  ‘Never.’ She looked up and there was a flare of anger, as if I had judged her culture to be primitive. ‘I have never seen anything quite like this. We are a peaceful, cultured city now. Especially in this prefecture. Even before, when we were a more savage culture . . . No, this bears no resemblance to the kinds of ritual killings thankfully consigned to history.’ After a pause, she added, ‘The kinds that all cultures are guilty of perpetrating. Even Detrata, am I correct?’

  ‘I don’t disagree with you on that matter.’ The acts of the Detratan Empire of old were of course well known to me; our families would discuss them as if they were charming fables, conveniently forgetting about the cruelty and bloodshed involved. Within Detrata these events were considered to be acts of glory rather than sin.

  ‘Do you think the killer will have fled the city by now?’ she asked.

  ‘Anything is possible,’ I said, ‘but something does not feel right about this. This feels personal. The bishop must have had an enemy – has he always lived in Kuvash?’

  ‘His whole life, or so I believe, has been spent in the Sorghatan Prefecture.’

  ‘Did he travel much?’ I asked.

  ‘Though I am not familiar with his schedule, I never knew him to leave the city for long periods. He was very committed to his temple and his community.’

  ‘So, if that is the case, presumably whoever committed this atrocity,’ I gestured to the body, ‘whoever had such a grievance with him that they felt they needed to slice and dissect him in such a manner . . . I would say that they, too, must originate from Kuvash. Probably the Sorghatan Prefecture. Which means in turn that they might still be around. Or if they have left, then they may return at some point.’

  ‘They could have hired the skill,’ Leana said. ‘This could have been a torture and assassination carried out for money.’

  ‘True,’ I concluded. ‘It still seems probable that the person responsible for it dwells in the city.’

  Sulma Tan gave a sigh of annoyance. ‘I have far too many things on my mind without having to deal with this. The bishop’s funeral will require organizing and there will be even more legal matters to attend to as a result.’ She paused, cringing at her indelicacies, and gave me a look of embarrassment. ‘You must think me heartless. Please understand that it is not the case. Merely, I have many duties . . .’

  ‘The queen works you hard, I take it?’

  ‘I work hard for the queen.’ She made it perfectly clear this was a point of pride. ‘There is a difference. Both the secretaries do. The other, my senior, will retire before long, which means even more responsibilities fall to me. I have a census to declare in the near future, as well as the monthly games to coordinate . . . You should know that we are a nation of great planning and organization. I have several subordinates who help in establishing how our city – how our nation – is to be run. The queen would not have it any o
ther way, of course. As a secretary, one of my roles is to oversee various strategies and schemes in order to drag our nation from its past into a thriving cultural future, one that we can all be proud of. We have done so at speed. So, it does not take the intelligence of the Sun Chamber to work out that murder like this does our reputation no good, Officer Drakenfeld.’

  There was something about her manner, her sheer determination to take on the weight of her nation and carry it forward that impressed me deeply.

  ‘I’ll do my very best to help you out,’ I replied.

  The physician entered the chamber. He was a slender, jovial man in his forties, who introduced himself as Carlon. Though he had long, greying hair, he also possessed a deeply receding hairline. Wearing a brown shirt with his sleeves rolled up, black trousers and a large leather apron, he carried with him the box containing the bishop’s arm.

  He bounded over towards me. He clutched my forearm and we shook in the Detratan style, before greeting Leana in the same way.

  ‘People of culture, you Detratans,’ he said to me. ‘Good to know.’

  ‘So I keep being told,’ I replied, marvelling at how much my home nation was respected here. Its culture wasn’t something I ever noticed until others pointed it out, as I’d long since understood the follies of bold patriotism in a continent like ours. Every nation was different, yet some possessed a gravitas that went beyond mere lines on a map. ‘Your own people clearly don’t do too badly yourselves – it’s impressive to know that studies of the body are taken so seriously here.’

  ‘We try, we try. And you’re the Sun Chamber officer, right? We don’t get many of you out here. I hope the corpse doesn’t put you off Koton!’

  ‘I tend to see them all over Vispasia.’

  ‘Does death follow you, or do you follow death?’

  ‘A little of both.’

  ‘Well, while we’re on that then . . .’ He placed the box on the table with the reverence of a priest making an offering at an altar. ‘We’re just missing the other arm otherwise we’d have a full set!’ he took a moment to glance over the body and head, crouching down low to get a better look. For a moment it looked as if he was actually sniffing it, and I wondered if this was some new form of science. ‘This is definitely the bishop?’ he asked.

  Sulma Tan nodded.

  ‘Fine,’ Carlon said. ‘How long since he’s been missing?’

  ‘Twenty days, give or take,’ she replied.

  ‘Yes, I’d agree he’s been dead more or less that long, judging by his colour. Hard to tell precisely. Decay tends to vary so.’ Carlon repositioned the arm on the bench where it would have naturally joined, then placed the head above the severed neck. He began to give his analysis aloud, as he moved around the body with some spirit and excitement. Occasionally he would try to moderate his behaviour out of respect, remembering that he was dealing with the dead. First he pointed out the obvious wounds that we all had seen, but then after a good while of careful examination, he made some more astute conclusions: that the tongue had indeed been removed; one leg had been broken; both of the eyes had been stabbed; and that there were also deep puncture wounds along with the cuts, as if from a very thin blade. Carlon said, with great authority, that judging by the coloration of the bishop’s veins and arteries, the man was of mild temperament right up until the moment of his death. He added that such knowledge of moods during the process of death was a theory he had only recently begun to teach, and I confess to not entirely following his line of reasoning.

  ‘A very thorough job, whoever did this,’ he concluded. ‘They probably wanted to make sure the man was very much dead, eh? These religious types might know something the rest of us don’t about coming back from the dead.’ He chuckled at his own joke.

  ‘Have you any experience of this kind of incident before?’ It was the same question I had put to Sulma Tan. ‘Something you’ve seen in the past or on your travels?’

  ‘Oh I’ve seen plenty of people chopped into pieces. Cuts here and there. Severed limbs aplenty! But nothing quite with this . . . consideration. Many, many cuts – a slow way to die. It’s a barbaric masterpiece.’

  ‘Was he tortured or dead before they did this?’ Leana asked. ‘That could say a lot about the murderer.’

  ‘A fine point, which I was just about to raise,’ the physician replied. ‘Torture . . . execution. I can see signs of something around the neck – perhaps rope? – but nothing to suggest restraints around the legs and arms. Though when you’ve a broken leg you’re not exactly going to be running very far, and you’d have little need to restrain him. The cuts, well . . . they could indeed come from a thin blade. So we could say that the murderer merely wanted to ensure that the bishop experienced pain. Also, the numerous puncture wounds in non-vital locations seem to support such a view – though that said, they each appear deep to me. Torture, yes. But you don’t often torture people for the sake of it. Information is usually required, yet how can a cut tongue speak? Such an act has so little use. Perhaps information was not needed this time.

  ‘So I would say – and the corpse isn’t doing us any favours here, being so long gone – that whoever did this wanted to cause an excruciating amount of agony for the bishop. This may be stating the obvious, yes, but the murderer wished to cause a slow and painful death, but most importantly that it be one the bishop would have been all too aware of. He would have been conscious up until the last moment, most likely. That says a lot. Yet as I theorize, his mood was quite calm even in those last moments – which gives us something to be grateful for, yes.’

  None of us could really speak at that point. We just stood there, dumbstruck by the seriousness of the injuries.

  ‘As I suggest, he’s too far gone for a more rigorous analysis, I’m afraid,’ Carlon continued, wiping his hands on his apron, ‘so you’ll have to make do with my vagaries for now. Probably could have worked out the same conclusions yourselves.’

  ‘Carlon, you’ve been immensely helpful,’ I said. ‘That gives us much to ponder.’

  ‘Pleasure!’ Carlon replied cheerfully, as if I’d made his day. ‘If you find another corpse, just make sure it’s a little fresher, eh? You’ll find I’ll be much more use with something decent to work with.’

  He took off his apron and said goodbye to Sulma Tan with a fatherly kiss on her cheek. There was a history between these two, perhaps that of mentor and apprentice.

  There was very little point in examining the bishop’s body further, yet I insisted we try, just in case something came to light. A junior physician came in to cut open his torso with some more efficient tools, yet there was nothing there, for example, to indicate a weapon or something left inside him. Carlon had been correct when he said the bishop was too far gone to really tell us anything, and it was really my own stubbornness that was getting the better of me. No doubt Leana would remind me of that later, judging by the looks she gave.

  It couldn’t have been more than an hour later when a young messenger came into the room and whispered into Sulma Tan’s ear. All the time he was speaking she glanced towards me with that neutral expression which was so difficult to read. The one that was assessing me.

  When he finished she nodded and said to him in Kotonese, ‘We will be there shortly.’

  The messenger bowed and left.

  Sulma Tan regarded me with consideration. ‘Queen Dokuz has requested an audience with both of you. You and Leana.’

  ‘Oh,’ I replied.

  ‘I suppose we had better wash our hands first,’ Leana muttered.

  Queen Dokuz Sorghatan

  During my decade as a member of the Sun Chamber, I had set foot in only three royal courts – or the localized equivalent. My formative years, in a very junior position, were largely spent in some of the vilest holes of the continent, or some of the dullest. Any orders back then were usually to copy out papers into a coded or foreign language, or to head out to investigate the dregs of society: lowly thieves, pickpockets and petty criminals
who were deemed above the remit of more experienced officers.

  As my reputation grew over the years – or, as I suspected, I simply became more trusted – I was awarded the honour of access to higher levels of society. During my time in Venyn City I had worked with representatives of Prince Bassim and been permitted to stroll through his opulent halls. Also, I had been in the presence of the Queen of Dalta, who surrounded herself with so much gold and lived in a place with such intense sunlight that, at times, I had to shade my eyes as she addressed me.

  Every one of these courts was unique in its own way. Not so much the design, though that was certainly true, but more for the atmosphere – and it was the atmosphere that I was most interested in. In the expressions of those gathered at the court, a learned woman or man could read the state of the nation. From concern at local political upheaval, to jubilance at the growth of trade, everything was on display in the faces of those gathered there.

  Rumours were always more interesting than facts in places like this, and I had never seen any of the truly scandalous events reported by my peers. Some told of executions in front of one king, drunken orgies in the presence of others, many forms of debauchery that only the rich could afford to enjoy with impunity. I occasionally wondered if they ever happened, or if the stories that came from such lives would always be more interesting than truth.

  As we walked through the wood-panelled corridors and rooms towards the palace’s main hall, soldiers stood in line on either side. In the gaps between them I could see incredible statues, busts and paintings, ornaments made of gold and silver. What struck me as unusual was that many of these items were replicas of famous ones I’d seen in collections elsewhere. This was more of a museum than a place to live, though if one lingered no doubt the soldiers would soon usher the viewer outside.

  The central hall was situated under a dome that appeared so large it was almost structurally impossible. Ornate images were painted upon the inside of its curved surface. Remarkably there were tiny windows, which allowed a curious light to fall down directly on the throne below, in the centre of the room. The floor was made up of large, black slate pieces, and only the hundreds of lanterns saved the place from seeming too dour.