Retribution (Drakenfeld 2)

by Newton, Mark Charan

  ‘It is just as likely,’ Sulma Tan speculated, ‘that Detratan spies might have put Lydia and Grendor up to corrupting the throne somehow. But you might know more about that than I do.’

  ‘Let us leave a coup as a potential theory, but one with little evidence.’

  Nothing about this sat right in my mind. What’s more, the lack of clear purpose or motive behind the killings was becoming increasingly frustrating – not that I would ever show this to Sulma Tan.

  ‘One object, at the moment, connects at least two of the victims. So would it perhaps connect the third?’

  ‘Evum,’ Sulma Tan confirmed.

  ‘Lydia Marinus could possess evum at any of her properties, if it is not upon her body. We must organize a systematic search to find out.’

  A clamour came from somewhere outside – the sound of hooves on cobbles, soon followed by voices calling through the long corridors.

  ‘That’ll be the others.’ The guard hastily led us back the way we had come.

  Return of the Guard

  Presently we were confronted by seven men, each one wearing a similar leather breastplate with a scaled leaf pattern, and a long green cloak. They were of mixed ages, but a thickset man in his late forties, with a few scars on his face and two-day-long stubble, came forward demanding to know who we were.

  Sulma Tan stopped him in his tracks and revealed her title, before introducing me as the man investigating the murder of Lydia Marinus.

  He grimaced and looked towards the wall of the corridor. There was a sudden sense of shame about the men and they couldn’t seem to look anywhere but their own feet. One of them made a circular movement around his chest, and then reversed the direction of his hand – a gesture I believe was associated with the two gods Astran and Nastra.

  ‘And,’ Sulma Tan finished, ‘we will require a full account of Lydia’s final movements. You should have been protecting her, should you not?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he sighed loudly. There was nothing but abject failure in his expression. He had failed to protect his mistress. He had failed at his one duty, and he knew it. ‘Yeah, we should have done better. We should have. But we weren’t to know she was heading off, were we? She never goes anywhere without us. Never.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Santhan Brak, formerly Captain of the Horse Guards.’

  ‘How long have you worked for Lydia?’

  ‘Nine years, head of her personal protection for the past two.’

  ‘Tell us what happened then, Santhan.’

  ‘A messenger came bearing a tube from the city,’ he began in a measured and precise manner. ‘Actually, he had three messages. Nothing new there, of course, it happens all the time. Lady Marinus is – was – a busy lady, and she would often be sending letters to various people about business details. This time there was a different message. Don’t know what was in it, but it was different. I remember the occasion very distinctly – as sometimes I’m permitted in her private quarters. When she read the letter, this look came over her face . . .’

  ‘How do you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘She turned white. Had a distant look. For a moment I thought someone in her family had died, but then I realized that she’s got no one left, so it couldn’t have been. Then I thought maybe a business failure, one of the mines had collapsed or something, but it wasn’t that.’

  ‘So what was it?’

  ‘She didn’t tell me. Didn’t tell anyone. When I asked she merely rolled up the message and put it up her sleeve. She maintained a sense of dignity though – made out that there was nothing amiss. Did a lot of that. Hid her feelings.’ Santhan paused for a moment, searching for the right thing to tell me. ‘You know, I served her for all those years and got to see her more than anyone else. There was no family, of course. Despite that, despite my familiarity, sometimes I felt as if I barely knew her.’

  There was no reason to dispute what he was saying. ‘But you have no idea what that message could have been, or where it came from?’

  ‘Well, it came from the city. You see the messenger brought it in a bundle and said he’d come directly from Kuvash.’

  ‘The messenger has gone?’

  ‘Oh yeah, long left. Headed up along the coast with more deliveries to make – chap like that could be gone for days before he returns, not that I’d got his name at the time – they only show their medal of identification.’

  ‘Did he look like the other messengers? There was nothing unusual about him?’

  ‘Seemed fairly standard to me.’

  ‘There’s a good chance Lydia might have brought the message back with her to the city,’ I muttered to Sulma Tan.

  As if reading my thoughts she replied, ‘There wasn’t a note found on her body or anywhere nearby. There were no private possessions at all, come to think of it, merely the clothes that covered her wounds.’

  That was frustrating, but at least the fact of the message’s existence and its origins confirmed to me that the killers were still operating in Kuvash. They had not fled. That led to the speculation of how many more people would end up being killed before we found the persons responsible.

  ‘Precisely when was the last time you saw Lydia?’

  ‘Lady Marinus?’ Santhan puffed up his cheeks and let out a long sigh. His fellow soldiers remained rigid by his side. ‘Two days ago,’ he said at last. ‘In the morning.’

  ‘It took you this long to get here,’ Sulma Tan commented. ‘And you were her protection?’

  Santhan shot her an angry glare and snapped, ‘I’ll not take comments on soldiering from a woman, especially one who sits behind a desk all day.’

  Sulma Tan curled up her lips and leant into him, uttering the words quietly. ‘This woman would have placed a report on your performance into the hands of the queen. That woman would, if she thought it appropriate, have you and your men executed for betraying a good friend, or whatever reason took her fancy. So keep your tongue firmly in your head, before you lose the latter.’

  Though his expression was full of anger, Santhan lowered his head. ‘Aye, lady. I forget my station.’

  Sulma Tan remained impassive and for a moment nobody spoke, as if waiting for the tension to drift out of the open doors.

  It struck me how Sulma Tan did not get visibly angry about such things – but spoke in a cool, if somewhat vicious manner in reply. But there was the slip of the tongue: whatever reason took her fancy could get a person executed. It reaffirmed the suspicion I had had since I’d arrived in Koton. That the queen possibly ruled in some royal dictatorship, without any real assistance from a council or senate, without any accountability to her people. If there was a political coup in the making, it was easy to see where the motivation lay. Royals were meant to rule along with democratically elected officials in exchange for the benefits of trade from being in the Vispasian Royal Union. It was a two-hundred-year-old agreement that did not appear to be fulfilled. I would remember to mention this in a report to the Sun Chamber later on. And, in the event that some of my messages were being read, I would write that information in code.

  ‘It was two mornings ago,’ I said, bringing the conversation back on track. ‘How did she leave you if she normally has you by her side all the time?’

  ‘She asked me to bring our horses around the front and to wait for her in the dining room, before she headed to her private baths. That is the one moment of the day where she remains alone. She has no bath attendants, nothing like that. I think she liked the privacy – it was just her and the water.’

  ‘What was she like at that time?’

  ‘There were no more signs that she was disturbed by the message, if that’s what you mean. As I say, she has a good face for hiding her feelings. Lady in her position needs to be like that. So she carried on as normal.’

  ‘And you were . . . ?’

  ‘Waiting in the dining room. The opposite side to her house to where I’d taken the horses. Time passes and one of the other lads came to as
k me why she’s taking so long. We head to the bath where there’s no noise, no splashes. Eventually we go inside and find it empty. Search the whole house. In the end there’s nothing to be found and when Varn here,’ he nodded to a short but muscular individual, ‘took a look out front, we saw that her horse had gone. Couldn’t even see her in the surrounding hills.’

  ‘What was your next course of action?’ Sulma Tan asked, in a much more friendly tone than before.

  ‘I sent a few men in different directions, leaving one back just in case she returned. It was clear she’d taken the horse to go somewhere, so there seemed no point in looking around the house. Hours later and we’d seen nothing. We gave it another night, waiting for her to return, and waited for patrols to get back and then we got word from the city about what had happened. So we set out last night to get here as quick as we could. There the story ends.’

  ‘Has she ever left you alone before, for any length of time?’ I asked.

  ‘Never. Absolutely not. I wouldn’t say she was paranoid, but she paid us for protection and safety.’

  ‘Had you ever had any trouble previously?’

  ‘No more than what you’d expect in the world of business. If things got heated then we were there to calm things down, a lady who lives alone like that, and who has so much to lose, needs a few spare hands if things get rough.’

  ‘She deliberately left you because she didn’t want you to follow,’ I concluded. ‘For the first time in her life, she went somewhere without telling you. All of this came immediately after a message arrived from the city, a message she brought with her and which was presumably taken from her during her murder. Whatever was in that message would reveal, of course, what we’re dealing with, but that’s not available to us.’

  ‘Could it be a business rival?’ Santhan asked.

  ‘Were there really any serious rivals to someone of such power?’ I asked in return. ‘You should know.’

  ‘Guess not. But maybe there were those who wanted what she had.’

  ‘Again, were you aware of any?’

  He shrugged and shook his head.

  ‘Besides, the killer has not taken anything . . . No. All they’ve taken is her life and that’s probably all they wanted.’

  ‘You have a theory forming, am I correct?’ Sulma Tan said.

  ‘Not really. For a while now I’ve believed the past to be behind the deaths of Bishop Tahn Valin and Grendor of the Cape. And Lydia’s death also leads me along this same road. A message that came out of the blue, enticing her to the city. Something from the past. A secret that she wanted no one to know about . . . These three people were killed the same way for a reason. Somehow, by looking at these three lives, we’ll find out what has connected them all.’

  Santhan was listening eagerly and clearly wanted to know what to do. His mistress was the one who gave the orders, and now there were none. He rested a hand on the wall and looked at me expectantly.

  ‘Santhan,’ I said, ‘you will lead us to Lydia’s country residence tomorrow evening, after the games. Along the way you will tell me absolutely everything you know about her life. You may know more than anyone. What you say may help me to discover a vicious killer.’

  ‘Aye, sir.’

  ‘Good. We’ll meet you here. Don’t stray too far in case we need you.’

  With that, Santhan took his men back through the corridor and outside, leaving Sulma Tan and me to linger in the calm of the house. We moved to one of the lighter rooms, overlooking the gardens towards the front.

  As my gaze drifted across the herbs there, I reflected on the direction of the case. Sulma Tan, too, remained quiet – though she couldn’t hide the fact that she was unsettled.

  ‘Have recent developments given you reason for concern?’ I asked.

  ‘He was right.’ She gave a deep breath and tilted back her head.

  ‘Who, Santhan?’

  ‘He said I spend too much time behind a desk.’

  ‘I must confess, it is not the life for me. As much as my life has its problems, I love being among people out in the world. Seeing different landscapes.’

  ‘I envy you,’ she said. ‘Seeing so much of the world the way you do.’

  ‘The other option always seems more attractive,’ I replied.

  ‘No. I genuinely envy you.’

  ‘There are always opportunities to come and work in the Sun Chamber,’ I said. ‘I’m sure they’d welcome your ferocious intelligence.’

  ‘I don’t know if that is the life for me. My place is here with my queen.’

  ‘I must confess, I’m deeply glad to have such intelligence to hand. We’re going to need both our minds if we’re going to solve these crimes.’

  Catching Up

  Allius Golt was waiting for me on the street corner by the front gate of the palace compound. He was standing there in somewhat more ceremonial garb – a fine, dark-leather breastplate and highly polished boots glinting in the afternoon sunlight. He stood a little taller and looked into the distance, as if I was his commanding officer.

  I introduced him to Sulma Tan and she explained how she could permit him access inside the palace – or wherever he was required to work. After we went inside and the guards searched him, we saw to it that he was issued with passwords for the next three days, for morning and night, which he silently mouthed a few times until they were committed to his memory.

  We walked the long corridors and were granted access to increasingly off-limits sections of the palace, until eventually we reached our quarters. There, Allius turned his back to the wall and took his position on duty.

  Inside, Leana and Nambu had returned from their interview with Grendor’s friends. They were currently working through yet another set of sword techniques, though this had been of a gentler and more instructive nature. They both turned to face us on our arrival, and we sat down to exchange information.

  First I mentioned Allius Golt, the man on the door, telling them of the reason for extra protection.

  Leana was quick to understand the need for more help, which was a relief. It was important she understood that I was not questioning her abilities. One of Leana’s admirable qualities was that, despite her competitiveness, despite her desire to be better at fighting or learning fluent Detratan, she would never think of her own pride first.

  ‘How did it go with Grendor’s friends?’ I asked.

  ‘Spirits save me, at first they would not speak to me.’

  ‘Why was that?’ Sulma Tan asked.

  ‘Because of the colour of my skin,’ came the nonchalant reply.

  ‘Oh.’ Sulma Tan looked embarrassed.

  ‘It is not your fault.’ Leana shrugged. ‘I am used to this. I am merely thankful that I am not as pale as northern people. They suffer so badly under the sun. Not even the slave dealers will trade them.’

  ‘That may be so,’ Sulma Tan said, ‘but in this prefecture we pride ourselves on being a welcoming people. We believe in the latest thinking, in dignity and politeness, and not hostility. The queen once wrote a pamphlet demanding that a certain level of decorum be shown to visitors.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Leana said, ‘the people we saw have yet to read it. But eventually from these men I managed to discover . . . very little. We met up with three of them individually, and another two who were brothers that shared a house. Each of them reacted similarly, apart from the two brothers. They were very odd – to the extent that I thought they might have been lovers as well as brothers.’

  Nambu’s reaction clearly demonstrated that her mind was revisiting her disgust.

  ‘But when I presented the queen’s seal,’ Leana said, ‘each of them more or less cowered into the corner of the room and was only too willing to give any information, what little use it was.’

  ‘I rather enjoyed it,’ Nambu added with a grin.

  ‘Seeing them individually helped verify their accounts,’ Leana continued. ‘They all said exactly the same thing, though I did not think they had reh
earsed it. According to them there was nothing strange about his behaviour. He had spoken warmly of future events – both the next day and the following years. He was in good spirits, joking and laughing. He left alone, having consumed only a small amount of wine – because he never liked returning drunk to his wife. There is nothing here of use.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that,’ I replied. ‘Someone who does not expect trouble, someone who shows no signs of worry, is either a very good actor, or they genuinely have no reason to feel worried. Grendor was currently living a happy life. This, again, suggests to me that the reason for his murder was because of something that happened in the past.’

  ‘We assume much.’ Sulma Tan sounded mildly annoyed.

  ‘That is the nature of our work,’ I replied. ‘The facts do not present themselves easily. Patterns must be observed. Similarities established. Even the differences could tell us something. We have three victims of a similar age, all killed within the prefecture, all having been murdered in a way that suggests a kind of brutal revenge. Grendor had nothing to worry about in his current life. Lydia Marinus receives a letter, which she shares with no one and which forces her to act out of character. All the victims have been on display in public, in one way or another. And they are all linked.’

  At that moment I discussed the connection with Grendor’s Naval Exports, with Lydia’s mining operations, and the evum that potentially connected them all. I lifted out the bishop’s ring again. ‘This is something to do with the murders. It connects all three victims in some way.’ I stepped over to Sulma Tan and finished softly: ‘So do not despair. We have some direction.’

  The Census

  An uneventful evening passed, bringing a much-needed period of deep rest and regeneration of the soul. Even my dreams were peaceful, visions of sipping wine under the shade of an olive tree, with not a soul for miles.

  It was Allius Golt who eventually summoned me back to the land of the living, by knocking harshly on the door.