‘Are these any use?’ she asked.
By which she meant, presumably, are any of these potentially the red stone I had labelled as evum?
‘This is a good find, Nambu, but sadly none of these seem to be what we’re hoping to find.’
She had a look of determination on her face as she placed the items back in the drawer. There was a wonderful focus to the princess, a desire to be helpful, to be more than a shadow.
Leana called from beside the bed: ‘This might be what we are looking for.’
She was crouching over a tile that she had prised open with her sword, which was now on one side. A small pile of items lay on the other side.
‘What have you got?’ I asked.
‘Personal items. One of which is a ring and, spirits save me, it is very much like the bishop’s . . .’
As she held it up to me, my heart skipped a beat.
The stone was much larger than the bishop’s, and was fixed within a gold four-claw setting that formed the teeth of a serpent. The body of the serpent formed the ring itself. The craftsmanship of the piece was sublime. It was a heavy item, far more so than the bishop’s, which I pulled out of my pocket to compare. Kneeling on the bed, I moved the rings into the direct light of the window. The gemstones possessed the same strange sheen and cloudy colour as each other. There was no doubt in my mind that they were the same material and I asked Leana to verify this for me.
The discovery of this ring could certainly confirm a link between all three murders. Whatever evum was, people were definitely being killed because it was in their property or upon their person. The question lingered as to why Lydia had not taken it with her when she’d left for the city alone.
‘Looks the same,’ Leana said eventually.
‘I think so too. Though Lydia’s shows far greater effort has gone into the design of the ring. I wonder why that is?’
‘The bishop could not afford the same jeweller to do the work?’
‘Yes. But what does that say – Nambu, what do you think?’
I knew the answer but the princess lit up at being brought back into the process. ‘It says that they had to get the stones set themselves.’
‘Absolutely. The bishop opted for a cheaper, more austere rendering – Lydia could afford something notably better. Grendor of the Cape decided to have his set in an amulet instead.’
‘What is the significance of that?’ Leana shrugged.
I did not have a clear answer for that question, but thought that it had something to do with the secrecy of the material. Using different jewellers meant that no single person would become intimate with the material or ask too many questions. Alternatively it could mean that the stones were so rare that a jeweller had given up his business, even passed away, before he had the chance to work on the same stone.
The whole case was frustrating me. We were always one step behind a killing, never really having the opportunity to discover why this was happening. The fact that there were multiple bodies helped and hindered – it was like we were being set a puzzle, deliberately and consciously.
‘Again, this was hidden close to the bed,’ Leana said. ‘I wonder if this is simply a convenient hiding place to hide things within sleeping distance?’
She might have kept it there to make the most of the properties of the material, I wanted to say. To use the stone’s life-affirming powers.
Each time I had to keep myself from confessing these fanciful thoughts. Among us all, only I had experienced the effects of the stone, but people would start to think I was insane for believing this, like some gibbering old hermit who thinks he’s a god.
‘Who can say,’ I replied. ‘No one else has access to her room, so no one else could stumble across it by accident. We should remember that she did not have the problem that the bishop did.’
‘What was that?’ Nambu asked.
‘The bishop did not wear such decorations. It was frowned upon in the temple.’ I gestured to the items that Nambu had found. ‘As you see, Lydia was able to wear jewellery without there being reason to upset any gods – or priests. That makes this doubly curious that she had hidden it. Whereas the bishop had good reason, Lydia – on the surface – did not. Yet she wanted to hide it. She did not wish it to be known.’
‘She was worried about it being seen,’ Leana declared. ‘Maybe that’s the real reason the bishop did not wear it too. Nothing to do with decorations.’
‘I think that might be the case. And let’s not forget that Grendor of the Cape had worn an amulet featuring this gemstone, but he had worn it underneath his shirt. He, too, did not make it public.’ I got off the bed and paced about the room. ‘Let us continue with this theme, then, that the stone was something known only to a few people.’
‘Yet,’ Leana added, ‘precious enough that people kept it nearby at all times. Worn close to their chest, or kept close to where they slept. Yet what I do not understand is why not fashion it to wear in the open? A skilled goldsmith could have made a container for it.’
‘I suppose it’s pretty clear what happens if this ring is known publicly. If it’s the reason they’re all dead, then there’s a very sensible explanation for not wanting it to be known. It seems unlikely that they knew they were going to be killed for wearing it. Which makes me suspect that wearing the stone came with shame and fear.’
‘Were they really murdered simply because they wore a stone?’ Leana asked.
‘Hmm. It’s hardly plausible that they would be butchered for the simple act of wearing it,’ I replied. ‘No. The rings, the stones, they represent something else entirely. There was a connection, certainly. An organization? A corporation? And how far back does it go, because these victims – none of them were young. There’s history here, something that has gone on for a very long time, and all we have to show for it so far are two items of jewellery. But it’s more than we had before. We just need to get to the heart of these stones. Why does no one know about them, other than the victims? Not even the jeweller had seen it before.’
Sighing, I put the rings in my pocket, sat on the edge of the bed and gestured at the scrap of paper that Leana had pulled out from the floor. ‘What does the letter say?’
Though it was unlikely, perhaps there was a chance it was the message that had lured her to the city.
Leana unfolded it and scanned down the page. ‘A love note. She was in a relationship with a woman back in Detrata, someone called Leyanda.’ A pause, her tone changing to one of surprise. ‘The daughter of Senator Chastra. Bitter old man. They speak of hidden desires, the inability to express their true feelings . . . the usual kind of nonsense. How you Detratans have the luxury to worry about such matters.’
Leana handed me the note and I glanced over it briefly. It told us little about the case. It was indeed just a note that Lydia had wanted kept out of anyone’s hands – possibly more for the other woman’s sake than her own. Chastra, as I remembered, was a truly embittered man with a vicious tongue. No doubt he had chosen a suitor for the woman already, another business proposition to further himself in the world.
In the rest of the pile of items that Leana had drawn up, there was nothing else important to the case, at least, not that I could see. A dried flower, a silver chain, a seashell, all of which could have been tokens from Leyanda, memories from a particular day, a treasure to keep close at hand when the sentiments became overwhelming.
While I contemplated the ring further, the search continued.
Now and then one of the guards would bring a box of items for me to sift through – various personal letters, all of which were very businesslike. There were relatively few other trinkets. Usually people of such wealth had no problem in showing it off, yet Lydia clearly was not cut from quite the same cloth as others. Did it mean anything? Was she like a puritanical priest and expecting death at any moment – so did not clutter up her life with trinkets that couldn’t be taken with her into the afterlife?
As the sun dipped towards the hor
izon, it was becoming painfully obvious that we would not find anything to help the case. With each passing hour, my frustrations grew.
That was until Sulma Tan called me into the adjoining study.
The List
We entered a small room by a discreet oak door, which had been painted the same terracotta shade as the walls. It was the kind of entrance one might easily pass without noticing. Next to the door were shelves bearing ornaments and small busts of old Detratan kings, which only added to the reasons not to notice this door.
The room had a remarkable iron-framed window that overlooked one of the kitchen gardens. Even from here I could see it was rich in herbs. Beyond stood a small fountain, and the garden was smothered in several beautiful arrays of rose bushes. The study was wood-panelled in a way that reminded me of a fine room in a monastery rather than a Detratan-styled villa. Evidently this had been added on at a later stage, perhaps to satisfy Lydia’s need for discretion. It was a narrow room, too, no more than eight paces wide with bare floorboards, a desk, various writing implements and four heavy shelves of ledgers.
With an extra air of confidence, Sulma Tan directed me to sit at the desk, and pointed out a piece of paper that glowed warmly in the evening sunlight.
‘What am I looking at?’ I asked.
‘It is a list of names I found within an otherwise empty ledger, written in a very archaic form of the language. What do you think is strange about these names?’
I glanced over the list but was unable to decipher the script. I asked Sulma Tan if she could read it out. ‘Well, the important names on this list are Grendor of the Cape, Bishop Tahn Valin . . . And a little further down, Lydia Marinus. There are four other names though.’
‘Do you know who these people are?’
She scanned the list once again. ‘This couple are bankers, for the most part, but they own an armoury, which the queen uses to supply our own military. I can’t recall their names. The two others, Han and Lunus Saul Kahn . . . I can’t recall their roles . . . But I would think these four people should be very worried for their safety.’
‘I agree. What is the list’s purpose?’
‘I believe it to be a notification of access to . . . just a moment.’ Sulma Tan reached over to one of the nearby shelves to retrieve a map, and laid it out flat across the desk. ‘This is the Kotonese coast and islands. And now things get very interesting. The access list, or perhaps a list of passengers, is for this little island here. Evum. I have never seen it before.’
‘Evum,’ I repeated. ‘So it’s not the stone, but an island?’
‘Yes, yes. Well, according to this anyway, and it lies a hundred miles north-east of our coast. I have just conducted the greatest survey of our nation and its properties – yet I, too, have never heard of it. But it exists. Simply not on any of our maps.’
‘How could it be missed?’ I asked.
‘Also of interest is that Grendor, being a naval officer, conducted cartographical surveys – or arranged for them to be conducted – of the sea and coastline.’
‘And he somehow missed off an island.’ I could not believe what I was hearing. ‘Let me get this quite clear. This list – which we can assume to be a list of victims – involves passengers to the island of Evum, a hitherto unknown place. Evum isn’t the stone – but perhaps the location where the stone was mined.’
Sulma Tan nodded. ‘That was where my thoughts were taking me.’
‘By Polla . . .’ I breathed, and looked back at the list of names. The only script I could understand was the date, which was for a period over two years ago. Was that the last time the journey to Evum had been carried out?
‘What’s this place?’ I pointed to the almost illegible word. ‘Brutahn. I recognize that from your maps, I think.’
Sulma Tan peered over, her eyes narrowing. ‘It is a port town at the mouth of the estuary, the next settlement up from Kuvash. It must be where they sailed from, as it was discreet enough. What do we do now?’
Leaning back in the chair and staring out of the window, I contemplated this question. The sun finally lowered itself over the far hills.
‘We protect the others on the list. We put them on watch – in secrecy, though, since there is a very good chance we can capture the murderers in mid act.’ I looked up at Sulma Tan. ‘Is that possible? To shadow these people but not have anyone know about it?’
Without hesitation she replied, ‘We can do this immediately upon our return.’
‘Presently I would like to look further into the matter of this new island.’
‘Yes, so would I,’ Sulma Tan sighed.
I sent word out to round up as many of those on the premises as possible. After they had gathered in the atrium, I informed them that the search could carry on, but that some of us would be returning to Kuvash immediately.
An hour later we were riding back. Evening light glimmered in hilltop pools that I had not noticed on the way, and now and then we passed through a meadow of flowers emptying their delightful scent into the air. The mild climate and the tang of smoke from burning fires in yurts made for a pleasant journey, one that possessed a calming silence. It enabled me to contemplate what we had found, and I wondered if we were making one too many assumptions.
Sometimes supposition, trying to tease out the correct way of thinking, or in this case attempting to get into the minds of the murderers, was all I had to go on. It was not much, admittedly, and it often went against my more logical, Polla-based instincts.
Why had an entire island been kept off maps by Grendor? The obvious answer was that he did not want anyone finding the place, but what was on the island worth protecting? If this was the precious mineral I had mistakenly called evum, then the group of people on Lydia’s list had been involved with its extraction. That was all well and good, but I still could not link it to the murders. Mining precious stones is not worthy of murder, unless someone else was after it?
But even then, there were more subtle ways to go about it. These murders were violent and very ritualistic incidents. If someone had wanted to take over the island, for example, then the obvious deaths of individuals in Kuvash would attract attention.
No, whatever that mineral was, I did not think it the reason for the murders. It was on Evum that we would find answers, perhaps, and I was determined to go there after we protected the others on the list. However, hours later, as we arrived back in the Sorghatan Prefecture back in Kuvash, it soon became apparent that we were already too late.
Two more people on the list had been found dead.
All Tied Up
Tagg Drennar and his wife Meruwa had been found in the centre of a market square sitting back-to-back on the floor. The husband’s intestines had been wrapped around them both, as if it was a rope that bonded them. Their bodies appeared to sag, their heads lolling to the same side. They were covered in blood from the open torso.
This was the only difference to the other murders. Otherwise the two of them bore the same wounds. Numerous lacerations, which were the probable cause of death, their tongues removed, and knife entries in the eye sockets. As Tagg had been slit horizontally, his skin was peeled back to reveal his glistening innards. This was a unique twist in the series of murders. Was it a new addition to a ritual, or was this a different killer?
A mesmerizing, rapid fluttering of bats came and went with the wind. Soldiers had sealed off the cobbled square, but it had not stopped people from leaning out of their windows to see what was going on. Even at this late hour many a lantern-silhouetted form peered into the gloom. All of those inquisitive faces were asking to be interrogated, so methodically, over the next two hours, I had soldiers from the City watch head round to all the properties in order to take any statements. Every single apartment, every terraced dwelling, every drunk passing by was investigated by the military and asked if they had seen anything. Though I did not speak it out loud, I assumed the people of Koton would be used to such bold intrusion by soldiers, and their compliance in
the matter confirmed this. Given the elusive nature of the crimes so far, I was not optimistic that these interviews would prove successful and as time slid by, when all that came forward were fanciful meanderings of the eccentric, accounts that involved many-limbed monsters and ghosts, it was confirmed.
To add to the eeriness, a soldier made a minor confession, away from his comrades. A slender man with a long nose, his manner was nervous. ‘Funny thing, sir. Only, when we first found the bodies, they were arranged slightly differently. Truth be told we only turned our backs for a minute, like. No more. Two at the most. And in that time . . . well, their heads seemed to droop the other way. And a leg had been bent.’
‘Are you quite sure?’ I said.
‘Aye. I mean, it could have been one of the lads playing a joke with us I guess.’ He nodded as if reassuring himself. ‘That’s likely. But thought you ought to know, being Sun Chamber and all that.’
‘Thanks for telling me.’
He gave me a salute and marched back to his position. A joke, a coincidence, a bad witness – or something more sinister. All of the bodies had, in some way, not remained still. All of them had something to do with evum.
With regards to the murder itself, all we knew was that no one had seen a thing. It was absurd that the killers were able to act in such a way. When I enquired about the routines of the plaza, soldiers simply told me that it was a market square that would have packed up earlier in the evening. A heavy traffic of horses and carts would have been here a while before. One of them suggested it was possible the murderers could have brought the corpses here in a cart, blending in with all the others, and then be the last to leave in the darkness.
Despite her protests to remain, I had asked that Nambu return with Leana so that she could get some sleep. Tomorrow would be another busy day and I was tired myself. I wondered whether or not it was wise to take her along to Evum. Perhaps I was taking liberties in dragging the young girl from place to place, forgetting that she was of royal lineage. I did not want to be accused of treating her poorly, so would dragging her to a potentially dangerous island be wise?
Retribution (Drakenfeld 2) Page 30