Kai strode into the office just after one, giving Mikael only a cursory glance. He shrugged off his overcoat, tossed it over his chair, and frowned down at the pile on his desk. He had the same flair for the dramatic entry that his father had. Mikael slipped his feet off the chair.
Elisabet gazed at Mikael, a faint line between her arching brows. But she merely nodded to him and assumed her regular post, setting her long rifle by her foot and easing into a resting stance next to the entry door. She would stand there watching until Kai left, or until evening, when one of her Seconds—Peder or Tova—came to relieve her.
Kai glanced up from the pile of folders on his desk and fixed Mikael with a dark stare. “What is this?”
“Don’t complain,” Mikael warned. “You got the smaller stack. I had to fish out the dead mouse.”
That almost got a smile out of Elisabet, but she controlled herself before she let it slip.
Kai regarded him with one raised brow but turned his attention to the folders on his desk. When he moved to sit, Mikael forestalled him. “Have you talked to your father today?”
“I missed him this morning,” Kai answered shortly, his tone verifying that the feud with his father continued.
While Dahar’s temper was mercurial, Kai’s irritable spells lasted weeks at a time. Mikael reminded himself to go down to Below and talk to Jannika later; perhaps she’d discovered the source of Kai’s recent foul mood. “Well, Cerradine’s searchers turned up a body,” Mikael told him. “They want us to come down and look at it.”
Kai fixed him with an annoyed gaze, dark eyes flat. “They want you to come and look at it, Mikael. I didn’t even know Cerradine had searchers out.”
Mikael ignored the faintly accusing tone. This was all part of the battle of wills between Dahar and his son. Dahar had ordered Kai to babysit Mikael, and Kai wasn’t entirely in the wrong for being annoyed with his father. Mikael didn’t actually need Kai’s escort, and Kai had other things to do, especially since he hadn’t come in that morning. “If you’d prefer not to, I can go by myself, but your father told me to wait for you.”
Kai fingered the files, picked one up to peer at it, and then dropped it on his desk. “I’ll go.”
Mikael stepped past Elisabet out to the hall and waved for a runner. A young man in browns—probably one of Eli’s sixteens, judging by his size—started up from where he crouched next to one of the sentries. He listened to Mikael’s instructions and ran off toward the courtyard.
Meanwhile, Kai migrated away from his own desk to Mikael’s, inspecting the labels set into the file folders Mikael had already scanned. “What is all of this?”
“Someone pulled a body from the river yesterday and now the police are hiding it. Cerradine’s sensitive claimed it was the victim from my first dream. The colonel came to have lunch with your father yesterday and wanted to check with me.” Too late, it occurred to Mikael that Kai might take offense; they’d asked him to join them but not Kai.
Kai frowned at the chair next to Mikael’s desk as if he’d just spotted it, and then carried it back over to its usual position by the hearth. “How would she know that?”
Mikael shook his head. “Captain Kassannan spirited her into the morgue to view the body.”
Kai paused on the rug in front of the hearth. His dark brows drew together and his eyes went distant.
A knock on the door was the runner returned to tell them the coach was approaching, so Mikael put on his jacket. He tied his sash around his waist, the uniform jacket bunching under it. At least I can keep up with Kai today, he thought, relieved that he’d had an uninterrupted night’s sleep.
The day had warmed considerably after the frigid morning. Standing in the courtyard behind the palace, Elisabet glanced into the waiting coach and then ushered Kai inside. Mikael entered last, ending up facing backward. Kai and Elisabet shared the other bench, Elisabet holding her rifle awkwardly between them, the butt resting on the coach floor.
She was spooked, Mikael realized. She wouldn’t have brought her rifle with her into this coach otherwise. She’d carried this same one since he first met her, a weapon from one of the eastern foundries, he thought. Decorative etchings on the barrels had been worn down by years of use. The wood of the butt had grayed with age but looked clean. A good weapon, but in the coach it was merely in the way.
With Kai brooding, Mikael resigned himself to a quiet ride. Despite the fact that they both had Deborah as sponsor, he rarely spoke with Elisabet. She was simply too reticent. She pushed the shade aside to peer out at the afternoon traffic. The light flickered across her pale face, highlighting the blond braids that trailed over the shoulders of her black uniform.
He hadn’t been sent to the Lucas Family until he was an adult. He hadn’t actually needed a sponsor when he’d arrived, but Deborah had volunteered to watch over him anyway. Elisabet, on the other hand, had to have been adopted into the Lucas Family at an early age, although close to eight, since she’d been given a widow as a sponsor. Most childern adopted into the Six Families were placed within a family so they would have two parents to look after them, but as soon as they became eights, they went to live in their yeargroup quarters. Elisabet wouldn’t need a sponsor as much then; thus they’d given her to Deborah, a single adult, to watch over.
As if sensing he thought of her, Elisabet turned her light eyes on Mikael, her face unreadable in the gloom of the coach.
They rolled to a stop in front of the army’s administrative offices. Elisabet handed her rifle to Mikael while she stepped down, one hand on her pistol. He passed the rifle down to her when she gestured for it and then followed Kai out of the coach.
The administrative building stood on one side of Army Square. A squad practiced a loading drill on the wide green, and Kai stopped to watch. The Family inherited the army’s old munitions when the government purchased new ones, and the army was more than due. The weapons they used now were years out of date, but steel was expensive, and replacing the army’s weapons every time a new design came along impractical.
Elisabet touched Kai’s back, a silent reminder not to stand on the steps of the building. Kai glanced at her and proceeded up the granite steps into the headquarters building. They walked along the wood-paneled hallways until they reached the first-floor office marked INTELLIGENCE AND INVESTIGATION. Four large desks crowded the anteroom of the office, but only David Aldassa sat there today, scowling down at some paperwork.
Aldassa rose and nodded to Elisabet first. He and Elisabet came from the same yeargroup, a year ahead of Kai and two ahead of Mikael. The members of a yeargroup often stayed in touch, even when they left the Family. With the constant interaction between this office and the Daujom, Aldassa saw Elisabet frequently.
“Good afternoon, David,” she said in her cool voice. “Have you heard from Paal Endiren?”
Aldassa shook his head. “No word. The Andersens haven’t located him.”
Mikael recalled then that Endiren was from the same yeargroup as Elisabet and Aldassa, explaining why the man came up as the first topic of conversation. Mikael knew Lieutenant Endiren only in passing but held out little hope for the man’s return. The lieutenant had evidently pursued a rumor across the border and vanished into Pedraisi territory. Most people who did that never returned. While the other four pentarchies that made up the country of Pedrossa had predominantly peaceful dealings with Larossa, the pentarchy that bordered Andersen Province—simply named the Southwestern Pentarchy—had long had hostile relations with Larossa, fueled by differences over culture and religion.
The Andersens would never be permitted to cross the border to search for Endiren. From her slumped shoulders, Mikael guessed Elisabet knew that.
“Will the colonel have time to see us?” Kai asked, sounding annoyed again. Mikael suspected that had something to do with the easy way Elisabet talked to Aldassa.
“I’ll tell him yo
u’re here.” Aldassa left them for a moment. When he returned, he gestured for them to go on to the colonel’s office.
“Why don’t you wait here with Aldassa?” Kai said.
For a confused second, Mikael thought Kai meant him.
Then he realized Kai had spoken to Elisabet. Her eyes flicked toward Mikael, as if to ask Mikael to keep an eye on Kai. Mikael nodded. He didn’t think there was much threat to Kai there in the colonel’s office anyway.
They left Elisabet behind with Aldassa and walked down the short hallway to the colonel’s office. With no windows, the wood-paneled walls seemed like a stark cage, reinforced by the monochromatic effect of the wooden desk and chairs. The blue of the colonel’s uniform jacket provided a bright spot in the room. He rose and greeted them both with his usual avuncular air, then asked Kai about the king’s well-being.
A map of Larossa hung on one wall, neatly framed. While Kai spoke with the colonel about the king’s dilemma regarding one Anvarrid House or another, Mikael crossed the room to gaze at the map. With a finger, he traced one of the lakes he remembered swimming in as a boy.
The colonel’s voice drummed through Mikael’s reverie. “I may have a prior involvement in this case,” Cerradine admitted, “so Aldassa’s running this investigation. Can you tell us when they’ll strike again? If they’re following a pattern, someone will die tonight.”
Ah, that was a question for him. Mikael had already worked out that since there had been one night between the first two killings, tonight might mean another murder if the killers were on a schedule. Unfortunately, he couldn’t be sure. He often had a headache before one of his dreams, but they sometimes came on very suddenly. He didn’t have one at the moment. “No, sir,” he said. “I can’t answer that.”
Cerradine frowned, glancing over at Kai. “Have you had a chance to catch up on this yet?”
“No, sir, I haven’t,” Kai said. “I’ve been . . . occupied.”
The colonel grabbed his hat from the corner of his desk and gestured for them to precede him out the door of the office. On the way over to the hospital, Cerradine talked with Kai, a hand on his shoulder. Mikael trailed in Elisabet’s silent company. She kept her eyes on Kai but allowed the colonel’s familiarity, a measure of her trust in the man. Although her face didn’t show it, Mikael had the feeling Kai’s earlier interference had annoyed her.
The drilling company of soldiers had left the green, and for the moment there was silence, the sound of carriage horses clopping around the square about the only thing that broke the early afternoon calm. The air had warmed, making Mikael appreciate the fact that he wasn’t wearing a plated coat like Elisabet’s. They crossed the stone-paved road, walked into the side entrance of the hospital, and headed down the steps into the basement.
They reached the morgue in the basement of the hospital and had to wait until Captain Kassannan came trotting down with the keys. He led them back to the large workroom where the body waited. High windows allowed ample light in from the ground level. The tile floors appeared perfectly clean, and the white plastered walls gave a crisp look to the place, but the faint odor of death left no doubt as to the room’s function. Mikael wrinkled his nose at the smell and then did his best to ignore it.
Kai followed Cerradine and Kassannan into the room, but Mikael stopped just inside the door. He dreaded doing this. Kai had an iron stomach and never flinched. Mikael had lived through the death with the victim, though, and that made the experience very personal.
It was always strange, doing this. Cerradine had Kassannan and his orderlies to study the body and make their determinations as to how the man had died. He had his sensitive, who provided him with some other form of information. What Cerradine deigned to tell Mikael about the woman’s conclusions was sometimes strangely detailed, although Cerradine said her impressions were limited by her distance from the palace.
But Mikael was the one who actually touched the dead man’s mind. Sometimes staring down at the body jarred loose memories, not always of the murder. Sometimes it was a simple fact that the victim had wanted remembered. Often it seemed random, as if the mind had simply plucked out a memory and wove it into Mikael’s consciousness. It was his calling to remember all of those things. To know what needed to be avenged. To know what needed to be said.
Kassannan pulled back the sheet. The corpse under it seemed startled to be there, a surprised expression frozen on the young man’s face.
“Stay by the door,” Kai said to Elisabet.
Standing next to her, Mikael caught the brief tightening of Elisabet’s lips but couldn’t tell whether she was offended or relieved. Kai walked around to the other side of the table as the captain folded the sheet down to the man’s waist. He leaned over to read the writing on the man’s chest. Reaching into a pocket, he withdrew a pristine handkerchief and held it up to his nose as he continued to survey the man’s injuries.
“The massacres,” Kai murmured to the colonel, just loud enough for Mikael to hear. “How accurate a replication of those deaths is this?”
“From what I recall,” Cerradine said, “quite accurate.” They stood together for a moment, discussing the investigation in lowered voices.
Mikael decided he had his stomach sufficiently under control and walked over to the table. He looked down at the young man’s face. The dark eyes had clouded over slightly, and his skin, a medium brown, had paled with his death. The young officer couldn’t be more than a year or two older than Mikael himself.
“He had a wife,” Mikael said, interrupting Kai’s quiet voice.
“She’s identified the body.” Cerradine didn’t ask how Mikael knew about the wife. They’d been through this experience before and both knew the pattern of it. “We’re withholding the body for now,” the colonel said. “We’ll need to turn it over soon. The mortuary service wants to go ahead and prepare him for burial.”
“Did she see what they did to him?”
“No. She only saw his face.”
“Good,” Mikael said, recalling the woman’s fragility. He wrapped his arms about his chest. “She shouldn’t see this. It would break her heart.”
“I’ll make certain of it,” Cerradine said.
Mikael gazed down at the body laid out before him. The horrible carvings, the anonymous death—none of it made any sense. He felt warm suddenly and broke into a cold sweat. His breath went shallow as he saw himself lying there dead on the table. He stumbled back and ended up on his knees on the floor. His stomach turned. He retched up his breakfast and then retched again until nothing remained but bile.
Captain Kassannan placed a damp towel on Mikael’s neck, forcing Mikael to sit with his head on his knees. “Just stay put.”
Mikael sat on the chilly tile floor while shudders chased themselves along his body. His skin felt clammy. He breathed slowly, trying to reestablish calm. At least he’d managed not to dirty his uniform this time.
Kassannan came back with another towel, a metal basin, and a cup of water. Mikael rinsed out his mouth and wiped his overwarm face. Kassannan directed him to lay the towel over the mess for the moment and helped him to his feet. Mikael apologized, but Kai merely gave him a level stare. Mikael suspected Kai would like nothing better than never to have to deal with him again.
Cerradine shook his head. “Don’t worry about it, Mikael.”
Stepping back to the table, Mikael did his best to hold himself aloof, trying to see only a corpse in front of him, not his own death. “What do you make of the writing, Colonel? Is the word the same?”
“Did you not find it in your files?”
“Not yet,” Mikael said. “I’m beginning to suspect the Andersens omitted it intentionally. What about everything else?”
“The victims of the original massacres weren’t drugged. They bound them instead. This man was drugged, but not tied.” Cerradine glanced over at Kassannan for confirmation.
“Country, city, I figure.” Kassannan gestured toward the corpse’s unmarked wrist. “In the city, they’d have to be certain not to draw attention. The massacres happened in the country along the river, the homesteads separated by miles. Once they rounded up the members of a household, who would hear them screaming? Look here.” He turned the dead man’s head slightly and pointed out a spot on the neck.
Mikael glanced at it. “What kind of drug is it?”
“We don’t know. No idea about the symptoms.”
Mikael turned to surveying the letters painstakingly cut into the skin, completing the marks he’d seen before on his own shoulders. “What did the Andersens think it meant, Colonel?”
Cerradine tapped a finger against his cheek. “I never heard.”
“Willing sacrifice.” Elisabet’s voice startled them. They all turned to look at her where she waited just inside the door. Kai shot her an angry look, as if to reprimand her for speaking.
“What makes you say that?” Cerradine asked.
“That’s what they said. I’m from the border,” she said, volunteering a rare fact about herself.
The border? He’d assumed she came from one of the enclaves in Lucas Province. Mikael was from the Larossan-Pedraisi border himself, but he’d been only nine when the massacres happened. Elisabet would have been an eleven then and might have heard more. But no, she would have come to Lucas years before that, wouldn’t she?
“Did it get about, what had been written on the bodies?” Mikael asked, glancing at her face.
The colonel nodded. “There were reports all over the province. Varying things. I wouldn’t swear to any of them. I was hoping to look at the Daujom’s files soon. If we can match the current inscriptions to the old, then we’ll know for certain what we’re dealing with.”
“We’ll get them to you first thing tomorrow,” Kai promised.
Dreaming Death Page 16