Beneath Ceaseless Skies #182

by Margaret Ronald

  I helped her up alongside the body, and she bent over the ravaged throat, inspecting the wounds. “How long has he been dead?” I managed.

  “Sister Brontia does her rounds at first bell, and he was fine then. I do mine halfway between second and third, but I’ve been starting a bit early lately to make sure Halliwell is all right. His treatments have gone so poorly that the intervals between have been shrinking. Which is why I...” She hesitated, then shook her head. “Why I immediately assumed it was him. Bane-of-Five-Shouts was drying out when I arrived, so it must have been between first and second bell.”

  “Closer to first, I think,” Mieni murmured, “if he was already drying.” She laid one long red finger on the dead draugar’s forehead, claw pressing against the skin, then withdrew it and watched how the flesh undimpled. “Yes. Much closer to first bell. Where is Sister Brontia?”

  “Having hysterics in the staff room. I gave her a glass, but she wouldn’t take it. I think she’ll rest a bit after she’s panicked herself out.”

  Mieni smiled. “No sympathy for panic, have you?”

  The scarred side of Caliga’s face twisted into a half-smile. “It doesn’t do much good here, no.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Callie panic,” I said. “Something you share with her, Mieni.”

  The two women, old and young, kobold and human, exchanged a look that very firmly put me on the outside.

  “I think I have examined enough of Bane-of-Five-Shouts,” Mieni said at last. “May we see Mr. Halliwell?”

  Sister Caliga led us to the next door down, another of the separate rooms set off from the ward. “The other patients are out in the sunroom. I didn’t think it would be a good idea to keep them in with him.”

  Halliwell looked worse than when I’d seen him—hair lank, closed eyes sunken, the unnatural stillness lending him the air of a corpse. I leaned over him, then drew back with a curse. There were a few brownish streaks by his lips, as if he’d been careless with his napkin, and the collar of his pajamas showed similar blots. “Look,” I said. “Blood.”

  “Indeed.” Mieni climbed up beside him and gently pulled back his lower lip. For a moment I had the urge to snatch her away—if his hunger had extended so far, it could not be safe to draw near his mouth, but Halliwell slept on. She sniffed his breath and recoiled. “Yes. Draugar flesh.”

  “When I came in,” Caliga said, “Sister Brontia was wiping the worst of it away from his mouth. I think she couldn’t bear—”

  “He didn’t do it!” A shrill, angry voice cut through the heavy quiet. I turned to see Sister Brontia in the doorway. “He didn’t! Mr. Swift, please, you have to make them believe—”

  “I’m not sure I can, Sister,” I said. “He’s my friend too, but this—”

  She put her hands over her face. “No. No. No.”

  “Brontia, please!” Caliga snapped.

  “Sór Brontia.” Mieni took her hand, and she jerked away, staring at Mieni as if she were a rabid dog. “Mr. Halliwell will wake, I promise you. In time. But he would not want to see you like this—please, your patience, your serenity. Return these, so that his sleep is undisturbed.”

  I glanced at Caliga, but she was watching Mieni curiously. Brontia nodded and let herself be led away.

  Once we’d gotten her away from Halliwell, she managed to calm down, and we interviewed her in the little half-kitchen the staff used to prepare meals and tea. Caliga brought us cups of the harsh familiar brew as Mieni and I tried to convince Brontia to answer our questions. “He didn’t do it,” she kept whispering. “Mr. Halliwell didn’t. He’s a good man, a good man.”

  I held my tongue at that. Halliwell might be a friend of sorts (friendship takes different meanings after one has served in the divisions), but it was a stretch to call him good.

  Mieni laid her hand over Brontia’s. “I believe you.” I glanced at Mieni, but I’ve never been good at detecting when a kobold lies. Humans are easier in that regard. Brontia looked up, relief and terror chasing across her features. “But you must understand,” Mieni continued, “we need to know what happened, sòr Brontia. Did you begin your rounds at the usual time?”

  She drew a shaky breath. “Yes. First bell exactly—I can hear the chime from this room.”

  “That is good. Yes. And all was well with Bane-of-Five-Shouts?”

  “Yes.” She folded her hands in her lap and addressed them. “I’d given him his treatment at nightfall. He and the other dr—Current-Catches-the-Leg were both fine.”

  “They have damp lung,” Caliga interjected. “Both of them. It doesn’t seem to be getting better, but so long as he can—could breathe, we simply kept an eye on his condition.”

  “Damp lung?” I turned to face her. “But they’re draugar. They practically live in water.”

  “In Poma-mel they do.” She raised her shoulders in a shrug. “You know how strange the afflictions were for humans; it’s no different for other veterans.”

  “I gave Mr. Parker his smoke,” Brontia continued, without looking up, “and then Mr. Halliwell.” She managed a little smile, sad and fond. “He almost never wakes up fully to eat. I gave him his bread and salt—” she nodded to the cupboard “—and he curled up like a little boy. He was smiling in his sleep,” she added, and burst into tears again.

  Caliga gave a little sigh and knelt next to her, offering a handkerchief.

  “And Bane-of-Five-Shouts was alive then? You are sure?” Mieni pressed.

  “Of course I’m sure!” she wailed into the handkerchief.

  Mieni began to speak, paused, then shook her head. “Come, Mr. Swift. There are others who would have noticed Mr. Halliwell getting up.”

  We found Parker in a foul mood, slouched in a chair in the sunroom. “I didn’t see a damn thing,” he told us, not looking up from his paper. A battered metal tank stood beside him, and I remembered seeing it two days prior, under the table. “Didn’t hear a damn thing, either.”

  “You were awake for your smoke, though,” Mieni pointed out. “Could you say when you fell asleep?”

  He shot her a look out of the corner of his eye but shook his head. “Stupid question. Can you tell me when you fell asleep last night? No, of course you can’t, because you fell asleep. It’s part of the damned definition.”

  “Then make a guess,” I said. “Was Halliwell still in his bed when you fell asleep?”

  “Halliwell,” he snorted. “That bastard. He ate my watercolors one night, can you believe that? Got up at second bell, walked up to my bed, and scarfed down the whole set before I could do a damn thing. I hope he choked on the drownie.” He chuckled.

  My temper was already frayed, and Parker’s attitude was not helping. I stood and loomed over him—I am not above using my height and bulk to intimidate. “Answer the question.”

  Parker threw down his newspaper and got to his feet, and I realized that he was not much shorter than me, and certainly broader. “I don’t have to answer you, ‘Swifty.’ I don’t have to make you feel better about your friend. And I sure as hell don’t have to listen to a goblin needling me.”

  I held my ground, but there was an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I’d seen something similar to what was flaring at the back of Parker’s eyes—that need for an excuse to lash out, that hunger. It would come to me in a minute, but right now if I so much as blinked Parker would attack, and might well win.

  Sister Caliga saved me, not for the first time. “Mr. Parker,” she said quietly. “Your smoke.”

  He turned his face away in a snarl, but snatched up the mask and took a deep breath from the battered tank beside it. Almost immediately the belligerent look faded, and he settled in his chair again. “I didn’t see a damn thing,” he repeated sullenly. “Halliwell was asleep when I was awake, and I was awake for a good long while after first bell.”

  I frowned—that didn’t match what Mieni had said about the body—but Mieni seemed satisfied. She hopped up from the ottoman, made a quick bow to Parker
(received with a grunt), and turned away.

  “What’s wrong with him?” I murmured to Caliga as we passed.

  “Usurper’s Fury,” she said. “We keep it in check with a number of calming infusions, including the smoke. But it doesn’t improve his temper.”

  It wouldn’t; the rage-magic that some of the Usurper’s troops had unleashed on us was indiscriminate and nasty. I was amazed he’d made it as far as the City without tearing himself to pieces; perhaps he had reserves of self-control that were not currently in evidence.

  The surviving draugar veteran had made a little nest for herself in the corner farthest from the windows, arranging chairs and ottomans into a circle as if the furniture were a fort to keep her fellow’s fate at bay. Mieni skipped a siege by climbing over the wall and settling in next to her. “Honor flow with you, aiga-morir. My sorrow for your fellow.”

  Current-Catches-the-Leg raised her head, but it was to stare at me, not Mieni. “Swift,” she whispered, the harshness of it like paper drawn over skin. “Swift flow the currents, swift the water through the well. Swift the water in our veins, no more, no more.”

  “My name is Arthur Swift, yes,” I said. “City Inspector. And I, too, offer my condolences.”

  She shrugged, a movement like a small wave on a lake. The smell coming off her was of bog-water, not running water, and the weeds rooted in her hair sagged and stank. “He is my fellow. He fights beside. He is done, and dead, and will be so.”

  “Can you think of any reason—” Her drowned gaze met mine, and I swallowed. “Last night, before you went to bed, was Bane-of-Five-Shouts well?”

  “He was dead,” she said, and my stomach went cold. “He has always been dead,” she went on, and I relaxed a little. Asking timeframe questions of a draugar was more than useless. “I am dead, and so is your fellow who fights beside, and so is the fire-in-flesh.”

  “As am I, I expect,” I muttered.

  Her eyes widened, and she turned her head to one side, considering me. “No,” she said at last.

  “Aiga-morir,” Mieni said, a little irritated that I’d monopolized the conversation, “of currents speak, and the running to the sea. Was this of Bane-of-Five-Shouts’ wish?”

  “Of the running to the sea, yes. As it is mine. In the sea all currents fade.” She stretched, long arms seeming to extend then contract. “Of the feasting, no. None would wish to be the feast. Nor having feasted, would one wish it again.” She smiled, and her teeth were all the same length and shape, square within a curved mouth.

  “We will see how it affects him,” Mieni said, “should he wake. But it was not his wishing, I am certain.” She imitated the stretch, and Current-Catches-the-Leg laughed, a sound like a drain unclogging. “Would currents flow by day and night?”

  “For some,” she whispered in response. “For the hungry, the fire, the ministering.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  Mieni glanced at me. “We know from Mr. Parker that Mr. Halliwell sleepwalked. This is how I can ask who else was awake at first bell: Mr. Parker, and of course the sisters.”

  “We know this already,” I began, but was interrupted by the clatter of a tray beside me.

  Sister Brontia dropped a tray on the ottoman, soup spilling over the side of the bowl. “Broth,” she said shortly, and turned away.

  She really shouldn’t have been still working, I thought; not with such a burden on her mind. I turned back to see Current-Catches-the-Leg gazing after her. “It is hard to bear the hate of another,” she said conversationally.

  Mieni hissed agreement. “I see. Thank you, aiga-morir. May the sea keep your channel clear.”

  I helped Mieni up and over the circle of furniture, only to freeze as a cold hand caught my wrist. Current-Catches-the-Leg stared up at me, that fishbelly face intent. “It is also hard to bear the love of another,” she whispered, and let go.

  I did my best not to rub my wrist as I stepped back, unsure whether that had been some obscure declaration of interest. Draugar were hard enough to understand in battle, when an allusion could mean a plan of attack. Outside of battle, they were damn near opaque.

  Mieni was at the door to the hall, tapping her fingers against her palm. She drew a deep breath, then paused, her nostrils flaring. “I believe, Mr. Swift, that I could use a cup of tea. Will you come with me?”

  I followed her to the little kitchen and poured two cups from the urn balanced above the little coal-fired oven. “Tea isn’t going to help, Mieni. Even if Halliwell didn’t mean to do it—”

  “Meaning is irrelevant right now, Mr. Swift. Unless you mean motive, for which we now have more.”

  “You’re treating this as if it’s a murder, Mieni. But as far as I can see the answer is clear.” I leaned against the counter, elbowing aside the remnants of breakfast: rolls going stale and browning apple slices, forgotten by Brontia in her grief. “It’s like you always said: the simplest explanation is the most likely answer.”

  Mieni cocked her head to one side. “Simplest? Perhaps you will tell me what you consider simplest, then.”

  I sighed. “Halliwell said his recent treatments hadn’t been going well, to the point where he’d gnawed off his own fingernails. So it seems obvious that his treatment deteriorated further, and he—well—he got hungry.”

  Mieni gazed at me for a long moment, then clambered up the cabinet so that she could sit on the counter. “Mr. Swift, someday I would very much like to understand how you think. I know you do think, for all that you profess otherwise. But truly, it is not only bad deduction but bad for your head to confuse simplest with what you fear most.” She began rattling the breakfast trays. “Attend. I would have you take a bite of something.”

  I glanced at the rolls and reached for the closest, a still-whole one flecked with chives. It was smaller but seemed made with more care than the others.

  “Not that.” Mieni’s tone was sharp enough that my hand dropped without my volition. “Here. This will, I think, suffice.”

  She handed me a plain roll, and I took a small bite. “If you’re thinking to compare tooth marks, I don’t think it’ll do much good. After all, Halliwell had blood on his mouth.”

  “I am thinking no such thing. But note: a simple bite in the roll, yes?” She took the roll from me and handed me another, equally stale. “Again, please. After all, you do not eat enough, Mr. Swift, and this will serve a dual purpose of nourishment and explanation.”

  I shrugged and put the roll to my mouth. But no sooner had I bit into it that Mieni leapt up and seized the roll, worrying it back and forth until I’d spat it out. “Mieni, what on earth—”

  “See?” She held up both rolls, one with a clear bite, the other with a ragged wad of half-chewed bread hanging off it. “A bite is not necessarily a bite, Mr. Swift, and even though a draugar may seek an end, even he would struggle. There was no struggle on Bane-of-Five-Shouts; only the plain, neat bites. So clear, so careful, as if he were a roll that had held still until Mr. Halliwell’s hunger faded.”

  I stared. “You mean—”

  “I mean, Mr. Swift, that what is simplest is this: Mr. Halliwell perceived Bane-of-Five-Shouts as dead flesh and therefore food because Bane-of-Five-Shouts was already dead. No horror needed, beyond what is in front of us. Your imagination runs too freely, Mr. Swift.”

  “Halliwell would argue with you there,” I muttered, then paused. “Wait. If he was already dead, then who? Parker might have, if the fury took him—”

  “Indeed. And Current-Catches-the-Leg had reason enough to end her fellow’s suffering. But I think, instead, we must look for a different motive, and a different kind of treatment gone wrong.” She hopped down and propped the door open, then pitched her voice to carry. “Indeed, Mr. Swift, it has been a long morning already. Would you hand me Mr. Halliwell’s bread and salt? I do not think he will be needing it today.”

  Confused, I looked among the plates, but Mieni pointed to the chive-flecked one and made pulling motions. I picke
d up the bread and tore it in half just as Sister Brontia reached the door, stumbling in her haste. She reached out to stop me, then halted, an expression of dread surfacing under her panic.

  “Is there a reason Mr. Swift should not eat that bread, sòr Brontia?” Mieni’s tone could have cut skin. “Some reason that Mr. Halliwell’s bread might not be good for him?”

  I looked down at the torn bread, smelling the herb now—not chives, but something sharper, more vicious. “Hungry grass,” I whispered, and dropped the bread, even though in its dried form it couldn’t hurt me by touch. “You were feeding him—”

  “He would have left,” she whispered, and behind her I could see the rest of the ward, Parker and Current-Catches-the-Leg and Sister Caliga, her hands over her mouth in horror. “He would have left me, and he would have killed himself if that drownie had stayed around to tell him he was dead all the time. He said so. You heard him, Mr. Swift, he said so, he said the place was all right except for them. And I wanted it to be right for him, so he’d be happy.” She picked up the fallen bread, and for a moment I thought she would eat it and consign herself to a similar fate, but instead she clutched it so hard that crumbs began to sift through her fingers. “I never meant for him to look guilty!” she wailed. “I never meant—”

  To my surprise Parker stomped forward and put his arms around Brontia, holding her as gently as one might an injured bird. “Shush,” he said. “Shush, now. You didn’t mean harm to him. I knew you never meant harm to any of us. It’s all right.”

  “It is anything but,” Mieni said, but even she quieted when Parker glowered at her.

  * * *

  The Inspector from the Quarter (Borwitz, not a friend but a good Inspector regardless) arrived at the same time as one of the presiding physicians called in. The former took a quiet Sister Brontia into custody, shaking his head as she tried to confess to him and telling her to wait until she had counsel; the latter went to Halliwell’s bedside and began inspecting him and making copious notes.