“Send a telegram to Dolla,” she called, as the carriage launched into motion.
Bray, now alone with the dead man and the constable of Dalyson, let out a long, shuddering sigh. The events of the last hour had left her utterly drained. She longed to be done with the whole matter.
“I presume this is the man you were seeking?” the constable asked. He crouched on the ground, examining the dead man’s body. “Of what did he perish?”
“Broken neck,” Bray said. She had intended to take the man alive—she’d needed to take him alive, the location of the children he’d abducted still being unknown. Though he had admitted, before she dispatched him, that they were dead. She had done what was necessary to keep her brothers safe. It was not the first time she had killed in the line of duty. She would shed no tears over the incident.
“What led you to conclude he was the culprit?” the constable asked.
She expected this attitude. While the Chisanta were respected and feared by all, no constable enjoyed having his job usurped by an outsider—especially an outsider who also happened to be a young woman. That she was better equipped to do the job—she had spent more years in study, examined more crime scenes—would not matter to this man. That she, as a Chisanta, was not impeded by city, county, or national borders, and was therefore better able to pursue a criminal, would also make little difference to him. His opinion did not concern Bray. If he had any sense at all, he would keep a civil tongue. She would hardly let murderers go free to appease the pride of local law enforcers.
“He matched the description, he fled upon seeing me, he confessed and attacked when he was cornered,” Bray said. “Look around his neck.”
The constable extracted a pouch from beneath the dead man’s shirt. Within he found five locks of hair, varying in shade from dark brown to pale gold.
“Trophies,” Bray said, kneeling beside the constable for a closer inspection. “Looks as though there is still one more missing child not yet reported. You’ll want to check with the local orphanages.”
Bray said this with a heavy heart and spared a disgusted look for the dead man. The abduction of young teens had been a disconcerting trend for the past decade.
“You will need to telegram the constables of Westport, Morse, and Benteen to let them know the murderer has been dealt with…” She stood. “And to notify the foster families. Much comfort may it give them.”
Bray made to rub her tired eyes but halted her hand, remembering in time that her fingers were coated in drying blood.
“I will be back in town if you have any further questions,” she said and moved toward her horse.
“Wait,” the constable called. “You’ll need to explain why he was not apprehended alive.”
“I cornered him, told him to stand down,” Bray recited in a bored voice. “He pulled out a pistol. If I had known he had loaded it before we arrived, I would have handled it differently. But as it was, he pulled the weapon on me. I ordered him to drop the pistol. He said something coarse and fired directly at my chest.”
The constable looked at her for a moment, as if expecting her to suddenly succumb to a bloody chest wound.
“Unfortunately for him, I am not an easy target to hit. But with my brother down and requiring medical attention, I did what needed to be done. If you will excuse me.”
Bray swung atop her horse and adjusted the reins in her hands.
“How did you break his neck?” the constable asked, though he looked as though he didn’t much want to hear the answer.
“The usual way. With my hands.” Bray clicked her tongue and prodded the steed with her heels. She galloped away, leaving the constable staring after her.
Bray rode as fast as she dared up the cobblestone street of Dalyson. It was a city like most others in Daland—it had its fashionable district, lined with clothiers and tea rooms, as well as its seedier areas where the poor lived, usually with more pickpockets than un-empty pockets to pick. Dalyson stretched on, dirty, overcrowded, and stifling. Bray didn’t much like cities. But, given her profession, she spent a great deal of time in them. The more people you crammed into a small space, the more likely they were to start killing each other.
She noticed the open-mouthed stares she attracted from the wealthy bystanders, as they milled aimlessly on the sidewalks. She wondered for a moment why they were out so late at night, then remembered it was Da Un Marcu. A group of young women to her left went so far as to point. Bray was used to this. Her features and figure were too obviously feminine to be mistaken for a man, and a woman with no hair, bedecked in men’s clothing, and riding astride a horse, made for an astonishing sight. Bray wished that the Chisanta as a whole spent more time out in the world, and less at their respective Temples with noses in books. If people saw Chisanta now and again, they might get over their shock at her appearance and mind their own damn business.
Bray entered the inn. It was a good bit rowdier than usual, given the holiday.
“Happy Da Un Marcu.” An inebriated man hiccupped and raised his mug to her. “Have a drink on me.”
She wondered if his nose was always as red as an Adourran sunset, or only when he drank.
“I thank you,” she said, inclining her head, “but I have affairs to attend to.”
Her foot was on the second step when she heard him say to his neighbor, “Wish I was the affair she was attending to.”
Bray frowned but kept moving. Drunken louts did not rank highly on her list of concerns.
She ran up the remaining steps two at a time and thrust open the door to Peer and Adearre’s room.
Adearre sat propped on a pile of pillows, his eyes open and alert. His shoulder was wrapped in gauze, which shone starkly white against the darkness of his skin. The handsome doctor had his ear pressed to Adearre’s chest, listening to his heartbeat.
“I apologize,” he said. “My stethoscope appears to have walked away again.”
Adearre’s mouth quirked. “You may lay your head upon my chest anytime you like, good doctor.”
The man looked confused, then turned an appealing shade of pink. He cleared his throat. “You appear to be in good order. I’ll check on you in the morning.”
As he made his way out he put a hand on Bray’s shoulder. “You may well have saved his life with those yarrow leaves. I’m impressed.” He smiled disarmingly.
Peer glowered at the doctor’s back, but Bray returned the smile and inclined her head. He departed.
Bray came to Adearre’s side and sat on the bed, its springs creaking beneath her. “How do you feel?”
“Tremendous,” he said. His coloring was still off, but his eyes did appear sharp.
“I suppose you must be,” Bray said, “if you already have the energy to flirt with straight men.”
“How am I meant to know they are straight, if I do not flirt?”
Peer plopped down in a chair beside the bed. “Don’t understand how you can’t tell. That’s your thing.”
“Believe it or not, gay men, unlike Chisanta, are not marked.”
Bray forced a laugh, then sighed. “I’m so sorry.”
“For what?” Adearre asked.
“For getting you shot, of course. I was an idiot,” she said.
He shook his head and smiled. “You? I am the one who stood behind The Amazing Intangible Woman. Remind me not to repeat that error, will you love?”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Because for those of you who are counting,” Adearre went on in his deep, musical voice. “I have now been shot twice. Two times.” He held up two fingers
“Oh, that other time hardly counts,” Peer said. “It was just a graze.”
Bray hit Peer on the shoulder. “How many times have you been shot?”
“Zero. I know where to stand,” he said. Despite his levity, his face was still pale, concerned eyes darting toward Adearre at intervals.
“I should be more aware of what’s behind me,” Bray said, turning serious again. “You rem
ember how that bloke in Bentall lamed my horse with an arrow?”
“Oh, and what are you going to do?” Peer challenged. “Not phase and take the wound? Don’t be daft.”
“No,” Bray said, frustrated. Why wouldn’t they just let her take a share of the blame if she wanted it? “But I can position myself better.”
“I will recover,” Adearre said through a yawn. “And you took the man into custody. Is he in a holding cell?”
Bray’s heart dropped. She exchanged a look with Peer. “No…”
Adearre’s head shot up. “He escaped?”
“No. He’s been taken care of.”
Bray braced herself. She wished this conversation could have waited until morning.
Adearre grew very still, his honey eyes slitted like a suspicious cat. “Taken care of?”
“I know, it is not ideal. I hoped to interrogate—”
“He deserved a trial!” Adearre bellowed. He made to sit up straighter but winced and slumped back on the pillows.
“He shot you,” Bray said, her voice rising defensively. “You needed medical care. There was no time.”
“Bellretha,” Adearre swore in Adourran. His accent always grew thicker when he was upset. “You are perfectly capable of rendering a man unconscious. This is not justice, it is your own personal vendetta.”
Peer shrank deeper into his chair and remained mute. Bray knew not to hope for his help. He always insisted on staying neutral when she and Adearre disagreed.
Bray jumped up from the bed, her blood pumping and her face red. “My personal vendetta? And what of you, Adearre? Your obsession with coddling these murderous bastards? That isn’t personal for you?”
Adearre’s jaw set and a pained look—one that had nothing to do with his shoulder—crossed his face. Bray’s anger deflated slightly.
“You go too far, Bray,” Peer’s cool voice said from the corner.
She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. “He confessed. You heard him.”
“Excellent. Bray Marron: judge, jury, and executioner. Only one problem, love. He was lying.”
She froze. “What do you mean?”
“As he confessed, he looked up at the sky, as if he were trying to remember, or invent, his supposed crimes. His face was freshly shaven, his clothes clean, his shoes polished, and he smelt of soap. That man had been in civilization, not residing in the forest.”
“He had locks of hair in a bag around his neck,” Bray insisted, trying to convince herself as well as him. She turned to Peer. “There’s a fifth victim.”
Now it was Peer’s turn to swear, which he did loudly and crudely. He rubbed his face and said wearily, “I’ll stop by the Dalyson orphanage tomorrow. See if anyone’s missing.”
It was either a sinister syndicate of kidnappers, or a string of copy-cats, but all of the guilty had been found with locks of hair. And all of the victims were boys and girls ranging from twelve to sixteen. None of their bodies had been found. Most were orphans or in foster homes—children who would not be missed, children who lacked a champion. Except for Peer Gelson, of course.
Bray sat back down. “It had to have been him…”
“I suppose we shall never know now, will we? How many have you killed?” Adearre asked.
Eight. The others had been turned over to the law, and most had been convicted and hung. She did not feel remorse for a one of them—they were child abductors, murderers, and rapists. They deserved far worse than the clean deaths she’d given them. It was not her problem if Adearre was too great an idealist for the office they performed.
A soft knock on the door broke off their glowers.
“Come in,” Peer said.
A small boy in a Telegraph Office uniform entered. “Sirs, miss, begging your pardon, but this was sent urgent from the Chisanta Temple.”
Peer took the small roll of paper and the boy bowed out of the room. Bray came close as he unrolled the telegram and they read together:
‘Marked girl dead. Report to Temple, ASAP. -Dolla’
“You heard how many?” a woman’s voice whispered from behind the nearest bookshelf.
“Only fifteen, I heard,” a man responded.
“How many years before there are none at all?”
“And I suppose you’ve heard about the girl in Greystone?” the man asked.
“Of course, what a tragedy. Too horrible…”
Yarrow turned a page and stared at the text, endeavoring to ignore the whispering couple. But he, like many at the Cape, found it difficult to focus. Each year, on Da Un Marcu, the news grew more and more grave. Yarrow had heard the number ‘fifteen’ whispered so often the word seemed to now possess an ominous connotation.
The girl in Greystone was just the egg atop the rice. That news had come like a swift kick in the gut to a man already knocked down in a fight. There would have been sixteen—there should have been sixteen. But a fire had killed the girl and her entire family on the eve of Da Un Marcu. She, their sister, had perished in the flames.
These thoughts weighed heavily on Yarrow’s mind, and with the loss of Arlow the day before, life seemed a rather gloomy affair. Despite his torpor, Yarrow had pulled himself to the library, as usual, that morning. For the answer must be hidden in these pages somewhere. But, a small, negative voice in his mind asked, what good could it do? Would oblivion really be easier to stomach as a certainty than as a possibility?
Yarrow read, barely taking in the words:
‘South draws north while north draws south…The sacrifice is crueler than the gift is pleasant…On the eighth day of the Stag’s Year the last king shall die…Fire conceals truth in times of marked famine…We glimpse, in the night’s sky, the winking of matter long dead…The pistol’s powder eases distressed lungs...’
The chatting pair moved beyond his range of hearing. For this Yarrow was glad, but his own thoughts were as distracting as their voices had been. The words on the page made no impression on his mind. Eventually, he admitted defeat, deposited the book in his bag, and departed the library.
It was a cool, overcast afternoon. The Temple stood quiet and still; a general feeling of mourning pervaded. Yarrow hesitated on the grounds for several moments before deciding on a destination. He hadn’t visited Dedrre since the recent news had spread.
Yarrow strode, fists in pockets, past the dining hall and through the court. He hurried by the statue of Lim-Po, the inscription on which had become a personal mantra for Yarrow—‘In all of life’s battles, truth is my sword and knowledge my shield’—past the orchard, and up the sloping incline to Dedrre’s home. The older Cosanta lived in the nicest rooms, the youngest in the simplest. This was tradition. Yarrow’s own room was his third since he had come to live at the Temple, and he was pleased with its size and furnishings. Dedrre, being one of the eldest Cosanta, lived in something of a private villa. He had gardens, a study, and his own bathing room.
Yarrow knocked and was beckoned to enter. He stepped inside and found his old friend, as usual, hunched over a drawing table.
“What are you working on today?” Yarrow asked.
“Oh, still fiddling with this design for an improved teapot. I don’t fancy the pitch of the whistle mine makes.” The old Adourran man pushed away from his work and gestured for Yarrow to sit.
“Thought you might have forgotten where to find me, lad. I’ve been expecting you.” Dedrre rose and bustled into the kitchen. “Tea?”
“Yes, thank you,” Yarrow said. He sank deeper into the chintz armchair. Some of the tension eased from his shoulders as his eyes scanned the familiar clutter of half-completed inventions, the walls plastered with blueprints and schematics. The room smelt of tobacco and persimmons. If Yarrow closed his eyes and breathed in, that smell could transport him back to a thousand other times he’d sat in that very chair.
“You’re looking thin, lad,” Dedrre said. “Eat these.” He handed Yarrow a plate of biscuits. Yarrow bit into a biscuit obediently. Dedrre opened and closed ca
binets as he called over his shoulder to Yarrow, “Received a telegram from my granddaughter yesterday.”
Yarrow swallowed, choking slightly on the crumbs. “How is Vendra?”
“Quite good. That tip you gave her from the Fifth is revolutionizing her study of sedatives. Or so she says.” Dedrre returned with the tea things.
He settled himself back into his own chair and fixed Yarrow with an intelligent gaze. In appearance, Dedrre had not changed an iota since Yarrow first saw him. His mustache was still full and white, his dark skin deeply grooved, and his eyebrows a wild tangle above sharp, dark eyes.
“Why the long face, lad?”
“You can’t be serious, Dedrre? You must have heard the news.”
“Aye,” Dedrre nodded. “I hear just fine.”
“Only fifteen…” Yarrow said, shaking his head.
Dedrre sipped his tea.
“And that girl in Greystone,” Yarrow pressed on.
“Yes,” Dedrre agreed. “It’s awful news. All of it. So why aren’t you in the library with your nose in a book, as usual?”
Yarrow quirked a brow. “First, you’re put out I haven’t visited. And now I should be back in the library?”
Dedrre let out his rough bark of a laugh. “Let an old man contradict himself if he likes, lad—it’s one of the privileges of age.”
“I’ve been reading for years and I’ve never found any reference to this,” Yarrow said. “Besides, why am I the only one looking for answers? Why should it all be upon my shoulders?”
Dedrre snorted. “You sound as petulant as a fresh-marked boy. Why should it be you? Because most people read those transcripts and can’t make a thing out of them. You’ve discovered more in those texts in the past decade than the combined efforts of scholars for the past two hundred years. You read something that no one could make heads or tails of, know that it has to do with chemistry, send it on to Vendra, and now the world has new sedatives. You understand those Fifths. You’ve got a gift for it.”
Division of the Marked (The Marked Series) Page 14