Elisha Magus

by E. C. Ambrose

  Elisha gave a slight shrug. “Hard to say, Your Grace, but I’d feel better if they’ve caught the man.”

  Randall shook his head. “Great Hall was still full of the prince’s knights—sorry, the king’s—and half of them bare-chested, but none bloody. The blood trail just … stopped.” He met Elisha’s look. “Allyson has started looking, in her own way.”

  At that, Elisha nodded, glad to have the duchess’s magical prowess at work on the question. “I want to examine the body again. I may be able to learn more about the weapon.”

  “Knives, wasn’t it?”

  “Some sort of blade, but nothing I recognized.”

  “The poor fellow’s been taken down to Saint John’s in town. He’s been washed and wrapped already.” Randall prodded something on his plate. “Don’t let the French catch you at it.” He glanced sharply up, waiting for Elisha’s nod before he carried on with his meal.

  Elisha moved to the sideboard laden with food, the silent servants fussing over every tray. The idea of the search reminded him of his own goal, set aside in the excitement and disturbed sleep.

  “Prince Alaric’s off for London, I hear, Your Grace.” Elisha took a slab of bread and piled it with cheese, trying to think how to ask.

  “London? Leaving me to deal with these French, I suppose. Well, he’ll have to wait once he’s heard about the death.”

  “Mmm.” Elisha took a breath and said, “His lady is spending time at a lodge. Would you know where?”

  The duke set down his knife and shook his head. “Elisha, you must know—”

  “Your Grace, she’s taken something from me, and it may be there. That’s all I want from her. If I know where she’s going, I can leave ahead of her, and we might not even have to meet.” He stared down at the trencher, piled now with more cheese than he could possibly eat. “You suggested I should leave for awhile.”

  Randall stared at him, his eyes ringed with the effects of more than one sleepless night. “A lodge? Most likely she means one of the royal hunting lodges in the New Forest. Do you know any more than that?”

  “The prince suggested she take his carriage, Your Grace, so there must be a road nearby, and she said something about bandits, so I gather it’s in the forest proper.”

  “That’ll be the old lodge then. I thought they’d sold it, actually. Little place, hardly seems royal at all, and nobody’s been out for a couple of years, not since the princesses, God rest their souls.” He crossed himself.

  “The princesses,” Elisha echoed, “I remember.” It had been the talk of London a couple of years ago: the horrific news of Prince Thomas’s young wife and child slain. A bloody business. Perhaps Brigit should, indeed, be afraid. But it would be the perfect place for her to use his talisman, given the history of bloodshed. It reminded him of the French magus who died on his doorstep, and he pushed his plate away.

  “I can tell you a faster way to go, avoiding the carriage road.” Randall settled his thick fingers together. “If you’ll take Rosalynn with you.”

  “What about the bandits?”

  Randall waved this away. “The verderers strung them up. Besides, you needn’t take her into the forest, just to the abbey. Beaulieu’s not far from there, and she might be able to spend some time in healing. She’s started murmuring about taking the veil. Being a guest there might help to convince her not to. I can still find her a worthy match, given time.”

  Elisha extended his awareness toward his benefactor, meeting his hooded gaze. “So long as it’s not a way to convince me to spend more time with her, Your Grace.”

  “It’s not a bad thought.” The duke pursed his lips and gave a dismissive shrug. “She knows the way, and I’ll send a small entourage with her. If anyone from Brigit’s camp hears about it, it’ll provide you cover.”

  Sighing, Elisha conceded the point. Escorting the lady to an abbey was a perfectly honorable excuse for travel. “If she can leave immediately, Your Grace, then I accept.”

  Chapter 6

  After packing a few things for the journey and leaving them with the duke’s grooms, Elisha walked toward the battered town. On a low hill against the rising sun, a windmill’s tattered sails groaned as if sorry not to be able to catch the winds. A pair of workmen hammered on the scaffold being built to repair it. Dawn’s light gave the valley a golden cast, highlighting the edges of burned beams and broken walls. A few shepherds moved out to the fields, their dogs giving Elisha sharp looks. The leaning church rose over all, reminding Elisha of his narrow escape the night before. He kept his senses extended, but he guessed nothing would come of it today. In order to catch him, the hunters must know where to look and when. Funeral notices were posted, in case anyone still sought their unburied dead, and many people knew Elisha had been attending them all. As for the “robbery,” it had been his own chamber. It might have been truly a crime, meant to take advantage of his presence at the ball to steal medical herbs, though the strange weapon suggested otherwise. Two possibilities remained: That the Frenchman’s fear had come to pass and his mysterious betrayer had noticed him with Elisha earlier or even seen them meet again. Or that Elisha’s enemies were willing to lay more than one trap, perhaps counting on catching him off balance after the first attack failed.

  Hopefully, his examination of the dead magus would point him toward one answer or the other. The idea of another magus as the killer left him disappointed, as if all magi were above vengeance or murder. He should know better—just look at Brigit.

  Elisha went around the side of the little church to the crypt door where he expected the body had been kept until a funeral could be arranged. In addition to his medical kit, Elisha carried a strong cloth needle and some plain thread to stitch up the winding cloth when he had finished. With care, no one would know he’d been there at all.

  A wooden door set down a few steps from the street led beneath the church. Trotting down to stand beneath its little roof, Elisha tried the latch, but it did not give. He glanced about, thankful that he was at least on the shaded side of the building and most of the damaged buildings around him remained empty. He would have to enter using his other skills.

  Setting his hand to the lock, Elisha drew in his awareness, honing it as a hunter hones his spear. He could not see into the darkness of the iron hole, but his awareness, focused in this way, reached inside like tiny fingers, feeling out the edges and tumblers. Awareness alone had no force to move things, but it gave him the means to create an affinity. He withdrew the infirmary key from his belt and touched the talisman cloth he carried. It took a moment to understand the lock, then to translate this knowledge into the shape of a key that might work it. The infirmary key in his hand grew warm, then twitched and twisted, pulling itself longer and pushing out a new shape. He tried this in the lock to no avail, and had to give it a few more refinements before the tumblers clicked and the bolt drew back.

  Replacing the altered key, Elisha stepped inside and shut the door softly behind him. Utter darkness enveloped him, and Elisha cursed under his breath. A few minutes groping along the wall of the entry and his questing fingers found a shelf with waiting candles for the priest or his assistants. It took longer to strike a flame to one of them, but at least the sudden light showed a table just inside where a wrapped corpse awaited its final resting place. Elisha crossed carefully and set the candle on a ledge that stuck out from the wall above the body. It cast a square shadow over the table, superimposed upon the pale stiffness of the corpse.

  At least they had chosen a simple shroud, the sort where they laid the body at its center and brought up the sides to be sewn. It might even be the very sheet he and Mordecai laid over the man the night before. If the body had been truly wound, he should have struggled over unwrapping the whole man just to get to his chest. As it was, Elisha set to work with the scalpel from his medical kit, snipping the stitches from the vicinity of the stomach up close to the throat. That should give him enough room to view the wounds, though he might have to peel back
the covering on the man’s face to take a look at the back, where the blades had entered. He remembered the solid thunk of blade into flesh, jolting against him as he tried to swing himself and the Frenchman out of the way. A short blade, not long enough to pierce them both.

  Elisha took the edges of cloth and separated them. The fabric came away from the body with a sticky sound. Given how much the man bled in the hall last night, he expected little blood, so the glossy sheen of the corpse surprised him. At the very least, the man’s damaged clothes should be there—if one of the duke’s servants stooped to stealing from the dead, Randall would need to hear about it. Elisha picked up the candle holder to get a better look.

  He yelped and jumped back, the candle rocking from its holder to tumble to the floor, plunging him back into darkness. His breath shuddered, his heart suddenly at his throat. Elisha took a moment to steady his nerve, then stooped and groped for the candle again. His hand closed around it, trembling, and he rose slowly. The wick was still hot and took only a moment’s magical encouragement to re-light, but Elisha stared at the flame a few minutes longer, soothed by the heat and the glow. At last, he steeled himself for a second look at the dead man.

  The shoulders and head above as well as the pelvis and legs below remained wrapped in cloth. In between, the gap Elisha made showed the firm musculature of a young man’s torso, the grain of the muscles striating across pectorals and abdominals, yellowed blobs of fat riming below the ribs, thin veins of white fat interlacing the muscles. Naked flesh. The corpse had been skinned.

  Elisha turned away more deliberately this time, walking a few paces to stand by the marble sarcophagi, bile burning in his throat. Skinned. Like a rabbit for the duke’s table. He swallowed hard, trying to master his stomach. Years of medical experience inured him to almost any reaction to the wounds of the living except to consider what he must do to save them. This felt different. Someone violated the tomb, cutting the thread just as Elisha had done, stripping the victim of his clothes, then stripping him still further, peeling back the skin from his damaged chest. For what?

  Elisha pressed a hand to his mouth, his own breathing too loud in the stuffy space beneath the church. Thank God nobody had heard his cry of discovery. He could only imagine how it would look if someone found him here, in a crypt, stooped over the mutilated body of a murdered man. How much time had passed already? He had to finish his examination, stitch up the shroud and get out of here before they came for the funeral.

  Raising the candle, Elisha turned back to the dead man. He forced himself into motion, holding the candle over the bared muscles, the vulnerable fat and flaccid stomach. In addition to the two punctures that pierced the chest, he could see the nicks of the flayer’s knife as it had drawn down the sternum to the navel, cutting barely deep enough to get the job done. The skinner’s hand was practiced, his blade sharp. A brief lifting of the cloth in both directions showed every inch of muscle stripped of its skin. He gagged at the thought of viewing the dead man’s face and tugged the cloth closer together.

  Such an intimate, awful deed, it had to be personal. Some sort of vengeance, perhaps for his betrayal in seeking to leave France? The man told him magi were marked for execution; if any in the French party suspected him—not even that he was a magus, but only that he sought to betray his king … was this the punishment for traitors across the channel? A French matter, disguised as a crime to cast some embarrassment upon their English hosts, and so they didn’t have to explain themselves to foreigners. It might explain, as well, the unfamiliar weapon used in the slaying: a brutal custom from across the channel.

  Elisha brought the candle in close. He no longer dared to roll the victim and examine the entry wounds at his back, but studied the two marks clearly visible at the front. They resembled bowshot more than anything else—round passages, still slightly open, instead of the thin slits of traditional blades. But the weapon was hand held, certainly, thrust with the strength of the attacker’s arm. It had a round profile, thick, perhaps like a stitcher’s awl but of great size.

  The flame shivered in Elisha’s grasp. He replaced the candleholder on its stone, then took out his needle. It, too, trembled. He forced it steady and brought the thread to the eye with infinite care then held together the edges of cloth. His stitching was a bit clumsy, stitches hastily far apart, then closer together as he made himself slow down. At last, he made the knot, cut the thread and straightened. He crossed himself, bowing his head over the man whose name he never knew, a stranger who hoped to leave his troubles beyond the sea, only to be caught by them when he thought he was safe.

  Elisha took up the candle and turned at the tumble of the lock. He flinched and took a breath to calm himself, then squared his shoulders as the door opened.

  Father Michael gasped in turn. “Barber!” The two men behind him, carrying a coffin on their shoulders stopped abruptly, the box shifting forward until the leader slapped it back with one hand.

  “Forgive me. I cannot attend the funeral, and I wished to pay my respects.”

  The priest frowned furiously. “Here?”

  “I have an important mission for the duke—I’m leaving right away.”

  “These dark events do seem to seek you out.” Descending the last few steps, Father Michael approached him, daylight streaming down behind. It illuminated Elisha’s face, and the priest’s expression shifted. He laid a firm hand on Elisha’s shoulder. “I can see you are troubled. Return to the fold of the Shepherd. Repent now, before it is too late.”

  The warmth and urgency of the priest’s piety flowed through their contact, a curious application of a near-magical skill. In spite of Father Michael’s stern commandment, his touch was strangely comforting. “Thank you, Father. I’ll do what I can.”

  Elisha nodded to the men on the steps, stepping aside to let them come in and set the casket down with a hollow thunk, ready to receive its occupant. Then he climbed the few steps to the road and hurried back up the hill before the priest had time to wonder how he’d gotten in. Which made him wonder how and when the flaying had occurred. Probably last night before the body was brought down. There could be only a few people with keys to the crypt, aside from the priest himself, and the castle infirmary likely had one to facilitate transporting the dead without rousing the priest. Breathless, he came into the yard to find the duke’s family already there as Mordecai explained that he expected Elisha at any moment. Mordecai broke off as Elisha skidded to a halt, remembering to bow to Duke Randall, his wife, and daughter.

  “Are you ready?” the duke asked.

  “Nearly, Your Grace. A word with Mordecai Surgeon.”

  “Very well, then,” said Randall, but he frowned, and Lady Rosalynn, clad in a long, dark traveling dress, frowned with him as she watched Elisha pass.

  The surgeon followed him a few paces away, but Elisha took his arm as if giving a hearty farewell. “The Frenchman’s been skinned.” He sent a brief glimpse of what he had seen, and Mordecai’s grip tightened with shock. “Duchess Allyson is searching for the killer, but they think it’s an outsider, a criminal. My guess is he was slain and skinned by his own people, as a punishment.”

  “For talking to you? Good thing you’ll be gone.”

  “Don’t I know it. Watch yourself—and let the duchess know. They may have the skin among their things. They’ll want to warn off the other magi.”

  “A bone when they came, a skin when they go. Hope they don’t mean to stay long.” Mordecai shook his hand, and Elisha let him go. “Take care,” said the surgeon aloud. Elisha nodded and gave a wave as he made for the cluster of horses.

  If he were right about the killer and the cause, that would be the end of it. And if he were wrong … Elisha found himself absently itching at his sternum, visualizing the attachment of muscles moving just below the skin.

  Chapter 7

  By the time they reached Netley Abbey, a sister cell to their destination at Beaulieu, Elisha wished he could simply leave Lady Rosalynn there and w
alk on alone. His back and legs ached from riding, his hands and arms from clinging to the reins, his head from practicing courtly manners. Surely Netley was near enough? The whole ride was consumed by the minutiae of a lady’s concerns, which seemed so small compared to everything else happening, that he wanted to shake her. Except, of course, that she had no idea what else was going on; her own concerns must seem large enough. It was hardly her fault if her position and gender protected her from the darkness beneath the day.

  “Netley Abbey is famous for its hospitality, but I’ve not stayed here for years,” Rosalynn said as they entered the grounds. “Primarily sailors, isn’t it, but lots of other travelers, too.” She leaned close to him, confident in her saddle while he held on for dear life. “They’ve had a bit of bother with the king, in the past. He’s meant to support the Abbey, but sometimes the money doesn’t arrive.”

  “At least we have, my lady.” He slid numbly down from the horse and stumbled on his weary legs.

  “Yes, but we could ride a bit further. The gate’s not till we pass these trees.” She waved a hand.

  “You go on ahead. I need to stretch my legs.” He clung to the reins, not trusting his legs just yet, and his horse stamped and snorted.

  Rosalynn smiled brightly. “I shall walk with you.” To her escort, she said, “Go on ahead and tell them how many we are and that we require dinner.” She slid down easily, handing her reins over to one of the mounted guards.

  “Shall I stay, milady?” asked her maid, eying Elisha suspiciously, as she had for every hour of the past two days.

  “Go on. We’re within view, aren’t we?”

  In the gathering dusk, whatever view the maid had would be obscure at best, but she went on with the guards, the last of whom stopped to take Elisha’s reins. He tried to seem grateful as he took a few creaky steps and winced. How the nobility ever got used to such a thing as riding, he should never understand.