by C. M. Lind
Soli had expressed interest in training with Randolph before, and he loved the idea: the two of them alone, making each other sweat—but, it didn’t happen. He didn’t even have the time to remind her about it. The only consolation he took in those lonely days was the sudden disappearance of Saemund.
Since the mutilated body had been found in front of Iron’s Rest, Saemund had been scarce. When Randolph went to their usual meeting spot, The Hound’s Breath, at their usual time, all there was waiting for him was a note. It told Randolph that their meetings would have to be postponed as he followed a new lead. That Saemund would send word once he had anything to tell Randolph. Randolph dreaded every morning, waiting in disgusted anticipation of word from the nasty creature, but word never came.
Randolph spent his time the best he could. He coordinated security for the Jubilee. At most, he figured, he or his men would end up throwing a drunken, loud nobleman or two into their carriages. Possibly there might even be a fight between two well-to-do brats that would quickly disintegrate once a guard raised his voice. He wasn’t too worried, but Ety made it apparent that Randolph should be. Ety pushed for Randolph and his men to take the event seriously—that The Disciples of Nox might see it as a prime opportunity to strike.
When Randolph replied that he had the situation under control, Ety rolled his eyes. Randolph couldn’t help but share that Justicar Balfour would be in attendance to personally make sure everything would be safe. Randolph also gave the impression that it was his own brilliant idea and hard work alone that secured Balfour for the Jubilee. Ety was surprised at the news, and Randolph delighted in his quickly silenced tongue.
While Ety fretted about The Disciples, Randolph didn’t take his concern too seriously. Saemund had swept through the assassins like a merciless plague, and Randolph doubted anyone was around to even think about killing Jae. Just to be sure though, Randolph had planned on asking Saemund to be in attendance—just for a second set of eyes.
Only if Saemund would do something about his stench, he added in his head. He thought Balfour’s attendance was all well and good (something to make the nobles beam), but Balfour would be too busy with pleasantries to really keep an eye out.
Randolph figured that Balfour was the shiny knight to make the nobles feel safe and happy, but Saemund would be his merciless guard dog to make the nobles safe and happy.
Beyond planning, Randolph did as he normally would do before big events. He had enhanced his workout regimen to include more real life training until the Jubilee. He had even sucked the guards into his swordplay—calling it “mandatory job training.” The young guards complained, but Randolph had to admit it was worth it. They could hold a sword, and probably win against an unarmed civilian, but against anyone with a bit of training? They wouldn’t last long.
For weeks, the training was without any real diversion for Randolph, until that particular day. The weather was fair. The sun was shining, obscured by just enough hazy clouds to prevent any discomfort. A slight breeze rolled across the grass—just enough to keep one’s brow cooled. Randolph had decided the day was perfect to run the worst of the guards through proper footwork. He amassed three lads on the grounds, and he drilled them mercilessly. A failure led to a wallop on the head—enough to leave a small bruise but no real permanent damage. The guards would groan as Randolph would make them repeat their steps again and again—a groan that Randolph himself recalled making far too often in his own training.
“So you do something here after all? And I just thought that you cleaned up the messes of your master.” Aaron Balfour’s voice carried over the grass.
Randolph turned. Balfour had come through the manor, and had seen himself out the back. He was still wearing the heavy breastplate and noisy chainmail of his position, and Randolph thought he looked silly emerging from the decadent manor. “About time you showed up. I guess it took you a while to walk here with all that weight.”
Balfour marched straight for Randolph, and gave him a small smirk. “It’s the burden of my station.” He gestured to his extravagant, radiant armor.
“Oh, not that. I meant carrying around that big head of yours,” replied Randolph.
The guards laughed, unbalancing their already wobbly stance.
Randolph turned his attention back to his men. “As long as no one makes any jokes, then you boys should be able to stand up against a gentle breeze.” He sighed and shook his head at them. “The big boys need to talk now, so laps around the manor for you.” He motioned a circular pattern with his finger.
“How many?” asked one of the young guards.
“As many as it takes,” said Randolph, matter-of-factly. “But for you, I’ll throw in three more after that.”
The other guards laughed at the questioning third, and then they all took off to run around the house.
Balfour walked up to Randolph. “They are guards? Surely you are joking? No wonder you want me at the Jubilee. They look like they could not even triumph over a spider.”
Randolph turned to Balfour with a strained, exaggerated look of concern. “Seriously, Baly, I worry about you.” He placed his hand on Balfour’s shoulder. “You should get a healer to look at that watermelon of a skull.” He tsked. “But, it might be past saving. We might just have to cut it off and hope for the best.”
Balfour raised an eyebrow at Randolph’s hand. “If I got rid of this head, then you’d have no one to do your job for you in a couple weeks, would you, Micah?”
Randolph forced a smile. “Always so nice to see you, Baly. Now, how can I help my favorite Justicar?”
“Favorite?” Balfour gingerly flicked Randolph’s hand away, as if it was a disease-carrying beetle. “Micah, you flatter me. I don’t know how they did things in the army, but I’m sorry to tell you I enjoy the company of women.”
“Doesn’t matter if they don’t like you back. Right, Baly?” Randolph dropped the smile, and gestured to what Balfour was carrying. “What do you got?”
Balfour presented him with a small wooden box. It was a thin rectangular creation, no thicker than an inch. At the end was a thick, hard cap of leather and resin. Randolph popped the end and pulled out papers from within.
The first image was a wanted poster, but it wasn’t like a poster that would make it around the city. This was a prototype: a hand drawn sketch of a woman with thick, long, dark hair, a thin face dotted with freckles, and a perfect aquiline nose. “What the?” Randolph lost the rest of his words.
“It is the woman who escaped,” said Balfour, finishing Randolph’s observation, “only different.”
“Younger,” said Randolph.
Balfour nodded.
“This isn’t an official poster. Why is it in here?” asked Randolph.
“Because we never made an official poster,” answered Balfour.
Randolph scrunched his brow.
“Someone claimed the bounty on her before she was officially being searched for,” stated Balfour.
“That’s convenient,” said Randolph. He looked back at the drawing. She did look younger—even pretty in a simple way. He couldn’t believe the young girl in the drawing was the scowling woman that was now plastered all over city.
“Read the rest,” urged Balfour.
Randolph pulled the rest of the papers out, and Balfour took the box without being asked. Randolph paged to the next sheet. It was a report written about a robbery of Delarue Auction House, and it was written by his own hand. “I remember this.” He turned the paper towards Balfour, and the Justicar nodded. “This was my first real job from Jae.”
“I remember. You were,” Balfour paused as he searched for the right word, “enthusiastic.”
Randolph sighed. He read his report, even though he remembered it well. The auction house was robbed early in the morning. Several paintings were cut from their canvases, petals were taken from a small lockbox, but, worst of all, several irreplaceable statues were stolen. Jae had put the stolen painting there to sell, and he had hoped t
o purchase a few of the rare statues. Randolph remembered how furious Jae was: screaming at anyone who got in his path, throwing dishes at the wall, and slapping the woman who dusted his office. She quit, and, since then, no one had been allowed in Jae’s quarters without an explicit invitation.
Jae had told Randolph to do whatever was necessary to figure out who had robbed Delarue’s, and Randolph did as he was told.
There had been one witness, a Rienne Suchet, who saw the lone thief. Her description led to the poster in his hands. According to what the woman had told Randolph those years ago, she was walking to work early, and she saw a thief sneaking out a window of the auction house.
“So, how is the man at the morgue involved in this?” Randolph shook the loose papers.
“Check the last sheet,” said Balfour.
Randolph pulled the last sheet out and placed it on top. The man who claimed the bounty had to sign for it. The signature read: Dion Vaux. “Was that the name of the man by Iron’s Rest?” He tapped the signature.
“I doubt it was his real name, but it is him. The guy still was using the alias, and the handwriting is the same as what we found on some of the documents in his room.”
“This woman breaks out to kill Dion Vaux.” Randolph scrunched his brow further. “That doesn’t fit. Why now? How did she even find out about him? You guys keep this stuff secret.”
“There is no way she could have found out. I could barely find this file, so I doubt anyone else read it and then decided to tell a prisoner about it. Even then, we checked her visitor logs. No one suspicious visited her, just one for those years: Ulrich Myrdal. Even then, he’s a priest. He visited at least thirty other inmates.”
“None of this makes sense to me.” Randolph looked Balfour in the eyes.
“None of this makes sense to me, either. I was hoping you could tell me more.”
Randolph pulled another page of the file out, and his eyes eagerly read it. It was the full witness report, written by Miss Rienne Suchet. He remembered her well. He would never forget her face. It was wide, very wide, but she had small, narrow eyes, and thin lips. It all looked so odd to him, especially when her features were highlighted with bright pink lipstick and silver eyeliner.
Parts of the report were crossed out, and she rewrote parts a few times. “I remember this.” Randolph sighed. “She kept changing her mind on how everything happened. She kept adding details.”
“Are you serious?” Balfour bellowed. “Randolph, this is why I did not want you handling this!”
“I know! I know!” Jae had insisted Randolph look into it, thinking a man he was paying directly would lead to quick, concrete results. Randolph had never investigated a thing in his life, beyond what he had done when blackout drunk, but he was eager to prove to Jae that he was worth the money. He felt his stomach tighten, and he hesitated—but he had to tell Balfour. “That’s not the worst part.”
Balfour glowered at him with such intensity that Randolph thought he might get slugged.
Randolph suddenly felt like his tightened stomach was filled with rocks as he recalled questioning her. ”I needed the answers from her, and I needed them to be what I wanted to hear. I might have fed her information. You know, corrected her when her story was…wrong?”
“Damn Jae!” Balfour cut off Randolph’s lingering confession. “That spoiled brat just had to have his dog handle it! Why didn’t he leave the situation to us?”
“I don’t know!” Randolph shouted at him. “Why not? Maybe he thinks you Justicars are idiots! I don’t know! He told me to handle it, so I did!”
Balfour glared at him. He took a deep breath through flared nostrils. “Do you remember what you told us to do with the woman after you put that 100 petal bounty on her head?”
Randolph tried to recall. He shifted through the pages until he found the answer, in his own handwriting. “If you can’t get her to talk, throw her in the pit until she does,” he read out loud. He looked up at Balfour. “Well, shit.”
“I agree.” His heated tone went to a strangely suppressed, even, neutral cadence. “Now let’s look at this objectively. We have a blundering investigator. We have a bounty being claimed before it is officially posted. We have a witness who is inconsistent. We had a prisoner who never admitted fault, even after torture and a few weeks in the pit. Now what do you think that equals?”
Balfour kept talking, but Randolph’s ears could hear nothing but white noise. His stomach was twisting around the rocks he felt, and he began to shake. The papers dropped from his hands as he began to relive every memory from the investigation. Suchet was too helpful. She was too eager to parrot whatever Randolph implied.
The thief never broke—even when he had guardsmen take their fists to her. They never found any of the stolen artwork—not even at the underground pawn shops—even though she would have had time to sell the pieces before she was caught.
The man who claimed the bounty, Dion Vaux, looked nervous. Randolph remembered: he had told Vaux that the woman would talk no matter what—that they all did eventually. The comment made Vaux look ill, but Vaux took the money and quickly left. Randolph had always thought that was strange. Why would Vaux care about what happened to a thief?
Balfour put his hand on Randolph’s shoulder and shook him gently.
Randolph blinked at him. “I’m so sorry.”
“Apologies do not matter much now, Randolph.” Balfour was serious, but not cruel. He removed his hand after rousing Randolph from his stupor.
“The woman, Suchet. I have to talk to her.” Randolph bent over to grab the papers. He tried to recall what order they were in, but he couldn’t.
“If you did not to, then I was going to myself.”
Randolph stood and handed the papers back to Balfour. “No. I have to talk to her. I’ll tell you what I learn.”
“Do you require my assistance?
“No. I’m going to make her tell me the truth.” He exhaled deeply. “One way or the other. I don’t want you getting dirty over it.”
Balfour nodded. He pulled a small piece of folded paper from his pocket and handed it to Randolph, who took it without pause. “Alright. But I want word as soon as you learn anything. We need to know who else this woman could be targeting—“
“Wait,” said Randolph. He grabbed the papers back, and Balfour let him have them. He thumbed through the papers. There was a log of information they did manage to get from her. “Her name was, I mean is, Vitoria. That is the woman I threw in the pit.” He said her name a few more times in his head, as if it was a penitent plea, but it didn’t make him feel any better. He remembered so much from the investigation, but for some reason he couldn’t recall her name—which felt like the worst sin of all.
Balfour nodded. “Do you think she is with The Disciples?”
Randolph shook his head. “I don’t see it.” He cocked his head to the side. “I thought that was an Ankerite thing to do.” He waved his fingers above his stomach. He thought about motioning further south, but couldn’t bring himself to do it.
“It makes sense in some way. The priest who saw her was an Ankerite. Maybe she was motivated by him somehow,” said Balfour.
“Do you think he’s working with her? Maybe he found out about Vaux and let her know?” asked Randolph.
“People do admit things to priests that they would never tell another man,” Balfour pondered aloud. “Perhaps Vaux paid a visit to the temple. I will check the priest out. You focus on Suchet.”
Randolph nodded.
“I was thinking,” said Balfour. “If Vitoria found out that you were the one who posted the bounty—or if she knew you ordered her to the pit—you might be next.”
“Thank, you.” Randolph handed the papers back to Balfour, who quickly shoved them back into the wooden box. “But I think I’ll be fine. You said it yourself before, there’s no way she could find out through the file,” he gestured to the box in Balfour’s hand, “and you could barely find it. Other than that, you’d
have to have told her, and I know you don’t care much for me, but I like to think you’d never encourage murder.” He kept the last part of his thoughts to himself: he wasn’t very afraid of a lone woman who had been mistreated and malnourished in a prison for years. In fact, he welcomed the thought of her finding him—at least, he figured, he’d have a chance to give the poor woman a proper apology.
“Sir Balfour!” They heard Soli’s voice from the manor’s back garden. She was wearing the loveliest dress, the color of fresh summer ferns.
Balfour turned to look at her, and he waved his hand to her. Randolph straightened and rolled his shoulders back—desperately wanting to hide his encumbering thoughts. His front teeth touched his bottom lip, and he began to nibble it absentmindedly.
Soli came out towards them, practically skipping, Randolph thought.
“It is wonderful to see you!” She was smiling. “I was beginning to think you didn’t care for being invited!”
“It is wonderful to see you too, mistress.” He gave her a small bow. “I am more than pleased to be invited by you.”
“I took care of it right away.” Randolph’s words were rigid, and he momentarily stopped biting his lip to smile. It was a forced, hard grin that looked a little frightening.
Soli’s smile vanished in a second. “What’s wrong?”
“We were just having a discussion, but I am afraid I must leave.” Balfour gave her another small bow, and then turned to Randolph. “If we are done discussing the last details of the Jubilee?”
“Oh! Yes!” Randolph said. He silently thanked Balfour for his quick thinking with a nod of his head. “Everything is taken care of.” He looked down and saw the piece of paper that Balfour had handed to him before was still in his hand. He shoved it into his pocket. “Great seeing you and all.”
Balfour nodded. “Goodbye, mistress.” He said as he walked past her.
She returned a farewell in her own tongue, but kept her attention on Randolph.