Ghosts in the Snow (14 page)

Nella smiled at Dari. Dari smiled back.

"Just because I'm not supporting a house full of brats back home doesn't mean I don't need money, too," Plien said as she examined her fingertips. "I'd rather be breathing tomorrow than risk my life out there today. Whether it's Dubric or not."

"But what about tomorrow?" Nella asked. "Or the day after? Or next phase or next moon? When will it be safe to work?"

Plien shrugged, buffing out a rough spot and examining her nails again. "Don't know. Don't care. I'm staying right here."

"Do we hafta go? I don't wanna die," Mirri said.

"None of us want to," Nella said, "but if we hide, he wins." She wrapped an arm over Mirri's soft shoulders and said, "I won't let anyone come near you, all right? Dari won't, either."

Stef snickered and kicked Nella's bed. "Look at you! You're barely as tall as my shoulder and skinny as a twig. How are you going to protect yourself, let alone anyone else?"

Nella gave her a warning glare, but before she could respond, Dari snapped, "Oh, shut your yap. You know she escaped Pyrinn. She's much tougher than she looks." Dari motioned toward the hall. "Let's get our butts to work while we still have jobs."

Stef kicked the bed again, shifting it on the floor. "Lord Risley dragged her here to keep her as a pet. She didn't escape."

"Believe whatever you want." Nella stood, ignoring Stef s attempts at goading her into an argument. "You coming, Mirri?"

"We'll make the beds, you can do the towels," Dari offered.

At last Mirri nodded. She took a deep, shaking breath and the three girls left the room. Ker followed them.

Dari closed the door. "All four of us, then?"

Hands locked together, they hurried from the servants' wing.

* * *

After he turned the corner, Dubric blinked at what he saw written in blood on the outer wall of his office. He froze for a moment, his head hammering, until, beside him, Dien slumped against the wall. Dubric read the message again and a cry bubbled and grew from within him, finally breaking free. Screaming, he spun around and ran through the back hall to the west tower, sword clenched in his hands. Noble and commoner alike fled at the sight of him. Dien followed, his sword also drawn. They ran from the office hallway, past the servants' wing, past the northern doors of the great hall, past the workshops, accountants, seamstresses, storage, past even the entrance to the temple wing, the one place in the castle Dubric avoided. Dubric screamed a long mournful wail as if his heart would burst, and a group of altar boys and nuns froze where they stood.

Dubric shoved through the horde of astonished altar boys, ignored the startled gasp of the nuns, and the shocked stare of Friar Bonne. Still screaming, in his heart, his mind, he ran. He dared not look at his ghosts, not yet, not ever, not when the message said:
NEVER send a boy
.

* * *

The first glints of sunrise flickered on the crenellations of the west tower as Lars staggered through the mud with his bloody hands tied in front of him. His face and his chest were covered in blood, as if he had rolled in it, and he repeatedly tried to spit away the foul taste polluting his blood-smeared mouth.

He was relieved he hadn't puked over whatever putrid thing had been used to gag him. It lay discarded somewhere beneath the coop, surely a horror that he did not want to contemplate or see. After facing the thing in the dark, and finally managing to spit the noxious gag away, he had decided that his life was truly a miracle, even if it was over.

He fell to his knees beside the body of the egg maid, and he muttered a curse as his shoulders slumped in shame. His shortsword had been thrust into the back of her head and it stood there jauntily, the hilt dripping with blood. Dubric was going to have his ass, that was as sure as the coming dawn, and not only because he'd let himself be seen.

Whoever had killed the egg maid had hacked apart her body with Lars's sword, shot her with a bolt from his small crossbow, and stolen his dagger. Lars had ruined the murder scene, ruined it by his presence, and any clue the killer might have left had been compromised. He was covered in her blood, with the stink of her death, and he was in deep trouble.

"Oh, dammit!" he cried, his face turned to the brightening sky. He prayed for a moment and looked back at the body. At least he was still tied, with a length of intestine that had been knotted and cut. Dubric would know he did not kill her and he would not be found guilty of murder. Stupidity, perhaps, but not murder. He breathed easier and settled his backside into the cold mud to wait for Dubric.

Moments later, a group of milkmaids opened the west tower door and he cursed again. He should have stayed stuffed beneath the coop.

One girl screamed, and all five pairs of eyes lit upon him, each flickering with murderous fire in the dawn. They ran toward him. "You bastard!" one screeched.

They had him outnumbered. "Oh, curse it!" His bound hands fumbled to his thighs as he tried to shove himself to his feet, but his balance was off and they would be upon him before he—

His eyes darted to his sword and he lunged for it, stretched over it. "Forgive me," he whispered as he ripped his hands toward the blade and pulled, slicing through the slimy binds like a hot knife through soft cheese. In a blink he ruined both the scene and his alibi, again, but what choice did he have?

The sections of intestine fell into trampled mud and he pulled his sword and stood, all in one fluid movement. "Back off!" he snarled. "This is an official investigation!"

"You sneaky, lying bastard!" a milkmaid snarled. "You did this! Dubric's horse-raping page!"

The girls surrounded him as he stood over the dismembered torso of the egg maid with his bloody sword in his hands. "Go to work, go back to bed—I don't really give a damn—just get away from here!"

"He's just a boy. We can take him," one milkmaid said, her eyes flickering fire.

"I didn't kill her! Now go away before I drag you all to the gaol." He stumbled over a severed arm but didn't fall.

"Little pissant boy. Think you're a hot bastard now?"

"You like cutting us up?" Two girls slipped behind him while the other three still paced in front.

Oh, Goddess, this was bad. "I didn't cut her up! Now, please, go on before I—"

The girls moved closer and Lars braced himself, his eyes resting on one girl who stayed in front of him. He didn't want to hurt them, but he had no intention of dying, either.

"If we move together, we can take him, sword or not," the one directly in front of him whispered. She stood over a hand and a hunk of meat that might have once been part of a thigh. Her face was hard and deadly. The other girls looked at her and nodded. Lars swallowed and blinked as he tightened the grip on his sword. He'd drop her first.

"Perhaps, but I wouldn't recommend it," a man's voice said to Lars's right, and all the girls turned to look.

Lars watched the girl in front of him. He knew better than to get distracted.

The girls jumped back, startled, murder fading into uncertainty in their eyes. Risley stood beside the next coop with his gloved hand on the hilt of his sword and his cloak fluttering in the chilly morning wind. "You all right, Lars?"

"I'm fine." He glanced at the girls behind him; both had retreated a few steps. He looked back to the girl in front of him. "Just a mess."

Risley nodded. "So I see. You causing all this trouble?"

"No. Not me. I swear." Still watching the lead girl, Lars shook his head and stood his ground.

Risley shifted his hand on his sword and tilted his head toward the castle. "You heard him, ladies. Why don't you return to your duties? I'll hold him here until Dubric arrives."

"He did it," the leader said. "We saw him!"

"That's not for us to determine," Risley said. "You can take it up with Dubric later. Right now, you need to leave. No one else needs to die."

The girls looked at one another, looked at Lars, and looked at Risley. After a few moments they nodded. Grumbling all the while, they stomped through the mud toward the cow barns.

Risley moved toward Lars, his hand remaining on his sword. "Tell me what happened, and it had better be good."

Lars forced his eyes from Risley's hand to his face. Lars had known Risley for his whole life and could not ever remember seeing his eyes so hard before. "Dubric sent me here, to watch and guard, and I was stupid. The killer saw me, dragged me to her." He looked at the girl, at her dismembered body. "He tied me up with her guts, took my weapons, and shoved me under a coop. By the time I crawled out, he'd gone."

The threat in Risley's stance lessened, but most of the hardness remained. "He set you up."

Lars nodded. "Thank the Goddess you came when you did."

"Five to one odds aren't fair," Risley said. Smiling, he approached and moved his hand away from the sword as the hardness faded another notch, closer to the friendliness Lars was used to. "Three of them you could've taken." He picked a chunk of meat out of Lars's hair. "You sure you're all right?"

Lars relaxed and tried to wipe his sword clean on his sleeve. "Yeah, I'll be fine. After a bath and about six phases of sleep."

"You knew Dubric would work you to death. We just never thought…" Risley shrugged and looked at the pieces of the egg maid scattered hither and yon between the coops. "Goddess, what a mess. Here, give me that."

Lars was too coated in blood to wipe the sword and he gladly handed over the weapon. "Thanks," he said with a smile, but his expression dried and faded on his face. A thin line of fresh blood was streaked across Risley's cheek, right above his jawline. Lars pulled his eyes away before Risley noticed the stare.

Beside him, Risley wiped the sword clean with a handkerchief and returned it. He looked at the body again, rubbing at his forehead as if he had a headache. "I hope you solve this soon."

"Me, too." Lars stared at the dismembered corpse and wondered what to do.

Bells later, Lars sat in the witness chair. Otlee slouched beside him, pen tapping on a piece of paper void of ink as he read from a tattered book. Dien had gone to the physicians' offices for the day's reports and Lars hoped he'd get back soon. At least Dien didn't look like he was about to explode.

Lars shifted uneasily in his chair as he remembered the morning. Dubric had burst wailing from the tower door moments after Risley arrived. Both Lars and Risley had jumped, and the group of milkmaids had squealed and run for their barn. Dubric's scream had stopped, he had stumbled and commanded Lars to get his ass inside, in the office, right that instant!

No questions of what he'd seen, no questions of what he'd done. Just the command to leave.

He'd left, as commanded. He always did his best to follow orders. Women had screamed at the sight of him, and children had fled as he walked across the castle. He'd wanted to crawl into a hole and die of embarrassment, but he had reached the office hall in one piece. Then he saw the bloody writing, though Otlee and Trumble were busy trying to scrub it off the wall.

From the few details he'd heard, the egg maid, Rianne, had been completely eviscerated as well as dismembered. Dien had found her intestines beneath the coop where the killer had stuffed Lars, as well as smaller organs like her spleen, pancreas, and heart. Lars did not want to know what piece or part had been crammed into his mouth as a gag. Whatever it was, it had tasted horrid. Her liver had been stuck to the wall outside Dubric's office with Lars's missing dagger.

The killer had scrawled a message on that wall, a message Lars didn't want to think about—he had enough bad stuff clattering around in his mind to last him a lifetime—but it kept slamming into his brain anyway.

NEVER send a boy!

It had been written in blood and bile over the length of the wall and the liver stabbed at the end like a misshapen exclamation point.

He had no idea who had first found the message, that had not been mentioned during the meetings, but he feared the reprimand brewing and festering on the other side of Dubric's desk.

So he sat in the witness chair in blood-soaked clothes that had long since dried stiff, the smell of death hanging heavy in the air, and Dubric either stared at him or rubbed his eyes.

The noon bell rang and Otlee looked up from his book. "Sir, perhaps we should—"

"Shut up," Dubric snapped, his attention leaving Lars for the first time in what seemed like forever.

Otlee shrank and put his book away.

Lars hadn't slept much the past few days, but he doubted if Dubric had slept at all. He looked tired. Gray puffiness surrounded his eyes, his normally healthy old-man's skin seemed transparent, and his bald head no longer gleamed. Was Dubric getting sick?

Feeling his age? Something else? None of them had been eating well. Every time he saw meat it smelled like death. But what about Dubric? Something was wrong, something more than the search for a killer. Dubric had seen lots of dead bodies and solved several murders. Why was this different?

Before Lars could contemplate more questions, a quick knock rapped on the door and Dien stepped inside with an unsealed report in his hands.

Dubric looked up. "Well?"

"Same bastard, both times. Same weapon on the laundress, not sure about the egg maid." He glanced at Lars and shrugged. "Kidneys and hair missing on both. The egg maid is also missing about five lengths of small intestine, her stomach, and bladder. Everything else is accounted for. I went over both murder scenes like you said, sir. Piddling step by piddling step. Got a few pebbles, a couple of coppers, broken crow feather… Nothing at all interesting except a couple of loose bits of flesh and skin, which I've given to the physicians. There are too many hairs to count, sir, from all sorts of people."

An intensive search would possibly glean a clue, but they had held little hope. "Anything else?"

"Yes. Couple of things. The laundress was Celese Harper, and she works the overnight shift in the laundry. We've also got verification that the egg maid fought back. She has three broken fingernails on her right hand and one drew blood. They think it's the killer's 'cause it had been blocked under her nail by mud."

Dubric's attention returned to Lars. "Dien, you and Otlee go on to lunch. I want to talk to Lars alone."

"Yes, sir," Dien and Otlee said together. Moments later, Lars was alone with Dubric's anger simmering across the desk.

They stared at each other. Lars wanted to apologize for his stupidity, but he held his tongue and waited.

An eternity later, Dubric took a shaking breath and said, "I should not have sent you."

"I tried to do my job, sir."

Dubric looked at his desk. "You always do a fine job and I forget how young you are."

"Sir?"

Dubric's hands clenched on his desk and they looked old, skeletal. "You could have died, and it would have been my fault."

"Sir, if you will pardon my impertinence, when I accepted this position I understood that—"

"You don't understand a damned thing," Dubric said as he rubbed his eyes.

Lars clenched his fingers over the arms of the witness chair.

Dubric sighed. "Relax. You are not in trouble. I cannot believe I risked you like I did."

Still clenching the chair, Lars took a deep breath and said, "May I ask a question, sir?"

Dubric took a deep breath himself. "All right."

"How did you know, sir? About the killer being near the coops?" Lars leaned forward, the chair creaking. "It's bothered me all morning. Somehow, you knew, but I don't see how."

Dubric sat rigidly straight, his palms on his desk. After a long moment, he said, "This is between us, Lars. You and me. No one else."

"Yes, sir."

"It is complicated, but have you heard how Aswin Romlin can see into people's hearts?"

Lars felt his fingertips tremble against the hard wood. He'd known Aswin for all of his life. Of course he'd seen the curse firsthand, how Aswin could see into some people's minds, their hearts. How the burden pulled on Aswin's soul. "Yes, sir. He hates it, knowing things he has no right to know. He calls it his curse."

Dubric's hands clenched. "In many ways I am responsible for the life and well-being of every person living within these walls." He took a deep breath and tilted his head toward the corner. "I also am responsible for their deaths, their murders, and their ghosts. No matter how much I don't want to be. Like Aswin, I, too, have been cursed. But my curse is seeing death. They stand there now, watching me. Five bleeding girls. They give me no peace, and will not let me rest, not until I have avenged them. I took a chance that, like the others, the egg maid would be found near her work. Evidently I guessed correctly."

Lars shuddered at the shiver slithering down his spine and loosened his grip on the chair. "You know when people die, sir? See their ghosts?"

"Today I feared I would see yours, that you would stand among them. I could not bear for that to happen." He wiped his eyes with his fingertips and shook his head in shame. "How could I look myself in the mirror knowing I sent you to your death because I felt too damned old to run across the castle grounds? How could I live with the guilt?"

"It's all right, sir. You were doing your job."

"No, it is not all right. It is reprehensible I would send a boy to do a man's job, that I am so beleaguered by these damned ghosts that I cannot think straight. I was willing to risk the life of someone I trust above all others just to save me some blasted time!"

As Dubric pounded his fist on the desk, Lars whispered, "It is my job, too, sir, the job I agreed to do. The job I love. I am at your disposal to save you time, sir, to run errands, to gather evidence, question witnesses, even be the first at a scene, if need be. I was foolish, stupid, and the killer saw me. That was my fault. I was hidden, but I broke cover and he saw me. I am old enough to take responsibility for my mistake, sir."

Dubric sighed and Lars sat straight in his chair, his heart skipping and light sweat beading on his brow. "I will not make the same mistake again, sir. You have my word. You tell me to hide, I'll hide. You tell me to kill, I'll kill. You send me to die, I'll die. I am yours to use as you see fit."

Dubric waved his hand as if brushing away Lars's pledge. "Did you see him?"

"No, sir. Not really. It was too dark to see anything but shadows."

Dubric's chair creaked as he leaned forward. '"Shadows'?"

"Yes, sir. I never saw him, not exactly, but he blocked out starlight when he dragged me from behind the coop. He wore a dark cloak. I could not see anything but a cloak-shaped void. I felt his hands, his breath. He was living flesh, sir, not a ghost, but I could not see him. It was just too dark."

"Did he speak?"

"No, sir. Not a word. But he did laugh." Lars repressed a shudder.

"Was the laugh familiar?"

"No, sir."

"Did you glean anything else?"

"Yes. He was reasonably tall, as tall as you or a little more. Strong. He dragged me as if I were a toy. Hot, like a fever. He wore gloves." Lars paused a moment and whispered, "And his breath smelled like death."

Dubric reached for his notebook. "Could it have been Inek?"

"I wouldn't say so, sir. He was too tall and the smell was all wrong. His breath stank, but he didn't. And he was thinner than Inek, not as bulky. Quick movements. Finesse, not power."

Dubric noted the information.

Before Dubric began the list of standard questions, Lars said, "There is something else, sir. Something you should know before we go any further."

Lars gripped the chair arm again.
My family
, he thought.
I'm about to testify against my family and my home
. But he knew his duty and the oath he had taken to protect Faldorrah over everything else. Even family. He nodded to himself and took a deep breath. "This morning, when he saved me from the milkmaids, Risley had fresh blood on his cheek from a scratch of some kind. He was wearing gloves. And he carried Albin Darril's sword."

Dubric dropped his pencil and muttered a curse.

* * *

After sending Lars to bathe and get a bit of rest, Dubric and Dien rode to the village south of the castle.

"I know the boy doesn't think it's Inek," Dien said as they approached the herbmonger's shop, "but in the fear of the moment, in the dark, he could have been wrong about the killer's size or the origin of the smell."

Dubric dismounted. "Even trained observers like Lars make mistakes." Looking toward Inek's door, Dubric released the peace bond on his sword. A disheveled young man came from the herb shop, glanced at them and hurried away, tucking a parcel in his coat pocket.

Dien tied the horses and watched the man scurry down the road. "Inek selling contraband concoctions again?"

"It would not surprise me." Dubric strode to the shop door and shoved it open while a bell on the hinge announced their arrival.

Bundles of dried plants hung from the rafters, bags and boxes of assorted materials sat on shelves, and pots bubbled in the corner fire. The room reeked of the pungent scent of herbs, flavorings, and medicines blurring together. One breath smelled of sweet cooking spices, the next a bilious stench of a vomit inducer. Inek came from the back room, bringing his own special aroma with him, and he grinned at the sight of Dubric.

"M'lord Dubric! What brings you to my humble store? Been pissing your pants lately? Old bastards like you often have trouble holding their water. It must chap your ass to have to change trousers every half bell or so."

Dubric ignored the taunt. "I hear you are removing pregnancies. Would you care to elaborate?"

Inek laughed and strode to a locked cupboard. "Karalelle's got her unders in a bunch, eh? Thinks I'm stealing all her business. You just tell that crotch probing witch I'm—"

"The midwife has nothing to do with this. Are you removing pregnancies or are you not?"

"Not," Inek said as he opened the cupboard. "Once they've started, it's not my problem." He pulled a block of pressed leaves from a wrapper, snapped off a corner, then held it out for Dubric. "Here. This should settle your bladder. Hate to think of you pissing all over yourself and ruining your fine silks."

Dubric ignored the offering. "Pregnancies. Who has been using your services?"

Inek shrugged and slammed the cupboard door. "I already told you. I don't kill babies. That's Karalelle's domain, and I don't want her hacking me up like she does her customers."

Dien loomed behind Dubric's shoulder. "Enough stalling, dung hole. We know you're giving medicine to pregnant girls."

Inek crossed his arms over his wide chest. "Like hell I am, unless you're worried about the ones who don't want to puke their way through the first three moons, or to ease backache when the little bastard's been kicking them in the kidneys. Those, my friends, are valued and long-standing medicinal standards."

Dubric stared at him. "Rianne, an egg maid, came here to stop a pregnancy."

Inek took a step back, startled. "Ri? Peg, no. She came to not get knocked up. She's one of my better customers, I must say. Fine girl." Inek turned and started to walk away. "Give her my love, will you?"

"We can't," Dien said. "She's dead."

Inek stopped, turning abruptly to face them. "What? Ri? It's not possible."

"When did you last see her?"

Inek shook his head. "Yesterday. Well, last night. She was fine, I swear."

Dubric tapped his pencil on the notebook. "Of course she was. When did you part?"

"About eight, maybe nine bell. She said she had to make curfew and she went back to the castle." He blinked and his face reddened. "The pegging slasher got her, didn't he? You worthless, conceited old bastard! You let her die!"

"And you were quite possibly the last person to see her alive."

"No, she left with Celese. Talk to her. She'll tell you."

"Celese Harper?" Dubric flipped back through his notes.

"How the peg should I know? Girls like Ri and Celese don't use their after names, for Goddess's sake. Celese works in your laundry, probably washes the piss from your pants."