Ghosts in the Snow (4 page)

He ignored his worry and resumed his examination. No idiot do-gooders had ruined the scene; the scullery maid's body waited untouched, the way the killer had left her. She lay on her side on the stone floor and faced a tipped keg covered in blood. One hand extended above her head and the other lay curled against her face. He jammed the handle of the torch between two kegs and knelt near the body, wondering what, if anything, connected the girls.

Unlike Elli, the cause of the scullery maid's death was apparent at first look.

Her throat gaped open, slashed nearly from ear to ear. Her uniform slumped loose from her shoulders with the back slit from the neck to the hips and the front sopped with gore. One shoe leaned discarded against the bloody barrel, probably kicked off during the death throes. He touched her extended hand with one finger and began taking notes. She was as cold as the floor she lay on.

He examined the body and scene as the ghosts watched him work. The scullery maid had been slashed open on either side of her spine below the ribs, leaving the remainder of her back intact. A single blue curl of intestine slumped onto the floor behind her. Dubric measured the two gashes. Neither had bled, although both were slightly longer than the width of his hand. They were as clean and straight as any cut of meat he had seen on the butcher's block. Most of the blood had pooled in front of her, indicating she had likely died before the killer sliced open her back. "He had privacy," Dubric muttered as his pencil hurried across a page in his notebook. "Privacy and time."

He looked to the back of her head next. Her head bore no wound. Her bobbed, light brown hair fluffed curly and clean; little wisps of it danced on the floor beside his knees. He picked up a few strands and put them into the crease of his book. If the details of Elli's murder had not given him cause to look, he might not have noticed her cut hair. The killer had removed a bit here, a bit there, snippets hidden by the curls.

Dubric tilted her stiff head gently. He found no bruising on her face or neck. Her eyes stared forward, surprised and cloudy; blood from her throat had splashed over her face. She had been a pretty girl. Except for her open dress, her clothes remained intact. She still wore knee stockings and one shabby shoe. Her underdrawers had not been moved. He doubted she had been raped.

He sketched her body, made a few notes, and examined the scene in which she lay.

He found a single bloody handprint on a keg behind her, where he wanted to place his own hand as he rose from kneeling to standing. Moving the torch for better light, he examined the bloody smear and saw nothing of note. Big enough to be a man's hand, four fingers and a thumb, all straight and true. It could have belonged to anyone. The blood was dry and impossible to transfer directly to parchment, but traceable. He made a note in his book as a reminder to acquire transparent parchment. He found no hairs on the floor but the victim's, no dropped clues, no bloody footprints.

When the two pages knocked, he returned to the door, looking from keg to keg as he walked through the ale room. Not a print to be seen. He did, however, find three drops of dried blood on the floor near the door. The vertical bar of the door latch was a smeared bloody mess, with fingerprints on the left, thumbprint on top, and a palm smear on the right. The killer was right-handed, or had used his right hand to open the door.

After writing a few more notes, Dubric stood again and reached into his pocket for a kerchief. Taking care to not smear the blood, he opened the door for his pages. Both were junior pages and sons of castle nobles. Neither was terribly bright. A crowd of people huddled far behind the boys.

He glowered at them and said, "Gilby, fetch me a clean blanket. Second-floor-east storage room will do fine. Norbert, run to the mapmakers'. Tell Eamonn I need a piece of tracing parchment. If he gripes about his supplies, you tell him that is not my concern. If he refuses to give you one, fetch a squire and have him thrown in gaol. Just get me the blasted parchment. Any questions?"

They looked at each other and Norbert whined, "Why do I have to argue with Eamonn? He smells bad, and he's always grouchy. Can't you send Gilby instead?"

Gilby punched Norbert on the shoulder. "Quit griping. We'll be polishing armor for a whole phase!"

Norbert rolled his eyes and punched Gilby back. "You've got the easy job. Pilfering a blanket from the ladies' storage roo—"

Dubric towered over them. "If you two do not get your backsides moving right this instant, you will never get the armor polish out of your fingernails."

"Yes, Milord Dubric," Norbert muttered, and both boys ran off.

"What did you find?" a lady asked from the murmuring crowd, a kerchief crushed in her hand. Around her, the crowd eagerly leaned closer.

Pitta stood beside her husband. The herald's feather still drooped and he stroked his wife's arm with a shaking hand as she spoke. "I heard it from the girls, Dubric. Another one dead. Is it true?"

Dubric nodded and focused all of his attention on Pitta. "Yes. When were kegs last brought out?"

She paled. "Every night the kitchen is supposed to restock for the following morning, but we ran out of ale during breakfast. The keg should have been full, but it wasn't! I never should have sent them. I never should have needed to!"

Pitta sobbed and Beckwith drew her close to press her face against his narrow chest.

Dubric wrote,
Were the kegs emptied on purpose, or did chance bring the victim to the room
?

"What would you have us do?" Beckwith asked, his voice trembling as he stroked Pitta's hair.

"List the girls' names for me. That is all I need for now."

Beckwith held his wife closer. The crowd whispered around him and for a moment Dubric considered the pair. Although shorter than her husband, Pitta's bulk seemed to soak his lean frame into her like a dab of jelly onto a fresh-baked roll, her ruddiness nearly obscuring the horror on his face.

Dubric closed the door before he had to answer any more questions. He took a deep breath, locked the latch, and turned back to the ale room.

He examined the rest of the room step-by-step and found no more blood. He noted nothing more than thirty-two wine kegs, sixty-one ale kegs, a half-dried puddle of vinegary sludge from a leaking keg, a dusting of pipe ash in one corner of the room, and a silhouette of a man's bootprint within the ash. He knelt before the pipe ash and sketched the shape and angle of the print. The killer had found a perfect, dark hiding spot; three stacked ale kegs hid the corner from the door.
A smoker perhaps
, he noted in his book.
Likely male. Might have dropped some ash on his boot while he waited for her. Patient
.

Many Faldorrahn men smoked and most people were right-handed. Both clues were inconclusive and ruled out few possibilities. He stood and peeked through a gap near the edge of the kegs. The door was easy to see, even in the dim light.

He scratched another note, rubbed his eyes, and sighed. The ghosts flickered then appeared again, forever screaming, forever silent. He wondered if this morning would ever end.

He left the hiding spot and knelt before the dead girl one last time. He lifted the back collar of her uniform. A name was written there in shaking print, the handwriting like a child's, and he added her name to his notebook. The second victim, as the castle would call her despite her being the first to die, was named Fytte. He could not remember ever meeting her.
What a waste
, he thought, closing her eyes. They were hazel, he noted in his book.

* * *

While the castle folk fell into hearsay and rabid speculation, Dubric carried Fytte to the physician's. Lars, guarding the door, frowned as Dubric approached. Down the hall, a crowd clamored and grumbled, but they would be dealt with soon enough.

"Another one?" Lars asked as he opened the door for Dubric. "I wondered where you were."

Dubric carried her into the clove-scented air of the physician's domain. Lars followed, grimacing at the smell. Cloves and death were not a pleasant mix, but better than death alone. A soft, plump physician in a bloodstained white tunic and wood-framed spectacles looked up from Elli's corpse. Surprised, he pointed to an empty table and washed his hands.

Dubric laid her on the table. "Has Dien returned from visiting his in-laws yet?"

Lars stood straighter as he answered. "No, sir. The baby's only four days old. You told him to take a whole phase."

Only four days? It seemed like a whole summer just this morning
. "He can take the rest some other time. Send someone to fetch him. We are going to need the extra set of hands."

"I can send Otlee or Trumble. Both ride well."

"Send Trumble. I want Otlee to help with witnesses."

"Yes, sir." Lars turned to go.

The physician hurried to them, drying his hands on a towel. "Twice in one morning, Dubric. Business like yours I don't need."

Dubric did not need the business, either. "No mud on this one, Halld."

Halld pulled back the blanket. "Thank the Goddess for that." He looked her over and nodded once. "Can you give me a couple of bells or so? Maybe early afternoon?"

Dubric agreed and left, closing the door behind him. He wished the ghosts would stay with the dead, but they never did. He sighed and straightened his shoulders. His office was three doors down the hall and a line of witnesses waited, their eyes full of worry.

* * *

Dubric leaned back in his chair and watched the fifth witness, a vapid milkmaid named Charli. He had met weevils more intelligent, let alone helpful. She slumped in her chair, face blotchy from crying, and clutched a ratty kerchief in her fist. Both ghosts ignored her, preferring as always to stare at Dubric and drip spectral blood on his floor. At the table beside her, Otlee tapped his quill pen on Charli's deposition paper and tilted his head, his bright hair gleaming like fire in the lamplight.

"What do you have so far?" Dubric asked him. Never in all his summers had he found anyone who took better notes than Otlee. An amazing boy. Especially for the son of an uneducated baker.

The milkmaid sniffled as Otlee reviewed the notes.

"Charli Mottle, seventeen summers, milkmaid. Identity confirmed and initialed by the witness. Stated, 'We opened the door, outta the west wing, right at dawn, just like always. Elli lay there an' I guess I screamed. I think I did, anyway. We ran to her, me an' Olita. She… she were all muddy, m'lord. Muddy an' covered in blood. We called fer help, an' a couple other girls came runnin' from the door. Meliss and Ingi, I think.'"

Charli sniffled again and dabbed her eyes as she nodded. "That's what I said, all right."

Otlee scratched his pen across the paper, and Dubric smiled. The boy never missed a single word.

Otlee continued, "Castellan Dubric asked, 'Did you see anyone, any man, in the area?' Witness replied, 'Nay, sir, just Elli. She were dead, sir. I ain't never seen a dead person before, don't wanna see one again.'" Otlee looked up. "Witness cried for several minutes."

"Nothin' wrong wit cryin'," Charli sniffed. "She got blood all over me. Did I tell ye that?"

Otlee added her comments, the pen tip little more than a blur. "Three times now. Want me to keep going, sir?"

Dubric looked up. Lars's voice barked and grumbled, muffled and blurred through the door. The witnesses must be getting restless. "No, I think that is enough. Unless you have anything to add, Miss Charli?"

She shook her head and glanced at Otlee as he made more marks. "Nay, m'lord. Told ye all I knew. But I would like to know who's gonna get all this blood offa my uniform? Scares the cows, it does."

Dubric wrote a few notes of his own on a square scrap of parchment. He handed the note to her. "Give this to the laundry. They will remove the blood and not charge you."

Charli tucked the note in her pocket. "Thank ye, m'lord. So yer done wit me?"

Otlee dipped his pen in an inkwell and added to his notes.

Dubric said, "If you think of anything else, tell a page you need another meeting. All right?"

She nodded and opened the door. Otlee sighed, signed the bottom of the page, and added it to a pile on the shelf behind him. As he shifted, his feet nudged a pair of books and Dubric smiled. Ever since Otlee had been approved for a library token, he always had a book or two tucked away somewhere.

The token allowed him to borrow up to two books at a time, a privilege Otlee had grasped with great relish. Clintte, the librarian, had balked at loaning such valuable treasures to a commoner—the printing presses in Waterford were far away and their recent volumes quite expensive—but Dubric had insisted moons ago Otlee be allowed to peruse at will. He would not discourage or limit a natural reader, regardless of Clintte's obsessions.

The outer office was crowded with people, and most waved their hands before their hot, red faces. Outside of Dubric's line of sight one said, "Dammit, Lars! We've been waitin' fer bells! How come the tramp gets to go first? She just got 'ere!"

Wearing his mud-spattered uniform as if his mere presence should assure compliance, Lars said, "I told you once to shut your foolish yap. I decide who goes in and when."

A comely linen maid stood beside the door, watching Lars with wide dark eyes. She held folded cloth in her hands and she looked smaller than her already tiny stature. "I can wait," she said. "I still have half a bell of lunch left."

"Spend it wit yer lover an' get outta here," another angry voice snarled from somewhere in the crowd.

The linen maid's lower lip curled in for a moment, but she made no other sign she had noticed the insult. She wore her pressed and starched uniform like a badge of honor, and she took a deep breath and raised her pert chin a little higher, like a queen among the rabble.

Dubric smiled at her even as Lars barked at another complainer. "Come on in, Miss Nella. Never mind them."

Relief shone in her eyes before it, too, was hidden behind her ever present pride. She nodded and said, "I don't want to be a bother, milord. Really. But you said to come."