Retribution (Drakenfeld 2) (9 page)

This idea was strengthened further when we arrived at the sumptuously decked-out stables, which were good enough for humans to inhabit let alone animals. A large pale stone quadrangle was framed with wooden chambers for horses, all of which looked out onto a wide cobbled courtyard. The site was huge, full of nooks and crannies, workshops and filled with the noise of industry. Everything here was clean and in good order; there was plenty of food and water for the animals, and a good number of workers to hand.

‘Everything about the place looks good,’ Leana said. ‘Manthwe and Kinder will be happy while we remain.’

‘Not too comfortable for them?’ I asked wryly, but there was no smile in response.

‘Comfort is good for animals,’ she replied. ‘But not for you. An animal will remain strong with a bed of straw. You go soft.’

I caught the gaze of a well-built farrier, who had cropped blond hair and bright-green eyes. After brief introductions he offered to take care of our mares for the duration of our time in the city. I started the conversation in Kotonese, but he continued it in gruff Detratan.

His name was Sojun and he came across as a kind-hearted man, not one for long sentences and small talk, but judging by how he was with the animals, our horses would be well looked after and they would not mind the lack of conversation.

There was an air of patience about him; he was someone who took pleasure from his job. Very quickly it became apparent that he cared more about the animals than humans; he was more natural with them than us. More skilled. If the animal themes I noticed earlier were anything to go by, it was possible that many people in Kuvash were the same.

We discussed rates as he rubbed the nose of another handsome mare. His suggestion was more than reasonable, and I told him so.

‘Outside of the military stations,’ he grunted, ‘you can find several smaller stables, scattered about the city. We must remain competitive with them. It is not ideal, because they cut corners, but we have deals with the tanneries.’

‘For the horses?’ I tried my best not to look startled.

‘No,’ he muttered, shaking his head. ‘For their piss.’

With that he took the reins of Manthwe, since we would still be using Kinder to carry the bishop’s body up to the royal palace before dropping her off later. I began to lead her away when another three horses cantered by, with only the one rider on the foremost animal.

Dressed in military uniform was a young woman with a broad face and black hair that stretched down to her waist. I smiled to myself as she exchanged a lingering glance with Sojun, with startling blue eyes, and wondered at the relationship – if any – between them.

It reminded me of my brief moments with Titiana, in Tryum, and suddenly I couldn’t summon the emotions to continue happily with my expression.

I wondered why army personnel would be here in a civilian stables – it was a sign of growing military activity elsewhere, but perhaps I was being overly suspicious. I asked Sojun.

‘You like your questions,’ he replied.

‘Merely curious,’ I added. ‘I’m trying to build up a picture of this place. I’m a stranger in a strange city.’

Sojun’s gaze followed the girl as she rode across the cobbles to the other side of the courtyard. ‘She trains the queen’s horses, and helps others from time to time.’

‘What do your soldiers do here usually? What trouble do you get?’

‘Some tribes have never accepted Koton and they carry out occasional raids around towns, villages and trade routes. Reckon the old clans have a hand in that. Sometimes we get ships landing. Bands of warriors come from abroad to take what they can. Women, children, young men to be sold or used as slaves. That’s not as often as I remember. Our queen makes sure we’re protected. It’s damn good pay being in the military. She makes sure of that. And with soldiers being much better off than a tradesman, they’ll make sure she’s well looked after in return. Less likely to be open to corruption that way.’

‘That would explain two decades of stability.’

He grunted something close to a laugh. ‘That’s what outsiders will think. Not everyone likes it. Couple of the clans think it’s giving the masses too much power by training them as soldiers and giving them military coin. Reckon it’s dangerous in the long run.’

‘And what do you think?’

‘Job’s a job.’

‘Either way, all that military coin flowing through the city can’t be bad for tradesmen like yourself,’ I commented.

But, with a shrug, Sojun made it clear that he was done talking, so I figured it was a good idea to move on.

Leana and I exited the stables and made our way back towards the royal palace.

In the distance stood the snowless mountains, which I hadn’t been able to see in yesterday’s murkier weather. The terrain of the city was flat, and the buildings rarely rising more than three storeys high, so it was impressive to see how far that mountain range stretched.

Little square flags of various different colours had been strung up between buildings, some of them containing writing that appeared religious. Two priests had set up on opposite sides of the street, and I wondered if that had any symbolism in relation to the two gods or if they were simply competing with each other on who could preach the loudest. Their words seemed to spar with each other, causing many passers-by to pause as if unsure which way to turn their attention.

Finally we arrived outside the front of the palace. Here it was styled like a white-walled citadel, though all the decorative flourishes indicated that this place saw little in the way of combat. It was without doubt the largest building in the city, with narrow glass windows spaced at regular intervals and reaching five storeys in height – though it looked as if there were more layers to be found further in. Looking up, there were four turrets on this face, spaced about thirty paces apart; passing back and forth in between them was the glistening helmet of a soldier. All in all, given the number of royal palaces I’d seen – from King Licintius’ residence in Tryum to the ziggurat of Prince Bassim in Venyn City, not to mention the palace of the Queen of Dalta – I was not much impressed. Here was a fairly basic structure that had been built long before the country had a taste for fine designs.

I spotted a large, arched black gate manned by four soldiers armed with bows, and that was where we headed. I informed the archers, who on closer inspection wore ornate green and white uniforms with brightly polished helmets, exactly what was in the sack.

After their own private, urgent conversation, we were led through the gate and into the royal compound, whereupon I lifted down the body and we were told to wait. Here, the entrance appeared to be an even less grand affair, with exposed red brickwork showing and a garden full of herbs.

‘The staff entrance,’ Leana muttered.

We watched a man come out of a small door to empty dirty water down the drains.

Eventually two soldiers returned and declared, ‘Sulma Tan will see you now.’

Two other men in the red and blue of the City Watch helped us carry the body inside.

Knives and brutal barbed implements hung on racks along the wall, and I wondered where we had been brought. This brick chamber, Sulma Tan informed us after noting my suspicious looks, was used for training students of medicine. White paper lanterns glowed under the large arched ceiling. Sulma Tan moved one of the lanterns over beside a ledger before I had the chance to glimpse what was on it. As she did so, I told her about my discussion with Priest Damsak and of the bishop leaving the city.

‘Was that true?’ I asked. ‘Or do you need to confirm it with the Astran officials?’

‘It was true,’ she said. ‘The queen had already asked me to look into the process of adding a new bishop to that district. She is a great admirer of those gods, given they are not representative of the barbaric cults of our past. She is keen to see their forward-looking ways are continued in the city.’

‘And do you believe in such progressive ways?’

‘My beliefs are not important.’ She then steered us to a central table positioned directly beneath a skylight made of clear glass. Around this thick wooden table were three curved rows of stone benches, much like a theatre, only on a far smaller scale.

Sulma Tan had brought with her two middle-aged male officials, who were clothed in red silk trousers, black silk jackets with high collars, and long white socks. They lingered by the ledger at the back, ready with a reed pen to make notes as she spoke. Myself, Leana and Sulma Tan gathered around the covered remains of the bishop.

‘There’s not much hope for a recovery with this fellow,’ I said, pulling back the cloth.

One of the men gasped and muttered something incomprehensible as I uncovered the head carefully, before discarding the sack to one side.

‘By Astran,’ the other breathed. If these men had come here to study, they were clearly not that familiar with corpses.

‘Ah, it is so.’ Sulma Tan clasped the edge of the table. She asked one of the other men behind to run out to retrieve the other limb. In the meantime, we continued stripping back the fragments of cloth, exposing the body piece by bloodied piece.

‘You have the stomach for this?’ Sulma Tan asked us, and she was being sincere.

Leana gave a short laugh and said fiercely, ‘Lady, we have seen worse. I first met Lucan wandering around a field of corpses.’

That was putting things lightly. Our paths met during the aftermath of a most bloody battle. Her friends and family – and her husband – had been wiped out in the war. In the intensely hot location of a massacre, she had asked me if I needed a worker. I was an excuse for her to leave those horrors behind, to try to forget what could not easily be forgotten.

Sulma Tan continued to cut away at the final fragments of the bishop’s thick woollen clothing, until his flesh was fully exposed. Leana helped pull away the strips of material and discarded them in a metal bucket underneath the table. Sulma Tan retrieved a small metal tray, containing water and a cloth, and began to ever-so-gently wash away the detritus from the torso. The water soon took on the colour of the blood and dirt.

Now and then the queen’s second secretary would lean away to avoid the stench, and eventually she ordered one of the note-taking officials to open the room’s windows, allowing in a refreshing salt-tang breeze and the absent-minded chatter from a nearby courtyard.

The skylight above created harsh shadows, so Sulma Tan asked for three lanterns to be moved in order to see the gruesome details from all angles.

‘Most disturbing,’ I muttered, as it became apparent what had happened to the bishop.

‘A sick mind was at work here,’ Sulma Tan added.

The bishop’s body had not
just
been severed at his shoulders and neck, though that would have been a terrible enough way for him to have been killed. In addition to this, and though it was difficult to make out fully, there were well over a hundred cuts across the various surfaces of his skin, which had long since started to transform in colour to that of a green-tinted bruise.

There were a couple of skin blisters, too, but it was unlikely that these were related to the method of his murder. I tried to imagine the bishop’s final moments, being slashed repeatedly – though not all that deeply. It was as if he had not been allowed to die straight away. The murderer wanted to inflict pain upon him before concluding the matter brutally.

Sulma Tan said something quietly in her native tongue, perhaps a prayer – I couldn’t quite discern it – and she shook her head. She turned to one of the officials and asked him to bring in a physician. I noted how she asked for
a
physician, as if there were more than one – quite unlike the royal palace of Optryx in Detrata, where such individuals were generally rare.

After Leana placed the head alongside the body, we all stared at the reunited pieces for a little while longer. Sulma Tan asked how we came by the remains, so I told her of our evening escapades and just how we came to find the body so soon.

‘I must confess,’ I said, ‘that the bishop seems to have rotted too much for me to glean anything useful from him. This is certainly beyond my level of skill.’

‘Yes, the real expertise is on its way.’ Sulma Tan nodded thoughtfully. ‘It has been a long time since I’ve had training in dissecting the human form, especially since my tools tend to be a reed pen and ledger these days.’

‘In my experience, it isn’t often one finds such attention to detail in a murder,’ I said. ‘Usually a killing is done quickly – a cut throat in the dark, or a blade to the heart. Murderers want to get away, cover up their crime or flee the scene of the crime. Get the job done quickly in a back alley, if possible, and then get out. But here we have so many lacerations across the skin, not to mention the issue of dismemberment, which on its own would take a lot of time to complete. There was
consideration
here.’

‘A butchering, of sorts,’ she replied.

‘A torture,’ Leana added.

‘Both,’ I replied, and turned to Sulma Tan. ‘Has anything like this ever happened before in the city, some archaic religious ritual perhaps?’

‘Never.’ She looked up and there was a flare of anger, as if I had judged her culture to be primitive. ‘I have
never
seen anything quite like this. We are a peaceful, cultured city now. Especially in this prefecture. Even before, when we were a more savage culture . . . No, this bears no resemblance to the kinds of ritual killings thankfully consigned to history.’ After a pause, she added, ‘The kinds that all cultures are guilty of perpetrating. Even Detrata, am I correct?’

‘I don’t disagree with you on that matter.’ The acts of the Detratan Empire of old were of course well known to me; our families would discuss them as if they were charming fables, conveniently forgetting about the cruelty and bloodshed involved. Within Detrata these events were considered to be acts of glory rather than sin.

‘Do you think the killer will have fled the city by now?’ she asked.

‘Anything is possible,’ I said, ‘but something does not feel right about this. This feels
personal
. The bishop must have had an enemy – has he
always
lived in Kuvash?’