Raven's Edge

by Alan Ratcliffe

  She was investigating a murder.

  Part III

  Blood and Salt

  “You’re back.”

  “So it seems.”

  Craddock sized up the diminutive figure standing before him. In the days between her first and second appearance at the duke’s doorstep, the black-haired girl had been in the wars. Possibly quite literally. Clothes that had already long since seen their best days were now a patchwork of torn, ragged holes. What wounds she might have sustained during whatever assault had taken place was unclear, mainly due to the thick crust of swamp-muck coating both the remnants of her garments and the skin beneath. The exceptions were the dried blood and puncture marks along one forearm and a nasty-looking gash running down the length of her face. Even her hair, so striking previously, was a mess of mud, sticks and leaves... suggesting that she’d not so much been dragged through a hedge backwards as had one planted atop her head.

  The steward sighed inwardly. In his half-century of service to the ducal household he’d seen many strange sights and, while the unkempt, begrimed figure before him now ranked, at best, somewhere in the middle of those, there were few he’d held in greater disdain. “You’d have been better off riding your horse,” he sniffed, “rather than the other way around.”

  “Very droll,” she said. Based on their last meeting he’d expected truculence, but instead the girl seemed weighed down by weariness. “May I come in? I have business with-”

  “His Grace is not accepting visitors at present,” Craddock said hurriedly, subtly moving so as to block as much of the doorway as possible.

  “Then it’s just as well I’m here to see his son.”

  “Kester?” His brow wrinkled. “I’m afraid that is quite out of the question...”

  “Conall, actually,” the girl said, with the triumphant air of a gambler laying down the winning card. “Or will you tell me that every member of the duke’s family is indisposed?”

  Craddock hesitated, racking his brain for an excuse that would send the wretched girl packing. But that moment of uncertainty was enough to reveal that whatever followed it would be a falsehood.

  “If you could let him know I’m here...” the girl began, taking a meaningful step towards the door.

  But the steward had one last card to play and, while not enough to ensure victory it would nevertheless provide some small satisfaction in defeat. “The stables are back that way,” he said, pointing towards the keep’s main gate.

  The girl’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “What? I don’t...”

  “Outside them you’ll find a trough. Though the weather is dry, the grooms make sure to keep it filled.”

  Her face cleared as understanding dawned. “Oh.”

  “Come back when you’re done,” he said, with a malicious grin. “I’ll let the young master know to expect you.”

  He slammed the door. Less through a desire to keep the girl at bay, than to ensure it had closed before the laughter began. There was no excuse for bad manners, after all.

  * * *

  An hour later, Raven found herself once more in the same anteroom she’d grown so familiar with on her first visit to the castle. All was as it had been then: the tapestry depicting the martial prowess of the duke’s ancestors, the battle-worn shield and broadswords... even the chair on which she sat seemed to occupy the exact same space.

  It all contributed to a sense that nothing had changed, that Raven still awaited her first audience with the duke and everything she’d been through – fighting the witch-hunters, meeting the grieving couple, slopping through Blackrot Mire – were nothing but idle daydreams. Yet when she closed her eyes she saw the body of a woman who’d died alone and forgotten, and the feeling subsided.

  At least her mind was clearer than it had been since her flight from the mire back to Strathearn. Any annoyance she’d felt at her treatment at the hands of the duke’s steward had melted away as she scrubbed herself clean of the muck and scum of the bog. It wasn’t the cleanest she’d ever been – it would take a proper bath to achieve that, while she suspected her clothes wouldn’t survive any attempt to launder them and may as well be burned once she’d had the chance to replace them – but it would do for now. She’d been able to wash the mud from her hair and face, while the crusted filth on her clothes had dried enough that she’d been able to scrape the worst of it away. Lastly, she’d also taken the chance to clean and dress the wounds on her arm properly. With all that done, she’d felt like something approaching her old self again.

  That feeling came to abrupt end a few minutes later.

  “By the beard of the Divine, what happened to you?”

  Raven looked up into a pair of familiar brown eyes. Conall Maccallam had undergone changes of his own since their first meeting. His lower lip bore a large scab where it had been split open, while the left side of his jaw was swollen and decorated with a heavy bruise fading to a sickly yellow at the periphery.

  Raven blinked. “I could ask the same of you.”

  The duke’s youngest son smiled, then winced as it pulled at the cut on his lip. “You remember that rogue leading the witch-hunters? I ran into him on the road back to the city, not long after we parted. I guess he wasn’t expecting us to go back that way so soon. I tried to apprehend him to bring him back to face my father and... well... that didn’t go quite as I’d planned.”

  Raven remembered the leader all too clearly, and the relief she’d felt seeing him fleeing into the night. She knew a cold-blooded killer when she saw one. “What were you thinking?”

  Conall looked sheepish. “I think my head was still filled with our victory,” he said. “We fought, and this time I don’t think he’ll be back.”

  “You mean you-”

  “Gods, no,” Conall interrupted. “As bad as I look, he came off worse. Though if you’d not already weakened him then I probably wouldn’t be standing here now. As it was, I gave him a thrashing he won’t soon forget, and the last I saw of him he was running off into the southern wilds. Anyway,” he added, “what of you? You look like you fell into a crag-cat’s den.”

  Despite the aches and pains criss-crossing her body, she couldn’t help but smile. “Something like that.”

  He laughed. “That’s a story I’d like to hear.”

  “Another time, perhaps.” She was in no hurry to relive that particular episode, and there were more important matters to attend to. “I need your help.”

  “Of course, anything.” He frowned. “Is it to do with Kester? Did you find the witch?”

  Raven hesitated, wondering how much she should tell him. Conall had been through nearly as much as she, and probably deserved to know what she’d discovered. But it would only lead to further questions and, while she had doubts and suspicions, she possessed little evidence and fewer answers.

  She reached a decision. “Do you trust me?”

  His mouth opened, then closed again. He searched her eyes for clues, but found none. “Yes,” he said at last. “Though I’ve only known you a short time, I believe that I do.”

  “Good.” She let out a long breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding. “I promise that before this is over I’ll tell you everything. But for now I need you to do something for me.”

  “Just tell me one thing first,” he said. “Will this help my brother?”

  “Yes,” she replied, hoping it was true. “I believe it will.”

  He nodded grimly. “Then tell me what I should do.”

  * * *

  There was a knock at the door. The blonde-haired woman looked up, startled, then rose from the bed beside which she’d spent many long hours. She crossed to the door and opened it a crack. Then, when she saw the duke’s youngest son standing in the hallway, she pulled it wide.

  He smiled as their eyes met. “Lady Niamh,” he said. “I thought I’d find you here. How fares my brother?”

  “He is... well,” she replied, puzzled. “As well as can be expected. He woke some hours ago, but mostly
he rests.” Tears welled in her eyes. “He’s strong, the strongest man I’ve known, but still he grows sicker. I fear what will happen if...”

  “That’s why I’m here,” Conall interjected. He smiled. “There’s something you should see.”

  She wiped her eyes. “What is it?”

  “I don’t want to reveal too much in case I’m mistaken. But I believe I’ve found something that could lead us to her.”

  “You mean...?”

  “Yes, the one who cast this terrible curse. You must come and see for yourself.”

  Niamh glanced back at the bed and the sleeping figure. “Of course,” she said. “You must show me.”

  Standing hidden around a corner, Raven watched as the pair left together. When they’d disappeared from sight she approached the door. Another quick glance in both directions to make sure she was unobserved and she opened it just enough to allow her to slip through.

  Once inside the bedchamber she stopped and thought. While the first part of her plan had succeeded, she didn’t know how long Conall would be able to distract his brother’s bride-to-be. Then there was the slight problem that she didn’t exactly know what she was looking for.

  She glanced at the figure lying motionless beneath the bedsheets. The duke’s heir had not improved since the last time she’d stood in this room – quite the opposite. If not for the almost imperceptible movement of the sheet covering his chest, she would have believed him a corpse. If there is no curse, then whatever caused this sickness may lie close at hand.

  All the same, aware of how severely she would be punished if discovered, Raven took pains to be quiet as she began to search the chamber.

  Firstly, she examined every drawer and cupboard for anything that might give some hint as to what ailed Kester. When that revealed nothing suspicious, next she crawled over every flagstone, her mind running over all that she’d learned so far and tried to make sense of it.

  The old woman had been murdered, of that she was sure. But why?

  Because everyone knew she was a witch.

  It wasn’t a random killing, Raven felt certain of that. The trail had led from the castle to Aggy’s hut in the bog. The path hadn’t always been obvious, but it had always been there, nudging her in the right direction. The strange antiquated dialect that had sent Raven in a particular direction, the description that had given her a name and, eventually, a location.

  Clues upon clues. The problem with such clues, she knew, was that if your quarry was clever they would only lead you to the place they wished you to be.

  For a while, on her ride back to Strathearn from Blackrot Mire, Raven had wondered whether she’d erred, had perhaps followed a false trail and the witch who’d interrupted the duke’s feast was still out there somewhere. But she’d discounted the notion. The nature of Aggy’s death proved, to her satisfaction at least, that she’d found the one she was meant to find.

  If you accepted that as the truth, why then was Aggy killed? People already believed her a witch, after all. Because she wasn’t. Whatever diabolical mind had set these events in motion couldn’t take the chance that the old woman’s protestations of innocence would be believed – however slight that chance at a time when even accusations of witchcraft were enough to see women tied to a wooden stake and burned alive. No, if the finger of blame was to fall upon Aggy, then better to ensure her silence.

  And what of the bärgeist? Raven could only guess it had been let loose so as to cover up the murder. Popular folklore held such beasts were the creations of witchcraft, demonic beings summoned from the underworld by dark magicks. It was nonsense, of course, but nevertheless many would simply assume Black Aggy had fallen victim to an evil of her own conjuration.

  It might have worked. Had Raven simply stumbled across savaged remains in the beast’s lair, her investigation might have ended there. But it was here, for perhaps the first time, the killer had slipped – their evil machinations foiled by an old woman, her life already slipping away from the mortal blow her unknown adversary had inflicted. Somehow, Aggy had escaped the creature, and the true cause of her death was still evident on her body when Raven had discovered it.

  Even then, had it not been Raven who discovered the body, but one more inclined to believe in the curse’s existence, the witch-hunters or even a simple woodsman like Bram for example, it might have gone no further.

  However, if, as Raven now believed, the old woman was innocent, the unwitting victim of a plot that led to her front door, then the only possible conclusion was that her supposed appearance at the feast was a sham.

  A sound in the corridor outside made Raven look up. Footsteps. She froze, ready to dart out of sight. For just a brief moment the feet paused in front of the door, but then moved past. When they were out of earshot, she relaxed. How much longer do I have? she wondered.

  She stood and patted the dust from her knees. She’d been here too long already, with nothing to show for it. Her gaze fell once more upon the bed. Kester hadn’t stirred in all the time she’d been here.

  That he lay at death’s door was undeniable. Something had happened to him, and she now believed the incident at the feast and subsequent witch-hunt was a distraction; a macabre act to conceal a greater crime.

  Raven felt instinctively she was getting to the truth of it now. It felt right. The only problem was the lack of any solid proof to support her suspicions. She also had no idea who might be responsible for these crimes, nor their motive. However, if the cause of Kester’s illness was not supernatural then it was the work of human hands. And that meant the proof would be there, somewhere.

  If only she could find it.

  Her eyes rose from the bed and settled on the nightstand beside it. Sitting on top was an array of glass bottles and jars, containing liquids, ointments and tinctures of different hues. Potions and medicines being used to treat Kester’s malady. They looked the same as when she was last in the bedchamber, but now, with all she’d learned in the interim, they took on a more sinister appearance.

  There was no doubt in Raven’s mind that her adversary was both cunning and devious; willing to commit any act, however foul, to achieve their ends. She saw clearly how it had been done. It seemed obvious, now. But perhaps while it had come naturally to a mind as sick as her adversary’s to pervert that which should have been pure, for those less diseased it took a significant mental adjustment to fully comprehend the depths to which humanity could sink.

  She approached the nightstand cautiously, as though at any moment one of the bottles might explode.

  Poison. If you ruled out a supernatural cause, then it was the most logical conclusion. What else could cause a man to fall so suddenly ill and decline so rapidly?

  Raven had searched the chamber thoroughly for any trace or residue of anything that might have caused his sickness, but it was only when all else had been ruled out she’d even noticed the medicines.

  And that was the point. They were there to cure, not harm, and it took a devious mind to see the potential for corruption. They would be given to him each day, and no doubt as his sickness worsened the dosage was increased, only serving to further accelerate the process. And no matter if they failed to heal him; after all, what good were worldly medicines in the face of an otherworldly curse? If something isn’t expected to work, no-one is suspicious when it fails. It would be genius, were it not so deplorable.

  The seed of a plan was forming in her mind. But how to do it? It would be immediately noticed if any of the bottles were removed, and if the one responsible was still around to monitor the progress of their scheme they might be alerted and disappear before they could be caught.

  Also on the nightstand, beside the medicine bottles, was a glass pitcher half-filled with clear liquid. Raven picked it up and sniffed at it. No odour. She dabbed the tip of one finger into it, then let a drop fall onto her tongue. Water. Half a dozen strides took her to the chamber’s garderobe; a seat with a hole in the centre set into a small, curtained off recess. Sh
e began to drain the pitcher’s contents down the hole leading to the castle’s midden, when a thought occurred to her and she left a small amount inside the pitcher. After all, if the medicines might be poisoned, so too might the drinking water.

  That done, she returned to the nightstand and poured a small amount from each of the bottles into the near-empty pitcher, one by one. A light brown liquid, syrupy in texture, released a strong aniseed odour as she poured it. For the ointments, she scooped out enough to cover the end of her finger, and deposited it into the oddly coloured, aromatic mix. She wasn’t concerned about combining them – after all, it didn’t matter which of them contained the poison, as long as she could prove that one did.

  She moved as quickly as should dared, wincing every time the bottles clinked as she placed them back onto the nightstand. When it was done, she picked the pitcher up once more and went to the door. She stood a moment, listening, and when she was satisfied all was quiet she slipped back out into the corridor.

  It had gone as well as it probably could have. The distraction had served its purpose – though Conall would likely face some awkward questions – and in her hands she hopefully held evidence that would reveal the true nature of the crimes that had befallen the duke’s household... if not the perpetrator.

  Raven set off towards the side entrance. It will be for the best if I can get out without being seen, she thought.

  But no sooner had she reached the first corner, the one around which she’d hidden only minutes earlier, then she ran slap-bang into another bustling figure. “Watch out!” came a dismayed cry, as something hot splattered the front of Raven’s clothes.

  It was one of the castle’s servants. They still held the tray they’d been carrying, although now the dish that had sat upon it had been disturbed. A few spoonfuls of thin, grey liquid still lay in the bottom; the rest now decorated the tray, floor and both of them.