Vile

by Keith Crawford

  “Impressive, isn’t it?” Persephone said. “This whole courtyard used to be an open kill-zone, until my father built the Manor.”

  The second building, straight ahead from the gate, was a stone guardhouse attached to what might have been a prison. It backed into a broader edifice of buildings spread away across the fortress, their rooftops joined like shallow waves on a cold sea. Elianor could see another courtyard through the gap, but it was impossible to determine the labyrinth of spaces and it could just have easily been a passageway or an open-air latrine.

  Persephone led Elianor to the third of the three buildings on the courtyard while the guards stopped and removed their snowshoes. It was a squat brick blacksmithy, tucked in next to the main gate and flanked by a pair of huge cylindrical water tanks. Pipes ran from the tank tops into the rooftop which, in turn, sported clusters of black iron chimneys. No smoke came from their spouts, but the surrounding air sweltered, as if the smokestacks gasped for breath.

  Inside it looked like a blacksmith’s, although the fireplace was boarded up and the anvil missing. Tools and devices mounted the stone walls, heavy hammers and fine steel measures; a bellows hung on a hook and several series of phials were arranged beneath long hoops of rope. From one rope dangled a thick cloth climbing harness, and at the far side of the room a half-open door disguised a stairway down. What seemed to be powder kegs were stacked beyond the door, but it seemed unlikely they would have gunpowder all the way out here in the countryside.

  The centrepiece of the room was a large workbench. The handle of the vice was broken, and papers covered the surface: a map of the region with a thick blue line marked across it; a schema of large steam engines like those Elianor had seen as a girl at the great Festivals of Reason; a long series of figures checked, then crossed out, then abandoned under a plate that bore the remains of a half-eaten sandwich. If there was order to the plans, it would only be evident to a disordered mind.

  The owner of the disordered mind stood square with his hands on the spread. He wore a leather apron and a workman’s shirt that strove to squeeze in the more opulent elements of his malfigured bulk. At some point, he had suffered a horrible accident. His left arm and leg were twisted, and old burns showed on the exposed skin of his forearm. Beads of sweat rose through his shorn hair, long white scars stood stark against the red glow of his face, and puckered skin drew back the flesh from a wounded, staring left eye. He sweltered and glared at the table as if the maps were a menu.

  “Anton Vile,” he said, taking Elianor’s hand as if she were a man, “once of the Republic’s 5th Artillery Regiment. Or is that the Queen’s regiment now? It’s hard to keep up.”

  This was Senator Vile’s eldest son and the presumptive heir to Shadowgate. One-time officer in the army of the Republic, he had fought and been injured in the doomed war against the North that had ended with the restoration of the monarchy. She felt a surge of emotion when she touched his hand. Most people were anxious around a Magistrate—natural enough when Magistrates could sense what you were feeling—but here was shame and rage, despair and ferocity, and absolute determination that if he could not hide his fears from a Magistrate, then she would be bloody well overwhelmed by them. This was a man who, fair or not, had lost in every battle he had ever fought.

  “He’s also Castellan of Shadowgate,” Persephone said.

  Castellan? An old-fashioned word, from a less civilised time, when a proxy for the Lord of a Manor managed the domestic staff, the garrison, and military administration for the region. It was strange to use the title. Stranger still when the Lord of the Manor was right here, and to Elianor’s knowledge had barely left Shadowgate since the war. Persephone had rolled it off her tongue like she was announcing the Prince of Trist. This woman thought she was a knight in a fairy tale.

  “Persephone does all the work,” Anton said. “Is my father expecting you?”

  “I have taken considerable risk to arrive here promptly. Take me to Senator Vile.”

  Anton blinked then looked at his sister.

  “She was attacked?”

  “The Black Dog. She says she injured it.”

  “You fought the Black Dog? Alone?”

  It didn’t seem the right time to mention her misadventure with Derec Garn, so Elianor simply nodded.

  “Any sign of Mabyn’s patrol?” Anton asked Persephone.

  “No. We’re looking in the wrong direction. Are the others back?”

  “They are, and I’ll propose we send someone to the monastery in the morning. But I can’t promise Father will listen.”

  Persephone rapped her knuckle on the workbench. “My lady, if you are here to investigate the Black Dog, then this will interest you. Anton, we ran into Fyrsil on our way past the mines and he says there’s still no sign of Hodri’s daughter Seren.”

  “Gwyion sent me a message,” Anton said. “Have you told her sister?”

  “I didn’t want to do it before we got back from patrol.” Persephone looked at Elianor, expectantly. “We could escort you up the mountain, my lady, should you wish to interview Hodri.”

  Fyrsil, Hodri, Seren, an unnamed sister, a father—was Hodri the father or was that a woman’s name? Gwyion might be Gwyion Garn, like the Derec Garn from the cart, but the dialect in this part of Trist differed from the capital and the names sounded strange. It was only the Viles that had proper old Tristian names. Elianor gave as slight and noncommittal a nod as she could manage.

  Anton rubbed the top of his head. “Why now? What’s the pattern?”

  “Maybe she’s just had enough and run off to her mother’s,” Persephone said.

  “Hard to blame her.” Neither sibling’s voice carried much conviction, and, although Elianor could detect no particular lie, Anton was clearly a liar born. “You’d best both come over to the Manor.”

  But he didn’t move. His right eye narrowed as his puckered eye stared.

  “You’re very small,” he said to Elianor, and laughed as if it were a joke. And in the laugh, Elianor found a final emotion. Hate. Hate like a tidal wave that threatened to swallow everything it met.

  Without waiting for a response, he stuffed the sandwich remains in his mouth, hooked a hammer from the wall with the two remaining fingers on his left hand, and limped out of the smithy. Elianor took a deep breath to calm herself, recollected that she was tired, that she had been afraid for her life, that one should be careful of the Truthsense when emotional, and that she should try to behave with the dignity of her office.

  “Captain,” she said. “Does he understand who I am?”

  “Call me Persephone. This is Shadowgate, you’ll need all the friends you can get.”

  Chapter 7

  Elianor crossed the courtyard towards the Manor, a child escorted by busy parents. Anton used his crippled leg like a vaulter with a pole. Persephone just lengthened her stride. Elianor had to scurry to keep up. Her thoughts clawed at the back of her brain, berating her to slow down and clear her head.

  Lord Carada had sent her to bring Senator Vile before the Senate by the 30th Ventros. This was the night of the 18th. She’d left Lutense on the 12th, so had at best six days in Shadowgate if they were to make it back in time. Any investigation into the reported disappearances, or mysterious Black Dogs, was secondary to her mission, useful only to the extent it helped with the first.

  Yet Lord Carada had insinuated that she would have to force Senator Vile’s return, and that these disappearances were key. Now she had fought the monster that the locals suspected of the crime. Was it so simple: solve the mystery and win the favour? What if Senator Vile said yes? Told her that of course he would support the Queen, that saving the Kingdom took priority over a simple missing persons inquiry, and that they would leave together come the following dawn? Could she throw aside the list of the missing, forget the monster on the mountain, and meekly escort the Senator back to Lord Carada? Count future victims as just another cost of victory?

  What then of her real mission, her se
cret mission for her true master?

  The entrance to the Manor house was a thick wooden door. Anton banged his fist on it, as if he somehow thought the sound might carry, then seized the handle in his paw and thrust.

  “Abacus, is Lord Vile awake?”

  Persephone and Elianor slipped through after him into an antechamber that was part stairwell and part entrance hall. The woman to whom he spoke was tiny, shrivelled like a dried fruit, with iron-grey streaks in her dark hair. Age had hunched her shoulders, but it was the crouch of a tiger, not the curl of a dying flower. Liberation from the façade of youthful beauty had unearthed her, the way the brush of an archaeologist reveals ancient coins, making her more herself even as it polished the warmth from her brown eyes.

  “He’ll be down shortly,” she said. “Anton, don’t call me Abacus in front of guests.”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Anton said.

  The old woman turned to Elianor.

  “I’m Lena, the Steward of Shadowgate. His Lordship is expecting you and will join us in the audience chamber.”

  The wall of the castle conditioned the odd shell-like shape of the entrance hall. The stone stairs long predated the Manor, and the stone wall sweated moisture as if the wooden superstructure were a virus it longed to shuck off. Beneath the stairs was a chair and a narrow desk; there was a bag under the desk and a scribbled schedule on the wall.

  “You’re injured,” Lena said. “Would you like me to look?”

  Elianor noticed blood on the fur trim of her coat. Some must be hers.

  “My injuries are tolerable,” she said. “I would not see my business with the Senator delayed any further.”

  Lena took Elianor’s face in her right hand, her fingers around her chin. Elianor’s reflex was to strike, to knock her hand away, and beat the steward for her impertinence. But what then, after she had assaulted an old woman in the home of the man she had come to petition? Elianor’s face was turned to the right, then to the left, as one examines a piece of meat.

  “Very well,” Lena said. “I will tend to you afterwards. If you wish.”

  The anachronism of the audience chamber made a bizarre contrast to Anton’s mechanical wonders in the courtyard. The hall looked like a longhouse from a story book, the sort that feudal lords had used as meeting place, dining hall, and communal sleeping space in one. Swords, shields, and banners decorated the walls, and a long wooden table ran up the centre. To Elianor’s left was a fireplace, integrated into the castle wall, which must have been a cooking pit before they had built the Manor house around it. It took her a moment to realise that the shape of the fireplace was irregular. There was at least one passageway hidden within the walls.

  A raised dais crowned the far side of the hall like a stage in a village theatre. Upon the dais sat an isolated throne, made from blocks of the same stone that formed the castle wall. Behind the throne and in the far corner was another seat. A suit of armour was seated upon the chair, draped in a sheet that disguised its full shape.

  To the left of the dais was a portrait of a lady. It was mounted on a column of stone, the outside of a tower brought inside the Manor, such that the portrait could watch all the room but the throne. She was thin faced, with blonde hair and blue eyes. On her lap sat a small dog, in her hands she clasped white flowers, and she gazed from the picture as if consumption were a fashion statement. It reminded Elianor of her mother.

  “The sword is Demonslayer,” a man said. “With which Lord Vile struck down the Kindred Prince, ended the invasion of 1650, and proved beyond doubt he was the son of Octavian Vile and the rightful ruler of Shadowgate.”

  It was a fat peasant who spoke. Elianor smelled him before she heard his heavy breathing. She raised her eyes beyond the throne towards whatever he thought she had seen. A two-handed sword was mounted on the back wall. It was larger still than Persephone’s, presumably the source of her inspiration, but no more impressive than any other hunk of metal made for clumsy people to kill each other. The fat man waited for someone to introduce him. When nobody did, he spoke again.

  “I am Tannyr Brek, Mayor of Shadowgate.”

  It was not uncommon for farmers to take political position in rural communities, Elianor reminded herself. To be shocked at his vulgarity is a symptom of your sheltered upbringing. It is a strength of the political system that those closest to the people can rise to represent them.

  “Your Worthiness,” she said, trying not to breathe through her nose. Persephone stepped forward, as if to shield Elianor from the smell.

  “Did I see your Uwen here earlier today?”

  “He’s gone to escort his mother back to the farm,” Tannyr said. “Didn’t you send the Garn boy for the Magistrate, Anton?”

  Garn was the name the driver of the cart had used. Derec Garn, son of Gwyion Garn. Had she been reckless? Arrogant? If she had known Anton Vile sent the boy, then she might not have threatened him with her pistol, might have taken his warning seriously. Or her first instinct had been right. Derec Garn had sought to trick her, to ambush her, and his father, perhaps Anton Vile as well, had tried to stop her reaching Shadowgate. She hadn’t forgotten that hate in Anton’s eyes.

  “Did you see Derec on your way up?” Persephone asked. “He was supposed to meet you in Durançon.”

  “I think I should speak to the Senator.”

  A Magistrate trains to be rational. To trust her feelings was to trust that faster extension of logic, that constantly ticking machine of observation, that ability to comprehend faster than words can formulate. Magistrates saw patterns where others could not. This was what Elianor told herself. It was reason and not fear that had caused her to threaten Derec Garn. It was reason that told her to mistrust Anton, not the fact he’d laughed at her, not the way the red in his face reminded her of her father. Banging his fist on the dining table and declaring good times were to come.

  Anton snorted. He moved to stand by the firepit. Persephone was no longer smiling.

  “Will your other brother be here?” Elianor tried to sound as casual as possible.

  “I should think so,” Persephone said. “We don’t get many visitors from the capital.”

  “I have spoken to Nathaniel about your investigation,” Tannyr said. “My family and I will do everything we can to help.”

  Breks and Garns. Peasants buying surnames as if the point of an emergent middle class was to turn them into little aristocrats. But not, apparently, to teach them to bathe. The name Nathaniel she recognised, had been waiting for, for this was the third of the three Vile children: Captain Persephone’s twin brother.

  “My investigation?” Elianor said, mildly, disingenuously.

  “The murdered girls. Because of the Garn brothel.”

  “Which brothel is this?”

  “It’s not a brothel,” Anton said.

  “Nana Haf’s, on the far side of town,” Tannyr said. “Most of the girls have gone missing from round there.”

  “It’s a hostel for the miners,” Anton interrupted. “Most of the missing either work there, live nearby, or know someone who works or lives there, because most everyone in Shadowgate works for the Garns.”

  “There’s more to Shadowgate than the town,” Tannyr snarled back at him.

  A peasant power struggle, Elianor mused. Garns in the town, Breks in the countryside, and the Viles taking sides. Wonderful.

  “What makes you say murdered?” Elianor said.

  “Brothels invite that sort of behaviour.”

  Tannyr spat the words in the direction of Anton, who merely resumed his harassment of the firepit, poking it with a stick the way someone might poke a snake to be sure it was dead.

  “Don’t you have somewhere you should be, Tannyr?” Persephone said with faux amiability. “I’m sure your wife would like to have you home.”

  “No bodies?” Elianor said.

  “Not yet.” Persephone folded her arms across her chest and glowered at Tannyr, who was levering himself into a chair by the long table. “We
’ve expanded our patrols to search the mountain, but that led to further problems. I’m sure our father will explain in person.”

  “I will see what is keeping him,” Lena said, and scuttled off around the room. She took Anton’s side, putting her hand on his shoulder as she passed.

  “When did the first person go missing?”

  “Last year,” Persephone said. “Nathaniel can give you a list of the names and dates.”

  “Does he believe there is evidence of Kindred involvement?”

  There was a loud thud from the back of the room. Everyone snapped their eyes up to the dais. The suit of armour behind the throne got to its feet. Its covering sheet slid away, to reveal the distinctive blue helm with its reflective black screen covering the place where eyes should be. Acid rose in Elianor’s throat. The metal had a strange, dull colour, as if the life had been beaten from it. Illegible symbols marked strange mechanisms that shifted and strained. A deep moan rose from somewhere inside the armour. It raised its mailed fist, and its long finger pointed accusation straight at Elianor.

  It was a Warden.

  Elianor reached for her sword, but it was far too late.

  Chapter 8

  There was someone hiding in the stable.

  Gwyion Garn tightened his coat and thought about going back into the house. For a start, it was cold outside. Every year early-spring felt more like late-winter, and even in his prime, he hadn’t been much good in a fight. Here on the wrong side of fifty-years-old, he shuddered at the thought of waving about his fists. Such a silly way to settle a disagreement.

  It wasn’t unheard of for people to spend the night in the stables outside The Last Chance tavern. The occasional drunk. Tinkers too cheap to pay for a room and too pitiful to turf out. It would be easier to leave whoever-it-was to spend a night in the straw then sneak away in the morning. The warm light from the tavern door was a thousand times more appealing than the long shadows of the stable.