False Dawn: Ageless Mysteries - Book 2

by Vanessa Nelson

  “Ma’am. There’s been a death in the house,” the Watchman answered, eyes straying past her to Niath, who was a few paces away. “Looks like poison.”

  “Has Physician Pallas been called for?”

  “Yes, ma’am. And Examiner Soter.” The Watchman coughed slightly, perhaps remembering one of Dina’s famous tongue-lashings. The examiner hated her crime scenes being disturbed. “It’s just the dead man in the house, ma’am. No family.”

  “You’ve been through the house to check?” Thea asked, looking up at the building above her. It was a large property for one man to live in alone.

  “No, ma’am. Neighbours told me. I didn’t want to go in.”

  “So, there could be someone else in the house?” Thea speculated.

  “I suppose it’s possible, ma’am. I haven’t seen or heard anyone.”

  Thea lifted her brows. That didn’t mean much, and the Watchman seemed to realise it, avoiding her gaze. “Where is the body?” she asked.

  “On the upper floor at the top of the stairs.”

  “Who reported the death?” Thea asked, trying to peer into the house beyond the Watchman’s shoulder. She could not see the stairs, let alone a body, from here.

  “Neighbour, ma’am. Said that the dead man. Ah. Edmund Anderson. That Anderson had been due to meet him at the tavern. He was concerned. The neighbour, that is. He went in, found the body, and called the Watch.”

  Thea’s eyes narrowed, looking at the partly open door behind the Watchman. The door was heavy, with at least one lock on it, as would be normal for a tradesman’s house. She suspected there was more to the neighbour’s story than the summary the Watchman had given her and made a mental note to find the neighbour as soon as possible.

  Before then, she needed to make sure the house was, in fact, empty of living people.

  “Wait here,” she told the Watchman, “and let the physician and examiner know I am checking the house when they get here.”

  “Ma’am,” the Watchman said, his eyes widening as Thea stepped past him, pushing the door open.

  As she went into the house, Thea found Niath behind her.

  “You don’t have to follow me,” she told him.

  “This is much more interesting than standing outside,” he answered. His eyes were bright, looking around him with close interest. “Besides, what if there is someone else in the house?”

  “As long as it’s not another escalus, I think I can cope with that,” Thea said, voice dry.

  “I am sure you can. Shall I mark our trail as we go?”

  “That would be helpful. How did you know to do that?” Thea asked.

  “I’ve heard tales of Examiner Soter’s temper,” Niath said. He was enjoying himself, Thea realised. She glanced back to find tiny points of white light appearing just above the floor at regular intervals, marking the route they were taking. It was a subtle use of magic, and one she had not seen before. “I’m surprised you didn’t wait for her,” Niath added.

  “She would be even less pleased if we let a killer go free whilst we waited for her,” Thea said. She stopped, glancing across at Niath. “It would be better to search in silence,” she told him.

  His mouth curved in a smile of pure mischief and he inclined his head, waving a hand to indicate that she should lead the way.

  Neither of them needed a lantern to make their way through the ground floor of the house, the small-paned windows letting in enough light from the night outside. Thea could not make out the details of what she was seeing, but could see enough to move around, using her other senses to make sure there was no one else alive apart from her and Niath.

  The ground floor was set up as a tradesman’s workshop. Some kind of woodworking, Thea suspected, seeing the odd pieces of timber here and there, and recognising some of the tools that were neatly stowed on a wooden rack. Everything was in its place and there was no sawdust on the floor. A tidy workman.

  The stairs to the upper level were at the back of the building. She made her way up.

  There was a long, bulky patch of shadow at the top of the stairs.

  Something rolled away from her boot as she reached the top step. She crouched down and found a small lantern, the sort that someone might carry around a house at night. There was still oil in the reservoir.

  “Can you light this?” she asked Niath, low-voiced. There were no windows close by, and even her night vision had limits.

  The lantern spluttered to life, producing enough light to let her see the dead man at the top of the stairs.

  He was lying on his side, facing towards the stairs, face swollen, traces of foam around his mouth. He was wearing a long, plain linen nightshirt and nothing else. Perhaps he had been sleeping.

  Thea’s brows lifted. It did look like poison, but she would let Iason make that determination.

  She rose to her feet and carefully stepped around the body, glancing back to see Niath doing the same, his robes gathered around him to avoid brushing against the dead. It seemed he also had a healthy respect for Dina’s temper.

  The upper floor of the house was slightly larger than the ground floor, with two bedrooms, and a living space which held a hearth and a well-stocked kitchen.

  There was also the extraordinary luxury of an indoor bath, complete with a pump handle to bring water directly into the room, and a drain to take the used water away. The bath was full of cold water, with what looked like oil residue floating on the surface.

  There was a burned-down candle at one end of the bath, and a footstool which had been knocked over, spilling clothes across the floor. Thea could see a faint outline of a bare footprint on the floor, heading towards the stairs.

  A neat and tidy man, who also liked to be clean. He might have decided to take a bath before joining his neighbour in the tavern. Thea took a step away from the bath. It seemed to be the last place he had been before he died, heading towards the stairs in a thrown-on nightshirt, looking for help, and dying before he could get there.

  There was an extensive collection of pottery jars and a tall glass bottle on a shelf near the bath. Soaps and lotions, Thea suspected. A collection that a wealthy lady might envy.

  There was no-one else in the house.

  By the time Thea and Niath had finished their search of the upper floor, footsteps downstairs told Thea that Dina and Iason had arrived.

  Iason Pallas came up the stairs, lantern in one hand, physician’s bag in the other. Even in the dead of night, the physician was immaculately attired, in a beautifully made dark suit, white shirt collar gleaming in the poor light above a buttoned waistcoat. He was a slender man, barely reaching Dina’s shoulder, his neatly combed black hair and trimmed beard a sharp contrast to the examiner’s rumpled hair. Iason paused when he saw the dead man.

  “Anyone else here?” Dina asked, from behind Iason’s shoulder.

  “No. The house is empty. It looks like he might have been taking a bath when he fell ill,” Thea said.

  “A bath? There’s a bath in here?” Dina asked.

  “Yes. Through there,” Thea pointed.

  “I take it the Mage is responsible for the lights?” Dina asked, brushing past Iason to get around the body.

  “I am,” Niath said. “They show our trail through the house.”

  “I see. Basically, you’ve trampled everywhere?” Dina asked. She sounded less annoyed than Thea was expecting.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Niath admitted.

  “I needed to make sure the house was clear,” Thea said. “We can leave now.”

  “Oh, no, you can stay and help,” Dina said, sounding far too cheerful. “It’s the least you can do after messing up my scene.”

  “Ma’am,” Thea acknowledged to the examiner’s back, as she headed into the bathroom. Thea turned to Niath. “I’ll be here for a while longer, then I will have to write the report. Can we meet in the morning?”

  “You don’t think I can help here?” Niath asked.

  “Yes, you can,” Dina said, sti
cking her head out of the bathroom before Thea could say anything. “I want samples of everything that’s in the jars in here, and the bathwater.”

  “Everything?” Niath asked, blinking.

  “Yes. We don’t know where the poison is. Come on.”

  Thea watched, trying not to smile, as one of the Citadel Mages meekly obeyed Dina’s orders.

  Before she followed them, she turned to Iason.

  “Physician, do you need anything?” she asked.

  “Not just now,” Iason said, sounding as if most of his attention was elsewhere. He had folded back the cuffs of his jacket and shirt sleeves and was kneeling beside the dead man’s head, lantern raised at his shoulder to give him more light, using what looked like a long metal spoon to slightly open the man’s mouth.

  “I can hold the lantern for you,” Thea offered.

  “What? Oh. Yes. That would be helpful.”

  Thea took the light and crouched near the man’s head, watching as Iason gathered a bit of the froth at the man’s mouth and put it into a small glass vial, stopping it securely with a cork.

  “What are your findings so far, sir?” Thea asked.

  “Some kind of poison. That seems obvious. But I don’t recognise it at the moment. And it’s not clear how it got into him,” Iason answered, still sounding distracted.

  “Not through his skin?” Thea asked.

  Iason shook his head slightly. “Unclear. We don’t want to reach any hasty judgements,” he said.

  There had been no rebuke in his tone, but Thea felt her cheeks warm. She had assumed that the bathwater had poisoned the man, she realised, with the full bath and the evidence she had seen suggesting that he had taken ill in the bath.

  “You may be right,” Iason added, glancing up, as if responding to something she had said. “Poison in the bathwater does seem the most obvious cause of death, but we should not narrow our focus just yet.”

  “Does that mean we will need samples of all the food and drink as well?” Thea asked in dismay, glancing over her shoulder at the kitchen.

  “Yes,” Iason agreed. He had shifted position slightly, continuing his examination of the body. “Officer March, if you were in a bath and felt ill, what would you do?”

  “Get out, grab something to cover me, and go and look for help, I suppose,” Thea said. “It depends how ill I was feeling.”

  “You probably would not have taken the time to dry yourself first, though,” Iason said.

  “No, sir, I don’t think so. Why?”

  “This man has not been dead for long, but he and his nightshirt are dry.”

  “Would the warmth of his body have dried him?” Thea asked.

  Iason glanced up, hint of smile showing on his face. Thea had the feeling she had asked a right question.

  “Let’s turn him, shall we? If he was wet, there should be damp on the floor under him.”

  Thea set the lantern aside and moved to help as Iason very carefully rolled the man fully onto his back.

  The floor under him was dry.

  “There was no drying sheet in the bathroom,” Thea said.

  “So he was either not in the bath at all, or had time to dry himself before putting his nightshirt on,” Iason concluded.

  “It’s an odd thing to do,” Thea said. “If he had time to dry off, why not get dressed in his clothes? There were some in the bathroom.”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Iason agreed. He looked up, and a moment later Dina came out of the bathroom, Niath behind her, frowning.

  “What’s wrong?” Thea asked, coming to her feet.

  “The bath was never used,” Dina said, scowling, “and the clothes there don’t make an outfit.”

  “He died here, though,” Iason said. “The way he was lying was how he died.”

  “But he wasn’t in the bath beforehand,” Thea concluded. “I need to speak to the neighbour who found him,” she said, remembering her unease about the story that the Watchman had relayed. The neighbour getting through a locked door to find his friend’s body.

  Thea moved past the body, heading for the stairs.

  “We’ll keep looking,” Dina said.

  As Thea reached the bottom of the stairs, she realised that Niath was with her.

  “Tired of collecting samples?” she asked.

  “Not at all. But this seems more interesting.”

  ~

  The Watchman was happy to point out the neighbour’s house, across the street. It was a similar design to the dead man’s house, all the windows facing the street unshuttered and dark, no light showing from inside.

  Thea knocked on the door and then, when there was no answer or any sound of life in the house, hammered on the door with her fist.

  “Is that a special knock they teach the Watch?” Niath asked.

  “No. It’s something we pick up along the way,” Thea answered, voice tight, tilting her head to listen. There was someone moving in the house, but they were not coming towards the front door. “I think he’s heading for the back.”

  “Allow me,” Niath said. He put his hand on the door lock and murmured a word too low for Thea to catch.

  The lock clicked open.

  “That’s a useful bit of magic,” Thea commented as she opened the door.

  “Thank you,” Niath said.

  Thea glanced over her shoulder before she went into the house. He was definitely enjoying himself.

  “Watch on approach!” she shouted into the darkness.

  “You’re alerting them to your presence?” Niath asked, following her inside.

  The front door swung closed behind them, and for a heartbeat, Thea was in darkness, unable to see anything. Her throat closed. She forced herself to stay still. Breathe.

  And realised that the room was too dark for her to see properly.

  She muttered a curse under her breath, taking a step forward, putting a hand in front of her to try and avoid tripping over anything in her path. She stopped, realising that she was not going to get anywhere, and drew in a breath, trying to steady herself before she asked the mage if he could help.

  “I can provide some light,” Niath offered, voice sounding far too close behind her ear.

  She had to take another breath and swallow before she trusted her voice to answer, telling herself that the dark really was not pressing in on all sides.

  “That would be useful, thank you,” Thea said, as calmly as she could.

  Little motes of golden light appeared around them. Not bright enough to destroy Thea’s night vision. Too dull for a human to use, but just enough for her to see the shapes in the room, and make her way forward. She had delayed too long.

  The house above them was quiet. Too quiet. There was no one else there.

  But there was a slight draft of cool air against her cheek. There must be a back door somewhere.

  And she could hear the faintest sound of running footsteps.

  She muttered another curse and headed for the back door, ducking around various bits of equipment hanging from the ceiling.

  The door opened on to a narrow strip of land bordered by the high, stone wall of a warehouse at the other side. To one side, Thea saw what looked like fluttering white fabric.

  She was running towards the fabric before she fully realised it was a running man, in his nightshirt.

  “This is the Watch! Stop!” she shouted after him.

  He did not stop. Very few people did.

  Irritation spiked. She had not managed to tag him with the vivid paint that Odilia made for the Watch. Thea was going to need to chase him, and keep him in sight.

  She ran after him, aware of Niath at her shoulder, the mage keeping pace with her without evident effort.

  The man ahead of them was tiring already, she saw. He slowed and ducked around a corner.

  She came around the corner to find him nowhere in sight, but there was a dark shadow of an open doorway to one side. A toolshed of some kind.

  “I just want to talk to you,”
she said as she approached the door. “Will you come out, please?”

  There was a long silence, then a shuffling sound. Bare feet against wooden boards.

  The man appeared in the doorway. He was older than Thea had expected, from how fast he had run. Older, perhaps, than her mother. Breathing hard, skin pale in the motes of light that Niath had brought with them.

  “I’m Officer March. This is Mage Niath. I want to ask you about Edmund Anderson,” Thea told him.

  “I didn’t kill him,” the man said, his voice shaking.

  “I didn’t suggest that you did,” Thea said, keeping her voice calm with an effort. “Can we go back to your house and talk? You might be more comfortable with some clothes on.”

  The man looked at her for a moment, jaw set, then nodded, once, and set off back towards his house.

  He lit a lantern as they came in through the back door, providing more light so that Thea could see that the things hanging from the ceiling were oddly shaped bits of wood.

  “Lutes,” Niath said, looking around him. “You must be Genric Smith,” he said, turning to the older man.

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “You are reputed to be the finest lute-maker in Accanter,” Niath told him. “I’ve heard some of your instruments played. They are wonderful.”

  “Thank you,” Genric said, colour rising. “Most people only pay attention to the player.”

  “Clothes,” Thea prompted, when he fell silent.

  “Yes. Of course. This way.”

  He led the way upstairs, which was a similar design and layout to the house opposite. Thea found a kettle by the stove and boiled water while he changed.

  When he came back to the kitchen area, dressed in a plain shirt and trousers, she had managed to make tea for him.

  She waited until they were settled at the table.

  “You didn’t find Edmund Anderson this evening,” she began with no preamble. “You were in the house when he died.”

  Genric stared back at her, face drawn, eyes reddened.

  “You were close to him,” Thea guessed. She had seen the signs of grief on enough faces to recognise them.

  “Three years,” Genric said, voice rasping. “We were planning to move out of the city next spring. Finally.”