The Icefire Trilogy

by Patty Jansen

  Bed, Sady, go to bed.

  But first, something to eat.

  He walked into the kitchen where a single light burned against the back wall. The benches were empty and clean. A bowl of fruit stood in the middle of the table.

  “Hello? Lana?” He expected to hear a voice from the pantry, I’m in here! Wait a moment. Do you want roccas or some soup?

  Now that he came to think of it, he was more than hungry. It could be the reason why he felt so ill. He couldn’t even remember his last meal.

  “Lana?”

  The pantry door was closed. The back door into the laundry was closed. The corridor to the servant quarter was dark.

  That was strange. Lana was always here. He couldn’t imagine that she had gone to bed; she never did before he was home. But then again, it was very late, and he had told her repeatedly to go to bed if he was late. He was just . . . disappointed that she seemed to have taken his advice on this night, when he needed to talk to someone calm and sane.

  He left the kitchen and knocked on the door to her private room. “Lana, I’m back.” She would want to know; she would worry if he stayed out too long.

  There was no reply.

  Neither was there a sign of life from anywhere else. The noise he made should have brought out Serran, because he was responsible for the grounds, or the young Merni, because she was a gossip, and would make sure that she didn’t miss anything.

  Where was everyone?

  Sady walked into the dark living room, feeling stupid. Here he was, the great leader of the country, and he was unnerved by being alone. Unnerved by feeling so strange in his own house.

  The living room window looked out onto the courtyard, where he could only see a stone bench lit by a lantern on the patio, a little island of light in the dark. There was a statue in the middle of the yard, of Eseldus han Chevonian, one of his great forefathers. Today, Eseldus was only a dark silhouette.

  The windows in the guest wing to the right hand side of the courtyard were dark. The surgeons must have already gone home. He was relieved about that; Sady had no desire to become more intimately acquainted with women’s business than absolutely necessary.

  He could still see the woman’s bruised and red-blotched abdomen. The thought made him shiver. He hoped she survived. He hoped the child survived. That would be one point of light in this misery. He’d never thought that this was the way his house would ever see a baby.

  He went back to the kitchen and scouted for some food, cringing at every noise he made. The clank of a plate on the stone bench, the rummaging in the cutlery, the rumble of pouring coal into the stove, the hiss of the flame under the kettle, it all sounded incredibly loud. He found some bread and a bit of goat’s cheese, which crumbled all over the bench when he cut it up into clumsy, too-thick slices.

  He sat down and ate, listening to the silence of the house.

  And the sounds of the day. The ringing of the bell. The yelling of the men in the camp. He didn’t understand their language, but he could feel the despair and anger in their words. It brought back many bad memories of his youth. Hundreds of people crammed into a cellar for days without food. The stink of too many bodies in a confined space. There had been that boy, a bit older than himself at the time, who projectile-vomited on those around him.

  Sady could still smell it. He could still see the mother’s embarrassment, her despair. Her son was seriously ill with sonorics, and yet her immediate concern was the irritation of the people around her.

  Sady could still hear her, and the boy’s muffled cries. And the ringing of the bell. He would never forget that. Today, the bell had rung again, after more than ten years of silence.

  Somewhere in his mind, he registered that the water was boiling and probably had been for a while. Now, where did Lana put the teapot?

  As he pushed up from the seat, there was an enormous crash at the back of the house, and the breaking of glass.

  He froze, heart thudding. What in all of mercy’s name was that?

  “Lana?” he called at the door. Surely, that crash would have woken the whole house up.

  But again, there was no reply.

  He ran into the living room, unlocked the cabinet in the corner and took out the powder gun. It was a solid and heavy thing given to him by Milleus back in the days when they used to go hunting. He hadn’t taken the weapon from its cabinet for a long time, but now the metal barrel lay cold against his arm. Comforting. Familiar. He pulled out a box of bullets, inserted two in the gun and slipped a handful into his pocket.

  Still, none of the staff had come to investigate.

  He made his way through the corridor to the back of the house. His footsteps echoed loud in the silence. His mind churned, trying to come up with innocent reasons for the breaking of glass. Maybe the family had been scared by a door they couldn’t figure how to open. He’d travelled in the southern land, and everything was so much more primitive there.

  He opened the door to the guest wing. All dark. No signs of movement. The lamp in the hall was out.

  “Hello?”

  His heart was pounding.

  The only reply was the soft keening of a whistling ground squirrel out in the garden, an unpleasant, creepy noise that made his skin crawl. The damn things were a menace, destroying plants and digging holes everywhere, dislodging tiles and cracking walls. He’d remind Farius to put out some baits.

  A fresh breeze stroked his skin, making the hairs on his arms stand on end. There should not be a breeze here.

  As quietly as he could, Sady walked into the living room, clutching the gun.

  In the washed-out light from the lamp in the courtyard, broken shards of glass glittered in the window frame. More glass lay on the ground. A chair lay upside-down on the carpet. Then . . . there was a human-looking shape on the floor, a few paces into the room. Booted feet of a man, face-down on the carpet, surrounded by a dark stain.

  Sady ran across the room, and crouched next to the prone form. The man was dressed in thin trousers and a jacket that could be white or some other light colour. He was wearing thin gloves. Sady grabbed him by the shoulder. The weight was heavy, with no sign of movement. He didn’t recognise the face. As Sady turned him over, a metal instrument fell out of a breast pocket. This had to be one of the surgeons. With a huge gash across his stomach where his bowels spilled out. The man’s open, staring eyes spoke for themselves. Nothing he could do for this man.

  Just inside the window was another body. Another man, on his side.

  Sady recognised the jacket in han Chevonian maroon with gold piping before he could make out the man’s face. Serran, the off-duty groundsman who should have been asleep in his room. He would not be going anywhere ever again. Rivulets of blood had run from deep gashes across his lower back and soaked his jacket and the carpet. Sady pushed him on his back to see that his chest had been cut to the bone. His eyes were glassy and open.

  Next to him, another unknown man in white shirt, arm ripped to shreds, the side of his tunic slashed open to reveal a dark mess of blood and intestines.

  Sady rose, feeling dizzy with the cloying scent of blood and death.

  Was anyone left alive in this room?

  Where were the southern woman and her family?

  One of the beds had been taken from the bedroom into the middle of this room, and stripped of blankets. It was covered only in a bottom sheet, neatly tucked-in as only nurses and soldiers could. Next to the bed stood a surgeon’s kit of instruments. Unused, as far as Sady could tell. There were towels and sheets. Clean.

  But someone had used the bed. There was a dark patch of something wet that wasn’t dark enough to be blood. And a wet patch on the floor with in the middle a glistening heap of . . . something that looked lik
e a disorganised bunch of dark entrails.

  Sady’s stomach churned.

  On the floor, on the far side of the bed, was another body, this one a woman.

  Sady’s insides went cold as he recognised the bun on her head, the dress, and the apron, the sturdy shoes and the chubby arms and dimpled hands that had so often brought him tea.

  Mercy, Lana.

  “No,” he whispered. For a moment, his vision went black.

  No, Lana!

  He dropped to his knees, put the gun down and reached for her as if in a nightmare.

  Her shoulder felt limp and lifeless.

  Her face was a bloodied mess. He couldn’t even see her eyes for the blood. Half her cheek had been ripped off.

  “No, Lana.” His voice came as a rough whisper.

  Sady took her arm. It was barely still warm. There was no pulse. The room blurred before his eyes.

  Lana, and her cheerful jokes. Lana, who would not go to bed before he came home. And he’d been eating in the kitchen, maybe even while she was bleeding to death and he could still have saved her.

  The silence of the room, the smell of blood and the staring eyes of four bodies made him dizzy.

  He breathed slowly through his mouth, trying to think. He needed to get guards out here, to comb the grounds to find out who had done this.

  Where were the southerners? The pregnant woman and her family. There was no sign of them, although a fur cloak lay draped over the back of the couch.

  He said, as loud as he dared, “Hello? Where are you?”

  There was a sound in the garden.

  Sady froze. The killer might still be out there. For all he knew, the killer might be one of the southerners.

  He pushed himself up, picked up the gun and went to the broken window, walking over the carpet so that his footsteps didn’t make any noise.

  The bushes in the garden looked like big angry trolls against the dim sky. Old Eseldus was like the king in their midst.

  The sound came again, a snort, from somewhere in the yard.

  He cocked the gun, once, twice to fill both barrels.

  Click-click. Loud in that heavy silence.

  “If you’re out there, give yourself up. I have a gun.” His voice echoed in the courtyard.

  There was no reply.

  He slowly stepped through the broken window, avoiding shards of glass, into the garden. His boots crunched more glass. A couple of bushes had been ripped out of the ground, their stems broken. A trail of dark spots led down the paved path, but stopped before they reached poor Eseldus.

  There was that snort again. He raised the gun, holding his breath, his finger on the trigger and stood like that, as quiet as he could, until the need to breathe overwhelmed him. Nothing moved.

  On the other side of the garden was a pavilion which the architect had probably intended as a garden room, but which, in absence of the large family that would normally live in a house like this, the staff used as storage.

  The door stood open.

  The door was not normally open.

  He crossed the yard and looked inside, but it was far too dark for him to make out anything.

  “Hello? Anyone in here?”

  Something moaned softly in the darkness. It wasn’t an angry or a dangerous sound, but the sound of an animal in pain.

  Clutching the gun, he stepped into the pavilion. Years of accumulated dust crunched under his feet. It was so dark in here. There were stacks of unused furniture in here somewhere but he hardly ever came in this room, and couldn’t remember where exactly they strood. And if only he was looking into the light, he might have been able to see some silhouettes. Still holding the gun poised, he waved his left hand about and shuffled forward, feeling where he went.

  “I’m here. I have a gun. Don’t try any funny business.” He hoped it sounded confident, because he didn’t feel confident. Somewhere in the back of his mind, it occurred to him that it was probably an exceedingly stupid idea to pursue this alone, and that he should go and find Farius or Orsan.

  The sound came again. This time, it was clearly a human voice. A woman. He couldn’t make out the words, but she sounded distressed.

  He found the owner of the voice in the far corner behind some garden furniture. He remembered the garden table, the big one from Milleus’ house that had a candle well in the middle. He could see the table in his mind the last time he’d come in here, and remembered that there was wax in the well which no one had bothered to clean out. He ran his hands over the table, found the well and lit the wick. The paltry smoking and sputtering flame revealed that his quarry was the southern woman, legs pulled up against her chest, hugging herself.

  She blinked against the light, her eyes intense blue. Her cheeks were wet with tears. She said something in her language.

  “Hang on, I don’t understand a word you’re saying. Do you speak any Chevakian?”

  She only responded to that by crying.

  “Come, let’s get you some place safe.”

  He clicked the safety back on the gun, looped the strap around his shoulder and bent down to help her up.

  Her hair felt wet and the naked skin on her shoulders cold and clammy. The muscles in her arm shivered when he pulled her up. Her belly was blotched and bruised, but floppy. Her thighs were smeared with blood and she left a puddle of it on the floor. She almost fell and he put a steadying arm around her waist. She was completely naked, and her arms had multiple scratches and if she’d crashed through the bushes.

  “Where is your baby?” Because clearly, the child had been born. He made a cradle of his arms and pretended to rock an infant, but he’d never had children, and maybe they didn’t rock their infants in the south, in any case, she didn’t understand him, and his first priority should be to get her out of here.

  “Can you walk?”

  He pulled her towards the garden. She stumbled and said some more words in her language, crying. Rivulets of blood ran down her legs. It was clear that she couldn’t walk. Not well, anyway. Also, she wore no shoes and there was glass in the courtyard.

  “Come.” Sady looped his arm under her shoulders, put his other arm around the back of her legs and lifted her up.

  Carefully, he walked through the garden to the guest pavilion. She was heavy, and her legs were wet and slippery with blood, but she clung onto him like she was a little girl. Curly hair tickled in his face.

  He made his way back into the guest pavilion, past the bodies still on the ground.

  When he entered the corridor, Orsan came the other way in big strides, carrying a torch.

  “Proctor, what has—” He stopped. Looked at the woman and the broken furniture in the living room. “What happened here?”

  Sady explained quickly, to Orsan’s increasingly horrified expression. “Did you hear the window break?”

  “No, but I thought I heard the side gate open. What has happened to her?”

  “No idea. Have you seen her baby?” Sady asked. “Have you seen the rest of the family?” There should be two other women, and a man.

  “No. I was at the front gate.”

  The woman moaned. Her face was wet with tears.

  Orsan said, “Give her to me. I’ll take her to the domestic wing.”

  “No. Take her to the second bedroom.” The one next to his. “She needs a physic. She’s bleeding.”

  Orsan took the woman from Sady and his arms thanked him. He was no athlete.

  “Sady!” Fast footsteps in the corridor announced Merni. She came into the room, skirt flapping. Her hair was messy from bed. “What happened? I can’t find Lana—” She stopped. Her gaze found the booted feet of the surgeon. Her eyes wide
ned. She clapped her hands over her mouth to stifle a scream. She stumbled about, her eyes popping wide and dropped onto a bench, where she sat, panting. “They’re dead, they’re dead, they’re dead.”

  Sady sank down next to her and put a hand on her shoulder.

  She jerked towards him, her eyes still wide enough for the whites to show on all sides, and let out a scream.

  “Shhh, calm down. It’s all right.”

  “No, it’s not all right There’s dead people in there. How can you call that all right?” She screamed again, and clawed at her face. Her eyes were so wide, he wasn’t sure if she even saw him.

  “Shhh—screaming is not going to help them, or the guards looking for the killer.”

  “You mean there’s a killer still out there?” Her voice spilled over, hysterical. “You mean he’s going to come back and kill all of us, too?” She screamed again, shrill. Her nails left red marks on her cheeks. Sady felt like clamping his hands over his ears.

  “Quiet!” he shouted, perhaps a bit louder than he’d intended, but the screaming jangled his nerves. He grabbed her hands, so she couldn’t scratch herself again. The muscles in her arms were tense and fought him. “They’re dead. They’re dead!”

  He tightened his grip. “Merni, stop it!”

  She looked at him, breathing fast. Tears tracked over her cheeks. He mouth quivered. “But . . . but they’re dead.”

  “I know, but screaming is not going to help anyone.”

  Her chest moved in rapid expansions, as if she’d burst out screaming any moment. But she kept her mouth shut.

  “Calm down, breathe slowly, that’s it.”

  She was young, much younger than Lana, and had started working at his household last year at Lana’s recommendation, but Sady had found her excessively formal and nervous.

  Her breathing slowed somewhat. “That’s it,” he said, trying to sound as soothing as possible, even though he didn’t feel that way at all. “Now, follow Orsan and look after the poor woman.”

  “Yes,” Merni said, and she nodded, clamping her lips to stop them trembling. “Yes, certainly.”