“I recognise you – from the docks,” the censor said. “The stevedore.”
Jon fought the wobble in his legs, the urge to run for his door.
“That’s right,” Jon heard Kareem reply. “I carry.” There was a hollow thud. Kareem’s hand slapping the side of the strongbox, Jon guessed, and wondered what Laila was doing.
“What’s in the strongbox?”
“Payment for the miller.”
“At night? In that thing? What kind of payment?”
“He’s made a deal with my master,” Kareem said.
He’s trying to drag me down with him, Jon thought and remembered his pledge that Kareem was to be the first Freeborn whose identity he revealed to the Brotherhood. There was no way that Kareem could talk his way out of this one.
“I’m having a look inside.”
The money would take some explaining, though.
“Be my guest,” Kareem said, “the miller has the key.”
“Bastard,” Jon blurted.
The censor turned to face him. “You two need to get your story straight.”
The censor’s gaze snapped sideways and, in an action Jon could barely follow, his cutlass sprung from its scabbard and twirled in a whistling arc.
Kareem’s forearm, with his pistol still gripped in his hand, came spinning through the air. Before they thumped and clattered onto the street, or Kareem even had a chance to scream, the censor’s blade reversed its course and sliced upwards.
There was a dull thud, and then Kareem’s hapless head came rolling around the corner to halt at Jon’s feet. The eyes remained alight for a moment, focused but uncomprehending. The lips twitched.
The censor turned his bloodied blade on Jon.
“Don’t kill me,” Jon yelped.
A black shadow crashed onto the censor’s back and smashed him to the ground. For a moment, Jon didn’t understand what had happened. Then he saw a bulging sack on the road beside him, grain spilling from its split seams. He looked up. Laila’s face peered over the railing of the reefing stage, eyes fierce with concentration.
Instinct lifted the censor to his hands and knees. He regarded Jon drunkenly.
Laila caught him two-footed between the shoulders, lashing his face into the cobbles. His teeth scattered like pearls from a broken necklace. Metal skittered on stone as the cutlass spun from his grasp. Laila bounced painfully off his back and lay on the road, gasping for breath.
I must help him, Jon thought desperately.
The censor’s blurred eyes fixed on his cutlass. He crawled towards it, through the slop and litter that edged the street. Laila drew a short dagger from her belt and gouged it deep into his calf. The man grimaced, belly-dragged towards his weapon an arm’s length away.
Jon stared at Kareem’s pistol, the censor’s blade lying in the dirt, and prayed for help or witnesses.
“Do something,” Laila hissed, and stabbed the censor in the thigh, who kicked back at her with his good leg and caught her cheekbone with a crack. The censor’s hand was inches from the cutlass.
Jon felt warm and light, as if he was floating in a bath.
In a flailing effort, Laila leapt frog-like onto the censor’s back and straddled him like a lover. She pulled back his head, her fingers slipping on his bloodied chin.
“No!” the censor burbled.
Laila sliced deep, opened his throat like a second mouth. Air hissed out of it. She left her blade quivering in the side of his neck, and rolled off his twitching body. For a moment, all was silent. Jon felt the night air cold on his face. Suddenly he was very tired.
“They’re both dead,” he said, and wondered at the idiocy of the observation.
“Useless bastard.”
Laila looked up at him with hard eyes, her clothes slick with blood so freshly red it matched her hair. Her gaze turned to the censor’s steaming corpse. She took Kareem’s pistol and shoved it into her dagger belt, kicked his head into the gutter. It was only then that Jon realised the insult wasn’t aimed at him.
“We have to get this mess indoors before anyone sees it.”
Jon prayed for the panicked bell of a watchman ringing for the town guard.
“What are you waiting for?” Laila said.
“I’m not helping you. Run if you must.”
“Don’t be stupid, Jon. You did your best with the censor. Kareem was too slow, but we can’t leave the bodies. If there’s an inquisition they’ll see everything.”
The words came like a slow slap to the face. Jon replayed the day’s events in his mind. He pictured himself tying the red scarf to the railing overhead, travelling to Barehill’s base, shaking hands with him. Taking his brand. Taking his money. Standing and watching while his people murdered a censor. That was what the censors would see if they took confession. He realised what he had done. The pieces fell into place, a mosaic made of shit.
He walked dumbly to the door of his mill, closed it behind him. The hall glowed orange with the light of a dying fire. He could hear Anna shuffling about upstairs, in the bedroom. He imagined going to her and holding her.
Anna, I’ve ruined everything, forever.
For the first time, he understood why Daniel had fled his failure.
He crept on tiptoes up to the minstrel gallery, into the mill tower and locked the door behind him, went down to the loading bay and slid open the folding door. The street was silent. There was no town guard. No candles burned in the windows of the buildings opposite. There was just Laila, the murderess, covered in blood.
He grabbed the censor by the boots and dragged his body into the loading bay while Laila gathered Kareem’s remains. It was abattoir work and it made him retch. The strongbox came last. After everything was inside, he collapsed onto a pile of empty sacks. Laila looked down on him.
“I can’t blame you for losing your nerve; I’ve seen it too many times before. But there’s no way back now. The sooner you accept it, the easier it will be for you.”
Jon ignored her. He just wanted her out of his house.
“When I tell Barehill what you did, he’ll trust you a little more. He’ll be sad to see the end of Kareem. Gods know why.”
“Anna,” Jon said, his mind elsewhere.
“Does she know?”
“What?”
“Does your wife know? That you’re one of us?”
Jon shook his head. Laila fetched a bucket of water from the back of the bay, grabbed a dusty overall from a hook.
“Good. It’s better that way. After I’m gone, you clean up outside. Now hold this.”
She passed him one of the bloodstained sacks on which he had been lying, peeled the clothes from her body and dropped them into the bag. He tried to ignore her body, striped with trails of blood, her chest and loins inches from his face. She ripped strips from the bottom of the smock.
“Turn around.”
Jon faced the wall while she wiped herself clean.
Laila threw the bloody sack against the wall. “When you’ve finished, put your clothes in this – anything with blood on it. Burn it all. Make sure there’s nothing left they can take confession from.”
He knew she hadn’t finished, yet he turned back anyway and caught a flash of red hair between her legs as she pulled up the overalls.
“Will you be alright? To get back?” he said, ashamed of his lechery. She nodded and ran soft-footed to the door, glanced in both directions and then was gone.
Jon emptied the bucket of bloody water over the blood in the street, scattered sand and sawdust to cover the stains as best he could. He bolted the folding doors, wrestled the bodies of Kareem and the censor into sacks and laid a canvas on top of them. Buried that under heaped sacks of flour.
Exhausted, he clawed at his own bloody garments as feebly as a toddling child, and stuffed them clumsily into the bag. Naked an
d soaked with sweat, he went back to the mill’s hall and dressed himself in a moth-eaten suit of Father’s, retrieved from the rag box.
The only sound in the mill was Mother’s snoring.
Jon tried to imagine how his family would survive after the censors had done business with him. Cheeks wet with tears, he added two handfuls of kindling to the hearth and when the flames had risen high enough, tossed the bloody bag into the fire. Visions of death flooded his mind and, try as he might, he could not force them out.
I know why the gods are punishing me, he thought. I know why I deserve this.
He remembered standing in the minstrel gallery looking down at Father sitting in the same chair by the fire, staring into the flames, feverish and immobile. He looked feeble, old before his time. Jon had been sent up to work on the sails. The bastard had just sent Dahlia and Daniel to fetch his wine from the vintner. That was the moment that had cursed him – that had cursed them all. Why send Dahlia? Jon had known that something was wrong straight away.
So why didn’t I say anything? Why didn’t I go after them? Why didn’t I stop it from happening?
Cruithin’s finest
The porter saw Daniel approaching and stepped out of the lodge.
“Bright and early, Mister Sutton. Do you intend to walk the bay?”
“My ambition takes me further afield. I plan to spend a night camping in the Lakes.”
The porter frowned. “You’ll be lucky if the weather holds. If the masters let the tide in, you’ll have to sleep in the stable yard.” Daniel nodded to show that he had understood and opened the wicket door in the Convergence’s immense gates. “I could summon you a chaperon? It would only take a minute.” Daniel patted his scabbard, winked and stepped outside.
Seaweed popped under his feet as he crossed the shingled causeway. Grey waves slapped against the invisible barriers to either side of him and he realised that he thought nothing of it, that he had begun to see the miraculous as commonplace. The idea troubled him a little, so he stopped to gaze into the murky water and startled a fish whose lashing tail left a stream of bubbles in the water.
Daniel requisitioned a fine white gelding from the stables and galloped up the highway to the sky burial.
Brother Adelmus’s corpse was gone, the name engraved into the head of the cross the only reminder of his murder. The message Corbin had scratched on his door had been deliberately cryptic, just a cross and an arrow pointing downwards, but Daniel knew what to do. He unearthed the bottle buried under the tall grass at the base of the cross and tipped out a small map. It showed a location half a day’s ride to the south. Bandit country. He checked that he was alone before readying his wheel lock, keying back its clockwork firing mechanism and loading it with powder and ball. He tucked the weapon into the bedroll behind his saddle, its grip out of sight but easily reached.
The lands to the east of Seascale possessed a bleak kind of beauty, all sharp hills, deep lakes and barren meadows, the shrubs and grasses grazed short by sheep that were nowhere to be seen. A few lonely trees twisted by the wind stood sentry on the edge of rocky escarpments.
Daniel made his way along narrow tracks and across boulder-strewn slopes that plunged into cerulean lakes. It was a bright day, but the sharp-edged shadows of the hills and clouds brought a chill to his fingers.
South of the hills, he rode a muddy half-track through woodland for several miles. He saw a trio of burial urns made of stacked slate, and a water mill, long abandoned, that somehow reminded him of home.
It was dusk when he reached a peaceful valley, lined with beeches, oaks and hazels whose leaves were already turning hues of yellow, red, purple and brown. Wind whistled in the trees and a watercourse gurgled nearby.
The place that Corbin had chosen for meeting could not be mistaken; the sprawling red sandstone walls of a ruined monastery filled the vale. Daniel marvelled at its size; it was at least the equal of Bromwich Seminary. He could not imagine how such a magnificent building had come to be built in such a lonely place. Fifty years past, it would have been a monument to the wealth and power of the godsworn. Now ivy clasped its walls and their stones were vivid with white moss.
Daniel dismounted his horse and led it beside him, a hand wrapped firmly around the grip of his pistol. They moved down the sacred procession, roofless and carpeted with moss and grass, into the shell of the mighty tower that once held a sanctum. A canvas tent had been pitched inside its soaring walls, and a ring of pebbles had been placed on the ground. A chestnut warhorse stood untethered, chewing on some grass. Daniel whistled the three-toned censor’s call and it bent a leg and bowed its head. Daniel tied his own horse alongside. It flared its nostrils and snorted, but soon the horses were nuzzling.
“You’ve a better disposition than your master,” Daniel whispered, and patted the chestnut’s flank. He was unstrapping his saddle gear when he heard Corbin’s voice behind him.
“Evening, Mister Sutton.” The prosecutor was carrying a jumble of twigs and branches. He dropped the sticks onto the circle of stones. “Get to work on a fire.”
Daniel obeyed without comment and Corbin headed back into the trees. By the time he had returned with some more branches, Daniel had the kindling sparked and was warming his hands.
Corbin fetched a rabbit from his saddlebag.
“You hunt beasts as well as men,” Daniel said.
“I bought this in the Verge’s market,” Corbin said, and stripped its skin off with one hard pull.
Night descended. The campsite filled with the nutty smell of cooking game.
“Well?” Daniel said.
“Lang’s instruction was to meet you. I promised nothing more.”
Daniel chewed for a while, choosing his words carefully.
“This investigation falls within Magistrate Lang’s jurisdiction. He’s keen to understand how our investigation progresses, as is his right.”
Corbin spat a bone into the surrounding darkness. “Our investigation? What great secrets have you uncovered?”
“Do you wish me to make a report?”
Corbin didn’t answer, so Daniel shrugged and held his tongue.
“If you must,” the prosecutor said wearily.
“There is no reason to suspect any of the demi-masters.”
“Do they suspect you?”
Daniel ignored the sarcasm. “I’ve been discreet. Most seem oblivious to the censor’s death.”
“That it?”
“I have spied upon the godsworn, as you instructed.”
“What!” Corbin’s face clouded
“He’s no friend of the Verge.”
“Godsworn were ordering the Cunning burnt alive less than thirty years ago and the Brotherhood of Censors were doing the burning. Why would he be a friend?”
Daniel shrugged again.
“So you’ve uncovered the sweet sum of nothing.”
“One thing.” Daniel slowly finished his rabbit, savouring every sinew. He noisily sucked the juice from the bones, gazed into the fire as if considering. He wanted Corbin to be in no doubt that he was doing him a favour. “I noticed a master acting suspiciously.”
“Everything they do is suspicious.”
“Lang is looking into his files.”
Corbin’s eyes narrowed and he spat into the fire. “Is he? And what would this master’s name be?”
Daniel gnawed on scraps as Corbin studied him.
“It seems to me that I’ve made more progress than you have,” Daniel said, and settled back on his elbows.
“Insolent pup.” Corbin stared at him dagger-hard and for a good while. It was supposed to be intimidating. Corbin was a scary man, no doubt, but Daniel had seen worse. Eventually Corbin settled back himself, and let out a deep sigh. “At least you’ve got some balls on you.” He rested his head on a log, closed his eyes. “These are the facts of the matt
er. The censor left the Verge in the middle of the night. I think by sea, because his coracle is missing. He left a fire burning in his room, which means he intended to return or he didn’t want it to be known he was gone. He was lured to the stables and ambushed, or else was caught by surprise during an investigation.”
“If his killers were waiting for him, then somebody inside the Verge knew of his plans.”
“Maybe. I’ve checked the porters’ register. Everyone who left the Verge in the week before the killing has returned since. I’ve been to Ravenglass as well, where those roughs came from. It’s a pissant fishing village. Nobody knows anything.”
“Were there any clues in his room?”
“Adelmus lived a lonely life. There was nothing of interest in his chambers. I’ve taken confession from the main gate and his room for hours and seen nothing. I’m still hurting from it. I’d take confessions until my brains ran out my nose if I thought it’d help, but I don’t know where to look. Or when.” Corbin jabbed at the fire with a stick and embers spiralled into the night air.
“Then we’re stuck – apart from the master.”
“Are you going to tell me his name?”
“On one condition.”
Corbin scowled, but Daniel knew he had no choice. “State your terms.”
“You let me help you.”
Corbin drummed his fingers on the mossy ground.
Daniel spread his empty hands. “Agreed?”
Corbin nodded, defeated. “Very well. Now what does this master call himself?”
“Pendolous Bolb.”
“Sounds ridiculous.”
“That’s the point of it.”
“And what have you got on him?”
“He’s found religion.”
“That’s hardly a crime, even in the Verge. What’s got Lang so interested?”
“Since the day Adelmus died he’s been bothering the Verge’s godsworn, praying for aid and forgiveness.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes.”
“That’s thin. Thinner than a leaf.”
The Censor's Hand: Book One of the Thrice~Crossed Swords Trilogy Page 20
