And then there was Lanch to worry about. Depending on how the man’s body looked when they got there, Kelc could foresee this day becoming very…interesting.
Though no light shone through his window- only a weak light from out in the house gave him any way to see- Kelc could tell from the crisp air that it was near dawn.
He pushed himself upright and hauled his breeches up his legs. Some socks and boots and he stood up to pull on a heavy tunic and his jacket. He wrapped his sword belt around his waist and jerked it tight, the black leather holding both his Symean scimitar and the black skiver. Then, because he was still cold, he threw his cape on, tugging it out over his shoulders and clasping it in front like a cloak. He ran his hands through his hair a few times and stepped out into the main room.
“A dandy’s cape,” Tasher immediately stated.
Kelc thought about ignoring him, but no Symean would do so.
“If you could lift a sword, warden, I’d pound you around the yard. Let’s just get today’s work done.” With that he strode past the man, receiving a pat on the shoulder as he did, Tasher issuing a gravelly chuckle.
“You’ve got steel in your bones.”
Kelc paused long enough to glance back at the lawman, annoyed by his comment and the fact that contempt earned him praise, before stepping through the front door out into the cold morning.
A thick layer of snow softened the landscape, the serene blanket interrupted only by the few tall headstones and obelisks that couldn’t be completely covered. Small flurries still fell, though they were only the tiny panicked motes that lagged behind the real snow.
Kelc walked through the light snow to the storage, behind which was the stable. He found his sister there, hitching a four-horse team.
“Good morning, Kelc,” she said, smiling brightly.
For a moment, Kelc’s heart leapt but then it seemed to freeze. Dark practitioner. He knew he too was a witch, and yet something about knowing it of his sister made him hesitate. How long had she known she was one? How long had she known he was? Why had she never told him? The uncertainty brought with it a touch of distrust.
“Morning,” he said, giving Shy little more than a curt nod as he reached up to thread the lead line through the wagon harness.
“Kelc, are you okay?” she asked.
“Okay?” he snapped, feeling as if the question was absurd. Okay? Less than a day ago, my own mother confessed to being a practitioner, offering you, Shy, as her accomplice, he thought. And me. He needed to keep that thought at the center of all things: his rage, his fear and his confusion. I’m a witch too.
“Just troubled,” he muttered, moving Macy into position, getting her ready to be belted.
“Troubled by what?” Kelc spun to the new voice, finding Kreggen there. “Doing my old job?” Kreg smiled. He still wore a number of bandages, the most notable that across his chest, where no serious wound resided. He wore a heavy wool cloak draped over his shoulders to keep warm
“Did mother say you could get up?” Shy asked, the surprise on her face unmistakable.
“I’m a man, sister. I can decide on my own when I can rise.” Kreg shot a private look to his brother. “Besides, it was the nausea of the medicines more than the wounds that kept me abed.”
That’s because the wounds were gone, Kelc thought. But then he glared at his sister, she being the nearest target for his outrage. They poisoned Kreg as well. Shy wilted before his accusatory look, though she couldn’t have known his thoughts. Hells, he snapped at himself. It was probably needed. He sucked in a deep breath and let it out, causing a plume of white vapor.
“When will you leave?” Kelc asked. “I assume that since you are out of bed that Tasher will spare as little time as possible getting you to your duties.”
“True enough. We leave tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Shaia responded, nearly weeping, already moving to her older brother to hug him. Kelc envied her that. He exchanged only a level gaze with Kreg, and a nod. His older brother’s eyes were already warden’s eyes, expressionless and distant.
“Yes. The warden has been long away from his duties and I must accompany him.” Kreggen hugged his little sister and then disengaged her. “I wanted to tell you both to be careful and to remind you, Kelc, that as the sole indenture to the family business, you are entitled to five percent of the payment. I took mine, though I didn’t know I could until I was nearly twenty. Now that I’m leaving, it is yours. Make sure father knows that you know. He’s a good Symean. He’ll pay it.”
“You…” Kelc shook his head. “He has to pay me?”
“Yes,” Kreg stated, nodding his head with surety, “it isn’t much but the laws of Symea state that the oldest bonded family member will receive five percent of the family business while performing his indenture. That’s you now.” Kreg held Kelc’s gaze for a few moments. “I wanted you to know. I thought it might help you…pass the time more easily.”
“Thank you.” Kelc could think of nothing else to say. “Thanks.”
“Kelc, it’s your right. Fight with father about these things. Challenge him often. It’s the Symean way. It’s expected, maybe needed even. Make light of the difficult and never acknowledge the simple things.” Kreggen reached out and took hold of Kelc’s forearm, clutching him in a formal greeting. “Anything else will get him after you. And you need to escape here, little brother.”
Kelc nodded slowly, a ball of emotion surging within him. After a few more moments, Kreg turned and left his younger siblings to their work.
Shy sniffed while she girded the horses and Kelc labored solemnly next to her, the entire morning catching off guard an instant at a time.
“…be ready,” Varrl’s voice could be heard along with dirt crunching beneath his boot soles before he leaned into the stable. “You two have the team ready yet?”
Kelc sucked in a quick breath. “Of course,” he snapped, “it’s a simple enough task.”
“Good,” his father answered, again leaving them. “It’s ready.” He must have been talking to Tasher.
“Kelc,” Shaia whispered, leaning her lips to his ear, “can you feel it?”
Looking at his sister sideways to see if she jested for some reason, Kelc could discern nothing. He took a moment to see if he could, indeed, feel anything, but only his own confusion and irritation rose in his mind so he shook his head.
“Be very careful today,” she breathed. “I have a feeling…It’s just…”
“Shy,” Kelc muttered, “mother already told me what you are.” No sooner than the words were out, he regretted the tone he used. Even though he shared her ability, the Symean part of him made the sentence happen, made it sound like a curse.
His sister fell back from him, eyes narrow. “You’re a fool, little brother,” she spat, emphasizing the word little. Her hand snapped up and caught him, open-handed in the jaw. “You emulate a land that will see you dead.” Despite how quietly she said the words, the heat in them scalded his spirit. “Be careful on your way to Lanch. The warden already suspects witchcraft.”
Kelc reeled before the slap and the thought that he walked into some sort of trap.
“What you did, freeing a spirit as angry as Henna to do whatever she wanted without control…that was foolish, Kelc.” She pulled in a deep breath. “You need to start thinking before you end up getting us all killed. It’s time to stop pitying your existence and live up to it. Meet it head on and make something out of it. Hells!” She spat, “I can’t believe you spoke to me like that. After eighteen years of being beaten nearly to death, you talk to me like I’m the evil. Truly!” Her voice rose a bit. “Why do I even bother?”
She fumed as she left him alone in the stable, her head shaking and her hands balled into fists.
“Everything a’right, boy?” Tasher asked as Kelc led the team out a short while later.
“It’s fine, warden.” Varrl stood beside the lawman. “Stop calling me boy. Do so again and, injured or not, I will defend my h
onor.”
Varrl offered a minute nod. “What’s wrong with your sister?”
“She wept because Kreg is leaving soon and I told her to save her tears for funerals,” Kelc lied as he hooked the harness to the wagon. “She told me I was an unfeeling ass and I suggested she get used to that fact. I have room for naught but my work and improving with the sword now. I’m the eldest indenture. How else can I earn my portion of the business?”
Varrl managed to look simultaneously pleased and angered. “Well enough,” he grunted, “let’s get there. The day is sure to be long enough without the drama of women.”
“Agreed,” Tasher added.
“Just another day,” Kelc said, maintaining the hard-headed persona. “Isn’t my first and it won’t be my last.”
After his words, the warden and his father exchanged a quick glance, the former wearing a smile. Kelc noted it with irritation as he climbed atop the wagon, gathering the reins.
“You two coming?”
“Hmmm.”
Just a simple sound coming out of Tasher and yet it commanded complete silence from the three other adults in the room: Kelc, Varrl and Velna, Margin Lanch’s widow.
The warden looked at the body from each side before leaning down over it and pressing his fingers into the neck. “Hmph.” He then turned the head slightly from side to side.
Velna Lanch leaned in as the warden inspected her husband’s body, her amber eyes narrowing. Her sandy blonde hair stretched back from her forehead, tied into a single ponytail of the back of her head, adding to the angular nature of her features. She seemed almost predatory, wary and reactive, watching the goings on in the main room of her family home.
Before her, Tasher lifted each of Margin’s hands and inspected them, looking at the knuckles, palms and then at the tips of the dead fingers, squinting his green eyes as he scrutinized them. He set each hand back down on the dead man’s chest before unfastening the well-made tunic that covered the now still chest, inspecting that as well. After only a moment, the territorial warden stood up.
“You say he just called out and then stopped breathing?” Tasher said, repeating the very simple explanation that Velna offered earlier. “Nothing else?”
“Nothing.” After speaking, Lanch’s widow stood taller as if even she needed to stand ready to battle the warden.
“There are scratches on his neck,” the warden said. “Do you have a thought as to how they may have arrived there?”
“He pulled at his own neck as he suffered,” she answered, her gaze unwavering, her countenance almost regal.
“I do see a bit of blood beneath his fingernails. Show me your wrists, arms and neck.” Though he stated the demand evenly, the air rung with accusation. Kelc rocked from foot to foot as tension clawed through him.
Velna hesitated not a moment before drawing her blouse off over her head in a single fluid motion. She might have just as easily rolled the sleeves to her shoulder to display the unmarred flesh there, but she seemed to revel in bringing instant closure to the warden’s accusations.
She kept her eyes level while the lawman handled each of her arms the way a farrier might a horse. He then stepped up to her and looked over her neck, finding nothing there of note.
“You seem to be…unfazed by his passing.”
“I am still a Symean.”
“Varrl here says you wept openly at your daughter’s funeral.” Tasher nodded in Varrl’s direction. “He says you fell to your knees before her body and made quite a spectacle. Were you Symean then as well? Has something changed?”
“I was weak. For such a young girl to die so unexpectedly…shocked me. For a Symean man to die…” Velna’s eyes broke away from Tasher’s and looked beyond him as if greater meaning lay in the woodwork of her home’s walls. “For a Symean man to die is expected. A Symean wife prepares herself constantly for that day.”
Kelc pulled a breath through his nose. She spoke of the woman’s duties to prepare for her husband’s death in battle and yet she simultaneously told a room full of men that Symean women basically wait for the day that they are free of their hateful abusive spouses. Who wouldn’t, Kelc thought.
“I see.” Tasher nodded, turning from Velna. “What do you think of this dead body, Kelc Varrlson?”
Kelc felt a chill drop through him. “Me?” he offered, his surprise complete.
“You are now an earning member of this region’s coroner staff. So I ask you to look at the body and tell me if you know what happened here. Other than your father, you are the most experienced person in this area for leagues. I rely on your understanding of the dead.” Tasher’s green eyes bored into Kelc almost hungrily while he turned just enough to imply that the boy should move to Lanch’s body.
“Well…” Kelc temporized, while stepping up to the body, looking at the neck, “…there appear to be only minor depth wounds in the neck.” He glanced at the fingernails where only a bit of blood and skin seemed to be present. “It looks like he did, in fact, scratch at his own neck.” Kelc leaned down before the dead face, the eyes closed. “His mouth is closed.”
Kelc turned to Velna. “Did you close his mouth?”
All three men looked to the woman. She nodded sharply. “It helped him look more noble in death.”
Feeling as if he suffered more inquiry than did Lanch’s widow, Kelc sought to be thorough. He dug his fingers into the dead man’s mouth and with a little exertion pried his jaw down. Inside lay his black swollen tongue. “His tongue is swollen badly. Was he eating at the time of his death?”
“He’d just finished.” Her tone still strong, defiant.
Kelc reached in and took hold of the man’s tongue, pulling hard on it, but saw nothing of value. “He died because his tongue swelled, warden. I’ve learned that if it was poison, that white pustules or blisters would be present on the tongue and back of the throat.” Kelc looked his father square in the eyes. “You told me that.” He returned his attention to Lanch’s body. “That is not the case here. I’d say it looks like he was strangled but no bruising exists on his neck. Either he choked on something or he had another illness that swelled his tongue and throat. Perhaps he had a toxic reaction to some sort of food.” Kelc looked back to Velna. “Did he try a new food?”
She paused, looking into Kelc’s eyes for a moment. “Yes,” she finally said. “He tried some wild mushrooms. Those in town were too expensive so he brought some in that he found in the field. He felt sure they would be alright.”
“Did you eat those same mushrooms?” Tasher asked.
“I did not.”
“Why not?”
“Warden,” she sighed, exasperated by the man’s incessant implying, “I don’t like mushrooms. I never have.”
“So if we cut your husband open right now we will find him stuffed with wild mushrooms?” The warden glanced from the widow to the dead man. Kelc caught Velna swallowing hard while the warden looked elsewhere. She drew in a deep breath.
“Yes.”
“So, it wasn’t you after all, despite your hatred of your husband,” Tasher remarked.
“I served as a dutiful wife, warden, and require no insult from you.” The words sizzled in the air, full of pride and distaste.
Tasher’s left hand snaked out and the back of his hand caught her on the cheek, knocking her into a graceless spin, ending on the floor.
“Keep your tongue and your tone, woman.”
Kelc found his hands on his weapons and quickly pulled them away.
The quick motion seemed to pull the warden’s eyes. “You did well in determining the cause of death, Kelc, though what I know of you suggested you’d be well versed.” The man’s eyes seemed to flash. “Very well versed.” Kelc fought the notion of asking exactly what the warden spoke of, but instead he nodded.
“Let’s get the body loaded,” Varrl announced. “Time’s wasting.”
Tasher nodded. It took only a quarter glass to get Margin Lanch’s body into the cart, secured in the travel c
offin.
“Kelc, I need to speak to the warden for a few moments. Go collect seven silver for the burial.” Varrl waved his son away with little more effort than he might fan a fly from his supper.
Kelc left them, though he distrusted them enough to immediately suspect their intentions in his absence. Shaia’s warning came back to him and his sense of paranoia began to grow. After a handful of steps, he spun back to the wagon.
“…know what you think about him,” Varrl said before noticing Kelc. “I told you to…”
“She’ll want to know when the burial will be.” Kelc glanced at the sky. It was midafternoon. They wouldn’t get home until after dark. “What shall I tell her?”
Varrl pressed his lips together for a moment. “Tell her tomorrow at noon is the earliest. You’ll have to do the work. Tonight.”
“Yes, sir.” Kelc spun and headed back into the house. He merely knocked on the jamb of the still-open front door as he entered.
Velna sat in a chair, tenderly touching her reddened cheek as if feeling the heat that grew there. She rose to her feet as soon as she noticed Kelc.
“Still here, are you?”
“Yes,” he said mechanically before realizing the opportunity before him. “How is your cheek?”
Velna let her orangish-brown eyes settle on the young man, surveying him for a moment as if he was completely foreign. “I’ve lived through worse.”
Kelc nodded. “I’m sorry that this is how things turned out. It would be different had I any way to make it so.”
Velna’s features softened a bit though she remained silent.
“You watched your husband die?”
The fierceness returned to the woman. “No…I merely saw the sparest moment at the end.”
Kelc could tell she lied. He could feel it with a certainty, the same sort of overwhelming surety with which he could tell when he was being watched.
“You saw it all,” he said, glancing back through the front door to see his father and the warden still talking atop the wagon. “It was Henna.”
Dread of Spirit: Rise of the Mage - Book One Page 15
