Out of their depth, p.11
Out of Their Depth, page 11
More yelling. “Is this some sort of trial?” whispered Varakai to Githwin.
“No,” answered the musician. “This is an inquest. The sheriff is judging what evidence he has and the mood of the likely jurors, often the most important issue, to see if has enough to charge someone.”
“No one has really looked closely at the body. Will he ask for a physician to inspect the corpse?”
“He might,” Githwin said. “But it is not a requirement. There are few university-trained physicians or surgeons and he would have to bring one in.”
“Can I inspect the body?” inquired the mage. “Something about the head wound looks strange to me.”
“You can try,” Githwin said with a shrug. “I will stay with the mayor and sheriff.”
Varakai slipped away from the group and knelt by the body of the man. A riot of smells assailed him: something rancid, the stink of feces, rotten eggs, and the sharp, metallic reek of blood. He reached inside his robe for his sachet of cloves, pressing it to his nostrils.
“Let’s do a test,” bellowed the sheriff while Varakai examined the corpse. The sheriff sounded almost gleeful. “All women over the age of sixteen, come take a swing with this axe at yonder stump.” The crowd moved away from Varakai and the corpse to coalesce by the large, low stump recently used by the mayor as a speaking platform and Grimlok as a seat.
Varakai took advantage of the moment to get a closer look. The body of Lewin the Woodcutter lay on its stomach, head twisted to one side. The carrion birds had torn at the exposed flesh of the face, neck, and hands, but the only apparent major wound was a crushed skull. Varakai tried to roll the body to look at the chest and belly, but it was stiff and very heavy. After one brief try, he gave up and focused on the head.
In the background, Varakai heard cheers and jeers accompanying the sound of an axe striking wood.
The top of the head was a shapeless mass of dark, sodden, bloody hair. Varakai used his belt knife to probe at the wound. The upper half of the skull had been smashed; he could feel fragments of bone move, like chunks of ice in water, as he prodded the scalp. What puzzled him was no sign of brain matter. The only other time he had seen a wound of this type—when a large stone had fallen on a construction worker—there had been plenty of visible gray brain matter.
“Stinks, doesn’t it?” came a breathy whisper in his ear. Varakai jerked around to stare into bright blue eyes under raised, golden eyebrows. Hugh was bent over right behind him, hands on his knees, ogling, his mouth slightly open.
In the background came another thump as an axe-head struck wood.
“Killed with an axe, was he?” asked the younger man.
“Probably,” replied the mage.
Hugh smiled. “And did an axe kill that sow and those sheep?”
The young scoundrel is right to ask that, thought Varakai with a frown. He walked over to the nearest carcass, the sow's. The animal lay on its side, gutted, entrails spilled in a bloody pile. That could conceivably have been done with an axe. Hugh had stepped around the body and stood smirking. Varakai joined him, then grunted in surprise. The thick neck had a deep gouge ripped out all the way down to the vertebrae. That looks like an outsized bite wound.
“I suppose those could have been caused by an axe,” sniggered Hugh.
At that point, the knot of people around the axe-wielding women broke up, the test concluded. “See, Bardo, eight in ten women could swing that axe well enough to dash out any man’s brains,” boomed the sheriff while clapping the smaller man on the back. “Let that be a lesson to us all.”
The mayor shook his head slowly and stomped off toward the corpse of Lewin, the sheriff and Githwin trailing behind him. The crowd followed the three.
“Sheriff, it is one thing to swing an axe once and hit a stump,” Githwin said, then pointed at the multitude of bodies. “Look around us. It took a great deal of strength and rage to do this.” There were calls of agreement.
“So what? She had help,” responded the sheriff. He pointed at Hugh by the pig. “Like that lad.” The crowd gasped, but the sheriff let loose a whooping laugh. “Didn’t I hear he is always going about with her, probably dipping his wick regardless of any monk’s vows? Easy enough for her to twist even a devout young man into foul murder to save her pretty neck from the hangman who got her witch mum.” The sheriff held up both hands to the crowd, a broad grin on his face.
Hugh looked startled for a few heartbeats, but then his smirk returned as he squared off to confront the tall lawman. "A nice bit of slander, Sheriff, in fact if not by law. Might I suggest you ask this fellow" —he nodded toward Varakai— “if he thinks an axe is what killed that pig.”
“Why would I care what some foreign scribe thinks?” the sheriff said.
Githwin interrupted before Hugh could respond. “He is a learned man, sheriff. This is an inquest and we don’t have a physician. Let’s hear what he has to say.”
“Oh, all right,” the sheriff grumbled. “Say what you have to say, Learned Man.”
Varakai looked about him into a wall of strange faces, all paler than his. He felt alone, singled out, as he had all his life. He looked for his friends: Grimlok stood at the crowd's edge, looking troubled. Bunce had his attention elsewhere. Githwin’s features offered no expression. Then he saw Miri smiling at him, her broad head poking out above the sea of hats and caps, and took heart. He drew a deep breath. “There are signs of what could be great bite marks on the neck of this swine. Take a look at the sheep and see if it is not the same. I contend this is the work of some great animal, not an axe-wielding madman.”
“An animal? Nonsense!” fumed the sheriff. “The poor fellow’s head has clearly been dashed in by an axe. Look, there is blood on the weapon!”
“Hey, sheriff,” called a small, elderly man. “Begging your pardon, but this sheep has had its neck torn out. See for yourself.”
“Aye, this one too,” called a middle-aged woman squatting to examine the other sheep’s carcass.
The sheriff stalked over to glower down at the nearest sheep. “Bah! Those ragged edges could have been caused by someone hacking away at the animal.”
“It, it was a bear,” stammered Grimlok. “I saw a track that looked like a big bear over by where I was sitting when you arrived, near the stump. The sign is probably all trampled now, of course.”
The sheriff’s face reddened. “Why did you not say anything about this before, you half-grown idiot?”
Now it was the dwarf’s turn to color, the pale skin of his neck turning red beneath the spiraling blue tattoos. “Half-grown, is it?” Grimlok growled, holding up one clenched fist and thrusting out his chin at the sheriff. “Don’t take me for one of the people who are so afraid of you that they won’t stand up to your bullying. I’m a free man, not a serf on your lands to berate.”
The sheriff bunched his own fists and started for Grimlok, but Githwin and Mayor Bardo moved to intercede. “Now, now, Sheriff Mowbray,” soothed the mayor, “we do get bear around here, big ones, and they sometimes want more than fish, honey, and berries.”
“It seems to me we should call this particular phase of the inquest closed and get the dead man buried,” offered Githwin.
The sheriff looked about him, judging the mood of the crowd, then sneered as he called for his horse. When it arrived, he leapt into the saddle and galloped off, growling imprecations.
The mayor waited until the lawman disappeared down the wooded trail, then took a deep breath and began organizing a burial detail. To his friends' evident surprise, Varakai agreed to help. He shrugged. They should not be surprised that rituals around death would interest me, having been born into a society that built entire cities for the dead. Also, I want to see the graveyard firsthand.
The mayor sent Varakai and two other men back to town to dig the grave while Wat and Garet, the woodsman’s distraught friends, were tasked with burying the animals and collecting Lewin's effects.
On his way to the graveyard on the opposite side of the town, the wizard stopped by the inn in the hope of finding some lunch. Rose’s daughters were in the kitchen and offered him hard cheese, bread, and ale while peppering him with questions about what had happened, but he resisted giving details until they left him in peace. Meal finished, Varakai walked through the small town-square, down past the mayor’s house, across the bridge, and up the first rise of Temple Hill to the ancient twisted oak.
Off to his left he could see part of the graveyard on the rounded side-slope of the hill with the River Sylvess beyond. A small trail led that direction, so he followed. The hillside graveyard seemed well chosen, below temple and above river. It is possible to feel comforted here that lost friends and loved ones sleep peacefully, waiting for the second coming of Arathan and rebirth, he thought.
Of course, given what has happened, that comfort may be elusive for some time.
As Varakai followed the trail along the hill's curve, the full panorama became visible. He saw row after orderly row of wood and stone grave markers. He could also see three men.
A slight shiver went up his spine before he realized: of course. I'm not the only one digging this grave. One he knew immediately: the tall form of Brother Bertin, looming over the other two like some tall, lanky scarecrow on a towering post.
Varakai approached, greeted the monk, and introduced himself to the other two. Brother Bertin squinted at him through the large lenses. “You are going to help dig a grave?” the monk asked. Varakai gave a slight bow in response. Bertin took off his spectacles, rubbed his eyes, then put the glasses back in place. “Let me see your hands.”
“Excuse me?” replied the mage while the other two men glanced back and forth.
“Show me your hands,” snapped Brother Bertin. Varakai did; the monk reached out and grasped them in his own bony digits. “Soft as kidskin. You will have blisters the size of the humps on a camel before the grave is an ell deep.”
Varakai snatched his hands away and shoved them inside his robe. “You are familiar with eastern lands, then?”
“What?” said the monk with a scowl.
“You said, ‘the size of the humps on a camel.’ You have seen camels, I gather?”
“I have read of them and seen drawings,” replied the monk. “My point was you are poorly suited for this work, but since the mayor is paying the burial wage, I need not care.” He turned and looked down at the ground, the shoots of green grass covering the earth like the fuzz on a young man’s chin. Four white rocks marked a rectangle. “Dig within the stones I have placed to mark the grave corners, to the depths of your heads and properly rectangular, and be done by the fourth bell. By my guess, that leaves you two and a half candles. I will be back then to collect my tools,” With that, he stalked off straight uphill toward the temple.
The three men looked at each other for a few heartbeats, then took long-handled wooden spades in hand. No one spoke as they worked, to the mage’s relief. They had only just finished cutting the turf when the temple bells rang three times. The monk had been right: mid-afternoon would be here before they knew it, and Varakai already felt the sharp stings of incipient blistering.
They finished and clambered out of the hole just in time. As they brushed off their clothes, four bells rang out from the temple. Distant voices rose in song from a troop of mourners coming from the town: Varakai could see Miri, Githwin, Bunce, and Grimlok in their midst. Behind them, two men pushed a handcart bearing a shroud-covered shape.
The ritual was simple, yet interesting. They are all exhausted by death. Almost no burial gifts for this man Lewin to take with him across the great void. Their singing to celebrate his life and eventual rebirth is so hollow. Only the priest, Father Martin, conjures up any real emotion, and that is not infectious. The rest just want death to be over for a time.
So do I, but I doubt we get our wishes.
After the funeral finished, Varakai walked away from the group a short distance, then concentrated and spoke words of power. He reached out with his mind and touched the world around him. He felt the substance of air, earth, and living things.
Carefully avoiding the living, he pulled at the heat in the air and the earth beneath his feet and felt the slight drop of temperature around himself. Then, channeling the energy, he pushed his thought out, the air temperature returning to normal, and his sight began the familiar transition. The colors of the world changed to shades of gray, while tendrils and stains of color appeared. He perceived his own aura of radiating orange, like the last light of the sun. No one else nearby radiated any color. The ground around some of the graves was blotched and stained deep red, but also radiated a confusion of other colors including purple and yellow. In places, the colors combined to confuse his sight with orange and black.
Shaking his head in puzzlement, he relaxed and let the power go. Githwin noticed and approached. “You have seen something? Signs of magic?”
“Yes.”
“How is it done?”
Varakai looked about, noticed no one else nearby. "I suppose another try will not hurt. Very well; stand next to me and hold your hands just above mine.” Githwin complied. The mage muttered something under his breath and spread his abused hands, palms down. After a few moments of concentration, the mage relaxed. “What did you feel?”
“The air got precipitously cold near your hands,” Githwin said.
“Yes,” Varakai said. “What we call magic is a skill to take energy from one source and use it for something else. I can feel sufficient energy in the air, so I draw it in and then use it. This cools the air. When I spend the energy, in this case looking for signs of magic, the air returns to normal.”
“Did you see any signs of magic, if 'see' is the right word?” asked Githwin.
Varakai frowned. “Yes, and yes. I see it as color painted over our normal world. The more recent and powerful the casting, the greater the area of color and the deeper the saturation. This is not dissimilar to our natural world, where color tells us some characteristic about a thing seen, such as the green of a living leaf versus the brown of a dead one.”
“You said you take energy from the air. Can you take it from something else?”
“I can and do, within limits. For example, air is not very dense with energy. I use the earth most often, but deep down, which takes a different type of skill and awareness. Some will seek out a god-source; that can be very tricky and dangerous. Still others take energy from living things. I can feel them around me, but I have neither the skill nor inclination to take from them. That is necrotic magic, which appears to my magic sight as splashes of red, like spilled blood.”
“You said you saw signs of magic. Does that help make clear what happened?”
“Yes and no, I must answer this time,” Varakai said with a shrug. “This business becomes more puzzling.”
“More?”
“Powerful ritual magic was cast here, mostly necrotic. I am quite certain the bodies were raised, not stolen. But there was more than one type of magic, including a few with which I lack any experience. It is exceedingly rare for a mage to be able to channel more than one type of power. Maybe one in a thousand have the ability we describe as magic, and nine out of every ten of those can master but a single form.”
“More than one mage, then?”
Varakai shrugged. “A possibility. Whatever else, the necromancer or necromancers seem to have other skills.”
“Not typical bone-dancers, then.”
“No, not typical bone-dancers or vale-crossers. He may appear something else entirely.” Varakai tried to catch the other man’s eye. “Or she.”
Githwin looked away, then asked, “Have you looked closely at the graves that, ahh...were emptied?”
“Not yet.”
“Let me show you one in particular.” The musician walked over to a large white marble headstone embossed with a coat-of-arms and bearing the name of Edmund Mowbray. “This is the grave of Margaret’s husband. Do you suppose she raised the rotten body of her deceased spouse?”
Varakai did not respond. He stared at the epitaph carved beneath the name and whispered the phrase: “Till our next embrace.”
CHAPTER 7
WHAT DARKNESS CONCEALS
A short time later, Githwin's group stood among a growing crowd outside Mayor Bardo’s home. The mayor and Father Martin were talking in the courtyard, clearly visible to the crowd at the gates, but no one was pressing close to them. A freshening breeze, carrying a hint of rain, brought snatches of their animated conversation to the onlookers.
“Inside…building himself into a mad fury…He intends to arrest her!”
“On what grounds?”
“…I have no idea. Rumors, I guess…that and he plans on searching her rooms for his brother’s burial goods.”
“That will not go well with Robert…”
“No, it will not.”
Apparently something was decided, because the mayor and priest both turned toward the crowd. Mayor Bardo motioned Githwin over. “Master barrister, would you accompany me out to the Fitzhugh manor? It is not far out of town. The sheriff has it in his mind to arrest Lady Margaret. I feel your presence might prove beneficial.”
“I am honored to help where I may.”
“Ah, good, good,” the mayor said. “Gather anything you might need and meet me back here as soon as you are able.” With a wave of dismissal, he and the priest turned and walked inside.
They set out during late afternoon. The sheriff led the way on his mare, followed by two of his mounted men-at-arms bearing spears and shields. Mayor Bardo and Father Martin walked behind with Githwin. A small crowd of about ten villagers of varying ages followed them out of town, but hard looks from the sheriff and his men soon induced them to turn back.
The sun was low in the western sky by the time they saw the manor’s outline. It was a single-story square brick building, sixty ells on a side, with a few narrow windows protected by heavy shutters. The roof was red tile. Yellow light spilled through open doors from a large interior courtyard. It seemed a welcoming sight.
