Ghosts in the Snow (9 page)

Perri nodded gravely and reached for him again. "Aswin never wants to play." She hooked her fingers in the front of his pants and tried to pull him forward, but he stood his ground.

Anger simmered in his forehead and he clenched his jaw. He had said "no," dammit. In all his summers, with all his women, he had never, ever persisted past a "no." The eager flex in his groin faded to nothing as he tasted disgust in the back of his mouth. "I told you I don't do that anymore." He shoved Perri away and she stumbled back, slamming against the wall. "I'm not interested."

"Oh, that tears it!" she snapped. "What more can we do? Did you go off and get gelded or something?"

"C'mon, Risley," Julianne coaxed as she moved closer. "We only want to have a little fun, that's all. Whatever the problem is, we'll work around it. You're not the first guy to have—"

He rolled his eyes. "There is nothing wrong with me. I work fine."

Perri glanced at Julianne. "We could probably talk Ellianne into joining us. Do you think that would help?"

He ground his teeth and snapped, "No. I'm not interested. Get your stuff and go. Now."

Julianne cocked her wide hip to the side. "Yep, he's gelded."

He threw his hands in the air, walked toward the entry door, and yanked it open. "Fine. I'm gelded. Now get out."

Both girls stared at him. "It's that little servant you're slobbering after, isn't it?" Julianne asked.

Perri threw her head back and laughed, her breasts jiggling fetchingly, but Risley was not the least bit fetched. "She makes my bed, Risley. The same one you've crawled into so many times. She's not worth your time. We all know you've lain with commoners, but a servant? Surely even you have some standards."

He said nothing, only tilted his head toward the door.

Perri walked up to him and asked, "So what happens when you tire of her? Are we going to be your seconds? Is that it? Seconds to a filthy servant?"

He wanted to rip the smirk from her face, but he held his temper in check despite the pounding in his head. "Get out. And don't come back."

Julianne tossed her head and retreated to the bedroom while Perri stared at him. "You stupid son of a bitch," she whispered, then she, too, stomped off.

When they finally left, Risley slumped onto a divan and tried to control his shaking hands and knees. He had just turned down two naked and willing women, both of whom were well versed in the more pleasurable aspects of life. Three moons ago—Malanna's blood, a bell ago—he wouldn't have thought it possible.

His delightful evening forgotten, he looked out into the night and wished the throbbing pain in his head would fade so he could sleep.

* * *

Long before dawn, Dubric hurried down the main stairs, yawning as he clipped on his cloak. As he strode into the great hall he paused and smiled despite himself. Dien and Lars waited near the outer doors, sipping from steaming mugs.

"I thought I told both of you to get some sleep," Dubric said, approaching them.

Lars shrugged and Dien grumbled, "After all these summers I just can't sleep without Sarea beside me."

He pressed a warm mug into Dubric's hand. "What's the plan?"

Dubric sipped the tea and choked back a cough. "Brandy? For King's sake, it is early morning!"

Dien downed his in a gulp, his broad face turning red for a moment. "Whiskey. And not only is it the middle of the frigging night, it's colder than a witch's left tit out there."

All three glanced at the tall windows along the southern wall and shivered. "Looks like sleet," Lars said, sighing.

Dubric and Dien sighed, as well, then finished their drinks. They left the castle, pulling their cloaks close against the chill.

They walked to the east first, past the kitchen entrance and along the row of shops and buildings used by artisans. As they worked their way north, Dubric squinted at the castle wall from time to time, looking for lights. All clear, everyone asleep. Ignoring the ghosts, he led his men through the patrols and tried to stay warm.

Perhaps half a bell later, as they rounded the west tower for the third time, he stopped and Lars took a hesitant step forward. Several lights shone from the third floor.

"The four bell just rang," Dien said, squinting through the sleet. "Who but us sinners is crazy enough to be up this early?"

Lars rubbed his hands together to warm them. "That's Risley's suite. He has the first set of rooms past the tower."

Grumbling under his breath, Dubric reminded himself to ask Risley about his late-night activities. As if he had heard their thoughts, the lights blinked off, one by one. The three stood ankle-deep in slush, gaping at the wall as each light disappeared, leaving the castle dark once again.

"What the peg?" Dien asked. "Why have all those frigging lights on, then blow them out again?"

"I intend to ask him that," Dubric said. They resumed their patrol and he wondered if he were about to step into a political nest of snakes by even considering Risley, one of the most powerful men in all of Lagiern.
Maybe no one will die tonight
, he thought,
and all of my worries will he for naught
. He continued on, slopping through sleet and mud until he felt frozen to the bone.

They walked through the night and into the predawn morning, while Dubric stretched and bent his freezing fingers. His joints ached, flaring with rheumatic pain, but he tried to keep them flexible. Beside him, Dien lumbered on, never slowing, never faltering from the same steady pace, and his breath pluming with every word. The squire had spent the past quarter bell voicing his worry over his family. "Sarea's gonna insist on coming home, I know she will," Dien grumbled. "I just hope to high heaven that she leaves the girls at her mother's."

"Maybe she'll decide it's better that they all stay there," Lars offered. Still energetic and somehow warm, he meandered along behind them, checking each door they passed.

"Don't bet on it, pup. She's not afraid of a frigging thing, and she'll fret herself into consumption worrying about me if she doesn't come home." He covered his yawn with his hand. "Women. Too damn opinionated and not a lick of sense to back it up."

Dubric continued to trudge forward and flex his aching hands while Lars and Dien bantered.

"And to think you've got all daughters," Lars teased, grinning. "Think they'd like to hear they have no sense? I'm happy to tell them for you."

Dien laughed. "I'm just talking about women in general. My girls are a different matter entirely."

Lars started to say something, but he paused, turning and sniffing the air. "Do you smell that?"

All three stopped. Dubric breathed deeply but he sensed nothing with his frozen nose. "What do you smell?"

Lars turned around, still sniffing. "Tobacco. Someone's smoking." He stopped then took a step, defiantly staring the darkness in the eye. "It's like it's right here."

Turning, Dien lifted his lantern and looked into the night. "Ain't no one there, pup. Nothing but the wind."

"You can't smell it? For Goddess's sake…" Wincing at his own words, Lars glanced toward Dubric as his voice faded away.

Dien shrugged and squinted into the dark. "I'm too clogged up to smell a thing. How about you, sir?"

"No, nothing," Dubric said. He rubbed his eyes with bluish hands, the joints glowing a creaky yellow-green.

Why, the old fart has rheumatism
, the killer thought, grinning.
Cold damp weather like this must hurt terribly
. Beside Dubric, Dien's bulk gleamed brilliant crimson gold, while the boy, still growing, shone brightest of all, the ends of his long bones a shiny green instead of the usual blue.

Lars's hand fell to the hilt of his sword, his golden eyes searching, while his companions shrugged and continued on.

Grinning, the killer reached into his pocket. His fingers closed around the handle of his blade, caressing it before he pulled it free. The blade left a black trail in its wake as he slashed it just out of reach of Lars's throat.

Not yet, boy
, he thought, watching the blood course through Lars's veins and the steady beating of his young heart.
So naive, so trusting. I could kill you in a moment, but you're not what I need
.

He slashed with the blade again, the streak of black floating in front of Lars's throat like a gash.
Begone, boy, before I lose my patience
, he thought, his fingers tightening on the blade's handle.
Your companions won't even hear you scream
.

Lars blinked, frowning, then he turned and followed the others, leaving the black gash and its wielder behind.

* * *

She struggled to pull herself to the kitchen door. Her fingers clutched in the ice-crusted mud once… twice… and her legs stretched uselessly behind her. She felt no pain, only a sense of weakening, but she saw the castle glow in the pink of dawn. Somehow she would get to it.

Behind her, the thing she could not see tugged at her back and yanked her to it again. She gagged at the onslaught of mud and slush in her mouth but had no strength to fight. "I don't want to die," she whimpered, her breath slowing. The cold mud drew away her strength even as it absorbed her blood.

The thing that had grabbed her shoved her face into the muck so she could speak no more. Its fingers dug into her skull. "You have been chosen to feed my purpose," the thing said. "And you will feed it
perfectly
."

She felt a tug at her head, sharp bright pain, and the pressure lifted.

The thing left her and she raised her head to look at the kitchen door one last time. She reached forward again and clutched her cold fingers into the slush.
That voice
, she thought.
I know that voice from somewhere
.

Ahead of her, the kitchen door burst open. Six boys, lackeys, hurried into the morning to fetch firewood, their laughter bubbling warm on the bitter wind. She reached for them and spat mud from her mouth. "Help me!" she cried, her voice lost to the wind, if it was ever there at all. "Help—" The light left her eyes and her face fell into the ice again.

All six boys hollered. Two ran forward, and the rest froze where they stood.

Behind them, the kitchen door opened and closed. One lackey turned to look, but no one was there. Nothing but swirling snow.

Pitta said Ennea had left the castle before dawn to fetch a bundle of dried mint from the shed. The mint and the basket waited in a slump of sleet beside the shed door, remaining pristine, perfect, and unspattered by blood or mud. Ennea, however, lay facedown in a freezing puddle of slush and gore with her back slashed open and her scalp removed. This morning's crowd numbered seventy-three, and Dien kept them far from the body. Two lackeys had touched her; all six waited with Otlee in the office. No one else had come near.

Besides those left by Ennea and the two lackeys, only one set of footprints dimpled the slush and mud near the body. The killer had knelt beside her, toes of his boots digging into the mud. Dubric touched the gentle curves cut into the slush by a heavy cloak. No threads, no scraps, no bits of fur to be seen, merely a single smear of blood in a shallow groove, as if the edge of the cloak had been stained by the gore. Dubric fumbled for his notebook, frowning.
There must be a clue here, somewhere
.

Finishing his preliminary notes, he stood, gazing along the trail. The killer's tracks walked through her blood puddle, proceeded to a kitchen door, and continued into the hustle and bustle of the kitchen.

After measuring the bootprints and killer's stride, Dubric knelt beside Ennea. Her ghost had flickered before his eyes moments after the first glints of sun broke over the horizon. She had been dead mere minutes when he arrived.

Slashed down both sides of her spine, then above her hip bones in hard arcs like wings, she had been partially eviscerated. A steaming lump of internal organs lay pulled over her right leg and hip, blood soaked her skirt, and her blouse was gone. Her hands clenched into the ice, fingers gripping the slush; it seemed as if she had tried to pull forward even as she was butchered. A finger length or two of distance, perhaps, but she had struggled to get away. A deep groove in the slush led to her chin and Dubric measured it. Perhaps the killer had pulled her back, toward him. Dubric scratched a few notes and looked up. Someone was coming.

Halld hurried through the slush. "Another one?"

A page handed Dubric a blanket and Dubric passed it on to Halld. "Get her inside. I want to know every single thing you can tell me. Is it the same weapon? The same killer? Why did he pull half of her guts out? Is
anything
missing?"

Halld nodded and knelt beside her.

Dubric glanced at Lars. "Take everything else to my office." Dubric turned away before Lars could nod and stomped into the castle, ghosts trailing, as always, behind him.

The kitchen staff huddled against one wall while four senior pages paced in front of them. No one worked, nothing cooked, nothing baked, and hundreds of people would be screaming for breakfast soon. He did not want to add dealing with hungry, scared people to this morning's duties—plain scared was going to be bad enough—but Dubric had never seen the kitchen quiet before. He took a deep breath and looked around the huge room. It smelled of grease, raw food, spices, and sweaty bodies; the walls were smoke-stained and spattered, the floors dark and filthy with mud, eggshells, flour, and sausage makings.

He rubbed his eyes.
Two scullery maids murdered. If the killer does not work in the kitchen, he has to be familiar with it
.

He looked at the head cook, a huge woman named Ruggie, who stood trembling beside Pitta. She seemed to shrink under his gaze. "Did you work with Fytte or Ennea?" He pursed his lips and waited for her expected answer.

She did not fail him. "Yes, sir. Both of them."

His attention snapped hard and fast to the closest page. "Moergan, take her to my office. Now."

Moergan nodded and reached for Ruggie's arm. "Yes, sir."

"I don't know anything, I swear!" Ruggie wailed as Moergan escorted her from the kitchen. The other kitchen workers watched her departure, then turned fear-filled eyes to Dubric. He had shaken them. Good. Now he hoped to get the answer he needed. The killer had walked through the blasted kitchen. Someone in this room had seen him.

His voice was hard, clear, and impatient. He pointed to the door behind him. "Did anyone see someone come through that door?"

No one answered. Several women cried, their faces covered with aprons and towels, but none looked nervous or secretive.

He pointed at the door again and tried not to scream. "No one saw a man, a
bloody
man with a
knife
, come through that door? No one saw this door open at all?"

A few people shook their heads. None responded with either their mouths or their eyes.

He stomped to the door and pointed at a blood-flecked puddle of water as his rage and his heartbeat slammed in his ears. "There are bloody bootprints here. Someone saw this. Someone!"

The wall of terrified workers quivered but did not offer any answers. Furious, Dubric stared at the floor for a moment, at the flecks of blood in the melting slush.
This is impossible! Someone has to have seen something
.

The service-hall door banged open as a pair of serving girls ran into the kitchen. One yelled, "What's keeping the eggs? We've got—" Both skidded to a stop, frozen where they stood.

"All right," Dubric said, returning his attention to the crowd. His fists shook as he struggled not to curse. He tried to keep his voice steady; he would accomplish nothing by getting angry. "I know you have work to do. Answer me this: Which of you are roommates or close friends of Fytte or Ennea?
Anyone
?"

Eight girls blabbered and tried to back into the crowd as Dubric stepped toward the pages. "Serian, Jorst, take names of everyone in this room and note who is wearing boots. Cottle, get the name of every serving wench, lackey, and anyone else from the kitchen who happens to be in the great hall." The three pages nodded and one ran for the door. Dubric stood before the crowd. "Once the pages have taken your name, you can go back to work. Except you eight. You come with me."

The girls wailed and Bacstair mumbled, his flour dusted head lowered, "Sir, that's all but two o' the morning scullery maids. We can't run the kitchen without—"

"You will have to make do." Dubric flicked his hands to the main door and the girls stumbled forward as if going to the gallows.

* * *

Dubric questioned Ruggie first and received no useful answers, as expected. Her testimony was brief. Next were the scullery maids. Again no answers. Otlee's fingers flew as Dubric barked questions, but over and over again the best answers did not go beyond "I don't know." None knew a single blasted thing about either of the dead girls—their enemies, lovers, or opinions. Nothing. They were all as ignorant and noncommittal as a pile of rocks. Dubric processed the witnesses quickly, threatening each time to haul them back if more information was required. Every maid left in tears. Dien sat beside Otlee during the interviews but did not say a word. Lars leaned in the corner and stared at each witness, the ghosts flickering beside him.

When the last of the eight girls finished, Otlee flexed his fingers and asked, "What do we do now?"

"We question the lackeys," Dien said.

Otlee stretched and reached for a clean sheet of paper.

"I still can't believe no one saw a man walk through that door," Lars muttered as he shifted his weight. "He must have been drenched in blood."

Dubric opened the door. Two pages guarded the six lackeys. They sat hunched and crowded on the same bench; no one else waited in the outer office. "Who touched her?" Dubric barked.

Two lackeys shrank in their seats, the other four pointed.

"All right. You first." He looked at the closest boy, one who had not touched Ennea.

"Yessir," he muttered and scrambled to his feet.

The boy was named Lopa, and he was nine summers old. Otlee repeated his personal information and the boy nodded but could not sign his name. He barely knew how to hold a pen.

"Any mark will do," Dubric said. "We will witness you made it."

Lopa drew a lopsided circle. Otlee and Dien initialed it.

"Am I in trouble?" Lopa asked as Otlee began the notes.

Dubric shook his head and took a deep breath to calm his nerves. Children required a gentler touch. "No. We want to know what you saw and what you heard. Anything you remember."

Lopa nodded and stared at the floor. "I saw Ennie lyin' in the snow, sir. That's all."

"That is fine," Dubric said. "But we will start before you found Ennea, all right? Before you went outside, what were you doing?"

"Shovelin' ashes from the ovens, sir. Been doin' that since a'fore sunup."

"You like shoveling ash? Is it hard work?"

Lopa looked at his filthy bare feet. "It's not so bad. Better'n haulin' butcher slop. Sheep guts stink."

Dubric smiled and stifled a yawn. He had barely slept since he first saw Fytte's ghost; neither had Lars or Dien, for that matter. "Did you notice anything different in the kitchen this morning, while you were shoveling out the ovens?"

"Nawsir," Lopa whispered, his voice cracking in his nervousness. His foot pounded against the chair leg and he fidgeted with the laces of his greasy shirt.

"Nothing at all? An extra worker? Someone who did not belong?"

He shook his head. "Nawsir, I didn't see nobody. But the ghost were there this mornin'."

Dien and Dubric stared at the boy, Lars shook his head as if he did not believe what he had heard, and Otlee almost dropped his pen. '"The ghost'?" Dubric asked, his voice steady.

Lopa blushed, nodded, and glanced at Dubric. "I ne'er seen no ghost. Honest. But when stuff happens sometimes, we blame it on the ghost." He shrugged. "Ya know? Like when somethin' you just had turns up missin', or a pile of peeled taters falls to the floor, or the door opens but no one's there?" He shrugged again. "Ghost stuff."

"'Ghost stuff,'" Dubric repeated. Despite himself he glanced at his ghosts and suppressed a sigh. They were as useless and as incapable as ever.

"Yessir."

"What 'ghost stuff happened this morning?"

Lopa shrugged and wiggled his dirty toes. "The door open'd when we was lookin' at Ennie. It opened right b'hind me, but wern't nobody there. I figured it were the ghost."

"Does this happen often? The door opening with no one there?"

"Nawsir. Seen it once b'fore. Last summer sometime."

"And no one was there today? You are certain?"

"Nawsir. Just us."

"But you saw Ennea?"

"Yessir, in the snow. She were reaching for us, and I think she said somethin', but I sure couldn't hear her. Ever'one else was too noisy." He shuddered and looked at the floor.

Dubric watched the boy for a moment and wrote a note:
She was alive when the boys found her
. "Did she do anything else?"

"Nawsir. She just looked at us an' died. Veller an' Neffin, they ran to her. I stayed put, just like we was told to. I did what I were s'posed to. I didn't run, nawsir."

"Did you see anyone else?"

Lopa shook his grimy head. "Nawsir. Nobody was there, even when the door opened. I looked. T'were just us an' Ennie."

Dubric rubbed his eyes while the three ghosts looked on.

* * *

After the lackeys finished their testimony, Dubric sent Otlee to fetch the physicians' report.

He yawned and shook his head to clear the cobwebs as he returned to his desk. "What do you think?" he asked Dien and Lars. The ghosts stood in the corner, annoying but ignorable.

"I think that ghost stuff is a bunch of horse piss," Dien said as he picked a wad of mud from his boot and tossed it into the corner. "Just a scared boy trying to make sense of seeing a dead girl in the snow."

Lars fell into the witness chair with the awkward lankiness of a boy on the verge of becoming a man. "Maybe so. But he seemed convincing and sure of himself."

"Best witness we've had so far," Dubric said as he
thumped
his pencil on the clean surface of his desk.

Lars's eyes widened and he tilted his head, his fingers tapping on the arm of the chair. "I'd heard that an old friend of yours made some stuff to help you against the dark mages. Did anything he made—"

Dubric had already considered the same question himself. "Turn someone invisible? No. Nuobir made things to either kill the mages or protect us. Weapons and armor, for the most part. He never dabbled with worthless enchantments."

Lars's brow furrowed. "How is invisibility worthless?"

Dubric's stomach growled. "The mages could see magic. Being invisible would be useless against them, a waste of time and energy."

Dien nodded. "It'd be no better than a jester's trick."

"But, sir, what about magic spells?"

"Not likely." Dubric sipped his tea. "Only the most powerful mages could create such an effect, and they would not waste the spell's energy to murder a servant girl. I would be more apt to suspect Wraith Rot or other diseases before a mage."

Lars turned to Dien. "We have any gypsies wintering here?"

Dien shook his head. "No, not a one."

Dubric suggested, "Perhaps we should consider the herbmonger. Has Inek caused any trouble lately?"

The summer before, they had discovered Inek using his herbs to make people sick so they would then seek his expertise to cure them. He had received a dozen lashes for his crime, tight price restrictions, and a moon in gaol. It was not his first incarceration, or first whipping. A few moons before the poisoning incident he had started a brawl in the local alehouse and had injured several patrons. He had once attempted to molest the ropemaker's wife, and had also visited the gaol for theft and general disorderliness.

Inek was hateful and rude, hut was he a murderer?

"No, sir, not lately. Want me to have him watched, just in case?" Dien asked, a vicious gleam in his eyes. Inek had set Dien's boots afire during the pursuit last summer and had burnt his feet. Dien tended to harbor grudges.

Dubric contemplated the polished surface of his desk. Inek was a pain in the backside, an angry and vile man. Although the herbmonger seemed to prefer brawls over blood, he would certainly bear one night's observation, even though there were few men to spare. "Certainly. Send a pair of archers to watch him overnight. And order more lamp oil. We are going to need it for patrols."