Masque of Death (Kormak Book Nine) (The Kormak Saga 9) (6 page)

Count Shahad turned to her and said, “And you are prepared to admit to such lewd behaviour? I would expect nothing less from a moonchild.”

“I am far from the only person around here indulging in it. If the rest are hypocritical enough not to want to talk about it, that is their lookout.”

Count Shahad shook his head. “I do not believe you.”

Rhiana laughed at him. “I do not care. It alters the truth, not one whit, you ox.”

“By the Light, woman, if you were a man I would call you out.”

“Don’t let that stop you! Or the fact you have already challenged someone else. Not that I think you’ll live long enough to get to me. If you are idiotic enough to fight Sir Kormak, you deserve all that you get.”

“I will fight any man when my honour has been besmirched.”

“Where did you learn rhetoric? The playhouse? The only person here besmirching your honour is yourself, and you are doing it by way of your excessive stupidity.”

Count Shahad turned away from her, face reddening, bull neck expanding. A vein throbbed in his forehead. His great black moustache bristled. His bloodshot gaze fell on Kormak, and he smiled. He had found something to focus his aggression on.

“Well, sir, will you give me satisfaction or not? We have our witnesses and unorthodox as the situation is I will not delay our meeting.”

“Pray take it outside, Count,” said the Governor.

“Don’t want blood on your nice hardwood floors, eh? Can’t say as I blame you. Step outside.”

“You still haven’t told me who accused me,” Kormak said.

“Are you still protesting your innocence?”

“I would hate to kill you because somebody set this fight up.”

“Set your mind at rest then. You will soon be too dead to kill anybody.”

“Indulge me. Tell me who told you these lies. Was it your wife?”

The big man looked sheepish now. His face became even redder, and his moustache bristled even more. “She has not returned this morning.”

“So who told you?”

“One of the servant girls. When I was questioning her about my wife’s whereabouts.”

“Is this servant girl here now?”

“Not at the moment.”

“And you say you have not seen your wife this morning.”

The Count shook his head. Kormak stared hard at the Count. He did not like the way this was going. It might be a simple case of mistaken identity. Or it might be a conspiracy to discredit him.

From the floor above a scream rang out.

“Murder! Murder!” The shout was filled with horror.

K
ormak raced up the stairs
. The others followed in his wake. A servant woman, mouth wide, howled and pointed into a room. When he got to the open door, he saw why.

A woman lay naked on the bed. Her green costume was on the dresser beside her. Her throat had been cut, a pool of sticky blood surrounded her. Flies buzzed all around. As the heat rose, it would not take too long for corruption to take the body.

It was Lady Khiyana. On her face was a look of surprise and horror.

Kormak entered the room. Behind him, he heard a howl of grief and then a roar of, “Khiyana. Oh no! Oh no!”

He turned on the people crowding into the room and put his hand on his sword. “Get out. Now. All of you.”

The Count did not seem to hear him. He stood there shaking his head, tears running down his cheeks. The only words coming from his mouth were, “No. No. No.”

The crowd stopped advancing but remained where they were torn between horror and curiosity.

“I need to examine this body,” Kormak said. “And I need to look around for clues as to who did the killing.”

“You did,” said a voice from the doorway. One of the servant women stood there pointing an accusing finger.

“What?” Kormak said.

“I saw you come in here with her.” A low growl sounded in the Count’s throat. Kormak turned to see the man advancing on him, fingers curled like claws, as if he wanted to tear Kormak apart with his bare hands. The Count sprang on him, a furious bestial rush. Kormak dropped him with a punch. The room went silent. Everyone except Rhiana looked at Kormak with horror-filled eyes. He advanced upon the servant, and they backed away.

“You saw me come in here with the Countess?”

The servant glanced around as if seeking an escape route. There were too many people for her to get away easily. The crowd hemmed her in. She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and nodded. Her face was very pale and her voice came out as a squeak. “As the Holy Sun is my witness.”

Kormak looked at the Governor and saw his smile vanish like a concealed blade being returned to its sheath.

“When did you see this happen?” Kormak asked. He kept his voice gentle.

The woman was afraid, and the crowd was nervous and on the edge of violence. If need be, he could cut down a few of them and make an escape through the window, but he hoped that would not be necessary. He doubted he would get very far with the whole colony raised against him.

“Last night,” the woman said.

“When? Exactly?”

“At the third candle.”

“That’s not possible,” Rhiana said. “I was with the Guardian then.”

Zamara’s face turned red. “I saw them go together.”

“You could be in league with him,” said the servant woman.

“And you could be mistaken,” Rhiana replied.

“No. I am not. The Guardian is a very distinctive looking man. So tall, with those scars.”

“How close were you to me? At a distance, you might have mistaken me for someone else.”

“I was as close as I am to you now. I asked you if there was anything you wanted me to bring and you said no.”

“Is it possible you might be wrong?”

“I would know that face anywhere.”

“The face,” Kormak said. “How was I dressed?”

“What do you mean?” the servant asked.

“I mean exactly how was I garbed? Was I wearing the same things as I am now?”

The woman paused and thought about this. “No. You were wearing a dark tunic. You had your sword over your shoulder, though.”

“Was it the same sword?”

“Where are you going with this, Sir Kormak?” the Governor asked.

“Was it the same sword? It’s a very distinctive blade. It has a dragon’s head on the hilt.”

The woman looked confused. “No. It was not the same sword. It looked more like a normal sort, the kind carried by soldiers. It was definitely over your shoulder, though. Just like it is now.”

“Governor, you saw me last night. How was I dressed?”

“When I saw you, you were wearing the same things you are now. A leather tunic, black britches. You were carrying your sword.”

“There are doubtless other guests who could recall seeing me garbed the same way. Admiral Zamara for one.”

“You might have changed your clothes.”

“And changed my sword too? I am a Guardian of the Dawn. It is my badge of office. More than that it is my protection against the Old Ones.”

“You might have left it behind so no one would recognise you while you murdered that poor lady,” said the servant girl.

“I would put aside a blade I have taken a sacred oath to carry, disguise myself by changing my clothes and then stop to give a servant a good view of my face before entering the room where I was going to commit the murder of a woman I had barely met? Does that not seem far-fetched?”

“You might not have planned on doing murder. You might have had an argument, become overcome with passion.”

“Passion for a woman I saw only briefly,” Kormak said. “I have no motive, and I have a witness who places me elsewhere at the time you claim you saw me. Did you tell Count Shahad this?”

The girl nodded. “He came in this morning, asked about his wife. He must have seen something written on my face for he would not stop questioning me till I told him what I knew.”

“I see,” said Kormak.

Zamara spoke with calm, measured authority. “I believe Sir Kormak.”

Tension filled the air. People were angry and afraid but it was Kormak’s word against that of the servant girl. And everyone present knew he was a powerful man with Zamara’s troops to back him.

“There is something not right here.” The voice belonged to Count Shahad. The man must have a head made of solid rock to rise so quickly after such a blow, Kormak thought. The Count sounded a lot more thoughtful now. How long had he been listening?

Kormak said, “There are those who can take the shape of men. They are not friendly to my order.”

“The Old Ones,” said Count Shahad.

Kormak glanced at the Count. He was contemplating his dead wife with blank empty eyes. He looked as if he was about to burst into tears again.

“No Old One could enter this house,” said Governor Aurin. “It is warded. And Frater Ramon himself has tested those wards.”

“A spell could be cast within the wards by a human sorcerer,” said Kormak. “They only prevent inimical magic from crossing them.”

The Governor looked shocked.

Kormak said, “And at the Courts of the Moon there are assassins who can make themselves look like anyone. They can bypass wards because their methods of shapeshifting are not inherently magical. They are called changelings.”

“Assuming that what you say is correct, Sir Kormak, and you are not a murderer,” said Governor Aurin, “where does this leave us?”

“It leaves us with a murderer on the loose. One who is trying to create chaos and confusion among us. The question is why?”

“What do you mean?” Governor Aurin asked.

“Why murder Lady Khiyana? And why incriminate me in the crime?”

“Because you are the only Guardian of the Dawn in the city,” said Zamara.

“Possibly,” Kormak said. “And possibly because it wants to interfere with my mission. I was sent here to look into business concerning the Old Ones. Perhaps I am not the only person interested in such things.”

Governor Aurin said, “Why did this hypothetical assassin not just kill you?”

Zamara laughed. “You have obviously never seen the Guardian fight. He has killed a Warlord of the Moon with that blade of his.”

“Perhaps,” said Kormak. “Or perhaps he is not trying to kill us, merely to slow us down, to tangle us in a web of accusation and counter-accusation while he does something else.”

“And what would that be?” Governor Aurin asked. His tone was sceptical. He would clearly have liked to accuse Kormak of murder and delay the investigation if he could. That made him a potential instigator of this crime.

“To hinder my mission perhaps.” Kormak paused to consider a possibility which struck him. “Perhaps he is seeking the same thing I am.”

“And what would that be?” someone in the crowd asked.

“That would be my business,” Kormak said. “And the fewer people who know about it, the better.” He looked pointedly at the Governor until the man could not meet his gaze.

Kormak gave his attention back to the body. “Now get out all of you. I want to examine Lady Khiyana and see if the body tells me anything.”

“I would like to stay if I may, Guardian,” said the Count. His voice was heavy with sorrow and something else. Kormak was not entirely sure what it was.

“As you wish,” he said. “But do not move around and touch nothing until I tell you that it is alright. Now the rest of you get out.”

The onlookers filtered out of the room, and Kormak studied the body. Lady Khiyana’s throat had been cut. It had been done with a blade and not a claw. He thought about the sword the servant had seen and ruled that out as unlikely. Too cumbersome. A dagger would be a better weapon for this or a knife.

The woman was naked, and judging from the way her clothing had been folded, she had undressed normally. “Did your wife always fold her clothes like that?” Kormak asked.

The Count nodded. His face was a study in misery. “She was a very neat woman. Always telling me off about the mud on my boots or the food stains on my jerkin.”

So she had most likely undressed herself and in front of a stranger wearing Kormak’s face. He remembered the way she had looked at him last night. It would not have been too difficult for someone wearing his guise to persuade her to come away to this room. She would have teased him, made him beg perhaps but in the end she would have gone. She had been seeking only amusement and distraction, and someone had killed her. And they quite likely did it to make sure Kormak spent his time doing this. An innocent woman had been killed, and he could not ignore that. The person who had committed the crime had most likely known that too.

Or was she so innocent? He remembered what Frater Ramon had told him about her wanting to speak to him. Had someone killed her because of that?

He told himself not to go so fast. He was jumping to conclusions, assuming that he was the focus of all this. As yet there was no proof of that. Only suppositions.

“Did your wife have any enemies?” Kormak asked. “Do you? Would anyone have had a reason to do this?”

The Count remained silent for a long moment, and Kormak feared he was about to break down again.

“There were other men,” he said. It sounded like he had been compelled to make that admission under torture. “I told myself it because she just wanted to make me jealous. But it wasn’t really. She was a woman easily bored, and she found me dull once the early excitement of our marriage wore off. She liked excitement, distraction, the feeling of conquest, I think.”

“You have not answered my question,” Kormak said, as gently as he could.

“She had lovers. Some I did not kill. She spurned them all in the end. It was possible that one of them was jealous.”

Kormak nodded. “Would any of them know anything about sorcery, or know someone who practised it?”

The Count looked shocked. “Sorcery? I don’t think so. It’s an unmanly pursuit. Some of the locals are said to practise it, but I doubt anyone in our circle would.”

Kormak discounted that. Sorcerers were usually to be found among the wealthy nobility. They were literate, had the money and the time to study the forbidden arts. They had the connections to acquire the things needed. He did not think it very likely a local noble was behind this but he could not entirely rule the possibility out. Throwing the blame on him would hinder any investigation. He was the man most competent to perform one.

He gave his attention back to the corpse. The dead woman stared up at him as if begging him to find out who killed her. Kormak made a silent promise to her ghost that he would. And when he did, there would be a reckoning.

“You said earlier that this might be connected to you,” the Count said. “What did you mean?”

Kormak considered his answer. The man was in pain. “I am on a mission for the King. It involves sorcery and the Old Ones. It may be that this was done to implicate me in the crime, to force me to investigate, to distract me while the culprit or his masters go about other things.”

“You mean my wife was killed because someone wants to stop your investigation. Not because of who she was or because of anything she did. She was just a convenient distraction.”

“Possibly.”

“That is horrible. And it is evil.”

“I can’t disagree with you. If that is what happened.”

“You seem to be taking all of this in your stride.”

“It is what I was trained to do.”

“I am glad I did not kill you earlier.”

“I’m glad you didn’t try.”

“You honestly think you could beat me?”

“You would not be the first man who tried to kill me. I am still here.”

“Is it true what the fishwoman says? Did you really kill an Old One?”

“I have killed many Old Ones.”

“And you killed a Warlord of the Moon?”

“It was not at its best at the time.”

The Count gave a small bitter laugh. Kormak knew he was only talking to distract himself from the contemplation of the corpse.

“I want to go with you,” he said eventually.

“What?”

“I want to go with you. I want to be there when you find whoever did this. I want to help you stop them getting whatever it is they want.”

“You are assuming that this is the reason your wife was killed.”

“You think it was, don’t you?”

“That does not make it true.”

“But you believe it.”

“Why do you care?”

“Because there is nothing else left for me now.” The huge man’s voice was bleak. “I need something. If you don’t let me go with you. I will follow you anyway. And I can be useful. I am a good fighter, and I am rich, and I have friends in this country.”

“Not half an hour ago you were prepared to kill me.”

“Not half an hour ago I had not seen this.” He pointed to his wife then covered his eyes with his huge hand and began to sob.

Kormak studied the body, willing it to give up some clue as to who had killed it. The corpse said nothing. It was time to go.