The Justice of Kings, page 9
Vonvalt smiled sadly. “I have heard of Galen’s Vale before,” he said, “but it has not always had a reputation as a major trading town.”
“No, it has only been so for the last ten years or so, after the new wharf was constructed. It is to do with the depth of the Gale. The new seagoing carracks are a marvel, and can carry many tonnes of cargo, but they require deep water in which to sail. The Gale is deep enough to take them where other rivers are not. And it flows more or less to Sova itself. The volume of money it brings in is quite staggering. I had never seen a gold crown before I became mayor of the Vale; now the carracks deposit hundreds of crowns’ worth of cargoes here every week. Even with a very low excise, the treasury is practically overflowing.”
“You use the money for works?”
Sauter nodded. “We are able to keep the wall and all its forts in very good repair, and pay to armour and arm a large watch. You have seen the courthouse, too?”
“I have. A new building, and in the Sovan gothick style, too. It must have cost a small fortune.”
“Aye, and it paid for itself. The practice of merchant law has thrived here.”
“I am pleased to hear it. What I saw gave me no cause for concern at all – my colleagues here will attest to how little I say that.”
“High praise indeed,” Bressinger said, and we all shared a laugh.
“Without this business of Lady Bauer, I daresay there would have been little enough for me to do here,” Vonvalt said, and the sombre mood quickly returned like a wet blanket thrown over a fire.
“Yes,” Sauter said. “It was quite a shock. The Vale has its own share of murders, same as any town, but a lord’s wife… It is unheard of.”
“Indeed,” Vonvalt said. “I have already spoken with Lord Bauer this morning, and we are making enquiries alongside Sir Radomir’s team. These things must be investigated swiftly if there is any hope of bringing the matter to a just conclusion.”
“Do you have any idea who may have done it?” Sauter asked hopefully.
“No,” Vonvalt said simply. “But I am confident we are making progress. As you may appreciate, conducting a criminal investigation in a responsible manner requires me to keep certain matters to myself.”
“Of course, of course,” Sauter replied. “And your… abilities will help?”
“They will help,” Vonvalt said, “should I have cause to use them.”
Sauter’s mouth worked for a moment. “Mr Maquerink said that you did not use your necromancy on her?”
“I did not,” Vonvalt said patiently. “The circumstances were far from ideal. I am afraid that, as powerful a tool as it is, for it to work, many factors must be just so.”
“S-such as?”
Vonvalt pursed his lips. “If the person was well-disposed to me, and if they were killed cleanly and recently, and are more or less intact about the head, then I can have a conversation with them much like you and I are having now.”
Sauter was unable to suppress a shudder. “And if not?”
“Come now, Lord Sauter, we are having a pleasant evening. I would not want to spoil it,” Vonvalt said gently.
“What of your other powers, then?” Sauter asked, irrepressible. It was unutterably vulgar, but Vonvalt sensed an ally in Sauter and was in the mood to indulge him.
“I have but two, the other being the Emperor’s Voice. Most Justices have only the energy to sustain a couple. Even Master Kadlec only has three that I know of. Necromancy is the rarest and consequently has the fewest number of practitioners. But as I have said before, the power of the Emperor’s authority and the weight of the common law is more than enough in the vast majority of cases.”
“But not in this one?”
“We shall see.”
Sauter shifted his weight uncomfortably. “It may be just a random slaying, of course,” he said, grasping for reassurance. “A robbery gone awry.”
“It may be,” Vonvalt agreed. “Those are common enough. By the way, I’d be grateful if you could provide my clerk here with a list of council members and their official responsibilities, major and minor.”
Sauter’s eyes widened slightly. “Is a member of the town council under suspicion?”
Vonvalt waved him off. “No, I require it as an official myself, as part of my regular and ongoing duties.”
Sauter accepted the lie with relief. “As you wish. Such records are kept in my office. I would be pleased to have a copy made for you.”
“I’m grateful,” Vonvalt said.
“My office is at your disposal, naturally,” Sauter added.
“I know,” Vonvalt replied. He looked out the window. The last of the light had faded, and once again the town was claimed by darkness. Snow pattered against the glass. “It is getting on. I have detained you long enough,” he said to Sauter, and stood.
“’Tis no matter, Sir Konrad,” the mayor said quickly, standing as well. “Are you comfortable? Do you have everything you need?”
“Certainly,” Vonvalt replied. “If you will indulge me, sir, I will dine in my chamber tonight. I have duties to attend to which will take some hours yet. Will you have fresh candles sent up?”
“Of course.”
“My clerk will require the same,” Vonvalt added, and my heart sank, though I had been expecting it. Vonvalt would want me to go through the ledger I had taken from the watch house. I had hoped he might do it himself.
Sauter acquiesced with a nod.
“Very well then. I will say good night now,” Vonvalt said.
“Good night,” Sauter said, and we excused ourselves and tramped upstairs for a long night of reading.
VII
Midnight Run
“An attempt on the life of a representative of the state is an attempt on the life of the state itself. Anything that interferes with the lawful and ordinary conduct of a civilisation should be eradicated without hesitation.”
JUSTICE JOHANN KEITA
I was roused at some point in the night. My eyes were dry and tired from the reading which I could only have concluded a few hours before.
I looked about the chamber. It always took me a few seconds to take my bearings. We had stayed in so many places in the past two years that I had grown accustomed to a few moments of disorientation upon waking – insofar as one can become accustomed to disorientation.
I had been in an unusually deep sleep, and it took me longer than normal to recognise the expensive furnishings of Lord Sauter’s house. It was still dark outside. There was no way to tell what time it was, but I could see the faint glow of moonlight illuminating the plaster around the curtains.
From the way the bed had shifted, and from the smell of an evening’s debauchery wafting out from under the covers, I could tell that Bressinger had returned at some point earlier in the night. It was a small miracle that the man had not woken me. I turned to examine him – I made a habit of checking that he had not been sick, both for his sake and mine – and to my surprise, I saw that his eyes were open and staring at the ceiling.
“Dubine?” I whispered. His body was warm, and for all he looked as though he was carved out of stone, I instinctively knew he wasn’t dead – though Nema knew he resembled a corpse closely enough. But he did not stir. After a few moments of my persistent staring, he shook his head subtly.
I did not take the hint. “Dubine?” I insisted. He shook his head again, slightly more vigorously. I had no idea what the man was driving at.
“Dubine!” I hissed. Now he stirred, ever so slightly.
“Shut up, girl, and be still for Nema’s sake,” he whispered through clenched teeth.
I practically recoiled with fury. I pushed myself up onto my side so that I was propped up on my elbow facing him.
“You don’t speak to—” I started, when to my incredible surprise, Bressinger uncoiled like a startled cat and shoved me firmly with both hands.
I was pushed clean out the bed and hit the cold wooden floorboards of the chamber as gracelessly as a dropped sack of shit.
“What in Kasivar’s name is the matter with you?” I shrieked, leaping to my feet. I was so angry I was about to physically attack him, when I saw that something had beaten me to it. Bressinger was thrashing about the bed as though he had been possessed. Something was clenched in the fist of his left hand, and for a good few moments I thought it was a belt. It was only when he rolled out of the other side of the bed and dashed the thing’s head against the wall that I realised it was a snake.
A nauseating wave of revulsion rolled through my body. I shuddered with horror at the thought of even having been in the same room as the thing, let alone in the same bed. “Where the hell did that come from?” I asked breathlessly. My heart was pounding so hard it felt as though it were about to burst through my ribcage.
Bressinger ignored me. He snatched up his sword and threw open the chamber door so hard that the handle dented the wall.
“Dub— Where are you going?” I called after him, but he was already out the door and running through the hallway.
I dashed around the end of the bed and chased after him.
“Wait!” I called out, desperate not to be left alone in the room. Bressinger did not wait. He reached Vonvalt’s chamber door, battered it open with his shoulder and brandished his sword – a Grozodan-style side-sword – so smartly that I heard it cut the air.
“There! By the chest!” I heard Vonvalt shout. I entered his bedchamber to see him up in the window box in his nightclothes, pressed against the lattice so firmly that he stood as much chance of forcing the window and falling to his death as he did of being killed by the snake. Half-coiled at the foot of a mahogany trunk, the creature itself was perhaps two feet long, and with drab markings that were almost imperceptible in the wan moonlight. If Bressinger had not acted with such frantic urgency I might even have considered it to be harmless.
Bressinger wasted no time in dispatching it; he threaded its skull with his side-sword and killed it instantly, though that did not stop him from hacking at the thing a few more times to make sure. Then he looked up at Vonvalt.
“Are you bitten?” Bressinger asked. He took a step forwards. “Tell me, quick!” His chest heaved from the sudden, explosive exertion, and his eyes were wide and frantic with concern. Bressinger was so rarely given to panic; now he looked half-demented.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, looking between the two men and the serpent’s corpse. “Is it poisonous? Did it get you?”
“No,” Vonvalt said, stepping down from the window box. I could tell that he was slightly embarrassed by his reaction. “I’m fine.” He walked forwards to where the dead snake lay and squatted down in front of it.
“A Grozodan asp,” Bressinger said, his voice hoarse. He lifted the body up slightly with the tip of his side-sword, revealing subtle black stripes on its underside. The rest of its body was a drab, unremarkable brown. “A viper. There was one in our room, too.”
“It is venomous, then?” I asked.
“’Tis lethal,” Bressinger growled. He planted the tip of his side-sword into the floorboards and leant back against the wall. “Nema’s blood, but a scratch from its fangs will kill a full-grown man inside the hour.”
“And are they migratory?” Vonvalt asked. He threw open the chest and pulled out his own short-sword.
Bressinger looked confused. “What are you talking about?” he panted.
Vonvalt strode towards the door. “I do not consider it likely that two of them travelled here themselves.” He nodded back towards the window in his chamber. “Come; if we are quick, we may still catch the handler.”
We fell into step unthinkingly behind him and moved quickly through Lord Sauter’s house. The commotion had roused the better part of the household, but Vonvalt bade them return to their rooms in his curt, imperious way. In moments we were out in the frigid air of Galen’s Vale, our breath streaming away from our mouths in great clouds of vapour. In our haste, none of us had thought to put anything approaching appropriate clothing on, and only the intensity of the moment kept me from shivering violently.
“Shit,” Bressinger said. “Look there.” He pointed, and I followed the line of his finger to a dark shape lying in Sauter’s front garden among an arrangement of plants. Even in the poor light, it was unmistakably a corpse. His armour and uniform marked him out as a town watchman, while a dark splash on the cobbles near the gate told of a violent end. I cast my mind back to the man who had met us when we had first arrived at the mayor’s residence: a friendly everyman, polite and concerned with our welfare. That he had met his end for no other reason than he stood between his assailant and us filled me with a sudden sense of melancholy, in a way that many other deaths – even those of people considerably closer to me – had not.
“The blood is still smoking,” Bressinger said.
“He cannot have been killed more than a few minutes ago,” Vonvalt said.
“’Tis plenty of time to make off.”
“No,” Vonvalt murmured, shaking his head. “He will want to know if he has been successful.”
I looked up about the houses that faced Lord Sauter’s residence. Much like the building we had just exited, they were large and expensive-looking, brick-and-timber structures that reared up two, three and even four storeys into the night sky. They were foreboding in the darkness, like the hunched bodies of sleeping giants.
My time in Muldau had given me an escape artist’s eye, and my attention was instinctively drawn to the mismatched heights of the roofs. Looking at the sturdy creepers that wound up the brick frontages and the extruding beams and drainpipes, it would not have taken much effort for anyone to mount the upper parts of the houses for a better vantage point, let alone a professional. It was only then that I realised how vulnerable the three of us were.
“We should move into cover,” I said, both anxious and cold as my excitement drained away.
As usual, Vonvalt had pre-empted me. “I have him,” he murmured, his eyes flicking up to where two roofs, both thatched and misaligned by an entire storey, overlooked us perhaps fifty yards away. The faintest of silhouettes, what looked like a hooded head and part of a shoulder, jutted out from the gap. I imagined the man watching us, a bow clutched in his right hand.
“We’ve no hope of catching him,” Bressinger said.
“He cannot stay up there for ever,” Vonvalt replied.
“What is your plan?”
“I will run at him,” Vonvalt said. “I will get close enough to bring him in range of my Voice.”
“You mean to make him leap to his death?” Bressinger asked.
I looked at him, appalled. Even Vonvalt, who cut Bressinger a great deal of slack, looked reproachful.
“That would be murder,” Vonvalt said.
“If you catch him you will hang him,” Bressinger said, defensive.
“You are being facetious,” Vonvalt said. “Make your quips later. I should like to bring him down intact. I want to know who sent him.”
“What is your plan, then?” Bressinger pressed.
Vonvalt grimaced. “I shall try and compel him to flee. He has no hope of making any of the town gates; not with the curfew in place. My guess is he means to make for the Gale. We can expedite the process, on our own terms.”
Bressinger sucked in a few deep breaths, as though he were motivating himself ahead of a game of handball in the Sovan arena. “Let us be about it, then,” he said, “before we are frozen stiff.”
“Helena,” Vonvalt said, turning to me, “stay here. Crouch behind this pillar until it is safe to come out. There is no sense in all three of us being reckless with our lives.”
I had half-hoped he was going to send me back inside, but not out of fear; as much as I wanted to be a part of the chase, I was indeed freezing stiff. Instead, I simply nodded.
“We must be quick,” Vonvalt said, eyeing his quarry.
“Aye,” Bressinger muttered impatiently.
“All right: let’s move.”
I watched as the two men leapt through the front gate and dashed down the street towards the silhouette like a pair of escaped prisoners. I expected at any moment one of them to fall with an arrow lodged in his chest, but the silhouette did not stir. I frowned at that. I gripped the cold, half-frosted brickwork of one of the gate pillars, and squinted to try and see better in the dull moonlight.
Then I heard Vonvalt use the Emperor’s Voice.
Even from where I crouched, it was not without power. My skull seemed to vibrate subtly, and a faint ringing sang through my eardrums as though someone had tapped a tuning fork and held it next to my head. It was as powerful a blast of it as I had ever known Vonvalt to unleash – yet still the silhouette did not stir.
I whirled around. Off to the right, at the far end of the street, a hooded and cloaked figure unlocked from the shadows. A strange sense of paralysis overtook me; the person moved with such subtlety that for a few moments, in that dark street, I was not entirely sure that it was human. Then the spectre produced a very human weapon from inside his robes – a single-handed crossbow – and the illusion was broken.
“Sir Konrad!” I shrieked. Both he and Bressinger turned sharply. A quarrel whistled through the cold night air, but something – probably my scream – had thrown off the assassin’s aim, and it holed nothing more than Vonvalt’s nightclothes.
There was a brief moment in which no one did anything at all; then all four of us animated at once, as though we were all stringed to a common puppeteer. The assassin, his only opportunity now wasted, turned on his heel and fled. Vonvalt, Bressinger and I gave chase.
With hindsight, that reckless, headlong dash through the dark streets of Galen’s Vale could have ended in disaster. None of us was intimately familiar with the town’s layout, nor were any of us armoured, and had the assassin had his wits about him, he would have realised that the advantage still lay with him. Perhaps he was startled, or perhaps he did not want to put himself within the range of Vonvalt’s Voice; whatever the reason, he ran like a madman, his wits dissolved like a block of butter in a hot pan.
