Drakenfeld (28 page)

‘Do you know, sir, in the cleaning of her room, if anybody noticed that objects had gone missing?’

‘I am not aware of any.’ Licintius frowned, and looked towards me with expectation. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Purely to be thorough.’ I remembered the shapes in the dust when I was in her room last and wondered if anyone had reported anything. ‘It would help my investigation a great
deal to know that all paths have been explored. If something had been reported as missing, it might help to find whoever did this.’

‘To my knowledge nothing has been taken and, from my moments alone with her to mourn, I noticed nothing out of place.’

The king walked to the door and the guards snapped in line to follow, their armour rattling as they did so. Licintius turned to face me.

‘You are free to explore Optryx. I ask only that my private bedchamber and the meeting room in which I will greet an official from Gippoli be left in peace.’

‘If it is your wish, so be it,’ I replied, before adding a formal farewell.

The king and his soldiers departed, and I could finally relax.

Trymus looked down upon us as we entered his temple. We weren’t going to find any more clues there, especially since it had been cleaned up long since, but it still irked
me that someone could be found within a locked room after having been seen only moments before outside. Perhaps a fresh look under a different light might help to ascertain some key method in
spiriting Lacanta’s body in here.

Something, that is, other than the excuse of magic.

Though gods were rational beings, I could not trust magic at all. Magic was about people trying to control their own environment, rather than leaving these effects to the will of the gods. Magic
was comprised of curses, charms and the like, without the divine right to use them properly. People should not play at being gods.

I had seen or heard many strange things in my time that I could not explain: I’d witnessed a regiment of skeletons march through the desert night, but was warned from stepping too close to
examine it clearly; a good friend of mine was convinced that he saw a woman with snakes for arms killing a trader in Locco by strangulation, though I could not satisfy my own curiosity on the
issue. But was it possible for someone to tamper with the fabric of our worlds, to transport a body through walls, and could the gods have permitted such treacherous acts in their own temple?
Sometimes I found it most difficult to bring together the mysteries of the world with my desire for reason.

All I could think was that whoever had killed Lacanta was simply very smart. That the key had been found on the inside of the door was still a problem for me.

Leana brought over the royal pontiff, the king’s private priest, who had been involved in the procession that night. A slender man with something of a goat-like face, he told me that, as a
rule, there were several copies of the key so that the temple would be free for anyone to worship, whenever they liked. He told us it was well known that these copies were kept in various offices,
and disappeared to find one. I recalled how there had been an urgency to open that door so that the festivities would happen at precisely the right time and that the soldiers were too impatient to
wait.

The pontiff returned several minutes later in possession of two keys, but said that he had expected to find a third. ‘I have no idea where it could be. I’m always misplacing them
though!’

The key was a curious point but it did not resolve the problem that it was still impossible to get Lacanta inside the temple in such a short space of time – merely a matter of minutes from
when she was last seen – with so many of the guests watching the point of entry.

Was the key merely a decoy, something designed to deceive people after the murder?

Next to the temple were smaller chambers, formal reception areas, a library, and various meeting rooms. I had to request that some of the rooms be unlocked, and since no one
person possessed the key to all of the rooms Leana spent just as much time finding the necessary member of staff as I did exploring the rooms. The whole process was time-consuming and took us the
better part of the day. Still, as Leana commented, today was at least more relaxing, despite having been in the presence of the king.

There were fourteen rooms down one long, echoing corridor, not too far from the temple, and while we rooted around the area we frequently received many anxious or suspicious glances from the
royal staff. I was impressed at the sheer number of people who passed us: clerks, servants, soldiers, priests, trading officials from around Vispasia. It was an incredibly busy building. Even on
the night of the murder, there were hundreds of people present.

So why had no one witnessed anything happening that night?

Everyone had of course seen Lacanta mingling with guests, and plenty of people had seen her corpse, so what had happened in those precious, final moments between? Had she been ensconced with a
lover, or been involved in some heated discussion?

Away from the temple were smaller rooms, private quarters perhaps, and a kitchen. Next to the kitchen was a room I took to be a pantry at first, but noted a large number of
plates stacked to one side with food in gradual stages of decay. When we unlocked it and entered we disturbed two rats, which scurried past us and out into the corridor, scaring the male cook in
the next room. There wasn’t much in the room, simply a strong smell of food that had gone off. However, on the far wall, next to a stack of discarded hessian sacks, was an engraving of an
upright hand with an eye in the centre of the palm.

It was the offering of Light, a symbol of Polla’s brother-god Ptrell. He was a rare god indeed, barely worshipped this far west. I hadn’t seen it at all in the city, so what was it
doing here in a room buried within Optryx? Who had taken the time to engrave the symbol of Ptrell into the wall? It appeared to have been done recently, too.

Somehow, perhaps because of his association with Polla, discovering this symbol seemed to reassure me. I felt, through him, Polla might be trying to tell me that I was on the right track, to
tell me to keep looking.

Invigorated by this sign, we headed to Lacanta’s room, which was a good deal more pleasant, as it had been aired and incense had been lit to rid the place of the stench of death.

‘Incense, just like in the temple,’ Leana observed. ‘Except that could have been as part of an offering.’

‘What if that incense had not been part of an offering at all, but an attempt to rid the temple of the smell of death, just as it has been in this room?’ I remarked.

‘You mean not sacrifice, but it could be the act of a . . .’ she searched for the word, ‘calculated killer?’

‘Not of a calculated killer. Corpses do not give off a smell immediately and a calculated killer would have known that.’

Leana stepped towards me. ‘So it could be their first killing, and they were trying to hide their tracks, even though they had no need to so soon?’

‘Exactly. Or it could have been a distraction for whoever was to investigate the case. Or people might have been encouraged to believe it was a religious killing. The incense could mean
something or nothing, such is the curious nature of this crime.’

‘What was it you said to the king,’ Leana said, ‘about missing objects?’

‘When I first came in this room, because of a space in the dust on one of the tables . . .’ I marched over to the small piece of furniture. ‘This one, in fact. It looked as if
an object had been removed from it. Now, not a trace of evidence remains.’

‘You think it might be significant?’

‘Everything could be significant at the moment,’ I sighed. ‘At the time I was too preoccupied with her corpse and the royal physician to contemplate the situation. I should
have paid more attention. If there was something missing, we’ll probably never know. Judging by its shape I assumed it might have been a book or a storage box. Much like the one missing from
my father’s room – though in that case I have a suspicion it was the base of a statue that might have been sold. Anyway, whatever it was, it has been moved.’

‘In the night, the killer might have gone back to her room to remove something,’ Leana speculated. ‘Or one of her lovers might have come back to take an item that they thought
could make them look guilty.’

‘She certainly led a complicated existence.’

I continued searching around the room and decided to take a closer look at some of her reading material, which was in the far corner of the room, up on a high shelf. There were four large books
piled on top of each other, as I remembered the first time, volumes in blue or green leather. I lifted each one down in turn and opened them up. Two books were on Detratan mythology: famous
classics that most of the wealthy homes in Tryum were rarely without. It took a while to make out the writing on the spine of another since it was so old; but when opened it was revealed to be on
the natural wildlife that could be found in a coastal province called Destos, which I remembered fondly from my childhood as a rural holiday area for the rich. It seemed to have been read many
times. Inside a book of plays there was a hand-drawn map containing the sketched names of places – it was difficult to work out where, but it might have been important because the paper was
reasonably fresh and potentially drawn by Lacanta herself. In fact, the lines and symbols didn’t seem unlike those in Senator Divran’s study.

Was Lacanta interested in the dark arts? I put the paper in my pocket while no one was looking.

‘Now this is interesting.’ The final book was a volume of plays by the famous, ancient Maristanian writer Locottus, which seemed to fit neatly with the idea that both Lacanta and
Licintius were appreciative of the theatre, but it was inscribed to her as ‘a gift from Nucien’. I reached into my pocket and drew out the list of names that Veron had provided. There
were only ten names written down and a man called ‘Nucien Malvus’ was one of them.

‘Is it the same one?’ Leana asked.

‘We have a match,’ I replied. ‘It’s about time we made our presence known in the Senate – this will give us some further purpose. While we’re there we can go
through as many of the names on Veron’s list without creating a bad name for ourselves as hunters of senators.’

I put the books back and took one more look around before leaving unsatisfied.

I made my formal requests with the staff to visit the Senate building, but it turned out that all the senators had already gone home for the day. Only then did I realize just how much time
we’d spent looking in every nook and cranny we could find in Optryx.

Noting that the sun was low in the sky, we hurried home.

On the walk back it seemed right to explain to Leana who I was meeting later, and we briefly discussed what had taken place while Veron dragged me out.

‘You found her then,’ Leana said.

‘I have. I’m not sure what to do though.’

‘I am not,’ Leana continued, ‘the best person to give advice on this subject. She will not distract you from the investigation, I hope?’

‘You know me better than that.’

‘I do. Your people here seem preoccupied with love and sex, as if it is all that matters in the world.’

When we arrived home, a message had been left for me from the pontiff at the Temple of Polla: now that the various rites had been performed on my father’s ashes, they would become my
property in the morning, to take to the family mausoleum.

After washing, changing into my smart attire – a deep blue tunic and cloak, my best black trousers – I made myself smell fresh for the evening using what little fragrance was
available.

And waited for Titiana to arrive.

Sunset came and there was no sign of her. I paced the hallway, convincing myself that it was stupid to expect anything to happen, that it was ridiculous to even hope for forgiveness. Clearly
Titiana had come to her senses. If that was her decision, I could not blame her.

Presently there came a knock at the door and I managed to rush there before Bellona. Titiana stood on the doorstep, a vision worth the journey across the continent. She wore a wonderful cream
and red dress, with just one small necklace, nothing flamboyant, and her dark hair was hanging loose around her shoulders. She was a few years older than the figure who had been preserved in my
memories, but somehow she seemed to be even more alluring.

‘I was starting to think you wouldn’t arrive,’ I said.

‘I was starting to think I shouldn’t,’ she replied.

‘Yet here you are.’ I stepped outside and closed the door behind me. Now that I knew that she didn’t detest me quite as much as she could have, a sudden awkwardness came over
me. Even when imagining this scene from the other side of the continent I hadn’t really planned what we would say or do.

‘I don’t know about you, but I’m famished,’ I said. ‘I’ve not been in the city for a long time. Can you recommend a good place to eat?’