Chương 36: V2: Chapter 8 - A Tale of Two Soldiers

The kid Hadrian remembered was a lean seventeen-year-old with deep dimples that attracted women like a bowl of candy drew children. He hadn't seen Wyberg in six years, not since Hadrian had left the service of King Reinhold. He didn't look much different. Heavier, but Roland had always needed a few pounds. The slender boy had become a solid man, but the dimples were still there, and in his eyes, Hadrian saw a vague reflection of another young soldier whom time had also changed.

The guard post was a typical one-room shack. Nothing more than a place to check in, store shackles and weapons, and provide a little warmth when it got cold. Much of the room was given over to stacks of wood, but there was an ink-stained desk in the corner on which was laid a stack of mangled parchments held down by a horseshoe. The floor creaked when stepped on, the fire hissed, and the whole place smelled of smoke and damp wood.

"So, Blackwater, what happened to you?" Roland snapped off his chin guard and tossed the big helmet on the desk, where the weight of the horsehair brush caused it to roll halfway to the edge.

"Went to Calis." Hadrian took a seat on a crude bench that looked to have been banged together from two unsplit logs and a wide board. Royce showed him an uncomfortable face before sitting alongside, enveloping himself in his cloak the way a proper woman might check the skirt of her dress. Roland moved to the fire, where a blackened metal kettle sat on a wrought-iron grate, forming a bridge over glowing coals.

"Why?"

"You probably don't remember, but I came to Alburn from Warric. Had friends serving in Chadwick's First Regiment. Didn't want to be here to welcome them and couldn't get a transfer, so..." Hadrian didn't bother finishing. Roland lifted the kettle's lid. He shook his head and scowled.

"No one ever puts a new one on after draining it." He took the pot outside, filled it with water from the rain barrel, struggled to latch the door, then set the pot back on the fire. He was still fussing with the lid when he said, "You were right. They attacked. A few weeks after you vanished. Nasty battle." Roland reached up to a shelf at the left of the desk and took down a large tin box.

"Richard, Brick, and Mel were all killed. You remember Mel, don't you?"

"Swell Mel? Sure." Mel had been an older fellow who cut his hair short and made a habit of helping new recruits and adopting stray animals.

"The First Regiment hit us from two sides." With difficulty, Roland popped the top of the tin off. Some of the coffee beans fell to the floor. He poured a small pile onto the desk.

"Captain Stowe and most of the officers died. Warric crippled us in short order." He took a hammer that hung from a peg and proceeded to smash the beans.

"I sent Brady on a horse to Caren. Told him to ride his ass off and get help," he said in between hammer strikes.

"The rest of us fell back to the Narrows. We held them there. Lost almost everyone doing it. We were four hundred when the sun came up, forty-two when it set. Afterward, I got a promotion and my choice of station. Picked Rochelle. Had my fill of fighting." Roland scooped up the crushed coffee and dropped handfuls into three cups, then checked the water and scowled. He looked back.

"How was Calis?"

"Bloody." Hadrian left it at that. Roland looked over. Their eyes met, and he nodded.

"Guess we both woke up with hangovers." Royce kept his attention on the single window that faced the street. The interior pane was covered in flies that relentlessly butted the glass. A large number of them were dead on the sill. Roland took a pair of split logs off the stack and placed them among the coals beneath the grate. Damp stains indicated they had been left out in the rain, and the logs hissed. Smoke escaped the draft, and Roland cracked the door a couple of inches to allow it an escape.

"And who is this?" Roland nodded toward Royce.

"My partner in crime," Hadrian said with a smile that garnered a look from Royce, who otherwise hadn't moved.

"We've been working out west. Taking odd jobs as we could find them." Roland spun the desk chair around and sat.

"Is that why you're here? An odd job?" Hadrian glanced at Royce, who provided no help. Discussing an assignment with the city guard was as likely as a pair of mice consulting a house cat about dinner options. But Roland was a friend, a decent man, in a position to help, and Royce's methods had failed to turn up anything except a near-death experience. Knowing he'd hear about it later, Hadrian took the gamble.

"Yeah," he said.

"We were hired to find a woman named Genny." Royce shifted on the bench. Roland, who was just about to peek under the lid of the kettle again, stopped.

"You mean Genevieve? The duchess who married old Leopold?" Hadrian nodded.

"Who hired you?" Royce coughed into his hand.

"Sorry. Think I'm getting a cold." Hadrian felt Royce looking at him, but he didn't turn to verify. He'd already committed himself to the path.

"Her father." Hadrian imagined Royce to be mentally screaming at him, or gasping in horror, but the reaction of Roland was anticlimactic. He turned back to the pot with a sniff.

"Her father seems to think she's dead, although a note said she's only missing."

"We've looked for her. Tore the town apart, really. The duke had us going door-to-door, searching shops and private homes. But..."

"But what?"

"She's been missing for two weeks. No one has seen or heard anything about her." He nodded.

"I think her father has cause for concern." Roland dipped his pinkie into the kettle and jerked it back. Then he poured steaming water into three cups.

"This is one of the best perks of this post. We get great coffee shipped over from Calis. Be sure to wait until the floating bits settle before you drink." He handed them the cups.

"Well then," Hadrian said, cheerily, "it's a good thing we arrived. Maybe we can help. Can you tell us what happened? How'd she disappear?"

"Not much to tell. She and the ducal cofferer, a fellow named Devon De Luda, were returning from a meeting with the city's merchant guild. On their way back to the Estate—that's the duke's residence—the carriage was attacked. De Luda was killed on the spot, and the duchess was dragged off."

"Where'd this happen?" Royce asked.

"Just before the bridge to the Estate, on the far side of Central Plaza. That's the big one with the cathedral."

"Seems like a pretty public setting for a murder," Royce noted.

"Usually is, but that night it was deserted."

"Deserted? A little odd, isn't it?"

"Not really. The town is filled with folk right now because of the festival. Two weeks ago, things were quieter. And Rochelle residents are a superstitious lot, tend to stay in at night."

"So, no talk, no rumors?"

"Plenty. Always are. But that's just gossip and ghost stories. No mysterious monster killed the duchess, if that's what you're getting at." Hadrian glanced at Royce, puzzled.

"Okay... I wasn't, but I guess that's good to know. Do you usually suspect monsters?"

"No, but that doesn't stop the tongues from wagging. De Luda was stabbed, plain and simple. His heart was in his chest, and he still had a face." Hadrian opened his mouth but didn't quite know what to say. Roland sighed.

"I'm just saying it wasn't a monster, okay?" Hadrian nodded. He glanced at Royce, who stared at Roland with a concerned look.

"Okay, so lately we've been finding mutilated children, most of them mir. Kids with their chests torn open and hearts ripped out. But their faces have been fine. No one's lost a face in years—if they ever really did."

"What a quaint city you have here," Royce quietly remarked.

"Yeah, well, no place is perfect. I think all the talk about the carriage being attacked by a monster is just people finding what they expect to see. Like I said, De Luda's body wasn't like the other corpses. My personal theory—about the duchess, I mean—is that she was dragged into the shadows, her throat slit, and her body dumped in the river."

"Why?" Royce asked.

"You've probably heard about what's going on during the Spring Feast, right?"

"Yeah, Alburn's going to get a new king."

"Well, a lot of people think there's some significance to the anointing ceremony being held here in Rochelle rather than in Caren. Folks think Leopold is the front-runner. They also believe it's why the forty-year-old duke suddenly took a wife. The theory is the bishop offered him the crown on the condition he got married first. If that's true, I bet there are plenty of nobles who would like to spoil that plan and make the bishop pick someone else."

"So, why not just kill Leopold?" Royce asked.

"Duke doesn't leave the Estate often; the duchess is always running around town. And it's easier to kill a strange, imported merchant's daughter than a man who you know, possibly like, and could even be related to. You might not want him dead, just don't want him to be king."

"Okay, but why wasn't her body next to that De Luda guy? Why go to the trouble of dragging her away before killing her?" Hadrian asked.

"I wondered about that, too." Roland grinned like the boy who knew the answer to the riddle.

"But I realized if she were dead, the duke could just pick another wife, marry her quick, and nothing would change. But with her missing... well, he can't remarry. Not for a while. Not if there's a chance she's still alive. It's the not-knowing that lowered his chances. The bishop will pick a less risky candidate. Unfortunately, that means it could be any of a hundred or so nobles."

"But you have a favorite?" Roland nodded.

"I'd lay money on Floret Killian, Duke of Quarters. He's popular and powerful and the sort to do whatever it takes. But I can't make any accusation without proof, and I don't have any."

"You mentioned the duchess was coming back from a meeting with the merchant guild. Do you know what that was about?" Royce asked.

"Stirring up trouble is what I hear. She'd been sticking her nose in stuff a woman shouldn't be involved in. But I guess things are different in Colnora. That's where she came from. I suppose you already know that. She didn't fit in all that well around here. Rochelle has particular ways of doing things. People have roles, and I guess she didn't like hers much." Roland put another log on the fire. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"What about the driver?" Royce asked.

"Was he killed, too?" Roland hesitated.

"Driver?"

"You mentioned that the duchess and De Luda were in a carriage. So what happened to their driver?" Roland's eyes shifted back and forth.

"Only De Luda's body was found. Guess the driver ran off."

"Where's the carriage now? Is it back at the duke's estate?" Roland shook his head.

"Just down the street. They took it to Woffington's shop to be cleaned. Everything was covered in blood." He took another sip.

"I'm sorry, but it looks like the two of you came a long way for nothing. Still, I hope you'll stick around a few days. I've been busy as a hummingbird on the last day of summer, but we could have a drink when I'm off duty. Maybe I can lure Hadrian back to Alburn now that we aren't at odds with Warric anymore."

"Oh, I think we'll be staying awhile," Royce said with a friendly smile that sent chills up Hadrian's back. Woffington & Sons was located not far from the river, in an area where everything, even the carriage shop, was built of old stone, a material normally reserved for castles or churches. Royce felt certain it hadn't always been used for building coaches. The architecture was too sophisticated, too decorative for a business, even one that catered to nobles.

Fluted pillars held up an arched, engraved transom, and over the big door crouched one of the town's many stone gargoyles. This one was endowed with a barbed tail curled around its feet as it perched vulture-like, peering down menacingly on all who entered. Hadrian had followed Royce without a word, hanging back a step, and Royce was still deciding whether to admonish him. The problem stemmed from the fact that Hadrian might not have made a mistake.

On a purely objective level, his partner had committed a monumental blunder. They were there to commit murder, probably more than one, and he'd just declared their association with the events to come—to a high-ranking officer of the city guard, no less. As ridiculous as that was, though, Royce had to admit Hadrian's direct approach had resulted in a bounty of information that might have required weeks to obtain by less direct methods, and Royce was starting to suspect that time might be a factor.

And there was also one more restraint on Royce's rebuke, one more reason to suspect that Hadrian's knack for dumb luck might have turned out okay, but he needed more information to be sure. The shop wasn't far from the plaza, so it was obvious why the carriage had been brought there. From the shop's entrance, Royce could see the cathedral. The massive edifice with its soaring bell towers dominated the eastern bank. Central Plaza itself hosted numerous shops, statues, and fountains.

The river's early-morning fog had yet to burn off, but the square was already filling with pedestrians and hawkers. That's where it happened. Despite Captain Wyberg's assurances about the habits of Rochelle's residents, Royce found it an odd locale for a murder. Killing in a place so conspicuous generally meant the perpetrator was trying to send a message. That's what I would do. He caught himself. Have done. He thought again. More than once.

This realization was both intriguing and disturbing, leaving Royce as curious as he was concerned. Who are we dealing with? A kid that Royce guessed to be about thirteen spotted the pair lingering at the shop's open doors. Brushing himself free of sawdust, he trotted over. A wide belt with tools hanging from loops, most of them chisels and wooden mallets, hung from his waist.

"Can I help you, gentlemen?" Over the boy's shoulder, Royce spotted four men working in a large open space held up by old stacked-stone pillars. Suspended from the ceiling or piled on shelves was a plethora of wheels, raw lumber, and metal poles. Royce counted eight carriages in various states of production.

"Officer Roland Wyberg of the city guard informs me that this is where the duke's carriage is being repaired," Royce said with a dash of aggressiveness. The boy straightened up.

"Oh, ah, yes, sir. Are you from the Estate, sir?" Royce folded his arms slowly, studying the boy with a dismissive expression that wasn't too difficult for him to conjure up. The kid was fresh-faced enough to have been a spring lamb.

"I'm investigating the events of that night. Let's just say that, shall we?" He gave the boy a sly smile.

"You'd be one of the Woffington sons, is that right?"

"Ah, yes, I'm Brian Woffington, sir."

"And, Brian, are you working on the carriage?"

"My father and brother Steven are, but they're not here just now. They went to get material for the interior. They're over at Handon's place on the west bank."

"That's fine; we don't need to talk to them. We only want to take a look at the coach. Can you take me to it?"

"Um, yes, sir." Brian led them around tables, racks, bolts of leather, and massive spools of thread. The other sons looked over, but no one said anything.

"Working on a lot of wagons," Hadrian mentioned.

"Business must be good."

"Rochelle has over three hundred carriages for hire," the kid told them.

"Keeping them in good order sometimes requires replacing the whole rig." They dodged around a few more tables, and in the back of the shop, Royce and Hadrian came across the gaudiest coach they had ever seen. It appeared to be made entirely of gold, right down to its wheels. The door panels were the only exception. There, the surface had been painted to depict a man on a rearing horse, his mantle flying in the wind as a beautiful woman watched in awe.

The interior was gutted, the seats removed and lying on the shop's floor, their skin stripped bare, revealing the wooden frames. Royce went over to the window and peered in for a closer look. Tufts of padding, and the remains of regularly placed tacks, indicated the carriage had once been upholstered from floor to ceiling. All that remained was the skeleton of bare wood. Royce stepped back and continued examining the carriage's exterior.

"Mind if I..." Royce pointed toward the driver's berth.

"Hmm? Oh, go ahead," Brian replied.

"It's not real gold, by the way. Just painted to look like it. If it were real, the horses would die trying to pull it. Oh, and we'd need a troop of soldiers to guard the shop at night." The boy laughed. Royce hopped up and made a quick study of the seat.

"Has this bench been repaired?" Brian shook his head.

"No, sir. Didn't touch nothing. Weren't no damage. The bloodstains were inside." As on most coaches, the footboard was adjustable. Royce positioned himself on the bench as if he was driving, and with his feet on the board, his knees came to his chest.

"No one changed anything up here? Adjusted the seat?"

"Nope."

"When they brought the carriage over, someone must have driven it, right?" Brian shook his head again.

"Happened just down by the river, not far at all. The horse was led."

"Did you know who was driving the carriage the night of the attack?"

"Driving?" the boy asked, and thought for a moment before shaking his head.

"Probably Ickard Wimbly."

"Probably? You don't know?"

"He's the duke's coachman. So, I think it was him. I can't remember exactly if—""Wasn't Wimbly," one of the other sons of Woffington paused in his work to chime in. This son was at least a couple of years older than Brian, having the start of a narrow beard.

"He never drives the duchess. Steven has been down there a lot. Talks to Wimbly all the time. The man refused to drive her. Called the duchess the Whiskey Wench." Hadrian gave them both a skeptical look.

"How does the duke's coachman refuse to drive the duke's wife?"

"And how did he still have a job after calling her a wench?" Royce added.

"Wimbly used to drive the duke's father. He's a fixture at the Estate and very well respected. And he's not the only one who felt that way, trust me. The duchess wasn't exactly admired."

"And the duke put up with it?" All of the sons of Woffington exchanged looks of agreement.

"Not sure if he actually knew, but don't know how he couldn't."

"So who drove?" The sons all either shook their heads or shrugged.

"Wimbly's not picky when it comes to finding someone to drive her, so it coulda been anyone at the Estate."

"And it happened at night, yes?" Royce turned back to Brian.

"Yep, was dark."

"And do you know which route the carriage took from the Merchants' Guild?"

"Went right by this shop down the hill, past Grom Galimus, then over toward the bridge." Grom Galimus? Royce wasn't an expert in languages, but knew a fair amount of Old Speech, elvish, and even a handful of dwarven words learned from Merrick, who had taught Royce to read and write. Of course, a lot of the elvish, and all the dwarfish terms, were various forms of profanity. Grom galimus was Old Speech, or elven, Royce couldn't remember which, but he did recall what it meant: his glory. The kid nodded.

"That's where it happened. That's where she was killed."

"You think the duchess is dead?"

"Of course. Nobody survives a Morgan attack. My guess is she got scared and tried to run. Big mistake. When they find her body, it'll be a mess. The Morgan has been busy these days. Just the other night a little elven boy was ripped apart, and a Calian girl was found the same way near the harbor."

"What makes you think the duchess ran?" Hadrian asked."'Cuz she would've been safe if she just stayed inside. But the duchess is new to these parts and probably didn't know."

"Didn't know what?"

"That monsters are repelled by the color blue, the color of purity, like the clear sky or clean water. Can't tell now, but the whole inside of the carriage was covered in plush blue velvet. If the duchess knew that color drove away evil spirits, she would have known that she'd be safe as long as she stayed inside." Royce nodded, pretending to agree, but he was certain that the duchess's fate would have been the same no matter the color of the carriage's upholstery.

"No one ever notices the driver," Royce told Hadrian as they walked downhill toward the bridge, and Woffington & Sons became just one of many doors along a stone edifice.

"I discovered that years ago. Servants are invisible except to one another. A baron can always tell you his horse's name, but he rarely knows the name of the groomsman who cares for it. They're the perfect blind spot for attacking the aristocracy. You saw how well it worked with Lord Exeter." Royce was speaking quickly. He wasn't the sort to think out loud, but he was onto something.

Wheels were turning, and he was either bouncing ideas off Hadrian to gauge their accuracy or educating him in the finer points of intrigue. Most of their lengthier conversations were along one of those lines. Hadrian rarely knew which was which and suspected Royce didn't, either.

"So you think the driver was involved?"

"If he wasn't, he'd have been found dead next to De Luda."

"Maybe he was dragged off like the duchess."

"Taking her is one thing, but there'd be no reason to go to the extra trouble for a no-account driver. If all the bodies were missing, you might have a point. But since De Luda was left behind, the killer or killers weren't concerned about cleaning up after themselves. No, the driver isn't dead." They were entering the plaza, which turned out to be an attractive circle of decorative paving stones that highlighted the area between the mouth of the bridge and the massive doors of the cathedral.

The last time they'd passed this way, it had been night and the whole square had been a mass of people jostling to push through a bottleneck, making it impossible to see the giant church's doors, much less the paving stones. Now the plaza served as a vast open space providing a stunning view of the cathedral's grandeur.

"His glory," Royce said.

"What?" Hadrian asked.

"It's the translation of the cathedral's name. Grom Galimus means 'his glory.' I'm guessing his refers to Novron." Royce pointed at the sculpture in front. The statue of the first emperor looked bigger, more impressive in the absence of human clutter, though even at that early hour a few people knelt at its stairs, heads down, praying. Around them, carters were still setting up. The various vendors were busy putting out displays or propping up awnings, although some of the carts had permanent roofs.

A flight of pigeons burst skyward as the clang of Grom Galimus's bells marked the hour, an event that, annoyingly, occurred all day and night.

"So, you're not mad at me for being so forthcoming with Roland?" Hadrian asked as they passed a bakery where the owner was setting wares out in display cases. The smell of baking bread came two steps later. Then a breeze blew it away, replacing warmth and comfort with the fishy scent of the river, which wasn't bad, but the two odors clashed, opposites of each other. One was home and hearth, the other exploration and adventure. Hadrian felt a sense of loss without knowing why.

Such was the mysterious nature of smells and memories.

"Thought about it," Royce replied.

"That's all? I expected you'd be ranting and throwing a fit the moment we left. I was thinking about excuses to tell passersby."

"What'd you come up with?"

"Best one was that you were stung by a bee. Although I thought it would be fun to say you were a snake charmer and one got loose in your pant leg." Royce shook his head, frowning.

"You really are terrible at lying. Need to work on that. In our profession, that's a serious handicap."

"So, why didn't you berate me?"

"Because, as usual, your luck held out." Hadrian's brows rose.

"In what way?" The last of the fog was lifting. The soft white wisps hovered over the water, the morning reluctant to cast off its bedcovers. When it parted, an uncompromised view of the water and the series of stone arches that made up the bridge emerged. Sunlight glinted on the river.

"I think there's a good chance we won't need to go on a killing spree." Royce sounded almost sad. Hadrian had never planned on a spree of any kind, but he saw no reason to interrupt a current flowing in his direction.

"So, you think she's still alive?" Royce nodded.

"Starting to look that way."

"I say she might be alive, and you think I'm crazy. The captain of the city guard and a kid at the local carriage shop tell you she is likely dead, and you think she's alive. Why do you always insist on taking the opposite of anyone's opinion?"

"Because most people are idiots. But in this case, lack of a body makes a compelling argument. To hear your friend tell it, corpses pop up all over the place, but there's no sign of the duchess's? When I thought her husband did her in, I figured she was in a hole under the Estate or, more likely, chained to a boulder under the bay, but now it looks like he's not involved."

"Do you think it was the Morgan?" Royce frowned.

"Of course not. There's no such thing as a monster that stalks city streets and mutilates people." Hadrian's brows rose. Royce frowned.

"You know what I mean: monsters that fear the color blue. The carriage had to be reupholstered because of the cofferer's blood, which means Devon De Luda was attacked while still inside. That the kid missed such a hole in his logic demonstrates how people are willing to overlook the obvious if it doesn't fit their beliefs. We'll know more once we find the driver."

"How we going to do that? The guy's practically invisible. No one has any clue who he is."

"I do. And I know enough to be sure I'm not going to like him." Hadrian laughed.

"That narrows the search to nearly everyone on the face of Elan." Royce started to respond, then stopped and nodded.

"Okay, sure, but I'm really not going to like this guy."