Gregory House - The Queen's Oranges

He could see why the officials had leapt to their conclusion. From the position of the bodies, he’d thought the same. The ahh, conjoined-ness, didn’t leave much to the imagination, even his daemon agreed. And a quick view was all you really wanted before the sight and smell made you splatter your last meal on the deck.

Ned forced himself to take more time over the inspection and the closer he looked, the odder the scene appeared. “Meg, how much blood would you say a body has in it?”

It was a good distraction. She was looking distinctly pale and kept on making short swallowing gulps with a cloth pressed to her face. “Dr Caerleon could tell you for sure, but mayhap four or more pints.”

At her mention of Caerleon, the physician and astrologer at the Gryne Dragone, Ned winced. He neither liked nor trusted the old man and the raising of his shadow at this case of suspicious deaths, sent a shiver up his spine. Instead of letting that apprehension seize hold Ned once more pushed into the safe realm of the mundane. “That sounds about right. When we killed pigs about the same size, the blood would fill a small tub. So…where is it?”

With this question, Mistress Black leant much closer to inspect the sheets and padding under the bodies. Ned very carefully tilted them away. It wasn’t easy-Joachim had been a hefty fellow when alive. A close look at the bedding only showed some leakage from the area around both wounds. Considering the gaping slit across Pieter’s neck, that part of the bunk should be full of congealed blood. According to Ned’s previous experience in violently bloody affray, all the covers and the timber walls should have been sprayed in the residue. Ned took a few steadying breathes as his mind made up the scene. At this moment he felt lucky to have already thrown up.

Meg Black, frowning in concentration, cautiously probed the sites of the wounds with a hair pin, then directed Ned’s attention to the injuries. Damn but she had a steady stomach. “From what I recall, Pieter was left handed, so why is the knife sticking in Joachim’s left side, and I can’t make out how Pieter could have stabbed up at this angle if he was underneath. And then there’s this blade in Joachim’s right hand-it looks too small to have made the wound in his nephew.”

Ned swallowed. He really didn’t want so personal a perusal, but where Meg stepped forward he had to follow. It certainly was curious. While a left handed man could stab with his other arm, Master Sylver had shown him a good display of that, he’d also claimed that it lacked natural strength and agility. So how then had the young lad managed to ram a large blade deep into Joachim with his unnatural hand? When it came to it, Meg was correct about Joachim’s supposed weapon. The time with the defence master had been very instructive, especially when he’d demonstrated what sort of injuries could be inflicted by weapons. He had used an old mutton carcass but still Ned gained a very fine appreciation of the cutting and hacking qualities of blade and axe. Poor Pieter’s head was almost severed and Ned had a more than sufficient view of the interior of his throat and the cleanly cut tendons and tubes. Dispassionately he considered, you’d need a heavy backsword or cleaver for that sort of work. Then hand clamped over mouth he made a rush for the window. It was the slight of a fly crawling out of the open neck that did it.

“Ned, there’s another problem.”

Wiping his mouth, Ned thought that was an understatement. There was a phalanx of problems marching towards them but better deal with hers first. “What this time?”

Meg Black pointed to the bodies and then spread her hands wide encompassing the entire cabin. “Well, either both went to bed with knives or they miraculously appeared, but where did they come from? For that matter, where are their clothes?”

Ned cautiously stepped around the small room opening chests and searching vainly for their apparel. He did find one chest packed with clothes but from the size, they would have been the shipmasters. This really was getting stranger. If the offence was passion or force then he’d have thought the room would be littered with clothes and perhaps shoes and anyway, where were the sheaths for the blades? It was just too bizarre to consider that they’d both take off their clothes somewhere else or carefully packed them away. And after that bout of uncharacteristic neatness, both climb into the bunk, each armed with a naked blade and then simultaneously stab and slash each other to death. He knew foreigners had some pretty odd habits. However this was stretching credulity too far.

Meg Black, cloth still held up to her face, waved a free hand towards the door. “I don’t think that this is where they died. They were murdered elsewhere and placed here!” Then she turned to face him blue grey eyes ablaze with anger and indignation. “Ned, we need to search the ship!”

Before he could reply, Meg Black strode briskly out of the door. Well of course they were slain elsewhere! That was obvious and he was about to state the same conclusion. And for a moment Ned was briefly tempted to make his claim for leadership, then the breeze from the Thames wafted the corpsey aroma towards him. Arghh! Precedence could come later. He needed fresher air first, though his daemon did point out one problem-how did you search a boat, and for what?

***

Ned’s initial difficulty of organising a search was soon solved. The crew of the vessel had been gathered at the dock for the past few hours, under the supervision of the remaining ship’s officer, the steersman. As soon as the gruesome discovery had been made, the customs men had ordered the crew secured, in the certain knowledge they’d be ‘required for questioning’.

Once on the open deck Mistress Black took a moment to send a message to her agent at the Steelyard requesting the presence of a couple of witnesses. Ned nodded in approval and suggested she include a few friends of his at the Inns of Court and some of the city’s under sheriffs that knew his uncle. If they were going to do this, he wanted as many as possible to vouch for anything they might find. For a start there were too many suspects. Who knew if it was one or more of the crew involved. To Ned, this crime was unlike the usual murders and robberies common in the city or the docks. The lack of pillaging or robbery was one hint. His better angel had supplied another. Guilt would have prompted flight and all the sailors were still present. Anyway right now the most important precaution was a show of open honesty. If Sir Thomas More was to be involved, which was as certain as fish on Fridays, then they needed to have men of standing in the city bear witness before the inevitable inquest.

The sun was hovering above the western horizon before all was ready and Meg had organised extra lanterns so that the coming dark wouldn’t hinder the exploration. After some discussion, it had been decided she was to stay on the deck to delay any of More’s pursuivants who were soon expected to march into view. Master Jefferys and his fellow customs officer hadn’t made any more efforts to board, but there was little doubt they were watching and furiously making notes. Ned had another more pressing reason for keeping her out of the search, since with the kingdom’s foremost heresy hunter now to be involved, Margaret Black would definitely head the suspect list. Her known connection with the Boleyn faction was enough to ensure it.

Ned had divided up the crew into groups of several men and a pair of witnesses. For such a small boat it seemed to have a large crew, well over twenty, though with his limited nautical knowledge he couldn’t say how many were usually needed.