Mark Newton: Nights of Villjamur

The iren behind was busy with traders and customers. A food stand was starting to cook thick hunks of seal meat, the smoke rising between the bridges and balconies higher up. Furs were available straight off the hide – bear, deer, lynx – so that you could craft them yourself in any number of ways. There were shoddy tribal ornaments and spurious island craftsmanship on display. They were manufactured on the cheap, but the people of Villjamur couldn't tell or, if they did, they certainly didn't show it.

Randur paid special attention to clothing, noting all the latest styles – tiny collars with little ruffs, pale earthy tones on the women that did nothing for them, two brooches worn where possible right next to each other. The swords people carried tended to be short messer blades, and he thought that they must be more efficient to kill with in the narrow corridors and pathways of Villjamur.

The Inquisition had eventually sealed off the area around the dead body, and they were now beginning to erect wooden panels to hide the death scene.

The rumel approached him, a cool and graceful individual.

'Sele of Jamur to you, sir. I'm Investigator Rumex Jeryd. Could you tell me your name, please?'

'Randur Estevu, from Folke. Just arrived this morning.'

'You're from out of town? I thought I could detect an accent. You speak Jamur well, though. I'm surprised the guards let you in.'

Randur shrugged, a lock of hair falling across his forehead.

'Do you mind if I ask what you're here for? People from outside aren't generally admitted because of the Freeze, you see. We get all sorts of trouble here.'

'Not at all. I've got employment at the Emperor's halls, and I've shown my identification at each of the three gates. It's all official.'

'Right, well, we can't ever be too careful. We've got a bit of a refugee problem, as you've no doubt seen on your way in.'

'Yeah, poor guys.' Randur pulled up the collars on his cloak. 'Are you, y'know, letting them all in before the ice comes?'

'It's not up to me, but the Council assures the people of the city that the matter's in hand. So, can you now tell me everything you saw? Please, leave nothing out.'

'Well, not much to say really. He came running and screaming from up there somewhere.' He indicated an alley at the opposite end of the iren. 'Beetles were already swarming all over his wound, then he just collapsed on the ground, right where he is now.'

The rumel scribbled some notes in a small book. 'Nothing else that seemed odd or out of place?'

'Everything seems a little odd to me today.'

The rumel grinned. 'Welcome to Villjamur, lad.'

*

Jeryd crouched by the body, taking in the details of the wound, how the blood trickled across the cobbles. A while later he glanced up at Aide Tryst, who was stepping carefully around the confines of the alley. At the far end lay several broken frames and pots of paint from the adjacent gallery.

Around Cartanu Gata, especially where it intersected with the Gata Sentimental, nothing had changed for thirty or forty years, ever since it had been arrogated by the evening bohemians.

All along its lower walls were scribbles etched deep by knife blades over the centuries. Odes to lovers. Threats to all and anyone. Who watches the Night Guard? So-and-so sucks dicks. That sort of thing. Some of the cobbles were splashed with paint, too, and you could smell stale food despite the dampness. At night, lanterns cast long, feral shadows down here, and if there was no breeze the darkness was suffocating in such narrow confines. And there were always rumours of cultist-bred animal hybrids walking along here with awkward gaits before sunrise.

Weighing up all these possibilities, Jeryd was trying to build a picture.

Delamonde Rubus Ghuda. The victim – a human male, in his forties – was a senior member of the Villjamur Council. His ribcage had been opened and exposed in a most bizarre way. The robes had just melted away around the wound, and some of his flesh appeared as if it had been scooped out. There were no traces of anything else around the corpse. Jeryd had never seen such an injury before.

This made a difference from the usual crimes he investigated. An old rumel like Jeryd could easily become bored with his job: people only ever committed the same few misdemeanours. You had murders, usually affairs of the heart; people stole things because they couldn't afford them; then you had the excesses of drug addicts. Generally it was about people either snatching more from life, or people trying to escape it completely.

But this crime had indications of something else…

Tryst paused alongside him.

'Not a pretty sight,' Jeryd observed.

'Indeed not.'

'What's this?' Jeryd shuffled over to one side, dabbed his finger to a cobble. A blue substance stuck to it.

'Must be paint,' Tryst suggested, 'from the gallery. Load of paint pots stored back there.'

Jeryd stood up, wiped the finger on his robe. 'No witnesses yet from there?'

'I'll get someone to ask questions. Knock on a few doors, maybe. I'm not hopeful, though.'

'Get one of the others onto it immediately. I need to know if there was anything remotely strange going on here. Anyone unusual walking by. Any scuffles or swordfights, anything. And we need to find out what he was up to last night and earlier this morning.'

'OK.' Tryst turned to go.

'Meanwhile don't tell anyone about this,' Jeryd continued. 'I'll contact the Council myself, let them know. We can't do with this getting out just for the moment. The people who witnessed him die didn't necessarily realize his position, and I don't want Emperor Johynn finding out via rumours. Bohr knows, it'd just become part of a conspiracy in his head.'

Jeryd walked slowly to the far end of the alley, glancing up through the morning drizzle at three spires visible in the distance, and at the bridges that arced between them.

Tryst interrupted his thoughts. 'Investigator, should we take him back to headquarters now?'

Jeryd slipped his hands in the pockets beneath his robe. He was studying the dead-end behind, where a heap of garbage lined the side wall of the gallery. Considering himself a man of the Arts, he had always wanted to visit all the galleries, but had never quite found the time for this one. Marysa had often mentioned it, painting a wonderful picture he never quite got to see. Then again, she always did exaggerate. He'd seen far too much crime here over the years for him to look at this part of the city with naivety. Especially nearby Caveside, where the buildings themselves breathed decay.

'Yes, get him back now,' Jeryd said. 'We could do with wrapping this up as soon as possible.'

They rode past hundreds of refugees camped alongside the Sanctuary Road. The numbers grew daily, conditions worsened. Filthy children ran between tents on either side of the road, where grassy banks had become mud baths. Livestock had been brought, too, and makeshift pens had been constructed. The previous evening's fires had been reduced to ashes overnight. This morning faces were glum, and they looked at him with a sense of embarrassed pleading – these were people, unused to poverty, who had never dreamed that this might be where they'd end up.

Another city was growing outside the city.

People had come here in hope. Hope that they wouldn't be left to freeze in the wild when the ice came. Hope that the Empire's main city would be able to house them in its labyrinth. Hope that there would be enough food and warmth. They'd come from Kullrun, Southfjords, Folke, Y'iren, Tineag'l, Blortath – heard in their accents. They had gathered whatever belongings they had and set off for the Sanctuary City. But the city could only accommodate a limited number during the estimated fifty years of ice to come – that was the official line. The very government that ruled over them did not want to offer them shelter. Had they been landowners, there might be an open door, such was the way of things here.