Roger Taylor - Ibryen

As he surveyed the effect of his words, Helsarn reminded himself that he too was not inviolable in these changed circumstances. Better perform his duties as near as possible to what was normal, he thought. He dismissed six of the Guards to attend to the stabling of the horses and formed the others into an honour guard about the carriage.

Then came an interval of eerie silence. Even the sounds from beyond the wall were waning, as if the whole city was beginning to hold its breath.

The sound of footsteps broke into Helsarn’s thoughts. He recognized them before the person making them appeared. Physician Harik’s strides, like the man himself, were long, relentless and purposeful. They never varied. He could hear too the fainter sound of Vintre trying to match this testing stride without too much loss of dignity. The soft-soled boots for the Citadel Guards had been one of the Gevethen’s whims. ‘Best the people do not hear you coming,’ they had said. Perhaps it was a dark joke, but no one laughed.

Harik’s tall, lank form came through the wicket in the inner gate, with Vintre slightly behind and burdened not only by his shorter stature but by a long and awkward bundle that Harik had obviously thrust upon him. Helsarn flicked an order to two of the Guards who rushed forward and relieved their Low Captain of his charge. It was a stretcher. Harik cast a glance over the scene then acknowledged Helsarn with a cursory nod before turning to the carriage. He laid a reassuring hand on one of the horses then moved to the open door and stepped inside. Helsarn wanted to walk forward and see what was happening, but Harik intimidated him almost as much as the Gevethen, albeit in a different way.

Harik’s face was, as ever, expressionless when he emerged. Taller than Helsarn he bent forward, bringing his face very close. ‘Gone to whatever hell he’s made for himself,’ he said. ‘Long gone.’

Helsarn had difficulty in meeting the enigmatic grey-eyed gaze but he could not restrain a flicker of surprise. Harik was the last person from whom a remark such as that might be expected.

‘What shall we do with the… his… the Lord Counsellor’s body?’ he said, cursing himself inwardly for stumbling thus.

‘Bring him to my Examining Room.’

Helsarn confirmed the order with a nod to Vintre. ‘Will anything about his wounds tell you what happened?’ he asked, still unsettled by Harik’s manner and anxious to sound coherent and in control.

‘Little other than the precise manner of his dying,’ Harik replied, looking directly at him again. ‘But doubtless they’ll wish to hear it.’ Harik rarely referred to the Gevethen as anything other than ‘they’, and though he gave the word no special inflection, it was nonetheless full of meaning. ‘I doubt the wounds will tell me much about who did it.’ His gaze intensified. ‘Your province, I think.’

Hagen’s body was gingerly taken from the carriage and placed on the stretcher. Harik looked down at him, bending only at the neck, as if to distance himself from the sight, then he produced a cloth from somewhere within his robe and placed it over the dead man’s face. The tension amongst the watching men seemed to lighten perceptibly. It lightened further as the body was carried away.

Helsarn stared after it for a moment, then, cursing himself again for his folly, he dismissed the Watch with an order to remain in their quarters and, leaving a solitary Guard to tell Gidlon where he was going, he set off after the retreating physician. A rare figure he’d have cut, standing on the steps waiting for something to happen when Gidlon returned! Whether he liked it or not, he had become the Lord Counsellor’s escort and he must attend his every moment for, sure as fate, he would be interrogated about it by the Gevethen themselves.

By the time he caught up with the stretcher party, they had passed through a broad-arched doorway in the inner wall of the Citadel and were moving along the corridor that led to Harik’s Examining Room. This was the same room that Harik had used when he was the Count’s Physician, and the area around it still had an open and airy feeling that had long passed from the rest of the Citadel. It was many years since Helsarn had been here and, as he took in the scents of the place, they transported him back to the time when he had been a wide-eyed and ambitious junior cadet in the Count’s Guard. He scowled under the assault of the peculiarly vivid memories that were suddenly surging through him. Far too much darkness lay between that time and now. Far too much pain, too much cruel learning.

‘You’re troubled?’ Harik asked, noting the change in countenance.

The question brought Helsarn sharply back to the present. He tested the question for treachery. There would be none, he decided. Whatever else he was, Harik was beyond all Citadel politics. Nevertheless, caution was essential.

‘How could I not be after such an atrocity?’ he replied stiffly. He thought he saw a hint of a smile on the physician’s face – or was it a sneer? But if there was anything there at all, it did not linger, and Harik was merely nodding when Helsarn looked more carefully. The short journey was completed in silence.

Harik’s examination of the body did not take long and Helsarn stood through it with stoical impassivity, though it was an effort. Not that he was particularly squeamish about knife wounds or, for that matter, most forms of violent injury, but there was a disturbing quality about Harik’s combination of cold-blooded efficiency and delicate gentleness.

Harik straightened up when he had finished and pulled a cloth oven the body. He stood for some time looking down at the now anonymous form. ‘Doubtless they’ll want his body accorded some special respect,’ he said eventually, without looking up. ‘Have your men take him to the buriers. Tell them to put him in the cold room until I have instructions about what’s to be done.’ He paused and tapped the edge of the examination table thoughtfully. ‘Take him now. There’s nothing else to be done and I must take them a report straight away.’

‘Did you discover how he was killed?’ Helsarn asked bluntly.

‘There was a knife wound in his shoulder, but he died from two stab wounds to the throat. I doubt you needed my expertise to tell you that,’ Harik replied.

‘I didn’t examine him other than to confirm that he was dead.’

Harik continued. ‘They were delivered from above, very powerfully.’

‘A big man, then? Strong?’

Harik looked straight at him. Once again Helsarn found it difficult to hold the grey-eyed gaze. ‘Strength lies unseen in many unexpected places, Captain. It merely awaits the right key to release it.’

Helsarn frowned. ‘A big man, though?’ he persisted.

Harik turned away, a faintly weary expression on his face. ‘Probably,’ he said off-handedly. ‘And it was done with a knife about so long and so wide.’ His two forefingers then a finger and thumb demonstrated. ‘About the same size as the daggers that your Guards carry.’

Helsarn’s stomach lurched and his knees started to shake. Casual remarks such as that could be disastrous. In present circumstances they could spiral out of control and lead to any conclusion – even a purging of the Guards. His voice was almost trembling when he spoke. ‘Knives like that are carried by every thief in the city, not to mention all the old Count’s Guards,’ he said, too quickly. He cleared his throat. ‘It won’t be necessary for you to make such a… comparison… in your report, will it?’

Harik eyed him again. ‘No,’ he said simply. ‘Just a statement of the size. Conjecture will be for others. As will everything else. Such as I can do I’ve done.’

As he was about to leave, Helsarn remembered the driver of Hagen’s carriage. He inquired about him.