Alan Akers - A Life for Kregen

“Stand aside, Tom the Stones and Nath the Ears. Rest easy that justice will be done.” How easy to say that! And how damned hard, by Vox, to make sure!

Then it was the turn of Renko the Murais.

He had been so dragged down by his ordeal that he kept his face lowered and his gaze on the floor, and so had not looked up once, being prodded into position by the guards. He wore a gray breechclout and was chained, and although the laws had seen to it that he was clean and deloused, he looked defeated and tattered.

Because he was an old blade comrade I must allow no favor to overbear my judgment. The Relt that the stylor Renko had been found guilty of murdering had been discovered in the cellar of a ruined pothouse down on the Canal of the Cockroaches. The Relts with their bird-like faces are the more gentle cousins of the warlike Rapas, and are very often employed as clerks and accountants. This particular Relt appeared to be a stranger in Vondium. His satchel was missing and the leather straps had been slashed through. He had been searched, for his tunic had been ripped to shreds exposing the linings and the hems.

“Was the satchel discovered in the possession of Renko?”

Nath’s words were pleasantly mild.

Enevon Ob-Eye said, “The records state the satchel was not recovered.”

“And no one thought to search, or inquire?”

“The records state that Renko the Murais was discovered crouching over the body, as you have heard. There was a knife in his hand, and there was blood on the blade. The Relt had been stabbed six times in the small of the back. It does seem the proof was plain.”

“Plain enough for me, by Opaz,” declared Barty.

I said, “Was there blood on the cut straps?”

Renko the Murais jumped.

His shaggy head lifted with a snap. He looked up. He looked at me. An expression — a sunrise, dawn, the flowering of a bloom — shocked across his face. His eyes widened. His mouth abruptly trembled -

trembled and then firmed.

“Strom Drak!”

“Aye, Renko, Strom Drak. And a pretty pickle you have got yourself into.”

“I did not slay the Relt, strom! I swear it by Opaz the All-Glorious! I found the body and was set on, and so fought for my life, and was knocked on the head and left for dead. And when I woke-”

“You were taken up.” I looked at Nath and then at Barty and the others at the table. “The law of Vallia

— the new laws of Vallia that the new emperor will see maintained — demand absolute proof of guilt. No one saw this man slay the Relt. You must prove beyond all doubt he did the deed before you pronounce him guilty.”

“But he was standing over the body with a bloody knife in his hand!” Barty spluttered, his face perplexed and yet clearly showing the way he struggled with preconceived notions.

“The chavnik knocks over the bowl of cream and the slave girl comes in to set it right and the mistress sees her and has her whipped for stealing and spilling the cream.”

“Yes, majister, but-”

“Enevon. Read out the description of the wounds.”

Enevon rustled his papers and then read: “Six stab wounds in the small of the back, close together, deep.”

I looked at Renko. “You were an axeman, as I recall.”

“That I was, strom.” Renko, still disoriented, took a grip on remembered pride. I nodded. “Are the clothes of the dead Relt available?”

They were not. They had been burned.

“Tell me of the men who attacked you.”

Renko screwed his leathery face up. He wanted to rub his nose, I could see; but the chains stopped that.

“I saw three of them, strom. But there must have been another one at my back who hit me after I stuck the bastard in front. By Vox, but the whiptail was quick, and I’d have had him, too, but for that crack on my noodle.”

I said, sharply: “A Kataki?”

“That’s what I said, strom.”

He’d said whiptail; but that was the slang term for a Kataki, a nasty member of a nasty race of diffs, slavers, with fierce brow-beating faces, and intemperate dispositions and with long sinuous tails to which they strapped six inches of bladed steel. There were Katakis on Kregen who had no other aim in life but to degut me. The ambition was reciprocated.

“Anything else? Clothes, faces, weapons-?”

“Rapiers, strom, but they kept them scabbarded. They hit me with what felt like the Lenk of Vox. The whiptail had a favor of black and green feathers clipped by a golden grascent — I think, strom, for I was taken by surprise.”

For a space a silence fell. Then, to give Barty the due he deserved, he was the one to burst out: “By Vox! Under the Gate of Voxyri — when I came running up — this Renko the Murais speaks the truth. I’ll swear it!”

“Aye,” said Nath. “The devil’s work spreads itself.”

After that we prosecuted further inquiries and a garbled story came out that made me itch with worry and with frustration. It seemed clear that the Relt stylor was bringing in a message and had been waylaid and slain and the message stolen. But from whom had the message been sent? The minions of Phu-Si-Yantong had heard of it, and we had not, and they had struck. There was no question now in anyone’s mind that Renko the Murais was not guilty. His chains were ordered struck off at once. He expanded after that, and a cup of wine further restored him. But he could add nothing further to the story, being engaged in eking out a living scrounging scraps from the ruins, as so many were. Now there was a happy outcome to the adventure, we could feel thankful he had stumbled on the corpse of the stylor. Although, frustratingly, we knew no more than that there had been a message from someone.

“Anyway, majister — what made you-?” asked Barty.

“The blood. There was no blood on the cut straps. Had Renko stabbed him in the back, that would have been the beginning of the murder — or the end of the Relt — and then he’d have cut the satchel free. No blood meant a clean knife had been used.” I smiled — I, Dray Prescot, smiled — across at Barty. “Anyway, Renko is an axeman. He wouldn’t have stabbed with such a heavy knife. He’d have sliced the Relt’s throat out.”

“Yes,” said Barty.

“And where stands Jando ti Faleravensmot in this?” demanded Nath.

“His judgments have always been impeccable,” offered Enevon, shuffling his papers together. I rather think, as my chief stylor, he had been put out at the murder of a brother in his craft, and was pleased that at least some truth had been revealed.

A stir at the back of the chamber announced the arrival of Tabshur the Talens and the sibling who had won the inheritance, a lean fellow in an apron called Naghan the Tallow. They both looked as guilty as hell. But that must not be allowed to weigh against them. Somehow — and in this I do not boast but rather feel a sense of deflation and defeat — the news that the Emperor of Vallia himself had sent for them and was to look again at their stories, had unnerved them. And, in the case of Tabshur, at least, he was a hard-case, cunning and vicious in his extortions. Naghan the Tallow had been a mere tool in his hands, credulous and willing to be led into infamy.

They broke down and confessed. I think the jingle of chains as the Pachak guard waited added to their misery.

And then Tabshur said: “I paid Tyr Jando twenty golden talens for his judgment. The Fristle fifis was the case he chose. You cannot trust anyone these evil days.”

In that he was right — or almost right. There are people I trust on Kregen. Not many; but they do exist. As you will hear, there were some I should not have trusted, for betrayal touches high and low alike, friend and foe, and is indeed a foul stink over life.

I said: “Nath. Do you dispatch a guard to request Tyr Jando ti Faleravensmot to return to Vondium. There are questions to which he must give the answers. Oh — and tell the guard commander to make sure the cistern does not spoil any more flour.”