Chapter 2 #2
Most critically, I took note of the look from father to son: it was one of acrid reproach, as if Burav worried the boy was not strong enough to bear this.
“I’m afraid my superior officer and I must review the death scene first, sir,” I said to the elder Burav. I gestured at the carriage behind me. “And we must speak with the witnesses and the custodi before we can release your daughter’s body to you.”
“Again, I doubt whether there is anything to review!” Burilis said, bristling. “It is a horrid thing that the Armenta boy has done, but a simple one!”
“Could you provide me with your understanding of what happened, sir?”
“I was not present during this atrocity,” he said frostily. “I only came here once I heard it had happened. And besides—wouldn’t you wish to hear from the custodi first? They are subordinate to you, yes?”
“I wish to get your thoughts as well, sir,” I said. “In case there is some disagreement between what the custodi say and what members of your clan report is the case.”
Burilis considered this. “I am told that my daughter came here yesterday in the early evening.”
“For what reason, sir?”
“She had told me herself she was visiting town to meet a friend of hers—an Arniz Dosi. However, she came to this inn instead, for reasons I do not know, and gave a false name to the innkeeper. She then went to one of the rooms, where she met…” A quiver to his beard. “The boy.”
“Castus Armenta?”
“Yes. Though I understand he, as well, gave a false name. It is the first time my daughter has come here, I know that—I am certain of that. I am unsure what feints or tricks the boy used to draw her to this place. There is obviously some…amount of subterfuge occurring here. Several hours later, the little rat came charging out of the chamber and into the street, covered in blood. Then he cried out and sprinted away. The innkeeper went to check on the room, and there…” He trailed off.
“I see, sir. Was Castus Armenta apprehended then?”
At this, Burilis grew too emotional for words. He angrily gestured to the boy, who stepped forward and said in a soft, quavering voice, “N-no. He ran into the fields, and then into the woods. By then the custodi had been called, and they brought their trackers.”
“And you are, sir?” I asked the boy.
“Jalin Burav,” he said. He bowed seriously. “It was an easy thing to follow Castus, given the blood upon him. They found him in the deeper wood, where the trees are…quite old.”
There was a strange tone to those last two words. I sensed I knew what he referred to here, but decided not to pry further on that subject.
The Empire brims over with elder mysteries, boy, Ana had said once. Don’t pick at them unless you’re sure they’re fucking pertinent.
“What reason might Castus Armenta have for perpetrating this act?” I asked them. “And for exposing himself so openly?”
“Reason?” said Burilis, bristling again. He stepped forward, shoving his son out of the way. “The reason is that they hate us and always have. They nearly extinguished my family’s holdings mere decades ago! And they have defamed my son’s name in the public streets here, every day!”
At this, Jalin visibly squirmed.
Burilis continued: “Worse, there is a strain of madness that has emerged in that family recently. I wish the Armenta boy had turned his blade upon himself first, as several of his kin have done!”
I carefully engraved that comment in my mind, then looked to the son, Jalin.
“M-my father speaks truth,” said Jalin. “The Armenta line has befallen a perversion of spirit. But they remain our greatest competitor in land. Even now, after one of their prime sons has done this crime, they fill the streets, ready to meet us in combat.”
“And why, I must ask, are your own forces here?” I asked.
“Because the Armentas obviously wish to evade justice!” said Burilis. “They will snatch the boy from the cells and take him deep into their lands, where no custodi—or Iudex—shall ever find him. And that we won’t permit!”
“But you won’t be first to draw steel against them, I’m sure?”
“No,” said Burilis stiffly. “We are gentry. We do not conduct ourselves so dishonorably.”
A muffled laugh echoed from the carriage. Burilis looked up, his brow knotting.
“Thank you for your testimony, sirs,” I said. “My investigator and I will now review the rest of the scene, and the evidence. If you please…”
I returned to the carriage door and put my hand upon the handle.
“Who is your superior?” demanded Burilis. “Why do they stay within the carriage? Are they injured?”
I paused, debated how to answer, then surrendered and opened the door.
There was another bout of muttering from the Burav drovers as I helped Ana climb out.
This I understood perfectly, for Ana was in nearly all respects a figure both repellent and alarming, and today she was unusually so: though her thin, pale, stiletto-stab of a face was clad in her typical blindfold, this morning her lips bore a generous staining of both ink and food, and her snowy hair had grown so unkempt that it resembled a tangled bird’s nest. (An apt comparison, for I spied the odd leaf in her locks.) The only features that marked her as a Iudex investigator were the color of her dress—the dark blue of our order—and the handful of heralds pinned to her collar.
She emerged with a tight frown splashed across her face—she hated going out into the open, especially after a carriage ride—yet she replaced it with her usual pearly grin. As this was far more discomfiting to look at, I half wished she’d return to the frown.
I turned to the Burav father and son to introduce her, but Burilis spoke first: “Ah! It’s…Dolabra, yes? Is this she?”
Ana and I paused, surprised, and turned to him.
“Correct!” said Ana. “I am Immunis Ana Dolabra. Yet I would recall meeting a gentleman of your prestige. How might you know me, sir?”
“Through reputation,” Burilis said, puzzled. “You were involved, I believe, with the situation in Talagray some year or two ago. And there was a rather lurid account I heard at a dinner…something about a severed head found in a ditch, stopping up an irrigation drain?”
“Ah, yes,” said Ana, grinning. “I was peripherally involved in both, true. Though it was Din here who fished up the head.”
Both Buravs looked to me. I bleakly stared back.
“I understand that you are a skilled investigator,” said Burilis. “But I wonder why we need an investigator at all, given that the nature of my daughter’s killing is so clear.”
“Oh, but that, too, should be very clear, sir!” said Ana. “It is because my superiors believe there is a chance, however remote, that I can keep you and the Armentas from killing one another here in the town square.”
There was an awkward silence. Jalin glanced nervously at his father.
“I personally believe that the fastest way to bring peace and stability to this situation,” continued Ana smoothly, “is with the swift and merciless application of fair justice. Regardless, of course, of the victim or murderer’s social status—that’s the ‘fair’ bit of it, after all.
If this crime is as obvious as all believe, then my judgment shall be speedy.
If any attempt to interfere in the delivery of my judgment, then my punishment of them shall be the same!
And I will tell the same to the Armentas, when I see them. ”
“And why,” said Burilis, “would you need to see the Armentas at all?”
“We must interview the boy,” said Ana with a shrug. “If I did not grant the accused even a cursory questioning, it would be a severe dereliction of duty. Should Castus prove as mad and stupid as you suggest, then it will be quick enough.”
“But…how will you review the death scene of my sister,” said Jalin, “if you are blindfolded?”
“Thoroughly,” said Ana curtly.
Jalin again glanced at his father, as if hoping he could make sense of this answer.
“This is my daughter, mind,” said Burilis softly. “Though you may claim to be a bloodless professional, she is not merely some…some casualty, to me.”
“Every victim of every murder I have ever investigated has been someone’s child, sir,” said Ana.
“Someone’s son, or daughter, or—in the innermost rings—anything otherwise.
I do not grant them bias because of it. In fact, I would be a worse investigator if I did.
Now—it will take me some time to proceed through the situation.
While I do so, I would like you and your people to withdraw from the city, if you could. ”
“What?” said Burilis, huffing slightly. “Why?”
“Well, for one thing, so many folk standing in the street makes it goddamn hard for me to get about! But more, dozens of angry boys holding big sticks with blades attached tends to end badly. If I have to manage more murders today, sir, it shall take me even longer to release your daughter’s body. And that, I know, you do not want.”
“If we leave,” said Burilis, “the Armentas will surely snatch their boy away!”
“And if they do that,” snapped Ana, “I will feed them their own hands! You are aware of what was done in Talagray. I will achieve the same here. Do you doubt me, sir?”
Burilis glowered for a moment. “I will withdraw—but I will take up positions to the east, on the roads to the Armenta holdings. I wish to receive my poor, blessed daughter’s body swiftly—and if the Armentas try to run away with the boy, we shall chase them down! This I swear to you, Iudex.”
“Swear all you like,” said Ana with a sniff. “So long as I can do my duties here, sir, it is all the same to me.”
I waved to our carriage pilot to wait for us at the inn’s stables. Then, together, we entered.
—
“How was that, Din?” asked Ana as I led her inside. “Was it as diplomatic as you desired? I swear, I thought I heard a squeak and squawk as your sphincter puckered beside me.”
I shut the door firmly. “I did enjoy your claim to be so unbiased, ma’am.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Given that, as you made clear during the journey here, you are quite biased against the gentry class.”