Chapter 7
Seriv selected a different inn for us to stay at that night, a place called the Green Drover that he claimed was one of the finest in the city.
“The Armentas themselves often stay here, sir,” he told me.
“Though, ah, only when they’re on their own business.
When they have guests, they put them elsewhere. And those residences, ah…”
“Are too expensive?” I suggested.
“Well, that. And they offer…different entertainments. And I don’t much enjoy the idea of one such entertainer wandering into your immunis’s rooms. I might have another body in an inn to deal with then.”
I realized what he meant, and, shuddering, agreed with him.
Like many buildings of Lacanthim, the Green Drover was adorned with features of the cattle trade: hides pinned to walls, horns above every door, and a good number of windows and shutters were made with braids and ropes fashioned from tendons.
Even the mai-lantern shades were wrought of leather and were shot through with veins and other features of dead flesh.
I found the effect rather grisly. It had its own pump room, however, with fresh waters, and after a day of walking about my thirst was unbearable, so I gladly and greedily drank from its spigot.
I rushed to move Ana into her chambers, as she had a very specific layout for her rooms: a central stove, her trunk of books and instruments, her mossbed, and a table—not to mention the windows all carefully veiled.
Usually she complained mightily while she waited for me to finish such arrangements, but this time she was quiet, sitting in the entryway with her head bowed and her fingers flitting in the lap of her dress.
Though it was peaceful, I liked her silence not at all.
Once all was assembled and her mai-lamps were glimmering, Seriv and I brought Ana to her chambers.
As was her custom, she opened her trunk and produced two books and began to read their lines with her bare fingers, which were preternaturally enhanced to sense the scrawl of ink.
Seriv did not seem bothered by this—I guessed the shock of what he’d just learned had rendered Ana’s irregularities quite quaint.
He just sat in a chair, scraping out the bowl of his pipe with a tiny knife and staring into the shadows of her dimly lit room.
“I will now suggest,” Ana began softly as she worked, “many uncomfortable things. I must ask for total secrecy from both of you. What is whispered here cannot escape these walls—for otherwise we shall have catastrophe, I am sure.”
“Of course, ma’am,” said Seriv, rather hoarsely.
“Good,” she murmured, and turned over the pages of the two books. “To begin with—we are woefully behind comprehending the nature of this fungus. For example, how is it administered? How does it work? How can we test for it? And how were Castus and Zansay poisoned?”
“The common treatment, when given to the cats,” said Seriv, “is a simple pellet, fed to them once. A highly concentrated dose. Then they are conditioned with pipes and fl—”
“Yes, I know that, but this one conditions humans,” said Ana. “Thus, it is quite a bit fucking different! Are we sure it is administered the same? Are there even any tests we can use, or symptoms we know to look for?”
“I was a drover once, and though I worked with cows, ma’am, I didn’t wrangle cats,” said Seriv. “Here I am fairly ignorant.”
“As am I. It took me nearly a goddamn hour of playing pipes to get Zansay’s body to react!
My ears ring still! We cannot use such a primitive method to discover other victims.” She glowered for a moment.
“And, much more frustrating, we cannot simply go to Burilis Burav and demand to know all the details of how his creation works! Nor can we go to any other provincial expert, either.”
“Ah—why not, ma’am?” I asked. “Surely we could find some authority here who could help.”
Ana sighed. “Now we come to what I dread most…Understand, both of you, that this killer, whoever they are, is a person who has prepared for Zansay’s murder—slowly, thoughtfully, and carefully!
Yesterday, we had no idea that both Zansay and Castus had been cerebrally infested.
Nor, apparently, did they know themselves!
So I am given to wonder…” One eyebrow rose up past her blindfold.
“…how many others might also be infected, conditioned, and prepared to die—right now—without their ever knowing it?”
There was a silence.
Seriv’s mustache twitched. “Oh, hell…”
“Y-you think, ma’am,” I said, “that if we go about asking too many questions about the guiding web…and if the killer realizes that we know what method they are using…”
“Yes,” she said. “I think they will stop moving slowly, and start moving very, very quickly. It may take only a simple tune upon a pipe—one that most folk cannot hear, for recall that the innkeeper said she heard nothing at all!—and suddenly we might have people wandering into rivers to drown, or stepping in front of a charging carriage, or…or, hell, I don’t know, sticking their goddamn heads in the oven to set their hair alight!
We are in an unenviable place now, children. ”
Seriv stopped scraping out his pipe. “Ah…do…do you think that I, ma’am, might…”
“Might be a potential victim?” said Ana archly. “Might have an infection in your brain conditioning you for murder and death?” A tiny shrug. “It is perfectly possible!”
“Oh, hell,” whispered Seriv.
“You are apprehending the shitpot we are currently bubbling in, Princeps! We must catch up, yet we must practice the utmost secrecy while we do so! I could request records from the Apoth authorities, but scribe-hawks take days if not weeks…” She cocked her head.
“But we may have a local resource we can trust! Seriv—Din here told me you’d briefly mentioned the Orbiis to him when talking about the old forest? ”
Seriv and I exchanged a worried glance.
“The…Orbiis, ma’am?” I said slowly. “You wish to bring this to them?”
“I do not wish to!” she said with a sniff. “But I see no other option.”
Seriv looked at me as if to say—Is this another jest? I could only manage a shrug in response.
The Orbiis—or “leaf-sniffers,” as they were often mockingly called—were the imperial department tasked with maintaining the stability of all agricultural lands.
While this was a noble duty, it was accompanied by enhancements that made them far more eccentric than the typical Imperial Iyalet: namely, a desire to taste soil, leaf, and bark.
Yet all their odd habits did not detract from their authority: when the Orbiis made a ruling, they were listened to.
Still, I balked at the idea of involving the Orbiis in a murder investigation, especially one that concerned the gentry. It made as much sense as putting a mad poet in charge of defending the sea walls.
“You sure it’s wise to involve the soil-tongues in this, ma’am?” said Seriv dubiously.
“Well, consider it!” said Ana. “The Orbiis are most assuredly less likely to be caught up in the petty squabbles of the gentry—they care more for root and loam than they do politics—but they are also masters of all that grows and thrives in this land, true? Including the guiding web?”
“They surely know much of the web, ma’am,” conceded Seriv, “for it’s well-known that they despise it. Something about using neuro-fungi in everyday farming practices being unwise…”
Ana laughed cruelly. “They may soon prove correct there! Yes, I like the sound of this! We are quite desperate for allies in this fight…and I would welcome the Orbiis’ assistance. Specifically with the corpse.”
There was a silence.
“I take it,” I said, sighing, “you are not going to release Zansay’s body to her father, ma’am.”
“Oh, hell no, I shall not!” said Ana. “Not if her fucking head is swilling with fungus! The Orbiis officers are well accustomed with the maladies of livestock. I am sure they can manage a dead gentrygirl easily enough.”
“You intend to have the Orbiis…perform an autopsy on Zansay Burav?” asked Seriv, appalled. “I mean, they autopsy sick calves and the like, but…but to her, of all people…”
“I don’t trust any of the medikkers here,” snapped Ana, “as they’ll have allegiance to one house or another.
And we know that this strain of fungus is different, for it apparently infects humans!
We need to get a grasp on it, and quickly.
No, no—the Orbiis it is! What is the fastest way to get ahold of them, Princeps?
And mind, I’ll not put words to parchment! We must be as secretive as possible.”
Seriv begrudgingly said, “That can be difficult, then, ma’am.
The Orbiis patrol and survey the farmlands here regularly, but as, ah, their duty is to monitor the environment, that’s rather a wide spread to get lost in.
But…if I make it a pressing issue, ma’am, I can have my people find them by midday tomorrow.
And it is a pressing issue, to me, as I might have this damned thing living in my own skull.
Yet I’ll have to tell something to Burilis Burav.
He expects us to release his daughter’s body.
If we say we plan to have her chopped up by the Orbiis like an ailing sow, I’ll have hell on my hands. ”
“Blame it on me,” said Ana. “Decry me, complain of me, stall him. Zansay is a murder victim, and we do not need her father’s permission to perform an autopsy.
But we cannot wait about to hear if the Orbiis consent to join us!
We must keep moving—and attempt to determine who else the killer has struck down. ”
I nodded glumly. “The Armentas, ma’am?”
“Indeed,” sniffed Ana. “The Armentas have suffered two suicides and an apparent accident. Very sad—but also very strange. I am forced to ask, Seriv—was there an investigation done for any of them?”
“Afraid not, ma’am. I only investigate when foul play is declared. And for such deaths as these…”
“Yes, yes,” muttered Ana. “They didn’t appear foul at all! This is a wicked tool indeed.”
While they contemplated this, I quietly nursed the fire in the stove back to life and began preparing a teapot. Seriv’s mustache danced as he sucked his lips. “I did not investigate,” he said. “But…the head of the clan, Velona Armenta…she has. Repeatedly, and carefully.”
Ana turned to him. “Did she…” she murmured. “Why? Did she suspect something?”
“She wasn’t looking for signs of criminal activity, ma’am,” said Seriv. “But rather a…a more divine intervention, if you catch my meaning.”
“Oh, hell,” muttered Ana. “She is a creature of faith, then?”
“Indeed, ma’am. Very fervent.”
“Mm. What pantheon in particular does the old bat think is punishing her?”
“I, ah, believe she’s trying to appease all of them at the moment,” said Seriv. “Though she specifically attempts to appease the Daljen, of course. She has demanded testimonies, evidence, stories from all who knew her slain children. She seeks, I think, the sin that invited so much pain.”
The teapot began to burble discontentedly. I lifted the pot from the stove and poured Ana a cup.
“Trikao Armenta mentioned something of this,” I said quietly. “He made it sound as if many suspected that the Armentas had committed some crime and were now condemned by all gods and spirits for it.”
“And it sounds like Velona Armenta has listened to them!” sighed Ana. “Perhaps in her grief, she has come to believe it. Not a terribly trustworthy source…but much like the Orbiis, she may be the only one we have.”
“She may not be easy to speak to,” said Seriv. “Velona Armenta is much aged by sorrow. She has locked herself up in the family seat of Aimafall and speaks to very few these days.”
Ana thought for a moment. “What about this Trikao Armenta, the fellow who stood before the jail’s doors? Could he be a useful ally in getting us an audience?”
“Trikao is Velona’s elder brother,” said Seriv. “He is a dutiful servant to the family, as you saw today, Kol—though he has no illusions about his house’s decline.”
Ana frowned. “He’s her elder brother?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Then why didn’t he inherit the place as head of the family?”
“The Armentas keep to the old ways. Inheritance is settled by a competition—who can raise the grandest herd over a season. Trikao lost to his sister. Thus, he is legally disqualified from ever being the Armenta prime chief. Yet he remains devoted still.”
“Admirably barbaric, I suppose,” mused Ana. “A bit like that family of petty kings I read about the other day, where one would inherit the harem, and all the others would be castrated. Do you recall, Din?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said dully as I poured my own cup. “You read many passages aloud and seemed to find it terribly amusing.”
“So I did, for so it was!” She waved a hand.
“I see no other way forward. Talk to this Trikao Armenta, boy. Try to arrange a meeting with Madam Armenta tomorrow. If he will not help, find someone who will! For if Velona Armenta is the chief expert in her children’s deaths, we must hear all she learned—even if her investigation was born out of superstition.
In the meantime, Princeps Seriv, send your people out to find the Orbiis.
I want a knowledgeable eye on that dead girl’s body—for I suspect what festers within it is terribly unique. ”