Chapter 12 #3
“Fascinating,” said Ana idly. “Is it working?”
Fotia shot me a sullen glance but said nothing.
“Was all your madam said true?” asked Ana.
“Yes, I think so,” said Fotia. “As to whether her line is truly cursed…”
“I cannot control the divine! I am interested in only the details. I wish to ask about the manner of burial—she mentioned something about preservation. Did she mean a sepulcher?”
“Yes. The Armentas keep a sepulcher, and tombs within. The bodies of their dead are washed of all agents of rot and preserved within airtight casks. It is a…a considerable process, I am told.”
“I see. Thank you. One last question—have there been any other unusual deaths here? Or any sightings of any agents or ill-wishers interfering in your affairs?”
“Well…no. Not that I am aware of. But I’ve only been here two years. Lyimo’s and Sagma’s deaths were both before I came.” She glanced at me sidelong. “Why? I…I thought you didn’t believe Castus was guilty, but…what is it you worry about?”
“I don’t know, precisely,” said Ana. “But—I ask you to do your utmost to keep our visit here a secret. We do not want gossip to spread!”
“Gossip of what?” said Fotia. “And who do you worry about hearing it?” She paused. “You asked of the Buravs…Do you really think they might be managing this, somehow?”
“If they were,” said Ana, “can you imagine why Burilis Burav would allow Castus to kill his own daughter?”
“N-no…?”
“Then you are just as bewildered as we are now. Tell me—do the medikkers make any progress in granting Velona heirs?”
“Not yet,” sighed Fotia. “I’m told the process takes years, and she started this but months ago.”
“And what of the male seed?” asked Ana. “For last I checked, it takes two to engender children…”
Fotia wrinkled her nose. “Yes…the service that employs Osumlik is quite established, and much used by the gentry. I am told they have…donations from houses abroad. To ensure that the children are born of the proper class, and race, and with the appropriate suffusions…”
“Like picking a child out of a shop window,” said Ana, bemused. “How grotesque!”
“Velona’s impulse isn’t nearly so shallow,” said Fotia.
“She is desperate.” She sighed. “I…I wish you could have seen her before. She was a bold thing and rode well. She preferred to be abroad, with the other drovers and herds. Now she has all the windows covered. Can’t bear to look out and see open hills anymore—for she’ll never ride a destrier again, and for an Armenta, that’s akin to death. ”
“She does this out of despair or delirium, then,” I said.
“No,” said Fotia. “I think it’s duty. Madam Velona’s sworn to her house, and all its customs, going back centuries. Now she must contort herself to ensure it persists.”
“She chooses to change her very body in order to keep all things precisely the same,” mused Ana. “How very imperial of her.”
—
As we rode back to Lacanthim, Ana sat bent in the corner of the carriage, muttering to herself like a person unhinged.
Finally she snapped her fingers and said, “Give me the visual element, Din! How they looked, what they did, all of it. And quick. Especially about the instrument they played back there!”
I sniffed my vial and did so, chanting as we rode. I did not love this task: it was a haunting thing to dwell so much on the sight of Velona Armenta, so swollen yet withered, and her eyes so full of madness.
When I finished, Ana sat up, sniffed, and said, “I am loathsomely irked by this. The pipe for the web is very much like my bocal shawm, by your telling of it—and thus, we only happened to confirm the presence of the fungus in that dead girl by sheer luck! And I so very hate luck, boy. I will not leave my goddamn investigations to the obscure will of the fates! Though at least we make some headway now.”
“Do we, ma’am? Nothing that Velona said makes me think the Armentas perished from the web—at least, nothing concrete, for no death was similar to the other. Not all perished of apparent suicide, and not all of them were tormented in their last days.”
“How rewarding it is to see that you still need me! For there is a commonality, one established with the fourth Armenta poisoning—Castus himself! Did you miss it, boy? Didn’t he, too, mention dreams to you?”
My eyes shuddered in my skull, and I recalled his words: I’ve worked in the flensing halls of my family…
I’ve butchered the corpses of many cows and worked there so often, I’ve even dreamed of being trapped in that place.
But in that moment, Iudex, it was like I was back in those halls, yet a shadow version of them…
“Dreams,” I said quietly. “And a specific dream, at that.”
“Yes. Dreams of being trapped within a location! That’s three out of four of the Armenta children, with Lyimo being the sole exception.
So I am given to wonder—are these nightmares a symptom of the guiding web?
A sign of its conditioning? Let’s pray the fine officers of the Orbiis can offer more guidance—followed by the use of their knives upon Zansay’s corpse! ”