Bound by Iron

Chapter FIVE

Stories Written in Blood

Zol, the 10th day of Sypheros, 998

A pot of tea and a couple sausages later, Minrah had regained her focus. She moved over to Torval’s corpse and extended the wick in the lamp for better light.

“Right,” she said. “This is exactly how he was when you found him? Aside from the fact that you’ve ported him over half the city, of course.”

“Yes.”

She pulled out an iron armband from her bag. “And you’re sure this is his?”

“Where’d you get that?” asked Cimozjen. “I’d thought the guards had kept it.”

Minrah shrugged. “They left it on one of the tables. I figured we had more need of it than they did.”

“And you saw no need to ask, either. Still, it is his. Let me have it.” Cimozjen turned it over in his hand. “See, right here? If you look carefully and angle it to the flame, you’ll see his name is engraved on the inside.”

“That’s his name? They just look like scratches to me.”

“It’s an ancient script, and hard to read even if you’ve had practice.”

“And you’re sure this is him?”

Cimozjen tilted his head and gave her a look.

“I had to ask. So let’s see what your friend has to say. Hopefully it will be a lot, because he hasn’t been dead for very long. No decomposition-no surprise if he’s been submerged in King’s Bay-and no evidence that the fish have been at him much. He’s got some water-pruning in the fingers here, which one expects with a body in the water. Sort of like when you take a bath. You’ve taken a bath, right?”

“Once or twice.”

Minrah gripped Torval’s head and began looking it over carefully. “Right. Hasn’t looked after his hair in years. No headband, nor did he wear one as near as I can tell.”

“How can you tell that?”

“If you wear something on a regular basis, your skin adjusts to its presence. Typically it’s a little smoother, a little paler, and there’s a kind of border at the edge of where the item goes. Look here,” she said, holding up her index finger. “Feel this. See how I have a small dent on the side? That’s because I use a pen a lot. Same thing goes for people who wear headbands, rings, things like that.”

“Fine. But I could have told you he wore no headband.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

Cimozjen darkened. He cleared his throat. “A long time,” he said, his voice husky. “Twenty-two years ago.”

“Things change over the course of twenty-two years,” Minrah said. “For one, I’ll wager his hair and beard were not this long, or as gray. It’s odd, wouldn’t you say, that a veteran soldier not only grew his hair so long, but also that he wore nothing to keep it out of his eyes? I’ve always thought warriors wanted a clear field of vision.”

Cimozjen nodded. “That is true. We were also taught to keep our chins clean-shaven. Beards offer the enemy the chance to grab your hair and direct the motion of your head, and that’s a billet to the casualty lists. And look at this matting.”

“So there’s our first clue,” said Minrah. “We don’t yet know what it means, but it’s a clue, because it’s something out of the ordinary.”

She ran her hands down his face. “Nose broken several times, it seems.” She turned his head from side to side. “Looks like he’s missing part of his left ear.” She pulled the hair back to reveal the ear. The lobe was missing from where it joined the head to about halfway up the curve. She ran her finger gently down the injury. “Looks like magical healing was used. There’s no sign of any scarring. Yet if you were going to use magical healing, why not regrow the lobe?”

“Such services are more costly,” said Cimozjen. “It’s far less expensive just to have one’s bleeding stopped or to reattach something that’s been severed than it is to regenerate what’s no longer there. Given what we can see of his wellbeing, perhaps he could not afford it.”

“But the ear isn’t a crucial injury,” said Minrah. “It wouldn’t even bleed overmuch. So if he were so poor, why not just bandage the ear and save his coin for food?”

“That I do not have an answer for,” said Cimozjen. “Perhaps a healer was feeling charitable?”

“Perhaps,” said Minrah. She leaned forward and scowled. “You know, this wound is a smooth cut. It was made by a blade.” She guided her hand sideways toward his head like an axe. “To cut the lobe off, it would have to come in like this. But look at what else it would hit.”

“If the blade were to sever the lobe,” said Cimozjen, “it would have to strike the base of the head, the jaw, or the neck, depending on its angle of attack.”

“And that would be a more serious injury,” said Minrah.

“Wound,” said Cimozjen. “An injury is when you fall off your horse.”

“Sorry,” said Minrah absently. She straightened up. “So someone healed his bleeding, but didn’t take enough care to restore his ear. They cared about his life, but not his looks.”

“Based on his attire, I’d say that was a given.”

“But it’s important,” said Minrah. “A pattern is forming here, if only we can figure out what that pattern is.”

She worked her way down the body, pausing to wet a cloth and scrub away the grime and blood from the massive wound on his chest. “Death was clearly caused by this hit. If you look inside, you can see the breastbone was cleft. That took power. Probably the impact itself slew him, not the bleeding. Though there would have been a lot of that. And the wound is balanced, see? Deepest in the center, thinning out evenly to either side. That means it was done by an axe with a curved blade, not a sword or a scimitar.”

“How so?”

“A sword blade is straight. It would either leave a flat wound if it happened to hit straight on, or more likely a hack, a wound that’s heavier to one end. A scimitar leaves a longer, slicing mark. This is a chopping mark.”

After a few more moments’ study, she spoke again. “He wore the armband on his left arm, right? The skin’s smoother there.”

“That’s where it’s worn,” said Cimozjen, “so that it remains close to the heart.”

“And here,” she said. “Look at this.” She turned the inside of Torval’s forearm to the light. There were scars there, shaped like the letters S and I. “These aren’t like his other scars. He made these deliberately. See how raised these are? That means he rubbed sand or something into the cuts after he made them. He wanted these scars here, and he wanted them to be visible.”

“S-I,” said Cimozjen. “What would that mean?”

“I was going to ask you,” said Minrah. “Is it someone’s initials? A military term?”

Cimozjen shook his head slowly. “I can think of nothing. Perhaps he was unable to finish the scarring before he died?”

“I’ll keep that in mind, though I doubt that’s the answer,” said Minrah. “The scars aren’t that fresh.” She continued to study Torval’s corpse, slowly moving down his torso. “He’s got a lot of scars,” she said, “but I’d expect that from a soldier. Hmm. Hoy! Look at that. Tell me, did he have both shoes when you found him?”

“No, just the one. I remember being irritated about that. Why?”

She held up Torval’s leg and waggled his unshod foot. “This ankle’s broken.”

“Is that so unusual? If my ankle were broken, I’d want no shoe placed on my foot either.”

“But there’s no swelling and hardly any bruising,” said Minrah. “His ankle was broken after he died.”

“I guess that rules out a dancing injury,” said Cimozjen lamely. “Another clue, then?”

Ignoring his comments, Minrah scrutinized the area, bringing the lantern very close to his ankle and heel and using a small hand mirror from her bag to illuminate the skin more evenly. “Aha, I thought as much,” she said at last. “There are scrapes at the back of his heel and along the top of his foot. Bloodless scrapes.”

“What does that mean?”

“Again, they happened after he died, or shortly before. Given even a short amount of time, they would have scabbed over. These didn’t.” She sat back on her heels and looked at Cimozjen. “You said you found him in the water, right?”

Cimozjen nodded.

Minrah ran her knuckle back and forth across her chin and gazed sightlessly at the shadows of the room. “So he died, and afterward he got these injuries on his foot and lost a shoe. Sounds to me like he was dumped in the water after his death, and weighted down with a rope and a stone.”

“Well, whoever did it probably wanted him not to float around.”

“Dead bodies don’t float,” said Minrah.

“Sure they do,” said Cimozjen. “Everybody knows that-”

Minrah held up her hand. “Let me explain. Bodies float while they have air in their lungs. But when you die, the air goes out, and you sink. It’s not until the corpse begins to putrefy that it floats back to the surface. Now the water in King’s Bay is probably cold enough that he’d stay down all winter and not come up until late spring, but they still weighted him with a rock. They wanted him to stay down. Forever.”

“So no one would ever know his fate.”

“Right. But say his ankle broke, maybe when they threw him in. They might have thrown the stone in first, you know, because you’d want a pretty heavy stone to weigh down a large body. His ankle broke, and the rope slid off his foot, taking his shoe with it.” She glanced at the other shoe. “If he had a matched pair, then the missing shoe also went over his ankle. That might have made it easier for the rope to slip off.”

“That rings of the truth, I suppose,” said Cimozjen. “But what does it really tell us?”

“Quite a lot. He was probably killed by people who are primarily sailors, because they tried to bury him in the water and not in the dirt or in the sewers. It also means that they took pains to hide his body. This isn’t a case of him getting into a fight on the docks and falling in or getting shoved off. Still, he may have been dropped off the end of a dock, or he may have been thrown off a ship.”

“Or just a rowboat,” said Cimozjen. “It would be easy enough to steal one for an hour or two after dark.”

“Not a rowboat,” said Minrah, shaking her head. “It would be too awkward to throw a body off a dinghy with a heavy rock tied to him. It’d be liable to tip, and that’s dangerous in cold weather like this, because you’re likely wearing heavy clothing that’ll drag you down.”

“He could easily have been killed elsewhere, and brought to the water,” said Cimozjen, “so I see not how this gets us anywhere.”

“That’s possible, yes, although we can’t forget that they also used a large rock. Maybe they dragged one of those across town with them, but it seems unlikely.” She looked back at the body. “Now let’s take a look at those clothes, shall we? Help me get them off.”

“Over my dead body,” snapped Cimozjen.

Minrah shrugged. “He is your dead body.”

“Show him some respect.”

“I am. I’m trying to solve his murder.”

Cimozjen sighed in frustration. “With the Host as my witnesses,” he said, “I’ll not have a young woman looking at my friend’s naked body. It’s just-it’s not right. I’ll not dishonor his body like that. It’s been dishonored enough for one lifetime.”

He stared at her for a moment, scowling. She returned a blank gaze.

Finally he raised one hand to rub his forehead. “It’s been a long day. We should rest, the both of us. Come the morning, I’ll buy some attire more suitable for him, and then you can have a look at those rags. Does that sound equitable?”

“If that will make you happy,” said Minrah with an understanding smile. Then she looked at Torval once more. “Listen, not to be cruel, because I don’t want to, but aren’t you concerned about the smell if we just leave him here until morning?”

Cimozjen laughed darkly. “I’m a soldier.” He looked at her pointedly. “There is nothing worse than the smell of a battlefield, with the blood, and the filth, and the slaughterhouse smell of savaged bodies. And all through it is the stink of fear. One small corpse will bother me not at all. Over so many years, I’ve grown used to the smell.”

“Sure, but his chest is opened up, and I don’t want anyone else to think maybe we’re butchering chickens up here.”

Cimozjen took a deep breath and sucked on his lips. “Open the window. The cold and the fresh air will help in that respect.”

“I’ll burn a candle,” said Minrah, and she turned to fish through her bag.

Cimozjen looked around. “Er, Minrah, you can have the bed if you wish a comfortable seat tonight; I’ll just-”

“I don’t need the padding to meditate,” said Minrah. She crossed her legs, settled her back against the wall, and folded her hands in her lap. “No, please, you go ahead. I’ll be just fine right here.”

“You’re sure of this?”

“Absolutely.”

“Because the bed would be more comfortable than the floor, and-”

Minrah gave him an odd sideways look and smiled. “Now’s not the time. If we’re to work things out together, I need you at your best. Lie down. Sleep.” So saying, she closed her eyes and breathed deeply.

“As you wish,” said Cimozjen uncertainly. “If you’d rather I moved to a separate room, I-”

“Sleep,” Minrah insisted.

“Aye,” said Cimozjen. Flapping his hands on his thighs uncomfortably, he stepped over to the mattress, sat down, and kicked off his boots. He left all his other clothes on and wrapped himself in a blanket. Then he drew his dagger and, holding it in one hand, curled up to go to sleep.

He prayed that if he dreamt of Torval, that it would be Torval alive.