Tabula Rasa

Chapter 49

Several miles farther north, another axe swung down and landed with a thunk. Two halves of log flew apart and tumbled onto the yard. The young man retrieved one and tried to balance it back on the tree stump. It fell sideways. He upended it, and this time it stayed. The axe swung again; the process was repeated.

It was only when the dog started barking that he noticed the approaching riders. Axe still in hand, he shouted, “Mam! People!” Then he recognized Enica and opened the gate. “Is it about Branan?”

“We have looked but found nothing,” Enica told him. “Now we are looking in a new way. We need to find out who saw the body being put in the emperor’s wall.”

Lucano, whose upper lip was only faintly fluffy despite his muscular build, looked puzzled. “But I thought-”

“Branan saw nothing.”

The youth considered this for a moment. Then he turned round, propped the axe against the stump, and cupped his mouth with his hands to bellow, “Worm! Where are you?”

A couple of chickens sidestepped away from the sound. A goat paused in its efforts to reach under the hurdles that fenced off the vegetable patch. “Worm! Come out, you’re wanted!”

A woman appeared in the doorway of the nearest house, wiping her hands on her skirts. “If you tried calling your brother by his name, boy-Enica! Is there news?”

Enica shook her head.

“We searched everywhere here. We are all very sorry.”

“He was here just now,” Lucano was saying. “Where is he?”

The woman’s cry of “Matto! Where are you?” was sharp and fearful.

“Don’t worry,” called the brother, heading round behind the house toward a wooded area. “I’ll find him.”

They waited. The piebald horse shambled over to crop a tuft of grass sprouting at the foot of one of the houses. He seemed not to notice Enica tugging on his reins.

Dismal approached, smacked the piebald on the rump with his stick, and led it back.

The mother said, “You must come and sit by the hearth. There is not much, but what we have-”

Enica thanked her but explained that she could not dismount. The woman managed a smile but instantly glanced away, looking for her boy.

A shriek from the woods alarmed the guests and their horses more than the mother. It was followed by a shout of “Let go! Let me go! Mam, he’s hurting me!”

“Come when you’re called, Worm! Think I don’t know where you hide?”

“I never heard you!”

“Liar!”

With that Lucano reappeared, dragging a younger boy by the ear. “See? You’ve worried Mam now!”

Matto had contorted his body to follow the twist in his ear. “I didn’t do anything!”

“You got us into trouble, you little liar. You know who this is?”

Unable to lift his head, Matto circled round crabwise until he could see the visitors through the tangled hair that had fallen over his face. “I didn’t do anything!”

“Liar!” Lucano gave the ear an extra twist to make his point. Matto’s shrieks drowned his mother’s protests. Just as Tilla swung down from her horse to intervene, the older brother let go. The younger one dropped into a crouch with both hands clamped over his ear. Lucano seized the back of his brother’s tunic as if he were holding the collar of a dog. “You said,” he said, bending down, “that Branan saw somebody hiding a body in the emperor’s wall.”

“He did!”

“Now he’s gone missing and his mam wants to know why you were telling lies about him!”

“I didn’t lie!”

Tilla stepped forward and touched Lucano on the arm. “May I speak to him?”

Lucano looked at Enica for guidance, then shrugged and stepped back.

Tilla crouched beside the boy and spoke into his good ear, which was no cleaner than the rest of him. “We are not cross with you,” she explained. “We just need to know what happened because we think it might help us find Branan.”

Matto sniffed and wiped tears away with a grimy fist. He said, “It’s not my fault. I thought it was true.”

“Who told you?”

“Aedic started it. He was the one who told everybody.”

“Do you know who told Aedic?”

“He said it was Branan. He said nobody was supposed to know.”

“Why was that?”

Matto hesitated for a moment, then said, “Dunno.”

“Did anybody ask Branan if it was true?”

Matto paused to sniff again. “I was going to. When I saw him. But now the man’s got him.”

“Which man?”

Matto looked at her as if it was a silly question. “The man who put the body in the wall. He came and got Branan, like Aedic said he would.”

“Do you know who this man is?”

Matto shook his head. “Will he get me now?”

“You must stay at home with your family so you’ll be safe,” Tilla told him. “I will warn your mother and brother. Now tell me about Aedic.”