«This will not be pleasant», Kenneth warned.
'That's why I am here», she said softly. «Let me see him».
At her nod, Kenneth drew back the cloak from the boy's head. The sable hair had streamed away from his face as they pulled him from the water, and lay matted and stiffening with frost at the top of his head, bits of straw spiking it here and there. The gray eyes were open and staring, the fair skin marred by several raw-looking scuffs, probably incurred as he fell down the well. Any bleeding had been washed away by a night in the water.
«Show me the rest», Alyce whispered.
Biting at his lip, Kenneth flipped the rest of the cloak back off the boy's crimson-clad body, which lay in an icy puddle still leaching outward from the water-logged page's livery of which he had been so proud. Again, there were bits of straw stuck to his clothing and freezing in the puddle, and ice was beginning to glitter on his clothing. His scarlet britches were bunched around his knees. Though they had folded his arms across his chest after pulling him from the well, the hands were badly scuffed and raw, some of the nails broken, and several of the fingers jutted at odd angles, as did one wrist.
«Dear God, he did fight them», Alyce breathed.
«Aye, but what could a child his age do against grown men?» Kenneth murmured, his voice catching. «And to use him thus…»
Choking off a sob, he drew the cloak back over the boy's body, leaving only the head exposed.
«Get on with it, then», he said roughly. «Find out who has done this to him!»
She slid to her knees beside Krispin's head, stripping off her gloves and handing them to Zoë, then laid her hands on the boy's head, feeling in his hair for skull injuries, opening his mouth to look at his teeth. One of the bottom ones was missing, but she thought the gap might have marked a shed milk tooth rather than one lost during his ordeal. He had several lacerations that might have occurred in the fall down the well, and one depressed fracture, but given the probable sequence of his assault, she thought it unlikely that the blow had killed him before he could drown.
Hoping for a clue to that, at least, she slipped her hands under the cloak and inside his shirt, probing with her powers to check the lungs — yes, filled with fluid, so he had still been alive when he went into the water. But if God had been merciful, the boy had been unconscious by then, or soon after. She hoped it had been quick.
«All right, that's the easy part», she murmured, shifting her hands back to his head.
Without further remark, she took several deep breaths and closed her eyes, shifting into trance and extending her mind into what remained of that of Krispin MacAthan. To her surprise, his shields had been fairly well developed for one so young. But in death, little remained of what protection those shields had given him. Slipping past them easily, she began casting for recent memories that she knew, focusing on the glittering festivities of the Twelfth Night court, and Krispin's personal highlight of receiving his official livery as one of the king's pages.
He had been so proud — had been looking forward to this day for several years, and especially since Prince Brion had assumed the royal livery the year before. He had served at table early in the feast, bringing towels and basins of warm water to the worthies at the high table when they first sat down: the traditional first table-service of any new page, offering hospitality to a guest. He had served the queen and then his own mother, both of whom accepted his service with grave attention.
He had enjoyed the feast then, sampling the dainties brought by the older boys and stuffing himself with his favorite things. A little later, he had slipped out to the stables to visit his new Llanneddi pony — the gift of his mother, Alyce, and Zoë, so that the lad would have a mount as good as those of his princely companions.
That had been the beginning of a fatal sequence of events. He had been picking out the pony's feet, bracing each dainty hoof against his lap while he used a hoof pick to rake out muck from the frog.
Excessive zeal seemed, in turn, to have loosened the shoe on the off hind hoof, but he had promised the pony that they would see the farrier in the morning, and even made up a song about clip-clopping across the stable yard to have it fixed. When the two strangers appeared on the other side of the stall door, drawn by his singing and his chatter, they had seemed friendly enough, and had even offered to come into the stall to take a closer look at the delinquent shoe.
Though she tried not to tense, Alyce braced herself for what she knew must surely be coming next, what she did not wish to know, for the critical moments were surely approaching. And unlike the few death-readings she had performed in the past, usually on bodies come to the convent several days after death — too late to really winkle out much detail — this death was very recent. Furthermore, overnight immersion in the cold water had greatly retarded the entire dispersal process. There was plenty of detail — far more than anyone should have to endure, and especially a child so young.
The two men had come into the stall and closed the gate. Once inside, under cover of admiring the pony and tsking over the loose shoe, the pair had overwhelmed the boy before he even was aware he was in danger, one of them clamping a heavy hand over mouth and nose, stifling any chance of drawing breath to cry out as the men roughly bore him down into the straw and began fumbling at his breeches.
Unable to breathe, the boy's resistance quickly had spun into darkness — from which he was shortly roused by the pain, as his assailants took turns using him as a stallion serviced a mare — the only blurred reference his stunned awareness could summon for what they were doing to him.
He had fought them — oh, how he had fought! — flailing with his heels, squirming, biting — anything to escape, to hurt them, to try to make them stop. He had even, through his fog of pain, somehow known that he must try to summon his special powers to defend himself — but he was yet too young, and too unskilled, and could not concentrate, for the pain. And every time he thought he might be about to break free, they had cut off his breathing again, or cuffed him into senselessness.
How long it had lasted, Alyce had no firm sense. But when the pain eventually stopped, there had been another dressed all in black, who had pulled the other men away at first, and turned the boy over in the straw — and recoiled at the sight of his bruised and tear-stained face.
But his supposed benefactor had turned out to be no benefactor at all, and hissed at the other two about «damned Deryni brat!» and «What were you thinking?» just before a powerful hand locked around his throat and squeezed him into darkness once again.
One last time Krispin MacAthan had managed to fight his way back to consciousness, only to find himself being lifted onto the edge of a low wall made of stone — no, the opening of a well, he realized with horror, as they stuffed his arms and head into the opening. He had started to struggle again, trying to cry out, but a heavy blow to the side of his head had cut off the beginning of his cry for help.
The last thing he knew, he was flailing for his life as he skidded down the well-shaft, desperately trying to slow his descent with hands, with fingernails, with booted feet that could find no purchase against the slimy stone. The shock of hitting the cold water far below momentarily restored his clear-headedness, but it was too late. His reflex gasp only sucked water into his lungs; and trapped head-down by the narrowness of the well-shaft, unable to twist upright, his only chance of survival ebbed with his fading consciousness.
That final darkness had Alyce gasping, too, as she surfaced from trance, coughing to clear the memory of the cold death that had flooded into Krispin's lungs. As she roused, Zoë threw her arms around her, holding her close, and Kenneth leaned across the boy's body to grasp her wrist.