Chapter 21
It was a woman’s scream that woke Kumul. He leaped out of bed, dressed only in his linen undergarment, and rushed into the inn’s main room with his sword drawn and ready. The room was empty. He heard sobbing from the kitchen.
Ager joined him, more completely dressed and similarly armed. “Lynan’s not in his room,” the crookback said tersely.
Kumul cursed loudly, and together they went to the kitchen, fearing the worst. They found the body of Yran slumped on the floor, a thick pool of blood surrounding him like a halo, his throat cut from his left ear to the middle of his larynx. Ager knelt beside the body and touched the man’s neck and hands. One of Yran’s kitchen helpers had collapsed into a chair and was crying uncontrollably.
Kumul rushed out the kitchen door, but Ager called out: “No point, Kumul! The man’s been dead for hours. His neck and fingers are stiff as bone.”
Kumul ignored him.
Ager grabbed the kitchen hand by the arm. “When did you get here?”
“Not five minutes ago, sir! I started the scrubbing outside, and came in to get the saucepans and found Master Yran lying there! Oh, God, it’s horrible…” Her voice started rising in a scream again, but Ager shook her hard.
“Listen to me! Do you have a grieve?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then get him, and quickly. And get whoever was working here last night!”
“Yes, sir,” she repeated, and scrambled out of the kitchen, her tears stopping now she had something to do.
Kumul returned, his face filled with fury. “There were three horses tied around the side of the inn, and four sets of footprints in the mud, about five hours old.”
“Was Lynan’s among them?”
Kumul shrugged. “I can’t be sure. We should never have left him alone last night!”
“There’s nothing we can do about that now.”
“Jenrosa and I can carry out a wider search.”
“Better get dressed first; you don’t want to frighten the townspeople. By the way, I’ve asked the women to get the grieve.”
“What if he recognizes us?”
“For God’s sake, man, what if he suspects us of killing Yran? At least by helping find out what happened, we may avoid that.”
Kumul looked as if he was about to argue the point, but then nodded and left to get Jenrosa. A little while later, a short, round man wearing the orange sash of a grieve entered, out of breath and flustered. He carried an old dress sword as if he did not know what to do with it. He ignored Ager and stooped over the dead innkeeper, sucking his teeth and shaking his head.
“Oh, dear. We’ve had nothing like this for years. And Yran of all people! Oh, dear me.” He breathed through his nose like an angry bull.
“I’ve asked the woman who found him to bring back all the people who were working here last night,” Ager said. “They might be able to tell you something.”
The grieve looked at him in surprise, as if Ager had just appeared from thin air. He quickly studied Ager’s face, then his crookback, and then his face again. “Did you, my friend? Well, that was uncommonly straight thinking. And who are you?”
“A traveler. I was staying here last night with three companions.”
The grieve immediately looked suspicious. “Strangers, then?”
“Strangers who want to help,” Ager said quickly. “It’s possible that whoever did this also harmed one of our party. He is missing from his room.”
“Or did the deed and ran in fear for his life,” the grieve said.
“He had no reason to do this.”
“Yran was not a poor man. For some, a handful of gold coins is more than enough reason to kill an innocent.”
“Then maybe you should see if any gold coins are missing,” Ager countered.
The grieve shot up as if he had been kicked. “Dear me, more uncommonly straight thinking. I wonder where Yran kept his takings?”
Just then the kitchen hand reappeared, followed by some of the cooks and servers Ager had seen last night. They gathered around Yran like pups around a dead bitch, whining and lost. The grieve tried comforting them all, but his words only seemed to make things worse, and the whining turned into bawling.
“The money,” Ager reminded the grieve.
The man nodded. “Lewith,” he said, grabbing one young man by the shoulders. “Listen to me, Lewith. Where did your master keep his takings?”
“He’s dead, Goodman Ethin,” Lewith cried at the grieve. “God’s pain, he’s dead!”
Ethin gave the man a firm shake. “Now, Lewith, you must tell me. Where did Yran keep his takings? We have to know if his killers were thieves.”
Lewith pointed under the carving table, a huge wooden block on cast iron rollers. “Under there. There’s a loose floorboard.”
Ager did not wait for the grieve, but pushed aside the table and squatted down. He used the point of his sword to test the boards. He found one that lifted, prized it up and put his hand down the hole. He scrabbled around for a moment then stood up, his hand holding a rusted metal box. He shook it, and all could hear could the jangling of several coins.
“It needs a key,” Ager told the grieve.
“On a cord around his… his neck,” Lewith whispered, pointing now at Yran’s corpse.
Ethin hesitated, and Ager impatiently bent down by the body. He slipped a leather cord from around Yran’s bloody neck and used the key on it to open the metal box. He showed everyone that it was half full of coins, some gold, most copper.
“Is this about right for a night’s takings?” Ager demanded of Lewith.
“More, sir. That’s easily the money from two nights’ trade. He would have been taking that to Master Shellwith for safekeeping this morning.”
“Master Shellwith?”
“Our magistrate,” Ethin told Ager. “He has a strongbox in his office.” He met Ager’s stare and nodded. “So if it was not for theft, why was Yran killed?”
“To keep him out of the way while my friend was taken,” Ager said. “Another of our party has searched outside the inn. There are signs there of three horses but four sets of footprints, about five hours old. Yran has been dead for about that time. You can feel his fingers if you doubt me.”
The grieve shuddered. “I believe you, sir.” He said to Lewith: “I want you and the others to go into the dining room. Get a good fire started. I will come and talk with you soon.”
As soon as they had shuffled out, Ethin turned his attention back to Ager. “Now, my friend, why would anyone want to take your companion away from you? Is he worth a ransom? Did he owe money?”
“We come from a farming village, and we are not worth much more than the clothes we wear.”
“You don’t talk and act like a farmer.”
“I was a soldier once, as was another of our company; but the one missing is not much more than a boy, callow and unused to the ways of the world.”
“Then we come back to my question. Why was he taken?”
Ager could only shrug. He could think of no story that would convince the grieve; better to shut up and see how things played out. For a man who on first sight seemed particularly unsuitable to be a town’s keeper of the peace, the man had a habit of asking the most awkward questions.
Kumul—now fully dressed—and Jenrosa came into the kitchen, their boots caked with mud past the ankle. Jenrosa’s face was pale with shock. Kumul looked at Ager and shook his head. “The main road is mucked up badly after the rain, but there are three clear sets of horse prints heading north from the town.” Kumul nodded at Ethin. “You’re the grieve?”
Ethin nodded, obviously in awe of the man’s size.
“He was about to questions the cooks and workers about last night’s guests,” Ager said for him.
Ethin nodded and made a move toward the main room. “That’s exactly right.”
Kumul grabbed the grieve by the arm. The man jumped as if he had been struck by a snake.