‘It’s only bodies,’ noted Laimner, in an off-hand manner.
‘Exactly,’ said the High-Reeve. ‘And quite frankly, the Sentine are better suited for this sort of police work. The Arbites are not native to this world, and we are. We know it better than they ever will.’
‘Just so,’ offered Yosef.
Telemach graced them with a tight smile. ‘I want to deal with this in a swift and firm manner. I think the Lord Marshal and his masters back on Terra could do with a reminder that we Iestans can deal with our own problems.’
Yosef nodded here, partly because he knew he was supposed to, and partly because Telemach had just confirmed for him her real reason for wanting the case closed quickly. It was no secret that the High-Reeve had designs on the rank of Landgrave, head of all Sentine forces across the planet; and for her to get that, the current incumbent – and so the rumours went, her lover – would need to rise to the only role open to him, the Imperial Governorship of the planet. The Landgrave’s only real competition for that posting was the Lord Marshal of the Arbites. Showing a decisive posture towards a crime like this one would count for a lot when the time for new installations was nigh.
‘We’re investigating all avenues of interest,’ said Laimner.
The High-Reeve tapped a finger on her lips. ‘I want you to pay special attention to any connection with those religious fanatics that are showing up in the Falls and out at Breghoot.’
‘The Theoge,’ Laimner offered helpfully, with a sniff. ‘Odd bunch.’
‘With respect,’ said Daig, ‘they’re hardly fanatics. They’re just–’
Telemach didn’t let him finish. ‘Odium spreads wherever it takes root, Reeve. The Emperor did not guide the Great Crusade to us for nothing. I won’t have superstition find purchase in this city or any other on my watch, is that clear?’ She eyed Yosef. ‘The Theoge is an underground cult, forbidden by Imperial law. Find the connection between them and this crime, gentlemen.’
If it exists or not, Yosef added silently.
‘You have an understanding of my interest, then?’ she concluded.
He nodded once more. ‘Indeed I do, ma’am. We’ll do our best.’
Telemach sniffed. ‘Do better than that, Sabrat.’
She walked on, and Laimner fell in step with her, shooting him a weak grin as they moved off.
‘It’s only bodies,’ parroted Yosef, in a pinched imitation of the Warden’s voice as he watched them go. ‘What he means, it’s only little people dead so far. No one he has any interest in.’ He blew out a breath.
Daig’s expression had become more pessimistic than normal. ‘Where does that effluent about the Theoge come from?’ he muttered. ‘What could they possibly have to do with serial murders? Everything Telemach knows about those people comes from rumours, trash based on nothing but hearsay and bigotry.’
Yosef raised an eyebrow. ‘You know better, do you?’
He shrugged. ‘Clearly not,’ said the other man, after a moment.
After he had put Ivak to bed, Yosef returned to the living room and took a seat by the radiator. He smiled to see that his wife had poured a glass of the good mistwater for him, and he sipped it as she set the autolaunder to work in the back room.
Yosef lost himself in the honeyed swirl of the drink and let his mind drift. In the fluids he saw strange oceans, vast and unknown. Somehow, the sight of them rested him, the perturbations soothing his thoughts.
When Renia coughed, he looked up with a start, spilling a drop down the side of the glass. His wife had entered the room and he had been so captured by reverie that he had not even been aware of her.
She gave him a worried look. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes.’
Renia was not convinced. Fifteen years of loving someone gave you that kind of insight as a matter of course. And because of that, she didn’t press him. His wife knew his job, and she knew that he did his best to leave it at the precinct every time he came home. Instead she asked him, just once. ‘Do you need to talk?’
He took a sip of the wine and didn’t look at her. ‘Not yet.’
She changed the subject, but not enough for Yosef’s comfort. ‘There was an incident at Ivak’s schola today. A boy taken out of classes.’
‘Why?’
‘Ivak said it was because of a game some of the older children were playing. The Warmaster and the Emperor, they called it.’ Yosef put down the glass as she went on. Somehow, he already knew what Renia was going to say. ‘This boy, he went on about the Warmaster. Ivak’s teachers heard him and they reported it.’
‘To the Arbites?’
She nodded. ‘Now people are talking. Or else they are not talking at all.’
Yosef’s lips thinned. ‘Everyone is uncertain,’ he said, at length. ‘Everyone is afraid of what’s behind the horizon… But this sort of thing… It’s foolishness.’
‘I’ve heard rumours,’ she began. ‘Stories from people who know people on other worlds, in other systems.’
He had heard the same thing, hushed whispers in the corners of the precinct from men who couldn’t moderate the sound of their voices. Rumour and counter-rumour. Reports of terrible things, of black deeds – sometimes the same deeds – attributed to those in service of the Warmaster and the Emperor of Mankind.
‘People who used to talk freely are going silent to me,’ she added.
‘Because I’m your husband?’ Off her nod he frowned. ‘I’m not an Arbites!’
‘I think the Lord Marshal’s men are making it worse,’ she said. ‘Before, there was nothing that could not be said, no debate that could not be aired without prejudice. But now… After the insurrection…’ Her words lost momentum and faded.
Renia needed something from him, some assurance that would ease what troubled her, but as Yosef searched himself for it, he found nothing to give. He opened his mouth to speak, not sure of what he would tell her, and somewhere outside the house glass shattered against bricks.
He was immediately on his feet, at the window, peering through the slats. Raised voices met him. Down below, where the road snaked past the stairs to his front door, he saw a group of four youths surrounding a fifth. They were brandishing bottles like clubs. As he watched, the fifth stumbled backwards over the broken glass and fell to his haunches.
Renia was already opening the wooden case on the wall where the watch-wire terminal sat. She gave him a questioning look and he nodded. ‘Call it in.’
He snatched his greatcoat from the hook in the hall as she shouted after him. ‘Be careful!’
Yosef heard feet on the stairs behind him and turned, one hand on the latch, to see Ivak silhouetted in the gloom. ‘Father?’
‘Go back to bed,’ he told the boy. ‘I’ll just be a moment.’
He put his warrant rod around his neck and went out.
By the time he got to the road, they had started throwing punches at the youth on the ground. He heard yelling and once again, the name rose up at him, shouted like a blood-curse. Horus.
The fifth youth was bleeding and trying to protect himself by holding his arms up around his head. Yosef saw a particularly hard and fast haymaker blow come slamming in from the right, knocking the boy down.
The reeve flicked his wrist and the baton he carried in his sleeve pocket dropped into his palm. With a whickering hiss, the memory-metal tube extended to four times its length. Anger flared inside him and he shouted out ‘Sentine!’ even as he aimed a low sweeping blow at the knees of the nearest attacker.