Chapter 30: Food for thought

“What does this mean Freddie?”

“I don't know Sam, I really don't,”

Sam was pacing nearby while I sat with my head in my hands. I was feeling more than a little bit light-headed and I had once been told that sitting down with your head between your knees was a good way of helping with all of that.

Emma's office is not very big but Sam was using the entire length of it to pace. He was holding his sword hilt hard enough to turn his knuckles white and I can't say that I blamed him. My own head was spinning and I felt as though I was speaking through a tunnel and looking at things that were a long way away while at the same time being really really close.

Have you ever been stood next to an explosive fireball as it goes off? Neither have I but I understand it's very similar. My ears were ringing and people's voices had a hollow and tinny kind of quality. As though they were speaking through a muffling sheet or it was echoing off a thin piece of metal.

Or both.

I felt sick.

Kerrass had showed me what he had wanted me to see in the stables and I had started to feel the outlying reaches of my brain shut down. Kerrass took charge and we picked the stuff up and carried it up to the castle, Kerrass talking our way past the guards at the various gates but he was pretty well known by now and could get away with most things with a joke, a wave and the promise of some dice-playing later.

We had found my sister at her paperwork and when she saw my pale face and Kerrass' stern expression she chased her assistant/maid out and scooped the letters that were on her desk off to a corner of the room so that we could put down our burdens.

We were each sent to fetch a person. I found Sam fairly quickly as we'd passed him on the way back to the keep while Kerrass went to get Mother and Emma went for Mark on the grounds that she had done the least to piss him off recently. I wasn't entirely convinced by her logic but at the same time I'm not sure I could have faced those guards on his door at the moment.

My head was spinning and now that I had stopped and sat down it all threatened to overwhelm me.

“By the Holy Flame that protects us all, what's happening?” Sam demanded, helping himself to Emma's secret stash of Skelligan whisky.

“I don't know Sam,”

He went back to pacing having knocked back the generous measure of spirits in one gulp and had resumed pacing giving no indication that he had heard me at all.

Very carefully and slowly. With a deliberate and measured motion, Emma came back in to the room. She must have seen the question on my face because she shook her head. It would seem that Brother Mark would have been protecting us from his sanctimony today. Possibly better for everyone.

She sank into a chair and, not for the first time since I came home, I was reminded how much older she is now. She looked very tired as she took the drink that Sam offered her, all the while her eyes stared into the middle distance as though she was looking at something horrifying.

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Kerrass came back afterwards. He had an extra chair to seat himself as there weren't enough chairs in the already crowded office for everyone.

“Can I have one of those?” He gestured at the whisky decanter.

Sam poured as Kerrass lowered himself carefully into his seat.

“I take it mother isn't coming down either?” Sam asked as he handed the drink over.

“No, Not wishing to be indelicate but she said that she was concerned that things might come to a head if she leaves your fathers bedside at the moment. She also said that Emma can act for the family.”

“Is she right about Father?”

“No,”Kerrass stretched a little, “I give him another day at least looking at that injury but I'm not an expert. In fact it's what the experts have been saying that brings me to the point.”

He made a face of appreciation as he sipped at the spirit.

“Yes, finally. What is the point here and why all this secrecy?” Sam demanded.

I glanced at Emma who said nothing. Thanks for reading on ManaNovel!

“What is going on her here?” Sam wasn't done with his questions. “What's this all about?” he gestured to the desk and what was on the desk.

On the desk was a couple of horseshoes, a few nails, a saddle and a full set of horse-tack.

Kerrass took a breath and carefully place the Whisky glass off to one side. I noticed that he hadn't really drunk any.

“What this means is that your Father was murdered. Or is being murdered depending on your point of view. There are a few things that I want to check and I do need permission for him to be examined by a friend of mine just to be sure. But I'm pretty confident about my conclusion.”

“You were hired, forgive the term and forgive me if I'm talking down to you and treating you as a servant or merchant of some kind but I'm a little out of sorts at the moment.” Sam was blathering. Not that great a sign. “But you were hired to solve a mystery. Not make another one.”

“I didn't make the mystery, I found it. And I do think that it is part of the mystery of your brothers death.”

“Why?” Emma looked at Kerrass for the first time. I had seen faces like it before on corpses. People for whom life has already happened and death is the final insult. “Why do you believe my Father was murdered?”

I saw Kerrass nod. It was a little thing and I wasn't sure if I saw it properly but looking back I am sure of what I saw. I think he was confirming something in his head, as though life was getting back on track.

“Fredderick has already seen these things so I won't hand them all round. I'll start with the saddle.”

He turned the saddle over and laid it on the floor so that we could all see it. “If you look here, and here,” he pointed, “you can see small holes in the saddle where something has been inserted. I opened one and found a small blade inside. Given enough time it would have worn through the saddle and gouged into the horses back causing it pain and discomfort.”

We all made a play of examining the saddle.

“Sir Samuel. You're a knight and know about horses.” Kerrass went on. “Your Father's hunting horse, how would it react if it had been shod with one of these shoes?” Kerrass tossed one of the horseshoes at my brother who caught it automatically. He turned it over a few times.

Kerrass also handed over a nail. “The stable-master pulled that one out of the foot with that shoe at my request.”

Dawning horror crossed Sam's face. “No wonder,” he breathed. “This explains a lot.” He slotted the nail through the shoe. “That poor thing,”

Emma frowned curiously which Sam saw. “The shoe is crooked, the wrong size and the nail is at a slant. If given enough time the horse would have gone properly and catastrophically lame.” He turned back to Kerrass. “That horse has been limping and acting all out of sorts since I came back. We had assumed that it was mourning Father or something which horses do some times. It wasn't really a limp or anything that we could lay our fingers on as to why it was happening. The shoes had been put on by our own blacksmith who shoe's all our horses. His work is beyond reproach so we never thought to check.”

“Nor would you, nor would your father probably saying something like. “She seems a bit restive this morning.” or something similar. So far, all of these things prove that someone was interfering with your fathers horse gear. But that didn't kill him. The thing that killed him was this.”

Kerrass pulled out a section of reins.

“The reins broke.”

Sam's mouth hung open.

“But reins don't break.”

“Precisely.” Kerrass said. I saw the pleasure there, he was being proven right. “The people around probably never realised as they were too busy worrying about your badly injured father. But...” he held the leather for us all to see. “These are the bits that broke. Notice how they stretched before breaking? But also notice this discolouration here and here. Then look at the ends of the broken piece.”

I had seen this moment from the other side of the fence. That moment where you saw the people that you are speaking to realise what you are saying.

“See how the leather has been partially cut through with a knife that produces that neat, uniform and shiny cut to the leather?”

We all nodded.

“Then the rest was allowed to break which is what tipped your father off the horse.”

“But Father would have checked. Dad wasn't stupid. Remember all of those times he lectured us on checking our own gear?” Sam asked Emma and I, “He would have checked.

“Unless he was in a hurry.” Emma piped up. “Or was angry about something.” Her head had fallen into her hands and she was speaking to the floor. “And he was very angry that morning. I was going to check when he got home. DAMMIT!”

“Sometimes it takes an outsider to see things that people do not see normally.” Kerrass put in gently. “I can demonstrate all of these things if you wish. The discolouration comes from an acid that weakened and dried out the leather making it easier for it to snap and the knife gave it a start to get going. Then the killer just had to make sure that your father was agitated enough to not check his own gear. Was he angry often at that point?” He asked Emma.

“He was. He didn't want to tell me what it was about which isn't unusual but he was angry. A lot.”

Kerrass nodded.

“So he was being provoked on a consistent basis. All the killer had to do was bide his time and wait for your father to have an accident while maintaining your fathers rage.”

“But what if the injury was healed or got better?” Sam asked.

“That's the part I have to check but I'm pretty sure I'm right. Your Father was poisoned afterwards,”

We all stirred in our seats then.

“Poisoned?” Emma cried.

“Impossible,” Sam yelled.

Kerrass held his hands up for calm.

“As I say, I'm not sure. But think about it... A fall from a horse, even a serious one is hardly ever instantly fatal. You can probably think of many people who have fallen, including yourselves but those people who have been killed doing it are rare enough to stand out in your memory. Especially horsemen of your Fathers skill and experience.”

We nodded.

“So lets take it further. This,” he gestured at the saddle and tack. “Is evidence of a calm considered mind. It took planning and implementing. So whoever your Father's killer was, would have taken that into account and would not have allowed such things as how serious a fall was to be left to chance. I think they were poisoned. I think that your Fathers injury was serious but I don't think it was immediately fatal until someone poisoned them. Furthermore I think it was a slow poison that looked like a wound infection so no-one would look for an alternative.”

“Can you prove that?” Sam asked.

“No, but the person who can lives in Oxenfurt. I have already sent a message that she should come here as soon as she is able.”

“Who is it?” Emma asked.

“A university graduated, army medic called Shani. Nice girl, you'll like her even though calling her a girl now is almost an insult as she must be in her mid to late twenties by now. You might not have heard of her because she has a stupid thing called a “sense of duty,” which means that she signed up for the Redanian armed forces and served at The Miracle of Brenna. Unfortunately for her she is also “common born” and a woman meaning that people don't exactly encourage her to progress. Given that though she got through the university on merit and is good enough that Redania regularly sends for her when they have a medical problem that needs fixing. If it gives you a measure of the lady's character. She was one of the few who travelled into Temeria when the plague broke out in Vizima.”

Emma nodded. “So she won't be political which would be the problem in any of the other doctors that we've used.”

“Who may also be suspects.” I said. “Especially if they are the ones that were called first of all.”

Emma looked horrified at that but then nodded sadly.

“I suppose you're right. When will she arrive?”

“I sent the message early this morning so she might be here by evening or first thing tomorrow.”

“I have another question,” Sammy started. “Why do you even think of poison?”

“Precisely because your father has stayed alive for so long. Physical strength and the stubbornness that Fredderick describes will only help you pass an injury for so long but your father has been languishing for weeks now. That's a long time to be natural.”

Sam nodded his acceptance of that point.

“How did you find these things?” Emma asked. “You're the first person in the castle to even vaguely suspect murder.”

Kerrass took a breath.

“It's a good question and I do want to answer it but first of all there is something else that needs doing for which I need Sir Samuel and Freddie as well as a contingent of your guards. I shouldn't think that they need to be heavily armed though.”

Sam, Emma and I exchanged glances.

“Why?”

“Because of the former stable-master. He must have known something and he fled almost immediately after the accident.”

Light dawned on Sam's face and he left.

“Also Milady, it now becomes vital that I see your Fathers itinerary and will so we can narrow down who might want your father dead. For this I absolutely understand that you will need to consult people and I would not wish to do so without your Accountant,” his mouth twitched again at that. “And your Father's Lawyer, or Notary being present. I can answer the rest of your questions later as I suspect those fine gentlemen will not be as.... expedient as the medic.”

“I understand. I shall send messages directly.” She pushed the rest of the leather off the table as though they might be contagious and pulled over a sheet of paper, a quill and some ink.

Kerrass and I left but I stopped him in the hallway.

“How did you find those things?”

Kerrass shrugged and for a moment he was my friend again.

“I went looking for them,” he said before striding off.

The explosion of activity was exhilarating and intoxicating at the same time. I fairly ran off to my room to collect my armour and equipment and was down to the courtyard with my horse saddled and ready long before I needed to be. Then I was chafing at the lack of activity wanting to yell at people to hurry them along even though I knew that they couldn't go any faster. Putting chain-mail on properly is long and careful work if you don't want to get unfortunate bits of yourself tied up in it.

We were going to be carried by five men and a standard bearer so that no-one who saw us would think that we were anything other than official Barony people. The far too real danger of people running away specifically when we wanted to talk to them was foremost on Kerrass' mind and rightly so.

In the end we managed to get everyone sorted out and left the castle heading Southwards.

Sam was unhappy.

“Why Southwards?” he demanded after about half an hours worth of riding.

“Why not?” I countered.

“Don't get picky with me,” he snapped.

I sighed. “You get used to it after a while,”

“Used to what?”

“The direction seeming random.”

“That's lovely and everything but why are we heading southwards? Byarby's family is to the north, surely he would go there before starting to look for help?”

“Which is precisely why he didn't go in that direction,” Kerrass murmured.

“What?” Sam's face got red. “Are you calling me...”

“Sam,” I held up my hand to slow him down. “Don't take it so personally. As I say, you get used to it after a while.”

Sam took a breath. “I don't want to get used to it Freddie. I want to know what's going on.”

“We all do,”

“So why are we heading South?”

I took a breath and glanced at Kerrass' back. He seemed oblivious to what we were saying or the armed men riding behind him, his eyes were wandering from side to side, occasionally he would tilt his head back with his eyes closed and take a good deep breath of the summer air before riding on.

“I don't know Sam. But he's right.” I cocked my head at Kerrass. “Byarby (which was the name of our Stable-master. My family do occasionally fall into the noble privilege trap of only knowing people by their position and rank rather than their actual given name. Odd really as there is nothing that made Father quite as angry as when he was greeted with the phrase “Ah, there you are Coulthard”. It had a tendency to make him all....irrational) was never book smart but lets face it, he was cleverer than Froggy and Cook put together.”

“So?”

“So, where would anyone look for him and his wife.”

“Oh,” we rode in silence for a while. “I feel really silly now,” Sam admitted.

“Don't, otherwise you will always feel silly. It took me ages to break the habit.”

“What do you mean?”

“Much though we would both like to think otherwise our habits of thinking are ingrained. I think like a scholar and a nobleman. You think like a knight, or a soldier and a noble.” I grinned at a sudden thought. “Look, I'm already lecturing you,”

A short burst of laughter barked from Sam's mouth. “You do have a habit of doing that.”

“Even though I spend all my time trying not to. Anyway, Kerrass here is one of the greatest hunters in the continent. He can think like whoever he's tracking. It's a trick, it's hard and it makes my head hurt just thinking about it, but it's a way of thinking. The other thing is about the Witcher mutations meaning that he might actually still be able to smell old Byarby.”

“All of which are good theories,” Kerrass piped in having obviously been listening. “But at the end of the day, he told Cook, who's name is Agatha by the way, that there was work for an experienced horse breeder away South and that's where he was going to head. Now if I could just have some quiet so that I can concentrate.”

Sam and I giggled like schoolboys before schooling our faces to proper steadfastness.

Unfortunately it wasn't long before we found what we were looking for.

Byarby had made it just out of sight of the castle before he had made camp well of the road in the trees. Kerrass found it first, his head jerking up just a fraction of a second before his horse started to protest along with mine. He took a deep sniff turning his head from one side to another before deflating a little.

“Damn,” he muttered.

“Oh no,” I groaned. I dismounted and tied my horse to a nearby tree.

It was a fairly large camp for two people. They had been camping in summer so a tent was made out of an oilskin pegged out over a line tied between two trees. There was a small fire surrounded by larger chunks of firewood and there was a cooking tripod over it with a metal bowl resting over what would have been flames. There was some evidence that some dirt had been kicked over the fire.

Byarby was on the edge of the camp, he had a stout club near one hand a knife in the other, neither of which had any blood on them. When Kerrass had had a look around he told me to examine them and I quickly found a stab wound in the chest where he had been run through. That had practically killed him but then the killer had cut his throat, presumably to make sure.

We found Byarby's wife some distance away. She had obviously been running and then tripped over her skirts where she had backed away before being killed rather inelegantly by being stabbed a few times through the chest.

I closed their eyes as gently as I could.

I almost didn't recognise Sam when I got to the main group. His face seemed, odd somehow. He certainly looked angry, but also upset, afraid maybe. He looked as though he was torn between sobbing and snarling.

He saw me looking at him and turned away.

“Anything unusual?” Kerrass asked as he approached me.”

“Not really,” I explained what I had found about the stab wounds and the throat slitting.

“Are you sure she fell?” Kerrass asked.

“Oh yes,” I let myself smile a little bit. “Your lessons are beginning to pay off. There are scuff marks on the floor and plenty of dirt, bits of leaf and twig on her skirts. I also found a bit of her dress on a root. I would even go so far as to suggest that she might even have got away if she hadn't tripped.”

Kerrass's eyebrows rose. “Interesting,”

“Isn't it,” I tried to probe him a bit further. “Does that tell you something?”

“It might. You're not going to be offended if I check what you found?”

“No. Animals have already been at them so...” I trailed off and Kerrass gripped me by the shoulder before heading off in the direction of the ladies body.

It was a slow procession back to the keep with the two bodies. Sam had wanted to burn them so that they could be given the final blessings of the flame. Kerrass put his foot down though saying that he wanted/needed the two bodies to be examined.

Many of the men were openly weeping as all had known Byarby for a long time, many some since they were children running around underfoot in the kitchens.

I was one of them and I rode in silence, lost to a thought pattern that I can no longer remember.

No, that's a lie.

I was thinking about Ariadne and wondering if she would understand what I was feeling. The thought that my father would never meet her and that the castle of my childhood, for all of it's faults and problems had been the sight of much laughter and joy over the years and now it was irrevocably changed. I found myself immeasurably sad that I would not be able to take her riding in Byarby's paddock or formally introduce her to my Father. I suddenly found that I had been looking forward to watching her destroy Edmund as he met her for the first time.

The constant fretting of the last few days had kept my grief at bay for a long time and slowly now, very slowly I could feel that grief beginning to settle in to the back of my brain and my heart began to ache. Not for those people that I had lost but for the holes that they would leave now that they were gone. The circumstances and events that would no longer happen. The dreams and fantasies that had once seemed out of reach would now definitely never happen and all the things that I thought I should have done would now never be done.

I had not been one of Byarby's darlings. I was far too clumsy, ungainly and impatient to be a good horseman. I learnt to ride and care for my horse as I was supposed to but it didn't hold my interest the way it had for Emma who still loves riding, or Sam who became the martial master of the joust that Byarby had long wanted to train a steed for so I had not associated with him much and I could certainly not claim a friendship with him. But I liked the way that he treated his horses and the way that, even though he was the master of his domain, he still checked to see if anyone was looking before feeding his horses a peppermint or an apple.

We were a sorry little procession as we came into the castle as the sun was setting and I didn't object even remotely when Sam took charge of the two covered stretchers and took them off. Instead I set about seeing to my own horse and Kerrass' as well as he had sped off. Obviously with things to do and places to go. I took solace in the simple chore and it felt like a fitting tribute to the dead man to spend some time doing a relatively simple chore in the presence of those beings who he had spent his life caring for.

It was only afterwards as I put the brushes and things away that I saw that there was an extra pair of horses in the “guest” part of the stable.

I made my way up to the keep slowly trying to sort out my feelings. I had time to change and clean myself up a bit before dinner and it was as though we all had an agreement not to talk about the dead man that night, or the fact that there was another strange medic upstairs examining our Father for signs that his descent towards death was anything other than as a result of a stupid accident.

It was oddly peaceful, the only sound being for someone to ask to be passed the salt or the wine. We had decided that other than having the food brought up tonight that we would give the rest of the servants the night off for their own rituals of grieving. I don't remember anything being said but I remember not... noticing it and when I did realise what was happening I remember thinking that it was right.

Normally we obeyed the old custom that the ladies of the house would retire through to a drawing room after dinner and that they would be followed by the gentlemen at a suitable interval. Apparently it was so that the men could discuss business while the women were sent away to discuss whatever it was that women talk about when the men aren't around. I remember the first time I was invited to join the other gentlemen and thinking that I was ever so grown up but I also remember choking on the strong tobacco and struggling to stomach the brandy. I have since formed the opinion that the reason that the men retire separately is so that the women can't disapprove of us while the men get quietly sloshed and then the women can get on with fixing all the problems we've made over the course of the day without our input.

In quieter moments I have wondered who first started the custom and whether or not it was first invented by a woman rather than a man.

Food for thought.