Scar Felice (The Fourth Age of Shanakan Book 3) (21 page)

Woodside was not as Felice had imagined it. She had thought it a town. She knew that it was the home of the law, White Rock’s law, and that a great school had been built there. She knew that there was a tavern.

To begin with they were stopped on the road just shy of the first buildings. A group of guardsmen in the colours of White Rock barred the road, having laid a spiked hurdle across it, a thing of such weight that it would take many men to lift. The wagons slowed to a halt and she could hear a heated discussion between the guards and the wagon master drifting back on the warm air. She was about to step down, to find out the cause, when she heard hoof beats and looked back to see Sabra and her guard contingent galloping towards the van of their column. The lieutenant caught her eye and gestured that she should stay where she was. She pulled her head back in and waited.

In a little while Sabra rode back with another guardsman and stopped by her wagon. The guardsman dismounted and climbed up into the wagon.

“You’ll ride into Woodside with me,” the lieutenant said.

“Why?” She eyed the horse. It did not look as relaxed as Sabra’s.

“The wagons are being held here. They’ll camp. You’ll be safer in Woodside.”

“Why can’t we ride the wagons into Woodside?” Felice was genuinely curious and not a little concerned. In addition she didn’t like the idea of riding a strange horse any distance. She’d only ridden the lieutenant’s horse, and that only for a few hours around the camp fires.

Sabra sighed. “It would be easier if you obeyed instructions, you know,” she said. “There have been two killings, both the dead were candidates. More guards have been brought in from White Rock. The town is not safe.”

“Then where are you taking me?”

“To the Kalla House.”

“You’re going to lock me up?”

“We’re going to protect you.”

Well, at least she would be able to serve the warrant that had brought her here. She eyed the horse again. It was a typical guard mount, a bay mare of average build. It stood with the reins hanging loose, waiting patiently.

“The horse will bear you easily enough, Ima,” the guardsman said to her, perhaps sensing her apprehension.

She climbed down from the wagon and up onto the horse as gently as she could, careful to gather the reins before she mounted, careful not to alarm the beast.

“Follow me,” Sabra said and nudged her horse forwards into a walk. Felice did as she was told and they passed slowly up the string of wagons. People turned to look at them, perhaps wondering who it was that was being brought into Woodside ahead of them; an important person, perhaps a criminal. She tried to look relaxed, but sitting atop a great strange horse she was anything but. She could feel its powerful muscles moving smoothly beneath her, and she gripped the reins and the pommel of the saddle with both hands.

The barrier was not moved from the road. A narrow path had been cut through the trees to one side, and they threaded their way through this, emerging onto the road the other side. There were more guardsmen here, and they looked at her, too. Did they know something that she didn’t, or had they simply heard of her quest to find justice?

They rode on and the guards were left behind. They entered Woodside. It seemed nothing more than a typical village. From this side she could see the ordinary village houses, the narrow lanes between them. They rode through the square, past the Kalla Tree and on, down more narrow streets until they came to a tavern. The tavern was huge for the village, and it was on one side of a new square, larger than the old one, and here was the Kalla House. But it was not this building that held her attention. Beyond the tavern there were newer, larger houses on broad streets, just as you might find in a town. They were the houses of merchants, of the prosperous, but even these stayed her eye for only a moment. Beyond them, and set apart from the growing settlement, was the great school. Even the little that she could see of it revealed it as a structure of concentric rings. The outer ring was of double height, a series of buildings set about a greater, taller building, a round building like a white tower of massive girth. From here she could see that the central building was pierced by a great archway, and that within lay a garden. She glimpsed green, and she thought she saw the glitter of water, a fountain perhaps.

More disturbingly she could see that between the new town and the school there was a freshly built fence of great strength, and gates, and the gates were guarded. Around the fence she could see groups of men walking. More guards, she supposed.

“We are here, Felice.”

Sabra was already dismounted. She was leading her horse around the side of the Kalla House to where stables had been built. Felice lowered herself to the ground and led her docile mount through to where it might enjoy a rest, and hay and water. She copied the way that Sabra looped the reins around a horizontal bar, and followed her into a side door, into the Kalla House.

Inside it was a scene of chaos. They had come directly into the guards’ room, and what would normally be a tidy space was now filled with men, and the spaces that they had marked out for their bedrolls. Behind a broad counter the cells were also filled, and she could see men sleeping, packed into the space like arrows in a quiver.

All this for two killings?

Sabra spoke to a guard officer, and Felice moved closer so that she could hear what was said.

“…brought here by black door,” the officer was saying. “Just yesterday while you were still on the road. A hundred extra men.”

“And the slain,” Sabra asked, “they were candidates?”

“A boy and a girl,” the man replied. “Not only candidates, but among those most like to be chosen. Both killed with a single knife thrust to the heart. Serhan has brought a man up from Samara to discover the truth, and we are to obey him.”

“Is he guard?”

“No,” the man sounded disgusted with the idea. “He is a stick of a man who can barely wield a sword.”

“So why is he here?”

“He is commands the Halls of Law in Samara. They say he understands the ways of evil men, and it is true that he says things, seems to know things that we cannot.”

“Sam Hekman,” Felice said, realising at once who they were talking about, remembering the busy, thin man who had seemed so overwhelmed by his role. She remembered him as helpful, even kind.

“You know him?” Sabra asked.

“I met him twice. He helped me when I was in Samara.”

“Well,” the other guard officer said. “You can meet him again. He has taken one of the back cells, one with a window, as his own room. One of those cells is reserved for you and Sabra, so you will be neighbours until we catch the killer.”

Felice wanted to see Hekman. She wanted to see him at once. Not because she had anything to tell him, or because he was a special friend, but simply because he was nearer to home that these others, he was someone from when she had been a little closer to the old Felice than she was now. He belonged to the past. She stepped out of the guard room by the other door and found herself in a corridor. There were bedrolls on the floor here, too, but they were not in use.

Back cells they had said. She walked towards the back of the building and found a door. She heard Sabra call her name, but she ignored it. She went in.

In this room, more of a passageway than a room, there were no bedrolls, but a row of six doors, all wedged open. She looked into the first one, and there he was. Paper was beginning to cover the walls, and a small desk held neat piles of the same
e Hekman
. Bringing order to chaos seemed to be a principle weapon in Hekman’s armoury, and here he was doing it again. He sat at the desk, head bowed, looking exactly as she remembered him. He was reading something. His concentration seemed complete, but even so he was aware of her. He held up a hand, and she waited.

In a moment he finished what he was reading and looked up. Almost at once there was a spark of recognition, and his hand groped about in the air as if reaching for a memory.

“I know you,” he said. The hand stopped moving. “Caledon,” he said. “Felice Caledon. How do you fare, Ima? I had not expected to see you here.”

“This is where Karnack came,” she said. “He is here.”

“Here? Yes, of course. It seems so long ago that I saw you in Samara.”

“How is Ella Saine?”

“I have not seen her since you left, but I believe she is well.”

“And you have been brought here to find a killer?”

“Yes,” he smiled a wry smile. “It makes a change to be seeking only one. Something of a holiday, if you see what I mean.”

“Well, now you have two.” She pulled the warrant from her pocket and put it on the desk in front of him, and he perused it briefly.

“I remember it,” he said. “A guardsman. Your brother murdered in Yasu. The man answered the call, so he is a candidate.” He pulled a sheaf of papers from a tray and thumbed quickly through them. “Karnack. Peet Karnack. Guard Sergeant. Yes he is here, but there is a problem, Ima.”

Felice stared at him. “A problem?”

“Yes. The school has been fenced off. The gates are closed. Nobody is allowed in or out. The Mage Lord has taken these precautions to protect the candidates.”

“But how can you find the killer? He may be within the school already.”

“It is a point I put to the Mage Lord myself,” Hekman smiled. “So I am excepted from the rule. I may come and go. No others.”

“You must take me with you.”

“Defy the Mage Lord? I do not think so. I was at the battle of Samara Plain, and he is already enraged by the killing of two candidates. I will not risk his displeasure.”

“Karnack is a killer. Where can I find justice if not here at the Kalla House?”

Hekman looked down at his papers again. He rubbed his chin. “I will speak to the Mage Lord,” he said. “It is all that I can do. Perhaps he will permit me to take Karnack from the school.”

“Why would he not?”

“I do not know. It depends on how he values Karnack as a candidate. He may be selected for training.”

“No,” Felice had not even considered the idea, but it was possible. Her brother’s killer as a mage, powerful, untouchable. “No. There must be justice, even so. If not, I will seek it myself.”

“You must not act rashly, Ima. I will speak to the Mage Lord on your behalf. I am confident that he is fair and just. You must wait here for a day and be safe. I will speak to him tomorrow.”

“Safe? It is not safe here.” She already had an idea who the killer might be, and if she was right, there was no safety anywhere, but she could see no reason for a Faer Karani to want her dead.

“There are guards here,” Hekman said. “No killer would dare to strike here.”

“And what if the killer is one of the guards?”

“That cannot be. The ones stationed here have been brought down from White Rock after the first murder. They cannot be responsible.”

She realised that she could not tell him; could not say that a Faer Karani could take any body, could be anyone. If she was right. She was sworn to secrecy, and dare not break her oath. The Ekloi were at least as dangerous as the Faer Karan, and she could not have both turned against her. All that she knew that might help Hekman was bound up by that oath, but there was still one thing that she might do.

“I can find the killer,” she said.

Hekman studied her carefully. “And how would a merchant’s daughter from East Scar go about finding a killer?” he asked.

She took a deep breath and explained about the knife, how it was magical and had the ability to find things. She told him what Borbonil had said, and how she had used it to escape from the marshes. The rest she could not say, for it bore directly on the Ekloi and their secrets. When she had finished she drew the knife and showed him the blade, and how the knife balanced in her hand.

“It is a tale, I grant you,” Hekman said. “But finding the way out of a marsh and finding a killer are quite different things.”

“I am confident.” It had worked to find Raganesh. It had worked to find Alder. She was more than confident. She was certain that Pathfinder could find the killer.

“I must tell you, Ima,” Hekman said, and he was clearly uncomfortable. “I am not familiar with magic. I do not use it, and I do not trust it. However, I would be a fool to allow such a tool to go unused. It is a chance to find the assassin before another candidate dies, so tomorrow I will speak to the Mage Lord, and then we will see.”

“I will wait,” she agreed. “I will wait one day.”

She turned away from Hekman to find that Sabra was standing close behind her. The lieutenant was close enough to have heard every word of their conversation, every word about the knife.

“Even your pockets are full of surprises, Felice,” she said.

Felice said nothing, and Sabra showed her where they would sleep. One of the cells had been fitted with two crude bunks, and there was little space between them. Just enough room at the foot of each for their few bags. They were tight quarters indeed, but compared with the rest of the guard it was luxury.

In such a crowded place Felice was desperate to find some measure of solitude, and in the end she found it on the roof. Here there were no bedrolls, and although four guards stood at their posts and others sat around a table eating and playing cards, there was enough room up here for her to sit apart from them and be alone with her thoughts.