The King's Justice (3 page)

Black does not acquiesce. Nor does he refuse. He has taken
Ing Hardiston's measure and is not threatened. Rather than prolong the man's ire, he turns to Trait.

“Will you guide me to an inn, friend? I am unquestionably a stranger. Without aid, I may find myself in a flea-ridden bed when I prefer comfort.”

For a moment, Trait hesitates. He enjoys his ability to vex Hardiston and is inclined to do as Black asks. Like the storekeeper, however—and Bailey as well—he finds the stranger's aspect discomfiting. Conflicting impulses keep him silent until he recalls that the stranger has bought him ale.

In a long draught, Trait empties his flagon. Then he nods to Black. “I will.” Shouldering Hardiston discourteously aside, he stands from his stool.

Rasping an oath, Ing Hardiston returns to his table and his companions.

When Black also stands, Bailey rallies himself to request payment. He goes so far as to meet Black's gaze. However, what he sees there closes his mouth. Flapping one hand, he dismisses the question of coin. At the last, he manages only to wish Black a pleasant night.

Black nods gravely. “Perhaps it will be pleasant,” he replies. Then he accompanies Trait from the tavern.

But he has no interest in a bed. His purpose requires him to trace the smell of evil to its source, and he has come no nearer since entering the town. His interactions in the tavern have not awakened his glyphs and sigils, his scarifications. A few steps along the porch, he halts his companion.

Full night has come to Settle's Crossways. The town's many lamps dim the stars, but those lights are too earthbound to obscure the now-cloudless sweep of the heavens. Briefly Black studies the dulled jewels of darkness past the eaves of the roof, though he has no need of their counsel. To Trait, he says, “Take me to Jon Marker's house.”

Trait stares. He finds Black difficult to discern in the shadows. He will say, You asked for an inn. He will refuse Black's command. He will pretend obedience to the storekeeper's wishes. Though he has neither wife nor son himself, he has still some kindness in him, and he is disturbed by Jon Marker's loss. He will not comply with Black.

He does comply. He wants more ale. His mouth hangs open as he points to an alley across the street.

Together, Black and his guide cross the street. The alley takes them to a lesser street, a crooked way aimless to those who do not know the town. Here the odor Black seeks teases his nose, but it remains indistinct, not to be trusted. He does not release Trait.

Another alley admits them to a still-smaller street. Away from the main roads, there is no gravel to give purchase. Black's boots squish and slip in the mud. Trait moves unsteadily, wishing himself back at the tavern, but the inconvenience of poor footing does not compel Black's attention. He follows his nose and his companion to a house that stands pressed close to its neighbors.

The place is little more than a hut large enough for perhaps three rooms. Its size and humility suggest that its occupants are
poor. Yet there are no sprung boards in its walls, no gaps around its windows. Its porch and roofs are solid. All have been painted in a recent season. The chairs on the porch, where a husband and wife might sit of a quiet evening, are comfortable. To Black, it has the air of a dwelling cared for because its people consider it a home.

But its neighbors have lanterns on their porches and lights in their windows. The house to which Black has come is dark. It looks empty. In another season or two, it will look abandoned.

“Here,” Trait says. Then he finds the kindness to add, “Let poor Jon be. He is a good man. Good men are few.”

Black dismisses his guide. He forgets Trait. He is on the trail. The smell is stronger here. It is not strong enough to be the source he seeks. Still it confirms that he is on the right path.

The scent is not that of human violence, of ordinary passion or greed too extreme to be controlled. For such a crime, Settle's Crossways would not need the King's Justice. The smell is that of shapers and wicked rituals.

Silent as shadows, Black ascends the porch to the door.

For a moment, he considers his purpose. Then he knocks. He is sure that the house is not empty.

After a second knock, he hears boots on bare boards. They shuffle closer. At another time, perhaps, he will feel sorrow for the man inside. At present, his purpose rules him.

When the door opens, he sees a small man much blurred by what has befallen him. His eyes are reddened in the gloom, and his gaze is vague, like that of a man deep in his cups, though he
does not smell of ale or hard spirits. His sturdy, workman's frame has collapsed in on itself, making him appear smaller than he is.

He blinks at Black, uncertain of his ability to distinguish the stranger in the gloom. When he speaks, his voice is raw with expended sobs. He says only, “What?”

Black stands motionless. “Are you a temple-going man, Jon Marker?” he asks. “Do you find ease in sermons and worship?”

Perhaps that is why or how his son was chosen.

Jon Marker repeats, “What?” He does not understand the question. Then he does. “Go. Leave me alone. I do not deal with hypocrites. Let others pretend to worship gods who do not answer prayers. I am not such a fool.”

Perhaps
that
is why his son was chosen.

Jon Marker tries to close the door. Even in grief, he is too polite to slam it. But Black stops him. Gently Black says, “Then I must look elsewhere.” He smells no atrocity on the man, or in the house. The odor he seeks is here by inference, indirectly. It lingers with its victims when its source has moved on. “I need your guidance. Tell me of your son.”

Now the door is shut, though Jon Marker does not close it. He and Black stand in the common room of the house, on uncovered floorboards, in darkness. Jon Marker blinks more rapidly, but his sight does not clear.

The stranger wants him to speak of his son. The command angers him. It was not a request, despite its gentleness. “I will not,” he answers. His pain is too raw.

“You will,” Black replies, still gently. “I require your aid.”

Jon Marker gathers himself to shout. He gathers himself to lay hands on the stranger. But under his cloak, Black rubs a glyph near the small of his back with one hand. With the other, he reaches out to cup his inlaid palm to Jon Marker's cheek.

Jon Marker tries to flinch away, yet he does not.

Black's touch enters the father's ruin. It does not give comfort. It is deeper than consolation. It brings a wail from the depths of Jon Marker's heart.

“My son!”

Soft as the night's air, Black says, “Tell me.”

For a moment, the father cannot. His wail holds him, though he does not repeat it. It echoes in the empty frame that his home and his family have become. But then he answers in broken chunks like pieces of his flesh torn from him.

“When my wife, my sweet wife. My Annwin. When she died. When the plague claimed her. She took it all. All of me. I thought she took it all. The plague—” His voice catches. “I could not endure my life.

“But I could. She left my boy. Our son, our Tamlin. As sweet to me as she was. As kind. As pleasant. As willing. And lost.” His voice fills the dark room with ghosts. “As lost as I was. We were lost together. Without her, lost. Until he found himself for me. Or I found myself for him. Or we found each other. Together, we found—

“It was
cruel
. Cruel to me. Cruel to him. That we had to go on without her smiles. But his kindness. His sweetness. His willingness. He was a reason to go on. And he needed a reason,
as lost as I was. And I loved him. With whatever I had left, I loved him. I tried to be his reason.”

Quiet as the vanished sound of Jon Marker's wail, Black says, “Your love was enough. You saved him. His love saved you. Tell me.”

With Black's palm on his cheek, Jon Marker becomes stronger. “I earned our way serving in Ing Hardiston's store. With Annwin to tend our home, and Tamlin laughing in his chores at her side, I did not chafe at Hardiston's harsh ways. But after the plague—” The man remembers anger. “Ing Hardiston has no patience for grief. I was dismissed, and lost, and could not earn our way. Also folk avoided us, thinking the plague clung to us still. Thinking us cursed.”

A faint whisper, Black says again, “Tell me.”

“But Father Whorry—” Jon Marker swallows a lump of woe and gratitude. “He is a priest and a hypocrite. He is known for whoring. But he has kindness in him. He persuaded Haul Varder the wheelwright to employ me. Lying, he told Varder I had been sanctified when I had not, and was therefore certainly free of plague. Free of curse.

“And Haul Varder also is kind, in his rough way. He did not fault me for keeping Tamlin at my side while I worked, though my boy was too small to do more than sweep the floor. Without knowing what he did, Varder helped us find each other, Tamlin and me.”

Black is not impatient, but his purpose has its own demands. Still touching Jon Marker's cheek, he goes further.

“Tell me of the murder.”

Jon Marker cannot refuse. “A terrible day came,” he says while his whole body cringes. “A day like any other. The work was hard, but hard work is good, and my boy was goodness itself. As much goodness as my Annwin left in the world. When the day was ending, I told Tamlin to hurry home to fire the stove for supper. We had promised each other some hours of play when we had eaten.” Again he swallows, but now the lump in his throat is anger at himself. It is weeping for his boy. “
I
sent him home. I sent him
alone
. The fault is mine.

“I did not find him again until he had been slaughtered. He was not in the house. The stove was cold. I searched for him, crying his name. I roused my neighbors. Some searched with me. We did not find him until we looked near the refuse-pit behind the houses. He had been discarded—” A third time, his pain chokes him until he swallows it. “What remained of him had been thrown in the pit.”

There Black lowers his hand. He feels pity, but he does not take pity. He has heard enough. Soon he will learn more of what he needs to know.

When he releases Jon Marker, the man collapses. But Black catches him, holds him upright. “Be easy,” Black tells him. “We are almost finished. Show me where your son is buried. Then you will be done with me. For my life, I will ask nothing more.”

Jon Marker thinks that he has fainted. Still he hears Black clearly. Fearing even now for those he has lost, he summons the strength to turn his head. In a voice that has been scraped until
it bleeds, he asks, “Will you dig up my sweet boy? Will you be so cruel? After all that he has suffered?”

“I must see the place,” Black answers. He means that he must touch and smell it. “But I will only disturb his body if you do not tell me what was done to him.”

He will not coerce Jon Marker again, though he has many forms of influence ready for his use, and some Tamlin's father will not feel. This restraint is how he expresses pity.

Jon Marker is angry now, as angry as he was when he buried his son. “Bastard,” he pants, this man whose wife loved him for his mildness, his gentleness, his natural courtesy. “Whoreson.”

“Even so,” Black replies. He feels no insult. There is no vexation in his heart. “I do what I do because I must.”

Jon Marker stands away from Black. He knots his fists. “He was
beaten
!” he shouts. No words can express the force inside him. The house is too small to hold it. “Beaten
terribly
, damn you! Worse than any dog. Worse than any slave among the caravans. But he was still alive—the healer thinks he was still
alive
—when he was cut from gullet to groin. If I believed in gods and prayer, I would pray that he died before his lungs and
liver
were taken.”

Lungs, Black thinks, and liver. Lungs for air. Liver for heat. Air and heat are elemental energies, as natural and necessary as bright and dark. But they do not cause imbalance, they played no part in the Balance Wars, because no shaper in the known
world can draw upon them. They are everywhere and nowhere, too diffuse to offer power. Therefore they have neither temples nor priests.

He does not understand why the boy was butchered in this fashion. There are no rituals for air and heat. But he can guess now why Tamlin Marker was chosen. The boy's father has told him enough for that.

The how of the choosing remains uncertain. Black can speculate, but he does not commit himself.

“I have caused you pain,” he tells Jon Marker. “Accept my thanks. Show me your son's grave. I will not disturb it. Nor will I disturb you again.”

Jon Marker's anger drains from him as swiftly as it swelled. He thinks that he has come to the end of himself. He is as empty as the house. He does not speak. Instead he shuffles to the door, opens it, and waits for the stranger to precede him.

When Black walks out into the night, Jon Marker is with him.

The man stays on the neighboring porches until they end. Then he moves into the street, taking Black toward the outskirts of Settle's Crossways. Briefly Black considers that Jon Marker will lead him to a cemetery, but soon he recognizes his error. The town has suffered a plague. There will be a bare field like a midden where the victims are buried. Tamlin may be among them. Some of the townsfolk believed that the disease clung to him. And likely many of the bodies were burned, a precaution against the spread of infection. No doubt the evil Black smells
wished the same for Tamlin, to conceal the crime. Still Black is certain that Tamlin was not burned. He is certain that the boy's father would not permit it.

He and Jon Marker trudge through mire to the edge of the town. They leave the fading street to cross a long stretch of sodden grasses. Beyond it, they come to the field Black expects, an acre or more of churned mud where ashes and bones and bodies were covered in haste.

At the field's verge, Jon Marker pauses, but he does not stop. Awkward on the torn slop of the earth, he slogs to the far side. Then he goes farther to enter among the first trees of the forest. There he guides Black to a small glade with a mound of soaked dirt at its center. Between the trees, he has provided his son with the dignity of a separate grave, a private burial. When he nears the mound, wavering on his feet, he says only, “Here.” Then he drops to his knees and bows his head.