Scar Night Page 0,47
great stacks of parchment, freshly inked and ready for the Presbyter’s perusal. Reports from the garrisons and the traders’ guild, theses by Poison Kitchen chemists, accounts, literature, history, lists, lists…and more lists. How did Sypes cope with all this? No wonder he burned the poetry.
When they finally reached the desk, Sypes eased himself into his chair, turned to Fogwill, and said, “Tell me.”
“Your Grace?”
“You’ve been hovering, Fogwill. Not in itself unusual, but you’ve been hovering silently, which is rare. Out with it.”
“This husk—this girl—apparently she was a Roper’s daughter.”
“Yes, yes.” Sypes opened a drawer and pulled out a heavy ledger embossed with the words Unaccounted Souls . “The theft must be recorded nevertheless. Her name?”
“We don’t know. There was a scuffle, and the guards sent the father away. I’ll have to make enquiries. He ought to be easy enough to trace. A death like this will be on the lips of everyone in the League.”
The Presbyter inked his quill and started writing. “I wouldn’t bother too much. Most of these records are incomplete.”
“Carnival wasn’t responsible.”
The Presbyter didn’t look up from his writing. “There’s only one soul-thief in this city, Adjunct.”
“With respect, Your Grace, the corpse was fresh on the morning before Scar Night.”
“Obviously it has been kept on ice.”
“For a whole month? Where would a Roper get that much ice?”
“These people can be ingenious, Fogwill. It proves nothing.”
Then why are you avoiding my eye? Fogwill took a deep breath. “The guard reported seeing bruises on her arm, above the elbow…”
Sypes did not look up.
“Implying that whoever bled her tied her down first. Carnival’s husks are bruised only around the ankles, from the manacles.”
Sypes was now blotting the ink in his ledger.
“This murderer is far more capricious than the Leech,” Fogwill continued. “Carnival is at least consistent in her method of slaughter. One soul for herself on Scar Night, the others…” He left the remainder of his sentence unvoiced. “But these other husks, they’re turning up at all cycles of the moon, their blood removed cleanly. Someone wants them to be found. Someone is sending us a message.”
“What message would that be?”
Fogwill wrung his hands. “Angelwine,” he said. “Someone is trying to make angelwine—and they want us to know.”
“Angelwine?” Sypes snorted. “Listen to yourself, Fogwill. Angelwine cannot be made.”
“But—”
Sypes raised a hand. “Myths, legends…old wives’ tales.”
Fogwill frowned. He cast a glance back at the books locked within the Codex pillars. Ten thousand old wives’ tales. “The commoners still believe in the Soft Men,” he said. “If Devon—”
“That’s enough.” Sypes’s tone was stern. “I won’t have you barging in here making accusations, undermining the trust we’ve built up with the military over this”—he batted a hand—“ludicrous warren gossip. Do you really dislike the man so much?”
There it was. In the seven months Fogwill had endured Sypes’s dismissals of his suspicions, four additional husks to those normally expected had turned up. Four extra souls claimed, their blood leached out, yet Carnival, for all her voracity, took only one for herself on Scar Night. But how could he convince Sypes of Devon’s guilt without telling him the precise truth?
Do I hate Devon enough to suffer your scorn?
When Fogwill had last complained about the fumes from the Poison Kitchens wilting his dear mother’s geraniums, everyone in the temple had subsequently fallen ill. Suspecting foul play, Fogwill had kicked up a terrible fuss. The bout of sickness following that complaint had given him slurry for a month, and when he’d finally recovered, it was only to discover that Devon had since begun recruiting labourers from the temple kitchens. What became of them was never investigated. That swine Fondelgrue didn’t know and didn’t care, and nor, it seemed, did anyone else.
Except, of course, Fogwill. He hesitated. “I had a friend.”
Sypes lowered his head into his hands. “I don’t want to hear this, Fogwill.”
“A kitchen porter,” Fogwill said, feeling bolstered now that the words were out. “Devon said he had four ships coming in that night, and needed strong lads to load supplies. He claims an ongoing shortage of menial labourers, and refuses to use soldiers or scholars. Says he hasn’t the time or resources to screen every cleaner and packhorse himself.”
“His words?”
“Not mine .”
“Unpalatable but necessary work, I’m sure, and the war has hard-pressed us all.” Sypes closed his ledger. “When was this?”
“Six weeks ago.”
“And what happened to your…friend?”
“Disappeared. The Poisoner pleaded ignorance, of course. Said he must have…well, I don’t really want to go into that. It wasn’t civil. His comments, quite frankly, were obscene. He