“A squirrel, Your Grace,” the priest said. “We captured it.”
“Go and fetch it for me.”
“Your Grace, it’s quite wild and—” He stopped, recognizing the look in Lightsong’s eyes, then waved for a servant.
“No,” Lightsong said. “Not a servant. You go and get it personally.” The priest looked incredulous.
“Yes, yes,” Lightsong said, waving him away. “I know. It’s an offense to your dignity. Perhaps you should think about converting to Austrism. For now, get going.”
The priest left, grumbling.
“The rest of you,” Lightsong said, addressing his own servants and priests. “You wait here.”
They looked resigned. Perhaps they were growing accustomed to him dismissing them.
“Come on, Scoot,” Lightsong said, walking toward the first group he had sent off onto the lawn—the two guards. Llarimar scurried forward to keep up as Lightsong took long strides over to the two men. “Now,” Lightsong said to the two, out of earshot of the others, “tell me what you saw.”
“He came to us pretending to be a madman, Your Grace,” one of the guards said. “He sauntered out of the shadows, mumbling to himself. It was just an act, though, and when he got close enough, he knocked us both out.”
“How?” Lightsong asked.
“He grabbed me around the neck with tassels from his Awakened coat,” one of the men said. He nodded to his companion. “Knocked him in the stomach with the hilt of a sword.”
The second guard raised his shirt to show a large bruise on his stomach, then cocked his head to the side, showing another one on his neck.
“Choked us both,” the first guard said. “Me with those tassels, Fran with a boot on his neck. That’s the last thing we knew. By the time we awoke, he was gone.”
“He choked you,” Lightsong said, “but didn’t kill you. Just enough to knock you out?”
“That’s right, Your Grace,” the guard said.
“Please describe this man,” Lightsong said.
“He was big,” the guard said. “Had a scraggly beard. Not too long, but not trimmed either.”
“He wasn’t smelly or dirty,” the other said. “He just didn’t seem to take much care for how he looked. His hair was long—came down to his neck—and hadn’t seen a brush in a long while.”
“Wore ragged clothing,” the first said. “Patched in places, nothing bright, but not really dark either. Just kind of . . . bland. Rather un-Hallandren, now that I think on it.”
“And he was armed?” Lightsong said.
“With the sword that hit me,” the second guard said. “Big thing. Not a dueling blade, more like an Easterner sword. Straight and really long. Had it hidden under his cloak, and we would have seen it, if he hadn’t covered it up by walking so oddly.”
Lightsong nodded. “Thank you. Stay here.”
With that, he turned and walked toward the second group.
“This is very interesting, Your Grace,” Llarimar said. “But I really don’t see the point.”
“I’m just curious,” Lightsong said.
“Excuse me, Your Grace,” Llarimar said. “But you’re not really the curious type.”
Lightsong continued walking. The things he was doing, he did mostly without thinking. They just felt natural. He approached the next group. “You were the ones who saw the intruder in the hallway, right?” Lightsong said to them.
The men nodded. One shot a glance back at Mercystar’s palace. The lawn in front of it was now crowded with a colorful assortment of priests and servants, both Mercystar’s and Lightsong’s own.
“Tell me what happened,” Lightsong said.
“We were walking through the servants’ hallway,” one said. “We’d been released for the evening, and were going to go out into the city to a nearby tavern.”
“Then we saw someone in the hallway,” another said. “He didn’t belong there.”
“Describe him,” Lightsong said.
“Big man,” one said. The others nodded. “Had ragged clothing and a beard. Kind of dirty-looking.”
“No,” another said. “The clothing was old, but the man wasn’t dirty. Just slovenly.”
Lightsong nodded. “Continue.”
“Well, there isn’t much to say,” one of the men said. “He attacked us. Threw an Awakened rope at poor Taff, who got tied up immediately. Rariv and I ran for help. Lolan stayed behind.”
Lightsong looked at the third man. “You stayed back? Why?”
“To help Taff, of course,” the man said.
Lying, Lightsong thought. Looks too nervous. “Really?” he said, stepping closer.
The man looked down. “Well, mostly. I mean, there was the sword, too . . .”
“Oh, right,” another said. “He threw a sword at us. Strangest thing.”
“He didn’t draw it?” Lightsong asked. “He threw it?”
The men shook their heads. “He threw it at us, sheath and all. Lolan picked it up.”
“I thought I’d fight him,” Lolan said.
“Interesting,” Lightsong said. “So you two left?”
“Yeah,” one of the men said. “When we came back with the others—after getting around that blasted squirrel—we found Lolan on the ground, unconscious, and poor Taff . . . well, he was still tied up, though the rope wasn’t Awakened anymore. He’d been stabbed straight through.”
“You saw him die?”
“No,” Lolan said, bringing his hands up in denial. He had—Lightsong noticed—a ban dage on one hand. “The intruder knocked me out with a fist to the head.”
“But you had the sword,” Lightsong said.
“It was too big to use,” the man said, looking down.
“So he threw the sword at you, then ran up and punched you?” Lightsong said.
The man nodded.
“And your hand?” Lightsong asked.
The man paused, unconsciously retracting his hand. “It got twisted. Nothing important.”
“And you need a ban dage for a twisted wrist?” Lightsong said, raising an eyebrow. “Show me.”
The man hesitated.
“Show me, or lose your soul, my son,” Lightsong said in what he hoped was a suitably divine voice.
The man slowly extended his hand. Llarimar stepped forward and removed the bandage.
The hand was completely grey, drained of color.
Impossible, Lightsong thought with shock. Awakening doesn’t do that to living flesh. It can’t draw color from someone alive, only objects. Floor boards, clothing, furniture.
The man withdrew his hand.
“What is that?” Lightsong asked.
“I don’t know,” the man said. “I woke up, and it was like that.”
“Is that so?” Lightsong said flatly. “And I’m to believe that you had nothing else to do with this? That you weren’t working with the intruder?”
The man fell to his knees suddenly, beginning to cry. “Please, my lord! Don’t take my soul. I’m not the best of men. I go to the brothels. I cheat when we gamble.”
The other two looked startled at this.
“But I didn’t know anything about this intruder,” Lolan continued. “Please, you have to believe me. I just wanted that sword. That beautiful, black sword! I wanted to draw it, swing it, attack the man with it. I reached for it and while I was distracted, he attacked me. But I didn’t see him kill Taff! I promise, I hadn’t ever seen this intruder before! You have to believe me!”
Lightsong paused. “I do,” he finally said. “Let this be a warning. Be good. Stop cheating.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Lightsong nodded to the men, then he and Llarimar left them behind.
“I actually kind of feel like a god,” Lightsong said. “Did you see me make that man repent?”
“Amazing, Your Grace,” Llarimar said.
“So what do you think about their testimonies?” Lightsong said. “Something strange is going on, isn’t it?”
“I’m still wondering why you think you should be the one to investigate it, Your Grace.”
“It’s not like I have anything else to do.”
“Besides be a god.”
“Overrated,” Lightsong said, walking up to the final man. “It has nice perks, but the hours are awful.”
Llarimar snorted quietly as Lightsong turned to address the final witness, the short priest who stood in his robes of yellow and gold. He was distinctly younger than the other priest.
Was he chosen to tell me lies with the hopes that he’d seem innocent? Lightsong wondered idly. Or am I just making assumptions? “What is your story?” Lightsong asked.
The young priest bowed. “I was going about my duties, carrying to the records sanctuary several prophecies we had inscribed from the Lady’s mouth. I heard a distant disturbance in the building. I looked out the window toward the sound, but I saw nothing.”
“Where were you?” Lightsong asked.
The young man pointed toward a window. “There, Your Grace.”
Lightsong frowned. The priest been on the opposite side of the palace from where the killing had occurred. However, that was the side of the building where the intruder had first entered. “You could see the doorway where the intruder disabled the two guards?”
“Yes, Your Grace,” the man said. “Though I didn’t see them at first. I almost left the window to search for the source of the noise. However, at that point I did see something odd in the lantern light of the entryway: a figure moving. It was then that I noticed the guards on the ground. I thought they were dead bodies, and I was frightened by the shadowy figure moving between them. I yelled, and ran for help. By the time anyone paid attention to me, the figure was gone.”
“You went down to look for him?” Lightsong asked.
The man nodded.
“And how long did it take you?”
“Several minutes, Your Grace.”
Lightsong nodded slowly. “Very well, then. Thank you.”
The young priest began to walk over to the main group of his colleagues.
“Oh, wait,” Lightsong said. “Did you, by any chance, get a clean look at the intruder?”
“Not really, Your Grace,” the priest said. “He was in dark clothing, kind of nondescript. It was too far away to see well.”
Lightsong waved the man away. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully for a moment, then eyed Llarimar. “Well?”
The priest raised an eyebrow. “Well what, Your Grace?”
“What do you think?”
Llarimar shook his head. “I . . . honestly don’t know, Your Grace. This is obviously important, however.”
Lightsong paused. “It is?”
Llarimar nodded. “Yes, Your Grace. Because of what that man said—the one who was wounded in the hand. He mentioned a black sword. You predicted it, remember? In the painting this morning?”