Page 43 of Crucible of Chaos

Estevar sat back heavily on the bed. ‘Because now I have a piece of the puzzle, and from that one piece, a motive for whoever instigated this foul conjuration. Someone is attempting to purify Isola Sombra to protect the world from gods arising out of the madness of warring monks who cannot agree on who those gods should be.’

A dozen more questions were now dancing through his addled brain. Was the perpetrator of this crime the same individual or group who murdered Abbot Venia? Had they condemned Strigan as punishment for his own experiments into the occult, or were they perhaps the ones who’d tricked him into engaging in such efforts in the first place? Did the lightning strikes which destroyed the statues of the gods incite them to set off on this dark path, or was that part of a plan begun long before the fracturing of the abbey’s brethren?

The heady, almost drunken sensation filling Estevar made him wonder for a moment if he’d somehow been drugged– but no, he knew this feeling. This was the intoxication of discovering previously hidden connections between contrary facts, of clues becoming deductions which would, in turn, become the evidence with which he would conduct his trial against those who had brought murder and desecration to this holy place.

‘Will Strigan live?’ he asked. He felt he needed to stay in the infirmary, to be the first to speak to the Wolf-King, should he awaken.

‘I can’t be sure,’ Agneta replied. She returned to her patient’s bed and picked up a needle and thread she’d cleaned with her viscous amber fluid. ‘The boy has lost a lot of blood, but the wounds themselves aren’t so deep. The shock and trauma are what may kill him now. Better that you be here when he wakes.’

‘Why?’ Estevar asked, distrustful of the fact that something he’d assumed would require skilful negotiation was now being offered to him so freely.

She pinched together the skin on either side of an incision and slid the needle through. ‘He called out your name when he saw you coming from the Vigilance Tower. It was you he begged for help. Perhaps your presence will calm him, maybe even help his recovery.’

She added another stitch, and then a third, precise and neat, working along the line of the wound.

Her expertise and patience were relaxing. Estevar had always found the methodical application of skill to be soothing, almost hypnotic. He carefully folded his hastily scrawled diagrams of Strigan’s markings and placed them in his pocket before allowing himself to lie back on the bed.

‘I must warn you, Madam,’ he mumbled, ‘I have a friend in this abbey who will be searching for me. She may not seem like much of a threat to an inquisitor on first meeting, but should you attempt to harm me, you will find in her a most formidable opponent.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t count on Leogado venturing out of the Vigilance Tower to rescue you, Eminence,’ Agneta said. ‘She hasn’t left that crow’s nest of hers in weeks, and this part of the abbey is traditionalist territory.’

Estevar was so unduly pleased by her poor guess that he said more than he ought. ‘I speak not of Mother Leogado, but of my assistant in the enquiry into Abbot Venia’s murder.’

Agneta paused in her needlework. ‘I saw no one with you when you arrived at the abbey, and the causeway has been impassable since.’

‘Caeda,’ Estevar said, his head sinking deeper into the pillow, his eyelids growing heavy. ‘My piccolo.’

Though his eyes had closed and consciousness was giving way to exhaustion put off too long, part of him wondered why Agneta hadn’t yet resumed her ministrations. She said something to him, but the words sounded far away now, and he couldn’t ask her to repeat them because by then he was all but asleep. If asked to testify, however, he would have sworn the inquisitor had said, ‘Caeda Branwen died two weeks ago. Abbot Venia killed her.’

CHAPTER 26

THE WOLF’S SCARS

The infirmary had no windows, leaving Estevar without the means to distinguish day from night. He awoke in darkness, unsure whether the lantern had run out of oil or someone had stolen it. He could hear uneasy breathing; apart from his own, he thought at first there might be two others. When he listened more carefully, it turned out to be just Strigan’s restless wheezing.

When Estevar tried to rise, wanting to find what had become of Brother Agneta, he quickly fell back down. He wasn’t shackled to the bed– no ropes or chains tugged at him–only a litany of aches old and new, warning him of dire consequences should he venture forth into the pitch-black depths of the infirmary.

The duelling wound was the worst, emanating heat across his abdomen, whispering of fever and renewed infection. When he prodded gingerly beneath the bandage with his fingertips, he discovered that Caeda’s stitches were gone, replaced by new ones, presumably Brother Agneta’s. He wasn’t surprised– he’d felt them tear during his encounter with the demons– but how had the pain of a needle and thread passing back and forth through his inflamed flesh not awakened him?

Did she drug me? It would have been easy enough to slip me something after I fell asleep.

He set the questions aside for now, while his fingers traced the lines of other new lacerations on his shoulders and forearms, all courtesy of demonic claws. Several of these sported stitches too, and were itching as if wasps had taken up residence all over his body.

The case, he reminded himself.Mere irritations of the flesh cannot be allowed to impede the investigation– especially when Brother Agneta’s absence provides an opportunity to question the witness.

Presuming, of course, that Estevar could convince his limbs to get him moving, and that the traumatised monk could be roused.

Determination was something Estevar Borros understood. With a groan from somewhere deep in his belly, he forced himself to a seated position on the bed. He was still wearing his borrowed trousers and boots, but his tattered shirt, now much the worse for wear, was on the floor. The effort of bending over to find it strained his resolve, though not nearly as much as the dizziness that washed over him when he rose to his feet.

How long can I keep fighting my own body’s demands for rest and proper medical care?he wondered, shivering.Am I to die here on this accursed island before I can bring Venia’s murderer to justice and his abbey back to sanity?

Slowly, tentatively, he set forth into the dark room, following the sounds of Strigan’s breathing– and in only ten steps, he found himself at the surgical table where he’d deposited the bleeding body. Now that he was on his feet, Estevar felt sure several hours had passed since then.

So Agneta hasn’t been able to find someone to help move her patient to one of the beds. Or maybe she no longer cares whether he survives.

He could not yet make sense of the inquisitor’s behaviour. For all she’d displayed an ease with violence, even brutality, he sensed in her a moral code as strong as his own, if perhaps twisted to a purpose he couldn’t fathom.

A quickening of the young monk’s breathing told Estevar he was waking.

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