Page 28 of Crucible of Chaos

Now it was her turn to cut him off as she adopted a pompous tone suspiciously reminiscent of his own. ‘Nonetheless, such an obvious conclusion leaves open the presumption that this chamber belonged to Venia’s predecessor, and that after his death, the new abbot simply left it unused.’

‘Which is precisely what he did,’ Strigan insisted petulantly, dipping a toe into the steaming water before pulling it back out again. His tattered loincloth was proving inadequate to the task of keeping his private parts hidden. He seemed entirely at ease with his own nudity, though visibly troubled by Caeda’s apparent indifference to what he no doubt thought of as his feral sensuality. Estevar wondered how Malezias might react to this brash libertine’s repeated propositioning of the woman he either loved, served or both.

Caeda walked over to the foot of the huge bed, turned back towards the other two men and promptly flopped backwards onto the velvet cover. ‘Were I an abbot, would I choose to fill my sanctuary with the portraits of my dead predecessors? Would I want to wake up surrounded by paintings of snooty dukes and duchesses looking down their noses at me?’ She propped herself up on her elbows. ‘No, you decorate a room like this for the benefit of visiting dignitaries. You want the first thing they see each morning to be all those abbots displayed as prominently as aristocrats and royalty– a reminder that many in this country hold the clergy in equal regard as the nobility.’ She winked at Estevar. ‘Not a bad piece of propaganda, eh, my Cantor?’

He couldn’t help but be impressed, both by her acumen and by how she’d been testing him as much as he was testing her. Still, he gave no sign of his favour, instead attenuating his approval– after all, he’d expected no less from her.

He turned to Strigan. ‘Are we done with your little feints, Wolf-King? Are you ready to answer my questions, or have these attempts at deception become so second nature already that you can’t help yourself?’

Too far, Estevar realised before he could hold his own tongue.I’ve pushed the hound too far.Damn this belligerent arrogance that had consumed him of late. He’d worried about Caeda’s sharp tongue, but it was his own that would likely draw steel.

‘You still haven’t answeredmyquestion,’ Strigan said, his tone low again, the prelude to a growl.

‘Which is?’

The Wolf-King stood taller, placed one bare foot in front of the other as if preparing to stalk his prey. ‘Would you really have killed me? Are you as fast with a blade as you pretend?’

The shift in Strigan’s mood was odd. Sometimes, he was just like any brash young man in his twenties, blessed with good looks, a warrior’s physique and just enough charm to cover his lascivious nature, pushed, no doubt, by some wealthy father into a religious life to which he was unsuited. The allusions to practising dark magic, the sexual aggression and displays of dominance added a layer of pompous showmanship over the base impulses that drove so many men in this barely civilised country. At other times, though, Estevar could see a violent hunger flaring beneath that vain, pretty exterior. In those moments, Strigan was indeed a wolf in man’s clothing.

After so many years riding the long roads of Tristia, hearing cases over which lords and commoners alike would kill, Estevar understood the ways of wolves.

Rather than make a show of readying himself for a fight, he walked up to the other man casually, neither slowly nor quickly, his movements devoid of either impetuous anger or excess caution. ‘You wonder now whether I am as dangerous as I led you to believe?’

Strigan’s nostrils flared as he locked eyes with him. ‘I begin to doubt.’

‘Wolves are creatures of instinct, are they not?’

‘I suppose.’

‘In the chamber below this one, while I was on one knee, my rapier scabbarded and yours already drawn with your blade upon me and you occupying the more advantageous position, your instincts warned you not to test me.’

‘So?’

Estevar didn’t smile, didn’t preen or posture. ‘My advice is to trust those instincts.’

Strigan abandoned his posture so quickly it was as if he’d entirely forgotten that he and Estevar weren’t simply two old friends sharing a jest. ‘Fine, fine,’ he said, throwing up his hands. ‘Who knew the King’s Magistrates were so homicidal?’

He will seek to reassert himself through other means, Estevar thought.To shock or surprise.

His prediction was proved correct only a moment later. Strigan strode back to the water, stripped off his tatters right in front of them and stepped into the brass vessel, splashing hot water and rose petals over the side. Leaning back, he rested his arms atop the curved rim. ‘After Venia died, I reconsidered his teachings on the spiritual decay brought about by excess luxury.’ Strigan gestured towards the paintings of past abbots, abbesses, dukes and duchesses on the wall. ‘Let those dead fools gaze down at me with disapproval. I feel no shame.’

Likely the truest words Strigan had ever uttered.

Estevar was about to seize on the opening he’d provided, but Caeda beat him to it. ‘Speaking of dead fools, when did you last see the abbot?’

‘What a delight to find you there, sweet Caeda, and me here. . .’ Strigan slid his hands over his tattooed chest, stroking those unusual esoteric sigils, and down further into the water. ‘Why not join me? Surely the Greatcoat doesn’t need someone like you to ask his questions for him?’

‘The Lady Caeda is my partner in this enquiry,’ Estevar replied without hesitation. ‘When she speaks, it is with my voice, which is that of the King’s Order of Travelling Magistrates.’

‘How dreary you are,’ Strigan said, exasperated. ‘I would’ve thought such a big fellow would be more jolly.’ He sighed theatrically. ‘Fine, let’s get this over with. I last saw Venia a little over a week ago, the morning his body turned up in the courtyard statuary.’

Already he concedes the lie about having killed him. Is there nothing constant about this preening peacock?‘Where, precisely did you first see the corpse?’ Estevar asked.

‘Like I told you, in the statuary.’ Strigan brought one hand out of the water to gesture lazily at nowhere in particular. ‘The body was between the shattered remains of Fabrida and Lutrizo.’

Fabrida and Lutrizo, the names given the gods of Craft and War here in the Duchy of Baern.Falcio val Mond claimed in the reports he left in Aramor that he’d witnessed the return of three gods: Love, Death, and a new one, Valour. Was there some meaning then, that the abbot’s corpse should be found between the statues of two godsnotto have been reborn?

‘Why did you move the body?’ Estevar asked next.

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