Page 97 of Swordheart
Halla was, in fact, not quite so calm as she was pretending to be. She had seen plenty of dead bodies, she hadn’t lied about that, but seeing someone—two someones—killed in front of her had been a shock.
She was grateful that Zale had been so upset, because it meant that she didn’t have to be. Most of what she’d said while the priest was throwing their guts up had been soothing nonsense—it’s not your fault, it’s not anybody’s fault, it will be okay—but she found it had soothed her own nerves as well.
This comes of always being the practical one,she thought, a bit wearily.Nobody will comfort you, so you learn to do it yourself.
Sarkis had actually rolled the bodies in the blankets. She was grateful for that. Looking at the wounds would have seriously tested her calm.
He and Brindle hauled the two bodies into the back of the wagon and then Sarkis went off on the horses and Brindle drove the wagon onward. Halla kept looking back at the bloodstain in the road, but eventually it vanished around a bend and that was that.
Well, except for the matter of the two bodies.
“What are we going to do with them?” asked Zale. “It would take all day to bury them in frozen ground.”
“Can we take them back to your Temple?” asked Halla. Zale was clearly out of their depth, but she had a suspicion that Bishop Beartongue was not a stranger to disposing of the occasional corpse.
“It would take days,” said Zale. “And they’d be in the wagon… er… smelling. And if the Motherhood stops us again and demands to search the wagon…”
They both shuddered.
Halla chewed her lower lip. “What about frozen water?”
Zale glanced at her, puzzled. “I don’t follow.”
“Look, we’re freezing at night, but the water’s still pretty slushy, particularly in the woods where you get a lot of oak leaves. We could chop a hole in the ice easier than we could dig a grave. They’ll freeze under it, and probably no one will find them until spring.”
Zale considered this. “That… might work. Clearly you have a fine criminal mind.”
“I’m flattered. Wait, should I be flattered?”
“I don’t know anymore,” sighed the priest.
“It’s not like I’ve hidden a body in a pond before. It’s just that one of the goats drowned one fall and we didn’t find the body until spring.”
“It’s a good idea, anyway,” said Zale. “They’ll know that they’re missing once the horses show up, and they’ll probably guess they’re dead before long, but there’s no reason they’ll suspect us over anybody else on the road. And by the time they find the bodies, it’ll be months from now and everyone’s memory of when they went where will be hopelessly foggy.”
They stared at their hands. “Rat’s bones, I can’t believe we’re hiding bodies.”
“I’d feel a lot guiltier if it wasn’t the Motherhood,” admitted Halla. “They were just awful to the hostelkeeper’s wife about a year ago. Really nasty.”
Zale nodded. “The Hanged Mother attracts a certain kind ofmind, I fear. An unkind one. I have met a few among them who were not so bad, but it is a faith for those who value power and punishment. And—”
They cut off abruptly as the wagon rounded a corner, revealing a goatherd moving his charges down the road.
“Act natural!” hissed Zale.
Halla plastered a smile on her face and hoped it did not look as horribly strained as it felt. Zale had a much better poker face, probably because of their legal training, but they gave away so little that they looked more like a statue of a priest.
“Lovely day, isn’t it?” said Halla.
The goatherd looked at her, then at the cold drizzle surrounding them, and said, “Eh?”
“I mean, not lovely. Very not lovely.Lousyweather.”
The goatherd allowed as how it was indeed lousy. Zale sat stiff as a poker, gazing down the road at nothing much.
The sword on Halla’s back moved suddenly, hilt clicking down into the sheath. Halla jumped as if she’d been kicked and let out a yelp.
The goatherd inched over to the side of the road to give the wagon a wide berth. The goats eyed them all maliciously, but this probably didn’t mean anything, since in Halla’s experience, goats eyed everything maliciously.
