Clandestine circle

She tucked the thought away in her memory for later and led Windcatcher back to the trail. “I will come to the barn tonight if there’s time.”

With, a powerful thrust, the owl launched herself off Linsha’s arm and winged into the trees. “Until then,” she called and was gone, a whisper on the wind.

Heavy of heart, Linsha rode to the palace and reported to the officer of the watch. The lieutenant’s face paled, and his hand worked, open and shut, on the pommel of his sword while he shouted orders and organized a squad to investigate the murder.

When they were ready, Linsha led them back to the captain’s body and explained how her normally staid mare had bolted from a snake and charged into the undergrowth close enough to the grove of pine for Linsha to catch a glimpse of red.

The lieutenant, a stranger to her, eyed her suspiciously, paying special attention to her bloody shirt. She told him about her duty in the harbor district and the run-in with the looters. She suggested he talk to Mica and Commander Durne.

Still, the lieutenant took no chances of making a mistake in this murder of one of their own. He ordered Linsha to stand by until Lord Bight returned, then he posted guards by the body and Linsha and sent to the temple for Mica.

The dwarf, he was informed, had gone back to the city and was not available.

When she heard this, Linsha clenched her teeth and suppressed the oaths she wanted to utter. Maybe Varia had seen him and was following.

The nearly full moon rose and sailed placidly to its zenith before Lord Bight and his men returned from the farmlands in the vale. They rode slowly, bringing many wounded and three riderless horses with them. The officer of the watch met them at the front gate. He quaked inside, seeing Lord Bight was already in a towering rage, but he stood straight and delivered his bad news.

The lord governor reined his horse aside and rode down the hill without a word. Commander Durne waved the company on, then he and a squad trotted after Lord Bight into the trees and followed the flickering light of torches to the copse of pine and the body of Captain Dewald.

“Oh, no,” Durne breathed. He threw himself off his horse and knelt beside the body of his friend and aide. He bowed his head and covered his eyes with his gloved hand. Lord Bight squatted down on the other side of the body and, like Linsha, brushed away the ants and flies from Dewald’s face. After a moment Durne collected himself and, with Lord Bight’s help, tipped the captain’s body over. Together they examined it as thoroughly as they could in the light of torches.

“Who found the body?” Lord Bight demanded.

One of the guards pointed to Linsha, who sat under a nearby tree with two more guards in close attendance.

“Why are you under guard?” Commander Durne sprang to his feet and strode to her.

She stared up at him in weary resignation. “The officer of the watch didn’t like the stains on my shirt. He was just trying to be careful.”

“You may release her,” he ordered, and the two guardsmen saluted and moved away.

Once again she explained how she had found Dewald’s body on her way back to the palace. Lord Bight listened carefully, although his eyes burned with an inward fury that Linsha sensed had little to do with this incident. Commander Durne studied the ground around the body, noted the lack of blood and the drag marks in the grass, and came to the same conclusion Linsha had.

“He was killed somewhere else and dumped here,” he told the lord governor.

Lord Bight merely nodded, containing his anger like a volcano about to erupt.

Silently the company of guards gathered around their fallen comrade. They laid the captain’s body on a litter and escorted him through the veil of silver moonlight to the palace on the hill. There they wrapped him in a linen shroud, placed him on a bier, and set him to rest in the great hall until his burial in the morning. Guards stood at his head and feet, and his sword rested at his side. Commander Durne knelt by the bier for a long while, his head bowed and his hands resting on the shrouded arm of the dead.

Linsha, meanwhile, found herself free at last to seek her rest. After feeding and rubbing down Windcatcher, she retrieved a loose caftan robe from her quarters and made her way to the garden bathhouse. The courtyard was quiet, and the few men that were about were subdued and grim. She knew the foray that night had been a disaster, but no one had given her the details and she hadn’t asked. It seemed too much to face on top of the untimely death of Captain Dewald.

In the bathhouse, she handed over her bloody tunic and shirt to the ever-present attendant, who merely shook her head at Linsha’s carelessness with uniforms and bore them away.