“No,” said Shamera. “In this climate, the body will start to rot soon. It will still be too obvious how long Lord Ven has been dead.”
“But it might work, if no one remembers exactly when the last time they saw Lord Ven was,” said Kerim with obvious reluctance at the thought of leaving his brother’s body untended for so long.
“No,” said Dickon, but he was unable to come up with more of an objection. Sham knew that he was more concerned with Kerim than with the state of Lord Ven’s body.
“I won’t be able to sleep in a room next to a dead man’s rotting body,” lied Sham firmly.
Dickon nodded approvingly at such ladylike sentiments.
Kerim, for his part, shot her an impatient look. “You were willing enough to leave Ven there when we thought that we could use the knowledge of his death to trap the demon.”
Sham dismissed that with an airy gesture. “That was different,” she said.
“What about magic?” said Talbot. “Is there some way that you can make Lord Ven’s body stiffen with rigor mortis again?”
Sham tilted her head in consideration. “Yes, and mask the smell of the blood as well. I’ll need an hour of rest first.”
Dickon looked at her.
“Do you really have some way of changing the appearance of the body?”
Sham grinned cheerfully at him and responded as she usually did to someone who so obviously didn’t believe in magic. “‘I have a few tricks up my sleeve that I wouldn’t expect a Cybellian barbarian to understand.’”
“Parlor tricks,” commented Dickon in thoughtful tones.
Sometime during the past hour, Dickon had lost most of the mannerisms of a servant. Sham looked at him narrowly. Maybe she wasn’t the only one here who was good at playing roles.
After a moment, Dickon shrugged.
“If it works, then it doesn’t matter if it’s chicanery or not. But —” he added with honest offense, “—if you ever call me a Cybellian again, girl, I’ll wash your mouth out with soap. I am Jarnese—” He named another Eastern country. “Cybellians are uncultured, bark-eating barbarians.”
Sham lowered her head in submission, saying in a sweet voice, “If you call me ‘girl’ again, I’ll turn you into a minnow.”
“Children!” said Kerim sharply, as Sham and Dickon exchanged mutually satisfied looks. The hint of amusement in his tone faded as he continued to speak. “Back to the issue at hand. Shamera, go rest. We’ll wake you in an hour to see about my brother’s body. I’ll fill in the details of what we know, for Dickon and Talbot.”
Sham nodded and came to her feet. As she started to duck under the tapestry. Kerim’s voice followed her, “I thought that it bothered you to sleep in a room next to my brother’s body.”
She gave him a sly look and continued into her room.
9
Alone in the putrid-smelling room, Sham surveyed Lord Ven’s body. Filthy work this and nothing she relished, but it had to be done. She’d told Kerim she worked best alone, but the truth was she feared his grief would distract her. He tried to hide it, but in the short time that she’d known him, she had learned how to read deeper than his public presentation. She rubbed her eyes and put such thoughts aside.
The blood first, she decided after surveying the task before her.
She could clean up the old stuff, but couldn’t create new blood to replace it without exhausting her magic well before she’d finished. Creating matter was extremely inefficient, and true alchemy, changing one kind of material into another, was almost as fatiguing. Sham had briefly considered visiting the kitchens and bringing in the blood of a slaughtered pig or some such, but the risk of someone noticing her was too great.
She knelt at the edge of the dark stain, ignoring the faint queasiness resulting from the rancid smell. She pulled her dagger from her arm sheath, which she had donned with the rest of her thieving garb, and opened a shallow cut on her thumb. Three drops of fresh blood joined the old.
Sympathetic magic was one of the easiest kinds of spells to work: like called to like. Using blood, though, was very close to black magic. There were many mages who would call it that even if the blood she used was her own. Even Sham felt vaguely unclean doing it, but didn’t allow that to hinder her.
Bending near the floor, she blew gently on the fresh blood, then murmured a spell. Lord Ven’s blood began to change, slowly, to the pattern lent by hers. Sweat gathered irritatingly on Sham’s forehead as she fought to work the magic and watch the results at the same time. It was important that the blood not appear too fresh.
She stopped her spell while the edges of the largest pool were still dry. She cooled the blood to match the temperature of the room and surveyed the results. The smell of new blood added to the unpleasant mix of aromas already in the room. Rising somewhat unsteadily, Sham walked around the newly wet pool until she could view Lord Ven’s body.
She did not risk stepping in the mess; what she had done to the blood destroyed the traces where she, Kerim, and later Talbot and Dickon, had disturbed it. It would be disturbed again, but the mistress of the Reeve would have no business in the room with a corpse, and she wanted no questions about a woman’s footprint.
What she needed to do to Lord Ven’s body could be done from a distance, and she had no real desire to touch the corpse anyway. It was easier than the blood, since she only had to emulate the stiffness of joints rather than duplicate it.
When she was finished with her spell, she stepped away from the scene. Wiping her hands on her clean shirt as if they were stained—though she’d touched nothing with them—she turned and picked her way across the floor to the panel that opened into the passages and left the room.
The three men looked up when she entered the Reeve’s chambers.
“It is done,” she said, her voice sounding as raw to her ears as she felt, “but if his laying out takes too long, someone could discover that I’ve been meddling: Lord Ven’s rigor will not loosen for a week or more.”
Kerim nodded. “I’ll take care of it.”
Talbot called in several men to travel to the Temple of Altis for priests to attend to Lord Ven. Until they arrived, Talbot guarded the hall door of Ven’s final resting place while Dickon stood watch at the panel.
Sham retreated to her room to change, carefully locking the trunk after she put her thieving clothes away. After an extensive search of the closet she found a dress she could don without help.
In her guise of the Reeve’s mistress, she rejoined Kerim in his room where they waited for the priests without speaking. Sham didn’t know what caused Kerim’s muteness, but she kept quiet because she was too tired to do otherwise. It would be a long day before the fatigue of her magic use would leave her.
Dickon entered the room and nodded at Kerim.
“Tell the priests to step in here a moment before carrying out their duties.” Kerim’s normal baritone had deepened to a bass rasp, either from exhaustion or from sorrow.
Dickon nodded, returning with five men in the brown robes of the lesser minions of Altis. Four of the robes were belted with blue ties and the fifth wore yellow.
Kerim addressed the man in yellow. “Blessings upon you, brothers.”
“Upon you also, Lord Kerim,” responded the yellow-belted one.
“The dead man is my brother.”
“So we were informed by Master Talbot.”
Kerim nodded impatiently. “My brother’s affianced wife is heavy with child, and already bears the death of her first husband this past year. I would spare her further grief, and Ven’s body is not fit for viewing in any case. It is my command that his body be shrouded immediately and a funeral pyre laid and ready for burning in the Castle courtyard at sunset.”
“It shall be done, Lord Kerim,” agreed the solemn-faced priest.
Kerim watched as they left the room. Sham turned her eyes away from the expression on his face. When she looked back he was sending Dickon to find some of the court pages to deliver messages.