Sham shrugged, falling back into her thief persona. “It was becoming clear that you held Lord Kerim responsible for Lord Ven’s death. I thought that was unnecessarily harsh for the both of you.”
Lady Tirra nodded and started to speak, but her voice was overridden by the sound of someone pounding frantically on the door. Talbot, who was the closest, opened it. Sham recognized the stableman who’d come to get Kerim before, but this time he had obviously been running.
“My Lord, there’s a man murdered in the stables. There’s a riot brewing with Elsic in the middle. The Stablemaster sent me to fetch you ’fore things get out of hand.”
Kerim nodded and started for the door, pausing briefly to snatch the war horn that hung on the wall. “Talbot, stay with Mother. When she feels well enough, escort her to her rooms and then join us in the stables. Shamera, come with me.”
She started after him then realized she still had her thieving garb on. Stepping to a mirror on the wall near the door, she set a brief spell, not really an illusion, since her talents didn’t run that way, but something akin to an invisibility spell—almost as good as Dickon’s don’t-look-at-me-I’m-only-a-servant demeanor.
She caught up with Kerim halfway down the corridor.
10
Elsic tucked his head against the silky-soft shoulder of the Reeve’s warhorse. He held the brush in one hand as he absorbed the warm scent of horse and fresh straw.
The stallion had a long name in the Eastern tongue, but Kerim called the horse Scorch because he was blackened on all ends like a scorched bit of wood. Elsic liked to curl his tongue around the odd name when he talked to the stallion.
Since Kerim had granted him leave to work with the horse, Elsic had been given the task of grooming him and keeping his stall clean. Relying on touch rather than sight, it took him longer than the other grooms; but the Stablemaster said he did as good a job as Jab, who had groomed the Reeve’s stallion previously. The praise hadn’t made Elsic any more popular with Jab or any of his cronies, especially after Jab was dismissed for using beggar’s-blessing. He really didn’t mind the other stablemen’s antagonism. He didn’t like to talk much anyway, except to Scorch and occasionally with the Stablemaster or Kerim.
Elsic spent most of his time in the quarantine barn where Kerim’s stallion had been banished after breaking out of his stall and savaging one of the other stallions. There were four stalls in the barn, stout-walled with barred windows, but Scorch was the only occupant.
When the stallion shifted restlessly, Elsic returned to grooming the last bit of sweat that remained from the long-line exercise the Stablemaster gave Scorch twice daily to keep him fit. Usually the big animal relished the attention and stood motionless as long as Elsic kept the brush moving, but today Scorch took a half-step away from the brush and began making huff-huff noises as he expelled air forcefully through his nostrils.
Elsic put a hand out and touched the horse’s shoulder. The velvet texture was damp with nervous sweat, and the muscles underneath were taut with battle-readiness. The boy tried to smell what disturbed the animal—he’d long ago found that his nose was almost as keen as the horse’s. As he drew in a deep breath, he heard something brush against wood as it entered the barn. Instinctively, Elsic stood as still as he could trying not to draw attention to himself.
Like Elsic, the warhorse was quiet, issuing no challenges to the invader of his territory. Elsic wrapped a hand in the horse’s mane for reassurance as he heard rustles and bumps in the stall across the aisle.
It was gone as suddenly as it had come. He didn’t hear it leave, but it was gone all the same. Scorch whistled piercingly, half-rearing until Elsic’s feet were lifted off the floor. The boy smelled it too—blood.
Reluctantly, he loosened his grip and stepped out of the stall, shutting the door but not latching it behind him. He thought about seeking out the Stablemaster, but a strange sense of dread drew him across the aisle to the next stall instead.
The door was latched; it look him a moment of fumbling to open it. When his left boot touched something, he knelt and stretched out a reluctant hand, though he knew the man was dead.
As they neared the stables, Sham could hear angry muttering and the shrill scream of an enraged stallion. There was a small barn to the side of the main buildings where most of the disturbance seemed to be concentrated. She felt a bit of smug satisfaction when the Reeve’s new chair traveled easily over the ruts and rocks of the stable-yard.
A group of angrily muttering stablemen were gathered at the east end of the barn, near the entrance. The Stablemaster stood in front of them, a long, wicked whip held readily in one hand as he struggled to be heard over the growl of the crowd.
Sham had seen enough mobs to know when one was brewing; a thread of uneasiness had her palming her dagger.
When the Stablemaster noticed them approaching, he quit trying to address the crowd and contented himself with keeping them back. His eyes passed over Sham without pause, dismissing her as he would a servant. Distracted by her spell’s success, it wasn’t until they were quite close that Sham realized it was more than just the stablemaster’s whip that kept the mob from entering the building.
Snorting and tossing its head, a large dark-bay stallion paced restlessly back and forth, occasionally striking at the air with a quick foreleg. White foam lathered his wide chest and flanks. His ears were flattened, giving him a wicked look not lessened by his rolling eyes. He looked like the horse Kerim had been riding the night she’d met him, but Sham wasn’t certain.
When they were within several paces of the crowd, Kerim stopped and blew the war horn he’d brought from his room. The mournful wail cut easily through the lower rumbling of the crowd. When the last echoes of it died down the stableyard was quiet; even the stallion had stilled.
Satisfied that he had their attention, Kerim continued forward. A path opened in the crowd and Sham, anonymously androgynous in her dusty clothes, followed him until he stood next to the Stablemaster.
Kerim turned to the crowd and addressed them in Southern first, repeating himself in Cybellian. “I believe you all have duties elsewhere.”
At his cool look, most of the small crowd dissolved until only a handful of stubborn men remained.
Kerim’s eyebrows raised in mock surprise. “Am I to understand that none of you work in my stables?”
The men shifted uneasily, but one stepped forward. Doffing his cap, he looked at the ground. “Begging your pardon, sire, but the man what died is my brother, Jab. He asked me to meet him in the barn when I finished with my horses, said he had somewhat to show me. When I comes in, I sees that weirdie ...” He cleared his throat, perhaps remembering that the Reeve was known to take an interest in Elsic. “’Cuse me, sire. I sees Elsic kneeling down next to the body of my brother. There weren’t no head on the body, sire. I only know’d it was Jab ’cus of his boots.”
Kerim eyed the sharp-bladed scythe the stableman was carrying and said blandly. “So you decided to carry out a little justice of your own, did you?”
The ruddy stableman blanched, and his friends began quietly to drift away.
“It were for my own protection, sire. That demon horse opened its stall and drove me out of the barn ’fore I could catch Elsic and hold him for the guards.”
Kerim shook his head in disgust. “Enough. Take the scythe back to where it belongs. You have the rest of the day off. Your brother will be seen to by the priests of the Temple. If you desire other arrangements for him, talk to one of them.” He waved his hand in dismissal.
When the last of them were gone, Kerim turned his attention to the barn. The big stallion snorted and raised both front legs in a slow, controlled rear that he held for a long moment before dropping to all fours.