Book 7: Chapter 5: A midwinter murder
The priestess’s declaration caused another wave of outbursts and crying. The alderman raised his hands in despair and approached Martel. “Master mage, please, is there nothing you can do?”
Martel frowned, wondering if the old man thought magic could raise the dead. It could, but nobody would be satisfied with the result, and necromancy was frowned upon in civilised society. “I doubt it,” he mumbled. He did not feel particularly upset at this man’s death; he did not know the yeoman, and from what little Martel knew, he had seemed an unlikeable brute.
He wondered if the villagers would cease their grieving once they realised this death would give them the access to the meadow they had been denied, unless the newly made widow upheld her late husband’s ban – unlikely, given the village had sheltered her. A suspicious thought entered Martel’s mind, and he made his way over to the body.
The priestess moved aside, and Martel turned him over. Seeing the face of the dead man brought a third round of wailing, which he ignored in favour of forcing the man’s mouth open. He got on his feet and turned to the alderman. “We should remove his body. Perhaps the root cellar?” he suggested.
Eleanor, having heard him, nodded and joined them. “I will help.”
“I suppose,” the alderman stammered. He went over and opened a hatch in the floor by the hearth. With ease, the mageknight picked up the body, hoisting it over her shoulder. Seeing the lithe woman carry a man twice her size made several of the villagers make the sign of Sol with their hands, cupping them together; evidently, not all had realised they had two mages visiting, not just one.
While Eleanor removed the body, Martel picked up the yeoman’s belongings, including his cloak to cover him with. He hurried after Eleanor, summoning a flame to light her path down the stairs.
Down below, they found themselves surrounded by barrels of grain and other provisions, kept cool and safe from vermin. Eleanor found room on the floor for him, and Martel handed her the dead man’s cape to provide him with some dignity for now. As she spread it out to place it on top of him, Martel sat down and rummaged through the yeoman’s pack.
“What are you looking for?”
“Just something I’m wondering about.” Martel quickly found what he had expected, pulling out a jar. Shaking it a little, he could feel liquid inside sloshing about. “The herbalist said she made him medicine for his heart. Foxglove, I assume.” “What about it?”
“Such a remedy should not leave a particular trace after drinking it.” Martel stuck a hand inside the pack again and pulled out a second jar, empty. “Yet the dead man’s tongue was discoloured, and his lips are already becoming blue, despite him being dead only a few moments.”
Eleanor exhaled. “You think he was poisoned.”
“Right now, it feels the most likely explanation, yes.”
“Should we warn the others?”
He shook his head. “Someone else would be sick by now if it was in the shared food.” He raised the jars in his hand. “But nobody but the yeoman would have drunk from these.”
Martel heard something scurrying about at the top of the stairs; he looked up to see a pair of legs belonging to a child disappearing out of the hatch.
The furore coming from the room above suggested that the child had not kept quiet about their ill-gained knowledge. Martel sighed and looked at Eleanor. “I suppose we better go upstairs.”
“You are the alchemist – I shall leave the explanation to you.”
“Gracious.” They both got up on their feet and returned to the room above, being met by a host of stares, most of them wide-eyed and frightened.
“Master mage, is it true what the boy said?”
“Did someone kill Master Harold?”
“Is there a poisoner in our village?”
The barrage of questions would have undoubtedly continued, but Martel raising a hand commanded silence. “It is a suspicion of mine, not a certainty. Speculation and rash action will accomplish nothing.”
“But master mage,” the alderman complained, “we are simple folk. Are we to live forever with the fear that one of our neighbours would kill us, should we look at them the wrong way?”
“Or suspect and accuse each other every day?” interjected his wife.
Martel closed his eyes, realising the trap he had made for himself. He opened them again to find that, just as before, every villager stared at him. “I’ll look into it. See what I can learn.”
“Praise be Sol,” some of them mumbled. Martel did not share the sentiment.
With the celebration effectively at an end, however abruptly, the villagers returned home, leaving Martel and Eleanor alone. “This is a strange situation we have landed in,” she muttered, shaking her head. They took a seat at one of the tables opposite each other. “This should be dealt with by the local magistrate, not us.”
“By the time he would arrive, I imagine it is far too late to determine whether a crime has been committed or not. And this could still be some kind of accident. The man took remedies from the herbalist – he might have taken more than he should, turning a cure into poison.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You seem almost keen on getting involved in this.”
“Hardly,” he scoffed. “But we are here, and the local magistrate is not. Furthermore, this requires knowledge of apothecary work, and obviously, being a supplier of medicine to the dead man, the herbalist in the village is not trustworthy. It feels like I’m needed to solve this.”
“Very well.” Eleanor shrugged. “If you do not mind if we delay. But I do think the good sister is above suspicion. The Maidens of the Moon take a holy vow not to do harm with their skills. It is difficult to imagine the priestess would have broken her oath.”
“I suppose she had no reason either. She alone in the village was still allowed to use the meadow,” Martel considered. “The wife might be the most obvious suspect.”
“But if her, would she not have poisoned him on any other night than this? In full view of the entire village? Surely, she could have found an opportunity to do so in their home.”
He scratched the back of his neck. “I guess so. That still leaves everyone else in the village who might have been mad that the yeoman denied them access to the meadow.”
“It seems a lot to kill for. It makes me wonder if perhaps it truly was accidental.”
“Reeds for their roofs and baskets, herbs for healing and seasoning, grazing for their animals,” Martel recounted. “They’ve been denied a lot.” He took a deep breath. “Well, first thing is trying to figure out what really killed him, poison or not. I better take a second look at the body, and those jars.” He stared at the small pots containing the priestess’s remedies.
“Do you require my help?”
“No, it’s fine. You should sleep. It’s already late.”
She yawned. “As you say.”
Investigating the corpse yielded little. The discolouring could come from any number of herbs or ingredients; it did little to narrow down what the yeoman had ingested before dying. As for the jars, one had a lid made from goat hide, stretched over the opening and tied in place with string; the other, still containing liquid, was sealed by cowskin. Martel tried to smell them both, but he did not notice anything worthwhile. He would have to think of some way to find out more.
But such was for tomorrow. Extinguishing his flame, he returned from the root cellar to the main room. Eleanor was already asleep, though she had left his lightstone on the table to illuminate his way. Martel placed it inside his pack, plunging the space into darkness, and went to sleep as well.