“Then someone in Vengen is dressed like a Pelasian and using one of their hand bows; someone in the fortress.”
The marshal frowned.
“Assuming this is Cristus playing his hand, who could he have his hooks into here?”
Varro shrugged.
“Sadly, just about anyone. I…”
Suddenly the captain groaned as his eyes rolled up into his head and he slumped. Salonius, quick as a flash, grabbed Varro around the torso as he fell, lowering him gently to the floor.”
The young man looked up to see Catilina staring in horror and Sabian rushing around the side of his desk towards them.
“It’s alright,” Salonius reassured them, “he’s breathing. It’s just a reaction. Scortius warned me about this. About fifteen minutes ago he had some very strong medication. He’s supposed to be resting as much as possible anyway, but he’s overdone it. Two wounds, running around and, of course, his blood pressure’s pretty high even normally.”
Catilina’s face continued to verge on panic as she knelt beside the unconscious captain. Sabian, approaching, stood above her and looked down on her and the captain with a curious look on his face. The marshal crouched and grasped Varro by a shoulder. With a nod to Salonius, the two men hauled Varro up and dragged him across to Sabian’s couch, followed closely by the worried Catilina. They gently lay the captain on the soft velvet and tucked a cushion behind his head.
“He’s lucky to have you looking after him,” the marshal noted, giving Salonius an appraising glance.
“Just my duty, sir.” Replied the young man modestly.
Catilina crouched by the divan and gently mopped Varro’s brow with a soft cloth. Sabian gave her a quick concerned look, grasped Salonius’ shoulder and guided him away across the room. When they were a considerable distance away from Varro and Catilina, he let go and rubbed his hands together thoughtfully.
“I don’t think this is a duty thing, lad. I’m very much under the impression that the only people Varro can trust are in this room right now. We have a problem and we need to work out what we’re going to do about it.”
Salonius frowned.
“With respect, sir, we need to find this assassin.”
“Agreed,” Sabian nodded. “The question is: how to go about it?”
Salonius glanced briefly towards the door.
“We could perform a search, sir? The assassin was in Pelasian blacks and carrying a hand bow. I would assume that anyone leaving the military compound will be logged, so there are three possibilities as I see it.”
Sabian raised a questioning eyebrow.
“Well, sir,” Salonius answered quickly, “either the assassin fled the compound, in which case he’ll have been logged by the guards at the gate, or he’s still got the equipment stashed somewhere, in which case we can find it, or…”
“Or what?”
“Well, if it was me, sir, I’d have thrown the clothes and weapon over the walls. Removes any link with the guilty party.”
“Damn it, your right.” Sabian ground his teeth. “I’m going to have my commander organise a search of the compound and of the ditches below the walls, but if he’s thrown them away we’re going to have serious trouble pinning anyone down.”
“Perhaps, sir, but perhaps not. It all depends on what the search turns up.”
Sabian glanced back across the room to where his daughter continued her ministrations.
“What’s best for Varro right now?”
“If it’s alright with you, sir, I think we should leave him where he is for now.” Salonius answered. “Perhaps we should send for Scortius?”
Sabian nodded.
“I’ll have him and Mercurias both attend.” He glanced over at his daughter again. “Catilina? Salonius and I have business to attend to. I’m sending the doctors to have a look at Varro, but I think you should stay with him.”
Catilina gave him a weak smile.
“Out of trouble, you mean father?”
It was mid morning when Salonius and the marshal made their careful way along the deep grass ditch below the walls of Vengen. They had spent the morning organising the search, watching the darkness slowly give way to the dawn somewhere in the process. The compound had been sealed with the exception of the particular unit of Sabian’s guard that had been given the task of searching below the walls. The names of everyone who had left the compound between the time of the attack and the sealing of the gate had been taken, and each one of those individuals had been tracked down in the civilian settlement and brought back to the military compound. They numbered eight soldiers from the army, three from the First, two from the Fourth, one from the Fifth and two from the Eleventh, four members of Sabian’s guard, six of the Vengen garrison, and nine of the ancillary staff. Tracking them down in the crowded town must have been a monumental task, but the marshal’s guards had carried it out efficiently and without complaint.
As Salonius and Sabian went about their work throughout the morning, they’d watched with growing impatience as black-clad guards methodically turned the palace upside down, searching every room and corridor systematically, with the exception of Sabian and Catilina’s quarters. Once they’d finished with the palace, they moved on like a plague of very organised locusts, tearing apart the barracks of the four army cohorts, moving on to the garrison barracks, the stores, and so on. Even the granaries had been emptied and replaced. Salonius had been impressed at the level of activity and the effort put into this and wondered why Varro was so important that the marshal himself would turn Vengen upside down to aid him.
And finally he had come to the conclusion, as he watched the marshal at work, that Sabian was the kind of man who simply wouldn’t allow inefficiency and corruption within his demesne, and the young man found a new level of respect for the older man by his side. Sabian controlled Vengen, and therefore felt himself responsible for anything that happened within its walls. Perhaps he even felt a personal responsibility for Petrus’ death.
He simply wouldn’t rest until this was put right.
And throughout the morning’s activity, that single-minded need had driven him to push his men constantly. And all of it had led to the two of them traipsing through the grass, still damp with morning dew where the high walls had kept the ditch in shadow throughout the morning.
“It’s taken you all morning to search this?” Sabian demanded irritably of the black-clad captain who had led the exterior search.
“This ditch and the next outer one, sir, to be certain.” Salonius glanced at the guard and was surprised to see a sympathetic half-smile rather than the irritable defensiveness he’d expected. The marshal and his men shared a bond that the had been lacking between Cristus and the Fourth. “We were very much hampered by the conditions sir. The search has been much faster since the sun came properly up.
Sabian sighed and nodded.
“My apologies Captain. It’s been a hard night. I understand what you’ve had to deal with.”
The marshal rubbed his tired eyes and straightened his shoulders.
“So tell me about this” he said, gesturing with an outstretched arm toward a knot of black uniforms surrounding a small area.
The captain cleared his throat.
“One of the men found them around fifteen minutes ago sir. The bow had been broken into small pieces and both it and a heavy brick had been wrapped in the clothes, tied with cord and thrown from somewhere up there.” He pointed to an area of wall high up.
“Have you examined the items close up?”
The captain nodded.
“It’s not good news, sir.”
Sabian raised an eyebrow.
