Page 2

Chapter 2

When I had gotten hold of myself, I returned to the table and stared down at the fragments of flesh.

I had never had to work with such shattered parts of a person before. Still, it was my job as an Iudex investigator to memorize it: to engrave all I saw in my memory, and then report my experiences to my commanding officer.

I reached into my engraver’s satchel at my side, slid out a small glass vial, and uncorked it. I shut my eyes and inhaled deeply from it, letting the aroma of the nectarous oils bathe the interior of my skull: a blessing after what I’d just been through. With this scent in my nostrils, I could better anchor all the memories I’d engrave here, and quickly recall them later.

I opened my eyes, looked down at the pitiful remains of Sujedo, and focused.

I took in the shape of the remains, their color, the way they had been contorted; how the bones had been broken, how the skin had curdled, the wend and weft of the flesh. As my memory had been enhanced to be perfect, these awful sights would remain with me until I died. But such was my lot in service to the Empire.

I dabbed at my mouth with a handkerchief. “Why didn’t we find more of him?” I asked huskily.

Malo slid off her apron and gloves. “We’ve many reaper-backs in the Yarrow canals. My thinking is, one found him floating and made a meal of him.”

“Reaper-backs?”

“A turtle. Slightly smaller than a man. Very pretty shells, but very carnivorous. Can take an arm off in a single bite. Or, well…” She gestured at Sujedo’s remains. “More.”

“What makes you so sure they’re what did this?”

“The organs, or the lack of them. Reaper-backs have a tongue for them. After the smugglers, the turtles are the second most dangerous thing on the Great Canals. And they are much harder to kill.”

“How exotic. Do we think he fell prey to one of them?”

“Possible. But it’s more likely, I think, that he was fed to them to try to dispose of him.”

“Why?”

“Because of this,” she said, pointing to the outer edge of the shoulder, where the arm would ordinarily connect to the chest muscles.

I peered at it, fighting another rumbling in my stomach. Yet I saw what she meant: the bone and ligaments there were not torn and ragged, but queerly smooth.

“A cut,” I said. “Like sawing. He was cut into pieces before he entered the waters?”

“That is our conclusion,” said Malo. “Perhaps to better attract the turtles, or…perhaps the killer simply enjoyed butchery. I am unsure. Yet look closer at the hand.”

I leaned in and studied the preserved hand. There was a discoloration at the joint, I thought: a stripe of flesh both too dark and too pale in parts. I spied a hint of tiny lacerations in the stripe, in patterns that made me think of something fibrous.

“He was bound,” I said. “By the wrists.”

Malo nodded, slightly impressed. “Yes. Fibers in the wound, too. Looks like from a rope of some kind. Very dark, very coarse. Tar soaked.” She tapped her temple, beside her purpled, augmented eyes. “Canal-rigging rope, as far as I can see.”

“Canal rope,” I said quietly.

“Yes. He must have strained against them greatly to make those marks.”

“Was there anyone unusual seen at his lodgings?”

Malo shook her head. “There is the rest of the Treasury delegation, who come and go in their work with the Yarrow king. Then there are the servants—the maids, the cook, the footmen. And then, of course, the guards assigned by we Apoths. They all say they saw no one unfamiliar, nor strange.”

I pondered this, then sniffed at my vial again, anchoring the sight of the bruised wrist within my mind. “Can you turn over the other pieces for me, please?”

She did so, gingerly turning the jawbone and the fragment of torso like they were fine crockery I had a mind to purchase.

There was something on the back of the torso, I saw, on the shoulder blade: a circular patch of missing skin, excised from the flesh, about the size of a talint coin.

“What’s that?” I asked, pointing.

“We don’t know,” said Malo. “Not a turtle bite, though, as that takes off more than skin. The skin was cut off or shorn away.”

“Did Sujedo have any identifying marks?” I asked. “Scar, blemish, or tattoo?”

“You mean,” said Malo, “could they have cut skin away to make it hard for us to tell who he was?”

“Yes. Did he?”

“No,” she grunted. “But if he was murdered, and if the murderer knew anything about the man, they would’ve been aware that identifying him would be simple.”

“Why’s that?” I asked. Then I frowned. “Wait. How did you identify these body parts as belonging to Sujedo, given that they lack nearly all identifying features?”

She looked me over like I had just said something very foolish. “Because he was Treasury,” she said flatly.

“And what does that mean?” I asked.

Another prolific yet incredibly accurate spit. She squinted at me. “I thought you Iudex knew everything. Yet you don’t know the Treasury arts?”

“Treasury officers serve in civilized cantons,” I said tartly. “Which are not places I often visit in my duties.”

She grunted like she found this explanation wanting. “Treasury officers above the rank of captain have augmented blood. Comes from a little cultivated organ implanted in the armpit.” She tapped her own to show me. “Treasury banks handle all manner of protected materials. Safes, vaults, lockboxes…Like reagent keys. You know these things? The little trinkets that give off a pheromonal signal, telling a portal to open?”

I nodded, stone-faced, for I was indeed familiar with these.

“A Treasury officer’s blood is like the same,” said Malo, “opening protected things when they grow near, or at a touch.”

“And you found the right kind of blood in these bits.”

“These body parts didn’t have much blood in them, but they had enough for our tests. They contain the blood of a Treasury immunis. Since we are only missing one of those…well, must be Sujedo.”

I turned this over. “We seem to be missing quite a bit of him,” I said. “So that makes me wonder…”

“Could some madman carry Sujedo’s severed hand into a Treasury bank to open a safe, or some such?” asked Malo. She snorted. “Give us Apoths some credit. We can detect dead blood, sure, but the protective tests about the vaults are designed to respond to a high concentration of living tissues. Not dead ones.”

I stood over the shattered remains, tabulating all of this information.

“So,” I said. “In sum…we do not have all of Sujedo’s body.”

“Obviously,” said Malo.

“And we do not have any witnesses for his abduction, nor his death. Nor do we have any idea how either was managed.”

“We do not.”

“In fact, we do not actually know where he died. Or when. Nor do we have any suspects whatsoever.”

“You are beginning to see my relief,” Malo said dryly, “that you Iudex are here to work your magic.”

I pondered how to move forward. “The only two places Sujedo went during his time here were to the bank and to his lodgings. Yes?”

“Yes.”

“And what business did he do at the bank?”

“Stowed away some papers in a safe,” she said. “I had the Treasury clerks there pull it. It was his orders, along with sheets of numbers. Tax things. Nothing particularly interesting.”

I dabbed at my mouth with a handkerchief, hoping my pallor hid my dismay. It was one thing to be dropped into such a location to work with bare pieces of a body, yet the more I learned about this murder, the less trail there seemed to follow. How strange it felt to be presented with a death so puzzling, and yet also so utterly blank. Yet I would have to rummage up something to report on before Ana arrived, or I’d hear no end of it.

I sighed, then said, “I suppose you’d better take me to his lodgings, please.”