The Stitcher and the Mute Read online

  THE STITCHER AND THE MUTE

  D.K Fields

  AN AD ASTRA BOOK

  www.headofzeus.com

  First published in the UK in 2020 by Head of Zeus Ltd

  An Ad Astra Book

  Copyright © D.K. Fields, 2020

  The moral right of D.K. Fields to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN (HB): 9781789542523

  ISBN (XTPB): 9781789542530

  ISBN (E): 9781789542516

  Head of Zeus Ltd

  5–8 Hardwick Street

  London EC1R 4RG

  WWW.HEADOFZEUS.COM

  For our dads, John and John

  Contents

  Welcome Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map

  The Swaying Audience

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  The Perlish story

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Torn Story

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  An Invitation from the Publisher

  Map

  The Swaying Audience

  Abject Reveller, god of: loneliness, old age, fish

  Affable Old Hand, god of: order, nostalgia, punctuality

  Beguiled Picknicker, god of: festivals, incense, insect bites

  Blind Devotee, god of: mothers, love, the sun

  Bloated Professional, god of: wealth, debt, shined shoes

  Calm Luminary, god of: peace, light, the forest

  Courageous Rogue, god of: hunting, charity, thin swords

  Curious Stowaway, god of: rites of passage, secrets, summer and the longest day

  Deaf Relative, god of: hospitality

  Delicate Tout, god of: herbs, prudence, drought

  Engaged Matron, god of: childbirth

  Exiled Washerwoman, god of: sanitation, rivers, obstacles

  Faithful Companion, god of: marriage, loyalty, dancing

  Filthy Builder, god of: clay, walls, buckets

  Frail Beholder, god of: beauty, spectacles, masks

  Generous Neighbour, god of: harvest, fertility, the first day of the month

  Gilded Keeper, god of: justice, fairness, cages

  Grateful Latecomer, god of: good fortune, spontaneity, autumn

  Heckling Drunkard, god of: jokes, drink, fools

  Honoured Bailiff, god of: thieves, the dark, bruises

  Insolent Bore, god of: wind, bindleleaf, borders

  Inspired Whisperer, god of: truth, wisdom, silk

  Jittery Wit, god of: madness, lamps, volcanoes

  Keen Musician, god of: destiny, wine, oil

  Lazy Painter, god of: rain, noon, hair

  Missing Lover, god of: forbidden love, youth, thunder

  Moral Student, god of: the horizon, knowledge, mountains

  Needled Critic, god of: criticism, bad weather, insincerity

  Nodding Child, god of: sleep, dreams, innocence

  Overdressed Liar, god of: butlers, beards, mischief

  Overlooked Amateur, god of: jilted lovers, the wronged, apprentices

  Pale Widow, god of: death and renewal, winter, burrowing animals, the moon

  Penniless Poet, god of: song, poetry, money by nefarious means

  Prized Dandy, god of: clothes, virility, bouquets

  Querulous Weaver, god of: revenge, plots, pipes

  Reformed Trumpeter, god of: earthquakes, the spoken word

  Restless Patron, god of: employment, contracts and bonds, spring

  Scandalous Dissenter, god of: protest, petition, dangerous animals

  Senseless Brawler, god of: war, chequers, fire

  Stalled Commoner, god of: home and hearth, decisions, crowds

  The Mute, god of: Silence

  Travelling Partner, god of: journeys, danger and misfortune, knives

  Ugly Messenger, god of: pennysheets, handicrafts, dogs

  Valiant Glutton, god of: cooking, trade, cattle

  Vicious Beginner, god of: milk and nursing, midnight, ignorance

  Weary Governess, god of: schooling, cats

  Wide-eyed Inker, god of: tattoos, colour, sunsets

  Withering Fishwife, god of: dusk, chastity, flooding

  Yawning Hawker, god of: dawn, comfort, grain

  Zealous Stitcher, god of: healing and mending

  One

  Detective Cora Gorderheim had heard many stories that started with death. Now, here was another, set in a barn in East Perlanse. Which of the Audience would hear this story’s end? The Mute? The Keeper? Or the Widow?

  The sour air of the barn hit Cora as soon as she stepped inside. It caught the back of her throat. She swallowed and tasted sinta, but overripe: the point when the fruit had gone bad but there was still no sign on the skin. When it tricked the eater. She spat into the straw at her feet and went over to the bodies.

  Four of them.

  Only one was a stranger: an older woman in a driver’s long coat. She would’ve held the reins of the prisoner transport that drove this sad party here. Cora had passed the empty coach on her way into the barn.

  Two of the dead were constables in uniform – veteran officers Cora recognised.

  And the last body, the one Cora knew well. Or had thought she did.

  The Casker, Finnuc Dawson.

  He was lying a little way from the other three, closer to the door, face down in the straw with his legs stretched out behind him. Perhaps the Casker had realised what was happening and had tried to go for help. Or perhaps he was just trying to escape; that was more like him. Not that he would have got far anyway, what with the shackles at his ankles. It was a mercy she couldn’t see his face. Given the state of the others, it wouldn’t be pretty.

  He’d been strong and handsome, and when he told a story there was a boyishness to his eyes. Now he was ruined. At the thought of it, Cora shuddered. But she forced herself to step around Finnuc’s body, glad to have him behind her, out of sight for the moment. She squatted next to the dead driver.

  The woman was on her side in the straw. Cora took a handkerchief from her coat and gently pushed the woman’s hair from her face. Her lips were blistered, her cheeks dark purple and her eyes all but out of their sockets, the whites thick with red lines. Both these things told a story of forceful purging. And here was evidence of it, all down th
e woman’s coat and in the straw around her face: green liquid shot through with clots of blood. The poor woman looked to have brought up half her lungs along with whatever had poisoned her.

  ‘Widow welcome you, friend,’ Cora said, invoking a member of the Audience. But opening her own mouth was a mistake, given how the sour smell was much worse this near the corpse. She gagged, briefly imagined her own eyes being forced from her skull with the effort of retching, and stepped quickly away.

  Something rolled against her foot. She used the handkerchief to free whatever it was from the straw. A bowl. A few spoons’ worth of orange liquid sloshed inside. A broth or soup most likely.

  She checked the bodies of the constables and found a bowl beside each of them too, the same orange stains inside. The pair were lying together, the woman’s arm hanging over the chest of her male companion like a tale for the Devotee. But Cora thought it less romantic than that. The story here was that he’d shown signs first and she’d sought to help, then been taken ill herself and purged her insides all over him before they both choked to death, or their hearts gave out with the effort of breathing. Either way, the ending was the same. And all because of Finnuc Dawson.

  There were voices outside the barn, raised voices, one of which Cora recognised as the capable tones of Constable Jenkins. She’d told Jenkins to keep everyone out, to give Cora a chance to see what stories the barn told before other people came in and started telling their own. From the noise, it didn’t sound like that was going too well.

  A man barged in. He was tall and looked too thin for his frame. Way he was going, arms swinging this way and that, face red with rage, he’d be in the straw himself before too long.

  ‘Can’t you hurry up?’ he said. He wore a dark green jacket with a ridiculously tall collar that clipped his ears, and more buttons than was sensible. Feathers streamed from his lapels. Perlish fashions never ceased to be a mystery to Cora. ‘I’ve got a business to run!’ he said. He glanced behind him, then back to Cora. ‘And the customers are starting to notice.’

  ‘Given the smell, I’ve no doubt they are, Mr…’

  ‘Tr’stanton. Samuel Tr’stanton.’

  Constable Jenkins slipped past him and into the barn, her blue jacket a sharp contrast against the yellow straw. Cora recognised the look on the young woman’s face: the blend of annoyance and professionalism, carefully managed, that made Jenkins such an asset. Her mouth was fixed in a line that hid her usually prominent teeth from view.

  ‘Sorry, Detective. He wouldn’t take no for an answer.’

  Cora waved away the apology. She needed to talk to the barn owner anyway. Might as well get it over with. Useful to see his reaction to the horrors still lying in his barn, which didn’t seem to be much of a reaction, truth be told. His boots were closer to the dead driver’s head than Cora thought was right.

  ‘Well, Mr Tristanton,’ she said.

  ‘It’s Tr’stanton, without the i.’

  ‘Right, well, these folks aren’t going anywhere until I get a stitcher to look at them. Speaking of which – Jenkins?’

  ‘Stitcher’s been sent for, Detective, and some local constables. Don’t know how long they’ll take though. Nearest station’s a few miles off apparently.’

  ‘We’ll just have to wait then, won’t we?’ Cora said, and gave Tr’stanton an apologetic smile that was low on the apology, the kind loved by the Critic.

  Tr’stanton’s face grew even redder and spit shone at the edges of his mouth. ‘On whose authority are you preventing me from earning an honest mark?’

  She pulled out her badge and pushed it closer to his face than she needed to. ‘Detective Cora Gorderheim, from Bernswick.’

  ‘Bernswick?’

  ‘One of Fenest’s finest police divisions.’ Even with Cora making an effort, the words still came out as mocking.

  It was hardly a surprise. Chief Inspector Sillian of Bernswick had been trying to stop Cora from getting to the heart of this case since the first body had turned up and started this story: Nicholas Ento, the murdered Wayward storyteller. All Cora’s hard work had led her to the killer, Finnuc Dawson, and she’d been the one to arrest him. Now, here was Finnuc lying dead in a barn in Perlanse. A murderer murdered. This would change things back at the station. The chief inspector would have to let Cora investigate this properly, because it couldn’t be a random killing. Someone had wanted Finnuc dead, and Cora was certain she knew who.

  Tennworth.

  Cora had the name, and the fact Tennworth was a woman, but not much more. Finnuc gave her that information before he was taken from the cell at the station, as good as admitting it was Tennworth who had ordered him to kill the Wayward storyteller. And, shortly after his confession, Finnuc was dead. Now, Cora had to find Tennworth before anyone else was killed.

  ‘Bernswick… Fenest… You’re a long way from home, Detective.’ There was caution in Tr’stanton’s voice now.

  Cora put her badge away and moved further into the barn. Further from Finnuc. ‘Believe me, Perlanse isn’t where I wanted to find myself today.’

  ‘East Perlanse,’ Tr’stanton said. ‘You’re in the eastern duchy and I would ask that you acknowledge the rightful—’

  ‘There’s plenty of work waiting for me back in Fenest, Mr Tr’stanton. My job is to solve the crimes of the capital. Well, in one patch of it. I haven’t got time to wander the six realms of the Union. Isn’t that right, Constable?’

  ‘There is an election on,’ Jenkins said.

  ‘As if I don’t know about the election!’ Tr’stanton all but shouted. ‘We do get pennysheets out here, Detective. Life does go on outside the glorious capital.’

  ‘I’d say “death” is more the word for what’s happening in your barn,’ Cora said dryly.

  Tr’stanton’s long arms were flailing again. ‘If Fenest keeps you so busy, Detective, why are you even standing in my barn?’

  ‘Because that man was a prisoner.’ Cora nodded in the direction of Finnuc. ‘My prisoner.’

  ‘The death of a prisoner is hardly a cause of regret,’ Tr’stanton said. He folded his arms, making the feathers crammed onto his lapels flutter. ‘One fewer mouth to feed on the Steppes. The Commission spends too much money on them as it is; we should string them up and be done with it. There’s been a lot of talk about it in the right-thinking pennysheets.’

  ‘Not the ’sheets I read,’ Cora said. ‘These others gone to the Widow here, they committed no crime. Their only job was to take the prisoner from the capital to the Steppes.’

  Jenkins was staring at the pair of constables. She, too, had recognised them.

  Cora leaned against one of the poles that supported the roof and reached into her coat for her bindleleaf tin. She’d been trying to give up smoking but recent events had been… challenging. After everything that had happened, smoking seemed the least of her problems.

  Jenkins gave a low cough and nodded towards the straw-covered floor. With a deep sigh that was gruff with years of bindle-smoke, Cora put the tin away. Probably wasn’t a good idea to set fire to the barn, though it would make life a lot easier to burn the place to the ground, the bodies with it. Especially Finnuc’s. The smell was too bad to stay inside any longer anyway. She headed outside, to the courtyard, Tr’stanton tight on her heels.

  ‘Make sure no one else enters,’ she told Jenkins, and headed for the coaching inn that stood on the other side of the courtyard.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Tr’stanton said.

  ‘It was a long ride from Fenest,’ Cora said. ‘I could do with a drink.’

  She pushed open the double doors that were a headache-bringing mess of coloured glass worked into the shapes of birds and flowers. The barroom beyond the doors was little better. Polished brass gleamed in the midday sun streaming through the tall windows, many of which had more coloured glass plates. The room was divided into spacious booths, each decked out in a different cloth that to her eye clashed with their neighbours, and with the fancy clothes
of the Perlish travellers who sat in them. Her head swam. At least she’d be able to smoke in here. That might help.

  The barroom was half full, and it was silent – the kind of fresh silence that she knew well. A detective walks into a bar… But it wasn’t her causing it today. The stinking bodies in the barn were responsible for that. She was the one who’d said the travellers couldn’t leave though. That was her doing.

  Tr’stanton was at her elbow. ‘Nothing to worry about!’ he called to the huddles of concerned faces. ‘This matter will soon be dealt with.’

  Angry murmurs suggested the stranded travellers thought this unlikely. While Tr’stanton commanded free drinks to soothe tempers, Cora sank into the nearest booth.

  She was tired. After Finnuc had been taken from the Bernswick station she’d gone to the Dancing Oak to distract herself from all the things she didn’t want to think about, including the question of who Tennworth was, and how Cora was going to find her. Then, after a long night ringside in which she’d lost more of her pay than she liked to tally, the message had come: the prisoner transport had got into trouble on the road to the Northern Steppes. She and Jenkins had set off immediately. Even before Cora had stepped into the foul air of the barn she’d known what was waiting for her. That Finnuc would be dead. That didn’t make it any easier to see him lying there.

  Tr’stanton thrust Cora a glass of something silvery: Greynal.

  ‘I don’t drink,’ she said.

  Tr’stanton’s eyebrows shot up; they looked remarkably similar to the feathers he wore. ‘But you said you needed—’

  ‘A drink. Something to rid my tongue of dust. That doesn’t mean it has to be distilled.’

  ‘This is the finest spirit to come out of the Lowlands.’

  ‘Send it over to Jenkins in the barn. She’ll need warming up after the journey.’ Cora enjoyed the appalled look on his face. He kept the glass of Greynal for himself. ‘I’ll take a sinta juice,’ Cora said, then thought better of it when the glass arrived and she caught the smell, just like the barn. She’d make do with a smoke.

  ‘Tell me, Mr Tr’stanton, you own this place?’