A Touch of Mother - Chapter 3

As usual, this is an unedited draft of my current wip.
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My worry over Nathan superseded my annoyance at Luc ordering Jeremy to accompany me. Things between Luc and me had been strained since the order came down lifting the chastity restrictions of our Temples. Since Balance and Light formed the backbone of the judicial proceedings, not only in Issura but the entire world, the original restriction was necessary to provide a semblance of impartiality in court proceedings.

Luc and I had broken that rule years ago. Our illicit affair hadn’t really mattered because I couldn’t conceive. But now… Now, we needed as many children with Light and Balance talents as we could produce. Especially Light, because the demons were vulnerable to their direct powers. The renegades allied with the demons had been targeting that particular order due to the demons’ susceptibility.

And I could never bear any child, much less one with Luc’s abilities. Which meant he needed to lay with another woman to have those children.

“A copper for your thoughts?” Jeremy murmured.

Nassa snorted and tossed her head as if affirming the priest’s request. I patted her neck.

We rode through the slums of Orrin on the southern edge of the harbor, well away from the duke’s estate and the homes of the other nobles and prosperous merchants. The people here were much less afraid to speak aloud about the Red Justice. Therefore, I had an excuse to answer the younger priest without betraying my private musings.

“I’m thinking we should have brought more wardens,” I said as I scanned the crowd. From the color of their exposed skin, few were happy to see me in their neighborhood. “Balance help us, I hope we don’t have an incident beyond the one Magistrate DiCook called us to attend.”

There was a time when I wouldn’t have feared walking any part of this city. We had six wardens escorting us as well as two peacekeepers, but they may not be enough if the people staring at us and muttering decided to get ugly.

The first demons in a hundred years showed up when I covered the Duchy of Orrin as a circuit justice because my own Reverend Mother refused to name a replacement after Chief Justice Penelope passed. Since I’d been assigned as chief justice of Orrin, or rather sentenced, more demons appeared. And the citizens of the city and duchy blamed the justice with the red eyes for the demons’ return.

Now, Orrin was crowded with refugees from Tandor. The resettling process was slow, and tempers frayed. In three months, everyone had forgotten we’d fought and destroyed a demon army. No, they only remembered what they lost. Or what they believed they were losing.

“Back this way, m’lady,” Jaime said, pointing to a narrow alley barely wide enough for two horses abreast between ramshackle tenements. From the grim set of the peacekeeper’s mouth, something more than the muttering crowd disturbed him. When I had asked about DiCook’s summons, Jaime shook his head and I would have to see for myself.

I didn’t need my odd sight to find the body, nor did I need the cluster of peacekeepers. The smell of death put the sweat of men and the stink of fish to shame. I dismounted, and Nathan surged past the crowd and flung his arms about me. My fingers met rough homespun clothing when I wrapped my arms around the boy. I eyed my head of household as she approached. There wasn’t any need to touch her clothing. She would have been dressed the same as Nathan and my stablemaster.

“Where’s Hogarth?” I asked Sivan.

“With the magistrate.” She gestured at the knot of peacekeepers.

Nathan peered up at me. Despite his efforts to maintain a stoic demeanor, salt stained his cheeks. “You have ta find out who killed Yellow Fin.”

“We’ll do our best, young squire,” Jeremy said. “Why don’t you stay here with the wardens while the chief justice and I examine the site?”

The Light priest spoke gently to my squire. However, I could feel the sharp pricks of his psyche against mind. He lost the carefree attitude he’d possessed on the battlefield of Tandor. The loss of his bright outlook on life left a bad taste in my mouth.

Jeremy wasn’t the only one affected by the aftermath of that battle. One of Shi Hua’s nightmares accidentally set off the alarms of their Temple, and Elizabeth resorted to warding her bedchambers each night to keep from disturbing the sleep of everyone else in Balance.

The peacekeepers parted when we reached them. The corpse had gone cold, but the size of it bothered me. It lay in a puddle that could have been water or urine, but the sharp coppery stench said the liquid was something else. I knelt carefully beside the body and gently fingered the clothing at its shoulder. The weave of the cloth was rougher than even the clothing my three staff members currently wore. It felt like the cloth used to carry grain. The flesh beneath was bone-thin.

I looked up at Jeremy.

“Throat’s been slit.” He frowned. “There should be more blood than this even for the boy’s small size.”

“Aye,” DiCook said. “That was our conclusion as well.”

“Why in the name of Child would someone bother with a street urchin?” I asked.

“Also, a good question,” DiCook muttered. “And why leave him where he could be found? Why not burn the body themselves?”

I gently lifted the corpse’s wrist. Its hand hung limp from my grasp. “Rigor has come and gone.”

Something about this didn’t feel right. Not even the people of the slums would leave a body lying around like this. There was too much danger of a demon possessing the corpse and wreaking havoc. Protocols regarding prevention of demon infestations had been slacking over the last century, but with the Battle of Tandor, those same protocols were being strictly enforced now. They could save Orrin from a similar fate as our sister city.

I looked up at the men. “Who found Yellow Fin?”

“Squire Nathan did, m’lady,” Hogarth fingered the sailor’s cap he wore as part of his disguise. “He said this is one of the places he and his friends hid before he entered Temple service.”

I examined our surroundings. After witnessing Shi Hua climb over impossible walls and dance along rooftops, I could make out the tiny hand and footholds those with appendages smaller than mine could use.

However, I needed a better picture of events. A healthy layer of dirt and offal covered the cobblestones. The building to each side were contrived of wood, but their foundations were a mix of stone and brick.

“Would you give us some room, Magistrate and Peacekeepers?” I settled on the alley and crossed my legs. “Let’s see who left this poor unfortunate here.” Despite the heat of the summer days, I pulled on my gloves. No sense in sticking my bare hands in the filth.

Resting one covered palm on the alley cobblestone and the other on the riverstone foundation of the closest building, I concentrated on the threads of time and pulled on them. A demon-black wad of nothingness shot toward me from the past. I tried to release the strings of time, but I couldn’t stop the demon magic.

White light flashed around me, blinding me, and pain spiked through my mind. When I could see again, Jeremy lay on top on me in the alleyway, his arms wrapped around my neck. Somehow, he kept my head from slamming into the stones or bricks around us. I glanced around the alley. The corpse still rested on the cobblestones in the same position it had been. However, all the peacekeepers and the magistrate had been knocked over by the…whatever that thing had been.

“What the demon was that?” I muttered.

“A trap spell of some kind,” Jeremy said as he climbed to his feet. “I barely raised a ward in time. Otherwise, I fear we all would have journeyed with the boy to Death.”

Balance take whoever had done this to Nathan’s friend. I needed to be more thorough in my examinations. I should have learned that lesson after the horrors that had been inflicted on Brother Jon of Light, not to mention Peacekeeper Dante and his family. But the damn thing was so subtle.

I sighed and looked up at Jeremy. “Well, I think that answers why the body was left here.”