Bannerless (The Bannerless Saga 1)

Most of the spectators had left, but a few lingered, inventing chores that brought them close to the committee house, hoeing patches that didn’t have weeds, feeding chickens that were probably used to scratching somewhere else. They looked up, watching the group’s progress. As if they could tell anything by seeing a group of people walk.

Ariana’s household, Newhome, was close by and had a couple of cottages, a barn, a windmill, and a cistern. They kept geese and chickens for eggs and meat, wove cloth, and Pasadan’s medic lived here. They also had a root cellar, which was where they’d stored the body. The doors were outside, angled up against the barn, opening to stairs that led down into a chill darkness.

“He’s in here,” Ariana said, gesturing in.

“Thanks. Your medic had a look at him?”

“Yes, briefly. Wasn’t much he could do; Sero was clearly dead. But Tull arranged to have him carried here.”

“Can you wait out here, please?” Enid said. The request sounded so reasonable, no one could say no. The committee members didn’t look happy about it, but they agreed.

Enid and Tomas both held hand lanterns, fully charged, and turned them on as they went down the steps into the cellar.

The place was small, maybe twelve feet square, typical of most underground storage spaces. Dirt floor and walls, four-by-four posts supporting the ceiling. The dry chill raised goose flesh on Enid’s arms. Foodstuffs had been cleared off the shelves on one wall, or the cellar had already been empty. A canvas sheet draped on the floor across from them clearly covered a body, just under six feet tall, lanky. The pole-and-canvas stretcher that had been used to carry the man was still underneath him. Enid passed her lantern back and forth over it but couldn’t find any details out of place. It was all very neat and clean, but the room smelled like a corpse, musty, underlay with a stomach-turning sweetness. The place was cool, not cold, so the body was rotting.

She put on leather gloves and pulled back the sheet. The edges had been tucked under the body, and it took her a moment to slip them free without jostling the corpse too badly.

“Would have been better if they left it in place,” she said.

“Not in this heat,” Tomas answered. “That they saved him at all suggests they’re not hiding anything.”

“Well, not hiding anything obvious,” she said. “I get the impression Philos and Ariana aren’t the best of friends.” Tomas gave a huff of agreement.

She revealed the body.

He was in his thirties, with pale skin, sharp features, and a dark beard of a few days’ growth. His eyelids were swollen shut; his cheeks and the rest of him were bloated, belly starting to distend with rot. They would need to cremate this one soon. The investigators got here just in time.

He wore plain homespuns, an undyed pullover shirt and drawstring trousers. Good, solid leather boots, aged, scuffed at the heels and toes. He might have worn these boots his whole adult life. His body seemed untouched, unscathed, unremarkable. His hands were calloused. He still had the dirt of his last job under his fingernails and worn into the cracks of his palms. He was a laborer.

Then there was his head. She tilted it gently; the body was far past rigor mortis and pliable. The hair on the back of his head was matted with blood and smelled sour. There’d been a lot of blood, caked as thick as a piece of felted cloth, tracking rivulets from his ears. Deep bruising darkened the back of his neck—blood had pooled inside him. Even in the cool of the cellar, flies buzzed. Gently, she prodded his skull—the back of it was cracked, like a piece of broken pottery. She winced. Whatever had happened, he’d likely died instantly. At least there was that mercy.

Now, if she could only make a guess at what had inflicted such an injury. A fall would have broken his skull in one pattern; a strike with a weapon would cause a different one. She wondered if she ought to try to perform a rudimentary autopsy. She’d never done one before. Since she wasn’t a medic, she wasn’t sure she’d even know exactly what she was looking at if she peeled back the skin. Didn’t take an autopsy to tell his skull was broken. And the body was getting ripe.

She used her hands then, feeling along his head, tracing back from his ears and down his neck, searching for patterns. She recited her findings to Tomas.

“It’s a broad wound. There’s a dent maybe two inches wide along the entire back of the skull.”

“A club, then?” Tomas asked.

“Or the edge of a table. Anything with that shape.” She prodded a little more firmly—broken bone flexed under her touch. Flesh soaked with clotted blood felt wet, thick. That might even have been his brain. Her stomach turned, and she avoided lingering any further on that thought. Being sick over this wouldn’t help her standing here.

The wound was deep; her probing fingers seemed to keep sinking into the man’s brain. It went at a slant—deeper along one edge than the other. So yes, he might have fallen against something with an edge.

“Shine the light there, would you?” she asked, scooting back as she took off her gloves. Taking out a pad and pencil from her tunic pocket, she sketched his skull and marked the shape of the wound in it, showing the radiating pattern of broken bone around it. So she would remember. Grim work.

“It looks like an accident, doesn’t it?” Tomas said.

“Except that Ariana saved the body and called for an investigation.”

“Maybe she just wanted to be sure.”

Enid didn’t like it. It would be easy to call this an accident and walk away. “We’ll see.”

She put her pad and pencil back in her pocket and slipped her gloves on again. After arranging Sero’s body neatly, smoothing away any sign that she’d examined him, she replaced the canvas cloth over him. Rested a hand on his shoulder for a moment, so that at least one person gave him a kind farewell. They should burn him by nightfall. After their next stop.

Back aboveground, back in the light, Enid asked for a washbasin and soap and scrubbed her hands and washed her gloves, flattening them and leaving them to hang on her belt. The committee waited, strained and silent.

Enid needed some time. “Ariana, might I have a cup of water? It’s a little dry down there.”