1.32. The Jerky King of Sondam

The fountain of surging blood slapped into the ceiling, painted the walls, sent a great thick stain sluicing across the carpet. The bare blade’s blunted tip thunked into the sodden floor between Annalise’s heavy black boots.

“Pardon the mess.” Annalise wiped the spray from her pale cheek. “The Sorcerer General in his infinite wisdom didn’t include any kinda button to not do that.”

Ricard i’Larrot, the Jerky King of Sondam, gazed with muted despair at his claret-soaked couch. Something told Seth he was more upset about the state executioner perched on it than his upholstery, charmingly patterned as it was with grazing cattle.

“We’ll get a cleaner for that, yes?” Annalise directed this to the pair of hermandati standing at the door to Ricard’s cozy drawing room, which had smelled pleasingly of woodsmoke before it started smelling overwhelmingly of blood.

“Yes, Madam Verdugo,” the lefthand hermandat rumbled, and Annalise smiled at Ricard like well, there you go.

He returned it much diminished, like a reflection in a dirty mirror. “Thank you,” he mumbled.

“Sure look.” Annalise folded her arms over the sword’s crossguard and leaned her chin on them. “I’d normally have a well of patience for your plight, dealing as you’ve dealt with a loss. Considering how harmless most unsouled unlit are. And especially considering what a longtime fan my boy is of your jerky. If Larrot Provisions went under he’d waste away.”

Tiago steadily chewed a piece. “It’s spicy, but not too spicy.”

“But we’ve all gotten a real object lesson today on why these statutes are in place,” Annalise said. “The risk of a scarecrow getting possessed is low. But if everyone chances it, the Territories collapse.”

Ricard let out a shaky breath and caged his hands together at his knee. “I knew what I was meant to do. I looked him in the eye, and empty and black as it was, I couldn’t.” A desperate hope animated his face. “Your children are unlit, Madam Verdugo. Surely you have mercy in your heart for—”

“I do, i’Larrot.” Annalise curtly cut him off. “I told you. But my daughter got a pitchfork shoved in her gut. And for no good reason, I fear, beyond sentimentality. That’s what galls me. My mercy ends where the mourning for your family touches the safety of mine. And look here.” Annalise’s black nail tapped the darkened dynamos on the unpowered end of her sword. “Took me two heads’ worth of hexis to take that pain from her and make sure she could walk again.”

Admitting so freely to blood magic. Seth’s brow rose.

”So now we’re in a fix,” Annalise said. ”A serious one.”

She held her index up to i’Larrot’s trembling face.

“You only have one head.” Her middle finger joined the other. “You owe me two.”

Tiago rubbed his chin. “What to do, what to do.”

Annalise bobbed her head back and forth to the rhythm of her son’s panto act. “I have an idea, Tiago.”

“Oh yes, milady?”

“Oh, yes. Mr. i’Larrot here will tell me everything he knows of how his husband and that burnt-up business partner of his met their tragic ends. If that’s nothing more than you’ve already told me, Ric, I’ll cut my losses.” She rapped a knuckle on the sword on cut. The metal chimed like a funeral bell. “And come out one head behind, more’s the pity. But if you have what I need, enough to point me toward whatever shucked your husband’s soul from him, I’ll find it, kill it, and with my quota back where it oughta be, I’ll come up with some less permanent punishment for you.”

Seth shared a quick glance with Ofelia, who was halfway crumpled in an unoccupied chaise. The sorcerous healing she’d undergone was still enervating her.

“What do you reckon, goodman?” Annalise rocked her blade side to side on its wide blunt head. “The sword or the truth?”

“The truth.” Ricard stared at the coagulating pool on his floor. “The truth is that I only knew my husband half his life. The other half he spent in the company of associates like that woman. That harridan who went unlit with him and burned with him. He was two people, one I loved and one I didn’t, and one took the other from me. I wonder how that could possibly be fair.”

“And your shed, too.”

Ricard turned his doleful attention to the crowlike girl crumpled on his chaise.

Ofelia pointed out the window. “Took your shed, too.”

They stared at one another.

“You’ll forgive my daughter being a bit loopy at the moment.” Annalise cut in. “She was bleeding to death an hour ago thanks to your mistake. Now, then:” She stood to her considerable height and leaned into Ricard’s airspace. “Tell me about these associates.”

“All I wanted was to give a spot of empathy,” Ofelia said. “It was a well-stocked shed. There was even a hexis mower.”

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“It was.” Seth ran his razor along its strop. “Guy didn’t seem like he needed to do much yard work. We could track that Harri guy down, offer to pour a drink out for it with him.”

“He kept his edges quite sharp in there. Credit to the fellow.”

Seth tested his own edge, and, finding it satisfactory for his scanty beard, returned his attention to the amber-tinted shaving mirror hung off the carriage’s side by a protruding iron fingerbone. “What was that thing you did to send the shit on the shelves flying?”

“That was the Archer. One of my second-ringers. Rather fancy, eh?” She snapped her fingers. “That reminds me. There’s a bit of iron on it, but…” She clambered onto the carriage. With his offhand, Seth held the mirror in place while the carriage’s shocks squeaked to accommodate Ofelia’s rummaging.

He lined up his stubble and crossed to the basin, only to find that Draka the dray was drinking from it. “Aw, Draka. C’mon. Shoo.” He brushed Annalise’s big black horse away. He tipped the water out and filled the basin again at the spigot of the al Ydrises’ freshly topped-up water tank.

Ofelia looked down over the edge of the carriage. “You didn’t need to throw that away, you know. We spend so much time touching the horses. What’s the harm of shaving with their slurp-water?”

“The harm is I’ll end up with some sorta equine-transmitted fever, and you’ll have to carry me everywhere.” Seth splashed his face. “What’d you go looking for up there?”

She held up Marla’s book of hexentatuae. “Would you care to peruse it with me?”

Seth cast about for sign of Annalise or Tiago, who had gone chasing Ricard’s lead through Sondam’s taphouses. “You should be resting, maybe.”

“Physically I am on the mend, thank you. Emotionally…” Ofelia climbed carefully down the carriage, from lintel to front boot to ground. “I would like a distraction. I felt the pitchfork catch on my floating rib. I felt it break. I felt the pop when it went back into place. I would like to stop thinking about all that. Browsing these would help me.”

Seth sighed and leaned against the carriage. “Let’s browse, then.”