"Everybody, out of the house. Now." Marcus barked. A procession of confused women, muttering to themselves as they walked past the Inquisitor.
"We're not done wrapping-" Hattie began to protest until Marcus silenced her with a raised hand.
"Stay here." He ordered. "Alexander, keep an eye on them while I go inside."
Alexander nodded and stepped into the door after Marcus entered the house. Hattie and the other women murmured as several other men and women gathered to investigate the commotion. He kept his hand on the hilt of his sword, feeling anxious about the growing crowd.
“Go inside, look high on the inside of her left thigh.” Marcus whispered when he returned to the door. Alexander nodded and moved into the house as Marcus took his place.
Gladys’ body was laid on the table, nude but partially covered by a white sheet. Bowls of water and cloths rested on the floor surrounding the table while another was by the bed where someone had attempted to scrub the blood out of the floor.
Alexander walked next to the body. He felt strange, uncomfortable, like he was violating her privacy even though she was dead. The official stance of the Empire was to deny the existence of any kind of afterlife. Funeral rites were to show due respect for the person who was, not to some aspect of them that persisted after the death of their body.
“Forgive me for this intrusion, I do this only out of necessity.” Alexander muttered to himself. Showing proper respect to the dead was necessary to avoid bringing misfortune to yourself. He thought back to what Marcus had told him about the practice of exposing unwanted babies persisting even after the religious justification for it was outlawed. Perhaps the misfortune brought about by not paying the dead whatever honor they were due was originally believed to be inflicted by some deity or the ghost of the dead, rather than simply being Nature itself punishing those who do not render respect that is deserved.
Alexander pushed gently on Gladys’ thigh. He could see a small mark in her flesh, three lines crossing each other in the middle to form a star shape.
“Looks to be a scar of some sort.” Alexander whispered to Marcus when he returned to the doorway.
“I’ve seen that sort of thing before,” Marcus whispered back, “usually a bit of metal heated in a fire and pressed against the skin. Quick way to mark multiple people.”
“Could it just be coincidence? Gilbert knew about the scar and said it was part of a silence curse to lend credibility to his story?”
“Possibly. We’ll have to check the other two to see if they have matching scars. If they do, his story is likely true as far as the lot of them swearing each other to secrecy.”
“Alright, Hattie, back to the inn, now.” Marcus ordered. A confused murmur moved through the small crowd that had gathered. Hattie began to protest but Marcus placed his hand on the hilt of his sword. “Move.”
Hattie turned and began walking towards her inn, the crowd following at a safe distance. Alban was tending to the Inquisitors’ horses when the group arrived.
“Alban, get over here, now.” Marcus commanded in a loud voice. The innkeeper looked confused but walked over as commanded.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Both of you, show me your thighs, up here.” Marcus ordered as he gestured to his leg.
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“Expose myself, here? In front of all these men?” Hattie protested.
“Do not make me ask again.”
Alban and Hattie exchanged worried glances. Alban lowered his trousers as Hattie reluctantly hitched up her dress.
“Check them both.” Marcus said.
Alexander nodded and moved closer to the couple, instructing them to turn their legs. He could see the same star-shaped scars on their thighs that he saw on Gladys. “Both are marked, same as Gladys,” he called out as he stepped back. Hattie let her dress fall while Alban stood, glaring at the Inquisitors.
“Gilber the hunter had a message passed along to us.” Marcus said, loud enough for everyone gathered to hear. “He said that you, Hattie, killed Gladys and made her look as though she killed herself. He also said that you tried to poison him.”
“He’s a liar!” Hattie shouted.
“His message also said that you two, Gladys, Bernard, and him would get together in secret to get drunk and do ‘bad things’, which I am going to guess means orgies, correct?”
“That’s preposterous!” Hattie exclaimed as the crowd muttered in shock, “he’s just- “
“He said that you lot swore an oath of secrecy, and marked yourselves with a curse to keep silent. All three of you are marked exactly as he said, and if you have not been so quick to burn the body of the elder Bernard, we would almost certainly have seen the same mark on his body.”
“No, he’s lying, he’s just trying to- “
“Oh, that’s enough, Hattie.” Alban interrupted. His wife’s face twisted in shock.
“Alban, no.” she said with obvious panic in her voice.
“It’s true,” Alban began, glaring at Marcus. “We’d get together sometimes, drink too much, strip down and have our fun until no one could walk straight.”
“So you admit to drunkenness and participating in orgies.” Marcus said.
“So what if we did?” Alban replied, almost shouting. “No one else knew, twenty years we’d all been together and no one else in the village knew, we had our fun and all went back to work and didn’t hurt anybody by it.”
“Three people are dead, and apparently you tried to kill a fourth.”
Alban opened his mouth to speak but said nothing.
“Here’s what I think happened, then.” Marcus stated. “The boy caught his parents participating in an orgy. Snuck away to come tell us since he held tight to the Ethics, even above his own parents. Bernard and Gilbert went looking for him when he went missing, Bernard was forced to kill his only child when he refused to keep quiet about what he had seen. Sound right?”
Alban and Hattie stood in silence while the crowd muttered in shock.
“Bernard, distraught over the death of his son, threatened to expose your deeds to everyone so you and Gladys killed him to protect your secrets. Then, with two deaths and the Inquisition present, you decided to kill the other two people who might talk if we pressured them enough and hoped we would eventually give up and leave with the four murders unsolved.”
The two innkeepers exchanged glances. Hattie began to stammer in protest but stopped. The two looked between each other, the crowd, and the Inquisitors.
“Yes.” Alban said as tears began to roll down his wife’s face as she nodded. “It’s all true.”
Marcus sighed. “Then, with your confession in front of these witnesses, by the authority of the Inquisition, I sentence you to death for murder.”
He withdrew his pistol and pulled back on the handle to pressurize the chamber. Hattie and Alban knelt into the dirt beside each other, tears in their eyes as they held hands. Marcus levelled his pistol at Hattie’s forehead and pulled the trigger. The pop made Alexander blink in surprise as the woman fell backwards to the ground. Marcus turned, aimed, and squeezed the trigger a second time. Again, the pop made Alexander blink as Alban fell to the ground. Marcus stepped forward and placed a second bullet into each of them before venting the remaining air in the chamber in a puff of vapor.
“Dispose of these two murderers as the trash they are. Gladys, too.” He said to the crowd before marching off to the stable beside the inn, Alexander following closely behind.