Athena was sat at the edge of the bed, studying the portrait, having left her leather satchel discarded on the floor along with most of her and Brydon’s clothes. She observed the ten freckles on Gilda’s cheeks, the blushing red nose and tired-looking eyes with crows-feet stricken around the corners. Tilly’s mute sibling certainly wasn’t looking to embellish or paint her mother as a flawless goddess.
The moonlight stubbornly refused to remove its beam through the crystallised window despite it being the early hours of the morning. Her head felt heavy, yet she knew her free time was almost over. She would have to brave the city in search of answers. Answers for how to find this assassin clan the irksome Blue Ninja so vehemently warned her about. And answers for Tilly.
Despite the recent horrors with Lady Aubrey, the Duke, and the Duchess, it was that Waif’s pleading face that refused to escape her mind. There was something about missing persons that had caused a sense of unease and sent chills through Athena. Seeing Tilly and Greta struggling to survive and wondering where their guardian had gone brought up sobering memories of when Hiroko had vanished, leaving her and Hideo behind all those years ago. It did not take long for Hideo to abandon her, too. The moment she had graduated from the Watch Academy, she never heard from him again despite all they had survived and endured together. He didn’t even write a goodbye letter. And yet he has the gall to act friendly to me as if that never happened.
She grabbed the half-drunk bottle of rum from the nightstand and started gulping. She didn’t care if it was lukewarm. Then she noticed the leftover line of Purestar on the bedside table. She furtively snorted what was left. For the road.
This stirred Brydon’s slumber, who tossed himself awake. He crawled out of the bedsheets and rested his head over Athena’s shoulder. “Who’s that?” he asked nosily, gesturing at the portrait. .
She edged away and saw him looking at her curiously with his ashen hair and dour eyes. “She was a washerwoman in the Shards and mother of two,” Athena stiffly informed him, feeling like a Deputy again.
“Where is she now?”
Athena frowned and started placing the small portrait back into her leather satchel. “I didn’t pay you to ask me questions. I get that all the time when I’m on duty.” She started briskly pulling her clothes back on and re-donned her silver armour.
“I meant no offence, My Lady. Was just making conversation is all,” he said playfully, resting his head in his hand.
“I understand,” she said stiffly, pulling a heavy boot further up her leg. Brydon was pleasant enough, but despite being only a couple of years younger than Athena, she found him to be very thick in the head. “Most of my business is confidential and I don’t need more prying eyes,” she explained to him.
“Sounds like a lonely life,” he commented with his dopey face.
Athena was about to say something. Something most likely hurtful, but instead, she composed herself and gathered her satchel and star badge before leaving a small pouch of coins for further gratuity.
Lord Julian Reeve was awaiting her outside the one of many bedchambers the Velvet Willow housed. He was admiring the old portraits adorned down the brothel’s hallway. There were paintings of green pastures and flourishing wildlife. There were portraits of prongdeers, jackalopes, and short-faced bears giving chase across the wilderness. His beret was adorned with a small white feather and a black and gold cloak was fastened over his shoulder with a finely made golden broach taking the shape of a sparrow. His doublet matched the exquisite cloak as it was black with golden buttons and lace. Out of all the Royalists on the king’s council, it was Julian Reeve who looked most regal of them all, more so than even King Sigismund. He treaded carefully over the scarlet rug as he approached her. “You’re certainly an unexpected customer, Deputy.”
He most likely expected her to feel and was eagerly awaiting to relish it, but Athena had been numb to such emotions for some time now. “Not very professional of you to stand outside, listening in on your clients,” she said, reflecting his smug and knowing countenance.
The Lord allowed himself a small chuckle at her reproach. “I would never dream of it. This place provides a sanctuary from judgement. As pleased as I am to see you give Denarii to my business, I do worry. Shouldn’t you be settling down from this kind of thing?”
“My duties do not provide me with much time for that, especially under the current circumstances.” She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes, directing an intentionally visible look of disappointment at Julian. “I see you have not taken my advice to remain at the Jade Palace.”
Lord Julian Reeve stroked his forked black beard and pondered over the question. “My guards look after me well enough. I am but just a lord. Not a grand Duke.”
“Anastasia Aubrey was just an alchemist,” she said doggedly, “and you are both an advisor to the King and your name is constantly splattered across The Jade Herald. I think you will most certainly be a person of interest to the assassins.”
He shrugged indifferently. “Death seems preferable to being confined to that palace. I thrive on keeping myself busy, Deputy. I would trust you to understand.”
Athena was too leaden to try to convince him further. She decided that now was a golden opportunity to follow up on another investigation. “Before I leave, Julian; I understand you haven’t been seated at the council as long as others, but did you ever know or speak much with Cynthia Barlet in the past?”
The Lord tutted and shook his head half-heartedly. “A tragic shame, Cynthia was. Gone from this world too soon.” His grief felt feigned to the Deputy.
“From the plague, correct?” Athena asked.
“That was what I was told.” He frowned, his thick eyebrows rising in morbid curiosity. “Why are you asking about her, Deputy? She’s been gone a long time. This isn’t some unsolved murder case.”
Yet. “That’s true enough. You didn’t truly answer the inquiry, My Lord. Did you ever speak with her when she was alive?”
He shrugged again. Athena noticed his left eye twitching at the question. “I met her passingly at formal events. I was at her and Hugo’s wedding. I was too young to even sit a horse in that time, mind you. Then, during my early years of lordship, I would make occasional idle small talk with her at grand balls and tournaments. She seemed pleasant enough.”
“Did the Duke ever mention her much after her passing?”
“Not to me. We weren’t exactly close friends,” he said, trying to decipher the Deputy’s strange questions. “We did not outright dislike one another, but we never confided much either. We essentially, merely permitted our existences. Families can be like that. Don’t you have relatives you’re not close to?”
A father that was hanged, a mother that drank herself to death, and two friends who both abandoned me, and I was lucky to even have those. “Very well. Thank you for your time, My Lord. If you should perhaps remember anything else regarding Cynthia Barlet, do let me know.”
“And thank you for your patronage,” the Lord said amiably. He placed a hand on her shoulder and leaned in close. “I won’t mention your strange questions to anyone else, of course. Providing you don’t mention my establishment to Redtower or King Sigismund, especially anything regarding my lordly clients that prefer a more… masculine variety to bed. King Sigismund is very set in his old ways, and I would be most wroth to join the Duke, Duchess, and Cynthia in the void.”
Athena adjusted the bronze star badge on her breastplate and smiled at Julian. “It’s our secret. But it’s not them you should be worrying about. Return to the palace, Lord Julian.”
Dawn was over in a heartbeat and the morning sunlight coarsely caressed her face as she headed to the White Raven streets to collect her buckskin mare. The roads and pathways were more sparsely populated than usual. She even managed to make it to her horse without bumping shoulders with anyone or getting stuck behind any irksomely slow pedestrians. As she took the reins and plodded her mare through the streets, her mind tinkered over Cynthia Barlet and Gilda Fitzpatrick.
Cynthia had been declared dead as witnessed by the King and Duke, yet was lacking an actual body in her tomb. She wondered if she had perhaps been cremated as her now-deceased husband had been, but then why the need for a tomb in the first place? Duke Hugo Barlet would be getting a rather ostentatiously large plaque and memorial statue to rest the ashes in, but a tomb? A tomb would be superfluous. And then there was Gilda Fitzpatrick. She would be an even harder egg to crack. She wasn’t a highborn lady, just some peasant washerwoman who had already become forgotten by all except her children. Naturally, when she broached the subject of the washerwoman’s disappearance with the Sheriff she was met with the expected answer. “Stop chasing ghosts, Deputy. The bottle is making you too sentimental if you are pursuing every long-lost mother who vanished years ago.” She expected that to be his response. She did not dare bring up Cynthia Barlet’s disappearance. That one she was keeping between herself and the Ninja.
She rode her buckskin at a slow and steady pace, judiciously avoiding the dozens of pedestrians that would amble and saunter into the road without a care or thought in the world. It took her nearly an hour to reach the Dorfchester morgue and when she did; she was greeted by a beak-faced plague doctor who sighed derisively the moment she approached the front desk.
Dorfchester morgue was as bleak a place as one would expect it to be. All the beams and walls were a worn soot black colour that looked as if all the light and hues had been sucked out of the wood. The morgue’s interior – even around the front desk – was cavernous and desolate. The Doctor removed his plague mask to reveal a most unamused and joyless expression. He looked like Viscount Reynard Woodard, if he had never had the luck to be a Royalist and instead chosen a more morbid career path. “Good morning, Deputy,” he reluctantly greeted. “How may I be of service?”
“I require the death certificate and official records of Cynthia Barlet.” Athena requested frankly and without pleasantries, which she imagined this Plague Doctor would be grateful for.
Instead, his face contorted into one of aggravation, and his lips curled into an unpleasant shape. “Why?” he asked curtly.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Sheriff’s business,” she lied.
“Do you know how long it’s going to take me to find her records,” the doctor moaned, “She’s been dead for near fifteen years.”
“I can wait,” Athena said obstinately.
The Plague Doctor mumbled and complained to himself as he disappeared from the desk and around the morgue’s dark corners. Athena did not wish to follow him. All there would be around there was death and despair. Just the silence alone was enough to unsettle her. If ghosts did exist, then even they would have moved far away from here.
It took nearly an hour for him to return, and the Doctor made sure that she knew it. “I had to comb many shelves and records to find these bloody things,” he said in unsuppressed rudeness. The Deputy badge did not seem to trouble or temper his manners. “I hope it was worth it, Deputy.”
He dropped the wrapped parchments onto the desk with a thud. “You have my thanks,” she said. Not that the grumpy coot deserved it much. The various parchments bore little fruit. Everything seemed to be in order. Cynthia Barlet’s death certificate claimed she was buried in the Drakelyn cemetery tomb, as did the City Watch records and her medical history. They all also, strangely, corroborated the tale that she did indeed die from the plague. “Ask me this, doc,” Athena proposed as she flipped through the remaining documents, “how does a wife to the Duke, a Duchess, in fact, die of plague when she can afford the medicine that can easily treat it?”
The Doctor’s look was scornful, but it had been that way since he had returned to the desk. “Perhaps she had rejected our medical practices. Some people value their religious texts and the fallible advice they give over our own expertise.”
The Deputy took this into consideration as she continued to give a cursory browse through the tedious parchments. It wasn’t until she found the Duke’s written eulogy buried in the records and an interesting phrase within that she took interest. Guided through the violet light.
Violet light. “What does this mean?” Athena asked, pointing at the appellation and tapped her finger over it.
The Doctor raised an eyebrow and then shrugged with apathy. “Some fanciful term. I didn’t write the thing, Deputy.”
“No, of course not.” And the man who did has since been burnt to a crisp.
She kept the Duke’s written eulogy, folding the parchment up and placing it under her breastplate. She glanced at the Doctor who observed her with curious eyes. “Not going to stop me?” she asked.
“I assumed you could take whatever you wanted. Law enforcement tends to do that.”
“I promise to return it within the-”
“I don’t care,” he interrupted with a dismissive hand gesture.
And with that, she took her leave.
She rode her buckskin aimlessly for some time afterwards. The cogs in her brain twisted and rattled as she tried to think of who else would be both knowledgeable and willing to discuss this Violet Light. It certainly sounded religious, but it wasn’t a religious term that Athena was familiar with. She turned her horse in an unexpected direction. She gently rode on towards the Shards.
Under the daylight hours, the Pax chapel certainly seemed a deal less macabre than it had appeared during the night of the Gargoyle’s attack. Rays of sunlight beamed through the stained-glass windows and into the chapel floors, creating large bright circles of golden spotlights. There were peasants sat amongst the long rows of benches whispering incessant prayers and some of the priestesses wondered about the chapel’s hall in sombre silence, cleaning dust off the sconces and caryatids. At the far end of the chapel’s hall stood the looming bronze statue of Pax. Her gigantic, demonic, and fanged face snarled at the Deputy and her four bronze arms seemed to be attempting to punch upwards into the cavernous ceiling. She found the High Priestess approaching her. “Why does she look so angry?” Athena asked her.
The High Priestess’ mauve hood was donned. She was frowning under it. “Have you seen the state the world is in?” she asked in response. “Why have you returned, Deputy? I told you everything I witnessed that night and I did not appreciate the aspersions that one of your men cast on me.”
“He was merely curious as to how a ninja turned up in this chapel in the first place,” Athena said somewhere between placating and interrogating.
“I already told you both; He burst through the doors, seeking shelter. As I was refusing him, the Gargoyle’s men appeared. He then defended me and my sisters from them.”
The Deputy raised a sceptical eyebrow. She had always thought that there was more to the story than the High Priestess had been telling, but if she continued to press on it, she would never get the information she really needed out of her. “I’m not here to make accusations or even discuss that night,” she told her stiffly.
The High Priestess folded her arms. “Then do tell me. Has one of my sisters done something? Vandalised a statue? Robbed a store?”
The Deputy did not appreciate her impertinence but understood where the fuel for the fire had come from. Her men had been abrasive and threatening to her and the other Pax priestesses during the whole night after the attack. She had to accept her brazenness or return to a cold trail. “High Priestess Evalina,” Athena addressed her by her full title in the hopes that might sway her. “Have you ever heard of or been involved in a religious order known as Violet Light?”
“I’ve heard of them,” the High Priestess said hesitantly. “I believe it’s an extinct religion. I would associate it more closely with a cult. It was a puritanical order who worshipped gods long dead.”
“They were puritans?” That was interesting information to Athena. The Midland Puritans were austere monks that were most intolerant of other faiths and creeds. They believed that men should only speak when in prayer and that their women stay silent in general.
“Their order originated in Midland country,” the High Priestess informed, “but their faith did begin to spread to the north and south, to Crimsonaria and even as afar as some settlements in Arkovia.”
Why Hugo Barlet, I never knew you for such a strict patriarchal bastard. “I would like to know more about this little religion, High Priestess. Did you know that the Duke was a believer in it?”
“I didn’t know the Duke personally, Deputy.” The High Priestess appeared indignant. “Not many Royalists visit this part of the city,” she said bitterly. “In fact, you’re the first lawwoman I’ve seen around the Shards in weeks.”
Athena did not have time to face the usual harsh criticisms of law enforcement. She thanked the snappy priestess for her time and took her leave.
She thought back to her time as a beat watchwoman. There was another royalist who had been strangely absent for some years now. An Arch-Scholar who was a follower and practitioner of all the gods whose station was to advise Sigismund Greenfire of the best way to maintain healthy relations between the crown and New Jade’s various organised faiths and creeds. Snowbinder, Pax, and even that contentious Crimsonarion deity, Areos. Athena used to escort him whenever he made trips out of the palace. He certainly had the viewpoints of a puritan. He complained incessantly during each of their journeys about being guarded by a woman. Perhaps he would know something about this enigmatic sect. She turned her Buckskin north, towards the Dorfchester barracks.
When her mare reached the barracks entrance, she was met with a sight that brought a fire upon her. They were hauled into a line against the barrack’s towering stone walls. Men, women, and children alike. They were all being questioned, one by one by half a dozen watchmen that were being less than pleasant with their inquiries. She saw one man being dragged into the barracks for what Athena knew would be a violent interrogation. Another man, a Butcher who did not work far from the barracks, was dragged away from his wife and child and thrown onto a splintered chair where questions were barked at him. One watchman threw a punch into the Butcher’s stomach and his daughter watched and cried from the row of detainees. Normally, Athena would not have thought much of it if the reason for the watch’s hard questioning was not blatantly apparent. Athena felt a vile sickness in the pit of her stomach and a wave of brewing anger that would be hard to quench. Every man and woman they had lined up, every weeping child that had to watch their parents be questioned so violently; They were all Arkovian.
The Deputy stormed over to the Watchman that was beating the Butcher. “What is the meaning of this?” Her words were burning iron, yet the imbecile watchman did not seem to notice her ire.
“Good morning, Deputy. We’re just lining up some people for questioning. Redtower believes the assassins are indeed Arkovian.”
“And you think this man is an assassin?” she gestured to the winded Butcher that was sitting on the splintered chair, cradling his stomach. He was overweight and hardly at his physical peak.
The Watchman started to notice the fire in her voice. “Why… n-no. But we believe that-”
“You believe that by rounding up some random Arkovian civilians you’ll discover that one of them must be on friendly terms with an assassin cabal?” She flared. “Did Redtower order this?”
The Watchman’s face began to pale. He stumbled over his words, which only made her more infuriated. “B-b-… It w-was Woodrow.”
That snake. She looked over to the Butcher’s wife and daughter, then glanced back to this obsequious rat of a patrolman. “Good. You're terminated from your position. Take off your armour.”
He sullenly nodded, and when he moved to the barracks, she stopped him with her steel arm. “I said take your armour off,” she hissed. “It belongs to someone better suited.”
The rabble started to quieten as the other watchmen began to take notice of the Deputy’s wrath. They all watched in silence, and all that could be heard was the meek sobbing of the Butcher’s daughter.
The accused watchman’s eyes bulged wide open. Under his black kettle hat and chain mail, his large forehead was seeping with sweat. “H-here Deputy?”
“You made a dozen innocent people lose their dignity today. Now they get to see you lose yours.” When the watchman continued to stare at her bewildered, she shouted, “OFF!” He proceeded to strip off his armour until he was just down to his breeches. “Those are City Watch property too,” she informed him sternly. When the fool was standing out in the cold with his bare buttocks revealed to all the watchmen and Arkovians outside the barracks, the Deputy then ordered him to scram. Seeing the man flee down the streets like a plucked chicken was a most amusing sight for her. She then turned her fury on the rest of her foolish underlings. “Release them all and get me some suspects and evidence with merit,” she ordered, before pacing into the barracks.
She found Woodrow in the barrack’s food court stuffing his face in mince pies and bacon strips. Grease was frothing around his mouth when she pulled him from the bench by his chainmail collar. She punched him from his seat, and he crashed into the ground. Some watchmen stood from their benches, watching in stunned silence whilst others roared their objections. Malborne was amongst the rabble, sat in the corner in the midst of eating a sausage from a fork. Even he appeared surprised by her actions, his mouth agape. Redtower would hear about this. There was no way to avoid it.
Woodrow stayed down, inspecting the red droplets from his lips with his forefingers. Athena knelt down and hissed her words. “You’re finished with the watch. Clear out your desk.” She turned to walk away from the situation. She had already escalated things to a precarious level, she knew that. Despite it, the loud-mouthed cretin could not help himself.
“Dirty bitch!” he called out with bloody spittle. The Deputy rolled her eyes and turned back to the former Watchman. She picked up a tankard from the bench and dashed it into his jaw. He didn’t have another retort after that.
The shouts, yells, and murmurs around the food court did not simmer. A particularly vocal few of Woodrow’s friends moved from their bench and towards her before Malborne stood in front of them with his hands raised. He said some placating words that Athena could not hear amongst the ruckus. Whatever he said, it seemed to be what they wanted to hear. They left the court but not before giving the Deputy a most malignant glare. She thought of the last deputy and how long he had lasted before finding himself with a noose around his neck.
Malborne approached her, appearing uncharacteristically troubled. “They did not like that,” he said, declaring the stupidly obvious.
“The watch can’t just arrest masses of people because they’re Arkovian.” She did not think that she would need to explain this to so many.
“I understand that,” Malborne said, now raising his hands in an attempt to appease her, “but some of the others round here believe you’re getting too stringent.”
“Maybe I should show them what stringent really is,” she said venomously, “by conducting an internal investigation into corruption within the watch. The example I just made would look tame to them by comparison.” Fortunately for all of them, she had not the time. “I will be absent for the next day or two on my own investigation,” she informed Malborne.
He made that uneasy smirk that he was so fond of forming. There were crumbs scattered through his goatee that filtered out as he spoke. “Is the Sheriff aware?”
“No, inform him for me. In the meantime, can I trust you to keep the other rogue bastards in check while I’m gone?”
Malborne nodded uneasily, and she left without saying another word. All the eyes of the watch were on her after her outburst. She would be glad to be away from this place for a while. She knew that Cynthia Barlet’s death had something to do with the Duke’s murder. Burn with your bride. The words echoed through her mind. I wonder who else they intend to burn?