‘What woman?’ Cora said, turning back to him.
‘She stayed at the inn last night. When the man was talking to me she come out the doors to the barroom and she saw us. Then she went back inside. I know she saw him. You ask her.’
Jenkins was already heading for the inn.
‘Tell me what happened next,’ Cora said. ‘The man with the broken nose said you should wait, and you did. Why?’
‘He said he was meant to take the soup into the barn. He said it was his job, and he sounded like Mr Tr’stanton and like Cook.’
‘What do you mean, he sounded like them? You mean the way they said their words?’
‘No, like he told people what to do all the time. I asked him if Mr Tr’stanton had told him to take the soup and he said yes. Then he said he’d give me a mark for my trouble, and I wanted to laugh then because it weren’t no trouble to me, was it, to give him the soup.’ Elis laughed now at the memory, but not for long. He shrank against the stable wall. ‘Then this morning I heard Mr Tr’stanton say the people in the barn were taken ill, badly ill. That they were… dead.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ Cora said, but as she did so her mind was churning. The man with the broken nose – he was a new arrival in this case. Odds were he’d put something in the soup. Was this the lackey?
Jenkins returned and Cora joined her outside the stable.
‘The boy’s right,’ Jenkins said. ‘Woman in there, flowers woven into her hair. Last night she was looking for the privy and ended up in the courtyard. She says Elis was near the door to the barn, holding something that looked like a pan, and talking to a short figure. The woman can’t speak to a broken nose, or what this man said, but she saw enough to confirm there definitely was someone else here, acting in the way Elis suggests.’
‘Anyone still inside match the man’s description?’
‘No.’
‘Thought as much. He’ll be long gone. We’d better try the nearest town, wherever that might be.’
Cora turned to go back into the stable, but Jenkins caught her.
‘That might have to wait, Detective. The stitcher’s here.’
*
The stitcher was waiting just inside the barn. She was a woman close to Cora’s age. The bag at her feet and her apron marked her role, but Cora was surprised to see the woman’s shirt was plain – none of the lavish Perlish embroidery climbing the sleeves of those waiting inside the inn. Her trousers were of thick wool and her boots were sturdy. The woman’s accent on greeting Cora with a curt afternoon confirmed it: the stitcher was a Seeder. Lowlander, Cora corrected herself. She’d been trying to stop using what Jenkins said was a slur to describe the people of the Lowlands. Old habits died hard, especially when southerners were concerned.
The stitcher introduced herself as Lett and held out her hand to Cora, who was looking for farm soil on it before she realised what she was doing.
‘Grim business, this,’ Lett said. ‘Where do you want me to start?’
‘With him there, the one shackled.’ As much as Cora didn’t want to see Finnuc’s face, he was the cause of this.
Cora told Jenkins to stay at the doorway and see they weren’t disturbed.
‘Can you say what killed them by looking at them here,’ Cora called to the stitcher, ‘or will you need to…’ She had no idea what the alternative was. Back at the Bernswick station, she tried to have as little to do with the activities of Pruett, the station’s stitcher, as she could.
Lett examined the bowl at Finnuc’s side.
‘Well?’ Cora said, still keeping her distance.
‘I have an idea of what it is.’ Lett set the bowl back in the straw. ‘The smell, the purging. Blisters on the lips will confirm it.’
‘You’ve seen this before then?’ Cora said.
‘Poison’s a popular way to kill in Perlanse.’
‘You seem to know the place well.’
‘Being a stitcher,’ Lett said, rifling through her bag, ‘gives you a certain kind of insight.’
‘Different to stitching those from home, I guess. What brings you north to work? I can’t believe the Lowlands are lucky enough to have more stitchers than they need.’
Lett’s hands stilled, but she didn’t look up. ‘The things going on there, at home, the south… I couldn’t stay.’
‘What do you mean?’
The stitcher shook her head. ‘I brought some constables with me, as requested. I’ll need one to help me in here, but the rest are yours.’
Cora told Jenkins to take the constables to the inn and question everyone there about the man with the broken nose.
‘I want to know if anyone saw him arrive, if he went into the inn first. Anyone local, do they know him?’
Jenkins was away across the courtyard, the new constables stepping quickly into line behind her. Their jackets were the same shade of deep blue worn by the constables of Fenest. Seemed some habits of the capital were followed out here in the countryside. Jenkins’ height meant she stood out in the sea of blue backs, as did the authority in her voice as she gave instructions to the Perlish constables. Jenkins would be giving Sergeant Hearst – Cora’s commanding officer at Bernswick – a run for his money before too long. Short odds on that wager as to who’d end up in charge.
Back in the barn, Lett and one of her constables were turning Finnuc’s body. The Casker was heavy and they had a job of it. Cora stepped forward to help but caught sight of Finnuc’s face and had to turn away again. She concentrated on the sounds: Lett and the constable’s heavy breath, the clank of the shackles as Finnuc’s feet dragged along the floor, the crackle of the straw as his broad back was levered clear. A grunt of effort told Cora the job was done.
‘Well?’ Cora said, still looking away.
‘It’s Heartsbane, as I thought,’ Lett said. ‘The smell and the purging suggested it. With these blisters on the lips, you can’t mistake—’
‘Stitcher?’ It was the constable. ‘There’s something tucked in his collar. Here.’
Cora turned. The constable was kneeling in the straw, Finnuc face up and lying in the man’s arms as if he’d just been dragged from a river or some burning building. But too late, because his face—
The features she had known, now swollen and split. His lips bubbled with blisters. His poor, poor eyes.
Lett was fiddling with Finnuc’s chest, her back to Cora. When she turned round she was holding something in her hand. No, two things.
‘I can’t think why these are here. There aren’t any chickens.’
‘Chickens?’
Two feathers.
One black, and one white.
Three
Lett wanted to fully examine the faces of the other bodies. Cora left her and the constable to it and went out to the courtyard. She leaned against the coach that had brought Finnuc here, and studied the feathers. One black. One white. The same colours as the stones used to vote in elections, when each realm sent their storyteller to Fenest and the capital’s voters cast their judgement on the tales. When control of the Assembly was won or lost, depending on the number of stones won. Black for yes, white for no.