I should have refused, he thought.
And there was a deeper guilt. Grymauch had asked him if he was in love with Chara Ward. The truth was that Chara was a dear friend. No more than that. Her beauty touched his body, but not his soul. He was not in love with her. It felt like betrayal of her memory to even acknowledge it. Would love have grown had she lived? He would never know now. What he did know was that a sweet and loving person had been murdered. She would never experience the joy of watching her children playing at her feet. Nor hold the hand of her husband as they watched a sunset. Chara Ward was gone, her life torn from her in a dark wood by evil men. Tears fell from Kaelin’s eyes. A racking sob burst from him, and he wept again for all that Chara Ward would never know.
Cold and trembling, Kaelin at last wiped away his tears. As he did so he smeared congealing blood to his face. He looked at his hands, picturing the deaths of Jek Bindoe and Luss Campion, recalling the awful sounds Bindoe made as his guts spilled out and his lungs were ripped apart. Kaelin’s hands began to shake, and he felt his stomach heave. For a moment he thought he would vomit, but he did not.
Rising from the river’s edge he draped his wet shirt over his shoulder and climbed to the bridge. He did not look at the mutilated corpses. Instead he gathered the silver pistols, Bindoe’s sabre, the skinning knife and the discarded sheath. Pushing the pistols into his belt, he walked to Bindoe’s horse and tried to mount. The horse backed away and Kaelin half fell.
Leaving the horses where they were he walked out across the hills, heading for home.
The morning brought fresh drama to the people of Eldacre, as word spread of astonishing events during the night. People gathered on street corners to discuss the shocking news. The fighter Gorain had hanged himself, leaving behind a scrawled note expressing unbearable shame and explaining that he had placed bets against himself and had thrown the fight against the highlander. Incredibly it seemed that Chain Shada had been party to the crime, and when officers of the Watch had gone to question him he had attacked them without reason. Three officers had been seriously injured and were now under the care of the surgeon. A fourth had been thrown through a window and rendered unconscious. Chain Shada had then fled, and a warrant had been issued for his arrest.
Eldacre was in uproar. Some who had seen the fight with the one-eyed clansman remained silent, but most agreed that a fixed fight was the only possible explanation. It all made sense. How else could an untrained and clumsy highlander defeat the pride of the Varlish? The fact that Chain Shada might be involved was surprising, but his attack on the innocent officers surely proved his guilt beyond doubt. Some even began to raise questions about Shada’s right to be considered Varlish. ‘I heard his mother was a tribeswoman from south of the old city of Stone,’ said one. Others recalled hearing that Chain Shada’s father was a mercenary soldier from Bersantum, a non-Varlish city state far to the east.
Such talk was even heard among the ten soldiers who rode behind Mulgrave as he set out on the Scardyke road. Galliott the Borderer was alongside him as they departed the town. Mulgrave was still angry. He had not slept that night, but had continued seeking witnesses who might have seen the killers of Chara Ward. It was painstaking work. Galliott’s officers were moving through the crowds, so Mulgrave had visited every stall with a view of the woods, talking to stallholders and servers. After four hours he had learned nothing of importance. Then a young woman had approached him, as he sat on a fence rail eating a slice of pie. She had been helping her sister and brother-in-law earlier that evening, on a stall selling riding accoutrements. Business had been good, and she had returned to the main premises to fetch more items. That’s why she had missed Mulgrave’s visit to the stall. She told him that around dusk she had seen a young man carrying a rope into the wood, and soon after she had seen him in the company of a soldier. Both men had walked past the stall. The soldier had blood on his face.