Brutus tossed Cornelia her robe, and pulled his own tunic quickly over his head, belting it as he slid on his shoes. He grabbed his cloak, and looked about the house.
Everyone was accounted for: Coel and his companions, Hicetaon—now also out of bed and dressing—and Aethylla and the babies, the two Trojan warriors who accompanied them, and Ecub and the members of her household.
‘Coel?” said Brutus, buckling his scabbard belt to his hips.
Coel, sliding from Ecub’s bed himself, shrugged. “I have no idea,” he said.
Brutus looked at the Mother. “Ecub?”
She also shrugged. “How would I know? The woman hardly spoke to me. She is a stranger. I cannot tell her mind.”
Brutus studied her, hating her words. If Blangan did not speak, then it was because she had been made to feel wholly unwelcome within Ecub’s house.
He was also vaguely disturbed by Ecub’s lack of care. She seemed completely unperturbed about Siangan’s disappearance when on two counts she should have been at least mildly worried: firstly, her ability as a Mother would be seriously called into question if a guest of hers had come to harm under her roof (but would that truly matter if the guest in question was the hated Siangan?), and secondly, as the head of her household and the village, Ecub should at the very least be slightly anxious that a stranger was wandering around un supervised.
Especially if that stranger was the hated Blangan.
‘We will need to search for her,” Brutus said, finally taking his eyes off Ecub. “Hicetaon, take our men and search the village. Corineus, you and I will take Jago and Bladud and search the surrounding fields.
Coel.” Brutus paused, and gave Coel a hard glance as well; the man had such a bland face on him that Brutus wondered if he was hiding something. “Coel, you come with me.”
‘We should try the Stone Dance,” Corineus said. He was shifting from foot to foot, almost twitching with impatience and dread. “Blangan talked of it yesterday. Perhaps she was drawn there last night.”
‘Perhaps,” said Brutus, sending Ecub one more speculative look, then he motioned to the other men, and they left the house.
As soon as the last man had gone, Ecub looked over to Cornelia.
Cornelia blanched, and stepped back against the bed, almost tripping over the blankets Brutus had left tangled on the floor.
Ecub’s mouth hardened into a thin line.
THEY FOUND HER ALMOST IMMEDIATELY. THERE WAS little to search in the village that Corineus had not already checked, and so Hicetaon and the two other Trojans rejoined Brutus, Corineus, and Coel just as they approached the Stone Dance.
They knew even before they entered the circles: crows and ravens were heaped in a squawking, heaving mass of feathers, wings, and flashing beaks on the far side of the Dance.
Corineus gave a ghastly cry, and ran toward the birds before Brutus could stop him.
As soon as he arrived to within two paces of the shuffling mass of birds, Corineus threw himself at them, shouting madly.
They erupted in a dusty, foul-smelling cloud of black feathers and flew off, screeching in disgust at the interruption.
As they lifted away, Corineus gave one long, despairing cry and sank to his knees, his hands to his face.
When Brutus reached his side, he took one look, then turned aside his head, swallowing.
Even his battle experience had not prepared him for this.
What was left of Blangan lay by one of the stone uprights; it was a hideous, twisted mess of blood and flesh. The birds’ feeding had damaged her, but even so it was clear enough what had been done to her before the ravens had descended.
Her left breast had been ripped almost from her body, its flesh mangled as if it had been chewed.
Her heart lay exposed, half out of her chest… and in the clotted blood that covered it Brutus could clearly see the finger marks of her murderer.
Corineus was keening, thin and high, one hand now patting at the air above Siangan’s corpse as if he wanted to touch her, but did not dare.
Hicetaon, glancing at Brutus who stood staring at Blangan with anger so deep it seemed quite possible that he’d take his sword to the stone as a revenge for Siangan’s murder, squatted down by Corineus, and put his arms about him. He hugged Corineus tight, murmuring words of comfort.
Brutus took a very deep breath, then looked at Coel who had stopped a little distance away.
His face had not altered from its carefully composed blandness. “Who did this to her? Who , Coel?
No one hated Blangan this much save for your people!”
‘Take your hand from your sword,” Coel said. “No one from among my men or this village did this to her! If Blangan died here, and in this manner, then it was the work of gods, not of man.”
‘Do gods have murdering fingers?” Brutus shouted, jabbing his hand at the marks about Siangan’s heart. “Damn you and your dark gods, Coel! Blangan was a woman innocent of any wrongdoing! Do not blame her for the split in Og’s power, for she was a victim as much as this blighted land of yours!”
Coel’s face had lost some of its composure, but the fact that Brutus could still see no sympathy or understanding there drove him even deeper into anger. “Do you know what she told me, Coel? Do you?
She said that she was a terrified thirteen-year-old girl, raped by her father and with no more ability to weave darkcraft than she could command the tide to retreat. Someone had cast that darkcraft, Coel, but it was not her .” Brutus flung his hand at Siangan’s corpse again.
Something shifted in Coel’s eyes, an uncertainty perhaps, but it did not reflect in his voice. “She had no right talking to you of matters that did not—”
G ‘She had every right, Coel! Every right! She was terrified… she knew she had come home to die.
All she wanted, Coel”—Brutus’ voice dropped, now soft in its disgust—”was for someone to believe in her.”
He turned away, and dropped down by Corineus, leaving Coel staring at him in sudden horror.
THEY CARRIED BLANGAN’S CORPSE BACK TO THE VIL lage, a silent line of men wrapped either in thought or in grief, and into Ecub’s house.
Ecub hurried to meet them, exchanging a quick, knowing look with Coel, then taking charge.
‘Cornelia, Aethylla, my daughters, and I will wash and tend her,” Ecub said, “while you men build a funerary pyre. Go now, and leave women to tend to women.”
Brutus nodded, grateful to hand the horrible corpse over to Ecub, then he saw Cornelia’s pale and frightened face. “Cornelia? Are you well?”
‘How can I be well, Brutus, when I loved Blangan so dearly. Go now, please, leave us alone.”
As Brutus turned away, Coel caught Cornelia’s eyes, and saw the fright within them.
Frenzy wine or not, Cornelia remembered.
THE WOMEN TOOK THE ENTIRE MORNING TO WASH Blangan clean, stitch her wounds, and wind her in her shroud. Their work was done in silence, save for the odd query regarding their hideous handiwork.
Ecub shot Cornelia many a reflective look, but Cornelia refused to catch her eye, and Ecub could not talk to the woman with Aethylla or her daughters present.
At noon, Siangan’s body tended, they called in two of the men to carry her out to the funerary pyre.
THE FLAMES CAUGHT, SNAPPING AND TWISTING AT THE base of the huge pile of wood and brush on which Blangan lay. Corineus knelt in the dirt a few paces distant, his face twisted into tearless grief, his hands held out, keening soft and desolate. Everyone else—Ecub and her family, the villagers, the Trojans, and Coel, Bladud, and Jago—stood about in a circle. After a word with Coel, Ecub had seen to it that Cornelia stood distant from Brutus or any other Trojan, and that Coel stood next to her.
‘Cornelia,” Coel said softly, his eyes remaining steady on the now-flaming pyre.
She did not answer.
‘Cornelia,” he said again. “I am sorry that you are fearful.”
‘You stopped me from aiding her.” Her voice was flat, toneless, yet carried many layers of accusation within it.
‘If you had gone to her then you, too, would have died.”
‘I wish I had, Coel. I loved Blangan. I cannot believe that you could have abetted such a cruel death.”
Her voice became harsh, horrible. “I cannot believe that I let you touch me and hold me in that—”
‘Cornelia!” Coel hissed. “Keep your voice down! Do you think that Brutus will thank you now if he finds out you witnessed Siangan’s death? What will he think if he knows you kept a silent tongue in your head for all this long morning?”
Cornelia said nothing, but from the corner of his eye Coel saw that she flickered an uncertain glance Brutus’ way.