The Tainted Cup (Shadow of the Leviathan, #1)(46)

“Can’t say, sir. But that’s five out of the ten dead folk who returned to the city—all on the eighth night before they died. What do you think of it?”

“Well.” He snorted and ruffled his mustache with a knuckle. “It almost makes sense.”

“Almost?”

“Yeah.” He consulted his notes, frowning as he flipped through his smudged parchments. “But I have one of the dead ten who hasn’t been back to Talagray for weeks. Which breaks your pattern, yeah?”

I felt my heart dribbling down through my ribs and into my boots. “Who, sir?”

“Signum Ginklas Loveh,” he said. He wrinkled up his nose as he read. “This is what her, ah…hell, I guess her lover said, this Signum Sirgdela Vartas I questioned, of the Legion. He said she hasn’t been near Talagray for almost a month. And if she didn’t go to Talagray at all, then that’s not the place of the poisoning, is it?”

“What about the date of the other meeting?” I said. “On the seventh of the month of Egin?”

Miljin consulted his notes. “No, she wasn’t in Talagray then, neither.”

“Then where was she? Here at the base?”

“No…Vartas said that our dead Signum Loveh went to the walls on some trip with Commander Blas himself. That’s all else he could give me.”

My skin went cold.

“Wait. When? What date in Egin, exactly?” I asked.

He consulted his notes again. “The, ah, seventh and eighth of that month,” he said.

I thought this over. Then I slowly slid out my vial of lye-scent and smelled it.

My eyes trembled, and all the details of the Daretana murder filled my mind, like my skull was once again a bubble of water full of leaping fish.

“He just…he just volunteered this to you, sir?” I asked.

“Yes…why? What’s wrong with it, boy?”

“I…I think this Signum Vartas lied to you, sir,” I said. “No—I know he did.”

Miljin went stone-faced. “Did he.”

“Yes. But I’m not yet sure why. I’d like to find out. Is that all right, sir?”

His jaw worked for a moment. Then he made a fist with his right hand, and all the knuckles of his massive hand crackled all at once. “That,” he said, “would be perfectly lovely.”



* * *



—

UNLIKE EVERYONE ELSE I’d interviewed, Signum Vartas was out of his healing bath and lying on a cot, with a tray of tea and a slender shootstraw pipe smoking in an ashpot beside him. He wore a set of silk robes that looked brand new, and while his injuries weren’t mild by any means—he had haal-paste applied in streaks to his shoulder and neck, probably from gashes he’d gotten during the collapse—he seemed to be recovering much faster than everyone else in the bays here. His room even had a window. None of the others had.

He cocked an eyebrow as Miljin and I walked in—a cold, imperious look—and he put down his pipe. “What’s this now?” he asked. “I thought I’d answered all your questions, Captain.”

I sat down in front of him, not bothering to bow or salute. “I just had a few more myself, Signum Vartas.”

He looked down his nose at me. He was a tall, thin Rathras man, with a high brow and deep-set eyes that looked out at you like you were a household servant he didn’t entirely trust yet. “And you are?” he asked.

“Signum Kol, Iudex. Just comparing dates.”

“I gave Captain Miljin here all the dates I knew.”

“I just wanted to check something. Can you tell me again about Signum Loveh’s movements during the days previous to her death?”

“I can confirm all that I told Captain Miljin,” he said, bristling slightly. “Or are you doubting his word and mine?”

“You told the captain that Loveh had never been to Talagray,” I said.

“Yes? Not for weeks before she died.”

“Can you remember the last time she’d gone there?”

“No. Could have been months, really. Why?”

“But you were intimate with Signum Loveh, correct?”

His cold gaze danced over my face. He picked back up his shootstraw pipe and puffed at it. “A shake to your eyes…” he said softly. “You’re Sublime, like me. You know relationships are tricky for those like us.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” I said.

“Fine. Yes, I was intimate with her.”

“So you would have known when she went back to Talagray.”

“Yes, and she didn’t!” he said. Tufts of smoke trickled out of his nostrils. “What’s the point of this?”

“And the only other time that you mentioned was one instance, when she went out with Commander Blas.”

“Yes!”

“And where did they go?”

“To inspect the walls! I’m sure Miljin told you that!”

Miljin, however, gave Vartas nothing, staring at him with his flat, dark gaze.

“What date was that?” I asked.

“The seventh and eighth,” Vartas said. “Of the month of Egin. Just over two months ago.”

I watched him. His cold little eyes stared into mine, but I glimpsed a fragile gleam there, a tremble in his pupils.