Nights of Villjamur

THIRTY-FOUR

Investigator Jeryd regarded the morning sky.

He could almost enjoy it, way up here at the higher levels of the city, away from those Gamall Gata kids and their little missiles of snow. Here, he didn’t have to look over his shoulder at every heartbeat, questioning where they’d be, or if he was in their sights.

The rumel was getting some fresh air whilst he talked to Tryst about developments. Jeryd wanted to clear his head, hoped for some inspiration regarding the murders of the two councillors. Time was passing, and there were too many things to think about. There had been further tensions developing between the city’s people and the refugees. The mood of the situation had been heavily influenced by Council pamphlets that suggested the citizens of Villjamur ought to stay away from those seeking asylum due to disease or potential criminal activity. Jeryd knew fear was being utilized – there were now more soldiers on the streets, more citizens were being stopped and searched at random to hunt down illegal immigrants. In response to the fear, over the past few evenings, several long-range arrows had been released from the city’s bridges towards the refugee encampment. Just about anyone could have fired them – it was claimed – but names and addresses began to fill the fringe pamphlets such as Commonweal before soldiers could confiscate them and cover up the incident.

Jeryd had to deal with so much.

People shambled by them churning up slush with their boots, while men were heaping the snow on the sides of the streets. Much of it was then taken on carts and dumped in the sea, but as soon as they had cleared one area, it began filling with a fresh layer of snow. This was the sort of scene that might provide a bitter-sweet nostalgia in his old age.

Jeryd found a kind of stubborn pride in the people, in their dogged defiance of the Freeze. Life went on, they didn’t moan. Small open fires were now permitted at intervals along the streets to keep the traders warm, the constant trails of smoke drifting above Villjamur. Traders couldn’t restock their supplies of furs quick enough, and fights broke out regularly among customers over various new skins freshly imported. There was an awkward moment between a group of rumel and some men he knew to be Caveside gangsters, which reminded him of scenes from the rumel riots fifty years back.

He turned to Tryst. ‘Found out anything more from Tuya then?’

Tryst shook his head. ‘She’s very elusive. I’m hoping to get somewhere sooner or later. I’ve found a convenient balcony nearby where I can hang about and spy on her. But she doesn’t entertain that many customers.’

‘I suspect she’s made enough money over the years already,’ Jeryd murmured, gazing into the snow once again. ‘Only got herself to look after, and I think she feels trapped by the concept of money.’

Tryst sniffed, shuffled back and forth indecisively, his gaze fixed on the ground. Suddenly he asked, ‘How’s Marysa these days?’

‘Grand, since she’s moved back in with me.’ Jeryd gave him a sideways glance. ‘Why d’you ask?’

‘No reason really. Just that I thought I spotted her, at the Cross and Sickle the other night.’

‘You what?’ Jeryd was genuinely surprised. It was not her sort of venue.

‘She seemed to be in a meeting with some gentleman, that’s all. I didn’t actually speak to them, just saw them over in the corner.’

Now what the hell’s that about? Jeryd turned away abruptly. ‘Come on, I’m freezing my tail off.’

They headed back into the Inquisition chambers, where Jeryd began lighting a fire. He remained silent while it built up to a fierce glow. Tryst pulled up a chair to sit alongside him.

Eventually, Jeryd spoke up. ‘Cross and Sickle, you say? When was this?’

‘Two days ago,’ Tryst replied. ‘It was fairly early in the night – I’d say about the eighth or ninth bell. Is everything all right, Jeryd? You look a bit worried.’

Jeryd said, ‘Yes… Yes, well, it’s just that she told me she was out with a friend, that’s all.’

Tryst leaned back, stretching his legs before the flames. ‘Oh, well then. Nothing to it.’

‘What did he look like?’ Jeryd said.

‘Tall, dark rumel, but no one I knew of. A swarthy chap, with a decent set of robes on him. They seemed like good friends, anyway. There was a lot of laughing, you know, like people who go a long way back. Old friends.’

Jeryd said, ‘Doesn’t sound like any of her old friends that I know of. Anyway, she told me she would be meeting a woman.’

‘I wouldn’t worry too much. Probably a chance encounter. You know what people are like.’

‘Right…’ Jeryd said. What Tryst just said had made things worse.

Tryst stood up. ‘Now I’d better get back to watching Tuya.’

The rumel watched Tryst leave the room and was left alone with the crackling fire. He became increasingly lost in his thoughts, his suspicions.

That evening he arrived home early to the smell of warm bread. It should’ve filled him with anticipation, but he possessed little appetite.

He took off his cloak, shook the snow from his boots, and placed them by a fire in the kitchen, where Marysa was busy baking. She was humming one of those popular tunes from ten years back, the sort they would be singing in all the bars, and that poignant memory seemed to unbuckle time in his mind.

‘You’re home early,’ she observed as she kissed him on the cheek.

Is she surprised? Was she expecting someone else?

‘Yes, I couldn’t seem to get any work done today, so decided I needed time off to think.’

She returned to kneading dough. ‘I’ll be finished quite shortly. I just want to make a few more rolls. It makes a change from all my other work.’

‘Great,’ he said half-heartedly, then left the room only to berate himself. Why was he feeling so negative towards her? He didn’t know anything for certain, yet he was already being short with her. What would he be like if something really was going on? He took a step back to watch her, but far enough away so that she couldn’t see him in the shadow of the doorway. And he watched her, as if for the first time, because it seemed important now, to think of these little things.

Slender for her age, she had kept her figure well, and was certainly attractive. Other men would be interested in her. Jeryd’s mother had always said that if anyone, male or female, wanted a good night’s sleep, then they should choose a plain-looking partner, but he rarely shared opinions with his mother on matters like that.

Maybe Tryst was mistaken, maybe it wasn’t Marysa that he had seen.

Jeryd couldn’t help but feel a deep pain when he thought about her with another man. It made him feel weak, vulnerable, angry. Had it had been months earlier, when she was no longer living with him, it wouldn’t have been so difficult. But it was the fact that she had come back to him, and he loved her with an intensity greater than he could remember.

He deliberately clunked against the door frame, and Marysa glanced his way before returning her concentration to the rolls. ‘Everything OK, Jeryd?’

He stepped back into the kitchen. ‘I never asked about your evening with Lanya.’

‘We had a nice time, thanks. I hadn’t seen her for far too long.’

‘Where did you end up?’

‘We stayed at her house, because she didn’t fancy venturing out into the snow.’

‘Tryst thought he saw you at some tavern.’

He thought he noticed a small change in her posture, some tension there perhaps, or a little uncertainty.

She said, ‘On the way to her place, you mean?’

‘I’m sure he said you were in a tavern, but he could’ve been mistaken.’

‘Oh, it couldn’t have been me. I was at Lanya’s all the time. We stayed at home and talked. She’s got some new guy on the go who treats her so well, as his equal, and he sounded lovely.’

Jeryd wasn’t reassured by this. Maybe it was his naturally cynical nature after having worked for so long in the Inquisition.

Late afternoon sunlight broke through the clouds highlighting some bizarre texture in the sky. The city’s spires and bridges sparkled. Tryst had opened the balcony door to help rid Tuya’s room of the acrid stench of her painting materials. The chill in the air was enough to sharpen his senses again. He rested his chin on steepled fingers as he regarded the sculpted Marysa before him. Tuya was crouching on her knees as she made some barely noticeable alterations to this creation.

Tryst had drugged the woman earlier, keeping the dosage safe but regular, so that he could manipulate her more easily. He felt pleased with himself, in fact was getting a kick out of his recent elaborate manipulations. He had planted in Jeryd’s mind a seed of doubt about his wife’s fidelity, and soon he would show Jeryd a display of his wife in action.

‘There,’ Tuya murmured, then pushed herself upright, a sheer blue gown clinging to her curves. Tryst considered that a baser man than himself would take advantage at this moment, but he possessed good morals.

‘She looks… utterly real,’ Tryst admitted.

Indeed, the clay woman was an exact replica of Jeryd’s wife, though he had never seen the latter naked. By her stillness, she looked like a statue, however, and Tryst wasn’t quite certain what would happen next.

The previous evening, Tryst had led Tuya to observe Marysa in person as she walked through the frozen streets. The advantage of working so closely with Jeryd was that he could learn most of his wife’s idiosyncrasies. Tryst had even thrown a purse, spilling coins at Marysa’s feet, so that Tuya would be able to get the closest possible examination.

Tryst fully intended to be present when Jeryd encountered this. That would be too much of a treat to miss.

Within the bell, Tuya had gone on to perform some strange rituals with a collection of relics. Tryst observed her as best he could, asking occasional questions, but she was vague in her answers. There was obviously a history to this woman that was never going to be discussed.

Dawnir magic was beyond him, beyond any normal person. To him there seemed no way of understanding it. He just sprawled on Tuya’s bed, waiting for the animation to begin. The statue of the female rumel began to glow, then faded. Glowed and faded. He tried to say something, but Tuya waved him to silence, the woman now deep in concentration as she walked around the statue, touching it in places, a hint of eroticism to her gestures. The fake rumel began to twitch slightly. Its arms jutted forward as if to embrace someone, then relaxed. The sculpture slowly performed arm and leg and head movements, as if learning these for the first time, getting used to its own body. Discovering motility.

Then suddenly it began to move with the flowing grace of the real Marysa. Somehow Tuya had managed to capture the very essence of Jeryd’s wife in her art. The woman was more than a mystery. Tryst slid off the bed, the hair on his arms standing on end. Here in front of him was the power of the Ancient race, operating specially for his benefit. It took half an hour to dress the figure in the style favoured by Jeryd’s wife. That didn’t have to be perfect, because Marysa’s tastes in clothes were varied.

As they applied make-up, the sculpted Marysa sat at the dresser, silently staring at herself in the mirror.

Tuya finally collapsed on her bed with exhaustion, saying to Tryst petulantly, ‘Is that all you need me for? Why are you still here anyway?’

Time to drug her further, but he didn’t have enough supplies on him. Plus he needed to pick up a little something to slip in Jeryd’s drink later. He picked up an ancient tribal decoration, composed of long strips of coloured beads hanging from a sphere. He swept it in an arc and struck her across the head. She slid to the floor with a grunt, a small trickle of blood oozing onto the tiles.

The fake Marysa glanced across at him with a look of surprise on her face, then instantly she had become motionless, as a statue once again.

‘It’s OK,’ Tryst said. ‘She’s a criminal.’ Why was he talking to this thing? It certainly didn’t feel right. Did this creation have emotions? It still stared at him unnervingly.

He threw the artefact on the bed. ‘Don’t go anywhere,’ he muttered, then walked out into the cold night.

Cloud had obscured the stars, but that meant it wouldn’t be as cold as it had been recently. Out in the street, he glanced up at Tuya’s balconied window, the lantern light still visible inside, and he wondered again at the powers that the Ancients had once possessed before they disappeared from history.