Chapter 264: The Inquisitors at Maren (5)

Rael proved even less cooperative.

The master of the Gleaning entered with his left arm in a sling. He offered Grane a brief nod but declined the chair Varne indicated, remaining beside the door with his good shoulder against the wall.

"You were with the Strategist on the night the Elder was wounded," Grane said, "and at the bridge on the final day. I’d like to hear what you saw."

"Very well."

Grane waited, allowing the silence to settle.

Rael seemed perfectly comfortable with it.

"Would you care to begin?"

"You asked what I saw. I saw a bridge, an Elder, and a great many people trying not to die."

Varne looked up from her notes.

Grane folded his hands on the table.

"Did the Strategist display any unusual abilities?"

"Yes."

"What abilities?"

"Unusual ones."

Varne’s pen stopped moving.

Grane looked at Rael, trying to decide whether the man was being deliberately obtuse or simply had no interest in making the inquiry easier.

"Master Rael, I am conducting an official investigation."

"And I am answering your questions."

"Are you deliberately obstructing the investigation?"

"No. I’m answering everything you’ve asked me. If you’d like more useful answers, you’ll have to ask more useful questions."

The room fell quiet.

Rael did not look away. He did not appear particularly concerned about how the exchange might be recorded, nor did he seem interested in testing how far Grane’s patience would stretch.

Grane had questioned soldiers who lied out of fear, nobles who lied out of habit, and officials who had perfected the art of saying nothing while appearing to say a great deal.

Rael was different. He was not trying to convince Grane of anything. He was simply refusing to offer more than he had been asked to provide.

That made him difficult to handle.

For a moment, neither man spoke.

Then Grane nodded.

"Very well. You’re dismissed."

Rael pushed away from the wall and left without another word. His boots receded down the corridor, steady despite the sling.

Varne watched him disappear around the corner.

"Should we bring him back?"

"No. He’s someone who knows exactly how far he can go without breaking the law." Grane gathered the pages in front of him and tapped their edges against the table to straighten them. "Pushing him will accomplish nothing. He’ll only become more careful with his words."

"He was there when the Elder was wounded. Surely he knows more than that."

"Of course he does."

"Then why let him leave?"

"Because I can’t force him to tell me what he knows merely by asking the same question louder."

Varne considered this and returned to her notes.

Grane looked down at the reports collected so far. They contained accounts of the bridge’s destruction, the evacuation of the survivors, and Encrid’s actions during the final battle. The details differed from witness to witness, but one thing remained consistent: the young lord had done something that none of them could adequately explain.

Some described impossible speed. Others remembered the cold. A few spoke of his swordsmanship with the sort of hesitation usually reserved for things they feared they had imagined.

Yet the witnesses who had been closest to Encrid were the least helpful.

The Grand Magus admitted that he had seen the event but refused to explain it. Merta was more interested in defending her decisions than justifying them. Rael answered questions as though the entire inquiry were a tedious exercise in wording.

And none of them had offered evidence that Encrid was dead.

Varne closed her notebook.

"Do you believe the Strategist is alive?"

Grane looked at her.

"Why do you ask?"

"Nobody has found a body. The Grand Magus spoke about him as though his actions mattered more than his fate. And the others..." She paused, searching for the right words. "They don’t seem to have accepted that he’s gone."

"People don’t always accept what has happened to them."

"No. But they usually have something to point to."

Grane glanced toward the window. From the room, he could see a narrow stretch of the keep’s courtyard. Survivors crossed between buildings carrying supplies, and a pair of guards stood near the entrance, watching the road beyond the walls.

"Bring in the boy," he said. "Gus."

The boy entered empty-handed, closing the door quietly behind him. He looked exhausted. His eyes were hollow, and there were dark shadows beneath them, as though he had not slept properly in days.

He took a few steps into the room before noticing the chairs and the papers spread across the table. His gaze moved from Grane to Varne and then down to the floor.

Something else caught Grane’s attention.

A faint golden-white light shimmered around Gus’s knuckles. It appeared, faded, and returned in a slow rhythm, like breathing beneath his skin.

The boy seemed unaware of it, keeping his hands close to his sides.

Grane glanced at Varne. She had noticed it, too, but said nothing.

"Thank you for coming," Grane said. He kept his voice gentle. "I won’t keep you long. I’m told you were the last person to speak with the Strategist on the bridge."

Gus nodded and took the chair opposite him.

"What did he say?"

"The young master told me to hold the lamp," Gus said. "And some papers. He said he’d want them back."

"The lamp?"

"It’s something he received from the lampwrights."

"What kind of lamp is it?"

Gus hesitated, as though he had not expected the question.

"Just a lamp, sir."

Grane let the answer pass.

"Where is it now?"

Gus lowered his eyes to the table. His fingers curled against his knees, and the faint light around his knuckles pulsed once.

"Somewhere he can find it easily."

Varne’s pen scratched across the page.

Gus glanced toward the sound, saw who was holding the pen, and quickly looked back down at the table. A flush spread from his cheeks to the tips of his ears.

Grane noticed the change. He shifted his chair slightly, placing himself more directly in the boy’s line of sight and leaving Varne outside his immediate field of view.

"Did you see him fall?"

"No."

"Did anyone find his body?"

"No."

Gus answered quickly. There was no hesitation in either reply.

Grane rested his forearms on the table.

"At a crossing like that, the river can carry a man away. The entire span was destroyed, too. Even if he survived the initial collapse, he could have been swept downstream before anyone had a chance to reach him."

He paused, giving Gus time to follow.

"Wouldn’t it be more reasonable to assume he’s dead?"

"No. He isn’t dead."

The answer came so firmly that Grane studied him anew.

"How do you know?"

Gus opened his mouth, then closed it.

His eyes shifted briefly toward the door. The light around his knuckles had grown brighter, though it was difficult to tell whether the change was real or a trick of the fading daylight.

He said nothing.

Grane waited. He had learned that frightened witnesses often needed time, and that filling every silence only gave them another question to hide behind.

But Gus had no answer.

"All right," Grane said at last. "Let’s assume he is dead. Has anyone sent word to you since? A letter, a message? Has a stranger come asking for you?"

"No, sir."

This time, the answer was quiet.

Grane believed him.

Gus was a poor liar. His face betrayed too much, and every question about Encrid seemed to leave him struggling to keep something inside. If the Strategist was alive and in contact with anyone on the ridge, it was unlikely to be this boy. Nobody would trust a secret of that size to someone who could barely keep his own expression under control.

Still, Grane could not quite dismiss the certainty in Gus’s first answer.

No. He isn’t dead.

It had not sounded like a guess. Nor had it sounded like the desperate hope of someone refusing to accept a loss.

It was something else, though Grane could not say what.

He closed his notebook.

"That will be all, Gus. Thank you for your time."

The boy rose at once, seeming relieved that the questioning had ended. At the door, he hesitated as if he wanted to say something. His fingers tightened briefly at his sides, and the light around his knuckles flickered.

Then he bowed his head and left.

Grane watched the door close behind him.

Varne waited until the boy’s footsteps faded.

"He believes the Strategist is alive."

"Yes."

"Do you think he knows something?"

"Perhaps." Grane gathered his notes and slipped them into his leather case. "But belief isn’t evidence."

Grane stood and adjusted his coat. He had spent the day questioning people who either knew more than they admitted or understood less than he needed them to. None had given him a clear account of what happened at the bridge.

Worse, none had given him a reason to stop looking.

"Let’s move on to the remaining witnesses," he said. "We may find someone willing to speak plainly."

He did not sound as though he expected to.

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