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She was shaking her head vigorously. That she was trying to deny it only made Fitch more determined.
“I told you not to say those vile lies about our Minister of Culture! You said you wouldn’t! You told me you wouldn’t. Now you’ve gone flapping your tongue again with those same hateful lies.”
“You tell her, Fitch,” one of the other men said.
“That’s right. Fitch is right,” another said.
“You gave her a chance,” still another said.
Several of the men clapped Fitch on the back. It made him feel good that they were proud of him. It made him feel important.
She shook her head. Her brow was bunched to a knot of skin in the middle.
“They’re all right,” Morley said as he shook her. “I was there. I heard him tell you. You should have done what you was told. Fitch gave you a chance, he did.”
She frantically tried to talk against the gag. Fitch yanked it down below her chin.
“No! I never did! I swear, sir! I never said anything after you told me not to! I swear! Please! You have to believe me—I wouldn’t tell anyone—not after you told me to keep quiet—I wouldn’t—I didn’t!”
“You did!” Fitch’s fists balled into tight knots. “Master Campbell told us you did. Are you now calling Master Campbell a liar?”
She shook her head. “No! Please, sir, you must believe me!” She started to sob. “Please sir, I did as you said.”
Fitch was enraged to hear her deny it. He had warned her. He had given her a chance. Master Campbell had given her a chance, and she had continued with her treason.
Even her calling him “sir” didn’t bring him much delight. But the men behind urging him on did.
Fitch didn’t want to hear any more of her lies. “I told you to keep your mouth shut! You didn’t!”
“I did,” she said as she wept, hanging in Morley’s arms. “I did. Please, I told no one anything. I never told—”
Hard as he could, Fitch slammed his fist square into her face. Straight in. All his might. He felt bone snap.
The blow stung his fist, but it was only a far-off pain. Great gouts of blood bloomed across her face in lurid gushes.
“Good one, Fitch!” Morley called out, staggered a step by the blow. Other men agreed. “Give it to her again!”
Feeling pride at the praise, Fitch let the rage go wild. He cocked his arm. She was trying to harm Dalton Campbell and the Minister—the future Sovereign. He liberated his anger at this Ander woman.
His second blow to her face tumbled her out of Morley’s grip. She crashed to her side on the ground. Fitch could see her jaw was unhinged. He couldn’t recognize her face, what with the way her nose was flattened and with all the blood.
It was shocking, in a distant sort of way, like he was watching someone else doing it.
Like a pack of dogs, the rest of the men were on her. Morley was the strongest, and fierce. They lifted her. They all seemed to be punching her at once. Her head snapped one way and then the other. She doubled over from punches in the gut. The men walloped her in the kidneys. Blow after blow rained down, driving her from the arms that were holding her up, pummeling her to the ground.
Once she was down, they all started kicking her. Morley kicked the back of her head. Another man stomped down on the side of it. Others kicked her body so hard it lifted her from the ground, or rolled this way and that. The sounds of the blows, hollow and sharp, almost drowned out the grunts of effort.
Fitch, landing a kick in her ribs, seemed to be in some quiet place, watching the whole thing. It disgusted him, but it excited him at the same time. He was part of something important, with other good men, doing important work for Dalton Campbell and the Minister of Culture—the future Sovereign.
But a part of him was sickened by what was happening. A part of him wanted to run crying from what was happening. A part of him wished they had never found her coming out of that building.
But a part of him was wildly excited by it, excited to be part of it, excited to be one of the men.
He didn’t know how long it went on. It seemed forever.
The thick smell of blood filled his nostrils and seemed to coat his tongue. Blood saturated their clothes. It gloved their fists. It was splattered across their faces.
The heady experience filled Fitch with a profound sense of camaraderie. They laughed with the exhilaration of brotherhood.
When they heard the sound of the carriage, they all froze. Sharing the same wild look in their eyes, they stood panting as they listened.
The carriage stopped.
Before they had a chance to find out why, or anyone came over the hill, they all, as one, ran for it, ran for a dunk in a distant pond to wash off the blood.
39
Dalton glanced up from the report when he heard the knock.
“Yes?”
The d
oor opened and Rowley’s head of red hair poked in.
“Master Campbell, there’s someone out here wants to see you. Says his name is Inger. Says he’s a butcher.”
Dalton was busy and wasn’t in the mood to handle kitchen troubles. There were already enough troubles he needed to handle. There were any number of problems, running the gamut from the trifling to the serious, needing his attention.
The murder of Claudine Winthrop had created a sensation. She was well known and widely liked. She was important. The city was in an uproar. But, if a person knew how to properly handle such things, confusion created opportunity. Dalton was in his element.
He had made sure Stein was addressing the Directors of Cultural Amity at the time of the murder so no one would be able to raise any suspicion of him. A man with a cape of human scalps, even if they were taken in war, tended to raise suspicion.
The city guard had reported seeing Claudine Winthrop leaving Fairfield to walk back to the estate—commonly done, even at night; it was a heavily traveled road and previously believed perfectly safe. The guard reported, too, young Haken men gathered that night drinking before the murder. People naturally surmised she had been attacked by Hakens and loudly decried the incident as yet more proof of Haken hatred of Anders.
Guards now escorted people who walked at night.
There was a chorus of demands that the Minister do something. Edwin Winthrop, taken by the shock of his wife’s murder, was bedridden. From his bed he, too, sent demands for justice.
Several young men had later been arrested, but were released when it was proven they had been working at a farm the night of the murder. Men in a tavern the next night, emboldened by rum, went searching for the “Haken killers.” They found several Haken boys they were sure were guilty and beat them to death in front of cheering onlookers.
Dalton had written several speeches for the Minister and had issued orders in his name for a number of crisis measures. The murder gave the Minister an excuse to allude, in his fiery speeches, to those who opposed him for Sovereign as being responsible for stirring up contempt for the law and thus violence. He called for more stringent laws regulating “rancorous language.” His addresses to the Office of Cultural Amity, if not the new laws, weakened the knees of Directors suspicious of the Minister.
