Page 18 of A Trade of Blood

“Why don’t you know?”

“I…remember,” he said slowly. “But I don’t know. It is like a madness. You wouldn’t understand.”

“I might. I’ve heard many strange things in my time, Castus.”

“But not this. To live it was like living a nightmare, full of sound and strangeness. I’ll not tell you of it.”

“Why?”

“Because…I am sure that what I say will give you cause to hang me. And I feel you’ve enough of that.”

I studied him carefully and considered my words. “You say last night was like a nightmare, and full of mad things. But was one mad thing something Zansay did…aftershe was attacked? Did you see her do something you can’t explain, Castus?”

He looked up at me with a wild, wary gleam in his eyes. He was silent for a great while. “Was…it real, then?” he whispered finally. “Did it truly happen?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Why don’t you tell me what you saw?”

Castus swallowed again and thought for a moment. “If you’re here,” he said finally, “then you likely already know of…of Zansay and me.”

“Of your tryst? Yes.”

“Did Ithia tell you?”

“We had to threaten her. She tried to defend you until the end. How did it begin?”

“By…by happenstance,” he said. “A chance meeting in the city.At a damned fabric merchant. She was buying cloth, and I saw her and said she would look lovely in the pattern.” The ghost of a smile. “And she laughed, because she was buying the cloth for a sofa. It was a small moment, but…one we both remembered.” The smile faded. “Both of us are people who are much pursued because of our names, you see. Loved for our position, for our circumstances. Yet for her…”

“You knew that affection was real,” I said, “because she had no reason to love you for your name.”

“Yes.” He sighed. “We planned to run away together, you know. Escape this horrid feud. We weren’t sure where we’d go. To the Outer Rim, perhaps. We’d cast our fates to the wind even in that wild place, if it gave us freedom. If my family were to know, it would have doomed me. But I wound up doomed regardless, true?”

“Why run away? A union between the families would end any tension, true?”

A hollow laugh. “This is the third ring, Iudex. People here do not change. Custom, culture, ancestors, fealty—these rule all. And the hatred between the Armentas and the Buravs isveryold.” He buried his face in his hands. “We should have gone earlier. Should have fled weeks ago. Then I could have…”

He fell silent.

“Tell me what happened,” I said.

“I will…tell you what Iexperienced,” he said carefully. “But I can’t trust any of it.” He swallowed. “We were in the chamber in the inn. Together. Then…Zansay found the knife.”

I chose to feign ignorance. “What knife?”

“A flensing knife. Sheathed and packed in her bag. But she didnotput it there. She’d never handled such a thing—she didn’t even know what a flensing knife looked like—and neither of us could explain it.”

My eyes trembled in my head, and I summoned the memory of pulling the sheath from Zansay’s belongings.

“What did you do with it?” I asked.

“Nothing!” said Castus. “We had no use for such a thing! We puzzled over it, and set it aside. This was the one time we could betogether, and we would not be bothered with knives. The night continued…” He paused. “And then I heard something.”

“What was it?”

“I…am not sure,” he said honestly. “But it sounded like…song.”

“A song?”

“Yes.”