The Fall of Arnon

Chapter 10

"Oh, my poor boy. My darling boy." The older lady fell to her knees, sobbing against the old stone floor. Her shoulders shook as the tears poured out in waterfalls. The sight of the white-haired woman laid out on the floor was almost more than Father Thomas could bare.

With his own creaking limbs he fell to the floor beside her, one long arm stretched across her bony back. Like a child looking for consolation for a burnt finger, she threw her convulsing body against him, unrestrained in the agony of a broken heart.

"I know, I know," he softly comforted her, but he wondered, did he really know? Can anyone truly feel the heart-wrenching pain that comes with losing one's own flesh and blood?

Looking up, he saw two hardened, dark grey eyes piercing through him. Wrinkled frown lines imbedded themselves into a leathery, brown face. Not one word had the man spoken since the discovery of his son's death, and now he stood, stone-faced against the nightmare that had descended upon his life.

When the woman had regained a semblance of composure, she released the priest from her iron grasp and stood up painfully.

"Sir," the boy of unknown origin, sidled up to Father Thomas's side. "Sir Ryan would be very grateful if you would do him the honor of being present for the interviews he will soon be conducting."

The priest nodded understandingly and picked himself up. He was soon seated in the church meeting room, the table of more than three hundred years old, the only thing separating him and the list of suspects.

They weren't long interviews, and they were soon over with them, and to the Father's eyes no closer to finding the culprit than before.

The suspects were the two boys, much too overeager in the search for the boy on his first disappearance, his best friend, Toby, and his grieving family.

The first two boys both provided each other with alibis, being far away at Parifa Creek skipping stones, before making their merry way to the church. No-one else could corroborate their story, but their parents all agreed on their leaving their consecutive homes at seven o' clock.  Plenty of time for them to complete the gruesome murder.

Next came the boy's best friend. Toby told them through constant snorting into an overused handkerchief that he had seen his friend only hours before his untimely death. The boy had come to see Toby and bring him his breakfast where he had been shepherding his very own flock of Worburtons, small animals, hairless and ugly, but extremely docile. "It was almost nine, by way of the sun," he had said.

Finally, his family marched in solemnly and sat as if waiting for a jury to pronounce a guilty verdict. 

The sister was the first to be questioned. Her answers were clear and concise, as if she had somehow read them and simply repeated them from memory. She sat as straight as a pole, never flinching. A hardened look of forced dismissal caught the immediate attention of the priest.

She had seen nothing of her brother since the previous night and had little else to say on the matter.

"And, how would you describe your relationship with your brother?" The knight questioned calmly. He looked up only for a second from the scroll he had been using as his recording tablet. 

For a moment, the girl looked different, almost as if some emotion had suddenly taken hold of her, but like a sword into a sheath the hood of resolution immediately slipped back over her features.

"We weren't that close, but that is only to be expected. He was to become, as my father is, a blacksmith, and I will soon be a wife taking upon myself the duties of a home." 

For only a moment, Father Thomas could have sworn he had heard one small hint of bitterness oozing from her rigid mouth in a barely perceptible tinge in her voice.