The Faintest Ink (Watty Winner 2015)

Chapter Ninety

Not for the first time, Larst felt himself drawn to the Chapel of the Twelfth God, with its golden walls and glowing altar. Now the pillar candles were dark, untended by any servant or altar boy. Larst didn't know where they had gone. Run away most likely. He removed a flint from his pocket and set to work, lighting a taper and then moving from one candle to the next.

The body of the King still lay in state before the altar, covered by a thin muslin cloth which whispered as he moved about the space. Combined with the flickering light of the candles, he could almost believe that the corpse was just sleeping.

"We should bury him," he said, almost to himself, shaking the taper until the flame died in a puff of grey smoke.

Hawth stepped up beside him, and looked down at the covered mound. "A state funeral might send this city right over the edge. The riots are still going. They're just rampaging around for now, but it won't take much to start them killing each other."

"It was you who said it shouldn't be hidden away. That the people must remember."

"Yes, but not yet," she said, reaching out and brushing her fingertips against the muslin. "We've got to wait until it all settles down." Realising what she was doing, she snatched her hand away, and rubbed it down the sides of her nightgown.

Larst had been fool enough to comment on the lack of silken dresses when she arrived at the chapel. "No viola gown?" he'd said, trying to make a joke.

"No," she'd said, sliding him a sidelong glance. "I don't think corsetry goes well with fresh stitches. The boning really gets in the way, what with the way that hard whalebone really digs in, wrenching apart the scabs, and frankly, there's only so many layers you can wear before the blood starts to show."

He didn't want to be reminded of having to drag her over the sharp spikes of the gate, so he shut his mouth and just nodded his agreement.

"That could be days. Or even weeks," he said, averting his eyes from her outfit. "And I don't think it will be the people who start the killing." The unstoppable army could do that all by themselves.

Larst didn't know how or even why the Chancellor did it, but he was damned sure that no one brought the dead back to life, and sent the out onto the streets, merely to pay visits on their loved ones. Whatever the price was for that magic, it was sure to be high, and the Chancellor would want his money's worth. "We can't wait that long."

"Yeah, he's starting to smell," said Straw from behind them. He'd plonked himself down in one of the pews without Larst noticing. He was horrified by his friends appearance. The bruises had darkened, and one of his eyelids lay half closed over a red eye. Guilt etched away at Larst's stomach. He'd never claimed their mission would be easy, but with Turnip dead, and these two bashed around and clawed at like worthless pieces of meat, he knew he had asked too much of them.

They may have killed a king, and burnt the name books which controlled a city, but it was not enough. The had created chaos, and he could see no way to end it.

It wouldn't take long for the people of the city to demand their names be rewritten in the books and for the masters to take hold of their lives once more. Better to live as slave than not to live at all.

And the princess... his hands shook to think of her.

He had not thought of her as a real person until he had seen her standing there is those filthy rags, that made her look like she'd stepped out of fire, her eyes flashing with hatred. She had been little more than an idea, one on which to pin all the horrors of evils of this world onto. And instead, she was nothing more than a girl. A young woman he had to tell that he had killed her father. No wonder she'd collapsed. He'd felt like fainting himself.