Black Salt

Black Salt - Chapter 05

 Blood trickled down his forehead, and ran into his eyes, where it gathered in glistening red pools, before welling up and rolling in fat droplets down his cheeks and lips, soaking his grey beard, until it dripped and splashed the floor.

"Jacinthus?" said the king.

"Zagintos," said Nikias, as he sheathed his sword.

Herek, the big-nosed, blonde haired slave from the cold north shook his head. He spoke the common tongue with such a thick accent that even his wife laughed and called him the choking bear. "Shakinta," he said.

Ptolemaios shrugged. "Doesn't matter now."

Herek raised his eyebrows, and Nikias rolled his eyes. The northern slave laughed, but Ptolemaios eyed him, and he made it sound like a cough. Nikias didn't feel like laughing. He'd led the king to the palace because he'd thought it would be safe, and not just for Bull Gut. He'd smelled blood as soon as he'd set foot in the private garden, and the lament had braced him to see the corpse, but seeing old Zagintos with his skull crushed in made his own wounds hurt twice as much. He swore he could feel the antique bronze knife digging through his skin, sending splinters of pain deep into his gut. He'd already sent a slave boy to find Leaina and bring her to him, but the kid hadn't returned. Every minute of waiting made his heart ache.

The palace was built on the plan of a hollow square, with the grand hall in front, official chambers in the sides, and private rooms for the king and his privileged officers in the rear. They stood in the central garden, where the king, his family and guests could relax under the shade of the trees, play games on the grass, and even fish in a small pond. This was also the favourite spot of the royal treasurer, who had made a habit of managing the royal accounts at a small wooden table in the garden, because, as his eyes grew weak with age, he needed good strong sun light.

"The killer must have crept up and surprised him from behind," said Apollophanos, chewing the thumbnail of his fingerless right hand.

"No," said Nikias. "Whoever killed him walked right up to his face, #looked into his eyes before he smashed his skull."

The murder weapon, a round flat rock, lay on the grass, brown with dried blood.

"He was always there," said the king. "He was always just there, muttering over his scrolls. The killer couldn't find me, so he bashed poor old Jacinthus over the head."

As they spoke, the king's doctor, a tall, square shouldered Ionian called Pompus, attended to Nikias's wounds. Pompus wore a wreath of green leaves on his head, which he claimed to be a gift from Asklepios. The leaves didn't quite hide his gleaming bald patch. Nikias let the man dab away at them with clean water, but then he smeared them with some flowery smelling paste, and Nikias pulled away. "I don't need your perfumes," he said. The doctor sniffed, and walked away. Nikias pressed his lips together, and shook his head. "One murderer is still alive," he said, turning to the king.

"I've already ordered the guards to watch the palace," said the king. "He won't get back in here for another go, I swear it by the fist of Ares!"

"It's not enough-"

A high-pitched woman's voice drowned his words. "Not nearly enough!"

Ptolemaios shrank. "Oh no. Not her."

A woman almost the twin of Ptolemaios, her bulky, masculine body swathed in bilious yellow silks, lumbered near. Her thick, strong hands cradled a struggling weasel, his muzzle torn and bleeding. "Send the useless pisswits out into the city," she said. "Have the scour every corner and alley of the filthy cesspit, and when they find him, tell them to hook him up by his ears and his nostrils and his anus!"