Sanctuary - Lynn Abbey [192]
Shite for sure, Cauvin would have preferred a scolding, even a beating once they’d cleared the eastern gate. (Without conversation they’d agreed that the boy would have come and gone through the gate rather than the Hillside gaps in the wall.) It was bad enough being worried sick over Bec without wondering when Grabar would finally explode.
Flower gave them their first hint of trouble halfway up the treelined avenue to the brick-walled ruin. She planted her hooves and let loose with one of her “I’m here” brays which was answered by a horse on the far side of the trees. Cauvin struck off and found a brown gelding grazing the frosted grass. The animal wore a saddle and bridle; neither was wet enough to have weathered last night’s gale.
Horses were notoriously skittish and not Cauvin’s favorite beasts. He approached it cautiously and counted himself lucky to grab the trailing reins without sending it galloping across the meadow in panic.
“Soldt’s?” Grabar asked—his first word since knocking Cauvin off the chair.
“Maybe,” Cauvin replied. He didn’t doubt the assassin could ride as well as he handled a sword. But Soldt wouldn’t have left a sword lying out in the rain, and it didn’t seem likely that he would have left a horse out either. “Don’t think so.”
Grabar grunted and, holding on to Flower’s lead, indicated that Cauvin and the gelding should go first into the ruins. Inside the wall, they took turns calling Bec’s name.
“This is where I set the Torch up first.” Cauvin gestured toward the roofless bedchamber and noticed a body sprawled on the ground within it. “Frog all,” he swore, and looked for a place to tie the horse.
Grabar did the same with Flower. They met on either side of the body. It was a man in worker’s clothes, facedown on what had been a springtime mosaic. His nose was buried in storm-soaked leaves and muck. Cauvin’s best guess was that he’d been dead before he hit the ground, but his hands were beneath his gut and he could have been cheating. If there’d been a stout stick nearby, Cauvin would have used it to nudge the body; instead, he shoved a foot under the body’s shoulder and booted it over.
“Eyes of the Thunderer!” Grabar exclaimed, leaping clear as the body flopped toward him.
Froggin’ sure, the body was a corpse, a stranger to Cauvin, with a skull-sized hole in its gut. There was gore on the mosaic tiles, but not enough—in Cauvin’s experience—to account for all the missing flesh. He got closer and noticed how the dead man’s clothing was charred around at the edges and that the hole itself had the look—and odor—of seared meat. He prodded with his finger—
“Eyes of the Thunderer! Don’t do that!”
Cauvin straightened. “I wonder what killed him?”
“Wolves!” Grabar decided, then shouted Bec’s name four times, once to each quarter. “You said there’s a cellar. Show me!”
“Couldn’t be wolves,” Cauvin argued on the way to the root cellar. “Wolves bite and tear. That man’s gut burst and burnt—from the inside! There’s no animal that could do that. No weapon, neither.”
“Gods could.”
Of course! Without warning Grabar, Cauvin ran back to look at the corpse’s hands. One was charred, the other was missing along with half a forearm. No way to tell if he’d been Hand—
“Cauvin! Where’s that cellar?”
They found another corpse near the cellar entrance. The pud had lasted long enough to curl into a ball, as if that would have smothered the fire or kept his guts where they’d belonged. He’d died with his eyes open and sheer terror shaping his face. Cauvin glanced at the corpse’s hands as they passed: The palms were burnt bloody, but the backs were pale.
“Hurry up!” Grabar scolded, making it clear that he wanted Cauvin to enter the cellar first.
Cauvin didn’t object, though his eyes took a moment longer than he’d expected to adjust to the dim light, and he stumbled over a third corpse. It was so thoroughly blasted that its bones were nothing but charcoal and collapsed beneath Cauvin’s boots. There was a fourth corpse just beyond the third and the dark