“Madsen, you said your cousin was reliable!”
Mikkel turned to his supervisor, Kári, with a slight frown. “He is. What's wrong?”
“He didn't show up for work this morning. We were giving him a chance because of you — okay, yes, he's done well this past month but still, if he can't be bothered to show up —!”
Mikkel had vouched for his cousin to the Icelanders, and if Knud proved unreliable, that cast doubt on Mikkel himself. And Mikkel didn't want any doubt cast on himself, for General Trond had ordered him to take this job and keep his eyes open. “Something must have happened. I'll find him this evening and sort things out.” He was less confident than he sounded about whether things could be sorted out. Knud had been doing well, but the man was miserable, still grieving about the disaster at Kastrup. Well — admit it — Mikkel was miserable himself, but he was holding on. He'd thought they both were. But if Knud had stopped working … “I'll find him.”
“You do that. And he'd better have a good excuse, or he's not coming back!”
Mikkel nodded, turned back to his work, good, hard, physical labor that let him turn off his thoughts and focus only on avoiding injury.
“No, he didn't sleep here last night. Didn't come back at all. But he's done something bad! A Guardsman was here earlier today, asking about him. Asking about you. This is a good clean rooming house, I told you that. If you've brought a criminal in here — if you two are criminals — I'm throwing him out! I won't have that sort in my house!” The landlady was a good thirty centimeters shorter than Mikkel, and probably forty years older, but she managed to be credibly threatening.
Mikkel had arranged for Knud to live in her rooming house precisely because it had the reputation of a good clean house, much better than the rather disreputable place he'd landed in. He didn't want his cousin thrown out. “Knud's not a criminal. Nor am I. I don't know what's going on, but I'll find out.”
A Guardsman asking about Knud! Mikkel had been imagining something along the lines of Knud taking his month's pay, drinking himself into a stupor, being too hungover to make it to work, and he'd been prepared to chew the man out in his best big brotherly tones, but if his cousin was in trouble with the Guards …
Well, if his cousin was in trouble with the Guards, the logical first step was to visit their headquarters.
“Knud Madsen? You're a relative?”
“Cousin.”
“Oh.” The woman stared at him, backed away slightly, as if he might transform into a troll at any moment. “He's under arrest. For murder. Double murder.”
Mikkel simply stared at her in disbelief. This was far worse than he had imagined. In fact, it was impossible, unthinkable. “I must speak to him. You must — Where is he?”
“He's injured. He's at a clinic we use. We're civilized people, Dane, and we'll patch him up even though … Anyway, here, here's the clinic.” She pointed it out on the map hung on the wall. Mikkel studied it for a moment, filed away the image, turned and left without a word.
When Mikkel wanted to, he could stride surprisingly quickly with his long legs. He passed through the evening pedestrians as if moving through an obstacle course, reaching the clinic in a matter of minutes.
Taking a deep breath, he calmed himself, opened the door gently, and stepped inside. The usual smells hit him: disinfectant, herbs. But no blood. At least there was no blood.
A woman, hardly shoulder-high to him and perhaps a decade older, dressed in somewhat worn white clothing, approached. “May I help you? I'm Elísabet Kládíudóttir, the doctor for this clinic.”
“I'm looking for Knud Madsen. My cousin. I'm Mikkel Madsen.” That was the wrong order. He'd allowed himself to be shaken after all.
She nodded, regarding him sadly. “Ah, he's back there.” She gestured him towards a hallway. “I'd take you back there but, ah, I can't talk around him.” At his surprised look, “he can get … well, agitated when he hears my voice.”
“Knud would never hurt a woman!”
“No, no, he wouldn't, he wants to protect me, it's all right. He's … well, he has a concussion and he's very confused when he tries to wake up. He also lost a lot of blood.” Seeing Mikkel's imperfectly concealed distress she added, “He's going to recover, I believe. I've treated a lot of injuries like this, and I've got a very good healing mage backing me up.” Mikkel was too distracted by his worries to even express doubt about the “healing mage”. “Look, Jökull's back there, you need to talk to him.”
Mikkel nodded, hurried down the hallway and to the door she had indicated. Once more consciously calming himself, he opened the door and checked the room.
Knud lay on a gurney, dressed in a grayish white smock, covered by an equally grayish sheet which was turned down to his waist. He wore a broad black headband decorated with intricate circular patterns picked out in red and white, and several straps ran across his body and arms. His right arm was bandaged from wrist to elbow, and his left showed a large black and blue bruise. A Guardsman was sitting to his left studying some paperwork.
Mikkel was across the room in a few strides, hand gripping his cousin's shoulder, glaring at the Guardsman defiantly. The man was half a head shorter than Mikkel and a good thirty years older, in good shape but still carrying some extra weight; Mikkel was a big man, immensely strong, a construction worker just three months out of the Danish Army. He thought he could overpower the man if he caught him by surprise, even though the Guardsman was armed with both pistol and dagger. The woman should be no threat; she hadn't even been armed and, as a medic, likely wouldn't fight anyway. He could simply push past her with his cousin in a fireman's carry …
But that was only a fantasy. They were in Iceland and he had no way to get off the island in a hurry. Whatever was going on here, he couldn't rescue his cousin by force and would have to deal with things on the Icelanders' terms … only Iceland was run by bureaucrats. There was a common saying, “I would rather fight a hundred trolls than a single bureaucrat.” Mikkel had fought a hundred trolls and all in all he'd rather fight a bureaucrat, but it was a very near thing.
“Ah, you would be Michael,” the Guardsman said with a smile, coming to his feet.
“Mikkel,” he corrected. “Knud is not a murderer.”
“He did confess,” the Guardsman answered mildly.
Mikkel stared at him, bewildered. Knud had confessed? Knud had confessed to murder? It wasn't possible. He looked down at his only blood-kin in Iceland. “I don't — I can't believe —”
“He was quite insistent.”
Mikkel shook his head, trying to understand. “There must be a mistake. He's not — he's not —”
“Ah, well, that was cruel of me. No, Knud is not a murderer. Or at least,” he corrected himself with a smile, “not that I know of. He really was mistaken.”
“But … but he's under arrest. And the straps.”
“Well, you see, as long as he is my prisoner, I can consent to care for him. But if he weren't, I'd have to let him go. Since he's in no shape for that, I'd have to turn him over to the bureaucrats at Danish Embassy. Or to a family member, if I could find one. I was looking for you all afternoon. No one seemed to know where you were, so I came back here to see if he was able to help me.”
The situation was becoming somewhat clearer. “You mean — you just want me to take care of him? I will, of course.”
“Exactly. So, he is no longer under arrest.”
“The straps, then?” He reached for the strap around the patient's waist and the Guardsman raised a hand in warning.
“I'll admit, initially we did think he was a murderer, and we strapped him down for our protection. Now, well, he comes to every so often, but only partially, and then he thrashes around and could hurt himself if not strapped down. It's best to leave the straps until he recovers some, but he's not a prisoner. You have my word on that.”
Mikkel was still trying to get the situation straight in his mind. “But, but, then why did he confess? Or did you, uh …”
“Just make it up? No. He did confess, quite insistently. As to why he did it, I would say that he is a law-abiding young man who confessed because he didn't remember much of what happened, and he didn't understand what little he did remember, and the only explanation he could find in his confused mind for what he saw, was that he had murdered two men. You can let go, you know,” the Guardsman added. “We won't take him away from you.”
Mikkel looked down at his cousin, realized that he was gripping the man's shoulder so tightly that his fingers were white, so tightly that he would leave bruises in the shape of his large hand. Relaxing his grasp, he answered, “Since it seems that I won't be snatching my cousin and fleeing the country after all, maybe you could explain what did happen to him.”
“Ah. Well, it's something of a long story," Jökull began, “so let's sit down like civilized people, and I'll tell you.”
“Guards! Guards! Murder!”
The woman was elderly but hale, dressed for the weather, so she hadn't run out of her house in a panic. Indeed, she wasn't panicky at all, but rather excited and only a bit fearful.
Dropping a hand on his dagger, Guardsman Jökull Friðgeirsson looked around for threats. “Where? Who's murdered?”
“I don't know them. Two men. I saw them lying d-dead. And I think the murderer is still there!”
That seemed unlikely to Jökull. “Where are they?”
“Back that way, through that archway. They're just inside the courtyard.”
“Okay. Where do you live? I want you to go somewhere safe.”
“Oh, I don't live off that courtyard; I was just out walking …”
Hastily getting her name and address, he sent her on her way. This was a bad neighborhood for an evening walk, and she was probably running some errand she would prefer that he not know about, but two murders were far more important than whatever she was up to. Probably the elderly woman herself had not murdered two men, and if she had, well, he had an excellent memory for faces and she would not evade him for long.
Two younger Guardsmen, Arnar Jónsson and Kristófer Gunnarssen, having answered his whistle, the three of them headed for the archway and the courtyard, hands on pistols. Murders were rare in Reykjavík and often a reported murder turned out to be suicide, suicide being a serious problem for every nation in this year 80 of the Rash. Still, two dead suggested something more nefarious. And if the murderer was, for some reason, still hanging around … well, the Guardsmen had to be ready for anything.
Brightly lit by the streetlight in the courtyard, there were two very dead men, one sprawled against a brick wall to their left, clearly having been flung against it with lethal force, and the other on his back to their right, his crushed throat showing the cause of death. Between them was a big man, powerfully built, kneeling with his hands over his face. A mess in front of him, and a distinct stench of beer, proved that he had vomited.
Jökull approached warily, pressed his pistol against the back of the man's head, and told him very firmly, “You're under arrest. Don't try to resist. I will shoot you, or the other two Guardsmen will shoot you, if you resist or try to escape. Do you understand?”
Silence.
After a moment, Jökull pulled the man's dagger from its sheath, noted that it was clean and unused, and dropped it in an evidence sheath. A bloody dagger lay to the man's right; the Guardsman collected that as well. “I'm going to cuff you now, and I don't want any trouble. Understand me?”
Silence.
He wondered if the man might be deaf, or possibly didn't understand Icelandic. Still — holstering and securing his pistol after a quick glance to each side to ensure the other Guardsmen were ready, he pulled out his handcuffs, relics of the Old World lovingly maintained, and snapped one over the man's left wrist, pulling the man's arms behind him and cuffing them together. The man's gloves were bloody, so he pulled them off and added them to his evidence sack. The spring evening was chilly but not cold; the man would suffer no injury from going without gloves.
In all of this the man had offered no resistance, remaining utterly silent with his head bowed. Jökull frowned, finally moved cautiously around him, while the other two Guardsmen holstered their pistols but remained alert for any attempt to escape. Kneeling carefully to avoid the mess, Jökull put a hand under the man's chin and tipped his face up to the streetlight. “Open your eyes.” No response. Jökull flicked the man's nose with a finger, startling him into looking up vaguely. The Guardsman was not really surprised to see that his prisoner's pupils were unequal in size. That and the vomiting meant a concussion, no doubt incurred in this battle. As soon as he removed his hand, the man's head dropped once more.
Pulling off the prisoner's thick woolen cap and stuffing it in in his evidence sack, the Guardsman checked him over quickly for skull fractures. Nothing that he could feel, no soft or depressed spots, but a large knot forming on the left. So, the man on the left had gotten a lick in before he died. A length of pipe near the dead man's hand was the probable weapon. The prisoner remained silent and passive through the examination.
Jökull always played Good Cop; it matched his personality. Now, he tipped the man's face back again, gently wiping it with one of the rags he carried for exactly that purpose, drunks having a habit of vomiting, and asked kindly, “What happened here, son?” He thought the man was barely in his twenties, three decades younger than himself.
“Murder,” the man mumbled. Even in that single word, Jökull could hear a thick Danish accent, and he sighed to himself, thinking that he definitely had not wanted to end his patrol with an international incident.
“Who is the murderer?” He kept his voice kind and gentle.
“I, I … two … murder … I murdered … Ahhh …”
That was helpful, Jökull thought. The Danes couldn't very well argue that their citizen was innocent when he had confessed. “Why did you do it?” Still gentle.
“Men … they were men …” The big man shuddered, seemed to try to shrink into himself.
“Did you kill them because they were men?” That made little sense, but then hanging around after committing murder made little sense as well.
“No —” The man started to shake his head, doubled over in pain, retched. Jökull retreated to avoid splashes, but apparently the prisoner had already given up the contents of his stomach, and was down to painful dry heaves.
“Why did you do it?” Jökull persisted, his voice even softer than before.
“Trolls …” The man's voice trailed off, and Jökull decided this conversation wasn't going anywhere useful.
“What's your name, son?”
“Knud. Madsen.”
“All right, Knud. I can see something bad happened here, so we're just going to take you with us, and we'll get this all sorted out. All right? Now let me help you up.”
“Murderer,” the man muttered, offering no resistance but little help as Jökull pulled at his left arm.
“Arnar, get his other arm. Help me get him up.” Kristófer shifted so as to be ready to block an escape as the other Guardsman moved in to help. So far the prisoner seemed to have no desire — or perhaps ability — to resist, but that could change, of course. “Kristófer, you'll follow. Arnar, stay with the bodies.” The prisoner needed care, but they weren't too far from the clinic. So long as he was able to walk, it would be quicker to walk him there than to send one of the others for an ambulance.
Once on his feet, the prisoner simply stood, head bowed, until Jökull tugged him forward, whereupon he followed obediently, stumbling and weaving. Standing, his sheer size was rather intimidating as he was over two meters tall, broad-shouldered, and powerfully built. Jökull had no trouble imagining him throwing one man into a wall and smashing the throat of another.
Trolls. A Dane of about twenty mumbling about trolls. He's a soldier, then. Somehow he survived their disaster and he's turned up here, in my city, with two dead men. Oh, gods, I did not need this.
“The girl,” Knud mumbled after a minute or so of silence.
“What girl? What about the girl?” Was there a dead girl somewhere, too? Jökull earnestly didn't want to believe that. Kristófer moved closer, still behind the prisoner.
“She screamed,” Knud answered in a puzzled tone.
Jökull looked into his face, found that his eyes were closed. It was no wonder that he stumbled. “Why did she scream, Knud?” No answer. “Did you make her scream?”
“I don't … I think …”
“What did you do to her? Tell us!” Kristófer shouted abruptly, shoving the Dane roughly forward. The man tripped, fell to his knees, was saved from falling flat on his face only by Jökull's catching him.
“That's enough,” Jökull told the other Guardsman firmly. There were limits to the Bad Cop act. “I think he's trying to cooperate. He has a concussion, and he's very confused. It's all right, Knud,” he added in his most fatherly tones, “you can tell us what happened to the girl.”
“She screamed.”
“I should shoot you.” Kristófer was genuinely angry, the older Guardsman saw, and he wondered why the prisoner's words had set the man off so badly.
Knud didn't answer, kneeling where he had fallen.
“That's enough,” Jökull repeated. “We need to get him to the clinic, get him some care, and then maybe we'll be able to question him. You're not going to find out what happened to the girl if you shoot him.”
Kristófer glared at the prisoner, but nodded and backed away. As Jökull started to help the man up, the other Guardsman said, in a quite different tone, “There's blood on his hands.”
“He's admitted that. There's no need —”
“No, his hands, look at his hands!”
Jökull looked at his prisoner's cuffed hands in surprise. When he'd arrested the man, there'd been blood on his gloves but not his hands. Now there was blood on both hands, particularly the right, dripping slowly from his fingers. “Oh, gods. Knud, are you injured?”
Silence. Jökull was beginning to feel like shooting the man himself.
No, he has tried to cooperate, he did confess, he's just hopelessly confused.
But the girl. What did he do to the girl? Who is she? And where is she?
The man was clearly injured; the question was how badly. Jökull wanted to kick himself for not checking the man over more carefully.
“Knud. Knud Madsen. Wake up. Tell me where you're hurt, Knud.”
“Right arm,” Knud mumbled.
“Okay. Now I want you to behave.” Jökull gave Kristófer a significant look, and the other Guardsman readied himself as Jökull removed the cuffs. The prisoner let his hands fall limp as the older Guardsman pulled his jacket off him. I should have noticed these cuts in the jacket. Take the sweater off too … this sleeve is soaked! Now the shirt … gods, that looks nasty. Those are defensive wounds … and the other arm too, look at that bruise. These scars — a soldier, certainly. His evidence bag being too small to take the man's clothes, he tossed them over his shoulder. More stains for this uniform. Maybe after this evening I'll finally be issued a new one.
The Guardsman frowned down at the prisoner, considering. They were close to the clinic, another couple of minutes perhaps, but the man's arm was slashed in three places and bleeding badly. Deciding that a tourniquet would be safe for those few minutes, he fished out his first aid kit and applied one. As Knud had begun to shiver, Jökull put his jacket back on to him before cuffing his hands once more behind his back. Though the man had thus far made no effort to resist, the Guardsman feared he might take it into his head to do so and, injured and confused though he was, he was still a formidable individual.
Back on his feet, the prisoner staggered worse than before and after a minute or so fell once more to his knees, retching helplessly.
“Come on, Knud, just a little further and we can get you some help.” Jökull wished, as he had so frequently over the years, that the City Guard could afford to equip every Guardsman with a handheld radio. His grandfather, who'd been a policeman before the Great Dying, had said that was common in his day. Too much had been lost, though, too much had been destroyed, and the remaining small radios were reserved for the Army and Navy.
If he'd realized the man was so badly injured, he would have sent one of the others for an ambulance. Now, though, it was quicker to keep going. “Just a little further. You can do it, Knud.”
Kristófer glared at the man's back for a moment then, having checked that his dagger and pistol were impossible for the man to grab, stepped up to help pull him to his feet. Half carrying the big man between them, they got him, finally and with relief, to the Guards' clinic.
The doctor, Elísabet Kládíudóttir, being busy in the back, they were met by her son, Dagur, a boy barely in his teens but nevertheless a confident assistant in the clinic. “Back here,” he instructed. “What have we got?”
Hiding a smile at the boy's officious manner, Jökull answered, “Concussion and lacerations of the right arm. I believe that's everything, but you'll have to check him over. He's in no shape to tell us of injuries.” The man was barely standing now, held up by the two Guardsmen.
“All right, we'll just —” Elísabet began, coming up behind the three men, when to everyone's surprise, the prisoner jerked away from his captors, turned, cried out, staggered forward a few steps before collapsing. Once again, only Jökull's quick action prevented him from crashing face first to the floor.
“What on Earth?” At the sound of her voice, the prisoner tried weakly to get to his feet, muttering.
“Don't say anything more,” Jökull ordered her, holding the man down as he spoke. “He'll hurt himself trying to reach you.”
“He's going after her, too now?” Kristófer snarled.
“No. Didn't you hear what he said?”
“I didn't understand it. Was that Danish?”
“Yes, it was. He said, 'Run, girl, trolls.' ”
Knud having passed out while they were talking, the two Guardsmen and Dagur lifted him onto the gurney and began strapping him down, Jökull explaining the situation as he went. Elísabet gave the prisoner a startled look when the older man named him a murderer, but nodded her understanding as to precautions. Though murderers were rare in Reykjavík, she had dealt with them before, and was aware that appearances could be deceiving; she would take no risks with this one.
Gesturing for Kristófer to follow, the older Guardsman led the way to the entry. “That was unprofessional of you.”
“I know, yes, sir. Sorry, sir. It won't happen again.”
“Why did it happen at all?”
“I have a sister, sir. She was in a bad relationship, and her daughter … A big man like that, he could hurt a girl without even trying. And if he wanted to …”
“I understand. No harm done, I suppose, and if he'd been a little more with us, maybe your approach would have gotten us some information. But, Kristófer … be careful playing Bad Cop. It can get into your soul, make you truly bad. I've seen it. Go now, finish your patrol. I'll take care of the paperwork.” He sighed at the thought, and the younger man gave him a sympathetic smile before departing.
Waiting for the prisoner's remaining clothing, Jökull went through the garments he'd removed. Shirt: probably bought in Reykjavík; nothing significant but several slashes and a lot of blood. Sweater, likewise. Jacket: old and well-worn, heavy leather which had probably spared the man worse injury. In an inner pocket, a wallet. The Guardsman pulled it out, examined the contents. The prisoner had a surprising amount of money on him, probably a month's wages for a laborer.
It's the end of the month, he was probably just paid. The muscles on the man, the callouses on his hands: probably a construction worker. Makes sense. He shouldn't have been walking around with this kind of money in that kind of neighborhood. If anyone saw it, he might have been mugged for it.
Jökull frowned. There was something nagging at him about that. Waiting for inspiration, finally dropping the thought, he considered the man's words.
“Why did you do it?” “Trolls.” “She screamed.” “Run, girl, trolls.”
Oh, gods. He was delusional. He thought the men were trolls, and he killed them to protect the girl, the girl who screamed. Does the girl even exist? Or was she part of the delusion too? Did she scream here and now, in Reykjavík, or months ago and far away in Silent Denmark?
He rubbed his forehead. Bad enough to be holding a Danish murderer; the man had to be turned over to the Danish authorities, and he didn't even want to think about the paperwork involved. But holding a Danish madman who was also a murderer …
The thing is — well, the thing is, that I rather like the man. He wanted to protect the girl, whether or not she was a figment of his imagination. When he came to, or however you say it, and he saw that he'd killed men rather than trolls, he gave up immediately. He was waiting for us to come get him, and he confessed as soon as we did. Confused as he was, he tried to tell us what happened.
But …
But there's something missing in this.
He couldn't think of what he'd missed, and when Dagur came out with the rest of the man's effects, he went through them quickly, finding nothing of interest, and made his way to headquarters to check in the materials he'd gathered. For now, he skipped the paperwork, just arranging for the bodies to be collected and noting the man was under arrest for murder. He needed to investigate, and evidence might be lost through delay.
It came to him as he was striding purposefully back to the courtyard to look for witnesses.
There were two daggers. I took one dagger from his sheath. Clean. Unbloodied. I just assumed the other dagger was his too, that he'd slashed at the man on the right before dropping it and smashing that man's throat with his fist. No time to check the bodies with him like he was, but I should have.
The dagger was to his right, so I thought he'd been using it. Most people are right-handed; I didn't even think that he might have tended to use his dagger with the other hand. But he had only one sheath, and it was on the left; he's left-handed. His injuries show that he was blocking the other man's dagger with his right arm; the blood on that dagger, the blood on his gloves, was his.
He never drew his dagger.
Why didn't he draw his dagger? What kind of soldier would fight trolls without drawing his dagger? Why would he fight two trolls with his bare hands?
Those bruises on his left arm, a big bruise on the inner side, and that narrow bruise on the outer side … Those are defensive wounds too. He got his arm up to block the blow, but not enough, and his arm was slammed down on his own head by the force of it.
Why didn't he draw his dagger?
Jökull was not an expert investigator. Indeed, there were no expert investigators left in the Known World. In the desperate struggle to fortify the few safe areas against the Rash, in the violent riots as a horrified populace struck back against the civilization they believed had somehow caused the Rash, in the terrible famines that had swept away half the nation, the police had had the highest mortality of any civilian group. Their institutional knowledge lost, their training books burned as fuel or in the riots, the police force, revived as the Guardsmen decades after the Great Dying, were relearning what their predecessors had known.
Jökull was one of those relearning how to investigate, and he had never been more conscious of his ignorance and lack of ability than now. He was certain that he was missing something, that the undrawn dagger was telling him something important, but he could not draw it out of his unconscious.
There was nothing for it but to talk to witnesses in the buildings around the courtyard.
No one had seen anything, of course; no one knew either the dead men or the prisoner. That last was the only answer he really believed. Guardsmen were not entirely welcome in this neighborhood at the best of times, and with a double murder, no one wanted to be involved, but Jökull continued doggedly knocking on doors, making his way from building to building, floor to floor.
It was near midnight when he finished and trudged home to his dark, empty apartment.
His first stop in the morning was the clinic, where he found the prisoner completely out of it but learned that the man had half-roused twice and thrashed around, pulling out a couple of stitches. Dagur, who'd slept in the room to keep an eye on him, had had the bright idea — of which he was inordinately proud — of telling the patient that “the girl is safe”. The man had immediately quieted down each time. Still, there would be no information gained from him this morning.
His next stop was the morgue. The attendant, Beinteinn Grímarsson, a short, poorly-shaven man who always smelled a bit of formaldehyde, looked up from the tools he was cleaning as the Guardsman came in. For once, the man was almost cheerful. “These two yours?”
The Guardsman looked them over. Cleaned up, laid out on their backs in the bright light of the morgue, they were as like as brothers. “Yes, from a fight last night.”
“You've got a dangerous killer out there,” Beinteinn replied with a happy grin. “He killed those two with a single blow each. One-hit kills.”
“I have him in custody. He's very strong. Uh … what do you mean, did he only hit them once? No other bruises or something? No defensive wounds?”
“Exactly! Oh, they have bruises — rough lives those men had — but not from last night.”
“Wait. Did they, could they, keep fighting after he hit them?”
“This one didn't. You reported he was thrown into a wall? He hit that wall and never moved again. The other one, well, maybe he could have fought a little. Maybe. Very briefly. I doubt it, though.”
“Could he have slashed with his dagger after that hit?”
“Possibly. Not likely. Your killer's good.”
“You said they had rough lives. Rough in what way?”
“Oh, they were street fighters, those two. No doubt of it. And your man took them both out. One-hit kills!”
Jökull nodded a little uneasily at the man's enthusiasm, thanked him, left as quickly as he could.
He has defensive wounds from both men; they have none. At least the one on the left couldn't have hit him after being thrown. Which means that man hit him first. And he partially blocked the strike at his head and still took a heavy blow. If he hadn't blocked it, it would have killed him. And the other most likely hit him first as well.
Is this a case of self-defense?
But he thought they were trolls. And he confessed to murder.
Examining the courtyard by daylight, Jökull stood where the man had knelt, slowly turning in place to study the scene.
Why was he in here in the first place? He doesn't live here or know anyone here, that much I believe of what the witnesses told me. But he came in, and there was a fight …
But not right here. No, the man on the left, the pipe man, landed there against the wall. If Knud was here … no, he had to be closer to the archway. Right about … here.
So he was just a couple of meters or so inside the courtyard when the pipe man struck him and he grabbed the man's arm, or collar, or something, and threw the man into the wall.
The other man, the dagger man, fell there, and given his injuries, he couldn't have moved far, so the fight occurred very close to there. He dropped the dagger and it bounced, leaving the hilt more towards Knud. The dagger man too was just inside the courtyard.
Knud was facing into the courtyard when the pipe hit him. He could have been facing the pipe man, I suppose, and turned his head away while blocking the pipe, but even then, he couldn't have been facing out. Could he have just entered? Why were they here anyway, right by the archway, on either side of him?
Were they waiting for him? They struck first …
But for all I know, he could have chased them in here, shouting about trolls, and they split up to try to take him down. Or he cornered and killed the pipe man, and the dagger man ran up to try to stop him.
Only he didn't draw his dagger. Dammit, Knud, why didn't you draw your dagger?
There were no answers. Knud had entered the courtyard for some reason, and there had been a fight just inside; Jökull could discern nothing more.
In the street beside the courtyard, Jökull paused and looked around.
Poor madman, wandering around believing himself in the ruins of Silent Denmark and beset by trolls, no one reporting him or trying to help him, until he finally chased two men into the courtyard and killed them, and was shocked back to sanity by the sight, or by the blow to the head …
Except that's not how it happened.
He frowned, narrowing his eyes in concentration, and a couple of young men who had been strolling by took one look at his face and decided their errands were best carried out elsewhere. Jökull didn't notice.
He'd been working. Probably construction if I'm any judge. He picked up his month's pay and he drank his supper. Jökull was entirely too familiar with drunks and the former contents of their stomachs. But he didn't drink much. Just a beer or two, three at the outside. He wasn't drunk and this was no drunken brawl. The Guardsman was likewise only too familiar with drunken violence. And he'd drunk the beer recently, not long before this happened. So he was sane enough to order and drink his beer and then he came down here and …
Jökull looked up and down the street again. The man had drunk his supper shortly before the fight. Therefore, he'd drunk it right in this area. The Guardsman set out to check the local inns.
“Stop.” The Guardsman's voice rang through the inn, and everyone in it froze. Jökull was, among other things, a hunter, and a hunter's eye is drawn to movement. In particular, to someone ducking her head, turning aside, and hurrying for the back door.
“Ah, Helga,” the innkeeper said, “stay and talk to the Guardsman.”
She turned reluctantly, dragged her feet as she approached. Much as she kept her head down, he could see that her eyes were red with crying.
“I require a room,” Jökull instructed without taking his eyes off her.
“Of course, of course, just right over here — a storeroom is all right, isn't it? Yes?” The innkeeper was practically wringing his hands with anxiety.
“Yes.”
The young woman followed him, neither speaking until they were within and the innkeeper had closed the door.
“You screamed,” Jökull stated.
She began to sob. Watching with pitiless eyes, the Guardsman evaluated her tears. They were unfeigned, or at least mostly so, and certainly she had been crying at some point before he arrived.
“Helga, two men died yesterday, and the third may not make it. I need to know —”
“Knud? I thought he was, he was …” her voice trailed off as she looked up at his face.
“So you knew him. Say what happened yesterday. Start with when he came in here for a beer.” His voice was grim; he wasn't playing Good Cop now.
“He — he came in, like he does. Like he did.” She began to sob again, sniffed, pulled herself together. “I had to leave early because Katla — my little girl — was sick. And he was so kind. He was always so kind. He always gave me a tip for Katla.”
“Go on.”
“He gave me a tip even though I was leaving because he … he wanted her to get well. And he had money, he had so much money … But I didn't mean him any harm! I just wanted to make Aron feel bad because he doesn't do anything for Katla!”
“Aron is your man,” Jökull stated.
“He was. Oh, he was!” She was crying again, and he waited patiently for her to get herself back under control.
“You told him about Knud, and about Knud's money.”
“Yes, I, I did. But I didn't mean him any harm! I wanted Aron to go to work, just like Knud. Then we could have all the nice things … Only Aron and Viktor and Jón — they're — they were — his brothers, they got together and talked, and then they said we were all going for a walk, even me, even though I didn't want to because of Katla, and Aron … Aron threatened me.” She looked away, at the floor, at the walls, anywhere but at Jökull.
“Look at me.” She looked at him, wincing. “Say it again.”
“Aron threatened me.” He thought she was telling the truth.
“So you went with them.”
“We went to the courtyard, and Aron told me to stay with Jón, he's the youngest, and Viktor picked up a pipe and Aron went out on the street. Then he ran back, and he waved, and Jón told me to scream. He twisted my arm and he said he'd hurt me if I didn't. And so I, I did. I screamed.”
She bowed her head, sobbed some more; Jökull waited. When she didn't continue, he finished the story. “Knud heard you scream and ran in to help you. Viktor swung at him with the pipe —”
“He got his arm up in time. I don't know how. It all happened so fast. I thought he'd be okay. Aron was trying to stab him, but he was — blocking him somehow, and he was shouting. And then he threw Viktor against the wall, and Aron went down, and Jón let me go, and he ran, and I ran … Jón told me this morning that Aron and Viktor were dead.”
“What did Knud shout?” It was a formality, of course.
“I, I don't know. It wasn't Icelandic. It was sort of like —” Her memory was only fair and she butchered the vowels, but the answer was unmistakable.
“Run, girl, trolls.”
“So you see,” Jökull concluded, “I suppose he did go a little mad for a few seconds, with the head injury and suddenly finding himself fighting for his life. It bothered me all along that he never drew his dagger, but I think he was just so stunned by the blow to the head that he forgot about it. Because he didn't start the fight believing he was fighting trolls.
“Anyway, after just seconds he came out of it and found he'd killed two men. Since he really only remembered fighting trolls, and apparently little or nothing about how the fight started, he leapt to the conclusion that he'd gone mad, taken them for trolls, and murdered them, which is what he tried to tell me.
“He remembers the girl who screamed, but not well. At least, I don't think he recognized Helga, since he just says 'girl', and I'd rather not tell him that she betrayed him that way.
“My conclusion, which I will put in my report, is that he was lured into an ambush and killed two men in self-defense and in defense of another, since he did believe that he was protecting the girl who screamed. He is innocent of any crime.”
Mikkel stood, went over to look at the unconscious patient. “What will you do about her? And the other brother?”
“About her? Nothing, I suppose. I won't charge her with anything. She wasn't a willing participant and she didn't have any idea that they would try to kill him. She wanted to help Knud and she did give me a good idea of where he was rooming, so I could talk to the landlady about him and learn about you, his 'brother Michael'. Anyway, Helga did try to help me and I'll give her some credit for that. She set the whole thing off, and her man was killed as a result, and she'll have to live with that. Punishment enough, I think.
“We'll look for the other brother, though. He was a willing participant.” After a moment, he told Mikkel's rigid back, “Elísabet believes Knud will recover fully. And then —”
“Not from this. Not from a head injury like this.”
“We have a very good healing mage. You see the headband? That is powerful magic.”
Mikkel turned, gave him a stare of disbelief. “Your doctor is relying on magic.”
“Well … yes. Oh. Danes are skeptics, right, I was forgetting. But, you know, I am reliably informed that the magic works whether you believe in it or not.”
Mikkel gave him a stare, level, unreadable, before turning back to his cousin.
“When he recovers —” the Guardsman persisted.
“If he recovers, to whatever extent he recovers, I will send him home.”
“Do you have that authority?” Jökull was intrigued by lines of authority in Danish families.
“No,” Mikkel answered without looking around. “But if he won't go, I'll send for his wife to fetch him. It's time for him to go home.”
“He has a wife? Why is he, ah, here?”
“Because he couldn't go home,” Mikkel answered bleakly. “Not when so many others … didn't.”
“And you, Mikkel? Can you go home?”
Mikkel didn't answer. But then, no answer was needed.