The Master Executioner (The Executioner's Song Book 5), page 3
Ellen shrugged, shaking her head. “I don’t really know.”
“Did he say anything?”
“Did he say anything about whether he did anything to the body? No. He said nothing. More than that, he denied that he had any hand in what happened to her.”
“I’m not sure that he did,” Finn muttered.
“Who else would have been responsible for this?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“We saw the blood on his hands.”
“I’m sure you did,” Finn said. At least, he had seen what they thought had been blood at the time. Perhaps it had been Mary’s blood, though even in that Finn wasn’t entirely sure whether that was the case or not. It was possible that his hands had been stained. “What kind of work did Jonah do?”
“What was that?”
“His work. Where was he employed?”
She grunted. “He wasn’t employed anywhere. Not really. Jonah took the odd job here and there. He helped farmers in their fields. He helped with livestock. He would even help seamstresses. He had a deft hand, though mostly it was because he spent his time painting.”
Finn shook his head. He should have known better.
“I need to see his home.”
“Why will that help?”
“Humor me.”
Ellen took a deep breath and shook her head before starting off through the forest. As they went, Finn looked around, keeping his eyes open for any sign of any other presence within the forest. He saw nothing. There had been more crimes like this in the outskirts of the kingdom, especially over the last year or so. Finn kept expecting there to be witchcraft involved but had not found any real sign of it other than in his own mind. He was probably the only one to feel that way though. He knew that his concern about witchcraft stemmed from what he had seen in Verendal and the danger that he knew that it posed to the kingdom, but so far the king had done nothing to make preparations to ensure the kingdom was safe from another attack.
When he came out and journeyed like this, he found those thoughts plaguing him more often than they did in the city. Within Verendal, it was easy to get lost in the day-to-day responsibilities he had, losing himself in ensuring the function of his office, but out here his mind wandered.
Finn wasn’t really sure why he felt so troubled, only that it didn’t feel right. That mattered to him. The fact that he felt as if something was not quite as it seemed was a feeling that he had come to trust. He had to use whatever advantage he had when it came to understanding what happened around him, and in this case it just didn’t feel right.
They reached the edge of the village, and Ellen hurried forward, though Finn paused, looking behind and into the forest.
A path led through here, winding the way they had gone. It was a narrow path, and had he not followed Ellen, he might not have seen it, but it looked as if it had been more than just the two of them traveling along this path recently. A few flowers lined the path, and he saw no sign of the gypsum bush that had tangled Jonah.
Ellen looked back, placing her hands on her hips. “Are you coming, or are you intending to delay this even longer?”
Finn offered a hint of a smile, shifting his pack on his back. He still hadn’t abandoned it, mostly because it meant that he would be abandoning his sword, and he had no intention of leaving that behind for anyone else to potentially handle, especially as he knew the worth of the blade. “You said we had until dinner before I could meet with the village elders anyway. Would you keep that from me?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Of course not. I don’t intend to prevent you from meeting with the elders.”
“Then I have time. Humor me.”
She grunted and spun, her rough white dress spinning with her, and she hurried off along the southern edge of the village, taking a narrow road between houses until she stopped in front of a small, slightly rundown cottage. It was mostly painted in bright red, though the paint job was incomplete.
“Has anybody gone in since Jonah was imprisoned?”
“Why?”
“I’m just curious what we might find in here.”
“No one has found the need to go into Jonah’s home. He is sentenced to die, so…”
Finn nodded, understanding. There were superstitions about the condemned that he saw in every locale. Many places feared for them, fearing whether the condemned might somehow influence them, and other places feared that going into the home of one of the condemned might somehow implicate them in their crimes.
“I need just a few moments,” he said.
He tested the door, finding it unlocked, and stepped inside.
There was no light in the small home. He went to one of the windows, pushing the shutters open, and let a bit of the sunlight come in. The home was stuffy, and dust coated everything. It was cluttered as well. Jonah had a table stacked with paintings, and Finn sorted through them. Most of them were flowers or trees, but there was one that he pulled aside. It looked like a dark-haired woman, sitting in the distance, the background little more than shadows.
The kitchen was a mess. Dishes were stacked near a washbasin. The counters were stained, and stale bread remained untouched. He had three apples resting near the bread, all of them rotting.
Finn turned toward the back of the home. He had investigated places like this before, though rarely so far out from the accused crime. At this point, he didn’t know what he intended to find or whether there would be anything here that could make a difference. It might not matter. There might not be anything here that would help Jonah’s case. The evidence in either direction was circumstantial. It was entirely possible that Jonah was responsible for killing Mary, but there was the nagging doubt Finn felt for his innocence.
The back room was simple. There was an unmade bed. A washbasin with filthy water. A stack of paper in one corner. Atop the paper was a triangular pendant the shape of Heleth. Finn lifted it, holding it up to the thin light streaming back to the room. It was made of gold, not something that he would have expected a man like Jonah to possess.
There was a cupboard in the back of the room, and Finn pulled it open, looking inside. Clothing, much of it stained with paint, all hung neatly in the closet, but on the bottom of the wardrobe was something else. Other stacks of parchment.
He pulled them out.
Unlike the paintings he’d seen in the kitchen, these were all of the same figure. A dark-haired woman, from various angles, some with her seated in a field, others at a table that looked much like Jonah’s. One with her near a stream. He took the pages, along with the pendant, and headed back out into the main part of the home.
Ellen stood in the doorway, looking over to him. “Did you find anything?”
Finn handed her the pages and continued poking around the inside of the home, but there wasn’t anything else here.
“What is this?” Ellen asked.
Finn shrugged. “If I were to guess, I would say this is Mary.”
Ellen peered closer as she sorted through the papers. “Why would he have been painting her?”
“I can't say why he thought to paint her,” Finn said. “Perhaps they had a deeper friendship than you realized.”
“She was a priestess of Heleth.”
“And he may have been a parishioner who she believed revealed some truth of the gods.”
Ellen fell silent, flipping through the papers. “This doesn’t prove his innocence.”
“I know that it does not,” he said.
In fact, it complicated things for Jonah. Were she simply a priestess that he’d argued with, it would’ve been easy enough to make the claim that he had no interest in harming her. If there was some sort of relationship between the two of them, it became more difficult for Jonah to argue that Mary didn’t matter enough to him to hurt. Perhaps he didn’t, though Finn simply didn’t know. It troubled him though. Even more troubling was that he worried he wouldn’t have the time needed to solve the puzzle before the elders felt he needed to act. The gallows hanging outside of the village suggested to him their desire for justice.
“I would like to see Mary’s home.”
“Hers is just outside of the temple,” Ellen said softly.
Finn looked over. She didn’t push back the way that she had when he had wanted to come here. Perhaps she started to believe there was more taking place than what they had believed first. His first impression of her was of an educated woman, and most educated women that Finn had been around had a more open mind than the men he had been around.
“I would like to see it as well.”
Ellen stepped out of Jonah’s home.
Finn lingered there for a moment, looking around, but didn’t see anything unusual. Not that he really expected to. Other than the paintings and the pendant, there wouldn’t be anything here that might help him. It certainly didn’t look like the kind of place that he would’ve expected a criminal to live in. Of course, if it was a crime of passion, and murder of a lover was often a crime of passion, then he wouldn’t expect to find anything out of the ordinary.
Following Ellen out, he trailed after her through the village. They stayed on the outskirts of the village, moving to the northern side where there was a slightly taller building. This one was made of stone, the only one that looked to be of any permanence in the village itself. It had a flat roof, and an arched door leading inside. Symbols of Heleth marked the door. Stained windows reflected some of the light of the day, scenes of Heleth and her benevolence painted on the glass.
Most images of Heleth had the goddess smiling down, bathed in glowing white light, as if she were ensuring the safety of all, but not all did. There were some images where Heleth was depicted with the people, as if she were standing among them. Those were more common in places outside of the larger cities, where Finn had often felt the priests wanted to depict the gods looking down upon the populace. But here it was almost as if the gods were standing among the people.
It was a simple temple, though a nice one, especially considering how remote the village was. Many places had even simpler temples. Heleth didn’t care. From what the priests claimed of Heleth, she wanted people to celebrate her and her benevolence but didn’t require them to do so with anything more than their hearts and their words. It was why Heleth was offered to the condemned as they made their march toward their sentencing. Finn had said the words of Heleth many times during that walk.
Behind the temple was a smaller structure, simpler than most of the houses. It was built of stone and looked as if it had been hastily attached to the rest of the temple itself. A wide door took most of one wall.
Ellen stood off to the side. “This was where she lived.”
“It’s not much,” Finn said.
“The priestess claimed she never needed much.”
Finn had known plenty of priests and priestesses over the years and could easily imagine all of them making a similar claim. They never believed that they needed much from the god. He pulled the door open and stepped inside. The interior was dim, damp, and a bit musty. It was small—giving Finn the feeling that it was little more than the space that Jonah occupied within the town hall—but strangely cozy.
There were few belongings inside. A table with the Book of Heleth resting on it. A small kitchen, much neater than the one he’d found in Jonah’s home. A bed, neatly made, took up one wall. A hearth, though in this weather it wouldn’t have been needed.
Finn turned in place, getting a feel for the home. He didn’t know what he might find, only that he wanted to have a sense from it and determine if there was anything here that he could use to get a better understanding about what kind of person Mary had been.
He took a seat on her bed and looked around. From this vantage, he noticed a small painting on the wall behind the door. Getting to his feet, he went over to it and studied the painting. There was no doubt that it was made by Jonah. The lines and style were similar.
“They were close,” he said softly.
Ellen looked at the painting. “Why would she have hung this one?”
Finn shrugged. It was little more than a portrait of the forest. Trees. A stream, though it appeared to be a different one than where she’d been found. The hint of a city or a village off in the distance. It wasn’t clear whether it was Ironald or another.
“I think she must have liked it.”
“There’s nothing special about it.”
Finn looked around the inside of the home, this time with a more appraising eye. He hadn’t been in the home of a priest or priestess often—or ever, as they were rarely a part of any crime—so he didn’t know how common it would be for them to have such sparse decoration.
He pulled open the cabinets in the kitchen. A few plates, bowls, and cups. Nothing else. No foodstuffs. Didn’t she eat here? A small trunk rested near the bed, the only other place where anything could be stored in the home. He pulled it open, flipping through her belongings. Several blankets, a change of clothing—all brown dresses with embroidery depicting Heleth—and near the bottom of the trunk was a leather-bound book.
Finn pulled that out and started flipping through the pages. Written in neat script with dates along the top, he found the musings of the priestess. He took a seat as he worked through it, trying to get a sense of who Mary had been.
“Mr. Jagger?” Ellen asked.
He looked up at her. “What is it?”
“Is there a reason you’re reading her journal?”
Finn shrugged. “We have time before I’m to meet with the council. I thought I could use that time to better understand your priestess. I’d like to understand what happened.”
Ellen made her way over to him and took a seat next to him, sitting upright as she did, looking over at the book. He glanced over but didn’t move closer to her, wanting to respect propriety.
“What do you think you’ll find?”
“Seeing as how everything that we’ve uncovered so far leads me to believe that Jonah and Mary knew each other better than you realize, I think I might find something that will help me gain insight as to the nature of their relationship.”
“Relationship?”
“I’m not accusing her of anything improper,” Finn said.
Ellen glared at him a moment. “It seems as if you are.”
“It seems as if I’m trying to understand a crime. The mere nature of a crime suggests that something improper took place, does it not?” He rested his hand on the book, fingering the thick pages. “Would you rather we not investigate?”
“We know what happened.”
“We do?”
Finn looked back down at the book, flipping through. The pages were dated, which made it easy for him to follow. They seemed to begin when she had come to the village. It left him wondering what Mary might have documented in her previous stops, though perhaps she left those for the next priest or priestess. About midway through the journal, he came across what he looked for. There was a reference to Jonah. It was in passing, merely discussing how she had hired him to repaint parts of the temple, but there was a tone to it that left him feeling as if he were onto something. Finn continued to flip the pages, coming to another section that referenced Jonah. This time, she had hired him again, though she spoke of him in much more length. She described the way that he had painted the portrait for the temple in almost loving detail. She phrased it in a way that seemed to describe her focus on Heleth, but there was something more to it that he began to suspect, leading him to believe that his initial impression had been right.
As he got further along in the journal, he came across another reference to Jonah. This one was her visiting him in his home, wanting to see where he painted. She described the process, how he seemed to be gifted by Heleth herself, and the way that he had demonstrated his skill in painting her.
He started to smile.
“What is it?” Ellen asked, leaning closer.
“I am getting a better understanding about Mary.”
“Mary was nothing but a faithful servant of Heleth.”
Finn looked around the inside of the room. Everything here seemed to tell him the very same thing—that Mary had been the faithful servant of Heleth that Ellen claimed her to be. He didn’t doubt that, but what he read in the journal depicted a different person. She celebrated many of the gods, not only Heleth. There was even a section about coming to know Fell, though she was far from the first person to be intrigued by Fell.
A few pages later, after several other entries, he came across another one. This one described Jonah coming to her, seeking her out so that he could paint her. She had been happy at first, but he sensed from her writing that she had a reluctance to do so.
“Do you have the paintings?” he asked.
Ellen pulled out the stack of paintings that they had brought from Jonah’s home.
Finn read through the description and sorted through them, coming across one where Mary had been sitting in a meadow, surrounded by golden flowers, the green grass rising around her, and the sun shining upon her.
“He painted this one on this date,” Finn said.
“And?” Ellen asked.
“And that is all.” He smiled to himself. “She wasn’t sure what to make of it.”
“Why is that?”
“I think she saw the gods in Jonah and his painting, but I think she was unsettled by a growing attraction she felt toward him.”
“There was no attraction. They argued.”
“Have you ever been with a man?”
Ellen sat back, crossing her arms over her chest. “What kind of question is that, Mr. Jagger?”
“An honest one. Have you?”
“Perhaps.”
“And when you’d been with him, had you ever argued?”
“Well, seeing as how men can be insufferable, I have to admit that I have.”
Finn smiled slightly. He could imagine that all men were insufferable to a woman like Ellen. She was intelligent and combative, and yet he could see why someone would want to be with her. She would challenge them.
“Arguments don’t always mean people dislike each other. Even those who care about each other can have disagreements.”
