Chapter 991 — The Dead Witness

CHAPTER 991

The Dead Witness

Cao Shuncai lay on the straw in the third cell of the circuit court’s lower floor, with his hands folded on his chest.

He looked asleep, with no blood, bruises or throat marks. The Lantern Guard at his door had seen nobody all night.

“His heart stopped,” the circuit coroner said, wiping his hands nervously on his apron. “That’s all I can find, Deputy. A man’s heart stops. It happens.”

“Not in my cells,” Pang Yue said.

The coroner said nothing more.

Out in the street, Shuoyang had already decided what had happened. Shi Feng had heard it four times on the walk from the tower.

“Bandits came over the wall in the night, they say.”

“Over the court wall? Past the Lantern Guard?”

“They killed the chicken to warn the monkeys. Anyone else who talks about Grey Goose, that’s what they’ll get.”

Shi Feng knelt by the straw. Pang Yue stood behind him with his arms folded, and the guard captain stood at the door.

He checked the cold body’s wrist, then turned the head to the lamp. Opening the jaw with two fingers, he looked under the tongue.

Fine grey ash lay there.

Shi Feng drew his fingers away, alarmed. The ash was familiar. He’d seen what the pill that left it could do.

He knew that ash. In the Pill Pit, the takers who went out to collect alchemists carried a small pill in a fold of the cheek. If they were caught, they bit it, and it burned them out from the inside and left nothing to question. He’d watched the last taker in the Hulan guest court bite one, on the road north. The ash had looked exactly like this.

The Heretic Sect had reached into a Lantern Guard cell, in a circuit seat, with the Long seat sleeping two streets away.

“What is it?” Pang Yue asked.

Shi Feng closed the dead man’s mouth and stood up.

“Poison,” Shi Feng said. “He was given it, or it was given to someone who put it in his food. It didn’t come from the palace.”

“How do you know?” Pang Yue asked sharply.

“Palace poison leaves nothing,” Shi Feng said. “This leaves ash.”

“Then where did it come from?” Pang Yue asked.

“I recognise it from an earlier attack,” Shi Feng said quietly. “Naming the source in your report would put you in danger. I won’t do that to you.”

Pang Yue looked at him for a long moment. Then he looked at the guard captain, who was very carefully studying the wall.

“Write it as heart failure,” Pang Yue said at last. “Seal the cell. Nobody touches the straw.”

“Yes, Deputy,” the guard captain said, and went out quickly.

Shi Feng walked back to the tower by the long road and said nothing to Qin Wuyan on the way. Qin Wuyan said nothing to him. At the gate, the old guardian stopped.

“Ash?” Qin Wuyan asked.

“Ash,” Shi Feng said.

Qin Wuyan nodded once and went to stand at the door of the upper room.

Pang Yue came to the tower after dark.

He wore a plain brown coat and carried cheap wine. The night steward showed him to the back courtyard and left. Pang Yue sat on the step and set the jar between them.

“This isn’t for a report,” Pang Yue said, and poured two cups. “This is for me.”

“Then ask,” Shi Feng said, and took a cup.

“Who poisons a witness inside a Lantern Guard cell?” Pang Yue asked. His voice was low and very steady. “And who signs a commander’s leave papers, when the commander hasn’t taken leave in fourteen years and his deputy’s never seen them?”

Shi Feng drank. The cheap wine was harsh, and Pang Yue looked exhausted. He’d lost both his commander and the witness he’d personally taken into custody.

“Deputy Pang,” Shi Feng said. “If you want to keep your post, stop asking that out loud. If you want to keep your life, stop asking it in Shuoyang.”

“He was my commander for fourteen years,” Pang Yue said.

“I know,” Shi Feng said. “That’s why I’m telling you. He came home to report, and somebody made sure he couldn’t. The witness was going to be asked who paid him, and somebody made sure he couldn’t. You’re the next man who knows something. Think about that before you ask the third time.”

Pang Yue’s hand closed on his cup until the clay creaked.

“A wise man doesn’t stand under a falling wall,” Pang Yue said bitterly. “My father used to say that.”

He drank silently. Frost glittered on the stones as the watchman called the second watch.

“There’s one more thing,” Pang Yue said at last. “It isn’t a question.”

“Go on,” Shi Feng said.

“My men walk the markets every day,” Pang Yue said. “The horse market, the salt market, the grain wharf. For five days now, they’ve seen men in grey sleeves. Different men. Always two or three. They don’t buy anything and they don’t sell anything. They just stand there.”

Shi Feng set his cup down on the step.

“Since when, exactly?” Shi Feng asked.

“Since the day the finding was signed,” Pang Yue said.

Shi Feng thought about it. The Heretic Sect hadn’t come to Shuoyang to watch a hearing. They’d come to clean up after one. The witness was gone. The commander was gone. Whatever they were waiting for now, it wasn’t in the court anymore.

“Tell your men to keep walking the markets,” Shi Feng said. “Tell them not to look at the grey sleeves, and not to follow them. If one of them gets curious, he’ll end up on straw with ash in his mouth.”

Pang Yue buttoned his coat.

“Five days to your bout,” Pang Yue said. “Whatever they’re waiting for, they’ve picked a crowded week for it.”

He left the wine jar on the step and went out by the courtyard gate.