This story's setting owes a debt to both the Discworld and Dragon Age in certain aspects, and Latin names for countries and towns are used because the world is also in part inspired by the Roman Empire (though mostly because I doubted my ability to come up with decent fantasy names).
It is a murder mystery for the most part, but also includes a very, very slow-build Scotland/France relationship.
The main characters are Francis, and my Brit bros and Ireland:
Alasdair - moonlighten's Scotland
Arthur - moonlighten's England
Dylan - moonlighten's Wales
Michael - moonlighten's Northern Ireland
Caitlin - moonlighten's Ireland
My friend Nekoian's Brit bros and Ireland also appear, and are included with kind permission from their author:
Angus - nekoian's Scotland
Richard - nekoian's England
Llewellyn - nekoian's Wales
Oliver - nekoian's Northern Ireland
Niall - nekoian's Ireland
Other characters who appear include:
Gabriella/Healer Carriedo - moonlighten's femPortugal
Isabelle - nekoian's femPortugal
Luca/M. Jansen - Luxembourg
Luise/Captain Beilschmidt - femGermany
Amelia/Corporal Jones - femAmerica
Alaina/Mlle. Labelle - femFrance
Lady Alice Churchfield - femEngland
Lili - Liechtenstein
Emilia - femIceland
-
-
It's raining when they find the body, but then it usually is in Deva.
What little soupy light has managed to break through the thick grey clouds overhead is almost completely blocked out by Angus' massive shoulders as he leans over to take a closer look at the corpse. He nudges it with the toe of his boot, and tilts his head one way and then the other, eyes narrowed.
"Hmph," is his eventual assessment.
Alasdair, crouched at the corpse's side, has little more to add. He's checked for both a pulse and wounds but found neither, and what he has found makes no sense.
The dead man is probably no more than twenty-five, with regular, handsome features and a neatly trimmed beard. His shirt and trousers are simply cut and unadorned, but made from a finely woven fabric that drapes around his frame like silk, though it doesn't shimmer in the same way.
Deva is a large but nonetheless sleepy town in a quiet backwater of the empire, and despite his ten years as a guard, Alasdair hasn't witnessed many unnatural deaths. Sometimes he might be called out to pick up the pieces after an argument that escalated into fatal violence, or to break up a tavern brawl just a little too late for one of the participants, but he's never seen anything like the dead man before.
If his mouth wasn't twisted into a frozen sneer that reveals his straight white teeth, Alasdair could easily believe he was simply sleeping. The rest of his face is peaceful and his arms are crossed over his chest, his uncalloused hands loosely curled. His skin is still warm to the touch.
"He hasn't been dead long," Alasdair says, getting to his feet again.
"Not long at all," Angus agrees. "Probably no more than an hour."
Alasdair thinks it unlikely that it's even been a quarter of that. The front of the man's shirt is only a little damp, and he'd expect it to be soaked through if he'd been lying out on his back in the rain for more than a few minutes. The narrow alleyway is sheltered at its sides by the overhanging eaves of the crooked buildings that border it, but the very centre, where the man's body has fallen, is entirely exposed to the elements.
"He might have been taken ill," Alasdair says, though, in his heart, he doesn't believe that. Judging by Angus' sceptical expression, he doesn't either.
The man looks as though he'd been the picture of good health before he'd died. His full black hair is glossy, and even though he's slender, his bones are well-covered in flesh. He has none of the brittle, raw look Alasdair associates with sickness.
In fact, he looks too healthy and too well-nourished to be an inhabitant of the Old Town district at all, and Alasdair has to wonder why such a noble-looking man with such fine clothes would have cause to be there in the first place. The alleyway is closed at both ends and foetid with the stink of rotting scraps tossed out behind the butcher's shop. The cobblestones are slick with more than just rain.
He and Angus usually avoid it for just that reason, but they'd needed someplace dry to light their pipes where they weren't liable to be seen. Old Mr Lewis has taken to reporting them to the duty sergeant whenever he spots them taking a smoke break on their usual rounds, so a little light subterfuge has become a necessity.
Despite its even worse stench, Alasdair wishes they'd decided to hide behind the tannery again instead.
"We should inform the sergeant," he says.
Angus raises one thick, ginger eyebrow. "One of us should stay with the body, or else some fucking vulture or other round here will have picked him clean by the time we get back."
The man's boots alone would probably cost a good six months' of his own pay, so Alasdair doesn't doubt that. He also doesn't doubt that he will be the one fetching the guard sergeant. Angus isn't, strictly speaking, his superior, but he is his senior by three years, something which he seems to believe gives him the authority to delegate the most unpleasant of their duties to Alasdair, regardless.
As Angus has a good six inches of height on him, and his punches feel like being kicked by a mule, Alasdair finds it easier not to argue otherwise most of the time.
"I'll get the sergeant, then," he says.
-
-
"Well, he's definitely dead," Gabriella announces once she's finished examining the corpse.
The sergeant's dapper little salt and pepper moustache bristles. "That much is obvious, Miss Carriedo. I think the more pertinent question is how he died, don't you?"
"Of course." Gabriella gives the sergeant a tight, humourless smile that suggests she's tempted to keep him waiting slightly longer for the answer he so desperately wants, his rudeness just compounding the ill-will he'd engendered by dragging her away mid-consultation with a patient despite her objections.
Her dedication to her patients is unwavering, and even extends towards those who are put into her care too late for her skills to save. She has served the guards in investigations before, and given comfort to many people anxious to know exactly how their loved ones died, and never treated the victims with any less care and attention because they were beyond the hope of healing.
"There's no mark of disease that I can see," she says eventually. "No wasting of the body or other indications of prolonged sickness. There are no grievous wounds, fatal or otherwise." She wipes her hands clean on a rag tucked into the belt of her robe then meets the sergeant's eyes levelly. "I think this man was poisoned."
"Poisoned?!"
Gabriella nods. "I can't tell you which poison without examining him more thoroughly, but his pupils are dilated, the inside of his nostrils burnt, and he appears to have vomited shortly before he died. All the signs certainly seem to point in that direction. And I found a small pinprick on his neck" – she rubs a spot on the side of her own neck, just above the hollow of her throat – "that suggests he might have been struck by a dart."
"A dart?!" The sergeant's face grows so florid that Alasdair begins to fear that he might need Gabriella's professional attentions himself soon enough.
Doubtless his nerves are already feeling the strain, because he's the one who's going to have to tell their captain that they've found a young bloke who looks like he walked straight out of one of the great estates in Highgate to die in some alley filled with rotting offal in the dingiest part of town.
There's probably going to be uproar once word gets out. The dead man looks like the type who might have influential friends and family; ones who would make life very difficult for the guard captain if this murder isn't solved quickly.
"I found this, too, tucked in the folds of his shirt." Gabriella holds out a flower with broad, crimson petals.
The sergeant squints at it suspiciously. "Might that be what poisoned him?"
"I shouldn't think so," Gabriella says, shaking her head. "As far as I can tell, it's just a rose, albeit a variety I haven't seen before." She turns towards Alasdair. "It might be best to show it to your brother and make sure that's all it is, though."
The sergeant scowls, clearly put out by Gabriella offering any advice beyond the medical, but as he probably knows next to nothing about plants himself, he eventually defers to her greater knowledge.
"Hop to it, then, Corporal Kirkland," he barks out, flicking his hand imperiously towards Alasdair. "Take that flower for your brother to examine. And you, Corporal Walsh." He wheels on Angus. "I want you to question everyone you can find on this street and the next. Men like this can't move through Old Town without attracting attention. Someone must have seen something."
-
-
When Alasdair's father died, he left very little in the way of an inheritance for his children.
His collection of books was split between Dylan and Arthur, the battered tin whistle went to Michael – solely because no-one else really wanted it and he was too young at the time to register any complaints about the decision – and Caitlin won the honour of carrying their grandmother's sword following one of the most humiliatingly short wrestling matches of Alasdair's life, leaving him with the stewardship of his great-grandfather's shield, which still bears the now forbidden colours of the last king of Northern Brittania.
When their mother was taken from them, four years later, they found themselves reluctant owners of her apothecary shop.
It's situated in what is generally believed to be one of the better streets in Old Town, if only by virtue of it being slightly wider than most and upwind of the tannery's dog shit stench. In their mother's day, it had turned a tidy profit: she would dispense cures for boils and baldness out front, and, in the cool darkness of the cellar after hours, work hedge magic to ease the minds of the lovelorn or scared.
Times have changed since then, and as Dylan is unable to supplement his income by weaving spells, he barely manages to break even most months. Alasdair and Arthur hand him over a good portion of their own meagre wages, and Caitlin sends money whenever she can, but still they haven't been able to hold back the shop's slow slide into disrepair.
As though ashamed of its ragged appearance, the whole building seems to droop dejectedly now, from the sagging and poorly patched roof to the crooked lintel over the front door which causes it to stick whenever the wood swells with rain.
Even the bell over that door has grown tarnished and misshapen with age, and makes a muffled thump rather than ringing when Alasdair enters the shop.
It's still loud enough to attract Michael's attention away from the large book he has spread open on the pitted table that serves as a counter, and he looks up eagerly at the sound. His hopeful expression is quick to fade, however.
"Oh, it's just you," he says, scowling. "Thought it might be a customer."
"Slow day?" Alasdair asks.
"Mrs Platt came in first thing feeling a bit 'off'. She spent the best part of an hour having a good sniff at every bottle Dylan brought out to recommend her, and that seemed to do her the world of good because she fucked off after that without buying anything," Michael says sourly. "Oh, and Mr Elliott came at lunchtime to buy the usual tincture for his piles. That was it until you arrived."
A typical day, in other words.
For the first few years after Dylan reopened the shop, trade continued as briskly as it had when their mother ran it, but as more and more of their old neighbours either died or simply moved away, taking their loyalty to Mrs Kirkland's memory along with them, it gradually died down to its current sluggish trickle.
Alasdair's own familial loyalty makes him reluctant to admit it, but he suspects that Dylan himself has driven most of his custom away. His brother's herblore is both abundant and impressive, given that it is largely self-taught, but his youthful countenance and muddled way of speaking inspire no confidence in the extent of his knowledge.
Those potential customers who were not made so uneasy by the apothecary's prattling digressions that they mistrusted his judgement regarding their treatment were likely dissuaded from visiting again by Michael, whose surly presence at the front of the shop and obvious distaste for his role of apprentice made even the simplest of transactions into something of a trial.
It was no wonder, really, that most newcomers to Old Town eventually came to frequent Lukas Bondevik's apothecary instead. Mr Bondevik might not greet them with as warm a welcome as Dylan, nor serve them with as much patience and diligent attention to their needs, but his own shop – only three doors down from Dylan's – is neat, well-maintained, and more regularly de-cobwebbed than Michael seems to have the energy for, and he speaks with such authority that he could likely sell nothing but plain water as a remedy and still persuade anyone who listened to him that it could cure them of any ailment.
"Still, it's nearly closing time," Alasdair says, stepping forward to give his little brother's hair a quick ruffle.
Michael flinches away from him, his scowl deepening.
"And then I'll have to tidy the shop," he says, his words fading into a despondent sigh that suggests that the task is just too huge and terrible to contemplate after a strenuous day of hanging around doing pretty much fuck all except for sitting on his arse and reading, as far as Alasdair can tell.
He finds it hard to summon up any sympathy for his brother.
"That'll take you all of five minutes, no doubt," Alasdair says. "I've seen your idea of tidying, Mikey. All you do is straighten up the display bottles and wave a wet cloth in the general direction of the counter. It's no bloody wonder that you can barely see through any of the windows here." That fact, which has been true for the past year at least, seems untenable all of a sudden. "You should go out and wash them before dinner."
"But they're huge," Michael says, looking horrified at the suggestion.
"I don't sodding care," Alasdair snaps back. "Gods, Dylan fucking spoils you. Angus' lad Oliver is your age and he spends all day and half the night on his feet, lugging around barrels and the like at Richard's place, and he never complains. Hell, he never stops bloody smiling, come to that. Maybe you and him should swap places for a while; might help you realise how easy you have it."
Michael opens his mouth as if to protest, but swiftly snaps it shut again, swallowing hard. "I'll go and fill a bucket," he says almost meekly before scuttling off with greater haste and purpose than Alasdair has seen him display in years.
Youngest brother satisfactorily dealt with, Alasdair feels free to return to pursuing his original objective with a clear conscience. To that end, he makes his way to the back of the shop, where Dylan's laboratory is situated.
It was never a large room, but it's been made even smaller by the tools of his brother's trade. A furnace takes up the greatest part, and the rest is almost completely filled by distillatory apparatus, scales, glass vessels of various dimensions, and a network of thin copper pipes twisted into a convoluted tangle.
There's barely enough space left for Dylan's workbench, never mind Dylan himself. He has to perch on a high, narrow stool to use it, his broad arse over-spilling the seat either side, and hunch so far forward to reach his tools that his back is usually bent almost double.
He always finishes work with a sore spine and shoulders, and more often than not, with some part of him burnt, too. There are only two small windows in the lab, set high up in the far wall, which are sufficient to keep the room free from noxious fumes but not to let in anything but the faintest slivers of light. Accordingly, Dylan has to keep an oil lamp lit on his bench, even during the daytime, though he seems to forget that it's there whenever he's caught up in his work, and his arms, fingers, and occasionally his hair, end up paying the price.
He's leant far too close to the spluttering flame now, his elbow almost banging against the already cracked glass cover every time he grinds down with his pestle. His expression of intense concentration – which pinches some resemblance of definition into his otherwise plain, soft features – suggests that he won't notice his proximity to the lamp until either his skin begins sizzling or else he knocks it to the floor yet again.
Thankfully, he startles away rather than towards it when Alasdair noisily clears his throat to announce his presence, and then blinks across at him slowly, clearly puzzled, his eyes turned impossibly large by the thick lenses of his protective goggles.
"What are you doing home so early?" he asks. "I thought your shift didn't finish till six."
"Strictly speaking, I'm still on the clock," Alasdair says. "I need you to take a look at something for me."
He holds the flower out to his brother, who takes it from him and then pushes his goggles up to rest on the top of his head. Their heavy metal frames have scored dark pink semicircles across the breadth of his pale face, and as he examines the flower, the rest of his rounded cheeks darken to match.
"Are you planning on giving this to someone special?" he says eventually, sounding faintly embarrassed. "I mean, it's beautiful … Or it was beautiful, I suppose, before you crushed all the petals." He lifts the flower to his nose and inhales deeply. "And it's lost almost all of its scent."
"I wouldn't put it that close to my face if I was you. We found it in some dead bloke's shirt," Alasdair says, his own embarrassment making him feel a little spiteful. He can't imagine what might have given Dylan cause to think he might have some beau he was trying to impress, never mind that he would ever ask his brother to appraise his efforts if that situation were ever to arise.
Dylan drops the flower with gratifying speed. "For fuck's sake, why didn't you tell me that first, Aly," he says, scrubbing his hand vigorously against the sleeve of his robe. "I bet you don't even have the first clue what he died of, do you?"
"No," Alasdair admits, "but I doubt you're in any danger of catching anything, anyway. Gabs thinks he was poisoned."
"Poisoned?" Dylan echoes, his eyebrows arching high. "You don't think this flower has anything to do with that, surely? It's only a rose. They're mildly astringent, at best, not dangerous."
Alasdair shakes his head. "I know that. It just seems like it might be some rare variety or something. I've never seen one like it before."
"Neither have I." Dylan shrugs. "All I can tell you is that it's definitely not a cabbage rose or a briar rose, and Gabs doubtless knew that herself. You'd be better off showing it to Arthur."
Alasdair comes to the realisation that Gabriella had been talking about Arthur in tandem with Dylan's words. In retrospect, it should have been obvious. His thoughts might inevitably turn towards Dylan upon an unqualified mention of 'his brother' but Gabriella's certainly don't.
"Aye, but I thought I'd give you a chance first before I dragged myself all the way off to the palace," he says hurriedly. "I'll go and see Wart tomorrow."
-
-
As it does most nights, their dinner consists of bread and meat stew. What kind of meat is impossible to deduce from either taste or texture, though Alasdair considers it better for his peace of mind not to speculate, in any case.
Ludwig is kind enough to sell Dylan bags of scraps from his butcher's shop for only a couple of coppers before he closes up for the day, and if one of Isabelle's loaves happens to rise unevenly, or perhaps singes a little in the baking, she will set it aside to trade in exchange for some sprigs of mint from Dylan's small herb garden.
The largest component of the stew remains a thin, brown broth, in which the odd gristly lump, or chunk of carrot or potato might bob forlornly into occasional view.
It's still the best thing Alasdair's eaten all day. He's entitled to take one of his meals at the guardhouse, and though today it was lunch, it doesn't make any difference which one he chooses as they only ever offer some sort of grey slop of unknown provenance that tastes like stables smell and has the consistency of phlegm.
Dylan is a dab hand with seasoning, at least.
Michael practically inhales his own portion – his already hearty appetite obviously swelled to monstrous proportions by the unaccustomed half hour of physical labour Alasdair had assigned him earlier – then leans back in his chair and launches into his usual round of questions about Alasdair's shift at work.
"Did you catch any thieves?" he asks, his thin face alight with an expression of eagerness he rarely displays at any other time.
"No," Alasdair says without bothering to look up from his bowl.
"Murderers?"
"No."
"Did you have to chase anyone across the rooftops?"
Alasdair has never done anything of the sort in his life. He blames the lurid crime books Michael's tastes run to for giving him outlandish ideas about what constitutes the normal work of a guard which is, in reality, usually little more than walking up and down the same handful of streets for hours on end, trying to look threatening enough that their presence acts as sufficient deterrent against crimes happening in the first place.
"No."
"Through the sewers?"
"No."
"Did you find any dead bodies?" Michael says finally, drawing out each word with clear relish.
Alasdair has no doubt that he would have felt the same kind of delighted horror at the possibility when he was fifteen himself, but hearing it so clearly in his little brother's voice still makes him feel slightly sick all the same. His mind turns inexorably towards the poor bloke in the alley, and thence to wondering if he might have brothers, or parents, or a spouse, or, gods, even children waiting for him to join them for dinner somewhere in town.
Michael takes his lengthy pause as confirmation, and practically beams in excitement. "Were they stabbed?"
"Michael," Dylan says sharply, though his anxious gaze is directed towards Alasdair rather than their brother. "This really isn't a suitable topic for the table. Aly and I are trying to eat."
"But," Michael begins to whine, but Dylan cuts him off with: "If you can't think of anything else to talk about, then you can either sit there and say nothing or go and make a start on cleaning my alembic now. The choice is yours."
Dylan seldom speaks Michael with any firmness, and though Michael does look mildly betrayed, he keeps his silence, nevertheless; likely, Alasdair suspects, because the very rarity of such treatment makes it seem all the more imperative to obey. Dylan's temper only thins in the most trying of circumstances.
Alasdair wouldn't consider his position in any way dire enough yet that he's in need of his brother's misguided attempts at protection, but he feels a little grateful for Dylan's overreaction all the same.
The dead man's probably going to fill up so much of his time in the coming days that a last night as free of any further thoughts of him as he can manage is a very welcome prospect.
-
-
Alasdair's reprieve doesn't even last an hour.
Whilst Michael is in the laboratory sullenly dealing with the alembic, and Dylan and Alasdair are attempting to scrub the last stubborn remnants of stew from the depths of the cooking pot, Gabriella lets herself in the shop's back door, stepping straight into the kitchen unannounced in the same way she has ever since they were all children together.
Even though it stopped raining around the time the sun sank below the horizon, her long, dark hair is damp, as are the shoulders of her blue woolen dress. It's such a surprise to see her wearing something other than her healer's robes that it apparently renders Dylan incapable of his typical politeness, as his first reaction upon catching sight of her is to ask her about the change instead of offering her some of the tea that's just finished brewing.
"My last patient was a croupy baby," Gabriella says, smiling ruefully. "It's amazing how much vomit such a small person can produce. My robes were practically soaked through."
"But being a healer's a calling, right, Gabs?" Alasdair chuckles. "You always say so. Just remember it's all for a higher purpose and all that."
"Sometimes I wish I'd been called to work on a vineyard in Hispania like Antonio was," Gabriella mutters under her breath.
Belatedly remembering his manners, Dylan hustles her into taking a seat at the table, hands her a cup of tea, and then asks her how she'd spent the non-sick-covered parts of her day.
"I went to take a closer look at that poor young man you and Angus found," Gabriella says, tilting her head towards Alasdair as she looks up at him. "They've taken his body to the Paupers' Temple, you know. He'll likely end up being buried there if someone doesn't come to collect him soon."
"Did you learn anything else?" Alasdair asks.
Gabriella shakes her head. "I didn't have much of a chance to examine him at all. Apparently, your captain doesn't trust me to do my job, because he sent along that surgeon from Highgate to do his own investigation. The one who was trained in Londinium, so of course he knows medicine better than anyone." A grimace of distaste briefly twists her lips. She's butted heads more than once with the surgeon in question, who seems to believe that leeches are the be all and end all of any treatment that doesn't involve hacking off a body part. "I'd only been there about five minutes and he just shooed me away as though I was a dog or something. I felt tempted to bite him like one, that's for sure."
"He's a complete twat," says Dylan, whose own low opinion of the surgeon was cemented during his short visit to their shop, wherein he glanced at exactly one of Dylan's carefully prepared elixirs before pronouncing his entire stock unfit for use.
"He certainly is," Gabriella agrees happily. She then produces a small vial from her satchel which she passes to Dylan. "I did manage to draw a sample of blood before the 'distinguished Dr Morgan' swooped in. I thought you should take a look at it, Dyl, and see if you're able to figure out what poison was used."
"I can try," Dylan says, though he already sounds slightly dubious about his chances at success. "I know a few tests that might work."
"I think we've got about as far with this as we can today," Gabriella says to Alasdair, and then, widening her gaze to encompass Dylan as well, adds, "I don't know about the two of you, but between surgeons and babies, I could definitely do with a pint or three about now. How does the Lost Antler strike you?"
-
-
The Lost Antler might not sell the cheapest beer in Old Town, or even the best, but it does have the distinction of being the inn closest to the apothecary shop, so Dylan and Alasdair still end up visiting it more than any other.
It was probably quite a grand place once, a century or so back, but like so many of the surrounding buildings, time hasn't been kind to it. Decades of pipe smoke have given the windows a permanent yellow tinge, and the plaster is crumbling away in spots both inside and out, but Richard and Oliver's tireless efforts keep the age-darkened wood well-polished and the hearth in the taproom constantly fed.
The floorboards by the front door might be swept clean, but they're loose and creak alarmingly when Gabriella, Dylan and Alasdair enter the inn. Alasdair has often thought this particular oversight in the building's upkeep is actually deliberate and serves much the same purpose as the dilapidated bell in the apothecary. Richard looks up from behind the bar at the sound as he always does, gives them a tight nod, and then gets back to polishing glasses.
As it's still relatively early, there are only a few scattered knots of drinkers dotted about, mostly comprised of those patrons who are a daily fixture from the moment the Lost Antler opens until Richard kicks them out last thing before he bars the door.
"I can't see Llewellyn," Dylan says, his brow slowly knotting as his gaze roams between the small groups.
Alasdair can't bring himself to share his brother's obvious disappointment. The bard seems like a decent enough sort, judging by the few words Alasdair has been able to coax out of him over the years, but he can't say the same for his music.
Back before the invention of the printing press, Alasdair supposes that bards served a useful enough function in sharing news and stories that people excused the way their ballads droned on and interminably on with no discernable chorus for everyone to join in with as any respectable song should. Now, there's no justification for it, and doubtless Llewellyn only earns the coppers he does when he passes around his cap at the end of the night because some of his captive audience feel a sense of obligation to keep him from starving so that the obsolete tradition can limp on for a few more years past what should have been its natural death.
No-one appears to like his performances a great deal save perhaps Richard, who invites him back time and again, and Dylan, who watches every one he can with a sort of breathless wonder. Alasdair has often thought that it's not so much the music itself that enraptures his brother, but getting caught up in imagining that, perhaps in another life, he might have been the one in the bard's place. Dylan's always loved to sing, and though untrained, his voice has a richness and clarity that makes it worth listening to, but the tips of his fingers are so scarred by his work that they're likely too clumsy and numb or him ever to be able to learn how to play the harp or flute with any skill, no matter how much he might wish it.
"He might have set up in the snug," Dylan adds, drifting away before Alasdair has chance to ask him for a coin to pay for his drink.
"I guess I'm stumping up for his ale then," Alasdair grumbles, reaching reluctantly for his purse.
Gabriella catches hold of his wrist. "I'll get this round," she says, giving her head a quick shake. "You go and find us a table."
The suggestion might be born of pity, because Gabriella is surely aware that Alasdair's purse contains more dust than coins just like it normally does, but they've known each other long and well enough that they can both pretend that it's nothing more than generosity and Alasdair can allow himself to believe in the lie without the usual bruising of his pride.
He nods acceptance, and after Gabriella has left for the bar, heads straight for the table Angus habitually occupies, tucked out of sight from the main part of the taproom by a thick wooden pillar and dented suit of plate armour that Richard had inherited from the inn's previous owners.
Sure enough, Angus is already seated there with the pint he will nurse until his boy finishes work and they can walk back together to the small house they rent on the other side of Old Town.
He glances towards Alasdair as he nears, and asks, in lieu of a greeting, "You on your own?"
"Naw, my brother and Gabs are here, too. Mikey might be over later, but I doubt it. He's on cleaning duty to make up for being a lazy little shit, and given the speed he works, he likely won't be finished before midnight."
Angus' lips curve into a small smile that's purely amusement and betrays no hint of shared understanding. Alasdair doubts he ever has to deal with the same sort of problem when it comes to Oliver, who might as well be a creature comprised of pure energy in comparison to Michael.
"I'd like a word with you before they join us," Angus says, inclining his head towards the free seat beside him.
"Join us?" Alasdair echoes disbelievingly before he can stop himself. He'd approached Angus expecting nothing more than the polite mutual acknowledgment of each other's existence they typically exchange when they meet outside work hours, because Angus isn't particularly bothered for company as a rule.
The implicit offer of adding his presence to their party is unprecedented enough that Alasdair finds himself sitting down before Angus even has chance to answer, so he doesn't have time to change his mind about making it.
Angus frowns slightly. "Not a single person I talked to admitted to seeing that bloke this afternoon before he died," he says in an undertone. "Funny, that, isn't it?"
"Hilarious," Alasdair agrees, shifting uncomfortably. Part of him wants to tell Angus that he doesn't want to think about the dead man for at least what remains of the day, but he supposes that the rest of him must unknowingly yearn to know more anyway, as he had sought his partner out, after all. He hadn't needed to; Angus wouldn't have held it against him if he didn't stop by. "Man like that, you'd have thought that the clinking of his purse would have turned the odd head, if nothing else."
Angus runs a finger along the jagged scar that seams the right side of his forehead, the way he always does when he's unsettled. And as he always does when he witnesses the gesture, Alasdair idly wonders what might have caused that scar, along with all of the others that pepper Angus' arms and hands. Taken together with the crooked nose that implies a poorly set break, they tell a far different story about Angus' life before he joined the guards than the bare bones one he had given Alasdair, which contained nothing of any note beyond Oliver's birth when he was little more than a boy himself.
"You'd have thought so, but then we didn't find a purse on him, did we?" Angus says eventually, sounding cautious. "Now, maybe he didn't carry one – I've heard tell that fine men sometimes don't – but perhaps –"
"Perhaps someone found him before us and took it," Alasdair finishes with a groan. He can't believe he didn't make the connection before himself; it seems so obvious in retrospect. "Good thinking, Angus. So we should be looking out for someone who's suddenly a bit more flush than usual?"
"Aye, and I mentioned as much to the sergeant, too, so he can tell the lads doing morning patrol to do the same." Angus' smile this time is broader, and he looks pleased that Alasdair agrees with his take on the situation. Doubtless the sergeant had argued against it, if only out of sheer bloody-mindedness. "What did your brother make of the flower?"
"No more than Gabs did, but I thought I'd take it over to the palace to show Arthur, just in case he can shed some light on it," Alasdair says, safe in the knowledge that Angus, who's never taken the slightest interest in Arthur's profession, won't pick up on the arse-backwards way round of doing things he'd accidentally engaged in. "Gabs also managed to grab us a bit of the bloke's blood when she went to look at him up at the Paupers'. Dyl might be able to work out what poisoned him from that."
"Neat trick," Angus says with genuine feeling, obviously impressed.
If Dylan was there, he'd no doubt be spluttering in incoherent rage to hear his years of study and careful techniques classified as such and Alasdair would feel bound to correct Angus, but as he isn't, Alasdair just nods in agreement.
Angus takes a sip of his beer, swipes his tongue across his top lip to catch the foam, and then leans closer to Alasdair. "After we moved the body, I found one of the petals from that flower on the ground." The drink clearly didn't help to wet his throat, because his voice grows hoarse and he has to give a sharp cough before continuing. "I probably should have given it to you to go along with the rest, but I didn't. I just slipped it into my pocket."
He seems to feel guilty enough over that decision that he has difficulty meeting Alasdair's eyes.
"I don't think one petal would have made any difference," Alasdair reassures him. "It still looks like a rose with the ones it has, Dyl just doesn't know all that much about them. Besides, it might prove useful; you can show it around, and see if it means anything to anyone you know."
Angus gives up on any pretense at making eye contact and stares down into his pint instead, a faint flush colouring his freckled cheeks. "I've already shown it to my brother," he mutters.
From what Alasdair has been able to glean from Angus' patchy life stories, he doesn't have any blood relations apart from his son, but he there are a few lads he calls brother because they grew up together in the orphanage that took Angus in after his parents died. Richard and Llewellyn are the only two Alasdair is familiar with, and he can't imagine either of the them knowing any more about roses than Dylan.
"Which one?" he asks, hoping that Angus might in fact claim kinship with someone whose botanical genius might simply have gone hitherto unmentioned due to lack of interest on his part. Not only would it expedite matters, but it would free Alasdair from the obligation of visiting Arthur, thus brightening his life on two fronts in the process.
"You probably don't remember him," Angus says. "He travels a lot; doesn't come home to Deva all that often. He didn't recognise the petal, but he said he'd keep his ear to the ground, listening for mention of roses, poison, and the like. There's a good chance he might hear something, too, because knows a lot of people around here, both high and low."
Angus' complexion darkens yet further with the last word, suggesting that 'low' could quite easily be replaced by 'criminal'. Normally, Alasdair would press him for more details, but he ignores his guard instincts for once and allows the moment to pass without comment. As long as Angus' brother doesn't get himself drawn into anything illegal by his 'friends' whilst he's home, Alasdair can look the other way. At the end of the day, there's no crime in keeping bad company.
And they would probably benefit with some inside information from the town's seedier underbelly, especially whilst the dead man's purse is still unaccounted for.