Chapter Nine: The Servant in Black

He leaned heavily on Djaq's frame as she ushered him through the darkened corridors, the sounds of murmuring and weeping leaking from underneath every door as news of the murder made its inevitable round. He was unbearably hot…he needed to get something to drink or he'd surely collapse. Finally though, a door opened into blissful coolness and he was steered into darkness and sat down upon the end of an unmade bed.

"Water…" he managed, and closed his eyes as he heard Djaq move across the room, and the sound of water pouring into a mug. A moment later she'd pressed it into his hand, and he drunk deeply.

"More," was all he could say afterwards, and she refilled the cup once, twice, three more times, standing in front of him and watching silently as he chugged down the contents. Finally he stopped, panting, and felt her hand place itself upon his cheek. Before he knew what he was doing, he pressed the hand closer to him with one of his own, trying to transfer its coolness to his flushed face.

He had to tell her, to ask her now, before it was too late, before he was hung for a murder he didn't commit. The question was on the tip of his tongue, only he couldn't speak properly, and random words were dripping from his mouth like raindrops:

"If I…would you…"

Before any degree of sense could be made from this gibberish, she raised his face with both hands, and for a surreal moment he thought she was going to kiss him. But she was looking into his eyes, gently pulling up his eyelids in order to peer into their blueness.

"Your eyes are glassy," she told him, shaking her head in despair. "How much have you been drinking? Saracen wine is more potent than what you're used to."

"Djaq-" he muttered, trying to force the words out. By their own volition, his clumsy arms had already wrapped themselves around her waist, trying to tug her down toward him. Alarm suddenly flared up in her eyes like a startled bird, and she disentangled herself just in time. A moment later Will burst through the door.

"Are you alright?" he demanded of her.

"Where's your hatchet?" she demanded back.

Grim realisation filled his eyes, and he rushed over to a small chest against the wall, kneeled before it, and flung it open. For a few minutes Djaq and Allan watched as he scrabbled about, flinging aside familiar old Sherwood clothes and other bits and pieces. Finally he stopped, his arms braced on the sides of the open chest, and hung his head.

"It's gone," he said quietly, without even turning around.

"Wh-huh?" Allan managed, but now Will and Djaq were looking at each other in a kind of frantic despair that was frightening to behold. Will leapt to his feet and moved to lock the door while Djaq began pacing the floor.

"Someone must have gotten in during the party," Will said, securing the door latch and then turning to grasp Djaq by her arms. "Taken it from my chest and used it to kill Alevi."

Djaq looked at him in horror. "Someone is trying to frame you. We have to leave this place. Right now."

"Djaq-"

"No! Do not argue with me. Let us get our things and just leave. We could be at Bassam's house in two days time, and then-"

"Djaq, if I go now I may as well be proclaiming my own guilt. We need to slow down and think this out."

Allan watched all this from the bed, swaying slightly. He was trying to maintain some measure of control over his body, despite the heavy pounding of his heartbeat echoing about in his head. There was something vitally important he needed to say:

"I…I…"

They both glanced up at him, almost surprised to see that he was even there.

"I didn't do it."

There was a stunned silence from Will. Then: "What's wrong with him?"

"I think he's drunk," Djaq answered, and he heard Will snort derisively. Reaching out blindly, Allan's fingers fastened upon the ewer that Djaq had used to fill his mug, and he poured himself another drink. He was desperate to get rid of this clogged-up feeling. He didn't feel drunk, just sick, and he wanted to keep up with the conversation that was flitting back and forth before him. There was something he'd seen…something that didn't make sense, and if he could only clear his mind he could fix upon what it was.

Will had clenched his fists; Djaq was pulling restlessly at her hair. Allan wanted to comfort them.

"Maybe it was just an accident," he croaked. "Maybe 'e tripped and fell. Backwards. Onto a hatchet. That disappeared afterwards."

Will rolled his eyes, but Djaq at least had the grace to answer him.

"It was no accident. This place is an anthill, crawling with games and intrigues. Alevi-al-Dayir was meant to sign one half of a peace treaty tomorrow night, and now someone's stopped that from happening."

"But who would want that?" Will asked, looking impossibly young all of a sudden.

Djaq silently wrapped her arms around his waist. Allan watched as though from a great distance, vaguely wondering if he should remind them that he was still here, but also what would happen between them if he kept quiet.

"We'll go to Prince Malik and explain to him that my hatchet has been taken," Will said. "He's always been sympathetic to us. We'll make him see that Alevi was killed with my stolen hatchet."

"Alevi wasn't killed by a hatchet. I told you that. The wounds came after he died. It must have been an Englishman who did it."

Will started, and let go of her.

"What makes you say that?"

"Only an Englishman would be stupid enough to attack a corpse and not think we would not be able to tell."

Will didn't look particularly convinced by this, and turned to Allan impatiently.

"You were there first. Tell us exactly what happened."

He tried not to groan, the threat of conversation now making him want nothing more than to curl up and sleep off whatever exotic hangover this was. He raised a finger to explain, hoping that the affirmative gesture would focus his thoughts.

"I was asleep," he said. "Then I was thirsty. So I got out of bed-"

"Wait, what bed?" asked Djaq. "Where were you?"

"I don't know. A servant took me to a spare room somewhere. When I woke up I was thirsty, so I got out of bed to find a drink-" he took another swig of the water. "But I heard someone scream. A woman."

Djaq nodded. "So did I."

"Me too," Will added. "From all the way out in the gardens."

"Yeah…I thought it was…so anyway, I got to the corridor and I saw him…lying there."

"Anything else?"

Allan scrunched up his face. There had been something…not something he'd seen, just something he'd noticed, but he couldn't for the life of him remember what it was.

"I don't think so. I saw that he had a water flask and that it was dripping on the floor. And he'd taken off his coat and scarf. It's getting hot in 'ere. Can we open a window?"

He was feeling better now; things were making more sense. Alevi had been murdered. Will was being blamed. But things didn't make sense because the hatchet wounds had been made after he'd died. By someone who underestimated the intelligence of Saracens. They weren't mucking around in a forest anymore; that had been dangerous enough as it was. These were high political games that were way above his head – way above all their heads. Djaq had the right idea – they should leave while they still had the chance.

"Look – there's no reason for me to want to kill Alevi," Will was saying. "Everyone knows how hard I worked for peace. There's no motive!"

"The very fact that you are English and he was Saracen might be reason enough. And if there is not a reason, whoever did this will invent one. They could say that you and Alevi fought over something. Maybe our marriage. Maybe the treaty. Maybe your loyalty to Robin Hood. They will find something."

She buried her face in his shoulder, and he held her closely. Allan shifted uncomfortably. Watching his scantily-clad friends embrace was not something he wanted to witness. At least, not under these circumstances.

"Hush," Will was telling her. "If the wounds were made after his death, then the worst I can be accused of is bludgeoning a dead man. It may be that they do not look too closely at his injuries. They may not even realise that it is the work of a hatchet. In fact, can you even be sure that it was a hatchet?"

She leaned back and glared at him.

"Alright, alright, it was a hatchet," he said hastily.

She returned to his shoulder.

"I can't believe it," Allan heard her whisper in the quiet. "Alevi is dead. He was always so…alive."

It sounded silly, but Allan knew what she meant, and for the first time he felt a sharp and surprising twinge of grief. He hadn't known Alevi, had barely spoken to him, but the man had made an effort to make him feel welcome. In that brief interlude on the divan, Allan had glimpsed a little of himself in the loud, vain, nervous man.

"It'll be morning soon," Will said. "We should try to…never mind, we'll never get to sleep now."

"I want to go back to the corridor where he was found," Djaq said firmly. "Perhaps there is something that we missed. Then I want a closer look at the body."

"Are you sure?" Will asked. "You don't want to-"

"No. Let us go now. All of us."

A few minutes later, still feeling queasy, Allan found himself back in the corridor, looking at the scene of a few hours ago, sans one dead body and a hysterical crowd. The water flask was still there, its contents emptied all over the tiles, the finely embroidered jacket and scarf lying forgotten, the tranquil night beyond the archways as still and calm as ever.

Hesitantly Djaq knelt down beside the puddle, wet her fingers and brushed her lips with them.

"It's just water," she told the men, and together the three moved on to the discarded clothes.

"These are definitely the clothes he was wearing at the party," Djaq said, picking them up from the floor. "Do you two notice anything odd?"

"What do you mean?" Will asked, coming to stand next to her.

"Nothing…I was just wondering why he would take them off. It's not a very warm night."

Allan took his place at her other side, looking down at the garments, limp and a little pathetic-looking without their flamboyant owner. He leaned in to peer closer at the gold embroidery, and then jumped back as his nose was assailed by a faint but familiar scent.

"'Ang on!" he cried, taking the jacket from Djaq's hands, pressing it to his face, and taking a deep breath of the collar.

"What is it?" Will asked.

He shook his head, concentrating. He couldn't be sure. After all, he knew from the oil that the land-lord had given him that the men in this country also perfumed themselves. But there, underneath the pungent smell of sweat and fabric, was the scent of a woman. Spices, musk, flowers, heat…it was unmistakable.

"A woman was with him," he said with certainty.

"How do you know?" Will asked.

"Smell it," he said. "It smells like Dj…like a Saracen woman."

Obediently, the two bowed their heads toward the collar and breathed in.

"Perhaps…" Djaq said slowly.

"I'm sure of it." Having been at extremely close quarters not too long ago with one such woman, Allan was certain.

"Well…what woman?" Will said. "Is it even important? Alevi always had women from the harem crowded around him."

"Oh…right," Allan took back the jacket and stared down at it glumly. He had hoped that his observation would have impressed them.

But now Will had a focused, faraway look on her face. "We all heard the scream…" she said slowly. "The scream of a woman…but was she screaming because she saw the murder, or screaming because she found the body?"

"Because she found the body," Djaq said firmly. "Whoever she was."

Will glanced at Allan uneasily. He didn't look entirely convinced.

"I guess that depends on how quickly people got here…" he said, and turned to Allan for clarification.

"I, um…it's hard to say. I wasn't feeling…meself." He squeezed his eyes shut in frustration and opened them again. Djaq's words were echoing in his mind.

Whoever she was…

There was something there, in that comment that was important. But he couldn't grasp it, and was now feeling mildly distracted by the sight of Will gently playing with the strands of Djaq's hair.

"But Djaq, if my hatchet wasn't the murder weapon, then what killed him?" he was asking. "There was no other mark on him, was there?"

"I didn't get a good enough chance to look at him. But no, from what I could see, there was nothing else. That means…"

"Poison," they all said together; Will angrily, Djaq calmly and Allan grimly.

"But then how long was it, do you suppose, between Alevi's death and whoever it was using the hatchet?" she wondered.

The men were silent, Will perhaps because he was not yet totally convinced as to Djaq's conviction, and Allan because something else was welling up in his mind. Something that didn't make sense.

"Lemme think…" he muttered, and then spoke out, carefully articulating each word as the puzzle unravelled in his mind. "Why poison 'im and then use a hatchet on the back of 'is 'ead?"

"Maybe to make sure the job was done," Will said.

"No, no…if this guy, whoever 'e is, wants to pin the murder on you, and goes to all the trouble of getting your hatchet out of your room…why not just bash Alevi on the back of the 'ead and have done with it? Why muck around with poison at all?"

The two of them were quiet, staring at him intently. He went on, trying to answer his own question, dredging up a lifetime of underhanded tactics and sneaky dealings that had gone horribly wrong.

"Maybe…maybe there was a plan. And the plan went wrong."

Djaq nodded thoughtfully.

"It all depends, I suppose, on whether the culprit is Saracen or English. That is the problem. A Saracen would use poison to dispose of an enemy. It is…neat. An Englishman would be more likely to use a hatchet. It leaves nothing to chance."

"But you're saying that Alevi was killed by poison and then…what? A hatchet for good measure? To frame me? I thought you said a Saracen would know better than that."

Djaq shook her head in despair, and Allan ventured further.

"Maybe there's two lots of things goin' on here. We just can't see what it is."

"I need to see the body again," she said, and immediately turned around and strode off down the corridor. Allan and Will cast weary looks at each other, and set off behind her.

"What do you mean I cannot go in?" she cried.

Will stood next to her, aware of the acute embarrassment of the guard who was looking in every conceivable direction save at the nightgown-clad, unveiled Saracen woman standing directly in front of him with her hands on her hips.

"The family is inside," he said to the ceiling. "They don't want to be disturbed."

Will quietly translated this to Allan, standing a little behind the two of them, as Djaq toned down her outrage and changed her tactics.

"I understand," she said in a much more reasonable tone. "But there is something very important concerning Lord Alevi that I need to tell them. Something about how he died that-"

She stopped suddenly as the door behind the guard opened. The cold from what was apparently a cooling room preceded a Saracen dressed in black, the cries and wails of grief from within growing louder as the door opened, and then muffled again as he shut it behind him. The man was a servant judging from his downcast eyes, but well-dressed, and therefore an important one.

"Excuse me," Djaq began imperiously, but then shrank back under the cold, dark look that the man fixed on her. Will felt her self-consciousness flood through her as though the emotion was his own, seeing her flush red and cross her arms protectively across her night-gown. In all the excitement, she had forgotten she was no longer among those that would tolerate such behaviour from a woman. Will wanted to put his arm around her, but hesitated. In these circumstances, perhaps that would just make it worse.

"The al-Dayir family do not wish to be disturbed," the man said in a deep, sonorous voice.

"I – I understand, but you see – Alevi's death-"

"Was caused by a blow to the head by a weapon that was very much like a small axe," the man cut in smoothly. "Yes, the family is aware of that."

His eyes left her and shifted to Will, who drew himself up to his full height and addressed the man as calmly as he could, pushing down the anger that the man's insinuating tone had roused in him.

"Alevi was not killed by a hatchet."

The man's eyebrows raised. "You are sure of this? Usually when a man is found dead and bleeding from head wounds, it is a clear indicator of his cause of death. The palace physician is confident enough."

"But that is just it," Djaq blurted, her shame cast aside by her frustration. "He was poisoned. The hatchet wounds were made after his death!"

"Poison? How do you know?" His voice was thick with scepticism and crawling with suspicion.

She flushed again.

"If I could examine the body…"

"You? You want to examine the body?"

He made it sound as though he she were suggesting something obscene, and she blinked in shock. Without another word she marched down the corridor and disappeared into a nearby room. Will watched her go, baffled as to what she was doing, and then turned to Allan. He was gazing at the servant in quiet concentration. Clearing his throat, Will tried again.

"We would very much like to speak to the family when they emerge…" he trailed off. The shrieks of mourning that had been going on throughout their discourse had reached a crescendo. The guard shifted uncomfortably. The servant stared coolly back at Will. Allan continued to stare at the man as though he'd fallen asleep with his eyes open. "…we think there's been a misunderstanding."

"That's an interesting way to describe a murder."

"Look, it's important we see the family before-"

A door banged shut down the corridor, and Djaq stormed back, her gown billowing like black wings at her sides. Marching up to the servant she thrust a folded piece of parchment under his nose.

"You are a manservant to the al-Dayir family," she told him, speaking with the full authority of a noblewoman to her inferior. "Therefore you will deliver this to them at the earliest possible opportunity. There is information in it that is of utmost importance concerning their kinsman's death."

The servant glanced at it distainfully, but clearly knew when his opinions ended and his obligations began. He slid two fingers either side of the message and eased it out of Djaq's grasp.

"I'll see it done, milady," he said, the final word soaked in unmistakable mockery.

Will reached out, grabbed her hand and pulled her away before she punched him. Or before he did. Allan trailed along in their wake, muttering to himself. "That man…I've seen 'im before."

The manservant watched them go, disgust warping his clean-shaven face like a mask. He pulled at the collar of his vest, eager to be out of the dark, constricting clothes and back into his own.

A few minutes later, he could safely yank the vest over his head and replace it with his own shirt as his employer perused the contents of Lady Safiyah's letter.

"How does a woman notice such a thing?" he growled, the letter clenched in his hands. "It took a fortune to keep the physician's mouth shut about it!" A splattering of curses followed, to which the impostor-manservant listened with interest. "I knew the hatchet was a mistake, but he didn't listen to me. Idiot!"

Tearing the paper up and casting it aside, he glared angrily into the darkness. "Now he wants to meddle futher!"

"Weren't they his plans to start with?" his temporary servant asked sardonically.

"Yes," was the bitter reply. "But only Allah knows why he decided to change them on the eve of their instigation!"

The servant was quiet, waiting patiently for orders. He pricked his ears up at the sound of a clinking pouch, one that was pulled from his employer's pocket and dropped into his open palm.

"I except you know about the change in hostage?"

He nodded.

"Very well then. You know what to do next."

So things aren't really going all that well for our favourite carpenter, physician and thief...and I'm afraid they have to get worse before they get better. Next chapter: Allan hatches a scheme, Will gets into a fight and a hostage is taken.