Chapter 5: Trying Times
Merlin followed Percival into the tavern, but as the big man began to straighten tables and chairs, he headed for the stairway.
Taking them two at a time, he paused at the top. The little room he'd used a year ago was really no bigger than one of the apprentice cells, and the cot intended for one person. They wouldn't be sharing in any case, but unless Freya wanted a separate room – and she hadn't yet – she'd chosen one of the larger rooms further down.
Yes, all the way to the end; the little traveling bag sat propped open on the bed, which was still made, the water and towels on the commode untouched. He glanced inside the bag – that was her property, though his spare shirt was also inside – he'd been taught to be observant and so knew pretty much what she kept in it. Her things were missing – nightdress and bed-jacket, house shoes, hairbrush, the little box that kept her bottles of lotions and soaps from breaking.
He stood for a moment, undecided. Suppose she wanted to return to her bunk off the kitchen, unoccupied since Gwen had married and left for Camelot. He didn't mind much, but he probably needed to make sure. Even if he did undress and wash, he probably couldn't fall asleep without knowing, one way or the other. So he turned and re-traced his steps.
Shasta had joined Percival in the common room, was wiping tables as Percival swept the floor.
"Is Freya in the kitchen?" Merlin asked, not slowing as he crossed the room.
Shasta gave him a considering look, and answered, "In the washroom."
Dishes, he supposed, or laundry; Freya was always trying to help out. He entered the kitchen and crossed to the washroom, then knocked twice as he opened the door.
And froze in shock.
The tub was full of water. Steaming soapy water… and her.
Her hair, black in the candlelight, was pinned up except for a few strands which curled and clung wetly around her neck. Her skin – what he could see of it was limited somewhat to shoulders and knees – gleamed golden. And her eyes, so dark with surprise, held no fear of him.
A wave of heat washed down his body, face to feet.
Then one of ice.
Merlin couldn't feel his fingers, but his palms were damp. His feet and his tongue stuck, it seemed, for centuries. Then he focused deliberately on forming the thought, forming the words.
"I'm sorry," he said. "Please excuse me." He dropped his eyes and backed out, closing the door behind him.
And shut his eyes against the fire and lamplight in the kitchen. Dammitdammitdammit. One thoughtless moment had probably set him back months. If she'd seen in his face anything of what he'd been feeling, she would be staying at the tavern, alone in her little alcove.
Or – he remembered how she'd gone back to the hut with her husband, presumably every year the same in spite of his treatment of her – at least, she'd be wanting to.
He stalked across the kitchen, slammed through the door. Percival and Shasta both looked up.
"What's the matter, Merlin?" Percival said. "You look like you've seen a–"
He stopped as Merlin rounded the table between himself and Shasta, the little satisfied smirk on her face and in her eyes fading as he came. She'd known what she'd done, all right.
Merlin spoke through his teeth, controlling the fury with an effort. "Don't you ever do something like that to her again."
As he turned away to the stairs once again, he heard Percival question in a stern voice, "What did you do?"
If Shasta answered, he didn't hear it.
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Freya was half-asleep in her bath when she heard the quick knock and the latch lifting. Expecting Shasta, she was surprised to look up and see Merlin. She thought on a borning panic – Now he'll–
But he stood as if turned to stone, the reflection of the candlelight burning in his eyes. A single candle, so the light was dim, but Freya was convinced she saw a darker color flush over his face.
Surely now he'll – As far as she could tell, his eyes never left her face.
Padlow had caught her bathing a handful of times – until she learned to be stealthy about it, or skip washing altogether – and it had always resulted in the same thing. He'd always taken what he wanted without the slightest regard for her feelings.
But after one shocked moment, Merlin only apologized and excused himself. He even bowed to her slightly as he shut the door.
Freya sat still, hardly disturbing a ripple on the surface of the water. The way Padlow had looked at her – when he ever really looked at her – made her feel exposed and vulnerable. Yet when Merlin looked at her, completely undressed, she felt oddly comfortable, as though wearing a second protective skin over her own.
But for Merlin… the stunned look on his face reminded her of the night they'd arrived in Ealdor. He'd taken one step into the kitchen of the ranch house, noticed his parents' engraved iron tree hanging on the wall, and stalked out, disappearing for the night without even bothering to put his boots back on.
What would he do tonight?
She rose quickly from the bath and pulled on her nightdress. Leaving the buttons undone, she shoved her arms into the sleeves of her bed-jacket and her feet into her house shoes at the same time, wrapping the jacket around her. Then she snatched up the bundle of the rest of her things and dashed out to the common room so fast she almost lost one shoe.
"Where did he go?" she asked breathlessly.
"Merlin?" Percival said, confused, at the same time Shasta asked her own question.
"What do you mean, where did he go?"
"Yes, Merlin," Freya said. "Did he leave, or–"
"He went upstairs," Shasta said, exchanging a look with her husband.
Freya slowed as she crossed the room, trying to be calm – at least on the outside. Knowing he hadn't left gave her a chance to figure what she would say to him. But it also gave her time to wonder what he would say. Or do.
She heard Percival and Shasta pick up a whispered conversation as she started up the stairs. That was one thing true no matter where she lived, but especially in a small town – friends and neighbors would discuss her life. At least Percival and Shasta cared about her.
All too soon she approached the door at the end of the hallway – and it wasn't shut, flickering candlelight reaching out to join with the light from the common room filtering up the stairs. That meant he would have heard her coming, heard her slow down considerably the closer she got. She wished she'd taken the time to dry properly, to button the front of her nightdress – under her robe it wasn't visible, but she'd have to take that off to get into bed, and she was almost chilled with being damp under her clothes in spite of the season, and – and then there was no excuse to keep loitering in the hall, and she stepped into the doorway.
Merlin stood sideways to her, leaned against the wall and looking out the high window, elbow on the ledge and forehead propped on his hand. He didn't turn, though she knew he had to be aware of her.
She took a deep breath, entered the room, and began to put her things away quietly. A dozen things came into her head to say, but nothing guaranteed to ease the awkwardness.
Then it occurred to her that he might be doing the same thing; Merlin embarrassed was a novel idea. It made her feel more confident, of all things. And that was such a new feeling for Freya when it came to men that she almost missed the hook in hanging her robe on the commode at the head of the bed. She sat to finish her buttons, and as she did so, she became aware that he was starting to undress.
That was new also, and startling. Usually she was able to be in bed with her eyes closed when he did this, or else turn away, but there was nowhere in this small room to turn.
She lifted her feet to the edge of the mattress and scooted herself back all the way to the wall. Of course it would be tonight. Merlin was a more polite and considerate husband, he wouldn't yank her wet from the tub and take her there in the washroom. He'd wait for the privacy of the bedroom - but then he wouldn't wait.
He tossed his shirt on the chair in the corner, unbuckled his belt to remove it from his trousers, then sat on the bed beside her to pull his boots off. Boots and belt followed the shirt into the corner of the room.
And there they sat, his back mostly to her, neither saying anything.
Freya watched him breathe, taking deep breaths, slowly, exhaling deliberately. She thought his eyes might be closed; his muscles were relaxed, but he seemed alert all over. The long thick scar that puckered the skin over his lower ribs reminded her of her own, and the night he'd saved her life. That day at Morgana's, when he'd stumbled and she'd touched him in trying to help him; she remembered how his skin felt, muscle and bone stretching as he breathed… maybe it wouldn't be so bad, if she could touch…
She didn't dare. And he didn't move.
They sat for so long she forgot her mouth was dry and her heart had calmed its mad hammering. They sat for so long she wondered if he'd forgotten she was there.
Then he turned and looked at her, his eyes and expression unreadable.
She felt a funny little flush rise, then fade, then nothing but calm.
He reached for her, just as she'd expected. But he only laid his fingers on her cheek, the calluses on his palm tickly-rough on the side of her face, so gentle she wanted to rest her head down on his hand and close her eyes for as long as he'd let her.
"You smell nice," Merlin said, his voice hoarse but quiet. Then he moved off the bed, lowering himself to the floor. "Good night, Freya."
She sat for a moment, disbelief gradually overcome by the obvious. He wasn't going to. He will, someday, part of her argued. A man doesn't live his whole life married without eventually taking what's his.
But why was he waiting?
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Merlin didn't sleep well, for all that he lay still and kept his eyes shut and his breathing even, long after she'd fallen asleep. The clean, fresh scent of her invaded his senses, and he couldn't dispel the image of her in her bath.
He woke almost two hours before dawn and laid for a moment on the clean boards of the floor, hands tucked under his head, staring at the barely-perceptible gray square of the window. Their candle, he supposed, hadn't been tall enough to last the night. As his eyes adjusted, he noticed Freya's hand resting at the edge of the bed, and if he concentrated he could hear her breathing.
It was a pleasurable torment, but not to be borne for long.
He didn't look toward the bed at all as he dressed by touch in the dark, and carried his boots to the door. She sighed and shifted, the mattress rustling as she moved, but didn't wake as he shut the door behind him.
Merlin left as he'd always done, through the kitchen to snag leftover scraps for a makeshift breakfast. Then he prowled – patrolled? – the streets of Emmett's Creek, re-acquainting himself with the shops and homes, trying to pair names and faces, making mental notes about who he needed to question for more information, which leading citizen he needed to give personal time to. He thought he should feel more possessive, protective, but maybe that would come with time. He needed to do a fair bit of paperwork and organization at the reeve's office, needed to see a few of the outlying ranchers or farmers – Leon and Cedric to start with – to ensure they knew of the inauguration to protest if they so chose.
At least he didn't have a belligerent judge to deal with, or a crooked reeve to straighten out, or a murder conspiracy to investigate.
Dawn had Merlin perched on the porch step of a small house on the street just east of the main street. Two freight drivers had passed, as well as a housewife and three older children on various early-morning errands. Mike came out of a small neat cottage five or six houses down and kissed a wife taller than he by inches before crossing the street on his way to the mercantile.
The front door of the house opened behind him. Having heard a couple of quick footsteps approaching, he relaxed the instinct to wheel around with hand on the hilt of his belt knife – but it was Alice who said blankly, "Merlin?"
He stepped down into the street, then turned to face the physician's wife. "Good morning, Alice."
A wide and genuine smile bunched her plump cheeks. "I'm so proud to see you back here," she said. "You look like a human being again." Her eyes twinkled at Merlin. "Well, almost. How's Freya?"
"When did she last write?" Merlin asked.
Alice thought. "Last letter we got was a week or so after your wedding."
"She's about the same," Merlin said neutrally.
Her smile faded. "Well, marriage isn't ever easy, and you both have hard things in your past." She hesitated, then said, "Have you had breakfast yet? Gaius was called out early, but you're welcome to–" She gestured back toward her front door, but Merlin stopped her with a decisive shake of his head.
"If I don't see Gaius today," he said, "will you ask him to swear me in, if I sign the contract at the reeve's office at sundown?"
Alice's easy smile was back. "Be glad to," she said. "Are you waiting just for him? Because I could probably–"
"Not just for him. If anyone has an objection," Merlin said. "Better before than after."
"Ah. Yes, that's so."
"Do you think Gaius knows where the badge actually is?" Merlin asked. "And the keys to the office?" They surely hadn't buried the accoutrements of the office with Whatley.
Alice sighed deeply, a thoughtful wrinkle creasing her forehead. "Last I saw it, Whatley was wearing it," she said. "I don't know if Gaius would know, for sure."
"Percival thought Leon might know," Merlin said. Alice half-nodded, half-shrugged. "And if notice came from Camelot about the tax situation, he'd have those papers, too?"
"Likely as not," Alice said agreeably. "Gaius doesn't have those, that I know."
"I'll see you tonight, then," Merlin said, turning to leave.
"You should be breakfasting with your wife this morning," Alice suggested after him.
As he headed down an alley shortcut toward the livery stable, Merlin silently disagreed. Whatever Freya thought about his intrusion in the light of day, whenever he thought – inadvertently, because he tried his best not to – about the way she looked, wet in the candlelight, he felt that the wildfire lit inside him must surely show in his eyes.
And she was scared enough of him already.
Day started early in the country, on a cattle ranch especially. An hour past sun-up, and the yard was alive with activity. Sheets and trousers danced and dipped on a laundry line, while two little boys chased each other between them. Two of the ranch hands were just riding out, and Leon and a third came to the open doors of the large barn.
Riding the dark brown gelding up the track to the ranch, Merlin was reminded of the day he'd followed Arthur; the last time he'd been on Leon's property, no one else had known. Merlin's lip curled slightly at the thought of how much had changed for him – now he needed to have folks note his approach and arrival.
He nodded to Leon's wife as he passed her with her clothes basket, and kept the gelding at a walk as the two boys hollered and ran before him to the corral, where he dismounted and slung the reins over the top rail. Leon came to meet him across the paced dirt of the yard, the two boys jumping around his legs like puppies.
"Go bother your ma," Leon told them as he reached Merlin, holding out his hand in greeting. "Tell her to give you some chores or something." The boys ran off around the porch. "I tell you what, it makes you sorry for every time you misbehaved for your own folks, having kids."
Then he looked at Merlin as if seeing him for the first time, though Merlin knew the rancher had probably guessed his identity before he'd ridden into the yard.
"So, Merlin. What can I do for you? You've come to take the contract?"
Merlin nodded. "Gaius will swear me in, sundown today at the office. Just thought I'd stop by, make sure you didn't have anything to say to me first."
"Hm." Leon's eyes, faded blue from gazing long distances across his range, were sharp on him. "You want to come in, sit and rest where we can talk in some comfort?"
Merlin remembered Leon's office, the big chair behind the big desk, the smaller and less comfortable guest chair. "No thanks," he said. "As long as the air is clear before the post is official."
Leon nodded, not taking offense. "I guess some of us might be wondering how you're going to take what happened with Padlow."
"Meaning?" Merlin countered evenly.
"Meaning, are you still angry about what the posse did," Leon answered. "Some have suggested you might take a little vengeance of your own on those involved."
Merlin shook his head. "As far as I'm concerned, that's in the past," he said. "I have no intention of bringing it up again or holding grudges."
"And what about the tax business?" Leon said.
"You got the notices from the Agency?" Merlin asked.
"Yeah, some months back."
"In the absence of a regional tax farmer, that's partly my responsibility, too," Merlin said. "Not the collecting, you understand, but if taxes aren't paid, that falls to me to deal with." He paused, then added, "I heard trouble with folks demanding recompense from Padlow's estate is dying down somewhat. I hope I don't have to handle complaints from Emmett's Creek folk against my wife."
Leon caught his meaning. "No one will hold it against you that you have to protect your missus," he said mildly. "You have anything in mind to do about finding where Padlow hid his profits?"
"I understand his hut was searched without any luck," Merlin said. "If it's here in the Creek, do you have any ideas that haven't been checked?"
Leon smiled self-consciously, shrugged shoulders under his blue checkered work-shirt. "He had the whole tax region to travel through. It makes sense to me that he wouldn't keep it close to home or easy to find."
"If he didn't say anything before–" Merlin said. "Well, we'll have to deal with the loss and look to the future instead of regretting the past."
One corner of Leon's mouth quirked up. "I heard you spent some time in the cadet corps, and as an agent. I guess maybe you've changed a bit from the man we remembered."
Merlin reached for the gelding's reins. "Have you got the reeve's badge? If you could bring it by tonight, I'd appreciate it." He noted an approaching rider over Leon's left shoulder, coming not with the easy gait of a visiting neighbor or returning ranch hand, but the forced speed of matter or message requiring unusual or immediate attention. He turned and swung himself up into his saddle. "If you know of any who'd need to have words with me before swearing, I'd also appreciate you letting them know I'm available."
"Making sure you knock some chips off of shoulders early on, is it?" Leon said, his face mostly shadowed by his broad-brimmed hat.
"I intend on swearing my life in service to this town," Merlin told him. "I don't intend on doing things the hard way unless I don't have another choice."
Leon looked up at him, surprise showing til he settled himself back into his habitually complacent expression. "That's the attitude to take, son," he said.
Merlin remarked conversationally, "The last man who called me that is still shaving around the scars."
The complacency was startled, then Leon began to grin. He opened his mouth to say something further, but the rider Merlin had noted reached earshot, and Leon turned at the hailing shout. The ranch hand that had come with Leon from the barn hurried to meet the rider.
"Are you going to call on any others this morning?" Leon asked Merlin over his shoulder, watching them without crossing to join them.
"Cedric," Merlin answered. The rider had come from the direction of Cedric's hog farm.
The ranch hand turned and jogged over to them, the rider dismounting and following. Both were young, not many years older than Merlin himself, and he recognized the rider as Cedric's oldest son. Both were breathless, excited, nervous. Scared. They glanced up at Merlin, but the news was for Leon.
"Somebody's killed Old Matt!" the ranch hand blurted; Cedric's oldest son nodded.
Merlin's pulse jumped, but he said nothing.
"Slow down, now," Leon said. "What?"
"Somebody killed Old Matt," Cedric's son repeated. "We can see his cabin from the top of our north hill, and two days running there ain't been no smoke from the chimney. So Pa sent me over this morning to see how he's doing, and I found him hanging from his own kitchen rafter. Pa cut him down, but he's been dead awhile, so Pa said I should ride over here."
Merlin tensed. He hadn't figured his trial by fire would come so soon – before the inauguration, yet – but this day, it seemed, might very well set the tenor of his duties. They'd turned to Leon for answers. What would Leon do? Where he led, they followed.
"Well, I guess I'll come over," Leon said. "You better–" He paused. Then he said, "Boys, you may or may not remember my guest this morning – this is Merlin, our new reeve." The other two looked up at him simultaneously; Merlin nodded to them, still said nothing. Leon turned to him also. "It seems to me a hanging is something for the reeve to handle."
Merlin wondered if it occurred to Leon as ironic that their previous reeve had ended his career with a hanging. But Leon said nothing further, and the other two gazed up at him eagerly, expectantly.
He said to Cedric's son, "Ride for the undertaker, and Gaius, tell them to meet us at Matt's cabin." Hopefully Gaius was back in town from his early-morning call. He looked at Leon; instead of inviting him, or assuming he would come along, Merlin said simply, "I'd appreciate you showing me the way to the cabin."
Even though any child could probably backtrack Cedric's son, and the plain was open enough between the ranch and the farm to see the cabin if you rode in a straight line from one to the other. All else failing, Cedric's son had already said the cabin was visible from the hill north of their farm. But this way he didn't cut Leon out unnecessarily, nor lean too heavily on his judgment and leadership.
There was the barest moment of pause, then Leon nodded. "Saddle up two horses, Dan."
Merlin breathed a little easier when both Cedric's son and Dan the ranch hand obeyed without hesitation or question. He surely didn't want to spend years fighting to attain the position he'd swear into tonight in fact as well as in name.
Cedric's son mounted his pony and rode off toward town at a more reasonable pace. And it was only a few minutes more before Dan returned with two mounts. Leon halted his sorrel mare at the barn door to call a few words of instruction for his absence to someone within, then he and Merlin trotted off in the direction of Cedric's farm, Dan trailing behind.
They'd barely cleared the barnyard when Leon commented, in a voice not intended to be overheard, "You didn't ask young Zandy any questions."
Merlin let a moment pass, then answered in a neutral tone to sum up the situation, "A body was found hanging from a kitchen rafter, and was cut down. The opinion is Matt had been dead awhile, the opinion is murder." No reason to delay asking questions when he could see for himself; Cedric would be there and his son returning soon with the other men if he needed more specific information.
They leaned forward in their saddles as the sorrel and the gelding broke stride to fight up the side of a steep grassy hill.
Upon reaching the top, Leon said, "Old Matt hasn't been in the Creek long. He came in with his wife late last fall… never been exactly neighborly. He built his cabin between my ranch and Cedric's place, a nice little bit of land with good water and soil. On paper, I'm told, that bit of land never belonged to either of us, we both just used it – shared it, you know?"
Merlin looked at him without answering, long enough to catch his eye. The rancher gave him an inscrutable smile.
"That land of Old Matt's," he continued. "It's a shame. He never put it to any use at all. Cedric and I both tried to talk him into selling back to one or the other of us, but he wouldn't. Poor bastard," he added, without any real heat or rancor. "You probably never met him. He didn't get into town much, and he wasn't here long before you left with Agent Arthur."
Merlin remembered Leon's description of Emmett's Creek as an apple barrel soured by Whatley, Burton, and Padlow. He could never fully consider himself one of them, not and do his job properly. For a while, anyway, he'd have to wonder how far the rottenness had spread. Either Leon meant him to suspect Cedric if a murder had been committed, or he meant to assuage Merlin's suspicions about himself by obvious openness about the disagreement over the land.
After a quarter-hour of swift trotting and occasional easy galloping, Leon said, "Yonder is the cabin."
Merlin slowed the gelding to a walk, taking in every detail as they rode closer. It was a nice bit of land, as Leon had said, not as dry and yellow as the rest of the land at the beginning of autumn, and the cottonwoods were thick and green along a length of stream yet unseen. He halted his horse a good twenty yards from the cabin, leaned forward over his saddlehorn. The man was dead; no need to rush in and miss any vital bit of information.
Cedric came to the door of the cabin, waving his hand before his face as if to clear the air. Beside Merlin, Leon hailed his neighbor, who waved back, paused, then started toward them.
"Cedric, you remember Merlin," Leon said.
Merlin dismounted and offered his hand; it wasn't the hardest thing he'd ever done.
Cedric hesitated only a second to shoot a doubtful glance up at Leon, then accepted Merlin's greeting, saying, "Howdy, Reeve."
Merlin didn't respond, turning his attention instead to his surroundings. He'd noticed the cabin was small and plain, two windows meant maybe two rooms, maybe one large one.
Off to one side there were three stakes pounded into the ground a good distance apart in a triangular formation, and what looked to be a fourth leaning against one of them. Merlin walked over; the fourth was instead a heavy long-handled hammer, well-rusted with the grass growing over and around it.
He circled to the right, found a shallow pit mere steps from the side of the cabin. It was a nearly perfect circle with a few sparse clumps of grass at the bottom; another rusty tool, a shovel, leaned half-sunk in the earth to one side next to a pile of good-sized creek rocks. Grass was growing around and between the rocks also, and Merlin noticed several lengths of cord scattered on the ground. He searched the trees visually til he found what he was looking for – two of them a fair distance apart, each with a length of the same cord tied to it.
And in searching the trees in the near distance, he also discovered the woodpile around to the back of the house, fresh chips lying atop the grass and the axe carelessly lying atop them instead of struck into the chopping block. He wondered if the ax was rusty also – a quick check proved him right, and from there he could see, a short distance into the trees, a roughly-cobbled cross rising from the ground under the enveloping fronds of a willow closer to the creek.
"Merlin, the body is inside the cabin," Leon called.
He turned and walked back around the house, still not hurrying, leaning down to pick up a length of the scattered cord as he went. The two men were watching him with a mix of interest and skepticism, but no guilt that he could see, and he was well-acquainted with guilty folk confronted with evidence of their crimes.
Taking a deep breath, he stepped inside.
The body was laid out to the left side of the door by the cookstove under that window. To the right was a box bed like the one he'd seen in Padlow's hut, built to utilize the two walls making the corner, and with the light from the second window strong on it. The bed held a plain shuck mattress; a pile of furs at the foot of it smelled gamey and musty at the same time, barely distinguishable from the stench that filled the rest of the air.
Merlin glanced behind the door, and retrieved a scrap of calico that had been hemmed with a fine stitch, looking a little like an apron with no string. That smelled moldy also, and had been ripped several times; he noted the bare wire nailed across the top of both windows.
Leon and Cedric leaned side by side in the doorway in spite of the smell, til he motioned them back out of the light.
Merlin passed the corpse – concurring in his inexpert opinion the assumption that death wasn't recent – scrutinizing the dusty floor as he went. When he reached the opposite wall he turned and came back, watching the floor along the front wall under the windows, measuring the spacing of the rafters with his eyes. He passed the woodbox, empty but for sawdust and a handful of kindling, a single log, substantial and fresh, lying outside of it as if carelessly discarded.
Opening the firebox of the stove, which was choked with ash and overflowing, he poked around with one of the kindling twigs and discovered a sooty brass knob, which he removed and kept in his hand.
"He's right there," Cedric said again, pointing down at the body.
Merlin nodded his awareness, not taking offense. He looked up instead at the rafter where the body had been cut down from; a length of the same cord he had picked up from the grass outside was still tied there, and a quick glance showed the rest of it embedded in the swollen flesh of Old Matt's neck. He knelt on one knee a pace from the body, and studied the floor – footprints in the dust, scuffed bootheels, a little fresh sawdust under the rafter.
"You say he had a wife?" he asked then, looking up. The smell in the cabin was strong in the heat, but again, neither man showed more than a natural reluctance to look at or be close to the body of the dead man. Leon nodded. "Have either of you ever been inside before today?"
Each looked at the other, shook their heads. Cedric said, "He was measuring with his stakes when I was here last, wouldn't hardly look up at me."
"He was digging the hole out to the side when I tried talking to him," Leon added.
"That was just like Old Matt," Cedric commented. "Never seemed to finish what he started. Making an eyesore out of this dandy bit of ground."
Leon nodded his agreement. Then he added unexpectedly, "There were pink curtains by the window, before."
"Where's his wife?" Merlin asked.
"Where's his horse?" Leon added, and Cedric nodded like that was the more important question.
They heard a shout from outside, which Leon and Cedric took gratefully as an excuse to pull back from the cabin. Merlin could hear Leon greeting Gaius with the news of a murder, telling him Reeve Merlin was inside. And, more faintly, Cedric talking with his oldest son.
Gaius showed up a looming shadow against the dusty boards of the floor, carrying his medical bag though Zandy had surely told him the man in question was dead. The old man took one look and said, "Phew! Good morning, Merlin, and why did you think you needed me?"
Cedric snickered from behind the physician. Merlin gave him a half-smile, beckoned him forward, saying, "I needed a professional opinion."
Gaius' eyebrow rose. He said gravely, "In my professional opinion, Reeve, this man is dead."
"By hanging?" Merlin said. "I mean to say, he wasn't struck or drowned, then strung up?"
Gaius frowned slightly, sobering quickly and giving him a hard look. Then he came forward to kneel beside Merlin, who didn't feel he had to watch the old physician conduct a quick examination. "No head wounds, no signs of drowning," he said. "Death by asphyxiation, probably due to the rope around his neck."
"No injuries to his hands," Merlin commented. Gaius glanced down and nodded agreement. "What about his arms?"
The physician unbuttoned first one cuff, then the other, pushing the sleeves up carefully. He turned each arm over, then stated, "No other injuries on his hands or arms."
"And are you sure it's Old Matt?"
"Am I – yes, I'm sure. Merlin, what are you getting at?"
Another shout from outside. Cedric pulled back to look, while Leon reported, "Quen's here."
Merlin stood. "Gaius, a word outside if you please." The old man followed him from the door, where Dan and Zandy were also waiting, trying to catch every word they could. "I'd like you to go with Quen and look over the body, make sure there's nothing out of the ordinary I should know about."
Gaius nodded, but stayed at Merlin's side as he walked, as if waiting for more. They both watched Quen the undertaker pull his wagon around by the cabin door, as Cedric called to inform him that the body was inside. Leon followed Merlin and Gaius several more yards, and the younger two men took that as an excuse to trail along also. Merlin took deep, steadying breaths of fresh air, focusing on details so other memories wouldn't come crowding back. Other rooms, other bodies… no.
"Gaius, did you ever tend Old Matt or his wife?" he asked.
The physician stopped walking and looked at him. He seemed to struggle with himself for a moment, then answered, "Yes, I did. Dead of winter last year, Matt brought Teresa to me at home."
He hesitated; Merlin said nothing. Then Gaius glanced at Leon, leaning in to listen, the other two all ears also, then back to the cabin where Cedric and Quen were carrying the body out.
The old man sighed. "Teresa had recently lost the baby they'd been expecting, but had some – problems, following that tragedy."
"Physical?" Merlin said in a low voice right to the physician's ear. "Mental, emotional?"
Gaius said, "Yes."
Merlin turned to Leon. "You said Old Matt was mean, greedy, close-mouthed." Leon nodded. "Besides yourself and Cedric, who benefits from his death?"
Leon and Gaius both looked surprised, then considered. "Anyone who wanted the land," Leon said. "Anyone who knew it didn't belong to Cedric or me, and wanted to keep it for themselves, or sell it to one of us for a profit." He paused, then added thoughtfully, "But I haven't had any offers – and I believe Cedric would have told me if he had."
"What are you thinking?" Gaius said to Merlin again.
He didn't like to tell them without checking first with the bank, and with the undertaker after the examination, but since this was his first day as reeve – this was before his first day as reeve – and he was relatively unfamiliar in Emmett's Creek – and therefore relatively untrusted – he'd have to explain a few pertinent points to these men who were familiar and trusted, before they left the dead man's property. He inhaled, let his breath out slowly.
"It wasn't murder," Merlin said finally. "The man killed himself."
A/N: Remember, remember, that this is November... NaNoWriMo. And I'm doing it. So if updates for this lag a bit... that's why.