Chapter 28
Yet there was no scream, no sound escaping the victim's mouth, nothing that could have warned the other patrons of this Kapeleion about what had just occurred.
The victim screamed in silence, and then died so swiftly that he had no time to do anything but—
Her thoughts were cut short as she automatically recalled what she had seen when she first stood before the victim minutes earlier.
Étienne d'Arques's pallid face, his half-open eyes with pupils already turning cloudy, his mouth agape as though frozen in the act of screaming.
But there had been one detail she had not paid much attention to at the time, one detail that now leapt forward in her memory with painful clarity.
The victim's cheeks.
Both of Étienne d'Arques's cheeks were puffed, swollen like balloons on the verge of bursting, like someone holding his breath, like someone struggling desperately not to let out a sound.
In the forensic records she had studied during her years shadowing the work of the Temporal Cross-Police, there was one condition she always remembered, one taught by the oldest instructor at the academy.
When a subject experiences sudden, overwhelming pain, when shock strikes and the body reacts before the brain has time to think, sometimes the victim will instinctively puff out his cheeks.
Not because he intends to hold his breath, not because he is playing at anything, but because it is the body's most primitive way of diverting pain, of preventing the mouth from opening to scream, of preserving silence even while every nerve fiber cries out for help.
Nirma stood still for several more moments behind the victim's back, her single eye still fixed on the skin at his waist that continued to hiss with an unrelenting rhythm, yet her mind had already begun to move elsewhere, leaving forensic analysis aside for a moment and turning instead toward logistics—practical, yet no less crucial.
She realized that Étienne d'Arques's body could not remain suspended in this Kapeleion forever, not only for humanitarian reasons but also for far more complex strategic ones.
Every minute that passed with the corpse still in this public place was a minute in which the risk of rumor spreading grew greater, in which the possibility of someone stumbling upon the scene and carrying the horrifying tale throughout Constantinople increased.
And in a city already strained by preparations for the crusaders' departure, in a society already whispering about a string of murders unsolved for months, news of an eighteenth victim discovered in such a grotesque position could ignite mass panic beyond control.
Slowly, with the same caution she had shown upon entering, Nirma turned around.
Her single eye scanned the silent Kapeleion, passing overturned tables and scattered chairs, passing pools of wine drying upon the stone floor, passing shadows still flickering along the walls beneath oil lamps that were beginning to dim.
And at the threshold, beyond the wide-open entrance, she saw them.
The Prefect's soldiers assigned to escort them from the palace still stood at their posts, unmoving, vigilant beside the enclosed carriage, prepared to wait however long was necessary.
Nirma exhaled in relief, a breath so soft it was nearly inaudible, yet enough for Arya, still standing nearby, to glance at her with raised brows.
She did not need to explain, for Arya could read from her expression that she had just reached an important decision—one that would determine their next step in this increasingly intricate case.
Nirma stepped toward the doorway of the Kapeleion, her pace now quicker and more assured, no longer concerned about disturbing evidence near the victim.
When she reached the threshold, when the cool morning air brushed her face carrying the scent of sea salt, fish, and damp wood from the distant docks, she halted and summoned one of the soldiers who appeared to be the most senior among them.
The soldier, a man with a thick graying beard and a sword scar across his left temple, approached swiftly yet respectfully.
"Madam," he greeted in a low voice, his eyes regarding Nirma with sincere respect—respect born from witnessing how the woman with silver-gray hair and a bandage over her right eye had not faltered before the dreadful sight within the Kapeleion.
Nirma inclined her head, returning the respect with a faint smile barely visible, then began to speak in a soft yet firm tone, one that left no room for negotiation.
"We must move the victim's body to a more appropriate place," Nirma said, her single eye fixing sharply upon the soldier.
"But this transfer must be carried out with the utmost care. No one must see it. No one must know.
If even one person glimpses the corpse in such a state, if even a single whisper spreads in the marketplace about a body whose head still moves every five seconds despite having been dead for hours, panic will sweep through Constantinople faster than the plague that struck this city a century ago.
I do not wish to be responsible for the chaos that may follow, and I am certain Prefect Manuel Botaneiates would not wish to hear that the city he governs has been seized by fear because of uncontrolled rumors."
The soldier nodded, his jaw tightening, his eyes revealing that he fully grasped the implications of her words.
"What are your orders, Madam?" he asked, his voice now nearly a whisper, like two conspirators plotting in the pale dawn.
Nirma cast a brief glance toward the enclosed carriage still stationed nearby, the same luxurious vehicle that had brought her and Arya from the palace hours earlier.
"We will require another enclosed carriage," she said, her tone level yet weighted with meaning.
"One identical to this, capable of transporting the body unseen through the streets.
I want the victim placed inside with care, guarded during the journey, and taken directly to the mortuary in Byzantium, to a locked chamber accessible only to those concerned.
There will be no public funeral procession, no notification to the family before the proper time, nothing that might arouse public curiosity.
Everything must be done in silence, in darkness, in secrecy known only to us and to the Prefect."
The soldier listened intently, his gaze never leaving Nirma's face, and when she finished speaking he nodded once more, more resolutely this time.
Without wasting a moment, he turned and strode swiftly toward the other soldiers still standing guard near the carriage.
From the folds of his robe he withdrew a small sheet of parchment and a pen, then began to write with quick yet careful strokes, his hand skillfully forming neat Greek letters upon the rough surface.
From a distance, Nirma observed how he paused occasionally as though selecting his words with precision, how his brow furrowed at certain lines, and how at last he folded the parchment neatly and sealed it with red wax stamped with the Prefect's emblem.
To be continued…