Page 33 of A Trade of Blood

“No,” said Ippeas.

“You’resure?”

“I’m certain! If they had, the two of them would have had their backs flensed from whipping!EspeciallyCastus. Our family has been through so much, but then to betray us so with a daughter of our enemies?”

I debated what to ask next. I wondered first and foremost how Zansay and Castus had been infected with the guiding web, and had then been so carefully conditioned for the murder. But there seemed to be no simple way to do this without indicating that the two had been poisoned—and that would bring up a whole host of questions I had no desire to answer.

Ippeas continued: “Castus eventually let slip they were actually trying to run away, perhaps to the wilds. And that was when I knew…”

“That he was really in love,” sighed Fotia. “For Castus loves his comforts and would normally never abandon them for anything. Yet for her…”

“What a state we are all in!” said Ippeas. “Of all the girls he had to pick, why did it have to beher? It’d have been a finer thing for him to try to marry the goddamn statue of Mistress Panus!”

I looked to Fotia, confused.

“Daljeni saint,” she explained. “Her statue is over in the woods.”

“Ohh,” said Ippeas, taken aback. “Is…is your brother not…”

“I told you this!” said Fotia. “My family was not observant! I’ve been clear about this many times!”

“You have not,” said Ippeas, stung. “You almost never talk about your home, Fo.”

I sensed they were about to drift into some familiar squabble and raised a hand. “Was there anything strange about the relationship?” I asked. “Or his behavior?”

“What, besides that Cas was full of insipid foolery?” said Fotia. “No.”

“For Castus, I think…Well,” said Ippeas. “It was more than love, even. It wasn’t just running away with a girl. It was also just runningaway.”

“From what?” I asked. “From this curse I keep hearing about?”

“Perhaps. But I also think he was running away from that house.Myhouse, I suppose. It is no cheery place now. It hasn’t been for some time, since the deaths of my cousins.”

Now we came toit.

“What about them?” I asked. “I know only a little of it. Your father wouldn’t even speak on the subject.”

“That doesn’t shock me. Many are convinced we’ve committed some secret evil and invited the ire of the fates. It causes him no end of grief.” He took a quick sip from Fotia’s cup. “The first was my eldest cousin, Lyimo. He went missing one morning, three years ago. They found him drowned in a stock pond in our northernmost spreads.”

“There was no sign of violence?”

“No,” he said. “Many thought it was the work of our enemies, at the time. But no. Lyimo’s body was whole and fair.”

“Did he act strangely in the days before?”

“No, no. He was something of a peacock, a proud, gay thing. He’djust been put in the marriage market, so to speak, and enjoyed being plied with many gifts and favors. He was often more than a little drunk more than a little too often.”

“But he wasn’t melancholic or distracted?”

“No, he wasn’t. But Sagma and Gevma…they were so terribly tormented, in their last days.”

“Sagma was the one who hanged herself?”

“Yes. She hanged herself in the pavilion where she and Lyimo and I played so often as children. She did display a great sorrow beforehand, an incurable sadness. It was Lyimo’s death that affected her so, I thought. They were very close.” Another weary sigh. “But it was Gevma’s death that hurt us the most, I think, for we’d all suffered so much already.”

My eyes shimmered as I recovered the memory. “This was the boy dragged by his steed?”

“Yes. Fell off a destrier. But he was deeply disturbed and saddened the weeks before…I know he was not sleeping. He tottered about the halls of Aimafall as if a ghost.”