Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 122, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 745 & 746, September/October 2003

“You d-don’t understand.” The boy’s head rolled wildly and his breath bubbled red. “N-not s-supposed to b-be like this.” Terrified eyes bored into Claudia’s. She could see that they were brown. Brown as an otter. “I’m n-not going to d-die, am I?” he asked.

“Of course not,” she said, only there was something wrong with her eyes, because her vision was misty. “It’s just a wound, like Junius says.” Her voice was cracked, too. “You’ll be back on your feet in a week.”

But that wasn’t quite true.

The otter was already swimming the Styx.

For his part, Labeo had no sympathy for what he termed a dead piece of scum. Indeed, he would have pulled the arrow out of the boy’s back to see how the head had compacted upon impact, had he not been prevented by Mistress Snooty from next-door here, slapping his hand away. What a bitch, he thought. Shooting me glares which would poleaxe a lesser man. What did she expect me to do? Let the thieving toe-rag go?

“The general’s instructions was to shoot all intruders, whether they be on the premises or in the process of escaping,” he informed her. “And it don’t matter to me whether this piece of filth were carrying a dagger or not,” he added coldly when taken to task about killing an unarmed, defenceless fifteen-year-old boy. “He were guilty, and the proof, if it’s necessary, lies all over your flower beds. Ma’am.”

He weren’t accountable to her anyway. The bitch.

But dammit, the sulky cow just would not let it rest. On and on she went, about how young the boy was, and hadn’t anyone considered what had driven the poor lad to resort to stealing, because you could see he wasn’t used to it, no one in their right mind would run off up a busy street with a sack stuffed full of golden objects and not have the army after them, and anyway what seasoned professional would go round leaving ladders against walls to make life easy for his pursuers?

Labeo let it ride. If she wanted to feel sorry for that little turd, that was her business, not his. He’d done the job he was being paid to do, and he was behind the general all the way on this. Let criminals think you’re a soft touch, and every bloody thief will be climbing up the balcony! So while she ranted, he congratulated himself on being such a damn good shot. That arrow went exactly where he’d planned it.

Quite at what point Her Snootyship intended to shut up, Labeo didn’t know. But he was mighty glad when he heard the general call his name from the far side of the wall. The master hadn’t been expected back for ages, but wouldn’t he be pleased to hear his captain had bagged a sewer rat this morning!

Except there were something different about the general’s bellow. Every bit as terse. Nothing unusual about that! And no less urgent, neither. (The general weren’t a patient man!) But... Well, it just sounded different, that was all.

“I’m over here, General,” he called back. “Caught a burglar stealing your gold. Shot him as he escaped.”

“Is he dead?” Volso wanted to know, scaling the ladder two steps at a time. He was a tall man in maybe his forty-second summer, broad of shoulder and square of jaw, his skin weathered from years of campaigning and thickened from too many nights cradling the wine jar. But he cut a commanding enough figure on and off the field, and regular training in the gymnasium had clearly paid off. It was a lean and nimble figure that swung itself over the adjoining wall.

“Couldn’t be deader,” Labeo told him proudly, as his employer dropped to the ground.

“Pity,” Volso snarled, wiping the dirt from his hands down his tunic. He marched over to where Junius and Claudia were conversing quietly over the body and rammed his foot hard into the corpse. “Bastard didn’t deserve an easy death.”

“Volso!” Horrified, Claudia stepped in front before he could land a second kick. “You are on my property, General, and I’ll thank you to have some respect for it, for me, and for the dead.”

“Respect?” Labeo feared the general’s bellow would deafen the widow. “Respect, you say?” He pushed her roughly aside and slammed his boot into the boy’s side as he had originally intended. “Save your sympathy, Claudia Seferius. If Labeo hadn’t killed him, public execution certainly would.”

“Stealing is a civil matter—” she began.

“Stealing is,” the general agreed. “Murder isn’t. That boy you’re so protective of didn’t just rob me of my gold and silver. He robbed me of my wife.” Volso turned to face his archer. “Callista’s body is still sprawled across the bedroom floor,” he said quietly. “Where this bastard strangled her.”

Moonlight had turned the garden paths to silver. The feathery leaves of artemisia and the pale purple flowers of sweet rocket released musky perfume into heat that pulsated like a cricket, and mice rustled beneath the fan-trained peach trees, pears, and apricots. Bats squeaked on the wing in search of moths. An owl hooted from the cedar three doors down, and a frog plopped gently into the pool from a water-lily leaf.