A Bronze Rising: Blackout
#29 of A Bronze Rising
Sir Henry is murdered! And the Bronze can not completely recall the events of last night due to the devilish human brew
The news that Sir Henry had been found dead was not as distressing to me as the place where the Knight had been found. I padded the few steps to the crime scene, following Tobias between the tall trees that I'd relocated and planted myself. I growled softly the entire time. My head was still hurting from my hangover following last night's party and worse, I had no recollection whatsoever of what had happened immediately following my drunken poem recital. I plodded after the young man as he jogged ahead of me; somehow, I knew where our trail was going to end.
Down the path, Tobias and I walked until we reached its termination in a thickly wooded roundabout, one of several of my possible sleeping places. Between the gently swaying boughs of the pine trees, there lay a nest of red gore. Sir Henry lay dismembered deep in the confines of my very own garden.
Or at least I assumed it was Sir Henry. To my eyes, there was little, if anything left that could possibly identify the corpse which had been spread so thinly over such a large area. I was grateful that my belly was still quite full from the sheep I'd eaten last night. The scent of blood might have elicited a natural response that I'd prefer remain hidden among my human subjects. I gave voice to my first concern. "How do you know this is Sir Henry?" I asked Tobias before we quite reached the others gathered around the bloody scene.
Tobias said quietly, "The head." His voice was dramatically changed from his casual, usually optimistic tone, the notes flat like lead. He raised an arm slightly and I followed the gesture. "It's over there, near the trees."
All I saw was a cloth wrapped and bloodstained bundle at the base of a pine with several people gathered around, gawking at it. I had little need to imagine what lay underneath. A frown collected itself on my face. The gravity of the situation, if in fact, the Knight truly had been slain, was not lost on me, at least in regards to the other humans whom I'd been so involved with of late. If the Knight had been killed in the village, I would have left the affair up to Tobias to deal with, however, this human had been brutally killed while in one of my most intimate and sheltered areas. This was an affront to myself and my property in the least. The thought of other humans mucking about in my private space made me shudder with revulsion, no matter what activities they chose to undertake there. I paused just a moment, was I quite sure that other humans were necessarily involved? "How far has the news spread already?" I asked Tobias.
The young man looked up at me with watery eyes. The skin on his face had changed color again, becoming paler. It was easy to forget just how young Tobias was. "Men were sent to the village the moment he was found. There's no way this could be kept quiet, Master."
I lowered my head until the tip of my nose could have brushed Tobias' shoulder. The breath from my nostrils steamed in the cold, winter air. This was a disaster, no doubt. But did it really concern me? The plans were made after all and all that remained to discuss was the relatively small matter of the tithe to Lord Dominic. This Knight... like the rest of the humans would hardly be expected to have lived more than another few decades. So what if he had died, perhaps being mauled to death by one of the bears in the area. In the grand scope of things, my life and my destiny included, his life meant little. I would shed no tears for the man; in fact, if he hadn't laid in so many pieces, I might have been tempted to "dispose" of the body myself.
Still... the knight lay dead in one of the deepest parts of my own private garden. There could be unwanted associations made among my subjects if this weren't handled carefully. Perhaps I should take a more active role in the investigation of Sir Henry's murder...