Severing the Winch

The copper wash-kettle in the lazaretto scullery held eight gallons of boiling grease, and Arslanbek had five minutes to inspect the prince's supper tray before the kitchen boy dumped it into the vat. Cell Nine's pewter cup still sat beside the hearth, rimmed with grey dregs. He wanted the vessel before Brother Oghuz could scrub away the bitter residue, because dead men tell no lies, but kitchen ledgers tell worse ones.

"Step back from the washboard, boy," Arslanbek said, wedging his iron-tipped cane between the kitchen boy's knuckles and the tub. "Unless you want to explain to the warden why your fingers are peeling off in sheets."

The boy scrambled back against the soot-streaked wall.

At the long chopping block, Brother Oghuz paused his cleaver over a split sheep's head. The master of provisions was broad-shouldered and thick-necked, with grease stains darkening the wool across his belly. "The dead exile had his barley gruel at third bell, bone-setter. The pot is cleared. You have no business disturbing my servants."

"I have business with anything that passes a dying man's lips," Arslanbek replied. He picked up the prince's pewter cup, tilting it toward the horn lantern hanging from the beam. A ring of dried chalk clung to the inner wall. He scraped a fingernail along the rim and brought it to his tongue. Salt, stale cistern water, and the faint, unmistakable prickle of crushed stone fruit. "Who took this cup to Cell Nine?"

"Selim-oglu carried the night flagon," Oghuz said without looking up from the mutton. His cleaver thudded into the oak block, splitting bone with practiced ease. "He took it when the watch changed at fourth bell. Prince Bahadir-oglu was coughing his lungs into his sleeve. The slate on his door said his chest was burning."

"The slate on his door is a forgery," Arslanbek said flatly. "And you wrote it."

The cleaver hung in the air for a fraction of a second. Oghuz laid the heavy blade flat on the timber. His small, calculating eyes fixed on Arslanbek's chest. "I record the tallies Warden Timur-bek assigns me. If the boy in Cell Nine had a burning chest, I scratched it in chalk so the burial detail would bring pitch torches. That is cloister regulation."

"Pitch torches are for typhus and black bile," Arslanbek said. "The prince died with clear lungs and an empty bladder. If he drank his broth at third bell, his stomach would have held curdled grains. His belly was flat as a cured hide. He never touched your mutton grease. He drank water."

The door to the scullery creaked open. Selim-oglu stepped over the threshold, dragging a pair of heavy iron buckets. The orderly was lean and nervous, his eyes darting to the split mutton, then to the cup in Arslanbek's grip. Water sloshed over the rims of his pails, wetting the flagstones.

"Selim," Arslanbek said, his voice dropping into the quiet cadence he used for resetting dislocated shoulders. "When you carried the boiled water to Cell Nine at fourth bell, was the flagon cold or warm?"

Selim-oglu set the buckets down with an unsteady clatter. "Warm, Master Arslanbek. From the middle kettle. He asked for warm water to cut the phlegm."

"And when you went back at sixth bell to collect the chamber pot?"

"He was... he was under his blankets," Selim whispered. "He did not speak. I took the empty flagon and left the cup on the stool."

"He did not speak because the poison stops the chest muscles within thirty heartbeats," Arslanbek said. He turned the pewter cup in his hand, letting the grey sediment catch the lantern light. "He took the draft between the fourth and sixth bells. No earlier, or his supper would have churned; no later, or the body on the slab would still retain its animal warmth. Whoever filled this flagon did not fetch it from the middle kettle. The middle kettle serves seven men in the east ward, and none of them are blue in the mouth."

Oghuz's jaw tightened. "Are you naming one of us a murderer, herbalist?"

"I am naming the clock," Arslanbek retorted. "The poisoner had two hours, access to the boiled cistern stock, and a key to Cell Nine's bolt. That narrows the suspect list to every attendant with shoes on his feet."

Before Oghuz could reach for his cleaver, the bronze courtyard bell clanged in violent, uneven strokes.

Three short rings, followed by two heavy strikes. The distress signal for the sea-winch.

"The mainland freight," Selim muttered, his knuckles whitening against his woolen smock. "The storm is on the outer shoals."

They moved out of the scullery into the vaulted cloister walk. The winter gale slammed through the ocean-facing arcades, driving fine salt spray across the flagstones. Below the sheer limestone precipice, eighty cubits down, the sea boiled white against the jagged fangs of Tash-Bashi.

Timur-bek stood at the edge of the timber loading platform, clutching his cloister cloak tightly around his throat. He had his bundle of rosemary pressed against his nose, his eyes wide with frantic urgency as three orderlies struggled at the iron windlass.

"Pull on the dog-catch!" the warden shouted into the howling gale. "The mainland crane is paying out the last basket! If the iron slips, we lose the month's salted pork and the oil casks!"

Arslanbek stepped onto the shuddering planks of the platform, the bitter draft whipping his robes against his shins. "Salted pork will not save you if you cannot keep your staff from poisoning the inmates, Timur-bek."

"Hold your tongue, bone-setter!" Timur-bek spat, lowering his herb bundle just enough to yell over the wind. "Look at the channel! The mainland sentinels are winding down their side of the cable. The gale is rising to a full gale-force tempest. If we do not haul this basket over the ledge, we starve on turnip rind until the spring thaw!"

A thick hempen hawser stretched from the crag's iron gantry across the eighty-foot gulf of churning air, anchored to the mainland cliff opposite. Suspended midway along the rope was the heavy wicker-and-iron cargo basket, bucking wildly as gusts tore through the sea gap.

Selim-oglu and Oghuz threw their weight onto the double iron crank. The iron gears shrieked, tooth grinding against tooth under the strain of the swaying load.

Arslanbek stepped to the gantry timber, inspecting the heavy guide pulley. His eyes caught a strange discoloration on the lead bearing where the cable met the iron sheath. Black pitch, fresh and wet, smeared over the hemp core.

Someone had not oiled the friction block; they had greased it with resin to increase heat.

"Stop the crank!" Arslanbek shouted, lunging forward.

"Are you mad?" Oghuz grunted, heaving against the wooden handle. "The basket is ten yards out!"

"The bearing is jammed with pitch!" Arslanbek seized Oghuz's shoulder, attempting to rip him back from the windlass. "The rope is burning on the tooth!"

A sound like an iron bow snapping echoed above the roar of the surf.

The main hawser frayed in a burst of smoking hemp fibers. For a split second, the heavy basket hung suspended on three strained strands. Then the cable parted with a crack like thunder.

The severed line whipped through the air, gouging a deep furrow into the oak platform before vanishing over the lip. Down below, eighty cubits down, the cargo basket tumbled end over end, shattering on the black rocks before the surging froth swallowed the timber and iron cages whole.

Silence fell over the gantry, broken only by the shriek of the winter wind through the rocks.

Timur-bek fell to his knees on the wet deck, his rosemary bundle slipping from his fingers and tumbling into the abyss. Across the channel, the mainland cliff was already disappearing behind a blinding curtain of gray sleet. The winch post on the far side stood bare and empty.

"The line is gone," Selim whispered, his teeth chattering. "The basket... the mainland cable..."

Arslanbek walked to the broken gantry post. He touched the shredded hemp stub. The fibers were charred black from friction, sticky with pine resin.

There would be no Janissary galley coming across the channel. There would be no escape, and no inspection from the Grand Vizier's clerks.

The murderer was locked on the limestone crag with eighty sick men and six terrified wardens, and none of them would be leaving before the ice thawed.

"Get inside," Arslanbek said, his voice cutting through the warden's whimpering. "Bar the refectory gates. The easy part of this winter is over."