Chapter 98
His hand, which had been gripping the clay cup all this time, began to tremble, causing the wine inside to ripple into small imperfect circles, and sweat started to dampen his temples even though the evening air in the room was not hot at all.
Arya watched him with a gaze that was difficult to interpret—whether it was pity or a suspicion that had grown deeper—then continued speaking in the same tone, neither faster nor slower, like the ticking of the water clock in the corner of the room that kept beating without concern for the human drama unfolding before it.
"This cloth does not belong to just anyone, Master Leontios.
When we examined it further, when we questioned the cloth merchants in the markets of Constantinople, they all agreed that fabric with this kind of weaving is sold by only one group of traders.
The Amalfi merchants. They come from Southern Italy, bringing goods from their homeland and selling them in the ports of this city at prices that are neither too expensive nor too cheap."
It was here that Nirma did something that made Leontios jolt slightly on his bench.
She raised her hand, a movement so slow yet so full of meaning, and for the first time since they entered this workshop, she opened her mouth to speak directly to Leontios without mediation.
"Master Leontios," she said, her heavy voice sounding like stone being dragged across another stone, "one of the Prefect's soldiers who has faithfully accompanied us since morning, who recorded every piece of information, every name, every small fact that might escape ordinary attention, has just delivered a very interesting report.
He said that based on the records they collected from the elders in the Chalkeus district, from the merchants who interact daily with the blacksmiths here, from the neighbors who live right beside your workshop, there is one piece of information that cannot be ignored."
She paused briefly, letting her words settle, then continued with a sharper tone, like the edge of a blade that had just been sharpened.
"Three days before Étienne d'Arques was found dead, Master Leontios Chalkeus was recorded purchasing a complete set of new work clothes from an Amalfi merchant who had docked at the Port of Theodosius.
Not one piece, not two pieces, but a full set.
Work trousers, a work tunic, even new shoes with wooden soles still shining with wax.
When the neighbors asked why you suddenly bought new clothes when the old ones were still perfectly usable, you merely smiled and said, 'There is an important matter that requires a new appearance. There is someone I must meet, and I cannot meet him dressed in soot-covered clothes like these.'"
Arya placed the third piece of evidence on the table with a movement that could almost be called respectful, as though the small insignificant object were a sacred relic that had to be handled carefully.
A strip of leather cord, half-burned, its ends blackened and curled like small claws clenched tightly, the remnants of fire still leaving a faint charred smell—enough to remind anyone that this object had once been very close to flames.
Leontios stared at it, and for the first time since the investigation began, the face that had earlier turned pale now shifted into gray—a color worse than pale, the color of someone watching his own past burn into charcoal before his eyes.
Arya did not need to explain where the cord came from, because Leontios himself finally spoke with a hoarse voice, almost inaudible, like someone who had just lost something that could never be recovered.
"That is the strap of my apron," he whispered, his trembling fingers stretching forward as if to touch it, then stopping before they reached the surface of the table.
"The strap I usually use while gripping hot iron. It has accompanied me in this workshop for ten years, since I was still a slave in Antioch learning to forge under an old man who died with his hair torn out by our master."
Nirma leaned forward, her fully opened left eye never leaving the burned leather strap on the table, as though she could read the entire story of that night merely from the charred fibers of the leather.
Outside, the sun had almost completely sunk behind the walls of Constantinople, leaving behind a golden orange glow that slowly crawled across the sky like a giant painting being erased by unseen hands, and there were certainly no calls of muezzins from mosque towers that had not yet been built in this century—only the distant ringing of church bells, tolling and calling the faithful to prayer.
"A blacksmith's apron strap," Arya murmured, more to himself than to Leontios, his index finger pointing to the most burned section of the cord, "burned halfway, not completely. This is not an ordinary accident, Master Leontios. If this strap had burned because of sparks during work, it would have burned evenly, or at least left a different pattern. But this strap burned from only one side, from the end toward the middle, as if it had been dipped into something hot and then quickly pulled away before the flames could consume it entirely."
He lifted the strap carefully, turning it slowly beneath the dim oil lamp to reveal every detail of the uneven burn marks to Leontios, who stared at it with glassy eyes.
"When the victim tried to block the attack," Arya continued, his tone becoming speculative, like a detective reconstructing a crime scene in his mind, "perhaps this strap touched a hot chemical substance. Or perhaps… perhaps you yourself burned it, as evidence that needed to be destroyed."
The air in the room changed again, becoming heavier, harder to breathe, as if the oxygen had been replaced with molten lead.
Leontios swallowed once more, his Adam's apple rising and falling rapidly and clearly, and for a moment his eyes lost focus, staring at something that was not in this room—perhaps reliving that night, the night when his beloved leather strap burned in his own hands.
But before he could answer, before he could defend himself or perhaps confess, Arya had already taken out the fourth piece of evidence from his cloth pouch.
The object was placed inside a small glass container—a sticky black lump with no clear shape, like residue left behind after something had burned completely, like fragments of a nightmare that could never be erased from memory.
"Black ash residue," Arya said, placing it on the table with a soft sound that strangely resembled a second verdict, "sticky like burned resin. We found it behind the Kapeleion, right near your shoeprint, near the door where the piece of cloth was caught, near the place where Étienne d'Arques was last seen alive before his body was discovered the following morning."
He pointed at the glass container, then looked at Leontios with a gaze that could not be avoided.
"When we traced its origin, when we asked the blacksmiths in Chalkeus, when we brought this sample to an alchemist who knows every kind of ash and residue in this city, they all agreed.
This ash came from a workshop. More precisely, it is adslag—a mixture of charcoal, olive oil, and pine resin.
A forging fuel. The material blacksmiths use to ignite their furnaces, to melt metal, to forge swords and steel into the shapes they desire."
To be continued…