Free Season of the Raven (A Servant of the Crown Mystery Book 1) by Denise Domning

have been at least half as thick as his little finger.
    "A tool, indeed," he said and smiled at Colin. "It's the damage done by an awl we're looking at here. And since the handle didn't bruise his chest, I'm thinking it was an awl with a long shank. Now there's an awkward weapon for sure."
    Faucon extended his hands over Halbert's chest as if he held the tool he imagined. With his right hand cupped about the non-existent handle of a workman's tool, he put his left at the opening of the puncture wound. "Remember, it can enter Halbert once and only once, and the handle will leave no bruise upon his flesh. See how with such a long shank I must keep a steady slow hand to guide it into him?"
    When his right hand, the one gripping the invisible handle, was an inch or two short of Halbert's chest, he paused. "But could such a gentle stroke actually pierce his heart and cause his death? I cannot say for certain, but I doubt it."
    Then he shifted his pretended grip on his imaginary tool until his pinched fingers seemed to hold something slender and handleless. "But if the awl has no handle, which would mean it is more needle-like, it becomes much easier to guide."
    Again, he pushed the non-existent tool into Halbert until his pinched fingers almost rested on the man's skin. "But here I am again, with no way to drive my weapon into the man with the force I believe necessary for a lethal blow. Worse, how do I remove it from him without tearing or disfiguring the wound, for that is what happened. Moreover, if his heart is pierced, he will bleed. Now I must not only remove my tool, I must do it while both the awl and my hands are slick with blood."
    Colin held up a forestalling hand. "Never mind all that. The better question is how you get Halbert to stand still while such a weapon is pushed so exactly into him? I say that is the greatest trick," he finished in wonder.
    "Easier than you think in all instances," Drue the Old Clothes Seller replied with confidence. "I have no need of a handle, not when I have this."
    He pulled one of the needles from the front of his purse and held it up so Faucon could see the loop of thread through its eye. Holding out his opposite arm, Drue pushed the needle into the fabric of his sleeve but didn't draw it all the way through. "In it goes," he said, then took hold of the thread loop and pulled the needle out again, "and out it comes.
    "As for adding power to my thrust." Drue brought out a tiny metal cup from his purse and placed it on top of his middle finger, the one on the hand in which he held the needle. Smiling, he tapped this cup's metal base against the end of the needle he held. "With the eye end of my needle braced on this, I can drive its tip through the thickest of fabric with ease, and it goes exactly where I will it every time."
    "Aye, that would work," Faucon replied in new excitement. "With the awl's butt braced on something, say the flat of a dagger's blade, and its tip properly placed against Halbert's chest, a sharp thrust would send it deep into the miller's heart with all the power necessary to kill him. Once the damage is done, a quick yank on the cord, if it has no handle, and out it comes."
    His excitement dissolved with his next breath. "Nay, none of this can be. Brother Colin is right. The only way Halbert could have been killed was if he lay still and allowed those bent on doing their worst to murder him."
    "And so Halbert would have done, if he was as besotted as Simon Fuller says," Drue retorted. "Once Halbert had enough ale in him, he'd fall into a slumber so deep that no amount of prodding or shouting stirred him. At the last two village feasts, Alf and Stephen have had to carry him home because he was senseless. If Halbert was like that last night, he'd have been a lamb at the slaughter."
    Faucon almost gaped. Could there be a better opportunity for stealthy murder than while a man was dead drunk? "So he would be," he agreed.
    With that, the bits and pieces in his mind began