‘No, you idiot – but if, say, Baron Viztria says that he was up until dawn chewing the fat with Baron Langahan, and Langahan says he went to bed early, we know that one of them is lying.’
Kethol nodded. ‘Somebody was watching the hall, and took advantage of the guard falling asleep.’
‘Or maybe not falling asleep. Maybe he’s in on it, too. Somebody had better ask him.’ Pirojil turned to Durine. ‘Ask him. Thoroughly. Then find me.’
‘And you’ll be?’
‘I’ll be down in the Great Hall, interviewing the nobles and the captains – somewhat more gently than you’ll be talking to that idiot Erlic.’
Durine nodded.
‘And me?’ Kethol asked. ‘I’d be useless at that, idiot that I am.’
‘If you can restrain your sensitivity over the fact that you’re a dolt for a moment, maybe you can be of some value.’ Pirojil grinned. ‘You can scout the terrain.’
‘Terrain?’
‘Yes, terrain. You were raised as a forester, son of a forester, yes?’
Kethol didn’t like to talk about it, or about the destruction of his boyhood home that had sent him out to make his living with bow and sword, but it was true, and he nodded.
‘Well, what does a forester do if he finds the guts of a poached deer out in the forest?’
Kethol shrugged. ‘That’s not hard. You see if you can track the poacher from it, try to get some idea of the direction he came from. If you get really lucky, you’ll find the arrow that took the deer.’
‘That happens?’
‘Sure. If it goes right through the neck, an arrow can hide itself pretty well, and poachers are sometimes sloppy. If you find an arrow, even though it’ll probably be unmarked – poachers aren’t usually considerate enough to mark their arrows for you – you can usually get some sort of clue from the fletching and the arrowhead as to where it came from, and that gives you a clue as to –’
‘Clue, yes. That’s the word. We’re looking for clues. Check out the lady’s room – and see if you can find some sort of clue.’
Kethol’s forehead wrinkled. ‘I don’t think that there are going to be any arrowheads in there, and I doubt even more that I’ll be able to track somebody across the carpet.’
Pirojil spread his hands. ‘I don’t know what kind of clue. Maybe the weapon that cut their throats? It could have been left there, I guess,’ he said, sceptically. ‘If it’s distinctive …’
It didn’t sound likely. Indeed, it sounded just this side of impossible.
‘And search Baron Morray’s rooms,’ Durine said.
‘Again: for what?’
‘And, again: I don’t know,’ Durine said.
‘I do,’ Pirojil said. ‘For something – a slip of paper, maybe, or a notation in a book. Neither too easy or too difficult to find, but it’ll have some sort of short incantation written on it, the spell that will allow somebody to open the strongroom in the dungeon.’
Worrying about getting paid at a time like this shouldn’t have disgusted Kethol, but it did, and he let his disgust show on his face.
Pirojil just shook his head. ‘Really gone native, haven’t you?’
‘Shit, Pirojil –’
‘Well,’ Pirojil said, the ghost of a smile flickering across his ugly face, ‘I suppose I must have gone native, too, because I wasn’t thinking about our pay, not at the moment. But right now we’ve got to worry not just about a band of Morray’s men, ready to avenge their murdered baron, but a band of mercenaries, some of whom will work out that they don’t get paid until somebody can open the strongbox, and I don’t think the Swordmaster is going to appoint one of the barons as even a temporary bursar until we’ve discovered the murderer; and even if he does, it won’t much matter if the Bursar can’t open the strongroom safe.’
Durine nodded. ‘Best thing the Swordmaster can do, assuming things don’t break into open warfare, is just pay off the mercenaries – and the regulars, for that matter. Money tends to settle people down.’
‘That’s what I thought.’ Pirojil looked from Kethol to Durine. ‘Any volunteers to mutter something that sounds like a spell while trying to work the safe?’ He shook his head before answering his own question. ‘No.’ His mouth twitched. ‘Come to think of it—’ He walked to the door, and leaned outside. ‘Send for Milo and Mackin, two mercenaries down at the Broken Tooth. Tell them to report to me, in the Great Hall, now.’
‘But—’ the guard outside started to protest; Pirojil silenced him with a pointed finger.
‘If you’ve got any objections to my orders, go and ask the Swordmaster. He’s put the three of us in charge of this, this, investigation, and I suspect that he means it.’
Retreating footsteps sounded in the hall, and Pirojil turned, grinning. ‘I’m getting to like this being in charge thing.’
Durine shook his head. ‘I’d like it a lot more if I knew what we were doing.’
‘Me, too,’ Kethol said.
On that the three of them could agree.
Still, the rule of ‘when you don’t know what to do, do what you know how to do’ did make sense, and Kethol had looked at dead bodies before. This talking to people was another thing – what did Pirojil expect, that the murderer would jump up and say, I did it, if Pirojil just looked at him sideways?
‘Well, we’d all better do our best to look like we know what we’re doing.’
Durine grinned. ‘Is that what officers and nobles do all the time?’
‘Probably. But let’s get to it.’ Pirojil clapped his hands together, and gestured the other two to their feet. ‘Durine to the dungeon; Kethol to Lady Mondegreen’s room; and I get the assembled barons and captains. We meet back here, at noon.’ He grinned. ‘I’ll have Ereven bring us lunch.’
Durine made his way down to the dungeon, balancing carefully on the gritty stone steps.
Tom Garnett and three of his soldiers were gathered in front of the nearest of the cells. A huge brass key that Durine assumed was the key to the cells hung on a hook next to an oil lantern hanging from an overhead beam – on the opposite side from the cells. A man locked in a dungeon cell might be able to get at it, if he had a long enough stick with a hook on it, but presumably there were no long, hooked sticks as standard equipment in the Earl’s cells.
All four men – no, five, including Erlic – drew themselves up, not quite to attention, as Durine approached, but one indicating respect for his rank, if not for the man. They all looked familiar, and so did this Erlic.
Durine shook his head. A week ago, or less, an age ago or more, two of these four men had been the ones that Tom Garnett had sent to bring Durine to the Swordmaster, to be assigned, along with Pirojil and Kethol, to protect Baron Morray.
‘Disgusted with me, eh?’ Tom Garnett said, apparently misreading Durine’s expression.
‘No, Captain. Disgusted, certainly, but not sure who with, except for Erlic.’ Durine shrugged. ‘But enough of that. I’ll need to talk to Erlic, privately.’
‘Can’t do that, Captain,’ one of the others said, shaking his head. ‘We’re on orders not to take our eyes off him. Some people think that he might decide to avoid the Earl’s justice, and I’m one of those people, and never mind for the moment that orders are orders.’
How Erlic would do that was an interesting question, Durine thought. He had been stripped of his tabard and trousers and boots. He had dropped the thin blanket that he had had wrapped about him when he had come to attention, and now he stood shivering in a tunic that reached to his knees.
Well, maybe he could tear the blanket into strips, braid the strips into a rope, tie one end of the rope to the bars and the other around his neck, and then make a flying leap and break his neck, but Durine reckoned he would notice Erlic trying to do that, and could probably stop him.
But Durine didn’t say anything; he just looked at Tom Garnett, who quickly nodded.
‘We can lock you in with him, I suppose, and remain within shouting range.’ His
lips were white as he turned to the soldier who had spoken. ‘Captain Durine isn’t sure that we’re not involved,’ he said, quietly, casually, as though commenting upon the weather.
‘Shit,’ one of the men said, as he walked over to the beam and retrieved the key. ‘You want to hand over your swordbelt, and maybe that extra knife you’ve got strapped to your back, under your tunic?’
Durine was unaccountably irritated. He thought he had kept that knife a secret, and didn’t know when or how the man had spotted it. He didn’t like the idea of having stayed in place so long that that sort of thing became a possibility. But he unbuckled his swordbelt, and gave it to another of the soldiers, then drew the knife and handed it, properly hilt-first, to the one who had asked for it, then gestured at Erlic to back away.
He went into the cell quickly, half expecting that Erlic would try to jump him, and looking forward to beating him, just to get discussions off on the right foot …
But Erlic just moved to the back of the cell, and slumped down on the overlarge shelf stuck into the wall that served as a prisoner’s bed. A few moments later the two of them were locked in, and Tom Garnett and the guards moved out of sight, and either out of hearing or silent, although Durine wouldn’t have wanted to guess which.
It probably didn’t much matter, unless all four of them were involved in the murder, and while Durine wasn’t willing to throw any possibility out, that didn’t seem to be likely.
He hoped.
Of course, there would be a simple way to find out. If he pasted a satisfied look on his face after he had finished talking with Erlic and they were part of some sort of conspiracy to murder Baron Morray and Lady Mondegreen, they would quickly kill Durine in the cell, rather than allowing him out. If so, one of them was probably going for a crossbow right now, just to make it easy.
That thought warmed him as he turned to Erlic. ‘So,’ he said. ‘I don’t have much to bargain with, and you’ve got less, but let’s see if we can work a deal.’ Working a deal was more Pirojil’s thing than Durine’s, but Durine had watched him many times. ‘I could start by, say, breaking a couple of your fingers and promising to stop if you tell me everything you know.’
Erlic looked up at him, and shook his head. ‘But I don’t know anything, except that I fell asleep at my post.’
‘Nobody asked you to look the other way while they went into Lady Mondegreen’s room, say, just to have a quick talk with her?’ Durine didn’t think that it would be that easy, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask. It still left the question of why Erlic hadn’t noticed that somebody had exited the room covered with blood, or heard the sounds of a struggle, but one thing at a time.
Erlic shook his head. ‘Nobody asked me to do anything. Baron Morray went to her room, but –’
‘But he’s done that before.’
Erlic nodded. ‘I had the watch on that hall last night, too, and the night before.’ He shrugged. ‘He just ignored me, and I pretended not to see him.’
‘Who is in the next room?’
‘From Lady Mondegreen?’
‘No,’ Durine said. ‘From Prince Erland.’
Erlic just looked confused; sarcasm, apparently, didn’t work for him.
‘Yes, from Lady Mondegreen.’
‘Verheyen on the near side – the side nearest me – between her suite and Baron Morray’s suite. Viztria and Langahan share the suite beyond her room.’
And if this castle was as lousy with secret passages between rooms as Castle Mondegreen was, there were three more people who could have done it, and if it was Verheyen or any combination of them, then maybe it wasn’t this poor sod’s fault, after all.
That might save his neck.
Durine paused for a moment to consider: it could have … no, should have taken two people or more to kill both Baron Morray and Lady Mondegreen without raising an outcry that would have awakened this idiot, or somebody else. Maybe one man who was awfully quick with a knife –
Damn. Servants. He hadn’t thought about servants, although why…
He could think about why later. ‘Any of the serving staff go in or out?’
Erlic shook his head. ‘Not that I saw. Not there. Emma, the housecarl’s daughter, brought Baron Morray a bottle of wine, but that was to his suite, and she brought a tray to Baron Folson’s room, just before she brought me my own dinner, and another to Viztria’s just after the clock struck two, I remember that, but –’
‘Which he shares with Langahan.’
‘Yes, but –’
‘But nobody went into Lady Mondegreen’s room, that you saw.’
‘Except for Baron Morray, which I already said.’
‘Yeah, but I don’t think he slit her throat, and then his own.’ Durine shook his head. ‘You wouldn’t happen to know if Baron Verheyen usually stays in that room when he visits the Earl, do you?’
Erlic shook his head. ‘No, I don’t know, but …’
‘But what, man? Out with it.’
‘But usually, there’s only one or two barons staying in the castle, at the most, and when they don’t stay at their own residence in town – though I don’t think Baron Verheyen has one – they’re usually put up in the big suite, at the end of the hall. There was some grumbling, the other night, about the court barons getting the good suite.’
As though the fractious barons didn’t have more important matters on their mind.
‘Is there anything else you can tell me?’ Durine asked. ‘Anything at all.’
Erlic shook his head. ‘Just that I swear I’ve never fallen asleep on watch before.’ He looked as if he was about to cry.
‘Well, you certainly picked a great time to lose your virginity in that, eh?’ Durine rose. ‘Look: it may – may – not have made any difference. I want your word that you’ll wait for the Earl’s justice.’
Erlic nodded slowly. ‘I deserve that.’
‘I’m not asking what you deserve. I’m asking you for your word.’
‘You’d accept my word?’
‘Yes,’ Durine said, lying. It seemed to be the best way to get agreement from Erlic.
‘You have my word, sir. I’ll not take my own life.’
Durine nodded. ‘Good.’
He rose, and drew the other hidden knife from under his left armpit, then beat it against the bars until he heard feet pounding on the stone floor.
He pasted a satisfied look on his face.
‘You found out something?’
Durine nodded wisely. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s quite possible that I found out the most important thing. Let me out of here, please,’ he said, resheathing the knife. ‘And do keep an eye on Erlic.’
Tom Garnett seemed to relax, and one of the other men went for the key.
Nobody tried to stab Durine as he stepped out of the cell and quite deliberately turned his back on them to speak to Erlic one more time. Durine didn’t know whether he was happy or sad about it – it would, at least, have been a clue, and despite his protestations to the contrary, he didn’t have a clue – or, to be more accurate, he either had none, or far too many.
‘We’ll be watching him,’ Tom Garnett said.
Durine nodded. ‘Yes, you will.’ If Erlic turned up dead, that would, perhaps, be another one of these clues they were looking for.
Kethol didn’t know what to look for.
The two bodies that lay in the bed were dead, and the killer hadn’t shot them with a marked arrow, or any kind of arrow at all. Unsurprisingly, there were no bloody bootprints across the deep carpet, and what impressions of feet and shoes there were, were indistinct and useless.
He had looked at the bodies, just because that was something he knew how to do.
There was obviously some dust in the air, although where it had come from, he didn’t know, but he did have to keep wiping his eyes, particularly when he looked down at Lady Mondegreen. He had opened the window to let the stink clear out of the air, but that didn’t seem to help as much as it should have, at least with
the dust.
He turned back to the bodies on the bed. It was important to remember that these were just bodies, just dead meat, not two people, each of whom had treated him, all in all, better than a mercenary soldier had any right to expect.
Death was, as always, utterly undignified, although these two had escaped the worst of that. If you ignored the blood and the death stink, you could have imagined them to be sleeping. After staring at Lady Mondegreen for a few moments, he knew he couldn’t ignore the simple fact of death. The colour in her cheeks, present when she laughed, or when tweaked by the cold wind while they were riding to her estates, was gone, replaced by a near-parchment pallor that could not be mistaken for anything other than what it was.
He pushed aside any feelings of regret; he had seen death transform someone he knew from a living person into a lifeless thing too many times. He had found the Lady Mondegreen fetching, and she had been kind to him, but she was now a lifeless thing, and the faster he looked for those clues, the faster he could put this behind him.
He glanced around, as if seeking some sign, something out of place, something he would recognize: as he would a bent twig where one didn’t belong, or crushed grass or mud from a boot on the side of a rock. Jars of face powder and scented creams made no sense to him. Lady’s fineries provided no recognizable answers.
Think, he ordered himself. When you find a poached deer, the first thing you do is examine the deer. He tried to ignore the blood and the stink. With the cold wind blowing in through the window, it really wasn’t too bad.
He bent over them.
A sharp blade had slit the throats both deeply and neatly, although he had no way of telling whether the wounds had been made with a dagger or a sword – except that the awkwardness of wielding a sword mitigated against it.
It was not impossible, mind. There had been that guardsman, outside Dungaran …
He shook his head. No. It had been one thing to sneak up behind someone, and grip him by the hair while he whipped the man’s sword around to slice through his throat, his own sword not being available, having stuck itself too firmly into the spine of the previous guardsman. It was quite another to hack down on somebody lying asleep in the bed.