Four and Twenty Blackbirds bv-4 Read online

  They had been not only his judges, but the instrument of his punishment; in breaking his spells, they turned his magic back on him, and he was the one who was transformed. Ardis was senior enough to decree that this was fit punishment, and transformed he had remained until the day of the Fire.

  There were two more rebellious priests who were among the unaccounted-for, although they were not mages. Ardis had spent the last several days going over the records of the unidentified dead from the Fire, hoping to find matches for her missing miscreants. She frowned as she came up empty-handed.

  This is not good. I would rather not contemplate the consequences of renegade Priest-Mages wandering about, feeding their own mad agendas. Granted, they had been stripped of their powers, but it hadn't been their magic powers that were the cause of their incarceration. They could still do harm.

  They could set themselves up as Priests of some other Order out in the back of beyond, and go back to abusing those who are in their care. And we wouldn't know unless someone reported them, or the local Priest got curious because they stopped attending services in his chapel. Even then, we wouldn't know unless he made an inquiry—

  She shook her head. The only thing that she could think to do was to send letters to the Clerks of the Records of all the other Orders, describing the runaways, advising that they might try to set themselves up in their own parishes, and asking that copies of any suspicious inquiries be sent to Kingsford Abbey.

  If they dare try that and we catch them—She gritted her teeth. They would be made very unhappy.

  I wonder how they would like serving the Church as oxen at one of the hermitage farms? That would be particularly appropriate in the case of Revaner.

  She did what she could among the records, made a first draft of the letter she was going to have to send to the other Orders, and locked it in a drawer. She'd have to make some special preparations tomorrow, but this was one time when it made more sense to make copies magically than by hand. Someday, perhaps, she could allow Kayne to know this particular secret, but for now it was best kept as private as possible.

  She turned back to the letter from her cousin, for the final paragraph troubled her. Talaysen very seldom asked her for anything, and the request he had for her this time was a disturbing one.

  I have been receiving reports from Rayden of the murders of several Free Bards and Gypsies, he wrote. Ardis, I will be the very first to admit that my people tend to get themselves into trouble of their own accord, and occasionally some of them do end up on the wrong end of a knife. But these have all been violent, senseless, horrible murders by absolute strangers; no one understands why or how they happened, and all the victims have been women. Some of my people are becoming very alarmed; they don't know how to explain it, but the ones with magic think that there is some power that is deliberately seeking them out to slay them. I don't know what you can do—but you are a Priest, a mage, and a Justiciar. Can you try to find out what is going on and put a stop to it?

  She smoothed her short hair back with both hands and stared at that last paragraph, cursing Talaysen for not sending her all the facts.

  But that assumed that hehad them; he might know nothing more than what he had told her. Still, if she had names, dates, places—she might have been able to start an investigation. It would be a great deal more difficult to do so with "information" that was this vague.

  She had already told him, though, in an equally vague sentence at the end of her letter, that she would do everything she could to "help him with his problem."

  She folded up his letter and locked it away with the other sensitive material in her special desk drawer.I'll put it in the back of my mind and sleep on it, she told herself, knowing that she often came up with solutions to difficult situations that way.Right now, more than anything, I need a little time to myself. My mind feels as bloated and stiff as a cow-gut balloon.

  Now—now was her one hour of indulgence, the hour she kept solely for herself, when she could read in silence and peace, and not have to think of anything but the words on the page before her.

  She'd only begun taking this hour for herself in the last few weeks; until now, things had been too hectic even to steal a single hour for herself. This was the quiet time she had been hoping for since the Great Fire; in the months that had followed the conflagration, she had been forced to do the work of four people. There had been the situation in her own Order to consolidate, by making certain thather allies in the Order were placed in every position of importance and those whose loyalties were in doubt were put in positions of equal stature, but where they could do her no harm—such as Father Leod. Occasionally, she had been forced to manufacture such positions, to avoid making an outright enemy by demoting him. Then there had been the relief effort in the city—the number of deaths had been appalling, and as the days passed, more and more of the missing had to be added to the rolls of the "presumed dead." The number of burned and injured was even worse than the number of dead, for at least the dead no longer suffered. The injured suffered terribly, for fatal burns made for a long, drawn-out, agonizing death when there were not enough painkillers to treat more than a fraction of those hurt. For those who were most likely to die anyway, she had had to make the unpleasant decision to give them the painkillers with the worst long-term side effects—since after all, they would not survive long enough to suffer them—but while they still breathed they could have less agony. Then there were the homeless . . . and the illnesses that followed exposure to the elements, food and water that could not be kept clean, and of course the overwhelming shock and grief.

  The one saving grace had been that it was summer rather than winter. The one miracle was that some of the warehouses where the tents used in the Kingsford Faire were stored had been spared. One of Ardis's first acts was to order the warehouses broken into and the tents erected on Faire Field to shelter the homeless, no matter who owned them. Her second had been to commandeer as much canvas as existed within several days' journey and arrange for it, rope, tools, and poles to be made available to the refugees. It was amazing how many of them acquired tent-making skills when the raw materials were left at hand for them to use. She had ensured that no avaricious profiteer could scoop it all up and sell it by having the canvas parceled into reasonable bits and rationed by armed guard.

  All of the resources of the Church had been put to the task of making it possible for people to begin salvaging their lives again, and between the Church and their Duke, by that winter, most people had some sort of reasonable shelter to meet the snow.

  And now, most people had real walls and roofs, and it wastheir duty to get their lives in order, and not the Church's. Things were not back to normal, and would not be for many years to come, but they were at the point where people could take over their own lives.

  And Ardis could, at last, go back to some of her old habits. She might even be able to devote more of her time to reading than just that single hour.

  Kingsford was not a jewel without a flaw; there were plenty of them. The Duke's coffers were far from bottomless, and he could not remedy every ill. He would very much have liked to build places where the poor could enjoy walls and roofs as solid as those of their "betters," but he had to budget his resources, and there were others with fewer scruples ready to supply the needs of the lowborn. Nor had the nature of the people who had lived there been changed by the Fire. So as a result, the new Kingsford was a great deal like the old Kingsford. There were blocks of ramshackle tenements that looked as if they would fall down in the first strong wind—but somehow managed to survive all the same. There were a few lawless places where even the constables would not walk at night. There were thieves, cutpurses, sharpsters, game-cheats, procurers, unlicensed street-walkers, and those who preyed upon their fellow humans in every way that had ever been thought of.

  Ardis, who as a Priest was far more cognizant of the breadth of human nature than Duke Arden, could have told him that this would happen. She had also known t
hat it would be useless to tell him, as this was the last thing he wanted to hear. So she had held her peace, and as Kingsford rose Phoenix-like out of the ashes, she did her best to counsel and console him when some of his city's new-grown "feathers" were broken, dirty, or stunted.

  At least now that winter had settled in, there would be less violent public crime for her people to handle. Dealing with that was yet another task of the Justiciars, although they generally only were involved when a putative criminal was apprehended and not before. The death rate wouldn't drop off, for the very old, the weak, and the very young would succumb to the cold and the illnesses associated with the cold. Those deaths were the purview of the Charitable Orders in the city itself, and not of the Justiciars. Justiciars and Justiciar-Mages could and did work limited Healing magics, but not often, and it was not widely known that they could do so; the fact that the Justiciars worked magic at all was not exactly a secret, but detailed knowledge was not widely disseminated. The problem with doing magical Healing was that it was difficult to know when to stop—and who to help. It would be easy to spend all one's time or energy on Healing and get nothing else done.

  That would certainly be a cause for rejoicing among the city's miscreants and criminals, who would be only too happy for the Justiciars to spend their time on something besides dispensing justice.

  Well, they're all bottled up until warmer weather.When the winter wind howled, even the cutthroats huddled beside their stoves and waited for spring.

  And just as they, she settled into her often-uneasy new position, huddled besideher stove, and took an hour's consolation each night in books.

  This wasn't frivolous reading—she'd left all that behind her outside the Cloister walls—but she didn't often choose devotional works, either. Usually, it was law or history; occasionally, works on magic.

  Today it was to be a very private work on magic which had arrived with her cousin's letter, written expressly for her by one of Talaysen's Gypsy friends, and to be destroyed as soon as she finished reading it. It was a short manuscript on Gypsy magic—or rather, the fashion in which Gypsies used the power that was magic. Another manuscript had come with this one, which had been hidden inside the larger tome—also written by a Gypsy, it described the means by which miracles could be faked. After some editing for form rather than content, Ardis intended to have this one published for the general public.

  Then, perhaps, there will be less of a chance for another High Bishop Padrik to deceive the public.

  She evened the manuscript and set it down on the desktop before her. But before she had read more than the introductory sentences, Kayne returned, a frown on her face.

  "There's a fellow here who insists on seeing you," she said with annoyance. "He won't leave, and short of getting guards to throw him out, I can'tmake him leave. He claims to be a constable from Haldene, and he says he has information it's vital to give you."

  Ardis sighed. "And it can't wait until my morning audience hours tomorrow?" she asked wearily.

  Kayne shook her head. "He says not, and he won't talk to anyone else."

  Ardis weighed duty against desire, and as always, duty won. "Send him in," she said with resignation, putting her manuscripts safely away in that special drawer, and locking it. She secured the lock with just a touch of magic as the importunate visitor came in, escorted by Kayne, who made no effort to hide her disapproval.

  But Ardis was not so certain that Kayne's disapproval was warranted. The fellow was quite clearly exhausted, his plain, workaday clothing travel-stained, and his face gray and lined with weariness.

  First impressions were important, and this man impressed her because of his physical state. If whatever he had to tell her wasnot really important, he would have taken the time to clean up and don his finest garments.

  "Constable Tal Rufen of Haldene," Kayne announced with an audible sniff, and Ardis rose and extended her hand. Rufen took it, went to his knee in the appropriate genuflection, and pressed it briefly to his forehead in token of his submission to the authority of God and the Church. So he was a Churchman. Not all humans were—the Gypsies, for instance, held to their own set of deities, chief of whom was the Lady of the Night. Very different from the Church's sexless Sacrificed God.

  "Sit down, Tal Rufen," Ardis said as soon as he rose to his feet. She turned to her secretary. "Kayne, please bring us some hot tea and something to eat, would you?"

  Kayne's disapproval dropped from her like a cloak when she saw that Ardis was going to take the man seriously. "Yes, High Bishop," the young woman said respectfully, as Ardis's visitor dropped into the chair she indicated with a lack of grace that bespoke someone nearing the end of his strength.

  Ardis ignored that and settled into her own chair, steepling her fingers together as she considered the constable before her.

  The man was of middling stature and middling years; she would guess he was very nearly her own age, perhaps a year or two older. He had probably been a constable for most of his adult life; he exhibited his authority unconsciously, and wore his uniform tunic with an easy familiarity that suggested he might be more uncomfortable in civilian clothing than in his working garb. No paper-pusher this, he had the muscular strength of a man quite used to catching runaway horses and running thieves, wrestling rowdy drunks and breaking down doors. The lines on his face suggested that he didn't smile much, nor did he frown; his habitual expression was probably one of neutral sobriety. He had an oblong face with a slightly squared chin, high, flat cheekbones, and deepset eyes of an indeterminate brown beneath moderately thick brows. Gray in his brown hair suggested that he might be a bit older than he looked, but Ardis didn't think so.

  He probably earned those gray hairs on the streets.He looked competent, and a competent constable took his duty seriously.

  So what was he doing so far from Haldene?

  "Tal Rufen of Haldene," she said, breaking the silence and making him start. "You're a long way from home."

  The entrance of Kayne with a loaded tray gave him a reason not to answer, but Kayne didn't stay. Ardis caught her secretary's eyes and made a slight nod towards the door; Kayne took it as the order it was and left them alone. Ardis poured out tea and handed him a cup and a plate of cheese and unleavened crackers. Tal drank his cup off in a single gulp, asked permission with a glance, and poured himself a second cup that he downed while he wolfed crackers and cheese as if he hadn't eaten all day.

  Perhaps he hasn't. Very curious.

  But if he did his work the way he ate, his superiors would never be able to find fault with him; he was quick, efficient, and neat. Without being rude or ill-mannered, he made the food vanish as thoroughly as if he were a sleight-of-hand artist, and settled back into his chair with a third cup of tea clasped between his hands.

  "I don't see very many constables from outside of Kingsford," Ardis continued, "And then, it is usually only in the summer. I would say that it must have been some very urgent errand to urge you to travel so far in the middle of winter."

  "If you consider murder an urgent errand, you would be correct, High Bishop," the man replied quietly in a ringing baritone. "For it is murder that brings me here." He waited for her to interrupt, then went on. "I want to beg your indulgence, however, and allow me to tell you this in my own way."

  "If your way is to begin at the beginning and acquaint me with the facts as you discovered them, then proceed," she told him, watching him from beneath lowered lids.

  He nodded soberly and began his narrative. He was precise, detailed, and dry in a way that reminded her of a history book. That, in turn, suggested that he had more than a passing acquaintance with such books. Interesting; most of the constables she knew were hardly scholars.

  She had interviewed any number of constables over the course of the years, and he had already stated it was murder that brought him here, so it was no surprise when he began with the details of a particularly sordid case. The solution seemed straightforward enough, for the murderer had turned
around and immediately threw himself into the river—

  But it can't be that straightforward.

  Her conclusion was correct, for he described another murder, then a third—and she very quickly saw the things that linked them all together. The bizarre pattern of murder, then suicide. And the missing knife.

  She interrupted him as he began the details of a fourth case. "Whatis going on in Haldene, Tal Rufen?" she demanded with concern. "Is there some disease driving your people to kill each other? I cannot ever recall hearing of that many murder-suicides in a single year in Kingsford, and this is a far larger city than little Haldene!"