Four and Twenty Blackbirds Read online

  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 was their 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 that 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 beside her 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't make 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 was not 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. "What is 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!"

  He gave her a look of startled admiration. "I don't know, my Lady Bishop," he replied with new respect. "I did consider that solution, but it doesn't seem to match the circumstances. Shall I continue?"

  She gestured at him to do so, and continued to listen to his descriptions, not only of the chain of murder-suicides in Haldene, but similar crimes that he had uncovered with patient inquiry over the countryside. They began in a chain of villages and towns that led to Haldene, then moved beyond.

  Beyond—to Kingsford, which was the next large city in the chain, if the pattern was to follow the Kanar River.

  He came to the end of his chain of reasoning just as she came to that realization.

  "Interesting." She watched him narrowly; he didn't flinch or look away. "And you think that Kingsford is now going to be visited by a similar set of occurrences? That is what brought you here?"

  "Yes, High Bishop," he told her, and only then did he raise a hand to rub at his eyes, wearily. "I do. And now I must also make a confession to you."

  "I am a Priest," she said dryly. "I'm rather accustomed to hearing them."

  She had hoped to invoke at least a faint smile from him, but all he did was sigh. "I fear that I am here under somewhat false pretenses. I was a constable of Haldene, but I'm rather afraid that I am no longer. I began investigating this string of tragedies over the objections of my superiors; I continued against their direct orders. When they discovered what I had learned, they dismissed me." He waited to see if she was going to react to that, or say something, and continued when she did not. "I would have quit in any case, when I saw where this—series of coincidences—was heading." He smiled, with no trace of humor. "There is a better chance that the King will turn Gypsy tomorrow than that my superiors would permit me to take leave to inform authorities in Kingsford about this. After all, the plague has left Haldene; it is no longer a problem for those in authority there."

  "I . . . see." She wondered for a moment if he was going to ask her for a position. Had all of this been manufactured just to get her attention? "Have you gone to the Captain of the constables in Kingsford?"

  "I tried," he replied, and this time he did smile faintly. "He's not an easy man to get to."

  "Hmm. True." In fact, Captain Fenris was the hardest man to find in Kingsford, but not because he was mewed up in an office behind a battery of secretaries. It might take weeks before Tal was able to track him down. "I believe that at the moment he is on double-shift, training the new recruits. He could be anywhere in the city at any given moment, and his second-in-command is unlikely to make any decisions in a situation like this."

  "More to the point, I'm hardly going to get a glowing recommendation from my former superiors in Haldene, if his second-in-command were to make an inquiry about me," Tal pointed out. "They'll probably tell him I'm a troublemaker with a history of mental instability."

  Honest. And he hasn't said a word about wanting a position.

  "I will admit that I'm becoming obsessed with this case," Tal continued, and then she saw a hint, just the barest glimpse, of something fierce and implacable. It gazed at her out of his eyes for a moment, then vanished. "Who or whatever is behind this, I want it stopped."

  "And you want from me?" Ardis spread her hands. Now, if there was going to be a plea for anything, she had given Tal an opening.

  He hesitated. "I want—authority," he said finally. "Credentials. Not a great deal, just enough that if anyone asks me why I'm snooping around, I can say I'm acting on your behalf and with your knowledge. Of course, I'll keep you informed every day, even if I find nothing, and I won't actually do anything unless it is to stop a murder in progress. I won't search houses or people, I won't try and haul anyone off to gaol, I won't threaten or bully. I'll just observe and ask questions."

  Ardis graced him with her most skeptical look. "And that's all you want?"

  "Well, obviously I'd like to have all of the Kingsford constables working on this, I'd like the services of a mage, and I'd like four or five personal assistants," he replied a little sarcastically. "But I'd also like to be made Captain of the constables, stop this madness before it infects Kingsford, and be rewarded with the Grand Duke's daughter. Obviously none of this is possible, so I'm asking for the least I need to continue to track this case."

  "And what had you planned to do to make ends meet?" she asked bluntly. "I assume you aren't independently wealthy."

  He shrugged. "I was working on the case in my off-time anyway. I have enough muscle and experience to get a job as a private guard, or even a peace-keeper in a tavern. I can still work on it in my off-time, and without being harassed for doing so, if I can just get minimal credentials."

  So, he's willing to support himself in a strange city just so that he can continue following this—whatever it is. He's right. He's obsessed. I wish more people would become that obsessed when it is necessary.

  "Let me assume for the moment that there really is a—force—that is caus
ing these deaths. It occurs to me that alerting the entire constabulary to this case might also make that force go into hiding," she said aloud, not quite willing to answer his request yet.

  "That could easily be true," he agreed. "Which is, unfortunately, a good reason not to inform Captain Fenris—or at least, to ask him not to inform the rest of the constabulary. And it also occurs to me that this force knows a great deal about how both investigation and magic operate." He raised one eyebrow at her. "It hadn't escaped my notice that every one of the suicides was either by means of running water or under running water—even the jeweler."

  Now she was surprised, for she had thought that last horrific case had all been perpetrated indoors. "How could the jeweler—"

  "He worked with acids, and he had a kind of emergency downpour rigged in his studio," Tal replied. "He had a pipe coming down from his rooftop cistern that ended in the ceiling of his studio, with a valve on the end that was operated by a string with a drain beneath it. After he drank his acids and poisons, he staggered over beneath the pipe and pulled the string. When he was found, the cistern was empty—the initial investigation missed that, because by then the floor was dry." He looked at her expectantly.