Four and Twenty Blackbirds Read online

  Tal went very quiet at that. "I didn't know that," he said finally. "I'd just assumed that he'd stolen or found ritual knives—maybe in secondhand shops or something of the sort. But if he's making them—that almost means there has to be more than one person involved."

  Ardis felt her stomach turn over again. One murderer was bad enough—but two? "I've had people looking for a maker in Kingsford, and I can't find any smith who'll admit to making triangular-bladed knives."

  "Oh, I wouldn't worry about that too much," Kayne said with a wave of her hand. "They don't have to come from Kingsford, or this kingdom, or even a Human Kingdom. Any little village smith would do, and I bet there are plenty who would he happy to get a job in the winter when people don't need farm equipment mended. All he needs to do would be to get a smith somewhere else to take a commission for the finished blades, and he can put whatever hilt he wants to on them. For that matter, he could be rehilting the same knife, over and over. That would solve the question of why you saw one kind of knife, Tal, and why Visyr saw another."

  Tal shook his head. "I don't think so," he said firmly. "I think I've figured out why they're disappearing when all he'd need to do would be to drop them into the river to destroy our ability to trace him from them. What he's doing is taking them as his mementos."

  "His what?" Kayne asked.

  "Mementos." Tal offered an apologetic smile. "Trophies. Killers like this like to have things to remember their victims by. A lock of hair, an item of clothing, even jewelry. It lets them experience the thrill of the murder all over again. I know of one man who gave his wife a present of the jewelry he'd taken from the woman he killed; made a point of asking her to wear it, and he said later it was so he could relive the murder. I think that's why the knives are disappearing; I think our man is collecting them, cleaning them, and keeping them as trophies. He probably has them all mounted on a wall somewhere, or done up in a little display case."

  Kayne looked a little green. "That's sick," she said in disgust.

  "And murdering twenty or thirty women isn't?" Ardis countered, feeling certain that Tal had uncovered another piece of the puzzle. "I think Tal's right. I also think that the mage in question is smart enough to wipe not only every vestige of blood off the blade but cleanse it of every glimmer of magic, so we can't trace it. He may even have shielded the room the knives are in against a trace. We could search till we die of old age and never find the daggers."

  Kayne gritted her teeth in frustration, showing openly what Ardis was keeping hidden beneath a veneer of calm. "You do realize what you're saying? We have a murderer who knows as much about the way crimes are traced by way of magic as the constables and Justiciar-Mages do! How can we even try to catch him?"

  Tal reached out and patted her hand in a very fatherly fashion—which relieved Ardis. She'd been hoping those blushes weren't on Kayne's behalf. Not that Tal and Kayne would make a bad couple, but . . .

  She lost the thought, and didn't care to pursue it.

  "We catch him the way constables have always caught clever criminals," Tal said, his calm and even tones belying the tension Ardis sensed beneath his stoic surface. "Firstly, there are more of us than there are of him. Secondly, he will make a mistake. He may already have done so, but we just didn't catch it at the time. Once he makes one mistake, he'll make more, and the consequences will begin to pile up."

  "How can you be so sure of that?" Kayne demanded.

  He rubbed his forehead and shut his eyes while replying. "It's the oddest thing, you know," he continued, in a matter-of-fact voice, as if he was talking about one of his fellow Guardsmen rather than a multiple murderer. "But I've never seen it to fail. A clever thief can and will continue to steal all his life—a clever sharpster continue to extract money from the unwary until he's in his grave. But a murderer—he may show no signs of remorse at all, may even claim that his victims deserved what came to them—but sooner or later he starts to make mistakes that get him caught."

  "Remorse?" Kayne suggested. "Even if he doesn't realize it? Could his conscience be manipulating him so that he does get caught and pays for what he did?"

  Tal shook his head. "I don't think so. Maybe it's contempt—when he keeps escaping the net, he starts to think he doesn't need to work so hard to avoid it. Maybe it's a feeling of invulnerability, that we can't catch him however careless he gets. After all, every bit of evidence that he gets shows him that we simply can't find him."

  "And maybe it's God," Ardis put in quietly. Tal looked at her with a brief flash of startlement. "God doesn't often act directly in our lives, but when He knows that we are doing all that we are able and are still out of our depth, He may choose to give us a little help." She felt that; she truly did. She only hoped that He would see that they were at the end of their resources and grant that help before any more women died.

  I am not going to tell myself that He has reasons for letting those others die, however. God is not cruel; He is not some Eternal Tormentor and Tester. They died because they were unlucky or careless, and not because God had a purpose for their deaths.

  Her Special Inquisitor looked for a moment as if he was about to challenge her to a theological discussion, then his lips twitched a little. "I'm not about to argue the point with you, High Bishop," Tal said finally. He looked for just a moment as if he was going to say something more, then just shook his head and remained silent.

  I had better change the subject—or rather, get it back where it was supposed to be. "The way this man treats the tools he takes over is interesting," Ardis pointed out. "Once he's done with them, he discards them immediately—within moments of the murder, in fact."

  "He doesn't have much choice!" Kayne replied.

  "Oh, but he does," Tal responded instantly. "At least, he does in the cases where he's killed in private. I assume he could walk around with that body for as long as he likes, but he doesn't—he kills his chosen victim, then discards the man he's taken." He suddenly looked startled. "I don't suppose we could be dealing with a ghost, could we? Or something like a demon? Something that can come in and possess the killer?"

  "Ghosts can't place orders for knives," Ardis pointed out dryly. "And although I'm a Priest, I have to say I truly doubt the existence of demons that can move in and possess someone's body." She thought about the few cases of so-called possession that had been brought before her—until people likely to claim possession realized that she was entirely unsympathetic to the idea. "I've never seen an authentic possession, nor do I know anyone who has. Sometimes it's a simple case of someone being struck with an illness that affects the mind; at other times, it is all fakery. All the accounts of what are supposed to be genuine possessions are at third or fourth hand—or else the symptoms of possession as described are such that they are clearly hysteria or the clever counterfeit of someone with an agenda of her own to pursue."

  "Her?" Tal asked wryly.

  Ardis shrugged. "Most people claiming to be possessed are female and more often than not young. You can read what you like into that."

  Kayne snorted with contempt. "I'll read it as fools for pretending and idiots who believe them. Back to the knives. You've said it before, and I'll repeat it. I don't think the shape is an accident, but we need to discuss that in depth for a moment."

  "There could be a number of reasons for picking that shape," Tal mused. "The most logical is that this fellow wants to give the Church and its mages a powerful reason not to pursue him too closely."

  "There is no doubt that is why the authorities tried to prevent you from investigating back in your city, Tal," Ardis told him, pleased that her investigation had proved his own suspicions were correct. "No one wanted to be the one to uncover a killer inside the robes of a Priest."

  "He could be hoping that a faction of the Brotherhood will take him for a vigilante," Kayne observed. "After all, he's getting rid of people the Church doesn't approve of. Truth to tell, Ardis, if you weren't the High Bishop here, I don't know if the Justiciars would ev
en consider trying to catch him." She pinched the bridge of her nose a moment. "It makes me wonder if he might not be in the pay of someone."

  "Who?" Tal asked, surprised.

  "I don't know; the Bardic Guild, maybe?" Kayne hazarded, a little wildly. "They'd just as soon be rid of every kind of entertainer that isn't a member of the Guild."

  Ardis grimaced. "A madman acting on behalf of the Bardic Guild? I'm afraid you're reaching a bit too far for that one."

  "Or being too redundant," Kayne retorted.

  "We don't have sufficient evidence that the killer has a collaborator," Tal pointed out gently. "And I don't think I've ever heard of a murderer of this type who had someone working with them."

  Kayne made a disparaging face. "It was a thought. Things would be much easier for him if he had a partner in this."

  "These murderers tend to be loners," Tal replied. "What you do hear from the neighbors when it's all over is, 'He kept to himself a lot,' and 'He was always very quiet.' My feeling is, people like this man are too obsessed with their own desires, needs, and rituals to want to share them with anyone else."

  "Frankly," Ardis said, rubbing her thumb and fingers together restlessly, "I think he has several reasons for what he does—we don't need to limit him to just one. He's obviously intelligent enough to have complex motives." As the other two acknowledged that she was probably right, she continued. "I think he's trying to throw confusion into the ranks of Church officials, and he would get many benefits from doing so. He certainly wants to delay pursuit, and this is one good way to make sure that cooperation with Priest-Mages will be somewhat less than perfect. If he doesn't realize that using a ritual dagger as a murder weapon is likely to cause severe conflict within the Church itself, I'd be very surprised, and as Kayne pointed out, there is a substantial minority among the Brotherhood that would applaud what he's doing—in private, if not in public."

  Tal looked as if his stomach was giving him as much trouble as Ardis's was giving her. "Once word gets around that there are murders being done with a piece of priestly equipment—" Tal said very slowly. "God help us. People in the street will be only too willing to believe in some bizarre secret society, sponsored by the Church, dedicated to murder. There is no love lost between the Church and Gypsies, the Church and street-women, or the Church and Free Bards. All three of those groups have good reason to think of themselves as persecuted by the Church. The very people we need to protect most will flee from us in fear."

  "And start more rumors," Kayne added.

  "And I can't argue with either of you." Ardis couldn't just sit anymore; she got up and paced back and forth in front of the fireplace, keeping a restraining hold on her temper. "I have worked and sacrificed to make the Justiciars respected rather than feared, and trusted to give absolutely impartial justice to those who were loyal Churchmen and those who weren't," she said fiercely. "Now—this! It feels like a personal attack!"

  "It can't possibly be, Ardis," Kayne soothed, swiveling her head to watch Ardis pace. "How could anyone connect you with these murders?"

  "Perhaps they wouldn't directly connect me—but what if the Justiciars can't find the murderer?" Ardis asked. "Won't people say that we just weren't trying very hard because we knew that the murderer came from our own ranks? Everything I've built up with the people of Kingsford is in jeopardy!"

  Since neither of the other two could refute that, they remained silent.

  But Ardis realized that she was being a bad example to both of them. She stopped pacing and returned to her chair, willing herself to the appearance of calm if not the actual state.

  "We considered the least pleasant possibility about the identity of the murderer; now let's make it a priority," she said grimly. "We have to do more than allow that this man could be a Priest, we have to actively pursue the idea. Tal, there is nothing you can do to help us with this, so simply continue your investigations as you have been; perhaps you will come up with more information that will help us. Kayne—"

  The secretary waited, alert as a grayhound waiting to be loosed.

  "I want you to undertake another search among Church records," she said, with a tightening of her throat. "Look for Priest-Mages who have been disciplined in the last ten years. I can't believe this man has just sprung up out of nowhere; I feel certain that he must have been caught at least once."

  Kayne grimaced, but made the note. "You are right," she agreed. "A Priest who's been disciplined is the one most likely to have a grudge against the Church—or at least, the Church Superiors."

  "The other thing you might look for is Priests who've gone overboard in their chastisement; assigning really dreadful penances or the like." Ardis put the tips of her fingers to both temples and massaged.

  "Good idea; a Priest like that won't necessarily get Discipline, but he'll show up in the right records—and that might point us to someone likely to turn vigilante." Kayne looked preoccupied, as if some of these suggestions were turning up uncomfortable thoughts.

  "I've got a third request," Ardis finished. "While you're at it, you might ask for the records of those who had a history of sexual crimes or violence against women before they entered the Priesthood. Just because we think he's reformed, that doesn't mean he has."

  Kayne nodded, noting all of that down.

  "You're probably right in this, Ardis," Tal said slowly. "The signature traits of these crimes—I've been thinking about the things he has to have, the ones that always appear, without exception. Death by stabbing—"

  He flushed so scarlet, that Ardis was distracted for a moment with amusement. "Go on," she told him.

  "This is—rather indelicate," Tal choked. "You're a—"

  "I'm a Priest, dear man, and I've taken my turn in the Confessional with condemned criminals," she reminded him. "There isn't much you can tell me that I haven't already heard in one form or another. You mentioned stabbing—which is, after all, a form of penetration. I assume you think this is his form of rape in absentia?"

  Tal was so red she was afraid he would never be able to speak, but he nodded. "I think so; that makes these sexual crimes. The knife is the primary part of his signature, and the shape may be part of that—fantasy. Either he hates the Church or he views himself as an arm of the Church's vengeance. There's nothing in between, and in either case, a Priest would be more—frustrated. More likely to choose a knife as the instrument of death."

  "And for either, we have to look at the Brotherhood itself." She sighed, and felt a headache closing down over her scalp like a too-tight cap.

  "The second signature element is the sex of the victim, which, if I'm right about this, goes along with the sexual nature of the murders. I have to think that the third element is that the victim preferentially is a musician," Tal continued, his red face slowly fading. "I know I've said all this before, but it was more in the light of speculation than certainty. I would stake my life on the fact that no matter how this man kills people, he has to have those three signature elements to be satisfied. I wish I'd seen more of the crime scenes myself, or I would know more."

  "So look particularly for Priests who have had problems with musicians," Ardis directed her secretary. "Either while in Orders or before taking them." A thought struck her, and she voiced it. "I wonder if he's a failed musician himself?"

  Tal nodded, now completely back to normal. "Could be. Particularly if he was obsessed with the idea of being considered a Master. Love and hate—add obsession, and you have a nasty little soup. If he tried getting into the Bardic Guild and failed, he might be able to forgive men for making a living at music, but never inferior females."

  "He could even consider that the female musicians were somehow polluting music itself," Kayne offered, which drew an approving glance from both Ardis and Tal. "Music being supposedly pure, you wouldn't want an unclean female mucking about with it."

  "That's a good thing to add to the list of possibilities," Tal told her. "Once again—love and hate, love and worship of music, hate f
or those who are desecrating it. But that certainly doesn't preclude it being a Priest."

  "Far from it," Ardis admitted. "There are plenty who came into the Priesthood after failing at their first choice of vocation. He might even have discovered his ability at magic after he failed at music. Don't forget, we are looking for mages. He can't do this without magic."

  But that seemed to exhaust their inventiveness for the moment, and after they had thrashed the subject around a bit more, they all went back to their respective tasks. Kayne went off to her office to draft more orders for records, and Tal went—wherever Tal went, when he wasn't specifically to meet with someone or go off on one of Ardis's errands. She suspected he had gone back into the city, chasing down elusive leads.

  When they were gone and the door to her office closed and locked, the room felt strangely quiet and empty. It was difficult to tell what time of day it was in here, since the room had no windows. The previous occupants had all been old and subject to rheumatism; this office shared a wall with the huge kitchen ovens, and as a consequence was nicely warm all winter, even without a fire in the fireplace. There might have been problems in the summer, but as soon as the weather was warm enough, all baking was done in ovens in the kitchen court.

  Usually the lack of windows didn't bother her, but this afternoon it occurred to her that she was curiously isolated from the world outside because of that lack. Was this good, or bad? As a Priest, perhaps she should cultivate that isolation, since it theoretically would enable her to get closer to God. But as a Justiciar, she needed to remain within the secular world so that she could understand and dispense justice to its inhabitants. As with so many things in her life, it seemed this required striking a delicate balance, too.

  Ardis removed a fat, brown folder from the locked drawer of her desk: the record of the Priests and Priest-Mages who had vanished from the Kingsford Abbey during the Great Fire. Coincidentally, she had not had enough time to devote to unraveling the mysteries the stiff pasteboard contained before all this fell upon her, and now the very records she would have requested from the Archivist for her own Abbey were already on her desk.