Justice is Served
An Edward Red Mage short mystery
By Angela P. Wade
First Digital Edition Copyright 2015
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Justice is Served
“Flesh and Blood, what kind of place does she think I’m running here?”
My landlady’s words, uttered in a scandalized hiss I suppose she thought was a whisper, were directed at the woman who had just walked in the front door of the Snake and Egg tavern. I frowned, trying to get a better look at the newcomer. I’d assumed she was an elf. She was dressed like an elf: all bright patterns, flashy tassels, and fringes, with every hem and corner of her clothing hung with bells and beads until she jingled when she moved. Her necklaces alone must have weighed nearly twenty pounds. But she didn’t look like an elf. A scarf (also hemmed in tiny bells) covered most of her features, but from what I could see of her face, and her ring-encrusted hands, her skin was nearly as pale as mine.
She was still trying to adjust to the dim light inside the tavern when a couple of drunks, holdovers from the night before, saw her and jumped to the same conclusion Sadie Brewer had.
“Lookit there!”
“Well, it’s a bit early for the likes of her to be going to work.”
“Most likely she’s done working and lookin’ for a place to sleep.”
“She’s a plump creature—for an elf, leastways.”
“Didja know they eat pig feed? Here, piggy, piggy! Come, pig, pig, pig! We’d like a taste of pork over here, we would!”
She held her hear up proudly and ignored them. They continued making animal noises at the woman, and even louder and less-savory comments. I felt my face flush in indignation. No one should be oinked at, I thought, not even a whore. I got up from my breakfast and crossed the hall in a few swift strides.
“May I be of assistance, m’lady?” I asked.
Pulling the scarf away from her face, she looked me up and down. She took in my unusual height, the elaborate nature of my clothing, and my fiery red hair. “You are the man I’ve been looking for,” she said bluntly. The drunks collapsed in giggles. I blushed furiously, despite the suspicion she was referring to my professional services.
“You are the one they call the Red Mage, yes?” she continued.
“Yes I am. Edward Red Mage. How may I be of service?”
“I have heard that you are a great sorcerer, that you find truth wherever it lies, and that you are a friend to elves,” she said. “I believe a murder has been done. I need proof. Can you tell if a man has been poisoned?”
I was a little surprised at the “great sorcerer” bit. I thought of myself as a fairly competent wizard-for-hire, but that was all. Obviously the stories going around about my activities the previous summer were getting better in the telling.
“Can you tell if a man has been poisoned?” she repeated “I rode two hours from Portsmouth to find you.”
“Yes m’lady, I can,” I said. “I can detect the presence of poison, at any rate. It’s quite simple. . . .”
“Then return with me at once. My carriage is waiting outside.”
“Let me get my tools,” I said. I threw one last, longing glance at my porridge, now congealing into a gray clot in my bowl, and bounded up the stairs, two at a time, to fetch my bag and a cloak.
The woman was waiting by the door, an impatient frown creasing her dark eyebrows. We stepped outside into the winter dawn. It was cold. My breath fogged the air, the walls of the tavern were laced with frost, and even the muck of the street was frozen solid. It was still barely light. Normally, I wouldn’t have ben awake so early, but it had simply been too damned cold to stay in my cot, and I’d come down for an early breakfast, hoping that warmth in my belly would eventually spread to my hands and feet. No chance of that now, I thought ruefully. Who is this woman, I wondered as I helped her into her carriage and climbed in behind her, and who has died that she’d have her coachman take her out looking for a wizard two hours before dawn?
She was a very attractive woman, I decided as the light increased. The drunks’ comments notwithstanding, she was not particularly large, just plumper than one might expect of an elf. She did have, however, a spectacular bosom. The low roof of the carriage caused me to stoop, and, since I was seated across from her, I had a very good view of what cleavage was still visible under the mass of her jewelry. Large breasts and fair skin were not features generally associated with the dark complexioned, slightly-built elves. The shape of her ears, though, was decidedly elven, giving her an exotic glamour. I supposed she was of mixed race. When she finally spoke to me, as the carriage clattered over the South Gate Bridge out of Belcamp, she confirmed my suspicion.
“My name is Zora,” she began, looking through a gap in the carriage’s window curtains at the hovels of the elves, which clustered at the foot of the bridge. “My grandmother, widowed at an early age, joined the other elf women who work the South Gate. My grandfather was one of her clients, she never knew whom. My mother, wanting more from life but unable to seek a better trade, gave herself as a virgin to a nobleman who desired a mistress. My father was a Lord among your people, though your law does not recognize me as even existing. I followed my mother’s path, and until last night I was the lover of Baron Hubert of Portsmouth.”
“What happened last night?” I asked.
“Hubert got married,” she said. “And then he died. When I came to him years ago, he was a widower with no heirs. I always understood he intended to marry again. I had no quarrel with young Agnes Glazier. Hubert had promised to rent a home in Belcamp for me, and support me until. . . .” She paused. “He owed me nothing according to the laws of your people, but he was a fair man, and he did love me.”
“Did you love him?”
Zora smiled ruefully. “Hubert was neither young nor handsome, but he was a good man, and kind. Yes, I loved him.”
“What makes you think he was poisoned?”
The courtesan laughed, a bitter, barking sound. “They are saying he ate himself to death. Now I ask you, does that make sense? That a man would willingly eat until it killed him?”
A couple of my sisters had often avowed that that would be my fate, but I had tried not to take them too seriously. “No, Mistress Zora, it does not. I think you had better tell me everything that happened last night. Don’t leave anything out. Sometimes the smallest details can be the most important.”
As we rode, Zora told me her story. The marriage of old Baron Hubert to Agnes Glazier had been arranged for some time, and had only been postponed until she came of age. Her father, Arnold Glazier, was common born but wealthy, the head of the glass-workers guild. I had encountered him before. He was cold, brusque, and businesslike. I could believe he could marry a sixteen-year-old girl to a sixty-year-old widower, if it meant combining his money with a title and control of a prosperous city. I was not sure I believed he could murder. In my opinion he was too much of a stickler for rules.
Zora had been no secret to anyone in the Baron’s court, and although he had agreed to give up her company as a condition of the marriage, Hubert had insisted she still remain part of his household and had even gone so far as to insist she be present at the wedding feast, though seated at the far end of the hall.
“I think Arnold Glazier poisoned the truffles,” Zora told me. �
��He presented Hubert with a gift of rare truffles—to insure the birth of a male heir, he said.” Zora sniffed. “They were served in a dish with oysters. I remember Hubert saying they didn’t taste right.”
“So he didn’t eat more than a taste of them?”
“Oh, he ate them all right. He would eat anything. But I remember he said he didn’t think the oysters had been cleaned properly. Personally, I think it was the truffles. I think Glazier poisoned Hubert, so that Agnes would become sole Baroness. Then Glazier could control all of Portsmouth through her, and not just Glass Island.
“I was not there when he died,” she continued. “One of the maid servants, who has been a friend to me, came and woke me and told me what had happened. Hubert had gone to his bedchamber with his wife, complaining of pains in his belly. Not ten minutes had passed before Agnes came calling for help, saying Hubert was dying. He was vomiting blood, and as the servants watched, he went into convulsions and died.”
The more I heard about this case, the gladder I was I’d missed breakfast.
“He could very well have been poisoned,” I said. “As head of the glass guild, Arnold Glazier would have access to any number of deadly pigments—the substances used to give glass color. I know as little about the process as anyone outside the guild, but my grandfather is a book-copyist, and he taught us all very early never to get any of the paint in our mouths. I’m sure the glass-makers’ colors are made with the same stuff, and just as deadly when swallowed.”
“So you believe Glazier murdered him?”
I paused. “I have met Master Glazier before. He was serving as a King’s Judge at the time. I thought him to be a man who revered and obeyed the law, if a bit cold. But the thought of ruling a city would be enough to tempt many men.”
Zora looked earnestly into my eyes. “It means everything to me that Glazier not be allowed to take control of Hubert’s household. He will cast me out penniless, I know it, and I fear I will not find another nobleman willing to take me in. Not that I am too old, mind you,” she added quickly, “but I have . . . other considerations. I will pay you whatever you ask if you can prove Hubert was poisoned. I have jewels that are my own,” she said, indicating her necklaces, “gifts from Hubert, and if they are not enough. . . .” She smiled meltingly at me. “I belong to no man now.”
I’m sure even in the dim light inside the carriage Zora could see my face redden. “Ah . . . I . . .um . . . ah . . . I would never, um, presume to, ah, take advantage of a woman in her time of bereavement.”
Justice Is Served: an Edward Red Mage short mystery Page 1
