Joel Rosenberg - [D'Shai 01] - D'Shai

by Joel Rosenberg - [D'Shai 01]

  But, it didn’t hurt. I didn’t need air. Air carried water, and water would rust me.

  I needed to be stroked with a nice coat of oil, and then slip into a warm, dry sheath, and wait, to be grasped by firm, clever, knowing hands, to be released into the bright sunlight or the dark of the night, to cut and bite, to part skin and muscle, to cleave through bone, to drink warm, warm blood, living blood.

  Can you hear me?

  Of course I could hear the soft one. Clean me, soft one. There is cold blood on me, and it wishes to rust me. I don’t wish to rust.

  Did you kill him?

  Yes, of course I had killed, and it felt good.

  I was supposed to cut, to kill, I had been made to kill, to cut, that was what I was for. Killing is the way of a sword, it is a last third of the way of the sword. The second third is to block, to frustrate the others of my kind, and the first third is to wait for the killing, dry and warm and pleasantly oily in a sheath.

  I am waiting for you. To clean me, soft one. To put me in a sheath. To drink of your blood.

  But first, foremost, to clean me.

  Who wielded you?

  Strong, knowing hands, stronger and more knowing than those of him who had made me, but other than that I didn’t know, because I didn’t care. Hands that knew enough to use me, and not one of the lesser swords by my side.

  Who wielded you?

  A sword cares about the strength of the hands, about the cleverness of the hands, not about the name of the wielder. Soft fools, all.

  Do you care that you killed your maker?

  Oh, of course I care. How could I not care? He bled warmly, he struggled vainly, he raised his own sword, but I batted it aside, and then I parted his skin and muscle, parted them to the bone over and over again. I drank his blood.

  He was wonderful.

  Who wielded you? That idiot, Kami Khuzud, wants to know.

  Idiot indeed. Soft fool. To move, to be still, soft one—it is all the same to me. I don’t care; I don’t know whose strong hands, except that I want more strong hands wielding me.

  Soon. Or soon enough.

  Dress my tang in good wood and taut silk, clean me and oil me and put me away, soft one. I need to wait, and then to block and to strike and then to drink again.

  It’s no use asking you, is it!

  Silly, silly soft one. Clean me, or let me drink.

  Something foul occupied my head and my nose, expelling the clouds, but only partway.

  My eyes sagged open. Narantir loomed over me, his beard-rimmed face creased with either concern or a reasonable simulation.

  “I thought,” I said, but the words only came out as grunts. I tried again: “I thought you said it wouldn’t hurt.”

  “I did, at that.” He shrugged. “Aren’t you a bit old to believe what a wizard tells you?”

  I got up, wobbly, and dressed, then staggered out through the door, into the daylight.

  Sun filled the courtyard, the grasses and mosses and leaves of the trees taking on that full, darker green they sometimes have after a heavy rain. From the limb of a tree high above, a redbird looked down at me and tootled an unflattering opinion. I shook my head. All that trouble to have Narantir run a magic spell and all I knew was something I’d already known: Refle had been killed by a swordsman, and no acrobat was a swordsman; only an acrobat could have entered the building from that window.

  That didn’t leave many possibilities.

  Toshtai and Crosta Natthan were the first two. They had the keys.

  Forget them. If it was either of them, I was a dead man. Besides, that just didn’t feel right. Perhaps Toshtai was a real warrior, and not just a fat ruler, but I couldn’t see him sneaking through the night to hack apart his armorer. Why bother? If he had decided that he wanted Refle dead, why not just have him killed?

  And Crosta Natthan? That was just plain silly. He was really just a bourgeois servant, elevated to our beloved ruling class as a convenience to Toshtai; there was no reason whatsoever to believe that the clumsy old man had taken up the sword.

  Dun Lidjun? Certainly, Dun Lidjun could have hacked Refle to death, if he’d wanted to. I would have bet on Dun Lidjun if faced by a hundred of the likes of Refle. But he didn’t have a way in or out of the locked room. Not without going through Lord Orazhi’s people on the third floor.

  A cold chill washed across my neck. If nothing else was possible, then somebody had come down from Lord Orazhi’s floor, coming in on a rope through the window.

  But the only people who could have gotten past Orazhi were him and his men.

  Why would Orazhi want the armorer dead? The ways of the members of our beloved ruling class are complicated. This whole mess might affect the alliance negotiations or the marriage negotiations in some subtle way that could redound to Orazhi’s benefit—it certainly couldn’t do Lord Toshtai any good. But maybe—

  No. I didn’t need to know why, if I could show how, if I could show that.

  I had eliminated everyone else; it had to be one of Orazhi’s people. And how could I prove it?

  The evidence might be there, for somebody who had eyes to see it. I had to get into the quarters, and these were well guarded, never abandoned the way Refle’s armory was. Of course, if there was going to be a performance in Orazhi’s quarters ...

  I had to talk to Gray Khuzud before the next show.

  “But why, Kami Khuzud?” he asked, checking the rigging around the trapeze platform for the thousandth time. “Why do you want me to ask this of them?”

  “Because,” I started, then stopped. “Because you trust me, Gray Khuzud,” I said.

  He looked at me a long, long time.

  We take what victories we can, Sala had said, not too long ago. Like much of what Sala said, it didn’t apply to the then-and-there, but maybe it did apply to the here and the now. Maybe she had been talking about the moment that Gray Khuzud’s head nodded, once. “Of course,” he said.

  After the performance, Lord Toshtai didn’t leave when he dismissed the crowd; he sat in his chair under the darkening sky, perhaps admiring the sunset, and certainly talking with Lord Orazhi while Gray Khuzud and I finished cleaning up the props.

  No retainers, no advisers, no guards—just the two of them.

  Just as I cleaned the final juggling stick and slid it away into the canvas bag with the others, Toshtai beckoned at me. I trotted over. A bottle of Amber Breath and two tourmaline warming-flasks stood on the table between them; Toshtai filled the flasks, then politely tasted from both before letting Orazhi choose.

  “So, Kami Khuzud,” Toshtai asked, “how goes your investigation?”

  Orazhi, leaning to one side as he sipped, watched me through eyes that were in no way a window to his mind or heart.

  “Well, Lord,” I said, more confidently than I felt, “I hope to have an answer for you sometime tomorrow, perhaps, or perhaps the day after.”

  Toshtai raised an eyebrow at that. “It would be best if you do, it would seem.”

  Orazhi didn’t seem affected one way or another. I had been hoping he would be—if he had started, and Lord Toshtai had seen it, that would have brought me a step closer.

  Maybe.

  Gray Khuzud had been loitering a polite distance away; at Toshtai’s nod of permission, he approached. “You enjoyed today’s performance, Lord Toshtai?”

  “Very much so.”

  “As did I,” Orazhi put in. “I wish you would play extra days for me when your travels take you through Glen Derenai.”

  Gray Khuzud smiled at that, smiled as though his heart wasn’t broken. “That can be arranged, Lord Orazhi, and soon, if you’d like. Our travels might take us to Glen Derenai for our performance tomorrow.”

  Orazhi smiled at that. “Are you runners as well as acrobats, Gray Khuzud?” he asked. “Even if you are, I am not.”

  “It is but a short walk to Glen Derenai,” Lord Toshtai said, smiling thinly. Toshtai had already figured it out. “Glen Derenai is, in a sense, here,
Lord Orazhi. That was your intent, Gray Khuzud?”

  “Yes. It would be convenient if tomorrow’s performance could begin in your quarters. In fact, that is where the best view might be,” Gray Khuzud said.

  Lord Orazhi seemed more amused than anything else as he nodded. “It would be my pleasure to host Lord Toshtai there,” he said, turning to Toshtai. “I never thought I’d play host to you within the confines of Den Oroshtai, Lord Toshtai.”

  The corners of Toshtai’s mouth turned down microscopically. “As well you should not, perhaps.”

  * * *

  16

  Investigation

  BEING A PEASANT and an acrobat is no particular help when you’re investigating something; it would be handier to be a swordsman.

  I spent the rest of the evening trying to find out about Orazhi, and his daughter, and Arefai, with no success. The servants either didn’t know or wouldn’t answer directly, and the soldiers wouldn’t answer at all. Even old Crosta Natthan was close-mouthed on the subject.

  Finally I presented myself at the entrance to the living quarters.

  I guess I had been accorded some status; the servitor on duty—a warrior this time—didn’t argue with me: he simply nodded, then took a brush and ink and quickly painted a note in the elegant hand that all of Toshtai’s warriors had, and sent for an attendant to take the note to Arefai.

  Only a few minutes later an ancient old woman in an equally ancient silk robe came up to the entrance. She scowled at me for a long moment. “He will see you,” she said, turning around. The back of her robes was decorated with a bear-and-snake design, very fine, very old needlework, the fiery colors long having faded to delicate pastels.

  One of the guards stepped forward to search me, but she hissed at him, and he subsided.

  “Yes, Lady Estrer,” he said.

  I started out walking the traditional three steps behind her, but she quickly brought me to her side with an impatient, imperious gesture.

  “You are that Kami Khuzud who has been making all this trouble of late,” she said.

  I didn’t think I was the one making trouble, but—“Yes, Lady. I’m very sorry.”—it doesn’t pay to argue with members of our beloved ruling class.

  “You don’t have the slightest idea who I am, do you?”

  “Well, no, Lady. I apologize for my ignorance—”

  “Enough.” She held up a bony hand. “Enough, enough. I’m an old woman, and I don’t have time for formality or silliness; I’ll likely be dead before you stop apologizing. I am Lady Estrer, sister to Lord Arefai’s mother—late mother, may she be reborn with fewer problems, poor girl.”

  She had been setting a brisk pace, but it seemed to disagree with her; she slowed down and gripped my arm, leaning heavily on me. But she wasn’t interested in saving her wind: she kept up a monologue as we walked.

  “Now, now, I used to be even prettier than that NaRee of yours. Truly I was—all of the young lords would call on me, they would, even after I was married.

  “If the little bourgeois packet lives long enough, she’ll be even more of a fright than I am, eventually. How would you fancy waking up next to such as I?” Her grin was almost infectious. “I would wager against your NaRee surviving that long, mind—preferring the attentions of a muscular young acrobat to those of a solid armorer? Brainless little chit—she’ll douche herself with lye some day, and rot her insides out.”

  Despite the insult to my beloved, I was beginning to like this old woman.

  “Even without that,” she went on, “from what Toshtai tells me, she’s much prettier than she is bright. Ah, you’re surprised that Toshtai takes notice of the comings and goings of the likes of you and her? Never be surprised, Kami Khuzud—he sees half of everything, and infers the rest.

  “Here we are.” She knocked twice on a sliding door, then slid it aside. “In-in-in, we don’t have time to wait on ceremony; I’m getting old.”

  “Ah, Kami Khuzud,” Arefai said. “You wished to see me—sit.”

  I lowered myself to a sitting pillow.

  The room surprised me. I had been expecting Arefai’s quarters to be rich and lavish, with ankle-deep rugs and soft, over-carved furniture. But Arefai’s was a single room and plain, albeit richly so.

  The floor was highly polished wood, larken-built like Refle’s wardrobe—tiled by thousands and thousands of pieces of different woods that had been glued into place, no two pieces alike, none larger than a thumbnail. Simple textured paper covered the walls, and the polished beams of the ceiling were bare and uncarved, unornamented. A neatly folded sleeping mat occupied one side of the room; sitting pillows lay scattered around the brass brazier that dominated the other side of the room. The brazier sat in a large but empty fireplace, at the moment heating a battered iron pot where a fist-sized ceramic flask rested in the simmering water.

  Arefai was dressed simply, perhaps to match the room; he wore a long black robe over black leggings. His hair was combed back without oil, and bound back with a silver headband.

  I started to speak, but Arefai raised a preemptive finger.

  “A moment,” he said, lifting the flask out with a wire loop and setting it down on the floor before him. Protecting his hands with a linen cloth, he squealed the top off and poured some of the white liquid into two fist-sized cups, presenting one to his aunt, and taking the other one for himself.

  “Yes,” he said after a quick sip. “Quite good.”

  His aunt drained her mug in one motion and beckoned for more.

  He clearly didn’t think to offer me any, but I was curious.

  “Snow Blood?” I asked.

  “Eh?”

  “In the flask.” I’ve only had Snow Blood once, and it was served at room temperature, not heated.

  “Snow Blood?” He frowned for a moment, then smiled. “Ah. No. It’s hot milk.”

  “We often drink hot milk together in the evening,” she said. “We have, ever since he was a baby.”

  “And we often will, Aunt Estrer,” Arefai said, fondly. “Now, Kami Khuzud, you wanted to talk to me about this murder?”

  I nodded. “We talked about the politics, Lord, the other day—”

  “Before Refle’s death. Yes.” He frowned, again. “This has complicated all of that. I wonder if Father and Lord Orazhi are going to be—”

  “Be still, Arefai, be still,” his aunt interrupted. “Your mouth is too much a mirror to your mind.”

  “But he—”

  She silenced him by raising a gnarled finger. “Just because he asked a question doesn’t mean you have to answer it. What business is it of a peasant’s whether or not you will marry Lady ViKay, eh?”

  “Because,” he said, his expression one of infinite patience, “I had asked him to put his inquiry into the murder of his sister aside until Lord Orazhi and Father concluded their business. If not, he might have shown that Refle had killed his sister, and then Refle might be dead differently, no?”

  “Hmpf. So it’s your fault, then.” She turned to me. “What do you really want to know?”

  I took a moment to phrase it correctly, or at least try to. “Is it possible that there might be somebody in Lord Orazhi’s party who might want to interfere with the negotiations between the two lords—enough to commit a murder?”

  “Silly acrobat.” She laughed. “Of the thirty or so in his party, I can think of five nobles who are or might be Lady ViKay’s suitors, three with ties to Patrice and Lord Demick, and twelve—certainly including Lord Orazhi—who could be devious enough to want to stall the negotiation simply to see how eager Lord Toshtai is to conclude it. And I am only an ignorant old woman—there are probably a dozen others, each with a score of other reasons. Does that help you any?”

  “More than I can say, Lady Estrer,” I said. Far more than I needed.

  I thought about it as I walked down the twisting road toward town. The jimsum trees lined the road like so many crooked soldiers; they whispered to me on the evening breeze, their st
ill-damp silken threads clinging to my face and chest as I walked. It had taken a warrior—strong, knowing hands,

  stronger and more knowing than those of him who had made me—to kill Refle.

  It would have taken a kazuh acrobat to enter Refle’s workshop in the way I had. But none of the troupe were warriors; you don’t get to be good with a sword without practice, long and hard practice.

  So: the killer hadn’t entered the way I had.

  That left two ways in: through the lock or down through the window. The keys were spoken for; the killer had, therefore, entered down through the window. It was one of Orazhi’s party, perhaps under the orders of Orazhi himself. Some warrior had lowered himself from a window on the third floor, and had surprised and killed Refle, using one of Refle’s own swords as a diversion.

  I had the explanation, but one I couldn’t use. Not directly.

  It all depended on Lord Toshtai. I would have to get him to do the hard part for me. That was the way you had to deal with nobility: show them the facts and let them work out the truth. Waving an uncomfortable fact, an awkward truth, in Toshtai’s and Orazhi’s faces would only get me killed. It would be like waving a green pennant in front of a mad ox.

  Somewhere near the window above Refle’s, the Powers willing, there was evidence that somebody had climbed out of it and into Refle’s. There had to be. I would have to find it, and show it to Toshtai, and carefully coax him down the path, letting him see that it led to Orazhi.

  But what if there was no evidence there? What if they hadn’t let the rope rub against the edge of the window, or run it over a beam and split the wood just a bit?

  Or worse, what if Lord Orazhi and his people were innocent? Never mind that, I decided. I didn’t give a bean for their innocence, but what if there wasn’t any evidence?

  That might be fixable ...

  When I got back down into town, NaRee was waiting for me in the sitting room at Madame Rupon’s.

  Madame Rupon, mildly scandalized, left us alone; “what is not seen is not,” after all.