by Gayle Greeno
No point in saying precisely how or why, that Kharm could discern the truth, determine who lied or not. Not that easy for someone to grasp—or believe. “Why? Why should you? Why involve yourself, stranger?”
That ice-chilled word again, “stranger.” Frozen outside, someone who didn’t belong, had no stake in the proceedings, no rights. But that might serve his purpose. “Because being a stranger means I’m not biased, not partial to either side, able to examine the facts as I find them. Besides, it’s not just which questions you ask but how you ask, which answers you accept at face value and those that conceal something beneath the surface, even when the surface seems firm.”
She sounded weary, longing to be left in peace. “I’ll repeat it, why involve yourself? Why not trudge along to the next town? Leave our problems behind you, like shaking the dust from your feet.” She studied him, trying to determine his motivation, but she hadn’t that kind of skill, always surprised when people weren’t as straightforward as she. Kind and decisive as well, and brave but troubled. That and more he’d learned about her, both from his own observation and Kharm’s clear liking. “Vandersma? Not related to Manuel Vandersma?”
Matty’s head jerked at the unexpected identification with Manuel Vandersma, his father. Whether absent or present, Manuel Vandersma would haunt him, the very name a scathing contradiction of the characteristics Matty strove to epitomize. Unfair, given that he hadn’t laid eyes on his father in ten years, a weak man who gave the lie to everything his own father, Amyas, represented. Some of the first generation born on Canderis had rebelled at the loss of a future, gone weak, sunk into despair, or worse. What reputation Manuel had here and now, he could well imagine and hardly supposed it worth bragging about—it never was. A guarded nod served as his answer.
“Which means you’re Amyas Vandersma’s grandson. Neither’s a bad relationship to claim.” The little girl waggled stretched fingers at Kharm, while Rema nervously tugged her daughter’s arm away. “What is that beast? You haven’t tamed one of the larchcats, have you?”
“No,” Matty laughed as Kharm slipped closer and the girl’s hand reached toward the long, tantalizing flow of fur that begged to be petted. The tiny hand stroked, Kharm smoothly reversing herself to remove her tail from temptation. “But she’s doing her best to tame and train me. Complains at the effort all the time.” He paused. “Have you seen my father lately?”
She rose, decisive, two-year-old balanced on hip, the girl still tethered by one hand, face pouty at leaving the ghatta. “Yes. Why don’t we talk further? Back at my house. Dinner for tonight if you’d like, a place to stay for a few days if you want ... if I want. We’ve much to discuss.”
He followed, obedient, wondering if this bordered on acceptance, but starkly aware how quickly, like grains of sand sifting between suddenly parted fingers, acceptance could drain away. A start, at least, and a chance to discover his father’s whereabouts, other things as well. If he could prove his worth, carve out a place for himself, belong.
Sun high and hot on his head, squinting at the glare, Matty knelt in the center of the square, townsfolk ringed around him, while Rema Pelsaert sat on a stool behind him. Kendall Coornhert, the deceased’s brother, the plea-bringer in the case paced around a stool at Matty’s right, while the defendant, Lorris Stralforth, sat tensely on a chair to the left, arms tied behind the chair’s back. Wetting his lips, he rehearsed everything he, Rema, and her husband Flaven had feverishly discussed through the night and this morning. Spacer’s doom, he couldn’t keep it straight, make the order right! How to handle this, make himself accepted, trusted as an outsider?
Flaven had stressed the need for ritual, even if only the beginnings of one, a solemn ceremoniality that carried beyond the familiar businesslike hearings Rema conducted, conferred greater assurance and accord to those who listened. It was he who’d loaned the old ceremonial sword belonging to his Spacer grandfather, and Rema who’d quickly stitched a black tabard to replace the sheepskin he wore. It made him feel mature, almost confident, investing him with a certain gravity, a dignity and seriousness of purpose suitable to the task he’d undertaken. Made him conspicuous as the neutral observer officiating over the questioning. What it didn’t do was cancel the pinch of his too-small boots, freshly polished, constricting cramped toes wishing heartily for release.
Kharm sat facing him, sleekly striped, whiskers widespread and inquisitive, ears tracking the crowd’s sounds. No one had any idea of her importance, how he depended on her. Hinting at it to Rema and Flaven, alluding to her abilities had gotten him nowhere, Rema distracted and fondly grumbling as she swept up the sawdust that showered out of Flaven’s cuffs and boots, even his pockets, Flaven apologizing for not having brushed himself outside but protesting that at least he wasn’t late for dinner. “Late for dinner and you brought me mud instead of sawdust last night,” Rema’d teased. Mayhap he’d chosen that moment on purpose, hoping no one would pay attention, fearing it would thwart his acceptance, adjudged mad or worse. Like father, like son, they’d think.
Rema came behind him, placed both hands on his shoulders. “I name Matthias Vandersma, son of Manuel Vandersma and grandson of Amyas Vandersma, as our interlocutor to question, seek after the truth.” That his father’s name carried weight continued to puzzle him; Rema had refused to explain, saying it wasn’t her place to do so, but if he continued on his travels, he might learn soon enough. “He knows us not, nor has he formed an opinion of us, of who is right and who is wrong. Who speaks truth and who speaks lies. Given the town’s partisanship in this case, fairness demands the selection of an outsider to ask the questions, determine the veracity of accuser and accused. And only I, as your duly elected Conciliator, can pass judgment at the end. Do you object?”
Mutterings from the crowd, but no outright dissent, a certain breathless relief in trusting a neutral outsider. One who would quickly, without doubt, validate their claims of Lorris Stralforth’s guilt. At least the rope wasn’t in sight.
He switched his level gaze from Stralforth to Coornhert, unhurried, forcing them to meet his eye, while he strove to check his own emotions. “Be this your Choice or do ye Choose to await another neutral hearer?” Rema intoned.
“Get on with it,” growled Kendall Coornhert, while Lorris Stralforth swallowed a lump, eyes darting, assessing the potential for escape, his chest rising shallow and fast like a frightened bird. All the nervous reactions of guilt.
Laying the sword horizontally in front of him like a barrier, Matty jerked it partway from its scabbard, amused at the crowd’s quick intake of breath, the palpable silence. Let them interpret it as they would. Flaven had the right of it—a ritualistic action often assumes a deeper hidden meaning. Obscured even from him, sometimes. Let them believe he’d lop off their heads for lying—better than confessing to the fidgets.
“I call the first witness, Datrian Ballou.” Reluctant, Ballou stepped forward. “Tell us what you found, sir, on the afternoon two days past.”
“Herded the cows down to drink before taking them back to milk. Stream’s on Coornhert property, Horst and Kendall inherited from their father, but they’ve given me leave to water there.”
“Grazing rights?” Matty queried.
“Nay, not graze, though.” A slight squirm of his dark spade beard, as if it independently protested.
“Not without payment,” Kharm ’spoke Matty. “Ballou’s offered several times, more than he paid their father, but not enough to satisfy the Coornherts. They’d rather leave the field wild than settle for what they consider less than a fair price.”
He pondered that. So the Coornhert sons were greedy and stubborn, capable of flaunting their wealth, turning Ballou’s offer into an insult. “Both of them, Kharm?” he mindspoke, nervous at distracting himself with unimportant background while Ballou waited, beard twitching, to reveal what he’d found.
“Both, but Horst was more obvious about it.”
He forced himself to concentrate. “And what did yo
u find there at the stream that afternoon, Mr. Ballou?”
“Found Horst half-in, half-out, head bashed in, water running bloody.” Tiny bright eyes peeped between the bushy beard and a thatch of wild, dark hair, saucy as wrens in a shrub, flickering with enjoyment as he dragged out his revelation. “And Stralforth straddling the body, hefting a dripping rock, ready to bash him again in case once hadn’t been enough.”
“What makes you so sure he planned to hit him?” A near slip, he’d almost followed Ballou’s lead and said “hit him again”—tacit agreement that Stralforth had struck the first blow.
Belligerently, “What else was he going to do with it?”
“He believes what he’s saying, and Horst was dead when he arrived. Ask how Lorris looked, what the ground was like. He’s stored details in his head, hasn’t analyzed them.”
Wonderful, what was he supposed to ask? “Was Stralforth wet?” A nod from Ballou. “How wet?”
“What do you mean how wet?”
“Was he splashed, soaked?”
A narrowed look as he dredged his brain. “No ... no, just his hands and shirt cuffs.” A pause for recollection. “A few drip splotches on his pants from picking up the wet rock.”
“Wouldn’t it be reasonable that Horst Coornhert’s body would have heavily splashed him when it fell into the stream? Or when the rock landed there? Was the bank churned wet and muddy as if there’d been a struggle?”
A reluctant “Aye.”
“Ask him what he did when Lorris picked up the rock and he saw Horst’s body in the stream.”
Matty relayed the question as if it were his own, throttled a burgeoning impatience. Why didn’t Kharm simply tell him, not make him circle and circle for the scent of truth? But if he learned the truth without leading his listeners to it, he’d appear to have been touched by a revelation from on high—worse yet, be taken for a meddling Resonant.
“Shouted, of course. Yelled at him not to hit Horst again, and came running.”
“You said the bank was muddy. Any footprints by the body or near it?”
“What kind of footprints?” Kharm interjected and Matty saw Stralforth wore clogs that termites had apparently snacked on.
“What do you mean? O’course there was footprints. Horst’s and Lorris’s. Added my own when I shoved Lorris aside and dragged Horst clear of the water.”
“And Lorris didn’t run while you rescued Horst?”
“No,” a tiny acknowledgment issued from Ballou’s beard. “Tried to help me drag him up on the verge.”
Matty turned, whispered to Rema, “Have many people visited the site since Horst died?”
“I don’t ... know,” she sounded thoughtful. “I suppose enough to carry Horst back. What do you mean?”
“How close to the stream would the curious venture? Would any original prints still show?”
Her hands squeezed his shoulders, but her voice sounded calm. “Possibly. Shall we go look?”
“No, send someone who can track well, preferably several sure of Lorris’s guilt.”
The wait seemed to expand, swallow him until he feared he’d sink under the pressure of silent eyes, but worth it in the end. Two jumbled sets of boot prints marred the stream bank, small rocks in the water disarranged, rolled clean side up. A set of clog prints angled toward where Horst’s body had lain, and moccasin prints overlaid some of these as well as the boot prints beside the ruts Horst’s boots had carved when Ballou dragged him clear.
“So someone else was with Horst late that afternoon?” his voice invited the crowd to participate, learn along with him. “And that someone wore boots, not clogs, like Lorris here, or our moccasined dairyman, Mr. Ballou.” He left that niggling seed of doubt to root, began to question Kendall Coornhert. “Mr. Coornhert, you admit you didn’t witness Horst’s death, but you’re convinced Lorris Stralforth killed him. Why so?”
In a hardscrabble, make-do world, Kendall Coornhert radiated sleek complacency, too well-fed, too well-dressed, someone who always collected the lion’s share while the rest contented themselves with scraps. Whether his prosperity was justified, his business acumen a cut above the average citizen’s, wasn’t the issue, but he fascinated Matty, the man so unlike his father Manuel. “Because he’s hated us, been jealous from the very beginning. Always wanting what he hasn’t got but lacking the guts to do what it takes to get it.” Well, that answered part of Matty’s internal question. “Be it work hard for it, pay the price asked, whatever’s needful to obtain something. Everything he touches goes bad, turns sour. Ballou even had to turn him off from the dairy, Lorris spoiled so much milk.” The crowd laughed dutifully.
“What would he gain from killing Horst?”
It struck Matty as curious as well; Kendall’s dismissal of Lorris’s ineffectualness almost enough to clear him. “What does your brother’s death gain him?”
“Don’t know for sure. Doubt if he needed a reason, malcontent that he is.” Kendall shifted weightily from foot to foot, imprinting himself on the earth. Polished boots without a stain of wet or muck. “ ’Course Horst made some personal loans on the side, never spoke much about them, but I’m checking his records to see no one escapes a Coornhert debt.” A barking cough split the air, and a voice that carried, “Never have and never will.” Kendall swung at the words, a condemnatory, level stare. “If you owe, you owe. And you pay—with interest.” Not a threat but an implacable fact; Matty didn’t need Kharm to tell him that.
“The Coornhert brothers aren’t well-liked. In fact, they didn’t even like each other,” Kharm contributed.
“Then why is everyone so upset he’s dead?”
“Because it upsets things as they know it. They’re used to being under Horst’s thumb, afraid Kendall’s may prove even heavier.” The sophistication of her analysis surprised him, an ability to unravel human nuances whether she fully comprehended them or not. Nor was he convinced he comprehended them any better, but he was beginning to understand, like it or not. “And everyone disliked Lorris because he constantly grumbled, threw their dependence on Horst in their faces whenever they tried to forget. And for all that, he was no better at escaping it than they were.” Khar twisted to wash the base of her tail. “Why are humans so bitter?”
He didn’t know, couldn’t dredge an answer to satisfy himself, let alone her. “Did the brothers dislike each other enough for Kendall to kill Horst?” The thought brightened in his mind, beckoning irresistibly, the solution so simple.
“He might have liked to, but he didn’t,” Kharm sighed a wispy regret. “And you won’t like the truth, either. Nor will the townfolk. I’m sorry.”
“Well then, who killed him?” Matty’s patience wore thin. “Tell me, now! Otherwise I have to keep asking Kendall questions. ”
“It’s not just uncovering the truth, it’s convincing everyone it’s the truth, yourself included.” The ghatta spared a glance at Rema, continued grooming. “Talk with Lorris for a while. ”
“Mr. Stralforth?” The man’s meandering eyes gradually focused on him. His pasty complexion reminded Matty of bread dough, soft, yielding, yet ready to expand with a desperate bravado, a morbid pleasure in making himself disliked. “Why were you at the stream?”
Stralforth rocked against his bonds, slumped back. “Why not? Nothing wrong with traveling across it. If we had to avoid trespassing on every bit of owned land, we’d be in for some mighty big detours.”
Matty sighed. “Had you planned to meet Horst Coornhert there?”
“Absolutely not. No desire to see him if I could help it.”
“Why were you holding the rock?”
Stralforth’s features screwed tight. “Didn’t look properlike, rock on his head, him half-draped in the stream like a discarded sack. Mayhap I’ve more respect for the dead than for the living, but didn’t like seeing him that way.”
Spacer’s glory! The man actually exhibited a minor sympathy, fellow feeling for another human. “Was there anything odd about the scene, ou
t of place?”
“Other than Horst kissing the stream?” Well, so much for sympathy; Stralforth had rekindled the crowd’s displeasure, needful as mother’s milk to him.
“Stream bank had a dusting of raw sawdust, fresh, coarse wood chips. Didn’t look like anything’d been sawn or chopped nearby.” A shallow grin stretched the scab by the comer of his mouth where he’d been hit by a brick fragment. “Who’d dare on Coornhert land? Cutting through he might allow, cutting down—never.”
One of the volunteer trackers, Dunbar, who’d been sent to check by the stream, waved for recognition. It took Matty a moment to notice, something about the man so self-effacing that he blended into the background. Not a bad trait when hunting. He gestured for him to speak. “Sawdust and rough grindings there was. Still there, ground-in and soggy now, but still fresh and bright-colored, not gray and crumbling.” A hesitant apology in his voice, Matty couldn’t judge why.
And then, though he couldn’t see it, he felt it against his back, a wary tension radiating from Rema. As if she’d gone stiff with apprehension. It made him shiver through the black tabard, a presentiment that maddeningly refused to rise to his consciousness, and Kharm remained stubbornly silent. “Mr. Dunbar, how many men in town work at the sawmill?”
“Ah,” his throat constricted, Dunbar cast a pleading look skyward, unwilling to meet anyone’s eyes. “Ah, it’s Flaven Pelsaert’s mill, runs it with two hired hands, Twyser brothers. Trees enough to saw, demand for lumber’s greater than Flav can fill—that’s why Coornherts planned on building a bigger mill.” Duty done, he sought camouflage amongst his neighbors.
A tingling enthusiasm, impatience. Now he was on the trail of something, something that would explain everything! “Are the Twyser brothers present?” So obvious, once he had the clues in hand! Even Rema had discerned where this would lead before he had. Two young men of perhaps twenty eased forward, both large and awkward at the attention, big hands twining in front of them, broad, empty faces confused. Matty stiffled a groan. Hardly a coherent brain between them, both simpleminded but strong enough to do what Flaven needed.
