Murder in Cormyr

by Chet Williamson

  “As for the third thing, beside a few severed fingers, I note the presence of several small shards—”

  “Of clear glass!” I volunteered, wanting them to know that I had seen the clues, too.

  “Very good, Jasper,” said Benelaius with a trace of sarcasm that only I would have noticed. “And your conclusion?”

  “Um … something broke?”

  “Yes. But what?”

  “Something … made of glass …” I suspect Captain Flim would have done as well as I.

  “The glass is curved, is it not?” said my master. “And what is partially made of curved glass that a human might require out in a pitch-black swamp?”

  “A lantern!” This from Doctor Braum, just before I was about to say it.

  “Correct,” said Benelaius. “This glass, if I’m not mistaken, is part of a broken panel from the metal housing of a bullseye lantern.”

  “So Dovo had a lantern out here,” said Tobald. “He’d need one in the dark. So how does that prove that Fastred’s ghost was not involved?”

  Benelaius looked about the ground eloquently. I saw what he meant. “It proves it right enough,” said I. “The lantern’s gone. But what need would a ghost have for a lantern? And a broken one at that? Someone human did this deed.”

  “And you, Jasper,” said Benelaius, “have seen him, from mere feet away.”

  11

  Well, that stopped everybody dead in their tracks. They all turned and looked at me in amazed expectation, except for Captain Flim and his men, who were still in their uninvolved professionals mode.

  At first my mind was a blank, and then it hit me. “The rider,” I said. “The rider I passed last night.”

  “You see,” Benelaius explained, “after Jasper saw Dovo as the ghost last night, he … retreated down the road to the west, alerted a farmer, had a wee stay with him, and then returned. Between this spot and the road to Ghars, he met …?”

  “A … a man … I think, riding a dark horse.”

  “Did you see him?” asked Tobald.

  “No … I mean, I don’t even know if it was a man. It could have been anyone. The person was all bundled up.”

  “And what time was this?” asked Doctor Braum.

  “Between midnight and one.”

  “How long has Dovo been dead, doctor?” said Benelaius. “Your best estimate.”

  Doctor Braum knelt by the corpse, muttering. “Easier to say when the head’s attached …” He pressed the dead flesh, then rolled the body over. All of us gasped—even Flim and his Dragons gave a quick breath—when we saw Dovo’s mutilated hand. “There’s where those fingers came from, Benelaius,” said Braum, “as if we couldn’t have guessed.” Braum poked and prodded a little more, then said, “Roughly, between ten and twelve hours.”

  “That fits,” I said. “That rider could have been the killer.” I felt suddenly faint as I realized how close I might have come to death. What had there been to prevent the killer from hewing me in two as well, except, of course, that he had left the axe with his victim? I would have sat down had there been any place where my buttocks wouldn’t have sunk into muck.

  “Think, Jasper,” Tobald urged. “Wasn’t there anything about this person you can recall? Was it a skilled or an unskilled rider? Did they sit as if they were dwarven or elven or human? Male or female? Can’t you recall even that? Man or woman?”

  As if destined, a hail came from up on the road. We turned to look and saw the womanly vision that had entered the Bold Bard the previous night. Kendra was straddling a dark gray horse. A heavy hooded cloak enveloped her completely, so that, had I not seen her face, I could not have told whether she was a male or a female rider.

  That thought at that time gave me pause. But I did see her face, framed by that halo of red hair, and it looked down with cold eyes on the scene of slaughter. She dismounted with the grace of one born in the saddle, adjusted her cloak so that the hilts of her weapons preceded her, and walked toward our merry band.

  When she was close enough to see the features on the face of the severed head, she examined it appraisingly, looked at the axe and the torso in armor, and then nodded. “I see that fool at the tavern last night has been even more foolish. So this is the ghost that’s been haunting the Vast Swamp, eh? It seems someone wasn’t amused by the joke.”

  She had put it together quickly, too quickly for Captain Flim’s taste. “How did you know he was posing as the ghost?”

  She gave a half-laugh. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? Even to a Purple Dragon captain.”

  The comment did not endear her to Flim. “You’re Kendra, aren’t you? I’ve heard about you. You’re the adventuress who held a dagger to this lad’s throat last night!”

  “Aye,” she answered, “and would have used it, too, and gladly.” She glared back down at both parts of the corpse. “He was a pig and a fool, and I for one am not sorry to see such men die.”

  “Nor would you be sorry to kill them?” Captain Flim said.

  “A knife’s my weapon, Captain, not an axe.”

  “So where were you last night after you left the tavern?”

  She looked at Flim indignantly. “Are you accusing me, Captain? Do you wish to arrest me?”

  “I’m just asking, madam!”

  “Very well then, I’ll tell you. I left the tavern after only a few drinks, rode my horse to a place south of town, and there, among a copse of trees, I slept through the night.”

  “And then?” pursued the captain.

  “I got up.”

  “To what purpose?”

  “To the purpose of adventuring. That’s what I do. You’re a soldier, you soldier. I’m an adventuress, I adventure. Whee.”

  I glanced at Benelaius to see if he might try to direct the conversation more efficiently, but he was merely smiling and seeming to enjoy the exchange. That’s what comes of not getting out more.

  “Then where are you bound now?” said Captain Flim.

  “To the Vast Swamp. If you must know, I’m looking for Fastred’s treasure. I know, it’s only a legend, but I’ve often found that legends have their bases in truth.”

  “You’re mighty late starting out,” Flim said, cocking his head and peering at her through his Purple Dragons’ headgear. “Most adventurers would have started out far earlier than you. Something keep you up last night?”

  “No, something kept me down this morning—a ride all the way from Wheloon yesterday and an encounter with two thieves on the way, which I wouldn’t have had to deal with if the military of this country took its job more seriously.”

  That smarted. Flim nearly staggered back as if struck. Then he composed himself and asked, “Where were these highwaymen? I shall send a squadron after them immediately!”

  “Never mind, they’re both dead. Sorry I had to break your little peacestring rule, but I didn’t have a choice. Now, any more questions?”

  “Where will we be able to reach you?” Flim said officiously.

  Kendra smiled and made a sweeping gesture toward the swamp. “In there. I’ll stop back in Ghars when I come out. If I don’t come out, well”—she looked at me and recognized me from the tavern—“raise a glass to me, will you?”

  “Gladly, madam,” I said. “Go well.”

  She turned around, the hem of her cloak billowing and catching the captain’s shins. He winced, and I knew then the hem was lined with orc spikes. Clever girl. The captain said nothing, however. Brave lad.

  We watched her walk back to her horse, and even her manly garb could not disguise the sensuous motion beneath.

  “Quite a woman,” said Lindavar.

  “Yes indeed,” Benelaius agreed. “Although she has the largest pair of feet I’ve ever seen on a female. Perhaps that’s how she holds her stirrups so well.”

  12

  I must confess that the last place I had looked on Kendra’s dramatic form was her feet. But as I glanced down at the tracks she had left in the soft ground, I saw that Benelaius was right.r />
  “Could she have been the one you saw last night, Jasper?” Tobald asked me, watching Kendra’s departing form.

  “She could have been,” I said. “She’s tall enough. But then so are a hundred other people in Ghars.”

  “Let’s retain her in the backs of our minds,” said Benelaius, “and see what else we might find. Doctor Braum, as you examine the body—and the head—what do you determine to be the cause of Dovo’s death?”

  Braum frowned in confusion. “Well, it’s difficult to live when your head and body are in two different places.”

  “Indeed. But how was the fatal blow struck?”

  “Hard?” suggested Captain Flim.

  “Certainly. But upon what side did it strike the victim? By determining this, we might be able to learn something about the killer.”

  The light in Braum’s eyes turned on. “Ah, I see! The fingers of his left hand are cut off, which means that he probably put up that hand to ward off the blow …”

  “Fat chance of doing that,” Flim said.

  “So,” said Tobald excitedly, getting in the game, “in all likelihood he was facing his slayer … and he was struck on the left side … so that means the killer struck with his”—he paused a moment and mimed swinging an axe—“his right hand!”

  “Yes!” Dr. Braum agreed. “So we must look for a right-handed killer!”

  Captain Flim snorted. “Oh, that makes it easy. Who am I supposed to be, Camber Fosrick?” It seemed that the captain was yet another fan of the great consulting cogitator.

  “It’s true, Captain,” said Mayor Tobald. “This really isn’t much to go on. There were a few people who Dovo had rough words with last night. Rolf, for one.”

  “And Barthelm Meadowbrock for another,” I said. “Not to mention Kendra. And they’re not the only ones. I know of a number of people Dovo’s offended in some manner. He’s cuckolded his share of husbands, I’ve heard. With all due respect,” I said, nodding at the corpse, “he wasn’t the most liked fellow in Ghars.”

  Tobald shrugged. “Well, Captain Flim, I have much to do in preparing for the arrival of the Merchants’ Guild council, so I’m going to leave this business in your capable hands. Return the body to town, and please inform the widow. Then begin the search for the perpetrator of this deed.”

  “Begging your pardon, sir,” said Captain Flim, “but my duty to my garrison must come first. What with the threat of Zhentarim and Iron Throne agents, most of my time is spent overseeing efforts to apprehend them.”

  “If I might make a suggestion,” said Benelaius, “why not let Jasper and Lindavar and I pursue this problem? Under Captain Flim’s supervision, of course.”

  “Sounds good to me.” Flim sounded relieved.

  “After all,” Benelaius went on after nodding his thanks, “I am a former War Wizard, Lindavar is a present one, and Jasper can prove quite valuable as my eyes and ears.” Then he smiled at me the way a mother dog smiles at her runt. “Besides, he has read a Camber Fosrick book.”

  “So be it!” cried Tobald. “And thank you, good Benelaius. I knew that when you came to dwell here you would prove a valuable addition to our community. If I can be of any service, let me know. I hereby make you and your friends honorary magistrates of Ghars, with all of the rights appertaining to that position. Go where you like, and question whomever you wish on my authority.”

  “I thank you, good Mayor Tobald,” Benelaius said, I think to shut Tobald up as much as anything. “Lindavar and Jasper and I will return to my home now to discuss our next step.”

  And that’s just what we did, leaving the mayor and the doctor to ride back to Ghars and the Dragons to follow with the dead Dovo. I prepared my master and his guest a tasty luncheon, in which he invited me to share as we discussed the murder.

  “Jasper,” Benelaius said, “I want you to go to Ghars this afternoon. Use your intuition. Talk to people. See what their reactions are to Dovo’s death. Aunsible Durn might be able to shine some light on Dovo’s activities. He was, after all, Durn’s assistant.

  “I suppose there’s always a chance that he could have been the victim of highwaymen. The envoy Grodoveth travels more than anyone else in town. If he has not yet departed, you might ask him whether he had seen any suspicious parties in his travels. Also, I wonder what happened to Dovo’s outer garments. And his horse, for that matter. He surely didn’t walk out there wearing armor.

  “So put your ear to the ground, Jasper. Spend another evening at the Bold Bard. Stop at the Swamp Rat on the way home. Pretend you’re”—he sighed—“Camber Fosrick. And do try to be back before midnight.”

  “I’ll do my best, sir,” I said, though nettled by the Camber Fosrick crack. I didn’t know what better role model I could find.

  “And even if you learn absolutely nothing,” Benelaius concluded, “the trip won’t be a total loss.” He handed me a huge volume that I had hauled from the tiny Ghars library a few weeks before. “Return this, won’t you?”

  13

  Jenkus was not at all cheerful about the prospect of another ride so soon after his hauling Benelaius’s carcass back and forth to the murder site, but he had no more choice than I did. Secretly, I was delighted with the prospect of investigating this murder. There’s nothing like a headless corpse to bring a touch of excitement into one’s life.

  I had, after all, taken quite a step in the past twenty-four hours—from being an errand boy to being a government-licensed criminal investigator. Perhaps, using what Benelaius had already taught me and what I would learn from this experience, I could make it my career when I received my freedom a few days hence.

  But my first duty in Ghars was the mundane one of returning Benelaius’s book to the library. I glanced at the name on the binding and saw that it was another deadly dull treatise on natural science—The Internal Structure of the Brachiopod by Professor Linnaeus Gozzling of the University of Suzail. Dreadful stuff, but Benelaius gobbled it up by the double handsful.

  It was just after four by the time I lumbered into Ghars, plenty of time to return the book before the library closed. The library was just a large room that had been tacked on to the town hall years back. It held a gloomy assortment of material, mostly books over fifty years old, and none of the recent thrillers about Camber Fosrick, else I should have lived there.

  No, the place leaned more toward history, which was the particular passion of the librarian, Phelos Marmwitz, whose personal collection made up half the library’s holdings. There was also a decent section of natural history, philosophy, and other dry subjects, a smattering of imaginative literature, and drawers filled with dry and crumbling antique maps of Cormyr and environs, many of which were drawn in great detail but were very much out of date.

  As I entered the dark, dingy room, the smell of mildew struck me, and as always I feared for those books against the damp outer wall. “Good afternoon, Mr. Marmwitz,” I said, but the thin, wizened old man waved his hands in the air and made a hissing noise through his teeth intended to shush me.

  “Please, quiet,” Marmwitz said in a stage whisper with a voice as dry and papery as his books. “We have a patron.” And he pointed with a bony hand to a corner near one of the small windows.

  A patron was a rarity, and I was surprised to see that it was none other than Grodoveth, king’s envoy and ladies’ man, though not too hot at the latter. He looked up at me for a moment, apparently saw nothing worth further consideration, and plunged back into his reading.

  I set the brachiopod book down on the counter. Marmwitz opened it suspiciously, glanced at the due date as though he had expected it back years before, then with a nod acknowledged grudgingly that it was on time. I couldn’t resist. “Get anything new in lately?” I asked him.

  He gave a proud little smile. “A town history of Juniril,” he said. “A splendid volume, published forty years ago. Been looking for it for ages.”

  “Forty years ago,” I mused. “Not too new. Still no Camber Fosrick mysteries, eh?�
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  His face shut up like a clam sucking lemons. “We circulate only serious literature here, young man.”

  “Ah, right. I forgot.” I turned to go out, when I remembered that Benelaius had asked me to query Grodoveth about seeing any highwaymen. I wouldn’t have done it in the library, but I didn’t know if I would see the man again, and there was another reason, too.

  “Mr. Marmwitz,” I said quietly, “I want you to know that I do what I do now at the behest of my master Benelaius and with the authority of Mayor Tobald.” Then I turned to Grodoveth, who still had his nose, buried in his book. “Sir,” I said in a normal tone of voice, which boomed loudly in the quiet room, “I wonder if I might have a word with you.”

  I thought Marmwitz was going to become apoplectic. I turned back to him. “This will only take a minute, Mr. Marmwitz.” Ignoring Marmwitz’s stammering protests, I went to Grodoveth’s table and sat across from him.

  He slammed shut the book he was reading, covered its spine, and glared at me, making me wonder if he had somehow found an erotica section and was annoyed at being discovered. “What is it?” he asked brusquely.

  “I was wondering, sir, if you may have heard of the death of one of our residents.”

  “Who?”

  “Dovo. The smith’s assistant.”

  “Why would I have heard about it?”

  I shrugged. “I didn’t know but that it might be the talk of the town by now. Anyway, sir, he was killed south of town, near the Great Swamp, and my master asked me if—”

  “Who’s your master?”

  “Benelaius, sir. Used to be one of the War Wizards of Cormyr?”

  “I’ve heard of him. What’s he want?”

  “He wonders if you, in your travels about the realm, might have heard of any bands of brigands who would kill their victims in that manner.”

  He looked at me slyly. “What manner?”

  “Oh, I forgot to say. He was beheaded, sir. With an axe. We think he was pretending to be the ghost that’s supposed to haunt the swamp.”