I suppose I dreamed the footsteps before I actually heard them. But when they came into my waking mind, I knew that I had not heard the like before. It sounded like two or three horses running behind me with loose shoes, a jittery, clattery kind of sound. But after each clatter was a great thud, so that I knew there was great weight falling on the road. It was a constant da-da-BOOM, da-da-BOOM behind me, and from the sound of it, it was getting closer and closer.
Jenkus had significantly increased his speed on his own, but I spurred him nonetheless before I looked around. When I did look around, I spurred him harder
17
It was pitch-black, and we were keeping to the road more by instinct than sight, but I was able to see against the sky behind me what looked like a small mass of men and horses riding all together. Men and horses? Say rather ogres on oliphants. I swung my head around and didn’t dare to look back again.
But I did call back to them, “What is it you want?” thinking that if they cried out, “Your purse!” or “Your life!” they would be less frightening. But there was only silence except for the da-da-BOOM, which now sounded to me like a drum beating my death knell.
Now I dug my heels into Jenkus’s flanks, and he responded wonderfully. I think he was even more frightened than I. He whinnied frantically and put on a burst of speed that ruffled my cloak and blew my hair straight back. I clung to the reins with one hand and the saddlebag with the other, not wanting to lose my ill-gotten evidence.
If we outdistanced the party behind, we would be safe at Benelaius’s house, thanks to that spell of protection, one of the few spells he had cast since his retirement. It would keep out anything evil unless it were specifically invited, and I certainly didn’t intend to invite whatever was behind me.
Whatever it was, it was falling behind, giving me the leisure to think about what it could be. A band of brigands, the same ones who might have killed Dovo the night before? No, there weren’t enough footprints for a band. Then maybe a posse mistaking me for the killer? Hardly—I’d surely have known about any posse that had formed.
Or was it even, I thought with a chill that shivered me from neck to seat, the ghost of Fastred, tired of such foolishness in his name, galumphing along on hands and feet of razor-sharp axe blades?
Well, whatever it had been, it was gone now. I heard those thunderous, ratcheting footfalls no more. Jenkus and I were making thunderous footfalls of our own. I tried to pull him back to a trot as we neared the safety of the cottage, but he would have none of it, continuing to gallop until I pulled him up hard right by the stable door.
“Well done, Jenkus!” I said as I dismounted. “I didn’t know you had it in you!”
Neither did Jenkus, apparently, for he was quite exhausted, just like his rider. Before I was even done unsaddling him, Benelaius and Lindavar came rushing out of the house toward me. Well, Lindavar was rushing, lantern held high. I couldn’t see my master’s feet, so he seemed to follow in Lindavar’s wake like a large leather ball bobbing after a swimmer.
“We heard you galloping in,” said Lindavar breathlessly. “Is aught amiss?”
“No, everything’s fine—now.”
“My boy,” said Benelaius, “such haste is unseemly. It alarms young men”—he nodded at Lindavar—“and makes old ones come out in the night damps.”
“Well, you see, master, something was—”
“Pursuing you,” Benelaius interrupted. “Yes, that much seemed clear.” Then he looked about at the night. “I take it, however, that the pursuer was unable to breach the protective spell.”
“Frankly,” I said, “I don’t think it even got this far.” I patted Jenkus affectionately, but he only snorted in annoyance. “Jenkus outran it.”
“Imagine that,” said the old mage. “I didn’t think dear Jenkus was capable of outrunning anything, except perhaps a sailor with two wooden legs. Rheumatic ones at that.” He turned and started to walk back toward the house. “Get your equine savior rubbed down, Jasper. Then come in for something warm, and you can report to us what you’ve learned from your day in town”—he turned back—“and at the Swamp Rat, I see.”
“Wha … but how did you …?”
He gave no answer but went inside, arm in arm with Lindavar.
After getting Jenkus fed and settled in for the night, I went inside. Benelaius and Lindavar were sitting with large earthen mugs of raspberry tea, among the cats in front of the fire. I filled my own mug, gently jostled a few felines aside, and joined them.
“So tell us,” said Benelaius, stroking a tabby, “precisely everything you did, heard, and saw. In detail.”
And I did, almost exactly as I have set it down here. Its telling took longer to Benelaius, for he interrupted frequently to ask questions, most of which, though I answered, I could not see as being of any import.
It was after two o’clock by the time the tale was told, concluding with my narrow escape on the swamp road. Benelaius nodded, glanced again at the account book and garments I had brought back, and at the list I had made in the Bold Bard. “It is late,” he said, “and we should not attempt any deductions with dull minds. I suggest we retire and discuss the meanings of all this in the morning.”
Even though greatly fatigued, I was still disappointed not to hear what Benelaius thought of my work, and what conclusions he might draw. He sensed my dismay, and patted me on the shoulder. “Well done, Jasper. You’ve learned much. And on the morrow, we shall hopefully make much of it.”
“May I ask but one question, master?” I said from the top of the stairs.
“Go ahead.”
“How were you so certain that I was at the Swamp Rat?”
“Your clothing,” said he, “bears the odor of West Fennet Number Three, a pipeweed that the tobacconist in town refuses to carry because of its bitter aftertaste. Farmer Snaggard, having gathered a fondness for it in youth, grows a small plot of it every year for his own use only, and he has been an inveterate patron of the Swamp Rat since it opened. I assumed that, since you had not been likely to visit Farmer Snaggard, who lives far down the west swamp road, that you must have shared the closed air of the Swamp Rat with him.”
Both Lindavar and I gaped open mouthed at him.
“That’s … that’s an incredible deduction!” I said.
Benelaius beamed at the compliment, then seemed to think of something else. “Oh, and, of course,” he said, “you have a bit of something stuck to your shoe. Green is such an unseemly shade for pickled eggs, isn’t it?”
18
I fell asleep upon the instant but had bad dreams all night long. They began with a nightmare about Dovo’s corpse. I was alone and waiting for Lindavar to return with Benelaius, when Dovo’s head started rolling back toward his body. As I watched in horror, it reattached itself to the sodden stump, and the armor-clad body pushed itself to its feet.
But the head was on backward, and the corpse crouched, moving like a blind man, its face toward the sky, feeling its way across the mushy turf until its gray fingers came in contact with—
The axe.
Dovo’s corpse picked up the weapon and straightened up, and the gaze of the dead eyes fell on me. I could not move. Terror rooted me to the spot. The monstrous thing advanced upon me, but backward. It shuffled nearer, the dead mouth splitting in Dovo’s idiotic grin, the axe upraised in the right hand. But since its body was facing away from me, it could not swing the axe down on me, and instead drew it in front of its body and swung backhand, whirling around—
And I awoke with a gasp, trembling in the darkness.
I lit a candle and lay in bed watching its flame dance for a long time before I trusted myself to go back to sleep.
O foolish trust.
The next dream was worse. In it I was riding at night on the swamp road, but there was a full moon so that I was able to see. Jenkus was trotting along, and behind me I heard again the da-da-BOOM I had heard coming home. I spurred Jenkus on, but although he tried to run, it was as if his legs were mired i
n quicksand. The sound of pounding hooves behind me grew nearer, and I turned my head to look.
There were four huge black horses, their shoulders twice as high as any man’s head, their eyes blazing and their snouts puffing smoke and flame. They were riding so closely together that I could scarcely distinguish one from the other.
But if they were frightening, their riders were worse. They were people I knew, people who were among the suspects in Dovo’s death, but these were full-fledged nightmare versions.
Kendra’s red hair had become crimson snakes, and her mouth gaped wide, showing fangs. Rolf was a huge, brutal man-ape, like some troglodytic force of malevolence. Next to him was Barthelm, whose full features had grown into rolls of yellowish fat flesh that poured down over his steed. And finally there was Grodoveth, looking like some legendary warrior-king, helmeted and cuirassed, with both weapon-wielding hands raised above his head. In one hand was a sword, in the other an axe. There were axes in the hands of all of them, and they were closing quickly, looming over me.
I urged Jenkus on, but to no avail. As I watched, the four riders merged until they were but one creature, a behemoth with many heads and many blades, all of them intent on taking my life. Now my breathing seemed as slow as Jenkus’s pace. Frantically I struggled to get more air into my lungs, thinking that if I did, then I could scream, and if I screamed, then I would wake up and these horrors would vanish.
But I could not breathe, and I turned away from my pursuers, back toward Jenkus, and he turned his head toward me.
And I looked into the dead, staring eyes of Dovo.
Apparently that was the shock I needed. I awoke with my face buried in my pillow, trying to suck the feathers through the cotton. I pushed the pillow away and gasped, grateful to the gods for the joy of awakening from nightmare.
It was light outside, and the shaft of sunlight on my wall told me it was about seven-thirty. I considered getting up and preparing breakfast for my master and his guest, but everyone had been up so late the night before that I felt another hour of rest wouldn’t hurt. Going back to sleep in the daylight, I hoped, would bring no more nightmares.
But just before I dozed back off, I heard the front door of the cottage close, and opened an eye. I knew Benelaius’s spell was good against any intruder, so I assumed it was my master coming back from a morning constitutional. He went out occasionally to study the flora and fauna immediately surrounding the cottage. Still, I listened for a moment, and heard only Lindavar’s rhythmic snores from the guest room next to my own.
When I next had a waking thought, it was about how Grimalkin was able to have such soft fur and such a rough tongue. I opened my eyes at nine o’clock to find Grimalkin standing on my chest, pressing his soft nose against my cheeks to wake me, and giving my chin a quick lick with his tongue. One needs no water clock with Benelaius’s brilliant menagerie.
I arose, washed, and went downstairs. First I fed the cats, and then went to the stable to take care of the horses. Both Jenkus and Stubbins were slow to rally. I could understand Jenkus’s sloth. He had galloped hard the night before, and perhaps he too may have been having bad dreams about our pursuer. He had seemed just as scared as I was at the time.
But I didn’t know what was keeping Stubbins from leaping to his oats. I had to call him three times before he finally joined Jenkus at breakfast.
“Now where’d you get that?” I asked him, noticing a spot of mud on his fetlock. I must have neglected to rub it off after our carriage journey yesterday. Stubbins chewed while I rubbed, and after cleaning his leg I went back inside to see to human breakfast.
I heard Lindavar and Benelaius moving about upstairs while I brewed a large pot of tea and prepared a sumptuous feast of eggs, smoked salmon, elven bread, and the special sausages that Benelaius adores. By the time they came down, fully dressed, I had everything on the table, piping hot and ready to eat.
“Ah, Jasper,” said Benelaius, “you truly are a wonder. Investigating all day and half the night, troubled by nightmares the other half, and still you greet us with a magnificent breakfast.”
“Um … how did you know I had nightmares?”
“When I hear heavy breathing followed by tiny cries in the middle of the night—and I know that you sleep alone—that is the only conclusion. Come, Lindavar, Jasper, sit. Let us fill our bellies with this most excellent breakfast, and then, over tea, discuss the events of this past day.”
We ate heartily, and then, as we were emptying the teapot, Benelaius started asking questions. “So, Jasper, from all your observations, who do you suspect of having killed Dovo?”
“I think there are several possibilities,” I said, pleased that my opinion as well as my findings were requested. “Dovo angered a number of people in the tavern the night he was killed. Rolf and Dovo fought over Dovo’s advances to Mayella.”
“Is Rolf capable of murder, do you think?”
“He could be, master. His temper is short, he seems quite violent, and if he came upon Dovo playing his ghost trick …” I shrugged.
“True,” Lindavar said. “His anger at being gulled combined with jealousy—it makes for an uneasy combination in one so ill-tempered.”
“Who else?” asked Benelaius.
“Barthelm, possibly. A father will go to great lengths to defend his daughter’s honor.”
“In which case,” my master added with a crooked smile, “Grodoveth had best look out, eh?”
I nodded. “Kendra would be another suspect. Dovo was quite offensive to her, and if she were to come upon Fastred’s ghost, she is not the type who would run. She might very well strike before she knew the ghost was a hoax. And she cannot account for her whereabouts.”
“And what about Grodoveth?” asked Lindavar. “From what Aunsible Durn told you, Jasper, he was furious at Dovo for some reason.”
Benelaius gently removed the cats from his lap, stood up, waddled over to the sideboard, and took from it the cloak and hat that had belonged to Dovo. “And what do these suggest?”
I looked at Lindavar, wondering if it wasn’t his turn again, but he didn’t want the ball. “They suggest,” I said, “that Dovo might have been using the Bold Bard as a center of operations, hiding his clothes there while he engaged in his ghostly masquerade.”
“Have we discussed,” Benelaius said, “the matter of who stood to benefit most from the appearance of the ghost?”
“I would think,” Lindavar said, “that it would be this dwarf who owns the Bold Bard … what was it, Shortlegs?”
“Shortshanks,” I corrected. “That’s true. Anything that kept folks away from the Swamp Rat would help the Bold Bard.” I grinned. “Maybe Shortshanks supplies them with their watered ale and pickled eggs.”
“ ‘There’s more to me than you might think,’ ” Benelaius quoted. “Dovo said that to Kendra, correct?”
“Yes …” I thought for a moment. “You think that Dovo might have been playing ghost to—”
“To help Shortshanks!” Lindavar said. “That makes sense. But was Shortshanks in on it?”
“I doubt if Dovo has ever done a thing in his life,” I said, “except for profit or to impress a woman. I think it altogether possible that the dwarf hired Dovo to scare people away from the Swamp Rat.”
“You know, there’s another possibility that’s just occurred to me,” Lindavar said. “Jasper, you said just now that Kendra might have struck before she even knew the ghost was a counterfeit. What then would prevent some other armed and fearless traveler from doing the same?”
“A random occurrence, you mean,” said Benelaius. “A reasonable hypothesis. But we may be overlooking something.” From beneath Dovo’s cloak, he took out the account book from the Bold Bard. “Have you had a chance to look at this, Jasper?” I shook my head. “Then I suggest you do so now—both of you—along with Jasper’s list of ghostly sightings.”
He set them on the table, and Lindavar and I pulled our chairs close together to examine the documents. After
many minutes of perusal, Lindavar spoke tentatively. “Master Shortshanks appears to keep his books meticulously. Yet I see nothing in the nature of payments made to another party for say, advertisement or promotion. Only money in, money out, this girl Sunfirth’s salary, and customers’ accounts.”
Benelaius eyed me. “Jasper?”
“I think,” I said carefully, not wanting to contradict my master’s guest, “that Shortshanks might not readily put down on paper evidence of something that is, if not illegal, then at least of doubtful, um … scrupulosity.”
“I think the word you’re searching for is scrupulousness,” said Benelaius, “though integrity may be more correct. But you make a good point. Shortshanks would doubtless make any such payments off the books. And speaking of books, what else do you find there? In conjunction with your list, Jasper?”
We compared the dates with the account book entries. The answer was obvious, and I let Lindavar make the discovery. “At the time of every ghost sighting but one,” he said, “it seems that Grodoveth was passing through the town.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “From these accounts, it seems that Grodoveth comes to Ghars every two weeks or so, and that also seems to be the interval between most of the sightings. With, as you say, my lord, one”—I looked again—“nay, two exceptions.”
“And those are?” asked Benelaius.
“An unnamed Arabel merchant saw the ghost on the twelfth of Kythorn, and Diccon Picard on the twenty-seventh. But Tobald saw the ghost on the twenty-first, when Grodoveth was not in town.”
“Or at least not on Shortshanks’s books,” Lindavar pointed out. “It’s possible he was here and didn’t go to the tavern.”
“I’ll check on that,” I said.
“Knowing Tobald,” said Benelaius, “it’s also possible that he saw a wisp of swamp gas or a will-o’-the-wisp and thought he saw a ghost.”
That was true. Our mayor, for all his good points, could easily get excited over nothing. “There’s a big gap,” I said, “between the twenty-first of Flamerule, when Lukas Spoondrift saw Dovo, to the sixteenth of Eleasias, when Bortas and his wife spotted him. And according to the book, Grodoveth was in Ghars on the second and third of Eleasias. So why no ghost then?”
Murder in Cormyr Page 9
