Powers of Detection

Powers of Detection Page 21

by Dana Stabenow

  She smiled. “The king will be pleased to hear it. That was what he had in mind when he brought the Nine Provinces together to sign the Treaty, and when he worked with them to write the Charter.”

  “How does it work?”

  She had repeated it so many times over the past three months that it rolled off her tongue like a monk’s evening prayers. “In the Treaty, the Nine Provinces acknowledge the sovereign rule of Hestia. In exchange, the ruler in Hestia agrees to keep the peace.”

  “And you do that.”

  “And the Sword and Seer do that.”

  “How many Swords are there?”

  “Nine Swords and nine Seers, one pair for each province.”

  His eyes slid to her sword.

  “What?” she said, stifling a yawn. It was late, and Makarios’s beer was finally catching up with her.

  “How does it work, exactly? Is it permitted to say?”

  She chuckled. “I am no wizard, young Zeno. I bear the Sword of Justice. It speaks through me. The Guild of the Magi has laid it under the most powerful of enchantments. Its power draws on theirs.” And hers, and the Seer’s.

  “In Hestia? All that way away?”

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t know magic could be made at such a distance.”

  “I don’t think the wizards knew it, either, until the king wrote the Charter, and they had to find a way.” She got to her feet. “And now, young Zeno, I’m for my bed, as you should be for yours.”

  “What’s that?” he said, his head turning toward the stable door.

  She heard it, too, a rising tide of sound with the unpleasant smell of riot about it. The hilt of the Sword slid into her hand.

  A crowd was gathering, lit by torches held high. More people were emptying out of buildings, flooding down narrow streets to gather in the square, jerkins pulled hastily over nightgowns, confusion growing into an ugly, palpable anger. Crow saw Cornelius hurrying out of the inn and caught his elbow. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  He halted, looking relieved to see her. “Someone has been killed, a girl, they say.”

  Behind him Crow saw Sharryn, staff in hand, Makarios at her heels. Both were dressed, barely. Sharryn heard Cornelius’s words. “There’s been a murder?”

  Crowfoot climbed to the floor of a vendor’s stand at the edge of the square and looked over the heads of the crowd.

  The canvas roof over the dais from which the Kalliopean poet had been holding forth earlier in the day had been removed and a rope tossed over one of crosspieces. The noose at the end encircled the neck of a thin man with a bruised and bleeding face and both arms tied behind his back.

  “Elias!” Zeno said, who had boosted himself up beside her, and disappeared into the crowd, heading in the direction of the man.

  Crow swore. “Cornelius! Announce us!”

  His eyes widened, and he stood up straight. Crow’s request was in the nature of being appointed bailiff by royal command. “Make way for the Seer and Sword!” he called, and proved to have a bullfrog bellow that was admirably suited to the task. “Make way! Make way for the king’s justice!”

  Crow raised the Sword over her head, hand clasped around the scabbard, and followed him. Heads turned, eyes widened, people took involuntary steps back, and if a respectful silence did not fall, then at least a path was cleared to the focal point of the hubbub. Sharryn was at Crow’s heels, and they both heard Blanca’s urgent neigh and Pedro’s whinnies. The crowd was surly and hostile, but they pushed through to stand in the small space created for them by Cornelius before the poet’s dais, and the tableau waiting there.

  The dead girl was blond and buxom. Her skirts were ruffled and dirtied, her bodice torn, and there were dark marks around her throat. The tip of her tongue protruded from her mouth in a manner that put Crowfoot forcibly in mind of the statues of the stone gargoyles lining the cornice of the roof of the Guild of the Magi back in Hestia. Those gargoyles, however, formed a ring of power designed to keep the forces of darkness from penetrating the sanctuary. This girl had had no such defense.

  A man stood next to the body, tall, muscles going to fat. He had a heavy jaw and dark eyes set deep beneath a shelf of a brow. Collapsed against his side, tears sliding down her face, was a plump, blond woman, older than the girl but so similar in form and feature that the relationship was obvious.

  Sharryn leaned down to close the girl’s wide, staring blue eyes with a gentle hand. This small act of compassion had a soothing effect on the crowd, and Crow could feel a palpable easing of tension.

  Sharryn stood up, leaning on her staff, and looked at the couple. “Your daughter?” she said gently.

  He jerked his head at the blond woman. “Hers.”

  “I am so sorry,” Sharryn told her.

  The woman continued to weep with no reply.

  Sharryn looked at the man. “Your name, goodman?”

  His expression was not friendly, but he said civilly enough, “Nestor. This is my wife, Agathi.”

  “And this was . . .”

  “Agathi’s daughter, Nella.”

  “Not your daughter.”

  He shook his head. “From her first marriage.”

  “Ah.” Sharryn looked around for her new bailiff. “Goodman, a blanket or a cloak, if you please.”

  Cornelius nodded, picked up the canvas that had been the roof of the dais, and spread it over Nella’s body without waiting to be told.

  “Now then,” Sharryn said, looking at the young man with the noose around his neck. “I see you have determined who committed this foul deed.”

  “We have,” Nestor growled.

  “Good,” Sharryn said. “You have proof, of course.”

  “He was found standing over the body.”

  “Ah. Who found him?”

  “I did.”

  The crowd had crept closer again, the better to hear every word. “I see,” Sharryn said.

  He stuck out a truculent jaw. “It is our right, under the Charter, to exact justice.”

  “It is,” Sharryn told him, “when it is justice.”

  Nestor’s face darkened, and there was a corresponding mutter from the crowd.

  The young man with the noose around his neck began to struggle against it and received a cuff on one ear in response from one of the two men holding him. Crow recognized him, and then knew the man he was preparing to hang. These were the two who had fought over the girl in the square that afternoon. She looked down at the canvas-covered body. This girl.

  Sharryn looked up at the young man in the noose. “Do you deny these charges, goodman?”

  His mouth opened, and a kind of animal grunting came out, impassioned, forceful, but sounding more like a pig than a man. Sharryn looked at Nestor.

  “A demon has him by the tongue,” he said. There was a murmured chorus of agreement.

  “Elias is possessed of no demon!” Zeno said hotly, forcing his way forward. “He is my friend, and a good man! He loved Nella! He would never have hurt her!” He looked around and found Crowfoot. “In the name of the Charter that binds the Nine Provinces, I call for justice! I call for the justice of the Seer and the Sword!” He ran to Crow’s side. “You have to,” he said in an urgent whisper. “Crowfoot, you must help him, he can’t speak for himself!”

  “Shut up, you little brat,” someone growled, to a chorus of muttered approval.

  “Hang him, then!” someone shouted, and others took up the cry. “Hang him!” “Hang the murdering bastard!�
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  “No!” Zeno cried.

  Someone cuffed the boy across the face, and he flew backward into the crowd. Zeno was lost in a trample of feet.

  Crow drew the Sword. She held it point up, hilt before her face, and cried, “Let the Sword sing!”

  The moon, a new crescent, was well up in the sky, and its light danced along the blade. A single severe, sustained note sliced through the uproar like a sharp edge through flesh. The crowd melted back at Crow’s approach, revealing Zeno prone on the ground. His mouth was bleeding, his cheek was bruised, and he winced and clasped his side when she nudged him to his feet, but he was ambulatory, and he followed her back to Sharryn. The Sword remained unsheathed, and Crow felt the link kick in solidly, with all the weight of Sharryn’s considerable exasperation behind it.

  Did you have to do that?

  What did you expect, that I would let the child be trampled? Crowfoot kept her face impassive, but in truth she was as annoyed as the Seer was. Now the Sword could not be sheathed again until a verdict had been reached and a judgment rendered. She let the flat of the blade rest lightly against her left shoulder, both hands clasped on the hilt.

  “We need no diviners here,” Nestor said. “We can hang a murderer without your help. Yes, and bury our dead, too.”

  His wife sobbed out loud, but there was a growl of agreement from the crowd. They had been cowed by the Sword’s song, but there would have to be some resolution of the murder or, Crow had no doubt, there would be more murder done.

  Sharryn kept her tone mild. “You live under the protection of the king, goodman. You are, as are we all, subject to the Treaty of the Nine and the Great Charter.” She added distinctly, her eyes hard, “And you will address me as Seer.”

  He stared at her, his expression unpleasant. What he might have said next was drowned out by the crowd.

  “To hell with this talk! Killer! Murderer! Hang him!” someone yelled, and there was another movement to press forward. Crowfoot stepped in front of Sharryn and raised the Sword. It sang again, the pure note descending into a clear baritone, a long, low pitch of warning that reverberated in the back teeth of everyone in the square. Many clapped their hands to their ears, a few were brought to their knees. A girl screamed, and babies wept.

  It was a warning, as sharp as the edge of the Sword itself. It was the first time the Sword had been heard in Daean, but none who heard it could fail to understand it. The crowd fell back as one. The mob lust for blood had been broken with a single note.

  “Sorcery,” Nestor said, though he was as pale and shaken as the rest.

  “Yes,” said Sharryn. “Of the very strongest. Remember that, goodman.” She turned to the dais. “Bring him down.”

  They brought Elias down forthwith and no arguing. Sharryn regarded the man who stood before her. He was looking at the canvas-covered body with tears tracing down his cheeks. She pulled the noose from his neck. There was another angry rumble from the crowd.

  Crowfoot stepped forward. “Good people,” she said. “You stand in the presence of the Seer of Truth and the Sword of Justice. By the pledge of the King, there will be order.”

  A translucent aura enveloped both women in a haze of light, casting their features in bold relief. Staff and Sword gleamed as if dipped in quicksilver. The illusion was gone in an instant, leaving only a tenuous memory of itself behind. Later, some would dismiss it as simple magic, a glamour conjured up to intimidate the ignorant and the foolish, yet another example of the wizarding sleight of hand that, out of control, had led to the last series of wars that had brought Mnemosynea to its knees. Others wouldn’t be so sure. “I had my doubts about the Charter,” old Pavlos said, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand after downing a tankard of Makarios’s best. “But after watching those two witches at work the other night I’m thinking we’ve got a king we should keep.”

  “Bring a chair for the Seer,” Crow said to Cornelius in a quiet voice. “Set it up on the dais. And cause torches to be lit, as many as may be found, and set them about the square.”

  It was done. Sharryn took the seat, staff in hand. Crowfoot stood a little behind her on her right, Sword held in front of her. “I will hear witnesses in this matter,” Sharryn said. It was all very irregular, lacking in the formality the king wanted to mark the dignity of the judicial process, and it was also night, a thing the Council would have abhorred. King and Council both wanted the Seer and the Sword to hold court in the full light of day, beneath the clear gaze of the full populace. But the Sword was out, and its appetite for justice, laid on by powerful geas, must be satisfied.

  Cornelius’s voice rang out. “All witnesses having knowledge in the matter of the foul murder of Nella, daughter of Agathi, stepdaughter of Nestor, come forward to be heard.”

  “When and where was the girl’s body found, and who found it?” Sharryn said.

  Nestor stepped forward. “I found it.”

  “Lay your hand upon my staff,” Sharryn said.

  He hesitated, and did as he was told. “State your name.”

  “I am Nestor, of the town of Daean, of the province of Kleonea.” He looked at the staff as if afraid it might refute his words. It remained inert, a length of polished, knotted pine, gleaming coldly in the moonlight. He gained courage. “I own a bakery. Agathi is my wife. Nella was her daughter.” Agathi sobbed into the shoulder of another woman, who patted her back.

  “Tell us where and when you found Nella’s body.”

  He looked at the staff, at his hand resting gingerly upon it, and swallowed. “Seer, she was in the bakery when I went to close the shop. She was supposed to do it, but she was ever a flighty piece, more interested in flirting than she was in selling bread.” He pulled his hand free and pointed at Elias. “And I found him with her, crouched over her, interfering with her!”

  The crowd erupted. “Pervert!” “Hang him!” “Filthy murderer!” “Killer!” “Hang him now!”

  Sharryn waited with flinty composure until the cries died down. “Replace your hand upon the staff. Did you see him kill her, goodman?”

  He hesitated, looked at Elias, back at the staff. “Seer. No. I did not see him kill her.”

  “You said the girl liked to flirt. Was this man one of the men with whom she flirted?”

  The baker scowled. “Seer, she flirted with them all. If she did not do more.”

  “I see. Thank you, goodman. You may step back.”

  The crowd shifted and stretched to see better. No one was yawning despite the late hour.

  “I will speak to the accused next,” Sharryn said.

  “Seer, he has not the ability to speak,” Cornelius said in a low voice.

  “I understand that,” Sharryn said, and looked around for Zeno. He stepped forward, a little stiffly as the injuries inflicted by the crowd began to tell. “Can you understand him, Zeno?”

  “Seer, I can!”

  She beckoned to the accused. “Are you willing to have Zeno speak for you?”

  The young man nodded once.

  “Come forward, then,” Sharryn said, “and place your hand upon my staff.”

  He did so without hesitation. His face showed more bruises than Zeno’s, and he limped.

  “Your name, goodman.”

  He looked at Zeno. “Seer, this is Elias, son of—”

  “Your name first, goodman.”

  The boy looked startled. It was probably the first time anyone had called him goodman. He squared his shoulders. When he spoke next his voice had deepened and carried clearly to the edges of the crowd, silent now, and watchful. “Seer, I am Ze
no, son of Nilos, son of Arete, of the village of Pierus—”

  Ten leagues south of Daean, Crow thought.

  Was it on the map?

  No.

  Typical.

  “—of the province of Kleonea.”

  Sharryn gave a grave nod, and waited, somehow, rumpled and red-cheeked as she was, contriving to appear worthy to bear and exercise the will of King and Charter. The rule of law was so new to the Nine Provinces that no degree of authority could be lost to an apparent lack of dignity on the part of the Two. They were building a myth as much as they were an institution.

  “Seer, this is Elias, son of Damara, of the town of Daean, of the province of Kleonea,” Zeno said. His voice gathered force. “He is a smith, and my friend! He didn’t kill Nella, he loved her!”

  “He told you so?”

  Zeno flushed. “Seer, he doesn’t have to.”

  “In fact, he does,” Sharryn said, not unkindly. “Please confine yourself to what the witness actually says. When did he come upon the body of Nella?”

  Zeno conferred with Elias, who grunted and gestured. Zeno turned to Sharryn. “Seer, he says that they planned to meet at the bakery after work, to walk to the square and see who was performing for Festival. She was lying on the floor when he walked in.” Zeno swallowed, his bruised face looking a bleached, blotchy purple in the torchlight. “He says her skirts were up over her head, and when he pulled them down he saw the marks on her neck.”

  “Was she cold to the touch?”

  Elias shook his head violently and grunted at Zeno. “Seer, he says she was warm. He thinks her killer could not long have left her there.”

  Sharryn looked at Elias. He had not the build of the blacksmith, but you could not choose your Talent, it chose you. His shoulders and arms were well muscled, though, developed by his trade. His hand grasped her staff as if he needed the support.

  “How did you lose your voice, goodman?” Sharryn said.

  Elias looked at Zeno, who looked angrily at the crowd, and said hotly, “It’s not because he labors under an evil curse, Seer, no matter what these people say.”

 

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