Whistler

by Roger Taylor

  Privv looked at him suspiciously, far more disturbed by this measured appeal than he had been by the previous ranting. ‘For their sake, you understand,’ Skynner concluded. Then he became affable. ‘If you’re interested in knowing how the young man died, then from my own cursory examination it seems that his assailant stabbed him…’

  There followed a short but extremely unpleasant list of stab wounds and their locations, followed by a list of mutilations and a description of the internal organs exposed to view as a consequence. Skynner’s matter-of-fact delivery served merely to heighten the horrors of this information. Privv clenched his fists and his stomach and glanced at the door.

  ‘Would you like to sit down?’ Skynner said after a moment, his face concerned.

  Privv accepted the offer. ‘It was worse than the other one, then?’ he managed, hoarsely.

  Skynner nodded, then his face brightened. ‘If you like, I can take you to the buriers. The body should be there by now. And I’ve asked the Town Physician to examine it this time. I’ve nothing like his experience, of course. I’ve probably missed a lot, there was so much damage. It’s amazing what he can unearth from a corpse with a good knife, a saw, and a bit of effort.’ He pulled his clenched fists apart as if tearing something. ‘I’m sure you’d find his work very interesting. You might even like to write about it.’ He stood up and held out his arm as if motioning Privv to the door, but his visitor showed little inclination to leave his seat.

  ‘I don’t think so. No, thank you. Perhaps some other time,’ he said weakly.

  Skynner sat down again, nodding understandingly. ‘As you wish, though I doubt you’ll get another chance as good as this one. Still, it’s up to you. I didn’t want you to go away with the idea that I was unwilling to discuss our work with you.’ He smiled beatifically. There was a brief silence.

  ‘I’ll be leaving then, if you’ve finished with me,’ Privv said, struggling to lever himself up from his chair.

  ‘Actually, there is one thing, while you’re here,’ Skynner said, looking down at the paper again. ‘I wonder if you can help me with another matter? Fortunately it’s not as unpleasant as this latest happening, but it is serious and I’m particularly anxious to get to the bottom of it.’

  Something in his tone expedited Privv’s recovery. ‘What is it?’ he asked, his voice sharper than he had intended.

  Skynner looked at him squarely. ‘You’ve probably heard already that the night before last, two of your fellow Sheeters – your main rivals, as I understand it – were attacked and injured. Also their property, including their printing presses, was badly damaged. So badly in fact that neither of them was able to produce a Sheet today.’ He shrugged resignedly. ‘This kind of thing happens from time to time, as you know. Robbers entering houses and doing violence and damage. But it’s not all that common, and for two such attacks to occur on the same night and to the same kind of people, makes it… very unusual.’

  Privv held Skynner’s gaze. He went on. ‘What you’ve probably not heard yet is that the robbers returned again last night and did further, more extensive damage, particularly to the printing presses. I don’t fully understand these things, but it seems that your colleagues will be unable to pursue their livelihoods for quite some time as a consequence.’

  Privv was tempted to mouth some platitude at this point, but he remained silent.

  ‘Now I know that there’s a great deal of rivalry between Sheeters,’ Skynner said, in a speculative tone. ‘Friendly, I’m sure. But, as you yourself have had cause to write about in the past, business rivalries can sometimes get quite seriously… out of hand. “The love of money is Ahmral’s gift,” as the Santyth says. And as these attacks bear all the hallmarks of such over-enthusiastic rivalry, I was wondering if there was anything untoward happening in your little community that might throw some light on events?’

  Unpleasant knots began to form in Privv’s stomach. He pulled a massively thoughtful face for fear that anything else should show on it. ‘No,’ he said after a moment. ‘I’ve heard of nothing. We Sheeters are thinkers, men of ideas and words, not market-traders. We’re not naturally inclined to violence.’

  Skynner’s face was impassive. ‘Nothing, then?’ he said slowly.

  Privv shook his head. ‘I’m sorry I can’t help you. I’ve no idea who’d do such a thing.’ He improvised. ‘You don’t think I might be in any danger, do you?’ he said, looking appropriately alarmed.

  ‘To be honest, until I find out more about what’s happening, I think it would be foolish of me to reassure you,’ Skynner said. ‘It would probably be advisable for you to check how solid your doors and windows are, and to be careful to whom you open the door.’

  Privv nodded earnestly. ‘I’ll do as you suggest, straight away. Is there anything else you want from me?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ Skynner replied. And he allowed Privv to get halfway to the door before he said, ‘Oh, there was one other thing.’ He clicked his tongue in self-reproach. ‘I nearly forgot, it’s been such a busy day.’ He rooted through his desk again and pulled out another piece of paper. ‘Could you tell me where you were last night and the night before.’ He poised a pen over the paper.

  Privv walked towards him slowly. Skynner answered his question before he asked it. ‘I’ll tell my superiors what you’ve said, but in the meantime they’ve asked me to find out what all the Sheeters were doing when these attacks happened. Don’t be offended.’ He smiled. ‘It’s just that we have to be quite painstaking in our investigations.’ He was quite pleased that he managed to keep a heavy emphasis off the word ‘our’.

  Privv briefly considered arguing the point but decided against it. This encounter with the forceful reality of the law had unsettled him and he was more than a little anxious to be away from Skynner’s intimidating presence.

  ‘I was working almost all night,’ he said. ‘Both nights. Printing. You can ask my imp, or my neighbours. They’re usually only too willing to complain about the noise.’

  Skynner nodded and wrote something on the paper. ‘Do you normally work all through the night?’ he asked, looking surprised.

  ‘No. I was printing a lot more copies than usual.’

  Skynner continued writing. ‘Why?’ he asked, without looking up.

  Privv hesitated. ‘I’d a feeling that my account of Brother Cassraw’s sermon would attract a lot of attention,’ he replied. ‘I wanted to be ready. I took a chance.’

  Skynner smiled. ‘A lucky feeling,’ he said. ‘I thought there were more copies than usual being sold. You must have made quite a lot of money. Let’s hope the people who robbed your colleagues haven’t thought the same, eh?’

  Privv smiled weakly.

  Skynner finished his writing then leaned forward on the desk and said briskly, ‘Thank you for your cooperation, Privv.’

  Privv almost jumped. ‘Is that all?’ he heard himself asking.

  ‘Not unless there’s anything you’ve remembered about your colleagues’ business affairs,’ Skynner said cordially. ‘Or unless you’ve changed your mind and want to come down to the buriers with me and watch the physician examining the corpse.’

  Privv shook his head hastily and, with a mumbled farewell, left.

  Skynner stared at the door through which the Sheeter had gone. His genial expression faded and became one of distaste. ‘Thinkers, men of ideas,’ he said contemptuously. ‘You greedy, misbegotten little worm. You’re involved in this business up to your inky little neck, and I’ll wring it for you before we’re finished.’

  He ended this soliloquy with a grunt. He had long thought that Sheeters were able to make too much money for too little effort, and their consistent lack of restraint worried him deeply, but nothing was to be served here by rehearsing his own arguments. He was no bully, but he knew how to use his authority and it had been quite enjoyable watching it begin to take the knees from under Privv – quite a difference between your paper words and real life, isn’t there? he thou
ght with some relish. Now however, this welcome interlude over, the stark reality of his own profession returned to him as, with considerable reluctance, he switched his mind again toward the carnage he had had to inspect this morning.

  This time the body had been identified by one of his men, and almost within the hour he had discovered a series of events that exactly paralleled those that preceded the first murder. A young man looking for a woman, seemingly finding one, and then being brutally stabbed to death and robbed in an alleyway. The only substantial difference from the first murder was the mutilation of the body. Skynner tried not to dwell on the images that he had so gleefully recited to Privv. It took him a few moments to set aside his emotion and bring his mind to the problem.

  Of course it was the same murderer, he thought. Apart from the similar circumstances, there had been the same awful expression on the victim’s face. He gazed hard into the memory of it to inure himself. It was not easy.

  Nor did he find it easy to accept the thought that there might be two people involved – a woman as lure, and a man who did the killing. If this were so, it somehow made the murders many times worse. And he would be looking now not for a single lunatic who struck at random, but two, who schemed and plotted. It was a chilling thought, not least because, despite considerable efforts, no progress had yet been made towards solving the first killing. A leaden sensation in his stomach told him that none would be made with this, either. He had bemoaned the carrying of personal weapons to Privv, but he could not avoid the feeling that the murderer would only be brought to justice when he met someone faster with a knife than he was. It was not a conclusion that Skynner relished.

  * * * *

  Over the next few days, the citizens of Troidmallos were regaled with an increasing number of Privv’s Sheets. These dwelt on the latest murder and the lack of any progress towards catching the culprit, though out of a newly heightened sense of self-preservation, Privv took trouble to present the Keepers as uniformly conscientious and hard-working. His articles also reported on the debates in the PlasHein, which were becoming increasingly heated and acrimonious and which, unusually, were attracting a large number of noisy spectators – predominantly young men.

  Privv’s reports did not reveal the fact that he had visited his two fellow Sheeters, neither of whom had any idea why they had been thus attacked, nor who their assailants were, except that by their general demeanour, they were all young men. Finding them both so seriously distressed, physically and financially, Privv had generously offered to employ them until they could get back on their feet. It was not by any means an unconditional offer, but despite some half-hearted haggling, in the end he had effectively eliminated his two major rivals and more than doubled the market for his own Sheets. Such time as he was not actually working, which admittedly was very little, he now spent gloating.

  Underlying all Privv’s writings were subtle references to Cassraw’s sermon, on the assumption that having set his foot on this road and not been publicly reprimanded by the church, Cassraw would continue down it towards whatever goal he had in mind.

  Cassraw himself made no public utterances following his return from the Witness House, but had Privv chosen to study his activities, he would have seen him, accompanied by Dowinne, tirelessly visiting the Preaching Brothers responsible for the various parishes of Troidmallos and even those in nearby towns and villages.

  He did not visit Vredech, however. Instead, Vredech visited him. He had told Nertha of the meeting with Mueran and the others and how Cassraw had somehow succeeded in diverting all reproaches away from himself. She had been as concerned as he was, but had little to offer other than a regretful reproach of her own. ‘But you said nothing yourself, did you?’

  It had been uttered as a simple statement of fact, and quite devoid of malice, but it had hurt. He had not embarrassed either of them by protesting that he was simply a Chapter Member and that the matter had been one on which Mueran, as Covenant Member, should have acted, or at least passed to the full Chapter.

  ‘Straight to the wound, physician?’ he said, painfully meeting her gaze.

  ‘Sorry,’ she replied genuinely.

  Thus it was that Vredech found himself being shown into Cassraw’s private quarters at the Haven Meeting House. He was a little puzzled. Normally he would have met Cassraw in his office where, ironically, both of them would have felt more at ease, surrounded as they were by the various administrative trappings of their profession.

  ‘He’ll be along in a moment,’ the servant said as she was leaving. ‘He’s just got some people with him.’

  Vredech smiled and nodded. Quite a lot of people, he decided. There had been several horses tethered outside and three or four carriages, and the house bumped and shook with footsteps in the way that houses do when strange people are wandering about.

  Unashamedly curious, he went to a window in the corner of the room. It gave him a partial view of the front of the Meeting House and as he reached it he saw two or three Preaching Brothers whom he knew, walking away. They looked excited, and were discussing something heatedly. There was a little more bumping and shaking, and he craned forward to see who would be leaving next.

  ‘Allyn.’

  He jumped and turned round guiltily. It was Dowinne. She laughed. ‘I’m sorry if I startled you,’ she said, walking towards him and holding out her hand. ‘I didn’t realize you were so engrossed in our garden.’

  Vredech took the hand. It was cool, and the grip, though still feminine, was surprisingly purposeful. A tension and a lingering touch in it, coupled with a look in her eyes that he could not identify, unsettled him. For no reason that he could fathom, he confessed. ‘I’m afraid I was looking at your other visitors,’ he said.

  Dowinne smiled and motioned him to a chair. As though she were appointing him as her interrogator, she sat opposite him with the light full on her face. ‘Enryc works too hard,’ she said, folding her hands in her lap. ‘There are people coming and going all the time.’

  A slight shadow fell across her face and Vredech was aware of footsteps going past the window at his back. As Dowinne made a slight acknowledging gesture to someone behind him, Vredech forced himself not to turn round.

  ‘That’s the last for the moment, I think,’ she said confidently. ‘Enryc will be along shortly.’

  There was a brief silence. Various commonplaces came into Vredech’s mind to fill the void but he gave voice to none of them. Dowinne, too, seemed content to remain silent. Vredech looked at her discreetly. Despite the slight heaviness about her jaw, he still found her attractive, beautiful even, and it was not easy to still the faint stirrings of desire that rose within him; reminders of times gone. Yet she had changed, he decided. There had always been a reserve about her but now she seemed more distant than ever, yet more confident, more assured. As with her handshake and her glance, the contradiction unsettled him. It was as if some of Cassraw’s strange new magnetism had infected her. He started inwardly at the word ‘infected’, but had no time to pursue this unexpected word as Cassraw entered, or rather blew into, the room. For Vredech felt as if he had been struck by a gale of wind as his old friend flopped ungraciously down on to a large bench seat and sagged into it with a loud sigh.

  He held out his hands towards Vredech in a distant greeting embrace. ‘I’m glad you’re here, Vred,’ he said. ‘I’ve been meaning to visit you, but I’ve been so busy. We need to talk.’ He did not wait for any acknowledgement on Vredech’s part. ‘I suppose you’ve come to shout at me because of my sermon,’ he went on.

  Vredech opened his mouth.

  ‘And quite rightly too,’ Cassraw said, before he could speak. He leaned forward and took Dowinne’s arm. ‘Something to drink, my dear, if you wouldn’t mind. I seem to have been talking constantly since I got up this morning.’ He glanced up at Vredech and smiled. ‘And I’ve no doubt I’ll have to do a great deal more before Vred goes.’

  He leaned back. Like Dowinne he was sitting facing the light.
As if he’s deliberately trying to tell me that he’s nothing to hide, Vredech thought. Yet where better to hide some things than in full view of everyone? Then he set both thoughts aside; neither served any purpose. All he could do was put one foot in front of the other and see where they led.

  ‘It was you who came and listened to my sermon, wasn’t it?’ Cassraw said, raising a mocking finger of reproach.

  As he had with Dowinne, Vredech confessed. ‘I’m afraid so,’ he began. ‘I…’ He faltered awkwardly.

  Cassraw laughed, filling the room. ‘Don’t be afraid, Vred,’ he said. ‘I’m sure you were there out of concern for what my recklessness might lead me into. I’m just glad someone was able to tell Mueran the truth after what Privv wrote.’

  ‘You seem very relaxed about it all,’ Vredech said, taken aback slightly by Cassraw’s joviality. ‘You could’ve been in serious trouble. Suppose Mueran had called a Chapter Meeting to discipline you?’

  Cassraw shrugged resignedly. ‘But he didn’t,’ he said. ‘You were there to tell the truth. Horld was there, who more than anyone knows Privv for the liar he is. Morem was there, who’s not happy about punishing anyone for anything.’

  ‘You were lucky,’ Vredech exclaimed with some force. ‘What possessed you to preach a sermon like that?’ He thought he caught a momentary flash in Cassraw’s eyes, but it was gone before he could decide what it was.

  Cassraw stared at him intently, his face suddenly serious. ‘There was no luck involved, Vred,’ he said. ‘He guards me. And He guides me when I speak.’

  Vredech felt as he had when he remonstrated with Cassraw before he had stormed up the Ervrin Mallos and into the darkness. He grimaced. ‘Don’t say such things, Brother,’ he implored. ‘Even in jest. You’ve behaved so recklessly lately. You only escaped discipline after your last escapade because you were unwell and because you made a handsome apology to the Chapter. Mueran may be the Covenant Member, but he remembers slights and bears grudges. If you keep chipping away at him like this, you’ll find he’ll fall on your head eventually.’