Paladin’s Hope: Book Three of the Saint of Steel

by T. Kingfisher

  “Gnoles will ask gnoles,” said Earstripe. “Gnoles will tell gnoles what humans won’t tell humans. If a killer is here, a gnole will warn other gnoles.”

  “Assuming the killer’s a human,” said Piper.

  Both Brindle and Earstripe looked at him sharply. Then Earstripe gave a half-nod. “Yes. A gnole was assuming that.” Brindle studied his claws.

  “I mean no offense,” said Piper hastily. “Just…”

  “No,” said Earstripe. “No, bone-doctor is correct. Could be. A gnole should not assume. “

  Galen snapped his fingers. “Actually, yes. Bone-doctor is correct.” He flashed a grin at Piper, and despite his rejection the night before, Piper felt his stomach turn over. “We are going to go in and ask ‘excuse me, have you fished up any corpses recently?’ Or at least I am, and you are going to roll your eyes behind me and act as if this is all a colossal waste of your time, and I shall act like a public servant with just enough brains to fill a thimble, sent on a make-work job by his superiors.”

  “A paladin, lying? I am shocked, sir. Shocked.”

  “Where’s the lie?” Galen’s grin broadened. “Earstripe is in charge of our little jaunt, and he’s sent me on this mission to ask questions. I shall say exactly that, and what other humans assume is their problem, not mine.”

  “And the brains to fill a thimble?”

  “Oh, that part’s true enough. Paladins can’t afford to be terribly bright, you know. Otherwise we’d start to think too much about what we were doing, and fret ourselves into apostasy.”

  Piper let that pass. “It could work. If the killer is here, and thinks we’re unlikely to turn him up, he may be careless. And if there are corpses…”

  “Then people understandably alarmed at having caught one will certainly be eager to tell us all about it,” said Galen. “The public always feels better when they have someone to complain to.” He nodded to Earstripe. “With your permission?”

  Earstripe gave the paladin a thoughtful sniff, nostrils working. “A gnole permits,” he said. “A gnole agrees.”

  “A gnole wonders what will turn up…” muttered Brindle, and turned the ox toward the village.

  Nine

  Galen watched Piper and thought dark thoughts. Dark, mostly carnal thoughts.

  The carnality wasn’t the problem. Galen had taken plenty of lovers over the years and generally felt that sex was only as complicated as you chose to make it. He wanted to slide his hands over Piper’s chest and follow that line of dark hair downward until he reached the promised land. He wanted to see what those long, clever fingers could do when they were wrapped around his cock. He wanted…well, he wanted a lot of things, and while it would have been a trifle awkward with the gnoles just outside, probably overhearing everything and rolling their eyes at each other about the silliness of human mating, Galen had worked with worse situations.

  The problem was that he liked Piper a bit too much and he was starting to worry about him.

  There wasn’t anything outwardly wrong. The man made jokes and laughed and listened to the gnoles and asked intelligent questions. He let Galen and Earstripe take the lead in the investigations, and he’d played his role perfectly in the fishing village, wearing a much put-upon expression. “Corpses,” Galen heard him say to an elderly matron, “are rather beyond my power to fix, despite what the gentleman here seems to think. But this salve you’re making intrigues me…” And the matron, who was boiling up a concoction that stank like the inside of a flounder, grinned at him and invited him to sit down and before long they were deep into a technical discussion of the various uses for fish oil.

  By the time they left the village, Piper probably knew more about how to use fish oil for medicinal purposes than the fish did. When they were ready to leave the next morning, though, the doctor had vanished.

  Galen finally tracked him down in a small, shabby room, writing furiously, with an overturned crate as a desk. There were two women in the room with him, one older, one young with her face turned away in clear embarrassment.

  “Right,” said the doctor, as the paladin filled the doorway. He blew on the ink to dry it. “You take this to Doctor Lizbet on Pope Street. Can you remember that?”

  The older woman repeated it back to him. “She can help, you say?”

  “If anyone can.”

  The young woman swallowed hard. “We don’t got the money,” she whispered.

  “It won’t cost you anything,” said Piper. “You give her this note. And if you can’t afford an inn, go to the Temple of the White Rat and tell them Piper sent you. They’ll put you up for a few days in the petitioners’ lodging.”

  The older woman looked up at him with too-bright eyes. “The gods take care of you, son.”

  The corner of Piper’s lip twisted up. “I hope so,” he said, “but until then, we’ve got to take care of each other.”

  “What was that all about?” asked Galen in an undertone, as they met up with Earstripe and left the village.

  “A damned mess. After childbirth, some women suffer a tear or a hole down there and it’s in the worst possible place to heal cleanly. Turns into a fistula. It’s…not good.”

  “Not something you can treat, I take it.”

  Piper snorted. “If I had enough poppy milk to put her in a stupor, and some specialized equipment so that I could see what the hell I was doing, and about three more sets of hands…and even then, Lizbet would do it better. A lot better. I’ve done it once, and that was on a corpse.”

  Galen had no idea how to respond to that. “Will she be all right?”

  “I don’t know,” said Piper honestly. “Even with the best care in the world, it’s barely an even chance. Maybe not even that. But she’s willing to try, because the alternative is worse.”

  “Worse?”

  “A lot of smell, a lot of discharge, a lot of pain, a lot of mess. Forever. No more children, if she wants more. Probably no more husband, whether she wants him or not.” Piper lifted his hands, let them fall again.

  “Poor girl.”

  “Indeed.” He sounded exasperated. “If they’d just get better care immediately afterward…but no, everybody gets it in their head that childbirth is natural and any fool could do it. Cows give birth, so why not people? And so I see more new mothers on the slab, or old women who have been living with something like this for years…” He shook his head, lip curling. “Sorry, I’ll stop. Nobody wants to hear me ranting about this, least of all me.”

  And that was the bit that troubled Galen. Piper clearly felt passionately about this, but he seemed annoyed by his own passion. As if his own emotions were an imposition. On the other hand, he’s probably right that most people aren’t quite pleased to hear sudden diatribes about fistulas. Still.

  “The Rat’s healers can’t treat things like that?” he asked, hoping to draw the doctor out a little.

  “The Rat’s healers are stretched thin.” Piper frowned. “Not as thin as they are in other places, perhaps, but for extremely specialized surgeries, it’s still hard.”

  “And this doctor can treat her for free?” Galen had a suspicion, but couldn’t resist confirming.

  “Not exactly, but she owes me a favor.” Piper gave him a sidelong look, as if not certain how he’d react. “That is…”

  “You might as well tell me,” said Galen. “I’ve probably heard worse.”

  “I found cadavers for her to practice her technique on.”

  Galen frowned. “You can’t possibly be a resurrectionist. Beartongue would have your balls.” While the White Rat was occasionally remarkably flexible, not many priests approved of the illicit trade in grave-robbing to provide doctors with cadavers.

  “I most certainly am not,” said Piper. “But if I got someone in on the slab who had a fistula…well, I sent a discreet word round to Lizbet. The family got the body back, with no visible changes and she got the practice in. Did get the practice in, anyway. It only took a few. And because of that, there’s a l
ot of women she can help.”

  “That seems fair,” said Galen. “It’s not as if you’re selling organs to black-market charm-makers.”

  “Yes, well. It’s not ethical, and I know it, and god help me, it genuinely is a slippery slope. Start thinking you have the right to do things to people’s bodies in a good cause, and you’re halfway to hell and picking up speed. But I also don’t know what I could have done any differently.” He hunched his shoulders. “I’ve asked the Bishop about how we could do it, if we could offer financial compensation in return, but that ends up with poor families selling their loved one’s cadavers or even more people stealing them for money, and it’s just…really not a good idea.”

  Earstripe, who had listened to this in silence, shook his head. “A gnole thinks humans worry too much about dead humans, not enough about live ones.”

  “You’re not wrong there,” said Piper. “One more thing we’re peculiar about. Any luck with tracking down our particular dead humans?”

  The gnole shook his head. “No bodies. No humans acting strange.” He paused, then added, “No more than usual, for humans.” Brindle snorted.

  “Well, it’s only the first stop,” said Galen. “And murders like this seem like they’d be done in isolation.”

  “Most of the fisherfolk wear heavy boots everywhere,” said Piper. “No leather soles.” The definition of inside and outside had been rather fluid as well, and by Piper’s standards, damned cold.

  Earstripe nodded to him. “A gnole noticed that, too.”

  “So we’re agreed the bodies probably aren’t coming from there, then?”

  Nods all around. Brindle had an ear cocked toward them, but didn’t comment.

  “The chateaus were probably always more likely,” offered Galen. “The sort of place where you swap out shoes to save the carpets.”

  Earstripe twisted his whiskers until Brindle made a chuffing sound at him and he stopped. “A gnole is thinking chateaus will be harder,” he said. “A human walks up and asks a butler-human about dead bodies, butler-human gets very…” He paused, clearly searching for an appropriate word. “Mallory-captain says shirty.”

  This had already occurred to Galen and he wasn’t sure what to do about it. “I suppose we go up and…hmm…could we tell them that there’s been some suspicious activity reported in the area and ask if they’ve seen anything out of the ordinary? Give them an opening to mention bodies if they want to?”

  “If you phrase it in a lot of civic duty and we’re-just-checking-up-on-people,” said Piper, “I suppose it might work?”

  “If we could get in and talk to the servants,” said Galen, “we might get somewhere. Or at least see if anything sets off warning bells. But that’s going to depend entirely on who answers the door.”

  “Fancy houses don’t hire gnoles,” said Brindle. It didn’t sound like he considered this a burning injustice so much as a matter of poor taste. “Can’t go asking gnoles. Could maybe visit a stable, follow nose, but don’t know if it’ll help.”

  Ten

  It could have gone better. The first house had a butler who said, in icy tones, that there had been no suspicious activity of any kind, unless one counted disreputable sorts coming to the door. His expression left little doubt as to exactly who he was referring to. The second house was staffed by a caretaker who seemed to think that Galen was trying to run a protection racket, and was demanding money to keep the suspicious activity from happening to him. The third house had no one home at all, so far as they could see.

  They caught a lucky break with the fourth house. The caretaker was garrulous and extremely bored. “Ah, well, it’s a skeleton crew on now,” he said. “Come in, come in! Have a bite to eat. Tell me all the news from the city.” He made a sweeping gesture that included both humans and gnoles, although Brindle opted to stay with the ox.

  Unfortunately, while he pulled out a selection of cold food in the kitchen and called in the two gardeners who were out working on the grounds, he didn’t actually know anything useful. Galen didn’t get any sense that he was hiding any information. The most that he could offer was that occasionally a cow got loose from the fields and turned up in the gardens, and that the baker’s boy kept obstinately making full deliveries, even when they’d told him to stop. “Said I wasn’t paying for a whole house worth of bread,” he said, gesticulating with the end of a loaf, “but I don’t like to short change him, because the lord’s cook doesn’t do plain baking. Flatly refuses. Take a few loaves with you, will you? Otherwise it’ll go to waste. Even the chickens are getting sick of it.”

  “Well, I can’t say that was useful, but it was certainly profitable,” said Piper, setting a sack full of round loaves into the wagon. “If we’re lucky, maybe the next house will have a feud with the cheesemaker.”

  The next fine house was abandoned. So was the one after that. “I didn’t realize so many of these places were in such poor condition,” murmured Piper.

  “Big house is expensive,” was Brindle’s opinion. “Maybe too expensive.”

  Galen nodded. “And if they’re entailed to a title you might not be able to sell them, even if you can’t keep them up.”

  The one after that didn’t look promising either. The roof had a precarious slant and several of the windows had boards over them. Piper had already mentally dismissed the place when Earstripe called a halt. “Smoke from a chimney,” he said, pointing.

  “So it is.” They left Brindle and the ox at the road, and hiked up the long drive to the chateau. It was even less promising up close, although someone had made an effort to keep the weeds clear of the front entrance.

  Galen knocked loudly, waited for a few moments, then knocked again. He had just lifted his fist for the third time when the door was yanked open and a man blinked at them in surprise.

  “Are you the clerk?” he asked. His gaze swept down, taking in the sword and the surcoat over the armor. Then he spotted Piper behind Galen’s shoulder. “Are you the clerk? I didn’t think the roads had gotten that bad, that you’d need to hire a guard…” He trailed off in the face of the men’s incomprehension. “Err…are you here about the ad?”

  “No,” said Galen. “We’re in the area investigating some suspicious activity and wanted to ask if you’d seen anything.”

  “Suspicious?” He blinked again. He had a certain owlish quality, Piper thought, rather short and sturdy, with large, watery eyes. “Good heavens! Come in, come in.” He stepped back into the hall. “I’m sorry, I’m Thomas. I mean, I’m not sorry that I’m Thomas, I’m sorry that I thought you were here because I’d placed an ad for a clerk.”

  “You needed someone to manage the estate?” asked Piper politely. Privately he thought that the man was rather more in need of a carpenter, or perhaps a fleet of them.

  “Oh my, yes. It’s this dreadful chateau, you understand.” He waved in a gesture that encompassed the building, outside and in. “It’s falling apart and it’s simply full of all this horrid furniture that the last generation wasn’t able to sell off, but now they’re antiques so perhaps someone will want to buy them. But I haven’t any idea what’s here, so someone needs to document it all, and probably there’s paperwork somewhere and then if I’m lucky, one of the dear departed family actually left some money or property that isn’t falling down. But you can’t get anyone to stay out here, of course, so I post the ads…”

  They crowded into the hall. Thomas blinked at Earstripe, but didn’t comment. Once inside, the decay was even more obvious. This had clearly been a very impressive building in the distant past, with wallpaper on the walls, but it had fallen down or been haphazardly ripped away in shreds.

  Piper saw movement past Thomas’s shoulder. A heavyset woman stood in the doorway behind him. She had a curiously blank face, but she met Piper’s eyes and mouthed words. He missed part of the first word as Thomas moved, but the second one looked like “away.”

  Get away? Go away?

  It seemed rather odd. His surprise mu
st have shown on his face because Thomas turned, following his gaze, and said, “Missus Hardy? Is there a problem?”

  “Wanted to see if your guests fancied tea,” said Missus Hardy, in a flat, uninflected monotone.

  “Tea would be lovely.” Thomas beamed at the trio. “Please, come into the parlor. Err…forgive the state of the furniture. And the walls. Actually, forgive the state of the whole place. I inherited it from my grandfather, you see, and he hadn’t done any upkeep at all, and now it’s all falling apart. The floors are still sound enough, but you go into the east wing and you’re taking your life in your hands.”

  Piper followed Galen into the parlor. The wallpaper was in slightly better shape here, but not by much, and the furniture had blankets thrown over it to hide the state of the upholstery. The two humans sat on a long sofa, with Earstripe sitting upright between them, his ears tense. He still hadn’t spoken. Piper wondered what he was thinking.

  “So you say there’s suspicious goings-on?” asked Thomas, leaning forward. “What sort? It’s not arson, is it?”

  “No, not arson.” Galen launched into his prepared speech. Thomas listened with apparent interest, making small noises of alarm.

  “Well,” he said finally, “that is all quite terrible. But I’m afraid I can’t help you. I don’t see anyone regularly except my housekeeper and the boy who delivers supplies. And clerks if I can get them.” He sighed. “They never stay long, I’m afraid. I can’t pay much and this isn’t exactly a social whirl out here in the countryside.”

  Missus Hardy came in with a tray of tea and set it down. She moved with short, halting steps and her face never changed. She left again without asking if they needed anything else. The teacups were mismatched and there was a large chip out of the teapot that made Thomas’s pouring rather haphazard.

  “Why are you concerned about arson in particular?” asked Earstripe, in his most careful diction.

  Thomas was so startled he nearly dropped the teapot. “I beg your pardon!” he gasped, mopping up the tea. “I didn’t expect—that is—oh dear. I’m sorry! You startled me.”