Four and Twenty Blackbirds (32 page)

She returned her rebellious mind to the proper path, but at least in its wanderings something else had occurred to her, based on the fact that as a commoner, she would be treated very differently from the deference her current status afforded her. There was another characteristic of the murders that made her think the murderer was either a Priest or a noble—or both. The sheer contempt with which the man used and discarded his "tools" argued for someone who regarded the common man as completely disposable and not worth a second thought. So many Priests in her experience held commoners in scarcely concealed contempt, a contempt she thought she saw operating now.

There didn't seem to be any point in pursuing another hare—all the information they had fit the idea that this mage was or had been a Priest-Mage. If he was a former Priest, well, he had earned himself double punishment, both secular and sacred, and neither the secular nor the sacred Judges would be inclined to grant him any mercy.
But what do I do if it
is
an active Priest? How can I handle this to do the least amount of damage to the trust that people have in the Church?
The disaster in Gradford had shaken the trust of many to the core. Ardis and many others had barely averted a worse disaster involving the High King. There were many nonhumans who feared the Church and its representatives so much that they would probably do anything in their power to avoid even casual contact with it. If this was an active Priest—

I have to hope it's an apostate, someone who has been ejected from the Church for previous crimes. Otherwise—no matter how well we handle it, the situation is going to result in an enormous setback. It will take decades to recover from it. 
 

Her hands and feet were cold; her ankles ached. Her stomach was a mass of knots. She left her chair behind her desk to take her place beside the fire.

For a moment she felt completely overwhelmed by the situation; felt that it was more than she could handle. She wanted, desperately, to give it all up, put it in the hands of someone else, and run away. Oh, if only she could do that! If only she could retreat somewhere, to some place where she could concentrate on minutiae and forget this dreadful burden of responsibility, the torment of a wayward heart! She clenched her hands on the arms of her chair and forced back tears of exhaustion.

But when the Sacrificed God faced the Flames, He didn't run away. He entered them bravely, without looking back. And I don't care what the cynics say that the fact that He knew He was immortal made him fearless; the Flames weren't any less agonizing as they burned away His mortal flesh and permitted His immortal soul to escape. He had every reason to fear the Flames, yet to save the world, He stepped into them. If He could face His own death, how can I not face my own life? 

She wanted faith, wanted to believe. The problem was that she was at heart an intellectual creature, not an emotional one. Belief didn't come easily for her; she wanted empirical evidence. She envied those whose belief simply
was,
who believed as matter-of-factly as they breathed, or dreamed.

And the only evidence I have is that evil has a freer hand in this world than good. 
 

All her life she had waited in vain for that tiny whisper in the depths of her soul to
give
her an answer. She didn't really care what question the answer addressed—she just wanted to hear the whisper, once.

Maybe she was unworthy. If that was true, then maybe she ought to renounce her vows and run off with Tal Rufen. There would certainly be no loss to the world if she did. She was no Priest if she could not believe herself in what she preached. If she was unworthy, she should give over her place to someone who
was
worthy of it.

But maybe the reason she had never heard that whisper was only because she had
always
had the capability to find her own answers, if she just worked hard enough at it. And if that was the case, then running off with Tal would be a terrible betrayal of everything she was, everything she hoped to be, and most importantly, everything God had placed her here to do. Would a person with more faith and fewer wits be making a better job of this problem, or a worse one? She had to think that it would be the latter. Faith would only sustain a person through this situation; only intelligence and reasoning would bring an end to it.

The murderer will make a mistake, she told herself. That's the pattern with crimes like these, too. He'll get overconfident and make a mistake. He'll choose a target who has protection—or one of our people will get the knife before he does. I have to believe that. If we just work hard enough, we'll find him. 

She wasn't altogether sure she
wanted
to face the troubles that would erupt when they did find and catch him, but failure was not an option here.

Perhaps I can have the Free Bards in Kingsford spreading the word to be wary among the women of the streets. If I can keep them all within walls, I'll have an easier chance of finding him. 
 

Of course, the only Free Bard likely to believe her was that disreputable rascal, Raven—and Raven was off somewhere else this season with that saucy young bride of his. But maybe he'd returned by now—

I can certainly find out. And just maybe the letters from Talaysen will convince his friends that I'm trustworthy. 
 

Action. Doing something.
That
made her feel better, less helpless, more effective.

Maybe a little more discreet pressure on the bird-man. I could remind him that some of the people dying are friends of his friends. How important are kin and friends to one of his kind? I should find that out if I can. 
 

Now that would be a coup; if she could get Visyr to cooperate,
he
might be able to get his talons on a knife before the killer stole it back. If they just had a knife, their job would be enormously easier.

I'll concentrate our efforts on stopping the murders by getting women under cover, she decided. And once they're under cover, I'll concentrate on getting hold of a knife. 

She sighed, and felt a little of the tension ease. With clearly formed tasks of her own to concentrate on, it would be easier to keep other, more troubling thoughts at bay.

She got up and returned to her desk, prepared now to open the complicated channels of communication between the Church and the people of the streets. There was, after all, only so much time before the murderer struck again, and she was determined to give him as few opportunities as possible.

Tal was not altogether certain that Ardis would be happy about the course he was pursuing today, but he had decided to take advantage of his status as a Special Inquisitor to pry into a number of records he probably should not see under ordinary circumstances. He'd tell Ardis when he made his report; it was always easier to apologize for overstepping one's bounds than to get permission aforehand, though careers and friendships would always suffer from that policy's overuse.

He'd had Kayne get him copies of the Abbey records of Priests, all of whom had been associated with the Kingsford Abbeys, who'd been dismissed or resigned from the Church over the past twenty years. He wasn't confining himself to Priests who were also mages; although he had never seen or heard of such a killer working with someone else, it had occurred to him that the stakes were too high for him to ignore the possibility. The murderer
could
be a Priest in league with a mage, and they didn't even have to have identical obsessions for the partnership to work. If the Priest in such a partnering, for instance, had been expelled from the Church for misappropriation of funds, well then, there might certainly be substantial enough money to just hire a mage. Alternately, a mage might be in conspiracy just for the side benefits. It was easy enough to guess what the mage would get out of such an association; everyone knew that there was power to be had from death, and the more violent the death, the more power could be obtained. For someone with no morals and a great deal of ambition, this would be a situation too tempting to refuse. Often magical prowess was directly linked to the power available to be used, in much the way that a glass-blower could only become adept at creating huge ceremonial bowls by having enough raw glass and fuel for his furnace to practice with.

So, against the occasional grumblings of his old, walk-the-streets-and-listen constable reflexes, he spent more time in papers and tablets. There were six Priest-Mages who fulfilled those qualifications, and another nine Priests. Written at the end of the records of four of the Priest-Mages was the disappointing word, "Deceased," followed by a date, but at the end of two were the more cryptic words, "Missing, presumed dead." Since the dates on these records were clearly the time of the Great Fire, he could only assume that the two Priest-Mages had somehow gotten misplaced in the confusion. Where they were missing
from,
the records gave no clue, although he suspected very strongly that there were other records associated with these that only Ardis had access to.

The causes for dismissal were enlightening, but not particularly surprising. Tal had been a street-constable for too long not to know that Priests could be as fallible as ordinary folk, and as weak. It often appeared to him that the real sin was in getting caught sinning rather than the act itself.

Fraud, embezzlement, fornication, abuse of privilege—those were the most common, though there were one or two other references that might have puzzled someone with less experience than Tal. "Inappropriate behavior with children," for instance, followed by a very heavy punishment, made him very glad that this was a file on a Priest who was demonstrably
dead,
or Tal might have been tempted to pay an extra-legal visit to the man.

In the end, he had only five names out of the possible fifteen who might still be living in Kingsford. To track them down quickly, he would need help. It was time for a visit to Captain Fenris.

He'd already made one visit, as formal as one ever got with that energetic man, presenting himself and his credentials to Fenris during one of his instructional rounds for new constables. Fenris had been skeptical of Tal's abilities—not that he'd been so ill-mannered as to show that he was, but Tal could read volumes into his little pauses and silences. But as it happened, an altercation over a game of chance had broken out not far from where he met up with the Captain, and Tal had gotten caught up in quelling the small riot and sorting out the claims and counterclaims afterwards. After that, Fenris treated him with the respect his own superiors never had, leaving word with his own men that Tal was to get full cooperation, no questions asked.

Tal tucked his list of names and descriptions into his belt-pouch, bundled himself against the cold, and headed for the stable. His old nag of a horse was patient and easy to handle; it was a matter of a few moments to get him saddled and bridled, and he was through the Abbey gate and heading across the bridge into Kingsford.

Captain Fenris worked out of a common-looking, three-storied building just outside the walls of the Ducal Palace; though it had no stable of its own, a servant took Tal's horse and led it through a postern-gate to the Duke's stables. As Tal dusted the snow from his shoulders and approached the front door, he had to chuckle a little at the thought of his stocky, common-as-dirt gelding being housed side-by-side with the Duke's matched carriage-horses and fine saddle-breds.

As soon as he entered the front door, he was greeted by a Desk-Sergeant stationed just inside. He presented his identification, and the man's attitude changed from civil to positively submissive.

"Sir!" the man said, all but rising to salute. "The Captain is not in, but I can send a runner after him, or send a runner with you to guide you—"

"I don't precisely need to see Captain Fenris in person," Tal replied, interrupting the man, but as politely as he could. "What I need is access to city records. I have the names of five men who were once associated with the Abbey who might still be living in Kingsford, that I would like to track down. If that's possible."

The Sergeant nodded, his lips thinning a little. "I'm sure I don't have to point out that these men might have changed their names—" he began.

Tal didn't quite chuckle. "And I'm sure I don't have to point out that if they've been up to any more—mischief—the constabulary records will have noted those name changes."

The Desk-Sergeant smirked. "Third floor, fourth door on the right. Show the guard your credentials; the Captain has already left standing orders about you."

As Tal climbed the stairs, he wondered just what those "standing orders" were, since he had stressed that Ardis did not want it known that he was a Special Inquisitor. Evidently the Captain had his own way of establishing someone's authorization without resorting to the actual titles.

A guard on a records-room, though—that's interesting. I suspect there's a great deal of delicate information in there. Dear God—Fenris must trust me more than I thought! Or he trusts Ardis to know that I'm trustworthy, which amounts to the same thing. With a sensation of unsettled emotion, he wasn't quite sure how he should react to that revelation. Should he feel flattered? Perhaps a little, but he suspected that situation was due more to Ardis's competence than his own. He was embarrassed, certainly; it was embarrassing to be accorded so much respect when he didn't really feel he'd earned it.

Still it was helping him get his job done, and for that alone he was grateful. When he presented his papers to the guard at the end of the corridor (who was evidently guarding
all
of the rooms at that end, not just the single records-room) he got another smart salute, and was able to return it with grave equanimity.

The room in question was small, but lit quite adequately by means of a clearly often-patched skylight. Folios of papers filled all four walls, and if it had ever boasted a window, the window had long since been boarded up. Tal would have been at a complete loss as to where to start had there not been an indexing-book on the table in the center of the room.