Murder in Cormyr (14 page)

When we investigated it, we found it to be quite simple, really. One dug one’s hand down through the moss, and there, two inches below, was a latch. You just lifted it, and the door would open. No lock was necessary, for I (and probably Fastred) could not imagine anyone stumbling upon the place, unless he knew precisely where to go.

And that posed another question. How did Grodoveth know where to go in the first place? How did he end up at the tomb, and at the mercy of the killer?

The trek back through the swamp was even longer than the march in. We had to move more slowly so that we wouldn’t leave the corpse-bearing soldiers behind. And I finally learned how the thornslinger got its name.

It happened when one of the soldiers slipped in the muck.

We had all been walking as quietly as possible, but when the soldier slid off the path, going up to his knees in vile black swamp water, he cursed. Not loudly, and certainly not the worst curse I had ever heard, but enough so that the rest of us turned to see what was wrong, and saw the lowlying tree nearby shiver. One of the limbs twitched violently, like a hand flicking off some unwanted liquid.

But instead of liquid, a dozen foot-long thorns came flying toward the soldiers. Most of them whizzed by, one coming within inches of the second man. But one thorn, with a wet, ugly sound, sank its entire length into the body of Grodoveth. The two soldiers just stared at it, and the one who had fallen scuttled back onto the path and picked up his end of the dropped burden. Both of them shuffled through the muck as quickly as they could, heeding Darvik’s frantic but silent gestures.

When our party was far enough away, Darvik halted. “I think yore men had better pull that thorn out the body, sor,” he said to Captain Flim.

“Pull it out? Now?” Flim said, no doubt wondering why it could not be done later.

“Aye, sor. Else there won’t be a great much of the body to send to Suzail, sor.”

Captain Flim raised his eyebrows at that, and ordered the soldiers to unwrap the corpse. Sure enough, the flesh had started to blacken and putrefy around the spot where the thorn had gone in. ‘Take it out!” Flim ordered, and the soldiers hopped to.

‘Try not to get it against yer skin, sors,” the gnome cautioned, and the soldiers’ haste slackened considerably.

Soon the thorn was out and thrown off the path. As it sank into the bog, I wondered what effect it might have on a living man, and decided I was lucky not to know. When the

corpse was wrapped again, we went on.

I don’t recall ever being as glad to set foot on dry land again, even if that land was parched by drought. The contrast between the swamp and the hard, moistureless soil of the rest of the land around Ghars was extraordinary. Some had suggested diverting moisture from the swamp to the surrounding farmlands, but when those budding engineers were asked if they would want to eat grain and vegetables that had been irrigated with water from the Vast Swamp, their faces told the story clearly enough. At the very least, it was felt the swamp water was poisonous, and at the worst, it would turn any drinker reptilian within days, though that’s a bit exaggerated. I suspect it would take at least a month.

Captain Flim and the soldiers headed back to town with the body, Darvik started back to his holdings on foot, and Lindavar and I returned to Benelaius’s cottage. We discussed the situation as we rode but kept most of our thoughts to ourselves, waiting to share them with Benelaius.

As my master opened the door for us, he called up the stairs, “You may get dressed now, Lord Mayor. Your clothes are hanging on the hook just outside the door.” He looked at us and gave a tolerant smile. “Mayor Tobald, though usually a jolly sort, doesn’t care at all for my examinations. But when someone is in the state he is in, I feel I must be thorough. But come, sit, and tell me what you’ve seen in the swamp.”

Lindavar looked down at our swamp-saturated selves. “May we change first, Benelaius? “

“Oh, of course, of course! Silly of me not to notice. That must be quite uncomfortable, all that squishing around inside your trousers. Yes, do change, and put your dirty clothing down the chute in the hall. But let’s just wait a moment until Tobald comes down.”

In a few minutes, a miserable Mayor Tobald descended our stairs, cats scurrying from beneath his Umping feet. He looked as though he had lost his best friend and a great deal

of sleep besides. I decided then that I would never seek public office, no doubt relieving the populace, had they but known.

“Lord Mayor, I regret the comprehensiveness of my examination of you, but I am pleased to say that everything seems to be in order save for your gout. The proper palliative will take a day for me to make, but I shall send Jasper into town first thing tomorrow morning with the tablets to relieve your suffering.”

“Thank you, Benelaius,” Tobald said. Then he impatiently turned to Lindavar and me. “And out there—did you find anything? Anything to tell us who did this monstrous crime?”

“Two things we know for sure,” Lindavar said. “The first is that Grodoveth was beheaded in the same manner as Dovo, and the second is that no one will ever have to seek the tomb of Fastred again.”

For a moment, Tobald seemed stricken dumb. Then he said, “Fastred’s tomb? You found Fastred’s tomb?”

“Grodoveth did,” I said. “Or maybe his killer did. At any rate, whatever treasure was there is gone.”

“Quite fascinating,” said Benelaius briskly. “I shall have to visit it sometime. Now, Tobald, I think it would be best were you to ride home and rest that foot.”

“No rest, no rest,’ said Tobald. ‘Too much to do for tomorrow.”

“Give yourself some time at least,” said my master, “before throwing yourself back into your work. And retire early tonight. No drinking at the Bold Bard.”

“Very well, Benelaius.” Tobald looked at the wizard with pleading eyes. ‘You will find this killer, won’t you? Just to know that this fiend is still at large…”

“We shall certainly do our best. Now let Jasper assist you

in mounting your horse.” I raised my eyebrows, but no one noticed.

Tobald was not an easy man to fling into the saddle, but I got it accomplished. We stood and watched him ride away, his shoulders hunched, his head down. I felt sorry for him, losing a friend, seeing his town dishonored by allowing an envoy of the king to get murdered, and of course, having to put on a cheery countenance for the arrival of the guild bigwigs the next day. Even though the job was primarily ceremonial, a mayor’s lot was not always a happy one.

“I am very concerned about Mayor Tobald,” said Benelaius quietly, when Tobald had ridden out of earshot. “He is quite naturally upset, but I fear there is more to it than that. I even tested his blood, and extracted… this.”

From the folds of his robe he produced a small vial that contained a few drops of a pale yellow liquid. “I have already analyzed a small amount, but I should like you to confirm my findings, Lindavar. First, however, you and Jasper should get out of those wet things.”

Lindavar and I went upstairs and changed, putting our muddy clothes down the chute that dropped them into a basket in the kitchen. Back downstairs, Benelaius led the way into his study, where a long and wide bench held a number of wizardry and scientific instruments. Lindavar, in spite of the unfamiliar surroundings, performed the procedure unerringly. I suppose one alembic’s pretty much like another when you know what to do with it.

The younger mage added a drop of some reagent from the rows of multicolored vials on shelves above the bench, then fitted the vial securely into a centrifuge. He pumped the foot pedals to spin the device for several minutes, then drew a precipitate out of the vial and placed it on a glass slide. To it he added several drops of other chemicals, under

whose influence it turned a variety of unpleasant shades. Finally Lindavar straightened up and looked grimly at Benelaius.

“Blackweed,” he said, and Benelaius nodded. “When this enters the system,” Lindavar went on, “it will kill in twenty-four hours.”

“Don’t worry,” Benelaius said. “We’re in time. I… gave him something for it. He doesn’t know.”

“But who would want to poison Mayor Tobald?” I asked. As far as I was concerned, the mayor was inoffensive and ineffectual. What threat could he be to anyone?

“And who would want to kill Dovo or Grodoveth?” Benelaius said. “Yet killed they were. Now,” he went on, walking toward the door of the study, “I should like to hear your reports of what you found at this… tomb, was it? And if I’m not wrong, I do believe it’s past time for our noonday meal.”

I cooked a hearty luncheon of soup, which I served with black bread, and while we ate we told Benelaius everything we had seen that morning in the swamp. He looked at each of us intently as we spoke, and I fancied that each word, each disparate observation on our part was coalescing in his mighty brain, forming some ingenious solution that he would soon share with us.

When I came to the part about finding the white powder on the tomb floor, I handed the bit of paper to him. He unwrapped it, wet his finger, and tasted the powder the way I had in the cave. His lip curled for an instant at its bitterness, and he grunted and wrapped it up again.

“We’ll analyze this after lunch,” he said, putting it in one of his inner pockets.

Lindavar and I finished our story, and I leaned forward breathlessly, waiting to see what conclusions Benelaius would draw. “So,” he said slowly, wiping his mouth and beard with his napkin, “it seems that Grodoveth was beheaded by a left-handed killer at Fastred’s tomb. But the question remains, what was he doing at Fastred’s tomb in the first place?”

Lindavar steepled his fingers and looked at the inside of them as he spoke. “He was reading about Fastred in the library.”

“But before the ghost started appearing,” I reminded him.

“Yes. But supposing that was merely a coincidence. Then, as Dovo began to appear as the ghost, Grodoveth got more interested, more curious. The more he reads, the more he starts to discover about Fastred, where his tomb might be, and the treasure that’s supposed to be there as well.

‘Then Dovo is found murdered, and it becomes more than a treasure hunt for Grodoveth. Despite his faults, he is the king’s envoy, and he sees a chance to bring a killer to justice. Find the tomb, he reasons, and he may also find the person who kills as Fastred killed—and a treasure to boot.

“So, by using clues that he found in the old books, Grodoveth is actually able to discover not only the whereabouts of the tomb, but the secret of opening it as well.”

“Would that be possible?” I interjected. “I mean, weren’t these bandit kings usually able to keep their tombs a secret? You know, the old ‘dead men tell no tales’ thing?”

“Since you found no skeletons of those who had interred Fastred,” Benelaius said, “I think it likely that someone put him in there and left alive. Perhaps his curse kept those who knew the secret away from the tomb.”

“But it didn’t keep them from talking about the tomb,” said Lindavar, “at least elliptically, if someone—the killer or Grodoveth or maybe both—was able to find and open it.”

“Mmm,” Benelaius said. “So you think Grodoveth and possibly the killer put together the different clues left hither and yon over the years and found the tomb.”

“Yes,” Lindavar said. “Unfortunately when Grodoveth found it, the killer was lying in wait and killed him.”

“Or,” I said, “perhaps the killer hadn’t found the tomb at all but followed Grodoveth there, killed him, and took the treasure.”

Lindavar considered that for a moment and then nodded. ‘True,” he said. “We have no knowledge of anyone else examining those particular books in the library.”

“The lack of something proves nothing,” said Benelaius. “The killer might have gotten the information elsewhere. With all due respect to Phelos Marmwitz, there are greater receptacles of knowledge than the Ghars library. For example, I’d be willing to wager that my own modest collection contains enough works of local folklore and history for a methodical reader to locate Fastred’s tomb.” He sighed. “Be that as it may, do you two feel that we are any closer to an actual solution now than we were before?”

“Further away, if anything,” Lindavar said. “Before, Grodoveth was strongly in the lead as the murderer, but becoming a victim has definitively put him out of the running.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said flippantly. “Perhaps he was the killer, and out of guilt, he chopped his own head off.”

Neither Benelaius nor Lindavar laughed. Instead they looked at me with pained expressions, and I realized my joke had not been terribly funny. “Sorry,” I said.

“Apology accepted,” said Benelaius. “Well, we must press on. Any suggestions?”

“Why don’t I go back to town?” I said. “This murder has brought us full circle back to the phony ghost again. If Grodoveth had been killed in his room at the Swamp Rat, or on the road to town, or nearly anywhere else, there would be no further connection with the ghost. But to have him slain in Fastred’s tomb… well, if nobody had taken the treasure, I’d have thought the actual ghost killed him. So my idea is, learn more about the ghost, learn more about the murderer. They seem inextricably bound.”

“And exactly how are you going to learn about… the ghost?” asked Benelaius.

“By talking to everyone who saw Dovo playing it. I have the list. Maybe there’s something that one of the witnesses remembers that might shed some light on this whole murky business. I swear, it’s getting muddier than the Vast Swamp itself.”

“Muddy…” said Benelaius. ‘Very well, Jasper, go to town. But that ‘muddy’ business reminds me… before you go, please do the washing. It’s a bree2y day at last, so it should dry quickly, and Lindavar has brought only a limited wardrobe.”

I bet Camber Fosrick never had to do the laundry before he went off investigating, I thought as I trudged into the kitchen.

The dirty garments lay at the bottom of the chute from upstairs, and I had to remove several cats who were reclining on the unmuddied parts of the clothes, which were few. I scraped soap into the washtub, filled it with boiling water, and washed the clothes.