Never Trust a Dead Man (16 page)

As soon as Derian was out of sight, Selwyn headed for the stairs. The mill was the only building in Penryth that had two stories, to accommodate the huge gears needed to turn the millstone. According to Farold, Derian's room was upstairs, in the front. Farold's was the smaller room in the back beneath the stairs, where he could keep an eye—and ear—on things.

Derian's room first, Selwyn decided, to check that window while he had the most time, for Selwyn could think of no explanation to give if Derian came back and found him there.

Upstairs was the big room that housed the gears and shafts for the mill wheel. There was only one window, too small for any adult to fit through, and facing—once again—the farm of Raedan and Merton's kinsman. On the opposite wall was a door that opened to overlook the giant waterwheel that turned in the stream. No one could have climbed up and in through there.

In Derian's room the shutters didn't seem to have been tampered with, and, besides, an intruder would have needed a ladder to reach it, for there were no tall trees close enough. Selwyn looked out and saw Derian, almost to the blacksmith shop now, still chasing the goldfinch. But someone else might come in, looking for the miller, or Linton might return. Selwyn needed to hurry.

Back downstairs, he opened the door to Farold's room. Certainly he had known that Farold's body was no longer there: He knew, in fact, better than most, exactly where both Farold and his body were. And there was no reason to expect that after all this time he'd find blood-soaked mattress and blankets.
Somebody
would have taken those away. Considering the circumstances, he didn't know why he was so squeamish to look upon a room where a man had died.

Already, after not quite a week, the room had a dusty, unused smell. The bedding was gone, though Selwyn could tell where it had been, from the space beneath the window. No bloodstains, no evidence that a man's life had ended in violence here. Beyond that was the clothes chest Farold had told him about, where he had kept the knife. Selwyn went through the things in there, feeling unsettled at handling possessions that Farold would never again use, rummaging through clothes Farold would never again wear—though he had Farold's permission to be here. Clothes, a length of twine, a few coins, an apple gone all soft and brown. In a corner, beneath everything else, was a small stone that seemed to have no purpose except that it sparkled. Had Farold ever been the kind of boy to pick up a stone just because it was pretty? Selwyn realized that after seventeen years of living in the same village with Farold, he didn't know. He closed the chest.

Merton—or someone else, if Merton had bragged about having found the knife—might have looked for the blade in the chest, for it was a logical place to keep such a thing. But Merton had no reason to kill Farold.

So, suppose the murderer
hadn't
known about the knife. Selwyn thought—as he had thought before—a murderer doesn't enter a room and
then
look for something with which to kill his intended victim. Could the murderer have brought a different weapon, dropped it, and only then had to rely on what was at hand? He—or she—might not have even realized that the knife was Selwyn's until the next day.

On the other hand, Selwyn thought, how deep a sleeper was Farold to sleep through someone not only climbing in through his window but also dropping one weapon and searching the room for another?

And if the murderer had dropped or left behind anything, wouldn't it have been found by Linton when he discovered the body, or by Derian after Linton called him in, or by Bowden and Thorne when they examined the room, or by the women who had prepared Farold's body for burial? And if there was such a thing and none of them had found it and it hadn't been cleaned up, or trampled, or covered since, how was Selwyn to even recognize it as being something that didn't belong in the room?

Selwyn turned to the window. Yet another reason—he told himself—why he had been suspected, as if the argument with Farold, and the knife, and the fact that he had been in the vicinity weren't enough: The window was a small one. He was skinny and short and could easily fit through. Holt certainly could not, nor could Bowden, and probably not Orik.

He opened the shutters and found that—beyond the stream that drove the mill wheel—he had a clear view of the back of Bowden's house. He felt what he knew was an unreasonable surge of jealousy: Farold had been able to watch Anora's comings and goings from here.

Not that it makes any difference now,
Selwyn thought, what with one thing and another.

The stream would have prevented easy access to the window.
Not likely one of the women then,
Selwyn thought. Not without a lot of determination. He thought about Anora and Wilona, and decided not to dismiss either one of them after all.

He leaned far out the window to look at the narrow stretch of ground between the wall and the water. If there had been footprints, a week's worth of weather had covered them over. He didn't know if anyone had looked that first morning; that was not information they had shared while they were condemning him. There were no muddy footprints on the windowsill or the floor, at least not anymore. The shutters were badly scratched, but most of the scratches looked quite old. Selwyn suspected that Farold may well have sneaked in and out of this window nights when he didn't want his uncle knowing where he was—like the time he had gone to the tavern and spied Alden at the smithy.

Without warning, Farold practically flew into his face. "Move!" Farold cried. "Get out! He gave up and he's coming back."

Selwyn slammed the shutters closed, but they bounced halfway open again. As he reached to grab them a second time, he heard a step in the doorway behind him.

"Well, well," Derian said, "what have we here?"

"I...," Selwyn said, "I thought I saw my bird fly around the side of the mill, and I thought he might come back inside if I opened one of the windows in the back."

Derian leaned forward to hear. "The bird?" he asked.

Selwyn pointed. "He's sitting in that tree across the stream."

Farold had the sense to stay where he was and to chirp a little goldfinch song.

"But you decided to give up," Derian pointed out "You were just shutting the window."

"He's too foil of himself—playing games. Either he'll come back or he won't."
Fool! Fool!
Selwyn called himself. Each thing he said sounded less likely than the last.

Whether he heard the lame explanation or not, Derian said, "You wanted to see Farold's room." No question, just an observation.

There was no use denying it any longer. "Yes," Selwyn admitted.

"I've heard the two of you were friends," Derian said, his voice gentle. "Good friends. Very good friends. I understand why you'd want to see his room, touch his things."

Selwyn inwardly groaned. Were he and Farold the only two in Penryth who hadn't been familiar with that rumor about Farold and Kendra? Still, it couldn't hurt now to have Derian believe this story. It was an excuse for curiosity. Selwyn folded his hands in front of him and looked down at them, not admitting, but neither denying. On the other hand, there was something about the way Derian said "touch" that made Selwyn's skin feel dirty.

Derian apparently took his lack of answer as grief over the dead Farold. "There, there," he said, "what's done is done. Being sad won't bring the boy back."

It wasn't what Selwyn expected from the uncle of the dead man. He looked up, startled.
Surely I'm misjudging things here,
Selwyn told himself, for what he judged was that Derian's smile had less and less gentleness to it, and more and more of a leer.

"Don't be afraid," Derian said, moving closer. "I know you have a kind and gentle heart—didn't I tell you that at the tavern yesterday? We can comfort each other. You, after all, still have your family. I'm all alone now."

It was the same tune he'd been singing yesterday, which didn't make Selwyn like him any better, for he was beginning to suspect Derian was only trying to make Kendra feel sorry for him.

Selwyn took a step back. "No," he said firmly, to make sure Derian heard. If Derian took one more step, that would get him far enough away from the door that Selwyn would have the opportunity to dart past him. The other choice was to knock him down, which Selwyn was reluctant to do. The old man was making offensive suggestions, but—supposing Selwyn to be Kendra—he didn't know just how offensive they were. Still, Selwyn was angry on Kendra's behalf.

"Come, come," Derian said. "I may be old, but I'm wealthy. Yet, what good is wealth, if one is alone? Together we can overcome our sorrow about Farold." Derian took that extra step, and Selwyn dashed past him.

"Come again for another visit," Derian called after him as Selwyn swept up Farold's cage and made for the outside door. "My age is not so terrible to Anora. She has come to like me since Farold died. I have money and energy enough for both of you."

Aghast at what Derian was saying—never mind that the man was old enough to be Kendra's grandfather, never mind that Selwyn wasn't really Kendra—Selwyn hurried out into the street.

Farold landed on Selwyn's shoulder and made a sound of disgust. "Did my uncle just suggest to you what I think he suggested?"

Selwyn glared. Then he tried to force a more pleasant expression onto his face as he noted villagers were looking at him.

"Uh-oh," Farold said. "This looks like trouble heading right toward us."

Selwyn saw that Bowden was approaching, flanked by Thorne and Linton.

And—worst of all—several steps behind were Orik and Wilona. And, with them, carrying a bundle that could only be a baby, was their daughter, Kendra.

He could, Selwyn supposed, try to convince everybody that he was the real Kendra, and that this newer arrival was an impostor. But he realized—truth be told—he'd been lucky he'd fooled people as long as he had. If it came to answering questions about Kendra's childhood or her family, he'd be revealed as soon as the questions got more complicated than "What are the names of your parents?"

In fact, the real Kendra had probably already answered such questions to everybody's satisfaction. She had probably convinced Orik and Wilona before they'd brought the matter to Bowden.

Selwyn dropped the birdcage and started to run in the opposite direction, Farold flying right beside him.

"Stop her!" Linton yelled. "She's a witch, and the bird is her demon familiar!"

Which was probably, Selwyn thought as he ran, just as bad a thing to be accused of as being a murderer. Hands reached out to grasp at him. The long skirt threatened to trip him at every step. Selwyn swerved to avoid a cluster of villagers and dashed between two buildings: Bowden's house and the tavern. Then he made for the stream.

"Wait," Farold shouted.

Selwyn jumped in, just as Farold yelled, "Don't!"

The water momentarily closed over his head.
The dress will weigh me down and be the death of me,
Selwyn thought, but a moment later he found the surface and began swimming. Halfway across the stream he realized something was wrong; with each stroke he was looking at his sleeve, but it was not the sleeve of the dress he had been wearing when he dived in. It was the sleeve of his own shirt: the one he'd been wearing when he'd been imprisoned in the burial cave, the one Elswyth had bespelled, twice.

Selwyn pulled himself up onto the far side. Farold landed on a branch that had gotten washed onshore, and he shouted, "You dumb twit! What did you go and ruin the spell for? Now you'll never be able to convince them you're the real Kendra."

Selwyn saw villagers approaching from both across the stream and on this bank, coming around either side of the mill and leaving him nowhere to run. There was no getting away from them. Still, though they were cutting off escape, they were not closing in. Having seen him change from Kendra to the imprisoned and presumably dead Selwyn in front of their very eyes, no one was willing to be the first to get too close. He sat on the bank, gasping for air, for he was not a strong swimmer, and he told Farold, "I'd never be able to convince them, anyway." He ran his hands down his arms and wrapped his arms around himself—his own self. "How did you know?"

"How did I know what?"

"That immersing myself in water would counteract the spell."

Farold looked skeptical. "You didn't know that? You let her put a spell on you without knowing what the antidote was? You dumb twit, I can't believe you never asked how to get rid of the disguise.
I
asked her. I asked her the first time, when she wasn't even putting a spell on
me.
I assumed you did, too, before you let her actually start. Dumb twit."

It was, eventually, Merton who was the first to actually take hold of his arm, to force him to his feet "Selwyn," he said hesitantly, incredulously, but clearly into the silence of at least half the villagers, and the rest still gathering. "Is that who you really are: Selwyn?"

Linton had swum across the stream, unwilling to let others take credit for the capture. "Murdering my cousin wasn't enough," Linton shouted so that the people on both sides of the stream could hear. "Obviously Selwyn is deeply involved in sorcery, too! I say we weigh him down with stones and drown him."

"Linton—," Selwyn started, but Linton spun him around. Merton was still holding on to his arm, so that it was twisted painfully high behind his back. Selwyn gasped in pain, and the next moment, Linton shoved a gag into his mouth. They were not going to let him speak. He had learned things, but they were not going to let him speak.

And then, suddenly, Farold came diving out of the sky, straight at Linton's face.

Startled, Linton threw his arm up to protect his face, letting go of the gag. But in the next moment, Linton recovered enough to swat at the air around his head.

Farold came at him again.

Selwyn spit out the gag. "No!" he cried, knowing that Linton needed only a glancing blow to crush the life out of those delicate bat-disguised-as-bird bones. "Don't!"

And, before he could warn Linton what he was about to do, Linton's hand struck the goldfinch, hurling the bird downward to the ground.