The Fire Seer and Her Quradum (22 page)

“If they let Shala go without consequences, your brothers may decide to run away as well.” Taya was considering doing the same. Just grab Setsi and Nindar and ride for Rakigari. But they wouldn’t be able to hide from the crown’s agents as Shala was doing, since their destination was a Coalition temple, and everybody knew that.

“I don’t think my brothers will leave,” said Mandir. “Shala had someplace to go, a home where she was wanted and might be welcomed back, even in her pregnant state. My brothers have nowhere and nobody.”

“One of your brothers did leave, a while back,” said Taya.

“Haban was an exception,” said Mandir. “My brothers have no skills—excepting you, Nindar, and perhaps Setsi—and they don’t know how to survive anywhere but here.”

“Setsi has skills, but nothing I could see him making a living with,” said Nindar.

“Then it’s a good thing he has magic,” said Taya. “Nindar, we want to hear your version of what happened the night of the murder.”

Nindar looked alarmed. “I had nothing to do with it.”

“Of course you didn’t,” said Taya. “We’re just trying to put together a timeline and figure out who had opportunity to deliver the poison. I’m looking for little details, things you might not think are important, such as whom you saw outside when you were trying to round up the dogs.”

“Oh,” said Nindar. “Let’s see. I saw you two, and of course Setsi, because we all went out together. And I saw Shala and Runawir. And later—”

“Hold on,” said Taya. “When did you see Shala?”

“A few minutes after we went out,” said Nindar. “She was near the main house—I don’t think she wanted to range too far. She’s scared of the dogs.”

But apparently not scared to steal a horse. “What was she doing when you saw her?”

“Walking around near the house,” said Nindar. “If she was doing something else, I wasn’t close enough to see.”

“And Runawir—was he with Shala?” asked Mandir.

“No, he was alone, and that was later,” said Nindar. “We’d been out maybe fifteen minutes or so.”

“What was he doing?” asked Mandir.

“Just looking for the dogs.”

“Who did you see after that—anyone?” asked Taya.

“Tufan and his guards, rounding up the dogs.”

Further questions gave her no additional information. Nindar’s story agreed with Setsi’s completely. Nindar headed into the stable to untack the horse, while she and Mandir turned toward the main house. They were alone now; the crowd had dispersed.

Even so, she lowered her voice as she spoke to Mandir. “What’s nagging at me about this case is Yanzu. I can see all kinds of reasons people might have to kill Tufan, and we’ve speculated quite a bit about motives for his murder. But Yanzu feels like an afterthought.”

“That’s nagging at me too,” said Mandir. “Perhaps we’ve focused overmuch on Tufan.”

“Shala, for example,” said Taya. “Tufan would have killed her baby if it had been born a girl, so it makes sense that she might murder Tufan to protect the unborn child. But if she’s the killer and that was her motive, why would she kill Yanzu as well?”

Mandir nodded. “I know. It’s a good theory until you bring Yanzu into it.”

“Then there’s Setsi and Nindar. Murdering Tufan would solve the problem they had. But if one or both of them killed him, why would they also kill Yanzu? I know he’s a zebu’s ass and everybody hates him. But hating someone is not sufficient motive to kill them.”

Mandir glanced at her sidelong. “Else you would have killed me a long time ago.”

She smiled. “Exactly.”

“This is why I’m leaning toward Runawir as the murderer,” said Mandir. “We know he fought with Yanzu the night of the murder, and that fight was probably about Shala. That gives him a motive to kill Yanzu. As for Tufan, if Runawir believes he’s the father of her unborn baby, he might want to protect that baby. That gives him the motive—an
urgent
motive—to kill Tufan.”

“Good point, although he doesn’t seem too concerned about Shala’s disappearance.”

Mandir shrugged. “Maybe he doesn’t care about raising the baby. He just wants it to survive.”

They reached the main house, which made conversation impractical, as there were too many ears about. Taya mulled over the possibilities as they headed to their guest room. She wondered: could a man such as Runawir, who had routinely raped a woman and bullied his brothers, be principled enough to want to protect his child? Maybe protecting one’s child wasn’t so much principled as it was instinctive, something nearly all men did, even terrible ones like Runawir.

She arrived at their guest room and stopped short.

The room was full of people. Three of the palace guards were there, searching through their things. Bel-Sumai had his brown dog with him.

Mandir stepped protectively in front of her. “What are you doing in here?”

Bel-Sumai held up a small object—it was Gadatas’s vial of
nepenthe
. “When were you going to tell us about this?”

Chapter 24

A shiver ran down Mandir’s spine. A short while ago, that vial had been at the tutor’s house. During the time they’d been outside talking to Bel-Ditana and then to Nindar, somebody had removed that vial from the tutor’s house, placed it in his saddlebags, and tipped the guards to look for it.

Mandir flashed back to his boyhood, to the dozens of times he’d been blamed by one of his brothers for a crime he hadn’t committed. It was happening again.

Who had betrayed him this time? Gadatas, perhaps, hoping to deflect suspicion from himself? Or someone who’d eavesdropped on their talk with Gadatas? Ilinos was a known eavesdropper. “Who told you to search our room?”

“That’s not your business,” said Bel-Sumai.

“It is my business, because that vial of
nepenthe
isn’t mine,” said Mandir. “It belongs to Gadatas. Taya and I discovered it among his possessions a little over an hour ago. Someone must have been spying on us, and then they took the vial and planted it here.”

Taya stepped forward. “He’s telling the truth; I was with him. We don’t carry
nepenthe
at all, only
kimat
. That vial belongs to Gadatas, and it was in his quarters a short while ago.”

Bel-Sumai frowned as he looked from Mandir to Taya and back again. Meanwhile, another guard slipped behind them to block the door.

“Who told you to look in my saddlebags?” Mandir demanded.

“I don’t have to tell you that,” said Bel-Sumai. “Mandir isu Sarrum, you killed Prince Tufan.”

“He absolutely did not,” said Taya. “And if you accuse him falsely, you invite trouble from the Coalition.”

Bel-Sumai, ignoring her, stepped forward. Mandir held his ground, refusing to back away or make any show of submission. He was not going to be intimidated by this king’s agent who was clearly out to punish Mandir for an old grievance. The other two guards quietly positioned themselves to surround him. Were all the guards in on the conspiracy? Or could it be just Bel-Sumai, who’d convinced the rest of them that Mandir was the killer?

Bel-Sumai stood so close that Mandir could smell his breath.

“You threatened the prince’s life on the evening he was killed,” said Bel-Sumai. “And nobody can account for your whereabouts on the evening that the prince’s wine cup was poisoned.”

“I can account for his whereabouts,” said Taya.

Bel-Sumai didn’t even glance at her. “On top of that, the poison used to kill Tufan and Yanzu was found among your personal items.”

Mandir considered his options. The man clearly intended to arrest him, but he didn’t have to submit to that. He could fight and surely win, especially if Taya joined in. But to do that, he might have to kill the guards. Fire was no good for immobilizing people; it was an instrument of death. If he and Taya killed these men and fled home to the Coalition temple, they’d be in a lot of trouble. The king would dispatch more men to collect him, and Mandir would look very guilty, having killed the first set.

Violence was not the answer, not in this situation. He and Taya needed to find another way out. Persuasion didn’t seem to be working, but he kept trying. “Why would I keep
nepenthe
among my personal things if I’d killed someone with it? Any sensible man would have thrown it in the river.”

“Because you’re just that stupid,” said Bel-Sumai.

“This accusation is ridiculous,” said Taya. “You have no proof of anything. Even if that vial of
nepenthe
did belong to Mandir, which it doesn’t, we have no idea if it was used to kill Tufan. There’s another vial of
nepenthe
in Tufan’s own room which the murderer might have used, and for all we know there might be other vials on the property.”

“You told me in your interviews that the only poison you carried was
kimat
,” said Bel-Sumai. “And yet we found
nepenthe
in your things. You lied.”

“No,” said Mandir. “I told the truth.”

“I’m taking you into custody,” said Bel-Sumai. “And I ask that for all our sakes, you come peacefully. Otherwise there could be trouble.”

“There’ll be trouble, all right,” Mandir muttered. Bel-Sumai must have balls of bronze. He knew that Mandir could kill him easily and was relying on Mandir’s desire not to cause strife between the Coalition and the crown. “Where do you propose to take me?”

“For now, Tufan’s chambers,” said Bel-Sumai. “Tomorrow, the palace, where you will face King Izdubar and be tried for your crimes.”

If he went to trial at the palace, would the Coalition defend him? They’d punished him once with a Year of Penance; perhaps they thought he was too much trouble to be worth protecting. Even if they did defend him, it might not end well. This conflict could undermine the uneasy peace that the Accords of Let had established between the Coalition and the crown.

“Mandir is not going to the palace,” said Taya. “This is outrageous. Somebody planted that
nepenthe
, and I think you know who it was.”

The guards surrounded Mandir. He decided to buy time. “I’ll come along for now. Taya, you’ve got to find out who planted that vial.”

Her brow furrowed. “But they’re taking you to the palace tomorrow.”

“Then you have to find out before then.” If she didn’t find the murderer by morning, she likely never would. Once the guards left for the palace, the household would disperse. His brothers would fly away like windblown seeds, never to be found again. “If you don’t succeed, ride for the Coalition and get help.”

“I’ll find the murderer,” she said.

He did not resist as the guards marched him out of the room. Taya was on her own.

∞

Taya paced the floor of the guest room, having no idea what to do. She had until morning to solve this case. But how? Her heart beat rapidly, readying her body for action that she had no physical outlet for. She could confront Gadatas and Ilinos, the two people most likely to have planted the
nepenthe
. But they’d just deny they’d done it. What would that accomplish?

There was one man they hadn’t interviewed yet: Shardali. But Mandir didn’t trust Shardali to be honest. Interviewing him might not be the best use of her limited time.

She needed to
think
.

The guards had accused Mandir of killing Tufan but they’d said nothing about Yanzu. Probably they didn’t care about Yanzu’s death; he was only a bastard, not a prince of the realm. But Yanzu’s death was more puzzling than Tufan’s. She and Mandir had said before that while motives for killing Tufan abounded, they were harder to come by for Yanzu. Everyone was treating Yanzu’s death as an afterthought, and yet it had to be important. Perhaps if she spent some time focusing on Yanzu’s murder, she might figure out who’d killed Tufan.

She ran through a mental list of the suspects. Who had motive to kill Yanzu? Runawir, for one, since he and Yanzu had been rivals in competing for Shala and it was clear that the two had been in a fight the evening of the murder.

Perhaps talking to Shardali wasn’t such a bad idea. Shardali seemed to spend a lot of time with Runawir and Yanzu and probably understood the dynamic between them. If she asked him about his brothers, she might get more honesty out of him than if she asked him about the night of the murder.

And if that turned up nothing...well, she’d try something else.

∞

Shardali was in the kitchen, kneeling on the floor and rinsing barley in a bucket. The fire was lit, which suggested that he intended to cook it. The sight of Shardali preparing food surprised Taya. She had not realized he had the skill. “Didn’t think I’d find you here.”

He glanced at her sidelong. “W-what do you want?”

“I didn’t know you could cook.”

“W-when I was y-younger, I cooked all the time.”

Of course. In this household, the older and stronger boys forced the younger and weaker ones to do most of the work. Shardali had been one of those younger, weaker boys for a while before he’d been able to force someone else to take his place.

“I’m not sharing, if that’s what you’re after,” Shardali added. “You w-want some barley, you m-make your own.”

What a charming fellow. Taya eyed him. A finger trembled on his left hand as it steadied the bucket. Did Shardali have a nervous condition that caused a tremor as well as his verbal stammer? She supposed his tremor might be the lingering effects of an injury. Injuries were common here.

“I want to ask you about Runawir and Yanzu,” she said.

“Why?” said Shardali. “We already know Runawir wasn’t the murderer. It was your partner who killed Tufan.”

Taya left that alone. Let Shardali believe he and his brothers were safe now that Mandir had been accused of the crime. “I’d like to know why Runawir stabbed Yanzu in the arm.”

“F-flood and f-fire,” said Shardali. “Who knows? And who cares?”

“Was it common for the two of them to fight?”

“Everybody here fights.” Shardali lifted the bucket—his wiry frame was stronger than it looked—and emptied the water into the drain chute, using his hand to hold the barley in place.

“Even Runawir and Yanzu?” said Taya. “It seemed to me they got on rather well.”

Shardali laughed as he dumped the rinsed barley into a clay pot.