Four and Twenty Blackbirds (53 page)

Had he imagined that there had ever been anything else there?

If there had been, it was gone now.

Ardis went on, oblivious to the tumult in his heart. "We got the mage—and there won't be any more murders. If it hadn't been for you, I would probably be dead, and the murders would still be going on, because I rather doubt that Revaner would have stopped with me—"

A low voice Tal couldn't quite hear interrupted her; she looked up, listened for a moment, and nodded. He tried to turn his head to see who it was that had spoken to her, but it was too much of an effort.

"The Infirmarian tells me," she said, with a quirk of her mouth, "that if I don't leave you alone to rest, he'll bar me from the Infirmary. He told me that you'll be well enough in a day or so to make your report, and that until then I'm not to bother you."

"It's—no bother—" he began thickly.

She reached out again, and laid her hand on his. "Rest," she commanded. "You saved my life, Tal Rufen. The least I can do is let you have a little peace."

Once again, he looked deeply into her eyes—but what he hoped to see was not there.

If it ever had been.

Then, she was gone, and it was too much effort to keep his eyes open anymore.

"—and that, more or less, is when I fell over," Tal concluded.

Ardis nodded. It was very good to be sitting in her chair, knowing that there would be no more dead women to deal with. Across from her sat Kayne and Tal, both of them much the better for an uninterrupted night's sleep, Tal bandaged and a little pale, but in good spirits. Ardis wrote down the final word of Tal's statement in her case-book, and leaned back with a sigh. "So," she said, closing it, "that's the last that we'll ever know."

"I wish we knew more," Kayne said fretfully. Tal said at the same time, "That's more than enough."

She smiled wryly at both of them. "From now on, between the two of you, I ought to have a completely balanced set of opinions on everything."

Kayne made a face. "All we know is that Revaner
didn't
die, he escaped. We don't know how. We don't know how he got where he was when he started killing people. We don't know
why
he was killing people, we only guess that he needed the energies for magic. We don't know how he met that other fellow, or even
who
that other fellow is, really. We don't know how he persuaded the man to help him!"

"But we do know that he was the one behind the killings," Tal pointed out quietly. "And we
do
know why he was doing them, and why he chose the targets he did. We know he was building up to take revenge on the people he felt had gotten him into the situation he was in; nothing else explains behavior that was completely irrational. The fellow he chose for his accomplice was probably a criminal, and there was plenty of money on him; the easiest way to persuade a criminal is to offer him a great deal of money." He turned to Ardis. "I also think that if he'd had access to female Priests, he'd have murdered them the way he murdered female musicians; in my opinion, gathering magical energy was secondary to him, and what he really wanted was revenge."

"I suspect you're right," Ardis agreed, as Kayne shuddered.

"I'm just glad I never leave the Abbey," the novice said. "I could have been one of his victims!"

Ardis put her hand on top of the book, glad to have it all over and done with. "Tal is right," she said. "We know enough. We know who, how, and why. We might even know enough now to catch someone else who follows the same path. We mustn't let this knowledge be lost; though may God protect us from another one such as Revaner."

"May God help us to
prevent
another one such as Revaner." Tal rubbed his shoulder, and nodded. Ardis wondered if it was hurting him, or if the gesture was only habit.
Well, if it is, he's bright enough to take himself to the Infirmarian and have it dealt with,
she thought dismissively.

And that was not the reaction of a woman in love.

Her peace of mind and heart was back, as surely as if it had never deserted her. After she had gotten back to the Abbey, with the body of the Black Bird and all of the evidence in hand, she had not thought of anything else until she had the bones of her solution in place. After that, she had assigned the rest of the investigation to other Justiciar-Mages, so that all of the loose ends could be neatly packaged up with the appropriate evidence. She looked in on Tal long enough to assure him that the long quest for the killer was over. Then she sent word to the other Orders in Kingsford to begin ministering to the souls of the murdered dead and the bereaved living, and had gone to bed to sleep deeply nearly twice her normal hours.

When she awoke again she worked like a fiend to catch up on some of the work she'd neglected all these months, and only when she had done a full day's work did she look in again on Tal. It was at that moment that she had realized her work, her vocation, and her duty were more important to her than Tal was—and that what she had felt for him might well have been attraction, but it wasn't a passionate love.

One could be attracted to a colleague, or a friend, but that didn't mean one had to go and make a lover out of him.

I am as I thought I was, and what we have been through has not changed that. I am still Ardis, High Bishop of Kingsford, and true daughter of the Church. And that is good. There will be no more sleepless nights. If he felt any different from that—well, she could feel sympathy, even pity for him, but that was nothing she had any control over. He would not die of an unrequited passion, and if it went unrequited long enough, it would surely fade. Meanwhile the surest relief for it would be work.

"I hope that the end of this hasn't made you reconsider, and that you plan to stay on as my Special Inquisitor, Tal Rufen," she continued. "I won't hesitate to tell you that I'm counting on your help from here on. There will still be more than enough work for you—as Kayne can tell you."

"Work!" Kayne rolled her eyes. "There's work enough here for ten Special Inquisitors, and it's only going to get worse as Kingsford grows."

Ardis spread her hands wide. "There you have it."

Tal looked at Ardis solemnly and searchingly, and evidently was satisfied by what he saw in her eyes.

"Thank you," he said simply. "I would like to stay."

Since his shoulder was still bothering him, Tal Rufen returned to his bed in the Infirmary at the Infirmarian's orders, and drank the potion he was given as obediently as even that worthy could have asked.

"Well?" Infirmarian Nord Hathon asked. "Is everything tied up to everyone's satisfaction?"

"Everyone but Kayne," Tal told him, as he lay back down into the soft embrace of the bed with a sigh. "Revaner is rightly tied into all the murders and the names of his tools are cleared of any wrongdoing. She's arranged for special services to be held for their souls, and the souls of the more obvious victims. So now we can all go back to normal routine."

"You aren't satisfied?" the Priest asked shrewdly.

"It's somewhat bitter justice, but Ardis claims that the families get some comfort out of it." That was true, so far as it went; Tal did not intend to confess the rest of his mixed feelings to this particular friend of Ardis's.

I must have been mistaken when I thought I saw some sign of attraction. No—no, I couldn't have. After all, she's a Priest; her first and deepest love is for her service to the Church. It is the way things are, and should be. I was deluding myself. Or it was the stress of the case that made me see things that weren't there? Were my eyes tired or my mind distracted, making me see expressions and glances that weren't what I thought they were? No, this is for the best, I think. 
 

When he'd looked into Ardis's eyes, he hadn't seen anything there except confidence in him, and simple regard. When he'd come to himself for the second time in the Infirmary, she hadn't been there, and hadn't made any inquiries about him for a whole day.

Granted, she'd known he wasn't that badly hurt—but a woman in love would have been out of her mind with anxiety until she saw for herself that he was all right. A woman in love would have held a vigil at his bedside; she wouldn't have busied herself with work and only dropped by long enough to wish him a cheerful good night.

"The High Bishop wants me to take the position with her permanently," he continued. "She says there's plenty for me to do."

"Will you take the offer?"

He nodded, his eyes closed, while Infirmarian Hathon laid his hands on the wounded shoulder, and a soothing warmth spread from them into the shoulder-joint. This was another good reason to stay on; no secular constable ever got the benefit of magical healing!

"I've got no reason to want to go back to being an ordinary constable again, even though Fenris offered me a place with his force in Kingsford," he said. "This will be interesting, I'm going to learn a lot about magic, and at least Ardis will believe in my hunches."

"Well, Ardis has seen enough to know that what you call a 'hunch' is merely the result of adding together many, many bits of information based on years of experience," the Infirmarian murmured. "I believe you'll be happy among us. And when you finally do retire, you will certainly never need to worry about your pension. The Duke's certainly going to see to that."

Tal laughed. "Maybe the Duke was a little too enthusiastic when he wanted to reward all of us." He chuckled. "However, I'm personally glad that Ardis persuaded him to give the special medals and ceremony only to the Haspur. The old bird deserved every bit of being made out a hero—and as for me, I will be a lot happier if every miscreant in Kingsford is not personally aware of what
I
look like!"

The Priest chuckled as well, and removed his hands. "Now the Duke will have to make sure he has a Haspur in residence at the palace from now on, or the people will never be happy! There," he finished. "Now you'll sleep."

Tal yawned. "You're right—about—that—"

He fell into slumber, only to be awakened by someone shaking him—carefully.

"Wha—" he muttered, peering up at a lantern held in one of Kayne's hands. The other hand was shaking him.

"I hate to do this to you, Rufen, but Ardis needs you," Kayne said apologetically. "There's been a murder—not in Kingsford, but outside it. This one is going to require more than Fenris can supply. One of Arden's Sires was found in his locked study with a knife in his back, and the Duke has especially asked for you and Ardis to come look into it."

Another murder under mysterious circumstances? So soon?

And the Duke asked for us? 
 

Now he knew what an old war-horse felt like when he heard the trumpets calling the troops to battle. Energy surged into him, and excitement galvanized him; he was wide awake, and even if his shoulder had still been in poor shape, nothing would have kept him from Ardis's side at that moment. He swung his legs out of bed and pulled on his tunic.

The excitement and anticipation he felt at that moment told him something he had not really known consciously.

Maybe it isn't Ardis that attracted me, it was the job and the challenge, and the chance to share both with a clever, swift-thinking colleague. I think—this situation isn't something I'd ever considered, and maybe that's what made me read things into it that weren't there. Ardis is a law unto herself. But I have a friend in her, a real friend, the first one I've ever had. Maybe it's love of a kind, but it might not be the romantic kind, and not the sort that needs anything physical to seal it. And anyway, that's clearly how she feels. That's hardly bad. 

He was old enough and wise enough to take what he was given and be pleased with it. He wasn't going to pine away and die because Ardis wasn't in love with him, and she wasn't going to run off with him like some daft young idiot in a play. He would always envy people who had romantic love, the kind the Bards made songs about. But that kind of love was not for the High Bishop of Kingsford, and especially not with her Special Inquisitor.

Partners. That's all I can be to her, and that is not bad at all. Two hounds in double-harness, that's us, sniffing out the scent. Even if that's all it is, it's the best thing I've ever had. 
 

He had a place where he was needed, the job he was best suited to, and people who valued him. And right now his harness-partner was howling for him!

And what would the High Bishop of Kingsford have said if she knew he was comparing her to a dog?

She'd probably laugh and say that more than one man has compared her to a prize bitch. Then she'd point out that Justiciars are always called the Hounds of God and ask when I was planning on taking Orders, that's what she'd do. 
 

Kayne would have been shocked if he laughed, given the gravity of the situation—but he whistled all the way to Ardis's study.

There was work to do, the work he'd been born to do, and in the end, that work was more important to him than anything else. The game was afoot, and his life was better now than he ever would have believed possible. He was ready. A wrong had been done, the Hounds had been called, and once again the hunt was on!