Four and Twenty Blackbirds (6 page)

Furthermore, that did not explain the strange suicide, nor the vanishing murder-weapon. Why would the man kill himself at all? The forge had been vacant at the time, but fully stoked; it would be more logical for the smith to throw the body on the flames and hope it incinerated before anyone looked in the furnace. The temperature required to smelt iron and steel was high enough to deal with one small human body. And why, with the variety of weapons and even poisons available in a forge, had he chosen the particularly excruciating death he had?

No, this was another of his mystery-crimes again; he had the "scent," and he knew it by now.

But for the moment, there was nothing more to be done about it except let it all brew in his mind. He stepped back out onto the icy street, and the sardonic thought crossed his mind that in weather like this, even murder came second to getting across the street without falling.

Weak sun shone out of a high sky full of even higher, wispy clouds, as it hastened across the sky towards the horizon. The only ice now was in the form of icicles hanging and dripping from most eaves; as if relenting a little for the battering the city had taken beneath the ice-storm, winter had worn a smiling face for the last few days.

And it was Tal's day off; with all of his leads gone cold, he was pursuing his private time, for once, in a little ordinary shopping. He needed new shirts, preferably warm—and having no vanity and not a great deal to spend, he was looking through the bins in one of the better secondhand clothing stalls. Although it was late for shopping in the "better" part of town, in the district where Tal lived, full of folk who had to work during most of the daylight hours, street-vendors and shopkeepers accommodated working folk by opening late and staying open past sunset.

"Tal!" A vaguely familiar voice hailed him from across the street, and he looked up. From beneath the overhanging eaves of the building directly opposite, Constable Kaelef Harden beckoned slightly.

The shirts he'd found so far weren't all that good a bargain, and there didn't seem to be anything better hidden in the deeper layers of the bin, so he dropped them back and made his way across the street to his colleague.

"Brock says you're collecting the murder-suicide, vanishing-knife cases," Harden said without any preamble whatsoever, and his voice seemed strained to Tal. "I had one first thing this morning, he said to come tell you about it. Little street-beggar girl got snuffed by a trash-collector, then he threw himself under the wheels of a carriage. Weird. Very weird."

"In broad daylight?" Tal asked, surprised. "Witnesses?"

Harden nodded. "Me, for one. I
saw
it, or most of it, anyway, and I couldn't stop it, it all happened so fast."

Now his voice had a tremor in it that Tal didn't like. He took a second look at Harden, who was one of the younger constables, less than a year on the job. Harden was white beneath his weather-tanned skin, and visibly shaken. Tal put a steadying hand on the man's arm, and Harden made no move to shake him off.

Hell. Poor lad's in shock. And he doesn't recognize it, because it doesn't occur to him that a constable could or would have any such weaknesses. 
 

"Are you on duty now?" he asked.

Harden shook his head. "Just got off, and Brock was just coming on; he made a point of saying I should come talk to you, since Rayburn just threw the report in a drawer and didn't even glance at it. I checked at the Gray Rose and they told me where you'd gone."

Huh. Brock probably wants me to talk him through this one, and that's why he sent the lad to me, whether or not this case fits my pattern. It's an excuse to get him to a veteran. Still, Harden was a good man, and it was pretty obvious that Rayburn wasn't going to do his duty by the lad. The Captain was supposed to help a new man through things like this, but Rayburn—

Rayburn is too busy kissing feet to take care of his men, and that's the end of it. 
 

"Come on back to the Rose," he replied. "We'll get something to eat, and you can tell me about it there."

"Not—I'm not really hungry," Harden said, his lips white, but he didn't pull away when Tal took his elbow and steered him back to the inn that was his home. There were never really crowds in this part of town, and a constable's cape always made traffic part as if there were flunkies clearing the way. Two constables together—even if one was out of uniform—prompted people to choose the other side of the street to walk on. It wasn't long before they paused under a wooden sign boasting a rose that might once have been red, but which had long since faded to a pale pinkish-gray.

The Gray Rose—which may once have been known as The Red Rose, when its sign was in better repair—was a modest little inn in a shabby-genteel part of town, and encouraged long-term residents in the dozen two-room "suites" in the third story. These were right above the single rooms normally let out by the night. For a price just a little more than he might expect to pay for private lodgings and food, Tal got the benefits of living in an inn—meals he didn't have to prepare himself, and servants cleaning up after him—and none of the disadvantages of living in a boardinghouse, where he might have had similar benefit. Granted, the menu never varied—a fact which he tried to look upon as "being reliable"—and the rooms were tiny compared to a lodging, but he had privacy that he wouldn't have gotten in a boarding-house, he didn't have to tailor his hours to the preferences of a boarding-house keeper, he could bring home whatever visitors he cared to whenever he wanted, and he never had to come home to unswept floors and an unmade bed. During the day, the inn was quiet—all the really noisy activity associated with carousers and private parties in the rooms below his took place while he was on-shift. The girls cleaned his rooms as soon as he left them in the early evening, just before the evening rush and after cleaning everyone else's rooms. For their part, the proprietors appreciated having a constable in residence; that fact alone ensured that although things might get noisy, they never got past the stage of a generally happy ruckus. And knowing that there was a constable living here kept thieves from even
thinking
about trying their luck under the tiled roof.

He steered an obviously shaken Harden past the broad-shouldered Mintak who minded the door, and raised two fingers and an eyebrow at one of the serving-girls as he went by her. She nodded, responded with a quick mime of
eating
, then turned away after Tal nodded back. He led Harden up the stairs to his rooms, knowing that food for two would be arriving shortly. He preferred to supply his own drink; the wine here was cheap, and beer was not to his taste.

He unlocked his door and motioned Harden in ahead of him; the cleaning-girl had already been through this morning, so he knew that his sitting-room was presentable. There actually wasn't a great deal to tidy up; his needs were few, and so were his possessions. He had a single comfortable chair beside the tiny fireplace shared with the bedroom, a bookcase and a lamp standing next to it. A braided rag rug covered the worn boards of the floor, a wooden table and four stools standing on it, and a cupboard holding a few bottles of good wine, four glasses, knives, and plates, some preserved fruit, bread, crackers, and cheese, stood opposite the armchair. There was a chest just under the window that contained all of his other odds and ends, and a tiny desk beside it. As an awkward nod to the amenities, two mediocre landscapes purchased because he felt sorry for the artist decorated the yellow-white walls. One of the few women to ever come here as a guest had seemed surprised that there was so little that was personal in this room. "It's like your face, Tal," she'd said, as if she found it disturbing. "It doesn't tell me anything about you."

But fellow bachelors felt comfortable here, and Harden settled onto one of the four stools with what seemed like real relief. The room was, in every sense, a very "public" room, and right now Tal sensed that the younger constable would not be comfortable with anything that verged on the personal. He left the outer door slightly ajar as a signal to the girl that she should bring the food straight in, and set about making Harden feel at ease.

Hanging his cape and Harden's on once-ornamental pegs beside the door, Tal mended the fire and put fresh logs on, then fetched a bottle of wine and two glasses. Extracting the cork deftly, he poured both glasses full, put one in front of Harden, then took the other and sat on the stool opposite the younger man. He hadn't been there more than a moment when one of the serving-girls tapped on the door with her foot, and then pushed it open with her hip. She carried a large tray laden with bowls and plates, fragrant steam arising from most of them.

Dinner was, as usual, stew with fresh bread and butter, pickled vegetables, and baked apples. If Tal wanted anything other than the "house meal" he had to pay a little extra, and once in a while, for variety, he did so. But his tastes in food were plain and easily satisfied, and he doubted that Harden was going to pay very much attention to what he ate so long as it wasn't absolutely vile.

The girl maneuvered her heavy tray deftly in the cramped space; before Harden even reacted properly to her presence, she had placed his bowls of stew, pickles, and apples in front of him and Tal, plunked the plate holding a hot loaf and a pannikin of butter between them, and dropped wooden spoons in each bowl of stew. Then she was gone, empty tray held loosely in one hand, closing the door firmly behind her.

Harden blinked and picked up the spoon automatically. Tal cut slices from the loaf for both of them and buttered them generously. "You might as well eat," he said casually, gesturing with his spoon. "It's not bad, and it's hot. You may not feel hungry, but you need food."

By way of example, he dug into his own meal, and in a moment, Harden slowly began eating as well. Neither of them said a word until all their plates were empty, nothing was left of the bread but crumbs, and the wine bottle held only dregs. Tal collected the dishes and the empty bottle and put them outside his door, then returned to the cupboard for a second bottle of wine. He poured fresh glasses, then resumed his seat.

"All right," he said, as Harden took the glass in both hands but did not drink. "Now tell me what happened."

Harden shivered, his sober, angular face taking on a look both boyish and lost. "It was this morning," he began. "Late morning. I was on my third round; there's a little half-mad beggar-girl that always takes a particular corner, and I have to keep an eye on her, because sometimes she darts out into the street and starts dancing in the middle of the road. She scares the horses and holds up traffic, people get angry." He shrugged apologetically; Tal understood what he did not say—that when something like that happened, people always blamed the constables. But what were
they
supposed to do? You couldn't lock up every crazy beggar in the city, there'd be no room for real criminals in the gaols.

"So you kept an eye on her," Tal repeated. "She ever done anything worse?"

Harden shook his head. "Mostly she just sits like today and sings hymns, except she makes up words for them. You can tell when she'd be going to cause trouble, she acts restless and won't sit still, and she wasn't like that today, so once I saw that, I ignored her. She's harmless.
Was
harmless," he corrected himself, growing pale again. "No one ever minded her. I was on the opposite side of the street from her. I—I really don't know what happened then, because I wasn't really looking for any trouble.
She
wasn't going anywhere, and no one out in the street was going to bother her. I thought, anyway."

He sat quietly for a moment, and Tal sensed his internal struggles as the constable warred with the seriously shaken man. "All I can tell you is that the very next thing
I
knew was that people on the other side of the street were screaming and pointing, a couple were trying to run, and there was a rag-picker standing over her, waving a bloody knife in the air. Then he threw the knife away, and before
I
could move, he ran out into the street. And I could
swear,
honestly, he actually threw himself right under the wheels of a heavy water-wagon. The driver couldn't stop, the wagon turned over and the barrel burst and flooded everything, and by the time I got it all sorted out the rag-picker was dead, too." His hands were trembling as he raised his glass and drained it in a single gulp. "I—didn't do anything. I didn't stop him, I didn't even
see
him kill that mad girl, I didn't stop him from killing himself—" His voice rose with each word, and he was clearly on the verge of hysteria.

A natural reaction, but not at all useful. Better snap him out of this. 
 

"Are you a mage?" Tal interrupted him.

Harden stopped in midsentence and blinked owlishly at him. Probably the question seemed utterly irrelevant, but Tal had a particular strategy in mind. "Ah—no," he stammered.

"Then you couldn't have done anything, could you?" Tal countered. "There was no reason to assume that a rag-picker was going to murder the beggar; they're normally pretty feeble-bodied and just as often they're feeble-minded, too. They don't
do
things like that, right? Rag-pickers wander along the gutter, collecting trash, and half the time they don't even see anything that's not in the gutter in front of them. You had no reason to watch him, you didn't even know what he'd done until it was too late."

"But after—" Harden began.

"You said it yourself, it all happened quickly. How close were you? Across the street you said, and I'd guess half a block down." Tal shrugged as Harden nodded. "People were shouting, screaming, blocking the street—panicked. You couldn't possibly have gotten across to him with any speed. There was
certainly
no reason to think he'd throw himself under a wain! And short of using magic to do it, you couldn't have stopped him from where you were standing! Right?"

Harden nodded again, numbly. Tal poured his glass full and topped off his own. "That was a hell of an experience," he said, with a little less force. "A hell of a thing. Bad enough when you come pick up the pieces, but when it happens right in front of you, it's natural to think
you
could have done something the cits couldn't. But just because you're a constable, that doesn't give you the ability to read thoughts, move faster than lightning, and pick up water-wagons with your bare hands."