The Anvil of the World (17 page)

"He's a scandalmonger," Mrs. Smith replied. "Writes a column that runs in all the broadsides. A master of dirty innuendo and shocking revelation. He's done some unauthorized biographies of assorted famous persons, too, instant best-sellers if I recall correctly. I've read one or two. Racy stuff. Mean-spirited, however."

"He dressed pretty well, for somebody living on a writer's salary," said Smith.

"You're speaking of him in the past tense," observed Mrs. Smith.

"Well, he's dead."

"I can't say I'm surprised," said Mrs. Smith, taking a drag and exhaling smoke. "I assume you mean he's been murdered?"

"It looks that way." Smith sagged into a chair.

"Hmph." Mrs. Smith regarded the scribe's case. "My guess would be, he blackmailed the wrong person. They do say he made more money being paid
not
to write, if you understand me. Had a network of spies in every city digging up dirt for him. Did his research, too. It was what made his stuff so entertaining, you see--never indulged in empty insinuation. When that man threw mud, it stuck."

"Why would he have been writing about the House Spell-metal scandal?" Smith wondered. Mrs. Smith's eyes widened.

"He was fool enough to blackmail those people? They're still angry about it, and they've got a long reach. How d'you know that was who did for him?"

Smith explained how the body had been found and about the scroll fragments that had survived the fire. "I've been trying to remember what the scandal was all about," he said. "I was working on a long-run freighter back then, and we didn't put into port much, so I don't think I ever heard the whole story."

Mrs. Smith made a face. "I believe it requires a stiff drink, Smith," she said.

Getting out of bed, she pulled a dressing gown on over her voluminous shift and poured herself an impromptu cocktail from the bottles on her dresser. She poured one for Smith too, and when they were both settled again said, "I'll tell you as much as I know. It was in all the broadsides at the time; there were ballads, and somebody even attempted to mount a play on the subject, but House Spellmetal had it suppressed with breathtaking speed. D'you remember a self-proclaimed prophet, called himself the Sunborn?"

"Vaguely," said Smith. "Came to a bad end, didn't he?"

"Very. That was at the end of the story, however. It all started out in wine and roses, as they used to say. He was a charismatic. Could charm the birds down out of the trees and anyone's clothes off. Preached deliverance through excess; with him it was Festival all year long, every day. If he'd confined himself to having a good time, he might still be with us.

"Unfortunately, he really believed what he taught." Mrs. Smith shook her head.

"He was the one House Spellmetal went after," Smith recalled.

"So he was."

"And there was a massacre, wasn't there? Why?"

Mrs. Smith had a long sip of her drink before answering.

"He had a band of followers," she said at last. "Like any charismatic. One of the things he advocated was free love between the races, so he had quite a mixed bag of people at his, ahem, services. They were driven out of every place they settled in. At last the Sunborn had a vision that he and his lovers were to found a holy city where all might live according to his creed, greenies included.

"And then, somehow or other, the heir to House Spell-metal fell under his influence."

"That was it," Smith said. "And the Spellmetals disapproved."

"Of course they did. The boy was young and thick as two planks, but he adored the Sunborn and he was, of course, rich. So he offered the Sunborn and his followers a huge estate House Spellmetal owned, up near their marble quarries, to be the site of the new holy city. Away they all went and moved into the family mansion there. The boy's father was beside himself.

"You can guess the rest. House Spellmetal raised an army and went up there to get the boy back and forcibly evict the rest of them, with the exception of the Sunborn, whom they intended to skin alive. They didn't get him alive, however. They didn't get anybody alive. There was an armed standoff and finally a massacre."

Smith shook his head. Mrs. Smith finished her drink.

"I have heard," she said, "that Konderon Spellmetal strode in through the broken wall and found his son dead in the arms of an equally dead Yendri girl, pierced with one arrow in the very act itself. I've heard he swore eternal vengeance on any follower of the Sunborn, and hasn't thought of another thing since that hour."

"But they all died," said Smith.

"Apparently there were a few who fled out through the back, just before the massacre." Mrs. Smith shrugged and stared into her empty glass before setting it aside. "Women and children, mostly. The Spellmetals had a body they said was the Sunborn's skinned, but there have always been rumors it wasn't really him, and he's supposed to have been sighted over the years here and there. One couple, a man and his wife and baby, went straight to the law and turned themselves in. They weren't mixed-race, and it turned out they hadn't really been part of the cult; they'd just been the Sunborn's cousins or something like that.

"They were acquitted. They hadn't got five steps out of the Temple of the Law when an assassin hired by House Spellmetal put a pair of bolts right through their hearts. Needless to say, any remaining survivors stayed well underground after that."

"So they must have fabulous prices on their heads," Smith mused.

"I imagine so. Konderon Spellmetal's still alive."

"So Coppercut might have tracked one of them down and threatened him or her with exposure," said Smith. "Or he might have been proposing to rake it all up again in a book, against House Spellmetal's wishes."

"Occasionally the broadsheets like to do Where-Are-They-Now retrospectives," said Mrs. Smith.

"But whoever killed him went through his papers and burned anything to do with the scandal," Smith theorized. "I wonder if they got it all?"

He opened the scribe's case and drew out those papers that remained inside. Mrs. Smith watched him as he shuffled through them.

"They must have been interrupted before they could finish. Anything of note?"

Smith blinked at the pages. They were notes taken in the hasty backhand, apparently copied from city files, and they appeared to trace adoption records for an infant girl, of the house name Sunbolt. She'd been made a ward of the court of the city of Karkateen. There were brief summaries of depositions from persons involved, and then the note that the venue for the child's case had been changed to Mount Flame. There, after medical certification that she was likely to grow up into the necessary physical type for such work, the infant had been placed in the Mount Flame Mother House for Runners.

The next few pages were all notes of interviews with various persons, concerning the five young runners who had entered active service in the twelfth year of the reign of Chairman Giltbrand.

The very last page was a list of five names, none of them Sunbolt, with four of them crossed out. The remaining name was underlined. It was Teeba Burnbright.

Under that was written:
Present employment: house messenger, Hotel Grandview, 4 Front Street, Salesh-by-the-Sea.

"I didn't know her first name was Teeba," said Smith distractedly.

"Burnbright?" Mrs. Smith scowled at him. "What's she got to do with it?"

Smith waved the handful of papers, thinking hard.

"The first thing he asked when he got here was if he could see our house runner," he said. "I sent Burnbright up to him as soon as she got back. I haven't seen her since. Crucible said she'd run off crying about something. Oh, hell--"

"She's asleep in her room," Mrs. Smith informed him. "I went into the cellar for some apricot preserves for the Festival Cake, and she was hiding down there, sniveling. She'd opened a bottle of orchid extract and gotten herself into a state of messy intoxication. I gave her a dose of Rattlerail's Powders and a thorough telling-off, and sent her to bed. Smith, that child's far too scatterbrained to pull off a murder!"

"But she knows something," said Smith.

"Well, you're going to have to wait until morning to question her," said Mrs. Smith, "with the condition she was in."

"I guess so." Smith stuffed the papers back in the scribe's case and set them aside. Suddenly he felt bone-tired and very old. "All this and Lord Ermenwyr under the roof, too. I've had enough of Festival."

"Two days yet to go of exquisite orgiastic fun," said Mrs. Smith grimly.

Far too early the next morning, Smith was crouched at his desk in the lobby, warming his hands on a mug of tea. Most of the hotel's guests were either passed out in their rooms or in the shrubbery, and it would be at least an hour before anyone was likely to ring for breakfast. He had already spotted Burnbright. She was sitting in the deserted bar, deep in quiet conversation with the young Yendri doctor. He was holding both her hands and speaking at length. Smith was only waiting for Willowspear to leave so he could have a word with her in private.

While they were still cloistered together, however, Lord Ermenwyr and his bodyguards came down the staircase.

"Smith." Lord Ermenwyr looked from side to side and caught his sleeve. "Are you aware you've got a ... er ... deceased person in Room 2?"

"Not anymore," Smith told him. "We carried him down into the cold storage cellar an hour ago."

"Oh, good," said the lordling. "The smell was making the boys restless, and there was a soul raging around in there half the night. Came through my wall at one point and started throwing things about, until I appeared to him in my true form. He turned tail at that, but I was looking forward to a bit of fun tonight and don't want any apparitions interrupting me. Who was it?"

Smith explained, rubbing his grainy eyes.

"Really!" Lord Ermenwyr looked shocked. "Well, I wish I'd been the one to send him to his deserved reward! Coppercut was a real stinker, you know. No wonder Burnbright's in need of spiritual comfort."

"Is that what they're doing in there?" Smith peered over at the bar.

"She and Willowspear? Of course. He's a Disciple, you know. Has all the sex drive of a grain of rice, so skittish young ladies in need of a sympathetic shoulder to cry on find him irresistible." Lord Ermenwyr sneered in the direction of the bar. "Perhaps she'd like a bit of slightly more robust consolation later, do you think? I'll listen to her problems
and
give her advice she can use next time she has to kill somebody."

"You don't think she did it?" Smith scowled.

"Oh, I suppose not. Say, did you have plans for the body?" Lord Ermenwyr turned back and looked at him hopefully.

"Yes. The City Warden is coming for it after Festival."

"Damn. In that case, what about sending out for a sheep?" The lordling dug in his purse and dropped a silver piece on the desk. "That ought to take care of it. Just have the porter lead it straight up to my suite. I'm going back to bed now. Would the divine Mrs. Smith be so kind as to send up a tray of tea and clear broth?"

"I'll see it done, lord," said Smith, eyeing the silver piece and wondering where he was going to get a live sheep during Festival.

"Thanks. Come along, boys." Lord Ermenwyr turned on his heel and headed back toward the stairs, with his bodyguards following closely. At the door of the bar he leaned in and yelled: "If you've
quite
finished, Willowspear, I believe my heartbeat's developing an alarming irregularity. You might want to come along and pray over me or something. Assuming you've no objection, Burnbright dearest?"

There was a murmur from the bar, and Willowspear hurried out, looking back over his shoulder. "Remember that mantra, child," he said, and turned to follow his master up the stairs.

"Burnbright," Smith called.

A moment later she came through the doorway, reluctant to look at him. Burnbright was in as bad a shape as a young person can be after a night of tears and orchid extract, which was a lot better than Smith himself would have been under the same circumstances. She dug a knuckle into one slightly swollen eye, and asked, "What?"

"What happened, up there with Mr. Coppercut?" Her mouth trembled. She kept her gaze on the floor as she said; "I thought he wanted me to run him a message. He didn't have any messages. He told me he knew who I really was. Told me all this story about these people who got themselves killed when I was a baby, or something. Said he knew who fostered me out to my mother house. Said I had guilty blood and some big noise House Smeltmetal or somebody would pay a lot of money for my head. Said he could set bounty hunters after me with a snap of his fingers!"

She looked up at Smith in still-simmering outrage. "I told him it was a lot of lies. He said he could prove it, and he said he was going to write about me being one of the survivors, so everybody'd know who I am and where I live. Unless I paid him. And I said I didn't have any money. And he said that wasn't what he wanted."

"Bastard," said Smith. "And...?

"What d'you think he wanted?" Burnbright clenched her little fists. "And ... and he said there were other things he wanted me to do. I got up to run at that, and he couldn't stop me, but he told me to think it over. He said to come back when I'd calmed down. Said he'd be waiting. So I ran away."

"You went downstairs to hide?"

"I needed to think," said Burnbright, blushing. "And Mrs. Smith caught me and gave me what for because I was drinking. So I went upstairs, but I'd been thinking, well, it's Festival after all and maybe it's not so wrong. But it seemed awfully unfair, now of all times! But then I thought maybe he'd leave me alone after--and nobody'd ever know if I... well anyway, I went in to see him. But--" She paused, gulped.

"He was dead?"

Burnbright nodded quickly, giving him a furtive look of relief. "Sitting there in the firelight, just like in a ghost story. So I left."

"You didn't have anything to do with getting him killed? Didn't put drain cleaner in his food?" asked Smith, just to have it said and done with. Burnbright shook her head.