The Fire Seer and Her Quradum (20 page)

When they were clean, they stretched out on the rocks in the morning sunshine to dry. Taya positioned herself so that she had a good view of Mandir’s bronzed body. Considering that his father’s funeral had been only the night before and he was probably troubled by that, she made no sexual advances. But there was no harm in looking.

When they were reasonably dry, they put their clothes on and headed back to the compound.

“We’re going to talk to Nindar this morning?” asked Mandir.

“Actually, I want to see the tutor first,” said Taya.

“Why?”

“He was acting strange at the funeral,” said Taya.

“Shivering,” said Mandir. “I noticed.”

“Where does he live?”

“This way.”

Mandir led her past the main house to a group of outbuildings, each the color of mud and divided into four separate homes with individual doors. Taya had seen many houses built in groups like this, since it was economical to share walls, but usually they had a courtyard in the center for cooking and for being outdoors on hot evenings. These lacked courtyards. “Does anyone live out here besides the tutor?”

“I think it’s just him,” said Mandir.

“Why so many homes, then?”

“Tufan used to keep a few more servants out here,” said Mandir. “A horse master and a gardener. Not recently, though. And some of these rooms are used for storage.”

Taya grimaced at the dry, cracked ground and the dusty, mud-brick buildings. What a lonely place this must be to work. No company except for Tufan and his children. No garden or cookfire to tend, no banana tree to sit under in the evenings. Just a baked square to live in, and a parched sky overhead. No wonder the man had been driven to drink.

Taya could tell which home was the tutor’s, since it had a fresh path to its door scuffed into the dirt. Taya went up to it and knocked. The door was flimsy and loose on its hinges.

No response.

“Gadatas,” called Mandir, loud enough to be heard through the door. “We need to talk to you.”

Still no response.

“You don’t think he could be dead in there?” asked Taya.

“More likely he’s just asleep.” Mandir banged on the door. “Gadatas!”

Still no response.

“I say we go in,” said Mandir. “Just in case.”

“Agreed.”

Mandir tried to open the door, but it caught and resisted. “It’s barred from the inside.” With a mighty yank, he wrenched the door off its hinges and pushed it out of their way.

Taya followed him inside, looking around anxiously, fearing they might find either an ambush or a corpse. But nobody attacked them. A man lay motionless on the bed.

“Flood and fire,” Mandir groaned.

Taya raced to the body and laid her fingers on his neck.

The tutor came to life, scrabbling at her hand, which Taya yanked back. Gadatas kicked himself away so frantically he fell off the other side of the bed and wound up trapped between the bed and the wall. He moaned.

“Are you all right?” asked Taya.

Mandir offered Gadatas his hand and drew him out of the space between the bed and the wall. “You didn’t answer when we knocked on the door. We came in because we feared you might have been harmed.”

Gadatas sat on the edge of the bed and lowered his head into his hands. He was shivering, like last night at the funeral. “I’m just sick.”

Hungover, perhaps. Taya looked around his small living space and spotted a beer jug and two wine amphoras. She’d been envisioning a house full of amphoras, but he didn’t seem to have a whole lot of alcohol on hand. How did he resupply himself? Tufan wouldn’t give him beer and wine, not in massive quantities. The nearest village was not an easy walking distance, and Taya hadn’t gotten the impression that it produced much anyway.

Nor could he be brewing his own beer. No crops grew in this dusty wasteland. She saw no ovens for baking bread, nor any crocks or strainers.

“If you’re sick,” said Mandir, “have you tried seeing a Coalition healer?”

Gadatas gave a short, bitter laugh. “No.”

“Then perhaps you need another sort of healer.” Mandir’s voice was gentle. “I know a man in Rakigari who’s helped many people with their problems. His name is Neshi.”

Gadatas grunted, noncommittal.

Taya wondered if a change in subject might loosen his tongue. “How did you come to work here?”

Gadatas raised his head. “Why are you interrogating me? I don’t even know who you are.”

“We’re Coalition,” said Taya. “We were sent here to retrieve Setsi.”

“Oh.” Gadatas brightened at this. “Setsi’s a good boy—I’m glad he’s going to the Coalition.” As his shaking worsened, he rose to his feet and began to pace back and forth in front of the bed. “Forgive me. When this happens, I need to move.”

Taya eyed him. Were drunks restless like this? She’d never known someone who drank enough to make himself sick. And this man looked truly ill. His hair was thin and his complexion waxy.

Mandir’s brow furrowed. He, too, seemed perplexed. She hoped he knew better than she did what he was looking at; he’d spent a year with Neshi caring for people with this sort of problem.

“You’re here for Setsi,” said Gadatas. “That doesn’t explain why you’re talking to me.”

“I want to know why you stopped teaching him,” said Mandir.

Gadatas hesitated as if to protest, but then his shoulders drooped and he resumed pacing. “I’ve been ill.”

“No.” Mandir indicated the jug and the amphoras. “You’ve been drunk. Why?”

Gadatas returned to the bed and sat, shaking violently. “What business is it of yours?”

“It’s our business because somebody killed Tufan and Yanzu,” said Mandir. “And neither Taya nor I nor Setsi can leave until the murderer is found. So start talking.”

“About what?” said Gadatas. “I know nothing about the murders.”

“Where were you, night before last?” asked Mandir.

“Here in my bedroom, drinking from that amphora.” He pointed. “I know I can’t prove it, because nobody was here with me, but it’s the truth. Why would I want to kill the man who employs me?”

Mandir went to the amphora Gadatas had pointed at. Taya could tell by the ease with which he lifted it that it was empty or nearly so. “I don’t know,” Mandir mused as he lifted the lid and sniffed. “Maybe he discovered that you’re not doing your job. Maybe he demanded that you pay back your salary, and you didn’t have the money. Tufan was a nasty individual. The possibilities are endless.” He put down the first amphora and picked up the second, which was full and heavy. Then the jug, which was empty and light.

“Tufan never cared a fig whether his boys learned anything,” said Gadatas.

“Then why does he pay you at all?” said Mandir.

“He doesn’t,” said Gadatas. “The king pays me to educate Tufan’s children. When the palace guards are swapped out, they bring my payment with them.”

This silenced Mandir—apparently he had not known this.

Taya jumped in. “What did you do before you came here? How did you come to have this job?”

“I worked at the palace—” began Gadatas.

“Whose son are you?” interrupted Mandir.

“Maru’s,” said Gadatas.

Mandir nodded as if this had meaning.

“Who’s Maru?” asked Taya.

“One of the royal cousins,” said Mandir. “Gadatas is like me and Rasik. You understand?”

She nodded. Mandir meant that Gadatas was the bastard son of someone from the ruling caste. He was a palace servant, as Mandir would have been if not for Tufan’s exile from the royal family.

Mandir asked Gadatas, “You worked at the palace in what capacity?”

“First as a scribe. Then as a tutor.”

“And why did the king send you here? As punishment for something?”

“I had a drinking problem.” Gadatas folded his arms and tucked his hands into his armpits. His eyes darted to the side of the room. “Are we just about done? I’ve work to do.”

“Come now,” said Mandir. “You don’t do any work.”

Taya was trying to figure out what Gadatas had been looking at when he glanced at the side of the room. Unwilling interviewees normally glanced at the door, because their minds were on escape, but Gadatas’s gaze had been aimed at an empty wall. There was a chest that sat on the floor over there. Maybe Gadatas wanted something from the chest—more alcohol?—and he didn’t want Taya and Mandir around when he retrieved it.

“What’s in the chest?” she asked him.

“What chest?” But Gadatas’s eyes, darting right back to it, gave him away.

Mandir caught the gesture too. He headed for the chest. “I think we’ll have a look.”

Gadatas’s eyes widened. “It’s clothes. Dirty clothes waiting for the wash. You—you’ve no right,” he sputtered when Mandir undid the latch, but it was clear he was in no condition mentally or physically to stop them from doing whatever they wanted.

Mandir lifted the chest’s lid and began to search through its contents. Taya was intensely curious what was inside, but she stayed behind to keep an eye on Gadatas in case he tried to run away. The chest seemed very full. Mandir began to take items of clothing out of it, placing them on the floor. So far, Gadatas was telling the truth.

Then Mandir pulled a wine amphora from the chest, which he set down next to the clothes. He gave Gadatas a significant look and returned to searching.

Taya didn’t think the wine amphora proved much. She was beginning to think Gadatas wasn’t a drunk at all. There wasn’t enough alcohol in this house to keep him drunk.

Mandir gave a cry of discovery and held up a ceramic vial.

Gadatas cringed. Clearly this was the object he hadn’t wanted them to find.

“
Nepenthe
!” said Mandir triumphantly. “This is the poison that killed Tufan and Yanzu. You thought you could hide
this
? In the middle of a murder investigation?”

Gadatas lowered his head.

“How can you tell it’s
nepenthe
?” asked Taya.

“The symbol.” Mandir stabbed his finger at an image carved into the ceramic.

Taya peered at the image. It looked like a flower with four broad petals around the outside and eight smaller ones on the inside. “That means
nepenthe
?”

“Yes.” Mandir turned to Gadatas. “You’re no drunk. You were banished from the palace for stealing
nepenthe
. Weren’t you?”

Gadatas said nothing.

“You got caught,” continued Mandir. “But you brought some of it out here with you. The alcohol’s a cover, isn’t it? You’re sick because you’re taking too much
nepenthe
. And either you used it to kill Tufan and Yanzu, or somebody took it from here and used it.”

“I
need
it.” Gadatas’s shaking became more violent. “Why would I waste the precious stuff killing two men I don’t care about, when I need it myself? You see that my supply is limited.”

Mandir snorted. “Nobody needs
nepenthe
.”

“I do,” said Gadatas. “It stops the shaking.”

Mandir’s brows rose. “What?”

“It stops the shaking.”

Mandir shoved the vial at him. “Show us.”

Gadatas grabbed the vial. He rose from the bed, took a copper cup from a shelf, and poured beer into it.

Taya edged closer. She wanted to see exactly how Gadatas dosed himself with the stuff.

Gadatas pressed the vial against his body to prevent it from shaking in his trembling hand, and removed the stopper. With great care, he tipped the vial and let fall a single drop. Then he restoppered the vial and drank the
nepenthe
-laced beer quickly, without pausing between swallows.

Taya watched him carefully to see if the shaking stopped. “How long have you had this shaking problem?”

“Since discovering
nepenthe
,” he said sheepishly.

“I don’t understand,” said Taya. “You suggest that the
nepenthe
caused the shaking. How, then, can it also cure it?”

“I couldn’t tell you,” said Gadatas, who looked considerably calmer now. “After I started taking
nepenthe
, I began to shake when it wore off. So I’d take it again to stop the shaking.”

Taya knit her brows. She had no experience with
nepenthe
, and so far what she’d heard didn’t make a lot of sense. Tufan also took the drug every night. So why hadn’t he been shaking? It could be that Tufan took a lower dose than Gadatas, but if so, how did he manage that? Gadatas had put only one drop in his cup. It was hard to split a single drop, unless one watered it down and divided it that way. “Feeling anything yet?”

He shook his head. “It’ll be a while.”

She and Mandir made use of the time by asking Gadatas more questions about the night of the murder. Where had he been during supper? Here in his room, where Shala had delivered his food. Did he ever eat in the main house? No, never. Had he heard anything during the night, seen anything at all? No.

“Let’s consider the possibility that someone stole your
nepenthe
and used it to kill Tufan and Yanzu,” said Taya. “Did your vial ever go missing?”

“No,” said Gadatas. “I’d have noticed if it did.”

“Are you sure?” said Mandir. “Do you stare at the vial all day long?”

“It was never gone when I went to take a dose.”

“And how often is that?” asked Taya.

“Morning, midday, and evening.”

Taya thought it could easily have been stolen from under his nose and then returned, especially if the man was drugged all the time and not aware of what was going on around him. “The night of the murder, when exactly did you take your dose?”

“When my food arrived,” said Gadatas. “That would have been a little earlier than supper at the main house.”

“Could someone have stolen it from you after supper, used it, and returned it before morning?”

“I don’t think so,” said Gadatas.

“Come on,” said Mandir. “If you were drugged with
nepenthe
at the time, how would you even know if someone had been in here or not? You could have slept right through their stealing your
nepenthe
. Or you could have been staring at the wall. Whatever you do when you take that stuff.”

“Did you notice at any time that there was less in the vial than before?” asked Taya.

Gadatas shook his head.