Ardis could no more have settled down to a book now than she could have renounced the miter and gone back to being a simple Priest. She rose from her desk, but rather than pace as she might have done when she was younger, she turned with a soft sigh of heavy woolen robes and went directly to the small altar in the corner of her office. She genuflected, then knelt there, and clasped her hands on the rail before her.
Put your body in the attitude of meditation, and your spirit will follow. That was the precept, and she had generally found it to be a true one. This time was no exception; as she stared at the Eternal Flame upon the altar, she found her mind slipping into the proper state where she could examine what she had just done without any emotion intruding. Now she played Justiciar for her own actions, answerable to her own conscience and the will of God.
Had she been too hasty in coming to a decision? Had she been so desperate for a way to shift the burden of Gwydain's request from her shoulders to someone else's that she had grasped at the first opportunity to be shed of that responsibility that presented itself?
The answer to the second question was no. Decidedly not. Murder was a dreadful thing, Tal Rufen was accustomed to solving dreadful crimes, and he wanted—in fact already had assumed—that burden. If he was forever after this night unable to solve these murders and stop the fiend responsible, he should be honored for that. That he had not been aware of the murders of Gypsies and Free Bards meant nothing; there was no point in launching a belated second investigation when Tal Rufen was already well along on his. All she had done was to make it possible for him to continue the work he was already doing—and it just so happened that her problem and his were the same.
I would make a very poor constable, just as I would make a very poor carpenter. Rather than solving this set of crimes—or building a house—it is far better that I give those whose business it is all of the means at my disposal to do what they are suited for. What was the point of having authority if you did not delegate it appropriately? What was the point of having rank if you did not exercise it in order to smooth the way for someone accomplishing something important?
No, she was not shirking her responsibility. If Tal Rufen got himself into trouble with Captain Fenris or Duke Arden she would bear the brunt of the blame. Not that this was likely, but she had known when she ordered Kayne to write up those papers that she would be answerable not only to the secular authorities, but to the Conclave of Bishops if anything went drastically wrong. That, too, was justice.
And now that she knelt here, she felt a deep certainty that none of this—Gwydain's letter, Tal's appearance, and all the rest of it—was a coincidence. When circumstances conspired to involve a Priest in some situation or other, it was her experience that it was never coincidental. When they moved to involve a Justiciar, that was doubly so, and when the Justiciar happened to be a mage as well, the odds against it being a coincidence were insignificant. Tal Rufen had been guided to her, just as she had been guided to the decision to make him a Special Inquisitor. Only a Justiciar could create an Inquisitor, and only the High Bishop, who was also a Justiciar, could create a Special Inquisitor. Tal Rufen was, in effect, a constable who was answerable to no secular authority for his actions, if he but knew it. If he left Kingsford now, with those papers in his hand, he could go anywhere and do anything he pleased.
But he won't; he's driven by this, as surely as the one behind this is driven in turn by his needs. The Hunter and the Hunted, and which was which?
Or perhaps—the Hunted, and the Haunted. Tal has his ghosts to exorcise, and I suspect, so does our unknown enemy.
Blessed God—the burden of the Justiciar, who would and must always see all sides to a problem. And what kind of life must it have taken to drive this man to feed his hungers on such a dreadful feast of blood?
And that she was now involved, with her link to the Gypsies and her experience with renegade clergy? What did that say about this situation?
She sighed and closed her eyes, bowing her head over her hands. Let it not be that I have been blind to the faults of those who are my friends, she prayed. It wasn't likely—there wasn't anyone in this Abbey that she could think of who had been in Haldene a month ago, let alone in all the other towns and villages Tal mentioned, but that was, she felt, her besetting sin. She was hard on herself, implacable with strangers, but with her friends—
Soft. Too forgiving.
She remained kneeling for the rest of the time left to her before dinner, praying. First, that she had not forgiven too much, been too compassionate. It was so hard to balance justice with compassion . . . .
Second, for the souls of all those unfortunates that she and Gwydain had not known about, as well as those that they had.
And third, for Tal Rufen. His way had been hard, and it was likely to be harder still, for even if he found and caught the person behind all of this, he would still have to come to terms with the fact that he had not caught this evil creature earlier, and forgive himself for all of those who had perished.
And so shall I, was her last, grave thought before the bell rang for dinner. And so shall I. . . .
Tal had never seen the uniform of a Church Guard before, and he was a bit taken aback by its jaunty splendor. He had expected something a great deal more sober—something all in dull black, perhaps, or dark gray. This bold scarlet trimmed and edged with black piping was more like the uniform he would expect to see on the Grand Duke's guards than anything the Guard of the clergy should wear.
He felt much the better for a hot bath and the bit of food the High Bishop had given him. His headache was almost gone, and he was finally warm again. With a good meal inside of him, he would feel better still.
After his bath and a change into the only clean clothing he had left, he had returned to his tiny room to find the Bishop's secretary and his new uniforms waiting for him.
"We don't have many Guards at the Abbey," Kayne observed as he picked up the wool tunic and sniffed at the scent of cedar that still clung to its folds. "We have the uniforms, of course, to fit just about anyone, but most of them have been in storage for as long as I've been here. That's lucky for you; that uniform has probably never been worn, but we novices get nothing but handed-down robes until we become full Priests." She chuckled. "I suppose that's to get us used to sharing with sweet Sister Poverty!"
She handed him his papers; he took them, still feeling altogether dazed by the High Bishop's swift and decisive actions. He hadn't quite believed that she had been serious, even though he had made free of her hospitality, tucked his belongings into the tiny cell of a room that Kayne had shown him, and used the Abbey's hot water and soap with abandon. Now though—with this uniform and two more like it waiting on the narrow, but comfortable bed—he had to believe it.
I'm a Church Guard. A Special Inquisitor. I've been assigned to the hunt.
The official papers only confirmed the reality. He looked them over carefully, but they simply reiterated what the High Bishop had told him.
"And here's your first quarter pay," Kayne added, handing him a black leather pouch that chinked softly as it went from her hand to his. "Ardis didn't tell you how much it is—she wouldn't of course, she never thinks about things like money—but I'm told it's not bad. Not as much as a specially licensed and bonded Bodyguard, but not bad. Ten silver a week for twelve weeks; enough, supposedly, to make you unbribable."
Since that sum was more than he had made per week after all his years on the force at Haldene, he hardly knew what to say except—"It is."
And with no personal expenses to speak of—it's quite good. Food, lodging, uniforms—the Church supplied all of these. What would he do with ten silver pieces a week?
She nodded briskly. "Good. Anything else you need to know?"
He held the tunic up a little. "This. It's not what I expected—" He flushed. "Actually, it seems a bit . . . gaudy. I thought I'd be wearing black or something."
Kayne laughed, her dark eyes sparkling with amusement. "That's because you've never been in an Abbey of the Justiciars before. You should see all of us in our ecclesiastical best—you'd think the room was on fire."
"Ah." He'd noted the red robe that Ardis wore, and the rust-colored one of the novices, but it hadn't occurred to him that these were their equivalent of working clothes. "So on an occasion like a High Holy Day, we Guards wouldn't stand out at all, would we?"
"In fact, you'll blend in," she assured him, "And if you wore, say, black—like the Guards of the Healing Orders—you'd stand out like crows against a sunset."
At that moment, a bell sounded somewhere, and Kayne cocked her head to one side. "That's the bell for dinner, and I believe I hear one of the other Guards coming to show you the way." No sooner had the words passed her lips than a shadow blocked the door, and a discreet tap on the frame proved that she was right.
She turned, as the biggest man that Tal had ever seen eased himself into the room. "Well, this is an honor, indeed! Tal Rufen, this is the Captain of our Guards, Herris Othorp."
The huge, black-haired man who was clearly several years Tal's junior gravely offered a ham of a hand to Tal to shake. Tal took it, and was pleased and relieved when the handclasp was firm without being a test of dominance. It seemed that Herris Othorp saw no reason to prove he was a better, stronger man than those under his command.
What a pleasant change!
"I am pleased to welcome the new Special Inquisitor," Othorp rumbled, actually sounding pleased. "I have told the High Bishop more than once that her office requires at least one. No one among the Guards has had any experience in investigation; I wouldn't have the faintest idea of where to start if I were assigned to a case."
"Don't be too pleased," Tal warned. "Maybe I have experience, but I'm not sure I'm any good!"
At that, Othorp laughed, a deep bass rumble. Tal decided that this man was going to be, not only easy to work with but a definite ally. "I think we should let God and Time judge that, and go to our dinner."
"And on that note, I shall take leave of both of you," Kayne said, and turned with that swift agility that Tal had noted in the High Bishop's office, and left them.
Othorp waited expectantly, and after a moment, Tal realized that the Captain was waiting for Tal to assume one of his new uniforms. Feeling a little self-conscious, Tal shed his old, worn canvas trews and knitted woolen tunic, and did so. When he belted the new tunic and pulled it straight, the Captain beamed with as much pride as if he had tailored the uniform himself.
"You make a fine show, Inquisitor, and that's a fact," Othorp told him. "When you aren't out investigating, I'd like to have you up in the front ranks at our major ceremonies, if you've no objection. It's a pity, but half the old fellows here are just that—old fellows, one short step from collecting their pensions. They look sad, that's the truth of it. What used to be their chest has gone south, you might say, and I'm afraid they think more of their dinners than they do of why they need to be in shape."
"And why do they need to be in shape?" Tal asked curiously as he preceded the Captain out the door and into the hallway. "Other than for ceremonial occasions, that is?" He coughed. "I hope you'll forgive me for saying this, but it would seem to me that an Abbey full of Justiciars would be the last place a troublemaker would care to go. Constables in general reckon a position like Church Guard is a soft berth."
Othorp's face darkened, but not with anger; he was very clearly worried. "You'd think that, wouldn't you." He made it a statement, not a question. "Think about it, though. Someone has a suspect, they want the truth out of him—they bring him to Justiciar Arran to see if Arran can use his magic to call it out. City constables have evidence, have a group of suspects, they call in the High Bishop or one of the other mages to link the two. And when it's Judgment time for misuse of magic, murder, rape, serious crimes, who is the one who sets the penalties if the Duke and his two Judges don't have the time or don't feel qualified to make a Judgment? Justiciars, that's who. And the more serious the crime, the more likely it is that it'll be passed here across the river." He shook his head as he walked.
Tal suddenly felt very stupid. "That's a lot of enemies," he said slowly. "The bad lads tend to put the blame on anybody but themselves for what happens to them."
"And not all of them wind up doing the rope-dance. Some of them even see out their time and get turned loose." Othorp sighed heavily. "And do you think I can get one of them to believe that they might be the chosen target of some very bad people and take care about their movements?" He shook his head. "That's why I wish we could just retire our old men when they get too fat to run, but they're sentimental around here, though you wouldn't think it. They won't hear of sending a man off to pasture on half-pay and replacing him with someone younger."
Tal shrugged; there wasn't much he could add to that. "Maybe you could urge it on appearances—it doesn't look good for Church Guards to look fat—like, aren't we supposed to be part of the chastity and poverty business?"
Othorp chuckled, and rubbed his heavy eyebrow with his forefinger. "I could try that. At the least, it might get the High Bishop to order some of these old fellows on a serious training regimen. Reducing diets won't work; most of them are steady customers of the inns across the river."
By now they had reached the tall wooden door at the end of the hallway; Othorp pushed it open, and Tal looked into the refectory.
He'd had occasion to stay at Abbeys of the Wayfaring Order a time or two when he'd taken excursions into the country, and these dining-halls all looked alike. The one thing that struck him as odd about this one was the relative quiet. Beneath a high ceiling crossed with age- and smoke-blackened beams, tables and benches were arranged with mathematical precision on a plain, scrubbed wooden floor. At two of them, rows of scarlet-clad Guards were already waiting for their meal, talking in hushed voices. From another door, Priests in the scarlet robes of the Justiciars, and novices in the same rust-colored gowns that Kayne wore were filing in silently to take their places at the rest of the tables. They must have been wearing soft-soled boots or slippers of some sort, as their footfalls were barely audible.
All four walls were plastered white, with dark beams exposed. One wall held a huge fireplace, the opposite one nearest Tal and Othorp had three windows glazed with tiny diamond-shaped panes of glass in lead. There was a raised dais of dark wood at the far end of the room with a wooden lectern on it; beside the lectern was another table, this time with only a single bench behind it. Othorp led Tal to the second table full of Guards; there were wooden plates of bread and cheese already on the table, wooden spoons, mugs, plates, and bowls before each place. Someone—probably Kayne, he thought—must have informed the kitchen staff of his arrival, for there was an extra place laid ready for him. He and Othorp were the last of the Guards to arrive, and it was plain that Othorp had only spoken truth when he commented how important their dinners were to some of these men.
When the last of the Priests had taken his or her place at a bench, the High Bishop entered, followed by four other Priests, all male. All of them wore the standard cowled scarlet robe, belted with a black cord. The High Bishop wore a small round cap of scarlet on her short blond hair; the rest went bareheaded.
"That's Arran, Leod, Harden, and Cole," Othorp whispered. "Chief Justiciar, Chief Clerk, Chief Exchequer, and Chief Household. You'll only have much to do with Arran and Cole; you'll only see Harden if you need to draw out some extraordinary expense and Kayne can't handle it for you—and as for Leod, write your own letters, he has a knack for making a man feel like a chunk of street-scum."
Of the four, Arran and Cole looked the easiest to deal with. Ardis took her place in the middle of the table. Arran, a tall, raw-boned man with a mouth like Ardis's and the kindest eyes Tal had ever seen, took his place beside Ardis on the right. Cole, lean, bald, and good-humored, took the left. A novice stepped up to the lectern, opened the book there, and began to read aloud as other novices with white aprons tied over their robes passed among the tables, ladling soup into bowls and cooked vegetables onto plates. The Guards passed the bread and cheese up and down the table, ignoring the novice, who was reading some religious text; Tal, with the edge taken off his raging hunger, took a modest amount of both bread and cheese and passed the rest on. The soup proved to be pea, and the vegetables a mix of squash, beans, and root vegetables in a thick sauce.
"This is Tal Rufen," Othorp said as he tore off a hunk of bread for himself. "New man, High Bishop's own Guard from now on. Recommended by Justiciar Brune, from Haldene."
Tal gave Othorp points for giving him the story he should follow, and nodded affably at the rest of the Guards, hoping there would be no jealousy over what should have been a prime position going to an outsider.
"About time she got her own Guard," one man said without prompting, a fellow with a weathered face and graying black hair. "Stop messing up the duty-roster every time she takes a notion to go across the river. Hard on us, trying to reshuffle so that nobody gets stuck with double-duty."
The others nodded, in total agreement, and Tal was taken a bit aback for a moment. Then he realized what was going on—as Othorp had hinted, these men were used to a fairly set routine with very little variance, and resented any change in it. They had the soft berth that he had described.
As he listened to them talk, he had no doubt that most, if not all of them, would spring to the defense of their charges if one of the Justiciars was attacked—assuming some of them could spring anymore—but if there was no crisis, they simply didn't want to be stirred from their set ways.
"Don't envy you, Tal Rufen," said another, one of the very men Othorp had complained about, whose uniform tunic strained over a decided paunch that overlapped his belt. "High Bishop's always gadding here, gadding there—you'll miss half your meals, leave your bed early and get to it late. When you aren't running your legs off to keep up with her, you'll be standing around outside of doors for hours and hours."
"Oh, I'm used to that by now," he replied easily. "I was on third shift, dockside duty in Haldene. At least now, if it rains, I won't be spending a full shift out in it."
"There is that, but I wouldn't have lasted a year on a third shift," agreed the second man, and tucked into his food with a will.
There seemed to be plenty of that food; at least, the novices kept serving the Guards as long as any of them wanted further helpings, although the Priests and their fellow novices were apparently restricted to single servings. More of that asceticism, he decided, grateful that they did not impose their rules on their secular servants. At the end of the meal, all of the Brotherhood rose as one and filed out again, leaving the Guards to wipe their plates with the last of their bread and make a more leisurely exit.
"High Bishop will want to see you, I'd expect," Othorp said, as Tal hesitated just outside the door, not certain what he was expected to do next. "I doubt she finished with you before dinner. You remember the way."
He nodded; he would have made a poor constable if he couldn't remember a few turns and twistings of corridors. A constable was supposed to be able to negotiate an unfamiliar neighborhood in the dead of night.
They parted at the first intersection of hallways, and Tal made his way back to the High Bishop's office. There was no one outside, and he tapped tentatively on the door, wondering if he was supposed to have gone first to Kayne.
But it was Kayne who opened the door, and she seemed pleased enough to see him. "Come in, please," she said. "The High Bishop is just finishing up some business, but she has already mentioned that she wanted to talk with you before Evening Services."
Evening Services! He'd forgotten that part of Abbey life! His dismay must have shown on his face, for Kayne chuckled. "Oh, don't worry," she whispered, a conspiratorial sparkle in her eyes, "The Guards aren't expected to attend all the Services. Just one of the ones on Sevenday. It's like the rest of the Abbey life; we have vocations; we don't expect you to, and we don't expect you to abide by the rules made for those who do."
He sighed, just a little, and hoped his relief didn't show too much. Kayne gestured him inside and shut the door behind him.
He resumed the chair he had vacated only a few hours ago, and waited for the High Bishop to finish whatever she was doing. It seemed to involve a great deal of paperwork, and some whispering between herself and her secretary. Eventually, though, Kayne went trotting off with a huge sheaf of papers, and Ardis turned her attention back to him.
"This is a little backwards," she said with a crooked smile. "I usually know all about someone before I engage them, and I would like to rectify that situation now so I know what kind of man I am dealing with." She settled back into her chair, and clasped her hands in her lap. "So tell me, Inquisitor—what kind of a man is Tal Rufen? What does he care for? What does he despise? What makes him the man he is?"
Her shrewd gray eyes regarded him soberly from beneath winglike brows the same color of gold as her hair.
"Tal Rufen is a man who never wanted to be anything other than a constable," he told her. "As soon as I was old enough to play, I had a baton I'd made from an old broomstick and a constable's cape from a scrap of canvas. The others would play at robbers, and I'd capture them and hang them. When I got old enough, I learned everything I could about the job, and as soon as they'd take me, I applied. I've been a constable since I was sixteen, and if they'd taken me younger, I'd have gone. If you're looking for what drives me, that's it."
"And do you consider this position to be a step back for you?" she asked unexpectedly.
He had to think about that for a moment. "No—no, I don't think so. This is what being a constable should be like. You've put me in a position to be able to do my job again, which was more than my Captain was doing. When this case is over, though—"
"You're afraid it might turn into a glorified Bodyguard position," she stated, with a little nod.
He shrugged. "I don't know. I don't think I'd be satisfied to stand at attention at ceremonies for the rest of my life."
A brow lifted. "I don't think there will be any danger of that," she told him crisply. "You may not pursue investigations as . . ." She paused to search for the correct word. " . . . as tense and distressful as this one. But you will be pursuing investigations; I have needed someone with your skills to aid me as a Justiciar for some time, and now that I am High Bishop, I need your skills more than before. Magic isn't always the right way to find the answers, and when it is useful, it doesn't always supply all of the answers. I mislike making a Judgment without all of the information."
He nodded grave agreement, and she continued. "Now, besides wanting to be a constable all your life, what else are you?"
"Dull." He laughed. "As a person, I'm afraid I tend to become my work. I don't have many interests outside of that. Games—skill games, not cards or dice. Reading. History, mostly."
She smiled at that, and he wondered why, but she made no comment. "Parents?" she asked. "Other ties?"
He shook his head. "Parents are both dead; I was a late-born child, came long after Mother thought she was past having any, and I don't think either of my parents was comfortable around a child. They both died a few years ago. No close friends, no women who cared to put up with the hardships of being a constable's wife."
"I understand." She contemplated him for a moment. "Perhaps you are more suited to our sort of life than I had thought. I was afraid it would be too dull for you; our entertainments are mostly mental. If you had a vocation, you could be one of the Brotherhood."
She's right, actually. How many of the lads on the force told me that I lived like a Priest? "That may be," he agreed. "Since most of my life could be packed up on the back of a mule and carried off with me." He thought about that for a moment, and added, "The only things I'm really going to miss in Haldene are the books I left behind and the friends I left them with. A pair of Mintak brothers; we used to play castle-board and share books we'd read. Other than that—" He surprised himself with a bark of laughter. "Other than that, the only thing I'd like is to see the Captain's face if he ever finds out what I'm doing now. I have the feeling that as a Special Inquisitor, technically I outrank him."
A broad grin sprang up on Ardis's face, making her look very like a vixen in her coat of scarlet and little round red cap. "I sometimes think that the reason God demands that we leave revenge to Him is because He prefers to keep such delights to Himself," she said sardonically. "I quite understand. Well, Tal, before I send you off to the bed you very much deserve, I only want to tell you three things. Make free of the Abbey library; use of it is one of the privileges of being attached in service to the Abbey, and I think you'll be pleased by what you find."
He flushed a little and ducked his head, obscurely ashamed for some reason that his hunger for books had been found out, and her smile softened. "Tomorrow you can present your papers to whomever you think you will need to work with; trust me, no hour is too early for Captain Fenris, if you can find him. Use your own discretion as to who you inform of your true rank; I'll take care of notifying the Duke myself."
He started to object, and stopped himself. She was right; she had ways of getting to the Duke quickly, where he would have to wait days or weeks for an audience. "I'll probably tell this Captain Fenris, High Bishop, and I'd rather tell him in person, myself. I want him to see me, I want to see him, so we can—"
"So the two hounds can sniff noses and decide not to fight," she interrupted with an ironic look that dared him to say otherwise. And since that was pretty much what was going to happen, he couldn't deny.
"Well, we do have to know that we can trust each other," he pointed out. "Where I'm going to be prowling—well, I might need someone to come to my aid, and if I have to ask Fenris for help, I want him to be willing to send a man with me. He won't do that if he's never seen me."
"I rather thought that." She lost her smile. "That brings up the last point—remember that you can't track this murderer down if you're dead, Tal. This is a ruthless creature, and if he realizes that someone is tracking him, he may deviate from his chosen victims to remove you from his trail."
With a feeling of shock, he realized that she was right. It had not occurred to him, he had been so preoccupied with the pursuit, and so focused on the female victims, but she was right. Whoever this was, he was smart enough to not only elude pursuit, but to avoid it in the first place.
That meant he was not only clever, he was intelligent. Someone like that would be smart enough to watch for pursuit, and if he could not shake that pursuit from his trail, he would eliminate it, or at least try.
I'm going to have to think like someone who is stalking one of the Great Cats in unfamiliar territory. At any moment, it could be the Cat who becomes the stalker, and the former hunter becomes the prey. Tal had never been in a position like this. It gave him a very unsettled feeling, to think of himself as the hunted, rather than the hunter.
"I'll remember," he promised. "And I won't go picking up any strange knives!" She nodded, accepting that promise.
With nothing else to be dealt with, he took his leave; Kayne was waiting outside the door with another sheaf of papers, and hardly waited for him to clear the doorframe before entering the office. He wondered a little at this; did the woman never rest? It was long past the time when most folk would have considered that they had put in a good day's work.
When he returned to his little room, and sat down on the side of the bed, he realized that he had been working on nervous energy for some time. The moment he got off his feet, it ran out, leaving him exhausted.
For a while, he simply sat there, examining his new quarters. This was the first time he'd had a chance to get a good look at them.
As was to be expected in an Abbey, this little room, about the size of his bedroom back at the Gray Rose, was not what anyone would call luxurious. At least it didn't have penitential stone walls, though; like the rest of the Abbey, this room was plastered and painted white, with all woodwork and exposed beams stained a dark sable. There was a closet opposite the door; the closet stood open, and his bags were inside—obviously, he was expected to tend to his belongings himself. The narrow bed was set along one wall, and a small table and chair on the other. There was a bookcase—empty—at the foot of the bed, a nightstand with a candle alight in a pewter holder on it at the head. Except for a hook on the door and two more on the wall, that was all there was.
The bed was firm enough, with plenty of blankets, which would be welcome since the room did not boast a fireplace. But there were no windows, either, so at least there wouldn't be any drafts—though in summer, there wouldn't be any cooling breezes.
How are we supposed to deal with these woolen uniforms in summer? Or do they have a summer uniform as well?
He couldn't imagine the Priests wearing those long woolen robes in summer either, so perhaps the summer-weight clothing had been packed away for the season.
Well, if I don't get my things put up now, I probably won't get to them for days. Somewhere, he dredged up a last bit if energy, and got back to his feet.
The books he had brought with him all fit nicely into one half of the first shelf of the bookcase. He hung his civilian clothing up first, then his new uniforms. All the rest of his belongings, such as they were, fit into the two drawers of the nightstand.
Except, of course, for his weaponry. He had seldom employed it as a constable, but he kept in constant practice; a hand-crossbow and a belt-quiver of bolts went on one hook on the wall, his short-sword on the other. His various boot-, belt-, and wrist-knives he laid out on the table, along with his cudgel and a bag of lead shot. That last served double-duty, both as a weapon in and of itself and as ammunition for the sling tied to it. Over the back of the chair he laid his wide, stiff leather belt that served as kidney-protection, and the leather collar that protected his throat. His leather wrist-braces went on the table with his knives.
He'd worn none of this for his interview with Ardis; he hadn't known what kind of guards she'd have and how they'd take to a man bearing arms into her presence. But he had no doubt that someone had looked through his weapon-bag when they put it in this room, and that Othorp knew precisely what he'd brought with him—and that it all had that well-worn look.
He'd wear all of this tomorrow when he went into the city to find Captain Fenris. He got out of his new uniform, blew out the candle, and was surprised at how dark the room was without the light. There wasn't even a line of light from the hall under the door. He might have been inside a cave.
And it was quiet; unnervingly quiet to a man used to sleeping in an inn. He couldn't hear anything out there in the hall, and if there was someone on the other side of his walls, he couldn't hear any sounds from them, either.
He felt for the head of the bed, and climbed under the thick, soft woolen blankets. But once he was there, he kept staring up at the ceiling in the darkness, unable to quite get to sleep. Partly it was the silence, so thick it made his ears ring, but partly it was a belated state of nerves.
It was all catching up with him now, and he found himself a little dazed. He had come here to the Abbey on a whim when he'd been unable to locate the Captain of the Kingsford constables or the Kingsford Sheriff; everyone knew about the Justiciars, of course, and down in Kingsford he had heard stories about Ardis and had taken the chance that she might hear him out and perhaps get him an appointment with Captain Fenris. He had not expected her to take a personal interest in the case.
He had expected even less that she would turn around and coopt it and him. After trying to deal with the authorities in Haldene, he had really been anticipating that he would be put off. In fact, if his suspicions were correct, and a Priest or high Church official was involved in this, Ardis would have had every reason to deny him an interview at all. He'd been steeling himself for the long trudge across the bridge to Kingsford again, a scant dinner, and the cheapest room he could find. His resources, never large to begin with, were dwindling quickly.
And now—
Now he was beginning to get the feeling there was much more going on here than he had dreamed of, and he was afraid that the High Bishop was privy to more and more serious information than he had yet uncovered.
Was it possible that he was getting in over his head? Was that why everyone in Haldene had tried to put him off this case? Was it more serious than he knew—did it involve suspicion of someone with a very high rank?
It didn't have to be a noble, it could be a Priest, as he had suspected many times now—and it could be that she knew it, even had some suspects, but had no way to prove who it was. Perhaps that was why she had conscripted him so quickly. Oh, wouldn't that just open a box of beetles!
And I could end up being the scapegoat when I catch the man. He could, if Ardis was like other high-ranking people he'd worked under. But nothing he'd seen and heard so far made him inclined to think that she was. In fact, her reputation was that she protected her underlings from those who were higher in rank, provided that those underlings were on the side of the angels.
So I just have to make sure I'm on the right side.
If it was a Priest, in one of the other Orders, say, he and Othorp and Fenris might end up having to go in and pry the fellow out, which could get very ugly. Then again, at least if it was a Priest, as a Special Inquisitor he wouldn't have the problems with bringing him to Justice that he would have had as a constable. A Priest could claim immunity from secular authority, but not from someone delegated by the Church.
I'm the enforcement arm of the Church. I can throw anyone I need to into gaol. It wasn't the heady thought it might have been; he'd never cared for the power of the baton, only for its use as a tool to get bad people put where they couldn't hurt anyone again. It only meant that there was nowhere he could not go in the course of this investigation; he hoped that he wouldn't need to use that authority.
The other complication was the one Ardis herself had briefly touched on. If his target was a Priest and a mage—or just a mage—well, he would know that Tal was coming, and who Tal was, long before Tal ever learned who he was, and there would be plenty of opportunity for "accidents" to occur. Magic opened up an entirely new set of problems, given that Tal really didn't know the full breadth of what a mage could and could not do.
This is no time to get cold feet, he chided himself. You've never backed away from a case before; not when you had to go after mad drunks, murderers, and cutthroats. Any one of them could have disposed of you if you'd made the wrong move. She's already told you that you can go to her or any of the other Justiciar-Mages she thinks is discreet and get help, which includes finding out what a mage can do. And besides, the High Bishop is counting on you. She thinks you can handle this, or she wouldn't have given you the authority in the first place.
Yes, and just what had convinced her to give him the authority? He'd like to think that he showed his own competence as clearly as she showed hers, but he doubted that was the case. How could he have looked like a professional, when he'd come in exhausted, travel-worn, in shabby clothing? He wouldn't have impressed himself, and he doubted that his outward appearance had impressed her.
I probably looked like one of her Gypsy friends. Then again, maybe that wasn't so bad. If she had contacts among the Gypsies and Free Bards, she must be used to looking past shabby clothing and weary faces.
It could have been his careful investigation thus far that had impressed her—and he'd really like to think that was the case. He had done good work, especially considering all the opposition he'd faced. He could have done more if he'd just had some cooperation, and she probably knew that as well.
But the reason why she trusted him could also have been desperation. If you didn't have the faintest idea where to start with a problem, wouldn't you take the first person who came along and said, "I know what to do" and throw the whole thing at him? She'd had that letter on her desk when he came in; she'd probably just gotten it. She wasn't supposed to track criminals, she was supposed to sentence them, and considering that the Bardic Guild had its Guild Hall in Kingsford, she might not get much cooperation from the Kingsford authorities in trying to hunt down a killer of Free Bards. For that matter—maybe the killer was some high-ranking, crazed Master Bard! Hadn't he heard it said, more than once, that Bards were supposed to be mages?
It might be that when he walked in her door with additional evidence, she'd been disposed to welcome him as God's answer to her difficulty.
Maybe so. But she didn't get where she is now by being incompetent to handle her own problems.
For that matter, why did he agree so readily to become her servant? Or the Church's servant, really, but it amounted to the same thing in this case. What in Heaven's name made him throw away everything he'd done to this moment to take this position? He'd never imagined himself serving the Church, not even as a secular adjunct. He never wanted to be a Guard, even one with other duties. He would have done so if that had been the only answer, but he hadn't even begun to explore his options in Kingsford. He certainly hadn't come into that office looking for a position!
It might have been the personality of Ardis herself that had persuaded him. Tal knew that, in some respects, he was a follower, not a leader. He felt more comfortable with someone competent in authority over him, for all of his cherished independence; and what was more, he was honest enough to admit it, at least to himself.
Competent—I'd say. She couldn't run this Abbey better if she was a general and it was a military barracks. Not that he'd been in a lot of Abbeys—but there were little signs when things weren't being run properly. Dirt in the corners, things needing repair, indifferent food, an aura of laziness or tension, a general sense of unhappiness.
A lot like the headquarters back in Haldene, as a matter of fact.
People weren't tense here, but they weren't slacking, either. Nobody was running around as if they were always forgetting to do things until the last minute, but no one dawdled. That novice, Kayne—she moved briskly, got things done, but there was no panic about it, no sense of being harried, and that went for every other person he'd seen. Even the rest of the Guards—though Othorp sighed over their condition, they were competent and they got their jobs done properly; their biggest problem was that they were set in their ways. They weren't lazy, just so used to routine that changes in it made them uneasy. When it came down to it, that would probably hold true for all the Priests as well, and why not? Routine was part of an Abbey. No, Ardis had this place well in hand. Maybe that was what he had responded to.
The moment I got here, I felt it. He hadn't even ridden all the way into the courtyard before someone came to greet him and ask his business—one of the Guards, he realized now. A stablehand had come to take his mules and tie them up for him, a novice had led him to a little chamber just inside the front door, and brought Novice Kayne to him. Kayne had questioned him briefly, and everything had fallen into place, and all without a lot of running about and fuss and feathers.
Not what I would have expected from a place being run by a woman. But just as he thought that, he knew it could just be prejudice on his part.
I don't expect much out of women when it comes to running things. But—really, look at the women he'd had the most to do with! You didn't expect much of women, when all you saw them doing was falling apart in a crisis. The women he saw on a day-to-day basis mostly seemed to be looking for men to take care of them.
And they weren't very bright. Or if they were, it had been starved or beaten out of them a long time ago. You could have some pity for the pathetic streetwalkers of the dockside district, you could have sympathy for all the hard work a tavern-wench had to do—but the women who took those jobs were not exactly the cream of the day's skimmings when it came to intelligence. So far as that went, most of the men he saw were not long on mind-power.
Well, more than half the battle in getting rid of a prejudice was in recognizing that it was one. Ardis would have been as formidable as a man; the Abbey would have been just as well run; hence, there were other women who were her equals in intelligence, and he had just never run into any before. Which was not too surprising, when you considered his social circle—or lack of one.
That brought him to the High Bishop herself; she seemed very young to be wearing a miter, and even younger to be wearing the gold miter. Most of the Bishops he had seen had been gray haired—and male. He might have a prejudice, but so did the Church; females in any position of authority were rare birds, indeed.
So how had Ardis, not only female, but relatively young, gotten where she was now? It couldn't have been an accident that she had been the highest ranking Priest in this Abbey when the previous High Bishop died—and even then, it wasn't the usual thing for a Priest to simply step into the vacancy. He vaguely recalled that High Bishops had to be elected by the Council of Bishops, which meant she had to pass muster before all of them—gray-haired men. She can't be any older than I am, or not much, he decided. Not that I'm all that young, but I'm not all that old, either.
Well, she was related by blood to a lot of important people, including Grand Duke Arden. After almost single-handedly saving Kingsford from a fire which—so rumor had it—renegade Priests had a hand in setting—well, if Duke Arden suggested that his cousin ought to be made High Bishop, he rather suspected that there were plenty of people on the Council of Bishops who would take that as a Very Good Idea.
The Great Fire might have had something to do with the decision. He hadn't been in Kingsford long, but stories about the Fire had spread all the way to the High King's capital. The Grand Duke was considered a hero—but Ardis was considered a saint for throwing herself and the Abbey into the problem of healing, housing, and feeding all of the refugees. If I have my politics right—making Ardis High Bishop might solve some problems here for the Church, in the case of those rogue Priests. The Bishops wouldn't want to give up their authority over their own renegades, but unless the Grand Duke had assurance that the caught Priests would get full and appropriate punishment, well . . . If he had been Duke Arden, he'd have been tempted to hang the bastards from the highest tree and let the Church complain all they liked about it. But by making Ardis High Bishop, everybody would be satisfied—the Duke had assurance that the criminals would get everything they deserved, and the punishment would all come from an instrument of the Church.
She might also know a few inconvenient secrets about the other Bishops herself; most people in power did.
Still, she was a remarkable woman; she would have stood out in any setting, and in this one—
She's amazing. Nothing short of amazing.
Attractive, too. At least, to him. That vixen-grin she'd flashed him, full or humor and what almost looked like mischief; she could charm the boots off a man with that one, if she ever used it as a weapon. Another prejudice; he'd always thought of female Priests as being unattractive, waspish, something like young Kayne, but more so. It was odd to think of a physically attractive woman in a Priest's robes. Very odd, actually.
Why had she become a Priest in the first place? She didn't seem the type to have been pulled in by religion. She just didn't have that glassy-eyed sort of devotion he expected out of someone dedicating their life to religion.
But maybe that's another prejudice on my part. I just don't know that many Priests, I suppose.
Still, she was well connected, probably money or titles or both, attractive, intelligent—why had she become a Priest?
Might have been the traditional thing. I've heard some of the noble families do that—firstborn inherits the estate, second-born goes into the military, third goes to the Church, whether they like it or not.
But he couldn't picture Ardis being coerced into anything, so she must have had some reason to go. A disappointment in love? No, she didn't seem like the type to moon tragically around because someone she wanted didn't want her. More than that—a tragedy? The man she loved had died?
She wouldn't dive into the Church unless she thought she could exorcise the grief in work. But she doesn't seem at all grief-ridden; there's usually a shadow over people who lose a loved one.
Maybe it had something to do with the fact that she was a mage. He didn't know of too many places that could train a person in magic, and most of them wouldn't be the sorts of places that would appeal to someone as well-bred as Ardis. And the rest were all in nonhuman lands.
I certainly can't picture her marching up to an Elf Hill and demanding to be let in. The Elves would drive her mad with their ways.
But he also couldn't picture Ardis ever letting a talent go to waste. Maybe that was the reason; it made more sense than anything else.
Except— Maybe she went into the Church because the Church was the only place where she would be expected to exercise all of her intellect.
This was all sheer speculation. He didn't know enough about the Church, the lives of the nobles, or Ardis herself to make a really intelligent guess.
That was part of the trouble; he knew nothing about the High Bishop, except the little that she had told him herself. He had nothing to make judgments on, and that left him at a disadvantage.
I'm going to have to make it my business to learn everything I can about her, he decided. This clearly wasn't going to be the kind of situation he'd had back in Haldene, where he was just one constable among many. He was the only Special Inquisitor; he and she were going to be working closely together. It wasn't even the equivalent position to the other Abbey Guards.
In a sense, she's going to be both my superior and my partner. Or—maybe a little more like when I first came into the force, and I was attached to a senior constable. I had to learn as much about him to work smoothly with him as I was learning about being a constable.
It was a long time since he'd been in that kind of position; it was going to take some getting used to. Still—why not? The only trouble was that it meant he was going to be working on two investigations, not one. The murder chase, and the investigation of Ardis.
What the hell. I work better under pressure.
And with that thought, his exhaustion finally overcame his nerves, and he slept.