* * *
By the time we emerged from the pawn shop, the afternoon was fairly over, the shadows lengthening into dusk.
Pel-Thenhior said, “The Opera does not perform tonight, and I’m starving. Let me buy you dinner.”
“What?”
“Dinner. You have to eat, don’t you?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“We won’t go anywhere fancy. But I hate to eat alone, and I flatter myself I’m not bad company.”
His face was so hopeful that I did not refuse as I had intended to. I said, “All right,” and Pel-Thenhior’s answering smile was almost blinding.
We took the tram back to the Veren’malo, and then I followed Pel-Thenhior through a succession of courts and alleyways until we came to a teahouse called the Torivontaram, after a kind of helpful talking animal in Barizheise folktales.
Inside, it was clear—as I had not been able to see in the dark outside—that the teahouse had been built in the ruin of some much older building, and a row of flying buttresses were the ribs of the roof. Someone had turned the buttresses into a mural of trees along the wall.
Immediately as he came in, Pel-Thenhior was involved in a voluble exchange of Barizhin with a rail-thin and rail-straight Barizheise lady who barely came up to his shoulder. Her hair was iron gray, several shades lighter than her skin, which it had probably matched in her youth, and her round, slightly pop eyes were honey-gold, the same color as his.
I spoke some Barizhin, enough to conduct a service for the dead, but certainly not enough to follow that conversation. It didn’t help when they both started laughing.
Pel-Thenhior said, “Othala Celehar, this is Nebeno Pel-Thenhior, my mother. Mother, this is Othala Thara Celehar, who is trying to find out who killed Arveneän.”
Merrem Pel-Thenhior’s eyebrows rose slightly, but she said, “Be welcome, othala.”
“Did you know Min Shelsin?” I asked.
“I knew her when she was a child, and have seen her occasionally since. But it was no more than a passing acquaintance.” She smiled at me and said more kindly, “Come sit down. Iäna says you have not eaten yet.”
“No, but—”
“I’m still buying,” said Pel-Thenhior, “and Mother won’t overcharge us.”
“You are a dreadful child,” Merrem Pel-Thenhior said in Barizhin. She herded us gently to a table for two in one of the back corners, where I would have preferred to sit in any event.
We sat down, and Merrem Pel-Thenhior brought a teapot and two glazed pottery cups. The tea was a Barizheise green, smoky and deep. Pel-Thenhior poured carefully.
Pel-Thenhior said, “Many of the Opera come here, so don’t be shocked if you see someone you recognize. They won’t bother us.”
I choked on the words Are you courting me? and by the time I had recovered, had thought better of asking. If he said no, I would have embarrassed myself beyond bearing. If he said yes, I would be trapped into having to insist that he had made a terrible mistake and having to leave. But I still needed his help and his goodwill if I was to have any hope of answering the many questions about Min Shelsin’s death. And I liked Pel-Thenhior.
I liked Pel-Thenhior, and I was lonely.
His mother returned, bearing a tray with two bowls of soup and a plate of brown rolls. The soup was thick with noodles and vegetables and pieces of chicken, and the smell told me how hungry I was.
Merrem Pel-Thenhior said, “You bless our house, othala,” in Barizhin, and I answered in the same language, “Your kindness is a blessing on me.”
“You speak Barizhin?” she said in delight.
“Only a little,” I said.
“Nevertheless,” she said, and added to Pel-Thenhior, “I like this one.”
I blushed as if my face were catching fire, and Pel-Thenhior said, “Mother, don’t torment Othala Celehar.”
She laughed. “I beg your pardon, othala. Please enjoy your dinner.” She added something sharp in Barizhin to her son and went back to the kitchen.
Pel-Thenhior said, “She said not to drive you away.”
“Does that happen often to the people who dine with you?” I said, as if I were a courtier and could play the game of elegant conversation.
“I have had some spectacular arguments,” Pel-Thenhior said, which was not entirely an answer.
We ate for a while in silence. The soup was as good as it smelled, and the rolls were crisp and chewy, served with soft white Barizheise cheese.
Pel-Thenhior said abruptly, “I’m really not angling for anything more than company. You are far more restful than most of the people I know.”
“Restful?” I said doubtfully. And was that denial the truth? Had he recognized my alarm? Or was he denying preemptively so that he didn’t have to admit the truth, either?
“Opera singers,” he said, and rolled his eyes. “Every splinter is a five-act tragedy. And most of them talk and talk and talk.” He mimed jabbering with one hand and laughed. “I’m just as bad, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”
I said nothing, and he laughed again. “That was your cue to deny it, but I am glad you are an honest man.”
I felt that I had to offer something, and said, “I have found your conversation illuminating.”
“I choose to take that as a compliment,” Pel-Thenhior said, but his smile was brilliant.
* * *
When I got home that night, my hands were shaking so much that I was barely able to get my key in the lock.
I went inside, hung up my coat, and sat down on the bed, where the shaking enveloped my entire body like an ague. I fought the tremors long enough to take my shoes off, so that I could huddle against the wall. I swallowed hard, curled up as tight as a dormouse, and then I did my best to sit quietly and wait it out. Eventually, I fell asleep and dreamed that all the ghosts on the Hill of Werewolves had Evru’s face.
* * *
I woke up with a pounding headache, and my eyes were as bloodshot as if I’d been awake all night.
I washed my face and braided my hair back severely, and walked to the Hanevo Tree for breakfast, including a two-cup pot of strong orchor. It wasn’t enough, but it was the best I could do.
The goddesses were merciful, although I did not deserve it: I had no petitioners that morning. I could not face food at noon; I thought about going to the Opera, but I did not know what to say to Pel-Thenhior, and in truth I did not know what questions to ask anyone else. What I needed to know were Min Shelsin’s gambling habits: How often and how much? Was that the explanation of all those pawn tickets? It seemed likely, but still left me short of being able to explain the murder, much less identify the man who had committed it.
But perhaps her patrons knew.
I had been avoiding the task of talking to them, hoping that it might not be necessary, that I could find out who had killed her without intruding on the world of wealth and blood. It had been a vain hope from the outset; at the very least I needed to talk to Borava Coreshar and find out what he knew about what had happened on the last night of Arveneän Shelsin’s life.
* * *
I knew from previous witnessing in Amalo that my best chance of talking to Min Shelsin’s patrons was to find them away from their homes and guardians like Mer Dravenezh. I also knew that the best places to find them away from their homes were the fashionable teahouses along General Shulihar Street: the Pig of Good Fortune, the Curling Vine, and of course the empress of teahouses, the oldest teahouse in Amalo, Sholavee. I could not afford Sholavee’s prices, but I often wished I could.
Even my silk coat of office looked shabby in Sholavee. I walked from table to table, looking for Min Shelsin’s patrons. Eyebrows rose and ears twitched, but no one demanded to know my business or called for the staff to come throw me out, and at a table far in the back of the ground floor, I found Borava Coreshar, playing bokh with an elderly elven man whose rings were gold and emeralds.
I could see that the game was nearly over (Osmer Coreshar was losing);
I found a vacant table and sat down to wait.
An elven server approached, smiling as if threadbare prelates were her usual customers. When I said I was waiting for Osmer Coreshar, I saw his ears dip, although he did not turn around.
“Of course, othala,” said the server. “Are you in need of anything while you wait?”
“No, I thank you,” I said. She smiled and bowed and went to the next table to see if they needed more hot water.
I waited no more than a quarter of an hour before Osmer Coreshar had to concede defeat, tipping over his bokhrat with a rueful laugh. I had been curious to see whether he would admit he knew I was there, but after a few moments’ conversation with his opponent, he got up and came over to me, saying, “I am Borava Coreshar.”
“My name is Thara Celehar,” I said, rising, “and I am a Witness for the Dead, witnessing for Min Arveneän Shelsin.”
His ears dipped, but he stood his ground. “How may I help you?”
“You are the last person I know to have seen her alive,” I said, and watched to see how he took it.
It clearly staggered him; his eyes widened and his ears went flat. But after a moment, his chin came up, and he said, “I assure you I did not kill her.”
“I don’t believe you did,” I said. “But I need to know anything you can tell me about that night. Please, sit down.”
He sat as if he was grateful for the chair. He said, “We … we went first— Do you want all the details?”
“Yes,” I said.
“We went first to her boardinghouse, where I waited in the carriage while she changed her clothes. We always did that; she would never go out in the evenings in the clothes she wore to rehearse.”
I thought it was more likely the other way around: she couldn’t wear to the Opera the gowns she stole to wear in the evenings. But I said nothing.
Osmer Coreshar continued, “I will grant her that she was extremely efficient in the matter. She said it was the result of doing costume changes in a tearing hurry. When she came back—the dress was green velvet with embroidery of flowers on the cuffs—we went for supper at Haramanee. She was … very much in her usual spirits. Afterwards, we went to Bonashee.”
That was at least informative. Bonashee was the gambling house closest to the Canalman’s Dog—at least, the closest of the sort of gambling house to which Min Shelsin would be interested in going. “How long did you stay there?”
“I stayed until midnight. I don’t know about Min Shelsin. I lost track of her.”
“Was that unusual?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “I play pakh’palar at Bonashee, and all my attention is on the game. It has to be. Usually she was there when the game was over, but sometimes not. It depended on how her night had gone.”
“So you weren’t surprised?”
“No. I looked for her, but when I didn’t find her, I went home.”
“Was that an early night for you?” I was a little surprised; gambling houses like Bonashee stayed open until dawn.
He colored faintly. “I suffer from sick headaches, and I invariably have one if I stay out too late. I always go home at midnight.”
Making him, I thought, the perfect escort down to the Zheimela for a young woman who had, perhaps, a midnight meeting at the Canalman’s Dog. He wouldn’t notice when she left, and she could rely on him not to invest too much time in searching for her.
“Did you see anyone that you knew? Anyone who might know when she left or where she was going?”
He considered the matter. “I know Danila Ubezhar was there. She would have spoken to him if she saw him. But predicting what Min Shelsin will do is—was always difficult, and I do not know whom else she might have known.”
“A fair answer,” I said. “What else can you tell me about Min Shelsin?”
“What do you mean?” he said warily.
“The more I know about her, the more likely I am to be able to find her murderer,” I said. I had learned over the course of many witnessings to be patient with the reflexive fear most people felt when questioned about a murder victim. “You need not tell me anything private. I merely want to see her from a different angle.”
He considered again; either he was weighing his answers to me very carefully or he was a person who habitually thought through his words before speaking. He said, “Min Shelsin was very beautiful and very accomplished. She was ambitious—she wanted to be principal at the Amal’opera. She was very lively.”
Which could mean almost anything. “Did she gamble often?”
“We often went to gambling houses, but I was not with her always. I do not know what she did on other nights.” He hesitated, then added, “She lost a great amount of money.”
“Do you know of anyone who might want to kill her?”
“Iäna Pel-Thenhior,” he said promptly. “They hated each other with a passion.”
Pel-Thenhior had admitted as much, but it was still discomfiting to hear.
“Thank you, Osmer Coreshar,” I said. “You have been very helpful.”
“I hope you find the man who did it. Arveneän will be much missed.”
I noticed that he did not say he would miss her and gambled with a tactless question: “Did you love her?”
He was visibly taken aback. “No. Not love. I enjoyed her company, and of course I admired her singing.”
“Did you give her many gifts?”
There was another long pause, long enough that I thought he was going to refuse to answer, but then he said, “I knew of her habit of draining her patrons dry, and I did not intend to be another of them. I gave her gifts of a quality and at a time of my choosing. She had not yet grown impatient, but my friends assured me she would soon enough.” His ears flattened, and he said, “But now, of course, she won’t.”
“Do you think any of the men she ruined were angry enough to seek revenge?”
I thought it unlikely; Osmer Coreshar considered the idea politely, but said, “No. Of the three that I know of, two were shipped off to other family branches, and poor Elithar still believes he can come about with enough luck at the gambling table.”
“Thank you, Osmer Coreshar. Is there anything else you can think of that might help me find her murderer?”
He considered that question for a long time, and finally said, “If it is not Pel-Thenhior, and I gather from your questions that you do not think it is, then the only reason I can think of that anyone would murder her is that she liked to find out … I suppose one would call them secrets. Things she wasn’t supposed to know and that one had not confided to her. And she was not … if she knew a secret, she gloated. And some secrets are enough to drive a man to murder.”
“True enough,” I said. We bowed to each other, and I retraced my steps to Sholavee’s entrance.
Osmer Coreshar’s assessment matched with that of Min Shelsin’s colleagues; her love of secrets might be enough to have gotten her killed. I thought of Min Leverin. She had acquiesced to blackmail when Min Shelsin discovered her secret, but who was to say others would react the same way? Or might someone have chosen a different method to protect their secret?
The question was: what secret? Or, perhaps more trenchantly: whose secret?
I remembered that piece of paper in Min Shelsin’s pocket, illegible and falling apart with canal water. Had that been someone’s secret? Had it gotten her killed? That was nothing but speculation; it did, however, make sense of the midnight meeting in the Zheimela, and why Min Shelsin might have agreed to such a thing.
I wondered if there was any way to figure out how bad her gambling debts had been.
And then there was the other option. Even if Pel-Thenhior hadn’t killed Min Shelsin himself—his whereabouts would be easy to prove—there was nothing to say he hadn’t hired someone else to do it. You could find men in the Zheimela who would do anything if you could meet their price, and they wouldn’t talk about it, either. I didn’t think Pel-Thenhior would have any difficulty in finding such a man.
I could admit to myself that I did not want Pel-Thenhior to be responsible, and I knew better than to trust my own judgment. Evru had sworn to me that his wife’s disappearance was not his doing, and I had believed him.
I had believed him and had been proved most grievously wrong. My personal feelings were of no evidentiary value; whether I liked Pel-Thenhior or hated him made no difference to my witnessing. The question was only, how much truth could I dig up?
* * *
I found Mer Csenivar in his father’s place of business. He was haggard, as if he had not been sleeping, and when I told him my errand, he was almost pathetically pleased to have an excuse to talk about Min Shelsin.
He had adored her; he had asked her to marry him more than once, and she had managed to refuse without offending him. She had obviously never tried to blackmail him. He listed the gifts he had given her; they were all familiar from my foray through Amalo’s pawn shops. He could not have known about her gambling debts or he would almost certainly have offered to pay them, and I wondered why she had not taken advantage of him in that way when she clearly had no qualms about accepting—and using—his gifts.
Perhaps, like Osmer Elithar, she had believed she could still fix the situation by her own efforts.
Mer Csenivar did not tell me anything new about Min Shelsin, nor had I expected him to. He did tell me the best places to find her other patrons, since he seemed to have watched them almost as obsessively as he watched her.
This alarmed me, and I said, “Where were you that night?”
“When I should have been saving Min Shelsin’s life?” he said bitterly, completely missing the implication that he might be a murderer. “I was right here, helping prepare for the annual audit. The auditors arrived the next morning.”
The Witness for the Dead Page 20