The Witness for the Dead

by Katherine Addison

  “You were very busy.”

  “Very. My brother and I didn’t reach our beds until dawn—we sent the clerks home at midnight.”

  Which strongly suggested he had not been in the Zheimela at midnight murdering Min Shelsin.

  “Can you think of anyone who would have wanted to kill her?”

  “How could anyone have wanted to kill her? She was so beautiful and so gifted.” Tears welled in his eyes, and he blinked them away. “She had terrible arguments with Osmer Ponichar. Screaming matches, really. I asked her why she continued to accept him, but she just laughed and said they understood each other. She hated Iäna Pel-Thenhior, though. They were always fighting about something, and she’d stay mad at him. She wouldn’t at Ponichar.”

  “Do you think Pel-Thenhior would murder her?”

  “I don’t know,” said Mer Csenivar. “She hated him, but I don’t know how he felt. Min Shelsin could be very … dramatic about her feelings for people.”

  I thought “dramatic” was probably a tactful word, but I had gathered that part of what drew Mer Csenivar to Min Shelsin was the intensity of her emotions and the somewhat overwrought pitch at which she lived her life. For a merchant’s dutiful son, she was exciting. I wondered if he would have eventually come to find her exhausting.

  That, too, was something that would never be discovered.

  Using Mer Csenivar’s advice, I was able to find Osmer Ponichar without difficulty. He, however, refused to speak to me about Min Shelsin or anything else. All he would say was, “I know nothing about her death.” Since I had no evidence of any kind to suggest that he was lying, I had no grounds to insist that he answer my questions—or at least no grounds that the Amal’othala would find impressive if Osmer Ponichar complained of being harassed. And from his flat stare and the angle of his ears, I thought he would complain.

  I was not going to jeopardize my witnessing for Osmer Ponichar’s information, especially when—unless he suddenly confessed to the murder—it was so unlikely to be useful. I went in search of Osmer Elithar instead.

  I found him in a gambling house near the Vermilion Opera. His eyes were bloodshot and his hands restless, and although he spoke to me quite willingly, I never had his full attention. He told me nothing except how beautiful Min Shelsin had been and how charming. He did not seem to see her as the author of his downfall, and I left wondering if she had in fact bled him dry or if his own extravagance was to blame.

  That left Dach’osmer Cambeshar, whom I could not find among the teahouses and gambling dens. His town residence was in a block of flats carved out of the old Brenenada compound, and the gate was guarded. No one could go in without permission, and if the page came back and said, “Dach’osmer Cambeshar cannot see you today,” there was nothing to be done about it.

  But when the page came back, he said, looking more than a little surprised, “Dach’osmer Cambeshar can spare you a few minutes.”

  The compound was as beautifully maintained as if the Brenenada still lived there, and each door we passed bore a different signet. Members of the Zhivenada, the Tativada, the Rohethada—Dach’osmer Cambeshar was in high company. I felt even smaller and shabbier than I had felt in Sholavee. The liveried servants we passed looked as surprised as the page.

  Dach’osmer Cambeshar’s flat was on the second floor of the south wing. We crossed a broad rooftop courtyard to get there. It had probably served as a ballroom in the spring and early summer; I had heard that the old Amaleise nobility had had a penchant for such things.

  Dach’osmer Cambeshar’s flat fronted on this tiny plaza. The first room was airy and light and full of lovely wall hangings and beautiful elesthwood furniture. Dach’osmer Cambeshar rose from a chair by the bank of arched windows and said, “Othala Celehar, we understand that you wish to speak to us.”

  The weight of his attention made me feel cold. He was tall, intensely elegant, with green eyes which he wore jade in his ears to accentuate. His hair was dressed with amber and gold, but it did nothing to make his presence warmer.

  I knew immediately, as one sometimes knows things that cannot be proved, that if he had killed Min Shelsin, her body would never have been found and I would never have come to this jewel-like room.

  “Dach’osmer Cambeshar,” I said, “thank you for agreeing. We will not take many minutes of your time.”

  He raised his eyebrows, whether skeptically or encouragingly I could not tell.

  “We are witnessing for Arveneän Shelsin,” I said, “and we are speaking to all of her patrons. Do you know of anyone who might have wanted to kill her?”

  “No,” he said. “But we know very little of Min Shelsin save the beauty of her singing. She did not confide in us.” The dryness of his voice said he preferred it that way.

  I considered him a moment, trying to think past my instinctive aversion. “Do you know anything of her gambling debts?”

  “Did she have them?” he said with another unreadable lift of his eyebrows. “We are not surprised to hear it. She was … reckless.”

  It was a condemnation; Dach’osmer Cambeshar was not a man who did reckless things, nor would he sympathize with someone who did.

  He sympathized with no one. Despite the warmth of the sun, I felt cold, and despite the light in the room, I felt as though I were groping in the dark. I said nothing for a moment, then decided I had nothing to lose and asked, “Did she ever try to blackmail you?”

  He laughed. “Was that her game? No, we keep our secrets far more carefully than that.”

  I believed him. But I thought of one other question. “Did you attend the Vermilion Opera’s performance of General Olethazh on the ninth?”

  “The night she died? As it happens, we did.”

  “Was Iäna Pel-Thenhior there?” I had to ask someone, and I had no fear that Dach’osmer Cambeshar would lie, as a singer might.

  “He was,” said Dach’osmer Cambeshar, and did not ask why I was asking.

  I said, “Thank you for your time, Dach’osmer Cambeshar. We appreciate your assistance.”

  “We have hardly given any,” he observed. “But you are welcome, othala. We are sorry we could not offer you more information.”

  “Even a lack of information tells us something,” I said, and he rang the bell for a page boy to see me out.

  * * *

  I had at this point, I thought, a relatively well-rounded picture of Arveneän Shelsin. She was an ambitious woman—ambitious professionally, financially, socially. She was, as Dach’osmer Cambeshar said, reckless, unheeding of the consequences of her behavior. Hence the gambling and hence the alienation of her colleagues. Only with Min Nochenin and Min Balvedin had she seemed to care what they thought of her on a personal level. I wondered if she had sought out the two clerks to be her friends because she had alienated the singers, or if she was one of those people who could not see colleagues as anything but competition.

  She gambled recklessly, she was bad with money, and she had a wild hunger for more—more beautiful clothes, more prestige, more everything. More secrets. Although I had only the one blackmail victim (so far), I had a general agreement that she would not draw back from blackmail, and I thought it was the most likely explanation for the circumstances of her death: the midnight meeting in the Zheimela, the murderer’s use of the canal. He might not have come intending to kill her; that rush in the darkness, that sudden burst of force, might have been an explosion of overwhelming anger. Certainly she had had no idea that she might be in danger.

  But then, she was reckless and bad at considering other people’s reactions. Maybe he had planned it. Maybe her death had been his goal from the beginning.

  That question was unanswerable. More to the point was a more basic question: who was he?

  Not Pel-Thenhior, whose whereabouts I knew, and presumably not anyone who had performed in the opera that night. There at least was a question I could find the answer to, and with some reluctance I returned to the Vermilion Opera.

  * * *<
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  It was late afternoon. Pel-Thenhior and the singers were rehearsing Zhelsu while Thoramis took frantic notes. I found a seat in the row behind him and watched.

  They were rehearsing the final scene, in which Zhelsu, rather than submit to the caresses of the lecherous overseer, throws herself into the machinery of the manufactory. Min Vakrezharad seemed to be dubious about the jump; I heard Pel-Thenhior saying, “A stack of mattresses, Othoro,” from the stage piece which represented the catwalk over the machinery of Zhelsu’s manufactory, while Mer Olora, playing the overseer, stood center stage and glowered.

  Pel-Thenhior and Min Vakrezharad came down from the catwalk stage piece, and Mer Olora and Min Vakrezharad walked through the movements of the overseer stalking Zhelsu across the stage and up the stairs that would put Min Vakrezharad in the right place to jump at the right time. It seemed to be a complicated maneuver, requiring careful timing, and of course they would be singing as well.

  They went through the sequence three times, with Pel-Thenhior shouting words at specific points, which I presumed were the words they would be singing. Then they went through it once singing themselves, although softly. And then Mer Olora started a fight with Pel-Thenhior.

  I could hear enough of the words to know it was about something technical, and I could see by their ears and posture that they were both genuinely angry, but why the matter enraged them so I could not tell.

  They were soon standing almost nose to nose, shouting at each other, Mer Olora’s voice booming through the auditorium, and Pel-Thenhior’s, slightly higher, not far behind.

  And then, as suddenly as it had started, it was over, Mer Olora stalking into the wings and Pel-Thenhior coming down to the plank bridge, his expression like a thundercloud.

  When he saw me, his ears lifted and he smiled as if he was truly glad to see me. “Othala Celehar! What brings you here today?”

  “The night Min Shelsin was killed,” I said, “who was performing?”

  “The top half of the adult chorus. General Olethazh is a small cast for principals—not like The Siege of Tekharee, with a part for everyone and then some. Just Nanavo and Cebris and Shulethis. We wouldn’t perform it if it weren’t so tiresomely lovely.”

  “Thank you,” I said. That left more people unaccounted for than I had hoped. “Could I speak to the singers?”

  “Of course,” said Pel-Thenhior, then shouted, “Everyone on stage, please!”

  A surprising number of people came flocking out of the wings; I was lucky in my timing. I crossed the plank onto the stage and asked straight out: “How many of you knew Arveneän Shelsin was a blackmailer?”

  After a long hesitation, hands started to go up. About half the company raised their hands, shame-faced, including Mer Telonar, the junior tenor. Almost all the women had known.

  I wanted to ask why none of them had told me, but I knew the answer. Either they were keeping a secret for a friend or they were keeping a secret for themselves.

  “Thank you,” I said. “I have no wish to expose anyone’s secrets. How many of you knew that she gambled?”

  This time a much smaller array of hands went up. Mer Telonar again and Min Vakrezharad and four or five women from the chorus. “She told us all about Tivalinee one afternoon during fittings,” said Min Vakrezharad. “I think she regretted doing so later.”

  “Does anyone know the extent of her gambling debts?” I was looking at Mer Telonar, and he shook his head.

  “We talked about playing pakh’palar,” he said. “She wasn’t very good, so if she played often, she must have lost a great deal of money.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes, she must.”

  Then someone—one of the chorus members whose name I did not know—called a question back: “Is it true that you spent the night on the Hill of Werewolves?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Is it true the Duhalada offered you mortal insult?” asked somebody else.

  “What? No, that’s not true at all.”

  “They did insult you,” Pel-Thenhior said.

  “Well, yes, that part is true. But Mer Duhalar apologized.”

  “That and a zashan will buy you an apple,” someone said from the back.

  “Are all the stories exaggerations?” said Min Vakrezharad. “You did really find the Curneisei who were plotting against the emperor, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, that story is true,” I said. “But it was much more boring than the newspapers made it sound.”

  Pel-Thenhior laughed. “We’re embarrassing you horribly. But did you prove the Duhaladeise will false?”

  “I did,” I said. “The deceased Mer Duhalar remembered who his heir was.”

  That unsettled everyone enough that I was able to take a step backward and say, “Does anyone know anything else about Min Shelsin that might help to explain her death?”

  They were silent; I bowed and took my leave.

  I was on my way out of the auditorium, feeling that I had made no real progress, when Telonar came panting after me. “Othala! May I speak to you for a moment?”

  “Of course,” I said, and stepped out into the foyer.

  Telonar followed me and looked around nervously before he said, “What you said about blackmail…”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s true. She was blackmailing me.”

  “How much did you pay her?”

  His elven complexion showed a deep blush. “I couldn’t pay her. Gambling debts.”

  “So what was she blackmailing you for?”

  “Secrets. Other people’s secrets. I hated … but if she went to Iäna with what she knew, I would’ve been out and the door locked after me.”

  Here was another possible motive. I said, “Where were you the night she died?”

  “Me?” His voice squeaked with surprise and horror. “I could never—”

  “I’m not saying you did. But if you can tell me what you were doing, it makes things easier for both of us.”

  There was a long pause before he said, reluctantly, “Playing pakh’palar at Indamura’s—it’s a gambling house about five blocks from here.”

  “That’s good,” I said. “That means there are people who can confirm your story. How late were you there?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “It wasn’t dawn yet when I went home, but it was close.”

  Well after Arveneän Shelsin had died. “Who were you playing with?”

  He gave me four names, still reluctantly, and said, “Indamura himself was seeing someone out when I left. He can tell you what time it was.”

  “That’s very helpful,” I said. The owner of a gambling house might be more or less likely than fellow card players to lie for Telonar, but if their stories all matched, it would be a good sign that he was telling the truth. “Now, can you—”

  But at that moment, a member of the chorus poked his head out between the auditorium doors and said, “Veralis, Iäna says you should—”

  “VERALIS! ARE YOU OUT THERE?” Pel-Thenhior’s voice rolled out through the open door like thunder and retribution, and Telonar clearly took it as such.

  “I’m sorry, othala, I must go. I’ve told you all I can,” he said hastily, and disappeared into the auditorium.

  I thought about going after him, but decided against it. I would not get him to tell me anything more either by getting him in trouble with Pel-Thenhior or by calling attention to the fact that he had spoken to me privately. Perhaps next time I came to the Vermilion Opera, he would be willing to speak further.

  * * *

  The post waiting for me at my office in the morning included a letter from Dach’othala Ulzhavar saying that he had news of “Avelonar,” and would I come to the Sanctuary at my earliest convenience.

  That afternoon, after confirming Telonar’s alibi with Mer Indamura, who seemed, if anything, amused to be asked, I returned to the Sanctuary of Csaivo. The first thing I did was to walk around the central building to one of the many tiny shrines hidden in the gardens.
There I knelt and said prayers for Coralezh and the other cleric of Tanvero and for the clerics I had met at the Amal-Athamareise Airship Works who had been following their calling with such determination and grace.

  The shrine was exquisitely lovely, a filigree of stone around a jade michenotho of Csaivo, and the gardens were full of peace. It was with some reluctance that I got up again and walked back around the central building to the doors.

  I felt vulgar and encroaching, but the novice on duty seemed to think nothing of my asking for the Master of the Mortuary. Ulzhavar himself seemed sincerely pleased to see me when I found him in the vaulted autopsy room, watching Denevis finish the autopsy of a drowned child. “Othala Celehar! Come in! I regret immensely that there are no chairs. I don’t need one and if the novices sit down, they either fall asleep or they forget I can still see them and, well, they’re still young enough to get distracted. But you’re here about Min Urmenezhen. Merrem Avelonaran, I suppose I should say, but it feels disrespectful.”

  “Her family would definitely prefer that you call her Min Urmenezhen,” I said. “And, yes, I got your letter this morning.”

  “Yes, good,” he said. “One of my clerics has discovered something.” He went to one of the chests of drawers and fetched out a sheaf of palimpsest pages. “His name is Temet Golharad, splendid fellow, he’s been the cleric of Aishan’s Grove for twenty years at least.”

  I recognized the name of the district. It was at the far western end of the city, where I rarely had cause to go.

  “He had a most remarkable story,” Ulzhavar said, “about a man named Segevis Michezar, who came to Aishan’s Grove with his newly married bride Drachano. He was polite but unfriendly. She was shy and clearly very much in love. And then she died.”

  “How?”

  “An illness. Short and very violent. Temet said the poor woman was racked with cramps and bouts of vomiting. Her death, when it came, was a mercy.”

  I made a warding gesture in reflexive horror.

  “The odd thing, Temet says, was Mer Michezar’s reaction.”