Fisher helped herself to a large drink from one of the decanters, and looked enquiringly at Hawk. He shook his head. “You shouldn’t either, Isobel. We’re going to need clear heads to get through today.”
Fisher shrugged, and poured half the drink back into the decanter. “Where the hell is Adamant, anyway? He promised us at least an hour for these interviews.”
“We’ll manage,” said Hawk. “Maybe we should start with someone else. Adamant’s got a lot on his mind right now.”
“You like him, don’t you?” said Fisher.
“Yes. He reminds me a lot of Blackstone. Bright, compassionate, and committed to his Cause. I’m not going to lose him as well, Isobel.”
“Don’t get carried away,” said Fisher. “Remember, as Guards we’re strictly neutral. We don’t take sides. We’re protecting the man, not his Cause. If you want to get enthusiastic about Reform, do it on your own time.”
“Oh, come on, Isobel. Doesn’t Adamant stir your blood even a little? Think of the things he could do once he gets elected.”
“If he gets elected.”
The door opened, and they quickly fell silent. Adamant nodded briskly to the two Guards, and pretended not to notice the drink in Fisher’s hand. “Sorry I’m late, but Medley keeps coming up with problems he insists only I can deal with. Now, what can I do for you?”
“We need more detail on the death threats, the information leaks, and the embezzlement,” said Hawk. “Let’s start with the death threats.”
Adamant sat on the edge of his desk, and frowned thoughtfully. “I didn’t pay them much attention at first. There are always threats and crank letters. Reform has many enemies. But then the threats became specific. They said my garden would die, and it did. More magical attacks followed, including the one that killed Mortice. The last communication said I would die if I didn’t resign. Blunt as that.
“There’s not much I can tell you about the embezzling. My accountants stumbled across it quite by accident. Medley has the details. They’ve agreed to keep quiet about it until we can find the traitor, but they won’t stay silent for long. They work for the Cause, not me personally.”
“The information leaks,” prompted Fisher.
“After the embezzlement I started checking through my records, and I found that what I’d thought of as nothing more than a run of really bad luck was actually something more than that. Something more sinister. Someone had been tipping off the Conservatives about my plans and movements. Crowds were dispersed before I could address them, potential allies were intimidated, and meetings were disrupted by planted thugs. Not everyone has access to that kind of information in advance. It has to be someone close to me.”
“Assuming we identify the traitor,” said Hawk slowly, “what if it turns out to be someone very close to you?”
“You let the law take its course,” said Adamant flatly.
“Even if it’s a friend?”
“Especially if it’s a friend.”
In the cellar, in the darkness, the sorcerer Mortice sat alone amid blocks of ice and felt his body decay. The pain howled within him, awful and never-ending, gnawing away at his courage and his sanity. At first the concentration needed to maintain Adamant’s defences had helped to protect him from the pain and the horror of his situation, but it wasn’t enough anymore. Through all the endless hours of the day and night there was nothing for him to do but sit and think and feel.
He had gone through anger and acceptance and horror, and now existed from minute to minute in quiet desperation. He had long ago given up on hope. He would have gladly gone mad, if .he hadn’t needed to keep control to protect Adamant. He still might. More and more his thoughts tended to wander and fray at the edges.
No one had been to see him for a long time. He could understand that. It was cold in the cellar, and they all had things to do, important things. But time passed slowly in the dark, and no one had been to see him in a very long time. And Adamant, his good friend James Adamant, came least of all.
Mortice sat alone in the cold, in the dark, in the pain, going slowly insane and knowing there was nothing he could do to stop it.
Medley came breezing into the study with a sheaf of papers in his hand, and then stopped dead as he saw Hawk and Fisher.
“Oh, damn! You wanted to see me, didn’t you? Sorry, but James has been running me off my feet this morning. What can I do for you?”
“To start with, tell us about the embezzlement,” said Hawk. “Exactly how much money has gone missing?”
“A fair amount,” said Medley, sitting casually on the edge of Adamant’s desk. “About three thousand ducats in all, spread over a period of three months. Small amounts at first, but growing steadily larger.”
“Who has access to the money?” said Fisher.
Medley frowned. “That’s the problem; quite a few people. James and myself, of course; Dannielle, the butler Villiers and half a dozen other servants, and of course several Reform people who worked on the campaign with us.”
“We’ll need a list of names,” said Hawk.
“I’ll see you get it.”
“How was the money taken?” said Fisher.
“I’m not actually sure,” said Medley. “The accountants were the first to notice something was wrong. Do you want to take a look at the books?”
Hawk and Fisher looked at each other. “Maybe later,” said Hawk. “Tell me about Adamant. How has he responded to the death threats?”
“Fairly coolly. They’re not the first he’s had, and they won’t be the last. It’s a part of politics in Haven. The magic attacks worry him, of course; Mortice isn’t as reliable as he once was.”
“Then why doesn’t he hire a new sorcerer?” said Fisher.
“Mortice is James’s friend. And he lost his life defending James from attack. James can’t just abandon him. And besides, when he’s in form, Mortice is still one of the most powerful sorcerers in Haven.”
They sat in silence for a while, each looking expectantly at the other.
“If there’s nothing else ...” said Medley.
“You’re in charge of Adamant’s affairs,” said Hawk. “Who do you think has been leaking information?”
“I don’t know,” said Medley. “It has to be someone with a grudge against James, but I’m damned if I know who. James is one of the fairest and most honourable men I know. The only enemies he has are political ones. Now if you’ll excuse me ...”
He dropped his papers on the desk, nodded briskly to the Guards to indicate the interview was over, and left the study. Hawk let him go. He leafed through the papers on the desk, but they told him nothing.
“For a political Advisor, he’s either extremely tactful or not very bright,” said Fisher. “I can think of several possible enemies among Adamant’s own people. Mortice, to start with. He saves Adamant’s life, and ends up a rotting corpse for his trouble. And then there’s his wife, Dannielle. She wouldn’t be the first woman to be mad at her husband because he was more interested in his work than he was in her. And finally, what about Medley himself? He’s in charge of the day-to-day running of the campaign; who has a better chance to embezzle money without it being missed?”
“Wait a minute,” said Hawk. “Mortice and Dannielle I’ll go along with, but Medley? What’s his motive?”
“As I understand it, he worked both sides of the political fence before he came to work for Adamant. He could still be on the Conservative payroll as an undercover agent.”
Hawk scowled unhappily. “This is going to be another tricky one. If we point the finger at the wrong person, or even the right person but without enough proof, we could end up in a hell of a lot of trouble.”
“You got that right,” said Fisher.
Up in the Adamants’ bedroom, Dannielle sat elegantly on the edge of the bed and watched critically as James held a shirt up against himself for her approval. It didn’t look any better than the first two, but she supposed she’d better agree to this one or he
’d get annoyed with her. She wouldn’t have minded if he just got red in the face and shouted at her, but James tended more to looking terribly hurt and put upon, and being icily polite. When he wasn’t sulking. Dannielle sometimes found herself picking fights with the servants just to have someone she could yell at. At least some of them would yell back at her. She realised James was still waiting patiently, and she quickly smiled and nodded her approval of the shirt. He smiled, and put it on.
Dannielle bit her lip. Better to say it now, while he was in a good mood. “James, what do you think of Hawk and Fisher?”
“They seem compentent enough. And surprisingly intelligent, for Guards.”
“But do you think they’ll be good at their job? As bodyguards?”
“Oh, certainly.”
“Then we don’t need to rely on Mortice so much anymore, do we?” James looked at her sharply, and she hurried on before he could say anything. “You’ve got to do something about Mortice, James. We can’t go on as we are. We need real magical protection. It was different when we had no one else we could trust, but now we’ve got Hawk and Fisher....”
“Mortice is one of the most powerful sorcerers in Haven,” said Adamant flatly.
“He used to be; now he’s just a corpse with delusions of grandeur. His mind’s going, James. Those blood-creatures weren’t the first things to get past his wards, were they?”
“He’s friend,” said Adamant quietly. “He gave his life for me. I can’t just turn my back on him.”
“When was the last time you went to see him, before today?”
Adamant came and sat down on the bed beside her. He suddenly looked very tired. “I can’t bear to see him anymore, Danny. Just looking at him makes me feel sick and angry and guilty. If he’d just died, I could mourn for him and let him go. But he isn’t dead or alive.... Just being in the cellar with him makes my skin crawl. The sorcerer Masque was my friend, not that thing rotting in the darkness ! But he was my friend, and if it wasn’t for him I would have died. Oh, Danny, I don’t know what to feel anymore!”
Dannielle put her arms around him and rocked him back and forth. “I know, love. I know.”
Dannielle came into the study only a few minutes after Hawk sent for her. She smiled brightly at the two Guards, and sank gracefully into her favourite chair.
“I do hope this won’t take long. James is almost ready to go.”
“We just need to get a few things clear,” said Hawk easily. “Nothing too difficult. How involved are you with the day-to-day running of Adamant’s campaign?”
“Not very. Stefan handles all that. I’ve no head for or ganising things, so I let the two men get on with it. My job is to stand conspicuously at James’s side and smile at anyone who looks like they might vote for him. I’m rather good at that.”
“What about the financial side?” said Fisher.
“I’m afraid I’m not very good with figures, either. It’s all I can do to handle the household accounts. Once I went a few hundred ducats over budget and James was positively rude to me. Stefan handles all the money to do with the campaign. That’s part of his job.”
“Let’s talk about the gossip,” said Hawk.
Dannielle looked at him guilelessly. “What gossip?”
“Come on,” said Fisher. “There’s always gossip, and you’re in the best position to know about it. Servants will talk to you where they wouldn’t talk to Adamant or Medley. Or us.”
Dannielle thought for a moment, and then shrugged. “Very well, but I can’t vouch for how authentic any of this is. Stefan’s been a bit ... distracted recently. Apparently he’s got a new girlfriend he’s very fond of, but he’s trying to keep it quiet because James wouldn’t approve of her. It seems she’s minor Quality, from a very Conservative family with strong connections to Hardcastle. You can imagine what the broadsheet singers would make of that, if it ever got out.”
“How long has this been going on?” said Hawk.
“I’m not sure. About a month. I think.”
“After the problems with the embezzlement began?”
“Oh, well after. Besides, Stefan would never betray James. He’s far too professional.”
Hawk caught the emphasis, and raised an eyebrow. “I thought that was why Adamant hired him?”
“There’s such a thing as being too professional. Stefan lives, eats, and breathes his work. His word is never broken, and he defends his reputation the way some women defend their honour. What’s more, he works all the hours God sends, and expects James to do the same. It’s all I can do to get the pair of them to eat regularly. I’ll be glad when this bloody campaign is over and we can all get back to normal.”
“Is there anything else you can tell us?” said Hawk. “Has anything unusual happened recently?”
“You mean apart from my garden disappearing overnight and a rain of blood in my hall?”
Hawk nodded glumly. “I take your point.”
Dannielle got to her feet. “Well, it was very nice talking to you both, but if you’ll excuse me, James is waiting.”
She swept out, without waiting for permission to leave. Hawk waited until the door had closed behind her, and then looked at Fisher. “So, Medley has a Conservative lover. That could be significant. Perhaps there’s some kind of blackmail involved.”
“Maybe; but the embezzlement started months before he met her.”
“We can’t be sure of that. He could have been seeing her for months before the servants got to hear of it.”
Fisher scowled. “This is going to be another complicated case, isn’t it?”
Stefan Medley sat alone in the library, staring at a wall of books and not seeing them. He should have told Hawk and Fisher about his lady love, but he hadn’t. He couldn’t. They wouldn’t have understood.
Love was a new experience for Medley. The only passion he’d ever known before was for his work. Medley had long ago come to the conclusion that whatever women wanted in a man, he didn’t have it. He wasn’t much to look at, he had few social graces and even less money, and his chosen career wasn’t exactly glamorous. He didn’t want much out of life; he just wanted someone to care for him who didn’t have to, someone to give him a reason for living. He just wanted what everyone else had and took for granted, and he’d never known.
Now he’d found someone, or she’d found him, and he wouldn’t give her up. He couldn’t. She was all he had. Except for James’s friendship. Medley beat softly on the arm of his chair with his fist. James had believed in him, made him his right-hand man and his friend, trusted him above all others. And now here he was, selfishly keeping a secret that could destroy James’s campaign if word ever got out.
But he had to do it. James would never understand. Of all the women he could have fallen in love with, it had to be her ... except, of course, he’d had no choice in the matter. It had just ... happened. Medley had always thought that falling in love, when it finally happened, would be gentle and romantic. In fact, it was more like being mugged. Overnight, his whole life had changed.
Medley sat quietly while his mind worked frantically, turning desperately this way and that, searching for a way out of the trap he’d built for himself. There was no way out. Sooner or later he was going to have to choose between his friend and his love, and he didn’t know what would happen then. He couldn’t give up either of them. They were the two sides of his nature. And they were tearing him apart.
“More and more, this reminds me of the Blackstone case,” said Fisher. “Something nasty’s going to happen. We can all feel it in the air, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“At least then we had a handful of suspects to choose among,” said Hawk. “Now we’re stuck with two: the man’s wife and his best friend. And the only skeleton in the cupboard we’ve been able to find is that Medley might be seeing a Conservative girlfriend on the quiet. Hardly a burning motive for murder and betrayal, is it?”
“Don’t look at me,” said Fisher. “You’re the
brains in this partnership; I just take care of the rough stuff. Conspiracies make my head hurt.”
“Right.” Hawk scowled. “There’s still the butler, Villiers. Maybe he knows something. Servants always know things.”
Fisher smiled sourly. “Whether he’s prepared to talk to us about it is a different matter. If you ask me, Villiers is one of the old school—faithful unto death and beyond, if necessary. We’ll be lucky to get the time of day out of him.”
Hawk looked at her. “That’s great. Think positively, why don’t you?”
They both fell silent as the door swung open and Villiers came in. He bowed politely to the two Guards, shut the door firmly behind him, and then stood to attention, waiting to hear what was required of him. His poker-straight back and patient, dour expression gave him a solid dignity that was only partly undermined by the fluffy white tufts of hair that blossomed above his ears, in contrast to his resolutely bald head. He had dressed with exquisite care, and wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Lord’s mansion.
So what was he doing, working for a champion of the common people?
“Take a seat,” said Hawk.
Villiers shook his head slightly but definitely. “I’d rather not, sir.”
“Why not?” said Fisher.
“It’s not my place,” said Villiers, “ma’am.” He added the last word just a little too late.
“How long have you been James Adamant’s butler?” said Hawk quickly.
“Nine years, sir. Before that I was butler to his father. The Villiers family has served the Adamant family for three generations.”
“Even during the bad times, when they lost everything?”
“Every family knows disappointments from time to time.”
“How do you feel about Adamant’s politics?” said Fisher.
Swords of Haven: The Adventures of Hawk & Fisher Page 30