Four and Twenty Blackbirds bv-4

by Mercedes Lackey

  It probably isn't going to bother them too much, he decided. Nobody with any significant money is going to come down here and stand in lines when they can go to a fine, warm shop and be waited on, even fawned over. There might be some loss of secondhand trade, but that would even itself out eventually. Those who bought secondhand garments would rightly point out that the market value of such goods had decreased and be able to buy them at a lower value than heretofore, and the very poor, who could not afford even cheap goods like these, would then be able to afford the second-hand goods. The merchandise leaving those warehouses wasn't what he would call luxury goods, either. Most of those who were buying these new items were those who would bargain fiercely, leaving a secondhand merchant with less of a profit anyway.

  Taking advantage of the crowds, other vendors had set up shop along the street. There were no entertainers, probably because there was no room for them. Performing on the docks would be dangerous, with wagonloads of heavy goods going in both directions, and the wharfs on one side. Not only that, but the wheels of those wagons, rumbling on the wooden planks of the wharf, made it too noisy for anyone to hear an entertainer. But there were other peddlers and vendors, anyone who could set himself up in a small space. A flash of color caught Tal's eye, and he wormed his way through the press of people to a ribbon-seller. Midwinter Festival was coming up, and he liked to get small things for people who were decent to him.

  He bought a bit of scarlet for the black hair of the little wench who cleaned his room, and the little blonde who usually waited on him in the tavern would receive a streamer of blue. Farther along, there was a candy-monger, an orange-girl, a man selling feathers, and a knife-sharpener with his grinder in a barrow. The candy-monger had a clean-looking cart and display, and little bags of candy would make appropriate gifts to the tavern errand-boys; Tal's mind was entirely on the complicated problem of different-but-equal bags of sweets as he wormed his way towards the cart, when suddenly the noisy but relatively peaceful scene changed dramatically.

  He had looked down long enough to tuck his bits of coiled ribbon into his belt-pouch and make certain the antipickpocket flap was in place, when the crowd surged into him, knocking him off-balance. People screamed and surged into him again as they tried to escape from something just ahead.

  Training went into effect as people tried to move, surged back and forth mindlessly, and generally made things worse all the way around. Reacting as a constable and not as a man in the crowd, he fought free of them with a few precisely placed kicks and elbow-jabs, and broke out into an open space for a moment, looking for the source of the trouble.

  He didn't take long to spot it. Ahead of him, the knife-sharpener brandished a bloody blade in one hand, a woman covered in blood lying motionless at his feet. Tal's eyes went immediately to the knife and not the man, for it was obviouswho the attacker was, and in this press of bodies, he would not be able to get away.

  Though he only saw it for a moment, he knew he would be able to draw a picture of it from memory alone at any time in the next year. It was unusually long, with a wicked point; the cross-guard was minimal, the hilt undecorated, and the blade itself was exactly like a triangular file, except that it was polished to a satin-gleam on all three flat sides, and glinted razor-sharp on all three edges.

  Tal dropped his package of shirts at the feet of the candy-monger and launched himself at the murderer. In spite of the fact that he wasnot frozen with shock or surprise, and in fact was already moving towards the man as his eyes and mind took in every detail of the murder-weapon, he was not fast enough to prevent the next scene of the tragedy. With the speed of the weasel he resembled, the knife-sharpener flung the blade wildly into the crowd, turned, and plunged off the dock into the murky, icy water of the river. And since he was wearing a belt encumbered with several pounds-worth of metal tools, even if hecould swim, it wasn't likely he was going to come up again. Tal knew that even before the man hit the water and sank without a sound.

  Tal ran to the edge of the dock anyway, but there was no sign of the murderer but a trail of bubbles. He debated plunging in after him—and even teetered on the brink for a moment—when one of the dockworkers grabbed his elbow.

  "Don't," the man said shortly. "The bastard's a goner. Won't last a minute in that water, and neither will you."

  "You're right," Tal acknowledged, and turned back to the woman's body.

  She was dead, and he was unsurprised to find that the woman had been stabbed as viciously as the very first victim he'd seen. She had probably died instantly; the amount of blood soaking the dock and her clothing indicated that the knife-sharpener had used his blade with brutal expertise.

  Although it seemed to him that the better part of an hour had passed, he knew it had only been a few minutes, and the crowd was still milling about in panic. He took charge of the scene at once, getting the crowd settled, separating out witnesses from those who only knew thatsomeone had died, and eventually dispersing all those who were not direct witnesses. He also gathered up a few level-headed volunteers.

  "You and you," he ordered, picking two large, steady-looking fellows. "You two go north and south along the river, and see if you can't find the constables patrolling this district."

  He turned to a smaller, soberly clad man, plain and ordinary. "You go to the station and alert the constables there."

  All three nodded, and went briskly off on their assigned errands. That left him with four more, all dockworkers, who should know this area. "You see if you can't find that knife," he told them, although he knew it was a hopeless quest. The mysterious, vanishing blade was going to vanish again, and there wasn't anything he could do about it. "You saw him throw it away; something about it may tell us why he went crazy that way."

  The four looked at him a little oddly, but began their search the moment he explained that he was a constable. He dealt with the murder scene a few moments later, draping the girl's body with a tarpaulin given him by a barge-man.

  At least this time I saw it, and I know exactly what it looks like, he thought bleakly. I can describe it to knife-makers, armorers, smiths—there can't be that many knives like that in this city. I can check with secondhand stores and have people keep a watch for it. Maybe I can track it down that way, or at least find out what kind of a knife it is.

  Or he would—if this wasnot some strange cult of murder and suicide, with special ritual blades of their own. There were not many things more secretive than a religious cult, and doubly so in a circumstance like this one.

  Still, someone has to forge these things. I'll check with smiths.

  By the time the local constables arrived—more than a bit annoyed that an apparent outsider had so cavalierly taken overtheir crime—he had all of the information that really mattered to him. The girl was local; she cleaned and gutted fish at one of the salting-houses. The knife-sharpener was new; no one had ever seen him here before. The orange-girl, the candy-monger, and the fellow with the feathers were all locals as well, and knew the fish-cleaner by sight.

  "Everyone knew her," the orange-girl sobbed, weeping messily into her apron. "She was always singing, whistling—so cheerful, her voice so pretty, we always told her she ought to go for a Free Bard—"

  Tal froze inside, although he knew there was no sign of his reaction on his face. There it was, the music connection again! What was going on here?

  He patted the girl on the shoulder, trying awkwardly to comfort her, then turned to the newly arrived constables. "I'm sorry to have barged into your territory like this," he began, knowing that if he apologized immediately, the new arrivals would stop being annoyed and start being grateful that he had done all the preliminary work for them. "I would never have, except that I know from my own experience that if you don't take over in a case like this, there's a panic. Wild tales spread like a fire in dry grass, and the next thing you know, you're getting reports of a wholesale massacre of fishwives. And if you don't herd all these people together at the start, they'll m
anage to wander off on their own errands before you can get any sense out of them."

  He handed the man he judged to be the most senior his own notes. "Here's what I've gotten, sir, and I hope it will be of use to you," he continued, as frowns softened to reluctant approval. "The ones who swore theyhad to go, I got addresses for in case you have to do a follow-up. Any my statement is in the pile as well, and my own address."

  "Oh, we know where to find you," the senior constable replied, with more approval showing when Tal made no mention of getting credit on the report, or indeed having anything to do with this other than be a witness. "You can go ahead and go now, if you like. We can take it from here."

  Tal turned to go, and the candy-monger, with a display of honesty that was quite remarkable, handed the package containing his shirts back to him, undamaged except for a bit of dirt. "You tried, sir," the sad-eyed little man said. "Most wouldn't have done that for her. Thankee."

  Tal nodded, accepting the compliment in the spirit intended, and tucked his package under his arm, but his mind was elsewhere, planning the report he was going to write for Captain Rayburn. He had several cases now, including one with an impeccable eyewitness in the person of himself. Now the Captainmust believe him!

  Enthroned in splendid isolation behind the walnut bulwark of his desk, Captain Rayburn gazed down his long, thin, aristocratic nose at Tal with mingled contempt and disbelief. "Would you mind telling me what you were drinking when you wrote this bit of imaginative fiction?" he asked sarcastically. "I'd like to get hold of a bottle or two myself."

  Tal considered any number of possible responses and confined himself to a civil one. "You can't argue with the facts, Chief," he replied. "All the murders are in the records; they were all committed with the same kind of weapon, which always disappears."

  "They were all committed with aknifelike object," the Captain corrected. "We don't know what that object could be, and there is no evidence that it is the same or even a similar object in any two of the murders. The instrument of death could have been a file—or a piece of bar-stock—or an ice-pick—or, for that matter, an icicle! There is nothing connecting any of these murders except your half-toasted idea that the victims were all musicians of a sort, and that is too absurd to even credit. There isalso no trace of magic involved in any of these deaths, and theyhave been checked by a reputable Priest-Mage."

  Tal clamped his mouth shut on the things he wanted to say, for there was no point in going any further. Hewanted to point out that the examinations of the wounds of the victims showed identical characteristics consistent only with a triple-edged blade, and remind Rayburn that none of the weapons had ever been recovered, much less identified. He wanted to tell the Captain that the Priest-Mage was less interested in finding traces of magic than he was in getting his unpleasant task over with as soon as possible, and that this particular man was hardly as reliable and reputable as Rayburn painted him. He wanted to say all of these things, but he said none of them.

  The Priest in question is in his position because he is out of favor with the current Bishop, and liaison with the constables is the lowest position a Priest-Mage can have. But I'm not supposed to know that. Rayburn wants this thing covered up, and it suits him to pretend that the man is careful and competent. The only question is, why is he so intent on covering this up?

  "I hope you aren't planning a new career in sensational storytelling, Constable," Rayburn continued, tapping the pile of papers with his index finger, "because this is too far-fetched to attract any publisher."

  Tal dropped his eyes and studied the top of Rayburn's immaculate desk, knowing that if he wanted to keep his job, he was going to have to keep his temper.

  But I'm beginning to wonder if this is a job worth keeping. Why is it worth Rayburn's while to sweep this under the rug?

  Rayburn waited for him to say something, and when he did not speak, the Captain shook his head. "I would have expected a piece of nonsense like this out of one of the green recruits, not out of a senior constable," he said with an undisguised sneer. "Really, you make me wonder if you are not ill with a brain-fever yourself! I hope you haven't been spreading this nonsense about—"

  "I've told no one," Tal replied stoically. No one else would have cared, you bastard, except a few idiots like me who want to do their jobs right, and they don't have any power or influence. The rest are all too busy playing politics, just like you. "I saved it all for my report."

  "Oh, did you?" Tal's hands, hidden by the desk, clenched at Rayburn's tone. "In that case, I won't have to order some punitive assignment for you for spreading rumors designed to cause panic or unrest." Rayburn drummed his fingers on the desktop for a few moments. "In that case, because of your fine record, I am going to forget I ever saw this."

  Tal looked up in time to see the Captain turn in his seat, take the report that he had labored over for so long, and toss it into the stove beside his desk. Tal stifled an oath as Rayburn turned back to him.

  "Now, Iorder you to say nothing more about this," Rayburn said with a cold core of steel underlying the false cordiality. "I won't have wild rumors of death-cults or renegade mages circulating through the streets. Do I make myself clear?"

  The weak blue eyes had turned as icy and flat as a dead fish's, and Tal said what he was expected to say.

  Go to Hell, Captain.

  "Yes, Captain," he replied, trying not to choke on the two words.

  Rayburn settled back into his chair with an air of satisfaction. "This district is quiet, and I intend to keep it that way," he warned Tal. "Even if any of that nonsensewas true, I would order you to hold your tongue on the subject. Rumors like that are all that it takes to spark a riot, and Iwill not have a riot on my watch." He waved his hand in a shooing motion at Tal. "Now, get out of here, and don't let me ever see anything like this report again."

  Tal shoved the chair back, watching Rayburn wince as the legs grated on the floor, and left the office before he could say anything he didn't want Rayburn to hear.

  He won't have a riot on "his watch"! As if he paid any attention to his district at all!

  He seethed all the way back to his rooms at the Gray Rose, and only long practice helped him to keep his stoic expression intact. Not even the Mintaks, notoriously sensitive to body-language and able to read trouble from the most subtle of expressions, had any idea that Tal was suffering from more than his usual moodiness.

  When he reached the safe haven of his rooms, his first impulse was to reach for a bottle—but he did not give in to it. Hewanted a drink—he wanted to numb his mind and his soul, wanted the oblivion that a bottle would give him, the few hours of respite when nothing mattered anymore. But that respite was a lie, and oblivion cured nothing, and he knew the depth and shape of the trap far too well to fall into it himself. Liquor had been the ruin of many a constable, in part because they needed to numb their feelings and their memories, and in part, he suspected, because more and more of late the good constables were not able to do their jobs properly.

  You can drop into despair, or you can beat the bastards at their own game. I'll be damned if I let a pinheaded little shoe-licker keep me from doing my job.

  Instead of reaching for that bottle, he sat down at his desk with pen and paper in hand. There was more than one mystery here, and the second one was a question that concerned him intimately.

  Why had Rayburn suppressed all of this? Why was he so adamant thatnothing was to leak out?

  Sometimes it helped him to make physical lists, and he began two of them, writing slowly and carefully, with his tongue sticking out at the corner of his mouth as he concentrated. Writing did not come easily to him, although reading did, but working at a difficult task would keep him from doing something he might regret later. Like reaching for that bottle.

  Murdershe headed the first list, andRayburn was what he put on the second page.

  He started the second page first.

  Rayburn is trying to cover up the murders, he wrote. He's try
ing to make them appear perfectly common. Why?

  Why, indeed? The victims were all poor, insignificant; their neighborhoods were those where crime was, if not a daily occurrence, certainly not a stranger. Except for the Gypsy girl, whose death had not even occurred in his district, there had been no notoriety attached to any of the cases. And there were no relatives clamoring for any other solution than the "official" one. Maybe he shouldn't be looking at the victims for his answer—maybe he should be thinking about the hand behind the murders.

  Who or what could be doing this? he wrote on the first page. A disease of the mind—possibly spreading. A curse, or more than one. A mage.

  Now he returned to the second page.Rayburn could be trying to prevent people knowing that there is a disease that makes them kill for no reason. But that assumed that Rayburn would be aware there was such a thing. . . .

  Huh. He might. There was that tainted-wheat scandal. Nearly two dozen people died raving mad from eating flour made from it. The moneyed in this town would not want anyone to know about tainted food, especially not if it was a common article, like flour.