Four and Twenty Blackbirds bv-4

by Mercedes Lackey

  Frustrating.

  But if Visyr would just volunteer his services. . . .

  Ah, but why should he? He wasn't human, he had no interests here except for hispaid position in the Duke's household, he probably hadn't the least notion what a Free Bard was. He was a predator; how would he feel about murder?

  Well, obviously he felt strongly enough about it to try to kill the presumed murderer.There was that. Tal just wished he could have read the bird-man a little better; obvious things like feather-trembling and eye-pinning were one thing, but what had it meant when the creature went completelystill ? What had some of those head, wing, arm, and talon movements meant?

  You can't coerce a flying creature, and I don't know what to say or do that would tempt him or awake whatever sense of justice lives in him. I fear the answer is that there is no answer for this one, unless the Duke lends us his services. That meant that the Duke would have to do without whatever the bird-man was doing for him, and he didn't know just how willing the Duke would be to sacrifice anything he personally wanted to this man-hunt. Especially when there was no guarantee that there would be any concrete result from the sacrifice.

  Well, he'd mention it to Ardis; she had more channels to the Duke than anyone else he knew of.

  If only Visyr had managed to snatch the knife! But once again, it was missing. Visyr definitely recalled that the man had had it in his hand when he bolted from the murder scene, and hadnot had it when he ran out onto the ice. It was a point of pride with the bird-man, how accurate Haspur memory was, and Tal was not inclined to doubt him. So, once again, the telltale knife had vanished into the crowd. Which meant it probably had beendropped, deliberately, in a place where the real murderer could find it. The knives were probably serving the same "memento" purpose—or, more accurately, perhaps, serving as trophies—as the small, personal objects had served for that other killer.

  One other thing they had learned that they had not known before. It wasnot the same knife, although the blade was the same shape. This one, unlike the one that Tal had seen the knife-grinder use, had boasted a gaudy, jeweled hilt—precisely the kind of toy that a young, well-dressed man might wear as an ornament. So it was reasonable to assume that the murderer had several knives of the same type, each suited to a particular "tool" for murder. For the jeweler it might have been this very piece. For the blacksmith, the plainer blade that Tal had seen, or even a rough, half-finished blade. So the "curse" notion, at least, could be discarded. It wasn't at all likely that there were two or more knives of the same type carrying so powerful a curse!

  Well, that's one small spot of progress, anyway. Then again, it could be the same blade, with a different handle.

  Movement at his open door caught his eye, and he nodded in greeting to Kayne. "They've brought the body in; Ardis is with it," she said shortly. He nodded again and rose to follow her.

  Ardis, assisted by another Justiciar, was already in the process of examining the body with a detachment that Tal found remarkable in someone who was not used to seeing the victims of violence on a regular basis—and certainly someone who was not used to seeing nude young men on a regular basis, either!

  The other Justiciar was a much older man; thin, bald, with an oddly proportioned face, very long, as if someone had taken an ordinary man's face and stretched it. His eyes were a colorless gray or faded blue; his hands and fingers as long and nimble as any musician's.

  "Well, there's no trace of magic, which is what we expected, but it's more than merely frustrating," she was saying to her assistant as Tal and Kayne entered. Kayne went white, then red at the sight of the nude body, then excused herself. Ardis didn't even notice.

  Tal took his place on the other side of the table. The body hadn't been in the water long enough for any real damage to have occurred, but Tal did notice one thing. "He doesn't look drowned," he pointed out. "Look at the expression; he doesn't look as if the last thing he was doing was struggling for air." In fact, the expression on the corpse's face was one of profound relief; if Tal hadn't known better, he would have thought that the man had died in his sleep. It was most unsettling to seethat expression onthis body.

  "True." Ardis frowned. "Of course, that could be simply because the cold rendered him unconscious first. His lungs are full of water, at any rate, so drowning is definitely what killed him."

  But Tal had already moved on to the next thing he was looking for. Again, the fact that the fellow had drowned in very cold water, and soon after committing the murder, had kept the formation of those strange bruises to a minimum—but the bruises were there. Ardis and the other Justiciar bent over them to study them at close range when Tal pointed them out.

  "You say you've seen these on the other killers?" Ardis asked, delicately turning the man's arm to avoid further damage as she looked at the bruising on the inside of the upper arm.

  "All the ones I was able to examine," Tal replied. "They don't look like the bruises that would come from falling, or from being struck."

  "No, they don't," the other Justiciar replied. "There's no central impact point on them; it's more as if the limb was shoved or struck by something large and soft, but shoved or impacted hard enough to leave a bruise." He looked up at Tal from across the table, and nodded. "You must be the Special Inquisitor; I'm Father Nord Hathon, the Infirmarian."

  That accounted for his presence here: his medical knowledge. Ardis was calling in anyone she thought might give her a clue. Tal had no doubt of the Priest's competence, for no one who worked closely with Ardis had ever proved less than competent.I just hope that the same can be said about me.

  "Look on the legs for the bruises, too," Tal told him. "You'll probably find them on the backs of the thighs and the calves."

  "Fascinating," Father Hathon murmured, following Tal's suggestion. "I can't account for this; kicks would have been directed towards the shins or the knee, blows to the head or torso, and attempts to seize the hands probably wouldn't have left these bruises on the wrists and hands. Those are particularly odd; they don't look like ligature marks, but they don't look like blows, either. Falls would have left bruises on the outside of the arms, not the inside, and on the shins again. This isn't quite the damage one would see from crushing, but it isn't far off from it."

  Tal shook his head. "I don't understand it, either," he confessed. "All I know is, they look just like the ones I saw on the other bodies."

  "Fascinating," Father Hathon said again. Ardis straightened up from her own examination and wiped her hands on a towel placed nearby.

  "I don't think we'll learn anything more here." She sighed. "There's nothing magical in the clothing, no traces on the body. We might as well turn his corpse over to his relations. We're questioning the relatives, but I'm virtually certain that they're going to say precisely what all the friends and relatives of other secondary victims have said."

  "This is a most curious case, Ardis," Father Hathon said, still examining the body. "I fear the only way that you will apprehend this perpetrator is when he makes a mistake."

  "So you agree with me?" she asked, turning to look at him. "The man didn't simply go mad and murder a stranger, like the fellow at the Cathedral?"

  Father Hathon looked up, and nodded.

  "Absolutely," he replied. "This is not behavior that can be rationalized even by a very disturbed soul, and despite what the laity might believe, people do not suddenly run mad and begin killing strangers without giving very powerful signs that all is not right with them long beforehand."

  "People don't suddenly run mad and murderstrangers at all," Tal interjected. "It might look as if they have, but either a person they really wanted to kill was one of the job-lot, or else the people they kill bear some strong connection or similarity to someone theydo want to kill but don't dare."

  When both Ardis and Father Hathon turned to look at him in surprise, he flushed. "I—handled a case like that," he murmured apologetically. "We caught the murderer and I got a chance to question him. Fellow ran
mad in the marketplace and killed three older women. Turned out he really wanted to murder his mother. I got curious and looked up other cases of supposed stranger-killings, and indeed they were like his."

  Ardis and Hathon exchanged a look; hers was rather proud and proprietary, his was an acknowledgement. Hathon continued, this time including Tal. "I shall question these relatives myself to assure myself about signs of a disturbed mind, but I believe, with you, that I shall find no such signs, for I find no accompanying signs of physical neglect or abuse on this body, and no signs in the belongings that he planned this crime." He shrugged. "I cannot account for these bruises, and they trouble me. I concur with your analysis. If I did not know better, I would argue for demonic possession."

  Tal couldn't resist the obvious question. "What do you mean, Father Hathon, that you 'know better'?"

  He smiled, thinly—more a stretching of his lips than a real smile. "I have seen nothing in all my years to make me believe in demonic possession. There are spirits, certainly, even ones we humans might term 'evil.' There may even be demons. But I do not believe that such a creature can infest a human soul and make it do its bidding. That a human couldinvite one to infest, I do truly believe, but that is voluntary hosting, and not involuntary possession, and the creature that is hosted is no greater in evil than the one doing the hosting." He lost what was left of that faint smile. "Believe me, Special Inquisitor, the human heart is as capable of evils as any supernatural creature of legend. It is capable of things more terrible than any poor, homeless spirit could engender on its own. In my time, I have seen the worst that man can wreak, and I would prefer to face the worst that a spirit could do than fall into the hands of one of my fellow humans who harbors such a damaged soul."

  Ardis drew a sheet over the body, shrouding it from view. "Father Hathon, if you would see to dealing with the relatives, I would be grateful. You can tell them that the Church believes their son was a victim himself, and that he can be buried in hallowed ground with all the appropriate rites."

  "And I shall be suitably vague when they ask me what I believe he was a victimof. " He nodded briskly. "You can trust my discretion."

  "I never had any doubts," Ardis replied and, gesturing to Tal to follow her, left the room that evidently served the Justiciars as a morgue.

  Once again, they retreated to the haven of Ardis's private office. Once they were in their accustomed seats, Ardis leaned back and watched him under half-closed eyelids. "You surprised me back there," she said slowly. "Pleasantly, I might add. I knew that you were intelligent, but I did not know that you were inclined to supplement that intelligence with research. What other oddities have you studied in the case-books, Tal Rufen? Perhaps we might find some similarities with this case."

  Kayne came in at that moment bearing a tray with the dinner they had both missed, which was just as well, since Tal's stomach was beginning to tell him that it didn't matter what turmoil his head was in, his body needed food. She set mugs of hot tea and plates of bread, cheese, and pickles in front of both of them.

  "Rank hath its privileges, including raiding the kitchen-stores, and I borrowed your rank and your keys on your behalf," Kayne said crisply. "You two need to eat, or you'll collapse and nothing will get done. May I stay? If you can't find anything for me to do as a secretary, I can take a toasting-fork and make you toasted-bread-and-cheese."

  Ardis seemed more amused than annoyed; Tal was simply grateful for the food. "Certainly," Ardis replied, picking up the mug and taking a sip. "At this point, you should be part of our investigation. You may be in my position one day, and have to conduct another like it."

  Kayne made the sign of the flame with her two hands against her chest. "God forbid!" she exclaimed. "I don'twant to see any such thing happen!"

  Ardis only arched a brow and waited for Tal to begin. She knows that once a crime has been committed, sooner or later someone will emulate it. He grimaced.

  "Well, the first thing that comes to mind probably doesn't have anything to do with this one," he replied, seeing the page before his mind's eye as vividly as if he had a Haspur's memory. "That's the one I call the 'would-be hero.' He's a fellow that does something deliberately to put people's lives in danger so that he can be the first on the scene to rescue them. The fellow in the archives set fires, then rushed in and rescued those who were in peril, but I suppose it would be possible to make holes in boats, set up situations where things could fall on people, lure a boat onto a hidden obstruction—"

  "I suppose you find this type out because he's a hero once too often?" Kayne hazarded. "Or he keeps turning up at the scene, whether or not he gets a chance to rescue anyone?"

  "Or as in this case, a Justiciar-Mage found a link between him and the fire. He's lucky no one died, so he was only sold into servitude to pay for the damages." Tal personally felt that the man might have gotten off too easily—but then again, it didn't saywho he'd been sold to. A life of hard labor on a road-crew would certainly have kept him out of any further mischief, though it might not have cured him of wanting to be a hero at the expense of others.

  "Another characteristic of people with this nature is that they tend to try and mingle with constables, fire crews, guards—the people they would like to emulate," Ardis noted, and smiled at Tal. "Yes, I am aware of this type, also. Very often you will discover later that they applied to be a constable or something of the sort, and were let go or turned down because they were clearly unsuitable. Go on, please."

  Kayne had taken up a tablet of foolscap and was busily making notes, after making good her offer as toasting-cook. Tal continued, taking time as he spoke so that she could keep up with him.

  "There was the fellow I mentioned earlier—the one who walked into the marketplace with an ax and cut down three women before he was stopped," he went on. "I had that case—I brained him with an awning-pole and dropped him where he stood. That one was so sensational that the City Council sent for a special Justiciar-Mage from here in Kingsford to examine him and read his thoughts."

  Ardis nodded. "I recall—that would be my cousin Arran, the one who can sometimes read what is in a man's mind."

  "Well, this Priest discovered that the man hated his mother, who was one of those nagging, selfish women who raise children by telling them what incompetent asses they are, no matter what they do or how well they do it." He shook his head. "She constantly belittled him, then expected him to serve her like a slave all her life. Hewanted to kill his mother, and had gone after her to the market to do just that. He actually struckat her, but she got away, and then he just struck at anyone that looked like her." Once again, he shook his head. "I have to say that I thought and still think that the man deserved hanging, which he got, but once I met the mother, I wished there was a way to hang her alongside him. There was another when I was just beginning in the force, who slaughtered whores—he was inept where women were concerned, never able to handle himself with them. The only women who'd have anything to do with him were the ones he paid. He was punishing all the women who'd mocked him and turned him down by killing the whores."

  "And the similar cases you found in the records?" Ardis prompted, looking interested, as Kayne scribbled along as fast as she could.

  "There was a young man who'd been denied very unpleasantly by a girl, who went up into a tower and began shooting crossbow bolts into the crowd below—heavy crossbow, too, meant to carry far and kill with a single strike. At first, it was at her and anyone else he imagined had slighted him, but after he'd killed three or four people, he started shooting anything and anyone that moved. His rage and madness fueled his strength, and he fired more quickly than even a professional soldier would with such a hefty weapon." Tal closed his eyes a moment and tried to recall the rest of the cases he'd seen. "A fellow made a practice of murdering wives because the first one was faithless and ran off with a horse-trader, but he didn't do it wholesale, he did it over the course of ten years, and he didn't do it in public."

  "That would c
ome under another heading, I would imagine," Ardis agreed, clasping her hands in front of her on her desk. "In fact, that might be the pattern we are seeing here."

  "Punishment of many for the sins of one who can't be reached?" He nodded; it made a lot of sense. "That's what I've been thinking for some time now. Of course, if he ever killed the one person he's obsessed with, that doesn't mean he'd stop."

  "Punishment of many—that would account for the fact that all the women concerned have some connection to music and musicians," Kayne put in, looking excited, for she had not been privy to most of the discussions Tal and Ardis had had on the subject.

  "If this is true, and we could deduce what kind of person is the source of his anger, we might be able to anticipate him," Tal continued for Kayne's benefit. "The trouble with that is, in order for the deduction to be of any use, we would have to allow that sort of person to walk in danger, and—" He shook his head. "It's morally reprehensible. We can't be everywhere, and protect everyone."

  "I agree," Ardis said firmly, to his immense relief. "But let's do what we can for the purpose ofwarning exactly that sort of person."