Four and Twenty Blackbirds

by Mercedes Lackey

  "Well, how did it go? Did anyone see you?" Rand continued, without bothering to thank Orm for what Orm considered to be a very neat little bit of theft. He had plucked the knife literally out of the gutter, with at least a dozen people around him looking for it as well.

  "No one saw me," he said, restraining his irritation. "The bird-man set off after your man, and everyone was watching the bird-man. They never even noticed I was there, much less saw me taking the blade."

  "Good." With an abrupt nod, Rand turned on his heel and went up the steps to his own rooms, leaving Orm standing in his own doorway like a dismissed servant, his breath steaming out into the icy foyer.

  Orm repressed more irritation and simply closed his door. He reminded himself that Rand had been a high-ranking Priest and a wealthy man, with servants who were accustomed to being ordered about like Deliambren automata. Rand would never change, and that was that.

  Still, he grumbled a little as he threw the latch on the door, it would be nice to be appreciated for good work once in a while. It annoyed and sometimes angered him to be treated like a scullery-maid.

  But then again, if he suspected how clever I am, he might be more wary of me, and more inclined to get rid of me. I am a convenience, he reminded himself. He is used to having me around to do his work for him, but now he could be rid of me without harm if he chose. All he needs me for is to steal the daggers, and he could hire a petty pickpocket to do that for him. Given that—perhaps it wasn't so bad to be dismissed.

  Orm went back to his chair before the fire, settled in with his feet near the grate, and considered his actions for the rest of the day and evening. I should go down to the Purple Eel, he decided. By sunset every constable not on duty will have heard what happened, and all of the ones in that district will be there to flap their mouths over it. This was an easy way to discover what the constables knew and what they didn't, and Orm had used it in every city they'd worked so far.

  Orm had been a constable himself for about a year, in between being a thief and becoming a broker of information. He had come very near to being caught after a theft that had resulted in the death of his victim, and had decided to learn how the constables themselves thought and reasoned so that he would know what they were likely to do in a given situation and assess the risks of a given action in an instant. As a result, he was able to pretty well anticipate every move that the constables made so long as he knew how much information they had.

  It did bother him that the murder victims were always women of a particular type; that was a pattern, and patterns made them vulnerable. If the particular women Rand insisted on ever took this seriously enough to start staying off the streets altogether, Rand would either have to pursue them inside—which was very, very dangerous—or choose another type of victim. Knowing Rand, it wouldn't be the latter. He was brilliant, but obsessed, and quite insane.

  More than that, although it hadn't yet occurred to them, the constables could set up a trap for them by using a seemingly ideal victim as bait. Of course, that would mean setting her up in such a way that neither Rand nor Orm detected the trap, which would mean that her behavior would have to be perfectly consistent for several days. And that in turn would mean either that the constables were able to deduce that these were not victims of opportunity, or that the constables planned to set up a trap around a street-girl who was unaware that she was being used as bait.

  The former wasn't likely, he decided. For the most part, he had been very careful to select potential victims that no one cared about. The closest they had ever come to getting caught was that obsessive fellow a few towns back—and he had been working alone, without the cooperation of the constabulary officials. As for the latter—well, there were hundreds, if not thousands, of potential choices in Kingsford, and the chance that the constables would select exactly the same one as Orm and Rand was minimal.

  But I should listen for such a plan, he decided. The Purple Eel is definitely the place to go tonight.

  But he was loathe to leave his chair just now. He'd gotten horribly cold out there, waiting for Rand to make his move. Before he went out again, he wanted to be warmed down to the bone.

  He thought back once again over the last set of murders and could see no flaws in them. Most murders not committed for gain were committed by people who knew the victims, often very well—most often, relatives. Orm made very certain that no one ever connected him with the recipients of the knives, generally finding ways of getting the blades into the chosen hands indirectly, as he had with the jeweler. The only pattern was in the women, and none of them were ever seen near, much less with, Orm.

  Rand would be unbearable this evening, exulting in his stolen power and his new form, but by tomorrow he would be pleasant enough, if overbearing. That was the pattern, and Orm was used to it. There would be a generous reward for a successful "hunt," as Rand termed the murders, and as soon as Rand calmed down from the intoxication of success, he would want to know who Orm had singled out for the next prey. Orm, of course, would have his list, and Rand would be very pleased, which would make him generous.

  It's too bad he's so obsessed, Orm thought idly. If he didn't mind spending time in that bird-form, he would make a good thief. As soon as it got warm, and people in the fine houses began opening their windows at night for fresh air, he could nip in, snatch up jewelry-cases, and fly out without anyone ever knowing he'd been there.

  Well, that was not likely to happen. Rand wanted to break his spell entirely.

  Which is probably a very good reason why he would like to choose High Bishop Ardis as a victim. Not only is she female, not only is she the direct cause of him being the way he is, but she cast the spell in the first place. Not only would he gain revenge, but since she's the mage involved, the only way to break the spell might be to kill the caster. I hope he doesn't think of that.

  He sighed. It was a pity that Rand couldn't be more content with life as it was. He wouldn't mind spending about half his time as a bird! Think of all the things he could overhear, perched in the shadow of chimneys or lurking in the branches of trees in private gardens—listening outside windows, or on balconies!

  Too bad, but things aren't going to change, and I need to start for the Purple Eel, he decided, getting reluctantly up from his armchair. All of his brilliance and my cleverness aren't going to help if someone's got an unexpected card up his sleeve.

  You couldn't plan for the unexpected, but you could prepare your mind to deal with it. That was Orm's motto, and he went out into the dusk to make good on it.

  Chapter Nine

  Ardis, Tal, and Kayne sat in Ardis's office with the door locked and a guard posted to ensure that no one disturbed them unless it was a life-or-death emergency. Ardis had finally gotten the last of her information. Some came from the farthest town with murders that matched the pattern, and more detailed information arrived from Master Wren, her cousin. She also had something that Tal would never have access to: the records from the Confessional for all of the victims—or at least, all of those that attended Confession. Rather surprisingly, a majority of them had, and she now possessed detailed glimpses into their personalities.

  "I'm going to try something different this time," she said to the other two. "Instead of trying to deduce anything more directly about the murderer, I want to look at his victims and come up with more information about him based on what they were like. And I want to start from the negative—what those victims aren't."

  Kayne looked alert and thoughtful, but it was Tal who spoke first. "Rich," Tal said promptly. "Or even moderately well-off. I'm talking about the women, of course, but only one of the men was what you would call rich, and that was the last one—the first one we know about in Kingsford. The rest were never better off monetarily than working tradesmen."

  "They aren't whores, either; in fact, most of them would have been insulted if you suggested they were," Kayne put in, as Ardis noted that the word "whore" slid off her tongue without eliciting so much as a blu
sh, which was in itself an interesting development. "There are more whores in any town or city than there are street musicians, so he's really having to make an effort to find them."

  Ardis nodded, for that agreed with the information she had; when she had been able to find the female victims in the Confessional records, they had been honest musicians who left paid love to the professionals. "What about the men?" she asked.

  Tal scratched his head. "There you have me," he admitted. "They don't match a pattern, not even close. They're all kinds."

  Now was the time to spring her surprise. "Until you look in here." She tapped the folder of records. "I have access to certain confidential records; I can't let you look at them, but what I see shows at least one pattern, which is that our murderer worked very cautiously, at first."

  "Oh?" Tal said skeptically. "He doesn't seem all that cautious to me."

  "The men who attacked women in the open, in daylight, in front of witnesses are all recent. I think he's gotten bolder with success." She placed her palm on top of the folder. "Now, the others, the ones that occurred in the street at night under cover, or even under the protection of a roof—that's where I'm seeing a pattern. The men all confessed to sins of the flesh and preferred lights-of-love who at least pretended to be musicians. If at all possible, they wanted a mistress, even for an hour, who was more than just a whore. It made them feel as if they had discernment and taste, according to what I read here."

  "Interesting." Tal chewed his lower lip. "So what we have is a man who is likely to be out in the street in the first place, and equally likely to accost women who are acting like musicians to see if they might have other—ah—talents." He blushed, which was interesting; it was unlikely he felt embarrassment on his own behalf, so it was probably because he was in Kayne's presence—or hers. "So, the question is, why go to all this trouble to pick that kind of victim?"

  "So that he wouldn't break a pattern of behavior and alert the neighbors or the family that there was something wrong," Kayne declared, her head up.

  But Tal shook his head. "Not logical; most of the murders took place too quickly. It wouldn't matter if the neighbors saw something just before that made them think there was something wrong with the man. I still don't think there was a pattern there, or a reason—unless—" He paused, as if struck by a thought.

  "Unless what?" Ardis asked.

  He frowned and rubbed one closed eye before replying. "Unless it was a peculiar sort of revenge. We've got one theory that he's taking revenge on the girls for being scorned by a female musician, but what if he's also taking revenge on the men they are willing to sleep with?"

  "That's not a bad thought," Ardis replied after a moment. "It has a certain twisted symmetry." She considered it for a moment. "But what about the others, where there was no previous contact with street-women? There was at least one man who had no interest in women whatsoever as I recall."

  Tal shrugged. "I agree with you that there is a pattern of increasing complication and risk-taking. At first, he takes men who have a reason to be alone with women who make their living in the street, and women who have a reason to go along with these men. This, of course, keeps him from breaking the established patterns of his male victims, which keeps anyone from noticing that there is something wrong."

  "There were some cases early on where that isn't true," Kayne protested.

  Tal nodded agreement. "But those could have been cases where something went wrong—either he couldn't get the kind of victims he wanted, or something else interfered. And remember, all of those took place under cover of night and four walls, in neighborhoods where no one ever looks to see what's going on if there are cries or screaming in the night."

  Ardis couldn't find anything to disagree with yet. "Go on," she said. "What next?"

  "Next is more risk," Tal told them, as Kayne frantically scribbled notes. "He takes longer with the victims, mutilating them as well as killing them. Next, he goes out into the street, into the open, and takes men who are strangers to the women he kills, and women who wouldn't normally go off with a stranger unless they thought his purpose completely honest. He breaks the patterns of the lives of his male victims, but he's moving quickly enough that even if anyone notices there's something wrong with the man, they don't have time to do more than wonder about it. Then—we have things like the killing here, in broad daylight, with a male victim who never set foot in that part of town, who might well have been stopped by a family member or retainer before he had a chance to act on behalf of the murderer. A thousand things could have gone wrong for him at that last killing. They didn't, which only means that either his luck is phenomenal, or he's studying his victims with more attention to detail than we've guessed."

  "And the jeweler?" Kayne asked.

  Ardis shook her head. "I don't know. The jeweler often had women in his home, but that doesn't mean that the Gypsy girl didn't go there with legitimate business in mind."

  "If he's clever, he could have manufactured that business," Tal pointed out. "Gypsies often wear their fortune; she could have come to the man with coins to be made into a belt or necklace. All he'd have to do would be to drop a good handful of silver into her hat, and she'd be off to the nearest jeweler to have the coins bored and strung before she lost them."

  "A good point," Ardis said with a little surprise, since it wasn't a possibility she'd have thought of. "But what else do the victims all have in common?"

  Tal made a sour face. "They are people no one will miss. The fact is, all of his male victims were such that even if they did things that were out of character, no one would care enough to stop them until it was too late. Even their relatives don't pay any attention to them until they're dead and the way of their death is a disgrace to the family. Even then, they seem relieved that the man himself is no longer around to make further trouble for them."

  Ardis smiled sardonically. "You caught that, did you?" she asked, referring to the behavior of the young dandy's parents when she had questioned them.

  Tal nodded, and so did Kayne.

  "So we can assume that these men, the secondary victims, are people who would not question the origin of a stray knife that came into their hands, especially if they had any reason to believe that it was stolen." She raised an eyebrow, inviting comment, and once again the other two nodded. "They would simply take the object, especially if it appeared valuable. They would most probably keep it on their persons."

  Tal held up a finger and, at her nod, added a correction. "All but one or two—I think the knife-grinder I saw had been given the knife to sharpen. And it's possible the jeweler was brought the knife to repair some damage to the hilt. In both those cases, the men were perfectly innocent of everything. But I'd say it was more than possible in a couple of cases that the men who had the knife actually stole it themselves," Tal told her. "And that may account for a couple of the victims where the connection with music is so tenuous it might as well not be there."

  "He took what he could get in those cases, in other words." Ardis made a note of that on the side of a couple of the dubious cases. "That argues for a couple of things. Either there is only one knife—"

  "That isn't right, unless he's changing the hilt," Tal interrupted. "The one I saw didn't look anything like the one Visyr saw."

  "Then in that case, it is a very powerful and complicated spell, and he can't have it active on more than one weapon at a time." Ardis made another note to herself, suggesting a line of magical research. "To a mage, that is very interesting, because it implies a high degree of concentration and skill, and one begins to wonder why so powerful a mage isn't in Duke Arden's Court."

  "Maybe he is—" Kayne began, but Ardis shook her head.

  "There's only one mage in his Court, and she's one of my fellow Justiciars. Furthermore, she hasn't detected anyone casting a spell that requires so much power anywhere in the Ducal Palace." Ardis sighed, for it seemed to her that the answer was, more and more, likely to involve a Church mage. "There simpl
y aren't that many powerful mages in the Human Kingdoms outside the Church."

  Tal grimaced, and Kayne shook her head. "It certainly seems to be the direction the hunt is tending." She sighed philosophically.

  Ardis closed her eyes and told her stomach to calm itself. "I would much prefer to be able to point a finger at an Elf, since there are plenty of Elves who would gleefully slaughter as many mortals as they could get their hands on, but I have been assured that no Elf would be able to cast magic on anything made of iron or steel. So, that's the end of that idea."

  "What about other nonhumans?" Tal asked. "I don't think it's likely, mind you, but what about them?"

  "I don't think it's likely either," she told both of them. "Any nonhuman is going to be very obvious, and a nonhuman mage even more so. Even if a nonhuman mage didn't practice magic openly, he'd be conspicuous, because he would have to be wealthy. He simply wouldn't be able to purchase the privacy he would need to work magic without being wealthy."

  "If this Justiciar-Mage can detect the casting of spells in the palace, why can't we have mages watching for the casting of magic out in the city?" Tal wanted to know.

  "You can see the smoke from a fire in the forest quite clearly, but can you pinpoint the smoke from an individual fire in the city?" Ardis countered. "There's too much else going on out in a large population of humans; with as much disruption as there is in Kingsford, a mage would have to be in the same city block as the caster in order to detect the casting of even a powerful spell."

  "Have we enough mages in Kingsford to try that?" Kayne asked. "Couldn't we station mages around to catch him in the act?"

  A reasonable idea, but not very practical, considering that the priestly mages of Kingsford had more demands on their time than they had hours in the day. "I think we would have better luck trying to find where the knives themselves are coming from," Ardis said tactfully. "If he's using more than one, someone has to be making them for him. There just aren't that many missing ecclesiastical knives."