Four and Twenty Blackbirds

by Mercedes Lackey

  "In a way, he gets some of that work done by just being seen. People look up and see him, working for the Duke, they're reminded of the Duke. The bird-man is a reassurance these days to people who are afraid the Duke might start to forget them. But he's not going to be doing that scouting on a steady basis," Fenris replied. "When the killer strikes again, you're going to have a week or more before he has to make another kill, and during that time Visyr can go back to his map-making. If we point that out to him, he might be more cooperative; certainly the Duke will."

  Tal winced inwardly at the casual way that Fenris had said "when the killer strikes," not "if," but he knew that Fenris was right. Only the most extraordinary luck would stop this monster before he had another victim, luck amounting to a miracle, and so far miracles were in short supply.

  But Fenris had already taken paper, pen, and seal out of his desk, and was writing a pass to get Tal past the first few guards who would not know what a Special Inquisitor was and into the palace. Once Tal got as far as the Duke's Seneschal or Major-Domo, those officials would be quite well aware of the power that he represented, and would get him the interview he wanted without a lot of tedious protocol.

  "Here," Fenris said, handing him the folded paper, and winked at him. "Now you can walk into the palace and see whoever you damned well want to, including Arden himself, if you're so inclined. Did it ever occur to you that you've come one hell of a long way from a simple constable?"

  When hasn't it? "Every waking moment," Tal told him soberly. "A year ago, if anyone had told me I was going to walk into a palace on the strength of my own authority, I'd have asked what he was drinking and ordered the same for myself." He licked his lips, and shook his head. "Sometimes I think I'm having a particularly vivid dream and that I'll wake up at any moment; the rest of the time, I'm sure it's not a dream, it's a nightmare. I don't mind telling you that this so-called power is making me nervous."

  "Good," Fenris replied. "It should. Every morning I get out of bed and ask myself what the hell I think I'm doing, and I hope you're doing the same. As long as you never take it for granted, you'll do all right, Tal Rufen."

  Fenris gave him a nonprotocol salute, nodded, and stalked out snapping orders at a trainee, and thus the meeting was concluded.

  With his papers in his hand, Tal left the building and crossed to the official entrance to the Ducal Palace, presenting his pass from Captain Fenris to the guard at the gate. From there, he was taken to the guard at the palace door, from there to the Captain of the Watch, and from there to the Major-Domo. The wizened little Major-Domo examined his papers, turned white, and sent a page to the Duke while Tal waited in the Major-Domo's office. They were both horribly uncomfortable; the Major-Domo kept watching Tal while his hands twitched nervously. There were stacks of papers on his desk which were probably very important, but the Major-Domo looked as if he was afraid to take his eyes off his visitor. Tal would have been happy to make small talk, but the poor man acted as if Tal's every word might have the potential to send himself or his master to the Church Gaol, and Tal finally gave up.

  Finally the page arrived, and Tal thankfully left the Major-Domo's office in the young boy's wake. The page was too young to be intimidated by a mere Church official, and Tal was happy to listen to the child chatter as they passed along the hallways brightly lit with the best wax candles and oil-lamps in sconces on the wall. But when the page brought him to the door of what were clearly the Duke's private chambers, Tal was taken aback.

  He didn't have time to act on his surprise, though; the boy walked past the guard at the door, pushed the door itself open, and announced, "Tal Rufen, milord," waving him through. At that point, Tal could only go through into the Duke's private suite as the boy closed the door behind him.

  The first room, something of a cross between a sitting-room and an audience chamber, was empty and lit only by two of the wall-mounted oil-lamps and a low fire in the fireplace. "In here, Rufen," called a voice from beyond the next door. "Come along through."

  He ventured into the next room, which was lit as brightly as the hallways, and furnished with a few chairs, several wardrobes which were standing open, and a floor-length pier-glass. There he found the Duke surrounded by three servants and a perfectly stunning woman. The Duke was a handsome man, his hair thinning a little, but otherwise showing no sign of his age. Still athletic and fit, the form-fitting blue velvet coat that his servants were helping him into only did him justice rather than making him look ridiculous as might have been the case with a man who was losing his figure. The woman held a scarlet satin sash with a jeweled decoration or order of some sort on it, and watched him with her lovely head to one side and a faintly critical look on her face.

  When the coat was on, the sash in place over it, and every last wrinkle smoothed away from the coat, the white silk shirt, and the matching blue-satin breeches, the critical frown vanished to be replaced by an approving smile. "I wasn't at all sure of that cut, my love," the woman said, "but you were right after all."

  "Perhaps now you'll admit that I know what I'm doing when it comes to clothing," he admonished playfully, turning and craning his neck so he could see his back in the mirror, as the servants discreetly swept up the clothing that he had discarded. "I think this old thing of my grandfather's is likely to set a new fashion." He turned to Tal. "What do you think, Rufen?"

  Caught off-guard, Tal could only stammer incoherently, "Uniforms are more my suit than fine clothing."

  The beautiful woman laughed and pretended to cuff the Duke. "That is not fair, nor is it kind," she chided, and turned to Tal. "Inquisitor Rufen, I hope you will forgive my Duke. He enjoys discomfiting people, and one of these days the habit will get him in trouble."

  The woman, Tal realized now, was Lady Asher, the Duke's wife. He'd been told she was lovely; he didn't realize that she was so beautiful that she could leave a man dazed just by speaking to him. She had him so dazzled that he really couldn't have said what it was that she was wearing; something claret-colored, that left a flawless expanse of white shoulders and milky neck exposed. He mustered what was left of his wits, and answered, as gallantly as he could, "For your sake, my lady, I would forgive anything short of tossing me in his personal dungeon."

  "Well, it's a good thing I don't have a personal dungeon, or I might see if that was true!" the Duke laughed. "You've done it again, my love; you've charmed even an impervious Church Inquisitor. Do you care to stay and hear what he has to say, or am I keeping you from other business?"

  "You aren't keeping me, but I do have other business of yours to see to—that wretched little Count Lacey, for one," Lady Asher replied. "I'll run along and charm him so that he forgets to pry." She bestowed a kiss on his cheek; he returned one to her hand, and she floated out of the room with the servants in attendance.

  The Duke watched her go with a possessive and pleased expression on his face. "Well?" he asked, when the two of them were alone. "And what do you think of my lady wife?"

  "She's—amazing," Tal responded, still feeling a little dazed. He shook his head. "You ought to use her to interrogate people, my Lord Duke; they'd never be able to stand against her. She's astonishing."

  "She is, isn't she?" The Duke chuckled. "Well, Rufen, what is it that you want? Since you're my cousin's own special Hound of God, I know at least that it isn't to throw me in a gaol. And since I believe you're in charge of finding the fellow who's slaughtering musicians, I assume it has something to do with that?"

  "You've got a bird-man doing mapping for you," Tal began, and as the Duke's face darkened a little, he continued hastily, "It's not about him, not directly, anyway. I'd like permission to ask him for some help, but it's going to be at the expense of his mapping duties."

  The Duke motioned to him to take a seat; the Duke himself remained standing, though, so Tal did the same. The Duke did not pace or otherwise show any signs of impatience; he remained standing, with his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes fixed on Tal's face. It w
as obvious from Lady Asher's comments that Tal was keeping the Duke from some official function, so he hurried through what he'd planned to say. Quickly he outlined what he had in mind for Visyr; the Duke listened carefully, nodding a little now and again.

  "You can see for yourself how he'd be worth a dozen times more than a constable on the ground," Tal concluded. "And I know that you could order him to help us—but this is one of those cases where you can't order cooperation—"

  "Hmph." The Duke nodded again. "Wise of you to realize that. He's a Haspur. Willful and principled, and he is already taking less pay than he deserves just out of an ethical desire to help the people of Kingsford." Tal made another mental note of that, and the Duke's nod showed him that it hadn't gone unnoticed. "There is another problem here; I've promised not to hold him past a certain date, and if he spends too much time helping you, I may not get my maps done before that date arrives." He held up his hand to forestall Tal's protests. "On the other hand, I'll be the first to tell you that no map is worth a human life. I'm certainly eager for you to bring this monster to justice, and if you can persuade Visyr, then by all means, go ahead with this plan of yours."

  He gestured to Tal to follow him into the antechamber; once there, the Duke went over to a small desk took out pen and paper and scrawled a brief note. "Here," he said, handing it to Tal. "If he tells you that he's willing if I agree, just hand him this, so he doesn't think he has to wait for an audience with me in order to ask me."

  "But I thought he was working only for you, directly—" Tal began.

  "He is, but Haspur are—painfully polite. Or at least Visyr is." Arden grimaced. "I detest all this protocol nonsense, but Visyr is so intent on not offending me that if I didn't cut through the etiquette, he'd be wasting far too much time going through channels for ridiculously simple requests. Now, I have to go rescue my lady from that odious little Count; you just follow the page to Visyr's quarters."

  In that moment, Tal saw the resemblance between Arden and his cousin, the High Bishop. There was more than a mere family resemblance; there was a resemblance in the way they thought. The biggest difference showed only when Arden was with the Lady Asher; at that point, there was a relaxation and a softening that never showed on High Bishop Ardis's face.

  As Tal followed the page to the upper-level area where Visyr's rooms lay, he wondered what Ardis might have been like if she had followed the Duke's path. Would she have been happier, unhappier, or much the same?

  He couldn't picture her dressed in an ornate gown like Lady Asher, trailing about the seemingly endless corridors of this palace. He couldn't imagine what she'd do with her time; what did women like Lady Asher do all day? Ardis would go mad with boredom in a fortnight.

  And he recalled Torney, that former Priest who had given up everything he had and was for the sake of his true love. There were many who would call him a fool for the decision he'd made; would Ardis say the same? Would Ardis have made the same choice he had, given the same set of circumstances?

  Tal just couldn't picture it. Ardis was so much a creature of intellect that he couldn't even imagine her making a decision that was so clearly an emotional one.

  And yet, if she had made such a decision, he couldn't picture her ever looking back on it with regret. No matter what she decided, she would stand by her decision, just as Dasel Torney had, and find a way to make the best of her situation.

  But for a moment he envied Dasel Torney and his wife, and not just because of their happiness, but for the ease with which they had made their own choices. He suspected that for them, there had never really been a matter of "choice"; it had all been a foregone conclusion that they would stand by each other. There were no questions, only certainties. Perhaps that much certainty was a form of insanity.

  He only wished that he could be that certain of anything. It sometimes seemed that he spent all of his life second-guessing himself. Perhaps, if he had spent less time in analyzing things, he wouldn't be here; he'd be an ordinary constable with a wife and children.

  Certainly the Duke was another one of these happily-wedded fellows, and he certainly would not have made any other choice but the one he had; no man who saw Lady Asher would ever think he could have done otherwise. But of course, he was the Duke of Kingsford, and he could do whatever he chose to and with whoever he wished; if he'd wanted to marry a common street-entertainer, he could have, and the cheers from his people would probably have been just as loud. As she herself had told Tal, Ardis had been blessed with fewer options than her cousin by simple virtue of her gender.

  But now—what about now? Doesn't she have more options now than she did when she was subject to the will of her father?

  Now the page stopped beside another door—this one with no guards outside it—and tapped on it. It was answered, not by a servant, but by the Haspur himself.

  He looked larger here than he had in the station, or even in the Abbey. Perhaps it was because of the way he was holding his wings; arched above his body and held slightly away from it, instead of closed tightly in along his back. The page didn't seem the least intimidated by the bird-man, but then the boy probably saw him several times every day.

  "This gentleman wishes to speak with you, Sirra Visyr," the boy said in his high, piping voice. The bird-man turned that huge, sharp beak and looked down it at his visitor. Tal became the focus of a pair of enormous, golden eyes that regarded him out of a face that had little in common, at first impression, with human features. It bore no expression that Tal could recognize, and no real sign of recognition.

  That, however, did not mean that the creature didn't remember him. A Haspur, it seemed, could project a flawless raptoral expression of indifference when he so desired.

  "This has nothing to do with the incident you were involved with, sir," Tal said hastily, trying not to appear uneasy beneath that direct, raptoral gaze. "Or rather, it does, but not directly. I have the Duke's permission to speak with you, if you would be so kind."

  Visyr continued to examine him, unwinking. Finally the beak opened. "Perhaps you had better come in," he said, in his deeply resonant voice. Then, as he held the door open for Tal to enter, he looked back down at the page. "You may go, Joffrey," he said to the boy, his voice a bit softer and kinder. "I'll ring if I need someone."

  "Thank you, Sirra," the boy replied, as Tal entered Visyr's suite and the bird-man closed the door behind him.

  Well. So the Church has come to me in my own aerie. Interesting. I wonder why? Visyr regarded his visitor with a somewhat skeptical air. He felt much more at his ease here, in the Duke's Palace, than he had back in the city. This was his ground, his place, and the Duke had assured him personally that no one was going to be able to coerce Visyr into anything while he was under the Duke's protection.

  Visyr busied himself for the moment in lighting his Deliambren lamps so he could see his visitor more clearly. Visyr was not particularly comfortable around open flame; no Haspur was. Feathers were terribly flammable. He would put up with lamps and fires if he had to, but he didn't have to. The Deliambrens had supplied him with his own lamps, and his own heating-unit that sat inside the fireplace. Both were supplied with power from plates that sat on his balcony all day to collect sunlight.

  The human sighed as he took a seat at Visyr's direction; the Haspur wasn't all that well-versed in reading human expressions, but he thought the man looked tired. He finished lighting his lamps and turned around; the slump of the man's shoulders told him that if the human wasn't tired, he was certainly dispirited. There was nothing of the interrogator about him; in fact, he hadn't asked a single question yet. So, it was fairly obvious that the human hadn't come here to make further inquiries, so the next likeliest reason was that he had come as a supplicant.

  I might as well come straight to the point. I am tired, and I need my sleep. "And what brings you here this cold night, Tal Rufen?" he asked. "Am I correct in assuming that you wish to ask my help?"

  The man did not look at all surprised tha
t Visyr had divined the reason he had come, which at least showed that he respected Visyr's intelligence. He nodded. "I wish we had been able to find even a suspect by ordinary means, Sirra Visyr," he replied, and there was no mistaking the weariness in his voice. Visyr read nuances of expression in the voice far more readily than he read them in the body, and this man was frustrated, tired beyond his strength, and near his breaking-point. Visyr wondered just how near he was. Did he himself know, or was he simply concentrating so intently on the moments in front of him that he was unaware of his own weaknesses?

  This is more difficult than he or anyone else had anticipated. I wonder just what is going on here? Visyr felt sorry for him—and ever since he had seen that dreadful murder, he had spent much of every day thinking about the situation. More than once he had been on the verge of going to the Duke himself to ask permission to help. That he had not was only because his own work was proving to be so all-consuming, and after all it was his commanded task. Flying in the cold was grueling work, especially the kind of flying and hovering he was doing in order to make his maps. A Haspur expended a great deal of energy in this kind of weather just keeping the body warm; feathers were a good insulator, but a Haspur couldn't keep adding more layers of clothing the way a human could as the temperature dropped. For one thing, he wouldn't be able to fly with that kind of burden. He spent most of the daylight hours in the air, a good part of the evening hours bent over the drawing-table, and the rest in eating and sleeping. He seldom saw anyone but the Duke and his own personal helpers, and when he did, it was never for more than a moment. The time he'd spent being interviewed by High Bishop Ardis and this man was very nearly the most he'd spent unconnected with his work since he'd arrived here.