Player's Ruse (12 page)

“He hit his head when he fell,” said the doctor. “Landed on it, by the way the skull’s crushed. His spine’s broken, too—either injury would kill him. No surprise, from that height.”

The ravine’s sides were over sixty feet high.

“Is there any sign he fought with someone?” Todd asked. “Any injuries not caused by the fall?”

“If he died immediately after, there might not be much a bruising from a minor blow. There’re no marks on his face.” I heard the whisper of cloth on cloth. “Hmm. There are some peculiar punctures on his forearms, but nothing like the bruise a rope might leave. No bruising on the hand that didn’t hit the rock. No bruising on his chest or sto—Wait, there’s something here! This man has magic in him!”

Many healers have the sensing Gift.

“In him?” Todd sounded baffled. “What do you mean, in him?”

“I mean in him,” said the doctor tartly. “As if he took some magica medicine, or ate a magica plant. It’s fading, but it’s definitely there.”

“Could he have done that?” the sheriff asked. “Eaten some magica plant by accident?”

I still wasn’t looking, but I heard a shrug in the doctor’s voice. “Anyone can, though most folk aren’t that careless. And the Green God seldom imposes death as a penalty. Do you know if he was taking any medicine? Was he ill?”

“I’ve no way of knowing,” said Michael. “He looked healthy enough.”

There was more along those lines, none of it surprising, except for more of those odd punctures on the man’s ankles and calves, which the doctor said might be rodent bites. Eventually the deputies wrapped the body in a blanket and carried it off.

Michael looked as squeamish and somber as I felt. Random death is bad enough, but when it’s someone you know, even slightly . . . I was glad to leave the echoing walls and feel the sea breeze on my face.

We were all quiet riding up the bluff, and I wasn’t sorry to see the doctor and a deputy depart for town with the shrouded corpse.

Finding Quidge’s camp was harder, for he’d tucked his tent into a small grove, and it was all but invisible unless you were looking from the right direction. The canvas had probably been bright blue once, but years of sun and rain had faded it to a dusty slate that blended with the foliage. As we approached, I saw that the canvas was patched in places, and the seams looked threadbare. Before I started feeling too sorry for the man, I reminded myself that Michael and I didn’t even have a tent. A tent costs high, and so does a packhorse to carry it. Speaking of which . . .

“Where are his horses?” Michael exclaimed, and went to look for them.

Todd’s brows lifted, and he nodded to one of the deputies to accompany him. For my part, I was hoping to get a look at Quidge’s possessions. No one stopped me as I entered, though the way three men crowded the tent might have justified it. The bottoms of the canvas sides had been secured by a ring of stones and then pulled into the tent to make a partial floor. A worn, round rug covered the center—snug enough, especially compared with a bedroll under open sky. The bluish light that came though the canvas showed us Quidge’s bedroll beside the tent’s center pole. The rest of the space was taken up with a large pack saddle, with pack; a pile of pans and dishes; and a stack of kindling in one corner where it would stay dry, along with the tent’s occupants. You’ve fallen far, financially, when a battered tent can make you jealous.

“Davey, go through the pack.” Todd stood in the center—the only place he could stand upright. “If you insist on being here, Master Fisk, you can go through his bedroll and the firewood.”

We were all curious about the pack, but I shook out blankets and felt through pillows under Todd’s watchful eyes, while the deputy pulled a stack of clothing from the pack and did the same. He’d made it all the way to the pack’s bottom and I was dismantling the woodpile when he made the first discovery.

“Look at this. He kept a journal, sir.”

Todd and I both turned to the deputy.

“What does the last entry say?” Todd demanded.

“It’s dated second Scaleday, Cornon,” the deputy began, and I frowned—that was the day after his altercation with us. “ ‘I think I’m on to something. Swear I recognized J.T. yesterday.’ ”

“J.T.?” Todd interrupted.

“Just the initials.” The deputy leafed through the earlier pages. “It looks like he always used initials to refer to the criminals in the cases he worked on, sometimes with a note to remind him of the crime. Murd. Rob. Assl.”

“Never mind,” said Todd, rather unfairly. “Go on.”

“ ‘. . . recognized J.T. yesterday. Surprised me no end—over two years since he was reported dead. Threw out his warrant so no descript. But I’m pretty sure. I wonder—faked own death, or forged papers and some sheriff’s seal? Or bribed? Better go carefully. Told T. about it just in case—J.T. the kind who’s all too likely take up with gang of wreck. Reward for them would set me up good.’ ”

I started to ask what the reward was and quelled myself. Look where greed had gotten Quidge. Though it would certainly buy a tent and a packhorse with change to spare. I must have moved, for Todd’s gaze fell on me.

“That’s enough, Davey. I’ll go through it carefully back at the hall.”

“There’s not much more.” Davey sounded disappointed. He could probably use the reward, too. “No description. He doesn’t even say where he saw the man. It looks like he wrote things down only when he wanted to make a record for a case he was working on. The stuff before that is all about Mstrs. R.”

I smiled to hear Rosamund set down like a criminal and wondered what her crime was. Elop-Plyr?

Todd glared at Davey and we went back to work. Davey also found a packet of old warrants—people Quidge evidently watched for wherever he went, as a bounty hunter must, I suppose.

All I found was Quidge’s purse, hidden beneath the firewood. I dumped it out on a blanket at Todd’s command. It made a small pile, mostly sharp-edged fracts, few of them gold. All the roundels were silver or base.

“He really was broke, poor bastard,” Davey murmured. I winced, for the contents of Michael’s and my purse were even leaner. But if Quidge’s purse was here, then where was—

“Sheriff, we’ve found something you should see,” Michael called. Todd set Davey, whom he trusted, to gather up the pitifully small pile, and I followed him outside.

A brown horse and a mule were tied to a tree a short way off, but Michael and the queasy-looking deputy led us away from them to a small pile of garbage, buzzing with flies.

I wondered what this was about; any camp accumulates such stuff, especially if you’re there for more than one night—along with a privy pit. I was hoping that wouldn’t be next on the tour when Michael knelt and waved the flies away, pointing to a small heap of gray-brown fur and bone.

“This was magica,” he said. “ ’Tis fading now, like the magic in Quidge’s stomach, but if you bring the doctor back he’ll confirm it. And we found this not far off.” He held out a shining wire loop, with pegs dangling from its end. A simple snare, just like half a dozen Michael and I carry with us.

“You think he caught a magica rabbit in a snare and ate it?” Todd sounded incredulous, as well he might. “Magica hardly ever gets into snares, and when a rabbit does, it goes invisible, so you can’t mistake it.”

“So I’ve always heard,” Michael agreed. “But there was magic in Quidge’s stomach, the remains of a magica rabbit in this midden, and . . . come look at this.”

He led us toward the cliff now, but I already had a notion of what had happened and some of the other deputy’s queasiness stirred in my gut. I’d have preferred touring the privy.

Michael stopped before a small patch of mud—one of many puddles left by the storm—but this held the impression of a man’s skidding boot, and another track that might be . . .

“Rats,” said Michael. “There are rat tracks all through this area, in the mud, under the bushes. Anywhere the earth will take a print.”

“You’re saying it was an accident?” Todd demanded. “That he somehow caught a magica rabbit, ate it without realizing, and . . . and . . .”

Michael shrugged. “We found the snare. He had bite marks on his legs and arms. Your deputy can show you more tracks.”

“But he was on to one of the wreckers!” Todd protested. “Or so he thought. This can’t be a coincidence. At least . . . The Furred God does take life sometimes, but I still can’t believe . . .”

No matter how we rehashed it, that was our conclusion. Todd chose to leave Quidge’s tent where it was, taking only the journal, purse, warrants, and horses back to town. He would send some grooms with a cart to pack up the rest of it for Quidge’s kin, if they could learn who that might be.

The sheriff accompanied us all the way to the track that led to the players’ camp and saw us start down it, curse his nasty, accurate suspicions. The moment he was out of sight, I pulled Tipple to a halt and turned to Michael, only to find he’d done the same.

“You first,” I told him.

“I don’t believe it,” he said passionately. “Any hapless hunter might shoot or snare a magica creature, and pay the Furred God’s price for it if there’s no Savant to hand, but never a rabbit, Fisk. Never. ’Tis their Gift to become invisible when they wish to avoid notice. Truly invisible, and ’twould be cursed hard not to notice that you’d an invisible creature caught in your trap.”

“But you found the skin. There was magic in his stomach. The evidence—”

“Oh, he ate the beast,” Michael agreed. “That much is clear. But something happened, something that . . . that changed the rabbit’s nature long enough to let it happen—and cursed if I know what, or how, or who could manage that. Only a Savant would have that knowledge, and they’d be the last to do such a thing.”

“Um,” I said, liking the trend of this conversation less and less. Murderous wreckers were bad enough; a murderous Savant was the last thing I wanted to deal with.

“Your turn,” said Michael. “What troubles you?”

I didn’t want to tell him, but sooner or later the same thought would occur to him—probably in the middle of the night, which would be even worse.

“It was something that wasn’t there,” I told him. “Quidge’s document case, the one where he kept your father’s letters. The one that probably held warrants for all his current cases. I’m surprised Todd didn’t remember it—Quidge took it out in Lord Fabian’s office, in his presence. But we didn’t find it.”

Michael’s face was a study in alert speculation. “So either the killer took it with him—”

“And why steal a highly recognizable case, when you could just remove the papers that concerned you?”

“—or it’s still there.” Michael finished.

It didn’t take long to return to Quidge’s camp. This time I searched the pack, feeling for secret pockets, but it was Michael who found it, tucked into one of the canvas folds under the edge of the rug.

“The papers from Father.” Michael laid them aside and I picked them up.
Three hundred
gold roundels, just for Rosamund? I’d turn her in myself for that! I wondered how I could manage it without Michael stopping me.

“Here’s the warrant with information about the wreckers.”

I let that lie. There are limits to greed.

“This is all that’s left,” Michael went on. “ ’Tis a warrant for a young apprentice, just fourteen, poor lad, who struck his master over the head and slew him—small blame to him. They say he can be identified by missing toes.”

“Missing toes?”

Michael nodded, his mouth tightening as he read on. “His master would cut them off as punishment. And not only this lad, but others who worked for him. His guild would have stopped it had they known. But when he was killed, they felt the apprentice should at least be brought to trial, so they put up . . . a reward.” His voice slowed. And stopped.

“What is it?”

He handed me the paper. There was a description of the killer, but the guild had been sufficiently concerned to print up a sketch as well. The artist had talent; the boy gazing out from the cheap paper had clearly grown into the handsomest, gentlest, noblest Rudy Foster. We wouldn’t even have to check his toes.

Michael took back the warrant, folded it, and put it in his pocket. We put the rest back for the sheriff to find, when his grooms struck the tent or he remembered that something was missing, whichever came first. Rudy was Michael’s problem. And Rosamund’s. And probably, curse all lovers, mine.

“B
ut Fisk, if a Savant helped the wreckers arrange Quidge’s death, then finding that Savant might lead us to them.” We’d been having this argument since yesterday. I was tired of it—and I was winning.

“The last thing I want is to find any of these people.” Fisk hunched his shoulders against the early-morning chill. I’d roused him from his blankets before dawn, that we might make some progress in our investigation before half the day passed. The sun was rising now, flooding the eastern hills with a radiant display that should have cheered the gloomiest of men. Unfortunately, Fisk is immune to beauty before midday. I’d even yielded to his request to leave True behind, though I know he’d have enjoyed the romp.

“Besides,” I pointed out reasonably, “we owe it to Master Quidge. If not for us, he’d never have come here, and he’d still be alive.” I felt badly about that. He wasn’t the most pleasant person, but he certainly hadn’t deserved to die.

Fisk moaned. “That’s so crazy, I’m not even going to dignify it with an answer. Quidge came because he wanted the three hundred gold roundels your father promised, and why you think we owe him anything . . .”

Trust Fisk to have noted the amount. But that gave rise to an argument that might stand a chance with my squire. “Think of the reward for bringing the wreckers in. ’Tis—”

“Be quiet,” Fisk interrupted. “I don’t care about the reward. I don’t want to know how much it is.”

I stared at him in astonishment. “You don’t care about the
reward
?
You
don’t—”

His expression lightened. “Maybe I do care, but I still don’t want to know. You can’t spend rewards if you’re dead. These people are killers, Michael, and if you’re right, then so is this Savant you’re so eager to find. We’re probably endangering the others with this hunt of yours, and we’re certainly not helping anyone. And Rosamund . . .” His voice softened, which should have warned me. “Rosamund loves you as a brother, and nothing more. Surely you know that.”

I did, but hearing the words felt like a cold blade sliding into my heart. “I’m not her brother! And feelings can change.” I would find some way to change Rosa’s. I had to. I had loved her so long, it was as much a part of my world as the wheeling stars, or the green rebirth of spring. I didn’t even need to be in her presence to feel it, only to know that she was waiting at home for me to return someday and win her heart. Only now she wasn’t waiting at home, and if I was going to win her heart, I’d better do it soon or she’d wed that cursed player . . . and a light would go out of the universe.

“The wreckers threaten everyone till they’re caught,” I told Fisk firmly. “ ’Tis a knight errant’s job to capture them.” It would also be a triumph to make any woman’s heart swell with admiration and affection—but I wasn’t about to say that to Fisk.

“But why would the wreckers even bother with such a clumsy, complicated murder? If they wanted Quidge dead, they’d just smash his skull in like they’ve done with dozens of sailors. They’ll probably do it to us if we persist in this.”

’Twas a good question. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “But Quidge thought he might have a way to find the wreckers, and now he’s dead. That can’t be a coincidence.”

“And now you think you have a way to find them. How delightful! Are you listening to yourself?”

In fact, I wasn’t. “Look, there’s a farm cart ahead. Mayhap the driver can tell us how folk in these parts summon their Savant.”

I kicked the hard-mouthed wagon horse, which I’d borrowed to spare Chant’s lame leg, to a trot. Fisk swore, but he followed.

The carter, a bluff countryman, had a wagonload of bread fresh made for the market and still hot. My breakfast was not so distant, but I think the scent of new-baked bread could tempt the dead to rise.

“Good sir,” I said, “we wish to speak with your local Savant. Can you tell us how to summon him?”

“Why, surely,” said the carter. But he looked uneasy and took up the reins to urge his horse to a faster pace. I knew what troubled him.

“You’ve no need to fear. We’ve caused no trouble to anyone or anything. We only wish to speak to him.”

Fisk snorted as if to disagree with some part of that statement, but he held his tongue.

“Oh.” The carter let the reins fall. “Well, first off, our Savant’s a she. But she’s easy to summon. We take good care of her and she of us, just as it should be. There’s a willow tree, about half an hour’s ride north of town . . .”

He gave us directions and instructions, and when the subject of payment for her services arose, he kindly offered to sell us a few of his loaves.

“It’d be more if you wanted help—likely be more when you tell her what you need. But just for a chat, a couple of loaves will do. And you might buy a third for yourselves. She’ll come to a summoning, but if you’re not in trouble, she may take her time. I’ll let you have ’em for a silver ha’ apiece, and you’ll find no sweeter anywhere.”

I was reaching for my purse when Fisk said, “You sell them in the market for two copper roundels.”

I’ve no idea how Fisk always knows such things, but I’ve learned not to question him in matters of money.

“Do you know the difference between a bandit and a baker?” he went on. “A baker—”

“—works warm in the winter,” the carter finished, sounding resigned. “I sell ’em for four, stranger; grain’s expensive around here. Besides, we’re not in the market, are we?”

We weren’t, and I’d have paid a few extra fracts to save the time and trouble, but Fisk got three loaves for ten copper roundels, which is why I leave all bargaining to him.

The carter’s directions were as good as his bread, and there were enough Savant summoners in this town to have beaten a path up the narrow, dusty ravine where the willow grew. It perched beside a small spring, barely more than a seep, which vanished into the damp earth only a dozen yards from its source. But the willow itself was big and gnarled and old, and it held so much magic, it glowed like a torch, even in the sunlight. Its energy brushed my skin like cat fur as we drew near. Had my sensing Gift been this responsive before?

Fisk tethered the horses while I emptied my water bottle into the spring, as instructed. Then I drew my knife and, steeling my nerves, nicked my finger and then the willow’s bark and pressed the cuts together. The magic was so intense, it felt as if my skin was scorching, but when I pulled my hand back, there was only the small cut I’d made and a bit of sap.

I stripped five glowing leaves, and Fisk made the fire in a ring of blackened rock that many others must have used. The magica light vanished as they burned, and I saw no trace of it traveling skyward with the smoke.

When the leaves had been reduced to ash, we moved away from the tree—by common consent, for Fisk said he found it “creepy.” He didn’t know the half of it. Our retreat slowed when we passed the stream’s end and stopped shortly thereafter, though the willow was still in sight.

I had no wish to talk as we waited, but I was with Fisk. We were arguing when a woman stepped from behind the willow tree—how had she reached it unseen in this barren chasm? Unlike Fisk, I’d been watching for her.

In other circumstances I might have taken her for a countrywoman who’d dressed in her husband’s britches to perform some chore. Her dark hair was braided down her back and she moved like a girl, though her sun-browned face was lined.

As she came toward us, I saw the confidence in her—a sense of total belonging, though whether the tree belonged to her or she to it, I’d not hazard a guess.

“You’re not in trouble,” she said. “So it must be something you want to do. I warn you, the price for interfering with magic is higher than most folk are willing to pay.”

’Twas not a soothing sentiment, under the circumstances.

“Who says we’re not in trouble,” Fisk muttered, and I shook off the chill that had overtaken me.

“We’re not in trouble, Mistress, and have no desire to make it. But there was trouble here some few nights past, and we wish to set it right. As much as death can ever be set right.”

I told her the whole tale, for her gaze was clear and honest, and even Fisk could not have suspected . . . Well, maybe Fisk could, by the way he stepped on my foot as I started to speak. But no reasonable man could imagine she’d had a hand in Quidge’s death.

Her first reaction was like all the others’. “A
magica
rabbit? That’s impossible. They go invisible when they’re threatened.”

“Yet it happened,” I said. “Which is why we sought you. Is there a way, Mistress, that someone could suppress the rabbit’s Gift? Long enough for Quidge to see and kill it, unknowing?”

She frowned. “I don’t know. There are things I might try, if I wished to do such a thing. But no Savant would. We’ve nothing to do with the affairs of men, except to make peace between them and . . . what they’ve disturbed.”

No Savant has ever said who or what they serve, though many folk have speculated, and some have even asked them. Indeed, she was more forthcoming than most, so I ventured my next question.

“You wouldn’t, but I’ve heard there’s another Savant in the area and that he’s . . . ah . . .”

“Mad?” Her lips twitched. “Hmm. He’d have sensed the trouble. I did myself, but I was dealing with other business, and by the time I got free of that, it was over.”

“What other business?” Fisk asked. He’d obviously forgotten his avowed dislike of the affair, and was as intent on the conversation as I.

“I’m surprised Nutter didn’t attend to it,” she went on as if Fisk hadn’t spoken. “But he’s become a bit . . . He follows his own way these days, even more than most of us.”

’Twas as good a description of madness as any I’ve heard.

“Do you know what causes his trouble?” I had no expectation that she would answer me any more than she had Fisk, but she sighed.

“He dreams, poor soul.”

“Dreams?” I asked softly.

“Yes. Some time ago there was a great slaughter among the whale migration that passes this coast.”

I’d not known that whales migrated, but I kept my peace and she went on.

“Some lordling had a bright idea, and he gathered folk from all the fishing villages and sent them out to hunt in their little boats. The whales, especially the magica, fought fiercely, and the slaughter was terrible. On both sides.” She fell silent, lost in memory.

“When did this happen?” Fisk asked.

“About three centuries ago. Oh, I know it seems a long time, but it marked this place. It echoes even now, and Nutter hears the echoes in his dreams. He’s come to believe that what he dreams is not the past but the time to come. Though given the death toll, I don’t think anyone would try that again.”

She rose, brushed off the seat of her britches, and picked up two of the loaves.

“Please wait, I have . . .”

“But we need . . .”

She turned and walked out of the ravine, as if we no longer existed.

“That was cryptic,” said Fisk.

In fact, we’d learned more than I’d expected. We discussed it on our way back to camp, and as we unsaddled and brushed down the horses. Fisk wouldn’t concede that this trail was worth pursuing, though he admitted that she might know ways to work the trick, and that if she knew such things, so might another Savant.

“That’s
why
I don’t want to pursue it,” he protested as we walked into the circle of bright-painted wagons. “There’s a very, very slim chance that you’re right about this, and if—Do I smell burning stew?”

Alas, he did. We had made haste to return in time for the mid-meal; Mistress Barker was teaching Rose to cook, and I liked having the chance to praise her.

Even as I detected the familiar scorched scent—familiar, because I’d tried to teach Fisk to cook a time or two before giving up on the matter—Rose jumped from the costume wagon and hurried toward the hearth, reaching out her small, bare hands—

Fisk shouted a warning, but I saw he’d not break through her preoccupation in time and leapt forward. I feared for a moment I’d not make it, but somehow I reached her before her hands touched the hot iron handle and whirled her away. She gave a small shriek as I whisked her off her feet.

“You’ll burn yourself! Use the hot pads, Rose.”

“Oh.” She blinked up at me, still clasped so tight I felt the stir of her body against mine as she took a breath. “How foolish of me. Thank you, Michael. But the stew . . .”

“Fisk will take care of it,” I murmured. I could hear Fisk emptying his water flask into the pot and stirring; having burned the stew so often, he knows how to save it. But my gaze was fixed on Rosamund’s tender mouth. In all the years I’d known her, why had I never kissed her? Some foolish notion of honor, I remembered. At least, it seemed foolish now. I—

“Rose!”

She jumped and pulled out of my arms. One of the hardest things I’ve ever done was let her go.

“Rudy, I’m a disaster of a cook. You should disown me.”

“Never, dearest,” said the murderous bastard. A revolting smile replaced the glare he’d aimed at me. “Here, let me help you.”

I didn’t see that he helped her much by wrapping both arms around her and laying his hands atop hers as she lifted the kettle, now safely protected by the thick cloth pads.

“I think we were in time,” said Fisk. “A bit scorched, but not inedible.” His words were casual; the note of warning in his voice was directed at me.

Had he been anyone but Rosamund’s betrothed, I’d have had no blame for the poor apprentice who’d struck too hard when he fled his vicious master. An unredeemed man might be so unjust; as a knight errant, I should do better.

I took a step back and looked away from them, struggling to make my voice sound natural. “That’s good. I’m hungry enough to eat that stubborn brute I’ve been riding. Could you use another loaf of bread?”

My tension eased as the players came in for the meal. They praised Rose politely, although the stew did taste a bit charred.

Rose, in her sweet, honest way, gave the credit for saving it to Fisk, who laughed and gave her credit for burning it so that he could play the hero.

If I found the wreckers, played the hero in truth, would that make Rose see me as a man, instead of the cousin she’d grown up with? Was that, in fact, why I was so bent upon it? I prayed that notion never occurred to Fisk.