Magic Can Be Murder (14 page)

The cooper's daughters cleaned up after the guests. Either that or a hostile army set siege to the kitchen; it was hard to be sure about chose rattlings and clatterings coming from down the hall.

When Alan came in bearing yet another tray of food, Nola asked about who had come and what she had missed, reasoning that without something to occupy her—besides, of course, keeping intact the spells chat made her look like Brinna and Brinna look like her mother—she wouldn't be able to keep her eyes open much longer. Never mind that she didn't know any of the people that Alan might mention.

But Alan, stifling a yawn, claimed exhaustion and stayed only long enough to close the shutters against the night's dark and chill, using a piece of string, and never complaining that he would have to fix the broken latch.

Kirwyn came next.

Surely he wouldn't do anything, she tried to reassure herself. But she was becoming more and more convinced that Brinna had not made a simple mistake when she had claimed that the two of them were in the kitchen together during the time Innis was being attacked. And now, she guessed, he was here to persuade her not co change chat story. By threat? By an appeal to love?

The first idea was distressing, the second disgusting.

Before Kirwyn had a chance to say anything, though, Galvin came up behind him and leaned over his shoulder. "Good night, Brinna," Galvin said. "Rest easy. I'll be in the kitchen, and Sergeant Halig will be in che shop, both of us alert for the faintest sound of trouble." Which was surely meant as much in warning as reassurance. He patted Kirwyn on the back and added, "Say good night, Kirwyn, and let her sleep."

"Good night, Brinna," Kirwyn said with a forced smile. "Perhaps by tomorrow you will be feeling well enough that I will not have to hire extra help to do your work for you."

She managed what was no doubt a sickly smile. She absolutely
must
not let herself get trapped alone in the house with Kirwyn.

Kirwyn slammed the door so hard that it shook.

She knew the night was going to last an eternity.

***

L
ONG AFTER
any reasonable person would have been asleep, Nola heard footsteps in the hall, coming from the direction of the other wing of the house—from the shop. The person was taking care not to make any extra noise, but what she heard were boots, not bare feet.

Surely Kirwyn would take more care than that.

The footsteps passed her door without pausing and entered the kitchen. She heard Halig's quiet voice ask, "Did you want to talk?"

Galvin must have whispered his answer, or not spoken aloud at all but simply gestured, for in a moment Nola heard the kitchen door open, then shut. Galvin apparently didn't want to take the chance that anybody else in the house was awake and listening.

Such precautions might protect him from the average eavesdropper, but...

Nola reached for the strand of his hair that she had tucked into her shoe.

She found herself hesitating. She had hoped—she had to admit to herself—to keep his hair, to be able to look in on Galvin one more time, later, when this was all behind her, when she could watch in safety for a good long time. She knew this was silliness. Besides, she
needed
to look now.

When the shadowshapes formed in the bespelled water, she saw that Galvin and Halig had stopped at the bench under the walnut tree in the courtyard. Galvin was sitting; Halig leaned against the tree. "I don't know what to make of her," Galvin said wearily.

"Could she have been trying to escape?" Halig asked. "Get to wherever they hid the money?"

So Galvin had told him about her misadventure with the window this afternoon, and more important, they suspected her—or rather, her-as-Brinna.

Nola clenched her hands in frustration that she had caused precisely what she had tried to prevent.

But Galvin shook his head at what Halig had said. "Hard to believe, given that she can barely make her way across a room. How far could she possibly have gotten?"

Their voices were quiet, and she had to strain to catch the words through the bespelled water. "It might be an act," Halig pointed out. In response to the look Galvin gave him at that, he added, "Well, part of it, at lease. She could be exaggerating how badly she's hurt specifically so we don't watch her as closely as we should."

"She was on the floor," Galvin said. "I wouldn't have heard her leaving if she hadn't fallen."

Halig shrugged. "Maybe she didn't have far to go to get the money. Maybe she didn't even have to leave the room. Could ic be hidden near the window, behind the shutters or beneath the sill?"

Again Galvin shook his head. "Not from what I could tell." And Nola remembered how he had considerately opened the shutters for her, even before helping her back to her feet.

Halig gazed off into the night, not looking at Galvin. He said, "So you're thinking she's what she seems and hasn't anything to do with the killing?"

Yes,
Nola frantically thought.
Yes, yes, yes!

Galvin sighed, which sounded much more like a
no,
even to Nola's energetic hoping.

Finally Halig faced him again. "That leaves Alan."

"I would very much prefer it to be Alan than Brinna," Galvin agreed.

Halig snorted and countered with, "I would very much prefer to be a rich baron, lord of a castle in the south."

Galvin rested his face in his hands.

You outrank him,
Nola thought.
You can TELL him what to say.
But she knew this would not be settled by rank.

Halig said, "Kirwyn couldn't have done it alone, not the way they described it. One, if not both, of them is involved."

"I know," Galvin sighed.

Well, at least they were including Kirwyn in their suspicions.

"Alan..." Halig shook his head. "If I needed a partner, someone to lie for me, to help me, I would hate to be dependent on Alan's quick wits for something like chat. It's much more likely to be her."

"She seemed to be
trying
to point us at Kirwyn."

I was!
Nola thought at them.

Halig asked, "Are you thinking it was Brinna and Alan, and not Kirwyn at all?"

Nola would have liked to kick him.

Galvin shook his head impatiently. "Kirwyn is the one who stands to gain. We certainly have enough independent witnesses who say that father and son didn't get along well, even before this wedding was announced. It's just that Brinna..."

When his sentence drifted off into yet another sigh, Halig finished it for him: "Is so damned attractive."

"I was going to say brave," Galvin said, "brave even chough she's obviously afraid—of us, of Kirwyn. How can such a beautiful young woman be so fearful of every-ching? I find myself wanting to reassure her. Don't," he added quickly, "even tell me. I know how simpleminded that sounds."

Halig raised his hands co indicate surrender.

Galvin continued, "She's funny. And spirited. And says such unexpected things. And she's kind; think of the way she responded to that woman, Crazy Mary."

"Mary," Halig repeated, as though that was the only significant thing Galvin had said. "Does she have anything to do with the murder?"

"I don't see how," Galvin answered.

Nola fervently hoped that meant they wouldn't be going after her mother, even though Nola had practically pointed a finger at her.

"The other choice," Halig said, once more gazing toward the street, though no one was walking by, "is to leave it. Report the silversmith was killed by an intruder, long gone by the time we arrived."

"Kirwyn is a murderer," Galvin said, aghast.

"But one who has what he wants. He's not apt to kill again."

It was a possibility. Not justice in any sense, but it was one possibility of safety for Nola among many chances of disaster.

Though Galvin didn't answer, Nola could see by his face that he wasn't going to agree to this.

Halig finally looked at him, returning his long, hard gaze. He said, "You'll never get Kirwyn without naming an accomplice."

"That's your counsel, is it?" Galvin asked coldly. "Put the blame on some passing brigand?"

"No," Halig told him. "But I would not contradict you if that's what you chose."

Galvin lowered his forehead to his clasped hands. Softly, miserably, he said, "I don't want to do that."

"What do you want?"

"To learn that Brinna is not a murderer."

"Most likely she's not," Halig agreed. "Most likely she only helped hide the money."

"But the money was probably hidden
before
the crime. There was no time afterward. So she knew what Kirwyn was planning and gave Innis no warning."

"There is that," Halig agreed.

Galvin sighed yet again. "And," he said, "I would like to finish this business without looking like a complete fool to Pendaran."

Halig grunted. "There, I can't help you at all."

Galvin stood. "I'll talk to her in the morning. Perhaps it would be best for you to be present, also."

Halig gave a curt nod.

As Galvin resettled in the kitchen and Halig made his way back to the silversmith's shop, Nola thought that she must come up with a better plan than trying to convince them that despite all the food brought in today, she urgently needed to go to the market first thing tomorrow morning.

He called me kind,
Nola thought, which she'd never before thought of herself as.
And brave and funny.

None of which was as good as being beautiful, but she wasn't used co
any
compliments.

Don't get distracted,
Nola warned herself, realizing she was thinking more about Galvin than about getting out. At best Galvin would eventually have to leave the premises, which would enable her to sneak away, and then she would never see him again.

At worst he would discover her true nature, and he would arrest her, and she would be banished or executed for witchcraft.

She hated stories with bad endings.

But she hesitated a long time before dragging Galvin's hair out of the water and ending the spell.

T
HE NIGHT LASTED
longer than any night had a right to, but not long enough for Nola to come up with a plan she had any right to believe would work. Eventually—after she had been reduced to staying awake by amusing herself trying to balance a spoon on her nose—she could hear the stirrings of the household.

Once more she straightened her clothing and fetched her shoes from beside the bed. Did the right one go on easier than it had yesterday afternoon?
Yes,
Nola told herself,
definitely.

Well, maybe.

She tried standing and decided that was easier, too. Or perhaps the ankle didn't hurt as much because she knew that this time she wouldn't have to try to walk quietly.

From the kitchen, she caught the crackle and smell of sausage frying and heard Alan—or Galvin if he was the kind to be inclined to help—setting the table. Halig came from guarding the door to the shop, and she could hear the sounds of Kirwyn stirring in his room.

Nola limped to the window and opened the shutters, untying the bit of string Alan had used to fasten them.

Over the courtyard fence, she could see the street; but no one was about this early.
Foolish plan,
she told herself. Everything depended on being lucky, and luck was certainly not something she had reason to rely on. But hoping for a passerby was the only plan she had been able to come up with all night long, and it wasn't likely something else would come to her now.

She hobbled back to the bed, intentionally pushing the night chest a bit so that it bumped the wall, and then started to straighten the blanket on her bed.

Galvin rapped against the door frame but didn't wait before he opened the door.

"Oh," Nola said, looking up from fluffing the mattress. "Good morning."

"What arc you doing?" Galvin asked in a tone that was—she liked to think—testy because of concern rather than because of suspicion or lack of sleep.

"Straightening up the room," Nola said, rather than admitting the truth:
Making noise so in case you heard me getting up, you wouldn't think I was sneaking around.
Better to have him investigate now rather than later. She added with a smile, "One day of lying about in bed is enough." It was hard to sound so bright and cheery when her ankle throbbed and she hadn't slept in days.

Galvin glanced down at her feet, though of course her dress covered her ankle. "Are you sure you should be—'"

"It's fine," Nola lied. "If I don't start moving, it's going to stiffen."

Kirwyn, coming down the hall from his room to the kitchen, paused only long enough to glance in over Galvin's shoulder. "It's about time," he said.

Once he had moved on, Nola blew a kiss after him, which made Galvin smile, and she remembered how he'd told Halig she was brave. The knowledge that she cared what Galvin thought made her blush, and she lowered her head to tug at a blanket that was already perfectly free of wrinkles.

"Don't try to do too much at once," Galvin advised. "Even Kirwyn can't expect you to take on all your usual chores so soon." Which showed he knew nothing about masters and servants. But Nola only smiled and nodded and worked very hard not to weep at the pain in her right leg.

As soon as he left, she sat down on the bed. But sitting, she couldn't see out the window into the street. So she struggled once more to her feet.

How long should she wait? she wondered, as she watched a young boy running on an early morning errand. But he was already gone before she had time to chink.
Not long.
Someone running probably would have been a good choice, she thought,
If
the men took off in pursuit, they'd have a harder time catching up. But what were the chances of their looking up from their breakfast at just the right time to see such a person?

Obviously she needed someone walking from north to south—that is, someone following the street from the right side of Brinna's window to the left, which would bring them in view of the kitchen window only after passing Nola, because obviously she couldn't transform someone in plain view of the kitchen window when the whole plan hinged on the hope that
someone
would be looking out the window.