Centaur of the Crime: Book One of 'Fantasy and Forensics' (Fantasy & Forensics 1) (13 page)

“So tell me about the Legislature. How they tie into the government.”

“What is there to tell?” Kajari’s rich purple mantle shifted as he made an eloquent shrug. “The King and the nobles enforce the laws, keep the peace. Parliament writes the laws. They set the tax code. They decide where the money goes, for everything from our soldiers to the roads.”

“Sounds a little like how it works in my country,” I remarked. “How often do you hold elections?”

“Elections? Where you count votes?” Kajari made a snort that could’ve come from Galen. “What a waste of time. Legislators are selected by blood and ranked by seniority. As is right and proper.”

I decided to let that one pass. Besides, what he had to say next got a lot more interesting.

“While you were out retrieving our court wizard, I received a summons. Parliament wishes to meet you, immediately.”

“I’m flattered, I guess. But what for? To help out the investigation? Or just have dinner with the new woman in town?”

“Both, perhaps. As a whole, I find our legislators a little…strange. Galen’s spell to bring you here cost a good amount. Likely as not, they want to see what their money purchased. Parliament has a reputation for grasping at coins the way a hawk can snatch up a hare.”

I can’t say that I liked the idea of being shown off to a bunch of oddball professor types. It made me feel like a schlocky souvenir that someone had picked up in the gift shop at the Sears Tower. Then again, if I were in their position, I suppose that I’d be interested in seeing what the wizard dragged in.

“If Parliament controls the money, maybe I can make a pitch to them,” I said offhandedly, trying to lighten the mood. “I could use some funds to hire a private detective, for starters.”

Kajari gave me a look. “Are you saying your skills are not up to the task?”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. But I’m used to working in a lab. Other people are more suited to go around trying to winnow out the suspects.” My mind lit briefly on Alanzo Esteban’s kind face.

“Have you made any progress in your ‘winnowing’?”

“Well, as Lord Regent, you’re effectively ‘king’ until Benedict’s son gets back, right?” Kajari nodded curtly. I listened to the creak of the leather armor and saddles around me, mixed with the clink of chain mail. “You seem to be quite comfortable in the role. Forgive me if that makes you sound like a suspect.”

“Forgiveness is granted.” Kajari made a weary sigh. He glanced around at our companions, as if to ensure they weren’t actively listening in. “I have no desire to rule the kingdom of Andeluvia. If I did, then the way Benedict’s murder took place makes no sense.”

“How so?” Ahead in the distance, I could now make out the soft glow of the lights from the town. The tart, granny-smith tang of apples told me we were back in the outlying orchards.

“I’ve noticed that you’re fond of lists. So I shall give you two reasons.” Kajari said, and I caught a gleam of his smile in the dim torchlight as he held up a pair of fingers in a V-shape. I couldn’t help but smile back. “First, if I wanted Benedict’s realm, I’d have taken care to kill both Benedict
and
his heir—his only son. Second, I wouldn’t implicate the centaurs. Why risk inheriting a kingdom that’s about to plunge into war? A war where we’d be badly outmatched, if not for the griffins.”

I shook my horse’s reins in irritation. “You make a good case. But even so, a lot of people stay on my list.”

“True. If you believe that I could have killed Benedict, then you’re all but surrounded by suspects. Lord Behnaz wants to expand his lands and grow richer. His underling, Captain Vazura, wishes for glory in battle above all else.”

“So a war serves each of their purposes. All too well.”

“Consider one other.” Kajari nodded towards where Galen’s tall form was a silhouette in the darkness. “Our wizard professes loyalty to us. But you saw how desperate he was for paternal approval. Could that not have moved him to strike Benedict down, in a misguided attempt to gain it?”

I pondered this silently as our little caravan went on. The packed earth of the path shifted back to paved cobblestone with a clatter of equine hooves. We picked up speed as individual houses turned into hamlets, then stretches of town block. The eyes following us fell behind and vanished. But that wasn’t what concerned me, once I heard the harsh panting coming from the griffin beside me.

Shaw loped alongside the horse, keeping up, but it was an obvious strain on him. His breaths came in heavy rushes like the heaving of a furnace bellow. I spurred my horse on to catch up to Kajari and let him know, but right then, I saw the high rampart of the castle wall, marked by a line of flickering torches. Galen cupped a hand to his mouth and called out to one of the sentries.

“’Ware in the castle! Duke Kajari’s company approaches!”

An answering hail. A massive wooden gate, the height and width of a firehouse door, swung open to admit us with a creak. We went on through and into the wide, grassy expanse of a courtyard, illuminated by yet more torches and the silver-coin brightness of the moon, still only a few inches above the horizon.

Shaw plunked himself down on one stretch of turf, panting. A page boy dressed in a robin’s egg blue outfit came up and handed the Duke a piece of parchment as soon as the man swung down off his horse. I followed suit and got out of the saddle as gracefully as I could. Galen’s spell to relieve my saddle soreness must’ve still been in effect, as I didn’t have a problem this time.

I cleared my throat. Kajari glanced at me, questioningly. I nodded at Shaw.

“Ah.” Kajari turned to the boy and said, “Have plenty of food and water brought out for the griffin. He is tired from a long run.”

The boy vanished in the darkness. Kajari unrolled the scroll, scanning it impatiently for a minute. He shook his head ruefully as Galen came to join us, dabbing at one sweaty brow with a white kerchief.

“Court functionaries.” Kajari all but spat the words. “They wish to meet with me and the wizard. More trivial palace nonsense.”

“Be that as it may, know that I stand ready, Lord Regent,” Galen said.

“Go sate their hunger for our company for a few minutes. I need to escort Lady Chrissie to Parliament.”

I opened my mouth to speak about that title thing again, but my voice was drowned out by the sound of flesh being ripped from bone. On the lawn beside me, the palace servants had set out a trough of water and a tray with an entire roast leg of lamb. Shaw tore into the meat, shredding it into gobbets with his beak.

“He seems content, for now,” Kajari observed. “Let us go see if Parliament is in a similar mood.”

We crossed the expanse of the courtyard, and then turned the corner beyond one of the palace’s massive dunce-cap towers. Before us lay a singularly odd-looking three story building, sheer-sided and windowless. From what I could tell, it wasn’t made of the same gray stone that made up most of the buildings in Andeluvia. An A-frame wooden roof almost seemed to float above the walls, as it was propped up ten feet higher on nothing more than a series of thick timber posts.

Strangest of all, there were no torches here. Only metal braziers holding handfuls of dimly fluorescent stone. The light given off was more green-white than red, and it definitely took more time for the eye to adjust.

Kajari strode right up to the doors. Like the rest of the doors in the palace, the iron-banded wood was in the shape of a high pointed arch. The Duke threw the doors open without so much as a knock, as if we were expected.

I looked inside. For a moment, I stood dumbfounded, unable to speak.

My voice came out in a strange, high pitch. “This…is your legislature?”

“Of course it is.” Kajari looked at me quizzically. “What else did you expect a Parliament to be?”

Chapter Fifteen

Ever since I’d woken up to a handsome centaur’s ministrations, I’d been trying to cope with things that made my head spin. So far, so good. But when Duke Kajari threw open the doors to the ‘Parliament’, the fact I was in a fantasy world hit home with a
bang
.

Centaurs and griffins were far, far outside my experience. So I guess my mind must’ve stuck them in the ‘Heraldic Beings Come to Life’ category. But as I stepped into the Parliament building, the Lord Regent at my side, my mind reeled at trying to reconcile the familiar with the utterly alien.

The interior resembled a Greek-style amphitheater at a particularly well-endowed college. Instead of oval tracks of benches, long rows of drafting tables ran the circumference of the room. Iron bars, about as thick around as my wrist, were mounted horizontally behind the tables. I could immediately see why. To a legislator, that bar was the equivalent of a lounge chair.

More than a hundred pairs of bright yellow eyes focused on me, their huge pupils dilating and adjusting like camera lenses. The
skritch-skritch
sound of a score of quill pens on parchment halted, to be followed by the
clack
of talons as bodies shifted to turn in my direction. Silence for a moment. My nostrils registered the soft scent of feathers, old parchment, and…
pastry?

And then, a series of soft ‘hoo!’ sounds, bobbing heads and ruffled wings.

Well, Kajari had been right after all. What had I expected a parliament to be but a group of owls? The Duke grinned a little as he watched my brain try to sort out the sight of dozens of owls, some gripping quill pens in a talon as they wrote, standing one-legged on their iron perches. Others flitted silently into the dim, lofty reaches above, leaving and re-entering through the wide gap between the top of the walls and the roof.

One of the owls fluttered down and landed before us. He—she?—looked like a jumbo-sized cousin of a Great Horned Owl. When my family had lived in Pike County, the horned owls that nested in our back yard had been at most the size of a large chicken. Not these birds. The tufted horn feathers of the one that stood before us came fully up to my waist.

“The sun is down and the night wind is up, Lord Regent. Felicitations, felicitations!” the owl said, bobbing her head and spreading her wings. I was pretty sure that I had the gender right. For instance, Shaw had a masculine gruffness to his archaic accent. This owl’s voice sounded prim and proper, like a nun fresh out of a convent.

“I return those felicitations, Xandra,” Kajari said, bowing slightly. “One hopes for breeze beneath each wing, prey beneath each shrub.”

Xandra let out a couple of pleased ‘hoo!’ sounds, then said, “So many events, drowned out by the rays of sun. We only see those who ride here, after. Equitation in service of she-from-another-world. One could but wonder at those great and wondrous happenings.”

I blinked. Kajari hadn’t been kidding about the legislators being a little strange. Well, strange in ways beyond being giant owls. Ones who talked. And wrote tax code on the side.

But I’d sat in on more than a few Homicide investigations. I’d interviewed witnesses, good, honest people, who were scared of retaliation by a gang, or a tong, or a family member. They’d often talk ‘around’ a subject in order to give me the information I wanted. If I read Xandra and Kajari’s exchange right, then this was the normal way Parliamentarians spoke.

So many events, drowned out by the rays of sun.
Well, owls normally slept in the daytime, when the sun was up.
We only see those who ride here, after…One could but wonder at those great and wondrous happenings.
The owl eyes hadn’t appeared until evening, after we’d seen off the centaurs. So unless I missed my guess, Xandra seemed to be saying:
What happened while we were asleep? It seemed important. We’d really like to know.

Kajari’s next words bore my guess out. “One missed a near-crossing of swords. Of centaur and human. She-from-another-world came to view the place of Benedict’s last breath. She-from-another-world turned aside the blades, and now vouches for the centaurs.”

“Near misses! Turned blades! One wonders about vouching for the centaurs. Quite the tangle of elements, so many variables. A mystery how one could see through such a bramble.”

In other words, “Why does Miss She-From-Another-World think the centaurs are innocent?” Time for Dayna Chrissie to step up again.

“Um, hello,” I said. Xandra cocked her head at me. Like with Shaw, I wasn’t quite sure how to read her expression. But at least it didn’t seem hostile. “I’m Dayna, she-from-another-world. I…that is, one sees through claims of truth or false with evidence and logic. No logic exists for the centaur king to want to end Benedict’s life.”