Magic Can Be Murder (8 page)

So, while no plan seemed safe, the least dangerous was to look like Brinna, because Nola knew for a fact that Brinna was away in the market and that the curious people of Haymarket would likely keep her there for much longer than Nola needed.

So as she rounded the last corner she dropped the glamour that made her look like a boy and took on one that made her look like Brinna.

Nola opened the door and stepped into the kitchen.

And found a man in there, a soldier by the look of him, poking among the pots and crocks. "Hello again, Brinna," he said when he saw Nola. "Everybody's waiting for you in the shop."

S
TORIES FLOODED INTO
Nola's memory of witches captured: stories told to her by her mother as warnings, and tales told by people who didn't know Nola was a witch and who shared their accounts as entertainment, ot to satisfy themselves that honest folk always won out in the end over monsters and demons and witches and other such evil creatures.

Nola cook a step back, and the soldier caught hold of her arm, firmly though not roughly. He must have seen she was close to panic, for he spoke reassuringly, as someone might to a skittish horse, "Easy there, now, I mean you no harm."

He didn't look especially cruel, but neither had the children in one village whom she had seen throw rocks at an old woman, an old woman who had evoked their suspicion because she shook and twitched and had a film over one eye.

Nola tried to pull free, thinking that if she could just get to the door...

If she got to the door, he would follow her.

And she couldn't pull free in any case. He didn't even have to strain to hold on to her.

"What is it, girl?" the soldier asked. He must be with chat man Galvin, she collected herself enough to surmise, one of Lord Pendaran's guard. And very obviously he had already spoken once with die real Brinna.

So far he was being solicitous of her trembling and obvious fear. Nola estimated that wouldn't last long before he scarred to wonder just why she was so anxious when Brinna would know that he had cause to be here.

She let her free hand flutter over her heart, co acknowledge that she had been frightened, and gave a ragged half-laugh, half-sigh to show that now she was over it and embarrassed at her foolishness. "I'm sorry." she said. "You startled me. For a moment I didn't know who you were and I thought..." She forced herself to remember the sight of Kirwyn bringing the hammer down on his father's head, which caused her to shudder, which would have co be Brinna's reaction, too. She shook her head. "Ic was silly of me."

"Not at all," the man said, though his face indicated he thought it was
very
silly of her. He nodded toward the hall. "Lord Galvin is in the shop with Master Kirwyn, and he's eager co speak to you, to hear in more detail your account of what happened."

He still had his hand on Nola's arm, probably less to hold on to her than to indicate that he wanted her to keep moving. But even if he let go, Nola realized, she would never be able to dash to the door, open the latch, run into the courtyard, keep running around to the street, and lose him in a town she barely knew. She would have to do what he said: go calk to this man Galvin.

Take your time,
she wished at Brinna. The last thing she needed was to have the real Brinna come home.
Tell EVERYBODY in the market EVERYTHING.

Still, what kind of situation was she putting Brinna into? Once Nola escaped and Brinna came back, what then? She could just imagine these men of Lord Pendaran's saying to Brinna, "But the last time you were here you said..."

But what could Nola do besides go along with this for now?

The only way to get to the shop without going back outside was to go through Innis's room. Nola wasn't aware of balking until the soldier tightened his grip on her arm. She had no idea what to expect: Would che body still be there, lying in a pool of blood?

It was, and it wasn't.

Innis had been moved from the floor, but he was definitely still in the room. That had to be him on the bed, even though his body had been covered with a blanket. Nola hastily looked away and her gaze went to the floor, to the section that could be taken up—under which Innis had hidden his strongbox, and by which ie had died. Someone—most probably Brinna—had worked hard to clean up the blood. Innis's bedroom was the only one in the house that had a wood floor, and the disadvantage of wood over rushes or a rug was chat you couldn't just pick up what was soiled and replace it with fresh. The blood had soaked into the wood and seeped into the cracks, and even now there was a stain that could have been a residue of the blood itself or perhaps just a water spot where Brinna had soaked the floor while trying to get the blood up. Whether the stain was blood oc water, the smell of blood still hung in the heavy air.

"Don't look," the soldier told her, which was good advice even if she was supposed to be the one who had cleaned up Innis's blood.

They entered the silversmith's shop. Even though everybody looked up when the two of them entered the room, the soldier introduced her, sounding as though she was receiving an audience: "The maid, Brinna, is back."

Pendaran's man Galvin smiled at her. Nobody, she thought, had ever been that pleased to see her when she looked like herself. "Hello," he said, immediately walking away from the other two men.

Nola was totally aware of her appearance. Brinna was a very attractive young woman, and Nola was sure that accounted for the considerate actencion she was getting, first from the soldier, now from Galvin.
[fit was me,
she thought,
with hair as limp and straight as dead and dried grass, the other one would have said, "Came on, then, snap out of it," and this one wouldn't be so quick to smile at me.

Well, maybe he would have. They had Innis's ledger op^n, and Nola guessed Galvin and Kirwyn and Alan had been in the middle of trying to take an inventory, to determine if any of che silver had been stolen. Even now Kirwyn and Alan continued to debate whether the woman's bracelet with the embossed cross was missing or if it had been sold or if Master Innis had melted it down and made it into another item. Spend long enough doing that, she had to admit, and Galvin would have been sincerely relieved to see anyone.

"Well, it's about time," Kirwyn said to her. "Did you feel you had all day to loiter about the market, gossiping, keeping everyone waiting for you?" He made to step past Galvin.

Without even turning to face him, Galvin put his hand up, a definite "Enough, and step no further" gesture.

Kirwyn was used to more respect. He stopped, but scowled at Galvin's back.

Nola realized she was clinging to the soldier's arm when Galvin said, very seriously, as one might to a child, "Truly, I very rarely bite."

She forced herself to smile. But couldn't resist saying, "Nor do I. Usually."

His smile almost broadened, but he fought it, perhaps thinking the situation too serious for levity: talking to a woman who had discovered her employer only moments after he had been murdered. She remembered Brinna saying he had kind eyes. Were they? Hard to tell. They were gray and his hair—Nola had a tendency to notice hair—dark brown. He was probably used to women making a fuss over him, so she decided to like the soldier better, though he looked twice Galvin's age and not quite so clean.

As though to explain to Galvin why she was so apprehensive, the soldier said, "I gave Brinna quite a start in the kitchen. For a moment she thought I was the killer come back."

Galvin's attention, which had gone from Nola to the soldier, snapped back to Nola again. "Does Sergeant Halig bear a resemblance to the man who killed the silversmith?" he asked.

Sergeant Halig.
Now she wouldn't have to ask, "What did you say your name was again?" and hope that he
had
introduced himself to Brinna. But as far as resembling innis's killer..."No," Nola said, for Kirwyn was younger, shorter, and smaller than Halig, with hair that was longer and darker than Halig's, which could almost have been called blond.

"How close a look did you get?"

Nola realized her mistake at once. Brinna
had
said Galvin was full of questions. "Well, not very close," she admitted. How could she come out and accuse Kirwyn without revealing herself? Even pretending she was Brinna didn't work. What could she say?
I saw Kirwyn kill his father, only I didn't say anything about it last night, and I stayed in the house overnight because I knew that Kirwyn hadn't seen me see him, and I was waiting for you to
come so that I could tell all to you, except I didn't tell anybody else because I didn't want Kirwyn to have a chance to run away or to kill me, and then once you DID come, I took the first opportunity to get away from you because I absolutely needed to do the marketing.
Galvin might look too young to have much experience in this sort of thing, but he didn't look that gullible. And what would happen when she left and the real Brinna came back and denied saying it at all?

"But," Galvin prompted, gentle but insistent, "you were close enough to see he didn't look like Halig?"

Nola considered, then decided that couldn't get her into trouble. "Yes," she said.

And what was
that
expression chat flickered across his face? Was he amused at her, or just trying co appear friendly and not frightening? He was definitely waiting for her to say more. What had Brinna seen? What was Brinna celling people in the market? It would be better for everyone, later on, if their stories matched. If only Nola could say enough, without putting herself or Brinna into trouble, to get Galvin to take notice of Kirwyn. She said, "I saw him only for an instant. From the back, as he was running away."

She caught the quick flicker of surprise in Galvin's eyes. He'd been paying attention before, but now he was scrutinizing her. She'd just said something wrong. Then it came to her: This was more than he expected. She remembered when she had looked into the bespelled puddle and she had heard Galvin calking to Alan. Galvin had asked whether Alan and Brinna opened the door leading into Innis's bedroom together. And Alan had said yes. They would have seen the same thing. She glanced at Alan, wondering what he'd said, what Brinna had said earlier and was now still saying in the market. Had either of them seen anything at all? Alan, she decided, looked surprised by her statement. She looked back at Galvin and realized that he'd seen her glance away from him. He didn't look over his shoulder, but surely he knew where everybody was standing.

She said, "I just saw the back of his head." Even that could be too much. "There was just the fleeting impression of brown hair, maybe a smaller build." What if they didn't suspect Kirwyn? What if they were so convinced it was an intruder that they found someone else, some poor innocent, who matched her description? She said, "But I may be wrong. Ic happened so fast and the light wasn't good. And I could see Master Innis on the floor, dead, and I was frightened, and distressed, and..." She was babbling again. She finished. "Confused."

Galvin asked, "Could you tell he was dead right away, or did you need to check?"

What in the world was he asking? And what was the right answer? "I ... hoped ... he wasn't."

Which they both realized wasn't an answer.

Behind Galvin, Alan said, "
I
checked to see if he was breathing. He was not."

It would help, Nola thought, if she could guess what was wrong, for something obviously was, though Galvin said nothing.

Kirwyn said, "He was definitely dead by the time I got there."

Nola fought to keep her face from showing amazed revulsion that he could say such a thing.

"And the silver?" Galvin asked her.

That
she had learned in the market. "Scattered on the bed and floor," she answered confidently.

Kirwyn added, "Just as we've all told you before."

Galvin ignored him. "Did you notice anything missing—besides the money?"

And
that
she didn't know, She hoped he hadn't asked Brinna the same thing earlier. "I can't be sure
nothing
was taken," she said.

Kirwyn sighed. "I know we are all distraught over che terrible thing that has happened to my father, but that is no reason to be heedless. We must try to remember details so chat Lord Galvin can finish here quickly and find the man who did this."

"Exactly," Galvin said, despite Kirwyn's implication that he was wasting time. If he was being sarcastic, Nola thought, it didn't come through in his voice. He said, "Sergeant Halig, please help Master Kirwyn and Alan continue to check the books against what's here. Perhaps I will get things straight in my mind better if Brinna showed me about the house."

At last, the opportunity to get down to the root cellar. Of course, it would only work if she made sure she got there at least two steps ahead of him. And if she could only be sure all he wanted was to see the house.

Alan asked, "Are you feeling unwell, Brinna? You look..." He shook his head and didn't finish with any of the things Nola felt and knew she probably looked: worried, unsteady, afraid she might vomit from fear.

Instantly Halig moved to put himself between Alan and Nola, to prevent Alan from joining them.
He
knew Galvin wanted to be alone with her.

Galvin didn't take her arm, as Halig had earlier, but only motioned for her to precede him. He did, however, repeat what his sergeant had said, "I mean you no harm."

No,
Nola thought.
You just want to get me away from the others.
At best that might mean he wanted to see if separated from Alan and Kirwyn she gave the same answers to his questions. But under the circumstances even that wasn't good.

"Sir," Halig said, and stepped aside to whisper something into Galvin's ear.

Galvin nodded, giving no indication of whether he was pleased, dismayed, or surprised by whatever his sergeant told him.

He just gestured to Nola to indicate for her to start moving.

Anxious to get to the bucket, anxious to get away from Alan in case he wanted to dispute her version of what had happened, Nola started moving. "Where did you want to look?" she asked as they walked into Innis's room.