Thieves' World: Enemies of Fortune (44 page)

Sharda … .

Right. They work for the magistrate, Elisar. They investigate crime. Crime important enough to warrant attention from those in power. Therefore, this matter involved the nobility of Sanctuary, in some way, for some reason.

This matter.

What matter?

Who or what could I know that could attract the attention of a magistrate, and was so important the magistrate would enlist the City Watch?

I played my cresca and tried not to speculate.

Presently the door opened, and a fellow with muscles on his muscles, a massive gray-brown beard all over his face, and not too many teeth appeared. “Strip, please.”

“Excuse me?”

“You are to be searched.”

“For what?”

Evidently, he didn’t feel it was his job to answer my questions. I won’t go into detail, but my clothes and even my cresca case were searched thoroughly. He kept me there while he searched, and every time they started searching something, he glanced at my face. It was a little comical, to tell you the truth. In any case, nothing they found was even worth a question. I asked him if he were with the City Watch, or the Sharda, and he didn’t answer. When he was done searching me, he grunted and left me to dress again, after which I did more scales.

It wasn’t too long before a pair of officers appeared.

“I am Sayn,” said the man. “This is my colleague Ixma. We work for the magistrate.” He didn’t bother to add a name.

I smiled at them both and said, “A pleasure. How may I be of assistance?”

Neither of them wore any sort of uniform. Sayn was big across the shoulders, with a bull chest, and a neatly trimmed beard. He might have had some Rankan in him. Then again, maybe not. Ixma was more interesting. Short, tiny, with big black eyes that dominated most of her face, and if she weren’t all or partly S‘danzo, my eyes were failing me. From my first glance at her, I wondered if she were a liesayer, one of those who can hear a lie the way I can hear a missed note. I’d heard of such among the S’danzo, and been told that sometimes the magistrates employed them. The concept fascinated me.

What is a lie, anyway?

If I sang to them of the man from Shemhaza, would such a person hear it as a lie? How about if I claimed not to remember a song that I
almost
remembered? Would that be a lie? How about an exaggeration? An understatement? I thought about asking if that’s what she was, but thought better of it The oddest thing was that I was filled with the temptation to lie for no reason, to test her. All of my training—control of voice, control of body language, even control of breath, could be a direct challenge to such powers. I wanted to know if I could tell a direct, bald-face lie that she couldn’t detect

And I knew very well that making such a test would be the height of stupidity when dealing with those who have the power of life and death. I sat on the temptation until it whimpered and went away.

Sayn said, “You are Tordin Jardin?”

I smiled. “Tord’ an J’ardin” I agreed.

He stood over me and said, without preamble, “You were seen earlier this evening with a certain Dinrabol Festroon.”

He seemed to be waiting for a response, so I nodded. He still said nothing, just looked at me in that way those in power have, so I added, “He’s a friend of mine.”

“A friend.”

I nodded.

He glanced at the one called Ixma, then turned back to me.

“When and where did you see him last?”

I frowned. “I …”

His lips tightened. That’s something else they do.

I said, “If he’s in trouble, I wouldn’t want to be the one—”

“Answer the question, please.”

I sighed. “It was a few hours ago, before I headed out to Land’s End. I was just headed out of the Maze.”

He nodded. “Yes, that’s where he was found.”

I stared at him. “Found?”

He nodded again, and went back to waiting for me to say something. It’s the way they have, where they’re looking for you to give something away, and even if you have nothing to give away, you feel like you’ve confessed.

I said, “What happened to him?”

“He’s dead. Stabbed. One thrust from under the chin up into the brain.”

I winced. He’d given me a better image than I wanted. “Robbed?”

“Interesting question,” he said. “He had a purse with a few padpols in it, and various personal items. These things weren’t taken. Did he have anything else worth stealing?”

“Everyone has things worth stealing, Sayn. May I call you Sayn? In his case, well, I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? How well did you know him?”

“He was my best friend,” I said quietly. “I taught him to play, and to perform. I worked with him on his voice and his stage presence. We’d spend hours together, mostly drinking, or waking around. We—”

“I get the idea. If it wasn’t robbery, who wanted him dead?”

“No one,” I said. “If there was ever someone who didn’t make enemies, it was Din.”

He frowned, and tilted his lead a little, staring at me. I guess it was supposed to make me uncomfortable, and I have to say it did. It doesn’t matter how innocent you are when you’re interrogated by someone who knows how to do so; you still get nervous, uncomfortable, and start feeling like you ought to confess to something, just to stop the ordeal.

He said, “You were the last one seen with him, you know.”

“I know. Well, except for whoever ki—whoever did it.”

“And we only have your word for it that there is such a person. Did you kill him?”

I felt myself flushing. “No,” I said.

He gave an expressive nod. What it expressed was,
I don’t necessarily believe you, but I’m not going to push it now.
He glanced at his partner, I guess for confirmation. She still had not said a word, and her eyes had never left my face.

He studied me a bit, then said, “You weren’t born here, were you?”

I shook my head. “A place called Shemhaza, a few hundred miles inland.”

“When did you arrive in Sanctuary?”

“About eight years ago.”

“Way?”

“If you’d ever seen Shemhaza, you wouldn’t ask.”

He was polite enough to chuckle, then said, “Seriously. Why here? Why then?”

“I had played all my songs for all six people in Shemhaza. I wanted an audience. I’m not kidding; I need an audience. I need to play for people. It’s what I live for.”

He nodded as if he was willing to believe me for the moment. “Do you have a wife, or a lover?”

“Not anymore.”

“Oh?”

“I had a woman named Mirazia, but she stopped seeing me a few months ago and took up with Din”

He stared at me. “She left you for your best friend?”

I met his stare. “Yes.”

“You know, that does nothing to make me less suspicious of you.”

“I know. But what if I’d said nothing about it? You’d have found out anyway, and then you’d be asking me why I didn’t say anything.”

I was hoping that would get a chuckle and a nod from him. It didn’t.

“How did you feel about that?”

“In truth? It hurt a little. But with Mirazia and me, well, it was never one of the great passions of which ballads are made. I got over it pretty quickly. I will say …” I bit my lip. “I’m not looking forward to having to tell her.”

“You needn’t. I already have. Before I spoke to you.”

“Then you knew—”

“Yes.”

I nodded. “I’ll still need to see her.”

He shrugged. “That isn’t my concern.” He gave me a thoughtful look. “I’m not done with you, J’ardin. But for now, you may go. Don’t stray too far.”

I nodded. Any other response seemed like a bad idea.

He escorted me out of the building. I tried my best to pick up what I could from the bits of conversations, just as I do when I’m playing. One of the guards was having troubles with a girl, another couldn’t decide what to eat tonight, and a third wasn’t sleeping well of late; then I was outside once more.

I made my way to Mirazia’s walk-up, which was in the east side of town—in the ’Tween off the Wideway. No one followed me, but I hadn’t expected anyone to. What happened to Din mattered to me, and to Mirazia, and, I’m afraid, it just didn’t much matter to anyone else.

Except, of course, if that were true, why was the Sharda interested?

And even as I asked myself that, I had the answer: He had played for the Jlsigi nobility. He had even performed in the palace. Someone liked him, and someone was unhappy that he was dead.

Well, I was unhappy that he was dead, too.

Mirazia let me in, and instantly had her arms around me, her head in my chest. We just stood like that for a while. She made no sounds, no motions.

“Cry if you wish,” I told her.

She shook her head against my chest. “I’m all cried out for now,” she said very quietly.

A few minutes later she said, “I’m sorry. Do you want something to drink? Are you hungry?”

I almost chuckled. That was so like her. I didn’t, but I let her get me some watery wine and some cheese, because she needed to be doing something.

We sat on the couch and I held her. I said, “I’m suspected of doing it, you know.”

“You?”

“Yes. Apparently I was jealous, because you and I used to—”

“They’re such idiots.”

I shook my head. “No. From their perspective, it makes sense. They don’t know us.”

“That means they won’t be looking for who really did it.”

I exhaled slowly. “Mirazia, they aren’t going to investigate. People like us, like Din, don’t matter. If anyone is going to find out what happened to him, it will be me.”

She stared at me with reddened eyes. “Torrie, don’t!”

I think we stopped seeing each other because I couldn’t get her to stop calling me “Torrie” but now wasn’t the time to object. I said, “Nothing will happen to me. I’ll ask a few questions—”

“Wasn’t it just a robbery?”

“Not just a robbery, no.”

“What do you mean?”

I sighed. “Din did something foolish,” I said.

“What do you mean?” She sounded like she wanted to get angry, which perhaps would have been good for her.

“He stole something. I don’t know how he got it, I didn’t want to ask, but—”

She glared. “He’d nev—”

She stopped in mid-outraged denial, stared into space for a bit, then looked down.

I said, “What?”

“I knew something was up. He’s been acting funny for the last week.”

“Funny, how?”

“Excited. I asked him about it and he’d, well, you know how he’d get when he had a surprise planned, like when he wrote that song about you and sprang it on you at the ’Unicorn.”

I nodded. “For the last week?”

“Yes. What did he steal?”

“The Palm of the Hand.”

She frowned. “What is that?”

“I’m not sure exactly. Perhaps it is magical, perhaps it has some other significance, but it’s important to those who worship Dyareela.”

She looked at me like I’d just turned green and grown wings. “The Hand?” she said at last. “Are you sure?”

I nodded.

“How can you know that?”

“Mirazia, think who you’re talking to. I’m a musician. I sing in taverns. I listen to gossip. I know songs and stories from everywhere about everything. That thing he showed me is an artifact of the Bloody Hand.”

“Did he know that?”

“He knew.”

She started crying again.

A little later, she said, “What are you going to do?” “Find his killer.”

“The guards—”

“Will arrest him, if they see proof, and they feel like it’s worth their time. They’re half-convinced I did it, and they didn’t even hold me.”

“But—”

“I’ll be careful,” I said.

She rested her head on my shoulder. Her hair was wavy, and that color that looks red in some light, and almost black in other light. I put an arm around her, but did nothing else; didn’t even think of doing anything else.

“How will you find his killer?”

“I don’t know,” I lied. “I’ll think of something.”

I held her, and a little later she said, “Tor, tell me a story?” When we’d been together, she had often said that after we made love. I’d tell her old stories, or funny stories, or ballads taken out of verse until she fell asleep. I wasn’t about to make love to her tonight.

“All right,” I said. “One day a man set out from Lirt to find Shemhaza. He had a mule, enough food for a year, and just kept walking inland. Every night, he’d stop and build a fire and eat his dinner and sleep and get up early the next morning and continue walking. One night he stopped in the middle of a forest, but when he woke up, it was raining. He was too wet and cold to want to continue, so he built up the fire thinking to stay as warm as he could until the rain stopped. The rain didn’t stop that night, so he found a dead tree, cut it up, and added it to the fire. The rain continued the next day, so he took branches that he hadn’t burned, and his spare clothing, and built a sort of shelter. The rain continued, day after day, and he was determined not to leave until he was dry. One day a pair of travelers came along on their way to Shemhaza and asked to share his fire. He agreed, and they made a good meal together.

“As the rain continued, one of them went out to hunt, and was able to snare a coney, out of which they made stew. They constructed a better shelter together, and cut down trees for firewood and shelter, and the rain continued.

“Soon more travelers arrived and joined them. When the rain finally stopped, winter had begun, and so they remained. When spring came, some of them planted corn and rye, and others hunted. By this time they had made a large clearing in the forest, with a dozen homes made of wood. There were a husband and wife there, and by the time the roads were good for travel, she was great with child, so they all stayed to help her and to care for the child. By the time she and the child could travel, the rains had begun again, and the crops were ready to be harvested, and so they stayed another year, and more joined them.

“One day, a stranger arrived and asked the man if he could stay to get out of the rain. The man said of course he could. The stranger said, ‘What is the name of your village?’ ‘Shemhaza,’ said the man. And it is there still.”

I stopped talking. She was asleep. I half carried her to her bed, undressed her, and covered her up. Then I went back into the other room and fell asleep on the chair.