The Fire Seer and Her Quradum Read online

  Not wanting to antagonize him, Mandir took Taya’s hand and headed for the door.

  Chapter 15

  Taya’s head was full as they headed back to the guest room. While she had some thoughts about the case, she didn’t want to draw any conclusions until she’d talked everything over with Mandir. The man was good at noticing small details and making sense out of a complicated scene.

  When they reached the room and shut the door behind them, she said, “I think we’re in some trouble here.”

  “Flood and fire, but that’s an understatement,” said Mandir.

  “I’d scold you about losing your temper last night,” she said. “But that horse is already out of the barn. What if Bel-Sumai and the other guards accuse you of the murder because of your outburst last night and because they don’t like you?”

  “I don’t think they’d shirk their duties so blatantly,” said Mandir. “The palace guards are hand-picked, the best of the best.”

  “I thought you said the ones sent here were being punished for something.”

  “Yes, but even so, the king wouldn’t send them here to guard his son if he didn’t believe in their competence. What worries me is that in this house, everybody blames someone else for their misdeeds. Whoever murdered Tufan and Yanzu is likely to try to plant some evidence that will implicate somebody else—and that somebody is likely to be me. This is especially true if the murderer gets the idea that the guards want to accuse me and need only a little urging to do so. Also, Bel-Sumai thinks I killed his dog ten years ago.”

  Taya blinked. “You killed Bel-Sumai’s dog?”

  “No. He thinks I did.”

  Taya leaned against the wall, feeling powerless despite her magic. She’d thought she’d be immune to the scheming of Mandir’s brothers for the duration of their short stay, but apparently not. Either she and Mandir needed to place their trust in the competence and trustworthiness of the palace guards, or they needed to find the murderer themselves, and quickly. “How skilled do you think the guards are at handling a situation like this?”

  Mandir rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know. They’re guards, not investigators.”

  “We need to investigate the crimes ourselves.”

  “I agree,” said Mandir. “But we’ll have to keep a low profile. We have no authority here.”

  “Let’s sit down and think this over.” She headed to their little table and took a seat. Her fingers itched for a tablet upon which to write a list of suspects, but that was premature. They didn’t know much of anything yet. “Do you think Tufan and Yanzu were killed by the same person?”

  Mandir took a seat across from her. “It seems likely, given that they died in the same way and on the same night.”

  “I think whoever killed them was the one who let the dogs loose.”

  Mandir nodded. “The dogs were a distraction, and that distraction could have provided cover for our murderer.”

  “I’m going to come right out and say it. Setsi and Nindar are suspects.”

  “I don’t think they did it.”

  She glanced out the window at the distant stable. She had a fondness for that place and for the boys in it. “I don’t either, but we can’t assume they’re innocent just because we like them. They had an obvious motive for killing Tufan, and they trust each other. They could have planned it together, or one of them might have done it to protect the other. We know Setsi will make sacrifices to protect his brother.”

  “But would he kill a man?” said Mandir. “We know Setsi would turn down a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but that doesn’t mean he would go so far as to kill Tufan. Also, why kill Yanzu? Still, I’ll grant it’s a possibility.”

  “Then there’s Shala.” Taya began to count suspects, holding up two fingers for Setsi and Nindar and adding a third for Shala.

  Mandir nodded. “Obvious motive and opportunity, if Tufan was killed by poisoned wine that she served and delivered. We’ll have to talk with her. Though, again, I don’t see how Yanzu fits in.”

  “Runawir and Shardali.” Five fingers.

  “Both are capable of murder,” said Mandir. “Especially Runawir, who’s got smarts and courage as well as a certain nastiness that he’s skilled at hiding most of the time. Both of them have motive, but so does everyone in the entire house. We need to find out who got in a fight with Yanzu.”

  “Who inherits Tufan’s possessions now that he’s dead?” asked Taya.

  Mandir’s brows rose. “Good thought. The answer is complicated. Tufan doesn’t own this property; it belongs to the king, and anything Tufan does own, he owns jointly with his brothers. His possessions will pass to the king or to his brothers.”

  “So we can rule out inheritance as a motive.”

  “Not quite,” said Mandir. “A ruling-caste man in a joint marriage owns his major assets jointly with his brothers, but there are a lot of minor assets here that nobody at the palace will be interested in, such as the horses and that awful gold-leaf furniture. Those minor assets could be worth a lot to a man who has nothing at all.”

  “Did Tufan write a will?”

  “I’m sure he didn’t,” said Mandir. “The guards will probably distribute anything they don’t want to take back to the palace.”

  “Distribute it equally, or to the eldest?” said Taya. “And for that matter, who is the eldest?”

  Mandir blinked. “Well, it would have been Yanzu.”

  Taya’s brows rose. “Who’s next in line?”

  “Runawir,” said Mandir. “But I wouldn’t read too much into that. The guards may decide to distribute the goods equally.”

  “Well, if I were the lucky recipient of that gold-leaf furniture, I’d throw it all in the river.”

  “I don’t know,” said Mandir. “You might offend the Water Mother.”

  “Where will your brothers go now that Tufan is dead?”

  Mandir shook his head. “Wherever they want, I suppose. They can’t stay here; the food deliveries will stop. We can take Setsi and Nindar with us. The others will likely drift away. Some may find work, and others...won’t.”

  “You’re saying they have no home now?”

  “That’s right.”

  Taya didn’t like most of Mandir’s brothers, but even so, she felt a little bit sorry for them. They knew nothing but this place and its horrors. They had few skills other than bullying, and they were half-caste mongrels. How would they survive in the outside world? She feared they’d turn to banditry. “Who haven’t we discussed yet? Ilinos.” She raised a sixth finger.

  “Obviously a suspect after last night’s beating,” said Mandir. “And he could have been working with Shala. They seem to spend a lot of time together, doing chores around the house.”

  “And then there’s the tutor.” Seven fingers.

  Mandir nodded. “I know nothing about him except that he’s a drunk.”

  “And the guards.” Since there were four of them, that brought the total to eleven. She was out of fingers, so she lowered her hands to the table.

  “They have the best access to Tufan,” said Mandir. “They could have poisoned him easily, either all four of them working together, or one renegade working alone. Yanzu might be a little more difficult for them, and I’m not sure about motive.”

  “And finally, Yanzu and Tufan themselves.” Which brought her total to thirteen.

  Mandir gave her a quizzical look.

  “I know it’s unlikely,” she said. “But what if each of them poisoned the other?”

  Mandir shook his head. “Bizarre, but I suppose we can’t rule it out.”

  In one sense, this murder case was simpler than the one they’d dealt with in Hrappa. There, they’d had an entire town full of suspects. Here in Tufan’s household, there were only thirteen, and that was if they included the guards. One of the people she’d just listed, or possibly more than one of them, was the killer. But motive would be of little use to them in this case. Tufan was a sufficiently odious man that nea
rly everyone wanted him dead, and Yanzu was no prize either.

  Mandir sat down at the table. “Are you feeling any effects from the wine in Tufan’s room?”

  “I’m not sure.” She hadn’t thought about it, so she took a moment to pay attention to her body. She felt all right. In fact, she felt good—unusually optimistic. Tufan was dead, which meant Setsi and Nindar should be free to go once the palace guards completed their investigation. This horrible place, the source of so much suffering to so many people, would be abandoned. It would rot away to nothingness, which was just what it deserved. She sat down across from Mandir.

  “I think I’m feeling some effects,” said Mandir.

  She raised her head. “Are you all right?”

  “I believe I’ve ingested nepenthe. Have you ever had it?”

  Taya shook her head. “It’s a rich man’s drug. You mentioned it in Tufan’s room—apparently he takes it with his gold dust?”

  “It’s used for pain, which is why we don’t bother with it in the Coalition,” said Mandir. “We heal our injuries. Tufan keeps a supply of it for his arthritis and takes it every night—yes, in his gold dust. Are you sure you’re not feeling anything? I’d be surprised if Yanzu’s cup was poisoned and Tufan’s wasn’t.”

  Perhaps she was feeling a bit strange. She felt warm, pleasantly so, and very relaxed, more so than a person should be during a high-stakes murder investigation. She leaned forward, checking Mandir’s eyes to see if his pupils had contracted the way Tufan’s and Shardali’s had.

  “Are you checking my pupils?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  He leaned forward to check hers. They stared into each other’s eyes.

  “I really don’t see a difference,” Taya admitted. “But I think I might be feeling something. It’s subtle, but I feel relaxed and warm and...happier than I ought to be feeling.”

  “I think you’ve had nepenthe,” said Mandir. “A low dose and harmless. But it wouldn’t be so harmless for a man who drank the entire cup.”

  “We already know there was nepenthe in Tufan’s wine. He adds it himself.”

  “And you had just a taste of that wine, so minuscule a dose that you shouldn’t feel the effects at all. And yet you do feel them.”

  Taya frowned. That was true.

  “I think last night he took a fatal dose,” said Mandir.

  “A suicide?” That didn’t make sense; Tufan didn’t strike her as the kind of man who’d kill himself. If he had problems, he wouldn’t blame himself; he’d blame others and lash out at them.

  “Not at all,” said Mandir. “I think it was in his wine before it came to him, and then he added more. Because clearly nepenthe was in Yanzu’s water as well.”

  “Could Yanzu have had his own supply of nepenthe that he took at night like Tufan did?”

  “Unlikely,” said Mandir. “It was precious stuff. Tufan never shared it.”

  “But you said you’d tried it.”

  Mandir chuckled. “Because I stole it on a couple of occasions.”

  “He kept it in his room,” mused Taya. “I wonder if it’s been moved at all. You think the guards will let us back in there?”

  “No,” said Mandir. “But it doesn’t matter where the poison came from. It matters who put it in the cup. Let’s have a talk with Shala.”

  Chapter 16

  When Mandir went with Taya to find Shala in the kitchen, Ilinos told him she’d been taken into Tufan’s chambers for questioning. Apparently he and Taya weren’t the only people interested in talking with her about the events of last night.

  They positioned themselves outside Tufan’s chambers, a short way down the hall, so they could talk without being overheard but still see Shala when she left the room.

  “They’re probably going to question all of us,” said Taya.

  “I imagine they will.” He wasn’t looking forward to his own interview.

  “I was with you all last night,” said Taya. “So I know you didn’t do it. And you were with me, so you know I didn’t do it. But I don’t suppose our alibis will do us much good.”

  “No,” said Mandir. “They’ll just think we’re covering for each other.”

  “Tell me about Bel-Sumai’s dog,” said Taya. “Why does he think you killed it?”

  “All I know is that I prepared a plate of table scraps for the dog, as I did every night. The dog ate some of the food, became paralyzed, and died.”

  “What evidence does Bel-Sumai have that it was your food that killed the animal?”

  Mandir laughed bitterly. “Evidence? Why should Bel-Sumai need that, when he knows my brothers and I are trash? He said it had to have been me, because the dog died after eating some of the food I prepared for him. And also because the dog didn’t finish the food, presumably because he could taste the poison.”

  “If the food was poisoned, wouldn’t the dog have smelled it and refused to eat it at all?” asked Taya.

  “No idea,” said Mandir. “I’ve never kept dogs, and I’m not sure all poisons can be smelled.”

  “Did Bel-Sumai taste the food himself?”

  “Of course not,” said Mandir.

  “Then he had no evidence at all,” said Taya.

  No, he didn’t. Bitterness rose in Mandir’s chest. Bel-Sumai had accused Mandir because he was an easy target, not because Bel-Sumai had done any real investigation into what had happened. While Mandir doubted the man would be as slapdash about this double murder investigation—this did, after all, involve a prince of the realm, and Bel-Sumai would have to justify his actions when he returned to the palace—he didn’t have faith that Bel-Sumai would go to great effort to be just and fair. His duty was to the king, not to worthless Mandir and his equally worthless brothers. “There is no justice in this place, none at all.”

  Taya’s eyes, full of concern, rose to meet his. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” he said past the lump in his throat.

  “I’m not sure you are.” Shifting closer to him, she took his hand and squeezed it.

  He squeezed her hand back. Standing in the hallway, in full view of anyone who happened to walk by, he was not free to do what he wanted to do—to hug her, to touch her. To seek comfort in her body.

  “There will be justice here,” she said, “even if we have to bring it ourselves.”

  Mandir swallowed. “I think this is why I became a quradum.”

  Her brows rose. “Because justice is important to you?”

  “Yes,” he said. “There were a lot of options, you know. I couldn’t be a fire seer, since Isatis has not blessed me with her favor, but all my skills were sound. I could have been an itinerant healer, a scholar, a warrior fighting the mountain tribes. None of those options spoke to me the way being a quradum did.”

  “I think you make a fine quradum.”

  “So far, it’s not exactly what I thought it would be.”

  Taya nodded, her mouth tightening.

  He knew what she was thinking about: the death sentence they’d levied in Hrappa on their inaugural mission, and which he had been the one to carry out. “Still, it’s not fair that the innocent should be punished and the guilty should go free.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” said Taya, still holding his hand.

  They stood for a moment in silence.

  “Let’s go back to the dog,” said Taya. “Was the animal ever outside of Bel-Sumai’s control?”

  “Not that I know of,” said Mandir. “But sometimes when Bel-Sumai wasn’t on duty, he took the dog hunting.”

  “What sort of hunting?” asked Taya. “Birds, rabbits, foxes, deer?”

  “I think birds.”

  “Bird dogs work at a distance from their handlers,” said Taya. “The dog might have gotten into something without Bel-Sumai’s knowing about it. Did he take the dog hunting the day it died?”

  “I don’t remember.” He only remembered Bel-Sumai accusing him. He’d been taking his morning bath in the river at the time. The bath
was a ritual that had given him some comfort as a child; he couldn’t control much about his life at Tufan’s, but he could keep himself clean. Thus he’d been literally naked when Bel-Sumai confronted him.

  He’d sworn he was innocent, but Bel-Sumai hadn’t believed him and had beaten him with a stick until he could barely breathe. Bel-Sumai might have killed him if he hadn’t been worried that Tufan might disapprove.

  Afterward, Mandir made no attempt to find out who had really killed the dog. His punishment was over, and he had to look ahead, assessing new potential threats, not waste his time obsessing over old ones. But now, faced with Bel-Sumai’s long-lasting resentment, he wished he knew who had really done it.

  Shala emerged from Tufan’s bedroom. Mandir wondered fleetingly if the corpse was still in there.

  When Shala saw them in the hallway, she turned and walked away from them. So Mandir trotted to catch up and took her arm. “Taya and I want to talk with you.”

  “What for?” she gasped.

  When Mandir had been a small child, he’d lived on his mother’s farm. He’d found a baby mouse in the barn and tried to keep it as a pet. He put it in a box filled with shavings, where it sat in one place, trembling. It wouldn’t eat and wouldn’t sleep, and it died in a matter of days, apparently of fear. Shala reminded him of that mouse. “We want to ask you a few questions,” he said gently. “It won’t take long.”

  “It’s Coalition procedure, nothing more,” said Taya. “We have to make a report about what happened here, and there are some gaps in our knowledge.”

  “I gave Tufan his wine, but I didn’t poison him,” said Shala. “I swear it on all the Mothers’ names.”

  “We believe you,” said Taya.

  Mandir, who didn’t have much practice handling timid people without bullying them, stepped back to give Shala more space. She seemed to respond better to Taya than to him. His size alone was intimidating.

  “If you answer our questions, we’ll find out who did poison him,” said Taya.

  Shala’s eyes darted around. “All right—just for a moment.”