The Fire Seer and Her Quradum Read online

  “Agreed,” said Taya.

  “But first, let’s talk to Setsi.”

  Chapter 18

  They headed for the stable, Setsi’s usual refuge. Taya was happy to leave the main house. Something about being in that place, with its resident complement of schemers and backstabbers, and at least one murderer, left her in a near-constant state of anxiety. And she’d been here for only a day and a half. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like to live in that environment all the time, as Mandir once had, and without Coalition protection.

  The more she saw of this place, the more sympathy she felt for Mandir. He was not at all the lucky, privileged child she and the other students had taken him for at Mohenjo Temple. Now that she knew the truth, she would never trade her poor, hardscrabble life on the farm for Mandir’s life here with Tufan.

  The stable doors were flung open and the stalls were empty. The horses had been turned out to graze, except for Soldier and the blood bay, which were penned in the corral. Nindar was with them.

  “Nindar,” she called.

  He turned, climbed over the corral fence, and ran to her. “What’s going on at the main house? Is it very bad?”

  “The guards are interviewing everyone,” said Mandir.

  “Oh.” Nindar looked troubled for a moment, but then he glanced back at the horses and brightened. “Will you show me how you taught Soldier to kneel?”

  Taya blinked. “I haven’t taught him anything. He kneels?”

  “If you didn’t teach him, somebody must have.”

  “I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” said Taya.

  “Come on, I’ll show you.”

  As she followed him to the corral, Mandir groused, “We’re here for Setsi.”

  “I’m sure this will only take a minute.” She wanted to see whatever it was Nindar was talking about.

  Nindar grabbed the top rail of the fence and bounded over it into the corral, graceful despite his limp. Soldier turned to look at him as he entered. Nindar walked up to him and gently squeezed the base of his neck, in front of the withers.

  Soldier collapsed so suddenly that Taya jumped in alarm. For a moment, her horse looked like he was falling down. But she could see now that he’d simply folded his near foreleg and placed it on the ground, leaning backward and bowing with his head low.

  “What’s he doing?” she called to Nindar. “Did you hurt him?”

  “Not at all,” said Nindar as Soldier rose back to his feet. “I just squeezed him in front of the withers, and he did it on his own. It’s clear he’s been trained to do it. Come and see!”

  Even more curious now, Taya climbed the fence and went to Soldier’s side. The skinny gelding sniffed her, and she rubbed him affectionately.

  “Here,” said Nindar, indicating a spot at the base of Soldier’s neck. “Put one hand on either side, like you’re going to pinch his mane, then squeeze a little, and see...” He touched the spot and once again Soldier collapsed into a one-legged bow. This time, while the horse was down, Nindar swung his leg over the horse’s back, and when Soldier came up, the boy was astride.

  Now Taya understood the point of the training. “It’s to make mounting easier!”

  “Right,” said Nindar. “You don’t have to vault. But he’s the first horse I’ve seen who can do this. I’d love to teach it to all the horses.”

  Taya’s smile faded. Nindar’s future was uncertain now that Tufan was dead. He certainly wasn’t going to be able to stay here at this stable. The horses would be disbursed to Mothers knew where, and Nindar would probably come with Mandir and her and Setsi to the Coalition Temple. “Well, I don’t know how it was done.”

  “You said he came from the mountains?”

  Taya nodded absently.

  “He must have learned it there.”

  “I imagine he did.” She’d learned a bit about the mountain people in her Coalition training. They weren’t a settled people who built cities. Rather, they traveled from place to place with their herds, staying in temporary camps. It was easy to think of them as savages, but they’d been known to assemble massive, coordinated armies.

  Were the mountain people better horsemen than the river people, if they could teach their animals skills like this?

  “I’ll bet I can teach it to the other horses now that I know it’s possible,” said Nindar.

  “I’m sure you can,” said Taya.

  Mandir leaned on the corral fence. “Where’s Setsi?”

  “In the barn,” said Nindar.

  Taya climbed over the fence and joined Mandir heading that way. “Wasn’t that interesting? I had no idea Soldier could do that.”

  “Fascinating, but I’d like to find out who killed Tufan before Bel-Sumai decides it was me.”

  In the barn, they found Setsi whistling as he mucked out stalls. “Mandir, Taya,” he called joyfully as he saw them. “I can go with you now! That is, I’d like to join the Coalition—if I can bring Nindar along.”

  “You can bring him,” said Taya. “He can’t join the Coalition, because he has no magic. But the temple sits near the city of Rakigari. Perhaps you can study magic while Nindar takes a job in a stable, and you’ll be able to spend some time together.”

  “This is all very well,” interrupted Mandir. “But Tufan’s murderer has yet to be identified, and until that happens we’re all stuck here.”

  “I didn’t kill him,” said Setsi. “Nor did Nindar, and I hope neither of you did it.”

  “We didn’t,” said Taya.

  “But you saw what happened at supper last night,” said Mandir. “I lost my temper in front of everyone and embarrassed Bel-Sumai. He might try to get back at me by accusing me of the crimes.”

  Setsi’s smile disappeared. “Oh.”

  “We need your help,” said Taya. “If we can reconstruct the events of last night down to the smallest detail, we might be able to figure out who really killed Tufan and Yanzu.”

  Setsi leaned his pitchfork against the wall, brushed the dust off his hands, and came out of the stall into the aisle. “What do you want to know?”

  “Last night you came to our room, said the dogs were out, and asked for our help in recovering them,” said Mandir. “What happened before then? I know you were at dinner with the rest of us. Taya and I left early. Then what happened?”

  “A few minutes after you left, Tufan dismissed us,” said Setsi. “I went straight to my room—unless you’ve got chores, it’s the best thing to do.”

  “I know,” said Mandir.

  “I was just resting there, not tired enough to go to sleep yet, when Ilinos came to my door. He said the dogs were out, and I’d better fetch them quick before Tufan found out.”

  “How do you think they got out?”

  “Probably Ilinos turned them loose to get back at me for yesterday afternoon. Or—maybe it was the murderer who did it!” Setsi’s eyes widened at this realization. “To create a diversion.”

  This bit of insight was useless to Taya, since both she and Mandir were ahead of him on that point. But it was interesting that Setsi seemed not to make the leap that Ilinos and the murderer could be the same person. Maybe he, too, had trouble seeing Ilinos as a cold-blooded killer.

  “Let’s go on,” said Mandir. “What did you do after Ilinos came to your door? And did you see where Ilinos went?”

  Setsi’s brow furrowed. “I think he headed down the hallway toward his room. He had no reason to want to help me with the dogs.”

  Taya perked up. “So Ilinos didn’t go outside at all.”

  “I think he was in his room the whole time,” said Setsi. “I don’t know for sure. I never saw him outside.”

  Taya exchanged a look with Mandir. It sounded like Ilinos had possessed ample opportunity to murder both Tufan and Yanzu, if that had been his goal.

  Setsi continued. “After Ilinos left, I grabbed Nindar from next door, and we ran out to the dog pen to see if Ilinos was telling the truth. The door was swinging on its
hinges, and there were no dogs in the pen, so yes, he was. Nindar and I ran back inside. We found Runawir in his room and told him the dogs were out. He said he’d get Yanzu and Shardali, and then we told Shala in the kitchen.”

  “Runawir was in his room when you talked to him?” asked Taya.

  “Yes.”

  “And Shala—what was she doing in the kitchen when you talked to her?”

  “Warming Tufan’s nightcap.”

  “What did you do after talking to Shala?” asked Taya.

  “I remembered you two,” said Setsi. “I thought you might be willing to help, so I went to your room and told you what was going on. And then Nindar and I went out to look for the dogs. You were right behind us.”

  Taya nodded. So far all of this made sense and matched what she already knew, and had filled in a few missing details. “I remember you and Nindar headed for the barn, while Mandir and I searched near the river. Did you see anyone else while you were out there?”

  “Runawir,” said Setsi.

  Mandir leaned forward. “What was he doing?”

  “Wandering around, looking for the dogs. He was in a foul temper.”

  “In a foul temper how?” asked Mandir.

  “He told me not to be such a bollhead, that any fool should know how to latch a gate.”

  “He thought it was your fault the dogs got out?” said Taya.

  “He probably didn’t care how they got out and was taunting me,” said Setsi. “It’s how things work here—people do bad things and blame them on other people, and as long as you’re not the one being blamed, you go along with it. But I never open the dogs’ gate, not even to feed them. It’s closed all the time.”

  Taya nodded. “Did Runawir say or do anything else?”

  “He headed off toward the house,” said Setsi. “Then, you know, I had the idea of trying to lure the dogs with meat on a stick. So I went back to the kitchen—”

  Taya broke in. “You were in the kitchen a second time?”

  “Yes. I took a bit of leftover onager from dinner—”

  “Was anybody else there?” asked Mandir.

  “No,” said Setsi. “Shala had gone out to help with the dogs.”

  “Did you see Tufan’s wine cup?”

  “Yes,” said Setsi. “It was sitting on the counter near the fire.”

  Taya gritted her teeth; this was not good. Setsi had been near Tufan’s wine cup during one of the two critical periods during which it might have been poisoned. And nobody had been in the kitchen with him, so there was no one to say he hadn’t touched it.

  “All right,” said Mandir. “Let’s move on. You saw the cup but didn’t touch it. You took some meat and—where did you get the stick?”

  “I had one in my room,” said Setsi.

  “So you went to the kitchen and got the meat, then to your room to get the stick, and then you went out and started luring the dogs,” said Mandir.

  “Yes. I lured one of them into the pen and shut him in,” said Setsi. “And then Tufan came out and started whistling up the pack. I thought it would be best if I got out of there before he saw me. So I took the meat off the stick and threw it in the dog pen. Then I ran back to my room. I went in through the window.”

  Taya’s brows rose. “You went into your own room through the window?”

  “To avoid being seen,” said Setsi.

  “Is there anything else you remember?” asked Mandir. “Anyone else you saw, anything that happened after you returned to your room?”

  Setsi shook his head. “I just went to bed after that.”

  “Thank you,” said Mandir. “You’ve been helpful.”

  Chapter 19

  As they headed back to the house, Mandir rubbed the tension out of the back of his neck. They were running out of time. The sun was reaching its peak in the sky; soon it would head back down. Likely the funeral would be tonight, and once the guards had taken care of that, they wouldn’t want to stick around here any longer than they had to. They’d want to name the murderer quickly, and Mandir was worried his name might come too easily to their lips.

  He and Taya had made progress in working out the events of last night, but they were no closer to finding the killer. Ilinos looked suspicious, since he’d been the one to let out the dogs, as did Setsi, who openly admitted to being in the kitchen while Tufan’s wine cup was sitting unattended. Setsi, in addition, had an urgent reason to want Tufan dead. But just because they’d had motive and opportunity didn’t mean they’d committed the crime.

  And then there was Yanzu’s murder. How had Yanzu hurt his arm, and what connection did that have to the crime?

  A solitary figure stood on the riverbank, silhouetted against the blue sky. Mandir held up a hand to block the glare and saw that it was Bel-Zaidu, chopping down a tree. A pile of saplings lay near his feet—the raw materials for a funeral pyre, most likely. Old wood would be preferable, but there wasn’t much of that around.

  The door to the main house flew open, and Ilinos came running out.

  Mandir stiffened. He didn’t like Ilinos, and he also didn’t like the fact that, at the moment, the boy was near the top of his list of suspects.

  Ilinos spotted them and approached. “Have you seen Shala?”

  “We saw her this morning,” said Mandir.

  “I mean within the last hour or so.”

  “No, we haven’t,” said Taya. “Why do you ask?”

  “She hasn’t started making lunch, and nobody knows where she is.”

  “Everything’s changed now that Tufan is dead,” said Mandir.

  “Yes, well...” Ilinos seemed to have no good answer to this. He glanced at the river, where Bel-Zaidu, having brought down the tree, was now hewing off its branches.

  Mandir, deciding that the conversation was finished, took Taya’s hand and headed into the house.

  “Wait!” cried Ilinos.

  Mandir turned, annoyed.

  Ilinos addressed Taya. “I’m curious—did you see anything in your fire vision? Anything of interest to the murder case, maybe?”

  Mandir rolled his eyes. How transparent could the boy be? Ilinos knew he’d let the dogs out, and he also knew it made him look suspicious. Pestering Taya about it wasn’t going to help matters.

  “I’m sorry,” said Taya. “What I see in my fire visions is restricted to Coalition members.”

  “Oh.” Ilinos averted his gaze. “Because I thought maybe if you saw something, you might want somebody to maybe explain it to you.”

  Mandir steered Taya toward the main house. “We’ll keep that in mind.”

  “He suspects that we know,” said Taya softly as they entered the house. “We should talk to him about it. I’d like to hear what he admits to and what he doesn’t.”

  “We can do that at some point,” Mandir agreed. “But I wouldn’t trust a word that comes out of his mouth, and right now I’m more interested in Runawir. Come on.” He led her down the hallway to Runawir’s room.

  “Why Runawir?”

  “I’ll explain after we talk to him. I may be rude in there---certainly to him and probably to you. React naturally; just be aware that it’s an act. I need to provoke him into doing something.”

  “Into doing what?” Taya’s brows rose.

  “You’ll see, if he does it.” They were getting too close to Runawir’s room for Mandir to explain.

  As a child, Mandir had kept a close eye on Runawir’s room the way a sparrow watches the hawk’s nest. He had seldom dared to walk down this hallway openly. He’d do it only in secret, perhaps on a rare mission to throw a spider or snake into Runawir’s bed. Walking up to the man’s door so brazenly gave him a shivery feeling down his neck.

  The door was open, which was typical of Runawir, who liked to be aware of all the goings-on in the house. Runawir sat on his bed, mending a torn shirt, in a scene that might have made Mandir laugh, since it was so harmless and domestic-looking. He knew, however, that Runawir wasn’t harmless.

  Runa
wir raised his brows. “Did Bel-Sumai talk to you?”

  “No,” said Mandir.

  “He’s probably looking for you.”

  “What’s Bel-Sumai doing?” asked Mandir. “Interviewing each of us while Bel-Zaidu builds the funeral pyre?”

  “I don’t know anything about a pyre,” said Runawir. “But I’ve heard nobody’s making lunch.”

  “I heard that too. What’s a household of men to do without a woman to do all the work?” said Mandir. “We might all starve.”

  Runawir set down his mending, annoyed. “What do you want?”

  “I want to know what you did last night,” said Mandir.

  “I didn’t kill anybody,” said Runawir. “But why should I talk to you about it? You’re not in charge of the investigation.”

  “We just want to find out—” Taya began.

  “Quiet,” said Mandir. “This is a discussion between men.” Taya’s eyes flashed in offense. He hoped she remembered his warning, else he’d be in a lot of trouble later. “What happened last night after Setsi told you the dogs were loose?”

  “I’m only telling you because you know it already,” said Runawir. “I went out to help recover the dogs. We saw each other out there, or did that slip your mind? I’m sure you had a lot to think about, with two people to kill.”

  “Mandir didn’t murder anyone, and neither did I,” said Taya.

  “You and Yanzu fought last night,” said Mandir. “Over Shala.”

  “Over Tufan’s woman?” said Runawir. “I wouldn’t dare.”

  “Come on, you’ve done it many times. How else could she have become pregnant? Unless it was Yanzu or Shardali.”

  Runawir snorted. “Shardali? You think a man who can’t get his words out can get a girl pregnant?”

  “You slept with her last night,” Mandir accused. “And you wanted her for yourself from now on—that’s why you killed Tufan and Yanzu. Your rivals for her favors.”

  “Is that the best you’ve got?” Runawir got to his feet. “Little Mandir has a theory about who killed the prince, only it’s dumber than a garfish because even if I wanted Shala—which I don’t—she’d never be worth killing over.”