“Naturally.” Wen Chang nodded. “And it is part of your job to know who these folk are.”
“I know most of them. And there are not many who’d want to handle something like the Orb-today there are even fewer, in fact, than there were just yesterday morning.”
The Magistrate’s hand paused, supporting a mug of ale halfway to his lips. “Oh? And what is responsible for this diminution in numbers?”
“I’d say it was the result of a disagreement between buyer and seller, of just what property I don’t know.” The Captain went on to relate how, only yesterday evening, one of the city’s most rascally merchants and most celebrated dealers in stolen valuables had been found dead, his body drifting in a backwater of the Tungri, near the lower docks.
Wen Chang had set down his mug again without drinking. “And have you turned up any clue, old friend, as to who killed this man or why?”
“Interests you, does it, Magistrate? I should have realized it would. No, I’m afraid that there’s no such clue. Apart from the fact that whatever happened was a bit more than your ordinary little squabble. Two other bodies were also found nearby, of men who must have been killed at the same time, in the same fight. Don’t know who they were.”
“And there is no clue as to who killed them, either.”
“Just so. Ah, we do our best, Magistrate. Whenever there’s a complaint of robbery or assault in the city we in the Watch will do what we can to get the miscreants taken into custody, and hold them for trial before the magistrates of this city.”
“I am sure that you do your best.”
“We do. But as you can well imagine, in a city of this size it would be hopeless to expect to solve very many of the crimes.”
Wen Chang drained his tankard. “It would interest me very much-and I am sure it would interest Kasimir too- if we could see those bodies, of the men killed yesterday.”
“Ah? And maybe your interest is a little more than purely theoretical?” The Captain’s eyes, suddenly shrewder than before, probed at both of his companions from under shaggy brows. “Well, the gods know I owe you a bigger favor than that, Magistrate. We’ll see what we can do, though the family of our late prominent merchant may not welcome any more attentions by the Watch.”
“It is the other bodies, the unidentified ones, that I find more particularly interesting.”
“Oh? That’s all right, then. Except that they may already have been exposed on the northern walls. We’d best go right away and take a look.”
Kasimir and the Captain finished their drinks.
In Eylau, as Captain Almagro explained while they walked, the disposal of paupers’ bodies, and any other unidentified or unclaimed dead, was carried out atop a section of city wall, a tall spur of fortification about a hundred meters long, which currently went nowhere and protected nothing. This section had become disconnected from the main walls of the city as a result of the destruction of some ancient war, and the subsequent rebuilding according to a different plan. Here, barely within the city’s modern walls, and four or five stories above the ground, the remains were set out in the open air to be the prey of winged scavengers. Many of these creatures were reptilian; others, originally the product of experiments in magic and genetics, were hybrids of reptile and bird.
There were no human dwellings very near the isolated section of wall now called the Paupers’ Palace, except for a few huts of the poor and almost homeless, who from their doorways could contemplate what their own final fate in this world was likely to be.
When the investigators arrived at the base of the mortuary wall, Captain Almagro sought out and spoke to a particular attendant. This man bowed and murmured his respect for the Captain, and passed the three visitors along to another man. This fellow conducted the three investigators up a stone stairway, dangerously worn and crumbling, to the wall’s top.
Here, under the leaden sky, filling the broad strip of pavement between the parapets, was a scattered litter of more-or-less dried human bones, with here and there a more recent arrival. The older bones, pulverized and scattered, crunched underfoot; if you moved about at all there was no way to avoid stepping on some of them. Kasimir understood from a few words of explanation offered by the attendant that the bones finally rejected by the scavengers were gathered periodically and burned or buried somewhere.
By now it had begun to drizzle again in Eylau, and Kasimir had heard people talking about the fierce windstorms out over the desert. Up here atop the Paupers’ Palace the drying-out of corpses was undoubtedly being set back by the wet weather. The smell here at the moment was rather worse than at the last opened grave, out in the quarry, and Kasimir once more pulled out an amulet from his pouch of magical equipment. Presently a scent of fresh mint began to dominate.
At a word from Almagro the attendant who had escorted them upstairs pointed out the two bodies that had been brought in with knife wounds yesterday afternoon.
Whatever the losers of that fight might have possessed in the way of clothing or valuables had of course been stripped from them already, either before or after they arrived at this last stop. By now, Kasimir noted, their eyes were missing as well, evidently the first gourmet morsels to be claimed by the scavengers. One of these reptilian beasts, the size of a large vulture but with iridescent scales, was in attendance now, and flew up heavily with a squeak of protest as the men approached.
But certain items of important evidence remained, and it might be possible to learn the essentials, thought Kasimir, even without making a very close examination of these bodies.
One of them was that of a red-haired, freckled man whose stocky build and thick limbs indicated that he had been strong, before someone’s narrow blade had opened those thin fatal doorways in his chest.
“The treacherous foreman,” Kasimir commented, almost at first glance. He chose to disregard the fact that his words could be heard by Almagro, who was standing back, watching intently to see what his old friend would be able to make of this evidence. There would be no keeping the Captain out of the matter now.
Wen Chang, kneeling by the first body, nodded abstractedly. In a moment he had concluded his own examination, and stood up, brushing off his hands.
“Treachery is a powerful medicine, and those who rely upon it are likely to die of an overdose. It is easy enough to imagine the scene yesterday. A meeting, somewhere near the river, between the murderous foreman Kovil, and the equally dishonest Eylau merchant, with each principal supported by at least one retainer. From the beginning, an enlightened distrust on both sides, who are strangers to each other. Then, the display of the stolen treasure-a vaster prize than even avarice had imagined-and then the sudden flare of treachery and violence.”
In a moment he had turned his attention to the second body. It was that of a stranger to Kasimir, though it ought to have been identifiable, he thought, by anyone who had known the man in life. This fellow too had died of blade wounds, and these wounds were larger, as if made by a full-sized sword, perhaps Stonecutter itself. By all reports eleven of the Twelve-all except Woundhealer-were fine weapons apart from the magical powers they possessed.
“This one has been neither prisoner nor overseer at a quarry in the desert,” Wen Chang muttered after a minute, standing up again. “His skin is everywhere too pale for that. I assume he is some minor criminal of the city.” Then he turned to Almagro and asked: “I would like to see the place where the bodies were found.”
“Of course.”
They descended from the wall, and Kasimir was able to put away his magic scent. Next Almagro conducted them back into the center of Eylau. Standing on the bank of the river, he pointed out the place where the bodies were said to have been found, drifting in a pool or large eddy on the left bank of the river.
The Magistrate looked up and about, slightly upstream.
“I see dark stains,” he announced, “upon that windowsill.”
Kasimir could see very little at the distance. But along with the Captain he followed the Magistrate into an old building whose empty windows gaped out over the Tungri.
The three investigators entered the building and climbed to an upper level to find that there were still bloodstains on the worn floor.
“There is no doubt that the fight took place here,” mused Wen Chang. “And whoever survived took the trouble to dump the bodies into the river, hoping thereby to postpone their discovery. Ah, if only I had been able to inspect this place sooner! Clues have a way of vanishing quickly with the passage of time.”