Umar shook his head emphatically. “Not at all, sir, not at all. The man who wore this belt just before me was promoted two weeks ago, and transferred to the other end of the Hetman’s domain. He is red of hair. His skin is not black, but freckled, and he had two good eyes when last I saw him. He couldn’t possibly be this Golovkin or whatever his name is-you can ask anyone here!”
“His name?”
“His name is Kovil. Ask anyone here!”
Wen Chang blinked as if in disappointment. “Then it appears he cannot be the man I seek . . . when Kovil left, did not another man go with him? The second man I am looking for is some years younger than the first. Not red-haired, but light of skin, and jolly of face and manner, though not always so jolly upon further acquaintance. His-”
“No, no.” Umar appeared to have taken renewed alarm. “Nothing like that. I mean no other man went with Kovil when he was transferred. Nor with the two strangers when they left. No, not at all.”
The Magistrate tried again, in his best soothing manner; but Umar’s latest fright was not going to be soothed away. Eventually Wen Chang expressed his regrets for having wasted the foreman’s time, and signed to his companions that they were ready to leave.
In a matter of only a few more minutes, Wen Chang was leading his small party away from the quarry in the direction Umar had indicated, almost directly opposite from that where the city of Eylau lay.
Kasimir could hardly wait until they had got out of ear- shot of the quarry to begin his protest. “Why didn’t you challenge the man, tell him we knew he was lying about those bodies? That they were all stabbed, and that one of them at least, the most deeply buried, was not that of a quarry worker!”
“I have my reasons for not challenging the man,” Wen Chang assured him mildly.
Since they had left the quarry the Firozpur lieutenant had been riding close enough to Kasimir and Wen Chang to be able to join in their conversation. “That third body,” Komi put in now, “could have been that of a newly arrived worker, one who had not been on the job long enough to acquire calluses on his hands, or even to be lashed.”
“You are quite right,” Wen Chang assented. “It could have been. But I am morally certain that it was not. For identification we must consider other evidence than the appearance of the body itself. Doctor Kasimir, how long would you say those men had been dead?”
“Two or three days would be about right, I’d say. Though it’s hard to tell in this dry heat. Corruption and mummification fight it out and like as not the latter wins. They’re slowly turning to stinking leather.”
“He was wearing,” said Lieutenant Komi stubbornly, “only a loincloth, like the other two. As for the stab wounds, perhaps the foreman-either the new one or the old one-grew angry, or went mad, and stabbed some of the workers. Perhaps one of the overseers went mad. Or perhaps there was a rebellion among the prisoners that had to be put down.”
Wen Chang signed agreement. “Admittedly those are possibilities. But the cloth was not a new one-did you notice that? It was dirty, even more so than would result from the mere proximity of his decaying body. The fabric of it was creased and frayed, as if from long usage, while at the same time the skin of that third man’s back was pale, not sun burnt as it would be if he’d worked even an hour here. The dirty loincloth was put on him only when he was buried, just in case there should someday be an investigation.”
Komi fell silent, frowning. Kasimir asked the Magistrate: “All right, then, sir. If the third man in the grave was not a quarry worker, who was he?”
“I believe he was one of the two men who came to the quarry carrying the Sword. In fact, he was the thief, the man who three nights ago took Stonecutter from the tent where you were sleeping.”
Kasimir sat back in his saddle, trying to digest it all. Looking at Komi, he saw with faint surprise that the lieutenant had been jarred out of his stoic calm at last.
Komi was shaking his head. But all he said was: “And then, the second body in the grave-?”
The Magistrate spoke gently. “Very probably it is that of the man who had just been rescued from the road-building gang-I hope he enjoyed his brief day of freedom. The third body, the last killed, the one buried on top, was most likely that of the man the other two were intending to set free from quarry labor.
“Using the Sword once, at the camp of the road gang, was a mistake on the part of our unfortunate thief, that might have been his downfall once I took up his trail. But he survived that blunder. Using the Sword again in the quarry proved fatal.”
Kasimir thought aloud for a couple of sentences. “So, the thief and his newly released comrade came here from the road-building site. They demonstrated the Sword here as the thief had done there-and then they were both murdered?”
“We have just seen their bodies. Men have been killed for far less than a Sword. Of course the foreman here must have been their murderer-I mean the real foreman, the man his replacement was good enough to describe for me, and name as Kovil.”
“You told Umar you were looking for two men.”
“And so I am, now. Kovil, however self-confident he may be, would have preferred not to carry the Sword into the city alone to try to sell it. He would have chosen someone as a companion, a bodyguard perhaps, if possible someone who knows Eylau and its ways . . . and possibly someone Umar fears even more than his old foreman. Umar was on the verge of describing that second man to us, but then he realized what he was doing and closed his mouth.
“I think we may rely, however, on his description of Kovil, the old foreman. Kovil has not been transferred peacefully away. Kovil is instead the chief instigator of the Sword-thief’s murder. No one else in the small dictatorship of that quarry could very well have arranged it. It is easy to imagine. A few smiles, apparent agreement-then treachery. A surprise attack, a double killing-then the prisoner who had been the object of the rescue attempt slain also, for good measure.”
“So, this man Kovil-and his companion if he indeed has one-they are now-?”
Wen Chang nodded in the direction of Eylau. “They left here two days ago. I presume that they are already in the city, doing their best to sell Stonecutter. Of course Kovil has also promised his assistant Umar a share in the profits. Probably the other overseers in the camp are also to get something for their silence.”
“We can still arrest Umar.”
The Magistrate shook his head. “Only on our own authority. The removal of the foreman from the quarry would very possibly create turmoil among the overseers and prisoners. This might result in escapes or even an uprising. We would very likely get ourselves into trouble with the Hetman, I do not know him, nor perhaps does he know me. And it is more than likely that at least one of the whip-carrying overseers still in the quarry is in on the plot also. And as soon as we were out of sight with our prisoner he would contrive to send a warning ahead to the man we really want, the one who took the Sword away. No, let them think that we are fooled. Come, we are out of sight of the quarry now. Let us turn back toward Eylau.”
CHAPTER 4
THERE was still half a day’s light available for traveling, and Wen Chang set his party a good pace upon the road to Eylau. Calling Lieutenant Komi up to ride beside him, while Kasimir remained close on his other side, he took pains to rehearse both of his chief associates in what he wanted to do when they reached the city.
The Magistrate intended to appear there in the character of a wealthy merchant, one who was particularly interested in buying and selling antique weapons. It would be quite natural for such a merchant to travel with a large, heavily armed escort. That the members of his escort were men of the tribe of Firozpur ought not to arouse suspicion, for the people of al-Farabi’s tribe had a reputation as reliable mercenaries, and hired out fairly often in that capacity.
Both men agreed that their leader’s plan sounded like a good one, and the ride went on, largely in silence. Now there was a faint smell of water in the air from time to time. The fierce aspect of the landscape gradually moderated. Birds became plentiful, tree-covered hills could be seen in the distance, and irrigated fields began to appear at no great distance from the road. The Tungri could no longer be far away.