Her father looked from her to Ulin, who merely shrugged, and back again to Lucy. “My dear, I-”
Her eyes abruptly focused on his face with the sharpness of a spearpoint. “Do not call me that. I am the sheriff of this town, not some wench you can charm. Now that we have you here, you are to stand trial for the theft of Flotsam’s annual taxes.”
He recoiled from the intense animosity in her voice and expression. Something flickered through his green eyes. “Here? Now? This is no public trial.”
“Be thankful it isn’t,” Mayor Efrim declared, on the verge of anger. “Most of the people in this town wouldn’t hesitate to lynch you on the spot.”
The old man drew a chair to face the group and pointed to it. Kethril’s guards set him in the chair with quick efficiency, chained his ankles to the chair legs, and took their places on either side of him. Challie stood to his left. The mayor found another chair and sat to his right.
Kethril fired a glare at Ulin. “Is this your idea of safe conduct?”
“You haven’t been injured yet,” Ulin answered reasonably.
“Safe conduct?” Lucy repeated, her full mouth tight with disapproval.
“I gave him my word I would insure his safe conduct in Flotsam if he would come of his own will to face the city council and the sheriff.”
“You gave your word, Ulin,” Aylesworthy said loudly. “I say hang him.”
Protestations, agreements, and arguments of all kinds burst from the inhabitants of the room. The noise quickly grew to a chaotic babble.
Lucy rose slowly to her feet and faced the group, her round face etched with determination and fine lines of tension. “Silence!” she shouted at them all. It was a measure of their respect for her that everyone fell quiet at her demand and gave her their full attention. “This is an inquiry. We need facts and honesty before we can decide what to do. There will be no sentencing of the prisoner until we are all in agreement. Is that understood?”
At their nods of assent, she resumed her seat. Mayor Efrim called the inquiry to order and went immediately to the point. “Kethril Torkay, you are accused of stealing the treasury of the city of Flotsam and thereby endangering the inhabitants who are unable to replace that money. How do you plead?”
Every head swiveled to look at the culprit who sat chained to his chair, his handsome face posed with a half-smile. “Not guilty, of course,” he said as if it should be obvious to everyone.
The mayor did not give the spectators a chance to react. “Magistrate,” he ordered with a strength that belied his infirm age. “Present the evidence.”
Chalcedony bowed to the mayor. From a satchel she had stowed under a table, she withdrew a sheaf of parchment, some flat pieces of what looked like broken glass wrapped in a scrap of linen, and a strange flat rectangle of dried plaster.
“I would like to show the court this”-she pulled out a piece of paper and held it up for everyone to see-“the signed death-bed confession of Bernic, a cutpurse who admitted to aiding Kethril Torkay in the theft of the Flotsam Treasury. Only an untimely explosion stopped the theft before it could be completed-and mortally wounded the witness. He identified himself and his ringleader, Kethril Torkay, before he died.” She slapped the paper on the table and laid out the pieces of broken glass and the plaster. “Notwen, if you please, will you identify these two items?”
The gnome came forward, shooting nervous glances at the people clustered around. He wasn’t used to so much avid attention. “Um, before I explain the significance of this glass, will everyone take a look at the tips of their fingers?”
Curious and willing, the people lifted their hands and scrutinized their fingers. Ulin, who knew the significance of Notwen’s request, kept his arms crossed. Behind Lucy, he sat quietly in the shadows and watched the faces of the Flotsamites and of Kethril Torkay. He added nothing to the proceedings, for he was aware that his silent, mysterious appraisal was as powerful an addition to Lucy’s authority as her own reputation.
Notwen went on to explain. “If you look closely at your fingertips, you will see there are patterns of whorls and lines in the skin. No two patterns are identical.” He paused as the onlookers studied their fingers and compared them to those of others.
“All right,” the blacksmith said testily. “So what?”
“These patterns can be used to identify a person. Have you ever noticed the marks or prints yours hands or fingers leave behind on flat shiny surfaces? How many times have you had to polish a blade or wipe marks off glass or jewelry or brass or silver?”
Aylesworthy nodded his understanding while the others around him looked on in dawning comprehension.
Kethril seemed frozen in his chair. Nothing moved in his face but his cold green eyes as they flicked from Notwen to the glass on the table to the people around him before finally settling on Lucy’s accusing stare.
Notwen picked out a piece of glass and held it up by the edges. The thin piece gleamed in his hand and reflected back the light of the lamps. “This is from a mirror, a brass framed mirror I found in the tunnel under the ruins of the treasury room. It was close to the collapsed entry into the room near the debris pile. I know it was originally part of the collected tribute, and you will find it on the inventory list.”
Challie held up a second piece of parchment and laid it beside the first.
Notwen was more confident now as he delved into a subject he enjoyed. “I have a powder that makes fingerprints more visible. When I dusted this mirror with my powder I found several prints on the glass and I made copies of the patterns.” Once again Challie held up several papers, these marked with the swirling patterns found on human fingertips. “Two prints did not match the accused, but one is an exact match of his thumbprint,” Notwen said. “So we must ask, if he did not handle the mirror, how did his print come to be on its glass?”
Kethril shifted in his chair as if he suddenly found its seat uncomfortable. “That’s ridiculous,” he tried to laugh heartily. “Even if there were fingerprints on that mirror, how could they survive the explosion?”
Notwen’s brown face lit with a grin. “We were lucky there. You must have dropped the mirror after the explosion, and when it fell, it landed upside down on a piece of board.”
“Fascinating, Master Gnome,” Mayor Efrim said patiently-the patience of a cat waiting at a mousehole to pounce. “Please go on.”
Notwen put the glass down and picked up the plaster. “This is a mold I made of a bootprint I found in the newly dug tunnel leading to the treasury.” He held it up over his head. “As you can see I cannot positively identify the wearer of something so common, but after a number of calculations, I can tell you the person who made this print was a man, about six foot plus several inches, who weighed about two hundred pounds. This boot was worn slightly at the heel and had a slight crack across the ball of the foot. There were several other prints in the dirt that fell after the tunnel collapsed, all leading out, but this is the only one clear enough to make a mold.”
Lysandros spoke up. “To be fair, Notwen, many men besides Kethril fit the description you just gave. Is there any way to be more certain?”
“Not without the original boot,” Notwen replied. “All this does is strengthen the circumstantial evidence.”
“Which is nothing!” Kethril blurted out. “You have no clear evidence that I took that money.”
“Maybe not,” Ulin said from the back, “but I have your exact words: ‘Oh, departed gods, I don’t believe this. Flotsam. They’ll kill me.’ Now why would you say that unless you truly feared some consequence if you returned to Flotsam? According to these people, they hardly know you. Why would they want to kill you … unless they knew what you knew: that you stole their treasury?”
“Hogfeathers!” Kethril said loudly. “I haven’t been in Flotsam in years.”
“Of course you have,” Notwen said, waving the plaster mold. “You stole our taxes.”