"Of course," he said. "Forgive me if I do not stand. My man will show you out."
I bowed. He leaned back as if exhausted; I guess I'd tired him out a bit. It would be an odd sort of irony if my visit exerted him to the point where he dropped dead.
The butler guided me down the stairs and back toward the front doors.
"Did you know him?" I asked suddenly.
"My lord?"
"Zollie. Did you know him?"
He cleared his throat, started to speak, then just nodded.
"What happened?" I asked him.
We had reached the front door. He stopped with his hand out toward the iron handle and gave me a look of inquiry. "My lord?"
I shrugged and met his gaze. "You must have a theory about who killed him, and why."
"Not at all, my lord."
"Crap."
He hesitated. "Did my lord know him?"
"No, but the matter interests me. I was told he was killed by a witch."
"So it would seem, my lord."
"What was the actual cause of death?"
"Sudden heart failure, my lord."
"Um. And you're sure it was a witch?'
"He had the mark."
"The mark?"
"The witch-mark, my lord."
"What's a witch-mark?"
It's hard to describe the look he gave me. It was a mix of surprise, reserve, disbelief, and courtesy. I'm not certain Teldra could have done it better. I waited him out. He said, "I'm sure I wouldn't know, my lord."
"Who would?"
"My lord?"
"Cut it out. Just don't. I'm in a very bad mood, and you don't want to make it any worse. Where did you hear about it, and who would know?"
I could see him at war with himself for an instant, but training, or fear, or something else won. He said, "My lord, I would have no idea about such things."
"All right," I said. "He had a girl he liked to meet at the inn. What is her name?"
He only hesitated a moment, that time. "Eelie," he said.
"Thanks," I said with a bit of a twist on it.
"I shall have the groom bring your horse." He held the door for me and stood like a statue. I really had no choice but to go through it.
I waited in front, and presently the groom emerged, leading Marsi.
I never did learn the butler's name. Maybe he didn't have one.
I gave the stable-boy back at the Pointy Hat a good tip, which he accepted graciously, and then I said good-bye to Marsi, as good a horse as they get, I think; even Loiosh didn't have anything bad to say about her. Here's an odd thing: The inn was feeling enough like home to me that I found I didn't need to conceal how wobbly I was after dismounting.
I got a glass of coffee from the host and went over to what had become "my table" sometime in the last couple of days. Sitting felt good. The ache in my legs passed quickly; it took longer before I had relaxed enough to think clearly. The coffee helped in that, but klava would have helped more. Dammit.
I noticed I was hungry and thought about getting more lamb stew, but changed my mind. Instead I went back out into the street, where the stench pretty effectively killed my appetite. I walked past the docks and saw the factory—excuse me, the "mill"— churning out smoke and stench. I didn't slow down. I got to the other inn and noticed for the first time that they had incense burners about the room. It must have been fairly subtle incense for me not to have noticed, but it worked. I wondered why the Hat didn't have them. Maybe they did and they were just concealed better.
At this time of the day—it was still early afternoon—I had the place to myself save for a bored-looking middle-aged barmaid, who asked if I wanted anything. My appetite had returned, so I ended up getting some decent bean soup and a loaf of bread served with garlic cloves and a lot of butter. Good butter.
As the barmaid was bringing me a glass of bitter-tasting wine called Enekesner (I got the name to be certain I never accidentally ordered it again), I asked her when Eelie would be showing up.
"Won't be in today," she said.
"Where can I find her?"
She looked me over. She'd done something to darken her eyebrows, and something else to make her lips shiny. I've always wondered about stuff like that. But not too much.
"Don't waste your time," she said.
"Is she a friend of yours?"
She shrugged. "Not especially. Why?"
I pulled out three silver coins and let them ring on top of the table. "Where can I find her?"
Her eyes widened, and she said, "Upstairs, room at the end of the hall."
I was glad the barmaid hadn't been a friend of hers; it would have cost me another coin. I took my time finishing the meal, then went to the back and up the stairs. I had to hit the door twice before I heard a faint voice say, "What is it?"
"My name is Merss," I said. "I want to talk to you."
"Go away," she suggested.
"Open the door," I suggested back, "or I'll knock the bloody thing down."
There was a pause, and the door opened. She was pretty enough, I guess, except for her eyes. She'd been crying.
"Tell me what you know," I said, continuing with the whole suggestion line.
"What the hell does it matter to you?" She started crying again. I ignored it.
"I'm going to find out who did it, and kill him," I said.
Her red eyes widened a little. "Why?" she said, barely whispering.
"I'm just in that kind of a mood," I said. "Tell me what you know."
She hesitated again, then stood aside, which I took as an invitation to enter her room. I did so, and she shut the door. It was a tiny room, with little enough to show who she was, and that little I paid no attention to. There was the bed and a chair. She didn't suggest I sit, so I just stood there and waited.
"You talked to him last night," she said.
"Yeah."
"He told me about you. He thought you ..."
"What?"
"He thought you were funny." She started sobbing. I leaned against the door and waited. A moment later she said, "I'm sorry."
"I'm told a witch killed him."
"He had the witch-mark."
"What is the witch-mark?"
Her eyes flicked to Loiosh and Rocza, then back to me; her forehead was creased. "Different lands, different customs, different ways of doing things," I told her. "I've heard of a witch's mark, something that indicates a person is a witch. I don't think you're using the term that way, and, anyway, I don't believe in them. Fill me in. What is a witch-mark?"
"When they found him, his lips were red."
"Um," I said. "Why is that called a witch-mark?"
"You really don't know?"
Patience, Vlad. "I really don't know."
"A witch will send an imp down your throat to your heart. The imp leaves red footprints on the lips."
There were some problems with that—the first being that you can't really get to the heart from the throat (you pick up a bit of anatomy when you kill people for a living), the second being that I don't believe in imps.
To be sure, there is a way to kill someone using the Art that will leave red lips; it involves a simple transformation, replacing the contents of his lungs with the smoke from your brazier. But—
Okay, now wasn't the time. "All right," I said. "Where was he found?"
She looked at me for a long moment, then looked at her bed, then back at me.
"Oh," I said.
"He was going to marry me," she said. "He told me so."
I nodded, choosing not to ask when he had told her and how many times for fear she might take it the right way. Okay, so I'm a bastard; but there are limits. "I'm sorry," I told her. "I'll leave you alone now."
"You'll find out who did it?" she said, and there was something a little scary in her eyes.
"Yes, I will. I'll also find out why."
"And you'll kill him?"
"Yes," I said. "I will."
"Good," she said. "Will you make it slow?"
"I'll make it certain."
She nodded.