"Yet Ailea must have talked to someone," he added.
The scent of sausage and hot quith-pa met his nostrils, and he stepped into line with four elves at a luncheon vendor's stand. The dwarf continued to mutter, which, given the carnival atmosphere, didn't seem to faze the elves.
What if she had discovered something about Tyresian- something that Xenoth also knew? The aged elf lord had been in court for hundreds of years; certainly he was privy to vast amounts of information, some of which could have been intended to be kept secret. "Tyresian would have the same reason to kill Ailea that he had to slay Lord Xenoth," he murmured. He wished he had Tanis to talk to, but the half-elf was barred in his chambers at the palace.
He reached the front of the line and paid the vendor, then walked away, tearing off a juicy mouthful of sausage and bread. But the lunch went tasteless in his mouth as he realized he would have to do what he wanted least to do: go back to Eld Ailea's house and search it for clues.
Minutes later, he was standing before the midwife's dwelling, mindless of the singing, costumed elves who eddied around him. A black-uniformed palace guard, who looked as though he'd caught the carnival atmosphere despite the gravity of his task, leaned against the front door frame. He looked sharply at Flint as the dwarf stepped off the path and picked his way to the edge of the white petunia bed that the midwife had planted before the shuttered front window. None of the plants were damaged, and, brushing the white trumpet-shaped blooms aside, Flint saw no footprints in the rich dirt. The other window in front led to the second level. An elf would have to stand on another's shoulders to reach it.
The absurdity of his search suddenly struck Flint. "As if someone would have gone in through the window in broad daylight when there was an unlocked door an arm's length away," he said sotto voce. "Flint, you doorknob!"
He rose and brushed blades of crushed grass from his knees. The guard, a sharp-featured youth slightly older than Gilthanas, still watched. It occurred to Flint that the blond guard had not challenged him. "Has anyone been in the house since the death?" Flint demanded.
The guard shook his head. "The Speaker said no one was to be allowed in or near except you, Master Fireforge."
Flint felt a glow of warmth for the elven lord. "Are there other guards?" he asked from next to the petunias.
"One at the back door. No one inside."
The dwarf moved around the side of the house and peeked toward the back. The guard was sitting on the back stoop, eating a tomato-from Ailea's garden, no doubt. He leaped to his feet when he saw Flint. The dwarf said nothing, however; the youth could watch the door just as well sitting down as standing up, Flint figured, and Ailea would have welcomed someone enjoying the produce of her garden if she could not have used it herself.
Flint stepped back a few paces. The dwelling was only one room wide. The downstairs had held only the entry room and, behind that, the kitchen, which had no windows, only a small door to Ailea's backyard herb garden. The fireplace stood between the downstairs rooms, serving both the kitchen and the entry. Flint assumed Ailea's private room was upstairs, though he'd never seen it.
The guard didn't challenge Flint as the dwarf came around the curved side of the house and stepped up to the back door. That, too, would have been unlocked, knowing Ailea. The dwarf took a deep breath and moved through the door into the kitchen.
Ailea's presence was still strong in the kitchen. Crocks of preserved vegetables and dried fruits lined a hutch along one wall of the low-slung room. Flint remembered how Tanis had had to duck when he entered the kitchen, moving carefully to avoid the bunches of chives, sage, and basil that hung from the low rafters. The scent reminded the dwarf overpoweringly of Ailea, and anger swept through him.
His chin set, he moved through the kitchen, which still carried the memories of cheerful lunches with Tanis and the midwife, and resolutely set a foot into the entry room.
The room had not been cleaned after the midwife's body was removed. The smear of blood still stretched from door to fireplace. Baby pictures lay scattered. The square table, however, had been set upright, and on it was the painting that Eld Ailea was holding when Tanis found her.
Flint stepped over the brownish stain and reached for the painting. Done in Ailea's deft hand, it showed two youngsters, an infant and an older child, both blond with green eyes. The older child's eyes were deep-set and serious, however, while the infant's were open and ingenuous.
"I wonder who they are," Flint murmured. Ailea had never labeled her portraits; she'd known from memory whom each one was, even though hundreds crowded the cramped room. He set the painting back on the table.
Flint suspected he wouldn't know a clue if it leaped out and challenged him with a long sword. His gaze moved from painting to painting around the room, remembering how the abode had looked when Ailea lived there and seeking any element that no longer fit the room's coziness. Finally, shaking his head wearily, he trudged up the stone steps to the second level.
As with most folks, Ailea's bedroom showed more of her personality than did those rooms that the public might visit. The upstairs room smelled of lavender; bunches of the fragrant herb, tied with gray ribbons, had been laid on the midwife's dressing table, next to her tortoise-shell brush and the silver-inlaid combs that had held her braid tight on fancy occasions. Blackened iron hooks, a gift from Flint, held the gathered skirts she sewed in profusion: purple, red, green, and bright yellow. On a nearby table was a new beige shirt, brother to the green one and the blue one she'd made for Flint earlier. A skein of brown embroidery thread and a needle waited by the new garment.
A large feather bed, laid with a purple and green coverlet, stood in the center of the room, while a smaller pallet had been erected in an alcove near the fireplace. Before the hearth sat an ancient wooden rocking chair, scuffed and scarred but polished to a sheen. The dwarf stepped into the alcove and saw the lamps at the head and foot of the pallet, a cauldron on the hearth, and thick piles of sheets, towels, and swaddling rags on a night table nearby. A basket cradle swung from a long iron hook set deep into the ceiling. This was, Flint realized, the alcove to which so many elven women had come to give birth.
Several hours later, as shadows began to lengthen into late afternoon, Flint finished going through Ailea's private records, searching for clues but feeling like a thief. Most of her pieces of parchment referred to births or to herbal remedies that had been effective in treating particular ailments. A search of the eight-drawer chiffonnier next to the feather bed yielded no information that, as far as he could see, had any link to the crime.
Then Flint saw the painting, in a delicate silver and gold frame, that sat atop the chiffonnier. The sidepieces of the frame had been rubbed shiny, as though the owner had often stood here, beholding the painting. He touched a thick finger to it; the paint was faded and old-older, he knew, than he was. It showed a young elf, slight of build, with round, greenish brown eyes and a face like a cat's, standing next to an elderly human man with a square jaw and clothes that proclaimed him to be a farmer. A tidy but small house, with white petunias framing the front path, stood in the background. The two figures were holding hands, and the expression on the faces managed to reflect both great content and overbearing sadness at the same time.
Feeling suddenly as though he were peering through a window into a private scene, Flint returned the painting to the chiffonnier and stepped briskly around the bed and back to the stairway. There was nothing here that contained the slightest clue pertaining to Lord Xenoth.