“This way, Learned,” and, entering before them, “Learned Lord Penric, my lord. And party.”
They entered a pleasant bookroom, primarily furnished with a writing desk behind which their host-and-quarry sat with papers and ledgers spread out. Oil lamps and wall sconces relieved the evening shadows, warming the room quite enough without a fire in the grate. Wegae’s eyes, magnified by his spectacles, widened with interest at the pair Penric trailed. “Ah, yes. It’s all right, Jons.” He unfolded from his chair and came around his desk, receiving Penric standing, as an equal.
Pen ran through the introductions, with no reaction from Wegae beyond baffled curiosity. They were invited to two cushion-padded benches set across from each other before the dark fireplace. The porter brought around the desk chair to make up the numbers, which Wegae took. Penric politely declined Wegae’s offer of refreshments, and the servant went off. Penric and Oswyl glanced across at each other. When Oswyl did not at once take the lead, Penric opened his hand to him; he seemed to take a breath like a swimmer before plunging in.
“Yesterday morning, the lay dedicat from the village temple at Weir was checking snares in your woods nearby, when he came across the body of a woman,” Oswyl began. “His divine sent promptly to the Father’s Order. I was dispatched to examine the scene, together with, later, Learned Penric and Shaman Inglis.”
“Five gods,” said Wegae, and signed himself in reflexive dismay. “Who was she? What had happened to her?”
Oswyl’s narrow look at this first reaction evidently found nothing to pause for—Pen wasn’t sure if he was disappointed—for he went on to summarize the scene much as he had for Learned Hamo. “She proved to be an Easthome Temple sorceress, Learned Magal. Do you know the woman? Ever meet or see her?”
Wegae, wide-eyed, shook his head from side to side. “I direct my devotions to the Father’s Order these days. I’ve not had much to do with the house of the white god. They’d always seemed rather strange and secretive, over there. Um.” He looked briefly as if he’d like to swallow back that last remark, considering present company, but it was too late and he forged on. “I’d not even met a sorcerer to talk to before Learned Lord Penric last night. Wait.” He blinked, turning his head to Pen. “Did you know about this then? Is that why you spoke to me?”
There seemed no reason to dissimulate. “Yes, and yes.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“At Princess Llewanna’s party?” Pen countered, dodging the question nimbly.
Wegae seemed to accept this: “Oh, of course.” He scrubbed his hand through his hair, but his stare at Pen remained round. Maybe it was just the spectacles? “Why would anyone do such a heinous thing?”
“That is my puzzle to solve,” said Oswyl, “and it’s proving peculiar. How she was killed was clear enough. Why is still unknown. It was not theft. The only treasure she bore was her Temple demon, which seems to have, ah, escaped. Perhaps you could speak to that, Penric?”
Penric cleared his throat. “Our present best guess was that when Magal died, her demon jumped to a passing fox, which ran off into your woods. The murderer seems to have given it chase, futilely. Learned Hamo, Magal’s Temple superior, has passed me the mandate to locate and secure the lost demon, which we think is still somewhere on your lands.”
“Oh,” said Wegae. “Did you wish permission to search my woods? Certainly you may.”
“Thank you,” said Penric, wondering if this was an opportune opening for a confession. If you’re going to, yes, opined Des. Ah, so she was listening in, good. “In fact, Shaman Inglis and I took a preliminary look up that way earlier today.”
“What did you find?” Wegae asked, his interest in the tragedy clearly overshadowing any concern about trespassers on land he never visited. He could have chosen to be sticky about that.
“Not the fox we were looking for, unfortunately. But we did encounter your forester, Treuch, who was very busy about the woods—trapping foxes. He’d secured seven of them alive, so far. I will say, he did his job for you by inviting us to leave.”
“Treuch.” Wegae grimaced. “He quite frightened me as a boy, when I was dragged up there to try to teach me the sports of a nobleman. I was only my uncle’s heir presumptive at that point, his poor wife not yet having proved barren, so eventually my complete ineptitude frustrated them into desisting. Thankfully.”
“You could dismiss him now, if you don’t like him,” Pen noted.
“Oh, I couldn’t do that! He’s been a kin Pikepool retainer for ages and ages. He knows no other life.”
“But you may see,” said Oswyl, “why I also wish to obtain your permission to question your people.”
“Oh,” said Wegae again, more thoughtfully. “Do you think Treuch could have had something to do with it? I mean, he’s a hardy man, but he’s not… I could picture him killing someone in a drunken brawl, except that he doesn’t brawl. Or drink that much.”
“Either he has something to do, or knows something about it,” suggested Oswyl.
Pen considered yet again his theory of a man killing a woman by mistake for a deer. “If he shot someone in error, thinking them an animal or a poacher, would he run off, or report it?”
“I should think report it, although… a Temple sorceress would be a very alarming victim for the man.” He added after a moment, “For any man.”
“Do you think he would be physically capable of such an act? Putting two arrows through a person at that distance?” asked Oswyl.
“Well, yes, but…” Wegae shrugged unhappily. “Many men might have that skill. My late uncle, for one.”
And himself, for another, Pen reflected. Could wasn’t would. Necessary but not sufficient, as his mentors had tagged arguments in seminary.
Wegae went on, “Uncle Halber was a passionate hunter, and skilled in all the usual manly sports. Riding, wrestling, you name it.”
“What exactly happened to him?” asked Oswyl.
Wegae looked surprised. “Do you not know? I thought everybody did.”
“Only in broad outline. His was not my case, and those inquirers and justiciars most closely involved were obliged not to gossip about it.”
Bet they do anyway, murmured Des, in the halls of their house. Even the Father’s devotees are not so inhumanly rigid.
Hsh, thought Pen back, though he privately agreed.
“I’m not sure I know that much more myself,” said Wegae. “I was working as a lay dedicat for the Father’s Order at Shallowford at the time, and only had letters from my mother and sister about the matter, and from the lawyers, until the legal issues were settled and I was sent for. My mother was following things more closely here in Easthome, on my behalf. You might ask her. It was all so very disturbing. Although it did involve a Temple sorceress, come to think.”
“Who?” Oswyl and Penric both asked at once.
“Not Magal. What was her name?” He knuckled his forehead. “Sverda. Or Svedra, one of those.”
Pen came off-point, letting his breath back out. “Locator Oswyl has likely heard more of the tale than I have. Could you begin at the beginning?”
“Insofar as I know it. My aunt was found dead at the bottom of the main staircase of the old manor house, assumed to have broken her neck in an accidental fall, unwitnessed. It would have passed quietly as a private tragedy, but at her funeral no sacred animal signed her soul as taken up. At my mother’s insistence, a Temple sensitive was dispatched at once to look for her ghost, lest her soul be sundered. That was this Learned, um, Svedra. She testified to have found my aunt’s shade, repeatedly acting out a different tale on the stairs. She would have it that she was pushed down by her husband, presumably in the midst of one of their many disputes—I have to admit, she was a notable shrew—”