Deon looked steadfastly at the ground, shoulders shaking.
“It is certainly more than Deon was willing to do for him,” Sharryn said tartly.
There was a brief silence.
Well?
She was strangled. Her killer knew she worked in the bakery, knew she would be there at closing time, and had strong hands.
And our choice is a smith or a fletcher. You’re a lot of help. What does the Sword say?
Nothing. It won’t until you identify the guilty and pronounce a verdict. You know that.
I live in hope. “Goodman,” Sharryn said to Nestor. “Were there any signs of a struggle in the bakery?”
He shook his head. “Seer, there were not.”
So she didn’t fight. She knew him, and the attack came too suddenly for her to struggle.
“Who knew this girl?” Sharryn said. “Step forward and be heard.”
There was a brief silence from the crowd, whose mood was by then more bewildered than hostile. They were still angry, but they were intent on every word spoken in the drama being enacted before them, determined to see the story through to its end.
“Excuse me,” a strong voice said. The crowd parted to let two women through to the space before the dais. They were both delicate of feature and dark of hair and eye. Middle age had brought the elder laugh lines and gray hairs, and her waist was no longer as slender as her daughter’s. Both were well dressed and bore the unmistakable stamp of the burgher. Both also bore the pincushion bracelet of the tailor.
“Seer,” the older woman said, bending her head briefly. “I am Irene, daughter of Charis, daughter of Kiril, and a tailor in the city of Daean in the province of Kleonea. This is my daughter, Delphine. Nella was her friend.”
Irene looked at Delphine, who didn’t move. Irene placed a hand on her daughter’s lower back and gave a firm nudge. Delphine was forced forward a step, and there she halted. Her brown eyes were wide and fearful, and she was obviously reluctant to speak. Her mother nudged her again.
“Seer,” she said. “I-I am D-D-Delphine, d-d-daughter of Irene, d-d-daughter of Martin, of the city of Daean in the province of Kleonea.” She clasped her hands before her tightly and looked imploringly at her mother. Her mother looked implacably back.
“Delphine, daughter of Irene, place your hand on my staff,” Sharryn said. The girl looked desperately this way and that, found no help, and took three stumbling steps forward to place a shrinking palm against the wood. She looked surprised not to have her hand struck off at the wrist.
“You knew the dead girl?”
“Seer, I d-d-did.”
Sharryn waited. Delphine knotted her free hand in her skirt.
“Come, goodwoman,” Sharryn said. “There is nothing to fear here, so long as you tell the truth.” Delphine cast a quick look at Deon. There was no blood or bruising on the hand that had lain upon the staff, but the fingers had yet to move, and he cradled it tenderly against his chest. “Did you see Nella yesterday?”
Delphine gave a quick nod. “Seer, I was at the bakery in the morning. Nella and I made plans to meet at the sweetshop and go round the square to see who was here for Festival.”
Keeping a weather eye out for visiting poets, no doubt.
Quiet. “Did you see her again yesterday?” A shake of the head. “Did she speak of Elias or Deon to you?”
Delphine looked even more uncomfortable, if that was possible.
“Did Nella perhaps have many friends among the young men of the town?” Sharryn suggested.
Delphine’s relief was immediate and immense. “Seer, she did. They were all in love with her. She was so beautiful, why shouldn’t they be?”
“Did she favor any one above the rest?”
The girl’s brow knit. “Seer, I believe she did not.”
“Not Elias the smith? Not Deon the fletcher?”
“Seer, I believe not.”
“It’s not true,” said Deon, “she loved me!” Elias said nothing, staring straight ahead with a face like stone.
“So you went to the sweetshop to wait for Nella,” Sharryn said to Delphine.
“Seer, I did. But she did not come. So I went to the bakery.”
“You went to the bakery?”
“Seer, I did, but the baker said she was gone.”
There was a moment of silence. The hilt of the Sword began to vibrate in Crow’s hands, and a faint, fine line of light limned the edge.
The kneading of all that dough also makes for strong hands.
“When was this, Delphine?”
“Seer, at a little before sunset. My mother let me leave our shop early.”
Sharryn looked at Irene, who nodded.
“Did you go into the bakery?” Sharryn said.
“Seer, I did not. Nestor the baker came out the door as I came down the street.”
“Did you speak to him?”
“Seer, I did. I asked him where Nella was, and he said she had left the shop before sunset to meet me.”
“Step back from the staff,” Sharryn said.
Delphine dropped her hand and scuttled behind her mother, standing on tiptoe to peer over Irene’s shoulder.
“Nestor the baker, come forward,” Sharryn said.
“I won’t then,” he said truculently. He raised his voice. “This is nothing but magic, and black magic at that! She has laid a geas upon us all!”
Irene looked at him. “Why?”
The simple question halted him for only a moment. “To make mischief, that’s why! To bring the blackest of magic back to the Nine Provinces! To enslave us all again to the wishes of wizards! I found Elias kneeling over my daughter’s body!”
Oh, so now she’s his daughter.
“I will not come forward to lay my hand again upon that enchanted staff! Who knows what the wizard could make me say! It is the spirit of Nyssa come amongst us again! I will not!”
Sharryn raised neither the staff nor her voice. “Nestor the baker,” she said, the words dropping oh so coldly into the torchlight, “come forward.”
Nestor, his face contorted with anger and fear, was forced by an invisible hand to place one halting foot in front of the other, until he came before the dais.
“Place your hand upon my staff,” Sharryn said, in that same cold, inflexible voice.
Inch by inexorable inch, his arm was forced up. He cried out when his hand touched the wood, but it caught him fast.
“Nestor the baker of the city of Daean, father in law to Nella, now deceased, were you in your bakery yesterday afternoon?”
“Of course I was in my bakery!” he shouted. “It’s my business, I own it.”
“Was Nella also in your bakery yesterday afternoon?”
“She works there, she’s my apprentice, of course she was there!”
“Were you both there when she was attacked?”
“No, I-aaaaaahhhhh!” Nestor screamed and writhed, tendons distended as he tried to pull free of the staff.
“Were you in the bakery when Nella was attacked?” Sharryn said.
“No, no, I tell you-” Nestor shrieked again. His feet were kicking, pushing at the dais. Tears were streaming from his eyes, mucus from his nose, and his mouth was pulled into a rictus of pain.
Agathi was staring at the scene before her, her eyes wide, her mouth a little open. “What is wrong with my husband? I don’t understand. What is wrong?” Her friend put an arm around her and patted her wordlessly. Crow found a moment to pity her before Sharryn spoke again.
“I will not repeat my question a third time, Nestor the baker of Kleonea.”
He broke, suddenly and absolutely and completely. “All right, all right, make it stop! Please, Seer, please, I beg you, just make it stop! I killed her! I killed Nella! Make it stop!”
And as simply as that his hand was free. He slumped against the dais, his face pressed into the sawdust at her feet, moaning and clasping his arm. Sharryn waited, looking in the moonlight like a statue. The crowded waited, too, silent, still; it seemed to Crow they had ceased even to breathe.