He sighed and headed back to town, mentally counting the number of days until the temple dedication. Until then, he had a murderer to find and an increasing amount of work to do.
CHAPTER 9
The incident with the gnomes and the problems their invention caused got Gerard to thinking that, to forestall another such brouhaha, he ought to keep track of all the strangers streaming to town for the temple dedication. To this end, he set up registration checkpoints on the three major roads between Solace and the towns of Haven, Gateway, and Que-Kiri.
The checkpoints did not sit well with many travelers. "You mean I have to present my credentials before I can come into town?" a merchant with a wagon-load of wine barrels demanded when he was stopped on the way in from Gateway. "Why, I've been distributing wine in these parts for nigh on fifteen years, and I've never had to suffer such nonsense before."
"It's just a precautionary measure," Gerard explained, while the town guardsman manning the new, brightly painted booth looked on impassively. "Especially with so many new visitors lately. However, you will have to purchase a merchant's writ to do business in Solace."
"I suppose next you'll be wanting to tell me where I have to stay while I'm in town, and who I can do business with," the merchant groused as he paid for his writ and showed his papers to the guardsman.
The guardsman peered at the merchant's documents i closely, unwilling to be hurried, before stamping the papers and handing them back, along with a fresh merchant's seal and an institutional-grade, formal smile. "Have a good stay while in Solace," the guard said. "Be sure to check in with the appropriate authorities at the time of your departure."
The merchant harrumphed and started up his team, the great wagon rolling ponderously with the sound of much sloshing inside the barrels as the merchant made his way toward Solace.
The next man, a tinker with a huge pack on his back, slouched up to the booth and presented his papers with similar grumbling. When it came to paying for his merchant's writ, he refused.
"Look, it's a decision by the town council to require this," Gerard argued.
"I've never had to buy one before, and I'm not buying one now."
"Then I'm afraid you can't conduct business in town."
"Oh?" The tinker's eyebrows rose in mock surprise. "And who's going to stop me?"
"I am," Gerard said wearily and signaled to another guardsman who bundled the tinker, now howling with outrage, off for a night in jail. "Maybe you'll be willing to abide by the municipal ordinances in the morning," Gerard said.
At midmorning he went to see how the other checkpoints were doing, accompanied by Vercleese.
The reaction at each of the other checkpoints was the same: visitors to Solace were taking umbrage at being detained and having their business questioned. No one was eager to pay for a merchant's writ either, when they had never had to purchase one previously.
"Do you think possibly the price of what you are trying to accomplish might be worse than any possible threat to the welfare of Solace?" Vercleese asked Gerard, as they headed toward the final checkpoint, on the road leading to Que-Kiri.
Gerard stuck his jaw out. "It's for the common good. It helps us to know who's coming and going in town. And the writ fees go into the town treasury."
"But Solace has always been a wide open town," the knight said softly.
"Some people might object at first," argued Gerard, "but they'll get used to it."
Solace merchants, meanwhile, were up in arms over another innovation. The enterprising crier Tangletoe Snakeweed had instituted a new practice, taking advantage of the sharp rise in local commerce. He was extolling the virtues of certain merchants' wares for a price while on his rounds. "It's unfair to the rest of us!" a cobbler complained as soon as Gerard and Vercleese returned to town from their round of the checkpoints. "It's an impediment to free trade!"
"That's Evan Grobbel," Vercleese whispered to Gerard. "Although he's better known as Evan the Grouch."
"Why don't you just pay Tangletoe a pittance to out your goods?" Gerard asked the cobbler, though privately he agreed with the Grouch that the kender had overstepped his duties.
"Why should I have to pay, when the people of Solace already know what fine shoes I make?"
"If everyone already knows you do good work, then you have nothing to worry about," Gerard said.
"But he praises all my competitors!" shouted Evan as Gerard slipped inside the guard headquarters, where he maintained an office. "And besides, it's the principle of the thing!"
" 'The principle of the thing' is the most expensive commodity out there," Gerard remarked dryly to Vercleese. "I wish I could corner the market on that one. I'd retire a wealthy man at a very early age."
Vercleese, absently stroking his mustache, said nothing.
The next couple of hours Gerard had set aside to pore over the volumes of codes, ordinances, and writs he had received from the town council. By lunch time, he was ready to forget them all and pretend he'd never heard of a civic statute, much less been hired to enforce the whole confusing lot of them. His head swam from trying to decipher the endless knots of tangled legalese in order to determine who owed whom what in the matter of one person's well becoming contaminated if another person's chickens jumped in and drowned. Or who was to blame if one man pulled up paving stones from the middle of the road, intending to use them in building a house, while another man stepped into the resulting hole in the dark and broke his leg. But reading about a case involving the statute did make him more wary of where he walked through town at night. Besides, there was another whole section of rules pertaining to pig wastes in city thoroughfares, which posed a threat to pedestrians of an entirely different nature.
Gerard didn't want to encounter any holes in the street, or pig waste, on any of his nocturnal strolls.
He and Vercleese headed to the inn for lunch. Gerard nodded greetings to several individuals they met along the way, pleased to realize that he was getting to know a fair percentage of the town's citizenry. At one point, they encountered a tall, elegant woman whose gray hair was pulled back in a severe bun, giving her a formidable though dignified look. Gerard shot a questioning glance at Vercleese, who introduced him to Goodwife Gottlief.
"Ah, the neighbor of Lady Drebble," Gerard said.
Goodwife Gottlief pursed her lips. "Yes, Lady Drebble. I hesitate to say anything, sheriff, but I fear something may be ailing my neighbor."
"What makes you say that?"
"Every time I have seen her lately, she has been making the most annoying grimaces, as if she is suffering from some severe gastric distress. I thought at first she was trying to smile, but the look is so pained I think now that cannot be the case. I am quite concerned about her health."
"I wouldn't worry about it too much," Gerard said, stifling a chuckle. Then, seeing that Goodwife Gottlief was about to protest, he added, "But I promise I'll look into the matter."
"Thank you, Sheriff." Goodwife Gottlief nodded politely to Vercleese. "Good day, gentlemen." She continued on her way as gracefully as a wraith floating on air, her feet never seeming to make contact with the ground under her long, swishing skirts.
As they continued walking, they heard Tangletoe Snakeweed's voice rising on an adjacent street. "At their meeting yesterday, the town council approved an ordinance requiring all noncitizens of Solace to register with the town guard upon entering the town limits."
Gerard frowned at Vercleese. "Does the town really need a crier? That kender gets on my nerves."