Jalanus waved a weary hand in acceptance and dismissal, as a disturbance at the door heralded the arrival of the master cellarer, a man who had the look of an old and scared rabbit. Four grinning guards towered around him, obviously enjoying the man’s shrinking terror, and the War Wizard looked long at them ere turning to gaze at Rhauligan.
Then the Lord Justice cleared his throat and asked in a gentle voice, “Renster, is it not? Please, sit down, and be at ease. No one is accusing you of any wrongdoing…”
The stout merchant leaned back against the wall and nodded in satisfaction. Perhaps War Wizards could learn things after all.
* * * * *
Rhauligan slipped out of the interviewing chamber as the twelfth guest—the castellan of the vaults, a surly, stout little man—was being ushered in. The merchant could feel the satisfied glare of the Lord Justice between his shoulder blades as he slipped through the doorway, trotted past a suspicious guard, and fell into step beside the War Wizard’s eleventh “guest,” the clerk of the estate.
The clerk—young and sunken-eyed, his face etched with fear and utter weariness—spared his new escort one glance and muttered, “I suppose the real questions begin now, is that it? After that strutting peacock has worn me down?”
“It’s our usual procedure,” Rhauligan confided reassuringly, man to man. “We have to give wizards something to do, or they’re apt to get up to mischief—creating new monsters, blowing up thrones. That sort of thing. The problem is, there isn’t much they’re fit to do, so…” As he gestured back down the passage, the clerk smiled thinly and turned away, down a side hall. Rhauligan hastened to follow. “Where are Lord Eskult’s personal papers kept?”
“His will, d’you mean?” the clerk asked dismissively. “The seneschal fetched that even before Lord High-And-Mighty got here. The three visiting lords wanted to.—”
“Yes, yes,” Rhauligan agreed, “but where did he fetch it from?”
The clerk stopped and gave the turret vendor a curious look. “If it’s all that gold you’re after,” he said, “forget about it. The castellan has it hid down in the vaults, somehow so arcane that to reach it three guards all have to attend him, each carrying some secret part of a key or other.”
“It’s not the gold,” Rhauligan said. “It’s the trading agreements, the ledgers, the tax scrolls—all that. Your work.”
The clerk gave him a hard stare, then shrugged. “Too dry for most to care about, but as you seem to be one of those touched-wits exceptions, they’re all in an office just along here.”
“You have a key, of course. Who else does?”
“Why, the Lord—or did; ‘twas around his neck when I saw him laid out. Then, look, so does the head maid, the seneschal of course, the back chambermaid—‘twas hers to clean, y’see—and the Crown has a key that the tax scrutineers use when they come.”
“I,” Rhauligan told him, “am a tax scrutineer. Here, I carry a royal writ; examine it, pray.” Reaching into his shirtfront he drew forth a rather crumpled parchment, from which a heavy royal seal dangled. The clerk rolled his eyes and waved it away—even before the three platinum pieces folded into it slid out, falling straight into the man’s palm.
“I’ve come to Taverton Hall,” Rhauligan said smoothly as the man juggled the coins in astonishment, “without that key. I need to see those papers—now—in utmost secrecy.” The clerk came to a stop in the corridor and squinted at the merchant, almost seeming excited.
“That meaning if I tell no one I let you in here, you’ll say the same?” he asked, peering up and down the passage as if he expected masked men with swirling cloaks and daggers to bound out of every door and corner in an instant.
“Precisely,” Rhauligan murmured. No masked men appeared.
Satisfied, the clerk flashed a smile, shook a ring of keys out of his sleeve, and unlocked the nearest door with only the faintest of rattles. Then he was off down the corridor, strolling along in an apparent half-doze as if strange merchants and unlocking doors were far from his mind.
Rhauligan eased the door wide, held up a coin, and muttered a word over it. A soft glow was born along its edges, brightening into a little blue-white beam, like errant moonlight. The merchant turned the coin to light up the tiny office beyond, seeking traps.
After a long scrutiny, Rhauligan was satisfied no lurking slayer or death-trap awaited him. There was, however, a full oil-lamp, a striker, and a bolt on the inside of the door. Perfect.
The door closed behind the merchant, its bolt sliding solidly into place, a few breaths before the tramp of heavy boots in the corridor heralded the approach of a half-dozen guards, sent to find and bring back “that dangerous Harper.” They thundered right past the closed, featureless door.
Rhauligan peered and thumbed scrolls and ledgers, and flipped pages. It wasn’t long before something became obvious through all the scrawled signatures and expense entries and reassignments of funds: the Paertrover coffers were well-nigh empty. He sat back thoughtfully, stroking his chin, and only gradually became aware that the room behind him seemed brighter than before.
He turned with smooth swiftness, hand going to the hilt of the throwing knife strapped to his left forearm, but nothing met his eye save a fading, swirling area of radiance, like a scattering of misplaced moonlight. He blinked once, and it was gone. Gone—but had definitely been there.
After a brief tour of that end of the room, poking and tapping in search of secret doors and passages, Rhauligan shrugged and began the quick process of returning the room to exactly how he’d found it. When he was done, he blew out the lamp and slipped out the door again.
Alone in the darkness, the radiance silently returned, and with it what Rhauligan had been too slow to turn and see: a disembodied head, its face pinched and white, and the plumes of the long helm it wore dancing gently in an unseen breeze. It was smiling broadly as it looked at the closed door, and abruptly started to fade away. A breath later, the room was dark and empty once more.
* * * * *
Guards hunted Glarasteer Rhauligan around Taverton Hall for a good two bells, shouting and clumping up stairs and down passages, but found no sign of the merchant. Their failure came as no surprise to their quarry, who spent the afternoon in happy slumber deep in the shade of an overhang high up on the roof. If Rhauligan was right, things would happen at the Hall soon, in the dark hours, and he’d have to be awake, aware, and in the right spot. Unless, of course, he wanted to see more murders done.
* * * * *
Guards are notoriously lazy and unobservant after a heavy meal and a bottle of fine vintage each (contributed by the seneschal with a rather morose shrug and the words, “You may as well. My master, who gathered these, is a little too dead to miss them now.”) And it was at that time, with sunset looming, that a certain much-sought-after dealer in fine turrets slid down a pillar and sprang away into the trees. He left in his wake only dancing, disturbed bushes for a bored guard to glance at, peer hard, shrug, and return his attention to a hard-plied toothpick.
Rhauligan circled the Hall like a silent shadow, keeping among the trees and shrubbery as he sought other sentinels. Armsmen guarded the gates and the grand front entrance of the Hall, but none stood like ridiculous statues in gardens or wooded glades, to feed the biting bugs.
Not far from the closed and little-used cart gate around the back of the Hall, however, something was stamping on the moss: a saddled horse, hampered in its cropping of grass by four heavy saddlebags. Rhauligan checked their contents and its tether, smiled grimly, and noted that the horse was just out of sight of the Hall windows. A little path wandered off from where he stood toward the back doors. The merchant looked up, found a bough that was big enough, and swung himself aloft to wait.