It was then that the commotion broke out belowdecks, just a muffled yell at first, but quickly followed by the pounding of running feet. Teldin stopped in his tracks, looked questioningly up at Djan.
A figure-it was Dargeth-dashed up the ladder from the cargo deck and the crew's quarters. His face was pale. "It's Blossom," he gasped.
Blossom? She's on the helm… But, no, this was the forenoon watch, wasn't it? That meant it was the dwarf, Dranigor, currently helming the ship. "What about Blossom?" he demanded.
"She's hurt bad," the half-ore told him. "Maybe dead, I don't know."
"Where?"
Dargeth pointed down the ladder he'd just climbed. "The cargo deck."
Teldin went down the ladder so fast that he might as well have jumped. He heard footsteps behind him-Djan probably, he thought. At the bottom, he turned left, then left again, sprinting aft past the foot of the mainmast.
There was a small crowd already there, five or six crewmen crouching or kneeling in a group at the aft end of the dimly lit cargo hold near the mizzenmast. As they saw him, they all backed away, giving him his first view of Blossom.
The rotund woman lay flat on her back, arms outstretched. Her eyes were closed, her round, cherubic face at peace, as though she were asleep, Teldin thought. Even from a distance he could see great bruising on the right side of her neck, under her ear-a great, spreading hemorrhage under the skin, reddish pink, not yet turned to purple. "Where's a healer?" he demanded.
Then he saw the angle at which her head lay, and he knew there was nothing a healer could do. He dropped to one knee beside the corpulent shape and touched two fingers to the unbruised side of her throat just to be sure. For an instant, he thought he could feel some feeble trill of life left in the woman, but then it was gone. Was that just my imagination, my own anxiety? he asked himself. Or did I feel the woman die? Regardless, he knew that Blossom was dead.
He looked away and saw Djan kneeling beside him. "I'll deal with this," the half-elf told him quietly. "You talk to the crew."
Teldin nodded, climbed slowly to his feet. The crowd of crewmen-larger now-had backed away, leaving a respectful space around the captain, Djan, and the dead priest. The Cloakmaster could see Julia at the back of the group, by the mainmast. "Who found her?" he asked.
"I did, Cap'n." One of the sail trimmers-a stout halfling woman named Harriana-stepped forward. She looked uncomfortable, slightly pale. At first Teldin wondered why, but then she added, "I sing out as soon as I found her, Cap'n, I promise you. I wasn't no sluggard about it…."
He smiled as reassuringly as he could under the circumstances and clapped her on the shoulder. "I know you did, Harriana," he told her firmly. "I know you weren't a sluggard. Nobody thinks you were. I don't think it would have mattered even if you'd found her sooner." He looked down into the diminutive woman's eyes and saw the specter of guilt fade from them. "Now, tell me what happened."
Harriana shrugged. "I come down to the hold just a couple of minutes back, looking for a sail patch. I keeps my repair things back aft there, by the mast foot." She pointed aft, toward where assorted gear had been stacked against the hold's rear bulkhead. "On the way I passes the bilge watch."
The Cloakmaster nodded. The woman was referring to a wooden hatch, about two feet square, giving access to the bilges and the keel under the hold deck for repair or inspection. "So you passed the bilge hatch," he prompted.
"And I sees it's open," the halfling said. "Not all the way, like, but just a thumbspan. I think there's somebody down there, inspecting the bilges. So, just to be friendly like, I opens the hatch and I calls down, 'halloo.'
"And that's when I sees her." Harriana pointed at Blossom's still body. "The helm-priest, just lying all huddled up at the bilges. She doesn't look comfortable," she went on with a shrug, "so I thinks she might be hurt. I calls for help, and these two"-she pointed out Dargeth and Anson-"they answer. They drags the helm-priest out, and then we just fells like the blazes."
Teldin looked questioningly at the two. It was Anson, predictably, who answered. "That's how it was, Captain," he confirmed. "We thought she'd maybe been checking the bilges, fell in, and hit her head. We didn't think it might be her neck until we saw it." He hesitated, obviously uncomfortable. "Did we do wrong, pulling her out?" he asked quietly. They say you don't move them with less…"
It was Djan who answered, his voice quiet but carrying, You didn't do her any harm, Anson, or you either, Dargeth. nobody could have done her any more harm by the time you got here."
The two men looked noticeably relieved. "Captain," Anson started tentatively, "one thing I wondered… What was Blossom doing in the bilges anyway? Checking the keel?
"That's right." Again it was Djan who responded-louder, more firmly this time. He stood and strode over to join Teldin and the others. "She was checking the keel, like I ordered her to."
The Cloakmaster shot the half-elf a quizzical glance. There was something strange about his friend's manner. He trusted Djan, and it wouldn't do to question him about it here.
"I think you were right, Anson," Djan continued, "I think she must have slipped, fallen, and landed badly. A tragic, fluke accident." He turned to the half-orc. "Dargeth, would you see to the body, please? Pick the people you need." Then he looked over at Teldin-meaningfully, the Cloak-master thought-and said, "Captain? I think we've got to discuss the watch list. Can we speak in your cabin?"
*****
As soon as Djan and Julia had followed him into the cabin and shut the door behind them, Teldin turned to his first mate. "Could someone tell me what in Paladine's name is going on?" he asked quietly.
Djan pulled a chair out from the table and sat down. There was something in his expression that Teldin hadn't seen before-a tension that chilled the Cloakmaster to the bone. "I didn't send Blossom to check the keel," he said bluntly.
"Then, why… ?" Teldin's voice trailed off. A sharp pang of suspicion stabbed his chest. He suggested softly, "So the crew wouldn't think… what?"
"Blossom's neck was broken," Djan answered, "but not in a fall." He looked up, meeting the Cloakmaster's gaze squarely for the first time. "Somebody killed her, Teldin. Somebody-a skilled warrior, I'd say-broke her neck with his hands. Then he stuffed her in the bilges." He blinked thoughtfully. "I say 'he,' but it could just as easily have been a woman, I suppose. Breaking a neck isn't hard if you know how to go about it." He shook his head briefly, as if forcing his mind back to the subject at hand. "Somebody killed her," he repeated. "It wasn't an accident. We've got a murderer on board."
Teldin pulled a chair over and sat down. He nodded slowly.
"Do you have any idea who?" Julia asked. Her face was pale and drawn.
The first mate shook his head. "It could have been just about anyone, really," he answered. "It definitely happened less than half an hour before Harriana found the body. But half an hour's a long time on a ship this size, and it doesn't take long to kill someone if you've got a mind to." He sighed. "Somebody leaves his watch station-he claims it's a lead call-or slips out of his hammock. Or, if he's off duty and awake, he just goes belowdecks. Nobody's going to question him. He finds Blossom, leads her down to the cargo hold on some pretext. He kills her-snap!-and disposes of the body. Then he just strolls back to wherever he's supposed to be and waits for the commotion to start so he can look suitably shocked and horrified."