It was a simple enough story, and believable, though Sabira was certain Mountainheart was glossing over some of the details. What sort of complications? And had they been unable to save the mother, or simply unwilling? For that matter, why had the child died? Blindness wasn’t fatal; starvation, on the other hand, was. Had they simply failed to get a wet nurse for the little boy, and let him die? Could Aggar really be that coldhearted?
Then again, Mountainheart had kept the woman’s pregnancy from Aggar until the last possible moment. It was no great leap to imagine he’d told his uncle he’d find a nurse for the child while doing nothing of the sort, in a misguided attempt to save Aggar’s honor. Never mind that killing a bastard child was a far worse crime than siring one.
Sabira couldn’t help thinking there was more to the tale, and as Mountainheart began talking again, she learned the rest. As the dwarf spoke effusively of his uncle’s grief, his fingers painted another, even darker picture with the tugs, twists, and twitches of the Tordannon’s secret sign language, for he wouldn’t risk putting the story to words in such a public place.
Aggar had poured out the whole sordid saga while drowning his sorrows in a case of vintage brandy. The blind child, it seemed, had not been the first. Before that, Aggar had sired twin girls with a d’Kundarak banker. The girls came months early and were born fused together from throat to hip. One girl took a single breath before dying, while the other never even opened her eyes. The mother had killed herself soon after, unable to deal with either the deformity or the loss. And before that, he’d gotten another girl pregnant, but she’d been lost in an avalanche during the harsh winter of ’93, months before she was due to give birth.
After this last child, Aggar had become convinced he was cursed by the Sovereigns for some unknown sin and would never father a normal child, or one who would live. He’d decided to name Mountainheart his heir—with no small amount of urging from Mountainheart himself, Sabira was sure. Though Mountainheart didn’t say as much, Sabira imagined the inheritance was the price of his silence. If word got out that Aggar could sire only monstrous children, the rest of the clan could easily turn on both him and his father, leaving the Tordannons open to a war of succession that would weaken them and make them easy prey for their enemies.
And all of this had happened before Mountainheart had even met Gunnett. Furthermore, he was quick to inform her, fingers working furiously, he had not revealed his status as heir designee to Gunnett until after their wedding—when he’d informed her that he was leaving Krona Peak to go find the legendary Shard Axe. Which did nothing in Sabira’s book to eliminate either of them as suspects, since they’d still had not only motive, but means and opportunity.
But she just couldn’t see Mountainheart as Nightshard’s accomplice. Aggar’s nephew might be petty—even cruel, considering what he’d just revealed—but he didn’t have the kind of evil in him to countenance the things the assassin had done. Not to mention, as he’d correctly pointed out, if he’d wanted Aggar dead, there was no reason for him to have come to her for help in the first place.
And Gunnett’s own father had been Nightshard’s first victim, so there was no way she could be in league with the assassin’s accomplice.
No, Mountainheart’s first instinct had been right; she’d been bluffing. She’d only come to Frostmantle to arrest one person, and it wasn’t Mountainheart or his wife.
But the ruse had gotten her the information she wanted, so it wasn’t a wasted effort. Whether that information would prove to have any bearing on Aggar’s case remained to be seen.
“Nicely done, Mountainheart. You’ve convinced me not to arrest your blushing bride. So let’s focus on our other suspect. I assume Aggar let you know that we do have another suspect?”
“Yes,” Mountainheart replied shortly, his eyes narrowing as he realized how she’d manipulated him yet again. “He said you wanted Goldglove’s journal. I was able to confirm that it’s in his mother Tysane’s keeping, but I was waiting until you arrived to approach her.”
“Excellent,” Sabira said, reaching across the table to snatch his snifter and drain the last of the warm, salty Blood. “So, what are we waiting for? Let’s go approach her.”
Tysane Goldglove’s Genealogical Services was located in her home on the city’s first sublevel. The two-story building was set back from the street behind a gate and an improbable garden filled with a fantastic mix of fungi and flowers, a small fountain, and dozens of chimes that rang sweetly from the colonnaded porch without the urging of any breeze.
Sabira and Mountainheart strode down the well-kept path to the front door. A wooden sign hung above the door, emblazoned with a simple golden hand grasping a quill from which red ink dripped.
Sabira raised an eyebrow at Mountainheart, who shrugged.
“Genealogist’s joke, I suppose—their work is writ in blood?”
Accurate enough, Sabira supposed, if a bit morbid. She wondered how much business the motto brought in. Hopefully not much; it would be best if Tysane was alone when they spoke to her, so there would be no interruptions.
Sabira knocked on the door, then stood back and to the side as she waited for someone to answer.
When several moments had passed with nothing but silence on the other side of the door, she looked at Mountainheart in irritation.
“Please tell me you confirmed she was actually home before we came all the way down here?”
“Where else would she be? The annual Society of Genealogist’s meeting isn’t until next month,” the dwarf rejoined bitingly, obviously still smarting from her earlier ruse.
Sabira was about to respond with a splash of sarcasm of her own when the door suddenly creaked open and an elderly dwarf woman dressed in scarlet, lavender, and chartreuse poked her head out.
“A Peaker and a Karrn, from the accents. I can probably help you,” she cackled, jabbing her cane toward Mountainheart. Then she turned milky eyes toward Sabira. “But you, my dear, are out of luck. I can refer you to my counterpart in Atur, if you don’t mind working with a Blood of Vol cultist. With the understanding that I get a percentage of whatever he charges you, of course. Finder’s fee.”
“That won’t be necessary, grandmother,” Sabira replied with a polite smile that she realized belatedly the woman could not see. “We’re simply here to ask you a few questions about your son.”
The woman’s friendliness evaporated in an instant.
“I’ve already spoken to the authorities, for all the good that did. What justice exists in Frostmantle for a boy killed by her favorite son?”
As she moved to shut the door, Sabira stepped forward, grabbing the blind woman’s wrist.
“Please, grandmother. We’ve good reason to believe that the real killer is the confederate of one who stalked these halls, sowing terror, almost a decade ago.”
Tysane’s face paled. Nightshard’s name was never spoken aloud here, out of superstitious dread and respect for his many victims, but Sabira knew it didn’t need to be.
“Come in, then, and quickly,” the old dwarf said, spinning in a cloud of clashing colors and leading them, cane tap-tapping, into the dark maze of her home.