Swords: 06 - The Third Book of Lost Swords - Stonecutter's Story (17 page)

      
Now there came an interruption. Robert de Borron, refusing to be kept silent by the Red Temple people with him, struggled out of his chair despite his injuries, and came pushing his way forward, leaning on the central table, demanding to be heard.

      
The burden of his impassioned plea was that a greater matter than treasure or even human lives was here at stake—and that was Art. Now that he had held the Sword in his hands and had begun to discover how much it could do, what marvels a sculptor like himself would be able to accomplish with such an instrument—well, all this talk about property rights and money value was really beside the point.

      
The sculptor looked across the table at the Blue Temple people almost as if he really expected them to agree with him. They gazed back. In the face of such heresy their countenances were set like stone beyond the power of any blade to carve.

      
Meanwhile the Hetman—perhaps from shrewdness, perhaps from chronic indecision—listened to the artist’s outburst tolerantly. De Borron grew angry at being tolerated. He had tried to speak respectfully, he said, but perhaps that had been a mistake. Nothing, certainly nothing and no one here in this room, should take second place to Art.

      
He was silenced at last only by a serious threat from the Hetman to have him removed from the conference chamber and, if even that failed to keep him quiet, locked in a cell.

      
Next someone in the Blue Temple camp brought up the suggestion that de Borron himself might have arranged to have the Sword stolen and spirited away.

      
Once more a minor outbreak of noise had to be put down.

      
“Captain Almagro.” The ruler’s voice was no louder nor bolder than before, but still the Captain blanched. “You are a senior officer in the city Watch. I want you now to tell me in plain words just what did happen inside the Red Temple last night; include everything that your investigations have discovered since the event.”

      
Almagro, who had perhaps been expecting to hear worse from his master, spoke up confidently enough. To begin with, there was no doubt at all that the Sword had been there in the temple, and that it was now missing. But in the Captain’s official opinion, there was also no reason to doubt any of the information that had just been provided by the famous Magistrate.

      
The Hetman nodded, as if he had known that all along. “My own magicians inform me that it is common knowledge, among those in a position to know, that the Prince of Tasavalta has had Stonecutter in his arsenal for some years.”

      
This time the interruption came from the Red Temple representatives. After a hasty consultation among themselves, they put forward a spokesman who protested that, with all due respect to His Excellency’s wizards, it was also common knowledge that the Swords, like other pieces of property, changed hands from time to time.

      
“We maintain, sir, that we were acting in good faith when we, as we thought, recently acquired certain rights to the Sword of Siege.”

      
Wen Chang broke in sharply. “Exactly what rights were those, and from whom did you think you were obtaining them?”

      
The Red Temple people were still considering what their answer to this ought to be when the meeting was interrupted from outside by the entrance of one of the Hetman’s aides. This was a middle-aged woman, who went straight to the ruler’s side and imparted some information to him in a very soft whisper.

      
The Hetman heard the message with no change of expression. Then he nodded, dismissed the messenger with a few quiet words, and turned back to face the assembly at the table.

      
“Prince al-Farabi himself is now here in the palace,” he announced, looking sharply round to gauge his audience’s reactions. “And he is coming at once to join our meeting.”

      
A stir ran through the gathering, but Kasimir saw nothing he considered helpful in anyone’s reaction. Only Wen Chang, as usual, remained imperturbable.

      
Within two minutes, amid a flourish of formal announcement at the door, al-Farabi indeed entered the audience chamber. The Prince was wearing what looked like the desert riding costume in which Kasimir had seen him last, and Kasimir noted that his clothing was actually still dusty with traces of the desert.

      
The two rulers, using one of the short forms of ceremony, exchanged the proper formalities of greeting. As Kasimir watched he was thinking that according to strict protocol the Prince would somewhat outrank or would at least take precedence over the Hetman, though both were heads of state. It seemed unlikely, though, that exact rank was going to be of any practical importance.

      
After his official welcome by the Hetman, the Prince exchanged brief greetings with all the members of the meeting, taking them generally in order of rank as prescribed by protocol. When he came to Wen Chang, who was well down on the list, Kasimir thought that Prince and Magistrate exchanged significant looks, though he could not tell what the expressions were meant to convey.

      
As soon as the formal salutations had all been completed, al-Farabi resumed at some length his lamentations for his lost Sword.

      
Eventually mastering his feelings with an evident effort, he faced the Magistrate again. “I understand that Stonecutter was seen here in the city last night, but that it was impossible to recover it then?”

      
“That is true, sir.”

      
“Ah, woe is me! My burden of sorrow is great indeed!”

      
Standing informally now with the two investigators as if they were old friends, the Prince related how, for the past several days, he and several dozen of his tribesmen had been out in the desert, trying in vain to pick up the trail of the villain or villains who had stolen Stonecutter from his camp. But, al-Farabi lamented, he and his trackers had had no success at all—which he supposed was scarcely to be wondered at, considering the nature of the ground and the ferocity of the windstorms that had lashed the area over the past several days.

      
Wen Chang broke in here to ask if any of the winged messengers dispatched by Lieutenant Komi had managed to reach the Prince.

      
“Regrettably none of them did.” Al-Farabi looked freshly worried. “Is there news I ought to know? On entering the city today I came directly to the palace, feeling that I must consult with my brother the Hetman, and so I have not seen Komi. I have heard nothing.”

      
“There is no news, sir, that is of vital importance for you to learn at this moment—only a few matters relating to the personal affairs of your troops.”

      
With that settled, the Hetman called upon Kasimir to relate his version of events on the night the Sword was stolen from the tent. The ruler listened to the relation with a look of intense concentration. Then he wanted to know Kasimir’s version of the events in the Red Temple during the night just passed.

      
Again Kasimir obliged. From the expression on al-Farabi’s face as the Prince listened, Kasimir could tell that he had been expecting to hear nothing like this. As to what he had been expecting to hear, Kasimir could only wonder.

      
Called upon for comment again when Kasimir had finished, the Magistrate took three or four sentences to say in effect that the situation was indeed most interesting.

      
The Hetman snorted. “I rejoice to hear that you find it interesting! But is that all that you can find to tell us? We were hoping for something of more substance from the great Wen Chang.”

      
The Magistrate bowed lightly. “I might of course add that the situation is very serious. But I believe it is far from hopeless.”

      
“I am glad to hear that you think so.” The ruler looked round at others in the room as if to sample their reactions. “You see, then, some prospect of eventually being able to recover the Sword?”

      
Before answering, Wen Chang turned to face the people from the Red Temple. He said: “I must return to an earlier question, one that was never answered. You say you thought you had honestly bought certain rights to Stonecutter, or to its use—with whom did you bargain? Whom did you pay?”

      
The Red Temple spokesman looked at him haughtily. “As it seems now that we were bargaining in error, I don’t see how knowing that is going to help.”

      
“It may be of considerable help in recovering the Sword. Come, who was it? Certain disreputable people of the city, was it not?”

      
“I fail to understand why—”

      
“Did you not in fact know that you were dealing with a well-organized criminal gang?”

      
“Well, and if we were? We had hopes of being able to return the Sword, which we assumed might have been stolen somewhere, to a legitimate use in society.”

      
Robert de Borron was unable to keep himself from bursting forth again, once more putting forth his claim that the demands of Art could justify any such dealings.

      
Someone from the Blue Temple, not wishing to have fewer words to say than anyone else on this occasion, pronounced: “No one’s claims to the Sword are going to mean anything unless it is found. I would like to know how the world-famed investigator we have with us plans to go about recovering it.”

      
The Hetman, determined to assert himself, seized this opportunity. “It does seem,” he told Wen Chang, “that so far your efforts have contributed nothing to that end.”

      
“It may seem so, sir.”

      
“What evidence can you give us that you are making progress?”

      
“At present I can give you none.”

      
Eventually, under pressure, the Magistrate pledged to the Hetman that if given a free hand he would be able to provide some information on the Sword’s whereabouts, if he had not succeeded in actually recovering the blade itself, within the next twenty-four hours.

      
This was taken up by many of the people present as a promise that the Sword would be recovered within a day. All were eager for that—if Stonecutter were to remain in the hands of nameless thieves, it was hard to see how any of the legitimate segments of society could hope to profit from it in any way.

      
So, Wen Chang could more or less have his way for twenty-four hours. In the meantime, according to the Magistrate’s recommendations, the Blue Temple would be more heavily guarded than usual, as would all the city’s other main depositories of wealth. And all patrolmen of the Watch, wherever they were on duty, would be alerted to watch for Stonecutter.

      
With that the meeting broke up.

Chapter Fifteen

      
The Prince was of course invited by the Hetman to partake of the hospitality of the palace. Declining the invitation would have been diplomatically difficult if not impossible, and so al-Farabi was more or less constrained to dine and lodge there, along with the small retinue he had brought into the city with him from the desert.

      
Though it was plain to Kasimir that the Prince would have preferred to leave the palace at once and have a long talk with Wen Chang, there was no opportunity inside the palace for the two men to converse without a high probability of being overheard. In the brief public exchange of conversation they had before parting, the Magistrate managed to convey to his royal client the idea that things were not really so bad as they might look at present. Wen Chang affirmed earnestly that he still had genuinely high hopes of being able to recover Stonecutter.

      
Kasimir, listening silently to this reassurance, could only wonder how such hopes might possibly be justified. Reviewing in his mind the situation as it stood, he did not find it promising. The twenty-four hours of Wen Chang’s grace period were already passing, and nothing was being accomplished. Of course Wen Chang might have learned something encouraging during the hours he and Kasimir had been separated; the two of them had had no real chance to talk alone since Kasimir had been routed out of bed this morning.

      
Now, just as Kasimir and Wen Chang were reclaiming their mounts from the palace stables, they were joined by Captain Almagro. The Captain had a meaningful look for each of them, but he delayed saying anything of substance as long as they were still within the palace walls.

      
The delay, Kasimir discovered, was to be even longer, for as soon as they were outside those walls the Captain left them, with a wink and a wave. Kasimir, not understanding, watched him go.

      
“He will soon rejoin us, I think,” the Magistrate assured him.

      
“If you say so.”

      
They started for their inn, this time without stopping to watch the rebuilding of the scaffold.

      
Kasimir had expected the Magistrate himself to have a great deal to say as soon as they were away from the palace. But now, on the contrary, Wen Chang was content to ride along in near silence. Instead of joining Kasimir in trying to plan a last desperate attempt to recover the Sword, he seemed almost to have given up. His precious twenty-four hours were passing minute by minute, and if anything he appeared more relaxed than he had before the meeting at which the deadline had been imposed upon him.

      
If this was only resignation to the whims of Fate, then in Kasimir’s opinion it was carrying that kind of attitude too far. As for himself, he saw no need to carry patience to extremes.

      
“Well?” he demanded, after they had ridden in silence to a couple of hundred meters’ distance from the palace walls. “What are we to do?”

      
A dark eye gleamed at him from underneath a squinting brow. “Have patience,” his companion advised him succinctly.

* * *

      
Kasimir found this, in the circumstances, a thoroughly unsatisfactory answer. But he had to be content with it until they had reached their inn.

      
There they found Almagro waiting for them in the courtyard, having evidently completed whatever urgent errand had drawn him away. The Captain was impatient too. “Where can we talk? I’ve got quite a lot to say.”

      
Wen Chang gestured. “Come up to our suite—it is about as secure as any place can be, outside a wizard’s palace.”

      
When the three of them were established in the third-floor suite, with Komi and some of his men on watch in the room below, Almagro began to talk, quietly but forcefully.

      
His pleas that Wen Chang get busy and find the Sword without delay were considerably more urgent than Kasimir’s might have been.

      
“Magistrate, if you know where the damned thing is, or might be, then let’s get it and deliver it without delay.” The Captain was now obviously worried for himself. “Whatever might or might not happen to you two if you fail, nothing good is going to happen to me. My neck is on the line. I’ve stuck it way out for you, and His Mightiness the desert Prince is not going to put himself out to protect me.”

      
Wen Chang responded with every appearance of sympathy. “He might very well offer you protection if I ask it of him. And I shall certainly ask it if I think it necessary.”

      
“If? Look here, Magistrate, tell me straight out—do you know where that Sword is now, or don’t you?”

      
“If you mean, can I walk straight to it and put my hand on it—no. Can I send a message from this room, and have it brought here to me within the hour? Again my answer must be no. Nevertheless I do have some definite ideas on the subject of Stonecutter’s location.”

      
“Hah! If you have any useful ideas at all, I wish you’d share them with me!”

      
“The time is not yet right for that … look here, old friend. You have trusted me in the past. Can you not trust me once more?”

      
The Captain blew out a blast of air that made his mustache quiver. “I’ve seen you act like this before … damn it all, I suppose you know what you’re doing.”

      
“Thank you. I appreciate the confidence. Now, have the arrangements that I requested been completed?”

      
“They have.” Almagro looked at the room’s windows and the closed door. “If you mean about that fellow Umar. We’ve picked him up, and brought him into the city, as quietly as we could. One of my own men is now temporarily in command out at the quarry.”

      
“Were you able to determine anything from the records out there, about which prisoner or prisoners might be missing?”

      
“Nah. My people brought in what records they could find, and I’ve taken a look at them. Hopeless, I’d say. Kept by a bunch of illiterates.”

      
“I feared as much.” Wen Chang rubbed his own neck, as if the long strain were beginning to tell on him. “And where are you holding Umar now?”

      
“At one of our auxiliary Watch-stations. It’s a very quiet little place, hardly used for anything anymore, out near the Paupers’ Palace. I doubt very much that anyone besides the men I trust know that he’s there. The men who took him there and are watching over him are the most trustworthy I have.”

      
“Good.” Now Wen Chang was nodding eagerly. “I want to talk to Umar at once.”

      
Kasimir shook off his own recurrent tiredness as well as he could, and made ready to accompany Wen Chang and Almagro through the streets yet once more.

      
Leaving the inn, they rode through the streets upon a broadly looping course, the Magistrate doubling back and changing his route unpredictably in an efficient effort to determine whether or not they were being followed. At length he was satisfied, and they set out straight for the Paupers’ Palace.

      
Their trip through the streets was somewhat delayed by these precautions, but otherwise uneventful. Presently a familiar landmark came into Kasimir’s sight—the isolated, disconnected, crumbling section of high stone wall, with the winged scavengers rising from its top and settling there again, shrieking in their quarrels over food.

      
At one side of the stretch of barren ground that centered on the wall of exposure stood a small stone building, seventy or eighty meters from the wall and at least half that distance apart from any other structure. This, Almagro indicated, was the Watch-station. The building, Kasimir estimated, looking at it from a distance, could contain no more than two rooms at most. He supposed its chief claim to usefulness, if you could call it that, was its position that would allow the occupants to keep a close eye on the corpse-disposal operation.

      
They had ridden within fifty meters or so of the building when Almagro abruptly reined in his mount, then just as suddenly spurred forward. Wen Chang was riding at a gallop right beside him.

      
Kasimir dug his heels into the flanks of his riding-beast and stayed right behind them. He was actually the first off his mount as the three men reached the station. The stout front door of the little building was standing slightly ajar. In the shaded area just inside the entrance, where it would be invisible until you were almost upon it, lay the body of a man in Watch uniform. The man was sprawled on his back in the middle of a considerable pool of blood.

      
Kasimir took one look at the wound that had opened the man’s throat, almost from ear to ear, and forbore to look for signs of life. The blood was starting to dry on the stone floor, and the insects were already busy around the corpse.

      
Almagro, standing over the dead man now with his short sword drawn, said a name, which Kasimir took to be that of the murdered man; then the Captain and the Magistrate, both with weapons ready, moved farther into the building, toward a doorway leading to the rear.

      
Once more Kasimir was right behind them.

      
The second room of the small structure was dim and almost windowless. The heat of the sun upon the thin stone walls was turning the chamber oven like; and here was more blood, much more blood, this time spreading out in a fan-shaped, partially dried puddle that had its source inside the single barred cell with which the building was equipped. There was another dead man in there, lying on the floor of the still-locked cell, and in this victim’s distorted face Kasimir could recognize the valuable prisoner Umar.

      
For a few moments the drone of insects, and the cries of those distant, larger scavengers upon the paupers’ wall, made the only sounds in that dim room. Then Wen Chang asked his old friend to unlock the door of the cell.

      
The Captain fumbled at his belt, where there were several sets of keys. He seemed to be having trouble finding the proper one. “How was he killed, in there?” he asked in a querulous voice. “He can’t have done it himself, there’s no weapon.”

      
The Magistrate shook his head impatiently. “He was lured to the bars, by whoever killed the sentry. Lured by the promise of being set free, I suppose … how should I know the details?” Wen Chang was angry at the loss of his witness, perhaps at his own mistakes as well, and disposed to be uncharacteristically surly.

      
Once Almagro had found the proper key and opened the cell door, Wen Chang and Kasimir went into the cell, both trying to avoid stepping in the puddled blood. The Magistrate also drew up his trouser legs with a slight fastidious movement.

      
Soon after Wen Chang had begun his examination of the body, he turned to announce that the man had been attacked from behind, and that his killer was left-handed.

      
Almagro, his expression at once idle and thoughtful, had been looking into the cell from outside, hanging on to the bars of the door. But he reacted sharply to that.

      
“Left-handed?” His voice rose, in both pitch and volume, from each syllable to the next. The others turned to look at him.

      
“Left-handed? That tears it, then! About three years ago, right after I came to work for the Hetman, there was a fellow in the city they called the Juggler. Another name he went by was Valamo of the Left Hand. He was the smoothest assassin I’ve ever run into anywhere. The deadliest and smartest … it was only through a woman that we ever caught him. Even then we knew he’d done a lot of things we couldn’t prove. We could prove enough, though. The judge thought that execution was too good for him.”

      
Wen Chang’s eyes glittered. “And so he was sent to the quarries?” “Yes, he was, by all the gods! ‘Course I’m not sure it was Kovil’s quarry where he ended up. But it might well have been. He was one of the few you don’t forget in this business. All this”—and with a savage gesture Almagro indicated the abattoir around them—“this is just the kind of thing he did. He knew, somehow, we had a good witness here, a man who could tell us a lot. And he came to shut him up for good.”

      
“This Valamo, or Juggler, worked alone then, as a rule?”

      
“In the important things he worked alone as much as possible. Though he could always recruit people in Eylau to work with him, when he thought he needed someone. Had a reputation, that one did. Still has, evidently. I do believe that most of the regular gang leaders were afraid of him … so now it looks like the Juggler’s back.”

      
“How did he happen to acquire that name?” asked Kasimir.

      
Almagro’s gaze turned toward him. “Nothing very strange about that. It’s what he did, they tell me, before he found his real profession. A street performer, doing a little acrobatics, a little sleight of hand, a little juggling. Those people are never very far within the edge of the law anyway.”

      
“True enough,” said Wen Chang. “Though there have been times in my own life when I have felt almost completely at home among them … but never mind that. What does this Valamo look like?”

      
Squinting into the air, the Captain took thought carefully. “By now I’d say he must be around forty years old; though by the look of things here he’s lost no skill or toughness. Anyone who could survive three years on a quarry gang … he’s just average height, no taller than the Doctor here. Something of a hooked nose. His hair was dark when he was young, but when I saw him it was going an early gray—so it’s likely just about completely white by now. His face would be lined and sun burnt from the quarries, so I’d say he’s likely to look a decade or two older than he really is—what’s wrong with you, Doctor Kasimir?”