Four and Twenty Blackbirds

what he ate so long as it wasn't absolutely vile.

The girl maneuvered her heavy tray deftly in the cramped space; before Harden even reacted properly to her presence, she had placed his bowls of stew, pickles, and apples in front of him and Tal, plunked the plate holding a hot loaf and a pannikin of butter between them, and dropped wooden spoons in each bowl of stew. Then she was gone, empty tray held loosely in one hand, closing the door firmly behind her.

Harden blinked and picked up the spoon automatically. Tal cut slices from the loaf for both of them and buttered them generously. 'You might as well eat,' he said casually, gesturing with his spoon. 'It's not bad, and it's hot. You may not feel hungry, but you need food.'

By way of example, he dug into his own meal, and in a moment, Harden slowly began eating as well. Neither of them said a word until all their plates were empty, nothing was left of the bread but crumbs, and the wine bottle held only dregs. Tal collected the dishes and the empty bottle and put them outside his door, then returned to the cupboard for a second bottle of wine. He poured fresh glasses, then resumed his seat.

'All right,' he said, as Harden took the glass in both hands but did not drink. 'Now tell me what happened.'

Harden shivered, his sober, angular face taking on a look both boyish and lost. 'It was this morning,' he began. 'Late morning. I was on my third round; there's a little half-mad beggar-girl that always takes a particular corner, and I have to keep an eye on her, because sometimes she darts out into the street and starts dancing in the middle of the road. She scares the horses and holds up traffic, people get angry.' He shrugged apologetically; Tal understood what he did not say—that when something like that happened, people always blamed the constables. But what werethey supposed to do? You couldn't lock up every crazy beggar in the city, there'd be no room for real criminals in the gaols.

'So you kept an eye on her,' Tal repeated. 'She ever done anything worse?'

Harden shook his head. 'Mostly she just sits like today and sings hymns, except she makes up words for them. You can tell when she'd be going to cause trouble, she acts restless and won't sit still, and she wasn't like that today, so once I saw that, I ignored her. She's harmless.Was harmless,' he corrected himself, growing pale again. 'No one ever minded her. I was on the opposite side of the street from her. I—I really don't know what happened then, because I wasn't really looking for any trouble.She wasn't going anywhere, and no one out in the street was going to bother her. I thought, anyway.'

He sat quietly for a moment, and Tal sensed his internal struggles as the constable warred with the seriously shaken man. 'All I can tell you is that the very next thingI knew was that people on the other side of the street were screaming and pointing, a couple were trying to run, and there was a rag-picker standing over her, waving a bloody knife in the air. Then he threw the knife away, and beforeI could move, he ran out into the street. And I couldswear, honestly, he actually threw himself right under the wheels of a heavy water-wagon. The driver couldn't stop, the wagon turned over and the barrel burst and flooded everything, and by the time I got it all sorted out the rag-picker was dead, too.' His hands were trembling as he raised his glass and drained it in a single gulp. 'I—didn't do anything. I didn't stop him, I didn't evensee him kill that mad girl, I didn't stop him from killing himself—' His voice rose with each word, and he was clearly on the verge of hysteria.

A natural reaction, but not at all useful. Better snap him out of this.

'Are you a mage?' Tal interrupted him.

Harden stopped in midsentence and blinked owlishly at him. Probably the question seemed utterly irrelevant, but Tal had a particular strategy in mind. 'Ah—no,' he stammered.

'Then you couldn't have done anything, could you?' Tal countered. 'There was no reason to assume that a rag-picker was going to murder the beggar; they're normally pretty feeble-bodied and just as often they're feeble- minded, too. They don'tdo things like that, right? Rag-pickers wander along the gutter, collecting trash, and half the time they don't even see anything that's not in the gutter in front of them. You had no reason to watch him, you didn't even know what he'd done until it was too late.'

'But after—' Harden began.

'You said it yourself, it all happened quickly. How close were you? Across the street you said, and I'd guess half a block down.' Tal shrugged as Harden nodded. 'People were shouting, screaming, blocking the street— panicked. You couldn't possibly have gotten across to him with any speed. There wascertainly no reason to think he'd throw himself under a wain! And short of using magic to do it, you couldn't have stopped him from where you were standing! Right?'

Harden nodded again, numbly. Tal poured his glass full and topped off his own. 'That was a hell of an experience,' he said, with a little less force. 'A hell of a thing. Bad enough when you come pick up the pieces, but when it happens right in front of you, it's natural to thinkyou could have done something the cits couldn't. But just because you're a constable, that doesn't give you the ability to read thoughts, move faster than lightning, and pick up water-wagons with your bare hands.'

Harden took a few deep breaths, closed his eyes for a moment, then took a small sip of the wine. 'You're right, of course,' he replied shakily. 'I wasn't thinking—'

'No one could be, in those circumstances,' Tal replied dryly. 'Lad, most of the cits think we can do anything, and expect us to on a regular basis; that kind of thinking can get you believing you're supposed to really be able to. But you're just a man, like any of the cits—just you have a baton and some authority, people listen to you, and you can handle yourself against a couple of armed ruffians. And none of those things make you either a Priest or a