Four and Twenty Blackbirds

How are we supposed to deal with these woolen uniforms in summer? Or do they have a summer uniform as well?

He couldn't imagine the Priests wearing those long woolen robes in summer either, so perhaps the summer-weight clothing had been packed away for the season.

Well, if I don't get my things put up now, I probably won't get to them for days. Somewhere, he dredged up a last bit if energy, and got back to his feet.

The books he had brought with him all fit nicely into one half of the first shelf of the bookcase. He hung his civilian clothing up first, then his new uniforms. All the rest of his belongings, such as they were, fit into the two drawers of the nightstand.

Except, of course, for his weaponry. He had seldom employed it as a constable, but he kept in constant practice; a hand-crossbow and a belt-quiver of bolts went on one hook on the wall, his short-sword on the other. His various boot-, belt-, and wrist-knives he laid out on the table, along with his cudgel and a bag of lead shot. That last served double-duty, both as a weapon in and of itself and as ammunition for the sling tied to it. Over the back of the chair he laid his wide, stiff leather belt that served as kidney-protection, and the leather collar that protected his throat. His leather wrist-braces went on the table with his knives.

He'd worn none of this for his interview with Ardis; he hadn't known what kind of guards she'd have and how they'd take to a man bearing arms into her presence. But he had no doubt that someone had looked through his weapon-bag when they put it in this room, and that Othorp knew precisely what he'd brought with him—and that it all had that well-worn look.

He'd wear all of this tomorrow when he went into the city to find Captain Fenris. He got out of his new uniform, blew out the candle, and was surprised at howdark the room was without the light. There wasn't even a line of light from the hall under the door. He might have been inside a cave.

And it was quiet; unnervingly quiet to a man used to sleeping in an inn. He couldn't hear anything out there in the hall, and if there was someone on the other side of his walls, he couldn't hear any sounds from them, either.

He felt for the head of the bed, and climbed under the thick, soft woolen blankets. But once he was there, he kept staring up at the ceiling in the darkness, unable to quite get to sleep. Partly it was the silence, so thick it made his ears ring, but partly it was a belated state of nerves.

It was all catching up with him now, and he found himself a little dazed. He had come here to the Abbey on a whim when he'd been unable to locate the Captain of the Kingsford constables or the Kingsford Sheriff; everyone knew about the Justiciars, of course, and down in Kingsford he had heard stories about Ardis and had taken the chance that she might hear him out and perhaps get him an appointment with Captain Fenris. He had not expected her to take a personal interest in the case.

He had expected even less that she would turn around and coopt it and him. After trying to deal with the authorities in Haldene, he had really been anticipating that he would be put off. In fact, if his suspicions were correct, and a Priest or high Church officialwas involved in this, Ardis would have had every reason to deny him an interview at all. He'd been steeling himself for the long trudge across the bridge to Kingsford again, a scant dinner, and the cheapest room he could find. His resources, never large to begin with, were dwindling quickly.

And now—

Now he was beginning to get the feeling there was much more going on here than he had dreamed of, and he was afraid that the High Bishop was privy to more and more serious information than he had yet uncovered.

Was it possible that he was getting in over his head? Wasthat why everyone in Haldene had tried to put him off this case? Was it more serious than he knew—did it involve suspicion of someone with avery high rank?

It didn't have to be a noble, it could be a Priest, as he had suspected many times now—and it could be that she knew it, even had some suspects, but had no way to prove who it was. Perhaps that was why she had conscripted him so quickly. Oh, wouldn't that just open a box of beetles!

And I could end up being the scapegoat when I catch the man.Hecould, if Ardis was like other high-ranking people he'd worked under. But nothing he'd seen and heard so far made him inclined to think that she was. In fact, her reputation was that she protected her underlings from those who were higher in rank, provided that those underlings were on the side of the angels.

So I just have to make sure I'm on the right side.

If it was a Priest, in one of the other Orders, say, he and Othorp and Fenris might end up having to go in and pry the fellow out, which could get very ugly. Then again, at least if it was a Priest, as a Special Inquisitor he wouldn't have the problems with bringing him to Justice that he would have had as a constable. A Priest could claim immunity from secular authority, but not from someone delegated by the Church.

I'm the enforcement arm of the Church. I can throw anyone I need to into gaol.It wasn't the heady thought it might have been; he'd never cared for the power of the baton, only for its use as a tool to get bad people put where they couldn't hurt anyone again. It only meant that there was nowhere he could not go in the course of this investigation; he hoped that he wouldn't need to use that authority.