Four and Twenty Blackbirds

Ardis nodded. 'I recall—that would be my cousin Arran, the one who can sometimes read what is in a man's mind.'

'Well, this Priest discovered that the man hated his mother, who was one of those nagging, selfish women who raise children by telling them what incompetent asses they are, no matter what they do or how well they do it.' He shook his head. 'She constantly belittled him, then expected him to serve her like a slave all her life. Hewanted to kill his mother, and had gone after her to the market to do just that. He actually struckat her, but she got away, and then he just struck at anyone that looked like her.' Once again, he shook his head. 'I have to say that I thought and still think that the man deserved hanging, which he got, but once I met the mother, I wished there was a way to hang her alongside him. There was another when I was just beginning in the force, who slaughtered whores—he was inept where women were concerned, never able to handle himself with them. The only women who'd have anything to do with him were the ones he paid. He was punishing all the women who'd mocked him and turned him down by killing the whores.'

'And the similar cases you found in the records?' Ardis prompted, looking interested, as Kayne scribbled along as fast as she could.

'There was a young man who'd been denied very unpleasantly by a girl, who went up into a tower and began shooting crossbow bolts into the crowd below—heavy crossbow, too, meant to carry far and kill with a single strike. At first, it was at her and anyone else he imagined had slighted him, but after he'd killed three or four people, he started shooting anything and anyone that moved. His rage and madness fueled his strength, and he fired more quickly than even a professional soldier would with such a hefty weapon.' Tal closed his eyes a moment and tried to recall the rest of the cases he'd seen. 'A fellow made a practice of murdering wives because the first one was faithless and ran off with a horse-trader, but he didn't do it wholesale, he did it over the course of ten years, and he didn't do it in public.'

'That would come under another heading, I would imagine,' Ardis agreed, clasping her hands in front of her on her desk. 'In fact, that might be the pattern we are seeing here.'

'Punishment of many for the sins of one who can't be reached?' He nodded; it made a lot of sense. 'That's what I've been thinking for some time now. Of course, if he ever killed the one person he's obsessed with, that doesn't mean he'd stop.'

'Punishment of many—that would account for the fact that all the women concerned have some connection to music and musicians,' Kayne put in, looking excited, for she had not been privy to most of the discussions Tal and Ardis had had on the subject.

'If this is true, and we could deduce what kind of person is the source of his anger, we might be able to anticipate him,' Tal continued for Kayne's benefit. 'The trouble with that is, in order for the deduction to be of any use, we would have to allow that sort of person to walk in danger, and—' He shook his head. 'It's morally reprehensible. We can't be everywhere, and protect everyone.'

'I agree,' Ardis said firmly, to his immense relief. 'But let's do what we can for the purpose ofwarning exactly that sort of person.'

This was the first time that they had made a point of delineating all of the similar characteristics of the primary victims. It didn't take long to deduce that the targets that had been attacked with the most ferocity and in the riskiest circumstances were all young, dark-haired or of the Gypsy clans andreal musicians. Even the half-mad woman Tal's colleague had seen attacked was a real musician in that the source of what little income she had came from her hymn-singing. The trouble was, because of regional tendency, half the young women in Kingsford were dark-haired, and from the way the murderer was behaving, he would probably react to someone simply singing because she was happy.

'This is an awfully broad description,' Kayne said dubiously, her brows knitted as she studied their too-brief notes.

Tal licked a bit of hot cheese off his finger. 'That's not the only problem. The trouble with this is that even if we get this sort of woman to be careful, he'll either find a way to ambush his chosen victims or he'll switch to something else,' Tal replied glumly. 'He's done that before, and if he doesn't get the satisfaction of a perfect victim, he's likely to make up in quantity what his kills lack in quality. Look at that list in Derryton— sixover the course of four evenings!'

Ardis winced, and nodded, and finished her own slice in a few quick, neat bites. 'That would take a mage of considerable power and endurance, unless he was fueled by his determination, like that crossbowman you spoke of. There's another problem, in that we don't have any physical characteristics for him. We certainly can't search door- to-door for every man who feels he's been wronged by a Gypsy musician.'

'Without Arran along to know if they told us the truth, that wouldn't exactly be productive, even if we could confine every man in Kingsford to his own house until we questioned him,' Kayne pointed out. 'If he knows we're looking for him, he's hardly going to tell us the truth if we find and question him!' She folded a bit of paper over and over, a nervous habit Tal hadn't noticed until now.

Tal gritted his teeth. 'So, we're back to where we were when we started.'

'Maybe not—' Ardis said slowly, tapping the desk with her forefinger. 'We actually know a few things about the man himself. Hemust have a source of wealth; he's been moving freely from city to city, and evidently has leisure to seek out victims that match his needs. Conversely, he's unexceptional, unmemorable, because no one has commented a word about seeing strangers lingering conspicuously before the murders.'

'Except for the secondary victims,' Tal pointed out. 'They're often strangers to the area themselves.'