“And Guigenor really did manage to lose it,” Artus offered. “It’ll turn up somewhere in the club one of these days.”
“So what happened to the wineskin?” someone asked from the crowd.
Artus shuddered. “Marrok must have ordered Leonska to get rid of that bit of evidence-so he ate it. His teeth were all shattered from trying to chew up the stopper before swallowing it.”
Pontifax cleared his throat sententiously. “It was a fiendishly clever plan,” he announced. “You see, the undead are not magical, per se, so the Treaty Room had no effect upon the poor creature’s actions. There was also the added benefit of having Leonska’s soul trapped in his corpse, which meant the watch could not raise it for questioning.”
Artus stepped down from the dais. “Marrok really only needed me to uncover all the evidence he’d laid out. He killed Guigenor, too, and had her attack me to sew up the case-and maybe just murder me in the process.” He plucked at his ceremonial robe. “Oghma knows he didn’t really want to let me join his club. I probably would have turned up dead eventually if I hadn’t figured this out.”
Pontifax continued to expound upon the minutiae of their investigation, anchoring the crowd in place as Artus drifted away. He passed the small group of priests who had already begun the task of freeing Guigenor’s soul from her animate corpse. Artus only wished the priests had been able to do the same for Count Leonska, whose body had been burned the previous night. The man had surely been conscious of his fate to the end, staring at the flames of his pyre with the same lifeless expression with which he’d regarded Artus that day in the Treaty Room.
“There’s a dog on Marrok’s estate you’ll want to have exorcised, too,” Artus called to Sergeant Orsini. The soldier was finally leading Marrok away. “The thing’s called Kezef. You’ll find it in the workshop off the study.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Marrok snapped. He swept the Dragons with an imperious stare. “That hound will be waiting for me when I return home in a day or two, or I’ll see the lot of you scrubbing gull droppings from the king’s yacht.”
The stunned expression on Artus’s face drew a sneer from Marrok de Landoine. “I have influence rabble like you can never counter. Even if the charges are true- note, please, that I said ‘if-I’ll certainly never hang for them. Just look around if you doubt me.”
Artus did just that as Sergeant Orsini hustled Marrok from the room.
For each person who looked upon the newest Stalwart with admiration and approval, there was another who glowered at him. More telling still, the most senior and influential members were the ones who offered Artus their undisguised animosity. A disdain for upstarts had not been a trait of Marrok’s alone.
“You appear glum when you should be celebrating, Master Cimber,” Uther said.
Artus shrugged. “I’m not all that certain I want to belong to this club anymore.”
“Nonsense.” The butler regarded the frowning, sulking Stalwarts with his slitted yellow eyes, then turned back to Artus. “They may not welcome you with open arms, but they will most assuredly offer you respect. You’ve brought down one of their own-whether he swings for his crimes or no.”
“They hate me for it.”
“Perhaps,” Uther said. “But they fear you for it, too. Fear is a useful thing when dealing with powerful men and women. To be honest, it’s the reason I am just a bit pleased they think me capable of murder.”
“And you’re not?” Artus asked. He hesitated before he spoke again, but when he did, he said something to Uther few would have dared. “I thought lawyers-especially FitzKevraid clan barristers-were capable of anything.”
The look that comment engendered on Uther’s horrible features was truly unsettling. A smile spread across his black lips. Then quietly, deeply, the butler began to laugh.
Thieves’ Justice
Spring was coming to Rashemen-eventually. That night, early in the month of Ches, spring’s presence had not yet been detected in the frost-bound capital city of Immilmar. The snow in the streets and on the buildings had been there for months, layer after layer of hard-packed ice, dirt, soot, and frozen debris. The air was still bitterly cold, and icicles hung like prison bars from the eaves of many buildings.
Teza wiped her face and hurriedly pulled her wolf-fur collar up closer to her nose and mouth. Muttering to herself, she left the Guardian Witch Inn behind and marched up the street, paying no attention to her direction or the people around her. The streets were quiet, for most people had already sought the warmth and light of well-lit hearths. The many inns were doing a rollicking business, but most of the shop fronts and the city markets were closed.
The young woman gritted her teeth and stamped into the gathering darkness. Mask take that wizardess, she fumed. It was not fair that the one person in all the East that she considered her best friend had to be so stubbornly honest. Why couldn’t Kanlara look past Teza’s profession to what lay within the horse thief’s heart and mind?
Resentment flared anew in Teza’s thoughts. What right did Kanlara have to tell her what she should not do? Who made her the guardian of Teza’s integrity? Kanlara’s rigidity and her lack of faith in her friend had pricked the horse thief’s hide one time too many.
Teza frowned at the night sky. Last autumn, tolerance had been easy for both of them. At the risk of her own life, Teza had freed Kanlara from a wizard’s spell that had trapped her in the shape of a book for over thirty years. Kanlara, overjoyed at her freedom, had been grateful and ready to embrace the world. Teza took Kanlara to her home and into her life. To the delight of them both, a fast friendship had formed. But in the ensuing months, winter had locked them into constant close proximity and forced them to delay their plans to travel beyond Rashemen’s borders. Little differences blew up into heated arguments, and the subject of Teza’s profession threatened to cause an irreparable rift.
As if on cue Teza’s palms began to itch, a sure sign she had not stolen a good horse in days. Belatedly, she slowed and took her bearings. She was in an area of large workshops and houses just to the east of the center of the city. The grim fortress of the Huhrong’s citadel lay behind her, its iron and steel walls pockmarked with pools of torchlight. Ahead and to the north lay the houses of the wealthier merchants and many of the city’s nobles.
It wasn’t the houses that drew Teza, however. She had tried her hand at burglary and did not like it. She preferred the subtlety of picking pockets or the excitement of horse theft. Even in winter there were places to find crowds with full purses and stables with interesting horses. One of her favorite spots was an inn and livery on the eastern road to Muiptan. It was often frequented by merchants, travelers, and traders, and their many beasts of burden, and it was not always well guarded.
Teza picked up her pace and continued east. The snow crunched under her boots and the biting wind drove in from Lake Ashane, the icy Lake of Tears. She hunched her shoulders against the cold and plowed on, not hearing a faint voice that called behind her.
She passed over a low stone bridge that spanned a small but swift river that still resisted the grip of the freezing wind. Several minutes later she saw the bulk of the Red Stallion Inn hunched back into a thick stand of evergreens. The timbered walls were lit with lanterns and lamplight blazed from every window. Smoke rolled from the inn’s several chimneys and the smell of cooking food wafted into the dark. Teza noted all the activity with satisfaction. The inn was busy this night, which meant there were probably good pickings in the stable.
Niall One Hand ran a fine establishment that included the convenience of large corrals for livestock and beasts of burden and warm stables for the finer mounts of his guests. Teza, not wishing to abuse a good source, only visited Niall’s place rarely to remove a few of the finer steeds from customers who could well afford it. Fortunately, Niall bad no idea who raided his stable, so Teza was able to return the favor sometimes by bringing him stock to sell or passing a good deal his way. She liked Niall’s easy wit and his flexible sense of honesty.
She turned away from the light and warmth and worked her way through the trees toward the stables. As quiet as a snowcat she slipped through the night to the back of the large barn. The building was timber, built on a stone and earth foundation, and it could house twenty horses or thirty ponies in a double row of stalls. A set of double doors opened onto the inn’s courtyard, but there was also a smaller groom’s door that opened from the back into the alley between the stalls. This door was usually kept locked-a fact that rarely bothered Teza-but this night it
