Saving Solace

CHAPTER 13

Palin was talking with Odila, when Usha came hurrying toward them, her skirts hiked up and her face flushed. "Are either of you hurt?" she gasped, out of breath.

"No," Palin said, taking her gently by the arm. "We're all right."

Usha glanced quickly around the temple grounds, her eyes coming to rest on the sight of workmen dismantling the collapsed scaffolding. For all the activity, the work site was eerily hushed, affected by the mood of the disaster. The workmen were going about their tasks without any of their usual banter or singing. "And the others? Was anyone hurt?"

"Most everyone escaped with little or no injury," Palin answered.

She looked at him sharply. "Most?"

"The architect for the project, Salamon Beach, is dead."

Usha's shoulders sagged. "I expected as much. Not him, precisely, but I feared someone had died." She looked up into Palin's face. "When I went to work on the painting today, blood was dripping down the temple wall." She pointed to where the scaffolding had been. "That wall there."

"Your auguries were true, unfortunately," Palin said equably. "Would that they could tell us who did it as well."

"Who did it? You mean this was intentional, not an accident?" Palin nodded.

"Someone, or more than one person if you like, severed a rope that hound the scaffolding," Odila said, joining the conversation. "We don't know yet, however, whether they intended to kill Salamon or whether they were just trying to delay construction of the temple. Salamon may simply have been standing in an unfortunate spot when the scaffolding gave way."

Usha stared at the temple a moment. "It's hard to imagine someone wanting to disrupt construction of a place devoted to healing," she said at last.

"There may be dark forces at work here," Odila said. "Certainly Mishakal has her enemies among the gods."

"We can only hope your fears prove ungrounded," said Usha, laying a gentle hand on Odila's arm.

"Now that you're here," Palin said to his wife,

"perhaps you can help Odila comfort the survivors."

"Where are you going to be?" Usha asked, puzzled.

"I've arranged to meet Gerard at Mistress Hulsey's shop," Palin said grimly. "We need to learn all we can from Salamon Beach's corpse."

Kaleen had fallen asleep in the wagon, her head resting on Gerard's shoulder. He tried to move as little as possible, not wanting to disrupt her rest, but his muscles burned with a cramp beneath his shoulder blade. Unfortunately, he had been sitting in an awkward position when she fell asleep. He grimaced and forced himself to hold still. Kaleen had been spending long hours working at the inn, as well as assisting Odila, and she was clearly spent. Before dozing off, she had tried gamely to hold up her end of a conversation, but constant yawns had betrayed her exhaustion.

He studied her while she slept. Her pretty face looked almost haggard, and there were dark circles under her eyes. Poor girl, Gerard thought. She needed this brief rest.

As the wagon bumped and jostled along the pitted road into town, he fell to thinking about whether there could be a link between the murder of Sheriff Joyner and the death of Salamon Beach. Gerard could conceive of no motive that would connect the two deaths, but it was odd they had happened so close together in time. Perhaps there was a conspiracy afoot to undermine the dedication of the temple, and Sheriff Joyner had stumbled upon the plot in its early stages. If so, what kind of conspiracy was it, and why did the sheriff and the architect have to die?

The wagon rumbled to a stop before the imposing house of Cardjaf and Gatrice Duhar, one of the newer, ground-level buildings that had become popular in Solace since the war. Gerard gently shook Kaleen awake, secretly enjoying the opportunity, if truth be told, to brush her shoulder. "We're here," he said.

"What? Where?" Kaleen asked blearily, peering about her. She frowned. "What are we doing here? We're supposed to be going to Mistress Hulsey's shop."

"I told the wagon driver to stop here first," Gerard answered. "You did? Why?"

"Because you need to be at home getting some rest." When she looked as if she wanted to object, he quickly added, "Consider it an order from the sheriff." He was rewarded with a thin smile. "Well, if it's an official command, then I guess I had better obey." She yawned deeply. "I suppose I could do with a little nap before going to work at the inn tonight."

"You need more than a nap," Gerard said. "You need a good night's sleep. I want you to consider staying home tonight; let someone else take your shift at the inn. I'm sure Laura can cope." Again, she looked ready to argue. "Please, Kaleen," he added gently. "You're so exhausted you can hardly stay on your feet. The temple dedication is coming up in just a few days now, and you don't want to be so worn out you can't enjoy yourself."

"I suppose not," she said dubiously. "Good. Then that's settled." He helped her down from the wagon.

Just then, the front door was flung open and Cardjaf and Gatrice rushed out, their faces wracked with concern. At least, Gerard assumed the tall woman with the imperious eyes was Kaleen's mother; Cardjaf he recognized from the town council meetings.

"We were so worried," Gatrice said, wringing her long, slender hands. "We heard about the accident and were just about to hurry over there to make sure you were all right." Her gaze fixed on Gerard, her eyes growing bigger as she took in the sheriff's presence "You are all right, aren't you?"

"I'm fine, Mother," Kaleen said, allowing herself to be held in the older woman's awkward embrace.

"All those long hours you've been putting in overs that new temple, and now it turns out to be an unsafe place," Gatrice went on, abruptly dropping her arms and leading her daughter toward the house. "I told your father we never should have left Palanthas to come here. I have a good mind to forbid you from going back to that dreadful temple." When Kaleen opened her mouth to speak, Gatrice hurried on. "But we'll tall about that later. Right now, let's get you inside. You're near collapse, poor thing." She threw a perfunctory smile of gratitude in Gerard's direction then resumed fussing over Kaleen as they entered the house.

Cardjaf looked awkward, a manner strikingly at odds with his usual self-possession. He couldn't find the right pose; one moment his hands hung uselessly at his sides, the next moment they were clasped with false bravura behind his back, then finally he raised them up and executed a half-gesture of apologetic explanation. "My wife," he explained as Gatrice led Kaleen inside. "She's never quite forgiven me for uprooting her from Palanthas. But we are grateful to you for bringing our daughter safely home."

Gerard, made uneasy by Gatrice's disapproval and Cardjaf's awkwardness, responded with a formality that came out sounding more brusque than he'd intended. "The situation isn't really as bad as you may have heard. There was some damage, but the foreman, a dwarf by the name of Stonegate, assures us they'll have construction back on schedule within a few days."

"But someone was killed, we heard." Gerard hesitated. "Yes, Salamon Beach, the architect. Actually, we think the accident may have been concocted to cause his deliberate murder."

Cardjaf shook his head solemnly. "I hate to sound callous, but I hope you will get at the facts of the matter. What happened at the temple will affect the town's reputation, especially if does turn out that this death was intentional. We can't afford any negative repercussions."

"A man is dead, Councilman. For Salamon Beach, the repercussions are already negative."

Duhar treated Gerard to a penetrating stare. "Two men are dead, Sheriff. Surely you haven't forgotten about your predecessor? It doesn't help matters that this disaster occurs on the heels of another mysterious incident. I trust that sooner or later you will get to the facts of that incident also." Gerard felt his face flush.

"But there, I'm forgetting my manners," Cardjaf said, turning abruptly cordial. "You brought our daughter safely home to us, and for that, as I say, we are truly thankful." He hesitated. "She's been putting in long hours with this temple nonsen-" He broke off, looking embarrassed. "With this temple business," he amended, "becoming a kind of unofficial liaison for that visiting cleric, what is her name? Cordelia? Something like that."

"Lady Odila," Gerard said stiffly.

"Odila, yes, thank you. This new preoccupation worries her mother. And, I may as well admit it, the situation worries me, too. We have plans for Kaleen's future, and they don't include her becoming infatuated by empty religious rhetoric. Kaleen has been having many long, soul-searching conversations with this Odila person, and I fear the cleric may be taking advantage of our daughter's emotional vulnerability to plant silly notions in her head."

Gerard bristled, knowing Odila was far from being the type to take advantage of another person's emotional vulnerability, or to plant silly notions in anyone's head-especially Kaleen's.

"Well," Cardjaf concluded, "I for one will be glad when this temple is finally dedicated. It's been good for business here in Solace, but enough is enough. So I hope this unfortunate incident at the temple today won't delay the dedication. The sooner that the necessary observances are over and done with, and all these visiting clerics return to their proper homes, the better. And now, if you will excuse me, I had best be seeing to the welfare of my wife and child. They've had quite enough time for a little mother-daughter heart-to-heart talk, don't you think?" He awarded Gerard a knowing, indulgent smile and strode up to the door of his house.

Gerard climbed back into the wagon, silently fuming.

A few minutes later, the wagon driver pulled up in front of Argyle Hulsey's shop, where a small crowd had already gathered in anticipation of watching as the dead man's body was brought inside. Gerard, still annoyed over his exchange with Cardjaf Duhar, put a couple of the men in the crowd to work carrying Salamon Beach into the shop. The pair had come to the scene wanting a close-up look at the dead man, Gerard reflected sourly; now they were getting a closer view than they bargained for. Of course, they'd probably be bragging about their involvement and making the most of it in the town's taverns and inns before nightfall.

Now the two jockeyed for who would grab the man's legs and who would grab the arms, so close to the bloodied head. They squeamishly took up their burden at last and lugged it inside, depositing the former architect with undignified haste on his back atop the worktable made ready by Mistress Hulsey. Then the two hovered nearby, as if expecting a reward for their meager contribution to the day's drama. One of the pair, who was unusually tall, kept brushing against the clusters of dried herbs that hung from the rafters. In his confusion, he backed up against a counter along the side of the room, where he almost upset the potions Mistress Hulsey had been in the process of making. Indeed, the air in the shop hung heavy with the potent aromas of herbs and minerals, not all of them pleasant. It made the room feel uncomfortably cloistered.

"Thank you," Gerard said dryly, as he directed the two men toward the door. "That'll be all."

"Maybe we should stay a while," the shorter of the pair said. "You might need our help with… with something else before you're finished."

"We'll let you know if we do," Gerard said, flashing an insincere smile. He closed the door on them as they were still protesting and turned his attention back to the table, feeling a little dizzy from the multitude of thick odors in the room. At least they covered the smell of death, Gerard thought.

"We'll need to undress him," Mistress Hulsey said, apparently unfazed by the stuffy air and the manner of the two men. Her voice was matter-of-fact. They set about peeling off the architect's clothes, cutting them from his body where necessary to avoid shifting his head any more than they had to. Soon the body lay undressed, and Mistress Hulsey walked slowly around the table, surveying the corpse from every possible angle, occasionally moving in closer to study some feature in more detail, then stepping back and resuming her unhurried examination. When she had completed her slow circuit, coming again to her starting point, she stopped.

"Well, a couple of fingers are broken," she declared, indicating the left hand of the dead man. "There's no swelling, so they were probably broken by falling debris at the time he was killed." She pointed to a large scrape on his right shin. "That abrasion, too, probably happened at the time of death as there appears to have been little bleeding from the wound afterward. His heart had already stopped beating." She frowned, pulling the eyelids well back from each eye and peering at them, then closing the eyes and exploring the dead man's mouth. With practiced equanimity, she pulled the tongue this way and that, examining the oral cavity from all vantages.

"What is it exactly that are you looking for now? I mean, in his mouth," Gerard asked, curious.

"Evidence of poisoning," she said.

"Poisoning? But surely he was killed by scaffolding when it collapsed."

She looked at him with a cool, detached gaze. "We don't know that for certain. We only know it looks that way." Abruptly, she shrugged. "However, I don't detect any evidence of poisoning, so you're probably right. Let's turn him over and get a look at the back of his head."

Argyle Hulsey was a small, birdlike woman, so it took some straining for the two of them to flop Beach over without rolling him right off the table. When they finally had Beach facedown, she made another careful circuit around the table, coming to a stop at the shattered head. Blood and tissue matted the man's hair, and shards of bone protruded from the gaping wound. A portion of the gray, lumpy brain lay exposed, looking crushed and pulpy. Though Gerard had seen his share of dead men in his knightly days, he forced down the bile that rose in his throat.

Mistress Hulsey poked dispassionately at the edges of the wound then lifted the hair to expose the nape of Beach's neck. "That's odd," she said, pausing in her inspection.

"What's odd?"

"That." She pointed with her free hand to a small tattoo that had been hidden by Beach's hair. High up on the neck, just below the hairline, were a pair of stylized bones with a four and a three showing on their uppermost faces.

The shop door opened, then closed again, and over his shoulder Gerard saw that it was Palin who had entered quietly.

"What does it mean?" Gerard asked.

"It's the sign of a secret society," Palin said, coming to stand beside Gerard and leaning forward for a better look. "I've seen it before."

"An evil brotherhood?" Gerard asked.

Palin shook his head. "Not really. It's an elite gambling society. They have no religion except bones and cards and other games of chance. They're willing to risk everything on their nightly gambling rituals. Generally the members are criminals, but some from all levels of society are addicted to games of chance, and if they can afford to play and lose… well, then they're welcome."

Mistress Hulsey nodded. "I've heard of this organization, too. Generally criminals, as you say. That's why it's a hit odd to find this tattoo on a man like Salamon Beach, architect of a temple devoted to Mishakal, the goddess of healing."

"The tattoo identifies members to each other," Palin explained.

"It sounds as though I should learn as much as I can about this society and then ferret out its members here in Solace," Gerard said.

"Yes," said Palin, frowning. "Though I can't easily guess what a secret gambling society might have to do with the temple accident, or the architect's death."

Gerard couldn't guess, either. Nor did he have a clue as to how to go about gaining access to so secretive a fraternity. Maybe if he took up gambling in the evenings, frequenting the various taverns and inns. Then if he spread enough coin around, word would spread about his "addiction." Members of the society might then be encouraged to approach him.

Vercleese was busy seeking anyone with knowledge of the two ruffians who had been seen assaulting Salamon Beach. But he had to keep one eye on the individuals he questioned and another on his partner, Blair Windholm. The sergeant of the town guard was acting sullen; he wasn't doing his share of the job. Maybe Blair was simply put out because he hadn't been allowed to accompany Beach's body-and the lovely young Kaleen Duhar-back into town. However, if he had an ulterior motive for his desultory assistance, Vercleese wanted to know.

"I don't think it's likely that the two people we're looking for are the same ones who trampled your garden and helped themselves to some of your carrots," he said gently to Mora Skein, the plump, angry seamstress they had met coming out of Stephen's Grocery.

"But you said you're looking for a couple of men who might have been up to no good, and that certainly fits the description of whoever stole my carrots. My prize carrots!" she added, leaning closer for emphasis. "You know, they always take the ribbon at the local fair."

"But we're looking for men with distinct faces. You said you didn't get a good look at your carrot thieves. It might have been just some of the neighborhood boys out doing a little mischief."

"Mischief!" Mora's eyes widened with outrage, and her face darkened. "My best carrots, and you call that mischief?"

"Come on," Blair growled. "We're getting nowhere here."

Mora turned on him. "And you! The town guard can't even protect my vegetable garden, and you pretend to defend all of Solace?"

Blair backed up a few steps, his hands up as if to ward off Mora's words. "I'm sure we'll catch whoever's done this to your garden, ma'am. But first we have to find these two men, who might have committed a real crime-"

"Real crime!" Mora shrieked, gathering attention from passersby. "Desecrating my garden and robbing me of my priceless carrots doesn't qualify as a real crime? I'll have you know that Mistress Dinmore has had her eye on the annual gardening prize for years and will gloat for the rest of her life if she can win it, now that my best carrots have been stolen. She was already out in her yard this morning, smiling in her false way as I discovered the damage to my garden."

"You're right, Mistress Mora," Vercleese said hurriedly, taking her arm and drawing her quietly away from Blair and the collecting crowd. Deftly, considering he had only one arm, the knight took out a small notebook and scribbled some words on it. "I've officially noted your loss, and we will of course investigate the theft of your carrots with all due dispatch. Indeed," he said over his shoulder to Blair, "we might start by talking to some of the folks down at The Trough."

They bade Mora as polite a farewell as they could and rushed away. Blair was muttering imprecations, and Vercleese clapped him on the shoulder. "Buck up. Soon we'll be among ordinary ruffians down at The Trough. They'll seem positively cooperative by comparison, I'm sure."

But the clients of The Trough answered Vercleese's and Blair's questions with surly monosyllables, and none who were present fit the descriptions of the two men Vercleese and Blair sought. Try as he might, Vercleese couldn't find anything suspicious or cagey in the customers' replies. It was as if the two ruffians, striking though their appearances might have been, had drifted into Solace as unnoticed as the evening mist and vanished without leaving a trace.

Vercleese's jaw was clenched in frustration as they marched back to the guard headquarters to meet Gerard and tell him they had learned nothing new.