Saving Solace

CHAPTER 9

The incident with the gnomes and the problems their invention caused got Gerard to thinking that, to forestall another such brouhaha, he ought to keep track of all the strangers streaming to town for the temple dedication. To this end, he set up registration checkpoints on the three major roads between Solace and the towns of Haven, Gateway, and Que-Kiri.

The checkpoints did not sit well with many travelers. "You mean I have to present my credentials before I can come into town?" a merchant with a wagon-load of wine barrels demanded when he was stopped on the way in from Gateway. "Why, I've been distributing wine in these parts for nigh on fifteen years, and I've never had to suffer such nonsense before."

"It's just a precautionary measure," Gerard explained, while the town guardsman manning the new, brightly painted booth looked on impassively. "Especially with so many new visitors lately. However, you will have to purchase a merchant's writ to do business in Solace."

"I suppose next you'll be wanting to tell me where I have to stay while I'm in town, and who I can do business with," the merchant groused as he paid for his writ and showed his papers to the guardsman.

The guardsman peered at the merchant's documents i closely, unwilling to be hurried, before stamping the papers and handing them back, along with a fresh merchant's seal and an institutional-grade, formal smile. "Have a good stay while in Solace," the guard said. "Be sure to check in with the appropriate authorities at the time of your departure."

The merchant harrumphed and started up his team, the great wagon rolling ponderously with the sound of much sloshing inside the barrels as the merchant made his way toward Solace.

The next man, a tinker with a huge pack on his back, slouched up to the booth and presented his papers with similar grumbling. When it came to paying for his merchant's writ, he refused.

"Look, it's a decision by the town council to require this," Gerard argued.

"I've never had to buy one before, and I'm not buying one now."

"Then I'm afraid you can't conduct business in town."

"Oh?" The tinker's eyebrows rose in mock surprise. "And who's going to stop me?"

"I am," Gerard said wearily and signaled to another guardsman who bundled the tinker, now howling with outrage, off for a night in jail. "Maybe you'll be willing to abide by the municipal ordinances in the morning," Gerard said.

At midmorning he went to see how the other checkpoints were doing, accompanied by Vercleese.

The reaction at each of the other checkpoints was the same: visitors to Solace were taking umbrage at being detained and having their business questioned. No one was eager to pay for a merchant's writ either, when they had never had to purchase one previously.

"Do you think possibly the price of what you are trying to accomplish might be worse than any possible threat to the welfare of Solace?" Vercleese asked Gerard, as they headed toward the final checkpoint, on the road leading to Que-Kiri.

Gerard stuck his jaw out. "It's for the common good. It helps us to know who's coming and going in town. And the writ fees go into the town treasury."

"But Solace has always been a wide open town," the knight said softly.

"Some people might object at first," argued Gerard, "but they'll get used to it."

Solace merchants, meanwhile, were up in arms over another innovation. The enterprising crier Tangletoe Snakeweed had instituted a new practice, taking advantage of the sharp rise in local commerce. He was extolling the virtues of certain merchants' wares for a price while on his rounds. "It's unfair to the rest of us!" a cobbler complained as soon as Gerard and Vercleese returned to town from their round of the checkpoints. "It's an impediment to free trade!"

"That's Evan Grobbel," Vercleese whispered to Gerard. "Although he's better known as Evan the Grouch."

"Why don't you just pay Tangletoe a pittance to out your goods?" Gerard asked the cobbler, though privately he agreed with the Grouch that the kender had overstepped his duties.

"Why should I have to pay, when the people of Solace already know what fine shoes I make?"

"If everyone already knows you do good work, then you have nothing to worry about," Gerard said.

"But he praises all my competitors!" shouted Evan as Gerard slipped inside the guard headquarters, where he maintained an office. "And besides, it's the principle of the thing!"

" 'The principle of the thing' is the most expensive commodity out there," Gerard remarked dryly to Vercleese. "I wish I could corner the market on that one. I'd retire a wealthy man at a very early age."

Vercleese, absently stroking his mustache, said nothing.

The next couple of hours Gerard had set aside to pore over the volumes of codes, ordinances, and writs he had received from the town council. By lunch time, he was ready to forget them all and pretend he'd never heard of a civic statute, much less been hired to enforce the whole confusing lot of them. His head swam from trying to decipher the endless knots of tangled legalese in order to determine who owed whom what in the matter of one person's well becoming contaminated if another person's chickens jumped in and drowned. Or who was to blame if one man pulled up paving stones from the middle of the road, intending to use them in building a house, while another man stepped into the resulting hole in the dark and broke his leg. But reading about a case involving the statute did make him more wary of where he walked through town at night. Besides, there was another whole section of rules pertaining to pig wastes in city thoroughfares, which posed a threat to pedestrians of an entirely different nature.

Gerard didn't want to encounter any holes in the street, or pig waste, on any of his nocturnal strolls.

He and Vercleese headed to the inn for lunch. Gerard nodded greetings to several individuals they met along the way, pleased to realize that he was getting to know a fair percentage of the town's citizenry. At one point, they encountered a tall, elegant woman whose gray hair was pulled back in a severe bun, giving her a formidable though dignified look. Gerard shot a questioning glance at Vercleese, who introduced him to Goodwife Gottlief.

"Ah, the neighbor of Lady Drebble," Gerard said.

Goodwife Gottlief pursed her lips. "Yes, Lady Drebble. I hesitate to say anything, sheriff, but I fear something may be ailing my neighbor."

"What makes you say that?"

"Every time I have seen her lately, she has been making the most annoying grimaces, as if she is suffering from some severe gastric distress. I thought at first she was trying to smile, but the look is so pained I think now that cannot be the case. I am quite concerned about her health."

"I wouldn't worry about it too much," Gerard said, stifling a chuckle. Then, seeing that Goodwife Gottlief was about to protest, he added, "But I promise I'll look into the matter."

"Thank you, Sheriff." Goodwife Gottlief nodded politely to Vercleese. "Good day, gentlemen." She continued on her way as gracefully as a wraith floating on air, her feet never seeming to make contact with the ground under her long, swishing skirts.

As they continued walking, they heard Tangletoe Snakeweed's voice rising on an adjacent street. "At their meeting yesterday, the town council approved an ordinance requiring all noncitizens of Solace to register with the town guard upon entering the town limits."

Gerard frowned at Vercleese. "Does the town really need a crier? That kender gets on my nerves."

The knight spoke solemnly. "Tangletoe used to be a regular guest in our jail, until he was hired by the town council. It seemed a good solution at the time. He hasn't been arrested now for, let me see, one or two months. That's a record, in all the time he's been in Solace."

"Well, I guess there is a price to pay for the town growing so rapidly," Gerard said in a dubious tone. "Though I often wonder if progress is worth the price, added up."

Vercleese smiled as if Gerard had just made some point echoing the knight's own sentiments. Gerard wondered what the knight might have said of a similar nature, but could think of nothing.

Meanwhile, the kender continued on his rounds, reciting as he went, "Evan the Grou-, er, Evan the Great makes just about the finest shoes in all Solace. Be sure to place your order with Evan the Great today for new shoes to wear to the temple dedication. Best shoes in the whole of Ansalon, probably."

"I guess Evan Grobbel came around to the new way of doing business," Gerard said with a snort. "Didn't take him long, once he realized there might be some profit in it."

"That reminds me," Vercleese said, a pinched look on his face. "I need a new pair of shoes myself."

At lunch, they saw nothing of Laura, much to Gerard's relief. She was off somewhere, enabling Gerard to have lamb sandwich and a cup of cheese soup without fear of offending her.

After lunch, he and Vercleese strolled around the town, greeting people and checking on complaints. This had become part of his daily routine and was expected of the town sheriff. In truth, though it sounded like lazy, lofty work, Gerard thought, it was wearying in the heat of the day, and the kind of official friendliness and nosiness that he had to force himself to do. It wasn't in his nature to put himself forward thusly, but after his stint in the knighthood, if there was one thing he understood, it was to persevere in any duty required of him.

During the course of their meandering trek, Gerard and Vercleese discussed Sheriff Joyner's murder, debating the possible theories. The investigation was stalled. They had talked to many people in town, without coming up with any viable leads. Now and then Palin asked Gerard for an update, but the upcoming temple dedication was the more important matter, and as there had been no further crimes of note, there seemed no urgency about the murder. Still, it bothered both of them that they didn't yet have a suspect or even a motive.

They came to a ramshackle, ground-level building, where loud sounds of laughter and music and argument already seeped through the cracks in the dirty windows and through the chinks in the poorly made door. A woman's voice inside rose momentarily in a forced, commercial squeal of delight, the sound muffled by the thin walls but still distinct.

Gerard looked quizzically at Vercleese.

"The Trough," said the knight. "If you think it looks disreputable from the outside, you should see the inside. It's even worse. Every couple of years, the place manages to burn down and has to be rebuilt. The owner has taken to never cleaning; he just lets the inevitable fires do the job for him. The only time it ever looks respectable is the day it first opens for business again, after the latest fire."

Gerard chuckled, despite himself. "Well, it's about time we paid the place a visit, don't you think?" He started toward the front door.

Vercleese stopped him with a hand on his arm. "Nighttime is better," the knight said in a low voice.

"Why?"

"It's a den of iniquity, right enough," Vercleese said softly. "But especially at night."

"If you say so," said Gerard, reluctantly turning away.

"One more thing," the knight said, holding Gerard's arm and meeting his gaze. "Every town has at least one den of iniquity, and the council usually leaves this one alone, so long as the mischief and occasional violence remain within limits. If we need to go in looking for something-or someone-then that's what we'll do. Otherwise, it's best not to tip our hand with drop-in visits."

Gerard allowed himself to be led farther along the street, casting a glance over his shoulder from time to time as if The Trough's building itself might commit some foul deed that would compel him to swing into action. But if he secretly hoped he would have to storm inside and round up the establishment's clients and haul them off to jail, he was doomed, for the present at least, to disappointment. The building stolidly refused to engage in any nefarious act.

"Here we have the warehouses of Tyburn Price," Vercleese said, gesturing to the boxlike structures that rose on each side of the narrow road. "Without question, he is one of the town's most prominent citizens, and does an active business in import and export."

Gerard and Vercleese followed a slight curve in the road. "I'm familiar with the name," Gerard said distractedly. "In fact, Tyburn Price contracts for quite a bit of business on my father's ships."

Vercleese nodded. "That would be him. A shrewd businessman-you'll never get the better of him in a deal. But a fine fellow for all that. Now up ahead we have…"

The knight's voice droned on, merging with the piercing buzz of cicadas on the hot, airless afternoon. Gerard longed for the welcome relief of a breeze, but none materialized.

The Trough had set the tone for the neighborhood, and now they found themselves in a rougher quarter of Solace. Gerard and Vercleese kept their hands near their weapons as they strode purposefully through the streets with their ramshackle, temporary buildings, all on ground level. Ragged children played in the gutters, which ran with the wastes of butcher shops, tanneries, and less savory businesses. Gerard breathed through his mouth and marched resolutely on, ignoring the catcalls and hooting of the children as he and Vercleese passed by.

Later that afternoon, while Vercleese went over to the temple grounds to check on the construction,

Gerard wandered down to the blacksmith's shop to see about the progress on his sword.

"It takes time to fashion a good blade," grumbled Torren Soljack, the smith. "I do good work and don't care to be rushed. Now, if you want to take your business elsewhere, you go right ahead."

Gerard was sitting on an upturned wine cask. If the temperature outside was hot, the temperature inside the smithy was almost intolerable. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve but was unable to stop the flow of sweat from trickling into his eyes. "Where else in town can I get as good a sword?" he asked equably.

"You can't!" Soljack snapped. While the smith talked, he kept up the steady rhythm of hammer blows on the red-hot horseshoe he held over the anvil with a pair of tongs. He seemed oblivious to the rivulets of sweat that glistened on his torso, bare except for the leather apron he wore to protect himself from sparks. He was a mass of burns and scars that shone out white against the bronze coloring of the rest of his skin. "There's nowhere else you can get a decent sword around here. People will tell you, I'm the only one who knows the old arts, which take time and patience." He pursed his lips disapprovingly, but whether of Gerard, lesser smiths, or the world in general, Gerard couldn't tell.

The smith harbored some secret that was eating away at him, Gerard thought. The secret rose up like bile in his mouth, only to be choked back down again. Whatever mystery he was harboring would surely kill him, given time. What secret could be so terrible it was worth such stress and strain?

Gerard didn't budge. The smith said nothing else but glowered at the sheriff from time to time as if with cheerless surprise to find him still sitting there and watching.

Gerard watched in silence for a long time, noting the care with which Soljack shaped even the lowly horseshoes he was forging today. Gerard couldn't help but admire the man, regardless of how unwelcoming he behaved. Off to one side, he eyed his sword, cooling in preparation for its next stage. He wiped his face again.

It wasn't likely that the sword would get all that cool today.

"What can you tell me about my predecessor, Sheriff Joyner?" Gerard asked on impulse, thinking here was a man who saw and observed far more than he let on.

Soljack seemed taken aback by the question. "Sheriff Joyner?"

Gerard nodded, struggling for breath in the heat. Soljack paused, eyeing Gerard suspiciously. "What are you asking me that for?"

Gerard shrugged. Because I was floundering around searching for some topic of conversation, didn't seem to be the right reply, he thought.

Soljack resumed pounding, each blow of the massive hammer showering the air with sparks. For a long time, it seemed he was done talking. Gerard waited patiently. "Sheriff Joyner was a good man," the smith said at last, his voice a deep rumble in the tiny shop. "He sometimes visited Baron Samuval up at the baron's fortress nearby." He glanced up sharply, catching Gerard's look. "I guess you didn't know about that."

Gerard shook his head, though he did know-or at least he had heard that Sheriff Joyner played a game of Regal with Samuval now and then.

Soljack shrugged. "Strange thing to do, but it was common knowledge hereabouts. That's the kind of man Sheriff Joyner was. The sheriff had worked out some kind of understanding or agreement with Samuval, allowing Samuval's men to come into town from time to time."

"I think I've seen some of them around," Gerard said, recalling the rough-looking men who had been taunting Kirrit Bitterleaf outside the grocery.

Soljack nodded, as if reading Gerard's thoughts. "Sheriff Joyner permitted Samuval's men to come into town and buy supplies once in a while, and he permitted the elves to do the same. But if they lingered in town, they had to restrict themselves to The Trough and its environs. Otherwise, Sheriff Joyner would lock them up for a day or two. And that wasn't half as bad as the men could expect from Samuval himself once they got back. As a result, they were generally better behaved while in Solace than some of the town's most upstanding citizens."

Gerard thought about what Vercleese had said about The Trough being a necessary evil in the town. Apparently, Joyner had understood the importance of that as well.

"They played a fierce game of Regal, Sheriff Joyner and Samuval, from what I hear," Soljack said.

"It sounds like they spent some very companionable time together," Gerard said dryly, finding it hard to summon any affection for the mercenary who had helped overthrow the elves in Qualinesti.

Soljack shot him a sharp look. "Rumor has it the wily old outlaw chief liked Sheriff Joyner as much as the townspeople did. I don't think he killed him, if that's what you're wondering."

Gerard let out a discouraged breath. That's what everybody said. Sheriff Joyner apparently didn't have a single enemy, which left Gerard with a grand total of exactly no one who seemed to have had a reason to want the sheriff dead.

Lady Odila Windlass walked slowly through the grounds of the unfinished temple, relishing the tranquility now that the workday was over. Though the air still smelled of the stonecutters' dust and carpenters' shavings, gone was the din of chisel and saw. For the moment, as dusk settled upon Solace, the site was calm, the grounds fallen strangely quiet except for the chirping of crickets and the soft rustling of the vallenwood leaves. At moments such as this, Odila could imagine how the temple grounds would feel once construction was finished and the unhurried rhythm of clerics going about their sacred duties replaced the chaos of the builders.

As the last red glow of sunset faded behind her, the crest of the mountains to the east, beyond the temple, grew brighter, foretelling the double moonrise soon to follow. Odila paused in her steps to watch, letting her mind sink into meditative prayer. She drank in the night air in slow, measured breaths and felt almost at peace with the world. Or as close to peace as she came these days, since that terrible moment during the war when she had been forced to look deep into Mina's eyes, only to wind up confronting the darkness that reposed in her own soul. All her life since that moment had been dedicated to the struggle against such darkness wherever it dwelt. But she no longer struggled as a warrior did, with knives and swords; rather, she abided by the healing light of Mishakal, which gave her a far more potent weapon.

She hoped in the end it would be enough.

The frightened squeal of an animal erupted nearby, followed by the heavy flapping of an owl carrying off its prey. The attack, though completely natural, nevertheless disrupted Odila's peaceful reverie. She went on into the temple, while Solinari was a mere fingernail of white edging above the mountains and only a reddish glow indicated where Lunitari would soon rise.

Inside, the sharp rap of her steps echoed back at her from the vast emptiness, first of the antechamber, then the main sanctuary. She found herself standing before the statue of Mishakal.

Then other steps intruded on her thoughts, and she recognized the light but confident tread of Kaleen coming from behind her. Kaleen's arrival always prompted a warm smile from Odila, lighting up a face that seldom knew joy these days, and the young woman from the inn usually brought other amenities.

Odila smelled the aroma of freshly brewed tarbean tea. "I thought you might like a mug to ease the tensions of the day," Kaleen said, her voice soft in the reverential silence.

Odila accepted the mug gratefully.

"When was the last time you ate?" Kaleen asked.

"Don't mother me," Odila growled.

Kaleen said nothing, only waited.

Sighing, Odila relented. "I don't know. Breakfast, I guess."

"Perhaps you'd like me to get you something to eat?"

"No need. I'll have dinner presently."

Kaleen didn't move.

"I promise," Odila said.

In the darkness, she could feel rather than see Kaleen considering her answer. "All right," the younger woman said at last, as if she were the one in authority here. "But don't forget. You've promised me."

"I won't forget, you have my word," Odila said warmly.

The sound of Kaleen's footsteps retreated, fading into silence as she left the temple. Once again, Odila was alone in night's embrace. She turned to where she knew the statue stood; she couldn't quite see its details but knew its expression was serene, despite its divine watchfulness. She took a sip from the mug, the steam rising like a faint, steadying breath against her face. "Thank you, Goddess, for Kaleen and others who help support me," she whispered.

Slowly, she sipped the tea, letting her tension ebb away. When she had drained the mug, she felt somewhat restored. She grinned, thinking that tomorrow Kaleen would demand an accounting of exactly what she had eaten for dinner. She had better go make good on her promise.

She walked softly back through the temple, her footsteps quieter now. Just as she was about to step onto the temple porch, however, she froze, overhearing angry voices coming from somewhere outside. Keeping to the shadows of the two great doors of the temple, she peered into the gloomy light the two risen moons now cast upon the yard. She made out Salamon Beach standing between two figures she didn't recognize. The two strange men were pushing Beach back and forth between them, as if he were a ball in some kind of vicious game they were playing. With each shove, they snarled curses or threats, although Odila couldn't quite make out their words. She was just about to hurry to his aid when, with a final push that sent Beach sprawling to the ground, the two men turned away. She got a brief glimpse by moonlight of one man's face, with an enormous, thick mustache that drooped down to conceal his upper lip and a scar that puckered his skin from the corner of his left eye and down his jaw, disappearing beneath his shirt. Then the two men vanished into the dark. Odila rushed over to Beach and helped him stand.

"What was that all about?" she asked concernedly.

He dusted himself off and tried to laugh, although the sound came out forced and hollow. "Oh, it's nothing. Nothing at all. Just a slight disagreement between… colleagues, of a sort."

"That looked like more than a simple 'disagreement,' " Odila said.

"It was nothing, truly. You needn't concern yourself," Beach replied, his tone cutting off further inquiry. "Now I really must be off. I have… matters to attend to." Then he slipped into the night as well, although not, Odila noticed, heading in the same direction as his two assailants.

Odila was left standing alone in the moonlight, the inner peace she had gathered about her now quite shattered. She shook her head, as if to clear it of disturbing thoughts, and trudged off toward the inn to honor her promise of getting some dinner. But trudging along, she was unable to shake the sense that, despite Beach's assurances, something was very wrong.