“Disappeared,” Matt said. “He’s a wizard.”
“I saw,” Sir Orizhan told him. “He struck me down with a chant and a wave of his hand. Why did you not call us to attack him sooner, Lord Wizard?”
“I thought I could handle him by myself,” Matt answered, and the words were gall on his tongue. “He turned out to be a better sorcerer than I thought.”
“A sorcerer?” Sir Orizhan frowned. “How can you be sure that he uses his powers for evil?”
“Just a feeling,” Matt said, “but when you’ve held magic duels with enough sorcerers, you begin to recognize that feeling. Besides, he helped murder a man, maybe even did it himself, and is trying to start a war.” He started toward Sergeant Brock. “Come on, let’s see if we can get this soldier on his feet again. We have to go back to the castle and tell the king—” He broke off, gritted his teeth, then forced himself to say,”—tell the king I lost, and the murderer got away.”
“He will not like that.” Sir Orizhan joined him, scooping an arm under Brock’s shoulders and pulling him up.
“No, he won’t.” Matt shuddered at the thought of facing the king. “He’s going to like it even less when I tell him the man was Bretanglian.”
“He will not believe you,” Sir Orizhan said flatly.
“No, he won’t,” Matt agreed, “but you heard his accent— didn’t you?”
“I heard most of what passed between you, yes.”
Matt started patting Sergeant Brock’s cheeks. “Where would you say the man came from?”
“Bretanglia—but I have seldom heard so strong an accent.”
Matt paused. “You mean he might have been laying it on too thick because he wanted me to think he was Bretanglian when he wasn’t?”
“That, or making sure you could not mistake him.”
“Makes sense, if he’s trying to start a war,” Matt said grimly, “which is what’s going to happen, when I have to tell the king I failed.”
“Are you sure the man you fought was indeed the murderer, though?”
Matt froze, the light dawning. Then he turned to Sir Orizhan with a smile. “No, I’m not. We really should try to make sure before I report in, shouldn’t we? Come on, let’s wake up this man and visit the crime scene.”
Matt cured Sergeant Brock’s headache by massaging his temples and reciting a verse. Then the two men led him deep into the twisting alleys of the oldest part of the town, to the Inn of the Courier Snail. They came in to find the common room silent, with sixteen very glum patrons, an extremely worried landlord with trembling serving wenches, and a dozen grim-faced soldiers stationed around the room, their halberds on guard, Merovencians on one side, Bretanglians on the other.
“I guess it really is a good thing we came,” Matt said.
“Aye, milord, unless you wish the war to start here,” Sir Orizhan said.
The soldiers all looked up. The Merovencians smiled with relief, the Bretanglians glared. The civilians quaked.
Matt decided it was time to be authoritative. “I am Matthew Mantrell, Lord Wizard of Merovence, come to investigate this night’s doings.”
The Bretanglians turned surly. Matt was a lord and a knight, so they had to do what he said, unless they’d had orders not to—and they hadn’t.
Matt strode up to the landlord. “Okay, mine host. Tell me what you saw.”
“Very little, my lord,” the man said quickly. “We were very busy, no time to be nosing into anything but business, when this horrible scream tore the room and we all turned to see the prince—well, we didn’t know that’s what he was then, did we? But we saw Laetri come flying down the stairs and slamming into the wall, with the prince stalking after her calling her a thief.”
Matt frowned. “Who’s Laetri?”
“One of the regular prostitutes who visits here, my lord,” the innkeeper said.
Well, Matt hadn’t really believed Gaheris was killed defending a maiden’s honor. He fixed the innkeeper with a steely gaze. “And you didn’t chase her out?”
The innkeeper squirmed. “This is a public house, my lord. I serve all who come.”
“Of course, and I’m sure you don’t charge extra for letting them use the rooms upstairs;—which they must have done, or the prince wouldn’t have thrown Laetri down the steps.” Matt said evenly, “You know that pimping is against the law, don’t you?”
“I know,” the innkeeper said with dread.
“And visiting a prostitute, too?”
“Yes,” the innkeeper said in a faint voice. Then he rallied. “Why does the queen not make it a crime to be a prostitute?”
“Because prostitutes are usually victims, not perpetrators,” Matt told him. “Very few of them choose their line of work. Most of them are forced into it by their pimps. For the rest, it’s whore or starve.”
The innkeeper didn’t look convinced, but few men wanted to believe the facts when it came to sexploitation. Matt said, “What happened when the prince caught up with Laetri?”
“He raised his hand to strike her again,” the innkeeper said, “but Pargas, her pimp, stepped in to stop him and ask the reason for his anger, and the prince told him that Laetri had stolen his purse. She denied it, of course, and Pargas sided with her, again of course, and the prince struck at Pargas. Well, Pargas didn’t know the man was royal, so he struck back, and this sergeant here”—he nodded at Brock—“stepped in to protect his prince, and in a few seconds the whole common room was one big brawl. I tried to stop it, but it was like spitting into the wind. Then Laetri screamed again …” He shuddered. “It was the worst scream I’ve ever heard, sir, and when we turned around, we all saw why—the prince lay there in a pool of his own blood, and Pargas stood over him, bloody but with his club in his hand. Then I saw a man trying to climb out the window, so I raised the hue and cry, and everyone ran out into the night to catch him—except Pargas and Laetri, of course, and I tried to kick them out to end the trouble, but this nobleman stopped me.” He pointed to Sir Orizhan.
“Even so.” Sir Orizhan nodded. “The man Pargas had clearly killed the prince, and I wasn’t about to let this fellow help him escape.”
“And that was the end of it?”
“As far as I know,” Sir Orizhan said.
Matt turned back to the innkeeper. “How did you get all your customers back?”
“The soldiers brought them, sir, when they couldn’t catch the one who went out the window.”
“All?” Matt turned to Sergeant Brock.
“We lost him quick enough,” the sergeant said, “and herded the rest of the civilians back in here, though you may be sure they didn’t like it. We might have lost one or two, but no more, I’ll wager.”
“Yeah, but that one or two might include the murderer.” Matt turned away with a sigh.
“The murderer?” Sergeant Brock stared. “Are you ma— I mean, it’s clear Pargas killed him, sir!… Isn’t it?”
“Then why did you all chase the man who went out the window?”
Sergeant Brock stared at him, at a loss. Everyone else stared, too, and Matt could see they were all asking themselves the same question.
“It’s an instinct,” Matt explained. “If somebody runs, it’s natural to chase them, because why would they be running if they hadn’t done anything? But in this case the man was trying to decoy you all out of the inn so the real murderer could escape.”
Sir Orizhan frowned. “How can you be sure it was not Pargas who struck the fatal blow?”
“Because you said the prince was lying in a pool of blood,” Matt told him, “and Paiges only had a club.”
CHAPTER 4
Sir Orizhan stared, then whirled to exchange glances with Sergeant Brock, who only stared back at him.