He nodded. “No doubt it does, but I’ve seen warriors quake at the sight of my mother.”
She started to reply, but a soft sound from the corridor caught her attention. A moment later there was a gentle tapping on the door. She stood without tangling her feet in the yards of material that formed her skirt, and strode across the room to open the door for Talbot.
The former sailor entered with his usual rolling gait, aiming a wide grin at the Reeve. “Impressive, isn’t she?” Talbot nodded at Sham with the expression of a doting hen viewing her egg. “Told her that black was for when folks were dead. She raised her brows and looked down her nose and said black was erotic. When she came out looking like that I bought a nice black nightdress for the missus.”
“I didn’t expect her this soon.”
“Mmm, well now, it seems that she’ll not be needing tutoring in court ways—she was brought up here under the old king.”
Kerim turned to her, and Sham nodded, quipping, “’Fraid I’m not much credit to my upbringing.”
The Reeve gave her a thoughtful glance, then turned his attention back to Talbot. “No word tonight?”
Talbot looked grim. “Nay, sir, but it’ll come.” Looking at Sham, he explained, “Our killer likes to hunt every eight or nine days: ’tis the only real pattern the thing has. Yesterday was the eighth day and no one died, so tonight’s it.”
She frowned, trying to remember what little she knew about demons. “Is there any pattern to the numbers? Like three times it feeds on the eighth day and then twice on the ninth?”
“I don’t know,” answered Talbot, intrigued. “I hadn’t thought it might be a fixed pattern rather than whimsy. I’ll go through the deaths again and see.”
“Is it important?” asked the Reeve.
“It depends,” she said, helping herself to a roll that was sitting ignored on Kerim’s plate. She found a comfortable chair and tugged it around until it faced the Reeve. Talbot took up a seat on the nearest couch.
“On what?” The Reeve picked up his eating knife and began to carve the chicken.
“On whether or not you believe in demons,” she replied—though she didn’t recall any pattern to demon killings. She waited smugly for his reaction. Intelligent, educated Cybellians did not believe in demons.
“I’ve seen a few,” said the presumably intelligent, educated Cybellian Reeve thoughtfully, “but never anywhere near the city.”
Sham choked and then coughed when she inhaled a crumb.
Kerim ignored her outwardly, though she thought there might be a hint of amusement in the lines around his mouth as he continued, “There is no way that these murders are the work of demons. The last victim died in his room in the middle of the day. He kept thirty-odd servants; if it had been a demon, the thing would have been spotted long before it found Abet’s room.”
“Abet’s locked room,” added Talbot meaningfully, looking at Shamera.
“In any case,” continued the Reeve, “I can’t imagine one of the swamp demons dragging its carcass through the whole of Abet’s mansion without someone noticing. Not only are they loud, but they stink like a week-old fish.”
“Ah,” said Sham, enlightened. “These demons of yours, are they strong and devilishly hard to kill? Roughly human in shape?”
The Reeve nodded, “Sounds like all the ones I’ve met.”
“Uriah,” she said firmly. “I’ve never met one—not that I’m complaining. But I’ll tell you this much, I’d rather face a hundred of the things than take on a demon. Uriah are monsters, abominations created by magic. Demons are magic.”
“Magic,” barked the Reeve, at last giving her the reaction she’d been waiting for. “Every time you Southwoodsmen hear about something that is not easily explained, you sit around nodding sagely and say ‘magic’—as if the whole pox-ridden world turns on it.”
She laughed, “It does, of course. Only self-blinded Easterners can’t see it.”
Kerim shook his head at her, and resumed his speech-making. “I’ve lived here for almost ten years and I’ve never seen someone work magic. Sleight-of-hand, yes—but nothing that can’t be explained by fast hands and a faster mouth.”
“The wizard-born aren’t stupid, messire,” said Talbot mildly. “Ye weren’t here for the blood that followed the conquest of the city—the witch hunts we have now are nothing in comparison. Proper terrified of magic, yer armies were, an’ they slaughtered any mage they could find. The wizards who survived would prefer ye kept on thinking magic’s what the streetcorner busker uses to pull a coin from behind yer ear.”
“And it’s easier for me this way,” added Shamera, to stir up the Reeve again, who’d begun to let Talbot’s calm voice soothe him. “It gives a thief a decided advantage to be able to use magic where no one believes in it. Who am I to ruin the fun?”
“Do ye remember how long the Castle stood against the Prophet’s armies after Landsend itself had fallen?” asked Talbot, ignoring Sham.
“Nine months,” said Kerim reluctantly.
Talbot nodded. “Nine months on what little food they had stored here. Did ye ever find a water source other than the well that was dry long decades before the siege?”
“No.”
Shamera noticed that the Reeve was beginning to sound huffy, as if he didn’t like the direction that this conversation was taking. She had thought that Talbot was only trying to calm Kerim down, not change his mind.
In a spirit of general perversity she said, “The weekly mopping of the secret passages aside—”
“Every other week,” corrected Kerim.
She ignored him. “—I would wager there are still ways out of the Castle that no one knows about. Master Talbot, if the Reeve is determined not to believe in magic it’s a waste of time to try and prove otherwise.”
“If his ignorance is a threat to his life it needs to be altered,” countered Talbot with a touch of heat. “This killer is attacking in the Castle; it might choose the Reeve next.”
“Who could stop it if it did?” replied Shamera, becoming serious. “If I don’t know what to do with a demon, how could a magicless Cybellian—whether he believed in demons or not?”
“Others have tried to educate me concerning magic,” said Kerim neutrally. “Why don’t you educate me about demons instead?”
“Very well,” agreed Sham. Adopting her best “mysterious sorceress” manner she said, “Demons are creatures of magic, called to this world by death and dying.” She grinned at the expression on the Reeve’s face and switched to more matter-of-fact tones as she continued. “Actually, they are summoned here by black magic.”
“What makes you think that it is a demon we’re hunting, not a man?”
“Because my friend—the one Hirkin said I murdered—was killed by a demon.”
Sham looked at the Reeve carefully, trying to see what he was thinking, but his face was as neutral as his voice. “What makes you so certain?”
She shrugged. “He told me as much before he died.”
Talbot stepped in to keep the Reeve from offering the offense disbelief would be. “I doubt ye ever met him, sir, ye came later to Landsend; but the old man who died was Maur, the last king’s advisor.”
Kerim frowned thoughtfully. “The King’s Sorcerer was tortured before he disappeared from the Castle dungeons, but I didn’t think he was as old as the man who died looked.”
“Wizards,” said Sham, striving to keep the bitterness out of her voice, “—especially those as powerful as Maur, can live longer than mundane people. When he could no longer access his magic, he aged rapidly.”
Kerim looked her in the eye. “I was not here when he was tortured, and I would not have countenanced such an action. Magic or no magic, if the records of his words in the King’s council meetings are accurate, he was a man of rare insight.”
Sham allowed herself to be mollified by his answer. “He was attacked by a demon called Chen Laut. He drove it away, but was mortally wounded before it fled.”