Murder in Cormyr (19 page)

Then he bowed, and it was all I could do not to laugh. Demeaning himself did not come easily to Spoondrift. I bowed in return, and passed by him into the grand reception.

Barthelm Meadowbrock had done a good job of pushing Spoondrift to put his best foot forward. There were several buffet tables, and other smaller tables for the councilmen to sit at, if they didn’t wish to stand and eat, as most of them were doing. The dishes were first rate, and I sampled nearly everything. No horsemeat in this stag sausage, though I thought I did detect a bit of mutton in the lamb stew.

Still, everything was cooked so well and presented so elegantly that I thought it expedient to overlook the mutton. The Sheaf of Wheat’s staff did much of the serving, but many of the town lovelies helped as well, including the dazzling Mayella Meadowbrock, who was dishing out an oyster and wild rice concoction that seemed to be the most delicious dish available, if the long line was any indication. I noticed a few councilmen gobbling down the food as though they hadn’t eaten in weeks, just so they could get back in line and face the radiant Mayella once again. I must confess to two helpings myself, even though I detest oysters.

At one point I stood in line next to Mayor Tobald, who was beaming with good health and, I assumed, several mugs of Suzale or Elminster’s Choice. “A grand evening, Jasper,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder. “A grand evening.” And I had to confess it was.

Some of the councilmen had brought their wives along. Most were old, fat and snobbish sorts, but a few were young and extremely attractive. Surprisingly, these were usually with the oldest and most physically repellent men, and I was cynical enough to note that if money cannot buy love, it can purchase a decent enough simulacrum of the same.

But for most of the party, it was boy’s night out. They ate and laughed and drank and told amazingly ribald stories for such pillars of the Cormyrean community. But their long travels wore them down early, and by ten o’clock, the official closing time of the reception, most had wandered back to their rooms, though some of the hardier ones congregated at the bars of the Sheaf of Wheat or the Silver Scythe, depending on which inn they were staying at. Some even went across town to the Bold Bard for their nightcap.

I heard Barthelm Meadowbrock tell Mayella that he was going to be joining some of the councilmen over at Shortshanks’s tavern, but that was before Captain Flim came up to him and spoke quietly. I couldn’t hear what he said, but I certainly heard Barthelm’s reaction.

“What! Flim, you must be mad! You can’t expect me to leave now and go out to… to that old wizard’s! I have business to conduct, contacts to make…”

Since this conversation no doubt concerned my master, I moved in closer and heard Captain Flim’s reply. “Begging your pardon, sir, but the wizard Benelaius’s orders are to be obeyed by me as if they came from King Azoun himself, and if Benelaius says to bring you and your daughter to his

house tonight, so it shall be.”

“It bloody well shall not!” growled Barthelm. “I am the host of this gathering, and—”

“And the host shall find himself taken in chains to Benelaius’s if he will not go willingly,” said Flim. “Hardly the image you wish to project to your fellow merchants.” Oh, yes, Captain Flim could be quite persuasive when he had to be.

“Are you threatening me?” Barthelm said.

“I am telling you, sir, that I will obey my orders and bring you to Benelaius’s house any way I must.”

Barthelm fumed for a few minutes, then nodded his head briskly. “Very well. Give me a minute to say my farewells and have the coach brought round.”

‘Take your time,” said Captain Flim. “I have a few more citizens to gather. Benelaius wants us there by midnight.”

“Midnight,” grumbled Barthelm. “Oh, I’ll be so alert for the meeting tomorrow….”

Captain Flim buttonholed Mayor Tobald then, who seemed just about ready to head off for more drinking with some convivial merchants. His ruddy face sobered quickly, and he nodded, looking concerned, I thought, that no news of this murderous scandal reach the ears of the councilmen.

“I have four more people to gather,” Flim told me after his talk with Tobald. “Rolf and Shortshanks will be at the Bold Bard, and I’ve already sent my men to the houses of Marmwitz and Khlerat.”

Phelos Marmwitz and old Khlerat? There was a pair. The ancient librarian and the retired dabbler in public works. Maybe it was a geriatric conspiracy.

“Have your horse ready outside the Bold Bard in twenty minutes,” Captain Flim concluded. “We’ll ride out to Benelaius’s together.”

“Will you be taking any Purple Dragons along?” I asked. “A dozen good men,” Captain Flim said, and walked out the door.

A dozen men. That meant that something was going to happen at Benelaius’s, sure enough, and I recalled the thrilling scenes in the Camber Fosrick tales where Fosrick gathered together all the suspects, confronted them with the evidence, and identified the killer. Now Benelaius was going to create the same situation, but in reality. As much as he frowned on the Fosrick mysteries, I could not help but think that he had read them—and learned from them too.

I had Jenkus ready to go within minutes, and waited impatiently as the parties gathered. Barthelm and Mayella Meadowbrock were already there, Barthelm looking annoyed, Mayella looking as though she were willing to accept whatever life and her daddy threw at her. Tobald came riding up on his strong if none too fast mare, and shortly after, four soldiers rode up surrounding Rolf, who appeared nothing short of livid. I think he might have broken through them and run for it, but for the fact that they had him mounted on a very old, very tired horse.

Then a commotion broke out down the street in the person of one man—or dwarf. Shortshanks was riding a small mount between Captain Flim and one of his Purple Dragons, and I’ve seldom heard a dwarf so mad. ‘Tak’ me away from my tavern on the best night of all the years I’ve been here, will ya! I’ll have yer stripes fer this, Flim, I will! Of all the idiotic things I’ve seen the military do, this takes the cake, deprivin’ a dwarf of his livelihood… if I were a human, you’d not be doin’ this to me, I wager!”

“You’re wrong, dwarf,” said Captain Flim. “I’m doing the same thing to the most powerful man in town, so shut your little yap before I do something I’ll be sorry for.”

“Little! He called me little! Did ye hear that?”

“Yes,” said Flim wearily. “They all heard it, just as they hear me tell you now that if you don’t pipe down, you’re liable to be even littler—by a head.” Shortshanks glowered but said nothing. “Besides,” Captain Flim continued, “your worst troublemaker’s already with us here, and not back at your tavern, so you’ve naught to fear. Ah… here’s the last of our party.”

Two more dragons came riding up on either side of a small carriage. Old Khlerat was driving the two horses, and Marmwitz was sitting next to him.

“Let’s be getting out to Benelaius’s then,” said Captain Flim, and he spurred his horse and our caravan started off. The Dragons positioned themselves ahead and behind, left and right, to prevent any of the involuntary travelers from leaving the party, or so I assumed.

There was much to think about as we rode south toward Benelaius’s cottage and the Vast Swamp. Captain Flim, Tobald, and the Dragons were there in their official capacity, but I wondered greatly about the others.

Barthelm might have had a motive for both slayings in fatherly protection. And Rolf could have slain both Dovo and Grodoveth out of jealousy. Shortshanks had little to gain from either death, unless, of course, Dovo had been driving customers away from the Swamp Rat at his behest and was threatening to talk about it. The dwarf could even have followed Grodoveth to the tomb. But then, so could anyone else.

Kendra was already at Benelaius’s and I wondered if my master would have had the Dragons take her there if she were not. I doubted she would have gone voluntarily, and thought it fortunate, if she was a suspect, that she had suffered her wound the night before.

As for the presence of Marmwitz and Khlerat, I was at a loss. Two harmless old men, as far as I was concerned. But I would learn in my life that what appeared harmless might not necessarily be so.

It seemed like a funeral procession going through the night. We didn’t speak or laugh or whisper. We rode, and the only sounds were the horses’ hooves striking the road, the creak of the leather saddles, and the rattle of the carriage’s wheels and boards.

In the strong company of a dozen Purple Dragons, I felt no fear as we passed the spot where I had seen the “ghost” and found its body the next day. In fact, I strained my eyes looking into that murky darkness at the swamp’s edge, just daring a ghost or hydra or zombie to appear. I was tense and edgy, and felt as though I wanted to confront something. But I saw nothing except the darkness of the night and the edge of the swamp, a deeper blackness against the black.

The Swamp Rat was nearly deserted, but those who were there came out and watched us ride past. I saw old Farmer Bortas with his two cronies, Rob and Will, and he waved at me. Rob and Will didn’t wave. I guess they still didn’t cotton to me.

“Say there, young feller,” Farmer Bortas called. “What’s all this great parade, eh?”

“We’re going to my master’s house. Benelaius.”

“Aye? I didn’t fancy him as the partyin’ type. Well, you all have yourselves a good time now, lad, and don’t drink too much, eh?”

The others in our party turned a sullen look on the farmer, and he lost his smile. He turned to Rob and Will, and I heard him say softly, “Now that’s a party I wouldn’t give half a copper to go to. What are they cellybratin’, somebody’s hexycution?”

He didn’t know how right he was. We rode on, toward Benelaius and the truth.

The final half mile seemed the longest. All the horses became nervous as we neared the body of the hydra, which had been dragged off the road and left to rot. You could smell it already, and I made a mental note to come out and try to burn it, for if the wind blew from the west, the stench of its rotting would reach the cottage and plague it for weeks. Far better to endure the sharper but far briefer smell of its burning.

But perhaps there wouldn’t be as much to burn as I had thought. As we rode by the hydra’s bulky corpse, we heard the scuttling of dozens of predators who had been feasting through the night on its carcass, the same way, I thought grimly, the councilmen had been wolfing down their treats in Ghars. The dead creature’s severed heads were probably already gone, dragged off into the swamp for a more leisurely meal. I shuddered and looked back at the road ahead.

As we rounded the final bend, I saw that all the lights were burning at the cottage, including the large one on the post near the road. There were lights in back of the house

as well, as though the braziers that ringed the piazza were all burning. The light shone weakly upon the Vast Swamp itself, and it had never looked closer to the house than on this night. It seemed a huge lump of malevolent life that needed only to hump up just a bit higher to crush the cottage and destroy all the light in and around it forever.

Or maybe that was just my imagination.

I was feeling a little jumpy, and more than ready to hear what Benelaius was going to say. You don’t pull a dozen Purple Dragons, their captain, and a wagon load of important or easily irritable townspeople out to the swamp in the middle of the night unless you’ve got something big to tell them.

Lindavar emerged from the front door as our caravan came lumbering up, and bowed with more grace than I had previously seen in him. “Greetings,” he said.

Barthelm Meadowbrock was in no mood for niceties. “What’s the meaning of this? Why has that madman of a wizard had us all brought out here at sword point?”

“Our swords, sir,” said Captain Flim with a touch of pique, “are all sheathed.”

Lindavar held up a calming hand to quiet any further disputes. “Benelaius is waiting for us on the piazza in the back of the house. There he will explain why your presences have been required.”

Two of the twelve soldiers stayed with the horses, and I allowed them to watch Jenkus as well. I could rub him down later. Lindavar led us into the house, the rest of the soldiers flanking all of us, with me and Mayor Tobald bringing up the rear.

The cats, even though unused to such hordes of company, parted like the waters of an enchanted sea as we passed through them. Mayella murmured, “Pretty kitties,”

and leaned to pat a few, who responded with deeply appreciative purrs.

But over their mellow rumbling, I heard the louder sound of one of the feline congregation hissing, but when I turned to look, I saw only Mayor Tobald, his face set in a grimace. He smiled quickly, as if to show nothing was wrong, and we continued on through the main room and Benelaius’s study, and out the doors to the piazza in the rear of the dwelling.

There Benelaius sat in a large chair next to Kendra, who still occupied the chaise, which I assumed Lindavar had moved outside. There were also nine wooden chairs that I had never seen used before in the cottage. They were designed to stack one atop the other, and had always been stored in a closet. Four braziers sat on the piazza rail, providing enough light for all of us to see one another. Two of our cats sat beside each brazier, making quite a picturesque arrangement.

Benelaius rose to his feet and smiled at the assembled multitudes. “Pray forgive me for keeping all of you from your well-deserved rest,” he said, “or your further joyous celebrations at hosting such a distinguished gathering as the Grand Council of the Cormyrean Merchants’ Guild. I assure you that each of your presences was required here tonight. All will be explained in a short while, but what most of you probably already suspect is true. It does indeed have to do with the murders that have caused such pain in Ghars.”

“Then tell us what you want to tell us, Benelaius,” said Barthelm, “and let us go home!”

“Patience, please, my dear Barthelm. This is not something that can be done in haste. It may take a bit of time to sort out all the pieces and put them together again.” He looked at Captain Flim, who was standing stolidly by, his