Scholar's Plot Read online

  “I don’t know why he was there.” I had to force the words from my suddenly dry mouth. He suspected me of being Fisk’s accomplice, as well he might. In a moment he would ask to see my wrists, and find the tattoos that mark a man as unredeemed. Those broken circles signify a legal debt that can’t be paid in labor or coin, and men who bear them have usually bribed themselves out of being hanged or maimed. I hadn’t killed anyone, and Father hadn’t bribed anyone, either. But since I’d refused to return a criminal to justice (she turned out to be innocent, at least of the crime she was charged with), I’d failed to pay my debt to the law. And an unredeemed man is beyond the law’s protection. If he saw those tattoos, I would probably end this night in the cell next to Fisk’s.

  Which wasn’t a bad idea.

  Unfortunately, Fisk’s wit is quicker than mine.

  “He’s Michael Sevenson,” Fisk said. “The Michael Sevenson. Of Tallowsport.”

  I was so startled my jaw dropped. I wasn’t the Michael Sevenson of anywhere. And from my perspective, Tallowsport was at best a … mixed success. Yes, we’d brought down a great criminal, who’d held a whole town in his power and plotted rebellion against the High Liege. But to do it, I’d allowed things to happen that a true knight would never have permitted. And I hadn’t been able to find another way.

  But the guard’s face lit with interest and delight. For a moment, I thought he was going to wiggle like a happy puppy.

  “You are? Really?” His eyes came to rest on the small scars on my cheek and jaw, which confirm my description for most folk. “Sir! May I say how honored I am to meet you? And may I ask, how did you come to suspect that Roseman…?”

  And so it went. I eventually extracted myself from his questions, but I had to flee the lockup to do it.

  Without Fisk.

  The guard was very sorry to disoblige me, but he couldn’t force a debt on someone who didn’t accept it.

  And clearly Fisk wouldn’t agree to be indebted to me, ever again. He’d rather stay in gaol than be my squire.

  I should have gone back to Benton’s rooms, but I was in no mood to answer questions — much less sleep on the floor, in a bed not much more comfortable than the one Fisk faced. So I went to the stable, saddled Chant, and rode out of town — cursing my recalcitrant ex-squire with every breath.

  A long gallop cleared only some of the anger from my heart, but I refused to run my horse to exhaustion just because Fisk was the most miserable, stubborn, selfish villain in the United Realm.

  As Chant clopped down the moonlit roads, beside fields of half-grown crops, I had time to realize that the reason Fisk hadn’t been surprised to see me was that he’d seen me earlier, most probably when I was wandering about the campus. Even when he could have approached me without incurring any debt between us, he hadn’t done so.

  Dawn was bringing color into the red earth and green shoots by the time I was tired enough to accept that — as he’d said when we parted — Fisk wanted no more of my company.

  He was, in truth, no longer my squire, and I had to accept that too. And if that realization made me want to keep on riding, to the farthest reaches of the Realm where there’d be no chance of ever setting eyes on my ex-squire … I couldn’t.

  None of this personal turmoil was Benton’s fault, and his life had been devastated. If I was ever to call myself a knight errant again, I couldn’t turn my back on anyone in such need, much less a brother.

  Not to mention the fact that if I fled, Kathy would never speak to me again.

  So I turned my tired horse and rode back to Slowbend…

  Where a half a dozen men, in the blue and silver coats of the Liege Guard, promptly arrested me for Master Hotchkiss’ murder.

  Painful as it had been, I thought I’d convinced Michael that I didn’t need his rescue. So after a restless night in a lumpy bed, I was surprised to see him coming down the stairs again, with that absurd guard still asking for details about Tallows- port. Though the Liege Guard in Easton had reacted much the same, when they’d had me in their clutches.

  “But how did you know Captain Dalton wouldn’t betray you? Seems to me if he’d been working for the Rose that long, he might have gone over.”

  “If he’d ‘gone over,’ his wife wouldn’t have been a prisoner still.”

  Michael’s voice sounded stiffer than the question warranted. And if he was here to talk me into taking on another debt to him, why was he trying so hard to look anywhere but at me?

  Even after I’d observed that, I was surprised when the guard opened the door of the cell next to mine, and politely gestured for Michael to go in.

  Though the way my luck was running, I shouldn’t have been.

  “Captain Chaldon will be back in a few hours,” the guard said, locking the door on my former employer. “He’s still on the campus, checking out the scene. After that he wanted to see if the healer could tell anything about his death from Master Hotchkiss’ body. But as soon as he’s back, we’ll get this settled. Because I don’t believe for one minute that Michael Sevenson did this.”

  Master Hotchkiss’ body?

  Michael nodded absently, and went to sit on the far end of his own cot, putting as much distance between us as he could — which was about twelve feet. The sun cast small squares of light through the barred slit at the top of the opposite wall. In the time I’d been watching, they’d moved from halfway up the wall above my bed down to the floor. With only bars making up the cell wall between us, we might as well have been locked in the same small room.

  Alone in that room, once the guard had departed, I waited, somewhat apprehensively, for Michael to break the silence. After a while, it became clear he wasn’t going to. After an even longer time, the silence began to get on my nerves. A while after that, I gave up.

  “So, what are you in for, stranger? Nothing too violent, I hope.”

  He could have refused to reply, but he must have been as weary of sulking as I was of watching him sulk.

  “Murder. I’d tell them you were sneaking about the campus last night too, except they already caught you. You’re probably a suspect as well.”

  “Along with everyone else on campus last night,” I pointed out. “Which is only … what, eight hundred people? Maybe over a thousand, with that lecture go-ing on.”

  “Probably,” said Michael glumly. “It seems we weren’t the only ones to realize that lecture would be a perfect time for villainy.”

  “Who’s this Hotchkiss, and why do they think you killed him?” I’d become so interested — villainy and murder, after all — that the question came out quite naturally. But Michael gave me a sour look.

  “What do you care? As you pointed out, you’re no longer my squire. Are you going to tell me what you were doing, slinking around in the dark? No. So why should I—”

  “I was trying to see the jeweler.” I think my easy answer surprised me as much as Michael. But if I wanted his information, I was clearly going to have to trade. And if someone had committed murder on a campus where I’d just been arrested, I needed to know about it.

  I really didn’t want to have to tell them I was the Fisk.

  “The jeweler?” Michael’s stony expression relaxed in simple surprise. “Roseman’s madman? Whatever for?”

  I could think of no reason, except the truth.

  “When the guards hauled him off… You understand, he was terrified. I told him he’d be all right. And I didn’t know if he was. So I thought I’d check.”

  He was looking at me now, and I found that more uncomfortable than I’d expected.

  “I see.”

  The silence lengthened until I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “So why do they think you killed this guy? In fact, how did they know you were on the campus at all? I didn’t tell them.”

  For some reason his mouth tightened again, but at least he answered.

  “They’d no notion to suspect me at first. Or so the guards told me. But my brother Benton is the only one they
know of who has reason to hate the man. Fortunately, Benton had the sense to find some friends to sit with in the lecture hall, so he couldn’t have done it. But when they went to ask the gatekeeper if Benton had arrived early, or departed late, the gatekeeper told them that someone he didn’t know had accompanied Benton through the gates. The friends at the lecture had already said that they’d taken pity on Benton because he was alone. So they went to see Benton and Kathy, and the truth came out.”

  “What, they couldn’t have lied?”

  “Kathy might have,” Michael said, though I’d have thought her a bit young to stand up to a High Liege investigator. “But Benton … he’s a worse liar than I am, Fisk. Or than I was, before I met you.”

  Despite his glower, I wasn’t offended by the implication that I’d taught him to lie. He’d needed those lessons. A lot.

  “But why do they think your brother would want to kill this Hotchkiss person? Or have you kill him? Who was he, anyway?”

  Michael hesitated again, but we’d nothing better to do. So I learned that Hotchkiss had been the university’s head librarian, and how Michael’s brother had been framed.

  Unlike Michael, who was somewhat skeptical about the importance of an original dissertation, I had no trouble understanding why it was something a man might cheat, or even kill for. Though it didn’t sound like Benton was the type.

  Michael went on to tell me young Kathy’s theory, about the project providing a motive to bring Benton down. I wondered if the jeweler might have been part of that project, though as Michael told me about it, I didn’t see how. The jeweler didn’t have Gifts — unless you counted the ability to infuse bits of glass with real magic. Most people wouldn’t consider that a Gift, though I wasn’t so sure.

  I could see how a research project, particularly a well-funded and important one, might give someone a motive for murder. But not to murder a librarian who’d had nothing to do with it.

  I was making that point, when the door at the top of the stairs opened and a stranger in a guard captain’s uniform escorted a young woman down the steps.

  It took me a moment to recognize Kathy, though she was still thin, and brown as a sparrow. Maybe the difference lay in the ease with which she handled her full green skirt, though she didn’t sport as many petticoats as most noblewomen wore. More likely it was the tailored fit of the leather bodice, but she looked all grown up — astonishingly grown up — until her spectacles slipped, and she pushed them back up in a gesture I remembered from all those years ago.

  “What, money and power aren’t motive enough to kill for?” Her voice was deeper than it had been at fourteen, a woman’s voice. Which I suppose was also to be expected.

  “It would be,” I said. “If Master Hotchkiss had been involved with the project in any way. As it is…”

  No one had any motive to kill him, except brother Benton.

  This realization struck everyone at the same moment, and Michael and Kathy stiffened.

  “We haven’t yet made a case against anyone, for Master Hotchkiss’ death,” said the captain pleasantly. “The only thing we know is that Profess — Master Benton Sevenson was almost certainly attending the lecture at the time of his death.”

  “How do you know that?” Michael asked. “The time he died, I mean?”

  “We can’t be certain,” the captain said. “But it looks like he was leaving for the lecture when he was killed. After dinner, in his front hall, dressed to go out. And he was killed by a blow to the front of the head, as if he surprised someone coming in. I don’t suppose either of you noticed anyone else lurking around the campus?”

  “A few students,” I said. “Walking on the paths.”

  “No one suspicious,” Michael agreed.

  “So it seems you two are my best suspects,” the captain said.

  We probably were. For a wonder, Michael said nothing.

  “You shouldn’t tease them,” Kathy said. “They’re scared enough as it is.”

  “We are not,” said Michael. “We’re innocent — well, I’m fairly sure Fisk is innocent — so if you’re an honest man, we should have nothing to fear.”

  Actually, an unredeemed man should be afraid of any guardsman, anytime, anywhere. And despite his bold words, Michael’s face was paler than it had been a few minutes ago.

  “Ahem.” Kathy cleared her throat, looking sternly at the captain. Who relented, clearly the victim of feminine wiles. From young Mistress Katherine, no less.

  “But I’m inclined to believe Master Benton’s telling the truth,” the captain said. “And since I can’t see any reason for Master Fisk here — yes, I figured out who you must be. But I see no reason for Fisk to have murdered Master Hotchkiss, and I have a hard time believing a man who’d just committed murder would go rushing into a guard station immediately afterward to bail someone out … though come to think of it, the man who brought down the Rose Conspiracy might have that kind of nerve.”

  “Captain.” There was a distinct note of reproof in Katherine’s voice.

  “Oh, all right. Since I’m not prepared to charge anyone with this murder, yet, and since the charge against Master Fisk is minor, I’ve decided to release you on Lady Katherine’s bail. She’ll be legally responsible for your conduct, and your debt is to her. Once these matters are settled, assuming you’re not guilty, her money will be returned and your debt to her ended. But until that happens, you’re to remain in town and make yourselves available to the High Liege’s authorities on request. Clear to everyone?”

  It was perfectly clear to me. And if murder had been committed in a place I’d been burgling, I’d have been delighted to get out of gaol while they figured out I hadn’t done it … and make plans to flee, if they didn’t figure it out.

  So I wasn’t surprised to hear Michael object.

  “You’re letting us go? Without even…”

  He started to lift his wrists and then thought better of the gesture, but the captain had seen it.

  “Yes, Master Sevenson, we know you’re unredeemed. But after Tallowsport, some of the guard decided to look into the circumstances. And I have to say… Well, maybe I shouldn’t say that, about a justice system I serve. But I’m not inclined to hold it against you.”

  Kathy beamed at the man. He was fairly young, in his early thirties, and not bad looking, either. He also had no evidence we’d done anything worse than trespassing, on Benton’s behalf, and the Rose conspiracy’s defeat had created a towering impression, almost a legend, in the mind of guardsmen all over the river plain — all over the Realm, for all I knew.

  But Michael still looked like a stunned ox as we retrieved our knives from the guard’s clerk and followed Mistress Katherine out into the street.

  It was Hornday, and most of the scholars should have been in class, but there were dozens of them scattered through the crowded street, like red and black punctuation marks. We were only a block from the town square and the streets were lined with high end shops: an apothecary, a boot maker, and a stationer selling paper and ink, which attracted most of the scholars.

  “Mistress Katherine,” I said. “Thank you. And now, if you’ll permit, I—”

  “Don’t thank me yet,” she said. “Michael, go on ahead please. I want a word with my … correspondent.”

  Michael suppressed a grin and started off to the west, presumably toward his brother’s rooms. Since my inn was in the same general direction, it would have been silly to turn and walk east. Even though, when Kathy started after him, Michael was only ten feet ahead of us.

  I’m not sure I’ve mentioned it, but Michael has very sharp ears.

  “You know,” I said, “Michael has very sharp—”

  “How. Could. You? How could you just stop writing? In the middle of trying to bring down Atherton Roseman? Fisk, I was beginning to think you were dead. Both of you!”

  I hadn’t told Kathy the name of the monster we’d set out to slay, but I should have known she’d figure it out. She’d always been bookish.
She knew how to do research.

  “Ah. Well, Michael and I were prisoners. After that first one, Roseman was reading my letters.”

  “Michael says you were held prisoner for about three weeks. And after that?”

  After that, I’d been afraid that if I wrote to her, Michael would try to track me down. And she wasn’t my sister.

  I hadn’t written to my sisters for about five months, come to think of it. I should probably pen up a letter to Judith, next time I settled in one place long enough for a reply to reach me. But Judith didn’t know I was in trouble (though she doubtless assumed I always was) and she wasn’t used to hearing from me regularly.

  Ahead of us, Michael was walking more and more slowly.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I was … I didn’t … well, I’m sorry.”

  “You should be. Fortunately, you now have a chance to make it up to me. Michael, you can come back now.”

  She hadn’t raised her voice to say it, but Michael turned immediately, and I regarded this assured young woman with some alarm. Kathy-at-fourteen hadn’t thrown orders about like this. But then, Kathy-at-fourteen hadn’t been given a reason to be angry with me.

  Michael rejoined us, smirking in a way that told me she’d scolded him, too. I tried again.

  “My thanks to you, Mistress, but I need to get back to my own affairs. I’ll stay in town till this murder matter is—”

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Kathy said. “Either of you. You owe me a legal debt till they give my bond back, and I’m claiming it. I want the two of you to figure out who framed Benton, and get his job back for him.”

  I’d already seen this coming, but that was no reason to go down without a fight.

  “I’m not Michael’s squire anymore—”

  “Which is fine with me,” Michael put in.

  “—and I won’t work for him.”

  “Then work together,” said Katherine. “Or pretend you’ve never met before. I don’t care about either of your sensitive feelings. Once this murder is settled, Fisk will pay his fine and you can both get on with your lives. I think you’re both crazy, but at least you can go where you wish and do whatever you want. Benton can’t. This is the only life he wants, and he’s lost it — permanently, if they hire someone else to take his place. You two are going to clear him before that happens. After that, I don’t care what you do. But no more whining about it. We’re here.”