Never Trust a Dead Man

Page 16

On the other hand, Selwyn thought, how deep a sleeper was Farold to sleep through someone not only climbing in through his window but also dropping one weapon and searching the room for another?
And if the murderer had dropped or left behind anything, wouldn't it have been found by Linton when he discovered the body, or by Derian after Linton called him in, or by Bowden and Thorne when they examined the room, or by the women who had prepared Farold's body for burial? And if there was such a thing and none of them had found it and it hadn't been cleaned up, or trampled, or covered since, how was Selwyn to even recognize it as being something that didn't belong in the room?
Selwyn turned to the window. Yet another reason - he told himself - why he had been suspected, as if the argument with Farold, and the knife, and the fact that he had been in the vicinity weren't enough: The window was a small one. He was skinny and short and could easily fit through. Holt certainly could not, nor could Bowden, and probably not Orik.
He opened the shutters and found that - beyond the stream that drove the mill wheel - he had a clear view of the back of Bowden's house. He felt what he knew was an unreasonable surge of jealousy: Farold had been able to watch Anora's comings and goings from here.
Not that it makes any difference now, Selwyn thought, what with one thing and another.
The stream would have prevented easy access to the window. Not likely one of the women then, Selwyn thought. Not without a lot of determination. He thought about Anora and Wilona, and decided not to dismiss either one of them after all.
He leaned far out the window to look at the narrow stretch of ground between the wall and the water. If there had been footprints, a week's worth of weather had covered them over. He didn't know if anyone had looked that first morning; that was not information they had shared while they were condemning him. There were no muddy footprints on the windowsill or the floor, at least not anymore. The shutters were badly scratched, but most of the scratches looked quite old. Selwyn suspected that Farold may well have sneaked in and out of this window nights when he didn't want his uncle knowing where he was - like the time he had gone to the tavern and spied Alden at the smithy.
Without warning, Farold practically flew into his face. "Move!" Farold cried. "Get out! He gave up and he's coming back."
Selwyn slammed the shutters closed, but they bounced halfway open again. As he reached to grab them a second time, he heard a step in the doorway behind him.
"Well, well," Derian said, "what have we here?"
"I...," Selwyn said, "I thought I saw my bird fly around the side of the mill, and I thought he might come back inside if I opened one of the windows in the back."
Derian leaned forward to hear. "The bird?" he asked.
Selwyn pointed. "He's sitting in that tree across the stream."
Farold had the sense to stay where he was and to chirp a little goldfinch song.
"But you decided to give up," Derian pointed out "You were just shutting the window."
"He's too foil of himself - playing games. Either he'll come back or he won't." Fool! Fool! Selwyn called himself. Each thing he said sounded less likely than the last.
Whether he heard the lame explanation or not, Derian said, "You wanted to see Farold's room." No question, just an observation.
There was no use denying it any longer. "Yes," Selwyn admitted.
"I've heard the two of you were friends," Derian said, his voice gentle. "Good friends. Very good friends. I understand why you'd want to see his room, touch his things."
Selwyn inwardly groaned. Were he and Farold the only two in Penryth who hadn't been familiar with that rumor about Farold and Kendra? Still, it couldn't hurt now to have Derian believe this story. It was an excuse for curiosity. Selwyn folded his hands in front of him and looked down at them, not admitting, but neither denying. On the other hand, there was something about the way Derian said "touch" that made Selwyn's skin feel dirty.
Derian apparently took his lack of answer as grief over the dead Farold. "There, there," he said, "what's done is done. Being sad won't bring the boy back."
It wasn't what Selwyn expected from the uncle of the dead man. He looked up, startled. Surely I'm misjudging things here, Selwyn told himself, for what he judged was that Derian's smile had less and less gentleness to it, and more and more of a leer.
"Don't be afraid," Derian said, moving closer. "I know you have a kind and gentle heart - didn't I tell you that at the tavern yesterday? We can comfort each other. You, after all, still have your family. I'm all alone now."
It was the same tune he'd been singing yesterday, which didn't make Selwyn like him any better, for he was beginning to suspect Derian was only trying to make Kendra feel sorry for him.
Selwyn took a step back. "No," he said firmly, to make sure Derian heard. If Derian took one more step, that would get him far enough away from the door that Selwyn would have the opportunity to dart past him. The other choice was to knock him down, which Selwyn was reluctant to do. The old man was making offensive suggestions, but - supposing Selwyn to be Kendra - he didn't know just how offensive they were. Still, Selwyn was angry on Kendra's behalf.
"Come, come," Derian said. "I may be old, but I'm wealthy. Yet, what good is wealth, if one is alone? Together we can overcome our sorrow about Farold." Derian took that extra step, and Selwyn dashed past him.
"Come again for another visit," Derian called after him as Selwyn swept up Farold's cage and made for the outside door. "My age is not so terrible to Anora. She has come to like me since Farold died. I have money and energy enough for both of you."
Aghast at what Derian was saying - never mind that the man was old enough to be Kendra's grandfather, never mind that Selwyn wasn't really Kendra - Selwyn hurried out into the street.
Farold landed on Selwyn's shoulder and made a sound of disgust. "Did my uncle just suggest to you what I think he suggested?"
Selwyn glared. Then he tried to force a more pleasant expression onto his face as he noted villagers were looking at him.
"Uh-oh," Farold said. "This looks like trouble heading right toward us."
Selwyn saw that Bowden was approaching, flanked by Thorne and Linton.
And - worst of all - several steps behind were Orik and Wilona. And, with them, carrying a bundle that could only be a baby, was their daughter, Kendra.
Chapter Twenty-One
He could, Selwyn supposed, try to convince everybody that he was the real Kendra, and that this newer arrival was an impostor. But he realized - truth be told - he'd been lucky he'd fooled people as long as he had. If it came to answering questions about Kendra's childhood or her family, he'd be revealed as soon as the questions got more complicated than "What are the names of your parents?"
In fact, the real Kendra had probably already answered such questions to everybody's satisfaction. She had probably convinced Orik and Wilona before they'd brought the matter to Bowden.
Selwyn dropped the birdcage and started to run in the opposite direction, Farold flying right beside him.
"Stop her!" Linton yelled. "She's a witch, and the bird is her demon familiar!"
Which was probably, Selwyn thought as he ran, just as bad a thing to be accused of as being a murderer. Hands reached out to grasp at him. The long skirt threatened to trip him at every step. Selwyn swerved to avoid a cluster of villagers and dashed between two buildings: Bowden's house and the tavern. Then he made for the stream.
"Wait," Farold shouted.
Selwyn jumped in, just as Farold yelled, "Don't!"
The water momentarily closed over his head. The dress will weigh me down and be the death of me, Selwyn thought, but a moment later he found the surface and began swimming. Halfway across the stream he realized something was wrong; with each stroke he was looking at his sleeve, but it was not the sleeve of the dress he had been wearing when he dived in. It was the sleeve of his own shirt: the one he'd been wearing when he'd been imprisoned in the burial cave, the one Elswyth had bespelled, twice.
Selwyn pulled himself up onto the far side. Farold landed on a branch that had gotten washed onshore, and he shouted, "You dumb twit! What did you go and ruin the spell for? Now you'll never be able to convince them you're the real Kendra."
Selwyn saw villagers approaching from both across the stream and on this bank, coming around either side of the mill and leaving him nowhere to run. There was no getting away from them. Still, though they were cutting off escape, they were not closing in. Having seen him change from Kendra to the imprisoned and presumably dead Selwyn in front of their very eyes, no one was willing to be the first to get too close. He sat on the bank, gasping for air, for he was not a strong swimmer, and he told Farold, "I'd never be able to convince them, anyway." He ran his hands down his arms and wrapped his arms around himself - his own self. "How did you know?"
"How did I know what?"
"That immersing myself in water would counteract the spell."
Farold looked skeptical. "You didn't know that? You let her put a spell on you without knowing what the antidote was? You dumb twit, I can't believe you never asked how to get rid of the disguise. I asked her. I asked her the first time, when she wasn't even putting a spell on me. I assumed you did, too, before you let her actually start. Dumb twit."
It was, eventually, Merton who was the first to actually take hold of his arm, to force him to his feet "Selwyn," he said hesitantly, incredulously, but clearly into the silence of at least half the villagers, and the rest still gathering. "Is that who you really are: Selwyn?"
Linton had swum across the stream, unwilling to let others take credit for the capture. "Murdering my cousin wasn't enough," Linton shouted so that the people on both sides of the stream could hear. "Obviously Selwyn is deeply involved in sorcery, too! I say we weigh him down with stones and drown him."
"Linton - ," Selwyn started, but Linton spun him around. Merton was still holding on to his arm, so that it was twisted painfully high behind his back. Selwyn gasped in pain, and the next moment, Linton shoved a gag into his mouth. They were not going to let him speak. He had learned things, but they were not going to let him speak.
And then, suddenly, Farold came diving out of the sky, straight at Linton's face.
Startled, Linton threw his arm up to protect his face, letting go of the gag. But in the next moment, Linton recovered enough to swat at the air around his head.
Farold came at him again.
Selwyn spit out the gag. "No!" he cried, knowing that Linton needed only a glancing blow to crush the life out of those delicate bat-disguised-as-bird bones. "Don't!"
And, before he could warn Linton what he was about to do, Linton's hand struck the goldfinch, hurling the bird downward to the ground.
Farold hit with a small but solid thump.
"No," Selwyn said again, this time little more sound than the air being knocked out of his lungs. He jerked free of Merton's hold and threw himself to his knees. But there obviously was nothing to be done. The bird lay perfectly still, its neck twisted, its legs limp, not the slightest stirring of breath. Still, Selwyn picked up the almost weightless body.
Selwyn felt hot, cold, light-headed, and made of stone all at once. After all the bickering and complaining, the disparaging remarks, the times he had thought he'd be so much better off alone than with Farold's help - he gladly would have given up more years to Elswyth in exchange for feeling a heartbeat in the tiny creature's chest.
There was none.
Linton shook his shoulder roughly, jostling his arm, so that the bird's body fell from Selwyn's hand, dropping once more to the grassy ground. "Here, that's enough of that," Linton said gruffly. "No more spells and such."
Selwyn got to his feet He wanted very much to hurt Linton, and the best way to do this was to tell him exactly what he had done.
But the knowledge was too terrible, and - after all - Linton was only a fool and a bully.
Farold was dead - again - and there was no reason his cousin had to know he had died twice, that Linton himself was responsible for this latest death.
People were murmuring, "What's going on?" and "How can this be?" Some looked dumbfounded, some frightened.
Across the stream, Bowden wore the expression Bowden wore best: furious. "I gave orders," he started, as though in the face of obvious magic, death, lies, and plots, all he could grab hold of was the thought that he had decreed Selwyn was to die, and Selwyn hadn't.
Farold had been dead long before Selwyn had started to get used to him, to begin to like him. He wasn't that bad. He wasn't as bad as sitting down on a tack. It wasn't fair, but there wasn't anything that could be done. Selwyn had to go on alone. "I meant nobody any harm," he said, speaking to everyone, not just Bowden or Linton. "I'm sorry I abused your kindness."  That was meant particularly for Kendra and her family, who were among those standing on the far bank. "I only wanted time to learn who had really killed Farold."
"That," Bowden said, "has already been determined to everyone's satisfaction. And now, besides murder, you are evidently involved in sorcery."
"And what have you learned?" Raedan called out, ignoring Bowden. "Anything?"
Selwyn took a deep breath. The murderer wasn't likely to be Merton, who knew about the knife but had no cause to kill Farold. It couldn't be Bowden or Holt, who couldn't have gotten into the mill. Linton, Anora, Thorne, Orik, and Wilona all had reasons to want Farold dead and could have gone through - or, in Orik's case, squeezed through - Farold's window. But there was only one person he knew of who could easily have learned about the knife without Farold's knowing, who would have had access to Farold's room, and who - from what Selwyn had learned - might well have wanted Farold out of the way. He announced, "I believe it was the miller."
There was a murmur of disbelief from those gathered around.