A Murder in Gramphborough (8000 words)

As soon as Rhadmin saw the interrogator, he knew this was serious. Not because she was intimidating, but because she wasn’t.

She was maybe forty, on the plump side, with silver-streaked dark hair and the kind and guileless face of a kindergarten teacher. She was sitting at a little round table in the interrogation room, between the unshaven, disheveled chief constable and a scowling old attorney that Rhadmin knew had previously worked for his father. She greeted him with a smile that was clearly meant to be disarming.

“You must be Mr. Rhadmin Cephlex, Jr.” By her accent, she wasn’t from around here. “Quira Halbrex, professional interrogator. I’m on retainer from the Cerrion constabulary. This is Chief Weshterthyn, and I believe you know Attorney Murthex. Please, have a seat.”

Yikes. So the Gramphborough constabulary had sent for a interrogator from one of the Aulm Confederacy’s three biggest cities, over 2500 miles east-northeast of here—and both wind and current made east-to-west travel a nightmare at this latitude. Death and Judgment, they think I did it. They really do. And they know they need someone smarter than the goons who work for this town. And it’s this important to them.

“I’m sorry to keep you inside on a lovely day like this, Mr. Cephlex. Can we get you anything? Coffee? Tea?”

“No, thank you.” It was hard for Rhadmin to believe they were going to this much trouble. Seven years ago, when he and Barius had stolen that necklace, it had been their families who’d punished them, not the law. Everything he’d seen of the constabulary told him that they would sooner pour kerosene into their laps and set their junk on fire than offer the slightest hint of inconvenience to a rich and powerful man.

But I’m not rich or powerful. And I may never be. Until the estate is sorted out, all I have is the dwindling remains of my own personal bank account. And my father was rich and powerful, and if he really was murdered and they think I somehow did it… Great Unknown help me. And there she was, looking at him with eyes as blue as his own, still smiling—unlike the lawyer, who was giving him a dirty look, or the chief, who just sort of looked bleary.

“Have you settled in yet?”

“Um… we haven’t really had a chance to unpack…” Where is she going with this?

“You certainly had a long trip, didn’t you? Eleven, twelve thousand miles?”

This is an opening to defend myself. “So you know I was in Grand Harbor when…”

“Patience. Patience. We’ll get there. Tell me about your trip.”

That was just the beginning. All his life, people—starting with his late father—had been telling Rhadmin to get to the point. This Ms. Halbrex actively encouraged him to tell whatever story he was telling like a Peori pen-artist drawing a picture of a sprawler fig tree, carefully tracing out each branch, root, and secondary trunk. She’s hoping I’ll mess up on some detail. She’s looking for something she can use to call me a liar.

The telegram. Packing for the trip. His sweetheart Arkhöa choosing to come with him. At this point Ms. Halbrex said, “Tell me about this young lady of yours.” Normally Rhadmin would have thought of this as the female instinct to find a romantic angle in every story, but he doubted that was the case with this particular female.

“Arkhöa,” said Rhadmin, “but she’s going by Koa now. She and I are probably the only two people in the Aulm Confederacy who can pronounce her birth name. She’s Wa’ao. We met in Grand Harbor—I needed a tutor in local languages. She gave me a discount in exchange for teaching her Aulmish.”

“I’ve met Wa’ao sailors,” said Chief Weshterthyn. “Scariest-looking men I’ve ever seen in my life. Worse than Swelterlanders.” Halbrex looked a little embarrassed at this, although it might have just been that it wasn’t even 10 a.m. and the chief’s breath smelled of mintberry brandy.

“They’re on the tall side,” said Rhadmin. “Anyway, we fell in love, she always wanted to see the world, and when I had to come home, she said, ‘Just try and leave me behind.’”

He told them about the little tramp steamer they’d gotten a ride on. The trip south from Grand Harbor and along the east coast of the Swelterlands, while the steamer crew stopped at the various ports to buy coffee, cocoa, and vanilla beans and canned tropical fruit. The marriage ceremony on board ship on the day they crossed the equator, the arch of heaven now a single line of pale light that perfectly bisected the sky.

“You married this woman,” said Attorney Murthex, barely able to keep the sneer out of his voice that he hadn’t left her behind in a Swelterlander port like a proper gentleman so he could come home and marry a good Aulmish girl.

“Yes. I did.”

“Didn’t stop to ask what your… what your family thought?” That was the chief.

“My family? You mean my father’s mistresses? Or the uncles and aunts we haven’t spoken to in years? Because my mother can hardly wait to meet her—they’ve been corresponding for three quarters now. Whose approval am I supposed to be seeking here, and why?”

“Clearly not your father’s,” said Murthex. “Not anymore.”

Rhadmin finished up the story of his voyage. Transit boat from Wemberampt to Thorm, a little more honeymooning while they saw the sights in Thorm, and from there to Gramphborough. Hearing for the first time on board one of those boats that foul play was suspected in the death of Rhadmin Cephlex, Sr. Being greeted at the Gramphborough docks by a small horde of journalists asking “DID YOU DO IT?”

Then the conversation turned to his father and his childhood—which was worse, because there was no way he could talk honestly about his father without revealing about six different motives for murder. The main one, of course, was how the old man had treated his mother. Not only had he cheated on her, but when she complained he’d had a doctor declare her “overstressed and overwrought” and sent her to live on a small island in a relatively warm but remote part of the Confederacy, telling her all the while that she was lucky he wasn’t consigning her to a sanitarium. Rhadmin Jr. had been eleven when this happened. After this, finding out how the old man treated the men who dug coal for his company had been disappointing, but not surprising.

And then, of course, they got to The Affair of the Necklace—the thing that had gotten himself and his friend Barius Quyx sent off to Grand Harbor on remittance at the age of seventeen. (The Quyx family had let their son come home after two years. These days, Barius was married and had a job at his father’s shipyard and a child on the way. Rhadmin was planning to visit when he got the chance.)

Like most of the dumbest deeds ever done, it had seemed like a good idea at the time. Their families had been vacationing on North Sharparian Island, and had happened to be sharing a resort with the old Duchess of Yemp… who had been wearing a gold necklace with an archstone in it. “Really, I just wanted to get a good look at it,” he said. “Ever since I was a child I’ve had an interest in rocks, metals, minerals, gemstones… that sort of thing. Father always used to say, ‘Are you a man or a magpie?’ Anyway, I’d always wanted to see a real archstone up close.”

“You never saw Penakluk’s helmet?”

“Once, on a trip to Examt. But I was very small, and I had to look past a lot of other people’s heads to see it. And the museum didn’t let anybody get too close.”

“Why not just ask the Duchess?”

“I did. Politely. Her nurses—not only did they say no, they acted like I was already trying to steal it. The Duchess herself… just sat there in her wheelchair. I don’t know how old she was, but at least at the time, she seemed completely out of it. Oblivious.” Rhadmin shook his head. “I suppose I can’t blame the nurses. Archstone is the most expensive stuff on the planet by weight.”

“Then why didn’t they leave it in the safe?”

“I wondered that at the time. It seemed like she didn’t even know she had it on, so… anyway, usually it was Barius who came up with ideas for stupid pranks. This time it was me.” Rhadmin wondered if telling this story would make his position better or worse.

“The plan was simple. There was a concert in the music room that evening. Everyone was going to be there. Barius would leave, like he needed to use the bathroom. Instead, he’d go down to the basement and turn off the gas. I made a note of where the Duchess was parked, and when the music started I closed my eyes. The room was all brightly lit so the musicians could see their sheet music—I figured if I kept my eyes shut, when the lights went out I’d be the only one able to see. Then I’d grab it, take it somewhere, get a good look at it, then return it.

“And it worked. The only thing that went wrong was that right as I was heading out the door, the Duchess sort of woke up, and she started screaming. Honestly I’d thought she was too far gone that.” The screams had been the worst part. Loud. Agonized. Filled with grief.

“So you got the archstone. What was it like?”

“It was beautiful.” That was selling it much too short. Even now, he could see the jewel in his mind—an irregular stone about the size of his pinky fingernail, more or less oval in shape and set in a gold oval frame. (Because archstone was as close to indestructible as any material in the world, and because it was so dangerous to work with, most jewelers preferred to work around whatever its existing shape happened to be.) The stone was heavier than it looked—which made sense, it being about fifteen ounces per cubic inch—with a texture like tortoiseshell.

It wasn’t black. It was sort of… night-colored. Dark blue, dark purple, with dark greens and grays and bronzes all fading into each other. Just generally dark.

“Some people say it’s lucky. Do you think it’s lucky?”

“I’m not superstitious. And it sure didn’t bring me any luck.” Rhadmin tried to think of something harmless to add to this. “I mean, we’ve all heard how Admiral Penakluk had his whole helmet lined with it, and he was lucky… right up until he wasn’t.”

“So what did you do with then?”

“I wanted to get a look at it in good light, but of course the lights were all out and—this was the one thing I overlooked—I didn’t have a lantern handy. So I thought, ‘What could be better than seeing the actual arch through it?”

“Sounds pretty.”

You have no idea.

“Past the trees, there was a beach on the north coast where I could get a really good look at the arch. I held it up and…”

…and the colors were so elusive, rich delicious shades of indigo and plum shading to rosewood and mahagony-like crimson that made me painfully hard, somehow more erotic than any naked woman I’d ever seen or imagined…

…veins of forest green, sparks of deep gold that came and went so quick as to be heartbreaking—there and then gone, and when I saw one I NEEDED to see more of them…

“…lost track of time.”

She smiled and nodded.

“I really did mean to return it. I’d heard it can hypnotize you if you stare into it too long. I thought I had the, uh, mental fortitude to resist the effect.” I must see it again before I die.

“You sound like you know a lot about archstone.”

“To the extent that anyone does… yes. I’ve read a lot about it.”

“‘To the extent that anyone does’—what do you mean?”

“I mean, there’s still so much we don’t know about it. We don’t even know what elements it’s made of, never mind the chemical formula or crystal structure. The last time anybody tried to find out the melting point was a few years ago in Vormarn. I don’t know the details, but apparently there was some kind of explosion and the scientist running the experiment was killed.”

“What about the mental effects you describe? Hypnosis?”

“That’s just the beginning. They say if you surround yourself with it or carry too much of it around on you, it’ll drive you insane, turn you paranoid or make you start thinking you’re invincible. Obviously that’s what happened to Admiral Penakluk, but we don’t really know how much of that was the effect of the stone and how much of it was just him having been a successful conqueror for so long. Or the kings with hoards of archstone who became tyrants and turned against their friends—was it because of the hoard, or was it because they were rich and scared of people wanting what they had?”

“Those are all good questions. I gather you don’t have answers?”

“Nobody does. The one thing scientists agree on is, it shouldn’t have those effects. There’s no mechanism they can find for it to influence the brain, no fumes or emanations that it gives off. But then, they also say it shouldn’t be poi—”

Realization.

She wasn’t asking all these questions about this one mineral just out of curiosity. She wanted to know exactly how much he knew.

When they first found him, they thought it was a heart attack.

“Did my father die of archstone poisoning?”

As soon as he asked the question, he was sure he’d just made a terrible mistake. If that was how it had happened, even guessing it correctly would look an awful lot like guilt.

Halbrex’s face gave nothing away. “How much do you know about archstone poisoning?”

“I’ve never seen it happen, obviously, but I’ve read about it.”

“Were you about to say it shouldn’t be poisonous?”

“According to scientists, yes.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, first of all, it’s one of the fastest known poisons. You can hold it in your hand for as long as you like, but the minute it breaks your skin, comes into contact with blood or living tissue…” Rhadmin snapped his fingers. “Every cell in your body just… stops. All at once. Permanently. And no one knows how it works. It doesn’t dissolve in water at all—not even trace amounts—so how can it spread through the bloodstream?”

“You’re saying it shouldn’t have that effect?”

“That’s right. It shouldn’t. That’s what’s strange. It doesn’t seem to react to anything. They’ve tested it with the strongest corrosives, acids, bases, oxidizers… everything just slides off it, like rain off the back of a sea-duck. So what does it do once it’s in the body? By rights, it should be like a grain of sand.”

“But obviously it is poisonous.”

“Yes. I mean, it must be some sort of catalytic reaction, since the stone itself doesn’t change, but why is it the exact same reaction whether it hits the blood or the stomach lining? And… you still haven’t answered my question, by the way. Did somebody actually poison him with archstone?”

Several seconds of silence ticked by.

“Yeah,” said Weshterthyn, his fingers brushing the amulet that hung around his neck. It was a circle of polished white ash, with black crossed oars over a gold sun disk. Not many educated Aulms still held to the old pantheon, but if the chief did, that wasn’t necessarily a bad sign.

“I’ve read a few murder mysteries,” the chief continued, “and… well… your father’s death was as close to a real-life locked-room mystery as… certainly anything that’s ever happened in Gramphborough. I mean, the door wasn’t literally locked, but—you’ve seen his office, right?”

“Not in… how long has it been?” Obviously not in the last seven years, but even then, his father hadn’t brought him to work on a regular basis when he was a child. It must have been at least ten years.

The chief took out a notepad and sketched a rough rectangle. “So this is his office.” He sketched a larger rectangle connected to it. “Here’s the… the lobby.” He drew five squares in the lobby. “Three desks, and then two more behind them. Like some kind of barricade. Where his office staff work.” There had only been three people working in the lobby the last time Rhadmin saw the office.

“Last time anybody saw him alive was… Fireday around noon. He went to Ohen’s across the street. He had… black-and-white with beer.” Seafood chowder with black bread—the classic Aulmish staple. And, of course, something they could quickly serve and he could quickly eat and get back to work.

“After that, he went to the company treasurer’s office, picked up the account books, then went back to his office. No one heard from him that afternoon. They didn’t check up on him, neither.”

“He didn’t like to be disturbed,” said Rhadmin.

“At five o’clock sharp, the whole staff just… left the building. They all said they thought he’d be right behind ‘em. He’d sometimes work a few minutes extra.” If you worked for the Gramphish Coal Company, you worked grueling hours seven days a week—unless that work was behind a desk, in which case you went home at five and had Waterday and Sunday off. That was the only way to keep competent administrators from leaving town entirely and running off to someplace warmer, more exciting, or both.

“No one saw him leave?”

“Nope.”

“And there was no other way out of the office,” said Halbrex. “There were windows, but it was five stories up. A lot of buildings in Cerrion have fire escapes, but…”

“This ain’t Cerrion,” said the chief. “Anyway, his servants say he never came home. They thought he was spending the weekend with a mistress. We talked to all his mistresses. They never saw him. And when the staff came in on Archday morning… well, they found the body. We don’t know the exact time of death, but he was cold as the walls. Rigor mortis had come and gone. Coroner said that meant he’d been gone more than a day.”

“So… some time between Fireday afternoon and Sunday morning?”

“Almost certainly the former,” said Halbrex. “Everyone we talked to said it was his practice on Fireday afternoons to go over the company’s income and expense reports, looking for signs of embezzlement. That was what was on his desk at the time.

“And here’s the thing. Whoever killed him must have been expecting his death to look like natural causes. Which it almost did. If he’d died on Archday, Earthday, Windsday, Starsday… his body would’ve been found no later than the next morning and there would’ve been nothing strange about it. Just another man in his fifties working himself to death. What got the coroner’s attention was the condition of the body. He’d been dead nearly three days in a warm room and hadn’t even started to decompose.”

Rhadmin nodded. “That’s what happens. They think it’s because it kills everything at once—not just the cells, but the microbes in your blood and your gut. They’ve done experiments where they killed a rat with it, then took blood and stool samples from the rat and mixed them with agar in those little round glass dishes—I forget what they’re called. Nothing grew.”

“Interesting. Anyway, they found it in his stomach. Less than an eighth of an inch wide, half a grain by weight, and—according to our appraiser—worth somewhere between ten and twelve thousand feth. Nothing that expensive gets swallowed by accident. That leaves suicide or murder.”

“What about Ohen’s? If that’s the last place he ate…”

“Of course, we’re going over Ohen’s with a fine-toothed comb,” said Weshterthyn.

They’ve had weeks to do that. If they’d come up with any clues, they wouldn’t be talking to me.

“In any case,” said Halbrex, “I think we’re all more interested in who was behind the murder.”

“You think it was me?” There. Now it was out in the open. “I mean, for me, twelve thousand feth would’ve been about six months’ worth of remittance payments.”

”You didn’t have any other income?”

Rhadmin took a moment to think about how to answer that question. He had, in fact, done some odd jobs over the seven years in Grand Harbor. Most of them had been perfectly legal—a rich kid fresh off the boat getting involved in crime would’ve been like a seal trying to make friends with sharks. Only in the last year or so had he gotten enough street smarts to engage in more lucrative business.

“Nothing that would’ve made it reasonable to spend that kind of money. And… how exactly would I do this? ‘Hey, Mister Criminal, want to do some crime? Take this very expensive little rock, catch a boat to Gramphborough, go find my father, and poison him with it.’ Suppose he just takes it and sells it to the nearest jeweler instead? What am I supposed to do, sue him for breach of contract?”

“It’s possible it wasn’t you,” said the chief. “Could’ve been a terrorist attack.”

“A what?”

“Terrorism,” the chief repeated, as if it would make more sense the second time. “I don’t know if you’ve been… been keeping up with politics here at home, but some states have gone soft on unions. Let ‘em organize. Negotiate with ‘em. We don’t do shit like that—sorry, ma’am. Not here in Gramph. So some of the miners are turning radical. Maybe dangerous.”

This is a trick. He can’t be this dumb. He’s probably not even drunk. Anybody can skip shaving and rinse their mouth with a little strong-smelling brandy.

“And your father… I don’t know if you realized this, but ever since Mirwannin No. 19, a lot of people have hated him. They think it was his fault, what happened.”

Rhadmin could only nod. The disaster had happened eleven years ago, well before his banishment. The precise details of how it had happened were lost to history—after all, when an explosion blew a hole in the roof of a mine right underneath the Mirwannin River, the people who were close enough to see it were least likely to survive. But it had definitely had something to do with digging too close under the riverbed, not enough precautions against firedamp, shoring timbers being too few and too weak, and the Gramphish Coal Company generally acting as though it would be the end of the world if this one particular 300-million-year-old coal seam wasn’t all dug up and set on fire by the next equinox. All of which could be traced to the man who had owned the company.

“I mean, that’s… one of our theories.”

If this is a trick, it’s going to work, because I can’t stand to listen to this much stupid.

Also, I am kinda morbidly curious to know who killed my father.

“I know less about terrorism than I do about crime,” said Rhadmin, “but—like she said, any other day this would’ve been dismissed as heart failure. What’s the point of a terrorist attack if nobody knows it happened? And these are miners we’re talking about. If they want to do terrorism, why would they spend that much money on archstone when they already have dynamite? I mean—did you say ten to twelve thousand feth?” Halbrex nodded. “Because I happen to know that’s how much the average GCC miner makes in a year.”

“Maybe they didn’t buy it,” said Weshterthyn.

“If they’d stolen it, don’t you think you would’ve heard?”

“Like you said, they’re miners. Maybe they dug it up.”

Rhadmin began a perfunctory laugh, then stopped halfway through when he realized the man wasn’t kidding. In Grand Harbor, one way of saying that someone was a rare breed of idiot was that he or she “would buy shares in an archstone mine.” Apparently, Gramphborough’s chief constable was someone who might literally do that.

Rhadmin turned to him. “Archstone is only ever found in meteorites.”

The chief shrugged. “You’re the expert.”

“Yes, I know. I’m fascinated by rocks and minerals. I admitted to that. But… honestly, if you’re looking for suspects, I’d look at the GCC. Not the miners, the top managers—the people working right under him. Some of them were earning enough money that they could’ve bought that thing.”

“What would’ve been their motive?”

“Control of the company. Maybe a share in the inheritance. I mean, I still haven’t seen the will. I have no idea who’s getting what. Or if I’m getting anything at all.”

“Funny you should mention that,” said Halbrex. “The Archday before his demise, he visited the office of the city probate judge in the company of Jordoa Lumix, a notary of excellent reputation. They had this with them.” She handed Rhadmin a sheet of papers. At the top of the first page was THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF RHADMIN CEPHLEX, SENIOR.

Considering how much property it covered, it was a short read. The money was his. The houses were his. The boats and steam-carriages—his. The stock portfolio—his. The cottage out on East Rhagginspar Island where his mother lived—his. The Gramphish Coal Company itself was to go public at long last, the shares sold by a brokerage firm in Examt, but apart from the brokers’ fee, all the money from that sale would be his. The last page bore his father’s signature, Attorney Murthex’s signature, the signature and stamp of Notary Lumix, and the signature of Judge Opoponax.

Father had left him everything after all.

The three of them were looking at him expectantly.

“Give me a moment,” he said. “This is… this is a lot to take in all at once.”

The last time Rhadmin had seen his father was on the Gramphborough transit dock. The day had been cold and rainy—no surprise, on Gramph Island days generally were. They hadn’t had much to say to each other. On impulse—and after seeing the embrace Barius had gotten from both his parents—just before getting on the boat Rhadmin had turned to his father and reached out for a hug. His father had simply looked at him in confusion and turned away. The first leg of the trip, by transit boat to Examt, had seemed even colder than it actually was… and he’d have no way of knowing he’d never see the man alive again.

It always bothered him how little interest I had in his life’s work. But instead of handing it to me and letting me try to figure out what to do with it, he did this. Source and Purpose, who would have thought the old man had so much kindness in him?

Then he looked up from the papers. The other three were still looking at him expectantly. He opened his mouth… and then closed it again.

They all believe I did it. They will never think otherwise. The actual murderer could be walking up and down Fishmarket Street juggling archstones and they’d be too focused on me to pay any attention.

But they can’t prove it. They brought me here hoping I’d either confess or trip myself up, and it seems like I haven’t done that. They’ve got nothing… and now I’ve got everything. All I have to do is not say anything to incriminate myself, and the easiest way to do that is to shut up.

Let’s see how uncomfortable this silence can get. I bet you guys will break first.

The first person to speak was the chief. “Still think it was one of his managers?”

“Since I happen to know I didn’t do it, that seems likeliest,” said Rhadmin.

The questioning continued for another twenty minutes, but didn’t get anywhere. Rhadmin knew it was twenty minutes because he checked his pocketwatch more than once. It was something he’d seen his father do sometimes when talking to him, not so much to find out what time it was as to let him know he was taking too long to get to the point.

The constabulary and everyone else in town kissed Father’s ass because he was rich. Now I’ve got his money. Don’t I deserve the same courtesy?

As soon as Rhadmin was out of the constabulary station, he turned left. The bank was four blocks away, and he wanted his copy of the will in his safe-deposit box as soon as possible. Halbrex had been telling the truth about it being a nice day—blue skies, friendly white cumulus clouds, the arch a curved wall on the northern horizon with every groove visible. Gramph Island didn’t get weather like this every week. Not a lot of places in the Aulm Confederacy did.

It happened that Murthex’s office was in the same direction. Rhadmin slowed his footsteps, trying to match the pace of the shorter, older man.

“Can I talk to you?”

Murthex didn’t look at him. “Obviously, you are talking to me.”

“I want to ask about Father.”

Murthex didn’t respond.

Rhadmin still wasn’t sure how he felt about his father. Learning what he’d just learned should’ve changed everything. Maybe it just hadn’t sunk in yet. When it did, would feel the things he knew he ought to be feeling? Mourn his father properly? Be not just curious, but angry about the murder?

He suspected the answer was going to be no. Money couldn’t buy love. It was a cliché, but it was true, and nobody knew it better than the rich. Rhadmin did sort of mourn his father, but not for everything that had been lost in death—for everything that should have existed between them in life, but never had and now never would. And that grief was almost as old as he was.

Still, he wanted to know. “When he brought you this will… did he talk about me at all?”

Murthex didn’t respond some more.

“I mean, he must have said something—”

“Will you stop!”

Rhadmin halted in his tracks. Several people on the street turned to glance at them.

Murthex lowered his voice. “You and I both know that is not my signature, and that will is a crass forgery.”

Rhadmin stood there blinking. Murthex turned and started walking again.

“Wait. What do you mean?”

“I mean, I never signed it. I never even held it in my hands until today. And for your information, I’ve helped him make out his will twice, and in neither of them did he leave you more than a continuation of your remittance.”

Ouch. “So who did he leave the money to?”

“That is not your concern. Not now, certainly.”

“I ask because whoever it was is a more likely suspect, if they thought they’d be getting money out of it. Where did it come from, anyway?”

“You tell me. I imagine all sorts of services may be purchased in Grand Harbor.”

“But… it’s been notarized and everything.”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“So… this…” Rhadmin checked the name again. “This Notary Lumix—did you ask her about it?”

Murthex nodded. “Her performance was a little more colorful than yours. Her exact words were, ‘What in the name of Andria’s butt steaks are you talking about?’ She and her secretary both swore they’d seen your father—a man they knew well—and that he’d gone so far as to accompany them to the courthouse, something Judge Opoponax and his staff also attested to.”

Rhadmin nodded. That all sounded pretty final.

“Which means anything… else… I might say would be an unprovable allegation against all of them.” He really does think I had my father killed. Not only that, he thinks I forged the will and bribed the notary and judge to claim they saw my father in person that day. He thinks the corruption runs that deep.

He’s been working in this town for as long as I can remember. Maybe he knows something I don’t.

“And yet his office staff—the same ones who testified to his whereabouts on Fireday—are equally certain that on the Archday of that week, he never left his office except to pick up his medicine.”

“Medicine?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know. Every Archday morning he visited a patent-medicine seller for a box of pills. Camphor, apparently.”

“What?” If Murthex had told him his father had taken time off work to perform as a burlesque dancer in Cerrion, he would have been no more surprised. “Since when did he ever waste money on quack medicines? Mother could never even get him to visit a real doctor, back when… wait. Has anyone found this quack? Because it sounds like he’s our prime suspect. What’s his name? What does he look like?”

“The household staff spoke of a Dr. Hasex, but none of them ever met him. A man calling himself that rented a small office on Storm Petrel Lane, but that office has been unoccupied since the week of your father’s death. As of now, he is wanted for questioning.”

If Father put a piece of archstone in his mouth, he wouldn’t have had time to swallow it… unless it were coated with something. Something that would dissolve in his stomach.

He wouldn’t have chewed the pill—who wants a mouthful of camphor? He would’ve popped it in his mouth and washed it down as quick as he could.

Make a week’s worth of camphor pills. One of them has a tiny fragment of archstone in the center—make sure it looks just the same as the others. Put it in the pillbox with the rest and sell it to him. Now you know he’ll die soon, but you don’t know what day… Death and Judgment, that quack could’ve been halfway to Cerrion or Examt when Father took the pill. He could be anywhere in the world by now. They’ll never catch him.

But why? Why kill a rich customer? If you can sell him camphor pills, you can sell him anything.

Maybe one of his friends or family was at Mirwannin No. 19. Maybe this is the outcome of a complicated revenge plot years in the making.

And the will?

To throw everyone off the scent.

Okay, but how did he get a notary and a judge to go along with it?

Maybe he disguised himself as my father.

Face, voice, mannerisms, everything? Well enough to fool people in the same room? Everyone who was anyone in town knew my father. This makes no sense! The more Rhadmin tried to put it together and develop a plausible theory, the more frustrated he got.

“So why didn’t anybody mention any of this?”

“Because whether or not we can prove it, we all know you already knew.”

“Death and Judgment, this is ridiculous!”

“What are you so upset about, young man? You’ve won!”

“What am I so upset about? I was about to ask you the same question!”

“I’ve been in the legal profession since long before you were born, Junior. Does it really surprise you that I might be somewhat offended by forgery? Corruption? Murder?”

“Yes. Yes, it does, actually.”

Murthex stood there blinking.

“Here’s why. My father… I feel awful saying this about him after seeing this.” Rhadmin held up the will. “And I’m not taking your word for it that it’s fake. But it’s only telling the truth to say that he was a man who did terrible things, and I remember you helping him to do those things.

“After that coal mine disaster, the widows and orphans had to sue to get the money they were promised. You fought them in court every step of the way. During those strikes, when coal miners and journalists and all sorts of people were being arrested over basically nothing, you donated your services to the state prosecutor’s office. I’m not even mad at you—there’s no point. You’re just the sort of person who does that sort of thing. But suddenly he’s gone and I’m here, and now you claim to be a man of principle? Your soul picks now to start crying out against injustice or whatever?

“No. No. Look, I didn’t kill him, and I’m never going to convince you of that, and that’s okay because I don’t care. Whatever you think I did, you… you don’t get to be angry.”

The attorney’s face had turned a vivid shade of red at this point. “Well,” he said, speaking through his teeth, “it’s clear that my time in service to your family is at an end. I suggest you look for a new attorney at your earliest conBLAAAH!” Murthex had turned and found himself looking up into the face of Arkhöa, who didn’t seem to be in the best mood right now.

“Mr. Murthex,” said Rhadmin dryly. “Have you met my wife? Koa Cephlex?”

The attorney shook his head and strode off towards his office, faster than anyone would have thought his old legs were capable of. That cheered Rhadmin up. Some people deserved to lose their dignity.

And turning to look at his new bride cheered him up some more, although he could understand why the locals might find her a little startling. The dress and hat Koa was wearing had been fashionable in Grand Harbor when they left, and would probably be fashionable in Cerrion some time next year and Gramphborough the year after that, although she was wearing a coat of perfectly Aulmish cut over her dress.

As for the contents of the outfit, she was 5’11,” the same as him—possibly an inch above average for a Wa’ao woman, tall but not gigantic for an Aulmish woman. She had straight jet-black hair and light brown skin—darker than most Aulms, especially this far south, but hardly alien. There were blue-gray marks along both sides of her face from temple to jawline, but you didn’t necessarily notice those right away.

What was unnerving about Koa, when you first saw her, was her eyes. They were black—not dark brown, but true Wa’aoan black. Onyx black. Obsidian black. In some lighting, the whole iris looked like one big pupil. But with the sun in her face, those irises were shining with, well, iridescent color, like black opals or a starling’s wing. No other people in the world had eyes like that. A child on the street pointed to her and said, “Look out, Mommy! It’s Seda!”

“Who?”

Rhadmin chuckled. “Don’t worry about it. He thought you were the old goddess of doom and vengeance. Meanwhile, my father’s attorney thought I was a criminal mastermind. It’s a day for people to think we’re scarier than we really are. And what brings you out and about?”

“Looking for new shoes,” she said. “Mine are getting worn. Does any store in this city have any shoes that are even a little bit in fashion?”

“The bad news is, probably not. The good news is, as soon as I deliver this to the bank and gain access to Father’s accounts, you’ll be able to have all the shoes you like made to order.”

As soon as Rhadmin had squared things with the bank, it was time for lunch. Neither their wedding nor their honeymoon had been marked by fine dining. On the tramp steamer, they’d eaten the same thing as the crew. Third-class passage on the transit boats hadn’t been much better, and though Thorm had restaurants as good as any in Grand Harbor, they were all booked weeks in advance and Rhadmin and Koa had only had a few days in town. Now they were free to sample the best cuisine Gramphborough had to offer.

And as it happened, the Baronial Grill on the corner of Furrier and Fishmarket had tables open on the second-floor porch. Most days it would have overlooked a vista of rain or fog, but today you could look out over one of the busiest intersections in town, with lots of horse-carriages and the occasional steam-carriage all trying to maneuver around one another. And, of course, if the people in that intersection had nothing better to do, they could look up and see you, but from down there Rhadmin was just a blond young man and Koa just a dark-haired young woman. Once the waitress had stopped staring at Koa and stammering in terror, they’d ordered braised mutton with cider and fireberry marinade, and black hake with an herb and garlic sauce, and were sharing both of them.

Having brought Koa up to speed on the murder and the investigation, Rhadmin started to speculate. “I can’t see Mom as a killer,” he said, “but she wouldn’t have a problem giving me all the money—she knows I wouldn’t let her down. In fact, I’m going to transfer her cottage to her. For that matter, she can have the mansion here if she wants it.” Rhadmin doubted she would. From what she wrote in her letters, she’d made too many friends on East Rhagginspar, and gotten too used to its nonlethal winters.

“Along with enough money that she can pay the property tax?”

“And then some.” Rhadmin sighed. “Fifty-nine men died at Mirwannin No. 19. That’s a lot of murders they let my father get away with. If my mother pulled off one, I think she deserves the same courtesy. I just don’t know where she would’ve gotten hold of an archstone—he didn’t give her that much of an allowance. And how many professional forgers would she have met out on East Rhagginspar?”

“So who do you think did it?”

“Probably one of his underlings. And… you know what? I bet my father knew one of them was out to get him. He just didn’t know who, or how many people were in on it. That would explain everything. He didn’t even trust his own lawyer, so he rewrote his will to give everything to the one person he knew didn’t have anything to do with it. Me. He had a million copies of Murthex’s signature around his office—just hold one up against the window and trace it, and boom, forgery.

“As for his office staff… they were concentrating on their work. I doubt they’d remember his every coming and going. Not on a day when nothing else happened. It all makes sense… except for one thing.”

“What?”

“It sounds like my father stuck to his daily routine right to the very end. If it was me, and I thought somebody who worked in the same building with me was plotting to do me in, I’d have been dodging around like an oystercatcher in heavy surf.”

“Living in Grand Harbor made you smart. Your father…”

“He wasn’t stupid, but… I see what you mean.”

Koa looked into his eyes, the shimmering blackness of her gaze seeming to grab him by the face and pull him in. “I have a different idea.”

“You do?”

“I know I never met your father, but… you told me all the terrible things he did. How he treated your mother. How he treated you. The coal mine. Maybe he felt bad about those things. So bad that he… didn’t want to live. So he… didn’t. But first, he wrote a new will, to try to make amends with you.”

Rhadmin was torn between his desire not to get into an argument with his wife and his certainty that his father would never have done that. Then his certainty started to crack. Seven years of nothing but cold, matter-of-fact letters from home. Even before then, he was never one to show his feelings. So easy to imagine there were never any feelings to show… but there always are, aren’t there?

I didn’t even know he was buying fake medicine. What else was going on with him that I didn’t know about?

“Think,” Koa continued. “He was poisoned with an archstone. Archstone is very expensive. Only a rich man can buy it.”

“And my father was the richest man in Gramphborough.” And if he was planning suicide… well, the dead don’t leave customer reviews, but archstone is as close to a guaranteed painless way out as you can get.

Then why bother forging Murthex’s signature?

Maybe they’d had a falling out that Murthex didn’t mention. Maybe he just didn’t want to deal with Murthex trying to talk him out of it.

So where’s the quack?

He had nothing to do with it, but he took the fastest boat out of town as soon as he heard about the poison. He knew he’d be a suspect. Even if he was innocent, men like that never want the constabulary looking into their affairs.

Koa folded his hands in hers. “I can tell you can’t imagine him doing such a thing. But you wouldn’t be the first to be surprised in this way.”

Rhadmin nodded. It all fit perfectly… except for one thing. Going over the company account books was something he did every Fireday. But if I knew it was my last day beneath the arch, that sure isn’t how I’d spend it.

“You could be right,” he said. That should be enough to avoid an argument. If she’s right and he did it to himself, I’m safe. If my mother did it, I’m safe. If some vengeful enemies tracked him down and killed him, the fact that they arranged for me to get the money without even having to bother trying to run the damn coal company suggests they’re not mad at me.

But if it was his co-workers, as part of some scheme to get his money… well, their scheme has just fallen through the ice, and they’re probably pretty mad about it. Might be a good idea to get out of town.

And that silly young waitress was in the corner, apparently trying to work up the nerve to come and ask them how their meal was. It was one day, and already Rhadmin was getting tired of locals treating his wife like she was a pet tiger he was taking for a walk.

“Gramphborough must be a total roast penguin to you.”

“A what?”

“Wait, did I not teach you that idiom? I’m sorry. Something you traveled a long way for that turned out to be… not worth it.”

Koa shrugged. “You told me a lot about this city before we came. I didn’t expect much to begin with.” She took a hunk of toast with cheese and scooped up some of the mutton sauce with it.

Rhadmin took a good, long look at the smoke-stained city that for the first seventeen years of his life he’d been happy to call home. Gramphborough was no small town—a quarter of a million people lived here, apparently of their own free will—but it wasn’t Cerrion, Examt, or Thorm, and it certainly wasn’t Grand Harbor. It existed to build and repair ships, and to export coal and canned seafood. And from what Koa had said, fashionable women’s shoes weren’t part of the deal.

It would be unfair to Koa to subject her to this provincial and suspicious place for the rest of her life. And having spent the last seven years in Grand Harbor, Rhadmin had no desire to subject himself to it either.

And Great Unknown, do I ever have plans for that money.