Scholar's Plot (26 page)

“That’s not my problem,” said Barrows, recovering a bit of his composure. “Anything he did, he did it in Crown fief, and this is Baron Martolk’s land. I haven’t committed any crimes.”

“If Lat’s been sabotaging the Heir’s project, I think you’ll find that your baron’s judicars will do whatever the Liege’s warrant tells them to. And if you’ve helped him, you may end up paying part of that debt yourself.”

“The
Heir
? I didn’t … I don’t… Look, all I wanted was to help Lat out! This was over four months ago, not long after Nan broke her leg. The healer said she wasn’t going to mend right without magica — a long course 
of it, not just one dose. All I did, all Lat asked me to 
do, was to pass the letters back and forth and then send him the money. Because it would be harder to track, across a fiefdom border, you know? It was only a few times,” he finished desperately. “And they both said 
I could take three gold roundels from each purse for my pains.”

I looked at Michael in time to see his brows rise sharply. If three gold roundels was just a fraction of that purse, Master Quicken had been very well-paid.

“What did Lat agree to do for all that money?” I asked. “And who was paying him?”

“I don’t know,” Barrows said. “And the gent don’t say. He’d even had the crest that was on the door of his fancy coach scratched off, so I knew he wasn’t about to give his name.”

“What did he look like?” I asked.

Barrows shrugged. “Nothing much. Slim, brown hair. Older than you, not too tall, and an accent like your friend’s here. But I don’t have any idea who he was, much less who he worked for.”

“He worked for someone?” Michael asked. “’Twas not himself who wanted Lat’s service?”

“No. He said…” The man swallowed hard. “He said his employer was rich enough to pay for this, and more besides if Lat did well. And he must have, ’cause two more purses came after that.”

“Do you know what your brother-in-law was supposed to do for this money?” Michael asked.

“He said it wasn’t killing.” The desperate eyes flashed back and forth between us. “He said it’d do real harm to no one. Just some scholarly stuff, with papers and experiments and all. Said that when folk put more stock in papers than in people, it served ’em right. But I didn’t do anything but pass their letters and the money. And 
I don’t know any more about it.”

“Well, we know a bit more now,” Michael said.

We’d returned to the inn, and cancelled the room we’d booked so early that we’d gotten our money back. Now we were on our way back to Slowbend.

“We have proof Master Quicken was bribed,” he went on. “So it seems certain ’twas he who sabotaged the project. And we’ll return as quickly as we can to report it.”

He was right about the need for speed, but… “Why did he wait so many months before he did it?” I demanded. “From what Stint said, his daughter broke her leg four or five months ago, and Quicken gets paid three times before he does anything? And why burn papers instead of tampering with the rabbits, who were in his charge? It doesn’t make sense. We can’t just ask him about it, either. Unlike Master Barrows, he really has done something illegal, something that will cost him his job at the least. He isn’t going to babble at us, in the hope that we’ll go away again.”

“I know,” said Michael sadly. “But he’ll talk to the judicars.”

This was Michael’s answer to every problem — he’d have sent Jack to the judicars, even knowing he’d hang. I felt a lingering flash of resentment, though I had to admit, it was softened by having come to know Benton. Knowing just how much Quicken’s schemes had cost the scholar.

But it didn’t matter what I wanted, anyway. Michael was in charge when it came to the project, but even if he hadn’t been he’d have fought for this. Michael always fought for what he thought was right.

And I didn’t.

Not when it came to people, at least. And when it came to the people he cared about, that was when Michael fought hardest. Like he was fighting now, for Benton. Like he was fighting for me, still trying to reconcile us despite everything I threw in his way.

And I had run from him. I hadn’t been wrong, to let Jack go, but I could have stayed and fought it out with Michael. Instead I’d taken to my heels, just as I had all my life when caring about people got too hard. I ran from my family, instead of fighting the respectable Max. I’d run from Lucy when Jack challenged me — though that was probably smart, since someone who’d give you up for a bribe wasn’t worth much of a fight. But worst of all, I’d run from Michael instead of trying to stand up for myself, for my own beliefs. Because running had always been easier, even with Michael. But not now.

I now knew why they called it “enlightenment” — the sudden burst of knowledge burned in my heart, like staring into the sun burns the eyes.

My first impulse had been to run, as it always was. And maybe it was impossible for someone like me to marry Kathy — but I hadn’t been hanging around a knight errant for three years without learning that impossible things can happen, if you’re willing to throw common sense in the air and
try
.

Kathy, more than anything in my life, was worth fighting for … assuming she wanted me to fight for her? That was the tough question. Did she love me at all? I knew she liked me, but could she be brought to love me? And not just a little, but enough to marry me?

Even assuming she could, and would, I was going to need all kinds of help to bring this off. In fact, I’d need Michael’s help, and lately I hadn’t been doing much to earn it. He actually might not want me to marry his sister, and then there were her parents … not to mention the fact that I had a criminal past, no money, and no prospects.

Desperation isn’t the only thing that hatches mad plans. Hope can be almost as bad.

Professor Dayless had said that whoever solved the Heir’s problem could write their own ticket, not only with him, but with the High Liege as well. And the project had begun to get results.

If someone protected that successful project from saboteurs — and it could succeed, couldn’t it? — then surely the hand of one maiden, who was technically in the Liege’s wardship, wouldn’t be too much to ask. And maybe a small estate to support her?

Hang it, if I had the estate and agreed to forgo her dowry, Michael’s father might actually consent! He wouldn’t be happy about it, but he wasn’t some idiot tyrant. If what Kathy wanted was reasonable, he’d probably agree.

“What Kathy wanted” was still the biggest
if
of the bunch, and that was saying something. Even with Michael’s help — and I no longer gave a rat’s ass who was in charge — it would be hard to find the saboteur. Then the project had to succeed… And all of that paled beside how hard it might be to persuade Kathy to love me.

It was a chancy proposition in every way, but I’d made my living off chancy propositions since I was eleven. And like Professor Stint, I’d won more than 
I’d lost.

I wasn’t running. Not this time.

If I could stop the saboteur, if the project worked, and if the Liege Heir was suitably grateful… If I could bring all that off, I might be able to ask Kathy to marry me.

I had thought Fisk would argue about my decision to turn Quicken over to the guard, but he seemed a bit distracted on the long ride back to Slowbend. And whatever he said, this was my part of the investigation so the decision was mine. I wasn’t about to see another criminal escape justice on Fisk’s say so. Not with Benton’s future at stake.

My worst fear was that Josh Barrows, or some messenger he sent, would beat us back to town and warn Quicken to flee, and the unpredictable arrival of 
the third applicant for Benton’s job made our need 
for haste still greater. By pressing our horses we managed to reach Slowbend some hours after dark on the next day … and found Benton and Kathy waiting up to tell us that yesterday the Liege Guard had ridden out 
to the farm, and returned the jeweler to the university’s custody.

“What were they supposed to do?” Benton asked. “The jeweler told the guards he wanted to go home, and went with them willingly. And he does want to stay there. Kathy went to see him yesterday evening, and she says he was fine … or at least, as good as he ever is.”

“More to the point,” Fisk murmured. “Is Captain Chaldon about to come and arrest us for kidnapping him in the first place?”

“No,” said Kathy. “Because when he came to “talk” to Benton about it, I told him the jeweler had gotten off the campus on his own, and that he’d come looking for Fisk here at Benton’s rooms. And then I told the captain about the thugs trying to kidnap the man, 
and our belief that he might have seen something incriminating to do with the project. I said that was why we’d gotten him out of town, and that if he was returned to the tower then it was up to the Liege Guard to keep him safe there!”

“That was quick of you,” I said.

“Then Captain Chaldon asked us what was so wrong with the project that we thought a man’s life might be in danger because of it,” Benton said gloomily. “And since the only thing that’s happened is some burned papers, we didn’t have a very good answer.”

Fisk, usually the first to appreciate cleverness, said nothing. But he was watching Kathy intently, and color suddenly surged in her face.

“At least he didn’t arrest us for taking the man out to the farm and hiding him,” Kathy went on. “And he doesn’t have any reason to think either of you were on the campus that night. I think he’ll keep an eye on the jeweler, too. He said he’d tell Professor Dayless that the Liege had entrusted this man to the university’s custody, and if anything happens to him they’ll be held responsible.”

“You did all you could,” I said. “And we now have a better answer for the Captain about what’s going on with the project.”

“Or at least, an alternative sacrifice,” Fisk said.

The final applicant for Benton’s job still hadn’t reached town, as far as they knew, and Fisk pointed out that even if Barrows did send someone to warn Lat Quicken, Captain Chaldon wasn’t going to leave his bed to arrest the man over burning a few papers. This was true and we were all weary, so I agreed to go to bed — though I knew Fisk wanted to talk to Quicken himself, instead of bringing in the guard.

But when I woke next morning, to go early to the Liege Guard’s office, I found Fisk awaiting me outside his door, which was closer to the stairs than mine.

We said little on that short walk. I believe in justice. I believe that most often the courts supply it. But what I was about to do would, at the least, cost a man his job, and I knew he’d only done what he had to, to save his daughter from being crippled. The taste of that was more bitter than I liked.

Capitan Chaldon was in. He asked a few pointed questions about the jeweler, but when I told him I had a better lead in the case he fell silent and heard us out.

“It sounds like I can find plenty of witnesses that Quicken was taking bribes, most probably to burn those papers,” he said when I’d finished. “But what about the greater crime? Did you find any connection between him and Hotchkiss?”

“None,” I said. “And none between Hotchkiss and anyone who worked on the project, thus far.”

“Except for Master Benton Sevenson,” Capitan Chaldon said. “Who might have kidnapped the jeweler to keep the man from informing against
him
.”

I was beginning to understand why Fisk prefers to avoid the law.

“No one kidnapped the jeweler,” Fisk said. “He came to Benton’s rooms … well, not begging for shelter. He’s not that coherent. But it seemed safer to keep him than to send him back, with everything that was going on.”

“And my brother has an alibi for the time of the murder,” I added. “He also spent the better part of a week reconstructing his notes for Stint, so the professor could replace his lost formulas. Benton wouldn’t have done that if he was the one who burned them.”

“Unless he was trying to prove his value to the project,” said the captain. “Maybe even to the university, in the hopes of getting his job back.”

“That’s the most ridic—”

“But you plan to arrest Quicken for the papers,” Fisk cut in smoothly. “So there’s not much point speculating about Benton’s motives. Do you mind if Michael and I go with you, and watch the arrest?”

Chaldon and I both stared at him, but the captain beat me into speech by half a breath.

“Why? You’ll have a chance to confront him at his hearing — and the judicars are sitting in three days. You’re now liege witnesses, you know, and required to appear.”

I hadn’t thought of that, and I was still too angry to respond civilly.

“I’m not required to do anything by law, Captain Chaldon — I’m unredeemed. Or had you forgotten that?”

He blinked in surprise, as if he actually had forgotten.

“Being unredeemed just means that the law doesn’t owe
you
protection,” he said. “Given your service to the Realm in the Rose Conspiracy, I think the judicars would agree to accept your testimony — particularly since there are other witnesses to back it up. As for requiring you to testify … you’re the one who brought the charge. If you don’t want Quicken convicted, why did you bother?”

There was no good answer to that, but I wasn’t prepared to admit it.

“Oh, we’ll testify,” said Fisk, committing me without even a glance in my direction. “But before we do, I’d like to see how Master Quicken reacts to being arrested. If you don’t mind.”

He left hanging the implication that if we couldn’t witness the arrest we might not testify — nor did he succumb to the inviting silence that Capitan Chaldon left lying for longer than I thought necessary.

“I don’t see why not,” the captain finally said. “But stay to the back, and keep out of my men’s way.”

Fisk agreed cordially and I nodded. I had little desire to see poor Quicken’s arrest … but I had considerable curiosity about what Fisk was up to.

The captain rounded up three men to assist him, and ’twas late enough by then that we went to the university instead of Quicken’s home. He ignored the stares of the scholars, bypassed the guard on the tower door with a wave of the hand, and found the gamekeeper in the tower’s yard, pushing assorted vegetables into rabbit cages.

“Master Quicken?”

The man turned and saw us. After one brief flash of fear all expression left his face.

The captain didn’t dally over it. “We’ve heard witness that you’ve been taking payments from someone dressed as a nobleman, with whom you’ve exchanged letters, and who paid you large sums three times now. Did this man bribe you to burn those papers?”

Most would have been startled into some hasty reply, though truth or lie might be a tossup. Quicken took the time to think it over.

“If you don’t mind, sir, I’d like to talk to my employer before I go answering questions.”

“I do mind,” the captain said firmly. “Did you burn those papers? And what about Hotchkiss? Were you bribed to kill him, as well?”

“No!” Quicken’s shocked gaze flashed from one of us to the next. “I never killed him, or anybody else. Why should I? He’d nothing to do with … with anything, far as I know.”

“Then you admit to having burned the papers?” Chaldon demanded.

But Quicken was done being startled into admissions.

“I need to talk to Professor Dayless before I answer any questions about the project. When I was hired on, she made me swear not to tell anyone anything about it. If I’m going to talk I need her permission.”

I didn’t think Quicken felt that much loyalty to the project or anyone who worked on it, except mayhap Benton. Though he had gotten Professor Dayless’ permission before he spoke to me.

He would speak to the judicars, or they’d come to their conclusion and sentence him without his own voice raised in his defense. Which is why everyone 
testifies to them. So Capitan Chaldon shrugged, and told his men to take Quicken off to gaol while he had a word with Professor Dayless.

I expected Fisk to follow the captain up the tower stairs, or mayhap go to visit the jeweler himself, but instead he followed Quicken and his guards.

The gamekeeper went with them meekly, his gaze downcast, his face so set all I could tell was that behind that impassive mask he was thinking furiously. ’Twas only as we neared the gates that he looked at Fisk 
and me.

“It’s Josh told you about the money, isn’t it?”

Since there was no other reason for us to be there ’twas an obvious deduction, but I confirmed it anyway.

“I’m sorry, Master Quicken,” I added. “But ’tis a crime I can’t let my brother be accused of. Not when another man is guilty.”

He eyed me grimly, but then a sigh expanded his thin chest.

“Aye, I see that. I’m not surprised at Josh, either. All the spine of a slug, that one.”

“Are you going to admit burning the papers?” Fisk asked.

All his guards were listening for the answer, so ’twas not startling when he said, “I’ll answer that at my hearing. After I’ve talked with the professor.”

We passed through the gates together, but as the others set off for the barracks and the cells Fisk fell back and let them go.

“Well?” I asked, when they were out of earshot. “Did you learn whatever you were looking for?”

Fisk turned to me, eyes blazing with determination.

“He didn’t do it.”