Never Trust a Dead Man

Never Trust a Dead Man Page 13

Someone passing by snatched the cup out of Selwyn's hand and breezily said, "Thank you, dearie." There was no more excuse to be standing there, and Selwyn went to fetch more drinks to pass around.

On the way back, Derian Miller, Farold's uncle, put his arm over Selwyn's shoulders. "A sad business," he said, nodding his head back toward Selwyn's father.

"Yes," Selwyn said. He moved to slip away, but he couldn't - stuck as he was in the space where the tavern counter met the wall - not without being obvious about it, which Kendra had never seemed to be, no matter how drunk or persistent Orik's customers became.

"Sad for all of us," the miller said. He was old and distracted and had - Selwyn remembered only after Derian had said it - as much right to be sad as Selwyn's father. More right, even, in people's view: For, though each had lost a boy he'd raised, everyone believed Selwyn's father had raised a murderer. Derian's eyes were wet and his hand on Selwyn's shoulder shook.

Selwyn flinched but managed to say calmly, "Still, it's cruel on Rowe." His father's name felt strange in his mouth. Nervously, he went to cross his arms over his chest but found his usual placement not readily accessible. That left choosing between resting his arms very loosely over his abdomen, which made him look as though he had a stomach pain, or folding them high up on top of his bosom, which just looked silly. He let his arms drop limply down by his sides.

"You have a good heart, to worry about such things," Derian was telling him. "But he isn't left tied up like that all day. Thorne or Bowden or one of the others releases him several times a day; they let him eat, exercise, relieve himself. At night he sleeps at Holt's, tied to the anvil. It's just nobody dares leave him un-watched. He's always been a hasty man. Hasty men do hasty things."

Selwyn was relieved to hear that all was not as bad as it could have been. He asked, "What about" - he remembered in time not to say my - "the mother and grandmother?"

"What?" Derian asked, indicating to speak directly into his ear, and he moved in even closer.

Selwyn repeated, "What about the mother and grandmother?"

Derian gave his shoulder another squeeze. "What a kind girl you are, Kendra! Watched, though not as closely. It's been explained to each of them: Try to rescue Selwyn, and the other two members of the family will pay. But Rowe - he's not the kind of man you take chances with. Even now, when - God willing - it's all over. They'll probably release him tomorrow." Derian sighed. "At least they still have each other - Rowe and Nelda. I'm left with no one." Derian shook his head. "No one."

The old man was suddenly shaking with silent crying. His hand slipped down a bit from Selwyn's shoulder - purely accidental, Selwyn was sure, given Derian's age and frailty and the circumstances - but Selwyn was uncomfortable and felt close to panic. What was he to do?

Selwyn said the first thing that came into his head. "But it must have been hard for them - Selwyn and his parents - to be abandoned by their friends."

"Hard for Selwyn's parents' friends?" Derian repeated, leaning in closer yet and still mishearing. "Well" - he wiped at his face - "I did my best to help, you know, that day they determined Selwyn was the one killed my boy."

"Did you?" asked Selwyn, who had not noticed any help from Derian, and very little from anybody else.

"I saw him, in the village that night The next day at Bowden's house, before they even brought Selwyn and Rowe in, your mother stepped right up and said she'd seen him walking past the tavern. So I thought to myself, 'Between that, and the fight two weeks ago, and the knife - the boy is as good as convicted. There's no call for me to take his dignity away from him, telling about him sitting under the back window of Bowden's house, weeping his eyes out.'"

"Weeping his eyes out" was an exaggeration. But Selwyn had sat down when it was apparent he couldn't get Anora's attention without risk of waking the rest of her household. And he had, he grudgingly admitted, rested his head on his knees, which might have looked like crying, though surely there had not been more than a tear or two. The miller had not shared this detail - which had nothing to do with the matter at hand - with those crowded into Bowden's room; so obviously Derian  had seen him and wasn't just making this up to impress Kendra that he, too, had a kind heart.

Selwyn was rescued from having to say anything by Holt the blacksmith, who came up behind Derian and slapped him genially on the back, saying, "Time to share her, old man."

Derian whirled around, which gave Selwyn the room to take a step away from the wall. The miller gave a rueful smile. "Just an old man unburdening his sorrows to a sympathetic young lass," he said, wiping at his eye.

"Sorry to interrupt," Holt said, "for something so trivial as a request for a drink."

"Don't let Orik hear you call a drink trivial," Selwyn said, glad for the excuse to duck beneath the counter to fetch one. At the same time he mentally reminded himself, FATHER, you idiot. Orik is supposed to be your father.

If either Holt or Derian noticed the lapse, they didn't comment. Instead, Derian said, "I won't be imposing my company on you young people any longer" - even though Holt was a good dozen years older than Kendra - and he moved away while Holt leaned his elbows on the counter.

Holt frowned. "Is there something wrong with that bird you brought back with you from the convent?"

Selwyn looked where Holt was looking - where he'd set Farold's cage on one of the upturned barrels behind the counter. Farold was hanging upside down from the bar that Elswyth had provided as a swing.

Selwyn stifled a sigh for the nocturnal habits of bats. "Silly thing," he said. "Sometimes it likes to pretend it's dead."

"Ah," Holt said, as though that made sense.

Selwyn placed an overflowing cup of ale in front of him.

Holt took a long drink, then said, "It would be easier to sympathize with the man" - he inclined his head toward Derian, who was talking with other people across the room - "if his nephew hadn't been such a..."

Selwyn raised his eyebrows, but Holt - perhaps because he thought he was talking to a lady - didn't finish.

"You didn't like Farold?" Selwyn asked. He fought an inclination to glance back at the cage, to shake Farold awake to make sure he heard.

"Well, Farold was Farold." Holt motioned for his cup to be refilled. "What else can anyone say?"

He seemed to be going to leave it at that. Selwyn said, "Odd, though, don't you think, that Selwyn would kill him?"

"I know it's a hard thing to say," Holt told him, "but it worked out well for me."

"Did it?" Selwyn asked, almost forgetting the girl's voice.

Holt nodded. "Farold loaned me money to get started again after that fire last year. It's been a good year for me - very good - but Farold was charging" - Holt shook his head - "a  lot of interest"

Selwyn mopped up a spill but this time couldn't refrain from looking at Farold's cage. Farold still hung from the swing, the picture of a snoring, upside-down, perfectly innocent goldfinch with nothing bothering its conscience.

"I still could have managed," Holt said, "until the marriage with Anora was settled. All of a sudden he had to have the money back right away to set up a proper household for her." He finished his second drink. "Nothing but the best would do. Of course, my debt now comes beholden to Derian, but he's willing to wait the original agreed-on two years."

Selwyn couldn't decide what Kendra would say. He couldn't decide what he would say. Could Holt have killed Farold to avoid having to pay back the money he owed? He remembered how Holt had been one of the few to speak up for him. Had that been because of a guilty conscience? Had it been because - of them all - Holt had known Selwyn wasn't guilty, regardless of the evidence?

Once Holt wandered away from the counter to talk with other people, Selwyn went to the shelf where there was a platter with a loaf of bread and some sliced mutton, in case anyone wanted food with their drink. Blackmailing, Selwyn thought, breaking off the end of the bread, money mongering, - he picked a small chunk of the hard crust - bat. He threw, aiming between the bars of the cage, at Farold. Too big. The bit of bread bounced off the wooden slats of the cage. He tried a smaller piece. It entered the cage, but missed Farold. The third piece hit Farold on the head.

Farold jerked awake. Hanging like a bat, but using a goldfinch's feet, he lost hold of the swing and dropped to the bottom of the cage with a squawk that sounded nothing like bat or goldfinch.

"Good shot for a girl!" called Merton, making Selwyn jump because he'd had no idea anyone was standing so close.

Stupid, he chided himself, knowing he was lucky Farold only glared and ruffled his feathers and didn't start berating him.

Annoyed at his own reckless foolishness, and still angry about the business with the knife Merton had taken then never spoken up about, and irritated at the condescension in Merton's voice, Selwyn filled Merton's cup with ale, then intentionally let go before Merton's fingers closed around it.

"Oops. Clumsy me," he said as Merton wiped ineffectually at his sodden front. Selwyn smiled, then turned around and walked away without getting Merton another.

Chapter Eighteen

The crowd didn't disperse from tne tavern until long after dark. After a week with no customers, Orik was so full of himself Selwyn had a hard time resisting the urge to push him facedown in a tub of ale - especially since he was, in Selwyn's estimation, the most likely suspect for having murdered Farold.

Finally Bowden and Holt announced it was time to take Selwyn's father and settle him down for the night in the smithy. Hours spent no more than a room's length away from him, and Selwyn had not had the chance to speak more than that one offer of a drink. Tomorrow, he thought. Somehow he would arrange a way to see him privately tomorrow. His mother, too, he made plans to talk to. When she had come to bring the prisoner his meals - escorted by Bowden's loud and bossy wife - she had looked pale and drawn, and had such dark shadows under her eyes and at her cheeks that Selwyn had had to look away. Surely, tomorrow morning, Bowden and his family could have no objection to Kendra paying her a visit.

But for tonight, finally they were all gone: his parents and their guards, the customers, the lingerers. It was time for cleaning up.

Wilona said, "I can do it myself, Kendra. You've had such a long day - walking from Saint Hilda's, catching up on all the news, fetching and serving without a break between the afternoon crowd and the evening. On your feet all day." She patted Selwyn's hand. "You need a rest"

"No," Selwyn assured her, "I'm fine. I'd prefer to stay up a bit longer."

Wilona looked ready to settle in next to him.

"You go to bed, Mother," he said - he hoped Kendra called her "Mother" and not some girlish pet name. "Really, you should. You've been working hard: cooking and cleaning and making things run smoothly all day."

"This is not our daughter," Orik roared, which nearly caused Selwyn to stop breathing. But then Orik gave him a swift hug and continued, "This is some hardworking girl the nuns have substituted for our Kendra."

"Oh, Orik," Wilona complained in a tone of both exasperation and love that reminded Selwyn of his own parents and nearly broke his heart.

Orik kissed Selwyn on the forehead. "Welcome back, girl," he said. "Welcome, from the bottom of my heart"

"Thank you, Father," Selwyn said awkwardly, feeling guilty now for wanting to drown Orik in his own ale. But don't get sentimental toward him, he reminded himself. The fact that he loved his family was not proof that he hadn't murdered Farold. It was, in fact, a good, strong motive.

As Orik headed back toward the section of the house behind the tavern, Wilona said, "Let me help you, Kendra. I insist It will give us a chance to talk together."

A chance to talk together was not anything Selwyn looked forward to. He smiled as sweetly as he could manage and said, "I'd like that. Truly. We do need to talk. But not tonight, Mother. After all the noise of today" - he gestured vaguely - "my ears need a rest." That didn't come out sounding the way he wanted. "My mind needs a rest And my voice." He cleared his throat to remind them of Kendra's supposed cold.

He wasn't making much sense, but Wilona said, "I know. I understand." And she also kissed him on the forehead. "If you're sure."

He nodded.

The door had no sooner closed behind her than Farold started, "Well - "

Selwyn whirled on him, with a frantic finger to his lips.

Wilona reopened the door. "Did you call after me, dear?"

"No, Mother," Selwyn said, noisily pushing one of the benches up against the wall. "Unless you think I sound like wood scraping on the floor."

Wilona blew him a kiss and shut the door.

Selwyn held up a warning finger to Farold.

Farold sighed - several times, loudly - as Selwyn wiped down all the tables, benches, and stools, then swept the floor. Selwyn refused to talk until he had gathered up the cups and plates and brought them into the kitchen, which had the whole width of the tavern to separate him from the room where Orik and Wilona were either asleep or trying to sleep. Then he brought Farold's cage into the kitchen, too.

"Quietly now," Selwyn said as he began to clean the dishes, "what have we learned?"

Farold said, "That we probably should have had Elswyth make your bosom smaller."

Irritated, Selwyn smacked the wet rag against the side of the cage, splattering Farold with sudsy water. Then, "Shhh," he warned before Farold could sputter a complaint "I learned," he said, "that it's amazing nobody killed you a long time ago."

"What?" Farold asked innocently. "Who have you been talking to? Is somebody spreading lies about me?"

"What's this about demanding back the money you loaned Holt - money you got from blackmailing Alden and his father, Thorne? Suddenly you had to have that money back after less than a year, instead of the two you promised, because you wanted it to impress Anora?"