The elixir of inheritanc.., p.35
The Elixir of Inheritance, page 35
Lady Azadiya leaned back in her chair, and tugged thoughtfully on the end of her loose braid. “Did you mind that your husband so clearly married you in order to bedevil his estranged daughter?”
Mistress Savoldyn shivered, and pressed her lips together. Amota Viran wrapped his arm around her shoulders. By her side, Mistress Dolman turned pale. The housekeeper stood up, and pressed her hands to her stomach.
“That is unfair,” she snapped. “Master Savoldyn was difficult man, but he wasn’t a cruel one.”
“She can answer the question herself,” Captain Talsconis said, and waved his hand. “Sit down, there, Mistress. Sit down.”
Dolman sat. Mistress Savoldyn shook her head. “He had a temper,” she said. “It got away from him once in awhile.”
“Cruelty is for the victim to judge,” Mistress Ignalle said. “And he was. He lied to me! He lied to my mother! It was in their marriage contract that their first born child was his heir, and to make a mockery of that promise because I had the temerity to displease him was a punishment too far.”
“Too far from what?” Lady Azadiya asked.
Ibram heard a step from above. He angled his head to the right, and spied Ahksell walking down the stairs from the second floor to the first. He was carrying a small box in both hands. Ibram recognized it as one of the specially made crates the sect used to transport delicate equipment. Ahksell waggled his eyebrows at him once, and then moved to Lady Azadiya’s side; he placed the smaller crate on top of the box filled with papers from Savoldyn’s office.
Mistress Ignalle took a deep breath, and then raised a hand to her white cap; the temple rings clinked against each other. She pressed her fingers to her collarbones; her face crumpled at the mouth, as if she were holding back tears. Ibram made note of the fact that she couldn’t quite get her eyes to glisten accordingly, however.
“I knew he would be angry,” she said in a tight voice. “We were often angry at each other. I knew he might be angry at the servants who helped us, or even the priest who married us. I never expected he would be so—so petty. So vengeful as to put the business in jeopardy. After my mother passed, I thought it was the only thing he loved.”
Lady Azadiya adjusted the yellow silk around her temples, and pressed lightly at her hairline. A soft feeling of light pressure waved across Ibram’s shoulders, like a moment’s pause before a storm. Ibram frowned, but she only dropped her hand to her armrest, and hummed in agreement. The feeling dissipated.
“And yet you overcame that obstacle rather handily,” she said.
Mistress Ignalle sniffed and nodded. A bitter smile curdled her face. “I did.”
“How old is the child?”
“She’s a babe,” Mistress Ignalle said. “It will be some time before she’s able to handle the running of the business.”
“Then who will?”
The Ignalles and Mistress Savoldyn looked at each other in discomfort. Mistress Savoldyn shook her head and breathed outward. “I have already told them that I have no interest in running the business,” she said in a controlled voice. “I am perfectly happy keeping to the agreements Einar and I previously reached when we wed.”
“Sounds healthier,” Ibram said.
Master Ignalle jumped to his feet and clenched his fists. “What do you mean by that?” he yelled.
At the noise, Esti, one of the other junior agents, came out of the reading room on the second floor, and leaned over the railing to watch; he waved. Ibram grinned and resisted the urge to wave back. “I love that new paint on your front stoop,” he said. “Mistress Agapito is a credit to your household. She never let me past the steps.”
“You have no right to enter my home,” Mistress Ignalle said.
“Ah, yes,” Lady Azadiya said. “I was cheered to learn you retained a greater loyalty to your servants than your father, Mistress Ignalle. I respect that.”
“Oh, is that why they made the wood alcohol?” Attendant Zorion suddenly spoke up from his seat by Doctor Berot. “To thin the paint?”
Ibram didn’t laugh, but it was a near thing. “Too proud to whitewash?”
“How dare you,” Mistress Ignalle gasped, and her husband took a step forward. Ibram cocked his head, and kept his shoulders loose; his hands free at his sides.
“Mistress Ignalle, I’m afraid my agents dare very much and entirely too often,” Lady Azadiya said. “It is my constant goal in life to corral their impulses.”
“I should think you’d be better at it, then,” Master Ignalle snapped.
Lady Azadiya tsked, and shook her head. “It’s in my mind that you cost your father in law quite a bit of coin, after all, Master Ignalle. He had to restructure his business, according to his ledgers.”
“And he’d been poisoned a long time,” Ahksell said. “If his handwriting was anything to go on. Had he been losing his eyesight, Mistress Dolman?”
“I…” Mistress Dolman sounded nervous. “Yes, he had—he had been.”
“A man who loved tolnic is a man who knew quality,” Lady Azadiya said. “I myself keep it in my stores for any special occasion. I even offered Captain Talsconis a cup in congratulations for his promotion.”
Talsconis cleared his throat abruptly. Warder Claes looked amused.
“Indeed so,” Amota Viran murmured. “I suppose a man who wanted for a lost fortune might turn to a familiar comfort.”
“How clever of you, Viran,” Lady Azadiya said. “You have hit on the point exactly. Ahksell, the bottles.”
“Yes, Mentor,” Ahksell said.
He turned to the small crate near her, and reached inside. Captain Talsconis leaned forward on the couch. Master Ignalle wavered on his feet.
“This is an outrage,” he said. “Painting our house does not make us criminals!”
“No,” Lady Azadiya agreed.
“Nor do either of us have anything to do with the making of spirits!” Master Ignalle cast a wild eyed glance in his wife’s direction. She shook her head excitedly.
“Again, all true,” Lady Azadiya said. “I concede your every point.”
Slowly, Master Ignalle’s shoulders creeped down his neck. The bottles, plain clay jugs, clinked in Ahksell’s grip as he set them on the table near the tray of caffa. Captain Talsconis eyed them, and tapped his thumb against his lips.
“Then what— Why would your servant bring up our house paint?”
“My agent,” Ladyship stressed the word delicately, “and my attendant merely made polite comment, Master Ignalle. I’m afraid such stress as a death in the family has unsettled your mind.”
Someone from high above squeaked, and was swiftly muffled. Ibram glanced up, and saw that Esti had been joined by Bels and Arix. He frowned and jerked his head. Bels unwrapped his arm from Arix’s mouth, and shrugged. Ibram sighed, and returned his attention to the group. Master Ignalle looked about himself, suddenly unsure, and sat down in a slump by his wife.
“Mentor Hobon,” Captain Talsconis said, “I do have other duties today.”
“Ah, and I should hate to keep you from your work,” she answered. “A few moments more should suffice.”
Talsconis grumbled, but resided into the couch. Lady Azadiya poked the air, and one of the bottles wavered on the table. Mistress Dolman gasped, and put her hand to her mouth.
“Mistress Dolman,” Lady Azadiya said. “How long have you worked for the Savoldyns?”
Mistress Dolman swallowed. “Too many years,” she said.
Lady Azadiya nodded. “When the deceased turned out most of his household, he kept you, did he not?”
“He did.”
“Why?”
Mistress Dolman looked at her lap, and clenched her hands together. “I was his former wife’s maid,” she said. “He let the old housekeeper go—she had looked the other way when Mistress Elene made her escape—but he asked me to stay on and promised to raise me to her position. He said—” she took a deep breath. “—that he wanted a reminder of my old mistress about him.”
“Poets are often romantics,” Lady Azadiya said, “even bad ones. He did keep a few of you, yes?”
“Yes, that’s true,” Dolman said. “I will say this for him, he didn’t stint on our pay. Master Savoldyn kept to the terms of his agreements with us.”
“The ones he kept,” Ladyship said, quite at ease. She shook out her sleeves and touched her thumb to her signet ring. She nodded.
“What are these bottles, Mentor?” Talsconis asked. He frowned.
“These are from Master Savoldyn’s kitchens,” she replied. “I believe they held a mulling solution for Master Savoldyn’s tolnic.”
Mistress Dolman frowned and squinted. “They are not,” she declared.
Lady Azadiya paused. “Oh?” she asked. “Why not?”
“Our household’s spirits are supplied by the house of Tarsis,” Mistress Dolman said. “These bottles do not bear their stamp.”
Ladyship smiled. “And so my own Ibram told me, to be sure,” she said. “Where did you find these bottles, Ibram?”
“In the last row of empty bottles,” Ibram said, “next to the ale barrel in the Savoldyns’ kitchen. Mistress Dolman witnessed me picking them up.”
Mistress Dolman turned pale. “Yes,” she said. “I thought you were up to something there.”
Ibram nodded. He settled back on his heels. Captain Talsconis reached over and picked up on of the bottles. He looked it over from top to bottom.
“Where did they come from then?” Talsconis asked.
“From the maker’s mark you are observing,” Lady Azadiya said. “We believe they come from the draughtshop near the bakery-mill near the Ignalles’ home. Lovely establishment, I am informed. Very helpful to wandering Attendants when they get lost.”
Ahksell grinned. Lady Azadiya took a deep breath and continued speaking.
“Attendant Zorion has confirmed that they contained a healthy dose of wood alcohol. Odorless, of course, and quite prone to evaporation, but bottles are terribly difficult to clean.” She sighed. “It does horrible things to people, you know, who come in close contact. It gets through the skin…you might even breath the fumes in.”
Captain Talsconis slapped down the clay bottle and sat back on the couch. He wiped his hand on his trouser leg.
“Causes eye problems,” Attendant Zorion said, and adjusted his glasses. “Especially with repeated exposure.”
Mistress Dolman appeared to be doing some very rough addition in her mind; it didn’t appear she liked her sums. Her mouth thinned to a white line; her face flushed and then turned pale. Mistress Savoldyn lay her hand on Dolman’s back.
“She murdered him?” Mistress Ignalle asked. She gripped her husband’s arm with both hands and turned horrified eyes towards Mistress Savoldyn. “I knew you were happy he was dead! I knew you just wanted to get free of him, and I never blamed you, but this? Why? Why not just run off with him and free yourself?” She shook her head; her temple rings clinked. “Was it just the money?”
Mistress Savoldyn shrank back; her mouth opened in alarm. “I never! I wouldn’t!”
“Who else could it be?” Mistress Ignalle demanded. “You went to that draughtshop to—to make it seem as if we had procured it! Do you think I’m going to the kitchen and poisoning my father’s drink? He wouldn’t even let me see my mother’s old rooms.”
“Ah that was the sticking point,” Lady Azadiya said. She nodded. “How could poison be administered? How could it be made? You have an incisive mind, Mistress Ignalle. You see a problem, and you create the solution.”
“I do, yes,” Mistress Ignalle said. She covered her mouth, and let a sob escape from between her fingers. Her husband drew her against his shoulder, and put his arm around her back.
“The problem being, of course,” Ladyship continued as if she had not spoken. “That Mistress Savoldyn had a great deal more to lose in divorcing her husband than in his death.”
“No, no,” Mistress Savoldyn murmured in a daze.
“And yet,” Lady Azadiya said. “I pride myself on my abilities as a teacher, and I would be remiss if I allowed such a moment to pass. Ahksell, what have you observed?”
Ahksell tucked his hands behind his back, and stood tall. “That the Ignalles had much more to gain in Master Savoldyn’s death than his wife did.”
The Ignalles froze in place, mid-comforting; Ahksell kept going. As remedial examinations went, Ibram supposed this one beat climbing a tree and shining a little light.
“If Mistress Savoldyn divorced her husband, she lost all rights to the farm she has spent so much time working on, but if he died then she retained those rights.”
“And?” Lady Azadiya asked.
“And she became an excellent suspect for his murder.”
“But what if it was never suspected that he was murdered?” Doctor Berot protested.
“Then she was still a good-hearted woman who would return all the things her husband had withheld from Mistress Ignalle during his life. His business, his purse, and the glass pieces which were the only remaining items from her mother,” Ahksell said.
The Ignalles drew apart from one another in the sudden silence following Ahksell’s speech. Ibram caught his eye, and grinned. Ahksell rocked on his feet, just a little, and straightened his gambeson.
“Mistress Savoldyn lived with him, and they did not,” Lady Azadiya said. “She has an overly intimate friend, and they are a couple, rich in love and stable enough to maintain their home and prosper.”
“Yes,” Master Ignalle said, and threw his arm out towards Amota Viran. “Your own agent. What embarrassment would you submit me and my wife to in order to protect yourself?”
Lady Azadiya smiled. “Oh, I like embarrassment,” she said. “Keeps things lively. Don’t you find that, Captain Talsconis? What would we do if not for the escapades of our deputies?”
Captain Talsconis grunted, and made himself more comfortable on the couch. Behind him, Warder Claes sidled over to the end of the furniture into the spot by Ahksell, between the couch and Ladyship’s chair. Lady Azadiya smiled, and touched the side of the yellow silk across her eyes. She leaned on her left elbow. Mistress Savoldyn shuddered and sank back into Amota Viran’s side. The Ignalles were coiled together on their own seats, and Ibram did not like the careful look they shared between them. He flexed his fingers at his sides.
“Now,” Lady Azadiya said. “We have established how I feel about embarrassment, and how you feel about it, Master Ignalle. I shall return to a more comfortable topic. Mistress Elene, I remember your mother so fondly.”
Mistress Ignalle watched Ladyship carefully. “You do?”
“I do,” Lady Azadiya confirmed. “Such an artist. Like those bracelets of yours.”
Mistress Ignalle’s smile was a pathetic example, but it crossed her lips. She touched her bracelets, and nodded slightly. Ladyship continued, “Her glass business made such wonderfully sturdy laboratory equipment, as well. I could never bring myself to throw one out. Like this one was, which was recovered from behind your cottage. Ahksell.”
Ahksell held his hand out over the small, specialized crate, flexed his fingers, and raised his arm. The repaired glass alembic that Ibram had so painstakingly collected from the drainage ditch rose up into the air. The light caught on its repaired cracks.
“I tested that as well,” Attendant Zorion said. “The residue is unmistakable.”
“It’s not mine,” Mistress Ignalle flared up immediately.
“Then you’ve got a public nuisance who smashes expensive glass equipment out behind your home, Mistress Ignalle,” Ibram said. He lifted his bandaged hand. “I’d tell the warders.”
Ahksell lowered the alembic carefully back into its protective crate. “It’s not your father’s,” he said, and shook his head. “He had one just like it, small, but functional—a matched set. The only thing it contained was natron.”
“And, of course, the problem remains,” Lady Azadiya said. “That a need for paint thinner does not make one a murderer, it merely provides opportunity for it.”
“It does not,” Mistress Ignalle said.
“You tried and tried to be patient,” Lady Azadiya said, and shook her head. “You aren’t made for it, but you gave it your best effort. You beat him to a marriage, you bested him over the child, you curtailed his business—except for mine, and you have my compliments—and yet the man just would not die of old age.”
“Indecent of him, to be sure,” Ibram said, and watched Master Ignalle’s face grow ugly.
“This sounds like work ahead of me,” Talsconis said. “Am I to understand they dosed this dead man with wood alcohol in his tolnic?”
“Oh, several times,” Lady Azadiya said. “It’s the drinking alcohol where they made their mistake. When you add it to wood spirit, it softens the effects. Drags the business out to appear to be a sickness. Loss of feeling, of appetite, of sight.”
“I have never made tolnic for my father,” Mistress Ignalle said.
Lady Azadiya nodded. “But on the day he was murdered, you didn’t drink the shay,” she said.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Mistress Ignalle said.
“You show up to the house uninvited,” Lady Azadiya said. “As you have before, but that only means you are unremarkable—which I presume was a happy accident. You quarrel with your father all the time.”
“Exactly so.”
“Mistress Savoldyn, do you drink shay in the mornings?” Lady Azadiya asked.
Mistress Savoldyn shook her head and swallowed heavily. Her lips moved; her voice failed her. She cleared her throat and said more clearly. “No, I—I prefer small ale.”
Lady Azadiya nodded. “And as such the cook was in the habit of bringing only one cup for her employer’s shay. Is that not so, Mistress Dolman?”
“It is,” Mistress Dolman answered.
“Lucky things, habits,” Lady Azadiya said. “They can hide all sorts of interesting coincidences. Mistress Ignalle shows up to fight with her father on the day he dies. Master Savoldyn is the only one served shay throughout the day. The wood alcohol comes in bottles from a common draughtshop…”
“Nearest the Ignalles,” Ibram pointed out.
