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By the time Tomasaran and I had given our preliminary statements, the murderer had been taken away, weeping with rage, and Subpraeceptor Azhanharad had slumped over his desk and said, “That will do for tonight. Go and get some sleep, both of you; the Amal’theileian can wait until noon,” it was after one o’clock in the morning, and only the hourly night trams were running.
I walked with Tomasaran to the station nearest Parzhadar Square, and there we waited under the clock tower in exhausted silence. It was almost deserted at that hour, but for a lone street-sweeper picking rubbish out of a drain several yards away, and, at the stop on the other side of the tracks, a small group of revellers with arms around each other’s shoulders, singing an airman’s chantey in three different keys.
It was cold enough to threaten frost, and my coat of office was not quite warm enough to keep it out. Tomasaran, more sensibly layered than I, nonetheless kept her shoulders hunched up high around her ears. Her breath steamed in the lamplight, and so did mine.
I tried not to fret for her, and the bruises I knew were blooming on her neck. She had, after all, been seen to by a cleric - one was on call for the Vigilant Brotherhood, and Azhanharad had not let us even give our depositions until he had been summoned. The cleric had given Tomasaran a salve for the bruising, and then hauled me in for similar treatment: he wrapped my wrist, tested me for concussion which I knew I didn’t have, and applied a salve to my ear. My ear was chilly wherever the breeze blew over the salve, and I had to assume Tomasaran’s whole neck was cold - she didn’t have a scarf. I hoped Min Nadin kept the boarding house warm.
I thought I might have to put a few zashan in the gas meter when I got home, to heat my apartment. If I blocked the cracks under the doors and drew the curtains, it might stay warm for long enough that I could sleep. Yes, I could afford a little heat on a night like this.
Sweat had cooled on the back of my shirt, but not dried, and I was trying not to shiver. It was a relief, then, when the tram appeared, loud, lit, and crowded enough that it was palpably warmer inside than out. At this hour, the passengers were largely teahouse staff and municipal cleaners heading home after the evening shift, and they chatted loudly and indecorously amongst themselves, and carried with them smells of sweat, cooking grease, and scouring powder that were both a violence to the senses and a strange comfort.
Tomasaran heaved a deep sigh, and then chuckled; when I glanced over she said in an undertone, “I only thought longingly of putting a hot brick in my bed when I get home, and wondered if everyone else on this tram is thinking of the same thing.”
I told her she was probably right. In truth, I was grateful that she was not too rattled to joke. Seven hours ago, a murderer had tried to throw her off a viaduct.
For half an hour, the streetlamps flashed past, and passengers got on and off; after a while, we neared the stop where Tomasaran would have to change for the tram to Cemchelarna. She took a deep breath, as one rousing from a doze. She turned from the window and said, “Thank you, Celehar, for all you did today.”
I felt my ears twitch in surprise; I had felt perfectly useless, and horrible for my uselessness, but she was sincere. It occurred to me that she might simply feel relieved that the terrible day was over, and she was almost home. I was gripped by a sudden paranoia for what would happen once she left my sight, and thought of accompanying her all the way to her door - but it was a perfectly absurd thought, and I doubted she would welcome it. The tram slowed to a stop, and Tomasaran stood along with several other passengers. “Sleep well, othalo,” I blurted just in time, and she turned a weary smile on me, and departed. The bell rang. The tram moved on. I was alone.
I tipped my head back against the seat and lost track of things for a while. Poor Tomasaran. My mind was trapped on the moment on the steps: looking up and seeing her in that man’s grip, her eyes full of terror, and me too far away and stunned to do anything of use. I shifted upon the bench. My shoulders, hip, and ear still smarted from where they’d struck the stairs.
Distracted and exhausted, I registered the next stop as a familiar one and got off.
I shuddered as I stepped out into the night air, but it was only once I had walked several yards that I registered the colourfully-dressed people piling onto the tram behind me as opera-goers, and I realised I had come out, not at the stop that would take me home, but at the Veren’malo. The tram’s bell rang, and it rattled away, stranding me.
I suppressed a curse. My feet, absent clear instructions from my brain, had led me in the direction of wishful thinking. The Vermilion Opera would be closed by now, and even if it hadn’t been at least an hour past the end of the night’s performance, I was in no fit state to be seen in Iana’s private box, let alone the gilded auditorium. The Torivontaram teahouse was also unlikely to be open this late, and as for the idea of showing up to Iäna’s apartments… I couldn’t even finish the thought; it was too absurd. What would I say?
Wearily, I turned to walk the rest of the way home, knowing it would still be faster than waiting for the next tram. With luck, I might be in bed by three o’clock in the morning, and perhaps I would sleep a few hours before I had to start the next day.
Then, as I stepped onto the street, I heard, “Thara?”
I looked around in astonishment, for there was Iäna Pel-Thenhior, smiling in surprise and pleasure. I noticed with a plummeting feeling that he was well-dressed even by his usual high standards, wearing long ivory pendants in his ears, and a long coat of something velvety-dark whose colour I could not tell truly in the lamplight. I became acutely aware of my general state of dishevelment, and the tender throbbing of my left ear that meant it was probably quite misshapen. I hoped my shivering was not visible; I felt like a bedraggled cat, torn ear and all. “Iäna,” I stammered. “I-- Hello.”
“Hello!” he said, moving closer, and then to my dismay his eyes moved over me and his face fell. “Oh, no,” he said, “Thara, what happened to thee?” He reached out to take my arm, and unfortunately it was my left one. By chance, his thumb pressed a part of my wrist that made pain throb right to my elbow. I hissed, and he pulled back, startled.
“It’s all right!” I said, cradling my sore wrist. “My apologies. It has been a long day, and I am only just going home.” Then I blushed, for I was clearly not anywhere near home. I saw his mouth open and cut him off. “I got off at the wrong stop. I wasn’t thinking.”
Iäna expression melted into something worried and tender then, which was uncomfortably similar to how he’d looked at me after the revethavar. I thought if my face got any hotter it would steam. But Iäna settled his broad hand upon the middle of my back - a careful and respectable touch, such as one might give any friend, but one that bled warmth right through my patched coat; I had a hard time not simply melting against it. Iäna said, “I myself was on my way home for a late supper. Wouldst join me?”
I looked up at him. Our feet were already moving, falling easily into step. “For supper?” I said weakly. I had not had any - in fact, I had not had luncheon, busy as we had been - but an invitation at this hour implied rather more than food.
“If thou wouldst welcome it,” he said lightly, as if there were no subtext to his suggestion at all.
I was a weary, shabby thing that could give no good company at the moment. I was also, always, dreadfully aware of a certain danger inherent in any such invitation. But the largest part of me, worn down by the day, simply howled for the relief of Iäna presence, and it won. “If it would be no imposition on thee,” I murmured, “I would be grateful for thy company.”
He smiled an absolutely beautiful smile, and took me home.
The walk was less than half a mile. He filled the time with pleasant gossip about the opera company, and I briefly forgot my day, imagining instead the velvet curtains of the opera, and the riot of industry they concealed. Iäna told me five stories from that day in quick succession, and I realised that I could put faces to everyone he named, down to the understudies.
His hand stayed at my back, always just companionable enough to be polite; the streets were quiet, but not wholly empty of people. Had it not been for the eyes of strangers upon us, I might have felt a strong urge to simply tuck myself into his side. By the time we arrived at the staircase of his apartment building, I was smiling, and did not hesitate to follow him up the stairs and though the door.
“Come in, hang up thy coat,” Iana said, lighting the lamp in the entry hall. “I’m afraid it’s even less tidy than usual,” he added, with a note of genuine apology. “I swear I do have a cleaner who comes in once a week, but then I go and undo all her hard work. Give me a moment, and I’ll light the stove. What a frigid night!”
Saying this, he doffed his coat and laid it over a chair back, and bustled away into an adjoining room, lighting the lamp there also. In the combined glow, I could see a great deal of the room beyond, with its fashionable moulding and scandalous photographs. It looked like it had been subject to an explosion in a paper factory. Open folios, loose sheets, and haphazard stacks of paper bedecked every surface, including parts of the floor. I knew he was in the middle of writing a new opera, which would explain the mess, but I had not imagined that my first brief visit had shown his apartment in one of its tidier states. I found it oddly charming. It felt not unlike being in his private box: close, comfortable, and private.
Hearing the whoosh of a larger flame and the rattle of cookware, I curtailed my nosiness and did as instructed, hanging up my coat on one of the perfectly serviceable hooks upon the wall. It looked even shabbier than usual when set beside some of Iana’s things, but it was too late for that now; I followed him into his little kitchen, and stared.
This was a bachelor’s apartment, and so I had expected a bachelor’s kitchen, but it was no such thing: though small, it had room for an impressive stove, and an assortment of copper pots and pans that looked both well-made and extensively used. The stove was heating the room quickly, making my nose and fingertips tingle. Iäna was pulling an alarming assortment of ingredients out of his pantry, and when he saw me he beamed. “Have a seat by the fire! This won’t take long.”
“Is there anything I can do?” I said, feeling a bit helpless in the face of his industriousness. Had I gone home, my supper would have consisted of sardines eaten straight out of the tin, and I had the uneasy feeling he knew it.
For a moment, I was sure he was going to say no and insist that I sit and do nothing, but then his expression lightened and he said, “Couldst make the tea? It’s in that cupboard beside thee - whichever takes thy fancy.”
I looked around and found a copper kettle on the wall beside a cupboard, and in that cupboard I found the plates and cups and more canisters of tea than I cared to count at that moment. After a moment’s blank stare into the cupboard’s depths, I lit upon a box of isevren and went about my task. It was simple enough, even with only one fully functioning hand, to fill the kettle and prop it on the stovetop, still leaving ample room for whatever Iäna intended to do. I saw thick slices of bread under his hands, and several types of cheese, and what looked like multiple pickle jars. “I’m having an egg on mine,” he said, “Would you like one?”
I hadn’t the faintest idea what he intended to do with that egg, but my stomach took the opportunity to remind me that I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, and so I said, “Yes, please,” and when the kettle whistled I lifted it off the stove and filled the glossy brown teapot - a goblin design, I thought, busily geometric.
With the tea steeping, I had nothing to do but sit at one of the plush chairs in that corner by the stove, with the low table between them. I let out an involuntary sigh as I sank into its cushions. I wondered if Iäna's mother sat in this same chair when she visited him. In this room, I saw her influence wherever I looked. I poured two cups of tea, and sipped: the heat of it went straight down to my stomach, and bloomed there.
Iana put a skillet on the fire, and began to hum.
I didn’t mean to drift off, and in truth I don’t think it could have been more than a few minutes’ doze, but I startled awake at the touch of Iäna's hand upon my shoulder. “Thy pardon!” he said, as I blinked fuzzily up at him. “But here is supper,” and he laid two plates on the table.
Supper’s appearance made me almost rear forward in my seat. It smelled wonderful, and looked like everything I didn’t know I wanted: thick fried bread, stained red in places with some kind of pickled relish, covered in bubbling cheese and topped with a fried egg whose yolk quivered under a drizzle of hot honey. I barely had time to thank him before he tucked enthusiastically into his own, and I threw a lifetime of table manners to the wind and followed suit.
The sound I made upon taking my first bite was unexpected, and probably indecent. Iäna's eyes sparkled. “Is't well?” he said, and I covered my mouth, blushed, and swallowed.
“It’s very good,” I said, and took another hasty bite. The bread was crisp, the cheese was creamy, the pickle gave everything a sharp complexity, the spicy honey made the whole thing sing with sweetness, and the egg yolk was simply everywhere. It was a mess. I could hardly imagine eating it tidily. I didn’t bother to try, and did not let myself be embarrassed by Iäna's chuckle.
By the time I finished it and dabbed my mouth clean, I felt almost new. My head felt clearer, though my ear still throbbed. My sprained wrist barely hurt at all. The ache in my hip and shoulder had transformed, as such things can, into an ache in my back, which was uncomfortable, but a lot better than the numb cold which had begun to sink into my bones outside. “I thank thee,” I said, “I feel quite restored,” and I meant every word.
“It’s as easy to cook for two as for one,” Iäna said with a laugh, and whisked our plates away to the sink. “I hardly wanted to wake thee - thou must be tired indeed. And here I’ve been chattering at thee!”
“I like it,” I said.
He looked at me with that very tender expression, and I found it easier to bear this time. He took his chair again, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees, his long limbs all an elegant symmetry. I reached out for my teacup with both hands, and as I did the sleeves slipped back a little, and showed the bandage on my arm. Iana saw, and said softly, “Thou art injured. I thought so.”
“A little,” I said, and raised my wrist. “It’s a sprain only.” His gaze flicked to my ear, and I winced. “Well, a few knocks.” His eyebrows raised. I sighed. “I was pushed down the stairs.”
He sat up straight, ears flat. “Pushed!”
I waved my teacup. “The villain is with the Vigilant Brotherhood now,” I said, “And not for this. But he knew that we had found him out. It was only lucky that my apprentice wears such sharp hairpins.” Involuntarily, I shuddered.
Iäna leaned forward again. “I do not wish to pry,” he said, “But thou lookest as if thou hast had a dreadful night.”
I almost laughed at myself. It was unkind to dangle a dramatic story before the nose of a man who told them for a living - and certainly, if it would ease him, then his kindness had earned my candour. “I may not tell thee names,” I began, “for the man is set to go to trial.” Iana nodded. “Well. It began only this morning… yesterday morning,” I corrected myself, for by this time it was half-past two the next day. “A petitioner asked for a Witness vel ama to see her husband.”
It had been a grisly death. Vola Okanar was found early in the morning on the pavement outside the front entrance of the Gilanese Illumination Manufactory, of which he was part-owner, by one of his own employees. Evidently he had fallen from the window of his office, several stories up - a note was found, half obscured by spilled ink, expressing garbled apologies to his business partner, Derel Gilanar, and the immediate conclusion was a suicide. Merrem Okanaran, however, was not convinced.
“According to his widow, he had confided to her only the night before that he suspected his partner of embezzlement. The company had been losing money for years, and he had conducted a secret audit of the financial records.” Thus, I had accompanied Tomasaran to see the body.
A fall onto stone pavers from such a height leaves a terrible corpse. Tomasaran, who was not nearly as used to corpses as I, had taken in a sharp breath when the sheet was pulled back from Mer Okanar - but she had steadied herself, and laid her fingers on his wrist. It had given me a small pang, to see her go where I could no longer follow, but more than that it had made me proud of her, for she pulled back of her own accord, saying, “He was pushed! He didn’t jump - I felt the hands on him - he was pushed right out the open window!”
She had been breathing hard, shaken by what sounded like an uncomfortably close impression of the fatal fall, but I had asked her all the inane questions I had to, and she had answered well. How many hands? Only two, in a strong grip. Did he see his murderer’s face? No, it happened too fast, nor did he hear a voice. But he was sure he had locked his office door behind him, and so it must be someone with the key.
“We reported it to the Vigilant Brotherhood, and naturally our first suspect was his business partner. But he had a whole household full of staff who attested that he had been home all night. There had been night watchmen at the factory who knew the victim was working late, and saw no assailant, but none of the watchmen held a key to the office, and all keys were accounted for. It wasn’t until Tomasaran and I were on our way to see his widow again that something occurred to me.”
“The note?” Iana said, eyes gleaming.
“Yes,” I said, regarding him. “How didst thou know?”
“It was the only part of the murder scene that thou detailed,” he said, smiling. “I assumed that meant it was important.”
“Ah.”
“And it raises so many questions, besides,” he went on. “If it was a genuine note, why did the murderer not burn it? But thou said it was obscured by ink.”
“Yes,” I said, leaning forward, “Exactly. If the victim wrote a letter to his partner that contained an apology - perhaps notifying him that the victim intended to go to the authorities and accuse him of embezzlement - then with a little spilled ink it might be made to look like a suicide note instead. And it occurred to me, also, who the real murderer might be.”
“Not his business partner?”
“Not him, no. His secretary. The one who kept the very financial records that the victim had been auditing. The secretary, who had his own key to the office.” Iäna's expression was gratifyingly enthralled, and I hated to puncture it, but I had to. “It was very unfortunate, then, that I had failed to notice that he had followed us from the factory.”
Oswyn Cerenar had been Mer Gilanar’s secretary for fourteen years. He had also, apparently, been offered shares in the company that failed to appear. I would be interested to see whether Mer Cerenar took full blame for the murder and the embezzlement, or whether he would claim that Mer Gilanar had put him up to one or both crimes - but all this we found out later.
I looked down at my teacup, sitting empty on the table. Iäna stretched out his hand and touched the back of mine. I took it, and held it.
I said, “The streets are narrow in that part of the city, the buildings rising up on either side like hills around a gulley, and on a workday they are packed with manufactory and foundry workers, and horses hauling equipment. It was hard to navigate, but we found a staircase that wound four storeys up to one of the viaducts that connect the district to the main road. It seemed the best place to get our bearings. But once we got to the top, and turned around to look over the view…”
I remembered the shove at the small of my back, hard and sudden, and the thought, even in the terror of my fall, that I had made a miscalculation. I must have spun as I fell, for I lost all sense of direction. My hip hit the stairs first, and then I spun and hit my shoulder and the side of my head, and then my flailing hand grasped the rail and I managed to stop myself, though not without wrenching that arm enough to injure it.
“I didn’t see him,” I confessed. “He pushed me down the stairs, and when I recovered my wits I saw him trying to shove Tomasaran over the railing. It was a four-storey drop to Poppy street - she would have died, and there was nothing I could do to stop him.” I had barely been able to coordinate my limbs enough to crawl back up the staircase, and had garnered nothing more than a look of annoyance from Mer Cerenar.
“Is she all right?” Iäna asked, aghast.
“Yes,” I said, “Only bruised. He grabbed her, you see, by the hair and the neck - the same grip he had used on his employer, when he threw him out the window. But as they struggled, her hair came loose, and a pin fell into her hand. She used it. A blind stab, but a lucky one.” Backwards, right into the hollow behind his collarbone, with the strength of sheer panic behind it. I didn’t tell Iäna that part. The story was gruesome enough.
Later, in the house of the Vigilant Brotherhood, Tomasaran had taken time during a long wait to undo and redo her braids, methodically combing her fingers through the tangled wreck until it was neat again. But when she coiled up the braids into a bun, her fingers hesitated, and I believe it was only then that she remembered where her pins were. She let the braids fall, and her hands began to shake, and with no good idea of how to comfort her I had offered to lead her through a prayer. She assented, and in that way, we passed the time until it was our turn to give our statements.
“In any case, that was this afternoon,” I finished, “And the rest was simply all the paperwork and… testimony…” I broke off, and barely raised my hand to my mouth in time to cover a yawn that made my jaw creak. “Oh, thy pardon,” I mumbled, my eyes drifting shut.
Iäna's voice was very soft and deep. “Thou hast done so much. Wilt thou come and sleep?”
Oh, sleep. It was such a polite invitation, and I had not a thing left with which to defend against it. “Yes,” I said, and let him pull me to my feet. He wrapped an arm around me, and this time I did not hesitate to tuck myself into his side as he led me, warm and well-fed, into his room.
END