Murder in Cormyr - Chet Williamson [20]
But the light of day showed only a worn breastplate, tarnished where it wasn't dented, and mail leggings whose links had come loose in a dozen places. The helmet was small and squat, and had no plume at all. Only the axe was an impressive piece of metal, its blade curving a full two feet along its edge.
Dovo's head was lying face up, his wide eyes staring sightlessly at a blue Cormyrean sky. I summoned the courage to go closer to it and, using a leaf, wiped some of the green covering from the flesh. Then I held the leaf in one hand and made a circle with the other, peering into it. The green stuff glowed dimly, even with the sunlight pushing between my fingers. It was luminous, all right. The effect had been ghastly in last night's darkness.
Now I walked up to the road to look for any clues, scanning the ground on the way. The road, though dry, was a confusion of hoof prints and cart tracks, and I could make nothing of them. Then I sat by the side of the road and waited, the farther from the corpse and the swamp the better.
I don't know how long I sat there, but the sun was far up in the sky by the time someone came. And then it was like a party. Down the western road rode five horsemen, and much closer, rounding a bend from the east, Benelaius's carriage approached. I could see Lindavar driving, and from the close proximity of the bottom of the carriage to the road, I could tell that my corpulent master was inside. At least now I knew what it would take to get him out of his house- a murder.
When the carriage pulled up next to me, the horsemen were still a few minutes away. I opened the door for Benelaius and, forgetting my station as I so often do, said, "What took you so long… master?"
He clucked at me patiently. "As you know, Jasper, I do not get out very often. I felt I should look my best."
And so he did. His hair and long gray beard were neatly combed, and he wore a stylish, hooded dress cloak that I had not known he possessed, and a pair of nearly new high kid boots, instead of his usual fuzzy wool slippers.
He looked past me at the horsemen. "I see the authorities have arrived as well. Good. The more heads the better, even if some of them are a mite thickish."
Now the riders were close enough for me to see who they were. In the lead was Captain Flim, the head of Ghars's garrison of Purple Dragons, with two other Dragons flanking him. One of them led an empty mount that would, I assumed, bear Dovo's body back to Ghars.
Behind the Dragons was Mayor Tobald, who looked as if he was having difficulty staying in the saddle, and the equally talkative Doctor Braum.
I turned back to Benelaius in surprise. "They know about the murder?"
He nodded. "As soon as Lindavar told me, I sent the bird." He meant the carrier dove that sat in a hanging cage in his study. I'd never known him to use it before. He spoke to it at times, but he always let me think it was a pet. It was interesting to see that it had a talent other than extraordinary equanimity in the presence of dozens of cats. "In the message, I said only that Dovo had been killed, and that we suspected foul play." Then Benelaius turned toward the party that came riding up. "Greetings, gentlemen," he said.
"Is it true?" Tobald asked my master as he nearly tumbled off his steed. "Is it Dovo?"
Benelaius acknowledged me, and I nodded. "He's down there by the swamp," I said. "His head's been cut off."
It was hardly an apropos time for Benelaius to introduce Lindavar, but Captain Flim was looking at him curiously, so my master graciously did the honors. Then we went down to the body.
At the grisly sight of it, they acted the way I had expected. Flim and his Dragons' attitude was that they had seen it all before (and they had); Doctor Braum was appalled by the sight but tried to act clinical; and Mayor Tobald seemed just plain shocked, finally at a loss for words. In fact, he had a little trouble keeping his breakfast down.
As Benelaius observed the corpse, however, he acted as though he were examining a new and interesting