Murder in Cormyr - Chet Williamson [70]
"In more industrial sections of the kingdom, and in areas that rely on crafts, I have no doubt that Iron Throne agents are telling their masters how many swords and pots and saddles and boots are being made and where they are being sent. It sounds like a stream of mundane information, but it can be the lifeblood of a country that depends on trade for its livelihood. A country like Sembia, and an organization like the Iron Throne."
"So when Dovo was signaling with this lantern that the killer had taken away," said Captain Flim, as if getting it straight in his mind, "he was giving this information to the Iron Throne?" Lindavar nodded. "But how do you know that? And what was all the ghost claptrap for?"
"We'll come to how we know it was the Iron Throne in a moment," said Lindavar. "But the ghost was simply for cover. If Dovo had been seen walking off the swamp road with a lantern, questions would have been asked. What was he doing walking into the swamp at night? So the best strategy, and one that worked, was for him to dress up as the ghost of Fastred, an apparition that would make nearly everyone run the other way in fright. If Dovo heard horses' hooves, or someone walking along the road who might see him, he went into the ghost routine and scared them away, then moved into the swamp and did… what he was supposed to do."
"Dovo?" Rolf said in disbelief. "Look, I know you're a War Wizard and all that, but you expect us to believe that somebody as dumb as Dovo was could even get all this information you're talking about, let alone come up with this ghost idea? He scarcely had the brains to hammer on a horseshoe!"
"All he had to do was learn the code," Lindavar said. "He might not have even realized what he was doing. Perhaps he was told that he was transmitting information to smugglers, or someone less reprehensible than the Iron Throne. Whatever he was told, he was also told all the information the Iron Throne needed."
"Told by whom?" Barthelm demanded. "What Cormyrean would betray his king and country?"
"And the local merchants, eh?" Shortshanks said with a sneer.
"The information was derived from someone who had easy access to it, someone whose official capacity not only allowed him but required him to know these things and report them to the local lord, Sarp Redbeard, in Wheloon. This person was a repository of export and trade information from Thunderstone to the Way of the Manticore, in all the lands between the Wyvernwater and the Vast Swamp. And it was from him that the information came, the same information that Dovo then gave the agents of the Iron Throne across the Vast Swamp."
"Grodoveth…Mayor Tobald said softly. "Grodoveth was a spy in the employ of the Iron Throne." And he put his head in his hands and shuddered, and I felt great pity come upon me for this man whose friend had betrayed his country.
"Grodoveth," he moaned once again.
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The room was quiet for a moment, as all eyes were on the mayor and his sorrow. But then Lindavar spoke again. "No. Not Grodoveth. You need have no worry on that account, Lord Mayor. Grodoveth was but an innocent conduit of that information, telling what he had seen and what he knew without hesitation to someone he had no reason to distrust.
'That Grodoveth was the source is apparent from a look at the dates. The ghostly appearances, and thus the secret signals, always occurred just after Grodoveth visited Ghars. There was one exception when no ghost was seen, and the reasonable conclusion to draw is simply that no one saw Dovo from the road that particular night.
"So the intelligence went from Grodoveth to the Iron Throne agent to Dovo. It was that agent who recruited Dovo into his plans, perhaps winning him over with a romantic story of smugglers, or even Cormyrean agents. Along with the exciting risk was the fun of terrorizing everyone in the town, and, of course, money.
"But Dovo made a mistake. He became cocky, though I suspect he already was. When he approached Kendra, he told her that there was more to him than she