A Snoop Without Magic, page 3
“What is that? Invisible armor?” the leader of the guards said.
“It is,” Sam said. “I would appreciate it if you let me mollify her. It would save unnecessary bloodshed.”
“Do you promise you won’t try anything?”
Sam had no reason to fight these men. All he wanted was to make it to Ankras Keep alive. “I promise.”
“I promise for me, and for Emmy, the dog,” Desmon said with a pleading smile.
“Cut off the manacles,” the leader said. He raised a finger at them. “Don’t make me kill you,” he said.
“I am Desmon Sandal of Wollia, Sam Smith is from Toraltia, and Emmy is a Great Sanchian hound from Polistia.”
“And I am Erl Ganash, the Sentry Leader of Domain Ankras. I know you have come from Peer Latruse’s domain. Only he knows this particular path through this forest. We had expected a larger force than two foreigners and their dog. She is so large, my men were afraid of her.”
Ganash stepped over to Emmy and pulled out the arrow. “That is good armor. Which one of you made it?”
“I did,” Sam said. “It is one of my talents.”
“A pollen expert. We don’t have many in Duar. I guess we’ve killed off the most powerful ones.” He shrugged and stepped over to some of the sentries and pointed to a broader pathway on the other side of the clearing. “I will accompany you.”
He ducked inside the guard house and emerged with a large crossbow. “The bolts for this weapon will punch through any pollen armor. I say that as a warning.”
“We have been warned,” Desmon said. He held up his manacles. “You said someone would cut these off?”
Ganash nodded. “We will take your weapons.” He looked them over, but only saw Sam’s wand. Neither of them had taken a sword, with Emmy along to protect them while they created pollen swords. “I guess we won’t.” Ganash cut off their manacles himself. He gave one of the guards a dirty look. “You made these too soft,” Ganash said after he removed Sam’s manacles.
“I did not,” the guard said.
Ganash tossed them to the guard. “See for yourself.” He grunted and then pushed Sam forward. “You follow the man in front, and there will be four of us behind you.”
Sam did as he was told. They had two days of marching before they would reach Keep Ankras the soldier in front told them, but there were guardhouses along the way to spend the night. Ankras’s guards used them often as they made their way to Ankras Keep.
~
Ankras Keep was more like what Sam envisioned a feudal house to be. Situated on a hill and surrounded by a village, the keep looked like a solid block of stone, but as they approached, they saw it was set up like a castle in a Toraltian city. A wide swath of grass surrounded the keep’s wall that separated Lord Ankras’s house from the village. A wall surrounded the village, but it wasn’t as high as the one that encircled Lord Latruse’s manor house.
Sam remembered that the village close to Peer’s manor house had no wall. Perhaps there was a reason for that, but Sam couldn’t figure it out. As they walked through the village, it appeared well-kept, and the villagers didn’t look mistreated.
Ganash spoke to guards at the main gate before they ascended the hill to the keep. Everything seemed more defensible to Sam’s eyes. They walked through another gate into a courtyard. Ankras Keep was smaller close up than looking at it from outside the village.
“Stand here while I fetch Lord Ankras,” the leader said as he disappeared inside the residence.
They continued to stand for a long while. Sam’s armor was ready to slough off, so he wandered around the courtyard and found a dirty corner to discard the soft pollen protection. He put his hand, clutching his gold tip, on Desmon’s shoulders and removed his friend’s armor.
Emmy barked for attention and Sam kneeled down and scratched Emmy behind the ears. When he was done, he heard voices from the keep and saw a stocky man of medium height who had to be Lord Ankras walk down the steps with Ganash. Sam and Desmon walked toward them with Emmy trailing.
“And just what were you doing in that corner?” Ankras asked.
“Removing my armor,” Sam replied, now knowing they had been observed from the windows above. No wonder Ankras had left them to their own devices in the courtyard.
Lord Ankras strolled to the corner and had Ganash locate the armor. He brought an invisible piece with him as the pair rejoined Sam and Desmon.
“Transparent. Very nice.” Ankras grinned. “And you told the truth, an element in your favor, young man. Come inside and let us talk. Bring your dog. A Sanchian, if I’m not mistaken.”
“A Great Sanchian.”
Sam looked at Desmon, who gave Sam a slight smile. They followed Lord Ankras up the steps and into the keep. It looked as dark and foreboding inside as it had without. Ankras walked to the back of the keep and showed them into a quite different room. It was decorated in white and yellow. The furniture wasn’t as massive and dark as what stood in the halls.
“A nicer place to talk,” Ankras said. He looked at Ganash. “You may go. I am sure I am safe with these two.”
He hadn’t expected Ankras to be so trusting. Sam didn’t think he would have been until he noted some odd decorations in the walls. He took off his spectacles and cleaned them, seeing that the pollen-made articles hid men with crossbows aimed at them.
He immediately looked at the rugs on the floors, and they were too nice for Ankras to bloody unless it was an emergency, so he relaxed.
“You may sit,” Lord Ankras said, showing them to chairs facing the holes.
“Thank you for your hospitality,” Desmon said. “We have come as neutral parties to discuss your relationship with Lord Latruse.”
Sam settled Emmy beside him and let Desmon do the talking, just as they had planned. Since Sam was still a teenager, even though he was a pollen-magician, Desmon’s words would carry more weight among strangers.
“And what have you heard about our,” Ankras cleared his throat, “about our relationship?”
“You attacked him a week early and brought scaling ladders. Lord Latruse said that indicated an escalation in your normal way of doing things.”
“I would do that to a man who tried to poison me,” Ankras said, verifying what Sam had heard from Latruse’s cousin.
“That is what interested us. Why would he do such a thing? Do you have any ideas along those lines, Lord Ankras?”
Ankras bit his lip and then said, “Anything can change in Duar, anything. Our fathers fought tooth and nail. My grandfather burned the previous Latruse Keep to the ground. Enmity can erupt at any time among the lords.”
“I understood that you were friends, even to the point that your wives and children were, as well,” Desmon said.
“That may be in the past,” Ankras said. Sam could sense the hurt in his voice. “I didn’t poison him. He poisoned me.”
“Sam Smith, here, has experience as a snoop and has offered to lend his investigatory expertise to the issue.”
Lord Ankras peered at Sam. “A boy?”
“With five years experience solving crimes, including an apprenticeship at the Royal Baskin Constabulary,” Desmon said.
Ankras looked at Sam. “You can prove such a thing?”
Sam pulled his letters of recommendation from the bag that he carried and handed them to Ankras.
“I can’t read some of these,” he said.
“The top two. One from Carolank and the other from Faddon Bentwick, Chief Captain of Investigatory Division of the Baskin Constabulary. I spent the last four years in Polistia.”
Ankras nodded and skimmed through the letters. “Impressive, if they are real.”
“They are,” Desmon said. “I am a witness.”
“A witness who arrives with Smith. You might be as false as this boy,” Ankras said. He re-read Bentwick’s letter and tapped a finger on the arm of his easy chair for a while. “I can afford to give you a try. What do you want to know?”
“What happened?” Sam asked. “The more detail, the better. Why do you think Lord Latruse tried to poison you?”
Ankras shook his head. “I’ll answer the last question first. I don’t know why Peer would do such a thing. When we were youths and new lords, we pledged to cast history aside and go through the motions, until he recently sent me persimmons from his orchard, trees that do not grow well in my domain. The gift made my family sick, and my youngest nearly died.”
“When did this happen?” Sam asked.
“Last week,” Ankras said. “Luckily, my little boy survived.”
“Did you keep any of the fruit?”
Ankras nodded. “I was going to rub it in Peer’s face after I captured him. I would have, too, but he…” He narrowed his eyes and stared at Desmon. “Are you the one who created the wards?”
Desmon shook his head. “Sam is the pollen artist.”
“You?” Ankras looked surprised. “For a teenager, you have accomplished much, maybe too much.”
Sam wouldn’t disagree with the man, but he didn’t respond. “You will note that none of your men were hurt by my wards,” Sam said, but then he smiled. “Except for their sense of smell.”
Ankras finally revealed a smile. “That was nearly deadly,” he said.
“A trick I learned from one of my pollen teachers,” Sam said.
“Then you have been well-schooled.”
Sam cleared his throat. “Can we see the fruit?”
Ankras nodded. “Come with me.” He led them back to the kitchen.
As they left the room, Sam felt a sense of relief leaving the crossbows aimed at Desmon and him.
The domain lord snapped his fingers at the cook, and a pollen cloth covered bowl was set on the table. Bright red fruit filled the bowl halfway. Sam removed his spectacles and looked past the thin pollen layer at blotchy red-orange fruit beginning to rot. A dusting of some light blue substance covered all the persimmons underneath the pollen covers.
“Did they arrive at your keep this color?” Sam asked.
Lord Ankras shrugged and looked at his cook. She nodded.
“Watch,” Sam said. He took his gold tip out and held it close to the red skin of pollen. What he had seen without his spectacles appeared to everyone in the room. “That light blue dust is likely what caused everyone to get sick. Whoever covered the persimmons thought the color would look better bright red. Any fool can see when it gets overripe the skin turns brown.”
Ankras frowned and then pursed his lips. “Peer could have done this.”
“I don’t think so,” Sam said. “Why make the skin a different color? If he grows these on his property, he wouldn’t have covered them in something bright red. He didn’t strike me as that stupid.”
The lord looked at Sam. “Then who?”
“Perhaps we can sit down and go over likely suspects. I can’t do it on my own. I only really know Lord Latruse, Ganash, and you.”
Ankras led them to his study. Sam was relieved he couldn’t see any openings in the walls with or without his spectacles. Ankras gave Sam his desk to write on as the other three gentlemen Sam identified sat in chairs facing him.
“Let us list who might have something to gain by pitting Lord Latruse against Ankras Keep.” Sam said.
“Lord Latruse,” Ankras said. “He still has to be on the list.”
Sam nodded and wrote down Latruse’s name. “Others?”
Ganash and Ankras could think of four other lords who they thought would gain from a weakening of the two lords’ relationship.
Sam wrote one other name. “What about those in both domains that would stand to benefit if the two current lords were taken down in an actual battle.”
“There are always a few men injured or killed,” Ankras said, as if it didn’t mean anything to him, and maybe the death or maiming of his subjects was worth it to play a feudal war with his good neighbor.
Sam thought the practice unfortunate, to say the least. Two more of Ankras’s relatives increased the list to eight people. Sam thought that would be workable in this situation.
“Who else grows persimmons among these other lords?”
Ankras shook his head. “Only Latruse. His great grandfather brought seedlings from a visit from Boristy. It is the southernmost of the West Countries and is the natural source for persimmons. Latruse has a protected valley in his domain that allows him to grow a small, but successful orchard.”
Sam nodded and made that note.
“Now that we have some prospective poisoners, is there anyone in your keep or in the village that might help us identify the powder?”
Ganash stood. “I’ll fetch Arnna. She is the best herbalist among the two healers in the village.” He left them.
Sam rose and let Lord Ankras take his seat behind the desk. “While we wait, I wouldn’t presume to take your place.”
Ankras chuckled and accepted his desk chair and looked down at the notes Sam wrote.
“You must mean Moe Latruse? He runs Peer’s keep if you want to call it that. Why did you put him down?”
“Is he next in line to be Lord?”
Ankras nodded. “He is, after the girls, and complains about it when he visits.”
“Would he go so far as to literally poison your relationship?” Desmon asked.
Ankras shrugged. “Anything is possible. Peer is the best of us, until this episode, that is.”
Sam wondered if Moe Latruse was smart enough to purposely make inaccurate persimmons. Who would notice? “Who delivered the persimmons?”
“Moe did, actually,” Ankras said. “Are you saying that he might have done this? I don’t believe it.”
“Many times the simplest possible solution is the right one, but who else might have had access to the fruit?” Sam asked.
Ankras stared at the list on his desk. “These two lords are out. No one from their domains was at the keep in the last three months.”
“Unless someone was a spy,” Desmon said.
Ankras frowned. “Anything is possible.”
Sam tapped his foot on the floor as he thought. “Who accepted the fruit from Lord Latruse’s cousin?”
“The cook,” Ankras said.
Ganash brought in a middle-aged woman dressed in a red robe. Sam wondered if healers wore red in Duar. “This is Arnna.”
Ankras smiled at the woman. “I thank you again for saving my son’s life. I want to show you something.” He looked at Ganash. “Bring in the cook along with the basket.”
Sam tapped on the arm of his chair while they waited and eventually the cook strode in, with Ganash seeming to prod her, and placed the bowl on the lord’s desk.
“The poison is here?” Arnna asked.
“It is,” Sam said rising from his chair.
He uncovered the fruit and showed her the powdery coating on one of the persimmons first, and then he removed the pollen skin to show more of the poisonous dust.
“Do you know what this is?”
Arnna bent over, covering her mouth and nose. She licked her little finger and snatched up a tiny amount and placed it on the tip of her tongue. “Yellow wort,” she said.
Sam thought back to the herbs he had learned when he had traveled with Harrison Dimple on his first summer away from home. “It makes you sick. A healer I know used to use it to make people sick if they swallowed something bad for them. But I didn’t think it would be light blue,” he said.
“There is a particularly strong strain that grows to the north of here.”
“None of it grows in the Latruse domain?”
Arnna shook her head. “Lord Latruse’s domain is at a lower elevation, lower than Lord Ankras’s lands.” She nodded and smiled at Ankras. “I’ve never needed the stronger version. The yellow wort that grows wild in Ankras is sufficient to give birth to unwanted things in our citizen’s tummies.”
Sam guessed Arnna was good with healing children. He looked at Lord Ankras, whose eyes had already drifted to the list of suspects. “That is enough.” He looked at the cook. “You may take this away and dispose of them, so no one else will eat these.”
“I will, my lord,” the cook said, quickly throwing the cover on the bowls and leaving the room.
“Did you suspect such a drug when you treated my family?”
“I did, my lord,” Arnna said. “To your little boy, the amount of Yellow Wort coating the fruit was more than enough to make him very, very sick.”
“And for adults?”
“They would be sick for a few days to a week and then recover. Your family did.”
Ankras nodded. “A vicious prank.” He stabbed the list with his forefinger. “I know just the person who would do such a thing, but I still would like you to interrogate Moe if you would.”
Sam nodded. “Are you absolving Lord Latruse?”
“Not yet,” Ankras said. “We are down to two, and maybe one, depending on what Moe says.”
“I will handle Latruse’s cousin,” Desmon said, but don’t destroy the persimmons, just yet.”
Chapter Four
~
D esmon and Sam rode at the front of a small column of men, led by Ganash. Ankras requested that they return to report what they had found out, so there would be another few days spent traipsing through Duar since they were forced to leave Emmy back at Ankras Keep as a hostage.
They waited at the gate while Lord Latruse greeted them. along with a few of his men, Moe Latruse among them, with Glory standing at the back.
“You discovered something?” Latruse said.
Sam nodded and looked at Desmon, who pulled out a cloth sack carrying one of the persimmons. Sam didn’t dare touch the pollen covering.
“Did you gift Lord Ankras these persimmons?” Desmon asked.
Latruse raised his eyebrows and frowned. “I’ve done so in the past, but not recently. My persimmons aren’t red like that, anyway. Is this what has made Willy angry at me, red persimmons?”
“No,” Sam said. “Watch.”
He pulled out his gold tip and eliminated the pollen skin, revealing the powder underneath. “And this is?”
