“You don’t need to,” said Ana. “Din here is an engraver and acts as a living legal embodiment of my work. His testimony is considered sacrosanct. As you’ve said many things in front of him, that’s enough.”
“Nothing wrong has been done!” Gennadios said. “Amorous arrangements are not illegal in the Empire!”
“But they do have political implications,” said Ana. “Who is in bed with who—literally or otherwise—can ruin a man’s career.”
“Then…then what reason could I have had for killing the commander?” Gennadios said. “Or any of us? And how could we have killed him, anyway? Even the Apoths can’t understand it!”
“I’m not suggesting you did,” said Ana. “None of the staff, I think, was the true killer.” She sat back in her chair, and for a moment the shadows fell across her blindfolded face. “But it is also my job, Gennadios, to figure out why he might have been killed. And I must admit, I am mighty curious as to why such a powerful family would ever bother having an estate in the godless backwaters of the Outer Rim. One they don’t even visit. Yet…I am far more curious to see what will happen when the Hazas find out that their housekeeper not only let a commander get murdered on their property, but then went and chatted about it to the Iudex.”
Gennadios now looked positively ill. “You…you made me come here! I was legally obliged to…to…to come here, to…”
“As anyone who’s been past the third-ring wall knows,” said Ana, “the Haza clan is not terribly interested in the boundaries of the law.”
The three servants sat before Ana, bewildered and terrified. Uxos had stopped rocking and was now frozen on the pile of books.
“What did Commander Blas provide to the Hazas?” Ana asked, every word as percussive as the blow from a hammer.
“I don’t know,” whispered Gennadios.
“Was it some act? Information?”
“I don’t know!” she said. She was panicking now. “I don’t! I really don’t!”
“I see. Then you, Madam Gennadios, are going to tell me all of the commander’s movements before he arrived at the estate,” said Ana. “And the timing of all of his previous visits. I very strongly suspect you know this—it would be very useful to have records of when and where a powerful man had been playing about with prostitutes, no matter how legal it may be. If you don’t give me this, I will make it known to the Hazas that you have given me far, far worse things. This would be a lie, but it would be one they’d believe.”
Gennadios was trembling. “You wouldn’t.”
“Of course I would.” Again, the predatory grin. “I’m not at all as morally upstanding as Din here. You give me that, and I’ll stay quiet.”
“But…but just being here,” said Gennadios. “Just this happening at all…I might be doomed already.”
“I think the Hazas may likely forget about that,” said Ana. “After the revelation of how Blas was killed.”
A pause.
“You know how he was killed?” asked Gennadios.
“Of course I do. He was killed by an assassin.” Ana turned her blindfolded face to Uxos, the groundskeeper. “And you helped them do it, sir.”
* * *
—
“WHAT?” SAID GENNADIOS. “You’re suggesting that…that Uxos here…”
Uxos shook his head, his beard mopping his collar like a paintbrush. “N-no. No, I…”
“Dappleglass is what killed the commander,” said Ana. “A very powerful contagion. After all, it killed a whole canton. But besides its murderous, infestatious qualities, it is also known for its odd effect on fernpaper, causing moldy splotches to grow on its surface—notable, as fernpaper is so resistant to other blights. This is what Din saw in the bathing closet—dappleglass stains on the interior of the fernpaper walls and concentrated at the top. Because, you see, the contagion was delivered to Blas in the bath. I suspect a small length of the grass was placed in the shootstraw pipes. Blas arrived, bathed first thing in the evening…and as the water steamed, he inhaled it, lining his lungs with the spores. Yet it also floated up, staining the fernpaper walls.”
Uxos was now sweating prolifically. “But…but I don’t do anything with the pipes…”
“No,” said Ana. “But you do lots with fernpaper, don’t you? Especially fernpaper doors, and windows. You’re the helpful person who replaces them. You let the assassin into the grounds with your reagents key, probably the night before, to tamper with Blas’s bath. The assassin then entered and exited the house through a fernpaper door. But it wasn’t until after they left that you noticed the door they’d used now had black spots on it—a consequence of either carrying the dappleglass past the door, or perhaps the assassin themselves were unusually dusted with the spores, tainting their very touch.”