Death & Magic (The Barefoot Healer, volume I)

Death & Magic chapter 21

Chapter 21

Shendar took Adramal and Perinar to the inner ward. She stopped a passing servant and told him to fetch mops and buckets. When he returned, she set them cleaning the floor of the Great Hall, and told the servant to make sure they didn’t shirk.

Adramal watched Perinar panting and sweating as he pushed and pulled the mop. He’d obviously never done such a task before. “You don’t need to push so hard,” she said. “It doesn’t make the floor any cleaner, and you’ll only tire yourself out.”

He started to apologise, and then stopped himself. They smiled at each other. She wanted to take him in her arms, but the servant would doubtless tell Shendar if she did.

“It doesn’t help that the mops are too heavy and too short,” she said.

“We have a saying where I come from,” he said. “‘A lazy servant blames his tools.’”

“We have something like that too. But the man who made these obviously had no idea how they were meant to be used. I mean, how many servants do we have who are four feet tall and strong as a bear?”

“We had dozens last fortnight. I can’t think where they’ve all gone.”

She stared at him. He returned her gaze, perfectly serious. Then his lip quivered, and both of them burst out laughing.

“So, tell me,” said Adramal, “why did Shendar threaten to write to your father, and why would that have been a worse punishment than this?”

Perinar blinked, and for a moment, she feared he would cry. She placed a hand on his shoulder.

She swallowed. “I’m sorry — if it’s something you’d rather not talk about...”

“It’s not —” He sniffed. “It’s not a letter to Father I’m worried about. It’s a letter from her.” He shrugged her hand off and attacked the floor with his mop.

She considered pressing for details, as she ought to learn as much as possible about all the teachers. But he’d probably just say it was none of her business.

They neared the long table, the one the teachers had sat behind during her examination. High-backed chairs now stood all around it — six on each side and one at each end.

“So what’s this room used for?” Adramal asked. “It seems wasteful to have so much space sitting empty.”

“It was quite fashionable at one time,” Perinar said. “If you could afford to heat that much space in the winter, it showed you were wealthy. Apprentices usually only come in here once a season, when Eskalyn gathers everybody to say how proud he is of us, and how hard he expects us to work over the coming fortnights. But the rest of the time, the teachers eat dinner in here.”

Aha... If none of the teachers were unusually thin, perhaps the murderer was eating excessively to make up for all the power he was using. If she could spy on the teachers during dinner, she might be able to identify the culprit. Trouble was, she couldn’t see any hiding places in the room, and all the windows were well above her head.

“Do you think we should clean under the table too?” said Perinar.

Blinking in surprise, Adramal replied, “She said, ‘clean the floor,’ not ‘clean the floor except under the table.’” She gave him her mop to hold and started moving the chairs out of the way.

When she had shifted four of the chairs, she realised Perinar was staring at one of the tapestries on the wall behind the table. “We haven’t got time to admire the pictures,” she said.