Patricia drummed her fingers on the mantel. She found herself unable to summon enough control to stop. She was sorrowful, yes, but she was also angry, furious as she’d not been since the night Gorion died. There had been no real answers from anyone, just accusations, demands, and warnings. Her scholar’s brain revolted against this confusion, this apparent willingness to abandon the search for the truth. It was bad enough that she was still uncertain what Irenicus had wanted, that Imoen was unfairly imprisoned, and that there was still some mystery about the trolls’ behavior at Nalia’s keep, but this was one set of unanswered questions too many. She had to do something about this, had to know more. It was time to see Minna, no matter that darkness had now fallen on Athkatla.

She turned around to find that everyone else was staring at her, even Lady Delcia. “Well?” she said impatiently. “Why am I suddenly the center of attention?”

Delcia took it upon herself to answer for them all. “We cannot bear this injustice. I do not understand what has gone wrong within Moirala’s family, but it must be grievous indeed if her child’s murder goes almost unnoticed by the authorities.”

“Yeah, Tisha, it’s weird,” added Jan. “Kill a gnome down by the Coronet, and folks up here in the Government District think he’s got it coming just because of his species. You’d think there’d be a tremendous hue and cry after one of their own, though, but there wasn’t even a whisper about it on the streets. I mean, what gives here? You don’t think she actually killed herself, do you, and daddy-o just doesn’t want to admit it?”

Patricia gave the idea serious consideration, but then remembered what Bylanna had said. “I don’t think so, because the magistrate said someone else was killed at the same time. That doesn’t read like a suicide to me. There’s only one thing to do. I’m going out to find Minna. Jan, you know which streets are halfway safe at night. Come along with me. You too, Minsc. I may need the intimidation factor later, though not with Minna.”

She forestalled Nalia’s imminent protest. “Nalia, I really do need you to stay here with Lady Delcia. Anomen’s in no shape to do anything tonight, but he may come down later. Keep him here. I don’t care if you have to tangle him up with a Web spell, don’t let him out of the house! There’s no telling what he might do. And don’t let him drink any more than a single glass of wine, either; he’ll just become more depressed. Of all of us,” she added in a softer tone, “you should be best able to comfort him just now.” She gave Lady Delcia a meaning look. The older lady deciphered it at once, with a slightly startled and pleased expression of her own.

The trio hit the pavement with relief. It was infinitely better to be doing something, anything, rather than moping about in the mansion, waiting for daylight. It was well into the evening now; it was lucky that Minna’s shop was also within the well-guarded Government District. Within ten minutes Patricia was knocking on the door of the shuttered shop. Minna evidently hadn’t gone to bed yet, for at once a head poked out of an upstairs window.

“Minna?” Patricia called. “We’re Anomen’s friends. Can we talk to you about Moira?”

“Wait there,” came a contralto voice from above. In a moment they could hear the latch being rattled, and the door opened on a plump figure in a dress and mobcap. “Come in, then, miss, it’s none too safe out there on the streets nowadays, even up here on the Hills.” The woman held her candle to the side to light their way up the stairs to the second floor, but Patricia gestured to Minsc to wait below.

“Make sure no one followed us,” she told the ranger. “Don’t come up until you’re sure no one’s out there watching.”

The second floor was furnished comfortably with a sofa and chairs arranged in front of an unlit fireplace. In the better light provided by two oil lamps, Patricia could see that Minna was about forty-five, with dark, curly hair and a pleasant expression. Her eyes had a few laugh wrinkles in the corners, but they were red now with weeping.

“I’m glad you’ve come, miss,” said Minna. “Pardon my asking, but you’d be Sister Patricia, wouldn’t you? Miss Moira used to read me bits out of Master Anomen’s letters, so I could know all the grand things he’d been up to, and he wrote of you some lately.” She turned to the gnome. “And you must be Mister Jan. Aren’t you Dr. Gerhardt Jansen’s nephew that came with him once when Lor Cor was took real bad?”

“Well, fancy you remembering that, Madame Minna!” exclaimed Jan. “I’d nearly forgotten myself. Aye, that must have been near ten years back, before my uncle had to retire.”

Patricia was startled to hear that her mother’s physician was so near a relative of Jan’s. Had Dr. Jansen fallen into ill health himself in the intervening years? Perhaps someday she could ask him about Delspeth’s illness. That, however, was merely an unimportant side issue compared to Moira’s murder.

“If Terl was here, then you must know Lord Cor wanted Anomen to go home. I’m afraid the interview didn’t end too well. He’s disowned his son because Anomen refused to go murder Saerk for him. Please, Minna, tell us everything you know about what happened. We couldn’t get a straight story out of anyone, neither Lord Cor nor the magistrate. All Cor did was rant against Saerk and Bylanna just said that there wasn’t any proof that the Farrahds were responsible. We don’t even know how she died, or when, or who found her.”

Minna sighed and rubbed her forehead with her hands. “Terl and I found her. He’s my nephew, and he’d come to spend the night here on the eighth. I walked back with him in the morning because I’d just had a letter from Anomen by a messenger, and I wanted to give it to Miss Moira at once. The man who brought it had been riding all night, so I thought it must be important.”

That would have been the messenger they dispatched to the Council from the Keep as soon as she’d told Nalia of her decision to accept the Regency. Understandably, Anomen must have seized the opportunity to let his sister know how things had gone.

“That no-good man Raikes Lord Cor hired a few years back as a valet had snuck out for the evening. He always does if Cor goes out to the taverns himself, which is nearly every evening nowadays. The Lord’s gotten to where he can’t bear to drink alone of nights.”

“There usually wasn’t anybody else in the place except Moira. I’ve worried about it often, but she said she always kept the doors locked and bolted. Raikes had a key to the kitchen, same as the Lord and Terl, but no one else, not even Moira herself. Lord Cor always claimed no self-respecting noblewoman ought to need to let herself in, but I know he was really afraid she’d meet someone without his knowing and one day just not come back. He couldn’t bear her to get out of his clutches for long. I never could make up my mind whether he felt that Moira was so like her mother that he thought if she married he’d lose Lady Moirala all over again, or whether he was just too cheap to hire a housekeeper. Perhaps a bit of both.”

“I do know he’d play games with both of his children. Anomen went to the temple right before Lady Moirala passed away, and every time afterwards that he came home Lord Cor would try to pull him away. The master scoffed at the Order and the temple, told Master Anomen he’d never pass the training, that he should just stay home and learn the business. Not that there was so much business left by then. Lady Moirala sort of took things over for two years, and she’d just gotten things turned around when she keeled over flat one day.”

“That was a rough time. Lord Cor just couldn’t seem to put his mind back together by then. He kept harping on Anomen to ‘come home and do his duty’, even though Lady Moirala had somehow scrimped together and put aside a sum for the boy in her will that was enough to pay her son’s keep through the novitiate. Miss Moira was pushed into running the household all by herself, and it was like pulling teeth for her to get enough money out of the Lord just to pay for the butter and eggs, though he spent enough on wine to float a ship. The one thing I can say for Lord Cor is that he did love the girl, and she him. But she loved her brother too, and she was the one who suffered most from their fighting.”

“Cor and Anomen: well, half their trouble’s that they’re too much alike. Stubborn men, both. They’ll do it their way, or not at all. You can’t even lead them to water, much less get them to drink. You sort of have to make it sound like it was their own idea to go that way in the first place. Moira and her mother both had the trick of managing them, which was more than anyone else could do, and it was Miss Moira that has kept the two men just barely on speaking terms these past few years. I must say this for Master Anomen, he tried hard to keep quiet for her sake, but he could only hold out for so long. Finally he stopped going to the house altogether, and just met her here. It was easier all round that way.”

“Miss Moira was too soft-hearted for her own good, and Lord Cor used her tender heart to keep a tight rein on her. Why, her Aunt Violet used to write to her regular, wanting her to visit, and sometimes Moira would ask and be given permission to go. But it never failed that Lord Cor would always find some way to make her feel so guilty about going that she’d cancel at the last minute. Ah, he’s a sly one when he wants, miss! I’ve begged Miss Moira to leave that house myself, and she never would, though she knew what he was about well enough. ‘Mama wouldn’t like me to go; I promised I’d look after Papa,’ is all she’d say.”

The milliner’s torrent of speech was stemmed at that moment by the arrival of Minsc. “No one watches, Tisha,” he boomed, as he settled himself cautiously onto the sofa.

Patricia took the opportunity to push the conversation back in the direction she wanted. “But if Moira, Lord Cor, Terl, and Raikes were the only people in the house, and none of the men were home, then whose was the other body?” she queried.

“Ah!” exclaimed Minna. “That’s just what Terl and I want to know. And furthermore, we want to know how such a thing happened with all the doors locked and bolted! You see, it wasn’t much past first light when we got to the estate. Well, naturally we knew Lord Cor wouldn’t be up; chances were good that he wouldn’t even have come home yet. Moira usually got up with the sun, though; she had to, if she wanted to get through all the work before dark. I thought I’d be able to give her the letter and maybe have a cup of tea before I had to come back here to open the shop. Well, Terl unlocked the kitchen door, and we both went in. I used to be the nurserymaid, so Miss Moira didn’t mind me coming to her room, and I walked right into the front hall with my nephew.”

She paused to blow her nose, and her voice began to quiver. “Well, there was Miss Moira, ma’am, laid out on the floor, pale as snow. She’d an arrow through her heart, and so did the man lying next her. We’d neither of us ever seen him before. But,” and her head came up proudly, “I tell you this, Sister Patricia, it was Moira that had done for him, that’s for sure!”

“Lady Moirala was a markswoman beyond compare, and she taught both the children to draw a bow near as soon as they could walk. Moira was always the better shot, and after her mother died, there wasn’t much other amusement for her but practicing her archery. The man beside her had been plugged all the way through by her arrow--- and Moira’s bow was flung down where she would have dropped it as she fell.”

“The man… well, he wasn’t anything special to look at one way or the other. Just one of those faces you forget in a crowd. What he was doing there, I still don’t know. The only funny thing was the red cape he was wearing. Seemed a bit loud and out of place on him, somehow. He’d a bunch of rope wound around his waist, and some dirty rags in one pocket. We thought maybe he’d meant to tie up anyone he found while he made off with the goods.”

Minna was wringing her hands now, and the words came tumbling out over themselves as she rushed to end her tale. “Poor… poor Miss Moira, I just don’t see how she could have shot herself in the chest with one of her own arrows. Terl… Terl says he looked close, and it looked more like she’d been stabbed with a long, thin knife, then had the arrow jammed in over it to hide the other wound. I couldn’t bear to get that near it myself. Well, the next thing I knew, I was out in the street screaming for the Guards, and then I answered questions until my head was spinning. Finally Raikes dragged home, and then Lord Cor, and then there was a to-do, with the Lord bellowing about Saerk Farrahd and Raikes trying to prove he’d been out all night, when he should have been in.”

She stopped suddenly, like a pump of Gond that had wound down. “Sister Patricia, they packed everything up pretty quick once they heard nothing had been stolen. I don’t know why; that Inspector Aegisfield had been pretty hot at first. Funny thing, though,” her voice dropped, “the first thing he asked was whether either of the victims had been skinned. Can you imagine?” She shuddered at the thought, and it made Patricia feel a bit green too.

“That’s all I know, miss, and I do hope you can find out what happened to Miss Moira. She didn’t deserve what she got, and poor Master Anomen needs friends now, if Lord Cor really has been so foolish as to cast him off. He’ll take that hard, poor boy. Lord Cor never knew how much Anomen wanted his love, nor how much the boy loved him. If they weren’t so much alike, they’d have found out how much they needed each other by now.”