Free Murder in Cormyr by Chet Williamson Page B

didn’t know but that it might be the talk of the town by now. Anyway, sir, he was killed south of town, near the Great Swamp, and my master asked me if—”
    “Who’s your master?”
    “Benelaius, sir. Used to be one of the War Wizards of Cormyr?”
    “I’ve heard of him. What’s he want?”
    “He wonders if you, in your travels about the realm, might have heard of any bands of brigands who would kill their victims in that manner.”
    He looked at me slyly. “What manner?”
    “Oh, I forgot to say. He was beheaded, sir. With an axe. We think he was pretending to be the ghost that’s supposed to haunt the swamp.”
    “Ghost?”
    “Yes, sir, the ghost of Fastred.”
    “Listen, I don’t know anything about any brigands who cut people’s heads off, and I couldn’t care less about ghosts. Now why don’t you get out of here and let me read in peace?”
    I could take a hint. Thanking him for his cooperation, I left the library, to Marmwitz’s great relief, but I waited outside until Grodoveth left a few minutes later. Then I went back in. I wanted to see what book there could possibly be in Ghars’s library that would make someone cover it up.
    Mr. Marmwitz was not pleased to see me, but I gave him a friendly grin just the same and went over to where Grodoveth had been sitting. The book was no longer on the table, but since Grodoveth hadn’t left with it, it still was there somewhere. He had probably put it back on the shelf, but I thought I’d ask Marmwitz just the same.
    “Sir, your pardon,” I said softly, “but as part of my… investigation on the behest of Benelaius and Mayor Tobald, I should like to know in what subject area the gentleman who just left was reading.”
    Marmwitz looked crankier than I ever hoped to get, but he answered. “Local subjects.”
    “Ah. And does Grodoveth take out many volumes on that subject?”
    “He takes out no volumes at all. Only residents of Ghars may withdraw books.”
    I nodded thoughtfully and went over to the section on local history and folklore. Most of the books were very old, and I saw that my master had copies of a good many of them in his library. Then I realized that I could tell which books had been taken off the shelf because of disturbances in the dust. For all his fussiness, Marmwitz was not a superlative housekeeper.
    Nearly a dozen books had been removed and replaced, and I took them all to the table and perused them. Most of them fell open readily enough, as is the case with old and brittle volumes. I supposed Grodoveth had never learned of the proper and gentle care of books, the very first lesson Benelaius taught me. For every one of these volumes opened to a passage or chapter about either the historical or the legendary Fastred.
    There was a wealth of information about the brigand, and apparently Grodoveth had read it all. Yet he had said he wasn’t interested in ghosts. He was lying about something, that was for sure.
    “Mr. Marmwitz,” I said, “you don’t have a lot of people using the library, do you?”
    His instant sorrow showed that I had struck a nerve. “No, and more’s the pity. Days go by when no one comes in at all. Mr. Grodoveth has come in occasionally during the past few
    months, but our daily traffic is tragically minimal.”
    “That is a shame,” I said, catching the fly with honey. “This really is a grand repository of information. So when did you say Grodoveth started coming in here?” All right, so I wasn’t very good at smooth transitions, but I was still learning.
    Marmwitz didn’t bat an eye, however. “My, let’s see, it must have been, oh, back around Tarsakh or so.”
    Tarsakh. Five months before. And at least two months before the recent flock of ghost sightings had begun. So why was Grodoveth, the king’s envoy, looking into the matter of Fastred’s ghost before that ghost, in the person of Dovo, began to make his reappearances?
    It didn’t make any sense to me. Either Grodoveth could see into the