It was a cloudy day over Saanazar, but the rain never came. Glad to relax with her friends—off her feet—Niamh sat on the Temple green and finished a generous slice of rye bread. It had been a couple of weeks since the robbery of the carved lockbox—a long, emotional, and fruitless couple of weeks. To everyone’s horror, two bodies had turned up in the basement of the house on Calinar Road. Long dead, they had been assumed to be the actual relatives of Archpriest Roithe.
Niamh and Miril had attended a memorial in the vicinity of the house, though the Atmos Septi had no means of contacting extended family and the vigil consisted of only a few neighbours. Niamh had shivered at the sight of that house again—she was glad she had not searched it with Tolleo and made the grisly discovery herself. The bodies had been interred in the Temple crypt instead of a public cemetery.
Soon after, the Temple Guards had been able to track down the “family member” that had first approached the Temple to request the delivery of Roithe’s things. Since then, he was being held and questioned, but had revealed nothing yet of the whereabouts of the mysterious Paremh or the box itself.
Though she didn’t share much of her feelings with the others, Niamh felt a tremendous guilt. She had somehow let Paremh steal Roithe’s possessions and had let a murderer escape, it now seemed.
Interrupting her thoughts, a man that was crossing the grassy yard caught her eye. He wore chainmail and shoulder pauldrons—and a sword upon his waist—but he did not have the grey robe and sun-beam mantle of the Temple Guards. To make matters worse, he approached their group directly once he noticed Miril sitting and laughing at something Gellek had said.
“Niamh? Miril?” he asked, and glanced at Niamh. “You were the priestesses at the Archpriest’s theft?”
Niamh stood up and offered a slight, uncertain curtsey. Her angle—and her staring eyes—bid Miril do the same. “Yes?” she asked.
“I’m Aradar. I was helping to review the case, but the City Watch is starting to run into dead ends. I just don’t want to see this go unresolved,” the armoured man explained. “I’m not here in an official capacity, but I’m wondering if you two—and the other fellow, Anthin?—would mind walking me through it again, at the house where it happened.”
Again glancing at Miril, Niamh asked, “Hasn’t the house been cleaned out since then?”
The guardsman inclined his head. “It has—but it is easier for witnesses to recall details when they’re there, with the sounds and smells.” Then his calm demeanor chipped, and he stammered, “It was just a…just a thought. I’m out of line.”
He took a step back as Niamh again turned toward Miril.
Miril raised a hand. “Can you just give us a moment?” She grabbed Niamh’s hand as the guard gave them more space, and turned Niamh back to the privacy of their group. Tib and Gellek were watching with unveiled curiosity. “What do you think?” Miril asked them.
“Can’t hurt, can it?” Gellek wondered. “Get Anthin to go along with you.”
Niamh shrugged—it couldn’t hurt, could it? “I feel slightly responsible and would like to help,” she murmured. “It might feel safer with Anthin, too.”
“Have any of you seen him?” Miril scanned the green in vain.
Gellek stood up. “I think he’s inside. I’ll fetch him.” Their fellow Reformer’s Creed priest hurried off toward the Temple Great Hall, where even more of the priesthood was eating dinner.
Turning back to the uncomfortably waiting guard, Niamh asked, “What’s your name again?”
“Er, it’s Aradar,” he replied, bobbing his head. “My commanding officer is Captain Narlo, but I’d likely get in trouble for bothering priests…”
Niamh raised an eyebrow. “Why’s that?”
“I’m just following up on this because I feel I should, not because of orders,” Aradar told them, glancing at Miril, too. “As I said, I’m off-duty.”
Niamh cleared her throat. “‘As followers of Atmos, we must be always vigilant—by day and by night, we are his chosen.’ Risen Ulleroun.”
“Thank you,” Aradar said, with a smile. “But I’m afraid the City Watch doesn’t always work that way.”
“But you do work that way, and this is obviously weighing on you heavily to do it off-duty…” Niamh explained. She felt he should be commended for going above and beyond. “Are you certain you don’t want me to tell this to your commander?”
Aradar’s nervous laugh quickly turned to confusion. “I—please don’t. I can just be on my way if I’ve caused you trouble.” He continued backing away.
Miril intervened. “No, it’s no trouble, Aradar. We will go with you—we’re just waiting on Brother Anthin.”
Uncertain how she had caused offence, Niamh looked down at her feet.
Once Anthin arrived, he introduced himself to the guardsman and offered, “I don’t know what else I can provide than what I’ve already told the Watch.”
“I just want to make sure there’s nothing. I thank you all for this,” Aradar said, though he still seemed flustered from his exchange with Niamh. He led the way across the Temple grounds with the three from the Reformer’s Creed in tow.
They crossed beneath the Temple gates, getting nods from the familiar Temple Guards—and then they were out into the sprawling city of Saanazar. Sometimes, Niamh just didn’t understand how the world out here worked. She stayed quiet and waved shyly to the children they passed on their way toward Calinar Road, but not in a way to invite them over. She didn’t want to cause more problems.
At Aradar’s behest, they ran through what had happened once more. Niamh mentioned the front door not latching, and their decision to check behind the house. When they passed the window, the guardsman asked if either of them had seen someone inside. Miril was the only one who had looked, but she had not seen anyone—and she had already told the last guards who had asked them to recount the events of the robbery. Niamh pointed out the neighbour she had seen gardening at the rear of the house, but Aradar said he had provided a description of the thief that matched their own, but nothing more.
As they came back around to the front of the house once more, Aradar asked, “Was he waiting in the street?”
Niamh shrugged. “I suppose so. We were looking around the house for a while before he ran up to us from the road.”
“Hmm,” pondered the guard. “Carry on.”
A few moments later, Niamh mumbled, “It seemed like he must have just broken into the house. How long were there…people in the basement?”
Aradar grimaced. “It’s unclear. Likely they were killed whenever the house was looted.” Then he turned back to the street, pursing his lips. “He would have been watching, no? To know when the Grey Brethren came with the box?”
Niamh just nodded.
“If you weren’t sure what day the delivery would come…” the guard trailed off. He started toward the fence gate again, moving with determination.
Anthin finished it: “You wouldn’t just stand in the street all day, every day.”
With a hesitant glance at Miril, Niamh wondered how much more help she could provide.
“But he didn’t come out of the house, right?” Aradar asked, rhetorically. His chainmail vest chattered as he walked. “He must have had somewhere else to hide, and pass the days, until the delivery came.”
“You questioned all the surrounding neighbours too, right? Not just the one behind the house?” Niamh asked. Aradar had all the information—they had the people who had contacted the Temple in custody, and they had already heard all of Niamh, Miril, and Anthin’s insights.
“We questioned the adjacent ones,” Aradar answered, looking back at her. “I might just ask my Captain to extend the questioning, now that I’ve had this idea of a hideout—unless you three would like to help, and we can do it now?”
“Can we pair up?” Niamh glanced at Miril nervously.
Aradar nodded. “Certainly,” he said. “We’ll stay close, even in pairs. We’ll just ask around at the other houses, see if anyone has seen anyone lurking around. If there’s nothing suspicious, just move on.”
Anthin gave him a stern nod and the two moved out into the street first. Niamh stuck close to Miril as they stepped into the street. A man riding a horse passed them, followed by a wagon and some guards. They saw a woman in an apron, a few children antagonizing some sort of bug that crawled on the cobblestones, and a few old men sitting in front of another house. They walked arm-in-arm, their grey robes swaying as they scanned their surroundings for anything of note.
After they were out of earshot of Aradar and Anthin, Niamh asked Miril, “What do you think of the guard?”
“He seems a little obsessed with this, but I don’t think he’s lying to us, not like Paremh did,” Miril explained. “Most guards do as little as they can.”
Niamh looked at her feet as they walked. “I wonder what happened to those poor people. I feel awful.”
“I don’t think Paremh killed them. They were dead before we ever came into the picture.”
With a shudder, Niamh looked at her friend. “I imagine the smell would be overpowering—I don’t want to think about it anymore, but I can’t get it out of my mind.”
Miril paused walking, taking Niamh’s hand with sisterly affection. “The world is a big, dangerous place, Niamh. People die in the city—often. I’m not trying to say ‘toughen up’ or anything like that. It’s terrible, but we have to move on, otherwise we’ll drown. Remember what Risen Liothoa wrote? ‘We are not of this world, but of the sky above. We must never lose sight of the heavens, even as we strive to help the world below’.”
“Thank you,” Niamh said, genuinely moved. “Perspective is everything.”
They ended up knocking on four doors without finding anything of note. Three of them were answered, but they only heard children playing behind the fourth. No one gave them any reason to grow suspicious. Then, as they came down the stone steps of the old fourth home, they saw a woman pushing a small food cart down the street, calling out about the baked goods she had for sale.
“Delicious—should we get a treat?” Miril asked.
“Well, that guard did interrupt our dinner…” Niamh murmured and nodded emphatically. Her stomach was turning at the smell of fresh pastries.
The middle-aged woman smiled to them as she served them. She told them about the bakery in the nearby market, urging them to make it a regular stop for similar goodies. While Niamh was mostly just impressed with the quality of the pastry she was nibbling, Miril thought to ask more pertinent questions.
“Have you had any regulars stop coming by recently?” Miril inquired. “Someone along the street here?”
“I sell to all sorts of passersby…” the woman wondered, lowering her face while looking at Miril skeptically. She thought for a moment, saying nothing more.
Miril continued: “We’re looking for a man, brown hair, yea high, went by the name of Paremh. Would have been a regular until a few weeks ago.” Despite her line of questioning, Miril took another bite of the sugary bun she had bought.
Finally, the merchant started to nod. “Yes, yes…I remember him now. Never caught a name, but he always appeared as I was pushing the cart along that stretch up ahead.”
Niamh spoke up. “How long do you think you served him?”
“He bought a treat every day for…maybe two or three weeks? Before that, I don’t know. I don’t think he was a stranger, but he wasn’t what I’d consider a regular. I thought he had moved in to a house on the street maybe….” The older woman gave a shrug.
“Did he ever associate himself with others?” Niamh asked. She knew that a few weeks had passed between the request for Roithe’s belongings being made at the Temple, and the delivery of those goods by Niamh and her peers—which lined up with what this woman was saying.
“I think he was always alone,” the woman answered. “Hmmm…he wore a tunic with a green brooch of some kind? Not sure what it meant, if anything…”
Niamh gave the woman a smile. “That’s perfect—could you draw it?”
“I don’t remember it clearly, I’m afraid. And I haven’t the hands for it…” the merchant replied. “It was just an oval…green…”
“Before you go, did he always wear it—this outfit with the green brooch?” Niamh pushed.
The woman frowned. “Sometimes he had it—other times he didn’t.”
“Thank you for your time,” Niamh said. “And all the information.”
“And the pastries!” cried Miril, as the woman moved off down Calinar Road.
Aradar and Anthin were coming down from a house across the street, looking empty-handed. As they met in the middle of the avenue, Miril and Niamh passed them goodies that they had bought for them. Anthin looked at Niamh. “We’ve found nothing yet. You?”
“I think the lady with the pastries cart saw him,” Niamh said, and recounted what she had learned. She concluded: “Just a green oval—that’s all I got.”
“That sounds like the Green Eye of Sheld,” Aradar blurted. When all three of the priests regarded him blankly, he explained, “I don’t honestly know the connection to Sheld, the city, but the Green Eye is a gang of some kind—just recently started popping up in the rough parts of Saanazar. I will definitely need to report this to my superiors.”
“Do you think the man you have in custody is part of this gang?” Niamh asked.
“Could be,” Aradar said. “That will be the next angle of questioning. I should get back.”
Niamh nodded. “We’ll return to the Temple, then?”
“Certainly. Thank you for this, all of you,” Aradar said, clasping his hands in front of him in an expression of gratitude.
“Please let us know if there is anything we can do to help in the future,” Niamh said. She felt she had actually been useful, despite her hesitance when they were recounting the story of that awful theft for the third or fourth time.
Aradar smiled. “I will!” he exclaimed, and then he hurried off down the street.