But Who Has The Right To Question Them?
Dirant answered after they left that set of suspects. “I am sure. It is my usual policy to leave serious matters to serious experts while I handle the trivial ones.”
“Just what everybody wants in a sidekick, right? Oh, I forgot to tell you. I told Hewwikke a pretty good joke about how you're my comic relief tiger, but I cannot quite get the wordplay to work in Adaban. Could you help me with that?”
“The task may be impossible, but I will consider it.” Before that, Dirant considered another topic. “My brother is getting off rather easily, motive-wise.”
“Oh, there isn't much chance either of you did it. I bet an Adaban will must be responsible in a fifth of the stories in Hewwikke's upcoming Tiger Detective series though. It's sort of a convention.”
From that, a reorientation as to who was being protected from what by Takki's insistence on having the two southerners watched struck Dirant. “Thank you,” he said, and he meant it.
“You're welcome.” As did she.
They found Ukkip Timga Onsalkamto and Luas Taikko Hinmi admiring an oil painting which depicted an orchestra mid-performance while a reporter wrote up the event for the broadsheets. They were discussing another form of art as they did. “There's a theory that Obeneutian pottery became thicker, heavier, and more ornamental in response to some military reverses that proved to the Obenec their days of raiding with impunity were ended. The mood changed even if no one said it out loud, supposedly.”
Since Timga offered that as an idea proposed by unidentified third parties, Taikko took no heed of their feelings. “That explanation smells like the effluvium from the mind of a junior academic desperate to remove the modifier in a world where the seniors insist on living too long and publishing too often. But then, would I have said the same about any number of legitimate theories? I refuse to answer that out of respect for another theory positing a reputation itself can have feelings put forward by our more, I almost said something discouraging there, romantic thinkers.”
All that was related to Dirant later, as was Taikko's refusal to respond to the inquiry on the basis that the prank became unworthy of comment when the host so decided, and besides, her eloquence would suffer if she wasted it explaining something so obvious as her apparent motive. She did unknowingly reveal to Dirant that she was a Priestess of Iws by virtue of belonging to the Evoker class; the inexplicable universal legibility of status displays facilitated that. Timga, a genuine Workman and therefore a genuine Priest of Uv, concurred as to the host's responsibility. He further excused himself based on the complications inherent in involving himself in any sort of criminal investigation when such was the responsibility of the town's captain-inspector. As for the motive, his was less apparent, he hoped.
“My only conjecture is that someone, me for this hypothetical, bears a vendetta against Hewwikke so secret that I concealed it from myself for greater security,” he laughed. “Aside from that, Millim Takki Atsa, is there any merit in investigating while deprived of the methods and experience of the captain-inspector's subordinates? I don't mean to belittle your efforts, but I can't conceive your accomplishing anything.”
“That's probably true, Civic Quartermaster. Still, if that stopped our ancestors, would they have ever defeated the Adabans? How could Illiu Po Tollem have invented the telescope if the argument that no one had done it before dissuaded him?”
“I suppose there's no harm as long as you have a good understanding of the possibilities.”
That ended the interrogation of those two suspects, but not Dirant's of Takki when she hesitated to translate everything she said. “It's a little embarrassing,” she protested, though whether because of the Adaban part or the theatricality of her proclamation he could not determine.
“Even so,” he concluded, “your character is clearer to me. Regrettably so. A desire to take on the burden of the impossible, to perform a feat never dared before, is a plausible motive which before you lacked.”
“That's true, but would I insist on investigating if I were the culprit? Oh. I would, wouldn't I?” It was a thoughtful Takki who continued the search for suspects. “Do you believe that classes have an identity beyond their bare stat requirements? I do. A Battler's inherent nature is to fix problems. That's my belief.”
“I haven't had reason to develop an opinion either way. There is, though, a hidden aspect to Ritualists that most never see. I mean of course that we perform rituals sometimes when we are not doing paperwork, opening crates, or witnessing suspect interviews.”
Takki emitted a polite laugh that cut off when the justice of the observation became clear to her. “You really don't see many Ritualists, um, ritualizing, do you? Why is that? We're told modern society rests on ground prepared by rituals among other things, but we never see the evidence.”
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“The evidence is there.” Dirant pointed at a shallow dish filled with dried herbs and flowers placed on a small chest in the hallway and another held in the hands of a kneeling statue. “Perhaps our host simply wishes to remind us that nature exists outside his walls. More likely these scents are deployed to disguise the weird smell given off by Mold Prevention Rituals.”
“That's what those are for? I always wondered why my father had spread a bunch around the house one day when I came back from a hunt. He was never interested in decoration before. You think he had a ritual done?”
“I do. Further, that ritual required about forty minutes of time to complete and will persist for more than a month. That ratio of procedure to duration is considered highly desirable in the academic world. I have come to suspect it is otherwise in commercial endeavors, since our employers must wonder at the salaries we command when they see us so often doing so little.”
“Isn't that when you paint their noses for them?”
Dirant stared at the top of the detective's head for a moment, baffled, but then realized that must be a figure of speech. “Is that a figure of speech?” he asked to test his theory.
“Of course. Oh, are Pui and Puvva there?” They were, and according to Takki, they were discussing the lamentable state of contemporary society in Pavvu Omme Os specifically.
“It was when I was preparing a run of books by an Adaban academic, Tanseliaf Hellons by name. I'm biased in his favor because his name is easier to pronounce than most southerners, but it was an interesting book about the history of Ritualists, of which he is one, and it sold so well in the GE. Here? Pavvu Omme Os, the most intellectually developed country in the world? Canceled for lack of interest. It's not as if popular histories don't move, so what's the problem? I think it's classes. Class segregation, class specialization. People nowadays think they mean more than they do. I was surprised when that banker turned out to be a Warm Body, or the other way around I guess, but why should I have been? Do Administrators have more integrity? Is it acceptable that I have no idea what Administrators actually do? When we had smaller communities, we knew more about one another.”
“There may be something in what you say,” Eksu Pui Hikku allowed. “I studied the works of orators of great fame from earlier days when the spoken word ruled over the written. Some were Evokers, most not. Today nearly every name in the field is an Evoker, no one conceives how it might be otherwise, and what may we have lost?”
“Mr. Dirant, help me,” Takki requested. “I'm having trouble getting their attention.”
“Tell them I met Professor Tanseliaf once. He gave me a signed copy of one of his books. Perhaps 'gave' is the wrong word.”
Equipped with that icebreaker, Takki was able to insert the two of them into the conversation. Unfortunately, Pui's attitude toward amateur crime-solving resembled the other Evoker's, as did his insistence that his motive would be tedious to express owing to the obviousness of it.
“There is a question,” Dirant said. “I haven't read the fake article, and neither am I capable of it unless the forger was kind enough to print an Adaban version on the reverse of the pages. Which side does it claim will have won?”
“Luas Taikko Hinmi's,” Takki answered.
“Is that meaningful?”
“I cannot see how. Pui can claim the debate is rigged based on that, but Taikko can just as easily claim the report was made to put public, um, how they feel about things against her. We aren't children in Pavvu Omme Os.”
Her tone allowed room to believe they were children down in Greater Enloffenkir, unless it was only that Dirant's imagination had become excessively stimulated by all that talk about criminal motives. While he pondered whether he ought to stand up for his tribe or if that would come off as childish, he noticed at last that Kul Puvva Kampumso's purported motive had escaped along with the man itself. “Mr. . . . Puvva has lost interest,” he noted.
“That's so suspicious I have to give myself a little warning not to conclude anything. We haven't even interviewed Limmu yet.” Takki excused herself to Pui and headed somewhere or other with purposeful steps.
Dirant fell in beside her. “I don't know who that is.”
“Are Jalpi Peffu names difficult for you? I've heard that they are. Luo Limmu Aipke is a maid here.”
Then began the questioning of servants, none of whom knew any Adaban grammar they cared to employ. They also did not care to say anything useful for revelation-seeking detectives, an outcome which punished Takki for having unreasonable expectations. In the first place, none of them belonged to an advanced class, let alone Reciter or something else suggestive of criminal capability. One out of every one of the servants belonged to low-requirement basic classes. Functionary, Workman, and Warm Body were the main examples, though Dirant realized then he probably ought to have stopped thinking of classes in terms of tiers when a god informed him all were equal members of a great, humanity-spanning priesthood. As for motives, well.
“Ordinarily you would expect the staff to harbor a lot of complaints about their employer, wouldn't you? Apparently Hewwikke is out so often he lets them do more or less what they please. They can't imagine a better boss.” Takki sounded unenthusiastic about the idyllic circumstances of the household staff as she stood thinking harder than ever, judging by her ferocious jabs against the yielding air.
“Did they offer any other theories? A rival neighbor perhaps, long frustrated by the clear superiority of Hewwikke's dinner guests?”
“Nothing meaningful. One of the cooks suggested the report's appearance is a classic sign from the gods. In wiser times the master would have called in an interpreter, but we're so enlightened now that we have to pretend not to be able to figure it out. Isn't that silly?”
Not receiving the immediate support she expected, Takki repeated herself. Dirant's expression remained flat. “It seems perhaps not entirely implausible,” he said.
“It's entirely implausible because gods aren't real, and if they were, they wouldn't write fake debate reports to inconvenience Hewwikke Satvo Sau!” Millim Takki Atsa paused to wipe her sudden tears away. “I'm really sorry about that. We Battlers get caught up in what we're doing, but I see Ritualists know how to remain impassive. I don't mean to demean anyone.”
Dirant was unsure who was being demeaned or in what situations the woman who burst into tears had to apologize rather than the nearest young man. The answers may have been far too obscure for his Discernment to discover, he was beginning to conclude, when an interruption came, a tumult in another room the two both heard. Takki dashed out at Battler speed while he ran at a Ritualist's pace, a 34 Muscle sort of lope.