Page 175 of Swordheart
Zale set down the crossbow.
“Stop her!” screamed Nolan at the priest.
“No,” said Zale. “But I’ll hold you down for her. I think thatwill make it easier for everyone, don’t you? It’ll be over faster that way. I don’t think any of us want to draw this out, do we?”
“You’re both utterly mad!”
“We are both very practical,” said Zale. “It’s the world that’s gone a bit mad.” The priest caught Nolan’s shoulders.
The scholar searched Halla’s face, then Zale’s, then Halla’s again. Whatever he saw apparently changed his mind because he sagged suddenly.
“Take the sword!” gasped Nolan. “Take it, take it!” He pried a bloody hand loose from his leg and shoved the scabbard at her.
“You release the sword to me? You renounce all ownership?” Halla wasn’t sure what words he had to say to make it official.
“Yes, yes! All of it! It’s yours, I release it!”
“Thank you,” said Halla, lowering the knife.
“I don’t think you have to thank him,” said Zale. “Since he stole the sword to begin with.”
“Seems rude otherwise.”
“Well, Rat forbid we berude.”
“On the other hand, he did murder a family friend,” said Halla. “Of course, that was after Bartholomew stole the sword, so… I don’t know. Does that one equal out, do you think?”
“I think I’m bleeding to death!” screamed Nolan.
“And if you’d do it faster, it would solve a great many problems,” said Zale. “Ah, well. I suppose we should resign ourselves to him living. You seem to have missed the big artery.”
“You taught me to shoot at trees. You didn’t teach me to hit specificspotson trees.”
Zale opened the front door. “Excuse me!” they called. “You—yes, with the goat! Excuse me! Will you go to the constabulary and ask them to please come at once, there’s been a murder?”
Halla didn’t hear the neighbor’s response. She leaned against the kitchen table, watching Nolan.
“I’m going to lose consciousness,” threatened the scholar.
“Perhaps we’d have some quiet, then.” Halla’s hands were shaking with adrenaline and she buried them in her skirts.
In fact, the scholar did lose consciousness a few minutes later, and then the constables arrived. Halla was not looking forward to explaining things, but Zale immediately took charge. The story they told had nothing to do with any sword being missing, but a great deal to do with an elderly friend of the family, a bit befuddled, being taken in by a smooth-talking scholar who planned to kill him and steal the most valuable parts of his collection. It was a greatly embellished version of what they had told the paladins. In this version, after Bartholomew had come to Rutger’s Howe to aid Halla, both priest and widow had been suspicious of the way that Nolan had treated the old man and had followed them back to try and put a stop to it.
They were aided by the fact that one of the constables had seen them on the way into the city, accompanied by paladins, and that Bartholomew was already cold. The word of a Rat priest carried a great deal of weight as well. By the time that a healer was sent for to bandage Nolan’s leg and remove the bolt, the man was already being treated as a criminal.
“If he lives, he’ll likely hang,” said the Amalcross constable. “Pretty clear what he intended. I’m sorry you didn’t get here sooner.”
“An hour or two,” said Halla, wiping away tears. They were genuine enough. Bartholomew had been kind to her, before greed went to work like a poison in his mind. It was easier to think of him as two people, and to mourn the kind one even as she had hated the greedy one. “If we’d only been a little quicker on the road…”
“Now, now.” He patted her shoulder. “Wasn’t meant to be unkind. You stopped him from robbing the next old man. Sorry you had to shoot him, mistress. Hard thing to have to do.”
“I hardly knew what I was doing…” she murmured, fallinginstinctively back into her protective shell of foolishness. “I saw that Bartholomew was dead and all I could think to do was grab Zale’s crossbow. Oh dear! I hope I didn’t kill him.”
“He’ll be dead either way,” said the constable. “You did a fine job, and don’t you feel guilty for doing what had to be done.” He gave Zale what he probably thought was a subtle look over Halla’s shoulder. Zale nodded to him, face grave, and then when the man turned away, the priest rolled their eyes at Halla.
And then there was only the sword.
CHAPTER 58
