NaNoWriMo Preview: Blacksmith's Hands

The captain cleared his throat in a warning gesture, taking another step toward the gnome as A.J. finished approaching the portrait on the wall.  He brushed his finger along the frame again, showing the advancing dwarf his bare fingertip.  “Nothing!” he exclaimed.  “Positively extraordinary.  The woman deserves a medal, if maids were given such things.”  He paused a moment later, glancing up at Nathaniel.  “Pardon, no offense intended.”

“Oh, no,” Nathaniel stammered, waving a hand dismissively at the mention.  “None taken.”

“Splendid,” A.J. lilted, turning back to the portrait and again working to mock its pose.  “So, why was the councilwoman murdered?”

“Perhaps we should finish collecting the facts before we start pinning down motive,” Dede offered, again stepping vaguely into the captain’s path to slow his advance.  “Just to be sure we haven’t missed anything.”

A.J. ignored her, still shifting his pose to match the painted dwarf.  The captain stopped short, too puzzled by the gnome’s behavior and too daunted by his partner’s efforts to continue on his intended course.  “What are you doing?” he demanded, his face again burning a ripe crimson.

“His hands,” A.J. said, turning his own over in front of him.  “Don’t you see?”

Unable to fight their curiosity, the two dwarves took another step closer to the painting and stared at the man depicted there.  His hands were the heavy make of most dwarves his age, with fat, round fingers that bore clear signs of the strength they contained.  Nothing seemed unusual in their shape save for the one missing digit on his left hand, long since healed over in his younger days.

What stood out more sharply was the strange, mottled color that that tainted his palms, largely obscured by the position of his hands.  The one resting on his forward knee showed few signs of it, though the one further back, set atop an inornate walking cane, made it clear that it was not just some error in the mixing of colors on the part of the artist.

“Ah,” Nathaniel said over their heads, craning about to peer at the same, “blacksmith’s hands.”

“Silversmith, I would guess,” A.J. corrected, pointing to the various pieces of silver in the background of the piece, as well as dotted about his person.  “But, yes.  Her father was a silversmith.  Not a well-known fact, of course, else she wouldn’t have been nearly so influential in the council, least of all when pushing a measure which would have given greater power to the purveyors of precious ore as the gem trade dwindled under its new restrictions.”

“That’s not what the proposal was about!” Dede snapped, causing even the captain to start at the sudden shift in tone.  “Capping the gem trade was meant to keep Stenwahl’s working class from starving!  It’s not some sort of plot just to create a new monopoly.”

“Really?” A.J. asked, seemingly more puzzled by Dede’s insistence than with the content of her objections.  “Perhaps you’re right,” he admitted, crossing the room to the bookshelf on the opposite wall and plucking the treatise from its resting place.  “She was well read, not just in foreign affairs but in ‘the onus of government,’” he explained, quoting the work in hand.  “Perhaps being the daughter of a smithy who would now be on the brink of poverty despite once being one of Stenwahl’s wealthiest trades was more than enough to make a noblewoman deeply sympathetic to the notions of the poor.”

“How do you know he was her father?” the captain asked, now earnestly curious at the gnome’s quick conjectures.

“It’s obvious,” A.J. replied, pointing at Nathaniel.  The latter looked thoroughly confused at the seeming accusation.  “Ms. Harrows, as Mr. Foster keenly pointed out earlier, never married and has no siblings--”

“Lieutenant Foster,” Dede corrected, glancing up at the man in question.

“--which rules out husbands or brothers,” A.J. continued uninterrupted, “and if she had had any children, that man is much too old to be one of them.”

“So an ancestor, perhaps,” the captain intoned, stroking the front of his beard.  “Someone far enough back in her line not to be remembered.”

“No,” A.J. said with a quick shake of his head, “not possible.”

The captain stiffened somewhat, wondering if the gnome were merely being contrary for the sack of getting his gander up again.  His amusement at the captain’s earlier irritation had been obvious.  “Why not?” the dwarf asked, forcing himself to remain calm and deny the insolent inspector his entertainment.

“The ring,” A.J. answered, walking back to the painting.  To the captain’s surprise, he didn’t seem to be reveling in their confusion anymore.  On the contrary, it only seemed to irritate him, like a schoolmarm coaching her most dimwitted students.  His eyes going to the ring in question, the captain soon saw what had made the gnome so certain.  “The Moltair Sapphire,” he said distantly, staring at the gemstone resting on the dwarf’s left hand.

“The Moltair Signature Cut,” A.J. corrected, pointing at it for the remaining two pairs of eyes in the room, “developed only in the last twenty years, which, given the relative age of the man depicted, rules out anyone more than two generations old, and makes even the possibility that this could be her grandfather remote at best.  More than likely, it is her father.  How she kept his line of work a secret from the council’s many prying eyes is beyond me, but I must say, well done.”

“And what does that tell us about our the councilwoman’s murder?” the captain asked eagerly.

“Oh, absolutely nothing,” A.J. answered brightly, snapping the treatise shut not far from the captain’s face.  “But it is fascinating, isn’t it?”