The Time Roads

Síomón stopped abruptly. “What do you mean?”

“We’ve had another death, Mr. Madóc. A young woman named Maeve Ní Cadhla.”

The news struck Síomón like a physical blow. He’d talked to Maeve just yesterday afternoon. She had answered the last arguments from her adviser, and meant to start writing her thesis the following semester. It was to be a paper concerning a simpler proof for the prime number theorem.…

“When?” he whispered. “How?”

“Last night,” Ó Deághaidh said. “A groundskeeper found her body at dawn, near the commons.”

Síomón stared at Ó Deághaidh, still unable to comprehend the news. All around them, the autumn day continued, serene and lovely. A half-dozen balloons drifted across the skies, their motors silent at this distance. Blue messenger craft and grand air-yachts, heading across the Éireann Sea to the island of Albion—some to the kingdom of Alba in the north, or beyond to Denmark’s territories, others for the various districts of the Anglian Dependencies—Manx

or Wight or Cymru or to Anglia itself, who gave the region its name. Above them all, a single red balloon floated between the pale gray clouds.

“We’ve notified Lord Ó Cadhla about his daughter,” Ó Deághaidh continued in that soft strange tone. “And we are talking to certain people who might have useful information. However, I would appreciate your silence until we make our formal announcement of the crime.”

With an effort, Síomón recovered himself. “How do you know it’s the same murderer?”

“The evidence so far supports our theory.”

He could be speaking of mathematical theorems and their proofs, not of a young woman slaughtered by a madman. Dislike sparked inside Síomón, and he had to struggle to keep that reaction from his voice. “And you want it kept a secret. Why?”

“Several reasons, but the chief among them is that your provost pleaded strongly for discretion. He plans on making a general announcement tomorrow. You knew the young woman, did you not?”

“Of course I knew her!”

The words burst out of him, loud enough to startle a passerby. Síomón wiped his forehead and tried to calm himself. “Of course I knew her,” he repeated quietly.

A gifted young woman, who had discarded all the trappings of wealth and privilege when she entered the university, much to her family’s dismay. The family had become reconciled, then proud of her achievements. Síomón recalled how Maeve’s cheeks flushed with the passion of numbers when she argued a theory. It was hard to accept that she was dead.

A breeze ruffled the Blackwater’s surface, drawing silvery lines over the dark waters—waters that had cradled the murderer’s first victim. The season had been early spring, the soft twilight air filled with newly blooming flowers.

“Did you like her?” Ó Deághaidh asked.

Síomón thrust his hands into his pockets to still their trembling. “I—I respected her greatly, Commander Ó Deághaidh.”

“What about the others?”

“Are you asking if I liked them, or respected them?”

“Both. I’m sorry to disturb you with these questions, when you’ve surely answered them before.”

You know I have not, Síomón thought. When they interviewed him five months ago, the gardaí had merely requested an accounting of his activities for every night the murderer struck. No one had asked Síomón about personal matters, nor had they requested his opinion of his fellow students’ abilities. He suspected the provost had used his political influence to shield the students, and thus protected the university against further scandal.

But Ó Deághaidh was evidently waiting for some kind of response. “I knew them all,” Síomón said. “In some cases, I knew more than I liked. It’s a large university, but a small department—the graduate department, that is.”

Ó Deághaidh nodded. “The Queen’s Constabulary is much like that.”

Síomón’s pulse gave a sudden painful leap. The Queen’s Constabulary of Éire normally concerned itself with only royal affairs. But then he remembered Maeve’s family. Lord Ó Cadhla was a high-ranking minister in Éire’s government and adviser to the queen. It was his influence, no doubt, that had brought Commander Ó Deághaidh to Awveline City.

“You look unsettled, Mr. Madóc.”

Síomón ran his hand over his face. “I am more than unsettled. I am distressed. It’s a hard thing, to hear that a friend has died.”

And you gave me that news without warning. Then watched to see how I acted.

But he knew better than to say so to a stranger, much less a member of the Queen’s Constabulary.

Ó Deághaidh himself appeared unmoved by Síomón’s outburst. He motioned toward the path. “I understand your distress,” he said. “But come, let us keep walking.”