Chronicle of the solution: The Feud of the Tourney
Poisoning Tier III
The poison has found the hand that poured it, and the Chancellery sets down here, for the archive, the whole course of the investigation.
The dossier as it reached the desk
Something more bitter than gall found its way to the court's table today: poison. The dose was measured with care — enough not to look like chance, too little to go unpunished. On the Chancellery's list stand Duchess Amara de Corvin, Nichifor the Spy, Chamberlain Iorgu, Elisei the Stargazer and Sword-Bearer Dragos; one of these names covers a lie. The places named in the testimonies — the hunting lodge, the merchant's house, the throne room, the customs cellar and the watchtower — each await their turn under scrutiny. A sharp eye is not enough here — it takes an archivist's patience: fit everything together, then pronounce your verdict.
The clerk entered Duchess Amara de Corvin, Nichifor the Spy, Chamberlain Iorgu, Elisei the Stargazer and Sword-Bearer Dragos in the register — that, and not one name more, until the verdict.
The suspects
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Duchess Amara de Corvin
Widowed three times, heir on each occasion. Her smile has buried more nobles than the plague.
1.68 m tall · dark eyes · black hair · right-handed
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Nichifor the Spy
Officially, he does not exist. Unofficially, he was seen in three places at once - which is, of course, impossible.
1.74 m tall · dark eyes · brown hair · left-handed
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Chamberlain Iorgu
He arranges the king's audiences and, for a small courtesy, the order in which petitions are read.
1.77 m tall · grey eyes · brown hair · right-handed
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Elisei the Stargazer
He reads the future in the stars and the past in men's debts. The second method fails less often.
1.67 m tall · blue eyes · greying hair · right-handed
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Sword-Bearer Dragos
He bears the king's ceremonial sword. At the tourney he has never lost; at dice, always.
1.86 m tall · brown eyes · chestnut hair · right-handed
Locations
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The hunting lodge
The royal cabin in the heart of the forest. Far from the eyes of the court - which is exactly what suits some.
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The merchant's house
Carpets brought from overseas and a desk with more secret drawers than drawers.
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The throne room
Gold, purple, and the most closely watched place in the kingdom. In theory.
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The customs cellar
Sealed crates, thick ledgers, and air that smells of undeclared goods.
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The watchtower
The highest point of the fortress. From here you see everything - and from below, everyone sees who climbs up.
Objects
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The stained parchment
A half-burned document with a stain that might be wine. Or not.
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The guild seal
The stamp that turns any goods into goods "of certified quality." Worth a mine of gold.
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The map of the realm
The kingdom's borders, drawn with a fresh correction where there should be none.
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The ceremonial crown
The "wearable" copy of the true crown. At least, that was the idea.
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The broken lantern
The glass cracked, the wick burned to the end. Someone needed a lot of light, fast.
Motives
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Revenge
O datorie de sânge pe care numai fapta o mai șterge.
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The inheritance
O avere așteptată, pe care numai o moarte o desparte de mână.
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Blackmail
Un secret ținut ca funia la gât, strâns exact cât trebuie.
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Jealousy
Otrava care mistuie pe cel ce râvnește ce nu-i al lui.
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Fear of exposure
Groaza de a fi dat în vileag, care împinge la orice.
The testimonies on file
The list below is complete and pared to the bone. The Chancellery keeps no useless rows on file: each cuts something no other cuts.
- The gate guard swears: the suspect with black hair handled the map of the realm.
- An honest-faced witness saw it plainly: the stained parchment and blackmail go together.
- A maid whispered it at confession: the broken lantern and revenge go together.
- Sword-Bearer Dragos declares under oath: "I was in the place far from the eyes of the court".
- Elisei the Stargazer declares under oath: "I handled the guild seal".
- The gate guard swears: the watchtower and blackmail go together.
- Every scout reports the same about the culprit: the culprit was driven by the inheritance.
- An honest-faced witness saw it plainly: the merchant's house and the inheritance go together.
- The tracks in the dust do not lie: the throne room and jealousy go together.
- An honest-faced witness saw it plainly: Nichifor the Spy was driven by jealousy.
- The tracks in the dust do not lie: the merchant's house and the map of the realm go together.
Open the full reasoning — warning, the culprit is named beyond this point
How it was unravelled
The investigation ran contrary to suspicion: it did not ask who could have, it cut away, row by row, whoever could not.
A detail overlooked at the start came back into the file: “The gate guard swears: the suspect with black hair handled the map of the realm”. One more certainty means, in a deduction grid, a whole fistful of impossibilities — and so it proved here.
Then this finding entered the file: “An honest-faced witness saw it plainly: the stained parchment and blackmail go together”. The tick goes down without hesitation, and with it fall all the other cells on that row and that column.
This particular came to light as well: “A maid whispered it at confession: the broken lantern and revenge go together”. Once the tick was placed, the investigation had nothing left to argue on that row and moved on.
The file thickened quickly, and every fresh page cut something away: “Sword-Bearer Dragos declares under oath: "I was in the place far from the eyes of the court"”; “Elisei the Stargazer declares under oath: "I handled the guild seal"”; “The gate guard swears: the watchtower and blackmail go together”; “Every scout reports the same about the culprit: the culprit was driven by the inheritance”; “An honest-faced witness saw it plainly: the merchant's house and the inheritance go together”; “The tracks in the dust do not lie: the throne room and jealousy go together”. The grid emptied before one's eyes, and what stayed in it could no longer be doubted.
This too was added to the file: “An honest-faced witness saw it plainly: Nichifor the Spy was driven by jealousy”. From then on that cell could no longer be disputed, and the dispute moved one row down.
A report from the watch brought clarity: “The tracks in the dust do not lie: the merchant's house and the map of the realm go together”. A certain match thus enters the grid, and its row and column empty at once of every other possibility.
The lie
The Supreme Law worked here the other way about, and that is exactly why it is worth telling. All 2 testimonies on file withstood checking. Since only the culprit lies, the fact that not one of those who spoke contradicted the grid took them out of the circle one by one — and the guilt was left with the one who chose to stay silent. Silence is no proof in itself, but here it was the only place the grid still left free.
The Chancellery's verdict
The Chancellery pronounced its verdict without hesitation: the culprit is Duchess Amara de Corvin. The row in the grid says it all: Duchess Amara de Corvin was at the merchant's house, handled the map of the realm and was driven by the inheritance. Tier III is no empty word: without the method of hypotheses, this grid would not have closed.
What became of the others
The others found their acquittal in the grid as well: Nichifor the Spy was at the throne room, handled the ceremonial crown and was driven by jealousy; Chamberlain Iorgu was at the watchtower, handled the stained parchment and was driven by blackmail; Elisei the Stargazer was at the customs cellar, handled the guild seal and was driven by fear of exposure; Sword-Bearer Dragos was at the hunting lodge, handled the broken lantern and was driven by revenge. It is these acquittals that made the verdict possible: without them, room for doubt would have remained.
The truth did not surface in a flash of insight but out of a run of small cuts, every one of them checkable.
Play this dossier All mysteries
Everything you read above rests on the dossier itself. The Chancellery's solver checked, at publication, that the given clues yield exactly one solution — no more, and not none. behind the scenes at the Chancellery.