Chronicle of the solution: The Shadow of the Tourney
Forged decree Tier I
The forgery has found its maker. This chronicle shows how one got from a doubtful parchment to a certain name.
The dossier, on a first reading
A parchment full of orders no one ever gave is circulating through Realm of the Crown, and the harm has only begun. The forgery is skilled: only an eye trained on the archives found its flaw. Suspicion has fallen on Sava the Bell-Ringer, Chancellor Veniamin and Balasa the Seamstress — and until the proof is plain, none of these names leaves the room. The places named in the testimonies — the salt market, the merchant's house and the great stable — each await their turn under scrutiny. Take up the quill, follow the thread of the clues, and set your seal upon the verdict.
Called to judgement were Sava the Bell-Ringer, Chancellor Veniamin and Balasa the Seamstress. Each had somewhere to begin a story; one alone had reason to change it.
The suspects
-
Sava the Bell-Ringer
He has rung the cathedral bells on the hour for thirty years. He sees the whole city from above and forgives nothing he sees.
1.83 m tall · brown eyes · greying hair · right-handed
-
Chancellor Veniamin
Every charter of the kingdom passes through his hands. A comma he once moved started a war.
1.64 m tall · grey eyes · no hair · left-handed
-
Balasa the Seamstress
She sews the garments of all the nobility and knows everyone's measurements - including those that do not show.
1.59 m tall · blue eyes · red hair · left-handed
Locations
-
The salt market
Here anything is bargained for, from salt to silences. The price of silence keeps rising.
-
The merchant's house
Carpets brought from overseas and a desk with more secret drawers than drawers.
-
The great stable
It smells of hay and hurried departures. Horses give no testimony.
The evidence gathered 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.
- In the Chancellery's ledger it stands in black and white: the suspect with grey eyes was at the great stable.
- An unsigned note, slipped under the door: "the culprit was at the merchant's house".
- The gate guard swears: the right-handed suspect was in the place where anything is bargained for.
Break the seal: the Chancellery's reasoning — warning: past this line, the mystery ends
How it was unravelled
No suspicion weighed here. Only the grid weighed: every certain match sweeps a whole row and a whole column, and at the end one arrangement alone remains possible.
The Chancellery asked for one more check, and received it: “In the Chancellery's ledger it stands in black and white: the suspect with grey eyes was at the great stable”. The match was nailed down, and the rest of the row was left clean, like a page wiped with a sponge.
Then this finding entered the file: “An unsigned note, slipped under the door: "the culprit was at the merchant's house"”. Without uttering a single name, this line divided the suspects into two camps: those it fitted and those it did not.
This page was stitched into the file too: “The gate guard swears: the right-handed suspect was in the place where anything is bargained for”. The cell filled, and around it a space opened: that is what a certain match does to a grid.
The seal on the file
The seal fell on a single name: Balasa the Seamstress. At the hour in question, Balasa the Seamstress was at the merchant's house. The verdict stands on its own, out of the findings above.
The acquittal of the rest
The remaining suspects received their release from the grid too: Sava the Bell-Ringer was at the salt market; Chancellor Veniamin was at the great stable. It is these acquittals that made the verdict possible: without them, room for doubt would have remained.
It was not cleverness that unravelled the thread, but order. Order can be learned, and that is exactly why the chronicle is written.
Play this dossier All mysteries
The chronicles are written by the Enigmerra Chancellery out of the dossier's own logic: every step above is verified by the solver which proved, at publication, that the dossier has a unique solution. behind the scenes at the Chancellery.