Chronicle of the solution: The Winter Intrigue
Forged decree Tier I
The file on the forged decree is closed; what remains is the reasoning, which deserves keeping rather more than the deed.
The dossier as it reached the desk
A seal that never lies has been placed, this once, in the service of a lie. Whoever drew it up knew the Chancellery's ways by heart — and that is precisely what betrays them. Suspicion has fallen on Ilinca the Baker, Sava the Bell-Ringer and Brother Anselm — and until the proof is plain, none of these names leaves the room. Rumor walks the deed through every corner: the old dungeon, the throne room and the north wall. Study the testimonies at your leisure, fit them into the grid, and pronounce your verdict without haste.
The Chancellery had to weigh Ilinca the Baker, Sava the Bell-Ringer and Brother Anselm. All of them had opportunity, and for that very reason opportunity was worth nothing.
The suspects
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Ilinca the Baker
She weighs flour to the gram and people at a glance. No one stays in her debt twice.
1.62 m tall · brown eyes · chestnut hair · right-handed
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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
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Brother Anselm
He has copied manuscripts for forty years. He knows what every one of them says - including the forbidden ones.
1.75 m tall · brown eyes · greying hair · right-handed
Locations
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The old dungeon
Cells abandoned since the new dungeon was built. "Abandoned" is one way of putting it.
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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 north wall
The stretch of wall the patrol skirts when the wind blows. Everyone knows that.
What the Chancellery had to hand
This much was worked with, no more and no less. Minimality is not a figure of speech: each row was taken out in turn, at trial, and without it the solution ceased to be unique.
- The traces left at the scene show it plainly: the culprit was at the old dungeon.
- The gate guard swears: the tallest suspect was at the throne room.
- Two witnesses, upon their crest: Brother Anselm never set foot in the place where the cells only seem abandoned.
Read the unravelling, step by step — the culprit's name is spoken from here on
How it was unravelled
It began with certainties, however small. A small certainty closes an entire row, and closed rows add up quickly.
The scouts brought their share as well: “The traces left at the scene show it plainly: the culprit was at the old dungeon”. Without uttering a single name, this line divided the suspects into two camps: those it fitted and those it did not.
The clerk read the next line aloud: “The gate guard swears: the tallest suspect was at the throne room”. 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: “Two witnesses, upon their crest: Brother Anselm never set foot in the place where the cells only seem abandoned”. A well-proved “no” is worth, in an investigation, ten suspicions.
The culprit's name
The Chancellery pronounced its verdict without hesitation: the culprit is Ilinca the Baker. When the deed took place, Ilinca the Baker was at the old dungeon. 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 throne room; Brother Anselm was at the north wall. Every one of these rows was necessary: take out a single one and the verdict can no longer be demonstrated.
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
Nothing in this chronicle is invented: the text rises out of the dossier's logic, and the dossier passed through the solver before publication, so that its solution is provably unique. behind the scenes at the Chancellery.