Chapter 122: WITNESS

DIANA’S POV

By first bell the next morning, the warehouse fire had become an investigation, and Alma had become one of its witnesses.

The flames were out, but the smell remained, along with the missing route copy, the prepared west exit, and Alma’s statement that she had seen a man in Valence household clothing shortly before the alarm.

Daric wanted her statement formally recorded before anyone showed her delegation lists, portraits, clothing, or anything else that might alter what she actually remembered.

Diana brought the Household Relief transport notes Alma had been carrying that evening, which gave her a legitimate reason to attend the formal interview in Government Terrace.

The room held only Alma, Diana, Daric, and a Blackharrow evidence clerk.

Daric looked toward Alma.

"Do you want Her Grace to remain?"

Alma glanced at Diana.

"Yes."

Daric nodded.

"Then she remains. She does not answer for you."

Diana understood.

Alma’s evidence belonged to Alma.

She took the chair while Daric opened the record.

"Start before the alarm."

"You already asked me."

"Informally."

"And now?"

"Now it goes into the official fire record."

Alma looked at the page in front of him differently after that.

Daric began.

"You left Household Relief?"

"Yes."

"What were you carrying?"

"Copied receiving notes from Her Grace’s office."

"Why?"

"The warehouse records clerk requested the annotated version after the wardstone problem."

"Who told you to deliver it?"

Alma indicated Diana.

"Her Grace."

Daric recorded the answer.

"Anyone with you?"

"Master Marlon’s junior clerk walked with me until the lower household stair. Then he went toward Treasury."

Daric checked with the clerk beside him.

"Confirmed?"

"Yes, Commander."

Good.

"What time?"

"Second evening bell had just finished."

"How do you know?"

"It rang while we crossed the upper corridor."

Specific enough to be useful without asking the memory to provide more than it contained.

Daric continued writing.

Alma watched his pen.

"You do not need to write every word."

"Yes, I do."

"Why?"

"So later you can accuse me of recording you incorrectly with evidence."

Alma gave him a look.

Daric continued.

"You reached the receiving court?"

"Yes."

"Was there smoke?"

"No."

"Had the alarm sounded?"

"No."

"Anyone at the front records desk?"

"No."

"What did you do?"

"I waited."

"How long?"

"I don’t know. Less than a minute."

Daric accepted the answer without pressing her for greater precision.

"What happened next?"

"A man came through the west staff passage."

Daric set down his pen.

"Toward you or away?"

"Toward the receiving court."

"What was he wearing?"

"Southern household clothing."

Daric kept his pen above the page.

"Describe what you saw. Not what you think it was."

Alma considered.

"Dark gray coat. Red braid at collar and cuff. No military insignia."

Daric recorded the description.

"Anything else you can support?"

"No."

"What did you see of his face?"

"Left side."

"Age?"

Alma considered the question.

"Older than Eren. Beyond that, I don’t know."

"Can you support anything narrower?"

"No."

Daric wrote exactly that.

"Hair?"

"Dark."

"Could you identify his face?"

Alma took longer with this answer.

"Maybe."

"Define maybe."

"If I saw the same side of his face in good light, I might recognize him. I would not swear to it from a formal identification line."

Daric recorded the limitation exactly.

POSSIBLE RECOGNITION. NO SUPPORTABLE FORMAL IDENTIFICATION.

Alma looked at what he had written.

Diana understood what Daric was doing.

He was preserving the point where Alma’s certainty ended rather than making her statement appear stronger than it was.

"What was the man doing?" he asked.

"Walking quickly."

"How quickly?"

"Like someone late."

"You said he slowed."

"When he saw me."

"Why do you think he slowed?"

Alma considered.

"I don’t know."

Daric wrote:

WITNESS OBSERVED SUBJECT SLOW. REASON UNKNOWN.

Alma stared at his pen.

"You are writing reasons I may be wrong."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because this is an investigation."

Diana looked at Alma.

In Valence, investigations had rarely felt like searches for truth. Too often, they had given powerful people a way to establish the explanation they already wanted and gather enough agreement around it.

Daric was deliberately putting uncertainty into the official record.

He continued.

"Did he speak?"

"No."

"Did you?"

"No."

"What made you remember him?"

"The passage."

"Explain."

"That corridor does not lead to guest rooms."

Daric asked, "Were delegation staff forbidden from using it?"

"No. They had limited service access. That is why I did not stop him."

The detail weakened her suspicion without making the memory itself less truthful.

"Anything in his hands?" Daric asked.

"No."

"Gloves?"

"One."

Daric looked up.

"One glove?"

"Right hand gloved. Left bare."

"Anything distinctive about the bare hand?"

"I did not see."

"Why remember one glove?"

"It looked strange."

Fair.

"What happened after he passed?"

"I went toward the records desk."

"Then?"

"I smelled lamp oil."

"When?"

"Before the alarm."

"How strong?"

"Enough that I noticed."

"Source?"

"I thought the warehouse lamps had been refilled."

"Did you see spilled oil?"

"No."

"Did you see the man carrying oil?"

"No."

"Can you connect the smell to him?"

"No."

Daric wrote:

WITNESS CANNOT CONNECT ODOR TO UNKNOWN MALE.

He finished the remaining questions about the west staff passage, the direction the man had come from, and the timing. Every answer stayed within what Alma could actually remember.

Then he slid the written statement toward her.

"Read it."

Alma stared at him.

"What?"

"Read it."

"I heard you writing it."

"That is a remarkable skill."

She glared at him.

"Check whether I recorded you correctly."

Alma took the page and began reading.

Partway through, her finger settled on one line.

"You wrote that I smelled lamp oil after the man passed."

"Yes."

"I smelled it after reaching the desk. I do not know whether the smell began before or after he passed."

Daric took the page, corrected the sentence, and returned it.

"Anything else?"

Alma read the rest before shaking her head.

"No."

"Sign."

She looked at the line waiting beneath the statement.

Diana knew why she hesitated.

In Valence, Alma had carried important papers for other people. She had delivered messages, protected secrets, and stood beside a princess whose existence the palace itself had learned to ignore.

This document asked for Alma’s own name because what Alma had seen mattered.

She signed.

Alma.

No ducal mark or royal authorization stood in for her. Her own name was enough for her own statement.

Daric waited for the ink to dry before taking the page.

"Until this is resolved, tell Command if you remember anything else before discussing it with anyone from the delegation."

Alma nodded.

"Even if it seems unimportant?"

"Especially then."

Daric placed her statement in the evidence folder with the statements from officers and clerks.

Diana noticed Alma watching where he put it.

Daric then looked toward the evidence clerk.

"Bring in the commissioner, treaty counsel, and the delegation livery clerk."

Several minutes later, the senior Valence commissioner entered with the Southern treaty lawyer and one household clerk carrying a narrow inventory ledger.

The lawyer’s attention went immediately to Alma.

"She is only the Duchess’s attendant."

Diana knew that kind of dismissal too well.

A servant could enter a room, and important people would decide how much of her mattered before she said anything.

Daric looked at the lawyer.

"Were you in the west staff passage before the fire?"

The man frowned.

"No."

"Then her recollection is currently more useful than yours."

Diana lowered her eyes to hide her satisfaction.

Daric tapped the signed statement.

"Her account is already recorded. You are here because she described clothing consistent with Valence household livery, and I need your records."

He read from Alma’s statement.

"Dark gray coat. Red braid at collar and cuff. No military insignia."

The livery clerk gave a reluctant nod.

"That is delegation household livery."

Daric looked toward him.

"Could someone outside the delegation possess one?"

"Not through ordinary issue."

The Southern lawyer said, "That does not mean the man belonged to Valence."

"I know."

Daric returned to the clerk.

"Spare clothing?"

The man opened the inventory.

"We arrived with six spare household coats registered for support-staff replacement."

"How many remain?"

The clerk checked the ledger, then checked it again.

"Five."

One coat was missing.

The Southern lawyer spoke immediately.

"A missing coat does not prove anything."

"I know," Daric said.

The objection went no further.

He turned toward the livery clerk.

"When was the spare last accounted for?"

The clerk checked his paper.

"Two days before the fire."

"Who could access the stores?"

"Delegation household officers. Laundry staff. Room stewards."

"Names."

The man provided them, and Daric recorded each one.

Diana understood what the missing coat changed about Alma’s statement.

Seeing Southern clothing could no longer establish that the man himself belonged to the delegation. Someone outside it could have taken the coat.

One possible conclusion had weakened while another possibility opened.

The clothing itself might have been chosen deliberately.

Daric asked, "Any missing gloves?"

The livery clerk frowned.

"Nothing recorded."

"Check."

The man left.

The Southern commissioner looked toward Alma.

"This makes her observation less useful."

Daric looked at him before answering.

"No. It changes what her observation supports."

Exactly.

Alma had seen a man wearing clothing consistent with Valence household livery.

She had never established that he belonged to Valence.

The distinction had already been preserved in the record before anyone knew a coat was missing. The new inventory information changed what the observation might mean without changing what Alma had actually seen.

A knock interrupted them.

One of Blackharrow’s evidence clerks entered carrying another ledger.

"Commander."

Daric looked up.

"The missing household coat."

The Valence commissioner straightened.

"Found?"

"No. But we know it was already missing the morning before the fire."

The clerk handed Daric a laundry register.

"Certain?" Daric asked.

"A laundry worker found the empty hanger and assumed someone had taken the spare without updating the ledger."

Diana looked at Alma.

The timing narrowed what they could safely say about the coat.

The man Alma had seen was wearing clothing that had already disappeared before the warehouse burned.

Whoever had taken it had done so at least a day before the fire.