“Good to see you can talk, Dellwood.”
“I believe the General brought you on board, sir. You’re one of the household now.”
I liked that attitude. Most people I meet either stay clammed or tell lies. “I’d like to talk to you some more when you get the time.”
“Yes sir.” He pushed through the General’s door.
I found my way to the fountain. Wasn’t that hard. But I’d become one of the company scouts after Sexton disappeared. I was a highly trained finder of the way. Peters often reminded me how much the Crown had invested in me.
I’d left my bag leaning against the fountain for lack of desire to lug it around before I decided if I was hired. It had seemed safe enough, still as the place was. I mean, I’d visited livelier ruins.
Someone was digging through it when I reached that temple to overstated militarism.
She had her back to me and a mighty fine backside it was. She was tall and slim and brunette. She wore a simple tan shift in imitation peasant style. It probably set somebody back more money than a peasant saw in five years. Her behind wiggled deliciously as she dug. It looked like she’d only gotten started.
I moved out on scout’s tippytoes, stopped four feet behind her, gave her fanny an approving nod, said, “Find anything interesting?”
She whirled.
I started. The face was the same as the one I’d seen earlier but this time it wasn’t timid at all. This face had more lines in it. It was more worldly. That other face had had the placidity, behind timidity, that you see in nuns.
Her eyes flashed. “Who are you?” she demanded, unrepentant. I like my ladies unrepentant about some things, but not about snooping in my stuff.
“Sexton. Who are you? Why are you going through my stuff?”
“How come you’re carrying a portable arsenal?”
“I need it in my work. I answered a couple. Your turn.”
She looked me up and down, raised an eyebrow, looked like she didn’t know if she approved or not. Wound me to the core! Then she snorted and walked away. I’m not the handsomest guy in town but the lovelies don’t usually respond that way. Had to be part of a plan.
I watched her go. She moved well. She exaggerated it a little, knowing she had an audience. She disappeared into the shadows under the west balcony.
“Going to be some strange ones here,” I muttered. I checked my bag. She’d stirred it up but nothing was missing. I’d arrived in time to keep her out of the little padded box with the bottles inside. I double-checked, though, opening it.
There were three bottles, royal blue, emerald green, ruby red. Each weighed about two ounces. They were plunder from a past case. Their contents had been whipped up by a sorcerer. They could get real handy in tight situations. I hoped I didn’t have to use them. I’d brought along more tight-situation stuff than clothing. Clothing washes.
I prowled the hall while I waited for Dellwood. That was like visiting a museum alone. None of the stuff there meant anything to me. Richly storied, all of it, no doubt, but I’ve never been a guy to get excited about history for its own sake.
Dellwood took his time. After half an hour I started eyeballing an old bugle, wondering what would happen if I gave it a couple of toots. Then I spotted the blonde again, watching me from about as far away as she could get and still be in that hall with me. I waved. I’m a friendly kind of guy. She ducked out of sight. A mouse, this one. Dellwood finally showed. I asked, “The General all right?”
“He’s resting, sir. He’ll be fine.” He didn’t sound convinced. “Sergeant Peters will handle the requests you made.” Now he sounded puzzled. “I’m curious, sir. What are you doing here?”
“The General sent for me.”
He looked at me a moment, said, “If you’ll come with me, I’ll show you your quarters.” After we’d climbed to the fourth floor east wing and he had me puffing again, he tried another tack. “Will you be staying long?”
“I don’t know.” I hoped not. The place was getting to me already. It was too much a tomb. In the other wing the master was dying and the place seemed to be dying with him. As Dellwood opened a door, I asked, “What will you do after the General passes on?”
“I haven’t given that much thought, sir. I don’t expect him to go soon. He’ll beat this. His ancestors all lived into their eighties and nineties.”
Whistling in the dark. He had no future he could see. The world didn’t have much room for lifers with their best years used up.
Which made me wonder again why anyone in that house would want Stantnor to check out early. Black Pete’s suspicions were improbable, logically.
But logic doesn’t usually come into play when people start thinking about killing other people.
I hadn’t looked at the thing yet. I’d keep an open mind till I’d done some poking and prying and just plain listening.
“What’s the word on meals, Dellwood? I’m not equipped for formal dining.”
“We haven’t dressed since the General took ill, sir. Breakfast is at six, lunch at eleven, in the kitchen. Supper is at five in the dining room, but informally. Guests and staff sit down together, if that presents any problems.”
“Not to me. I’m an egalitarian kind of guy. I think I’m just as good as you are. I missed lunch, eh?” I wasn’t going to be happy here if I had to conform to the native schedule. I see six in the morning only when I haven’t gotten to bed yet. The trouble with morning is that it comes so damned early in the morning.
“I’m sure something can be arranged, this once. I’ll tell Cook we have a newly arrived guest.”
“Thanks. I’ll take a minute to settle in, then get down there.”
“Very well, sir. If anything is not satisfactory, let me know. I’ll see that any problems are corrected.”
He would, too. “Sure. Thanks.” I watched him step out and close the door.
4
I could not imagine things going awry, considering some scenes I’ve endured. Dellwood had installed me in a suite bigger than the ground floor of my house. The room where I stood boasted rosewood wainscotting, mahogany ceiling beams, a wall of bookshelves loaded down, and furniture for entertaining a platoon. A dining table with seats for four. A writing table. Various chairs. Leaded and plain glass windows unfortunately facing north. A carpet some old lady had spent the last twenty years of her life weaving, maybe three hundred years ago. Lamps enough to do my whole house. A chandelier overhead loaded with a gaggle of candles, unlighted at the moment.
This was how the other half lived.
Two doors opened off the big room. I made a guess and pushed through one. What a genius. Hit the bedroom first time.
It was of a piece with the rest. I’d never met a bed so big and soft.
I looked around for hiding places, squirreled some of my equipment good, some so it could be found easily and the rest maybe overlooked. I kept the most important stuff on my person. I figured I’d better hit the kitchen while the staff were still understanding. After I stoked the bodily fires I could wander around like an old ghost.
In better times the kitchen probably boasted a staff of a dozen, with full-time specialists like bakers and pastry cooks. When I dropped in, there was only one person present, an ancient breed woman whose non-human half appeared to be troll. Wrinkled, shrunken, stooped, she was still a foot taller than me and a hundred pounds heavier. Even at her age she could probably break me over her knee—if I stood still and let her lay hands on me.
“You the new one?” she growled when I walked in.
“That’s me. Name’s Sexton. Mike Sexton.”
“Name’s mud you don’t show on time after this, young’un. Sit.” She pointed. I didn’t argue. I sat at a table three-quarters buried in used utensils and stoneware. Plunk! She slammed something down in front of me.
“You served with the General, too?”
“Smartass, eh? You want to eat? Eat. Don’t try to be a comedian.”
“Right. Just making c
onversation.” I looked at my plate. All kinds of chunks of something I didn’t recognize mixed up in slimy sauce, piled on rice. I approached it with the trepidation I usually reserve for the stuff they serve at my friend Morley’s place, the city’s only vegetarian restaurant open to a mixed clientele.
“If I want conversation, I’ll ask for it. Look around here. It look like I got time to waste jacking my jaw? Been trying to carry it on my own since they threw Candy out on his ass. I keep telling the old skinflint, I need another pair of hands. Think he’ll listen? Hell, no! All he sees is he’s saving a couple marks a week.”
I took a bite here, a bite there. There seemed to be mussels and mushrooms and a couple things I couldn’t identify, and all damned good. “This is excellent,” I said.
“Where you been eating? It’s slop. I got no helper, I don’t got time to fix anything right.” She started tossing pots at a sink, sending sprays of water flying. “Barely got time to get ready for the next feeding. These hogs, you think they know the difference? Feed them hot sawdust mush, they wouldn’t know it.”
Maybe not. But I’d had old Dean cooking for me for a while and I knew good food when I bit it. “How many do you have to take care of?”
“Eighteen. Counting myself. Bloody army. What do you care, Mr. Nineteen and straw that broke the camel’s back?”
“That many? The place is like a haunted house. I’ve seen the General, Dellwood, and you, and some old boy who was stoking the fireplace in the General’s study.”
“Kaid.”
“And two women. Where are the rest? On maneuvers?”
“Wise ass, eh? Where did you see two women? That ass Harcourt sneaking one of his floozies in here again? Hell. I hope he is. I just hope he is. I’ll have the old man put him on KP for a year. Get this cesspool cleaned out. What the hell you doing here, anyway? We ain’t had nobody new here for two years. No honest-to-goodness guests in a year and a half, just in and outs from uptown, their noses in the air like they don’t squat to shit like everybody else.”
Whew! “To tell the truth, Miss . . . ?” She didn’t take the hook. “To tell the truth, I’m not quite sure. The General sent for me. Said he wanted to hire me. But he had some kind of attack before . . . ”
She melted. The vinegar drained out in two seconds. “How bad is it? Maybe I’d better go see.”
“Dellwood’s taken care of it. Says he just needs to rest. He got himself overwrought. This fellow Harcourt. He has a habit of bringing girlfriends home?”
“Not since a couple years back. What the hell you asking all the questions for? Ain’t none of your damned business what we do or who we do it with.”
She had a thought. She stopped dead still, stepped away from the sink, turned, laid a first-class glower on me. “Or is it your business?”
I didn’t say. I tried to slide around it by offering her my empty plate. “Wouldn’t be a little more of that, would there? Just to fill a couple empty spots?”
“It is your business. The old man has another fantasy. Thinks somebody’s out to get him. Or somebody’s robbing him.” She shook her head. “You’re wasting your time. Or maybe not. Long as he’s paying you, it don’t matter if you find something, does it? Hell. Probably better if you don’t. You can rob him yourself, taking money for nothing. Till the fantasy wears off.”
I was confused, but covered it. “Somebody’s been robbing the General?”
“Nobody’s robbing him. The old boy ain’t got a pot to pee in, not counting this damned stone barn. And it’s too damned big to carry off. Anyway, if somebody was robbing him I wouldn’t tell you word one. Not no outsider. I don’t never say nothing to no outsiders. They’re all a bunch of con artists.”
“Commendable attitude.” I wiggled my plate suggestively.
“I got my hands in dishwater up to my elbows and you don’t look like you got no broken legs. Get it yourself.”
“Be happy to if I knew where.”
She made an exasperated noise, made allowance for the fact that I was new. “On the damned stove. Rice in the steel pot, stew in the iron kettle. I worry about the old boy. These fancies . . . More and more all the time. Must be the sickness. Touching him. Though he always did think somebody was trying to do him out of something.”
Wouldn’t say a word to an outsider. I was proud of her. “It isn’t possible somebody might actually be robbing him? Like they say, even paranoids get persecuted.”
“Who? You tell me that, Mr. Smartass Snooper. Ain’t nobody in this whole damned place wouldn’t wrestle thunder-lizards for him. Half of them would take the disease for him if they could.”
I didn’t make the point, but people work kinky deals with their consciences. I had no trouble imagining a man willing to die for the General being equally willing to steal from him. The very willingness to serve could set off a chain of justifications making theft sound completely reasonable.
She’d figured me out in fifteen minutes. How long would it be before word spread? “You ever have a problem with pixies or brownies?” The countryside suffered periodic infestations, like termites or mice. The little people are fond of baubles and have no respect for property.
“We had any around here, I’d put them to work.”
I figured she would. “Dellwood hinted that the General has a prejudice against doctors. In his condition I’d think he’d be ready to try anything.”
“You don’t know that boy. He’s got a stubborn streak a yard wide. He by damned made up his mind when the missus died, he wasn’t never going to trust no quack again. And he stuck.”
“Uhm?”
She wouldn’t talk to no outsider. Not her, no siree! “See, he loved that girl, Miss Tiffany. Such a lovely child she was. Broke all our hearts when it happened. They laughed at him, he was so much older than her. But he was her heart’s slave, him that never loved a thing before. Then Miss Jennifer came. She was in labor so long. He couldn’t stand to see her in pain. He brought in doctors from the city. After Miss Jennifer finally came, one damned fool gave Miss Tiffany a damned anticoagulant infusion. Thought he was giving her a sleeping potion.”
A big mistake and an especially stupid one, sounded like. “She bled to death?”
“She did. Might have anyway. She was a frail, pale thing, but you couldn’t never convince him.”
Mistakes that cost lives aren’t easy to understand or forgive, but they happen. Despite what they want us mortals to believe, doctors are human. And where there are human beings, there’s human error. It’s inevitable.
When doctors make mistakes, people hurt.
Easy for me to be understanding. I hadn’t known and loved the General’s wife.
“Changed his whole life, that did. Went off and spent the rest of it in the Cantard, taking out his grief on the Venageti.” And when generals make mistakes, lots of people hurt. “You going to hang out here all day, youngster, you better roll up your sleeves and get washing. Round here we don’t got no place for drones.”
I was tempted. She had plenty to say. Still . . .
“Maybe later. If it looks like I’m wasting my time, I might as well wash dishes.”
She snorted. “Thought that would get rid of you. Never knowed a man yet with balls enough to wade into a mountain of dirty dishes of his own free will.”
“The lunch was great. Thank you, Miss . . . ?”
Didn’t work this time, either.
5
That fountain in the great hall was a good hub from which to launch exploratory forays. I perched on the surround, digesting Cook’s remarks. I had a premonition. I would get intimate with dishwater before I exhausted that vein of stubborn silence.
I had that creepy feeling you get when you sense somebody watching you. I looked around casually.
There she was. The blonde again, drifting in the shadows, bold enough now to be on the same floor with me. I pretended not to notice. I gave it a minute, got up, stretched. She ducked out of sight. I moved her way pretending I had no id
ea she was there.
She lit out like a scared pheasant. I bolted after her. “Jennifer!”
I ducked between pillars . . . Where did she go? I didn’t see anywhere she could run. But she wasn’t there.
Spooky!
‘”Hey! Mike. What are you doing?”
I jumped about five feet. “Peters. Don’t sneak up like that. This place has got me believing in spooks already. Where the hell is everybody?”
Peters looked puzzled. “Everybody? Working.”
That made sense. You could lose a lot more than eighteen people in that barn and on those grounds. “You’d think I’d run into somebody once in a while.”
“It does get lonely at times.” He smiled. That made two times in two days. A record. “Thought you might want a tour.”
“I can find my way. I was a scout in the Marines, you know.”
His smile vanished. He looked at me like the old Black Pete. Like I wasn’t bright enough to tie my own shoes. He jerked his head toward the back of the hall, the north end, which was a wall of leaded glass with fifty furious combats going. There was a door back there.
Hey. Mom Garrett didn’t raise many idiots. I got it. “I could use a look at the grounds, though, and somebody to tell me what I’m seeing.”
He relaxed some, did a slick about-face and marched. I hup-two-threed behind him. I didn’t feel a bit of nostalgia for the bad old days.
Peters didn’t say anything till we were out of earshot of the house, clear of the formal garden behind it, away from cover where eavesdroppers might lurk. “You saw the old man. What do you think?”
“He’s in bad shape.”
“You know any poisons that could do that to him?”
I gave it an honest think. “No. But I’m no expert. I know a guy who is. But he’d have to see the General.” Morley Dotes knows whatever there is to know about doing in your fellow man. Or elf, him being a breed with more dark-elfin than human blood.