Sneaking around House Werewilk turned out to be so easy Gertriss need not have bothered with soft-soled shoes.
As I’d hoped, the staff were in or around the kitchen or the dining room preparing a feast fit for a finder. That left only the resident artists underfoot, and the party we’d interrupted when we arrived was back on, musicians and dancers and all, at the very same spot at the foot of the grand old staircase.
I waved off half a dozen offers of beer and two invitations to dance from girls young enough to be my daughters but too good-looking to have ever branched off my family tree. Gertriss even got an offer, which she returned with a look that she probably last used on recalcitrant swine. It certainly sent at least one tipsy young painter backpedaling toward safety.
“I think that lot could use a taste of honest work.” The euphoria left by her first hot bath was quickly fading.
I just nodded. Part of me agreed. Part of me was howling about the injustice of it all-at their age, I’d been slogging it out in the West, fighting Trolls or hunger or the ever-present cold.
But part of me was glad to see kids being kids.
I made a finger to lips motion for silence, and we skirted the hall that led to the dining room, heading the other way.
Mice would’ve made more noise than Gertriss did. Mice wearing mouse-hair slippers. I crunched and squeaked and huffed. Gertriss paid me the courtesy of not commenting upon it.
The hall went straight then hit a room. The doors were open, so we just ambled on in.
Easels. Easels and canvases. And chairs, and couches, and at least a couple of beds, all scattered haphazardly about the room.
Lamps were everywhere, but none were lit. The windows did little more than cast a few weak shadows.
I wandered. Most of the works in progress were covered, but a few were not. I let my eyes adjust, and was still doing so when I heard Gertriss gasp.
She’d lifted the corner of a cloth draped over a canvas. Beneath it, even in the murk, was a work of art.
No swords, upraised or flashing. No banners. No Trolls.
But there was a woman, in flowing robes, clutching a wilted bouquet of roses to her chest. She was on her knees, and she was weeping, and something not in the painting cast a long tall shadow over her.
A wardstone. Her father’s. You could see that plain in her face.
Gertriss let the cloth drop back down.
“That was…”
“Good. Damned good.”
I walked, picked an easel at random, lifted a canvas cloth.
A ring of children at play. Flowers that swayed on a mild summer breeze. In the middle of the ring of children, an old man laughed, his feet caught in mid-jig, his smile wrinkled and weathered, but his eyes caught alight, young again, just for that instant.
Gertriss joined me, wordless.
“I reckon I might have misspoke.”
I let the cloth drop. “No wonder she’s not worried about the galleries. I may buy this one right now.”
Gertriss tore herself away, chose another. More wonders were revealed. I did the same. Another masterwork.
Gertriss gasped. I followed her gaze down to the canvas. A man and a woman danced. They’d left their clothes somewhere but didn’t seem concerned.
The painting was so good you nearly forgot they were naked. The artist had caught them in the midst of a twirl, had caught the fluid motion of their bodies, the look in their eyes. The Regent’s Council of Art would have an apoplexy at the nude bodies, but the painting wasn’t dirty. It just wasn’t.
“Something isn’t right,” I said, quietly. I let the cloth fall back down on the canvas. “They can’t all be prodigies.”
“Prodi-whats?”
“Prodigies. Persons of unusual and rare skill or talent.” I swept my arm across the room. “We ought to find one or two we can’t take our eyes off of. Not every one of them.”
Gertriss frowned. “Maybe this Lady Werewilk has a good eye for painter-folk,” she said.
“Maybe.” I resisted the urge to go methodically about the room, lifting every canvas. “Let’s see what else we can find while we wander lost, looking for the dining room.”
Gertriss giggled. I chose the door set in the far side of the room from the one we’d entered.
And I reluctantly closed it behind me.
The rest of the House wasn’t nearly so artistically inclined. There were storage rooms and rooms full of stored furniture and rooms full of barrels and rooms full of crated art supplies. And then there were the rooms, which housed the artists themselves.
The artists were housed barracks-style, with a half-dozen single-occupant rooms set aside for special stars of either gender. I poked my head in here and there, finding nothing but the clutter and mess you’d expect a gaggle of perpetually drunk teenagers to leave behind. The smell was exactly that I remembered from my army days. I gathered Ella and Emma had long ago abandoned any pretense of maid services in the artist’s wing.
We made it as far as the laundry unchallenged. Inside that room, though, stirring an enormous vat that boiled and smelled of bleach so strongly it made my eyes water were two of Lady Werewilk’s staff.
They gave us the usual stink-eye but neither said a word. Clouds of blinding caustic steam rose up with every slap of their paddles. I rummaged through the list of servants Lady Werewilk had provided and decided those two worthies were Eegis and Gamp.
Neither appeared inclined to speak, much less confess to nefarious deeds, and Gertriss was turning an interesting shade of blue.
“Excellent work,” I offered, as we brushed past them. “Mind that wine stain on my pantaloons.”
And out the door we went.
I blinked. We were outside, though in a shade so deep it might as well have been in the dark heart of the House. But the air was cool and sweet, and we both just stood there and blinked away the bleach for a minute.
Gertriss put her hand on my arm just as I was about to speak.
“…heared nothin’ good about him,” said a gruff man’s voice.
The door we’d stepped out of opened to the side of the House. A rough gravel wagon path wound around to the door, which I gathered was used for deliveries coming in and trash being hauled out. Parked there in the gravel round was a wagon, sans ponies. The wagon was tipped back and away from Gertriss and I, and from the sound of it a couple of layabouts were reclining in the empty wagon bed, taking advantage of the cool evening breeze and the apparent absence of any watchful eyes.
Oh, but there were ears. Four of them.
“Still, I don’t think Weexil had nothin’ to do with no foolishness with crossbows. Them people is from town. You know what happens when town-folk get kilt.”
Silence. I assume someone nodded in grave agreement. I all but shouted for them to keep talking.
“Well, even if he does come back, I reckon Lady Werewilk won’t be havin’ none of him no more. I’m lookin’ to take on his job. Maybe that little split tail of his too.”
Lustful guffaws all around. Gertriss blushed, and she nearly let her nails do to my elbow what they’d done to my face.
“You’re twiced too old to be chasin’ anything that young,” opined one unseen lounger. “You better stick with old widow Henshaw down the road.”
More laughter. And then a graphic exchange of speculation involving the Widow Henshaw that was proving far too earthy for Gertriss’s delicate ears.
I reached behind me, opened the door very quietly and then let it slam shut.
The wagon nearly flipped over as it disgorged a trio of wide-eyed drovers, all of whom hurriedly set about trying to look busy despite their empty hands and equally empty wagon.
“Evening, gents,” I said, greeting each with my famous friendly smile. “My name’s Markhat. Who might you be?”
Sputtering. Exchanges of sideways glances. Three different versions of why it only looked like they’d been idling on the job.
I held up my hands. “Relax,” I said. “I wasn’t hired to supervise the unloading of turnips. Nobody is going to tell tales later on of a few men taking a break after a long day’s work. I only asked your names to be polite.”
“Hell, we don’t work for Lady Werewilk anyhow,” said the boldest of the lot. “My name’s Left. This is Tombs. That there is Polton.” He spat. “Must be havin’ quite a feed in there tonight. This was the second wagon-load of vittles.”
I nodded. “The whole house will be there. Except maybe Weexil. I guess everybody knows about him, though.”
Left nodded. “Took off. Packed up and left before dawn, not a word. Damndest thing.”
I kept my mouth shut and looked hopefully expectant. Sometimes it works.
“Burned all his stuff. Every scrap of it. Least that’s what they say. Old butler found what was left in the oven.”
“Boots too,” I offered, as though I’d already heard that. I was just guessing.
“That’s what we can’t figure,” offered Tombs. “Who the hell burns a good pair of boots?”
Sometimes I’m good at guessing.
“We need to get the ponies,” said the third man. Maybe he was smarter than his companions, or maybe he just needed a privy, but he’d had enough gabbing with the people from town, friendly smiles or not. “Need to get back on the road.”
And they went.
Gertriss and I watched them go.
I shrugged as soon as they were out of sight.
“Do you reckon-do you think that this Weexil told someone we were due here today, Mr. Markhat?” asked Gertriss. “Maybe he didn’t want to be around when word got out we’d been murdered on the road.”
I nodded. “The thought crossed my mind,” I said. Weexil, what had been his last name? Weexil Treegar. Bought all the art supplies for the painters. I tried to remember when the Lady had hired Weexil, decided he’d been there since the first batch of artists had taken up residence-well before the first surveyor’s stake was ever found.
I motioned in the direction the drovers had taken. “We might as well see the grounds in the daylight,” I said.
Gertriss walked, frowning. “But why did he burn everything?”
“He didn’t burn it,” I said. Gertriss sets a good pace. I had to move faster than my customary amble to keep up.
She turned her face toward mine.
“If he didn’t, who did?”
“His lady love, of course. Look. She either wakes to find him gone, or maybe he leaves behind a note of some kind. Either way, she’s not happy. So what does she do?”
“She finds anything he left behind and she stuffs it in the only fire still burning early in the morning. The cook stove fire.”
“Which makes me think he left a note,” I said. “Something sappy and overdone. I’d bet you two new horseshoes he even asked her to burn his note in the note. That’s probably what gave her the idea to toss in his boots as well.”
Gertriss nodded. “Reckon the worthless lying bastard had that coming.” She practically dripped venom when she spoke, and for the first time I wondered if perhaps Gertriss had left her quaint country village for reasons that might surprise even Mama Hog.
“What matters to us is finding out who he left behind. She’s the only one who might tell us what he was doing, and who he was doing it for.”
“So you reckon he did set them bandits on us?”
“Set those, not them. And yes. I think friend Weexil may have been someone’s eyes and ears here at House Werewilk, and I think someone didn’t want us to arrive on time and breathing.”
Gertriss just nodded, and kicked at a pinecone.
We tramped about, not talking, just looking. House Werewilk covered a lot of ground, as did the other structures that filled the woods behind it.
Arranged in a ragged half-circle a bowshot from the main house were two barns, overflowing with loose hay, a huge old slate-roofed stable, three two-storey houses much newer than anything else that looked to be servant’s quarters, a smithy, a lumber-mill, a fenced vegetable garden sporting thirty rows of tall green corn, a well-house, and a row of privy-houses that must have made Gertriss long for the plain country comforts of home.
Cows mooed and dogs barked and chickens clucked, but Lady Werewilk’s command that all should dine in the House was obviously being obeyed by one and all.
“Remember where things are in relation to each other,” I said to Gertriss. “And let’s make it a rule now. If we should get separated, never mind the reason, let’s try to meet back at the far barn. Yes, that one, with the bad roof.”
“Good place to hide.”
I looked around. Huge old blood oaks surrounded us, their boughs tangled overhead, all but blotting out the sky.
A shiver ran right the Hell up and down my spine.
Gertriss saw.
The dinner bell clanged.
“I don’t like it either, Mr. Markhat. I tell you plain, someone is watching us, right now.”
I’d left Toadsticker upstairs. I wasn’t even wearing my armored dinner jacket. The tiny hairs on my arms and the back of my neck began a desperate attempt to crawl to safety.
Way up above the blood-oak limbs, a cloud raced across the late afternoon sun. Midnight’s ghost swallowed us suddenly up.
“I need to know, Gertriss. How good is your Sight?”
“It’s good, Mr. Markhat. Very good.”
“As good as Mama’s?”
“Better.” She crossed her arms, but that didn’t stop me from seeing her shiver.
“So we’re really being watched. By someone with eyes.”
She nodded, took a deep breath, closed her eyes.
I’ve seen Mama do the same thing over and over. But when Gertriss did it, the wind suddenly bore whispers, and the shadows around us began to dart and scurry.
The huldra. Back again, risen from its hiding place.
“There,” said Gertriss, pointing, but my eyes were already fixed on the spot.
Ahead of us. Two hundred feet, maybe. Call it thirty feet off the ground. My eyes told me there was nothing there but the same shadows that enveloped us, but the remnant of the huldra saw something else.
“What is it?”
“It watches,” replied Gertriss. Her eyes were still shut. Her hands were outstretched, moving, as though performing some intricate unraveling of the empty air before her.
I shook my head, willing the huldra’s dry crackling voice to be silent.
“Does it have a crossbow?”
Gertriss opened one eye.
“You are not going to just go stomping up to it, are you?”
“Not if it has a crossbow. Is it an it or a he or a she? Or a them?”
Gertriss started moaning.
I whirled. Her eyes had rolled up, so that only the whites showed. Her hands twitched and groped. She took a step forward, and I caught her by her elbows.
She tried to keep walking. Her moaning rose and rose, becoming a shriek.
A shriek to match the one now sounding through the blood-oaks.
I felt it too, now. Eyes, eyes upon me. The huldra’s ghost gibbered and screamed, telling me words I didn’t know, urging me to hurl magics I no longer commanded.
“Sorry,” I said.
And then I grabbed the back of Gertriss’ hair and yanked.
She erupted into a whirlwind of claws and knees, but her howl died and her eyes rolled back down, wide and angry and hurt.
The shriek in the trees died with hers, choked off just as suddenly.
Gertriss stopped struggling, grabbed my hand and charged for the House, dragging me along after.
I didn’t resist. Much. One-man charges against unknown foes may be the stuff of legend, but then so are gruesome deaths and shallow graves.
We hoofed it back to our side door and didn’t stop until it was securely closed behind us.
We leaned on the walls and panted. Gertriss wrapped her arms tight around her chest and fought back a serious case of the shivers. I patted her shoulder in a fatherly there, there fashion and tried not to shake myself.
“I begin to see why the staff doesn’t line up to patrol the grounds.”
Gertriss nodded.
“Any idea at all what that was?”
She shook her head.
I gave up trying to coax words out of her just yet. But of course there was only one word on both our minds anyway.
Banshee.
What else lurks about, ready to issue its trademarked plaintive howl upon being spotted? The howl, together with Gertriss’ earlier sighting of a near-naked woman, certainly suggested it.
But even Mama had scorned the idea of a real banshee. Mama, who routinely trafficked with everything from haints to clover-fairies.
But something had been in the trees. Something had howled. Something had nearly drawn Gertriss into a trance that would have sent her stumbling blindly into the woods.
A Banshee. Or some sort of sorcery.
“Take your pick,” I muttered.
“Pick of what?”
“Bad or worse. You all right? What happened out there?”
“I saw something, Mr. Markhat. So I looked closer, and then it saw me.”
She shivered again. I urged her down the hall, away from the door. Just in case.
“Male or female? Armed, unarmed?”
“It was the same woman I saw on the way here,” said Gertriss. She set a brisk pace and impressed me by lowering her arms to her sides and forcing a deep breath. “Unarmed. Watching. No, more than just watching. I think…I think she’s looking for something.”
We were back in the painting room. There was no sound from the hall, so I hoped our arboreal howling witch had decided to remain outdoors.
“Any idea what?”
Gertriss shook her head in an emphatic no. “As soon as she knew I saw her, she just…took over.” The second dinner bell rang out, and I heard footfalls and voices throughout the House.
I stopped, faced Gertriss.
“All right. We’ve got something in the forest. Something strange, something that may be dangerous. Neither of us goes out there alone. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Now it’s time for dinner. And questions. So I need you to forget about what just happened, until we have time to think about it later. Can you do that?”
She nodded, managed a weak grin.
“Good girl.”
We followed the hall and the noise. The dining room wasn’t hard to find.
The big oak double-doors, which were worked with carved dragons, were open. The aromas of fresh hot bread and roasting beef poured from between them, along with a blast of noon-day heat.
The dining room at Werewilk probably seated sixty with room to spare. As it was, maybe a dozen seats were empty, and they were the ones closest to the monstrous fire roaring in the cavernous fireplace that dominated the north end of the room.
I was mopping sweat before I’d taken a dozen steps.