The Big Bell clanged out midnight before I lay my weary head down to sleep.
My plan to keep Mama and Gertriss safe from any lingering Sprangs involved installing a pair of ogres at Mama’s door. I chose ogres because they’re out and about after Curfew, and are thus easy to find, and because short of a Troll or a brace of the Corpsemaster’s newfangled cannons there isn’t a better deterrent against mischief than half a ton of implacable ogre.
I lucked out and managed to catch up with a Hooga, who agreed to bring his cousin Hooga in on the deal. Don’t ask me how ogres keep identities established when they all bear the same name. But this was a Hooga I knew from Darla’s old job at the Velvet, and we were still on an eye-dipping basis, which practically makes us littermates according to Mama’s encyclopedic knowledge of all things ogre.
I’d given Gertriss orders that she wasn’t to venture outdoors for anything. She didn’t like that, any more than Mama liked hearing the same, but I had to trust they understood the necessity of staying safe behind a wall of ogres until we had a handle on the Sprangs.
So I handed out coins right and left and made sure the Hoogas understood spilling blood was only to be done as a last resort.
That done, I turned my attention to the bigger picture, a task made well nigh impossible by my sudden tragic lack of beer.
After the Hoogas trundled away with Gertriss, Mama and Buttercup, I put my feet on my desk and got out a pad, and tried to make sense of my sundry confusions by putting them down on paper in the form of questions.
Where is Carris Lethway? appeared at the top of my page.
Who or what compelled him to leave, and why? followed.
Exhaustion does strange things to the mind. I didn’t realize I’d written Who has more animosity toward the marriage between Carris and Tamar-the Lethways or the Fields? until after I’d written the last word.
I put a big question mark under that.
More entries followed-Was I really drafted? was asked twice, with heavy underlines, and When to tell Darla? below that.
Finally, I scribbled something unflattering concerning Corpsemasters and wild goats and headed to bed.
I dreamed that night. I saw cannons, rows and rows and ranks and ranks of them, hurling thunder and belching flame. I saw the sky criss-crossed with lingering smokes, heard the shriek and howl of battle.
I wasn’t alone, in my dream. The Corpsemaster was there. Not as a corpse, either. She was a woman-a somewhat plain, somewhat aged, somewhat weary woman, with tired green eyes and messy grey hair and a face that had long ago forgotten how to smile.
It seems we talked, at great length, about Rannit and the Regent and battles and wars. I don’t recall anything that was said, or asked, or answered, save that it seemed a great loss of life was both looming and inevitable.
When I woke, in that middle of the night’s deep dark, I was not rested. Something stirred in the shadows of my room, and for an instant I thought I spied Three-leg, stretching before prowling out to terrorize his streets.
But it was Buttercup in my room, crouched by my bed, her tiny face wrinkled in worry.
Before I could speak, she handed me a ragged sock-doll, hugged my neck and vanished.
Damned if I didn’t sleep well after that, a banshee’s tattered doll suspiciously close to my pillow.
Morning came, bringing with it sunlight and singing birds and Three-leg’s insistence that I rise at once. I pushed him off the bed twice before he roused me by raking claws across my bare back.
While Three-leg dined, I gathered clean clothes and wrapped them in a bundle and stepped out into the street after a quick peek through my barely-opened door. I stopped by Mama’s briefly on my way to the bathhouse. The Hoogas were in place, upright and immovable as granite statues. I don’t speak enough ogre to do more than say hello, but my old friend Hooga can nod for yes and shake for no, and thus I was able to establish that Mama had received no visitors during the night.
I started to knock, but decided on a bath first. I bade the Hoogas good morning, and when I emerged from the hot water a half-hour later I was shaved and soaped and not quite smiling.
Rannit was stirring to life around me. Old Mr. Bull was on his stoop, sweeping away whatever imaginary soil collected during the night. The newcomers to the neighborhood, the Arwheat brothers, were taking the iron shutters off their windows and trading shouts in their harsh Southlands tongue. They smiled and waved as I passed, and went back to screaming at each other the instant I returned their greeting.
Mama met me at her door and thrust a steaming mug of coffee at me before I even spoke.
“Good morning to you too.”
“Here’s something for you, boys.” Mama reached inside and came out with two black hunks of ogre hash. The Hoogas took them, sniffed them, and ate them without ever taking their big ogre eyes off the street.
“Come on in, boy. Ain’t nobody up yet but me an’ you.”
I dipped eyes with Hooga and followed Mama indoors.
Mama keeps her windows covered with burlap curtains. The only light comes from candles. The candles are handmade by Mama herself, and while I’m sure each has a specific arcane purpose they all smell like sun-baked manure.
I breathe through my mouth when I visit Mama, most days.
Her card and potion shop was dark and fragrant, but not quiet. Two sets of snores sounded from the back, and neither was dainty.
I sank onto Mama’s rickety client’s chair and sipped her coffee.
“So, no Sprangs came calling last night.”
“Nobody came calling.” Mama spoke softly. “Not that I figured they would.”
“I don’t like this any more than you, Mama. I’m paying the Hoogas, remember?”
“Wasting your coin, you are.”
I shrugged. Maybe I was. Wouldn’t be the first time.
“We can’t keep her in that room forever, boy. Nor me.”
“I know.” Mama’s coffee wasn’t half bad. Or maybe the stench of her blue-flamed candles was making it hard to taste the chicory she prefers.
“So, what you reckon on doing about it?”
“I reckon on talking to the Sprangs again,” I said. “In fact, I’ve given some thought to bailing them out myself.”
“Boy!” Mama forgot to be quiet. The snoring continued. She glared and forced herself back into her chair and shook her head. “Why would you do a damn fool thing such as that?”
“First, because I’d know when they were out. Second, because the Old Ruth might get one or more of them killed, and if it does they’ll lay that at my doorstep too. Third, because I might just convince them to forget this whole mess and head back home owing me a favor, instead of coveting my head.”
“Foolishness, boy. Them Sprangs will turn on ye the instant the jail doors open.”
“If that happens there’s the Watch. If the Sprangs go in again, they won’t be getting out anytime soon, bail or not. You know that.”
“Do you drink a lot at night, boy? Have you taken up weed? Bailing the Sprangs out is the damn stupidest thing I’ve heard in a long time, and you’ll get nothing but trouble if you do.”
“It was just a thought, Mama.”
“Well then, you need to keep on thinking. Or give it up entirely, I ain’t sure which.”
From the back came a sneeze and the sound of a thin, hard bed creaking.
“Well, we’re in for it now,” whispered Mama.
Buttercup appeared at my knee, smiling and rubbing sleep out of her eyes.
“Good morning, Miss.” I tousled her hair and poked her gently on the tip of her nose. I pulled her doll out of my pocket and handed it back to her. She accepted it solemnly, her banshee eyes suddenly serious. “Thanks. Someone snores like a big girl.”
She stuck out her tongue and yawned.
Gertriss popped out of her door, not smiling. Her hair was a tumble, and she had dark circles under her eyes. I decided I would most certainly neither tousle her hair nor poke at her nose.
She was enveloped in an enormous nightgown that must have started life as a mainsail on a frigate. Her bare toes only peeped out when she walked. I caught Mama glaring at her red-painted toenails.
“Good morning.” I decided to keep things friendly. “Hope you slept well.”
Gertriss managed a nod and shuffled off to Mama’s tiny kitchen, groaning as she went. From out of sight came the sounds of cups rattling and sugar being spooned.
Buttercup pulled my cup down and stole a sip of my coffee.
“Fie!” snapped Mama. Buttercup giggled and skipped away, vanishing before reappearing behind Mama with her fingers waggling beside her ears.
Gertriss reappeared, bleary-eyed, sipping coffee and shuffling. “Morning, boss.”
I nodded. “Mama says the Hoogas didn’t bash any heads last night.”
“If they did they were quiet about it. Boss, how long can you afford to pay them? Wouldn’t it be cheaper just to buy a door and put a bar on the inside?”
Mama puffed up. “I ain’t havin’ no garrison gate on the front of my establishment. Makes the clients feel nervous.”
“And ogres don’t?”
“Shows what you know. Business will double today just to get a up-close look at ’em. Bah.” With that, Mama rose and hustled off to her kitchen, dragging Buttercup along by one of her long ears.
“I heard what you said about paying out the Sprangs,” said Gertriss in a whisper. “Sounds like a good idea to me.”
“It does? I imagined you’d be on Mama’s side.”
“She has a point. I’m not saying she doesn’t. But knowing where they are is also a point. And as pigheaded as they are, getting them out of the Old Ruth might be the only way to get them to listen. Too, I’ve got money saved. I might not be able to pay all of it, but I can do half.”
“I’m not asking you to do that.”
“I know. I appreciate that. But I’m insisting. And you know how Hog women can be when we don’t get what we want.”
I sighed. “Deal. We split it. But we make it conditional to the Sprangs-they leave Rannit, no loitering, no sightseeing, no sneaking back here with clubs. And we have the Watch witness it all, so the Sprangs get tossed back in the Old Ruth if they break the terms of release.”
Gertriss pushed a wild tangle of golden hair out of her eyes and nodded. “I think it’s a good idea, boss. Cheaper than ogres, in the long run.”
“Ha!” snapped Mama from the back.
I laughed. “Fine. Look. Until we know they’ve been rounded up, you need to stay put.”
Gertriss grimaced.
“I’ll head by the Old Ruth, see what the payout is. And then I’ll stop by the Magistrate and see if I can get a judge to sign off on this. With luck, we’ll be able to get it done tomorrow, the day after at the latest.”
Gertriss lowered her voice to the faintest of whispers. “If it takes any longer than that, boss, just get me a cell at the Old Ruth,” she said.
“I heard that, you ungrateful child.”
Gertriss winced, rose, headed for her room.
“Hurry,” she said, making no sound, just mouthing the word before she closed her door.
Hurry I did.
The Sprangs, had made themselves quite popular at the Old Ruth by fighting with jailers, prisoners and even each other. They’d managed to increase their original fines by a surprising margin, which made Gertriss’s offer to pay half not only generous but necessary.
I didn’t speak to the Sprangs themselves, preferring to wait until I knew I could arrange bail. So I cooled my boots for two hours down at the courthouse on Beld, waiting for a judge to deign my petition worthy of the Regency’s precious time.
I wasn’t entirely miserable. The high ceilings in the old courthouse made it breezy and cool. The benches weren’t padded, but they’re wide and deep and angled just right, which makes sitting on them not merely tolerable but enjoyable. And the pair of legal assistants buzzing about with papers and writs and lawyers were young and energetic.
I decided the redhead was my favorite, because she smiled even when she thought no one was looking. The blonde was better looking, and her skirt was certainly better fitting, but her smile vanished as soon as she thought she lacked an audience. To me, that spells trouble.
I wasn’t quite napping when the blonde strolled up to me and tapped me on my shoulder. “Sir,” she said. “Judge Hastings will see you now.”
I rose, stretched and thanked her.
“Down the hall, second chamber on your right. Have a good day.”
And she was gone, her smile falling as soon as she turned away. I never saw the redhead again, which is probably for the best, since my Darla isn’t fond of redheads.
Judge Hastings was a man of few words-specifically, yes, yes, no, yes, and yes. He scribbled notes in his ledger and scribbled more on a roll of parchment and then made the whole thing legal simply by sliding the parchment between the jaws of his seal and bopping the apparatus with his wizened fist to emboss the paper.
He handed it to me, and I knew without a word I was dismissed. In accordance with His Honor’s reluctance to waste words, I left without using any, the Sprang’s freedom and my bid for peace from them in my hand.
I started to head back to the Old Ruth and see if I could convince someone there to let me make my pitch to the Sprangs, lest Gertriss and Mama come to blows confined in such close quarters.
But the morning was gone, and my dealings with the Old Ruth in the past left me with the certainty that I’d need to be the first one through the doors to get the Sprangs out before Curfew. Poor Gertriss would have to hide under the covers one more day, and I’d be out more coins to the Hoogas for tonight.
Which isn’t the way running a business is supposed to work. I resolved to pay the Lethways a visit and see what I could glean concerning the whereabouts of missing groom Carris. But first, I’d need to see my client.
I hoofed it from the courthouse to Darla’s, glad of a cool day and a few clouds. She met me at her door with a kiss, finished up a conversation with a pair of chatty customers and finally hustled me into the back after putting Mary in charge of the sales floor.
“So tell me, intrepid finder of all things lost, what have you found for me today?”
By then, we’d said a proper good morning to each other, and were perched at a sewing table while the fringes of gowns hung down and tickled our heads.
“I found your Miss Tamar, and her mother and father, and of course the inimitable Mr. Tibbles,” I said. “Lovely people. Except Mr. Tibbles. He made rude comments about my hat.”
Darla shook her head in mock dismay. “I hear he wets the rugs too. Scandalous.”
I laughed. Darla frowned, though, and traced her fingertips down my cheek.
“There’s something else.” She wasn’t asking a question.
I told her briefly about the Sprangs and the mess they’d brought from Pot Lockney. I hadn’t intended to tell Gertriss’s story, too, but it all came out. Darla nodded, as though she’d known it all along, and it’s entirely possible she had.
“A few nights in the Old Ruth ought to have them ready to run back home,” she said. “Now why not tell me what’s really bothering you.”
Can’t put one past that woman. Someday I’ll learn not to try.
“Took a ride yesterday,” I whispered, Angels know why, sound barely carried in that room filled with hanging clothes and bolts of fabric. “Black carriage. No horses.”
Darla just took my hand. “Will we ever be free of it?”
I knew the answer to that. It’s no. But I didn’t speak it to Darla.
“What did he want?”
And the weight of that question-What will you tell Darla? — fell full upon me.
“Not the time or the place.” Darla’s doorbell rang. Feet began to shuffle on the sales floor outside. “But don’t worry. It’s nothing I can’t handle.”
“Liar.”
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
Mary poked her head inside, asked for Darla.
“Go,” I said. “I’m off to find this missing groom. See you tonight? After work?”
“Indeed you will, Mr. Markhat.” She kissed me on my forehead. “And bring your mouth. You’ll need it to talk.”
I forced a smile. She saw right through it, but she squeezed my hands in parting and let me go my way.
Traffic was picking up. A dead wagon rattled right past me, heavy laden with the night’s pale leavings. The Regent has ordered the wagons covered now, and I was glad of it. Word was the number of bodies hauled daily to the crematoriums was on the increase. Soon there’d be grumbles about halfdead and the Truce. And then there’d be a spectacular murder or rumors of another range war out West and the halfdead and their Curfew-breaking victims would be forgotten.
Until the rumors start up again.
It’s an old tradition, in Rannit. Grumbling. And quickly forgetting.
I shook off my reverie and headed downtown. I planned to walk as far as Northridge and then hail a cab to the Hill. It was time to beard the Lethways in their opulent lair, and employ my clever ruse to trick them into revealing the whereabouts of their only son Carris.
I was hoping the walk would promote the formulation of my clever ruse. A block later, I hadn’t made any progress in that regard, which meant my entire plan of attack centered around the words “Hello, I’m Markhat, where pray tell is that son of yours?”
I was so engrossed in my machinations mental it was another block before the tiny hairs on the back of my neck rose, and it dawned on me that I was the object of a stranger’s sudden, intense attention.
I didn’t turn and look. That’s the kind of stunt that ends with bloody noses or worse. I watched glass shop-fronts until I identified my interested stranger and satisfied myself that he was working alone.
I cussed out loud and drew a sour look from a little old lady in a veiled dowager’s hat.
The kid was a Sprang.
Not even a full-grown Sprang. He might have been ten at the most. Ten, and wandering around Rannit clad in homespun burlap and mismatched shoes.
He was filthy. His hair was wild and matted. The dirt was so thick on his face I could see it plain in a dim reflection. The streaks in the dirt must have been from tears.
Hell. The kid had been out all night. After Curfew, outside, with hungry halfdead roaming the streets.
I almost repented of my plan to set the elder Sprangs free. They’d not said a word about a kid.
I didn’t want to snatch the kid there on the street. Even the most sessile Watchman would probably come out swinging at the screams of a child, in this part of town, in broad daylight.
So I circled back, hoping the kid was so lost already he wouldn’t realize I was taking him back to Cambrit. I kept a nice slow pace, making sure he didn’t lose me. If he knew he’d been spotted, he didn’t let it show.
I bought a bag of biscuits from a pushcart vendor on Rains. The kid hid behind a fence and watched me through the cracks. I paused to tie my shoe on Borom. The kid nearly got himself run over by an ogre and his cart.
By the time I’d hiked back to Cambrit, he was stumbling along, exhausted, either not realizing he was back where he started or just too tired to care.
I slowed and let him catch up. I slowed more, and he kept coming.
In the end, I just caught him up under his arms and hefted him over my shoulder. He didn’t even cry.
The Hoogas dipped their eyes in greeting as I approached. “Delivery for Mama Hog,” I said, loud enough to be heard inside.
Mama’s door rattled, and she poked her head out.
“Boy!”
“Indeed it is,” I said, passing by her and depositing the limp Sprang on her table. I patted him down for knives, found a single thin, worn blade, and handed it to Mama.
“Another Sprang, I believe. Followed me all the way downtown. Looks like he’s been out all night.”
Mama gobbled, her face reddening with the same anger I’d felt.
“Wash him. Feed him when he’s awake. If he wants to leave, fine, but remind him what happens around here at night.”
“I ain’t runnin’ no orphanage.”
“He’s not an orphan. Yet. Here are some biscuits. I’ll be back before dark.”
Gertriss opened her door, and I waved and winked then I was outside and away.
I took a cab, this time. I’d walked in a big circle and wasted a lot of time, and I still had the Lethways to face.
If there were more Sprangs lurking about, they didn’t make themselves evident. The bridge clowns capered and mocked me as the cab clattered over the Brown River Bridge. I must have looked somber because they adopted furrowed brows and pursed lips and puffed out their cheeks. I tossed them a few coppers as the cab left the bridge, and hoped some of the superstition about clowns and good luck lingered on.
I’d abandoned any pretense of cleverness. I simply didn’t know enough about the Lethways to even guess at a tack. My best option was an old favorite-keep the conversation going for as long as possible, and hope something useful is revealed along the way.
I knew I’d be lucky if I even managed to sit across from an actual Lethway. If Tamar hadn’t managed to get past the butlers, my chances were slim indeed.
The cabbie wound his ponies up the Hill. We passed House Avalante, where my friend Evis lay sleeping, deep in his dark, cool crypt.
I knocked the dust off my hat and smoothed back my hair and waved at Evis, though I knew he couldn’t see.
The Lethways have a big new house three-quarters of the way up the Hill. Their blood oaks are maybe half the age and size of those that shade Avalante, so rather than lurk in the shadows, House Lethway gleamed in the bright midday sun.
It was modest, as Hill houses go. A mere three stories tall. But it had the usual high swooping slate-tile roofs and ornate leaded glass windows. There were, however, no Old Kingdom turrets, no mock crenellations along the eaves, no pretense of garrison gates where the rather plain front door stood.
And no guardhouse, and no ogres, and no dark-suited toughs with wary eyes and broad shoulders idling about, either.
I paid the cabbie, tipped him generously, and suggested he might earn another handsome fee by swinging back this way in an hour. Then I adjusted the tilt of my hat and marched toward the front door, my face set in what I hoped was an expression of forthright determination.
I didn’t get the chance to knock. I was two full strides from the Lethway’s door when it opened and a pair of stalwart gentleman sauntered out.
They wore dark suits. Their eyes were wary. Their shoulders were broad.
They weren’t quite ogres, but they weren’t far from it, either.
“Good day, gentlemen.” I stopped, rocked back on my heels, clapped my hands together as though thrilled to be meeting such devoted youths.
The pair exchanged an exasperated glance. “Wedding business,” muttered one. His companion nodded.
Sometimes, fortune smiles.
I beamed and smiled my widest.
“Weddings are indeed my business,” I said. I put a lot of cheer into it. “Walter and Walter, florists extraordinaire. We’ve managed to secure ten dozen of the eastern white roses Miss Fields requested.” I fished in my jacket’s breast pocket and withdrew the papers, which would free the Sprangs but wouldn’t pass for a flower bill on close inspection. “If one of you gentlemen could sign for this…”
“Not going to be any wedding,” offered one worthy.
“Third one she’s sent up here this week. Crazy broad,” offered the other.
“You’ll get paid,” added the first, to me. “Take the money and forget it. There ain’t going to be a wedding, you got that?”
I adopted an expression of concern. “But, sirs, I spoke to the bride last evening-”
They turned and threw open the door. “Like I said, the House will pay your bill,” said one, beckoning me inside. “But just this once. You show up here again and it won’t go so good for you. You understand?”
I slipped my papers back in jacket and nodded, deciding that the floral agents of Walter and Walter probably had little experience in trading tough talk with House soldiers.
The pair of toughs led me across a marble-tiled foyer and into a sitting room that could have used at least one window. I spent a few moments idling there, listening to the House, unable to do more than catch a few muffled footsteps and hear a snatch of conversation I couldn’t begin to follow.
An older gentleman ushered me wordlessly from the tiny sitting room, down a hall with oak-paneled walls, and into a larger sitting room that had not one window but two. Portraits kept me company, three to a wall, scowling at me from beneath the powdered white wigs and ruffled collars popular in the years before the War. None looked happy. A loud clock ticked on a mantel.
By the time I reached my third sitting room and a middling comfortable couch with dragons worked into the wood frame and claw feet, I was fighting off yawns and hoping the grumbles from my stomach weren’t audible all the way outside. I’d spent more than an hour just ambling from room to room, and I was no closer to a Lethway than I had been at home in my bed.
I wondered if I’d been forgotten, then decided the servants were merely playing a game of let the money-grubbing tradesman waste his day. I wondered how many of the caterers and reception planners that Tamar sent to Lethway just gave up and left before collecting their fees.
I listened. If anyone was moving around nearby, they were doing so in sock feet, and I doubted that.
I rose, made sure my Avalante pin was plainly visible, and sauntered out of my sitting room and into the perilous bowels of Lethway itself.
The House was quiet. If bustling was being done, it was being done elsewhere. I picked a hallway at random, ambled down it, found a flight of stairs leading up, took to them. I met an older gentleman clad in a butler’s black tails halfway up the first flight. I saw his eyes cut to my Avalante pin and then cut away.
I picked halls at random, left closed doors shut, ventured into a couple of open ones. The second floor was surprisingly empty, aside from servant’s quarters and a couple of unfinished guest rooms. I did find a family portrait-Mom and Dad Lethway, he much older than she, flanking a ten-year-old kid who must have been Carris.
No dirt on his face. No straw hat on his head. My, what a difference a few dozen copper mines make.
I ran out of things to explore, so I gathered my nerves and took to the final flight of stairs leading up.
At the top, voices and footfalls sounded. A woman laughed. Glassware tinkled. Knife and fork clattered on a plate.
Lunchtime. I headed away from the sounds and the smells, preferring to lurk a few more moments.
I wish I could claim I followed the pattern of wear on the floors or discovered Carris’s room by recognizing the patina on his doorknob as only a man his height would make. But the truth is I was guessing, and I opened every door that wasn’t locked, and his was the third one I tried.
Tamar’s picture, painted by someone with talent, hung on his wall. There was a pile of fabrics and fake silk flowers heaped on his dresser. Beside the pile was a notepad, just like the ones I use, and on it were scribbled notes.
Red fireflowers for grooms, read one entry. Yellow for rest.
Below that was Meet bev. supplier tomorrow noon.
I flipped through the pad, found more of the same.
“You missed that meeting, didn’t you?” I said. “I wonder why.”
I poked through the rest of the room, found nothing suggestive of a man planning a panicked flight away from the jaws of impending matrimony. What I did find, hidden in the far corner of the topmost sockdrawer, was a box that held a golden ring.
Tamar’s ring. I’m no jeweler, but I’m no infant, either. A man on the run could sell that ring for a quarter of its worth and still finance a very long trip. The fact that he hadn’t sold it told me he hadn’t planned on leaving at all.
I put the ring back where I found it, smoothed the bedcovers where I’d rumpled them, put everything as it had been. Then I put my ear to his door and listened for footfalls outside.
It was quiet. I opened the door and stepped outside and closed it behind me.
No one saw, shouted or rushed toward me with a club.
I was so happy I could have whistled.
But I didn’t. I patted my Avalante brooch and straightened my collar and decided that since Lady Luck was smiling I’d see if she’d join me for lunch.
I marched down the hall, all pretense of sneaking gone. Why sneak? I was a friend of House Avalante, and a lunch guest at Lethway. If any mere butler dared question my presence I’d show him the bottom of my nose.
I managed to locate the dining room by following the smells. The door was ajar, and from the hustle and bustle of servants and carts I gathered I’d nearly missed lunch.
I opened the door and stepped inside. A butler whirled to face me, his sudden expression of haughty offense marred by the full mouth of mashed potatoes he was struggling to swallow.
“I hope I’m not too late,” I said, before he could speak. “I was told downstairs there would be fried chicken. I prefer white meat.”
Lady Luck wasn’t just smiling but laughing and drinking straight from the bottle. A black-haired maid started filling a plate with chicken.
The butler fell into a fit of coughing. I breezed past him and helped myself to an empty glass and a pitcher of tea.
“Green beans, too, that’s a dear.” She smiled and piled them high.
Somewhere in the coughing fit, I suppose the butler spied my Avalante pin, because he tottered off to cover his mouth, waving the maids on as he turned. I grinned and grabbed a dinner roll. It was buttered and warm.
The maid pulled a chair out for me, and I plopped onto it.
“Too bad the meeting ran long. I was looking forward to lunch with the family.” I tore into the chicken.
“Oh, sir, the Lady never takes her lunch here anymore,” quoth the younger of the two maids. “Dines in her rooms, you know. Hardly leaves them, these days.”
“Hush, Margaret,” said the other, eyeing me with something like suspicion. “Fetch the gentleman a napkin.”
“This is good,” I said, between mouthfuls. “Someone here knows her business.”
“And what business brings you here, sir?” asked the suspicious maid. I pretended to wipe an errant crumb off my lapel, in case she hadn’t seen my brooch.
“Morris ram stabilizers,” I replied. Bits of Rafe’s conversation with Evis crept back to me. “Did you know that straight-bore mining drills wear out after only eighteen days? But not with a pair of Morris stabilizers on the forepins. They’ll go twenty-six days, or better. Factor that in with the savings in site idle time and wages spent on repairs, and you’ll see an overall boost to your profits of nearly one and a quarter percent over any six-month period. And I don’t have to tell you how much that means in profits over the life of a copper mine.”
I did not, in fact, have to tell her anything of the sort, because she gathered up a stack of plates and stomped from the room. Whether she’d bought my line of mining lore or was off to fetch the headsman I didn’t know.
Margaret of the inky-black locks grinned and poured me more tea.
“My father was a miner,” she said in a whisper. “I grew up around mines. There’s no such thing as a ram stabilizer, is there?”
“There probably ought to be,” I whispered back. “Are you going to scream for the Watch?”
“Depends. Are you here to help or hurt?”
I swallowed and met her eyes squarely.
“I’m here to bring Carris Lethway home.”
She just nodded and gathered plates.
“End of the hall. Take a right. Next time, a left. Third door on the right. Be gentle. She’s a nice lady. Just sick with worry.”
“Worry about Carris?”
She didn’t answer. She scooped up plates and fled, leaving me alone with a table-full of scraps.
I did linger and finish my chicken. I’m sure that illuminated a deep-seated flaw in my soul, but, as I said, it was good chicken.