Jefrey snickered. I sipped, put down my cup. “Sorry,” I said. “I do have a few ideas, though. None you’re going to like. And none we ought to discuss unless we’re alone.”
She sighed, pulled a chair around to face us, sat. “Jefrey,” she said. “I’m filing a new will. The children will get an allowance, but be barred from the bulk of the estate. You will receive half a million crowns every year for as long as you live. If you want the money so badly that you’d kill me to get it, ask for it now and you’ll have it tomorrow.”
Jefrey went pale, dropped his biscuit.
The widow gave me the eye. “Now talk to me.”
“Fine.” I took in a breath. “I think someone is making a play against your will, Lady,” I said. “You can’t file a revision, and make it stick, if someone contests it on the basis of your impaired mental state,” I said. “It’s called the Nutty Uncle defense, and the Court has historically favored the heirs.”
The widow took in a breath and set her jaw.
“Someone who looks like Lord Merlat has been paying you visits,” I said. “You’ve been to the Watch. You’ve been to the Church. You’ve taken counsel from a Narrows soothsayer. You’ve even hired me.”
“What of it?”
“It looks bad,” I said. “Say someone drags in everyone you’ve talked to, Church and Watch and all. Say they all shake their heads and shrug and say yes, you asked them about revenants, and no, they hadn’t seen any.” I let it sink in. “Picture Mama Hog downtown, Lady. Picture her in a witness box. How many judges are going to take your side?”
Her hands went tight on the arms of her chair. She hadn’t thought of that. It had never once occurred to her that her children would do anything more than slink quietly away after having the family fortune snatched away from them.
I sighed. “So maybe what you saw wasn’t your husband,” I said.
“Then why did the dogs let him go?” she said. “How did he escape the footmen, that first night? Why do Jefrey’s beasts hide and whimper when he walks, now? Why?”
“I don’t know all that, yet,” I said, as gently as I could. “I’m just pointing out an alternative to what you must admit is a far-fetched supposition. The dead don’t walk, Lady. I’m sorry, but they don’t.”
She rose. Rose and stalked out of the room, leaving Jefrey and I alone.
“Half a million crowns. Half a million,” said Jefrey. “Hell, if they knowed that, they’d have killed me already.” He rose. “Damn, they’ll kill me as soon as they hear.”
I rose, too. Jefrey looked scared, and with reason, since the widow’s generosity had indeed made him a target.
“Hold on,” I said. “Could be they don’t know yet.”
“Could be they do.” He gripped his stick tight. “What is she thinking?”
“She’s thinking you’ve stood by her,” I said. “She’s thinking you deserve what amounts to a title and a House. So calm down and let’s figure out a way around this.”
Jefrey fell back into his chair. “You think it’s them too,” he said. “You think it’s the kids.”
“I’m not sure who, or why, or how,” I said. “But it’s the only thing that makes sense, so far. Unless you believe that Lord Merlat really does rise up and return, seeking vengeance on those who slew him.” I paused a moment, let that sink in. “And as far as I know, wet fever slew Lord Merlat, not the Lady, not his kids, not you. That is right, isn’t it? Wet fever?”
Jefrey nodded, still distracted. “Fever,” he said. He looked up at me, and his eyes were hard and angry. “What are we going to do?” he said.
I yawned. Even the widow’s coffee wasn’t going to keep me up much longer. “Keep our doors locked and our wits about us,” I said. “And from now on, if Elizabet bakes you a cake, I’d handle it with tongs and bury it quick.”
“You got that right,” said Jefrey. He stooped and picked up his dropped biscuit and put it on his tray. “May sleep with the dogs, too.”
How many times had I done just that, during the War? I shook off the memory. “Good night,” I said. Jefrey rose with an old man’s groan, gathered up trays and cups, and we shuffled away, Jefrey toward the kitchen, I toward my bed.
Thunder rolled, faint and far away. I stepped out of the hall and onto the marble-floored ballroom. The daylight that streamed through the high stained glass was weak and lead-colored.
I mounted the stairs, scowled. Just what I needed. A torrential rainstorm, perfect for chasing spooks on the lawn.
I charged up to bed and locked my door behind me.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
I rolled over, fought bed sheets and blinked at the weak sunlight sneaking past the curtains. It couldn’t be much past noon.
“Master Markhat is not to be disturbed,” I yelled when the blows on my door subsided. “Leave a bag of money at the door and go away.”
Jefrey guffawed. “Beggin’ yer Lordship’s pardon,” he said, “but get your lazy ass out of your borrowed bed and come on down here. It’s after four. You’ve got a letter from your soothsayer friend.” He hit the door again, just for spite. “There’s coffee waiting.”
I groaned, threw off sheets, squinted at the windows. After four?
I dressed, dragged a comb through my hair, splashed water in my face.
Jefrey was waiting in the hall, a cloth-wrapped biscuit and ham in his hand. “Here,” he said in a whisper. “I baked these. You can chew ’em without a grind-stone and a chisel.”
I took it and gulped it down as we walked. “You said I had a letter,” I said between bites.
“You got one and the Lady got one,” said Jefrey. “I feel all left out.”
I guffawed. “Don’t,” I said. “It’ll just be more dire warnings about spooks and haints and things that go bump.” I swallowed. Give the man credit—he could bake a biscuit. “Load of back-country nonsense.”
“I reckon,” said Jefrey. “But whatever was in the Lady’s shook her up.”
I frowned.
Stay out of this, Mama
, I thought.
You stick to card reading and let me wrestle the jilted heirs.
“The kids still here?”
“They’re here,” replied Jefrey. “Stayed up in their rooms all day. But they was all in Elizabet’s rooms when I took ’em up lunch. They’re up to something.” Jefrey slowed at an intersection of dark, silent halls and glared at the shadows. “Better be on the look-out for ’em, you had.”
“I plan on it,” I replied. We reached the stairs and clambered on down. Lightning made brief whirls of color on the ballroom floor as we descended, and rain began to beat against the window-glass and fall in a muted roar upon the far-away slate roofs.
The widow was waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs. A silver tray sat on a table beside her. The room smelled of too-strong coffee.
“Good afternoon, goodman,” she said to me. “Will you have coffee with us?”
“I will, thank you,” I said. A pair of envelopes was also on the tray, behind the trio of white china cups. One envelope had been opened. One had not.
“Jefrey told you we have letters from Mrs. Hog.”
I nodded. Jefrey poured. The widow picked up my envelope and handed it to me.
“Here is yours. Shall we retire to the front room?”
I shrugged, took the letter and the cup Jefrey stuck in my hand. The widow’s coffee was too hot and too strong, and she was saving money by eschewing cream or sugar, but I drank it anyway as we walked.
We wound up in the Gold Room again. Rain washed down over the windows, and a rising wind whipped occasional gusts of spray against them. The Lady lit a tall, skinny oil-lamp and bade us to sit.
I plopped down in the same chair I’d passed the night upon, put down my coffee, and ripped open Mama’s letter.
“Boy,” it read. I doubted the widow’s had been so informal. Mama’s spidery hand went on. “He’s coming. Coming back tonight. This won’t be like the other times. He was more shadow than substance, before. But not tonight. Tonight he’ll be as solid as a rock.”
I lifted an eyebrow, felt the widow’s gaze upon me and made my face relax. Jefrey guzzled coffee, his eyes closed, his thin frame spread limp over his chair.
I turned back to Mama’s letter. “This storm is his doing. Look outside at it, and you’ll know something of his rage. Take a good look, boy. If you’ve got any fool notions about running outside and grabbing him, you look at that sky and you think again.”
“I was hoping you’d have time to find the truth and bring it to light,” Mama wrote. “I was hoping you could lay Ebed Merlat to rest before he came like this. But there ain’t time. Not anymore. He’s coming, and you can’t stop it. So you stay with the widow. Stay and do what needs doing. Stay and do what she can’t, or won’t, do. You’ll know when the time comes.”
I turned the page. I was expecting more words, all done up in Mama’s best Wise Old Crone style. Instead, there was nothing on the paper but an intricate doodle, crooked and wandering in the middle of the page.
My eyes blurred, and a sudden sharp ache pounded in my temple, and I felt an instant of dizziness, as if the widow’s overstuffed sitting chair suddenly rose up and spun me twice about.
The doodle on the page writhed and blurred.
I tore my eyes away, covered the second page with the first and bit back a curse word, but it was too late. I felt cat-paws down my spine and knew the feeling, from my days in the Army. I’d been hexed, only this time it wasn’t for night-sight or bug-away, cast by a grumpy field sorcerer on our wide and shuffling ranks.
No, this time it was by Mama and her third-rate hex sign. I blinked and lowered the letter, felt the widow’s piercing gaze upon me and tried to soften my scowl but had no luck.
Mama
, I thought,
this time you’ve stepped over the line.
“What is it?” asked the widow. “Bad news?”
I shook my head. My vision was clearing, and the pounding in my head subsided, but I could still feel Mama’s hex tip-toeing across the skin on my neck.
“Mrs. Hog has her usual advice to me,” I said. I folded the letter. “And, as usual, I find that our opinions differ.”
The widow smiled, as though I’d just said something funny, or something Mama predicted I’d say in her letter to the widow.
Thunder rolled and I jumped, because in the blast I thought I heard a voice, almost heard a word.
Mama’s hex tweaked my nose, made it itch. I frowned and shoved the letter back in its envelope. Jefrey opened his eyes and turned them toward me.
“Bad storm a comin’,” he said idly. “Dead man’s rain.”
I glared at him, realized he hadn’t spoken a second time. Mama’s hex whirled and preened.
I thanked the widow for the coffee, claimed a need for a wash and made for the stairs, resisting the urge to stomp and mutter.
Thunder rolled, each peal more like a shout than the one before it. Shadows flew, scampering beside me down the dark halls, beckoning and inviting at each turn, crooking their fingers at each closed and quiet door. As I walked, I passed through places both warm and cold, heard snatches of music, jumped at a loud and broken sob.
“Thank you Mama,” I said aloud, upon entering the empty ballroom. “Just what I needed. A headful of things that aren’t there.”
I blinked, and the floor was full of dancers, all twirling and dipping in time to music drowned out by the thunder.
I charged up the stairs to splash water in my eyes and think of ways to repay Mama her thoughtful generosity.
I bathed in a cast-iron bathtub, changed clothes and paced around my room, hoping Mama’s hex would wear off before I had to go back downstairs, or that I could at least figure out what she’d done to me. Had no luck on either front. I could still see shadows leap at the edge of my vision after bathing, but I couldn’t see any obvious structure in the nature of the hex. Pinching the bridge of my nose didn’t help, either, which gave rise to the disturbing notion that Mama knew something about hex-signs that the Army sorcery corps didn’t.
I plopped down on my bed and opened my duffel. Thunder grumbled and coughed. I frowned, wondering if Mama’s hex was extending to my hearing as well, because I could almost make out voices in the thunder and the smash of rain.
I found my bag within the bag, opened it, pulled out the things I’d hoped I wouldn’t need. I had a lead-weighted knocking stick—easy to conceal under a jacket, yet quietly effective on hostile noggins; just the thing for strolls through my neighborhood just before Curfew. That, my Army knife, a pair of brass knuckles and a single unused Army-issue flash-spell wafer that might or might not light up when I broke it in half.
I sighed and shoved things in pockets. Mama’s hex showed me a glimpse of flames when I touched the flash-spell, and when I put my knife in its ankle-sheath I smelled the warm wet stench of a Troll tunnel again.
I jerked my hand away, rose, straightened my shirt. The rain smashed against my window, driven by a burst of wind that howled and blew and beat like a coastal gale. Lightning sent skeletal shadows snaking across the floor, and the hex made them linger.
I made for the door. I passed a window, and thought about what Mama had said—that this storm was Ebed Merlat’s, that to see his rage and fury, one need only look to the sky.
Mama’s hex showed me anguished faces in the windswept clouds. I walked away and shut the door fast behind me.