Crusader (48 page)

Then the upstairs maids needed linens and sheets and pillowcases and dusters, and so Raspu must march to the linen closet and carefully count out the articles required.

And mark it off in his account book.

Then, after only a brief respite—not even long enough for a cup of tea and a sit down—they were back with the dirty linen. Raspu must be out again with his account book to check that the dirty linen numbers and quantities matched the clean numbers and quantities he’d dispatched
yesterday,
and if they didn’t, then everything must be dumped into piles and carefully sorted out under his supervision to find the missing pillowcase, and if the numbers
still
refused to tally, then Raspu must needs conduct a room by room search of the upstairs corridors, seeking under every bed and in every dirty clothes hamper for the pillowcase.

And when he’d wasted four hours in that fruitless search, and was nigh tearing out his hair in almost unbearable frustration (and determined to tear the offending pillowcase to shreds, together with the maid who’d lost it, when it was finally found), Raspu sat down to a late and very cold lunch with his account book only to find that he’d miscounted the number of pillowcases on yesterday’s tally, and that in fact this morning’s count had been correct. He’d wasted an entire morning—and let his lunch grow cool and congealed—over a simple error that if he’d not bothered with the
cursed
accounting and tallying in the first instance would not have bothered him!

Raspu threw the account book across the room, his plate of disgustingly congealed lunch close after it, and the cook lowered her head and grinned into the pots atop the stove, and the footmen by the door raised their eyes to the ceiling and smirked inwardly.

Things were going well.

The challenge was falling into place.

The days spun by.

“Who is that little girl you sent off with the red-headed birdman?” Qeteb asked conversationally. He could sense Raspu’s dilemma, and it made him rabid with fury.

But not incensed enough to lose his vision of overall destiny.

Nothing he said could have dismayed DragonStar more.

“What little girl?” he said. Behind him the Alaunt shifted, and one or two growled softly.

Qeteb smirked in satisfaction. The tone of DragonStar’s voice was enough, in itself, to make the probable loss of Raspu bearable.

“No-one,” he said. “I had grown bored and merely invented a question to while away the time.”

DragonStar closed his eyes and cleared his mind, hoping that SpikeFeather and Azhure were safe enough in the waterways.

As far as he knew the Demons had never ventured down there…but was that assumption correct enough to assure Katie’s continued safety?

One lunchtime Raspu entered the kitchen to find one of the footmen leaning against a maid with his hand nestled inside her open blouse.

As the footman saw Raspu, he leaned away from the girl, slowly pulling out his hand.

The girl’s round, firm breast was exposed to Raspu’s gaze before she pulled the material of her blouse closed.

Raspu, tired by a morning of chasing after a small and almost empty jar of boot black—only to find it on the shelf where it was supposed to be anyway—merely ignored both servants and sat down at the table.

The cook almost dropped his plate of tripe before him, and milk sauce splattered over the table.

Raspu opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again.

He was too tired, and far too hungry, to be bothered.

Later, perhaps.

And then, later, the girl who’d let the footman grope her in the kitchen accosted Raspu in a dimly lit corridor as the Demon was walking slowly, tiredly, towards his room for bed.

“I should explain meself,” the girl mumbled, standing before the Demon.

Raspu sighed. “This can wait until morning,” he said, and tried to push past her.

But she clung to his arm, and he stumbled to a halt.

He noticed her mouth, and remembered the maid who’d pouted so seductively at him. Was this the same girl?

He felt a stirring of interest.

One should never be intimate with those to whom you must issue orders and directions.
That was the forty-eighth rule (in a total of seventy-two) of the “Butler’s Code of Conduct” which sat neat and trim and orderly in a workmanlike frame above his pillow.

Raspu had read it assiduously when he’d first embarked upon this ridiculous challenge. But now, as the girl pressed her warm and curiously pliable flesh against him, and pouted her mouth just so, Raspu wondered if perhaps he’d passed the test a long time ago.

Surely he’d done enough? Proved himself beyond doubt?

“He’s not important to me,” the girl murmured, and Raspu gave a start of shock—and desire—as he realised that one of her hands had crept down between his legs.

“Who?” he managed.

“The footman. Pete.”

“Oh.” The girl’s hand was very bold, and Raspu supposed he should say or do something about it, but…

“It’s only you I care about,” the girl whispered, and now somehow her blouse had fallen open, and Raspu found that one of his hands was kneading at her breast.

“You’re so strong,” she whispered, “and so powerful. You’ve given everyone such a scare.”

She thrust her breast more firmly against his hand and Raspu groaned.

“I do like a man with authority,” she said, and shivered enticingly as she tilted her head back and closed her eyes.

That was enough for Raspu. Tearing away his butler’s stiff
black coat and grey-striped trousers, he threw her to the floor and took her there and then.

If she wanted authority, then who was he to deny it to her?

Deep in her watchful seclusion, Gwendylyr grinned. He was almost lost. There remained only one more small test.

“Y’see,” the footman said, “there’s no reason why we shouldn’t do it, is there?”

His voice was very persuasive, and Raspu looked about at the rest of the staff gathered together in the kitchen.

The maid he’d enjoyed—several times—the previous night, ran a tip of pink tongue over her lower lip, and one of her hands crept caressingly over her belly.

“It’s only a packet or two here and there,” the footman continued. “The mistress’ll never miss it.”

“And it’s not like we don’t deserve it,” another footman said.

“What with the wages we get, and all,” said the cook.

“I know
you
don’t get paid much—” a small, red-haired maid to one side began, and Raspu stared at her. He’d never thought about how much he got paid. Was it not good enough for him?

“—and yet we all know how hard you work,” she continued.

Raspu nodded. Yes, he
did
work hard, didn’t he?

“At all those accounting books,” the cook said, and Raspu wondered that he’d never previously noticed the pleasantness of her voice.

“I mean,” said the cook, “what thanks do you get for keeping all those numbers ordered and neat?”

That’s right! Raspu thought. No-one has ever thanked me for all the work I’ve put in.

“Just a can here and there,” said a gardener, poking his head in the open window. “For me kids, y’understand. No-one else.”

Of course. Of course.

“Just a can here and there,” the cook whispered, and Raspu nodded.

“Just here and there,” he said.

Gwendylyr stood before the closed brown door to the kitchen. She tucked a stray hair neatly behind her ear, then took a deep breath.

She opened the door and walked in.

Raspu jerked out of his doze and leapt to his feet.

A cat, which had been curled up beside his head on the table, yowled, and fled out the door to the garden.

The cook was lying in an alcoholic coma to one side of the kitchen, an empty brandy bottle in her hand, and the remains of a meat pie crumbled across her ample bosoms.

She’d vomited a while before, and the horrid stuff lay crusted on her chin and neck.

One of the maids had pulled her blouse open to allow a footman to lick and suck at her breasts, while two other footmen were packing sacks full of food and assorted packets and handing them out the window to one of the gardeners who put them in a cart.

Three footmen were once more engaged in a game of poker at a small table in the farthest reaches of the kitchen.

A thin-ribbed hound was humping a grunting bitch in the cold room, while several rats chewed on a joint of meat lying on the floor.

Dust and grime and trails of fat lay everywhere.

Raspu’s uniform was creased and stained and his hair wild.

Gwendylyr stood, as if transfixed by the mess and sloth, and then she half gasped, half sobbed, and began to cry, slapping her hands to her face in theatrical despair.

Raspu reddened, and then cursed as he realised the blaze spreading across his cheeks.

Gwendylyr managed to control her weeping, and she
turned her face to Raspu. “I am so sad, Demon. I thought you were strong enough to govern my household but—”

“No, wait!” Raspu cried, and stepped over to the cook, landing a foot in her ribs. “Wake up, you drunken sot! There’s a meal to prepare! You! Get back to work!”

He made a grab at the footman nuzzling against the maid’s breast, but the man rolled to one side, and Raspu’s hand slapped harmlessly against a barrel.

“Be still,” said Gwendylyr. “It is too late. You have made your—”

“No!”
Raspu screamed turning back to her. “Wait! I can still redeem myself! I can—”

“Ah,” Gwendylyr said, “now that
would
be difficult. How can any man redeem himself who cannot even keep a kitchen in order?”

Gwendylyr waved her hand around at the mess. “Look at this! You allowed yourself to embrace laziness and corruption, you allowed yourself to—”

“Give me another chance.”

“No.”

“I know I will manage next time—just give me the chance!”

Gwendylyr stared at the Demon, still red-faced, although now from fear. “No. You have failed the challenge. You could not govern this household, and thus you have lost the right to govern yourself.”

“No!”

“Yes. Self-determination is no longer yours, Raspu—”

He stretched out a hand, his face twisted in pleading, but already he could feel the bonds encircling his being.

He was no longer free.

“—and thus you must accept an eternity of servitude.”

“No,” he whispered.

“Servitude is the price of your failure,” Gwendylyr said, no sympathy in her voice at all. “What a pity you would not listen to me when I tried to tell you that.”

Raspu crouched close to the floor, whimpering.

Gwendylyr stared at Raspu briefly, then twisted her fingers amid his hair and hauled him to his feet. “Be silent, and accept your servitude. Your position has already been chosen for you—”

Raspu stared at her. To what slavery would he be put?

Gwendylyr smiled, and as she did so Raspu’s face lightened in hope.

“The Field of Flowers,” she said, “requires a man for the door.”

And she snapped her fingers.

Far, far away, sitting at her table before the Gate of Death, the haggard crone looked up, her fists clenched.

“I’ve been made
redundant?”
she said.
“Me?”

S
pikeFeather had jumped at the chance to escort Azhure and Katie into the waterways, and had only been mildly surprised when the two ice sisters had said they’d come along as well. The only wonder was that Urbeth had not seemed to mind, saying only that the threat to the column had now receded, and it would do her daughters good to see the waterways.

And so now here they were, trudging through ice and snow. SpikeFeather had not known of any entrance to the waterways in the frozen northern tundra, but Urbeth’s daughters had merely smiled secretively to one another, and led the small group towards the coast.

It was freezing away from the protection of the trees, and while the ice women were apparently unaffected, SpikeFeather, Azhure and Katie had to huddle close, sharing their cloaks and their warmth, in order to survive.

Azhure was deeply unsettled. It had been a generation at least since she’d been separated from Axis. And had she ever been separated from him without the use of power, or the comfort of Alaunt and Wolven at her side? Now she had the responsibility of Katie—Azhure would sooner have died than to let Faraday down—and nothing with which to guarantee the girl’s survival.

Nothing.

Not even a dagger.

What was I thinking of,
she thought,
to have walked away without even a knife?

In fact, they had nothing with them save a small bag with enough food for a day in it. Nothing but SpikeFeather’s assurance they’d find something in the waterways, and nothing but the confidence of the two ice women in finding an entrance down to the Underworld in the first instance.

As they stumbled forwards, eyes narrowed against the icy wind, numb hands clutching the edges of the cloaks about them, Azhure glanced down at Katie.

The girl was subdued—but then who wouldn’t be under these circumstances? Otherwise she seemed well enough, her cheeks coloured despite the cold (or perhaps because of it), and she lifted her eyes and smiled sweetly enough at Azhure when she realised the woman’s regard.

Azhure nodded at the girl, and swung her eyes forward to where the two ice women strode straight-backed through the wind, heedless of the cold. Their grey and silver hair streamed and snapped out behind them, and every so often one of them would lift a bare, white-skinned arm and swing her hand in a graceful arc before her.

Whenever one did that, Azhure noted that the sting of the wind eased, and warmth stole back into her flesh.

When they’d set out, Azhure had asked them their names, but both women had smiled pleasantly, but with deep puzzlement.

“Names?” one of them had said. “We have no need for names.”

And that had been the end of any conversation. The two women had simply walked forth into the snow, and, after a final glance at those they left behind, SpikeFeather, Azhure and Katie had followed them.