Land of the Beautiful Dead (54 page)

“I told you that, too. But she admitted it,” he mused after a short, considering pause. “How curious. Why would she tell you such a thing and give away what would seem to me to be a most effective weapon, that of her rivalry?”

“So I’d back off and let her do what she came to do.”

“Which is what?”

“That, she didn’t say.” Lan did her coffee up with cream and sugar, watching Master Wickham inspect the contents of his cup. “Can I ask you something?”

He smiled faintly without looking up. “Why do I drink?”

“Well…yeah.”

“Have a guess,” he invited. “In fact, have three. If you get it right, you shall have a present.”

“What present?”

“I’ll take you back to Hampton Court to see the chimneys.”

Lan blinked slowly.

He smiled and nodded.

“Right,” she said. “Well. That’s…quite a hook.” She thought it over while Master Wickham stirred his coffee and occasionally sipped at it. “I guess I should start with the obvious: You like the taste.”

“That’s a very good guess.”

“I got it?”

“No,” he replied. “Although the simplest solution to any problem is most often the correct one—that’s what’s known as Occam’s Razor—in this particular case, it happens to be wrong. My sense of taste is, I imagine, somewhat diminished in death. I am quite fond of tea, for example, and given a choice, I will always choose black teas over green or red, but I confess they all taste the same to me. My preference is purely arbitrary. Try again.”

“You’re cold.”

“Another good guess. Being dead, my body is only capable of producing trace amounts of heat by way of kinetic friction and, as my work is largely sedentary, I am indeed colder to the touch than others of my kind. However,” he said, raising one warning finger against any premature celebrations, “being dead, I am not discomfited by it. One more try.”

Lan peered into his unblinking eyes, feeling out and discarding a number of equally implausible answers before settling on, “You seen us drink and were curious?”

“Saw, Lan. I saw you drink and so forth, and no. While I must confess to some curiosity when it comes to the habits of the living, as my digestive system is entirely defunct, that would be a foolish one to indulge as often as I do. But it was a good effort. It is a pity we won’t be seeing Hampton Court today, but there’s always tomorrow. However, since you’re here, shall we get started?” He set his coffee aside, virtually untouched, and opened his briefcase, angled in such a way as to block the cup from sight. “I think a quick refresher on the differences between simple past and present perfect tense—”

“You hid it.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You hid your cup.”

Master Wickham looked at it, then pushed his briefcase back to open her line of sight.

“Not now,” she said. “Before.” And she laughed, shaking her head over and over as the realization grew. “Oh, you got me. You and your little guessing game, trying to get me to figure out
why
you drink when I was supposed to be figuring out why you
hide
the fact that you drink.”

He took a breath, but not to speak. He closed his briefcase, folded his hands atop it, and just waited.

“You remember drinking, don’t you?

“No, I don’t.”

“Yeah, you do. You can’t taste it and you can’t feel it and you have to sick it up afterwards before it goes sour, but you still do it, because you remember doing it when you were alive.”

“No,” he said again. “As I said before, I have no true memories, only impressions. Specifically, this sound.” He picked up his cup and set it down again on its saucer, then moved both aside and made himself sigh. “I was going to let you win on your third guess, whatever it was. I knew if I didn’t, you’d keep thinking about it and eventually…” He spread his empty hands. “But when the time came, I just couldn’t.”

“You’re a teacher. It’s a lesson.”

“Precisely.” He paused, then said, “And in that same spirit, I am compelled to ask, is it your intention to…oh, how shall I put this? To
do
something about Cassius?”

Lan scowled. “No.”

“Oh thank heaven.” With obvious relief, he reached across the table to pat her hand. “I’m aware it won’t be easy for you, but it is the wisest course of action. The very fact that she took the time to interrogate you means she sees you as a threat. If you give her cause, she will almost certainly attempt to remove you from our lord’s favor. I personally can’t think how she’d manage it, but it doesn’t pay to provoke her, especially as the situation will resolve itself quite handily as soon as she leaves. Until then, you would be well served to do all in your power to speed her departure.”

“I don’t mean I should stay out of it because blah blah the moral high ground blah blah bollocks blah. I mean I should stay out of it because I’d only make a muck out of it. Conniving isn’t something you just have a bash at. It’s a skill like any other. You need talent or practice to be any good at it, preferably both…and I don’t have either.” Lan rediscovered her coffee and drank it off before it could get too cold, then poured herself a hot one. “Last night proves that, if I needed any more proof.”

Master Wickham settled back in his chair with one leg crossed over the other and his fingers steepled beneath his chin—his ‘listening’ pose.

“Oh, I got dollied up and tried to win him over to my new Haven idea. You should have seen me, all paints and pearls, and I impressed him so bloody much he not only said no, he told me he’d put me out if I ever asked again. When did this happen?” she demanded, thoroughly disgusted. “I always thought I was better than that, but I went and turned into a girl. Not just any girl, but Elvie bloody Peters. She could do this sort of thing in her sleep, you know.”

“I don’t know, actually. I’ve no idea who you’re talking about.”

“Elvie Peters from up the road in Norwood. Long time ago—well, not so long as all that, but longish—she heard Eithon was chatting up Tess Morgan. As if,” Lan inserted, rolling her eyes. “He’d no sooner be seen chatting her up than me. She was a pig-keeper’s girl. He was probably only there to fetch the mayor’s share of pork after slaughter, but whatever. Elvie went and told Harmon, the blacksmith’s apprentice, to ask her to the harvest ball, so he did, right out in the middle of town where everyone could see. Eithon heard about it and so he charged up all bullish and called Harmon out and you can guess how that ended.”

“I could not begin to guess. I still don’t know who any of these people are.”

“Harmon beat the hide off him, of course. Blacksmith’s apprentice against mayor’s son? No hope. And of course you know what Elvie did next.”

“I…” Wickham looked up at the glass cherubs hanging from the corners of the colored-glass windows, as if for heavenly aid. “No.”

“She went hugging on Eithon, her ‘poor, bruised lambkins,’ and let the sheriff take Harmon in for battery. He got lashed in the town square three nights running, all so Elvie could play heart-games with Eithon, and how did it end, eh? Harmon apologized to her and Eithon took her to the bloody ball! I’m not like that, damn it!”

“I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear it.”

“Yeah, whatever, but Elvie would know six ways to get Azrael to handle stupid, sodding Cassius and do it all while flirting up some other fella. What do I know how to do?”

“I should hope you know enough to do nothing. Or do you think our lord is unaware of Cassius’s deceptions?”

“I think he’s a man,” Lan replied sourly. “And men can be stupid sometimes around a lady with a tongue-stud. Tell you what, if I ever see that pretty thing again, I’m ripping it right out.”

“Oh good gracious. Let’s call that Plan B, shall we? Not that I’m encouraging you to foment plans, but if you feel you must, they really ought to be more subtle than facial mutilation.”

“I don’t do subtle. I don’t even know how to spell it.”

“With a B.”

“Don’t make fun of me,” Lan snapped. “I’m illiterate, not stupid! I know there’s no B in subtle!”

Wickham closed his eyes and murmured, “Not now. Focus. Later, but not now. Lan, when you solved The Case of the Dead Man’s Teacup, you did so by recognizing that you had asked the wrong question. I dare say you’re doing it again. Rather than focus your efforts on
how
to remove Cassius from our company, perhaps you ought to ask yourself why you feel the need?”

“I don’t like her, that’s why. No mystery there.”

“Ah, but isn’t there? How many of our lord’s companions do you like?”

“It’s not the same thing.”

“Agreed. But how is it not?”

“I don’t know. It just isn’t.”

“Tut, Lan. You disappoint me.”

That stung.

“Apply Occam’s Razor,” Wickham ordered. “The simplest answer is most often correct. What is the difference between our lord’s other companions and Cassius?”

Lan shook her head, but when that wasn’t good enough, she finally had to say it out loud: “I replaced them. And she’s replacing me.”

“Wrong, actually, and you know it. She can’t replace anyone if she’s not staying. It must be something else. What is it?”

“Just tell me, if you know!”

“I shan’t, Lan, but I will give you a hint.” He raised one finger, as if to point at the words as he said them. “She’s a goer. She’s not staying. She came here, at terrible risk, knowing she would not stay.” Smiling, he laced his hands together again. “Now. Tell me the first and most obvious conclusion you draw from that.”

“She doesn’t want to be here,” said Lan impatiently.

“Exactly.”

“Exactly what? Lots of his dollies don’t want to be…” But that wasn’t right, was it? They did want to be in Haven, every one of them. It was Azrael they didn’t want. He was a clause of the bargain they all struck to get what they wanted, whatever that might be, and even if they didn’t all stay, they had all wanted to come once upon a time. All but Cassius, hungry Cassius.

“And what does that tell you?” Wickham asked, as if he could see all these thoughts written plainly in the air above her head.

“Tells me she was pretty damned sure he’d take her in. And whether she stays or goes really doesn’t matter to me as much as the fact that she apparently has a plan and I can’t figure out what it is.”

“Our lord is well-versed in the duplicity of the living. Trust him to handle Cassius.”

“Yeah, right. Like he’s handling her now? He may not be bartering with her, but you can bet he’s fucking her.” Lan shook her head and glared into her coffee. “Men and tongue studs, Master Wickham. Men and tongue studs.”

He did not seem to know how to respond to that and after several false starts, he politely excused himself and went to his chair by the fireplace to pour out his coffee and make up some tea. He took a long time with it before he rejoined her, cup in hand and saucer capping it to prevent spillage, with a generous assortment of biscuits to weigh it down. He offered them to her and when she listlessly accepted one, he sat and assumed a lecturing rather than listening posture. “He’s fond of you, you know. Have you ever thought of simply asking him to put her out?”

“Eh, he offered, but the price was more than I wanted to pay.”

He regarded her closely over the top of his teacup. “You don’t sound very certain about that.”

“I was last night.”

“And this morning?”

“This morning, I met her.”

“Ah.” He drank and carefully matched cup to saucer. The sound was indeed distinctive. “She won’t stay, Lan.”

“You keep saying that.”

“You keep seeming to forget it. She’s not staying. She’s no threat to you. Let her be.”

He had only ever given her good advice before. Even when she didn’t like it or agree with it, she had to admit it was always good advice. This should feel the same way, if for no other reason than this precedent and her own understanding of her less than sensible nature. It should…but it didn’t.

“All right,” said Lan.

“Capital. That’s settled, then. I do enjoy our talks, even if you are early.” He had another drink of tea and set it aside. “But as you are here,” he began, opening her primer for her, “shall we begin your lessons?”

She returned his broad smile wanly. “I thought we already had.”

“You really are too clever by half, Lan.” He shook his head, tsking just under his breath as he wrote out the first lines in her book. “It is so frustrating that you persist in pretending otherwise.”

* * *

Azrael was late to dinner again that night. Worse, he’d known he was going to be late again, because he’d gone to some effort to keep her distracted in his absence. Every candle was lit and every table hung with garlands of gold ivy and white flowers. His dead court filled the lower tables with colorful clothes and chatter. His musicians played on the center stage, with masked tumblers moving around them in rhythm, dressed in little more than paint and flashy beads. Everyone was having a fine time, except Lan, because for all the light and noise and laughter, it was still an empty room.