Whispering Nickel Idols (25 page)

It was warm and thick and I was starving. I sucked it down till I couldn’t hold any more.

Minutes later I declared, “I’m starting to feel human.” Pause. “Well? Somebody going to jump on the straight line?”

“Nobody’s in the mood, Garrett. The last fifteen hours were misery curdled. Ready downstairs, Dean?”

“Steamer’s going. Water’s hot. The tub is out. I’ll get something to dry him off and we’ll be set.”

Tinnie snapped, “Off your butt, big boy. It’s bath time.”

I stood. With help. The world hadn’t gone stable, but it didn’t have that awful wobble where I tripped and stumbled into a nightmare dreamland.

I felt stronger by the time we hit the kitchen. Where the air was thick with steam, the herb stench watered my eyes, and the heat was overpowering.

Dean had dragged the big copper laundry tub up from the cellar. Two smaller tubs were heating on the stove. I said, “This ought to cook a few demons out of me.”

“If only,” Tinnie and Dean sneered at the same instant.

If only. You should he beyond crisis, Garrett.  But we must make sure.  You are doing most of your own breathing.  Secondarily, Dean and Miss Tate wish to render your personal aroma somewhat less piquant.

I didn’t have energy enough to get my feelings bruised.

Tinnie grumbled, “Arms over your head. Off with those filthy duds.”

In the steam and heat I caught whiffs of what everybody else had been suffering all along. No wonder Singe and her miracle nose were elsewhere.

That weed sweat was pretty awful.

50

They steamed me for the rest of the century. They were generous with water and beer, but still I sweated a good ten pungent pounds. And was too weak afterward to make it back to bed on my own.

My bedding had been changed. Somebody had opened the window briefly, despite the weather. A charcoal burner was warming the room now. Herbs had been added, meant to mask bad smells.

I collapsed. My last recollection was Tinnie cursing like a Marine as she levered loose extremities into bed.

I regained consciousness with a furious hangover — again — and a worse attitude. How many times would I go round this circle of misery? Hell. Maybe I could get my karma all polished up in one lifetime.

I had no strength. I was a big glob of pancake goo, just splattered there. If I’d been able to feel sorry f anybody else, I would’ve reflected on how awful life must be for Chodo. But from the surface of the griddle the horizon is close. Only a strong caution from the Dead Man and a residual dollop of survival instinct kept me from taking it out on Tinnie.

It is not her fault. It is not her fault. He is handy, sometimes.

“The Dead Man says you’re cured.” Damn her eyes, she was chipper. Perky, even. Which made it harder to hold back. “There’s some work you can do today. Notice, you’re breathing on your own now.” Tinnie fed me watery porridge and honeyed tea. “You more inclined to concentrate on the manufactory full-time now?”

Here came some potholes in the high road to romance.

“I thought you all wanted me to stay away.” On account of I mutter and sputter and carry on like the group conscience. Particularly when they’re trying to expand the corporate profit margin.

“You could keep your mouth shut. You can contribute without making everybody want to smack you with a shaping mallet. Security is getting to be a challenge. We’ve had parts go missing. We think somebody is trying to build a three-wheel at home.”

Singe arrived with a tray. But no food. “This tea has willow bark in it. Dean thought you might have a hangover.”

I did, but I was getting better. “Thanks. How come nothing else?” Singe eyed Tinnie’s tray. “Your gut can’t handle anything heavier.”

I was ready to tie into a mammoth steak. “Not even soup?”

“Soup for lunch. Maybe. Maybe something solid for supper. If you keep the soup down.”

I was cranky enough to chew rocks. But some damnable shred of decency wouldn’t let me snarl and bitch when people were babying me. Probably supplemented by a suspicion that the babying would stop.

I drank tea. I drank water. By the time I finished dressing and got downstairs I was thirsty again.

Dean gave me apple juice. The flavor hit my mouth like an unexpected explosion. After an almost painful moment I understood that I had my sense of taste back, never having realized that it was gone.

How is your writing hand? Recovered, I trust?

I muttered. I grumbled. I made noises like I might not only go to work at the manufactory full-time. I might move there with all my treasures and none of my burdens.

I got a big mental sneer in reply. And a confession that,
The inscription is complete. Merry Sculdyte has departed, in a state of vast confusion. He has memories he knows are not his own. But he cannot sort those out from others that are.  He is afflicted with suspicions of his brother and benevolent feelings toward Teacher White. Who, he vaguely recollects, saved his life and nursed him back to health after somebody tried to assassinate him.

“You seem to have lost some scruples.”

They are not lost. They are in abeyance.

I was so amazed I forgot to feel sorry for Ma Garrett’s baby boy for nearly a minute. “Oh? Explain a little more.”

The Sculdyte family has a plan. An extreme plan. Not advantageous for TunFaire. Much better if Miss

Contague continues to wrangle the underworld. Her victims are her own kind. And deserving.

I understood once I skimmed notes from those Merry memories not recorded in my own fair hand. Rory did have a plan. It involved destroying the Watch. He expected backing from the Hill once the

killing started. But Merry had known no names. It sounded more like raw wish fulfillment than solid scheme, but Sculdyte was convinced that a reckoning with the Watch was imminent. Upon removal of Chodo and his wicked daughter.

The Contague name still had conjure power.

51

I napped while Colonel Block read. The trudge over to the Cardonlos place had worn me out. Even with Tinnie along to pick me up if I got lost in a snowdrift.

My honey shook me when it was time. The poor girl was ragged.

Block was done. And hot enough to boil water. He glared at me. “How dare they? How dare they?” Then, less rhetorically, “Did you really have a close call?”

“You’re going to worry about me? That makes me nervous.” But I sketched my age of suffering.

“I don’t need to hear about every twitch and burp, Garrett.” Then, “That doesn’t allay my natural cynicism. I can’t help wondering, if you’re willing to turn this over, how much more interesting is the stuff you’re holding back?”

“It’s hard, going through life misunderstood.”

“I doubt that anyone misunderstands you even a little, Garrett. Eh, Miss Tate? Nevertheless, we’re in your debt.”

“Really? We could use a visit from some Green Pants guys.”

“That might serve our purposes.” Without hesitation or argument.

“Send a clerk, too. Somebody without imagination enough to be scared of the Dead Man. I can’t write anymore.” I showed him a hand shriveled into a claw.

“It isn’t that I don’t believe you’re literate, Garrett. I’ve witnessed incidents. What I can’t envision is you doing that much work.”

I shrugged. I’d surprised him before.

His heart wasn’t in his banter. It was broken. Somebody out there was so indisposed to the rule of law that he meant to make war on it. “Where is Merry now?”

I shrugged again. I was getting a heavy workout. “I was asleep. They put him out in the snow. In a state of confusion, apparently.”

“Assuming your story has a nodding acquaintance with the truth, then, Rory may guess that his baby brother ran into the only Loghyr left in TunFaire.”

Not all of TunFaire’s crooks are terminally stupid. Only most of them.

I asked, “Any idea where Belinda Contague is?”

“No. She’s as elusive as her father. Why?”

“Curiosity.”

Block grunted. He was antsy. He wanted me to go away so he could go talk this over with his unsocial sidekick. His claw within the shadows.

Sighing, Tinnie hoisted me to my feet. I groaned. It would be a long, cold trek home. I told Block, “We wouldn’t mind seeing one of the foreman type Ymberians, in addition to the standard wide load with the bad fashion sense.”

The good Colonel nodded, distracted. He wasn’t exactly caught up in the moment.

52

The wind was no longer as wicked. It was behind us now. And I was too wiped out to be distracted by externals. I couldn’t focus on much but hunger and wanting to get back to bed.

Nevertheless, that old Marine training persisted. “See the waif beside the steps down there?”

“Yes. That the kitten girl with the mighty name?”

“The very one.”

“She don’t look like a princess.”

“How do I convince her she doesn’t have to be afraid?”

“Get the eunuch operation?”

“Come on, Tinnie.”

“I love you, buddy. But love doesn’t have to be blind. She’s female. She’s old enough to stand on her own hind legs. Which means she’d better not get close enough for you to do your helpless little-boy routine.”

Story of my life. They want to mother me instead of let me treat them badly, Morley Dotes style. “You’re too young and beautiful to be so cynical.”

“You might wonder who made me that way.”

“I will. When I find out who she is, I’ll give her a piece of my mind.”

“Sure you can spare it?”

We were home. She whacked on the castle gate. I puffed and panted. The long climb up left me without wind to argue.

I swear, there were still echoing whiffs of Mulclar swirling round the stoop.

Singe opened up. Tinnie handed me over. “Give him lots of water, some broth, and let him nap. I’ll be back.” She returned to the street. Singe didn’t give me time to thank her.

The Dead Man demanded,
Do you have something to report?

“Save time. Do it the easy way.” I settled into my chair, halfheartedly trying to remember when we’d shed all our guests.

I felt him stir the sludge inside my head. I went to sleep. After what didn’t seem like thirty winks, I woke up to a meal set up on a small table beside me. Singe ambled in from up front, where she had admitted a snow-encrusted redhead.

I said, “I thought you went home.”

Tinnie frowned. Then, “No. I went to talk to the princess.” She didn’t sound like she was awash in sympathy for Penny. “She’s as stubborn as a rock. She won’t come over and get warm.”

I asked, “She sat still? She talked to you?”

“She didn’t feel threatened.”

“What’s her problem?”

“She’s the last one standing, Garrett. She’s still a kid. But she saw her mother, her aunts, and her grandmother murdered. By men.”

“Men in green pants, not harmless little fuzz balls like me.”

“Men. That’s the point. The A-Laf cult. Which, the way she tells it, is a lot nastier than we imagined. They think women are evil. That they’re fit only to be breeding slaves.”

I sensed faint but constrained mirth. “Careful, Old Bones. She’s wound up. And your attitude is pretty bad.”

“It isn’t his attitude I had in mind, big boy.”

Time for a change of subject. “Dean! Where are you? Bring something for Miss Tate. Singe, how about you help her with those wet things?”

Tinnie glared. I was being thoughtful.

The air of amusement grew.
As I have observed previously, when you get hit hard enough for long enough, you do begin to learn
. Tinnie glowered.

Your visit with the girl was more productive than you think, Miss Tate.

He left it at that. Until Tinnie had eaten and warmed up and grown less cranky. Then he told us that Tinnie had distracted Penny enough for him to slip a couple of suggestions into her divine head.
I could not browse. The girl has been trained to recognize and resist a probe. Therefore, I fed what was there. Fear. Despair. Loneliness. And physical misery.

He didn’t share the latter with Tinnie, who was likely to turn all outraged.

She was still eating. And listening to Singe talk about chances for a bath followed by a long nap. Singe suddenly shut up, stood upright, and stared at the Dead Man with glazed eyes. Then she headed for the front door.

This should be interesting.
He didn’t explain. Back to Penny Dreadful
. The impulses insinuated should heighten the child’s entire range of emotion. We can expect her to look for emotional support.

It would behoove you to make sure that Dean does not leave the house before she cracks.

53

Butterbutt sent Dean to the door. Dean did try to sneak out. Chuckles didn’t let him. The old boy got all foamy-mouthed about supposed shortages in our stores.

The rest of us got excited about the three bipeds delivered by Scithe and several Relway Runners. Scithe told me, “Ask and ye shall receive. Sign this receipt, Garrett.”

I signed, checked his catch. “The bruno seems a bit dull.”

“That would be his natural state. Though they did drug him up. It was the only way to keep him docile. This other one, you smack him some and he gets cooperative.”

“The long, skinny one the clerk?”

The third man was tall and vague. He slouched with hands in pockets. Defeated. The part in his hair was four inches wide and ran back to his crown.

“Yeah. He’s a twofer. A bonus baby. He’ll do your transcription. Call it public service, to work off bad behavior. The Director gets a kick out of that kind of thing.”

“What’d he do?”

“He poisoned one of our more exotic Karentine subjects.”

I didn’t get it. I was in slow mode.

“Kolda, Garrett. Your herbalist. They ran him down this morning.”

“Relway has a twisted sense of humor.”

“We enjoy it. Got to go. Always more bad boys to catch.”

Dean saw the strongarms of the law to the door. He attempted another escape. Old Bones shut him down. Singe took him back to the kitchen.