Текст книги "Dead Man's rain"

Автор книги: Frank Tuttle

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Chapter Two

“This will do,” I told my driver. “Pull over.”

The cab rolled to a halt. I opened the door and hauled out my Army-tan duffel bag.

The cabbie looked down at me and wrinkled his brow. “Look, pal,” he said. “I don’t mean to tell you your business, but this ain’t the place for the likes of us come sundown.”

I’d hauled a handful of coppers out of my pocket to count out for the fare, and I was so shocked I lost my place. “What do you mean?” I asked. “I’ve got a job. I’ll be indoors. The Merlats aren’t half-dead, and even if the neighbors are they don’t bother the help-do they?”

The cabbie’s eyes darted up and down the empty, tree-lined sidewalk. “It ain’t the half-dead you need to watch,” he said, and then he pointed with his chin at the Merlat house. “It’s them.”

I put out my hand, and he took the coins. Before I could ask him anything else he snapped his reigns and was gone.

I watched him go. I considered chasing him down and asking him if he’d like more coins, but rich people tend to look down on common folk running through their lawns, so I heaved my duffel bag over my shoulder and set off for House Merlat.

I think I even whistled. It was hard not to, that morning-the sun was up, the birds were singing, I had a sock stuffed with silver and a rich man’s bed to sleep in.

A wrought-iron swing gate worked with griffins and roses opened to the Merlat’s yard, and the walk that wound through it. I opened the waist-high gate and sauntered through, watching the house. A curtain moved in the big window to the right of the front doors, and I heard, faint but clear, the tinkling of a bell.

Behind the house, dogs began to bark and snarl. I switched my duffel to my other shoulder and kept my pace steady. Marble knights and silent angels looked on as I passed, their blank eyes moving to follow my every step.

The house was set dead center of the big square yard. Ward-walls, each erected by the Merlat’s neighbors, covered three sides. The street-side front fence was just painted iron, a little more than waist high. Mama Hog could have climbed it, so if Old Man Merlat was really taking long evening strolls, he was entering the grounds from the street.

The right-most front door opened, and the Widow Merlat herself stepped squinting into the sunlight.

“I’ve been expecting you,” she said, before I’d mounted the first of the dozen tall treads that led from the lawn to the house. “Come in.”

The widow wore black, of course. She did not smile, though she did nod her head in what I took to be greeting. I guessed that the widow was not accustomed to receiving her own guests.

“Thank you,” I said. I took the door, she backed up into the shadows of the house and I stepped inside and let the door shut behind me.

I blinked and lowered my duffel. My feet made crunching noises on the white marble tiles that led down the entry hall. I could see that the hall made a tee about ten paces in, and that going right or left would take you into big dark rooms that hadn’t seen direct sun or a good dusting since the Armistice. Straight ahead, past the tee, the hall opened into a big tile-floored ballroom, and wide, curving oak-railed stairs rose out of the ballroom and wound its way to parts unknown.

There were stained-glass windows, too, somewhere high out of sight from the ballroom. I couldn’t see them from where I stood, but I could see the splatter of rainbows they cast on the white marble floor.

“You have a beautiful home,” I said.

“It was, once,” said the widow. Then she frowned. “Jefrey should have been here to see to your luggage,” she said, keeping her eyes off my battered Army duffel bag.

“Don’t bother,” I said. “I’ll manage.”

The widow cocked her head, listening, I suppose, for Jefrey’s footfalls on the tiles. I listened too, but if Jefrey or anyone else was in the house they were sock-foot and tip-toe.

I picked up the bag. “If you’ll point me to my room,” I said, “I’ll go and stow my gear. We can catch up with Jefrey later.”

The widow sighed. “You’ll be on the second floor,” she said, turning and marching toward the staircase. “You’ll be sharing the floor with Jefrey, but you will of course have rooms to yourself.”

“That’s fine,” I said, trotting to catch up. The hall was wide enough to ride four abreast, so I had no trouble sidling up beside the widow. “Before the rest of the crew shows, though, we’d better have a talk,” I said. “For starters-are you sure you want it known what I’m here to do?”

The widow didn’t slow. “I will not engage in deceit in my own house,” she said. “Those who have seen Ebed know I am right. Those who have not soon will.” She gave me a hard sideways look, then turned away and shook her head.

“You tell them who you are and what you came to do,” she said. “And you ask them what you will. If they want to stay, they’ll answer, or I’ll see them gone by sundown.”

We’d reached the foot of the stairs. I put my right hand on the rail, and gazed out at the ballroom and its acres and acres of empty white tiles. The stained-glass windows were set high on the east and west walls; each bore scenes of knights and dragons, in which the knights seemed to usually have the upper hand. The room smelled faintly of lilacs.

“We had a dance here, about the time you were born,” said the widow. “Not since.”

“Pity,” I said.

A door banged shut, and hurried footsteps made clattering echoes in the hall.

“Lady Merlat,” said a breathless voice. “Pardon, but the dogs…”

A small, white-haired man in a too-large black butler’s coat trotted into the ballroom, saw me, and stopped. His eyes went narrow, and the set of his thin, wrinkled face turned clamp-jawed and frowning.

“You’re him,” he said without cheer.

“I’m him,” I agreed. “You must be Jefrey.”

The tails of his coat reached well past his knees, and he’d rolled up the sleeves so they wouldn’t leave the tips of his fingers poking out. Jefrey was slim, probably sixty or sixty-five. He wore his thin ashen hair in an Army straight-cut that reminded me instantly of the Sarge.

I held out my hand to shake his, but Jefrey grunted and turned his gaze toward the widow.

“Begging your pardon, ma’am, but I don’t like this.”

The widow blanched. “I did not ask your opinion,” she snapped.

“You didn’t,” said Jefrey. “But after twenty-eight years I reckon you’ll hear it anyway. That man is here to take your money, and if you get anything in return it’ll be heartache and missing jewelry, and that’s a fact.”

The widow bit back a reply, turned to me and then started back up the stairs without a word. I shrugged at Jefrey and followed, and after a moment he came stomping up behind us.

“What do you know about revenants, Lady?” I asked.

Jefrey made a strangled choking sound. The widow didn’t flinch.

“The Church claims revenants don’t exist,” she said. “And yet they offer exorcism, in what two priests described to me as ‘extreme circumstances’.”

Jefrey snorted. “What means they’ll do most anything if the price is right,” he said. I almost forgave him then and there for not taking my luggage.

“Our mutual acquaintance has another view of revenants,” I said. “She claims they come back to take revenge on their killers.”

I was half-turned and eyeing Jefrey when I said it. I wasn’t sure if he’d cuss or jump or swing; I was surprised when he just shook his head and glanced at the widow.

“Is that what you believe, goodman Markhat?” she said.

“I don’t believe at all,” I answered. “And I won’t, until I’ve seen.”

Jefrey looked back at me, and some of the hostility left his face. “Thought you was here to bag a spook,” he said. “Thought some old soothsayer from the Narrows sent you.”

“I’m just here to find out who’s been tramping around Lady Merlat’s yard,” I said. “That’s all. Who, and why.”

“For sixty-five jerks a day,” muttered Jefrey. The Lady Merlat spun her head around, and her eyes blazed.

“That is enough,” she said, and it echoed. “No more!”

We’d reached the top of the stairs. The house sprawled off in three directions-one lit by dusty windows, two as dark as tombs.

I put my bag down to take a breath, and Jefrey snatched it up. “I’ll take him to his rooms,” he said. “Then we’d better see to the kitchen, Lady,” he said. “Briss and Envey quit.”

The Lady closed her eyes and took a breath. “I’ll wait for you here,” she said. “Goodman Markhat. Settle in, then find us in the kitchen. Down the stairs, take the right-hand hall, follow the sounds.”

I nodded. “Gladly,” I said. I started to ask if House Merlat had entertained walking corpses in the yard last night, but I decided it could wait.

Jefrey sped off down one of the dark halls. I followed, leaving the widow to twist her hanky and stare down at the empty ballroom. I hoped she was remembering dances and not funerals, but I had my doubts.

Jefrey halted at a big black oak door. “In here,” he gruffed as he shoved the door open. My duffel hit the floor. He stepped aside, and I poked my head in and peeped around.

“Nice,” I said after a whistle. “But where’s the jewelry?”

I was wasting my breath. Jefrey was stomping away, his boot-heels loud on the polished oak-plank floor. I shoved my duffel inside and closed the door behind me.

The bed was big and soft, and the room, once all eight windows were open, was cool and bright and airy. I lay back on the bed for a full ten minutes, just soaking up the gentle sounds of birdsongs and wind and far-off carriage wheels.

“It’s good to be rich,” I said. And then I picked myself up and left to find the kitchen and see how many well-dressed skeletons House Merlat had hanging in its closets.

At the stairs, I heard voices, wafting down from above. Two men spoke, their voices hushed, their words fast and running over those of the other-brothers, no doubt, rehashing an old argument more by rote than passion.

And then came laughter-a woman’s laughter, loud and shrill and humorless. Up until that moment, I’d set foot upon the upward stairs, intending to stroll right up and introduce myself to the Merlat children. But something in that laugh made cat-paws down my spine, and I turned to the downward stairs instead and clambered toward the kitchen. I’d meet the children soon enough, I told myself, and it might be best if Mama was there to swat their behinds and keep them mindful of their manners.

I was halfway down the stairs when a commotion broke out below. I heard Jefrey bellowing, and another man shouting, and I charged off the stairs and onto the polished marble floor just in time to see Jefrey deliver a solid blow with a shiny black walking stick to someone standing outside.

More bellowing. Jefrey raised his stick again, but the door slammed into him so hard it took him back a pair of steps. He dropped his stick to put both hands on the door and push.

The door pushed back. Jefrey grunted and cussed and heaved, but went steadily back, his boots leaving long black marks on the tiles as they slid.

I charged at the door, right shoulder first, hit it hard and kept going. Jefrey scrambled for footing but found it, and between us we slammed the door shut. Jefrey threw the lock-bolt and sagged down on all fours on the tile.

“Didn’t think they came out in daylight,” I said, puffing a bit too, just out of friendly consideration.

“Ain’t no rev’nant,” gasped Jefrey.

Outside, a beefy fist began to pound, and then Jefrey and I heard the barking and snarling that meant the Merlat dogs were loosed at last.

The pounding stopped. Jefrey sprang to the thick leaded glass panel beside the door and squinted out into the yard. “Get ’em, boys!” he shouted. “Tear ’em up!”

I turned to my panel, squinted through it. Two men dashed through the lawn, half a dozen snarling Eastern wolf-hounds at their heels. The dogs took turns leaping and biting, though they could easily have taken both men down with a single rush.

“Temple missionaries?” I asked.

Jefrey laughed so hard he went into a fit of coughing. I slapped him on the back and waited for it to pass.

“Moneylenders,” he spat at last. “Come to see young master Abad, I suspect.”

“Jefrey!” snapped the widow. I hadn’t heard her approach, not even on the tiles, for Jefrey’s hacking and sputtering. “You have no right-”

“Who loosed the dogs?” I asked, interrupting the widow. “Are there members of the staff here that I haven’t met?”

The widow turned her glare on me. “I loosed the dogs,” she said. “When it became apparent that…person was not going to leave, even when told.”

“Good thinking,” I said. I offered Jefrey a hand, and he took it and stood. “If they’re moneylenders, though, they’ll be back.”

“No they won’t,” said Jefrey. He met the widow’s glare. “She’ll send word to the banking-house, and they’ll pay off whatever Master Abad lost at the Victory Round.”

Victory Round was a gambling den. Not one of the better ones, though-it was on my side of the Brown, for starters, and with a handful of the widow’s coins and bit of a wash, even I could probably walk right in. Victory Round and dives like it were one of two things-breeding grounds for gamblers on the rise, or last stops for those whose luck and credit were long gone. I didn’t have to flip a coin to see where Junior fit in.

“Jefrey,” said the Widow Merlat. “Be still.”

Jefrey shrugged, turned his gaze back toward the glass. “They’re gone,” he announced. “I’ll go fetch the dogs.”

“I’d better go with you,” I said. “They might decide to circle back and call again.”

Jefrey picked up his walking stick, unlocked the door and threw it open. “Suit yourself,” he said. “Mind the fireflowers.”

I followed Jefrey out into the yard, and shut the door behind me.

I made a few friends that afternoon. Horga and Surn and Vlaga and Thufe, to be precise; the other five of Jefrey’s dogs, aside from the occasional sidelong glare and low snarl, would have nothing to do with me.

But after Jefrey introduced me, the four females were all lapping tongues and wagging tails. Thufe, the biggest, hairiest, most ferocious of the females, actually rolled over on her back at my feet and let me rub her belly.

Jefrey looked on with something like awe. “Ain’t never seen ’em do that,” he said, as Thufe licked my knee and made happy-puppy noises. “They hate everybody.”

I grinned. “Always did like dogs,” I said. “Better company than most people, I say.”

Jefrey nodded in agreement.

We were halfway to the street, all gathered in the dappled shade cast by the tossing boughs of a century-old madbark tree. The grass was soft and cool. Flowers swayed, birds chased and sang, and the air was breezy and sweet. Had the dogs not been wild-eyed, shaggy wolfhounds bred for fatal maiming, we’d have looked like something out of a Pastoral Period oil painting.

The widow’s head popped out of the door.

“Jefrey!” she shouted. “Put the dogs up and get back to the kitchen!”

“Yes ma’am,” said Jefrey. He rose, stretched, yawned.

“I reckon I was wrong about you, earlier,” he said, not looking at me but up at the wide blue sky. “Reckon you ain’t what I thought.”

“Jefrey!” shrieked the widow.

“It’s hard to know who people are,” I said. I rose too, as did all my shaggy new friends. “Takes time. Take the Merlat kids, for instance. I don’t know them, won’t have time to know them. You do.” I brushed twigs off my pants. “Tell me who the kids are, Jefrey. Who they really are.”

Jefrey’s face darkened, took on its usual tight-lipped, pinched expression.

“I reckon they’re a right lot of useless, bloodsucking, backstabbing bastards,” he said softly. “Monsters, all, and don’t you tell the Lady I said so.”

“I won’t,” I said. “The girl too?”

“Her especially,” said Jefrey, and he began to stomp and grind his jaw. “You mind her, finder,” he said. “She’ll come on to you, first thing, all sweets and juices. I reckon you’ll like that.”

I remembered the laugh from upstairs. “No, I won’t,” I said. “Thufe here is my only girl. Right, Thufe?”

The dog barked. I swear it did, and Jefrey nearly stumbled, so much was he surprised.

“You ain’t doin’ some mojo, are you?” he asked. “I swear, if you are-”

“I’m not doing anything,” I said. “Relax. The dogs just like me because I like them.” I paused, edged around a fireflower bed, fell back into step with Jefrey. “We had dogs in the Army. I was a handler. That good enough for you?”

Jefrey turned. “A handler? You?”

“Fifth regiment, eight brigade, out of Fort Armistead,” I replied. “Six years, one after the Truce.”

Jefrey cocked his head. “Didn’t they use dogs to sniff out Troll tunnels?”

I nodded. “We did,” I said, and Thufe looked up and licked my hand. “Don’t ask.”

Jefrey shrugged. By then, we were close enough to get on the sidewalk. The widow shouted once more, something about meeting us at the back, and the big door shut.

“Abad’s a gambler,” said Jefrey. “Diced away his inheritance in two years flat.”

“What’s he playing with now?” I asked.

“The widow’s money,” he said, ruffing the big male Hort’s neck-mane. “He borrows against the Merlat name, pisses it all away and then they show up. She always pays,” said Jefrey. “Ought to let ’em gut the rat-faced little bastard.”

We neared the corner. “What about the other brother?” I asked. “Arthur, isn’t it?”

“Othur,” said Jefrey, and he spat after pronouncing the word. “Weed.”

I nodded. “How long?”

“Long as I can recall, it seems,” said Jefrey. He was looking about now, checking windows and doors to see if the widow’s shadow fell across any of them. “Took to it when the old master left for the War. Ain’t much left of Othur now, ’cept when he’s running low. Then he gets mean. He’s the reason I lock my door at night, Markhat. Them others is bad enough-but I reckon they’re too lazy to cut a poor man’s throat for a handful of copper jerks. Othur, though-he’d kill you just to wait a day and snatch the coppers off your eyes, you mark my words.”

I nodded, kept my mouth shut. Jefrey was getting nervous, and though I wanted to ask about the daughter again, I didn’t want to put Jefrey on the spot with the widow.

We neared the kennels, and the dogs yipped and trotted. Jefrey wrestled open the top of a barrel and began to scoop out pellets of dog food.

“Here you go, you monsters,” he said, moving toward the line of bowls just inside the fence. “You done good, you did. Eat it up!”

I put my hands in the dog food, savored the smell. It was the same dry feed I’d used in the Army, and I hadn’t seen it since.

Jefrey finished feeding, shut the kennel gate. “We’ll let ‘em out at dark,” he said. Then he wiped his hands on his pants, grinned crookedly at me and held out his hand to shake.

“I reckon any man that can rub Thufe’s belly has a hand worth shaking,” he said.

I shook. Then he turned away and stomped toward the kitchen, the dogs barked their goodbyes and I followed him out of the sunlight.

Chapter Three

“We dress for dinner at this House,” said the Widow Merlat. She rose when she said it, and the glare she turned on Othur would have sent a normal man back at least a pair of steps.

But not Othur. He just slumped against the polished cherry door casing and turned a bleary half-smile back upon the widow.

“I am dressed, Mother,” he said. His voice was thick and wet, and he pronounced each word with the slow, elaborate care that makes weed-addicts think they’re speaking normally. “Dressed much better than him.” He’d raised a pale, thin hand and pointed at me.

Abad, seated across from me, snickered. Beside me, the daughter Elizabet pretended to be furious and used the occasion as an excuse to reach down and give my knee a friendly squeeze.

“You will sit down,” said the widow, still standing. “And if you disgrace your father’s table again tonight, you shall find yourself sleeping on the street.”

Othur shrugged, ambled toward a chair. The widow followed him with her eyes. “That goes for all of you,” she said. “This man will ask you questions, after we dine. You will answer them. Know that if you insult, if you lie, I shall cast you out. Out of this house, out of the will, out of the Merlat name. Is that clear?”

She waited for nods, got grudging ones and sat.

And so we dined.

The dining room-one of three I’d found, this being the smallest-had floors of Saraway marble, shot through with gold. The walls were paneled with cherry-one was hung with tapestries, one with weapons various Merlats had borne to battles diverse. One wall sported a mahogany and glass curio cabinet full of bric-a-brac and a door that led to a wine cellar.

The wall behind the widow, though, commanded my attention. Centered upon it was a portrait of Ebed Merlat himself. He was depicted as a tall, powerful man, dressed in cavalry officer’s blues, his helmet gone, his hair white and wild and flowing in a wind. He held up a sword at least a length and a half too long to have ever been real, and the horse he was mounted upon would have been a freak, were it truly that large.

But the effect worked. You didn’t see the soldiers in the background, or the fires, or the bulking forms of Trolls encircling them. All you saw was Ebed Merlat, his uplifted sword, his fierce blue eyes. I found it difficult to meet the painted man’s gaze.

He was probably four-foot-nine in real life, I decided. Four-foot-nine, balding, and the closest he ever got to a horse like that was watching the painter sketch it out.

The widow was seated at the head of the table, directly under the watchful glare of the painted Ebed. I assumed she did this intentionally, and applauded her attention to detail.

The table was polished blackwood, the chairs high-backed, cushioned with red velvet and still about as comfortable as a stump. Over the table hung a lead-glass chandelier from which three dozen candles shone. The light should have been brighter, but the ceiling was a dark red tile, and the room just seemed to suck up the light.

Even so, I was able to get good looks at each of the Merlat children. Abad, who had arrived first for dinner, was nearly thirty. He was clean, at any rate, and his clothes were new and well-kept. He had his mother’s small sharp eyes and coal black hair and his father’s tall straight frame, but he’d missed getting a chin of any sort from either of his parents. And while the Widow sat still and silent, Abad was a fidgeting, finger-drumming, fork-twirling mess of nervous habits. So far, though, the only attention he’d sent my way had been a glare that vanished as soon as I returned it.

The daughter, Elizabet, had shown up a few moments later. She’d dressed for dinner, too, though from the Widow’s sharp intake of breath and slight paling of features I’d known that the Widow Merlat and her daughter had different ideas about dressing.

So did I, for that matter. Elizabet’s bright red, over-the-shoulder, slit-up-the-thigh dress said loads about the wearer, and most of the messages had no place being sent in the presence of one’s mother. She had slinked in slow, stopped in the doorway to speak to her mother and turned as she spoke so I’d get the full view.

I’d gotten it. Long black hair done up in Old Empire curls that fell over her shoulders and cascaded down her back. Big brown eyes under lashes done up with just the right make-up for the room and the lighting. Legs in dark silk stockings treated with a powder that made them shimmer in the candlelight.

Her voice was low and husky, and when she repeated my name she smiled with her lips and let her eyes widen just a bit. Then she looked me over and kept smiling, as though she’d just found something she’d been looking for all day.

I let her think she had me hooked, even going so far as to pour her a glass of middling good wine. The widow watched, glaring and hawklike, and once just before Jefrey barged in with a serving cart, I saw Elizabet give Abad a quick look of triumph.

Jefrey served, moving from plate to plate and filling each with food from within his steaming pans. We had duck with bread stuffing, mashed potatoes and something Jefrey called jelad cafe oromeadthat turned out to be a three-bean salad and a slice of ham. It wasn’t bad, either; I made sure I asked Lady Merlat to compliment the cook, though we both knew that either she or Jefrey had cooked it all.

Abad choked his down and demanded seconds and thirds. Othur pushed his around without ever lifting his fork, drank five glasses of wine and slipped a solid-silver serving knife up his sleeve when he thought no one was watching. Elizabet, like Othur, merely toyed with her food, though she did manage to eat a few beans and most of the ham slice.

The widow’s plate sat untouched. The meal was quick, with the only conversation being of the pass-the-salt variety. Finally, the widow rang a tiny silver bell, and Jefrey rolled his cart back in and began collecting plates.

“Now we talk,” said the widow, as Jefrey scooped up my plate.

“Fine, Mother,” snapped Abad. “And what are we to talk to this gentleman about?”

He said “gentleman” with a sneer.

“Do you remember what I said, Abad? About insult?” said the widow.

Before he could answer, I spoke. “I’m here to find out who-or what-has been frightening your mother,” I said. “To that end, I need to ask some questions.”

“Go ahead,” purred Elizabet. “We all want to help Mother, I’m sure. Don’t we?”

The brothers Merlat issued a weak round of yeses. Elizabet beamed and turned toward me.

“Do me first,” she said.

Jefrey threw a handful of forks into a metal pan, but I ignored him.

“Fine,” I said. “Tell me, then. Have you seen your father’s shade?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, and she drew her arms across her breast and huddled closer to me. “More than once.”

“How many times?” I asked. “And when?”

She bit her lower lip. “The first time was-oh, three months ago,” she said. “I’d come home for a few days, to visit Mother, and the dogs began to bark, and the footmen were shouting. So I opened my window-I was in my room, on the fourth floor-and looked down, and there was Father, standing there, looking back up at me.”

“What was he wearing?” I asked.

She frowned. “Shrouds,” she said. “Grey, gauzy shrouds. He had grave-mold all over his face-oh, Mother, I’m so sorry, but he did.”

“And you’re sure it was your father?”

Elizabet shook her head. “It was him,” she said. “His ghost, I’m sure of it.”

“And you’ve seen him since.”

She counted on her fingers. “Three times,” she said.

“When?” I asked. “I need dates. If you can’t recall the exact day, that’s fine, but the nearer you can narrow it down, the better I can help your mother.”

She struggled, came up with four dates, one of which was a maybe, but close-within a couple of days.

“All right,” I said. “One more thing. You know the revenant stories, that they come back to take vengeance on their killers. Tell me, then-why is Ebed Merlat coming back here?”

At that, Elizabet shrugged. “They’re only silly old wives’ tales,” she said. “Surely you don’t believe such nonsense.”

“I don’t believe-or disbelieve-in anything yet,” I said. “I’m only asking you a question-why do you think your father would come back?”

She looked away. “I’m sure I have no idea,” she said. “That’s your job, isn’t it? To find that out?”

I shrugged. “If that’s what it takes, Miss Merlat, that’s what I’ll do.”

She drained her wineglass, and I’d moved on to question Othur and Abad.

Neither was helpful. Othur spent so much time “away”, as he called it, that he had neither seen nor heard anything. And Abad grudgingly admitted that he’d been home on two of the occasions the apparition was seen, though he wouldn’t claim it had been his father. He gave me dates for both days, said he didn’t know what might drive his father out of his grave and retired early, Othur at his heels.

Elizabet soon took her leave as well. “Good night,” she’d said to me, more in promise than farewell. Then she’d sauntered away, sure I was watching her go every languid step of the way.

Jefrey came banging back in. He held a covered plate in his hand, which he took to the widow. “I see you didn’t touch a bite,” he said, plunking the plate down and removing the cloth. “You got to eat, Lady Merlat.”

On the plate was a grilled cheese sandwich and a thick dark slice of chocolate cake.

The widow sighed. “Thank you, Jefrey,” she said. Jefrey stood there and watched until she picked up the grilled cheese and took a bite. Then he left, collecting a few wineglasses and pausing to look at me with a “Well, what?” expression.

I shrugged in return. I’d gotten nothing, except the firm conviction that everyone but Othur was lying.

Elizabet’s revenant wore shrouds. The widow’s wore a burial suit. Abad’s ghost had mad red eyes and a bloody white shirt, and it screamed out the widow’s name.

Othur wasn’t lying only because he probably saw legions of revenants every night, and forgot them all with his first puff of weed in the morning. We could parade dancing Trolls past his bed, and get nothing out of him the next day but pouts and slurred insults.

I looked up at Lord Merlat’s blood-and-thunder portrait and propped my chin on my hands. What about it, Old Bones?I thought. What are you up to, and why?

The widow put down her fork, tinkle of silver on china. “Well?” she said.

I sighed. Lord Merlat’s eyes, mere dabs of paint and shadow, bore into mine.

“About what I expected,” I said. “They’re claiming to have seen something they haven’t, unless your visitor has a more extensive wardrobe than the spooks in the stories usually have.” I lifted a hand when the widow puffed up.

“Ignore me, Lady,” I said. “I do have a few questions for you, though.”

“Ask.”

I rose, stretched, pushed back my chair. “I’m going to take two angles on this, Lady,” I said. “First, I’m going to assume that someone is dressing up in grave-clothes and taking strolls in your yard.”

“Nonsense,” said the Lady.

“Maybe,” I replied. “I’ll also entertain the notion that your husband really has returned. I’m just telling you it’s a distant second.”

“It is the truth.”

I prowled about the ornate display cases, which seemed to favor china plates and silver teapots.

“Either way,” I said, “I’ve got to work backward from your visitor in the night to the root of the problem.” I turned to face the widow. “Why would someone want to frighten you, Lady?”