Bitter Gold Hearts gf-2 Read online

  He had his eyes closed. He was visualizing. "On the table was one of those earthenware pitcher-and-bowl sets with a rusty metal dipper to take a drink with. The pitcher was cracked so it leaked a little into the bowl. I drank about a quart of water right away. Then I went and looked out the window and tried to get myself together. I was scared to death. I didn't have any idea what was going on. Until I got back here and found out Domina had ransomed me, I had my mind made up that some of Mother's political enemies had grabbed me so they could twist her arm."

  "Tell me about that window. That sounds like a big lapse on their part."

  "Not really. It was closed with a shutter and the shutter was nailed from outside. But the place was old and there was a crack in the shutter big enough to see through. As it turned out, my seeing what was outside didn't matter."

  "How so?"

  "The way they let me go. They just walked off and left me there. I figured it out when they stopped feeding me."

  "Did you ever see any of them?"

  "No."

  "How did they get food to you, then?"

  "They made me stand facing the wall when they brought the food in and took the old platter out." "Then they talked to you?"

  "One did. But only from outside the door and then all he ever said was that it was time to get against the wall. But sometimes I could hear them talking. Not very often. They didn't have much to say to each other."

  "Not even about how they were going to spend their shares of the money?"

  "I never heard any mention of money at all. That was one of the reasons I decided the whole thing was political. That and the fact that, after the strangling, they treated me pretty gently. That isn't what I would have expected of kidnappers for profit." "It isn't customary."

  He had his eyes closed and his mind on the past. I don't think he heard me. "The only thing I ever heard that might have had anything to do with the situation was the last afternoon. Before they vanished. Someone came running into the place and yelled, 'Hey, Skredli, it's coming through tonight.' I never heard what, though." "Skredli? You're sure?" "Yes."

  "You think it was a name?"

  "It sounded like one. You think it might have been?" I knew damned well it was. Skred is the ogre equivalent of Smith, only it is twice as common. Skredli compares with Smitty. Half the ogres in the world are called Skredli, it seems like. So much for the lucky break.

  We let it sit that way for a minute while we split the remaining contents of the pitcher. It was a good brew. I wish its like befell me more often. But I usually can't afford the price of a sniff on my own hooks.

  "So. We're almost to the end. What happened after Skredli got yelled at?"

  "Basically nothing. As far as I know, for those guys that was the end of it."

  I waited for him to expand upon that. "They didn't bring me any supper. By midnight I was hungry enough to bang on the door and complain. That didn't do any good. I tried to sleep. I did a little, then when breakfast didn't come, I got up and pitched a real fit. I pounded the door so hard I broke it open. Then I got so scared they would beat me that I hid in my blankets. But nothing happened. Eventually I worked up enough nerve to go look out the door, then to slip out and explore." "They were gone?"

  "Long gone. The ashes in the kitchen weren't even warm. I ate some scraps they left behind. After those hit bottom I felt braver and decided to do some exploring."

  Karl paused to look into his mug and curse because he could see the bottom and there were no reserves to rush into the fray.

  I waited.

  Karl told me, "That's why I know all about the farmhouse. A pretty substantial place before it was abandoned." He gave me an exhaustive description, not a peasant hovel but not a manor house either. "After I'd looked around awhile I finally got up enough nerve to follow the coach tracks through the woods. After a mile or so I came to a road. A passing tinker told me it was the Vorkuta-Lichfield road, a little over three miles west of the battlefield."

  Amazing. Karl had been sequestered within two miles of the place where Amiranda had bought hers and Saucerhead almost took a slice too many. I was so astonished I may have blinked. "So you just walked on home?"

  "Yes. I think I'll go fill this pitcher again. This is taking longer than I thought."

  "No need. I'm almost done. Just a couple questions more."

  "What do you think? Was it an unusual kidnapping?"

  "In some ways. But it went off smooth and you can't criticize success."

  "I don't know much about this kind of thing. I was so damned scared while it was happening I didn't study it or think about it. How was it remarkable?"

  He had a hook out and wanted to see if he could pull in the name of his friend Donni Pell. Amber had a similar notion. She was alert for the first time in half an hour. I disappointed them both because I had ideas of my own and wanted to save Donni for myself.

  "Two peculiarities pounce at you like ogres from ambush. The one that bothers me the least is that they locked you in a room you could break out of without bothering to keep you tied or blindfolded. But that could be explained several ways. No, the big croggle is the way Willa Dount handled her end. She turned over a lot of gold to proven crooks without doing anything to make sure the merchandise she was buying was in good condition. The custom is for the purchaser to insist on delivery at the point of sale. Otherwise there's nothing to keep the kidnappers honest."

  Karl mumbled something that sounded like, "I wondered about that, too."

  He was in a declining mood and getting restless. I supposed it was time to attack. I went after him hard about timing and movements, and when I noticed Amber looking at me odd and Karl frowning angrily as he stumbled over his answers, I decided I'd gotten too intense. "What the hell is this? I'm doing a professional exercise and I get going like it's the real thing. Thanks, Karl. You've been a lot more patient than I would have been if the roles had been reversed."

  "You're done?" He considered the bottom of his mug.

  "Yes. Thanks. Drink one for me and think a kind thought while you're at it."

  "Sure." He got up and out, trailing one curious glance at his sister.

  _____XV_____

  "YOU got to pressing there at the end, Garrett. Were you on to something?"

  "Apparently not. Unless I missed something that was right under my nose, your brother was a waste of time."

  "Then why did you spend all that time on him?"

  "Because I didn't know what he could tell me. Because you never know what little thing will turn out to be the critical clue. I went hard on the timing because I want to have it pat when we see what Amiranda has to say so we can look at it from the Domina's side."

  "I couldn't find Amiranda."

  "What?"

  "I couldn't find her. She didn't answer her door. When I asked around, nobody had seen her. I finally sneaked into her rooms. She wasn't there. And most of her stuff was gone."

  I did me what I hoped was a convincing show of perplexity. "Did she have a maid? Did you talk to her? What did she say?"

  "I talked to her. She didn't know anything except that Amiranda is gone. Or so she said."

  "Damn! That knocks hell out of everything." I got up and stretched.

  "What are we going to do?"

  "Start somewhere else. You just keep picking till you pull a thread loose. You're the inside man here. You find out what you can about Willa Dount's end of things. The how, the where, and the when of the payoff in particular, but anything that sounds unusual or interesting. Keep trying to get a line on Amiranda. And while you're doing all that, try not to attract too much attention. We don't want anybody knowing what we're doing. There's two hundred thousand marks gold at stake and the price is going up. My resident genius says we're about to hear from Glory Mooncalled again."

  Her eyes glittered. Each time Glory Mooncalled acted, the Venageti position in the Cantard weakened, the Karentine flourished, the price of silver plunged and that of gold soared. "We're getting ric
her by the minute!"

  "Only in our imaginations. We have to find the gold."

  She started toward me with that look in her eye, ready to celebrate. "What will you be doing?"

  "The outside stuff. Picking at threads. Talking to this Donni."

  "I'll bet. I'm much prettier than she is, Garrett. And maybe just as talented."

  "Then I'm going to have my supper, consult the genius, and get on the road so I can be at that farm tomorrow morning. I'll have a whole day to poke around and pick up the trail."

  She had gotten in close enough to force a clinch. My resistance was going the way of the dodo. Suddenly, she stiffened and backed away.

  "What is it?"

  "I just had an awful thought. My mother is going to be home any day. If we don't have the gold found and me out of here before she does ..." She backed away. "We have to get to work."

  Poor little rich kid. Somehow, I couldn't work up a lot of sympathy. If she wasn't miserable enough to walk with nothing but the clothes on her back, she wasn't miserable enough. The sparkle came back to her eyes. "But once we do, look out, Garrett."

  There is a limit to how much you can kid people and still live with yourself, but also a limit to how much you can kid yourself. "I admire your confidence. If we find it."

  "When, Garrett."

  "All right. When we find it, look out, Amber."

  We exchanged idiot grins.

  "Do I go out the same way I got in?"

  "That would be best. Don't let the servants see you. And watch out for the dragoons."

  I gave her a kiss meant to be a businesslike sealing of our compact. She turned it into a promise of things to come. I finally peeled her off and fled. .

  * * *

  I was distracted. The little witches do that to you. I zipped around a corner and almost plowed into Karl Senior and Domina Dount. Fortunately, they were distracted too. Very distracted. If they noted a third presence at all, they probably assumed it was a wayward servant. I backed up to consider alternate routes. Amber had it wrong. Willa Dount didn't freeze bathwater. Now I knew what hold she had on Daddy. If it turned out to matter.

  Reason didn't do me a bit of good trying to get out of there another way. In two minutes I knew I would get lost if I kept on. I found a place where I could look into the real people's world between curtains. I recognized the hallway. Nothing for it but to march and look like I was about honest business. It worked fine until I started hiking across the front court headed for the main gate.

  Pudgy Courter came in from the street. He started to say something to the gateman, then spotted me. His eyes got big, his face got red, and he started to puff up like an old bullfrog about to sing. "What the hell are you doing in here?"

  "Hell, I might ask the same of you. Little out of your class here, aren't you? Guy like you ought to be slicing vegetables—"

  I was close enough. He took a swing. I'm not sure why. I don't think I trampled him hard enough to set him off. I caught his wrist and kept on walking, pulling him along in a stumble. "Tsk-tsk. We should be more friendly to our betters."

  I let him go as I stepped outside. He was past the flash point now. He retreated, cursing under his breath, while I glanced around for the four clowns who had been stalking me before Amber let me inside. They were gone.

  It was a piece of bad luck, getting spotted like that. I could only hope it would balance out and not get things all stirred up inside. Amber could deal with Willa Dount, especially motivated by visions of gold, but I had my doubts about Junior. He had no strong reason to hide having talked to me. I figured I'd best get down to Lettie Faren's place right away.

  ______ XVI ______

  I didn't get there as quickly as I'd planned, though the delay lasted only a few seconds. Going down the Hill, I realized that I'd picked up a tail. It didn't take long to discover it was my friend Bruno from the tavern.

  Why was he on me?

  Five minutes later I knew he was alone. It was personal. I had hurt his feelings and now he felt a need to hurt mine. I stepped into an areaway when I came to one I knew would suit my purpose. I found a shadow and got into it. He came charging in a few seconds later, apparently wanting to take advantage of my stupidity. But when he got there, he saw nothing. He started cursing.

  "But you mustn't blame the gods. All is not lost, Bruno. I'm right here." I stepped out of the shadows. He was too mad for preliminaries. He tucked in his chin and came after me.

  I was in no mood for ego games myself. His first swing I tapped his wrist with my weighted stick. Then I whacked an elbow, putting one arm out of commission. Then I let him set himself up and dropped a couple of good thumps on his noggin. After he was down I put him in the shadows so the street kids wouldn't find and strip him before he woke up. I doubted he would appreciate the courtesy. I hoped he wasn't so stubbornly stupid one of us would have to get killed to end whatever was going on.

  Lettie's place was into the lull that comes between the businesslike gentlemen of the afternoon and the revelers of night. I got past the thug at the door without trouble. He didn't know me.

  I found Lettie where you always find her, in the back room counting the take. She was a grotesquely obese female of mixed but uncertain antecedents who made the Dead Man look slim, trim, and able to run like a deer.

  "Garrett. You son of a bitch. How the hell did you get in here?"

  "The sorcery of feet. I put on my magic boots and walked. You're looking as lovely as ever, Lettie."

  "And you're just as full of camel guano. What the hell do you want?"

  I tried to look hurt by her remarks. "All right," she snarled. "Out you go." I clinked coins and showed the face of a dead king on a gold double mark. "I thought the motto of the house was no paying customer is ever turned away."

  Gold was talking big talk in TunFaire these days. She eyed the coin. "What do you want?" "Not what. Who. Her name is Donni Pell." Lettie's eyes narrowed, hardened. "Shit. You would. You can't have her."

  "I know you don't like me, and we'll never run off to become shopkeepers and raise babies together, but when did you ever let personal feelings get in the way of making money?"

  "When I was thirteen years old and in the middle of my first big love affair. That's got nothing to do with it, Garrett. I can't sell you merchandise that I don't have in stock."

  "She's not here?"

  "You figured it out. With a brain like yours, why do you keep that heap of blubber in your front room?"

  "Sentiment. And it keeps him off the streets. Where did Donni go?"

  "You want her bad, don't you?" "I want to see her. Don't try to hold me up, Lettie. You've got employees who'll tell me for silver."

  "Goddamned human nature. You would, wouldn't you? Give me one good reason why I shouldn't have Leo come in here and twist your face around so you're looking out the back of your head."

  "This little crumb that fell from the sun." I flashed the double mark.

  "All right. You win, Garrett. What do you want?" "She's gone, so the why, the when, the how, and the where. Then tell me about Donni Pell the person." "The why is she got hold of a bunch of money. And that's the how, too. She came in here three, four nights ago and bought out her contract. Not that she was in very deep. She said a rich uncle up north died and left her a fortune. Bull. If you ask me, she got her hooks into some half-wit off the Hill. She had the looks and manners and style for it. She claimed she was off to take over managing the uncle's manor. More bull. She couldn't survive without platoons of men around."

  I raised the old eyebrow. Lettie liked me when I did my trick. I used it as often as O could.

  "That woman was a freak, Garrett. Ninety-nine out of a hundred of them hate men. She loved what she was doing. If she hadn't been selling it, she would have been giving as much away for free."

  "A working girl who enjoyed her work? Unusual. She must have brought the clients in."

  "In herds. I wish I had a hundred like her. Even if she was a pervert."


  I gave her a glimpse at the other eyebrow.

  "You know in this business you got to be tolerant and understanding, Garrett. But it stretches tolerance and surpasses understanding when a perfectly beautiful young human woman prefers ogres for playmates. Even ogre women don't want anything to do with those creeps. I'd let a vampire or wolf man in this place before I'd open my door to an ogre."

  She was going good so I let her rant, using up her hostility on a target other than me, just once throwing in, "Well, there are the sexual myths," just to make sure she got all the venom spent.

  "Bullshit. That's all bullshit, Garrett. You're talking to an expert, Garrett." And on she raved.

  She wound down. I placed the double mark squarely in front of her. "That about the ogres was worth this. Come up with something more and you might get to see some of the old king's ancestors."

  Her eyes narrowed. "It's murder, isn't it, Garrett? And a heavyweight client. I know that look. The paladin look. You're after somebody's head. You dumb, boy, you keep playing with the life takers."

  "I'm after a hooker named Donni Pell who might be able to tell me something I need to know."

  "You got the works already, Garrett. All I can give you for your money now is a kiss for luck."

  "Background her. Her people. You know them all. How long was she here? Where did she come from?"

  "She don't have any people. They died in the plague four years ago. That's why I didn't believe the story about the uncle. She was here for about three years. Sometimes more trouble than she was worth on account of stunts she pulled on her Johns. She didn't tell a lot about herself but lies, like all the rest, but I usually get their real stories out of them on the bad nights."

  "I know you do."

  "Her people were country folk with a good-sized freehold up around Litchfield somewhere."