Выбрать главу

Gertriss clutched at his elbow. “What is it?”

And then I heard over the sounding of the horns and the shouts of Avalante’s dark army, the sound of Mama Hog’s voice, lifted in a snit.

“I tell ye I was invited!”

Evis lowered his talking box. “You didn’t,” he said to me.

“No. I didn’t.” Then I thought back to the previous day when I’d asked Mama to come around for supper. “Oh no. Evis. I think maybe I did.”

The glare Gertriss turned on me would have felled a full-grown goat.

“I invited her to join us for supper,” I said. “I had no idea I’d be here on the Queen tonight.”

“That apparently hasn’t stopped her.” Evis took in a long deep breath, perhaps out of habit or perhaps out of a rare need to breathe. “I’ll send word to let her aboard. Gertriss, I’ll see you later.”

She didn’t let go. “This is your boat. Your house. Your table. If you go, I go.”

Mama’s raucous shouting grew closer.

“Now? Are you sure?”

Give the woman credit. She managed a smile, and sat back down, and left her hand right where it was.

“Let her in,” said Evis, to no one I could see. “Tell Dutson to set another place.”

Darla’s gun vanished. I put mine back in my pocket. Evis pulled his out and idly checked the cylinder, presumably to make sure it was loaded. Gertriss frowned and he put it away.

We heard Mama long before we saw her squat silhouette appear in the grand doors between the staircases. Hell, half the Hill heard Mama coming and probably hid, thinking the Trolls had reconsidered the Truce and decided to attack Rannit after all.

“Mama,” I called, rising. “We’re in here. No need to shout. Come on in.”

Mama appeared, huffing and puffing, flanked by a pair of Ogres and a slight robed figure I couldn’t quite place.

“Well, you’d think I was tryin’ to push a chair under the Regent’s table for all the ruckus raised,” said Mama in a voice just below a screech. “What harm could one poor old woman do to a fancy barge like this?”

“Mama, would you prefer beer or wine?”

“Beer. Wine is for layabouts and ne’er-do-wells.” She stomped closer. The Ogres halted just outside the doors. The slight figure to her right glided wordlessly on, a full hood obscuring his or her face.

“Beer it is.” The ring of soldiers vanished with all the fuss and noise of a single falling feather. Dutson appeared, a waiter with a chair in tow.

“Will Madam care to peruse our beer menu?”

Mama hove into view, frowning and breathing hard.

“Just fetch me a damned beer,” she said before fixing her bright little Hog eyes on me. “Well, ain’t you hard to find these days?”

Unperturbed, Dutson motioned Mama into a chair while the silent figure at her side took the other seat.

“Sorry, Mama. We hadn’t planned to board so soon. Had some unforeseen business-”

“Oh, I knows all about your business, boy. They cleaned up your house right well, but I can see new blood in the moonlight, I can.” Mama eyed me up and down. “They cut you good?”

“Good enough. I’ll live. Thanks to Evis here.”

Mama didn’t glance his way, but she did aim a quick frown at Gertriss, who did a passable job of frowning defiantly right back.

“I come to tell you there’s people watching your house, watchin’ your office,” said Mama. “I say people, but I reckon strictly speakin’ they ain’t people at all.”

She is remarkably perceptive, said Stitches. She pulled back her hood far enough that I could see a blank white mask covering her face. You have the most fascinating friends, Mr. Markhat.

“How many, Mama?”

“Two each place,” she replied. Dutson returned with a glass of beer and placed it at Mama’s hand. “Them there hollow women. They just walks back and forth, watchin’ and waitin’, I reckon.” She picked up the glass and drained it noisily before wiping foam off her chin with her sleeve. “That ain’t half bad, boy. Reckon I’ll have another, thank ye very much.”

Dutson nodded and went to fetch more.

“We can have them picked up,” said Evis. “Might even get these whole.”

I doubt they will allow themselves to be apprehended and studied, said Stitches. Still. They could perhaps be disabled before they are aware they are under attack.

“There’s other things watchin’ your house, too,” said Mama. “I ain’t seen it good yet. About the size of a house-cat. Climbs like a squirrel. Kind of reddish-like.”

“I told you I saw Mr. Simmons,” I said.

“Boy, are you listening? I said it was the size of a house-cat.”

“And red and it climbs like a squirrel. What did you call it, Miss Stitches? An elemental construct?”

Stitches nodded. Intriguing. I would estimate its intelligence at only slightly more than that of a dog. Perhaps it imprinted on you during our visit to the house, Mr. Markhat.

“That might explain why it’s hanging around. But it doesn’t explain how it knew to spit an antidote to poison in my eyes.”

No. That remains a mystery, if indeed it took place at all.

“Boy, who you talking to?”

“Never mind.”

Dutson brought a crystal pitcher of beer and placed it on the table. Mama snatched it up and poured before he had a chance to grasp the handle.

“Evis,” I said, “seen any of these woman hanging around the Queen?

“No, and I’d have turned a brace of cannon on them if we had.” He frowned and put his fingertips together. “Stitches, any chance Markhat here could be located using sorcerous means?”

Anything is possible, Mr. Prestley. But locating Mr. Markhat is so close to being impossible I’m willing to assert that no sorcerer or group of sorcerers alive could come close. The Queen is well nigh impregnable from an arcane viewpoint.

Evis thought for a moment. “All right. Stitches, put together a plan to snatch the new brunettes. Whatever resources you need, I’ll authorize them.”

Before or after we host the Regent?

“Before. If Markhat’s troubles and our maiden voyage are related, I want to know it now, not halfway to Bel Loit.”

Might it not be prudent to consider leaving Mr. Markhat behind, in case his pursuers persist?

“It might.” Evis pulled his fingertips apart and sat up straight. “And it might be that’s what someone is hoping for. No. We grab them now.”

As you wish.

Mama poured another beer and glared at the empty white china before her.

“So, what’s for dinner?”

Dinner, all five courses of it, was a feast.

Stitches sat so silent and still I began to wonder if anyone but Evis and I were even aware of her presence. There was no plate set before her and I pondered briefly how she took in sustenance, if not through her mouth.

Across from her, Mama chopped and hacked and smacked and burped her way through each culinary masterpiece, offering up her own earthy critique as she went. Evis was so distracted he almost put a forkful of beef in his mouth. Gertriss hardly touched her meal, aside from occasional savage stabs that always seemed to coincide with one of Mama’s grand pronouncements concerning the lackluster state of talent in Avalante’s kitchens.

Darla and I ignored Mama as best we could and attended to the serious business of dining on Avalante’s largess with all the attention we could muster.

There was a salad, which was as good as a pile of lettuce sprinkled with nuts and cherry tomatoes can possibly be. There was a steak, which was better than any steak I’d ever dreamed of, much less consumed. There were green beans and squash and sticks made of potatoes which were then fried until they were crispy, salted, and served.

I hadn’t expected such hearty fare. I would have said so, too, but Mama was still holding court and steering the conversation, untroubled by the chunk of steak she’d just shoved into her wide Hog mouth.