She sat down in the chair and gestured to the bed. "I don't have many guests. Welcome to the servants'
quarters. I suppose this is a part of the world you've never seen."
I did not sit. It seemed hot and close indoors after my little expedition to the post box. I rummaged in my skirt pocket and took a step toward her.
She must have thought I was much more dangerous than I thought I was, because she reached into the cigarette box next to her, opened a false bottom, and pulled out a revolver.
She pointed it at me.
I raised my hands. I said, "Don't shoot! I only want to show you the piece of paper in my pocket!"
She said, "Sit down on the floor. Take this paper out of your pocket with the first two fingers of your left hand and toss it to me."
I knelt down on the floor and drew out the paper with my fingertips. I tossed it into her lap.
She opened it up with her left hand. The letters were slightly smeared in the way that carbon copies are, so she could tell it was not the original. There is one who has be-trayedyou.…
She said, "Mind if I smoke?"
"Well, you've got me at gunpoint, so I guess I am not going to object," I said.
"Don't be smart. D'you want one?"
"A cigarette?"
"Do you smoke?"
"I don't know. I never have, so I suppose that means I don't."
"You really do have a smart mouth, don't you, blondie?"
"I wasn't trying to be rude!" I said. "I was just answering the question. I don't smoke."
"Of course, Little Miss Perfect wouldn't smoke." Without taking her eyes from me, or lowering the gun, she put a cigarette between her lips, lit it left-handed.
I said, "You have no cause to talk that way to me. What have I ever done to you?"
"Fold your hands in your lap. Keep them where I can see them. For one thing, you're blackmailing me, or trying to."
I folded my hands in my lap. I noticed that being held at gunpoint was a lot like being in chapel, or a classroom, with people telling you how to sit and when to speak, and so on.
She put her elbow on the desk surface next to her, and leaned sideways to put her chin on her palm, with the cigarette held lightly between the first two fingers of her hand. It looked like the kind of pose a Hollywood model would strike, bonelessly elegant, and at ease. She studied the note, looking down through her long black lashes.
She looked up. She said, "Are you actually blackmailing me? Is that what this is about?"
I said, "We want passports and visas, and five tickets on an airplane out of England. I don't really care where. Rome would be fine. New York would be nice, too."
"Yeah, New York is nice come springtime. All the muggers bloom in Central Park." She drew another languid puff on the cigarette. She seemed to be waiting for me to say something.
I said, "Is that thing really loaded? You're making me nervous."
That made her laugh aloud. "Me? / am making you nervous?"
A very slow moment of silence crept by.
She said, "Since when do peasants make royalty nervous?"
I said, "When they demanded the right to bear arms. About since the French Revolution, I'd say."
"You're still being smart-mouthed with me."
I said wretchedly, "I never blackmailed anyone before! I don't know what I am supposed to say!"
She made a small wave with her cigarette, leaving a little irregular circle of smoke in the air. "You are supposed to threaten me till I feel nervous enough to give in to your demands, I guess."
I shook my head. "I don't need to threaten you, and I don't really know how to do it. Besides, you're already nervous. You said so. Can you do it? Get us five passports and tickets out of England? We need them by Christmas."
"You're being ridiculous, little princess. It would take me six months to get any sort of paperwork made for you. Have you ever dealt with the English civil service?"
"Maybe you could get them illegally… ?"
"Do you think I just have friends who are forgery artists, or that I know some sort of smuggling crime lords?" she scoffed.
"Actually, well, yes. You are the goddess of smugglers, after all. Cornwall is right across the water."
She took a puff on her cigarette. She tilted her head sideways and narrowed her eyes. "What happens if I shoot you through the head, instead? Not that I'm planning to, but it is traditional in situations like this to ask that question."
"Mavors kills you and your family. If I am dead, the original of that letter reaches Boggin; he finds your name hidden in the spot designated; you get caught:"
"But you foolishly handed me a copy of the letter. I can go to the spot right now and dig up the bottle, or put someone else's name in."
You probably will not believe that I did not think of that till then. My oh-so-clever plan, my oh-so-subtle plan had a hole in it large enough for an elephant to walk through.
I am sure I am the worst actress ever, as well as being the stupidest person on Earth. But since I had nothing to lose, I tried to hide the feeling of utter self-contempt that was boiling up in my breast, and I lied. "That's not the letter I sent. That is just an example."
"You went to the trouble of typing out a carbon copy of… an example?"
I said, "I didn't think you would believe me, otherwise!"
She laughed and put the gun back in its little secret hatch beneath the cigarettes. "Okay, I'm not nervous anymore. Fine. Get up. Dust yourself off. Go out and play."
I got up slowly. "I really am going to turn you in. The letter is already in the mail. I couldn't stop it if I wanted to."
"Listen, blondie, Boggin knows who I am. He is a past master at the type of cloak-and-dagger stuff you botched here today. The witch and the siren know all the secrets here on the estate. I was careful, but I got caught.
"Boggin, he's got evidence that I am working for Trismegistus all set to land in the lap of Mavors if anything happens to him. Trismegistus knows it. Boggin knows Trismegistus knows. Each one knows I am a double agent working for the other one, but each one thinks the other one is going to kill me if the other one finds out.
"Now, I have letters of my own, in the hands of people I trust, set to go find Mavors if anything happens to me, with evidence that Boggin knew I was a traitor and that he didn't turn me in. That makes Boggin a traitor. So he and I sort of cancel each other out, leaving me, more or less, under the control of Trismegistus, who will turn me in to Mavors if I don't let myself get blackmailed by Boggin to make Boggin think I work for him. Do you get all that? I can draw you a chart if you didn't follow all the steps."
I said, blinking, "So whom do you really work for?"
She mashed out the cigarette. "They had you in a cell with a collar and a leash around your neck. I've got one, too, only mine is invisible, and I was dumb enough to put mine on with my own hands. At the moment, Trismegistus is holding the other end. You didn't need to go through all this whoop-de-do to get me to help you. Lord Trismegistus wants you guys out, and free. He wants peace between Cosmos and Chaos. You four are the only possibility to making that peace."
I said, "Who would you help if you were free to do what you wanted?"
She smiled and stood up, tugging at her belt buckle. Her bosom flattened like balloons with the air let out, her hair crinkled and got short, her hips slimmed.
A man again, he said, "Are you blind? I am a shape-changer. I am one of the daughters of the Old Man of the Sea. If there was peace between Cosmos and Chaos, I could go home and see my folks again. I'll get you your passports and stuff by Christmas. Here."
He tossed me a small key on a chain.
"This opens a bus locker on Waterside Street in Aber-twyi. There is only one bus station in the village.
The locker number is on the key. It's no bigger than the size of a phone booth, and only three rows of lockers, but the village is so small that even you couldn't miss it, blond brain.