Block brightened. "Yeah. If there's anything to start on, he ought to have it."
I recalled my roast. That wonderful, expensive roast that had had me drooling for hours.
I wasn't hungry anymore.
"It probably don't mean a thing now," I said, "but did you ever find out who we caught?"
"The old guy?"
No, dipshit. The lead horse in the team in... "Yes."
Block glanced around, then whispered, "Idraca Matiston."
"Whoa! Scares me. Who the hell is... was... Idraca Matiston."
"Keep it down, will you?"
"Somebody, I take it, that was enough of a somebody that you don't want word getting around."
Whisper. "Idraca Matiston, Viscount Nettles. Lady Hamilton's lover. Had a bit of a bizarre reputation to begin, which is why we wrapped it fast and quiet and other quarters let it out he'd passed on from complications. He was in and out of the Hamilton house all the time and nobody thought anything of it because he'd always been. Now I know what I know, I'd go back and take a closer look at Lady Hamilton's mishap if the Prince would let me."
"I still don't know who you're talking about. I don't keep up with the ruling class's scandals. Guess it doesn't matter now, anyway."
"No, it doesn't. We're under orders to forget that episode."
I was willing to forget everything except when I looked at the young woman without her entrails. I shut up, did not press Block, but I did wonder about a woman who would take an antique like old butterfly-breath for her lover.
27
"Your dream came true," I told Dean when he let us in. "I'm employed. You'd better be more careful what you wish for."
"Is it that bad?"
"Worse. Go wake up the Dead Man."
"What about supper? Everything is overdone now." He almost whined. He's proud of his cooking.
"If you'd seen what I did, you wouldn't want to eat either."
"Oh. Then I'll have to get everything off the stove and put away right away." Thus he evaded having to deal with the Dead Man. He has a real talent for getting out of things by having something else to do that has to get done first.
I told Block, "We may have to light a fire under him. I think he's only been asleep about a week. Sometimes these spells last for months. Dean. Since you don't want to handle His Nibs, you get to go get Morley." That would fix him. He was less comfortable at Morley's place than in the Dead Man's room.
The brave Captain Block endured our juvenile maneuvers without comment. Maybe there was a human being in there. Maybe I could grow to like the guy, incompetence and all.
I led the way, storming the ramparts. Or whatever.
I hadn't been into the Dead Man's room since well before his nap began. Things had changed.
"Gods!" Block swore.
I made an inarticulate sound something like a squeal.
The place was full of bugs. Big bugs, little bugs, enough bugs to carry the Dead Man away if they got into teamwork. And I knew who was to blame.
The fat stiff had worked a deal with Saucerhead behind my back. The real question was, how had he worked it so the creepy-crawlies hadn't gotten into the rest of the house to give his scheme away? I muttered, "I hope you're enjoying your dreams about the Cantard." Despite my efforts, chitin crunched underfoot.
"What is this?" Block asked.
"He collects bugs. Believe it or not. And doesn't bother to get rid of them when he's done playing with them. Now I'll have to use sulfur candles again. I hate it when I have to do that." I wondered if Dean had been in on the deal. Probably. That would explain the absence of the cat. He'd know I'd start exterminating as soon as I found out. No cat would survive a thorough sulfur-candle job.
I started considering doing a sulfur-candle job on myself. It had been half an hour.
"He dead?" Block asked. "Like for good?" His Nibs hadn't twitched a mental muscle.
"No. Just napping. Really. He picks his times for when it's most inopportune."
"How come?"
I shrugged. "These things happen to me."
"What do you do?"
"Fuss and fume and threaten to light a fire under him. Scream and yell and run in circles."
"What if that don't work?"
"Then I muddle through on my own." I started loosening up to do my screaming and circling. I'd exhausted fuss and fume and threaten.
Block started wadding scrap paper from a trash box nobody had emptied in an epoch. He tossed the wads under the Dead Man's chair. I got attentive. "What're you doing?" My money was under there. I hoped he hadn't noticed.
"Going to start that fire you mentioned."
"Hell, you got balls after all." I talked about it but never seriously considered doing it. I leaned against the doorframe, watched. This could get interesting.
The bugs started getting excited—more excited than they usually do when someone is stomping around. I began to suspect that my partner wasn't as far away as he'd like me to think.
Block grabbed a lamp.
Damn. He was going to go for it. All the way. I wouldn't interfere in it for anything. Grinning, I observed, "I figure the fire will get his attention before it's big enough to be a threat to the house. After four hundred years he's pretty dried out. Ever hear about how when the Dewife invaded Polkta they couldn't find enough wood to heat their stills—no trees in Polkta—so they dragged old mummies out of the ancient Polktan tombs and burned them instead?"
Block paused. "Really?" He had a big dopey frown on.
"Really. A body dries out for a few hundred years, it'll burn. Not great, but good enough so you don't have to do without your liquor."
"Oh." Block didn't care about curiosa. In fact, he was baffled. What did this have to do with a bunch of drunken barbarian tomb robbers in a faraway land a hundred years ago?
I had to wonder about the man. And my cherished notions about the Watch. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe they weren't all bone-lazy and graft-bitten. Maybe some were well-meaning—like Block most of the time—but were too stupid to handle their jobs.
Block squatted to shove the lamp under the Dead Man's chair.
Call him off, Garrett.
"It lives! Hang in there, Captain. I'm starting to get something."
Garrett!
"Take a peek inside a head or two, Old Bones. We've got a problem."
Block froze, flame a foot from the wastepaper, eyes a hair too high to spot my stash.
I have called you a curse upon my waning years, Garrett. I have been too kind. Many a time have I been tempted to terminate our association. I should have yielded. You are rude, pushy, thoughtless, uncouth. Only a certain crude charm shields you.
"My mother loved me. But what did she know, eh?"
I could spend hours cataloging your shortcomings. But this is not the time.
"You've done it often enough that I know them by heart anyway."
Excellent. You do have your redeeming virtues.
First time I'd heard that from him. Tinnie and Maya and one or twelve other ladies had mentioned an occasional virtue and a more-than-occasional failing, but—
Including an all-consuming laziness. However, this once, you were correct to disturb me.
"Gods, you can carry me away. I've seen it all now."
Your manners are deplorable. You might have found a more civil means of obtaining my attention. But your assessment is correct. You cannot handle this without my assistance.