We made for the big gallery room. A pair of curious dogs followed us, just in case we happened to drop baked hams.
“He took Burris, a wagon and two ponies.” Gertriss lowered her voice to a whisper. “She’s mad enough to choke a wolf.”
“Think she meant what she said about not letting him come back?”
“She meant it, boss. At the time. But she’s already watching the doors and keeping track of the time. She’ll forgive.”
We were at the gallery door. I pushed it open. The dogs trotted through first, tails in full wag.
The room was dark. But it wasn’t empty-a full dozen of the artists were there, silent, each so intent on their canvases none acknowledged our presence or that of the dogs, who ran from place to place to finish the abandoned, half-eaten meals that littered the place.
Gertriss frowned. We both halted just beyond the door.
“How do they see anything?” whispered Gertriss.
“I don’t know.” There were lamps and candles aplenty, but only one lamp, just to our right, was lit. The sunlight that managed to creep in over the windows was yellow-pale, more like bright moonlight than day.
But brushes moved, scrape-scrape, scrape-scrape.
I picked up a five-candle candelabra and lit each white candle with the lamp.
Still, not a single face turned toward us.
“Look, I have beer.”
Still, no acknowledgement.
I motioned Gertriss ahead. She went, keeping close to me, her left hand on my arm. She hadn’t done that outside in the dark of the night.
We reached the first painter. Her name was Lissa. Her young face was a study in rapt intensity. She painted left-handed, and though she held the brush awkwardly there was nothing awkward about her painting.
I brought my light up close to the canvas.
Gertriss gasped. I may have too. I can tell you that we saw young man and a donkey standing at the edge of the field they’d come to plow, early on a bright spring morning. I could tell you about the wild daisies at their feet, tell you about the young man’s vivid blue eyes and hay-colored hair and the set of his strong country jaw, but unless you’ve seen the same painting you just won’t understand.
Lissa, I recalled, came from a middling rich family in Rannit. She’d never in her life seen a field being worked. I doubted she’d ever seen a donkey fitted with a harness and a plow. But she’d painted them perfectly, flawlessly, right down to the kind of knots in the harness and the wear on the plow-handle from hour after grueling hour of being pushed down by the plowman.
“Beautiful,” I said aloud, to Lissa.
She didn’t hear me. I said it again, louder.
She made an ugly smudge near the donkey’s tail and whirled toward me, startled.
“Didn’t mean to scare you, Miss,” I said. “I just wanted to tell you how much I love your work.”
She stammered a thank you. Her eyes went back to her canvas. She frowned at the smudge, and her brush dipped into paint, and she was gone again.
Gertriss pulled me away.
“Something ain’t right.”
“Something isn’t right.”
She glared. “Either way. You know this isn’t natural.”
I nodded. “I don’t need Hog sight to see that. Let’s see if the others are the same.”
They were.
I lifted the drop cloths off the works in progress that weren’t being added to. Each was a masterpiece, at least to my untrained eye.
We were still stalking around when the dinner bell rang. The artists kept dabbing. The dogs, sated but hoping for handouts of leftovers, followed us out.
“Mister Markhat, there’s something going on in this place.”
“Really? You mean aside from banshees and walking corpses?”
She poked me in the ribs with her sharp Hog elbow. “Hush, Serris might hear.”
“You mean something back there, in the gallery.”
She nodded.
“I think so too. Think about all the paintings we saw. What did they all depict?”
“Depict?”
“What were they all of. What did they all show. How did every one of them make you feel?”
We were nearly to the dining room. Voices and even the odd laugh rang out.
“Happy. Or sad, but sad about good memories-does that make sense?”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself, Miss. Now then. If some mysterious force makes people see happy, good things, what does that tell you about this mysterious force?”
We paused at the door. Gertriss thought for a moment.
“Well, it’s either a friendly ghost what misses the happy things it left behind, or it’s a complete bastard, trying to be smiles and music until you get close enough to be grabbed and gutted. I reckon it’s probably the last.”
I was impressed. I opened the door and held it for her.
“You have the makings of a great finder,” I said. “Now let’s eat.”
The smell was heavenly, though. The table didn’t sport the same volume of food it had that first night, but it was ample nonetheless. Lady Werewilk had decided not to employ her hexed hearth again, which meant none of the candles were melting from the heat.
We sat, and dined. Marlo’s customary chair was empty. Lady Werewilk gave me a quizzical raised eyebrow look from her seat at the end of the long table, and I replied to it with a smile and a nod.
The conversations, of course, all centered on the killing spell at the empty camp, the banshee and the likely whereabouts of Weexil’s ripening remains. The story of the day’s events certainly had the staff spooked-even the gardeners and the stable hands were wearing swords, and there were a dozen halberds, flails or just plain wooden clubs leaning against the wall near the door.
Every metal surface sported rust. Few attempts had been made to remove it. The soldier in me cringed.
I was asked a few times what I intended to do about the situation. I replied with vague affirmations that all would be well between mouthfuls of beef.
No one mentioned anything helpful about a Faery Ring, and I decided not to ask.
The artists were the least concerned of the bunch. None carried so much as a dagger. They were far more interested in beer and Serris, who joined the meal late, looking pale and tragic in a flimsy lace gown that suggested far more spirited activities than mourning the passing of a lover.
She didn’t look at me once during the meal. She avoided speaking to Gertriss too, which I found odd. Gertriss just shrugged when her calm greeting wasn’t returned. If they’d had terse words during the day, Gertriss hadn’t told me.
The food vanished, forkful by forkful, and the crowd with it. After a time, no one was left but Lady Werewilk, Gertriss, a few artists and myself.
The artists were arguing about something artistic and sloshing beer on the floor. Lady Werewilk finally had to get up and lead them both out by the elbow, much to Gertriss’ amusement.
She closed the door behind them, then took the seat beside me.
“So, Finder. What now?”
“We call the Watch.” When her brow furrowed, I spoke quickly. “Marlo isn’t going to get any help. I was right about that. Because he won’t be telling the right things to the right people. Hear me out, Lady Werewilk. It was your library that gave me the idea.”
“What did you find?”
“I think I found what your sneaky stake-layers were looking for. It was mentioned in a couple of old books, and they had maps. The Faery Ring? South of here? Ever hear of it?”
She shook her head. “I’m ashamed to say I haven’t, Mr. Markhat. Or if I have, I’ve forgotten it. What is it?”
“The books didn’t say. But it was located right on the banks of the old creek the clandestine surveying crew was staking out. It can’t be coincidence. Your forebears said the place was dangerous. I’m thinking an Elvish burial site, maybe. Or something worse. But what it was doesn’t matter-the fact that it’s there at all is what I’m counting on to get you out of this mess.”
She figured it out. “I forget the name of the Act. It’s the one in which the Crown-the Regency, I mean-assumes control over any site believed to be Elvish or pre-Kingdom sorcerous in nature?”