I shifted Buttercup, checked her face. She was still in the grip of a deep slumber. For the first time I was glad-I wasn’t sure of a lot of things, but I was sure I lacked the strength to wrestle with a panicked banshee no matter how small her stature.
I covered Buttercup’s face with a fold of the blanket, just in case.
“No napping during office hours,” I said. I kept my voice low. Gertriss didn’t stir.
I nudged her right foot with mine.
Her eyes flew open.
“Easy,” I said, quickly. “No loud voices, no sudden moves. I brought company.”
Gertriss stood. Her sword clattered to the damp ground. I cringed, but Buttercup didn’t stir.
“I thought you were dead, Mr. Markhat,” she whispered. “What have you got? Is that a child? Is she hurt?”
“Me? Dead? I hardly ever get killed these days, Miss. And this is Buttercup. She’s probably older than all of us added together. And as for hurt, I don’t know-I think she’s just exhausted. We had quite a night.”
I shut up. Gertriss wasn’t listening. She’d pulled back a bit of blanket, and was getting her first good look at the not-quite-so-mythical banshee.
“Well I’ll be damned.”
“Miss, you’ll never get invited to any of the best society teas, talking like that.” I was ready to drop. “Think you can carry her upstairs? I’m spent.”
Gertriss lifted the blanket a little higher and went wide-eyed. “Mister Markhat-she’s starkers!”
“I’m going to go broke buying up wardrobes for naked women,” I said. My arms were beginning to shake. Hell, all of me was. “Burlap was the best I could do.”
Gertriss took Buttercup from me. Still, the banshee slept, not even stirring.
“Where are we going to put her? What’s she going to do when she wakes up?”
“Put her in my room. Can you get upstairs without raising half the House?”
Gertriss snorted in derision. “Nobody but the cooks stirring. Laziest bunch I’ve ever seen.”
We both started walking for the stairs. I could see light from above. Gertriss had left the trap door open. As we neared, clanging and clanking and voices sounded from the kitchen.
“Seems they had a party last night,” I said.
Gertriss nodded. “That was my idea. Keep that lot in the woods looking at the House. Was trying to give you a distraction.”
I managed a grin. “It worked. Remind me to give you a raise.”
We halted at the bottom of the stairs. I looked up them. My legs begged me to sit down for a year or two and rest.
“Up we go,” I said. I could smell bacon, hear it sizzle and pop, smell strong hot coffee brewing. “Remember, if anyone asks, Buttercup here is our secret love-child.”
Gertriss laughed, gently arranged the cloth so that Buttercup was covered, and we ascended wearily into the light.
We made it up to my room without raising a single eyebrow. Oh, the pair of cooks gave us a good sideways glare as we sidled around the cook-stove and I happened to snatch up a couple of biscuits and a handful of bacon to keep them warm, but neither of them spoke a word to us. Not even when I liberated a pitcher of clean water and a chunk of salted ham.
The House beyond the kitchen was quiet. Even the ever-present dogs, that lay slumbering three to a couch, did no more than glance our way as we passed.
I pondered that. I know they smelled Buttercup, who possessed the kind of body odor only lifelong non-bathers could achieve.
But they didn’t react.
Probably because they were accustomed to her presence.
Once I closed the door behind me, I crossed to the big cushioned chair and collapsed down into it. Gertriss laid Buttercup out on the settee, kneeled on the floor beside her and fixed me in a piercing Hog stare.
“That was mean of you, sneaking off like that.”
I munched biscuit, gulped water.
“Had to. Two bodies would have been spotted.”
The word she gave in response was not a word which Mama would approve.
“So what happened? What did you see?”
I laid it out between bites. The soldiers, the sorcerers, the excavation, Buttercup, the face in the sky. All of it.
I had hoped it would make sense, when I laid it out. It didn’t.
What the Hell had I seen?
“We saw the flash and heard the thunder,” said Gertriss. “Rather, they saw the flash, and we heard the thunder. I was in the tunnel, convinced my boss was dead.”
I groaned inwardly, knowing I’d never hear the last of that particular jibe.
Buttercup shifted in her sleep. Gertriss watched her for a moment, then wrinkled her nose in disgust.
“I hate to say this, Mister Markhat, but if we’re going to keep her indoors she’s going to have to have a bath. Soon. Now.”
I nodded. The food and drink was settling in. I was fatigued, but not quite ready to collapse anymore.
“Might be easier while she’s asleep.” I hated to do things that way, but Gertriss was right-we’d never be able to keep her hidden when a blind man could smell her from thirty feet away.
“I’ll go get bathrobe and some soap,” said Gertriss. “Lots and lots of soap. Why don’t you start a warm bath.”
I rose. “You handle her by yourself?”
“I think you’ve seen enough naked females for one night, Mister Markhat. You can sit right outside the door. And you come in only if I holler-call, understood?”
“Understood.” I got my aching feet out of my boots and padded back toward the fancy hot running water and the iron bathtub.
Marlo showed up, grumpy and glaring, before I finished filling the tub. I hauled Buttercup back to my bedroom and laid her on the floor and shut that door behind me before I let Marlo in my room.
The first thing he did was scrunch up his nose. “Damn, what have you been rolling in, Finder?”
“Trouble. Is that coffee for me?”
He handed me the cup and frowned. “You ought to have told the Lady you was back.”
I gulped it down, burning my tongue in the process.
“I figured word would get around. Anyway, as you pointed out, I need a bath. We’ll talk after that.”
“What’d you find, out there? Anything?”
“Too much. A couple of hundred men, I figure. Wagons. Horses. Wand-wavers. Oh, and something came up out of the hole they were digging and blasted a fair-sized chunk of the Lady’s timber flat.”
He just nodded, like that sort of thing went on all the time out here in the wholesome country air.
“I reckon they’re still watching the roads.”
“I reckon they are.”
“So what you gonna do about that, Finder?”
“Me? I’m going to change clothes and eat some more ham. And if people will let me think, I’ll do that too. In the meantime, everyone needs to stay indoors.”
“Horses and goats and cows got to be fed.”
“Not by me they don’t. Thanks for the coffee. Tell the Lady I’ll be downstairs shortly. Until then, nobody so much as sticks their nose outside, got it?”
“Skin left at first light to tend his bees. Ain’t seen him since.”
I was tired.
“Better find another bee-keeper.”
He snorted and stomped off. I slumped down onto the couch and seared the rest of my throat with the coffee.
Gertriss returned as I swallowed the last drop. She was clad in a dressing gown she’d probably found in her closet, because Darla would never have given her anything that much too small.
She bore an armful of towels and cloths and bottles. Judging from the number of soaps and shampoos and perfumes, I decided Gertriss was going to try and introduce poor Buttercup to the entire gamut of female make-up in one frantic go.
She saw my lifted eyebrow.
“Oh, hush. I won’t do anything to the poor creature she doesn’t want done.”
“Considering it’s entirely possible she’s lived her life in the forest without ever seeing a bathtub, that’s a potentially dangerous statement to make.”