Faded Steel Heat (31 page)

71

Tinnie followed me to the Weider front door. She was dressed for travel in a peasant frock and sensible shoes. Stupid me, I asked, “Where do you think you’re going?” Stupid me should have started discouraging her about an hour ago. Not that I could have gotten anything through all that red hair successfully.

“With you. You need somebody with you. That’s the rule.”

“I’ve got my talking feather duster.”

“What good is he in a fight?”

“He squawks a lot and
 
—”

“Be careful how you answer this one, Garrett.”

Oh-oh. Time to make that extra effort. I had to remember my lines just right. Only I hadn’t seen a copy of the playscript yet.

Redheads will do that to you.

So will blonds and brunettes and all the lovely ladies of every other hue.

“All right, then. You’re in. That’ll cure you of wanting in. Real quick.” What could happen? I was just going to visit one of Karenta’s most beloved subjects at his big, safe country estate.

I learned quickly that the countryside is still infested with country. It isn’t my favorite part of the world. I prefer domesticated bugs, cockroaches and fleas and bedbugs. They don’t get greedy if they bite at all. They don’t rip off an arm and hang it in a tree to come back to later.

It was well-groomed out there, close to town, but still way too green. “You getting tired?” I asked Tinnie. She didn’t look tired. She looked fresh, sexy, full of vitality and likely to be all of those still when I collapsed.

“You trying to get rid of me again?”

“Again? I never...” One foot starting to swing out over the abyss, I shut up.

Maybe I was learning.

“Oh, look!” Tinnie took off running, frisky as a fifteen-year-old. She leaped into a patch of cornflowers.

I told her, “The blue detracts from your eyes.”

“I like them anyway. Yikes!” She jumped higher and farther than you would have believed possible for such a trim slip of a gel.

A tiny face peered up out of the flower patch. It belonged to a grinning miniature man. Or boy, actually. He was a pint-sized teen. His grin was humorless. It was a conditioned response to the presence of big people. He was terrified. The grin was supposed to buy time while he figured out what to do.

Flower stalks swayed behind him. I glimpsed brown-and-green homespun in motion, a flicker of golden hair tossing, tiny heels flying. Well. I chuckled. The Goddamn Parrot chuckled. I took Tinnie’s hand, pulled. “Let the kids have their privacy.”

“What? You mean?...”

“Yeah.”

“Oh. Actually, that’s not such a bad idea, Garrett. When you think about it.”

I do that a lot. “Well, if you really...”

“All this fresh air is getting me giddy. There’s a wonderful big patch of cornflowers over there in that pasture.”

“Not to mention cows and horses.”

“I didn’t know any little people still lived outside the wall. Because of the thunder lizards. You’re worried about a few cows?”

No. There were horses over there. Eventually they would recognize me.

But the company went to my head. “I didn’t want you worrying about the livestock.”

“If they bought bullshit by the pound, you’d be the richest man in TunFaire.”

“I’ll never be anything but a poor second,” I replied. “While Morley Dotes is alive.”

Tinnie hiked her skirts with one hand. She ducked between the rails of the split log fence. “I’m only giving in because you keep pressuring me.” She showed me a couple of hundred taunting pearly whites.

This was my Tinnie. The argumentative evil twin her family doesn’t see. Very often.

I leaned on a fence post, the tip of my nose an inch from hers. “I just had a thought.” I glanced back toward TunFaire.

We’d passed through a small wood a while ago. The top of the Hill, a few towers, and the general miasma of evil air hanging above everything were all that could be seen of the city.

“A naughty one, I hope.”

“Actually, it’s more a troublesome one.”

“There you go getting serious again.”

“Sometimes I don’t have any choice.”

“All right. What is it?”

“Colonel Block warned me that I’m being followed around, all the time, by some very clever tails. Which would mean that somebody might be following me now.”

“Doesn’t that just mean somebody takes you serious? Aren’t you always complaining because people don’t take you serious?”

“Right. It’s great for the ego. But it occurs to me that if I yield to temptation and vanish into a flower patch with the most stunning redhead north of the Cantard — and I can’t think of anything I’d rather do — I might get trampled by watchers running to find out where I went.”

That tree line back there offered the last good cover for someone tracking me.

Tinnie leaned a little closer. Her eyes were only halfway open. Her lips were parted. She breathed, “Most stunning?”

“You witch.”

She laughed. “See? You forgot all about —” She stopped, stared to her right.

Somebody had left the wood. Somebody who was in no hurry. Somebody who whistled while he scuffed along the dusty road.

Staying close, Tinnie whispered, “It’s still a good idea, Garrett. Maybe on the way home.”

“Sooner or later.”

A rumble like the stir of remote thunder came from up ahead. We would reach another tree line in half a mile. The rumble came from beyond that. “Now what?” Tinnie asked.

“Horsemen. A whole bunch.”

The stroller behind us caught the sound. He vaulted the fence and disappeared into tall pasture grass on the other side of the road. Hmm.

I got myself over on Tinnie’s side fast. “Head for those tall weeds.”

“Why?”

“Because we don’t know who’s making that racket. It could be somebody we don’t really want to know.”

“Oh.”

The war taught me to suffer inconveniences and discomfort stoically, so I only grumbled a little about the thistles in the weed patch. Tinnie was more vocal. Poor spoiled city girl. But she did clam up, bug-eyed, when a squadron of centaurs hove into sight. They were all males with the hard look of campaign veterans. They maintained a warlike traveling formation. They were armed and alert. The army wouldn’t like this. I didn’t count them but there had to be at least sixteen.

They might have been looking for something. They didn’t see it in the pastures, though. They moved on quickly.

“What was that about?” Tinnie asked when the coast was clear. “What are they doing all the way up here?”

We had watched centaurs from hiding together before, a while back, in the Cantard, which is where centaurs properly belong.

“I don’t know. But those guys weren’t your everyday refugees.”

“I don’t like it.”

“It isn’t far now. North English’s dump is just past the next bunch of trees.” I hoped. I’d never been invited out.

72

Marengo North English’s digs were typical of Karenta’s ultra-wealthy gentry. The centerpiece was a huge red-brick manor house that crowned a knoll half a mile behind a tall hedge of some plant consisting mostly of thorns. There was a lot of green grass, numerous well-groomed trees, sheep, cattle and neat military squares of tents. An illustration of the place would have overlooked the livestock and bivouac. Workaday aspects of the rural idyll always get overlooked.

“You ever been here?” I should’ve asked earlier.

“No. I always heard he’s kind of reclusive.” She indicated the tents. “Lot of relatives visiting. You been here?”

“My folks never moved in these circles.” Tinnie started putting on her shoes. She’d been going barefoot, claiming she wanted to feel the dust squish between her toes. They were very nice toes, even dusty-dirty. But I decided to study the hoofprints outside the gate instead. Numerous oddly shod hooves had milled around there recently. Or maybe it was just a trick of the light. The day was getting on.

“Why isn’t anybody on guard?” Tinnie asked, between shoes. She danced on one foot while she tried getting a shoe onto the other, tucked up behind her. Her effort had its moments.

I’d been wondering myself. Was North English that confident? I didn’t believe it. Not in this world. Not this near TunFaire. The gods themselves aren’t that confident. I kicked at hoofprints. “It worries me, too.” Those centaurs hadn’t looked like they’d been in a fight.

“Should we head back?”

“It’s late. It’d be dark before we got to the gate.” In darkness, outside the wall, is nowhere I want to be. Call it prejudice. The owners and workers of manors, farms, orchards, and vinyards get by just fine. Those without stout walls just dive into deep cellars via twisty, tight tunnels if the big thunder lizards come calling. Anything else they kill before it kills them.

I don’t take risks if I don’t have to.

The night can hold things worse than death in the jaws of a hungry beast.

“You scared, Garrett?”

“Sure. You understand what I’m doing? If you don’t, you’d better start
 
—”

“We’re a team, big boy. You and me and our ugly baby.”

The Goddamn Parrot lifted his head long enough to give her a baleful look. I looked balefully at our surroundings. The spread seemed almost lifeless.

“Something I can do for you folks?”

Here came the missing guard, out of a cluster of evergreens not far inside the gate, next to the road. He was buttoning his trousers. He had trouble concentrating on his fingerwork. He was stunned by Tinnie.

I know the feeling. I get it all the time.

“Name’s Garrett. I’m doing some work for Marengo. He was supposed to leave word —”

“I guess he did. I recognize the name.” His nose wrinkled. “But he’s not here. There’s a big rally tonight.” He checked Tinnie again, probably wondering if she’d like to change her luck in men.

Things are bad when groat-a-dozen brunos take on airs. Maybe belonging to The Call boosts your self-confidence.

He said, “Go on up to the house. Front door only. Someone will be waiting.”

I lifted an eyebrow, started walking. Tinnie grabbed my arm. The gateman looked sad, soulful, constipated. Life just isn’t fair.

“You little heartbreaker,” I told my little heartbreaker.

“What?”

“You completely destroyed that man just by walking away with me.”

“What are you talking about?” She never noticed.

Then she bumped me with her hip.

Devil woman.

73

Somebody was waiting. She was long and lean and looked surprisingly regal observing our approach from above. She also looked like she had a sudden toothache come on. I don’t think she was glad to see me.

Tinnie offered me another solid hip bump. “That’s for what you’re thinking.”

The woman must be half Loghyr.

Miss Montezuma seemed less than thrilled to see Miss Tate, too, but put her disappointment aside. She was cool, elegant, imperial. This lady was always in control. “Welcome to The Pipes, Mr. Garrett. Miss Tate. You’ve chosen an inopportune time to visit. Everyone’s gone to town. Tonight is supposed to be important for the movement.”

We joined Miss Montezuma on the porch. I considered the manor, which dated from the middle of the last century and was supposed to be a minor fortress. Some tightwad had been skimping on the maintenance. It needed a lot of exterior work. The surrounding protective ditch hadn’t been cleared out in a generation. If I had friends like Marengo’s, I’d keep it filled with acid and alligators.

I surveyed the vast lawns. Or pastures. They were pretty enough. One frazzled kid was trying to convince some sheep that they wanted to head back to their paddocks. “Everybody went? Even Marengo?” North English never included himself in The Call’s public exercises. “What happened out there?” One area of lawn was torn up, as though cavalry had fought there. Maybe the livestock had been folkdancing.

Tama Montezuma frowned. “The cattle or sheep must have done it. Tollie has no help at all.”

“Why did everybody go?”

“Marengo doesn’t tell me everything. But he did say tonight will be a turning point for The Call and Karenta.”

“It’s a shame I missed him.”

Miss Montezuma’s gaze brushed Miss Tate. “Isn’t it?”

My luck turns fantastic when there’s no possibility of benefiting.

Tinnie kicked my ankle. I glanced at her. She had a flower petal in her hair.

The Goddamn Parrot snickered.

“So what do I do now?”

“’Come in. Have supper. I was about to start my own. Then I’ll find you rooms. It’s too late to go back to town. And you might not want to be there anyway. We could talk about why you came out. Maybe I can help.”

I said, “Ouch!”

“Sorry.” Miss Busyfeet took her heel off my big toe. “I’m so clumsy today.” The Goddamn Parrot snickered again.

Who am I to argue with a beautiful woman?

She could’ve left her shoes off, though.

The Goddamn Parrot began to dance on my shoulder. He had not yet eaten today. He said something. It was just a mumble, garbled, along the usual lines but intelligible only to me.

I hoped.

The impact of the presence of two beautiful women must have weakened the spell binding his beak. Or we were too far away from the Dead Man for him to control that beak completely. Or His Nibs had become too distracted to stay on that job
 
—
or maybe he had turned routine buzzard management over to one of his less attentive subsidiary minds. None of those were very bright.

Certainly he would not have taken his attempt to mislead rightsist observers so far as to abandon completely his ability to spy on me. That would deprive him of so many opportunities to gather ammunition for future nag sessions.

Yes, Old Bones was still out there somewhere, playing his own hand, involved in some way, whatever appearance he tried to project. This case touched upon too many of his fascinations for his defection to be complete and real.

“You’re so sweet,” Tinnie said. She scratched the quacking feather duster’s head. “How come you never say things like that, Garrett?”

Tama Montezuma offered me a dose of my own medicine. She raised one eyebrow and smiled a thin little smile that
dared
me to open my yap.