The Empire of Gut and Bone (12 page)

A
t breakfast, the boys kept their eye out for Lambert Gwestin, but he was nowhere to be seen.

“Maybe he doesn’t work breakfast,” said Gregory. He watched without pleasure as the servants brought another platter of steamed eels on the table. He complained, “How is it you people have figured out magic, but you still haven’t figured out the cheese Danish?”

“We’re the Court,” said Gwynyfer. “We get delicacies at every meal.”

Brian and Gregory found the delicacies hard to take. Though few of the Court actually made it to breakfast in the dining hall of the palace, the servants brought out course after course of meats in heavy sauces: hard little birds, eels wound into knots, the heads of some horned animal decorated with marzipan lace. The gravy on the heads was thin and watery with lumps of flour. The grease on the birds was starting to turn white.

Gwynyfer took a silver spatula and eagerly heaped a five-winged roast onto her plate. After she’d taken a few
bites, she told the boys, “Last night some refugees arrived from down in the digestive tract. They escaped from the Mannequin Resistance. Later, they’re going to have an Imperial audience with the Stub. You really should see it. It will be a lark.”

Brian considered, “Maybe it would be a good time to bring up the Thusser again, and the idea of going back to Old Norumbega.”

Gwynyfer looked a little impatient. “That would be quite dull. You’ve talked about that before. You should make up something different.”

“But,” Brian said, “Earth needs you to enforce the Rules of the Game.”

“And we need you to entertain us,” said Gwynyfer. “Things aren’t easy in the Innards. We don’t want to think about the awful things and the boring things.” She put her hand on Brian’s wrist. She told him, “It would be so much better for you
and
for us if you worked out a trick with fiery batons.”

Brian stared dejectedly at her hand. Gregory glared jealously at it.

“Let’s go,” Brian said to Gregory. “We have to find Mr. Gwestin.”

Gregory didn’t want to leave Gwynyfer. He said to her, “Do you want to come along?”

She shrugged and nodded.

They asked the head butler where Mr. Gwestin was. He informed them Mr. Gwestin had been transferred and no longer worked in the dining hall. No, he did not know where Mr. Gwestin had been sent. The Seneschal might
know. It was the Seneschal’s business to oversee the running of the palace.

“It’s very suspicious that he’s been reassigned,” said Brian as they wandered off to find the Seneschal. “Yesterday it seemed like Lord Dainsplint didn’t want us to talk to Mr. Gwestin.”

“Lord Dainsplint doesn’t want you to investigate the murder at all,” said Gwynyfer. “He wants to win the election for the new regent. If it turns out that the assassin is from his party — the Norumbegan Social Club — and you prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, he’ll never win. He must suspect that members of his party are involved.”

“Suspect,” said Gregory, “or
know?”

Gwynyfer agreed, “Or know.”

“It could even be him,” said Brian. “Except he was playing cards with Gugs. That’s his alibi.” Brian looked thoughtful.

Gwynyfer said, “The Earl of Munderplast is worried about the same thing, I’m sure. If it was someone in the Party of Melancholy who murdered the Regent, no one will trust them anymore. All the baronets and dukes from, I don’t know, the pancreas and the eight kidneys will drop the party like a hot ingot. The earl will lose the election.”

Brian mused, “I wonder where he really was that night.”

Gwynyfer said, “For a long time, there have been rumors that the earl was part of a conspiracy to overthrow the Regent. Cloak-and-dagger stuff. No one’s ever proved it. It’s very spine-tingly.”

“And a nice spine it is,” said Gregory, gesturing at the slow curve of her shoulders and her back.

She smiled. “This? It’s just something I threw together.”

They found the Seneschal marching in the opposite direction. He had on a large, lumpy hat and carried a huge account book under his arm. Men in robes scurried alongside of him, offering inkstones and quills.

Gwynyfer stood directly in his path. She curtsied. “The daughter of the Duke of the Globular Colon greets the Lord High Seneschal of New Norumbega.”

Irritated, he stopped in his tracks and inclined his head. He made some ritual sign of welcome with his hand. In a voice scratchy and exasperated he said, “The Lord High Seneschal greets the daughter of the Duke of the Globular Colon and wishes her a thousand years of youth. Is there something that the Lord High Seneschal can do for Miss Gwarnmore, in the hopes that she will move out of his way so that he can pursue his business without being hampered by debutantes and monkey-born brats?”

Gwynyfer said, “It is the wish of Miss Gwarnmore that she be informed as to the reappointment of one servant named Lambert Gwestin.”

The Seneschal nodded, perched his great book on one hand, and drew it open. He scanned a list. He said to a scribe, “Turn.” The scribe turned the page. “Turn.” Another page flipped. “Two fifty-seven,” he said, and another scribe leafed through to that page.

The Seneschal ran his finger down the page and
looked up. “Mr. Gwestin was reassigned at Lord Dainsplint’s command to shoveling duty in the generator room.”

“One thanks the Seneschal for his timely and accurate information.”

“The Seneschal wishes Miss Gwarnmore a thousand glittering pleasures and requests she go play roll-a-hoop outside rather than blockading the august progress of the Imperial bureaucracy.”

Gwynyfer got a mean look on her face. “Miss Gwarnmore hopes that the Seneschal remains as well as can be expected, at his advanced age.”

Frowning, the Seneschal slammed his book shut. “The Seneschal expresses the hope that Miss Gwarnmore will in the next years make fewer of the stupid mistakes commonly associated with people of her extreme youth.” He bowed to the three kids and swept past them, his scribes jogging to keep up.

The generator was in the basement of the Keep, buried deep in the tissue of the Dry Heart. The door read No
ADMITTANCE
.

Gwynyfer threw it open, and they walked in.

Gwestin and another servant, dressed in grubby overalls, shoveled dry manure from carts into a huge furnace. The heat was unbearable.

“Mr. Gwestin!” Brian yelled over the roaring. “Mr. Gwestin, it’s Brian Thatz.”

Gwestin turned from his work. He said something to his partner, jammed his shovel in the heap, and walked over, wiping his hands on a handkerchief.

“No admittance, sirs and madam,” he said, pointing to the door.

“We’ve just got to ask you one question,” said Gregory.

The man frowned.

Brian rushed to add, “We’re really sorry you’re down here. We think it might be on our account.”

“Yes, sir,” he said. “I am sorry I am down here, too. What have you come to ask me? You need to leave. If Lord Dainsplint discovers I’ve talked to you, it could mean …” He rumpled his mouth and shrugged.

Brian and Gregory looked at each other. Then Brian explained, “It’s about two days ago. Were you asked to take a uniform down to the prison and leave it on a bench there?”

“Yes.”

“We were wondering,” said Gregory, “by who?”

“By who?”

“… were you asked?”

“By note,” said Gwestin. “The uniform and a note were tucked in my mail slot. They had the seal of the Imperial Council on them. The note asked me, on behalf of the Council, to go down to the prison and ask to see the automaton Dantsig. I was told to leave the uniform folded on a bench without any of the guards observing.”

Gregory said, “And you didn’t ask any questions?”

“The note had the Imperial Council’s wax seal on it.”

“You didn’t think it was at all suspicious?”

Gwestin looked a little annoyed. “I have learned, sir, in my capacity as a servant to a court of pranksters, that
I should not ask questions when told to fill a bed with herrings, or burn off another servant’s hair, or apply glue to certain gargoyles. We do not have much choice in what we do, sirs, madam. We are in debt to the Court and we serve them. They are our rightful rulers, whatever we may think. Though we may fear they make a mockery of our Imperial Highness’s wishes, it is not our place to question.”

“Can we see the note?” Brian asked.

Gwestin shook his head. “I destroyed it, sir, when I was done. It specified destruction.”

“Because the handwriting …” Brian began, but Gwestin interrupted him.

“And now I am here in the basement shoveling dung, when I wished only to serve our gracious monarch, the Stub — may he long prosper, and may his eye never shut. I wished only to wait upon the proud Imperial throne that my family has bowed before for millennia. But Lord Dainsplint, seeing you speak with me, felt this service would prove to be a better channel for my enthusiasms.”

There was an awkward silence.

Brian, Gregory, and Gwynyfer thanked him. He stood looking at them accusingly. He still had to go back to shoveling manure. Brian felt awful. He didn’t know what to say. He apologized again. Gwestin nodded and walked away, back to his shovel. He dug it into the mound, and began heaving.

The furnace roared.

They had not gone far when they ran into a Court sorcerer striding through a door from the huge hillock of trash outside. The stench of garbage blowing in was overwhelming. The wizard was an old, thin-nosed man with a short, clipped, salt-and-pepper beard. His double-breasted suit was too wide for him, and slumped at the shoulders. He was followed by a troop of guards. The door slammed shut behind him with the clatter of a crash-bar.

They knew he was a wizard because he introduced himself. He bowed to Gwynyfer and said, “The Wizard Thoth-Chumley presents himself to the daughter of Duke Gwarnmore of the Globular Colon and expresses his wish that the entrails of this Great Body shall align to bring the young woman great luck and happiness.” She curtsied and flattered him in reply.

When he bowed to the boys, the suitcoat drooped and his necktie almost slithered out. Catching it, Thoth-Chumley said, “To the human ambassadors, Brian Thatz and Gregory Stoffle, I present my greetings. I have been charged with the investigation of the murder of our late Regent, Lord Telliol-Bornwythe. I think you know the mannequins who are under suspicion. Is that right?”

Keeping an eye on the guards, Brian nodded cautiously.

Thoth-Chumley looked unhappy. He fished in his suit pocket and pulled out a plastic sandwich bag. In it was what looked like a furry, brown bug.

“All morning, men have been sifting the hill of trash. And we found this.” He shook the bag.

“What
is
it?” said Gregory.

“Can’t you guess?”

“Yeah. Shouldn’t you flush it?”

Thoth-Chumley shook the bag again. “Mr. Stoffle, it is a goatee. We found a false goatee in the garbage.” He smeared its tendrils through the plastic. “See the glue? It has been attached to someone’s chin.” He waved his hand vaguely, and a guard stepped forward with an extra helmet. “The goatee was found concealed in litter, rolled in a tunic, and crammed in this helm. We assume these disguised the killer. He or she took some trouble to bury them in the trash heap.” Thoth-Chumley stuffed the bag of beard back in his suit pocket. He crossed his arms. “Perhaps the young people understand what this means?”

Gregory shook his head, confused, but Brian exclaimed, “It means Dantsig didn’t do it, and you know it.”

Thoth-Chumley nodded, a grim look in his eye. “For your machine Dantsig, there would be no faux goatee. You’d only need a faux goatee if you wanted to look like him and you didn’t have anything on your chin. And there’s also the helm and uniform we found. The automaton Dantsig left his on the bench in the prison, right back where he got them. He didn’t want there to be any suspicion the next morning. So it appears, boys, Miss Gwarnmore, there were
two
false guards wandering through the palace that night. And one of them was trying to frame your mechanical friend for the Regent’s
murder.” The Wizard Thoth-Chumley frowned. “The Court will not be pleased with this news. I wish we hadn’t found this. No one wants to hear the murderer is one of us. I don’t think things will go well for me.” He shook his head. “I don’t like my chances of outliving the week.”

Brian, however, was excited. “But now you know it’s not Dantsig!”

“I don’t
know.”

“But you believe he’s innocent!”

“It could be anyone. The whole Court had their motives. The whole Imperial Council. Lord Dainsplint, his friend Count Gugs Ffines-Whelter, all of them … These people own New Norumbega. The Dry Heart belongs to them. They own huge estates in other organs. They would have been ruined if the Regent’s plan had gone through, and the Court had abandoned this city for our old kingdom on Earth. They all probably wanted to kill him.” He looked like he had a headache. “So many people to question.” He scraped his shoe on the floor and a wad of wet cling wrap dragged behind it. He said, “At least we’re out of the garbage for a while.”

He waved to the men behind him. “Come on,” he said. “We need to arrange interviews.” He bowed to Gwynyfer and spoke politely of her future fortune.

As he walked off down the corridor, they heard him issuing orders: “We have a lot to do, gents. Eochaid, find me the Lord High Seneschal. Edward, take the evidence to the office. Aillil, find a sandwich for me somewhere. I need to stop by my chamber and grab a protective amulet.
It’s a cinch there’s going to be a formal curse on me by dinnertime.”

He left behind him the clot of cling wrap sticking to the floor.

Upstairs in the Grand Hall, the Court gathered to hear the refugees from distant Throats tell tales of the Mannequin Resistance. Gregory, Brian, and Gwynyfer squeezed in, peering over shoulders.

The noblemen and women, the counts and countesses and duchesses and lordlings, were dressed as if for some weird underground medieval banquet. They wore spreading hats and long sleeves and tunics and gemmed stockings, and they waited on either side of an aisle that led directly to the foldaway panels that hid the Stub. The refugees stood humbly in a line, waiting for their turn to approach the throne. Their clothes were blackened with smoke.