I shook off my reverie and headed downtown. I planned to walk as far as Northridge and then hail a cab to the Hill. It was time to beard the Lethways in their opulent lair, and employ my clever ruse to trick them into revealing the whereabouts of their only son Carris.
I was hoping the walk would promote the formulation of my clever ruse. A block later, I hadn’t made any progress in that regard, which meant my entire plan of attack centered around the words “Hello, I’m Markhat, where pray tell is that son of yours?”
I was so engrossed in my machinations mental it was another block before the tiny hairs on the back of my neck rose, and it dawned on me that I was the object of a stranger’s sudden, intense attention.
I didn’t turn and look. That’s the kind of stunt that ends with bloody noses or worse. I watched glass shop- fronts until I identified my interested stranger and satisfied myself that he was working alone.
I cussed out loud and drew a sour look from a little old lady in a veiled dowager’s hat.
The kid was a Sprang.
Not even a full-grown Sprang. He might have been ten at the most. Ten, and wandering around Rannit clad in homespun burlap and mismatched shoes.
He was filthy. His hair was wild and matted. The dirt was so thick on his face I could see it plain in a dim reflection. The streaks in the dirt must have been from tears.
Hell. The kid had been out all night. After Curfew, outside, with hungry halfdead roaming the streets.
I almost repented of my plan to set the elder Sprangs free. They’d not said a word about a kid.
I didn’t want to snatch the kid there on the street. Even the most sessile Watchman would probably come out swinging at the screams of a child, in this part of town, in broad daylight.
So I circled back, hoping the kid was so lost already he wouldn’t realize I was taking him back to Cambrit. I kept a nice slow pace, making sure he didn’t lose me. If he knew he’d been spotted, he didn’t let it show.
I bought a bag of biscuits from a pushcart vendor on Rains. The kid hid behind a fence and watched me through the cracks. I paused to tie my shoe on Borom. The kid nearly got himself run over by an ogre and his cart.
By the time I’d hiked back to Cambrit, he was stumbling along, exhausted, either not realizing he was back where he started or just too tired to care.
I slowed and let him catch up. I slowed more, and he kept coming.
In the end, I just caught him up under his arms and hefted him over my shoulder. He didn’t even cry.
The Hoogas dipped their eyes in greeting as I approached. “Delivery for Mama Hog,” I said, loud enough to be heard inside.
Mama’s door rattled, and she poked her head out.
“Boy!”
“Indeed it is,” I said, passing by her and depositing the limp Sprang on her table. I patted him down for knives, found a single thin, worn blade, and handed it to Mama.
“Another Sprang, I believe. Followed me all the way downtown. Looks like he’s been out all night.”
Mama gobbled, her face reddening with the same anger I’d felt.
“Wash him. Feed him when he’s awake. If he wants to leave, fine, but remind him what happens around here at night.”
“I ain’t runnin’ no orphanage.”
“He’s not an orphan. Yet. Here are some biscuits. I’ll be back before dark.”
Gertriss opened her door, and I waved and winked then I was outside and away.
I took a cab, this time. I’d walked in a big circle and wasted a lot of time, and I still had the Lethways to face.
If there were more Sprangs lurking about, they didn’t make themselves evident. The bridge clowns capered and mocked me as the cab clattered over the Brown River Bridge. I must have looked somber because they adopted furrowed brows and pursed lips and puffed out their cheeks. I tossed them a few coppers as the cab left the bridge, and hoped some of the superstition about clowns and good luck lingered on.
I’d abandoned any pretense of cleverness. I simply didn’t know enough about the Lethways to even guess at a tack. My best option was an old favorite-keep the conversation going for as long as possible, and hope something useful is revealed along the way.
I knew I’d be lucky if I even managed to sit across from an actual Lethway. If Tamar hadn’t managed to get past the butlers, my chances were slim indeed.
The cabbie wound his ponies up the Hill. We passed House Avalante, where my friend Evis lay sleeping, deep in his dark, cool crypt.
I knocked the dust off my hat and smoothed back my hair and waved at Evis, though I knew he couldn’t see.
The Lethways have a big new house three-quarters of the way up the Hill. Their blood oaks are maybe half the age and size of those that shade Avalante, so rather than lurk in the shadows, House Lethway gleamed in the bright midday sun.
It was modest, as Hill houses go. A mere three stories tall. But it had the usual high swooping slate-tile roofs and ornate leaded glass windows. There were, however, no Old Kingdom turrets, no mock crenellations along the eaves, no pretense of garrison gates where the rather plain front door stood.
And no guardhouse, and no ogres, and no dark-suited toughs with wary eyes and broad shoulders idling about, either.
I paid the cabbie, tipped him generously, and suggested he might earn another handsome fee by swinging back this way in an hour. Then I adjusted the tilt of my hat and marched toward the front door, my face set in what I hoped was an expression of forthright determination.
I didn’t get the chance to knock. I was two full strides from the Lethway’s door when it opened and a pair of stalwart gentleman sauntered out.
They wore dark suits. Their eyes were wary. Their shoulders were broad.
They weren’t quite ogres, but they weren’t far from it, either.
“Good day, gentlemen.” I stopped, rocked back on my heels, clapped my hands together as though thrilled to be meeting such devoted youths.
The pair exchanged an exasperated glance. “Wedding business,” muttered one. His companion nodded.
Sometimes, fortune smiles.
I beamed and smiled my widest.
“Weddings are indeed my business,” I said. I put a lot of cheer into it. “Walter and Walter, florists extraordinaire. We’ve managed to secure ten dozen of the eastern white roses Miss Fields requested.” I fished in my jacket’s breast pocket and withdrew the papers, which would free the Sprangs but wouldn’t pass for a flower bill on close inspection. “If one of you gentlemen could sign for this…”
“Not going to be any wedding,” offered one worthy.
“Third one she’s sent up here this week. Crazy broad,” offered the other.
“You’ll get paid,” added the first, to me. “Take the money and forget it. There ain’t going to be a wedding, you got that?”
I adopted an expression of concern. “But, sirs, I spoke to the bride last evening-”
They turned and threw open the door. “Like I said, the House will pay your bill,” said one, beckoning me inside. “But just this once. You show up here again and it won’t go so good for you. You understand?”
I slipped my papers back in jacket and nodded, deciding that the floral agents of Walter and Walter probably had little experience in trading tough talk with House soldiers.
The pair of toughs led me across a marble-tiled foyer and into a sitting room that could have used at least one window. I spent a few moments idling there, listening to the House, unable to do more than catch a few muffled footsteps and hear a snatch of conversation I couldn’t begin to follow.
An older gentleman ushered me wordlessly from the tiny sitting room, down a hall with oak-paneled walls, and into a larger sitting room that had not one window but two. Portraits kept me company, three to a wall, scowling at me from beneath the powdered white wigs and ruffled collars popular in the years before the War. None looked happy. A loud clock ticked on a mantel.
