rapidly for him to take a lasting pleasure in their agonized struggles. People were different — their deaths were more satisfying by far. One gained a sense of genuine accomplishment in hewing them down, the treacherous and ungrateful mongrels. Humans were like waste matter, vile trash to be disposed of in vile ways. Abruptly, almost unwillingly, Lord Godefroy remembered the feel of the mattock in his hands, the smell of manure and blood, the sound as the mattock bit into her soft flesh —
Something creaked overhead. Startled, Lord Godefroy blinked and looked up at the vaulted ceiling. Only motionless shadows gathered there.
What had he just been thinking of? The powerful images had fled. He strained for the memory but caught nothing. Was he becoming senile even in this form? He looked down at the window and remembered the briar, but nothing else. Nothing moved on the lawn outside in the moonlight. Reminiscing, perhaps. .
With a slow look around, Lord Godefroy left the corridor. He looked behind him twice before entering the study again, then closed the double doors with a thump of finality.
Back in his study, Lord Godefroy stopped by the tea table next to his favorite chair and stared down at his book. It was no use to pick up his reading; his mood was spoiled by the interruption. Perhaps tomorrow night there would be time. He lifted the old brown tome in his hands and headed reluctantly for a bookcase.
I've done this before, he thought, too many times before. Each time he wanted to relax and take a few moments to himself, something ruined it. Something would pay with its life for the interruption, but then he wouldn't be in the mood for his favorite book, for which he had paid so much to that leech, Marian Attwood. Served the old mongrel right to be run down by his own horse, laid up in bed a cripple and a pauper when he died at last.
That wouldn't happen to me now, thought Lord Godefroy. He paused before the bookcase, looking up to locate the space among the books from which he'd pulled his favorite history. Five shelves up, only three feet beyond his reach.
He willed himself up, his slippered feet leaving the faded red carpet. Not a sound, he marveled; not a sound. Flying was the easiest thing. He came to a stop at eye level with the shelf he wanted, then glanced over his shoulder and saw how small the rest of the room looked as he hovered above it, so near the ceiling.
Lord Godefroy almost smiled. Though his frame was still bent and his face furrowed with three-and-a-half score years, the aches and creakings of his once-rotting body were gone. He felt no pain now, none at all. And he could fly, fly like a leaf from a dead tree, fly like smoke from ashes.
And he had the Touch now, too. A handy thing, that Touch.
The oil lamp's flame flickered in its glass prison. Something moved in the shadows to Lord Godefroy's right. He flinched, almost dropping his book, and threw up a hand to shield his face from a blow.
No blow came. Slowly, he lowered his arm. It was just a shadow, a shadow on the wall over the coat rack. It flickered in the light as he stared at it, then was gone. A flaw in the lamp's glass, or a cobweb, perhaps.
Lord Godefroy realized he was breathing very quickly,
almost panting. Mortified, he stopped it at once. He didn't need to breathe. It was a weakness. He had no weaknesses now. Humans were weak, but not him.
He lowered himself to the floor and straightened his posture, sniffed abruptly, then turned to a wall mirror to smooth his high-necked shirt and long black coat sleeves. He glanced up at the space over the coat rack as he did. Nothing. He sniffed again and regarded his reflection severely. His behavior did not become the lord of Mordent, master of the Gryphon Hill and Weathermay estates. If he was now a god in his own domain — as he surely was — then he should act the part.
Perhaps it was time to look at his mail. It would have been delivered around noon, while he was out walking the borders of his property. He nodded to himself in the mirror and left for the dining room.
The mail came once a week, delivered by some means that Lord Godefroy had never bothered to divine. It merely appeared on the dining room table, neatly stacked to the side of his empty teacup and saucer. Though his appetite was long gone, he insisted on retaining the cup and saucer. Any manor lord would have done it. Old habits never died without good reason.
He made his way to the dining room, pausing only once to brush fingertips along a dusty tabletop. He had arranged for the house to be kept clean with the magical assistance of a minor spirit or two, something a business associate had arranged for him in the old days. The spirits weren't doing their jobs well, though, and being unalive were immune to punishment from the Touch. Lord Godefroy grimaced as he rubbed his dirtied fingers together.
At the doorway to the candle-lit dining hall, he nodded with satisfaction as his gaze fell upon the long, clothdraped table. As hoped, the week's mail awaited him.
With a sigh of relief, he settled into his dining chair, adjusting his pince-nez. Perhaps now he would have the time he was cheated of earlier with his history book.
Woe to that which disturbed him now, he thought to himself. He would have his due and more.
Thin, translucent fingers plucked the first of three letters from the stack. Behind Lord Godefroy, more candles came alight, attended to by the spirits who silently looked after Gryphon Hill and its master.
'Schupert,' he whispered, glancing at the envelope. He knew the spidery handwriting well. He slid a long, gnarled fingernail under the back flap, breaking the wax seal, then pulled the thin page from the envelope and read quietly.
Comings and goings, plots and plans — the usual web. Schupert was too smart to say much, too unwise to say nothing. As was his habit, the old wizard's letter was so cryptic as to be virtually meaningless, nothing more than an acknowledgment of the receiver's existence and a request for any tidbits of information that the lord might have heard. Lord Godefroy set the letter aside, only half read. He knew of no rumors for the withered fool's ear, but he would have passed none along if he had. Schupert could burn for all he cared, and with the old wizard's constant meddling in the affairs of domain lords, his burning would not be long delayed.
Lord Godefroy cleared his mind and selected the second letter, noted the handwriting. His frown faded, evidencing less disappointment than usual.
'Narvis,' he murmured. 'My dear Narvis. 'It was the first good turn his evening had taken.
Narvisek Grellar was someone Lord Godefroy understood. Dear, twisted, betrayed Narvis. His wife Viola, soft and heavy and stupid as a cow, had objected to Narvis's taste for vivisection. How like a little boy Narvis was, restless and curious, eager to see the inner workings of a still-living creature whose flesh had been entirely removed. Viola, Lord Godefroy had heard from other sources, had threatened to expose Narvis as a monster. Dear Narvis couldn't have that, so soft Viola became his next vivisection subject, right on their own kitchen table. Narvis never spoke of Viola's fate, but someday Lord Godefroy would have to ask how long it took for soft, stupid Viola to die. He would have loved to have seen her in her last moments on the table, every nerve and muscle open and burning, a red thing no longer human.
A twisted thumbnail broke the seal on the letter, and he held two scrawl-covered pages aloft in the candlelight. Not much on his experiments this time — only reports of bad weather and his fears that he was falling ill again. Narvis was obviously preoccupied, the letter scratched off in a hurry.
Lord Godefroy finished his reading in bitter disappointment. He had hoped for an accounting of a recent experiment, an exciting one with a human subject. Narvis had a lovely gift for detail and understatement, though his script and grammar stank. The letter was set aside with a sneer of disapproval. Narvis was capable of much better.
In an ill humor, Lord Godefroy picked up the last envelope. His narrow gaze fell on the cursive handwriting on the cover.
Wilfred.
Time stopped.
Wilfred.
The name filled his eyes and head. It was all he saw and thought.
Wilfred.
No one living called him Wilfred now. No one ever had.
No one but Estelle.
Lord Godefroy clutched the letter like a serpent's neck and saw her again, the earlier memory now in full