She frowned.
“Why?
I rose and stretched my arms. “Let’s say we’re right in this. Our camping friends have sorcerers in their number. They left a killing trap in a campfire. What kind of nasty surprises do you think they might have hidden at the location of the buried treasure?”
“You think it’s old gold?” She was perking up.
“I have no idea what it might be. I know some very determined and well-financed people want it, and they want it badly enough to kill for it.” I rubbed the bruises on my neck. “Marlo and his axe might not be enough, next time.”
Gertriss rose and joined me in a round of pacing. I reflected that my office back in Rannit was too small to accommodate us both this way.
“So what’s next, boss?”
“Supper. Afterward, we speak alone with Lady Werewilk.”
“About?”
“About our clever plan to keep her and her household safe. Now scoot. Check on Serris. Find Lady Werewilk. Get her permission for us to enter the gallery. I want to look at those paintings. All of them. And, Gertriss, bring me more corn bread. Buttered, of course.”
“Coffee too?”
“Beer.” I stood in the dying sunlight, let its feeble rays cast a barely perceptible warmth over my face. “And bring me a blanket. Nothing a dog has slept on. Wool. Plain.”
She made a puzzled face, but nodded and closed the door softly behind her.
Alone at last, I rolled my neck around on my shoulders and worked the pops out. Then I took my boots off and engaged in some first-class sock-foot pacing, trying to put together the clever plan I’d mentioned to Gertriss before Lady Werewilk came around eager to hear it.
I had my beer, my cornbread, and my blanket. I put my boots back on, combed my hair, and even shaved. My fresh scratches gave me a faintly piratical appearance.
I knew Lady Werewilk would insist on speaking after the evening meal. That suited me just fine. It was much lighter outside than indoors, so I spent some time before supper wandering around the borders of the House lawn, whistling and generally making my presence known to any spectral howling ladies who might be hiding just inside the ranks of massive blood oaks.
I selected a spot not far from the angelic statue I’d used before. I folded the blanket and placed it in the crook of a crape myrtle, and I left the cornbread on top, wrapped in one of my own linen handkerchiefs. I also left a small bowl of beer, in case Buttercup fancied an evening nip.
I sat under the spreading branches of the myrtle, for a while. I talked, about nothing, about everything, on the off chance my voice was being heard. I got no replies, but wasn’t expecting any.
I did draw numerous odd looks from a couple of gardeners, but they scurried away whispering when I waved at them.
I was ready to head inside myself when Gertriss came out to fetch me. If she had opinions about my preferred method of banshee hunting, she kept them to herself.
“That clever plan you mentioned? Got it all plotted out?”
“Indeed I do, oh junior member of the firm. Plotted and hatched. Another mystery made mundane, another client rendered a bit poorer but far wiser.”
Gertriss frowned at me. We were walking toward the big doors, and she stopped and stopped me by taking hold of my elbow.
“Really? You know what to do next?”
I adopted an expression of deep hurt.
“Have you truly known me long enough to have arrived at such a low opinion of my skills already?”
“You know what I mean, boss.”
I grinned and motioned for her to start walking. “I know. But my answer is the same. There is a way out of this, a way that protects Lady Werewilk and her House and, incidentally, you and I.”
“Which is?”
I was at the door. I put my hand on it but didn’t open it.
“You know you and I can’t take on a small army with sorcerers in the ranks.”
She just nodded. Her relief was obvious.
“We’re not going to just walk away, either. But there’s another way. You’ll see.”
I opened the door. It still wasn’t locked. The sounds of the kitchen staff setting out plates and utensils while engaging in hushed conversations filled the hall.
“Let’s go see the paintings, first. Did Lady Werewilk have a problem with us looking?”
“She told me ignore anyone who protested our presence. Well, she used different words, which I won’t repeat, but that’s what she meant.”
I chuckled. “And Marlo? Did he leave?”
We made for the big gallery room. A pair of curious dogs followed us, just in case we happened to drop baked hams.
“He took Burris, a wagon and two ponies.” Gertriss lowered her voice to a whisper. “She’s mad enough to choke a wolf.”
“Think she meant what she said about not letting him come back?”
“She meant it, boss. At the time. But she’s already watching the doors and keeping track of the time. She’ll forgive.”
We were at the gallery door. I pushed it open. The dogs trotted through first, tails in full wag.
The room was dark. But it wasn’t empty-a full dozen of the artists were there, silent, each so intent on their canvases none acknowledged our presence or that of the dogs, who ran from place to place to finish the abandoned, half-eaten meals that littered the place.
Gertriss frowned. We both halted just beyond the door.
“How do they see anything?” whispered Gertriss.
“I don’t know.” There were lamps and candles aplenty, but only one lamp, just to our right, was lit. The sunlight that managed to creep in over the windows was yellow-pale, more like bright moonlight than day.
But brushes moved, scrape-scrape, scrape-scrape.
I picked up a five-candle candelabra and lit each white candle with the lamp.
Still, not a single face turned toward us.
“Look, I have beer.”
Still, no acknowledgement.
I motioned Gertriss ahead. She went, keeping close to me, her left hand on my arm. She hadn’t done that outside in the dark of the night.
We reached the first painter. Her name was Lissa. Her young face was a study in rapt intensity. She painted left-handed, and though she held the brush awkwardly there was nothing awkward about her painting.
I brought my light up close to the canvas.
Gertriss gasped. I may have too. I can tell you that we saw young man and a donkey standing at the edge of the field they’d come to plow, early on a bright spring morning. I could tell you about the wild daisies at their feet, tell you about the young man’s vivid blue eyes and hay-colored hair and the set of his strong country jaw, but unless you’ve seen the same painting you just won’t understand.
Lissa, I recalled, came from a middling rich family in Rannit. She’d never in her life seen a field being worked. I doubted she’d ever seen a donkey fitted with a harness and a plow. But she’d painted them perfectly, flawlessly, right down to the kind of knots in the harness and the wear on the plow-handle from hour after grueling hour of being pushed down by the plowman.
“Beautiful,” I said aloud, to Lissa.
She didn’t hear me. I said it again, louder.
She made an ugly smudge near the donkey’s tail and whirled toward me, startled.
“Didn’t mean to scare you, Miss,” I said. “I just wanted to tell you how much I love your work.”
