Mama grunted a negative. She was rummaging through cabinets now, muttering and grabbing, obviously in charge of Lady Werewilk’s spacious kitchen.
Darla rolled her eyes, flashed me a grin, and left. The scent of her perfume lingered.
“Let’s take a walk,” I said, to Lady Werewilk. Mama obviously wasn’t taking any hints this morning.
“Certainly. I need to make my rounds.” She smiled and brandished her short but lethal looking sword. “Have to keep up morale, you know.”
We left the kitchen. The hall was deserted. Music piped and tootled just ahead. Another party was in full swing.
“You are a remarkable woman, Lady Werewilk.”
She seemed pleased. “Why yes I am. But others so seldom realize this. What gave me away?”
“You’ve got a sinister army at your door. There’s a banshee upstairs trying on shoes. There’s a vampire somewhere taking a nap. And you take it all in stride. By the way, Evis is a friend of mine. I thank you for being so hospitable to him.”
She laughed. “Your friend from Avalante is the most gracious, well-spoken man I’ve met in years. He is always welcome here. Tell him so.”
“I will.” We left the hall, entered the common area at the bottom of the stairs. The band was playing, but no one was dancing.
“I’ve called a halt to the dances and the drinking. But I’ve ordered the music to continue. It keeps the soldiers outside confused.”
“Good idea. So they’re painting now?”
“They’d better be.”
I glanced behind us, peered ahead. No one was in earshot. “I may need some help tonight, Lady Werewilk. Think you can get me outside without getting me filled with arrows?”
She frowned. “Outside?”
“It’s necessary. You’ll sleep better if you don’t ask why. I can use the tunnels again, if I need to, but I’d rather not risk being seen popping out of one if you think you can render me unseen by other means.”
She pondered that. “I might get you outside, Mr. Markhat, but once out, the door would be your only way back in.”
“I was afraid of that. Still…can you make preparations, in case I need to call on you? Just after dark?”
She just nodded. We heard voices nearby. The door to the gallery wasn’t far away.
A sleepy sort of inspiration struck.
“Mind if I have another look at your artists at work?”
“Not at all. The door is never locked.”
“Thanks. Oh. One more thing, Lady. I understand that when we spoke before about the old Ring you were reluctant to disclose your practice of you-know-what. So that may have colored your answer somewhat. But since I know about that now, is there anything else you can tell me?”
“I wish there were, Mr. Markhat. I truly do. I find it disconcerting that I’ve lived my entire life here and never once detected the presence of anything extraordinary in a magical sense. You may find that hard to believe, but I assure you it is the absolute truth.”
“I believe you.” I thought about the face in the sky. “Whatever this thing is, it seemed determined to stay buried.”
“I make no claims to being an expert, Mr. Markhat, but one hears things, things related to the Art. And what you told me makes me suspect that what you saw wasn’t the subject of the excavation at all, but a ward laid down by the persons who buried something there at the Ring.”
I stopped walking. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“There are certain very old stories, none of which are set anywhere near here, which describe the elaborate magical guards set in place in the tombs of Elvish sorcerers, for instance. And human ones as well. Which is one of the many reasons I would never take a shovel to the Ring, even if I suspected the ground beneath it to be quite literally composed of gold dust and diamonds.”
“I wish others hereabouts shared your opinion.”
“I’m off to check with the staff, Mr. Markhat. No one has seen Skin. Did you know he left?”
I did. I’d forgotten, but I’d known. “I don’t suppose he’s been seen since?”
She shook her head. “He did love those bees. Poor fool. Call me if you need anything. I have watchers posted upstairs, by the way. They are to blow trumpets if the men move across the yard.”
“Good idea.” And in truth her idea wasn’t a bad one, but between the thick bubbly three-bolt glass and the weeds and the shadows from the untrimmed trees, I wasn’t sure anyone would see anything before the first axe bit into the door.
She turned and walked away, swinging her sword and whistling a tune I suddenly recognized as one of the more depraved marching songs from my glorious days in the army.
Something told me the Lady Erlorne Werewilk not only knew the words but enjoyed them.
One day I’d have to ask how she’d learned such a common earthy tune. But today, I had other plans.
So I marched myself down to the gallery and opened the doors and stepped right in.
The place was silent. The artists stood in ranks, faces fixed and intense, arms moving, brushes darting and dabbing.
No one spoke. No one giggled or laughed or flirted or drank.
There were a few vacant easels. I picked one out. I found blank canvases stacked against the wall. I shamelessly pilfered brushes and paints and rags here and there from the artists. Each was so engrossed in their own work they paid me absolutely no attention.
I propped my blank canvas on my easel and watched the kids around me while I figured out what hand held what. I scooped globs of paint out of glass bottles and onto a board fitted with a handle. The paint board, which probably had a fancy name in some dead pre-Kingdom tongue, had obviously been used over and over again, and scraped clean after each new use.
Finally, I dipped my brush in a smear of dark red paint, and I held it poised just over the canvas.
I held my breath.
Nothing happened.
“Start simple,” I said, in a whisper. “A dog. I’d like to paint a dog. Anything but a bowl of fruit.”
My brush showed no signs of being guided by any supernatural forces.
I closed my eyes.
A fly buzzed my face and lit on my nose.
I batted it away, kept my brush poised, and sought artistic inspiration.
“Listen,” I said, after a while. “My name is Markhat. I’m no artist. I’m here because…”
Someone shushed me with a hiss. I stopped speaking aloud.
I closed my eyes again. I went back to Lady Werewilk arriving at my office. I tried to dredge up images of her, of Gertriss, of our trip here, of everything.
The room was dark and warm. I’d had a couple of hours of sleep after a hard night of skullduggery and derring-do. So maybe I went into that same half-asleep daze I used to slip into during parade dress.
So maybe I dreamed that something was listening. Maybe I dreamed that somewhere something just out of my sight was nodding and urging me to keep telling the story. Maybe I was kidding myself the whole time.
I was still dreaming, I suppose, when Darla slipped up beside me.
“Buttercup is wearing shoes,” she whispered. She kissed me on the cheek. “Care to tell me what you’re doing?”
“Completing my masterpiece.” I put down my brush. “What do you think?”
The canvas was blank. My brush was stiff with dried paint.
“I think you’re a man in need of a bed,” she said. She took my hand. “Come on. Another hour. I insist.”
I didn’t argue. We passed through the silent ranks of painters, who did not watch us pass.
So much for revelation through art.
Buttercup was indeed wearing shoes. Gertriss had found a pair of child’s slippers, and Buttercup was marching around my room, showing them off.
She leaped into my arms when Darla and I entered. I let her hug me briefly, and then I gently disentangled
