“What’s she like, this Margaret?” I said, trying to hold the Armourer’s gaze, even as he seemed not to want to.
“Downright vicious, if you tread on her seedlings,” said the Sarjeant.
“Very . . . forceful,” said the Armourer. “Doesn’t suffer fools gladly. Or at all, really.”
“Exactly the right sort,” said Harry.
I looked at him thoughtfully. “Will you be standing for leader in this new election, Harry?”
“Of course. I live to serve the family. How about you, Eddie?”
“The only reason I’d stand would be to prevent your taking command again, Harry.”
“How very unkind,” said Harry.
“The next item on the agenda,” said the Sarjeant quickly, “is the continuing problem of the Librarian.”
Everyone looked at William, still sitting quietly at his end of the table, lost in his own little world, as always. Even allowing for the dressing gown and bunny slippers, he looked fairly presentable. His hair and beard were neatly trimmed these days, because his new assistant Librarian, Ioreth, did it for him. But he still looked like he wasn’t eating nearly enough. William had a first-class mind some of the time, but he couldn’t always remember where he put it. He worked best when left alone with his beloved books in the Old Library, but here and now . . . He raised his great grey head suddenly and looked at me . . . and he had the cold thousand-yard stare of a soldier from some terrible forgotten war.
He hadn’t contributed a single word to the council meeting so far.
“How are you feeling, William?” I said, a bit loudly.
“Who can say?” William said sadly. “I’m here, because the Sarjeant said I was supposed to be here. Settle for that.”
I looked up into the rose red glow that marked Ethel’s presence. “I had hoped springing him from that asylum and bringing him home to the family might help him.”
“Sorry, Eddie,” said Ethel, her calm and kind voice seeming to come from everywhere at once. “I’m doing all I can to soothe his troubled brow, but someone has done a real number on this man’s mind. I can barely see into his head, and I can see into dimensions you don’t even have names for yet. Trying to sort through his thoughts is like drowning in a bucket of boiling cats. There’s a lot going on inside his mind, but it’s all going on at the same time. It’s a wonder to me he can even see the real world. He is fighting it, Eddie; but I think he’s losing. And . . .”
“Yes?” I said, after the pause had gone on a little too long for my liking.
“There’re . . . other things in his head, too,” Ethel said reluctantly. “Shadows . . . things I can’t even identify. I’ve no idea what they are.”
“Terrific,” said Harry.
“I do wish people wouldn’t talk about me as though I weren’t here!” said William, sitting suddenly upright. “All right, some of the time I’m not. I know that. But it’s the principle of the thing! I shouldn’t be here. . . . Put me back in the Old Library. I can focus there. I can cope. I can contribute to the family. Nothing else matters.”
“I really thought you’d feel better once I got you home,” I said.
“Oh, it is better here,” said William. “Don’t think I’m not grateful, Eddie. I am, I am. . . . But the Heart broke me, you see, and even though I ran away from the Heart and the Hall and the family . . . I couldn’t run away from what it did to me. I’m still broken. . . . And all the Droods’ horses and all the Droods’ men couldn’t put me back together again.”
I looked around the table, glowering at everyone. “This has gone on long enough! William is family, and he needs our help. And now that the Matriarch’s no longer here to block it, I say it’s time to hire a professional telepath and see what he can do to put William’s mind right.”
“I do understand, Eddie,” the Armourer said gently. “I remember how William was before he left. He was my friend, and I miss him. But I have to say . . . what if the Matriarch had a good reason for saying no?”
“Like what?” I said.
“I don’t know!” said the Armourer. “Don’t look at me in that tone of voice, Eddie! I did discuss the matter with Mother on several occasions, but she always refused to explain her reasons. She didn’t have to, after all. She was the Matriarch.”
“I also raised the matter with her,” said the Sarjeant. “I was . . . concerned about my uncle. She also refused to explain her thinking to me. She said, very forcefully, that allowing a telepath access to William’s mind was completely unacceptable. She was . . . very curt about it. I assumed it was a security issue; that William must have something in his head, family secrets, that no outsider could be allowed to know.”
“Doesn’t seem likely, does it?” I said. “What could William know that the rest of us don’t?”
“That’s rather the point, isn’t it?” said the Sarjeant. “But for once, you and I are in agreement, Edwin. This has gone on far too long. William is family and must be helped. Nothing else matters.”
“Who do we have in mind for the job?” said Harry. “The family’s psychics—”
“Aren’t up to the job,” I said firmly. “What’s inside William’s head would eat them alive. We need someone with real power, someone who can punch their weight.”
“The London Knights are always boasting about their first-class telepath, Vivienne de Tourney,” said the Sarjeant. “Apparently they use her to maintain communications among the Knights when they ride out to war in other worlds and dimensions, where our science doesn’t always work. She can maintain telepathic contact among hundreds of Knights simultaneously, so they can talk to her, and one another, and never once get muddled. A first- class brain. I could talk to her. . . .”
“You’ve been drinking with their seneschal again, haven’t you?” the Armourer said accusingly.
“I do like to get out now and again, yes,” the Sarjeant said, matching the Armourer glare for glare. “A little private club for those who serve. I do have a life outside the family.”
“I thought that was forbidden, on security grounds?” I said, amused despite myself.
“It is forbidden,” said the Sarjeant. “For everyone except me. I don’t have to worry about breaking security. I am security. And I can drink their seneschal under the table any day of the week.”
“Bloody London Knights,” growled the Armourer. “Do we really want to go cap in hand to those snotty, stuck-up little prigs? Always so high and mighty—last defenders of Camelot, my arse! They give themselves such airs and graces. . . . We’re the real defenders of Humanity! Because they’re always off fighting somewhere else!”
“What about the Carnacki Institute?” said Harry. “They have any number of telepaths working for them.”
“The Ghost Finders?” said the Sarjeant. “I don’t think so. They’d want payment in more than money. They’d want information, secrets, sources. . . . And I’ve never really trusted them. I don’t think anything we gave them would necessarily stay with them. They’ve always been too close to the Establishment for my liking, for all their protestations.”
“If we have to hire someone,” I said carefully, “I say we hire the best. And that means Ammonia Vom Acht.”
Everyone reacted, and none of them favourably. The Armourer pulled a sour face, and the Sarjeant shook his head firmly. Harry and Roger looked at each other, and neither of them looked pleased by the prospect. William was back to staring off into space again. I looked at Molly, and she made a point of being very interested in the remaining contents of her bag of popcorn.
“All right,” I said. “Agreed, she’s a poisonous, vicious and really quite appalling woman, and those are her good points. But you know you’re going to get your money’s worth with her.”
“I should hope so,” said the Sarjeant. “Given how much she charges.”
“How do you know how much she charges?” I said.
“I have made my own overtures,” said the Sarjeant. “Once it became clear that we were going to have to do something about William.”
“I’m still here!” said William.
“Only just,” said the Sarjeant. “But can we really risk allowing
“I wasn’t thinking of letting her into the Hall, as such,” I said. “I thought perhaps something more like neutral territory—namely, the Old Library. Teleport her straight there, through the Merlin Glass. She’d be cut off from the rest of the Hall and the rest of the family. I’m sure Uncle Jack could whip up something I could wear to keep Ammonia out of my head.”
“What?” said the Armourer. “Oh. Yes. Of course, no problem. I’ll take it under advisement. I think I may go
