walked past us, completely ignoring Wilson, other than to nod as he went by. Last time Billy met the anansi, he had nearly pissed himself. 'You still drink, don't you, Jacob?'
'I've yet to be given a good reason to stop,' I answered.
'I imagine today will provide plenty of reasons to keep the habit,' he muttered, then disappeared down the hall. Wilson popped one of his happier smiles, then bowed and motioned me forward. First time in a while I hadn't been looking forward to a drink.
One of the jewels of the Manor Burn was its bar. This room stood as one of the gatehouses of my childhood. Early memories were of a dark room, sheathed in leather and stained wood, where my father and his friends would retreat from the women and children to discuss important matters. I would sneak down the hall to listen to them drink and laugh and joke. Most of these important matters seemed to involve women who were not mother, but once in a while I would overhear some bit of serious news, some murder or political strategy that had gone amiss. I treasured these early memories, because they had been the last time I looked with awe on my father's role in society.
It was also in this room that father gave me the news that I had been accepted to the Academy, where he told me he had arranged for my PilotEngine surgery personally, and later where he had dressed me down for my expulsion and the disgrace that had followed. Not one word of the people who died in the accident, nor one hint that it was my father's personal surgeons who had planted the seeds of my failure during that surgery, that my PilotEngine was actually an artifact hidden in my chest at the behest of the Church of the Algorithm. But I've told that story.
This is where I came when I moved back into the house, no longer welcome in the barracks or among my supposed friends. This is where he greeted me, where he told me that mother was leaving, that my brother was dead. That I would never be the heir of the Burn line, because he would rather the name die out than pass to someone like me. Anyway.
Through it all, the room remained the same. Too warm in the summer, too cool in the winter. The rows of leatherbound books untouched on the walls. And the bar, broad and shiny, with its glittering glass display shelves, underlit, so that the bottles of rare and expensive liquor sparkled in the dark room. Constellations of intoxication. Even when the money was gone, father did not get rid of the collection, except for what he drank. Which, apparently, had become quite a lot.
Billy was helping, clearly. He laid out three glasses and selected a fine whiskey from the shelves. Fewer bottles now, and those that remained were mostly empty. Billy poured us up and stoppered the bottle, but left it on the bar. Wilson and I sat down and watched my father's faithful servant drain his glass and pour another.
'I have trouble believing that things have gotten tougher than they were,' I said.
'More difficult? Probably not. But certainly more immediate.' Billy stared at his glass as though it were an oracle speaking wisdom. His eyes were watery and old. I wondered how much of the household he was running these days, how much of the burden of the Burn problem was his to manage. 'There has always been an element of the inevitable in what we do, here. The father is getting older. One son is dead, the other' — he glanced at me — 'unwelcome. Just a matter of time before things came to a head.'
'What, exactly, has come to a head?' Wilson asked.
Billy looked between us. I couldn't tell if he didn't know how to answer, or just didn't know how much he wanted to say in front of Wilson. He took a slow drink from his glass and sighed.
'Jacob, your father is an old man. A troubled man. The events of the last two years have worn him quite thin. And I worry now that he might be breaking.'
I drank, to give myself a breath to think out what I wanted to say next. My immediate response wouldn't be appropriate. The whiskey was a good, complicated dram, and I let it sit on my tongue and burn my eyes while I turned the conversation over in my head. Wilson spoke up before I could come up with something polite.
'Mr. Williamson, sir, as much as I enjoy sitting in the wreckage of aristocracy and mourning the passing of an age of privilege and expensive tastes by drinking the master's very fine whiskey, Jacob and I don't really have time for this sort of conversation. There are things that we need to know, and unless you're attending Council meetings, I seriously doubt you're going to be able to answer our questions.' He drank the whole glass in front of him with a snort, then slammed the glass on the bar. 'We must speak to Jacob's father, immediately.'
Billy smiled at that, a kind of sad smile that reminded me of my father on his better days.
'Alexander hasn't been going to many meetings, himself. And as to his ability to answer your questions, well. I suppose that depends on the questions, and how you ask them.'
'Do we need to write them on little slips of paper and stuff them under his door?' Wilson asked angrily. 'Or maybe give them to you, and let you scurry off like a priest at an oracle? Or do we go to the man, and ask him directly? Because that's how I prefer to ask my questions.'
'I can't imagine why the two of you get in so much trouble,' Billy said quietly, looking down at the glass that had paused on his lip. 'With such subtlety of form and intention. You would do so well in the Council.'
'Perhaps the Council could do with a little less subtlety,' I said, trying to insert myself between Wilson's rant and Billy's nostalgia. 'Might get something done.'
'Oh. The Council gave up on subtlety, at least as far as the Family Burn is concerned.'
'Hence the jack-knife in your coat room,' I asked. 'And all the secrecy as to my father's wellbeing? What's going on, Billy? What's got you so badly spooked?'
'Your father,' he answered. He looked at me with eyes that were almost apologetic. 'That man scares the living hell out of me, Jacob.'
'He's become violent?' I asked.
'Not at all. Worse.' Billy shakily drank the rest of his glass and stared at the bottle, steeling himself. 'He's become a prophet. Or mad. Probably both.'
'That one you're going to have to explain,' I said.
'It started maybe a year ago. Maybe less.' He put his hand on the bottle, thoughtfully tapping his finger against the glass neck. 'Just part of Council business. But it required him to review some military records. He came across the accounts of your brother's death. He had read them before, of course, immediately after. But it seemed different, this time. His reaction. Alexander kept the report aside, after his business with Council was over. Kept it in his office. I found it on his desk. Shortly after that, he was required to travel upriver. Again, on business.'
'Did he go that far?' I asked, carefully. My brother Noah was in the navy, part of the Exploratory Corps that tested the edges of Veridon's empire in the wilds upriver. He died in something that might have been a skirmish, or it might have been a massacre. The Eranti had been blamed, but no acts of war were ever drawn up. In the end, the whole mess was buried and forgotten. Like my brother.
'Not quite. But he went well beyond the usual borders of the empire. Some sort of trade agreement. They were out of communication for weeks. And when he returned, there was something different about him.' A decision resolved behind Billy's eyes. He took his hands off the bottle and folded them on the bar in front of him. 'He never indicated anything odd happened on the trip until months later. That's when the visions started.'
'We could just cut to the marrow and say that he's going mad,' Wilson said. He took the bottle of whiskey and poured himself another. 'Here, let me prophesy, tell me how I do. Alexander has seen visions of his dead son, his wife, his lost grandchildren and maybe even one Jacob Burn. He regrets betraying the one, losing the other and alienating the last, in no particular order.' The anansi sipped at his whiskey and smiled. 'Let's be honest. Alexander Burn is single-handedly responsible for the demise of his family and the loss of its prestige in the Council. This place is falling apart, and it's entirely his fault. Frankly I'm shocked he didn't go mad years ago.'
'You shouldn't be so glib about this,' Billy said, bitterly.
'No, you shouldn't be so serious about it. I know you're loyal to the man, but he's gone off the rails. What are we going to see if we go upstairs, eh? Does old Alexander walk around in penitent's garb, tearing at the few remaining wisps of his hair and crying out to the darkness? Or has he gone for something more dramatic?'
'That is my father you're talking about,' I said. 'Maybe we should give him a chance to explain himself?'
Billy sighed, staring at the floor. 'No, you have it right. He's fashioned himself a… well. A costume.'
'A costume,' Wilson crooned happily. 'Oh, that's grand. Tell me, is it the robes of a king, or a jester, or maybe one of the Celestes? Or, maybe, just maybe, old Alexander goes around in women's things? Please tell me it's women's things.'
