Bitter Gold Hearts

by Glen Cook

  Karl looked very uncomfortable. He planted himself on a chair and gripped his mug in both hands. He pressed it into his lap in hopes of steadying it so I wouldn’t notice it was shaking. I let him think he had me fooled.

  “But what can I tell you that would be of any use, Mr. Garrett?”

  “Everything. From the beginning. Where and how they laid hands on you. All the way through to the end. Where and how they turned you loose. I’ll try not to interrupt unless you lose me. All right?” I took a long swig. “Good stuff.”

  Karl bobbed his head. He took a swig of his own. Amber sidled to the tray and discovered that Karl had brought wine, too, though he hadn’t bothered to offer her any.

  Junior said, “It started five or six nights ago. Right, Amber?”

  “Don’t look at me. I still wouldn’t know about it if I didn’t eavesdrop.”

  “Six nights ago, I guess. I spent the evening with a friend.” He thought about it before telling me, “At a place called Half the Moon.”

  “That’s a house of ill repute,” Amber said, in case I didn’t know.

  “I’ve heard of it. Go on. They got you there?”

  “As I was leaving. Going out the back way so nobody would see me.”

  That didn’t sound like the behavior of the hell-raiser he was supposed to be. “Why the sneak? I thought that wasn’t your style.”

  “So Domina wouldn’t hear about it. I was supposed to be out working.”

  That puzzled me. “The word is that she has everyone on a tight leash while your mother is in the Cantard. Yet you two seem to come and go when you want.”

  “Not when we want,” Amber said. “When we can. Courter and Domina can’t be everywhere watching all the time.”

  “I thought you said you wouldn’t interrupt, Mr. Garrett.”

  “So I did. Go on. When last seen you were making a getaway out the back door of Lettie Faren’s place.”

  “Yes. I stopped to say good night to someone, right in the doorway, with my back to the outside. Somebody put a leather sack over my head. It must have had a draw­string sort of thing on it because before I could yell I was being strangled. I was scared to death. I knew I was being murdered and there wasn’t any way I could stop it. And then the lights went out.” He shivered.

  I set my mug down. “Who were you saying good-bye to?” I tried to keep it casual but he wasn’t a complete dummy. He didn’t answer. I stared him straight in the eye. He looked away.

  “He doesn’t want to believe it,” Amber said. “What’s that?”

  “That his favorite little tidbit was in on it. She had to be, didn’t she? I mean, she would have seen whoever it was over his shoulder. Wouldn’t she? And she would have had time to warn him if she wasn’t part of it?”

  “That’s certainly worth a few questions. Does the lady have a name?”

  Amber looked at Karl. He tried divining the future from the lees of his beer. Maybe he didn’t like what he saw. He grabbed the pitcher off the tray and poured himself a refill, mumbling something as he did so. I collected the pitcher and pursued his fine example. “What was that?” “He said her name is Donni Pell.” Put a point down for the kid. If she had wanted, she could have stuck it to him anytime, but she held back until he was ready to surrender the name himself.

  Karl started working himself up a case of the miseries. He said, “I can’t believe Donni was in on what... I’ve known her for four years. She just wouldn’t...”

  I reserved my opinion of what people in Donni’s line would and would not do for money. “All right. Let’s move on. You were strangled unconscious. When and where did you wake up?”

  “I’m not sure. It was nighttime and in the country. I think. From what sounds I could hear. I was bound hand and foot and still had the bag over my head. I think I was inside a closed coach of some kind but I can’t be sure. That would make sense, though, wouldn’t it?” “For them it would. What else?” “I had a bad headache.” “That follows. Go on.”

  “They got me where they were taking me, which turned out to be an abandoned farmhouse of some sort.”

  I urged him to get very detailed. It was in moments of transfer when kidnappers were most at risk of betraying themselves.

  “They lifted me out of the coach. Somebody cut the ropes around my ankles. One got me by each arm and they walked me inside. There were at least four of them. Maybe five or six. After they got me inside, somebody cut the rope on my wrists. A door closed behind me. After a long time standing there I finally got up the nerve to take the bag off my head.”

  He paused to unparch his throat. He could pour it down once he got started. Being a naturally courteous fellow, I matched him swallow for swallow, though I hadn’t been working my throat nearly so hard. “A farm­house, you say? How did you discover that?”

  “I’ll get to it. Anyway, I took the bag off. I was in a room about twelve feet by twelve feet that hadn’t been cleaned in years. There were some blankets to sleep on — all old and dirty and smelly — a chamber pot that never did get emptied, a rickety homemade chair, and a small table with one leg broken.”

  He had his eyes closed. He was visualizing. “On the table was one of those earthenware pitcher-and-bowl sets with a rusty metal dipper to take a drink with. The pitcher was cracked so it leaked a little into the bowl. I drank about a quart of water right away. Then I went and looked out the window and tried to get myself to­gether. I was scared to death. I didn’t have any idea what was going on. Until I got back here and found out Do-mina had ransomed me, I had my mind made up that some of Mother’s political enemies had grabbed me so they could twist her arm.”

  “Tell me about that window. That sounds like a big lapse on their part.”

  “Not really. It was closed with a shutter and the shut­ter was nailed from outside. But the place was old and there was a crack in the shutter big enough to see through. As it turned out, my seeing what was outside didn’t matter.”

  “How so?”

  “The way they let me go. They just walked off and left me there. I figured it out when they stopped feeding me.”

  “Did you ever see any of them?”

  “No.”

  “How did they get food to you, then?”

  “They made me stand facing the wall when they brought the food in and took the old platter out.” “Then they talked to you?”

  “One did. But only from outside the door and then all he ever said was that it was time to get against the wall. But sometimes I could hear them talking. Not very often. They didn’t have much to say to each other.”

  “Not even about how they were going to spend their shares of the money?”

  “I never heard any mention of money at all. That was one of the reasons I decided the whole thing was politi­cal. That and the fact that, after the strangling, they treated me pretty gently. That isn’t what I would have expected of kidnappers for profit.” “It isn’t customary.”

  He had his eyes closed and his mind on the past. I don’t think he heard me. “The only thing I ever heard that might have had anything to do with the situation was the last afternoon. Before they vanished. Someone came running into the place and yelled, ‘Hey, Skredli, it’s coming through tonight.’ I never heard what, though.” “Skredli? You’re sure?” “Yes.”

  “You think it was a name?”

  “It sounded like one. You think it might have been?” I knew damned well it was. Skred is the ogre equiva­lent of Smith, only it is twice as common. Skredli com­pares with Smitty. Half the ogres in the world are called Skredli, it seems like. So much for the lucky break.

  We let it sit that way for a minute while we split the remaining contents of the pitcher. It was a good brew. I wish its like befell me more often. But I usually can’t afford the price of a sniff on my own hooks.

  “So. We’re almost to the end. What happened after Skredli got yelled at?”

  “Basically nothing. As far as I know, for those guys that was the end of it.”

>   I waited for him to expand upon that. “They didn’t bring me any supper. By midnight I was hungry enough to bang on the door and complain. That didn’t do any good. I tried to sleep. I did a little, then when breakfast didn’t come, I got up and pitched a real fit. I pounded the door so hard I broke it open. Then I got so scared they would beat me that I hid in my blankets. But nothing happened. Eventually I worked up enough nerve to go look out the door, then to slip out and explore.” “They were gone?”

  “Long gone. The ashes in the kitchen weren’t even warm. I ate some scraps they left behind. After those hit bottom I felt braver and decided to do some exploring.”

  Karl paused to look into his mug and curse because he could see the bottom and there were no reserves to rush into the fray.

  I waited.

  Karl told me, “That’s why I know all about the farm­house. A pretty substantial place before it was aban­doned.” He gave me an exhaustive description, not a peasant hovel but not a manor house either. “After I’d looked around awhile I finally got up enough nerve to follow the coach tracks through the woods. After a mile or so I came to a road. A passing tinker told me it was the Vorkuta-Lichfield road, a little over three miles west of the battlefield.”

  Amazing. Karl had been sequestered within two miles of the place where Amiranda had bought hers and Saucer head almost took a slice too many. I was so aston­ished I may have blinked. “So you just walked on home?”

  “Yes. I think I’ll go fill this pitcher again. This is taking longer than I thought.”

  “No need. I’m almost done. Just a couple questions more.”

  “What do you think? Was it an unusual kidnapping?”

  “In some ways. But it went off smooth and you can’t criticize success.”

  “I don’t know much about this kind of thing. I was so damned scared while it was happening I didn’t study it or think about it. How was it remarkable?”

  He had a hook out and wanted to see if he could pull in the name of his friend Donni Pell. Amber had a similar notion. She was alert for the first time in half an hour. I disappointed them both because I had ideas of my own and wanted to save Donni for myself.

  “Two peculiarities pounce at you like ogres from am­bush. The one that bothers me the least is that they locked you in a room you could break out of without bothering to keep you tied or blindfolded. But that could be explained several ways. No, the big croggle is the way

  Willa Dount handled her end. She turned over a lot of gold to proven crooks without doing anything to make sure the merchandise she was buying was in good condi­tion. The custom is for the purchaser to insist on delivery at the point of sale. Otherwise there’s nothing to keep the kidnappers honest.”

  Karl mumbled something that sounded like, “I won­dered about that, too.”

  He was in a declining mood and getting restless. I supposed it was time to attack. I went after him hard about timing and movements, and when I noticed Amber looking at me odd and Karl frowning angrily as he stum­bled over his answers, I decided I’d gotten too intense. “What the hell is this? I’m doing a professional exercise and I get going like it’s the real thing. Thanks, Karl. You’ve been a lot more patient than I would have been if the roles had been reversed.”

  “You’re done?” He considered the bottom of his mug.

  “Yes. Thanks. Drink one for me and think a kind thought while you’re at it.”

  “Sure.” He got up and out, trailing one curious glance at his sister.

  __XV__

  “YOU got to pressing there at the end, Garrett. Were you on to something?”

  “Apparently not. Unless I missed something that was right under my nose, your brother was a waste of time.”

  “Then why did you spend all that time on him?”

  “Because I didn’t know what he could tell me. Because you never know what little thing will turn out to be the critical clue. I went hard on the timing because I want to have it pat when we see what Amiranda has to say so we can look at it from the Domina’s side.”

  “I couldn’t find Amiranda.”

  “What?”

  “I couldn’t find her. She didn’t answer her door. When I asked around, nobody had seen her. I finally sneaked into her rooms. She wasn’t there. And most of her stuff was gone.”

  I did me what I hoped was a convincing show of perplexity. “Did she have a maid? Did you talk to her? What did she say?”

  “I talked to her. She didn’t know anything except that Amiranda is gone. Or so she said.”

  “Damn! That knocks hell out of everything.” I got up and stretched.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “Start somewhere else. You just keep picking till you pull a thread loose. You’re the inside man here. You find out what you can about Willa Dount’s end of things. The how, the where, and the when of the payoff in particular, but anything that sounds unusual or interesting. Keep trying to get a line on Amiranda. And while you’re doing all that, try not to attract too much attention. We don’t want anybody knowing what we’re doing. There’s two hundred thousand marks gold at stake and the price is going up. My resident genius says we’re about to hear from Glory Mooncalled again.”

  Her eyes glittered. Each time Glory Mooncalled acted, the Venageti position in the Cantard weakened, the Karentine flourished, the price of silver plunged and that of gold soared. “We’re getting richer by the minute!”

  “Only in our imaginations. We have to find the gold.”

  She started toward me with that look in her eye, ready to celebrate. “What will you be doing?”

  “The outside stuff. Picking at threads. Talking to this Donni.”

  “I’ll bet. I’m much prettier than she is, Garrett. And maybe just as talented.”

  “Then I’m going to have my supper, consult the ge­nius, and get on the road so I can be at that farm tomorrow morning. I’ll have a whole day to poke around and pick up the trail.”

  She had gotten in close enough to force a clinch. My resistance was going the way of the dodo. Suddenly, she stiffened and backed away.

  “What is it?”

  “I just had an awful thought. My mother is going to be home any day. If we don’t have the gold found and me out of here before she does...” She backed away. “We have to get to work.”

  Poor little rich kid. Somehow, I couldn’t work up a lot of sympathy. If she wasn’t miserable enough to walk with nothing but the clothes on her back, she wasn’t miserable enough. The sparkle came back to her eyes. “But once we do, look out, Garrett.”

  There is a limit to how much you can kid people and still live with yourself, but also a limit to how much you can kid yourself. “I admire your confidence. If we find it.”

  “When, Garrett.”

  “All right. When we find it, look out, Amber.”

  We exchanged idiot grins.

  “Do I go out the same way I got in?”

  “That would be best. Don’t let the servants see you. And watch out for the dragoons.”

  I gave her a kiss meant to be a businesslike sealing of our compact. She turned it into a promise of things to come. I finally peeled her off and fled..

  ***

  I was distracted. The little witches do that to you. I zipped around a corner and almost plowed into Karl Senior and Domina Dount. Fortunately, they were distracted too. Very distracted. If they noted a third presence at all, they probably as­sumed it was a wayward servant. I backed up to consider alternate routes. Amber had it wrong. Willa Dount didn’t freeze bath­water. Now I knew what hold she had on Daddy. If it turned out to matter.

  Reason didn’t do me a bit of good trying to get out of there another way. In two minutes I knew I would get lost if I kept on. I found a place where I could look into the real people’s world between curtains. I recognized the hallway. Nothing for it but to march and look like I was about honest business. It worked fine until I started hiking across the front court headed for the main gate.

&nbs
p; Pudgy Courter came in from the street. He started to say something to the gateman, then spotted me. His eyes got big, his face got red, and he started to puff up like an old bullfrog about to sing. “What the hell are you doing in here?”

  “Hell, I might ask the same of you. Little out of your class here, aren’t you? Guy like you ought to be slicing vegetables —”

  I was close enough. He took a swing. I’m not sure why. I don’t think I trampled him hard enough to set him off. I caught his wrist and kept on walking, pulling him along in a stumble. “Tsk-tsk. We should be more friendly to our betters.”

  I let him go as I stepped outside. He was past the flash point now. He retreated, cursing under his breath, while I glanced around for the four clowns who had been stalking me before Amber let me inside. They were gone.

  It was a piece of bad luck, getting spotted like that. I could only hope it would balance out and not get things all stirred up inside. Amber could deal with Willa Dount, especially motivated by visions of gold, but I had my doubts about Junior. He had no strong reason to hide having talked to me. I figured I’d best get down to Lettie Faren’s place right away.

  __XVI__

  I didn’t get there as quickly as I’d planned, though the delay lasted only a few seconds. Going down the Hill, I realized that I’d picked up a tail. It didn’t take long to discover it was my friend Bruno from the tavern.

  Why was he on me?

  Five minutes later I knew he was alone. It was per­sonal. I had hurt his feelings and now he felt a need to hurt mine. I stepped into an areaway when I came to one I knew would suit my purpose. I found a shadow and got into it. He came charging in a few seconds later, apparently wanting to take advantage of my stupidity. But when he got there, he saw nothing. He started cursing.

  “But you mustn’t blame the gods. All is not lost, Bruno. I’m right here.” I stepped out of the shadows. He was too mad for preliminaries. He tucked in his chin and came after me.

  I was in no mood for ego games myself. His first swing I tapped his wrist with my weighted stick. Then I whacked an elbow, putting one arm out of commission. Then I let him set himself up and dropped a couple of good thumps on his noggin. After he was down I put him in the shadows so the street kids wouldn’t find and strip him before he woke up. I doubted he would appreciate the courtesy. I hoped he wasn’t so stubbornly stupid one of us would have to get killed to end whatever was going on.