Updated_PerilInTheOldCountry_SamHooker_EbookFormatting_Nook

by Peril in the Old Country (retail) (epub)

  “He doesn’t seem happy about it,” said Myrtle.

  “No, he doesn’t. What’s the matter, Sloot?”

  What was the matter? This from the man conducting the orchestra playing the fugue of his inevitable demise! It was bad enough that he and Sloot’s mother had conspired to ruin him utterly, apparently since before his birth, but to drag the woman that he liked into it as well? Atrocity! Unthinkable atrocity! Sloot didn’t know any swear words that could accurately describe the depths of his dismay with all of this, but if he did, he’d have half a mind to say them out loud.

  He wouldn’t, of course, but he’d think about it.

  “It’s nothing,” Sloot replied, “just … why?”

  “Why what?”

  “You know, join up! It’s treason!”

  “You did it.”

  “That was different! I didn’t have any choice.”

  “Of course you did,” said Roman. “You could have refused to take your mother’s post, but you didn’t. You had a choice, and you made it!”

  “You took over for your mother?” Myrtle looked genuinely surprised. “She was a spy?”

  “My entire life, apparently. Not much of a choice there, she said it was the only way that she could retire. But what about you?”

  “My reasons are my own,” Myrtle replied. “Let’s just leave it at that. I thought you’d be happy that we were in it together.”

  Sloot hadn’t thought of it that way. To be fair, this was the first time that he’d been in the position of having to think of things in terms of how they fit with someone else. If she were ever convinced to return his affections, wouldn’t he eventually have had to tell her that he was living a highly treasonous double life?

  People in love tell each other things. He was sure he’d read that.

  “It’s not that,” said Sloot, wondering what muscle one should flex to suppress blushing, “I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”

  Myrtle also failed to suppress her blush reflex. She stared at the floor, grinning from ear to ear and fidgeting like mad.

  “All right you two,” said Roman, reminding them that he was still in the room before that fact became awkward. “We need to get down to business.”

  “Oh,” said Myrtle, “you’re not going to tell him about the other thing, are you?”

  “What other thing?”

  “Oh, that.” Roman gave Myrtle a very pointed sidelong stare. “I don’t think that’s worth Mister Peril’s attention at the moment.”

  “What’s not worth my attention?”

  “Nothing worth telling you about,” said Roman.

  “Oh, did you mean the thing about the burglary?” Myrtle clamped her hands over her mouth and ran from the room.

  “It’s nothing,” said Roman with a nervous chuckle. “You’re management now, Sloot. Got to let your minions worry about some of these things for you!”

  “Well, I suppose―”

  “That’s the spirit!” Roman clapped Sloot on the back, sending him into a coughing fit. “Now, you should head home and get a good night’s sleep. We’ve got Willie’s next expedition to prepare for tomorrow.”

  “Do you really think that taking Willie to Carpathia is a good idea?”

  “Sloot, the plan is finally starting to take shape! I can see how more of the pieces fit together now. Once we’ve proven Willie’s worth to old Constantin, everybody wins! Just trust me, this is all going to work out.”

  The Price of Profanity

  Sloot was hoping to talk to Myrtle the following morning, but she was nowhere to be found.

  “Well, I ain’t seen her,” said Nan. She was sitting at the little table in the kitchen, knitting a scarf. She did that a lot. Grans of the Old Country seemed certain that young people were in constant danger of freezing to death, and took up knitting so they could stare death in the face and say, “Not today. Not on my watch.”

  Sloot was concerned about what Myrtle, or more probably Arthur, had said the night before, just before she’d fled the room. Did one of them know something about the robbery?

  “What’s this room?” asked Willie, who must have wandered in by accident.

  “It’s the kitchen, Willikins. How on earth did you get in here?”

  “I’m an explorer now, Nan, remember?”

  “Of course you are, dear, you’ve been all the way to Nordheim!”

  “Just keeping my skills sharp until the next expedition. When is Sloot coming back? He plans the expeditions, I think.”

  “He’s just there,” replied Nan, nodding in Sloot’s direction without taking her eyes off her knitting. Willie regarded Sloot with suspicion, then with apparent remembrance.

  “Sloot!” Willie exclaimed. “I’m glad you’re here. What do you think of these boots?”

  “Very nice, m’lord.” Sloot silently congratulated himself on a lie well-told. It was a horrible pair of boots by any standard. If you were the sort of dandy who paraded around the city’s fashionable haunts in high heels, you’d want to know why they were so brown and rugged-looking. If you were Sir Wallace Scoffington, you’d probably wonder what cobbler put high heels on a perfectly good pair of expedition boots, and assume that he or she was in the pocket of whatever lobby represented tassels and wing tips.

  Lying wasn’t Sloot’s strong suit, which was fine. With the exception of mathematics, it was a weak wardrobe all around.

  “Where are we going next?”

  “Er, well,” said Sloot, who’d never begun a sentence with a self-assured air in his life, “I’m not sure that the estate can, er, afford another expedition at present, m’lord.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Well, Whitewood was the victim of a substantial burgling.”

  “Right, I remember hearing something about that. Did I read it in the Herald?”

  “It— Maybe? It happened while we were away. We found out about it when we returned from Nordheim, remember?”

  “Of course,” said Willie, with a flourish of the cape that Nan had given up asking him not to wear in the house. It was far too long and knocked something from its proper place every time he flourished with it, which was about every ten minutes. This time it was a pair of teacups, which crashed to the ground and released their contents into the brave world to seek their fortunes.

  “Bad luck, that.” Willie checked his cape, relieved to see that it bore no evidence of the incident. “Anyway, yes, I remember. That was around the same time that they took everything from the house that didn’t match my award, wasn’t it?”

  “Very good, Willikins!” Nan ruffled his hair and handed him a sweet roll. Grinning, Willie bobbed his head from side to side, feeling very pleased with himself.

  “Not to worry Sloot,” he said, sending sweet roll crumbs flying from his mouth. “We’ll get to the bottom of this. One question though, if I may?”

  Sloot hastened to answer but was interrupted by the fact that Willie had never intended to pause.

  “What does ‘afford’ mean?”

  “Er, well … expeditions cost money, you see.”

  “Yes, right. So we must pay for the expedition. You’re the money man, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, thank you, m’lord. We must pay for expeditions, and we also must pay to refurnish the house, given that it’s been burgled. Your allowance is enough to keep us all in food and lodging, but the vault’s been cleared out.”

  Willie blinked. Twice. It was a very deliberate sort of blink, from a man who was not accustomed to having to respond to information by understanding it.

  “The cost of the expedition exceeds the cash we have on hand,” Sloot stated.

  “So,” said Willie. “We … need money?”

  “That’s right.”

  “So we can … afford.”

  “Afford things, m’lord.�
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  “So money affords things?”

  “Something like that, m’lord.”

  “Then it’s a good thing you’re here,” said Willie, who seemed relieved.

  “What?”

  “Well, you’re the money man! That’s who you talk to when you want money.” Willie performed a scoff-and-eye-roll maneuver that invited Sloot to give thinking a try before he bothered the vastly wealthy with stupid questions.

  Sloot took a deep breath and used the moment it spanned to reflect fondly on simpler times, before he’d found himself leading a double life. No, probably at least triple at this point. It seemed ages ago that he was an unassuming clerk in a counting house, nestled snugly among the ledgers, and dreaming of nothing loftier than a promotion to senior clerk in the very same counting house. He hadn’t realized at the time that those had been the halcyon days, or that his future would be fraught with adventure and plagued with being meant for greater things.

  Willie was an entirely ridiculous person, but thanks to Sloot’s time in the counting house, he had a fundamental understanding of what was happening beneath his freshly-powdered wig. He’d balanced enough accounts of the children of wealthy families, and he could read Willie like a ledger.

  Willie was an idiot, but it wasn’t his fault. When one has never had to consider that their pile of money must have a bottom, it leaves certain parts of the brain at leisure to avoid developing themselves.

  “I’ll tell you what,” said Sloot, who was entirely exhausted at the effort of continuing the conversation with Willie, “why don’t you go to your club and tell everyone about the mammoth? I’ll have a look at the ledgers and work out whether we can afford another expedition.”

  “Whether we can afford?” The expression of confusion that came over Willie’s face carried a banner that identified it as a herald for a much more sinister threat. An army of all-out panic. The sort of panic that made for very interesting rampages, if one were the sort of person who enjoyed reading about the handful of survivors later on.

  “Oh, hey, hey there, Willie!” Roman’s stroll into the room erupted into a sprint. He put his hands on Willie’s cheeks and shook him gently, causing his powdered wig to go askew. “What’s old Sloot been joking with you about then, eh?”

  “I was just telling him that we can’t afford―”

  Willie groaned in anguish. He tried his best to collapse to the floor, the opening number of what promised to be the tantrum of the season.

  “Oh, butter and cheese,” wailed Nan, “it’s going to be a big one!”

  “Hey, ah! Hoo hoo!” Sloot had never heard Roman babble distractions before, but he knew gibberish when he heard it. He held his tongue.

  “What did the money man mean,” choked Willie in sobs, “about the affording?”

  “Oh, ha! Ha, ha, haaa! Quite the joke he played there, Willie!”

  “Joke?” said Sloot, followed by a pointed look from Roman. “Oh, the joke! Right. I love to joke about money and affording. It’s sort of a money man thing. I think. Right?”

  “Right!” Roman was still wrestling with Willie, only barely keeping him from a kicking fit on the ground. “And they sometimes forget that exceptionally clever boys don’t need to waste their time with stupid affording, do they?”

  “Of course not,” said Sloot. “That’s dull stuff for money men! I forgot that Willie’s far too rich to worry about money … things.”

  Willie was thrashing a bit less. It seemed to be working.

  “I think you owe Willie an apology,” said Roman. He worked Willie into half a headlock.

  “Yeah,” said Willie, panting for breath. “And a pony for Snugglewatch!”

  “Er, all right. Sorry, Willie.”

  “That’s okay.” Willie relaxed at last.

  “That’s our big boy,” said Nan. “And if you can be good until Snugglewatch, I’m sure Sloot will get you that pony. Won’t you, Mister Peril?”

  “I’m not sure how we’ll aff― Er, right. Of course.”

  “Right then,” said Willie, getting to his feet after a long and uncomfortable silence. “I’m off to my club to tell Nipsy and the boys about my mammoth. You’ll work out the expedition then, Sloot?”

  “I will, m’lord.”

  “Shall I accompany you to the club, m’lord?” asked Roman.

  “No thanks. I don’t think they allow valets in.”

  “I understand, sir. Have a good time then.” Roman made a good show of looking disappointed but did a less than thorough job of telling Willie about the dingy room where the valets all waited for their gentlemen to get too bored or too drunk to continue complimenting themselves. Roman had frequented that room on a few occasions, while he was undercover working for dandies who lived charmed lives, if not long ones. None of the other valets ever wanted to play cards or anything. They just sat around, wearing expressions that suggested they’d only thought about their lots in life for the first time when they got there.

  It took Willie a few tries to find his way out of the kitchen, but the second that he managed it—with Nan’s help—Roman did not hold back in savaging Sloot with the obvious.

  “What’s the matter with you? Telling rich people about how money works! Are you trying to give the poor boy a heart attack?”

  “Better him than me,” said Sloot, shocking even himself with his utter lack of self-effacement. “Oh, and why not? I’m simply to put on a brave face, and then what? When the money actually runs out, what happens then? I’m not a secret millionaire myself, you know! I can’t finance his outrageous lifestyle on my solid grasp of mathematics alone.”

  “Money never runs out for his sort,” said Roman. “Keep it together! If not for his sake, then for the Motherland!”

  “Motherland,” echoed Sloot. Every patriotic impulse within him strained to say it derisively, but he couldn’t manage it. It came out completely deadpan, as though he were trying it on for size. Really, properly trying it on.

  And why not? Profanity redacted, what good had his loyalty to the Domnitor, long may he reign, ever done for him, really? Aside from making him believe in something greater than himself, giving him assurance that there was order to be found in chaos, meaning to it all, and a language and culture that had been the very soul of his identity for as long as he could remember? Nothing, that’s what.

  A chill crept up Sloot’s spine. His first genuinely heretical thought! Until now, he’d merely been paying lip service to Carpathian Intelligence, doing his duty to his mother until the opportunity presented itself to break away; but what now? Was it true, that this had been his inevitable fate all along? Perhaps he truly did have veins full of barbaric Carpathian blood.

  “I wish we had time for you to fully embrace this existential crisis,” said Roman. “Alas, we do not.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” said Sloot, suddenly embracing a wellspring of sarcasm he’d never known was within him, “is my inner turmoil inconvenient for you, Roman? Perhaps I should simply stuff my mouth full of the babies of my enemies, like a proper Motherland cannibal!”

  He managed some proper derision on the word “Motherland” that time. That made him feel a bit less heretical, but who was this brash ne’er-do-well, who so liberally befouled the air with mockery and contempt? Not Sloot Peril, that’s for sure.

  “I’ve already cooed to one crying child today, I’ll not do the same for you. Come on, let’s handle this like men.”

  Sloot huffed and grumbled as he followed Roman through the house and out behind the stables. The lawns were lush and green, so much so that Sloot sort of felt they were showing off. The only point of exception was a circle behind the stables, about three feet larger than the blackened barrel that sat in its center.

  “What is that?” asked Sloot.

  “It’s blood brandy from … well, from up north, if you catch my drift.”

 
; “It’s a very subtle code, but I’ll try to keep up.”

  “You’ve got sarcasm now! I can’t say I approve. If I was your dad―”

  “Blood brandy?”

  “Bear’s blood, traditionally fermented in hollowed-out oak trees. You know it’s ready when the tree slumps over and dies.”

  “That’s filthy!”

  “Careful now,” said Roman, “that’s your culture you’re demeaning! Did you know that there are no goblins up north? Only in the Old Country. I’d remember that when comparing nations, my boy.”

  Roman unhooked an old wooden mug from his belt. He placed it under the spigot near the bottom of the barrel and turned it. A black liquid slowly started to ooze from it in sickly glops.

  “Does Mister Dirtsmith know you’ve got this back here?”

  “He does,” answered Roman. “And he never fails to mention that he does. It’s why he’s always grumpy with me.”

  “I thought he was just generally unpleasant.”

  “Oh, he is, but I think he appreciates having a reason; though I can tell you, nobody up north would object to having a barrel of this lying around!”

  “Let’s talk about something other than up north,” said Sloot. “Little Lord Hapsgalt is in a lot of trouble at the moment, which means that we’re in trouble. How are we going to refill his coffers?”

  “Can’t talk about that without talking about up north,” Roman replied. The slow drip from the spigot had finally managed to fill the mug. Roman took a sip, closed his eyes, and made a sort of contorted grimace that reminded Sloot of a dog sneezing. He passed it to Sloot, who took a sip as well and instantly regretted it.

  He’d never tasted anything so malicious in his life. It was the sort of flavor you’d expect from rat poison, but only if the poison really wanted the rats to suffer. It tasted like a swineherd’s bare feet on a hot day.

  Sloot resisted the urge to vomit. He didn’t want to taste it again, though the addition of his stomach bile would probably improve it.

  He was nearly ready to give up booze altogether. Then again, he was having the worst week of his life. Perhaps not the best time to stop drinking.