by Frank Tuttle
I crossed my arms over my chest and widened my smile.
“I first heard talk of it back in mid-summer.”
Victory. I nodded.
“What kind of talk?”
“People sayin’ they’d seen it, plain as day, up in the trees, or wanderin’ the roofs.” She stamped her feet and broke out into a sweat. “Look, Mister, I’ve got work to do. I can talk and do it, but if’n I don’t get these biscuits in the oven right now I’m gonna let you explain to everybody why they ain’t got no breakfast.”
The stove was getting hot on my fundament anyway. I moved out of the way.
“There’d always been stories, though, hasn’t there?”
Gladys charged her precious stove and started laying out biscuits in a pan.
“Why you think they call this the Banshee’s Walk? ’Course there’s always been stories. I ain’t talking about stories.” She dusted the pan of biscuits with flour, gave them a good hard glare, and shoved them in the oven. “I’m talking about people seein’ that there thing out in the woods. Sober people. Hunters. Trappers. Them what knows what they’re seein’.”
“So she’s been seen other places than just here?”
Gladys charged across the kitchen, bent on another urgent culinary task.
“Ain’t too much huntin’ and trappin’ going on in Lady Werewilk’s yard, now is there?”
“I suppose not. One more question, and I’ll leave you be.”
Gladys snorted.
“Are there any quaint local customs about keeping the banshee happy? Do people put out food for her, bowls of milk, tie crossed ash sticks above their doors, anything like that?”
She turned and regarded me as if I’d just suggested we both climb aboard a flying pig and make for the Regent’s house.
“What kind of damn fool stump-jumpers do you take us for, city fella? Put out food for a haint? Listen, we works for our food around here, ain’t none of us hold it so cheap you’ll catch us leavin’ it outdoors for the coons…”
She had more to add, but I’d heard enough. I did leave like a gentleman, and refrained from slamming the door.
Gertriss caught me just outside it, stifling a bleary-eyed snicker. “That’s an interesting interview method, Mr. Markhat.”
“I like my coffee black. And find a big cup. The fancy ones don’t hold enough.”
Gertriss threw me a mock salute and passed bravely into the kitchen. I made for my room upstairs, and the fancy flushing toilet and hot bath therein.
Every time I visit a wealthy estate, I vow to renounce my sluggard ways and become rich myself so I too can have hot running water and the other comforts only serious coin can buy.
I lay back in the gleaming copper bathtub and let the steamy bath soothe the aches I’d earned sleeping downstairs. I let handful after handful of hot soapy water rush down over my cuts on my face. It stung, but not as much as I’d feared, so I decided I would probably live.
Or at least not die from an infected cut. Oh, banshees or mysterious bandits might get me, but probably not in the tub.
I closed my eyes and tried to map out the day. First I’d need to spread word of my stake-buying campaign during breakfast. Then I’d need to corner Singh and the last surviving Werewilk male and see what, if anything, I could get out of them.
I’d half-expected to spot Milton faking his condition, since he was the obvious, indeed the only, choice as a suspect in some sort of inter-family land grab. But after watching him at supper the night before, I was all but ready to discount that theory. The man just wasn’t there.
I let more hot water run down over my face while I chided myself for drawing conclusions without gathering any evidence. Maybe the man was just a rare fine actor.
I couldn’t even suggest that for my new friend Buttercup. She wasn’t human. And since she had the howl and the stealth that legend always relegated to banshees, I was fairly comfortable calling her just that.
Of course, she might not be anything of the sort. Sorcerers have spent the entire long march of history meddling with everything from humans to mice. If the stories coming out of Norvalk can be believed, there’s an entire race of tall, feathered humanoids gradually creeping out the jungle. They can speak, they’re handy with tools, and they claim they’ve spent the last ten thousand years waiting for someone called the Longfather to return to his mountain fortress and take them all to Paradise.
I suspect they’ve got a much longer wait than even their own history suggests.
Whatever she was, I still couldn’t put Buttercup at the center of any clandestine surveying of the Werewilk place.
People only survey for two reasons.
To draw up boundaries, usually preparatory to a land sale or as the result of a squabble over lines and fences.
That had been my first thought.
But there was another reason.
I rose splashing, got water everywhere and didn’t care. I found a towel and dried off and then found the notes I’d taken at last night’s meal.
I’d drawn a crude map of the stakes, and the dates they were found.
I sat down, found a pencil and made new scribbles of my own.
“Damn.”
It still didn’t make any sense.
My crude map already included the approximate boundaries of the Werewilk estate, which gobbled up vast tracts of the surrounding forest.
The stakes were nowhere near the legal lines. Of course, the only ones I had drawn were the ones the staff had found, and they’d hardly canvassed the entire Werewilk estate. But even so, by drawing lines through the rows of stakes, I could see that none of the lines bore any relation to the property borders.
But, by squinting just right and nudging a few of the locations a bit here or there, they did seem to suggest a single long line, from which other shorter lines branched off.
Or not. I realized I was jumping to conclusions again, and I stamped back into the bathroom and mopped up my mess with the towel and was nearly dressed when Gertriss knocked.
“Coffee, black, in a small keg.”
I grunted and opened the door.
She had coffee and biscuits on a tray. There were chunks of ham stuffed in the biscuits.
“I should give you a raise.”
Gertriss breezed past me.
“You can’t afford to.” She sat the tray down on a dresser. I gulped coffee.
“So who do we pester first today?”
“First, we find Scatter and Lank, about the bounty on the stakes.”
“Done. They came in while I was pouring your coffee. Tore out of here before the cup was full. They’re probably halfway to Rannit right now grabbing up any piece of lumber small enough to carry.”
I laughed. “Good work. So now, we corner Singh and Milton.”
“You want me there for that?”
“The more the merrier.” I gobbled the last biscuit and washed it down with coffee. I’d bathed in hot water and enjoyed a rich man’s breakfast.
“Time to get to work.”
Finding Singh and Milton wasn’t hard.
Getting Singh to talk, though. That was a different story.
Milton takes his morning meal in his room, alone with Lady Werewilk and Singh. Lady Werewilk was gone by the time Gertriss and I knocked on the door. I was glad. I wanted some privacy for this conversation.
Singh let us in without a word. He shut the door behind us and then padded without a sound back to the small plain table at which Milton Werewilk sat.
Milton was chewing. His mouth was open. He was losing most of his breakfast down the front of his chin. Singh sat, reached out and closed Milton’s mouth.
The man kept chewing.
Not everyone who fought in the War and lived is able to share in the victory.
I pulled out a chair for Gertriss and then seated myself. I was where I wanted to be, across from Singh.
Singh was seventy years old, I guessed. Maybe seventy-five. He’d always been a small man, but n
ever a weak one. The years had melted away most of his muscle, but not all of it. Where other men his age might be flirting with frailty Singh just looked like he’d had the fat baked out of him, leaving behind gnarled muscles that still knotted and flexed beneath skin the texture and shade of well-worn leather.
He moved like a ghost too. He’d glided across that floor, pulled back his chair without a scrape. He even handled his fork without allowing it to clink or scrape on the plate.
Sometimes I like to start by stating the obvious.
“So you’re Singh.”
He wiped Milton’s chin clean and nodded. He wasn’t looking at me.
“Look. We both know you’ve got better things to do that talk to me. So I’ll make it quick. The surveyor’s stakes. Do you have any idea who’s laying them, or why?”
“None.”
I’d expected nothing but a shake of the head. His voice was as quiet as the rest of him.
“The banshee. Were you aware of it before now?”
“No. Swallow.”
Singh spoke the last to Milton, who obeyed. Singh put oats on a spoon and held it to Milton’s lips.
“Eat.”
Milton obliged. I saw Gertriss shiver.
“You understand I’m not accusing you of anything, Mr. Singh. I’m not here to cause you any grief. I’ll be gone as soon as I can give Lady Werewilk some answers.”
Singh looked at me, finally, while Milton chewed.
“If I knew anything that could help my Lady, I would tell this thing to you.”
He had a ghost of an accent, one I couldn’t place.
“It doesn’t have to be something you know,” I said. “It can be something you suspect. Something that just doesn’t feel right. Something that stands out as odd for no reason at all you can see. Anything, Mr. Singh. You live here. I’m just passing through.”
“Swallow.”
Milton swallowed. Singh shook his head and said something that wasn’t in Kingdom.
“It is an expression from my homeland,” he explained, before I could ask. “Literally, it means no one envies the man who must drain the lake with his mouth.”
I sighed. “If you think of anything, anything at all, find me, please.” I rose. My chair made a scrape and a bump. Singh looked away, back to Milton Werewilk, who had begun to drool.
Gertriss rose too. She was staring at Milton and trying not to let her face show her feelings.
We left in a hurry. Gertriss shut the door behind us without any sound.
The House below was full of noise. People were talking and laughing and shouting.
We left the silence behind us and headed down the stairs.
“So that got us nowhere.”
“We’re not nowhere. We’re draining a lake a mouthful at a time.”
We were sitting outside House Werewilk, on the front steps. Squirrels chattered and scampered in the shaded weeds. People further out were making a fair amount of noise while engaging in agriculture. Hard work sounds comforting and quaint as long as I’m nowhere near it.
Gertriss had her elbows on hers knees and her chin on her fists. She didn’t look the least bit happy. Something she’d seen up in Milton’s room had disturbed her. I’d decided to wait and let her bring it up. Given the Hog tendency to blurt things out with a minimum of internal brewing, I didn’t think I’d have to wait long.
“Shouldn’t we be doing something?”
“We are. We’re waiting for the lads to drop bundles of surveyor’s markers at our feet. We’re waiting for a baker or a carpenter to come sidling up, prepared to whisper secrets in our ever-attentive ears. We’re actually quite busy, if you look at things from the right perspective.”
Gertriss made the same grumpy snorting noise Mama makes when I disparage her magical bird-carcasses.
“But if it’ll make you feel better, there is something you can do.” I found the folded list that named every member of the household and unfolded it on my knee.
I picked out five names at random, pointed them out and gave the list to Gertriss.
“Look this bunch up. Make them stop whatever it is they’re doing. Bring them right here, right now.”
Gertriss repeated the names back to me.
“Why these people?”
“Why indeed? Makes you wonder just what I’m thinking, doesn’t it? I mean, there’s one artist, a couple of row-farmers, an assistant cook and Skin. I’d bet a shiny new crown that half of them have never so much as spoken to the other.”
“You’re just making things up as you go along, aren’t you, Mr. Markhat?”
“One mouthful at a time, Miss. Now scoot. I don’t care what excuse they cough up. All of them, right here, right now.”
Gertriss nodded, rose and left. She might not appreciate my methods, but I could see that she meant to follow my instructions whether the subjects were willing or not.
Alone on the porch, I eyed the swaying trees, pondered how different they looked in the sunlight.
No one was around, at least not close enough to see. I rose, sauntered around a bit, finally chose a ward statue at the edge of the wild lawn.
I don’t know my angels. This one was female. She’d been spared any festive paint, and I was glad. The sculptor had left something very much like compassion carved on her face.
Her right hand was outstretched and open, palm up. I laid a biscuit in it.
“This is for you, Buttercup.”
I spoke in a voice just shy of a shout, aimed out into the close-set oaks.
If anyone heard, there was no reply.
I waved and was back on the porch before the first of my chosen ones showed.
It only took Gertriss about half an hour to track down the five I’d chosen. Four made their way to the porch on their own. Skin arrived last, being herded by Gertriss, who was all but poking him with a prod.
“I ain’t got time for this,” he announced, in his customary near whisper. “Don’t like bein’ told around by no woman, neither.”
Gertriss gave him a withering glare.
“I’m not concerned with what you do or don’t like,” I said. “The sooner you stop mouthing off the sooner we’ll be done here. I can work fast or I can take my time. Which way you want it, Mr. Skin?”
He glowered and folded his arms across his chest but kept his mouth shut.
I rose and turned so I could see every one of the five faces before me.
“So let me get this straight. None of you know anything about the stakes, or who put them there, or why.”
The ones who didn’t nod “no” spoke it in grumpy mutters. Skin did neither, until I stared at him, and he finally relented and shook his head no. “What about strangers? What about people showing up asking for directions, asking about the people who live here? Anything like that happen recently?”
“You’re the only strangers we’ve seen.” That came from an assistant cook named Teon.
“What about Weexil? He have any friends drop by? Any visitors at all?”
No’s and shakes. Skin was shifting his weight from one foot to the other and grinding his teeth.
Time to stir the pot.
“So let’s talk about the stakes. Someone in this house knows a lot more than they’re pretending. Skin. You said you found sixteen stakes that first time, isn’t that right?”
“Yeah.” He licked his dry lips. “Look, I’ve got queens to move-”
“Teon. You ever see any stakes?”
“I work in the kitchen.”
“I didn’t ask you where you worked.”
“No, I ain’t seen any damned stakes.”
“What about people sneaking into the woods after dark, Teon? You ever see any of those?”
Teon’s fat face flushed.
“I ain’t seen nothing, mister.”
I whirled on the slight, tired-looking oldster at my right.
“What about it, gramps? People in the woods when they ought to be in bed?”
“What?”
I raised my hand for silence.
“I’m tired of wasting my time. You lot had your chance to talk. Lady Werewilk gave her word no one would be sacked if they came forward just now. Too bad. She won’t make that offer again.”
Confused looks all around.
“That’s all. Beat it. We’re done here.”
Protests arose, but I cut them off by retreating through the door. Gertriss held them off, and they finally dispersed.
Muttering and footfalls finally died away, and Gertriss came in and shut the door firmly behind her.
“What was all that? People in the woods at night? What people?”
I shrugged, replied in a whisper.
“Hell if I know. But if someone in here is talking to someone out there, there’s been some sneaking going on. And if they think we know about it, they might…”
“Might point crossbows at us again?”
I ignored that. Although it was a possibility.
“They might make a mistake,” I said. “Look. So far we’ve been reacting. It’s time someone else was forced to react. Word of our little talk here will spread. Our villains might decide they’ve been seen. They don’t know by whom. They don’t know when they were seen, or what they were doing at the time. They’ll break out into a cold sweat. They won’t have any appetite. With any luck, they’ll break out in hives and scratch themselves half to death and confess to their misdeeds in a fevered rush.”
“So you’re hoping they’ll try to cover their tracks, even though they never left any.”
“Sort of. You wanted us to do something. It was that or shuck corn.”
Gertriss frowned.
“This isn’t what you expected, is it, Miss?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t know what to expect, Mr. Markhat. I reckon I thought you’d take them by their shoulders and shake them until they told the truth.”
I laughed. “That’s always an option. We can save it for tomorrow, though.”
I could see she was biting back a lecture on my work ethic when the sound of running feet sounded just outside the door.