Eye Spy

by Mercedes Lackey

  But in a triple-thick wall, and one in which the beams of the structure might be compromised, this wasn’t going to be easy.

  First she had to recognize and discard all the distractions of other things going wrong: rotting roofbeams crying out their pain, places where the stone itself had started to crack, or, more often, spots where the mortar between the stones was not what it should have been, shifting the stresses in the entire wall or part of it. But eventually, as Perry initiated silent conversations with mice, she eliminated all those things and settled down for a good, long communion with the stone.

  It was suppertime by the time they finished, and for the last quarter candlemark the smell of fresh bread and soup coming from the kitchen had been a terrible distraction. As they crossed the courtyard again, she realized she had been at her task longer than she had thought. It was nearly sunset.

  She and Perry went straight to the kitchen door, where Hansa, Tobin’s wife—who clearly served as the cook—had just placed that kettle of soup and a loaf of bread on the table, while a young girl, who must be the daughter, Lori, put out wooden bowls, pottery mugs, and spoons. Like Tobin, their clothing was carefully patched, and their blouses looked to have been turned at least once. Sussena was already at the table, her chair pulled up to it, and a boy about a year older than the girl (that would be Hob) was washing his hands under the pump at the sink. There were five cots stacked up out of the way in a corner of the scrupulously clean kitchen—which was far larger than it needed to be for such a small household, even serving as it did as a communal bedroom as well as its original purpose. In its glory days, this manor must have had a staff of at least twenty people, plus the resident lord and his family.

  Larral was under the table, looking perfectly satisfied, so he must have found the hunting to his liking.

  Sussena looked at Abi hopefully. Abi shook her head. Sussena shrugged a little and smiled. “It’s a lovely soup tonight,” she said brightly. “Your dog brought us two rabbits to go into it!”

  “Rabbits ain’t gonna last long wi’ that gurt beast abaht,” Tobin grumbled.

  “Shut up, ol’ fool,” said his wife, in the tones of someone who said that a lot. “Milor’, mileddy, sets where ever ye please an’ hep yersel’. We don’t keep no state ’ere.”

  “Cain’t afford no state,” Tobin muttered.

  Abi and Perry ignored him, as his wife was doing, although it seemed poor Susenna’s cheeks were never going to be less than a mortified red. They settled down at the end of the table nearest their hostess. The soup was very good, and though the bread might have lacked butter, there was plenty of broth for sopping up, so Abi didn’t miss the butter.

  “So where did you look first?” Sussena asked, between bites.

  “The dairy,” Abi replied.

  Tobin barked a laugh. “What sorta gurt fool’d hide a treasure inna dairy?”

  “The kind of fool that doesn’t want it to be found?” countered Abi. She was getting very tired of this contrary fellow. He might be loyal to Sussena, but that didn’t excuse his constant rudeness.

  “An’ why wouldna it be found?” Tobin shot back.

  “Because people like you think a dairy’s no place to hide a treasure!” Abi replied sharply.

  “Tha’s cause on’y a gurt fool’d hide it there!” cried Tobin.

  “Shut up yer face, old man,” his wife snapped. “An’ stop connerdictin’ yer betters.”

  He turned on her and wagged his spoon at her. “An’ wut makes a slip of a fool gurr-ell me better, I’d like t’know!” he demanded.

  “The fact thet th’ King sent ’er an’ she’s got more sense inner liddle finger than you has in yer entire body!” said his wife. She turned to Abi. “Don’t pay ’im no mind. Cause ’e ain’t got one t’speak of.” And she laughed heartily at her own joke.

  You could have baked bread on poor Sussena’s cheeks. Tobin’s children were evidently used to this; they paid no attention to either their father or their mother, but gulped down their food, took their bowls and mugs to the stone sink, and went outside, presumably to finish their evening chores.

  Tobin finished his meal, grumbling under his breath the entire time, and went out to do the same. Hansa gathered up the remaining dishes and took them to the sink. “M’lady Sussena sleeps wi’ us, so if she needs anything i’ night, one on us is there t’help. We keeps country hours ’ere.”

  “I’m afraid that’s true,” Sussena confirmed. “We keep candles and rushlights for emergencies and go to bed with the sun.”

  “Then we’d better do the same,” Perry offered. “Goodnight!”

  Abi followed him out into the “dining hall,” and looked around for a place to change. “I’ll just slip into the antechamber,” she said, finally, getting her nightclothes from her pack.

  “Seems as good a place as any,” Perry replied. And by the time she was back, he was already on one of the cots, buried under the blankets they’d brought with them. She’d thought bringing bedrolls had been a silly idea, but it turned out Perry was right to have insisted. The thin blanket already on the cot was fit only to be folded several times and used as a pillow.

  9

  The barn, the stable, and even the chickenhouse—all made of the same stone and all in the same dilapidated condition as the dairy—got the same treatment as the dairy had and with the same results. She included the floors in her search, although she wasn’t as certain of her results there, and set Perry to tapping and scraping, using the skills he’d learned from several master thieves to try to detect if there was anything buried beneath the floors.

  Somehow Sussena managed to keep her spirits up—but perhaps she’d never counted on them finding her lost inheritance in the first place. Abi wished, more than once, that she shared some sort of Mindspeech with Perry. Keeping her thoughts to herself was harder than she had imagined. She really had to wonder just what it was about this place that kept Sussena here. Obviously she’d be better off if she just sold it; granted, the acreage that came with it wasn’t much, but it was near enough to Haven to make some wealthy merchant a fine summer home—once it had been rebuilt. Was it just stubbornness? Was it family loyalty? Was it fear that the money simply wouldn’t last long enough? She didn’t feel she could ask Sussena any of these very personal questions, but she would have loved to have been able to discuss them with Perry.

  Day by day, they eliminated every possible option but the manor itself.

  Finally, with the outbuildings eliminated, it was time to work on the manor; it couldn’t be put off any longer.

  “Happen ye’ll breakit yer necks,” Tobin said over eggs and bread the morning they proclaimed they were ready to search the main house. He seemed very pleased with the prospect.

  “Shet up, old fool,” his wife said crossly. “I been up all them rooms. You ain’t.” She turned to Abi. “The lad an’ lass hev been clearin’ rubbish, or leastwise, anythin’ thet’ll trip ye up. Floors be still sound. Ye’ll be a’right.”

  Abi had come to trust Hansa more than her always pessimistic and critical husband. “We’re going to start in the attic,” she said. “Have they been up there?”

  “Aye. Breakit yer necks,” Tobin reiterated. “Nobbut up there but fambly stuff gone t’pieces.”

  “Nobbut up there a-tall,” Hansa corrected sharply. “Every bit uv anythin’ got hauled downstairs an’ used or sold. Doncha remember? Curtains and bed’angin’s went for clothes. So did sheets. Blankets went fer cloaks, them as we ain’t usin’. Beds went t’Wrenmarsh ten years agone, cupboards an’ chests t’ Lotham, chairs t’ Danferth, an’ what weren’t fit t’sell we burnt.”

  Abi expected that this litany in proof of her impoverished state would have brought another blush to Sussena’s cheeks, but all she did was nod in confirmation. “All that useless furniture made us many a meal,” she confirmed. “There should be nothing up there b
ut thatch.”

  Well, as Abi and Perry discovered when they climbed the creaking staircase into the attic, that was not quite true. There was plenty of evidence that a pair of barn owls had raised several broods up there, and the litter on the floor proved that there were mice and sparrows making free with the single long room as well. Abi found herself sneezing quite a lot, as the dirty, disintegrating thatch disgorged dust every time they trod a little too heavily on the floorboards. Fortunately it didn’t take her long to dismiss the attic floor and the chimney—the only places where anything could be hidden up here—and descend to the bedrooms below.

  Here things were somehow sadder than the attic. There, the entire room had been stripped of everything useful. Here . . . there were still signs of what had been. Bedsteads too large to move had collapsed in on themselves before they could be taken apart and sold. Plastered walls showed stains where rain had come in—and more plaster was flaking and falling off the ceiling with every footstep they took.

  Perry sat down in the middle of the room and began communing with whatever small creatures might be in the walls. Abi went to work. And when they were done with that room, they moved on to the next.

  By the end of the day they had finished all the second floor rooms. That left only the first floor, and the storage rooms in the cellar beneath it, and Abi’s hopes had begun to dim.

  “There’s still the first floor—and the cellars,” Perry pointed out. “If I were going to put my bets on anything, it’d be the cellars. Don’t worry,” he continued, before she could even voice her concern that if there was a hiding place in anything but the walls, she would never find it. “I’ve got two years of training in how to find hiding places under floors. It’s harder to keep those concealed than most people would like to think.”

  “But what if it’s not in a hiding place, if it’s just buried?” she asked, feeling her heart sink.

  “Still harder to hide than people think,” he said with confidence. “Besides, think about what we know. This wasn’t just one old miser hiding his hoard forever. This was a place the lord of the house regularly put money into and took money out of. He couldn’t just keep burying it and digging it up again. Because even if he had been stupid enough to do that, someone was going to notice before too long and there would go his hiding place. No, this was an actual, built-in spot designed for access, probably quick, easy access. Something that’s been here ever since the house was built. If it’s in this house, we’ll find it.”

  “And if it’s not in this house?” She had the feeling that she was more anxious about this than Sussena.

  “Then maybe the answer is it was never here at all; maybe he had an account with the Goldsmith Guild instead. The King can order them to look. And if we still don’t find anything, well, I think we should recruit Wrenmarsh to help us talk her into selling the place and using the money to buy a snug little cottage in Haven. She can still keep Tobin and Hansa, and their children can get jobs in Haven.” Perry shrugged his shoulders. “It’s pretty clear to me that she can’t stay here much longer. I should think even in the shape it’s in now, this place could provide enough money to keep her.”

  But Abi knew what the answer to that would be—for surely Wrenmarsh had tried to persuade her to do just that for years. And there was no guarantee that Sussena would net enough money to keep her in Haven, not with her needs. So what other solution could there be that would still satisfy her and satisfy the need to provide for her very loyal servants?

  She didn’t have any answers. Maybe there weren’t any.

  * * *

  • • •

  Two days later, it was a very dejected group that gathered together in the kitchen. Supper, eaten in an atmosphere of gloom was over. Even Tobin refrained from making carping comments. “I just don’t have any answer except the bad one,” Abi said, finally. “Short of tearing down the entire building—” She felt as if she was about to cry. There was a knot in her throat, and a lump in her stomach.

  “And then where would we live?” Sussena said, with a little laugh, but a laugh that sounded altogether too much like a sob. “I have to thank you and you, too, Perry. You certainly did everything possible to try to find my lost inheritance. I can’t imagine anyone else who would have done as much. Well, we’ll just have to go on as we have, I suppose. We’ve managed all right so far.”

  But Abi could tell she was putting a brave face on it for strangers. Behind that smile, a last hope had died. A forlorn hope, to be sure, but it had been a hope. Sussena would never escape this crumbling house—unless it was by selling it before it deteriorated further. Life was going to go on lurching from one emergency to another. They were always going to be worried about the next meal, the next illness, the next piece of the house falling in. And one day it would be one emergency too many, and the careful juggling act would all fall apart.

  Abi stared at the fireplace to avoid looking at Sussena, whose eyes were much too bright, suggesting she, too, was close to openly weeping. The great fireplace was the heart of the house, it was the most prominent feature of the place, with its massive chimney structure, designed to hold the heat built up in it over long winter nights. The hearth and chimney walls were massive, thicker even than the walls of the dairy. Massive enough that Abi had even considered that a hidden chamber might have been built into it in one of the bedrooms on the second floor or in the attic. But no. She’d checked all that thoroughly. It was just one solid superbly made tower of stone.

  As a structure, the Artificer in her admired the work that had gone into it. On the dining room side, there was an iron spit where a whole adult pig could have been roasted in more prosperous days, and slices carved off to serve directly to the diners on festive occasions. On this side, there were two smaller spits, two cranes for kettles, a broad hearth where things could be baked on the hearthstone, and five proper ovens, two for cooking and one for keeping things warm until they were called for on the right and two for cooking on the left—

  Wait a moment. Everything on the kitchen side is paired. Why is there only one warming oven?

  She got up so quickly her chair fell over, and she moved to the chimney as if in a dream. Two baking ovens for meats and other baked dishes, with beautiful cast-iron doors, to the right and left of the fireplace below. Two more for bread, with wooden “stops” kept soaked in water to the right and left above them. Then, on the right, an open warming oven. And on the left . . .

  She closed her eyes and reached out with her Gift. And they flew open again in startlement.

  “Perry!” she cried out. “Get a chair! Help me!”

  She dragged a chair over to the left side of the fireplace so she could reach the spot where a warming oven should have been, and she felt gingerly around the edges of the place where she sensed—yes! A void! Perry saw what she was doing and dragged a stool over to join her. His fingers, cleverer than hers, felt the hot stone carefully, then felt along the side of the chimney itself.

  There was a sharp click.

  And a crack appeared. Abi clawed at it but couldn’t get a purchase on it. Perry jumped down and came back up with a fireplace poker. He inserted it carefully into the crack, and slowly, agonizingly, levered it open. Finally, it swung out on hidden hinges.

  Abi tried to reach inside, but it was too hot, and she pulled back her hand with a curse.

  “A candle!” Perry called. “We need a candle!”

  A moment later someone thrust a lighted candle end into his hand, and the two of them peered into the darkened recess.

  “There’re metal strongboxes in there!” Perry exclaimed. He reached in. “Ow! They’re too hot to touch!”

  “Hop down, lass,” commanded Hansa from behind her, and Abi obeyed. The woman had gotten the bread peel out of the corner. “Git that poker under ’un, lad. Aye, that’s right—” She thrust the peel into the recess, grunted with satisfaction, then grunted again
with surprise. “Kernos’ Horns! Thet be heavy!” She looked over her shoulder at Tobin, whose mouth was agape in astonishment. “Stir thy stumps, old fool, an give ’un a hand!”

  Belatedly he leaped to his feet, and the three of them, he, Hansa, and Perry, managed to maneuver the strongbox out of the recess and onto the table. Abi climbed back up and peered inside with the help of the candle. “There’s another!” she crowed.

  In the end there were three strongboxes, much too hot to touch, sitting on the kitchen table. Without being prompted, Lori fetched another pair of candles so they could all stare at them, hardly daring to breathe.

  “It might only be papers,” Perry pointed out.

  “Too ’eavy for papers,” Tobin averred.

  “’Sides, papers’d hev crumbled up i’ th’ heat,” said Hansa with authority.

  They all stared some more. In the candlelight, it was obvious that all three boxes had been padlocked.

  “We don’t have the keys!” Sussena finally cried, a touch of hysteria in her voice.

  “To the nine hells with keys,” Perry said roughly and turned to Tobin. “Get me a hammer.”

  For once the man had nothing to say. Instead, he scrambled off into the darkness, fumbled around in the corner of the kitchen where he kept his tools, and returned with a hammer.

  Perry tried holding the padlock, but it was still too hot to hold. Without being asked, Lori pulled off her apron, folded it into a pad and handed it to him.

  He began tapping on one side of the lock near where the arm went into the block. It seemed to take forever, but suddenly there was a snapping sound, and the arm came loose and pivoted out. With a cry of elation, Perry pulled the lock off the hasp, and flipped open the lid. They all bent over the box, candles held close.

  It was full of small leather bags.

  For a long time, no one moved. Then Perry waved everyone back. “This is yours, Sussena,” he said, picking one of the bags up by the thongs. He spread the apron over her lap to protect her from the heat, then dropped the bag in her lap. “Yours is the right to find out what’s in these.”