Gilded Latten Bones

81

Pular Singe was not pleased with her boss, master, partner-whatever she styled me in secret.

She blundered into my room at an inappropriate moment. She gasped something like, "Now I believe it," and went away.

Strafa didn't care. She was preoccupied.

Going downstairs told me, quickly, that the new order had become established fact. Dean greeted Strafa warmly, with perfect manners and no hint of disapproval. Singe was more formal but had put her personal feelings into a locked box. She did not dislike Strafa, she just had problems with all the changes.

It would be hard for anybody to dislike Strafa when she wasn't being Furious Tide of Light. Except for Penny Dreadful. Penny had issues of some kind.

Morley reported that. I didn't see it.

"The girl glares daggers at the woman when she thinks no one will notice."

"That makes no sense. She doesn't know Strafa. Strafa is no threat to her."

"You never know. You up for a physical workout today?"

"You aren't ready for that yet, are you?"

"I'll pace myself. It's you that needs to get busy. You're a tub of goo."

That exaggeration was unkind in the extreme but not far off the mark. I was still weak from my cold but the worst of that had passed. If I used Dean's breather occasionally, my nose stayed open and I didn't cough up chunks bigger than my fist.

Morley said, "It will be fun, getting ready for our personal war."

I doubted that the rest of the world would leave us much against which to execute even one tactical move. Scores were out there trying to make an end to the horror.

I was sure that fear of widespread panic and a breakdown of order were heavy on the minds of movers and shakers everywhere. If fear of a witch hunt did have some basis it made sense for the powerful and privileged to keep the worst quiet.

"We may be fooling ourselves, old friend."

"Doesn't matter. Whatever we do to prepare our bodies and purify our souls won't be a waste."

He was in a martial-arts-philosophy-of-life kind of mood.

I smiled and promised, "I'll do my best!"

"You prick. Now you're making fun."

"I don't like people who say things like that."

"I knew it. You have the intonation perfect. Every word from the little dying girl in the comedy Skuffle."

"Damn. You got me. How did you know?"

"I see everything they put on at the World. Good and bad."

"Who stuck you full of holes, then? What did you see that made somebody decide it was time you took a dirt nap?"

"All right. You got me. I suffer memory lapses. I wish I had one where that play was concerned. Alyx Weider and her pals stunk it up, trying to play kids Penny's age."

"I enjoyed it. Once I got over the old maidens factor. It was fluff."

"You're a sentimental, romantic idiot. Which, my marvelous memory reminds me, Singe was generous enough to point out not that long ago."

"My equally peerless memory allows as to how she included you in that base canard."

"Would that be a musical instrument? Might we find it in the orchestra pit? What kind of musician plays the bass canard?"

"Are you all right?"

"It must be the medication. Or I might just be relieving tension by turning it into silliness. You think we could slide out of here if we did a really quiet sneak?"

"Singe hasn't put a bell on the door yet but I don't think we'd get far. She'd be on our trail. With her nose. Then the Windwalker would swoop down and make us break out in boils, or something. If the Dead Man didn't wake up and freeze our brains in our heads."

"You're probably right."

"I am right."

"He is one hundred percent right," Strafa said from the doorway.

From behind her, Singe said, "Pular Singe agrees."

Just to be difficult, I said, "It's times like these when I miss Melondie Kadare the most."

Singe was a grown-up woman. She proved it by having to have the last word. "It is times like these that I miss the God-damn Parrot. And him we could get back. Could we not, Mr. Dotes?"

"Might be a chore. He went away with the sky elves last time they were here. You could pray that he'll be obnoxious enough for them to bring him back."

I did not comment. I wanted no crazy ideas getting stuck in anybody's head.