Old Tin Sorrows

10

I'd had another visitor. This one had left in a hurry. He'd left a key in the lock with the door standing open. I saw why when I went into the bedroom.

My visitor had murdered the suit of armor. He'd walked in, wound up with an antique battle-ax, and had let the poor boy have it. The ax was still there.

I laughed. Bet he drizzled down his leg, thinking he'd walked into a trap.

I sobered quickly. That was twice. Next time more care might go into the attempt. I was way out on a limb here. I had to take steps.

I locked up, pocketed the key—which wasn't identical to mine, so might be a skeleton key. I got the tin man out of bed and the ax out of him. "Sorry about that. But we'll get our revenge." I used the ax to rig a booby trap. Anybody who walked through the bedroom door was in for a rude welcome.

Then I took an hour nap.

I was early for breakfast, first to arrive. Cook was up to her ears in work getting platters ready. "Need a hand?"

"I need ten. I don't know what you're up to, boy, sucking up to me, but you better believe I'll use you. Get over to the oven and see how them rolls are coming."

I did. "Maybe a minute more."

"What you know about baking?"

I explained the arrangement at my house, where old Dean handles the drudgery and cooking. He's a good cook. He taught me. I can put together a decent meal when I want. Like when I give him time off because I want him out while I entertain.

"Don't know if you're lying or not. Probably are. I never seen a man yet who could cook."

I didn't tell her Dean thought the only good cooks were men. "I should get you together. To watch the sparks fly."

"Huh. Time's up. Get them rolls out. Drag that pot of butter over."

I glanced at the butter. "Fresh?"

"Snake just brung it in."

"He going to join us?"

She laughed. "Not Snake. He don't have nothing to do with nobody. Just grabbed him some food and lit out. Not sociable, Snake."

"What's his problem?"

"Head got scrambled in the Cantard. He was down there twenty years, never got a scratch. On the outside." She shook her head, started piling sausages and bacon on a platter. "Sad. I knew him when he was a pup. Cute kid, he was. Too delicate and sensitive for a Marine. But he thought he had to try. So here he is, an old man with his head in knots. Used to draw the prettiest pictures, that boy. Coulda been a great painter. Had him a magic eye. Could see right inside things and drawed what he seed. Any damn fool can draw the outside of things, the way they want we should see them. Takes a genius to see the truth. That boy saw. You going to stand there jawing till lunchtime? Or you going to eat?"

I fixed myself a plate without mentioning the fact that I couldn't get a word in edgewise because I couldn't get a word in edgewise. She rolled right along. "I told the General then—he was just commissioned—it was a raging shame to waste the boy down there. And I told him again when he come back. And the General, he told me, ‘You were right, Cook. It was a sin against humanity, taking him.' But, you know, he couldn't have stopped the boy if he'd wanted. Had that damnfool stubborn streak and thought it was his duty to go with the lord to war."

The rush came while she chattered. There were two new faces, presumably Tyler and Wayne. They looked like they hadn't slept. The whole crowd took their platters to the dining room.

I asked Cook, "That Tyler and Wayne?"

"How'd you guess?"

"Lucky stab. Anybody else I haven't met?"

"Who else could there be?"

"I don't know. Yesterday you said there were eighteen people here. I've seen ten, plus this Snake that's shy and a blonde that only I can see. Comes up short of eighteen."

"Ain't eighteen."

"You said eighteen."

"Boy, I'm four hundred years old. 'Less I concentrate, I don't remember where I am in time. I just cook and set table and wash and don't pay no attention to nothing else. Just sort of drift. Don't see nothing, don't say nothing. Last time I looked up they was eighteen, counting me. Must've been a while. Hell. Maybe that's why there's so many leftovers. Been cooking too much."

"I didn't notice too many places set at the table."

She paused. "You're right. Part of me must keep track."

"Been with the Stantnors a long time?"

"Came to them with my momma when I was a kit. Long time back, when the humans hereabouts still had emperors. 'Fore they ever moved out here and built the first house. This one's only maybe two hundred. Was a sight when she was new, she was."

"You must've seen some sights in your time."

"Seen some," she agreed. "Served every king and stormwarden and firelord right there in that dining room." She headed that way. That ended our conversation.

I stuck my head in. Nobody showed any special disappointment. Nobody turned handsprings, either. They were a depressing bunch.

These guys had spent their whole lives together. You'd think they could make conversation—unless they'd said everything there was to say. I feel that way with some people, sometimes before anything gets said at all.

Tyler and Wayne were cut from Marine lifer cloth. Whatever the physical differences between men, they gain a certain uniformity in service. Tyler was a lean, narrow-faced character with hard brown eyes, salt-and-pepper hair, and a thin, speckled beard trimmed within a half-inch of his skin. Wayne was my size, maybe twenty pounds heavier, not fat. He looked like he could throw cows around if the passion took him. He was six inches taller than Tyler and blond, with icy blue eyes, yet you felt the sameness in them. You even felt the identity with Chain, who had gone to seed.

I'd spent five years in the company of men like them. Any one of them would be capable of murder if he took a mind. Human life wasn't anything special to them. They'd seen too much death.

Which did present one puzzle.

Marines are straightforward kinds of guys. If one wanted the General dead, chances were he'd just do it. Unless there was some overpowering motive to make it a lingering death.

Like, say, hanging onto a share of the old man's estate?

Worrying about it was pointless. You can't force these things. They have to unfold.

I helped Cook clear away, then put on my traveling shoes.