Brown River Queen (12 page)

“I don’t want to live on a boat, you know. Even if it has proper bathrooms.”

“We’ll be home before you know it, Darla. I promise. We’ll sort all this out, and we’ll go home and put up a new door and get a new rug and live happily ever after.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

I closed the door on the silent hall and we sat on the bed until they came to fetch us.

Darla need not have been concerned about the sophistication of the
Queen’s
facilities.

The toilets flushed. The his-and-hers lavatories ran with hot and cold water. The bathtub was a marble and copper edifice to the fine art of bathing, complete with scented bath oils, fluffy white towels, and a wall with a recess in which a dozen fat candles were merrily burning. Darla’s make-up and hair articles were already on her vanity, arranged just as they’d been at home.

There were closets—one for us each. Our clothes were there, pressed and hung. All three pairs of my shoes were shined and ready for duty. Toadsticker had been honed and polished, my hats were all hanging on fine silver hooks, and I was more than ready to trade my life as a landlubbing finder for a permanent post here on the raging high seas.

Our room was actually three rooms. There was a small sitting room into which the suite’s only door opened. That led into the bedroom, and off that was the bathroom—or as Darla called it, ‘my own copper Heaven.’

And it wasn’t just our stateroom awash in polished cherry-wood opulence. Every inch of the
Brown River Queen
was either gilded in gold or trimmed with hand-carved oak.
 

There was a lot of
Queen
to gild, too. She was more than four hundred feet long, from the big red paddle at the back to the blunt nose at her fore, and a hundred feet across her shallow, flat hull. Four decks rose above all that—the first deck being the casino and stage, the next being the staterooms, the next smaller rooms for the middling rich, and finally the top deck with its guards at the stair landings, where the Regent and his retinue would be housed.

We were hustled up to our room without a grand tour. But I’d caught a glimpse of the casino deck, and despite the haphazard presence of ladders and scaffolds and shouting carpenters, I’d been awed.

It was cavernous. The ceilings were high and trimmed out in dark oak. The windows were glass—but stained glass, artfully designed to bathe the entire vast casino deck in a soothing mix of greens and blues.

Four enormous hanging lights, things of crystal and sparkles that must have been forged with a deep and potent sorcery, glittered and shone in the colored daylight. Whether oil or gas or candle, they weren’t lit, but I could imagine that when they were the whole room would take on the same silver glow cast by a bright full moon.

The floor was a dark crimson carpet. Gaming tables and devices, covered by clean white sheets, awaited the eager rush of gamblers and vampires and criminals that was soon to come.

There was a stage at the far end of the place, hidden by blood-red curtains emblazoned with Avalante’s roses-and-lances crest.

Twin staircases, one port and one starboard, graced the aft end of the casino deck. Each swooped up into the dark, and we followed the wide carpeted treads up to the staterooms.

Our room was designated 111 by the shiny brass plate upon the door. Like all the other doors on the hall, ours was flanked by a pair of grinning silver gargoyles who held small but brilliant magelamps in each gnarly little hand. Our door was solid and thick and I judged a half dozen Ogres couldn’t have knocked it down, especially after, once we were inside, Darla or I lowered the ornate but decidedly functional bar across the back.

I sat upon our vast expanse of new feather bed and watched as Darla fussed with this or made oohing and ahing noises over that.
 

The first thing I noticed about being on the
Queen
was the motion. Or rather, the lack thereof. I’d been expecting to feel some slight pitch and roll because even tied at her private and heavily guarded dock, she was floating on the lazy, muddy waters of the Brown River.
 

But try as I might, I couldn’t feel even the smallest hint of motion.

“I believe Evis mentioned something about sorcerous motion control,” said Darla, plopping down suddenly beside me.

I hadn’t said a word.
 

“You were holding your breath.” She lay back, stretching and yawning. “I’m exhausted. Let’s take a nap.”

“You go ahead. I’m not sleepy.”

“Liar.” She sat up and put her chin on her fists. “What are you going to do, sneak around? Evis said he’d be back later to give us the grand tour.”

“A good finder never sneaks, my dear. We amble. We stroll. We peruse, and we do it all out in the open because we have every right to be right wherever we are.”

“So you are going to sneak. I’m coming with you.”

“What about your nap?”

She grinned and rolled off the bed. “Time for that later. I’m learning how to be a finder. I assume you’re going to bathe and shave?”

I kicked off my shoes. “Can’t impress the crew like this.”
 

“I’ll find something scandalous, then.”

I bathed and shaved and bled from my gut wound until we managed to get a fresh dressing wrapped around it. Even though I had to keep my torso out of the water, the hot bath and the rich man’s soap felt good.

One thing about Darla—she can make herself presentable, as she calls it, in a hurry. I’d managed to put a decent knot in my necktie and find one of my shoes when she emerged from the bedroom, dressed and ready to face the world.

I whistled. She’d opted for a long black dress that covered everything from ankle to throat. It wasn’t tight enough to stop traffic, but it wasn’t so loose you couldn’t tell her gender. She’d buttoned the slit on the side all the way down, but even so I caught a glimpse of silk-covered leg through it when she walked.

A tiny black pillbox hat trimmed with black lace completed the look. She winked at me from beneath the lace and grinned.

“I was aiming for distracting without being obvious,” she said.
 

I stood there with one shoe on and made noises with my mouth.

“Come on,” she said, laughing. “Let’s go see the things Evis wouldn’t want us to see.”

I finished dressing and we set out to explore.

The first thing I realized was exploring the
Queen
would require days—not hours—of steadfast, determined poking about.

I’d listened to Evis as he bragged about her, but admittedly I was distracted by more pressing matters involving Lowland Sweet cigars and refills of beer. Darla, on the other hand, could recite the wonders of the
Queen
with considerable precision.

“She is four hundred and sixteen feet long and ninety-seven feet wide,” said Darla in a near-perfect imitation of Evis. We made our way down the darkened grand staircase that led down to the casino deck. “She has one hundred twenty-one crew, and will carry four hundred twenty-five passengers, including one over-priced finder.”

“Evis should hire you as a purser.”

“He should. What’s a purser? Do they blow the steam whistles?”

“Probably.”
 

We rounded the gentle sweep of the final curve, and the darkness gave way to the blues and greens and golds of the daylight streaming through the stained-glass windows.

A pair of wary-eyed Avalante day folk hurried toward us. Neither wore a sword, but from the tell-tale bulges beneath their jackets I knew they didn’t need to.

“I’ll have a beer,” I said as soon as they were in earshot. “The lady will have a glass of red wine. Is that suitable, Lady Markhat? Red wine?”

“Oh certainly,” said Darla, with much batting of her eyes. “Now, what are your names, gentlemen? Mr. Prestley said we’d be met, but he didn’t say by whom.”

I grinned and hoped the shadows hid most of it.

“Trokes, ma’am,” said the taller of the two.

“Meyer,” proclaimed the other after a glance at his partner and a frown at me.

“You’re Captain Markhat?”

“Indeed I am. This is Mrs. Markhat, although you can call her the Duchess if you want. She’s never been one to insist on the strictest rules of propriety. Isn’t that right, dear?”

“Quite right.” She aimed a smile at Trokes.

“We weren’t told—” began Meyer.

Trokes cut him off. “We knew you were coming aboard, Captain, Mrs. Markhat,” he said. “Didn’t expect to see you out and about until after supper. A beer, was it? And a glass of red wine?”

“If you’d be so kind.”
 

“You heard the Captain, Meyer,” said Trokes. “Have the wine steward pick out something nice.”

Meyer glared but turned and stomped away.

“Nice boat you’ve got here,” I said. I nodded toward the empty gambling hall and the sheet-covered gambling tables that waited like sleeping ghosts in the dark. “She going to be ready to get underway on schedule?”

The man’s chest expanded with sudden injured pride.

“Oh yes sir! We’ll be underway in a week, no doubt about it. They’ll get the pistons sorted out. Put in new reach rods yesterday. That will put things right. No doubt about it.”

“Ah yes, well, of course, the pistons.” I made a dismissive gesture as I spoke, as though the matter of the pistons was old news. “I’ve heard all about that. No. It’s the other matter that concerns me.”

Darla nodded, her smile gone, her eyes grave. “Yes. Deeply troubling, that.”

Trokes leaned in and spoke in a whisper. “Well, sir, Lady, I don’t mind telling you I think it’s so much nonsense, and that’s a fact. Nothing to it at all. Accidents happen, that kind of thing. Lesson to be learned, I say.”

“Oh, I quite agree,” I said, pulling a cigar from my jacket pocket and clipping off the end like a Lord of the Realm. “Bunch of superstitious nonsense. I’m glad we see eye-to-eye.”

“Oh, we do, Captain! People just shouldn’t get in a hurry. You get in a hurry, you step where you shouldn’t, or you fall down a shaft. That’s all there is to it. A curse? Bah.”

“Bah, indeed.” I produced a match and, with flourish appropriate to a man of my station, I lit my cigar. “Educated men have no cause to embrace such backward beliefs.”

“Are you sure, dear?” asked Darla, her eyes wide. “After all, there have been so many accidents!”

“Only a dozen, Mrs. Markhat,” said Trokes. “All easily explained. No doubt about it. Carelessness, and nothing more.”

Meyer came trotting back, my beer in one hand and Darla’s wine glass in another. Behind him scurried a small man in a white apron, and behind
him
was a boy pushing a silver cart bearing half a dozen wine bottles.

“Ah, refreshments,” I said, beaming. I took my beer and sipped it. Meyer wanted to glare at me but couldn’t quite work up the nerve so he glared at Trokes instead. “Wine, my dear?”

The cart rolled to a stop. The wine steward took his place behind it and began a detailed description of each of his bottles. Darla feigned interest and I motioned Meyer and Trokes aside.

“Thank you, gentleman, for your attention.” I shook hands with each, passing them a pair of heavy coins as I did so. Meyer’s glare vanished when he saw the first glint of Old Kingdom gold.

“Anything you need, sir, you just call for us!”

“Oh, I shall. Good day, gentlemen.”

Meyer was faster on the uptake. He took Trokes’s elbow and led him quickly away.

The wine steward had launched into a lecture on the relative soil acidity of the respective vineyards proffered. Darla was taking it all in with a perfect imitation of rapt attention, and if the little man’s chest puffed out any farther I feared he would soon burst.

“Mr. Lavit tells me the red Quinton Hollow is his favorite, dear,” she said, grinning. “But he notes that many prefer the fruitier aftertaste of the rather excellent Diamond Black. Which would you suggest?”

“Oh, I always trust my wine steward. If Mr. Lavit prefers the Quinton Hollow, that’s the one I’d try.”

Mr. Lavit allowed himself the smallest of smiles. Darla nodded, and with a practiced flourish the steward held up the bottle for inspection, waited for Darla’s approving nod, and then opened and poured.

“I surmise Sir is a beer man,” he said as he handed Darla her glass. “It so happens I have a special stock of a very rare beer on hand, in the ice room. Copeland Dark. Shall I have a barrel sent up to your room, later? I believe Sir will enjoy it.”

“I’ve never met a beer I didn’t like,” I said. A gold coin appeared on the man’s cart. “Thank you.”

A clean silken hanky made a pass across the spotless top of the cart. The coin vanished.
 

The little man grinned.

“I prefer beer myself,” he said, his voice a whisper. “And don’t let them serve you Elvish Garden. It’s swill—I don’t care what anyone says.”

“Duly noted.” Darla wandered off, pretending to inspect the ornate wood trim on the walls.