Brown River Queen (17 page)

“Also good for accidentally overhearing private conversations,” said Darla.
 

“The dunways are strictly for security on this trip,” said Evis.

“How many guns will you have hidden in the walls, Evis?”

“Sixty-two. All highly trained. All absolutely fearless. Feel better?”

“Some.” I pretended not to see that pesky shadow race across the bottom of Evis’s door again. “Might as well have sixty-two men on the moon if they’re not in the right place at the right time.”

Evis looked toward Darla. “He’s cute when he’s grumpy, isn’t he?”

“So, what’s this about Stitches?”

“Don’t know yet. She said she had a scheme to grab the hex women, whatever they’re called.”

“The bentans?”

“Yeah. Them. I got word she took a couple of wagons and a dozen staff before sunup this morning, and now I hear she’s back at Avalante with a wagonload of bodies.”

A soft knock sounded at the door. “Enter,” shouted Evis.

Stitches herself stepped through the door.

Her robe stank of wood smoke. Her sleeves were scorched and torn. When she pulled back her hood to reveal her face, it was black with soot.

Her bleeding lips, though, were trying to form a smile.

Good. You are here. Mrs. Markhat.

“You look like hell,” said Evis. “Sit, if you want.”

I believe I shall. The day has been taxing.
She crossed to the vacant chair and settled gingerly into it, as though favoring numerous injuries.
I got them. All of them.

“The bentans?”

Yes. I know who made them, Mr. Prestley. I know who, and I believe I know why.

“Spill it.”

I shall. But first—

She raised her hands and traced out a complicated pattern in the air. There was a sound, and for an instant her fingertips left visible trails of light.

She clapped her hands and the luminous pattern faded away.

Precautions. The living simulacrums were animated by the hand of Hag Mary herself. I trust you are acquainted with the name, Mr. Prestley?

I didn’t like the way Evis went suddenly stiff and still.

“That’s just a legend.”

I fear it is not. Hag Mary lived, and lives still, and something has stirred her to send these bentans against Mr. Markhat.

“I hate to interrupt, but what the hell is a Hag Mary, and what have I ever done to her?”

Evis turned his dark spectacles toward me. “Hag Mary. One of the worst of the old-time sorcerers. This is pre-Kingdom stuff, Markhat. Prehistoric. Hag Mary was said to be a fallen Angel, gone mad with being cast down with us mortals.”

Nonsense.
Stitches finally relaxed enough to settle back into her chair.
Fallen Angels?

“You don’t believe in Angels?”
 

As I said, nonsense. But whatever her origin, Hag Mary was indeed, for a time, a powerful, formidable sorceress. Her obsession with the Old Ones was her undoing, though, and she spiraled down into madness
—
both figuratively and literally.

“How so?”

She began to excavate a series of prehistoric ruins that lay below Rannit. Deeper and deeper she dug, until she just vanished from sight. Eventually, from memory.

“You’re sure it’s her that raised the bentans?”

Her house is long ago fallen, but a number of her personal possessions remained behind. I acquired a minor item myself, some years ago. It retains an arcane signature, one that is an exact match to the one that animates the bentans. There is no mistake. Hag Mary raised those creatures, and Hag Mary set them upon you.

Darla took my hand. “Why? Why would this…creature do such a thing?”

I suspect Hag Mary is merely being used. If she was quite insane a millennia ago, she is a gibbering lunatic now—one without the measure of reason required to plot against your husband, Mrs. Markhat, or anyone else. No. Her powers are still formidable, but I doubt they are her own. Someone, or a group of persons, is fearful that Markhat still holds the huldra. Without the Corpsemaster to subdue Markhat, or for that matter to shield him, they have decided to take it, using the most powerful tool they have. Hag Mary.

“If I had the damned thing, I’d have used it by now. Can’t they see that?”

Their brand of rationality is hardly compatible with your own, Mr. Markhat. You pose a threat. They seek to eliminate that threat. Most curious, though, is the timing.

“Our little dinner cruise.” Evis cussed. “You think this is all connected to the presence of our special guest.”

The Corpsemaster, right hand of the Regency, is fallen. Creatures more ancient than history are stirring. It bears consideration, Mr. Prestley. Careful consideration.

“We should call it off.” Evis’s words were barely more than a whisper. “Claim engine trouble. Claim anything.”

“We can’t live here forever,” said Darla. Her grip on my hand was painful. “There has to be a way to prove he wrecked that awful thing!”

I fear the only way to satiate them is to produce a huldra. Produce it, and give it to them.

“I don’t suppose we can just have Mama whip up a batch, can we?” I asked.

I would be surprised if three more remain in all the world. And crafting even a dubious facsimile of such a thing is well beyond my skill, and indeed, beyond the skill of anyone alive. No. You shall have to find another huldra, Markhat. It is the only way.

Evis appeared to conclude an intense internal debate.

“We can’t go on with this, knowing that the Regent is probably the target of a coup.” He rose. “I’ve got to speak to the House elders. Stitches, Markhats, make yourselves at home. We’ll talk later.”

And then he vanished into his back room. The light beneath the door went out.

Stitches pulled her hood down so that it hid her ruined eyes.

The day’s exertions have been significant. I trust you will forgive my urgent need for rest.

With that she went limp and still.

“We’ll just have to find another huldra,” said Darla, Her voice was cheerful and light, but she forgot to ease her grip on my hand. “Evis will help.”

 
I rose. Evis’s icebox beckoned.

“Bring me one too,” said Darla. She forced a smile. “We might as well make ourselves at home.”

I found a dozen unlabeled bottles of some honey-colored beer, wiped the sawdust off two, and opened them both before offering one to Darla and then holding up mine for a toast.

“To life aboard the
Brown River Queen
,” quoth I. “Where the beds are always soft and the beer is always free.”

Darla shrugged and joined me in the toast.

Chapter Ten

My mother was a strong critic of idle hands. And so, despite Evis’s vow to postpone the
Queen’s
maiden voyage until sometime after the Last Trump, I set about earning my exorbitant pay.

I grabbed crew at random and hustled them into a tiny room behind the purser’s sparse office. There was barely room enough for two straight-backed wooden chairs and a tiny stand for my notebook. I grilled my hapless victims on their employment history, their political leanings, and their overall nefarious countenances.

I raised some hackles and came close to going to bed with a broken nose, but again I found nothing but a couple of closet whisky-fanciers and a steward who’d spent a few nights in the Old Ruth for breaking a couple of windows during the mob riots last spring.
 

I had to give Evis and his staff their due. They’d taken great pains to hire people who were either fiercely loyal to Avalante, deeply terrified of Avalante, or both. There’d be no slipping a handful of coppers among them to buy a few moments of looking the other way. No, the purchase of even the slightest act of disloyalty was going to cost someone a fortune.

Normally, I’d have been encouraged by this. But the kind of people likely to be handing out the coins in this instance simply wouldn’t care.

I consoled myself with my near certainty that the
Queen
would not soon be departing for Bel Loit or anywhere else, at least not with the Regent aboard. The man didn’t assume sudden and complete control over Rannit by being an imbecile.

So I walked the decks and tried in vain to pry open a trace of treachery and sat my butt down to some of the finest meals I’ve ever enjoyed. Darla read and started scribbling furiously in a notebook that had a dainty little clasp and a clever little lock. I tried to catch sight of her writings over her shoulder a time or two, but she always heard me coming and slammed the notebook shut before I caught a glimpse.

“That’s my little secret,” was all she would say.

The next day, and the next, passed in that manner. We saw neither Evis nor Gertriss, which only confirmed Darla’s assertion that they had set up housekeeping together.
 

It was the day after that, right before dusk, that a shrill new whistle blew three times, just as Dutson was setting our table near the stage.

Waiters and busboys and cooks and carpenters all began to rush past, hurrying toward the doors and the open deck beyond it. None looked alarmed. Even Dutson sported a sudden smile.

“That signals the final piston and boiler test,” he said in reply to the question I hadn’t had time to ask. “Might I suggest we delay our repast for a short time? The
Queen
will be taking to the river under her own power if all goes well.”

Darla and I rose as one. The
Queen
began to hum and shake beneath our feet. The sounds of metal groaning and ironwood beams popping filled the silent casino.

“This I want to see,” said Darla. I was glad to watch a genuine smile cross her face.
 

I moved toward the door, Dutson at my side.

“So how much do you stand to gain, and which way did you bet?”

He didn’t bother with a blustered denial.

“Ten crowns,” he said. “And she’ll be setting forth, mark my words, sir. These men know their business, even if no one else does. Her wheel will turn.”

We pushed our way onto the crowded deck. I made room for Darla and cleared us a spot right by the rail.

The starboard side of the
Queen’s
bright red paddle wheel was just barely visible from where we stood. The wharf and the gangway were on the port side, so we looked out on nothing but the wide, sluggish face of the Brown, which flowed serenely past as if nothing of note was taking place.

The horn sounded again, three more times. Dutson grinned and gripped the rail.

“Here we go, sir.”

A throbbing hum, pitched too low to be called a roar and too powerful to be ignored, rose up through the deck. The throbbing intensified, building and falling in a slow, measured rhythm, rapidly transforming from a throatless growl to a
thum-thum-thum
reminiscent of the beating of some great unhurried heart.

The
Queen’s
blunt bow was right against the dock. I saw ropes flying, cast off by a horde of scurrying deck hands, and I realized the
Queen’s
first movements would have to be both backwards and against the current.

The deck shuddered. There came the sound of steel against steel, the sudden piercing hiss of steam, and then the
thum-thum-thum
doubled in pace and then doubled again. Then, with a clank and a roar, the
Queen’s
new red wheel began to thrash and turn.

She bit the Brown and took hold, and damned if we didn’t back easily out into the river and make a flawless half-turn, putting the
Queen’s
face north.

Her boilers burned and her pistons reached and her wheel reversed and we moved against the river, leaving behind a pair of smoke-trails and sparks.

The deck exploded in cheers. I didn’t spot a long face in the crowd, despite the losses in the betting pool I knew many of them just suffered. Fists were raised and hats were waved and a pair of sooty firemen even danced a brief jig right there in the sun.

Dutson, ever the model of polite decorum, observed the celebrations with only the faintest ghost of a grin. “As I said, sir, they know their business.”

The breeze shifted, bringing with it a mist of spray from the
Queen’s
churning wheel. The sound of it, even near the bow, was that of ten thousand open hands all slapping the water over and over in some bizarre game of Splash the Finder.

“I shall see to your table, sir. Please spend as long as you like above. This is a rare fine sight.”

“It’s history.” Evis spoke, right behind me, and I turned to face him. “Welcome to the Age of Steam, Markhat. Let’s hope we live long enough to enjoy it.”

He was clad in his usual daytime attire—yards and yards of black silk, which lent him the appearance of a storybook haunt, aside from the expensive leather shoes with spats, his hat, and his dark-tinted spectacles. Something in the way he slumped against the rail told me his face would be weary, if any of it were visible.

A pair of uniformed engineers ran up, all smiles. One shook my hand though I’m sure he didn’t remember me and the other chattered to Evis about reach rods and doctor pumps.