Part 15 (2/2)
”Perverse, indeed!” Abernathy declared, banging his coffee cup down on the table, his ears flopping for emphasis. ”That is just the word! It describes them perfectly!”
”You never know what to expect!”
”You can't begin to guess what they might do!”
”They don't listen to reason!”
”The word doesn't exist for them!”
”You expect them to do something, they do something else entirely!”
”They very last thing you'd imagine!”
They were both revved up now, practically shouting at each other.
”Tell them what you want them to do, they ignore you!”
”Tell them what you don't want them to do, they do it anyway!”
”Go here, you say, and they go there!”
”No, no!” Questor was practically beside himself. ”Go here, and they tell you they won't, but then they do anyway!”
The air seemed to go out of them all at once, that final revelatory sentence left hanging in the wind like the last leaf of autumn. They stared at each other, a similar realization dawning on both at the same moment.
”No,” Abernathy said softly. ”She wouldn't.”
”Why not?” Questor Thews replied just as softly.
”Just to spite us?”
”No, not to spite us. To deceive us. To go to the last place we would think to look for her.”
”But her tracks ...”
”Covered up by Edgewood Dirk for reasons best known to him.”
”And maybe to her. An alliance between them, you think?”
”I don't know. But isn't Libiris the very last place we would think to look for her?”
Abernathy had to admit that it was.
Much farther east, on the far end of the Greensward, another was contemplating Mistaya's disappearance, though with much less insight. Berwyn Laphroig, Lord of Rhyndweir, was growing increasingly vexed at the inability of his retainers to track down the missing Princess, a ch.o.r.e he felt they should have been able to accomplish within the first thirty-six hours of learning that she was missing. She was a young girl in a country where young girls did not go unescorted in safety. Thus she had chosen to accept the company of a pair of G'home Gnomes-this much he had managed to learn through his spies. This, and not much more. Since the discovery that she had turned up at her grandfather's in the company of the Gnomes, not another word had been heard of her.
In something approaching a rage, he had dispatched Cordstick to personally undertake the search, no longer content to rely on those underlings who barely knew left from right. Not that Cordstick knew much more, but he was ambitious, and ambition always served those who knew how to harness it. Cordstick would like very much to advance his position in the court, abandoning the t.i.tle of ”Scribe” in favor of something showier, something like ”Minister of State.” There was no such position at this juncture; Laphroig had never seen the need for it. But the t.i.tle could be bestowed quickly enough should the right candidate appear. Cordstick fancied himself that candidate, and Laphroig, eager to advance his own stock in Landover by way of marrying Mistaya Holiday, was willing to give the man his chance.
If Cordstick failed him, of course, the position would remain open. Along with that of ”Scribe.”
A page appeared at the open door of the study where Laphroig sat contemplating his fate and crawled across the floor on hands and knees, nose sc.r.a.ping the ground. ”My Lord,” the man begged.
”Yes, what is it?”
”Scrivener Cordstick has returned, my Lord. He begs permission to give you his report.”
Laphroig leaped to his feet. ”Bring him to me at once.”
He walked to one of the tower windows and looked out over the countryside, enjoying the sound of the page sc.r.a.ping his way back across the stones. He admired the sweep of his lands in the wash of midday sunlight, though he had to admit that his castle was rather stark by comparison. He must find a way to brighten it up a bit. A few more banners or some heads on pikes, perhaps.
He heard movement behind him.
”Well?” he demanded, wheeling about. ”What have you-” He broke off midsentence, his eyes widening in shock. ”Dragon's breath and troll's teeth, what's happened to you?”
Cordstick stood to one side, leaning rather uncertainly against a stone pillar. He was standing because it was apparently too painful for him to sit, although it might have been a toss-up had there been a way to measure such things. He was splinted and bandaged from head to foot. The parts of his skin that were not under wrap were various shades of purple and blue with slashes of vivid red. His right eye was swollen shut and enlarged to the size of an egg. His hair was sticking straight up and here and there were quills sticking out of his body.
”What happened?” Cordstick repeated his master's words as if he was not quite able to fathom them. ”Besides the porcupine, the bog wump, the fire ants, the fall from the cliff, the beating at the hands of angry farmers, the dragging through the fields by the horse that threw me, and the encounter with the feral pigs? Besides being driven out of a dozen taverns and thrown out of a dozen more? Not a lot, really.”
”Well,” Laphroig said, an abrupt utterance that he apparently intended to say everything. ”Well, we'll see that you get double pay for your efforts. Now what did you find out?”
Cordstick shook his head. ”I found out that I should never have left the castle and may never do so again. Certainly not without an armed escort. The world is a vicious place, my Lord.”
”Yes, yes, I know all that. But what about the Princess? What have you found out about her?”
”Found out about her? Besides the fact that she's still missing? Besides the fact that looking for her was perhaps the single most painful undertaking of my life?”
His voice was rising steadily, taking on a dangerously manic tone, and Laphroig took a step back despite himself. There was a wild glint in his scribe's eyes, one he had never seen before.
”Stop this whining, Cordstick!” he ordered, trying to bring things under control. ”Others have suffered in my cause, and you don't hear them complaining.”
”That's because they are all dead, my Lord! Which, by all rights, I should be, too!”
”Nonsense! You've just suffered a few superficial injuries. Now get on with it! You try my patience with your complaints. Leave all that for later. Tell me about the Princess!”
”Might I have a gla.s.s of wine, my Lord? From the flask that is not poisoned?”
Laphroig could hardly miss the irony in the wording of the request, but he chose to ignore it. At least until he got his report out of the man. It was beginning to look as if Cordstick might have outlived his usefulness and should be dispensed with before he did something ill advised. Like trying to strangle his master, for example, which his eyes suggested he was already thinking of doing.
He poured Cordstick a gla.s.s of the good wine and handed it to him. ”Drink that down, and we'll talk.”
His scribe took the gla.s.s with a shaking hand, guided it to his lips, and drained it in a single gulp. Then he held it out for a refill. Laphroig obliged, silently cursing his generosity. Cordstick drank that one down, too.
”My Lord,” he said, wiping his lips with his s.h.i.+rtsleeve, ”I understand better now why those who do your bidding do so as spies and not openly. That is another mistake I will not make again.”
If you get the chance to make another mistake, an enraged Laphroig thought. Where does this dolt get the idea that he can criticize his Lord and master in this fas.h.i.+on? Where did this newfound audacity come from? Where does this dolt get the idea that he can criticize his Lord and master in this fas.h.i.+on? Where did this newfound audacity come from?
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