Part 24 (1/2)
”Just-just a little idiot savant, isn't it so?” said Golescu. ”Clever at doing sums. Why you're not using his big white brain to get rich, I can't imagine; but there it is. Is there anything else Nursie ought to know about his care and feeding?”
”Only that I'll hunt you down and kill you if you kidnap him while I'm gone,” said Amaunet, without raising her voice in the slightest yet managing to convince Golescu that she was perfectly sincere. It gave him another vaguely disturbing thrill.
”I seek only to be worthy of your trust, my precious one,” he said. ”Where are you going, anyway?”
”That's none of your business.”
”To be sure,” he agreed, bowing and sc.r.a.ping. ”And you're taking the rear wagon, are you? One can't help wondering, my black dove of the mysteries, whether this has anything to do with all the loot hidden back there. Perhaps you have a rendezvous with someone who'll take it off your hands, eh?”
Her look of contempt went through him like a knife, but he knew he'd guessed correctly * * * search.
No money at all, nor any personal things that might give him any clue to her history. There were a few decorative items, obviously meant to give an Egyptian impression to her customers: a half-size mummy case of papier- mache. A hanging scroll, hieroglyphs printed on cloth, of French manufacture.
No perfumes or cosmetics by the washbasin; merely a bar of yellow soap. Golescu sniffed it and recoiled; no fragrance but lye. Whence, then, that intoxicating whiff of not-quite-cinnamon on her skin?
No writing desk, no papers. There was something that might have been intended for writing, a polished box whose front opened out flat to reveal a dull mirror of green gla.s.s at its rear. It was empty.
Golescu gave it no more than a cursory glance. After he'd closed it, he rubbed the fingertips of his hand together, for they tingled slightly.
Not much in the larder: dry bread, an onion, a few potatoes. Several cooking pots and a was.h.i.+ng copper. Golescu looked at it thoughtfully, rubbing his chin.
”But no money,” he said aloud.
He sat heavily on her bed, snorting in frustration. Hearing a faint squeak of protest, he rose to his feet again and looked down. ”Yes, of course!” he said, and opened the drawer under the bed. Emil whimpered and rolled away from the light, covering his face with his hands.
”h.e.l.lo, don't mind me,” said Golescu, scooping him out. He got down on his hands and knees, ignoring Emil's cries, and peered into the s.p.a.ce. ”Where does your mistress keep her gold, my darling?
Not in here, eh? h.e.l.l and d.a.m.nation.”
He sat back. Emil attempted to scramble past him, back into the shadows, but he caught the little man by one leg.
”Emil, my jewel, you'll never amount to much in this world if you can't walk around in the daytime,”
he said. ”And you won't be much use to me, either. What's your quarrel with the sun, anyway?”
”It burns my eyes,” Emil wept.
”Does it?” Golescu dragged him close, prized down his hands and looked into his wet eyes. ”Perhaps there's something we can do about that, eh? And once we've solved that problem....” His voice trailed off, as he began to smile. Emil wriggled free and vanished back into the drawer. Golescu slid it shut with his foot.
”Sleep, potato-boy,” he said, hauling himself to his feet. ”Don't go anyplace, and dear Uncle Barbu will be back with presents this afternoon.”
Humming to himself, he mopped his face with Amaunet's drawers, replaced them in his pocket, and left the wagon. Pausing only to lock its door, he set off for the nearest road.
(t took him a while to find a town, however, and what with one thing and another it was nearly sundown before Golescu came back to the wagon.
He set down his burdens-one large box and a full sack-and unlocked the door.
”Come out, little Emil,” he said, and on receiving no reply he clambered in and pulled the drawer open. ”Come out of there!”
”I'm hungry” said Emil, sounding accusatory, but he did not move.
”Come out and I'll boil you a nice potato, eh? It's safe; the sun's gone down. Don't you want to see what I got you, ungrateful thing?”
Emil came unwillingly, as Golescu backed out before him. He stepped down from the door, looking around, his tiny weak mouth pursed in suspicion. Catching sight of the low red sun, he let out a shrill cry and clapped his hands over his eyes.
”Yes, I lied,” Golescu told him. ”but just try these-” He drew from his pocket a pair of blue spectacles and, wrenching Emil's hands away, settled them on the bridge of his nose. they promptly fell off, as Emil's nose was far too small and thin to keep them up, and they only had one earpiece anyway.
Golescu dug hastily in the sack he had brought and drew out a long woolen scarf. He cut a pair of slits in it, as Emil wailed and jigged in front of him. Clapping the spectacles back on Emil's face and holding them in place a moment with his thumb, he tied the scarf about his head like a blindfold and widened the slits so the gla.s.s optics poked through.
”Look! Goggles!” he said. ”So you're protected, see? Open your d.a.m.ned eves, you baby!”
Emil must have obeyed, for he stood still suddenly, dropping his hands to his sides. His mouth hung open in an expression of feeble astonishment.
”But, wait!” said Golescu. ”There's more!” He reached into the sack again and brought out a canvas coachman's duster, draping it around Emil's shoulders. It had been made for someone twice Emil's size, so it reached past his knees, indeed it trailed on the ground; and Golescu had a difficult three minutes'
labor working Emil's limp arms through the sleeves and rolling the cuffs up. But, once it had been painstakingly b.u.t.toned, Emil stood as though in a tent.
”And the crowning touch-” Golescu brought from the sack a wide- brimmed felt hat and set it on Emil's head. Golescu sat back to admire the result.
”Now, don't you look nice?” he said. Emil in fact looked rather like a mushroom, but his mouth had closed. ”You see? You're protected from the sun. The vampyr may walk abroad by day. Thanks are in order to good old Uncle Barbu, eh?
”I want my potato,” said Emil.
”Pah! All right, let's feast. We've got a lot of work to do tonight,” said Golescu, taking up the sack and shaking it meaningfully.
Fairly quickly he built a fire and set water to boil for Emil's potato. He fried himself a feast indeed from what he had brought: rabbit, bacon and onions, and a jug of wine red as bull's blood to wash it down. The wine outlasted the food by a comfortable margin. He set it aside and lit a fine big cigar as Emil dutifully carried the pans down to the stream to wash them.
”Good slave,” said Golescu happily, and blew a smoke ring. ”A man could get used to this kind of life. When you're done with those, bring out the laundry-copper. I'll help you fill it. And get some more wood for the fire!”
When Emil brought the copper forth they took it to the stream and filled it; then carried it back to the fire, staggering and slopping, and set it to heat. Golescu drew- from the sack another of his purchases, a three-kilo paper bag with a chemist's seal on it. Emil had been gazing at the bright fire, his vacant face rendered more vacant by the goggles; but he turned his head to stare at the paper bag.
”Are we making the Black Cup?” he asked.
”No, my darling, we're making a golden cup,” said Golescu. He opened the bag and dumped its contents into the copper, which had just begun to steam. ”Good strong yellow dye, see? We'll let it boil good, and when it's mixed-” he reached behind him, dragging close the box he had brought. He opened it, and the firelight winked in the gla.s.s necks of one hundred and forty-four little bottles. ”And when it's cooled, we'll funnel it into these. Then we'll sell them to the poultry farmers in the valley down there.”
”Why?” said Emil.
”As medicine,” Golescu explained. ”We'll tell them it'll grow giant chickens, eh? That'll fill the purse of twenty thousand lei back up again in no time. This never fails, believe me. The dye makes the yolks more yellow, and the farmers think that means the eggs are richer. Ha! As long as you move on once you've sold all your bottles, you can pull this one anywhere.”
”Medicine,” said Emil.
”That's right,” said Golescu. He took a final drag on his cigar, tossed it into the fire, and reached for the wine jug.
”What a lovely evening,” he said, taking a drink. ”What stars, eh? They make a man reflect, indeed they do. At times like this, I look back on my career and ponder the ironies of fate. I was not always a vagabond, you see.
”No, in fact, I had a splendid start in life. Born to a fine aristocratic family, you know. We had a castle. Armorial devices on our stained gla.s.s windows. Servants just to walk the dog. None of that came to me, of course; I was a younger son. But I went to University, graduated with full honors, was brilliant in finance.