His jaw snapped shut. A moment later, he hastened to obey. While he did so, I turned back to the cook.
“Some meat paste. Cold—lukewarm at least—not hot.” Fortunately, she was either quicker-witted than her husband or less confused, so I was not forced to shake her as well. By the time her husband was halfway through the process of coating me with flour, the cook had returned with some greasy meat paste on a wooden spatula.
By then, my plans were made. “Smear it here, and here,” I commanded, pointing to a spot just above my kidney and on the corresponding side of my stomach, just opposite. “I rather doubt that’s exactly where the Baron stabbed the Sieur, but it hardly matters. I dare say the surviving eyewitness will not remember the fine details.”
She smeared the meat paste over the spots indicated. I couldn’t see the result on my back, but the one on my belly made quite a gruesome-looking imitation of a wound. In dim lighting, at least—which was all there was in that misbegotten castle.
“And that’s it!” I exclaimed softly. “The scene is set.”
The cook and the servant were back to ogling me. I gave them a cheerful smile—it must have looked ghastly, my face covered with flour—and dug into my pack again. This time, retrieving a poignard in a sheath which I thrust into my belt.
I gestured at my sack and easel, lying on the floor. “Do watch over them, would you? And I’d suggest you clean up the evidence while I’m gone. This shouldn’t take long.”
I spun and bounded into the hallway leading back to the feasting hall. I saw no reason for any further delay.
I paused briefly, at the entrance to the feasting, simply to assure myself that no great change had taken place. The girl doing the striptease on the table was now completely nude; the sister in the Baron’s lap seemed even more unhappy than ever; the retainers drunker. But other than that, the scene remained essentially the same.
All of which, I was delighted to see, came together quite perfectly. I took but a moment to assess the rest of the enterprise, and was then bounding down the stairs. I would say “gleefully,” but I assure you I maintained my cold blood throughout. Even my uncles would have approved.
“Revenge!” I bellowed. “Face me, Baron! The Sieur Henri has returned!”
Bullfighting is, of course, a popular sport in Ozarae. And while my uncles disapprove of the pastime, they did not fail to train me a bit in that art as well. I dare say my rapier went right through the back of the Baron’s neck and severed his spine as neatly as any matador could have done.
That splendid enterprise having been achieved, I moved on to the next. Being as I am right-handed, the choice was obvious. Two quick steps brought me past the Baron’s skewered form, gushing blood onto his platter. I now stood on open floor to his left. The girl, I was pleased to note, sprang off his lap immediately. The lieutenant seated just in front of me was gaping drunkenly at the Baron’s throat, from which a good foot of my blade protruded. The man across from him—the girls’ original captor—was staring at me as if he was looking at a ghost.
Which, of course, he was.
“And you as well!” I bellowed. “Vengeance is mine!” I had no idea, of course, if the lieutenant had played any part in the Sieur de Pouilleux’s demise. But it hardly seemed to matter. In the Baronies, I was quite certain, revenge was a sloppy affair.
The lieutenant’s mouth opened and he began to squall in terror. The squall was cut short by the tip of my whip, coiling around his neck like a boa. I seized the handle with both hands and, with a great and titanic heave, jerked him right out of his chair and sprawled both him and the table onto the man seated before me. The whole lot ended up in a very nice and tidy jumble.
I am quite a powerful man, as I believe I’ve mentioned. As the captor more or less sailed across the table, I heard his neck break as cleanly as even my uncle Larue could have asked.