“Weapons?”
Krysty was cutting up some of the meat for him. “Apart from some blunt knives and forks, not a lot. Haven’t seen a blaster in the place. Yet. Actually the cutlery is kind of ornate.” She paused. “Yeah, it’s silver. Patterned with an acanthus pattern on the handles and engraved on the blades.”
“Rather old and rather fine, if I’m any judge,” Doc offered. “Possibly an English design. And the plates are certainly from England. Wonderful predark quality, Royal Doulton. Look at the detail on the flower paintings.”
“Wish that I could, Doc,” Ryan said, unable to stop his bitterness.
“My dear fellow, I do apologize. Thoughtless of me, in extremis . Yes, mea culpa, Ryan, old friend.”
Ryan shrugged, one hand knocking into Krysty, sending the forkful of lamb clattering onto the floor.
“Forward!” Norman clicked his fingers, calling out to the servants in his fluting voice.
The meal dragged slowly on.
“Got some fruit juice smeared on your chin, lover. Let me wipe it.” She leaned closer to him, her face close to his, dropping her voice. “Being watched. Gallery around the hall at second-floor level. Think it’s what they called a minstrels’ balcony. Very shadowy up there.”
“Danger?” His hand dropped to find the comforting butt of the SIG-Sauer.
“Can’t tell. I think” She leaned across the table. “Jak, you got good vision in dark places. Take a look up in the black spaces between”
“Elric Cornelius. Been watching eight minutes. Hasn’t moved once.”
“Anyone else?” J.B. asked, his glasses glinting in the light of the polished brass oil lamps.
The albino teenager glanced up again, looking all around the vaulted gallery. “Nobody. Haven’t seen sign anyone looked like sec man.”
Ryan sat in his own darkness, absently chewing a gristly piece of meat, pondering what he’d been told about the fortified mansion of the Family servants that seemed like they were drugged, all except for the little butler, Norman; surprisingly poor food for a baron’s home; no members of the baronial family coming to greet their guests, except for the snow-headed Elric, who was lurking in the balcony. And no sec men.
That was strangest of all.
Over the years of his life in Deathlands, Ryan had to have visited hundreds of villes, and met most of the barons who ruled them. Though he scratched hard at his memory, he couldn’t recall a single case where a baron managed without any members of a security force.
Some barons ruled with terror. Some with brutal power. Some were comparatively kind and decent toward the people of their domain.
But not one could have slept easy in his bed at night without the sure and certain knowledge of the blasters that defended him.
It was a common fact that few barons in Deathlands lived out a natural span close to the biblical three score and ten. It was also well enough known that most were murdered by wives or mistresses. Next came sons or daughters, then brothers or sisters. You went way down the butchery tables to find barons who’d been deposed and slaughtered by their own sec chiefs or men.
He wondered how the Cornelius Family kept its grip on the people of Bramton and the surrounding lands if they had no sec men. It didn’t make sense.
“Sec men must be out of sight, out of the way,” he whispered to Krysty.
“They do not exist, Ryan Cawdor. We do not need them.” The answering voice came from high above his head, making him jump, confirming his suspicion that Elric Cornelius had to have preternaturally keen hearing to have caught his muttered words from way up in the galleryunless there was some cunning trick of the acoustics that carried sound around a building. Ryan had heard of such things.
Ryan stared blankly up. “Friend of mine used to say that a man who said he never needed help was already way beyond any help,” he called.
A light laugh hung in the air.
There was the faintest whisper of feet on stone steps, then Elric was among them.
“I see that the food we prepared was not much to your liking,” he said, glancing around at the plates, most of which carried the piled detritus of the disappointing meal.
“Long on quantity and perhaps a little short on quality,” Doc replied.
“If you stay awhile with us, then you must instruct us on how to improve. Guests from the outlands are rare here. And food such as this” he swept out a long arm, ending in pale, bloodless fingers, “is not what we choose for our own pleasures. Not at all.”
Ryan hesitated, wanting to ask the man what they ate for their own pleasure. But there was something about being blind that held him back. Cornelius had already shown himself capable of anger, and without being able to see the man’s face, Ryan felt himself unable to judge what his reaction might be.
“Have you done with the food?” Elric was moving around the room and had come to a halt directly behind Ryan, increasing his discomfort.
“We have,” Krysty replied. “It’s been a heavy day, especially for Ryan and me. I think we’d all like to get ourselves some rest now. If that’s all right with you.”
“But, of course. Norman will show you to the rooms that have been set aside for you. They all have running water and all facilities. It will not be “necessary” for anyone to leave his, or her, room during the night.”
The threatening stress on “necessary” was unmistakable, and J.B. responded to it first.
“You saying harm might come if we don’t stay in our rooms? What kind of harm would that be?”
Ryan heard the smile from Cornelius. “You make it sound as though you worry that your lives might be threatened, John Dix. This is a large and rambling house, and we would not wish any of you to come to harm. That is all. Norman, you may take over, and I wish all a good night.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ryan slept fitfully. The passing of the hours had become an enigma to him, and when he woke for the fifth or sixth time he’d completely lost touch with how late or early it was.
There had been a dream where he was in the ruins of a great metropolisperhaps Newyork. It seemed a center for travel, and there were dozens of commercial transport wags, filling with passengers. Ryan had known that he wanted to get to a ville in the Shens, but he couldn’t remember the name of it. And the destination boards on the fronts and sides of the wags were all blank.
He had asked bustling men and women which was the right vehicle to catch for the Shens, but they’d all pushed by him, faces averted, intent on their own business.
Finally he’d taken the nearest wag, but it had been empty, with shuttered doors and windows and no way of communicating with the driver.
He had awakened from that jolting darkness to the blackness of the bedroom that Norman had showed him and Krysty late the previous night.
“Krysty?” he whispered, reaching to his left side, where he knew she’d been sleeping.
But the space was empty, the sheets cold.
Ryan drew the SIG-Sauer, cocking it automatically, the click sounding unusually loud.
A door creaked open to the right of the big, high bed. “Why the blaster, lover?”
He eased the hammer down and replaced the heavy automatic under the pillow. “Woke and you weren’t there.”
“Went for a pee. Found it hard to sleep. Something about this place makes me uneasy, Ryan.”
“Yeah, I felt it, too. Got locked into a classic anxiety dream about getting lost on a journey.”
“I was walking across a heather-covered land and it got evening and something was coming after me. Pretty ghosty. Goes with the look of this house.”
Ryan had been sitting up and he lay down again. “When you get a chance, pass the word to the others to stay on orange. Something I don’t like about the Family.”
“Only met one member, so far.”
“Yeah, well, that’s enough to go on. Just tell the others to be careful and not to go around on their own.”
“Sure.” She slipped back into bed and made him jump by putting her cold bare feet on his thigh.
But she quickly grew warmer.
BREAKFAST WAS little better than the supper had been.
Servants knocked on every door at seven-thirty, just after dawn, waking everyone with the news that the food would be served in the dining hall in thirty minutes.
The house was so large that there had been a room for each person, on the second and third floors, opening off long, shadowy corridors.
There was also a fourth floor, but J.B.’s hasty recce the previous evening hadn’t found a way up there.
“Think there’s also a cellar,” be said as he helped himself from the buffet on the ornate mahogany sideboard, picking from a wide and generous selection of magnificent silver chafing dishes, each set over a small spirit burner to keep the food piping hot.