As the scullery maid continued chopping vegetables, the cook expertly tipped the iron skillet to fill a wooden bowl with the mushrooms and not miss a drop of the garlic sauce. A serving girl took the bowl and placed it on her tray atop a decorative doily. Hurrying from the kitchen, she paused by the steward for the man to spit on the food, then she burst through the double doors, heading for the dining hall.
“Special treat for Baron Overton!” she called, entering the dining hall. Placing the steaming bowl at the head of the table, she gave a curtsy and departed for the next course.
Ryan eyed the slimy mess in repulsion, wondering what the staff had done to the food. Spit or piss? Probably spit. It carried less flavor. Rumor was that Harvey had mostly dined on the saliva of the kitchen staff for his whole life. A wise baron never bullied the cooks. “To Ryan!” a sec man in brown shouted. “To Overton!” a man in blue replied. “To Baron Cawdor!” Doc shouted, curtailing yet another fight at the table.
The people roared their approval with true gusto. Appearing from the crowd, Overton sat heavily at his chair. “So tell me more about your journeys, Father,” he said, spearing a mushroom on a fork and eating the delicacy with gusto.
The conversation turned to tales of battle and lies about women. Nathan excused himself at midnight, and it was near dawn before Ryan finally managed to leave without suspicion.
As he climbed the stairs to the western wing of bedrooms, several blue shuts followed in his wake, with several brown shirts close on their heels. Acting much drunker than they were, Doc, Clem and J.B. collided in the doorway, blocking the stairs in a drunken tangle of limbs, until Ryan was long gone from sight, his destination unknown.
Chapter Twelve
The music faded into the distance as Ryan climbed the stairs, turning and ducking down hallways and through curtained alcoves. As children, he and his brothers had played this game many times, but the Deathlands warrior never dreamed an intimate knowledge of the fortress would ever come in handy this way, evading armed pursuers.
Pausing at an intersection, he waited with the SIG-Sauer in hand to see if he was being followed. After a few minutes, he bolstered the weapon and continued onward. Squeezing through a short sloping tunnel made of brick, the purpose of which was lost in predark history, Ryan emerged into a long hallway lined with closed doorsguest rooms. Overton and his personal troops had taken over the east wing, with the rest of his sec men billeted in the barracks, leaving the entire west wing empty and barren. At the end of the passage, Ryan eased open a heavy door and climbed another flight of winding steps higher and higher until exiting on a parapet, the stonework balcony curving gently from the side of the ville and overlooking the southern acres of farmland, pastures and forest.
Stepping onto the chilly parapet, Ryan spotted a dark figure in the shadows. The person stood as if hunched against a fierce wind, both hands tight on the stone railing cresting a low wall.
“Crops were good this summer,” Nathan said, seemingly out of nowhere. “We’ll last the winter without short rations. First time in years.”
“Good news,” Ryan answered casually, walking closer. The tension from the man was palpable, like heat radiating from a furnace. “We’ll be glad to help with the eating and the drinking.”
Closing his eyes, Nathan didn’t smile at the joke, and he tightened his grip on the railing. “Look at that view,” he said, extending an arm. In the distance, the rocky Goliaths of the Shen Mountains of Virginia rose to challenge the sky, the slopes faintly bluish from the dense growth of Scotch pines and spruce trees. “A thousand years ago, somebody saw the exact same thing, and a thousand from now somebody will again. Mountains last forever.”
“Unless they get nuked,” Ryan snapped irritably.
“True. Too bad your woman Krysty couldn’t be here.” he said.
“She is,” Ryan answered, standing next to the baron. “Krysty and Mildred, a friend, were only a couple of hours behind us. Krysty had a fever, which broke shortly after we departed, and they arrived a little while ago. She’s been in the dining room since midnight, eating everything not nailed down.”