There was nobody in the room.
Nor were there any windows. Oil lamps stood on broad ledges, casting a warm glow over the room. The dining table was twenty feet in length, set with a good linen cloth and a mixed and mismatched assortment of china, glass and cutlery. Five dining chairs were ranged around itone at the head, a pair on each side, quite close, and then another pair, farther down, close to the bottom of the table.
“We the first?” Ryan said.
“Looks like it. Hey, take in those swords up there, over the fireplace.”
It was a fine array, the points all driving toward the center, the hilts equidistant from one another, golden tassels dangling beneath.
“Two different kinds,” Ryan observed. “Why’s that, J.B.? Whole shapeand the hilts aren’t the same.”
J.B. stared up at them. “Kind of dusty and dirty, aren’t they? Could do with a polish. Different, Ryan? Not sure. Edged weapons aren’t my specialty. I think those that are slightly less curved with the bigger guard are for cavalry officers from the Civil War. So, the other kind is probably infantry.”
“Nice try, Mr. Dix, and half-right.” The baron reached up with the tip of his stick. “That is indeed a Model 35, the cavalry saber. Regulation weapon. This other one, this is a Number 24 light artillery saber.”
Neither of them had heard Baron Tenbos enter the room.
J.B. nodded, not even turning around. “Yeah. Course. I should’ve been able to work that out for myself. Like I said, blasters are my love.”
“Then we’ll have a look at them before you leave. If you want to stay a few days, rest up, you’d be welcome. Don’t often get outlanders passing through who rode with Trader. Toughest man I ever met. Not many pleasures left to a man in my sorry condition, and talking over old times, not worth the forgetting, would be good for me.”
Ryan answered for both of them. “Thanks, but no thanks, Baron. Things we have to do.”
Tenbos sat down at the head of the table, wincing with pain, trying to disguise it. “Things that a man can’t ride around, Cawdor? I understand that.” He gestured to the pair of seats nearest to him. “Please”
“Your sons?”
“They prefer not to be too close to a man with the taint of death about him. All they wish is that I take the ride with the dark ferryman as speedily as possible. None of us have any doubt that they would help me across the river if they could find some scheme that would enable them to get away with it. Ah, speaking of the devils, here they come.”
J.B. and Ryan had only just sat down, and they both looked curiously at the pair of young men who walked in through the double doors.
At a first glance, it was quite difficult to tell the brothers apart. Both were stocky, powerfully built, with the tanned faces of young farmers, both with black curly hair that hung low across their napes and both had a single gold stud glittering in their right ears.
“Robby and Teddy,” Tenbos said in the sort of voice that might describe something stuck to the bottom of your boots. “Robby is the one slouching on the left, the one who is wearing my wife’s wedding ring.”
“My mother’s wedding ring, Baron,” the young man replied, his voice quiet and unemotional.
“As you like, as you like. Sit down. These guests are Ryan Cawdor and”
“J. B. Dix,” Teddy finished. “We know, Father.” He managed to make “father” sound like something very disagreeable. “Two old killers from Trader’s gang.”
Ryan smiled at them, concealing the sudden red mist of anger that flooded over his mind at the studied rudeness. “There are those who have said that over the years. But Trader had no enemies, young man.”
“No enemies?” Robby mocked.
“None alive,” J.B. said.
THE FOOD WAS PLAIN and adequate, without any fancy sauces or herbs and spices.
The sons and Ryan and J.B. had a soup of vegetables, followed by a plain trout with a green salad and then slices of rare roast beef with whipped potatoes and thin-sliced carrots. The dessert was a sponge pudding with honey and thick cream. Beer accompanied the meal.