Albert smiled. “Glad to have you back among us, Doc. Now, come on over here and let’s talk.”
Doc paused a moment, taking up an armload of books. He used his cane across the bottom of them to brace them while he carried them. He sat at the table, taking up one of the stools. He placed the lantern beside him, then began going through the book.
“How did you get here?” Albert asked again.
Cobb reached into one of the shelves and brought out a jug. He poured the amber liquid into five metal cups and passed them around.
Doc sniffed the cup, finding the smell of alcohol strong and burning. “My word, but do you not know the meaning of subtlety when it comes to home brew?”
“Don’t have time to get it perfect,” Cobb argued. “Answer Albert’s question about how you got here.”
“Why, we walked, of course.”
“You and your friends?”
“My companions and I, yes.” Doc sipped the brew and found it too strong for his taste. He put down the cup and began leafing through his collection of books.
“And you never heard of the plague before?” Cobb demanded.
“No.”
“Somehow that doesn’t sound right. You got to admit that.”
Doc fixed the man with a hard gaze. “Have you ever heard of Ralph Waldo Emerson?”
Cobb looked around at the other three men in the room, disregarding Doc’s frank stare. “No.”
“Yet you stand in a room filled with books,” Doc continued. “I even saw some of Emerson’s works on your shelves. I find that it does not sound right that you have never embraced the man’s writing.”
“What’s that got to do with—?” Cobb began.
“Exactly my point,” Doc roared. “That I have not heard of the plague ere now simply means that neither I nor my companions have heard of the plague. What you actually want to know is a way out of your present problem, and with that I may be of some pedestrian help. Assuming that my companions are amenable.” That, the old man knew, would depend on whether Ryan thought he could get them out of the ville without raising an army to do it. And if a way could be found around the plague.
Chapter Twelve
“Kirkland cut off your arm?” Ryan asked. He tore one of the fancy biscuits in two and spread honey butter across it.
“That isn’t all.” She waved to the maid, who had returned and stood in the shadows. “I’m afraid his vengeance was quite complete.”
Reluctantly the maid rolled the wheelchair back. Aunt Maim pulled back the blanket across her legs and revealed that she only had one of those, as well. The other was perfect and slender, poking down from the hem of her dress, her foot encased in a jade green slipper.
“The animal took her arm, her leg, her breast, her eye, her ear,” the maid said in a shaking voice.
“That’s enough, Jocelyn,” Aunt Maim ordered.
The maid subsided, but cried quietly into the palm of one hand. “You were so beautiful,” she choked out.
“I still am,” the hosteler said in a firm voice.
But Ryan heard the quaver in her words. “You still are,” he agreed.
The woman covered her leg and her stump with the blanket and nodded her head in appreciation. Color touched her cheeks. “Thank you. I am not told that by enough men these days.”
She glanced at Krysty. “I beg your indulgence.”
“Of course,” the redhead replied. “What Ryan and I have together has been through a lot. Neither of us is afraid to speak his or her mind.”
“More people should be able to conduct their lives in such a fashion. Push me forward, please, Jocelyn.”
The maid gently wheeled the chair under the table, then she stepped back into the shadows.
“I apologize for the inconvenience in your meal. I know discussion of such matters is not good for the palate.”
“The meal’s good,” Ryan said. “I don’t see how anything short of getting chilled is going to interfere with that.”
“I’ll pass your kind words on to the cooks.” Aunt Maim sipped her drink.
“Cutting things down to the bone here,” Ryan said, “I suppose there’s a reason why you asked us here and not the rest of our people.”