Aunt Maim regarded him with her one dark eye, resting her chin on her only hand. “Of course.”
“Like to know what that is.”
“You’re a direct man, Ryan Cawdor.”
“I had a friend who had a way of looking at life. Over, under or around. That was his philosophy, and it stood him in good stead.”
“And where is this friend now?”
“Chilled, mebbe. Mebbe getting laid and planning his next big trade.” Ryan didn’t think much about how he’d left it with the Trader, but the thoughts remained with him. The Trader and Abe had perhaps given their lives to save those of the companions. “But let’s cut back to the chase here.”
“All right.” The woman paused. “I want you to kill Kirkland.”
“Couple things I see wrong with that,” Ryan said. “Chief among them is the possibility of the plague chilling us right after we chill him.”
A wicked smile curved Aunt Maim’s perfect face. “That’s only if you believe the plague is really a plague.”
“Why did Kirkland do this to you?” Krysty asked.
The smile stayed in place, but all warmth seemed to drain out of the expression. “I was lucky this was all he did in a sense,” the woman said. “He could have taken both of everything. He has before.”
Ryan cut another piece of meat and put it on his plate.
“Kirkland worked for a baron farther east. I’ve even heard rumors that he spent time in Newyork. I don’t know the truth of it. I first met him in a caravan headed west, through the Shens. That’s how I heard about you, Ryan Cawdor. You’ve been gone for some years, and no one had heard of you recently.”
Ryan continued eating without comment.
“Kirkland had a lot of jack,” Aunt Maim went on. “I didn’t. So I got close to him. Made myself available. He got interested back. I hadn’t planned on a relationship with him. I don’t really care for a man’s sexual attentions.”
And that, Ryan knew, explained the maid’s interest in the hosteler.
“But I do know what a woman’s face and figure can do to the right kind of wrong man. I heard about how he was going to start up a ville of his own. That ville became Hazard. Seeing an opportunity for myself, I offered my services as a hosteler. He put me into business here, for a percentage of everything I made. I thought that was fair, since it was his investment capital we were working with. I’ve managed a few places before, and even ran card games.”
“Kirkland expected something more, though, didn’t he?” Krysty asked.
Aunt Maim nodded, then sipped her drink. Her eye drifted away and became unfocused, her memories trapped in the past. “He made no bones about it. On the way over, he’d tried to be more forceful about our relationship, but the wag master didn’t put up with behavior like that. And the opportunities were few.”
“That changed when you hit Hazard,” Krysty said.
“Yes.”
“You could have kept on going,” Ryan said.
“Easy for you to say, sitting there in that chair. But I see you found your way to Hazard and stopped, as well.”
Ryan couldn’t say anything to that.
“At the time I felt that I couldn’t go on any farther. The plan was to stay here in Hazard for a time, get some jack set back, then move on.”
“Only it didn’t work out that way,” Jocelyn erupted in a hoarse voice rich with raw emotion. “That fucking animal came in here on her, made sure none of us was around to help defend her. By the time we got back, it was too late.”
Aunt Maim’s fingers circled around her glass absently. Her smile was crooked, distant and totally without mirth. “Kirkland trapped me in my office and made his intentions known.”
Ryan waited, listening for what he knew would come. Rape was one thing on War Wag One that Trader and his hardcases wouldn’t put up with.
“I couldn’t fight him. And if I did, I knew I’d have to chill him quick if I was able. I kept a straight razor strapped to my thigh those days. Back then I was able to defend myself. So I gave in and offered oral sex. He liked the idea, said it would be a good prelude to the festivities he had planned. So I did, hoping that he was all bluff and that he wouldn’t be able to get it up a second time.”