McKenna pulled a wry face. “He needs a course of antibiotics. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a dicey ticker too. Fat. Unfit. That sort of age.”
“A ticker? What is that?” she asked.
Mac put his hand on his chest. “Heart.”
“Ah. I wish I knew more about the healing of them,” said Arachne quietly.
Mac nodded. “Yeah. But I think it is pretty well out of reach of the medicine of this time. Listen, I’ve got some of that varnish I’d like to try. Although it seems a waste of good brandy.”
She made a face. “Pah. I do not see how you can describe that terrible firewater as ‘good’ for anything. But you say it is a good solvent. That I can believe. I thought it would dissolve away my innards.”
* * *
Several hundred miles away, Jerry was called away from memorizing Pan’s minions to deal with another misunderstanding across the ages.
“Jerry. Please tell Medea I’m not just being squeamish,” said Cruz. “That she simply doesn’t understand.”
“What’s the problem?” asked Jerry sympathetically.
The humor of it had finally gotten through to Cruz. “Medea wants me to kill off our wicked Uncle Sam so that I can get back the estates and serfs which are rightly mine, and become king. I showed her my pictures of Vegas, and she thinks it’s my palace with all my serfs.”
Jerry took a deep breath. You either start at the beginning—or take the direct route. Cut to the chase. “Medea. Jason left you to try and gain a throne. What would you rather have? Someone who wanted power and position or someone who wanted you?”
Medea was looking flushed and quite angry. But Jerry’s reminders had obviously struck a chord. “Someone who wanted me, of course. But we’ve got to live somewhere, Doc Jerry, and on something. Is it within your gift, as a Doc, to grant us estates?”
Jerry shook his head. “Medea, one of the things you’re just going to have to accept is that the life where we come from is just unimaginably different from here. Believe me, by the standards of your time, Anibal can support you in the lap of luxury. Liz, help me here. How many dresses and skirts do you own?”
Liz looked up from where she was gazing out over the hills. “I’m a bit of a pack rat, Jerry. I can’t bear to throw anything away. I boxed up most of my stuff when I came over to the States. I don’t know. Seventy or eighty outfits, I suppose?”
Medea gaped. In a time when every garment was handmade, all the way from spinning the thread, that was more than a queen would have owned.
“And no, we don’t have serfs and servants, but we have . . . sort of Golem-servants. Machines,” said Jerry, hoping he had kept a straight face. “There is ‘dishwasher’ that cleans and scours kitchen utensils, ‘vacuum cleaner’ that with a mighty roaring wind clears dirt, and ‘automatic washing machine’ that washes clothes.”
Medea was silent for a bit. “And cook?” she asked.
“Ah!” said Cruz. “Microwave and TV dinners!”
“Are they as good as you, Anibal?” Medea asked.
“Um. Not really,” he said cautiously.
She smiled at him again. “Well, you will just have to teach them, dear. But I am not so sure about living in a country with no nobility. How does anyone know where he or she stands? Who do you look up to?”
Bes swung himself in from the dragon’s neck. “Stand on your feet. And look up to those you can’t knock down. Stop worrying, woman.”
Lamont clapped. “Bes, you’d fit right in.”
The dwarf grinned widely. “Why? Have you got a lot of dangerous pests for me to fight?”
“Oh, lots!” Lamont rubbed his hands. “Let’s start with the Internal Revenue Service . . . ”
Two minutes into Lamont’s explanation, Bes was growling ferociously. Three minutes later, after Lamont started in on telemarketers, the dwarf god was shaking his fists at the heavens and bellowing with fury.
* * *
Henri was looking old. His moustache and pointed little beard were as neat as ever, but his face was slightly gray instead of its normal florid hue. He’d barely nibbled on some pastries and that was all that he’d eaten. In eight days he’d lost weight, and gained years. And most alarming of all he seemed too exhausted to needle McKenna. Mac found himself tiptoeing around the man, on his visits to the sickroom at the farm. But the Frenchman’s mind was still strong. He was curious. Two of the men from the farm had helped him, largely carried him, up to the meadow.
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