She moved majestically into the hallway. “I am talking to myself,” she said to the servant. “Or to anyone else who can hear me and take the matter under advisement.”
41—Assorted Persons In Pursuit
Ellin had spoken of an unheard music that was building to a climax. Questioner had taken it for mere fantasy. Now, however, as she walked back to her own suite with every detector at full alert, she heard real subsonics with a wave length so long that it seemed to pulse like a heartbeat through the fabric of the world. Something very large was moving, or living, or thinking. So, let calm preparations be made.
The understeward trailed after her to wait outside her door, shifting from foot to foot, white showing around the edges of his eyes. Poor thing, she thought, he was frightened half out of his wits, thinking he would be next.
“My aides recently met two gardeners,” she said. “One is actually a sailor. The other is, I think, a Consort in Training. Please, go to their quarters and tell them that I, the Questioner, need them at once. Have them bring with them whatever they would take on a journey. And come quickly back.”
When he went away, almost at a run, she started putting together a pile of equipment: rations, lights, stout clothing and shoes for Bao and Ellin. In Ellin’s room, and Bao’s, she found dancing shoes, which she packed up along with everything else.
Meantime, the understeward had wakened the gardener and was spending too much time explaining.
“It’ll be my back,” the gardener lamented for the tenth time.
“Not if the Questioner ordered it,” the understeward said between his teeth. “We were all told to do whatever she ordered, and that means you, too.”
“What’s going on?” asked a sleepy voice from the doorway.
The understeward turned, recognized Mouche as one of those the Questioner had asked for, and said, “The Questioner needs you and your friend. She said one of you was a sailor and one was a Consort and for you to put together equipment for a journey and come at once.”
Ornery thrust his head between Mouche’s shoulder and the door. “She needs a sailor? For what?”
“I don’t know what she needs,” the understeward cried. “All I know is, the Questioner wants you, so go get your things.”
“Things?” said Mouche wonderingly.
“Whatever you need to go on a journey. She said a journey. Clean stockings. Clean underwear. Water bottles.” The understeward fell silent, frantically trying to think what he, himself, would pack for a journey. He wasn’t sure he even had a water bottle.
“Who’s going to tell Madam Mantelby they’re gone?” asked the gardener in a grumpy tone. “You going to tell her? Now?”
The gardener looked at him significantly, jerking his head toward the back of the house. “Not now, you fool.”
“Oh,” the gardener jittered, licking his lips. “Right.”
Mouche and Ornery went back to their quarters for their few belongings, then joined the understeward on the path, only to move quickly off it, for it crunched too greedily beneath their feet. Even the servant chose to pad up toward the house on the silent grass. He had left a side door open, which he shut and locked behind them before leading the way up the stairs, demanding silence with every movement, achieving it, and moving in it as a fish in quiet water. Like shadows, they slipped into the room where the Questioner waited.
“Well,” she murmured, when they had been escorted in, when the understeward had been dismissed and the door shut tightly behind him. “Are you prepared for adventure?”
Ornery merely stared, as was his habit when confronting an ambiguous situation. Mouche responded as taught, with a low bow and a well-spoken salutation expressing the deep honor he felt at being able to serve the Questioner.
“How long did it take you to learn that?” Questioner asked in an interested voice. “Years, I’d imagine.”
“I have been five years in training, Madam.”
“How many more before you’re what they consider employable?”
Mouche bowed again, noting the amusement in the voice and reminding himself that this was said to be an artificial creature from whom he should not take offense. “It would depend upon the discrimination of my patroness, Ma’am. I am quite good at some things already. I am not, however, fully qualified as a judge of wine or as a gourmet cook. My musical skills require honing. Perhaps another five years … “