Angry Lead Skies

65

"Good morning, Sunshine," Dean told me, nudging me to let me know he'd brought my tea. I was half-asleep at the breakfast table, unable to stop grinning.

I grunted.

"Odd. You're smiling. And you got to bed at a reasonable hour for once. But you're as crabby as a mountain boozelt."

"Them damned pixies. They never shut up. All night long."

He didn't challenge me. That could only mean that he didn't know any better.

Singe appeared, obviously having been up since the crack of dawn. She was chipper, though possibly more conspiratorial than ever. She was pleasant to me. Nor was I getting any grief from the Dead Man.

When Evas turned up she was coolly indifferent to everything but some tea heavily sweetened with honey. She was exactly as she had been yesterday except, possibly, for projecting a somewhat more resigned attitude toward her captivity. Her sidekick Fasfir, though equally cool, presented a puzzle. She kept looking at me the way you might regard a twenty-foot python you found coiled atop the kitchen table: repelled, wary, awed, maybe a little intrigued and excited.

Still nothing from the Dead Man.

That must've been one hell of a dream I'd had. Especially since it'd reawakened all my aches and pains and had added a few that were new.

Evas might be willing to let me think it had been all a dream spawned by my wicked imagination but I noted, with some satisfaction, that she moved very carefully and did so mainly when she thought no one was paying attention. Fasfir noticed, though.

So. She knew.

My grin spread a little wider.

"What evil thought just burst into your mind?" Singe demanded. There was an actual teasing edge to her voice.

"Nothing special. Just a warm memory."

Once I finished eating, and began to feel a little more awake, I moved to my office. I was feeling positive and eager to get things done. But before I could start I had to go round up a pile of missing paperwork.

During the course of the morning, various people came by the house. Most wanted money. Playmate was effusive with gratitude but didn't bring one copper sceat to defray the costs of my efforts to salvage his madonna's useless infant. I responded to two written requests for clarification or additional information from the good people at the al-Khar. I received a note from Manvil Gilbey telling me that Max Weider wanted in financially. The same messenger brought a sealed note from Max's daughter Alyx, who complained that she was dying of loneliness and that that was all my fault and when was I going to do something about it?

There were other notes in time, including one from Kayne Prose, inscribed for her by a professional letter writer. That was meant to impress me. And it did, a little. Then there was a discreet letter from Uncle Willard Tate, who invited me to the Tate compound for dinner because he'd just enjoyed an intriguing visit from a certain Manvil Gilbey, associated with the Weider brewing empire. The paper on which the letter was written had a light lilac scent. The hand in which it had been inscribed was familiar and almost mocking.

It reminded me which redheaded, green-eyed beauty managed the Tate correspondence and accounts.

I'd have to gird my mental and emotional loins for that visit. Tinnie was sure to play me like a cheap kazoo if I was bold enough to venture onto her home ground.

The afternoon saw the arrival of a formal, engraved invitation to participate in the celebration of Chodo Contague's sixtieth birthday party, two weeks down the road. And a "Just wanted to say hi" note from solicitor Harvester Temisk, implying that he'd really like to visit before Chodo's birthday celebration.

Dean began to grouse about having to answer the door constantly—when he wasn't hard at work pursuing his custom of charming whatever woman happened to be staying in the house. It was he who took Evas far enough along to lure forth a spoken word of gratitude. She didn't pronounce the word right and she had difficulty saying it but she did demonstrate that at least one silver elf besides Casey came equipped with a capacity for speech. Yet one more talent unsuspected by us primitives until she betrayed herself. Possibly she was a throwback in more ways than the one.

Fasfir didn't seem pleased.

I had begun to develop an idea of the personalities of our reluctant guests. Evas was cool and brilliant and collected and always in control. In her own mind. But in real life she'd be her own worst enemy. A sort of foreign Kayne Prose with a mind. With her self-destructive urges skewed at a different angle. Fasfir would be cool and collected and always in control but, like the best officers and sergeants, would be skilled at failing to see those transgressions which did not threaten the world with an immediate descent into chaos and anarchy.

Singe invited herself into my office to preen and gossip. There wasn't a lot to gossip about, though, unless she wanted to discuss the recipes Dean had begun sharing with her.

I asked, "How close are you to your brother?" I didn't think family was important among ratpeople, but had only prejudice and hearsay to go by.

"I do not have a brother. What does this one say?" She had started leafing through my papers.

"Which side?"

With unerring accuracy she had chosen the side which said, Teach me.

I told her.

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know. This isn't a royal style business. I don't have a few million people I can gouge for taxes anytime the urge takes me so I have to make do with whatever bits and pieces of paper come my way. My stuff is on the other side."

I hoped Singe hadn't done any poking around in here. There were almost two dozen identical sheets of paper inside my desk drawer, with both faces still virgin to the pen.

I stuck to my subject. "What do you mean, you don't have a brother? What's John Stretch, then?"

"Oh. Well. We do not see some things the same way you do. Humility belongs to the litter before mine. He would have a different father." Ratpeople follow social and mating customs much closer to those of rodents than they do those of civilized beings such as myself. Chances were excellent that few of Singe's littermates shared the same father.

"Humility?"

Singe responded with one of her rehearsed shrugs.

"So his real name is Pular Humility?"

"No. It is Pound Humility." That's right. The Dead Man did tell me that. "His sire is believed to have been Hurlock Pound. Chances are good. My mother managed to retain some choice and self-control even during the peak of her season. I hope I will have the strength to do the same. Though I am less likely to go into season as long as I remain in exile."

The name Hurlock Pound meant nothing to me. "Never mind. I'm too groggy to keep up with all that. Let's stick with John Stretch. Why did you get upset yesterday when—"

"Because I have spent too much time around you people. I suppose. And because Humility was always good to me when I was little."

"But now he wants to use you as a counter in his effort to make himself king of the ratmen."

"Just do not go hunting him. All right? That way I cannot blame myself for whatever he gets himself into."

"I guess. Whatever." The child was strange. I was convinced that she didn't know what she wanted most of the time. Unlike her doomed brother, she didn't know where she wanted to go.

Then again, I'm sometimes wrong.

"I have been wondering, Garrett. Do you think it would be possible for me to learn to read and write?"

So that was where she'd been going when she'd chosen that sheet of paper. I gave it some thought because, honestly, "I've never thought about it. That's probably because of the prejudices all us humans are brought up with. Do you know any ratpeople who can read or write?"

"No. Reliance is the only one I know who needs to. So he has a couple of slaves to keep his books and write his letters. The same goes for the other ratman gangs."

I kept a straight face. "Have you ever heard of anyone who tried to learn?"

"I've met some who wanted to learn. Wanted to try to learn. But who would teach them?"

Who indeed? Nobody in TunFaire, of whatever race, wanted ratpeople getting notions, taking on airs, thinking above their station.

"All right. Karentine is the main language in TunFaire so it's what you'll know best." I recovered the sheet carrying the request, Teach me. Ironic. "Do you know any of these letters by name?"

She didn't then but half an hour later she knew them all and had a solid grasp on the concept of how characters and groups of characters represent the sounds that make up spoken words. That was because she'd paid attention most of her life. To everything going on around her.

I sorted out every paper I had that had anything on it in Evas' handwriting—which was, actually, laborious, tiny printing—and got that all put away. "We humans might ought to have you strangled right now, Singe. I swear, you're going to take over the world in a few more years."

For once she grasped the compliment. She was learning in every direction.

I hoped she was as good in her heart as she seemed. Otherwise, I'd be helping to create a monster.