Bitter Gold Hearts

_____XV_____

"YOU got to pressing there at the end, Garrett. Were you on to something?"

"Apparently not. Unless I missed something that was right under my nose, your brother was a waste of time."

"Then why did you spend all that time on him?"

"Because I didn't know what he could tell me. Because you never know what little thing will turn out to be the critical clue. I went hard on the timing because I want to have it pat when we see what Amiranda has to say so we can look at it from the Domina's side."

"I couldn't find Amiranda."

"What?"

"I couldn't find her. She didn't answer her door. When I asked around, nobody had seen her. I finally sneaked into her rooms. She wasn't there. And most of her stuff was gone."

I did me what I hoped was a convincing show of perplexity. "Did she have a maid? Did you talk to her? What did she say?"

"I talked to her. She didn't know anything except that Amiranda is gone. Or so she said."

"Damn! That knocks hell out of everything." I got up and stretched.

"What are we going to do?"

"Start somewhere else. You just keep picking till you pull a thread loose. You're the inside man here. You find out what you can about Willa Dount's end of things. The how, the where, and the when of the payoff in particular, but anything that sounds unusual or interesting. Keep trying to get a line on Amiranda. And while you're doing all that, try not to attract too much attention. We don't want anybody knowing what we're doing. There's two hundred thousand marks gold at stake and the price is going up. My resident genius says we're about to hear from Glory Mooncalled again."

Her eyes glittered. Each time Glory Mooncalled acted, the Venageti position in the Cantard weakened, the Karentine flourished, the price of silver plunged and that of gold soared. "We're getting richer by the minute!"

"Only in our imaginations. We have to find the gold."

She started toward me with that look in her eye, ready to celebrate. "What will you be doing?"

"The outside stuff. Picking at threads. Talking to this Donni."

"I'll bet. I'm much prettier than she is, Garrett. And maybe just as talented."

"Then I'm going to have my supper, consult the genius, and get on the road so I can be at that farm tomorrow morning. I'll have a whole day to poke around and pick up the trail."

She had gotten in close enough to force a clinch. My resistance was going the way of the dodo. Suddenly, she stiffened and backed away.

"What is it?"

"I just had an awful thought. My mother is going to be home any day. If we don't have the gold found and me out of here before she does ..." She backed away. "We have to get to work."

Poor little rich kid. Somehow, I couldn't work up a lot of sympathy. If she wasn't miserable enough to walk with nothing but the clothes on her back, she wasn't miserable enough. The sparkle came back to her eyes. "But once we do, look out, Garrett."

There is a limit to how much you can kid people and still live with yourself, but also a limit to how much you can kid yourself. "I admire your confidence. If we find it."

"When, Garrett."

"All right. When we find it, look out, Amber."

We exchanged idiot grins.

"Do I go out the same way I got in?"

"That would be best. Don't let the servants see you. And watch out for the dragoons."

I gave her a kiss meant to be a businesslike sealing of our compact. She turned it into a promise of things to come. I finally peeled her off and fled. .

I was distracted. The little witches do that to you. I zipped around a corner and almost plowed into Karl Senior and Domina Dount. Fortunately, they were distracted too. Very distracted. If they noted a third presence at all, they probably assumed it was a wayward servant. I backed up to consider alternate routes. Amber had it wrong. Willa Dount didn't freeze bathwater. Now I knew what hold she had on Daddy. If it turned out to matter.

Reason didn't do me a bit of good trying to get out of there another way. In two minutes I knew I would get lost if I kept on. I found a place where I could look into the real people's world between curtains. I recognized the hallway. Nothing for it but to march and look like I was about honest business. It worked fine until I started hiking across the front court headed for the main gate.

Pudgy Courter came in from the street. He started to say something to the gateman, then spotted me. His eyes got big, his face got red, and he started to puff up like an old bullfrog about to sing. "What the hell are you doing in here?"

"Hell, I might ask the same of you. Little out of your class here, aren't you? Guy like you ought to be slicing vegetables—"

I was close enough. He took a swing. I'm not sure why. I don't think I trampled him hard enough to set him off. I caught his wrist and kept on walking, pulling him along in a stumble. "Tsk-tsk. We should be more friendly to our betters."

I let him go as I stepped outside. He was past the flash point now. He retreated, cursing under his breath, while I glanced around for the four clowns who had been stalking me before Amber let me inside. They were gone.

It was a piece of bad luck, getting spotted like that. I could only hope it would balance out and not get things all stirred up inside. Amber could deal with Willa Dount, especially motivated by visions of gold, but I had my doubts about Junior. He had no strong reason to hide having talked to me. I figured I'd best get down to Lettie Faren's place right away.