Bitter Gold Hearts

It was good. Eleven hundred marks gold. More than I'd ever had a chance at before. With prospects for another thousand, which I could collect easily. Certainly a temptation to test the dark side of a man's soul. We all look for the big hit—hope for it, talk about it—but I don't believe we think about it. Not seriously. Because when it's suddenly there, a lot of thinking has to be done. Amiranda was dead. And what was Amber to me? Morley always says the supply of women is inexhaustible. And who would I have to explain to or make excuses to?

Just to myself. With maybe the Dead Man smirking over my shoulder. Still, there was the possibility of a useful experiment. I rose and collected the gold in one big bear hug.

"Come with me."

Dean had turned down the lamps in the Dead Man's room. I don't know why he thinks that makes any differ­ence. The Dead Man doesn't care about light one way or the other. When he wants to sleep, he'll sleep through sun, lightning, or earthquake. I hired me down and depos­ited the take beside his chair.

Domina Dount asked, "Are you going to deliver some­thing or not, Mr. Garrett?"

"Turn around."

For a moment she was human. She let out a little squeak and raised her hands to her cheeks. But she asserted control, taking a full minute to get the parts into the desired order. Then she murmured, "Will the disas­ters never end?"

She faced me. "I presume you can explain?"

"Explain what?"

She took ten seconds, eyes closed.

I prodded. "You engaged me to find and deliver to you, if possible, Amber daPena and Amiranda Crest. I've done half the job already."

She stared at me and hated me through narrowed eyelids. Her voice remained neutral, though, as she re­marked, "I had hoped that you would deliver them in better health. She is dead? Not in a trance or ensorcelled?"

"Yes. Amiranda has been in poor health for some time now."

"Your attempts at wit become tiresome, Garrett. I suppose I can assume that you weren't the agent of death. I want to know the who, what, when, where, why, and how."

So did I.

My experiment had flopped. Domina Dount wasn't about to be flustered into giving anything away. If there was anything in her that I didn't already have.

"Well?" she demanded.

Why not? I might still shake something loose. "The day you were supposed to make the ransom payoff, Amiranda hired a friend of mine as her bodyguard. That night he accompanied her into the countryside north of TunFaire. She took several travel cases with her. She went to a crossroad near Lichfield, where she stopped. My friend thought she expected to meet somebody there and that he was supposed to have been dismissed when that somebody showed."

"Who?"

"I don't know. He, she, or it never came. A band of ogre breeds did instead. My friend killed some of them but he couldn't drive them off or keep them from killing Amiranda. He couldn't even save himself, though the ogres thought he was dead enough to throw into the bushes with Amiranda and the other casualties. When they scattered to keep from being seen by travelers, my friend found the strength to pick Amiranda up and carry her three miles to someone he knew who, he hoped, could save her."

"To no avail."

"Of course. My friend isn't very smart. He'd failed. He was outraged and his pride was hurt. Somehow, he got back to Tunfaire, as far as the Bledsoe Infirmary, where I got his story in the deathwatch ward."

Willa Dount frowned, uncertain why I'd told her what I had. "You've left something out, haven't you?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because you don't need to know. Because no one needs to know except my friend's friends—some of them are the kind of guys who eat ogres for breakfast—who figure there's some balancing due for what got done."

You couldn't crack Willa Dount with a hammer. She looked at me straight in the eye and said, "That's why you've been digging around and poking your nose in."

"Yes."

"The Storm warden resents people who pry into her family's affairs."

"I'll bet she resents people killing her kids even more." Me and my big damned mouth! I'd blown a potful for free there. But she didn't seem to notice.

"Maybe. But those who stick their noses in often be­come victims of deteriorating health."

I chuckled. "I'll keep that in mind. I'm sure my friend's friends will, too. They might even be so disturbed they'll give the problem enough attention to handle it before she gets home."

I'd abandoned the tactic of experimentation for the strategy of increasing the pressure on Willa Dount. Not that I had her fixed for anything, but she knew things / wanted to know. Maybe she would tell me some to get the heat off.

"How about you tell me the how, where, and when of the ransom payment?"

Domina Dount smiled a thin smile. "No, Mr. Garrett." She thought she was covered. If she had any need.

I shrugged. "So be it. Do you need a way to transport the body? I could send my man—"

"I came in a coach. That will do. I'll send my men in to get it."