Castle Murders

by John Dechancie

  “Most people,” Gene said. “Then there are the retards, like Snowy and me.”

  “Don’t listen to him. Gene’s the best swordsman in the castle, and Snowy can teleport.”

  “Not very well,” Snowclaw said. “Last time I tried it I slammed myself into a wall and got knocked out for an hour.”

  “You never mentioned it,” Gene said. “That’s strange.”

  “It hurt.”

  “Do you have to run to start teleporting?”

  “No, I usually stay still and just think. Then I take like one or two steps, and I’m where I want to go.”

  “Then how did you wind up slamming into a wall?”

  “You tell me.”

  Gene thought about it. “You must have materialized inside the wall.”

  Linda flinched. “Oh, my. That’s a terrible thought. Don’t do it again, Snowy.”

  “I won’t. I never liked doing it.”

  Dalton looked at Melanie. “Most people’s talents don’t get them into trouble if they exercise a little discretion and watch what they’re doing.”

  Melanie nodded. “I see. What will my talent be?”

  “Oh, there’s no telling. Anything from materialization to teleportation, to —”

  “Dowsing,” Gene said. “Necromancy, palm-reading.”

  “Not that stuff,” Linda jeered.

  “Channeling?”

  “It’ll be something useful, Melanie.”

  “Channeling is useful,” Gene said.

  “Right.”

  “I happen to channel a thirty-thousand-year-old high priest of Lemuria.”

  “You do?” Melanie said, a trifle awed.

  “Sure. On the astral plane he’s thought of as a very wise being.”

  Dalton asked, “So what’s the name of this wise astral being?”

  “Well, if you’re just going to scoff,” Gene said.

  “Sorry. I’m asking nicely now. Who is he?”

  “No, your skeptical vibes are queering my karma.”

  “Oh, come on,” Dalton mock-pleaded.

  “Only if you’re sincere.”

  “I’m sincere. What’s the name of the entity you channel?”

  “Murray.”

  “Murray?”

  “But he likes to be called Skip.”

  Melanie turned to Linda. “They’re kidding, right?”

  “They’re always kidding. Pay no attention to them.”

  “It’s going to be a while before I get used to all this,” Melanie said.

  “You will,” Dalton assured her.

  “After lunch,” Linda said, “I’ll give you the Cook’s tour.”

  “Is it lunchtime?” Melanie asked.

  “Well, it’s after nine P.M. Eastern, so maybe you’re not hungry.”

  “I didn’t eat dinner because I didn’t have any appetite, but I’m kind of hungry now.”

  “Try this cheese plate,” Thaxton suggested. “The Camembert is the real thing. And these truffles are authentic, if I’m any judge.”

  “I like this curried lobster,” Deena said. “You like curry?”

  “Quiche?” Dalton said, proffering a dish past Gene’s nose.

  “Get that wimp food out of my face,” Gene said.

  “A thousand pardons.”

  “We dashing, non-quiche-eating types stick to meat and potatoes.” Gene pointed to Snowclaw. “He, on the other hand, likes beeswax candles dipped in Thousand Island dressing. But, as they say, de gustibus non disputandum est, cha-cha-cha.”

  “I like paraffin candles sometimes,” Snowclaw said. “It depends on my mood.”

  Gene noticed that Melanie’s green eyes had gone apprehensive. “I’m sorry. Didn’t we introduce Snowclaw?”

  “No,” Melanie said in a small voice.

  “Melanie, I want you to meet Snowclaw, a friend of ours.”

  “Hi, Melanie,” Snowclaw said.

  “Hi.”

  “I’m not as scary as I look, Melanie.”

  “Very nice to meet you, Snowclaw.”

  “Same here. Reason I said that was that I noticed you weren’t looking at me.”

  “I was a little scared. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “He’s a pussycat,” Gene assured her. “Really. Tell her about your hobbies, Snowy.”

  “My hobbies?”

  “Yeah. Needlepoint, cloisonné, batiking — a real dweeb.”

  “What the heck is batiking?”

  Melanie giggled nervously.

  “And a rabid birder,” Gene went on. “You can see him every morning out in the fen, field glass in hand, lusting for a glimpse of a chaffinch, or a chevroned waxwing, or even a partridge — a quail perhaps — nesting in the tall gorse.”

  Linda rolled her eyes. “Gene, really.”

  “Sometimes I don’t understand a word he’s saying,” Snowclaw said, shaking his furry head.

  “Gene is our resident Wit, capital W,” Linda explained.

  “I’d append the prefix nit,” Dalton said.

  “Resident twit,” Thaxton suggested.

  “Thank you, thank you,” Gene said, rising. With a sweeping gesture he put on his plumed hat. “And I’d love to continue this pleasant badinage, but we have a revolution to run.” Left hand on the hilt of his sword, he turned to Snowclaw. “Garscon?”

  “Are you talking to me?” Snowclaw said.

  “‘Allons, enfants de la patrie.’”

  “Wrong period for the costume,” Dalton said.

  M. DuQuesne sang, “‘Le jour de gloire est … ar-ri-vé!’”

  “Let’s go, D’Artagnan,” Gene said, slapping Snowclaw’s shoulder in passing.

  Snowclaw was still shaking his head. “I dunno.” He got up and shouldered his ax. “Nice meeting you, Melanie. See you around.”

  “Bye.”

  The two adventurers left the hall.

  “They’re interesting,” Melanie said.

  “Oh, decidedly so,” Thaxton agreed. “They’re always up to something. I, on the other hand —”

  “You’re as boring as I am,” Dalton said. “Let’s go play some golf.”

  “Oh, God,” Thaxton said, with a hopeless look ceilingward.

  “Golf?” Melanie said. “There’s a course outside?”

  “There’s a course inside,” Dalton corrected. “There’s not much outside but a four-hundred-foot drop to a desert.”

  Thaxton threw down his serviette. “Well, if I must, I must.”

  Linda said, “Mr. Thaxton, if you hate golf, why do you always give in and play?”

  “For the simple reason that I have nothing else better to do.”

  “But the castle has no end of worlds.”

  He gave her a wan smile. “Yes, but you see, my dear, I’d be in them.”

  Linda nodded glumly. “I think I know what you mean.”

  Dalton thumped Thaxton on the back. “Buck up, old man.”

  “Oh, I don’t want to give the impression that I’m unhappy in Castle Perilous. I think it’s perfectly marvelous here.”

  “Then let’s get out on the links.”

  “Right you are. Very nice to have met you, Melanie.”

  “Same here. Have a good game.”

  “Well, we shall certainly try.”

  All this time, Jeremy had been stuffing himself in silence. When the two golfers left, he leaned back and delivered a tremendous belch.

  “Excuse me.”

  “That was really ignorant,” Deena said.

  “I said excuse me.”

  Linda looked down at Melanie’s tattered jeans. “Do you want me to whip up an outfit for you, or do you want to keep wearing those clothes?”

  Melanie tugged at her sweat shirt, from which the lettering NORTHEASTERNSTATEhad faded. “These? Everybody else is wearing fancy stuff. Maybe I should too.”

  “Do you want a dress, a gown, or pants?”

  “Pants.”

  “I think you’d look good in shorts over tig
hts. What color tights?”

  “Uh, black?”

  “You have green eyes. What if I go for a match?”

  “Okay.”

  “Fine. Stand up.”

  Melanie stood. “What for?”

  Linda waved her right hand. “How’s that?”

  Melanie looked down at herself. Gone were the sweat shirt, jeans, and white athletic shoes turned gray with grime. Instead, she was attired in forest-green tights, brown leather short pants, matching boots, and a thonged jerkin over a green puffed-sleeve blouse. Her old clothes and shoes lay in a pile at her feet.

  “How did you do that?”

  “Magic. What do you think?”

  “I look like Robin Hood.”

  “Yeah, I —”

  “What’s the matter?”

  With a sudden look of despair, Melanie slumped to her seat. “I was just thinking, I have a calculus test tomorrow.”

  “Well, we can always send you right back.”

  “You can?” Melanie thought about it. She shook her head emphatically. “I don’t want to go back. But what will people say about my just vanishing? And my parents —?”

  Linda said, “It used to be that there was no way back from the castle, and people wound up as missing persons or listed as possible murder victims. But Lord Incarnadine reestablished the Earth portal, and now we have almost complete control of it. What we can do now is set up some kind of cover story to explain your absence.”

  “What would I tell my parents?”

  “That you’re dropping out of school for a while and staying with friends, which would only be the truth. You could keep in touch with them by letter or phone.”

  “You can phone from the castle?”

  “With the castle’s mainframe, we can tap into any communication system in the world.”

  “You can even fax a letter,” Jeremy said.

  “Really?” Melanie let out a breath. “I guess I don’t have any excuse not to stay.”

  “No, you don’t. Why don’t you have a bite, and then we’ll introduce you to Lord Incarnadine. Jeremy, have you seen him lately?”

  “Last time I saw him he said something about going to his sister’s garden party.”

  “Princess Dorcas? Oh, that’s right. Well, that’s one party we can’t crash. Maybe later. Go ahead and eat, Melanie.”

  Melanie pulled up the cheese plate and bit into a wedge of Camembert. She was hungry, and everything looked so appetizing. Don’t feel guilty about stuffing yourself, she thought. After all, you’re eating for …

  She froze, a puzzled look on her small freckled face. By dint of some flashing insight, she was aware of what was inside of her, the small bud of flesh that had taken root in her uterus. She knew its structure and its potential, and she knew with a certainty that could only come with seeing with her own eyes. She did see it, somehow.

  How? Was this sight of the unseen her talent?

  A glowing smile spread slowly across her face.

  You’re eating for three now.

  Chapter Three

  Keep — West Wing

  “I’ve got it.”

  Switching his golf bag from one shoulder to the other, Thaxton asked, “You’ve got what?” He kept walking down the gloomy corridor.

  “A clerihew,” Dalton said.

  “Give.”

  “Okay, here goes.

  “Sergei Rachmaninoff

  Turned his lights on and off.

  An old Late Romantic,

  He was really quite frantic.”

  Dalton looked at his golf partner. “Well?”

  Thaxton lifted one eyebrow. “Never cared much for Rachmaninoff.”

  “I’m asking for your opinion of my clerihew, sir.”

  “Adequate.”

  They continued down the hallway toward a pool of light. When they reached it they discovered that the illumination came from an archway that led out into the open, affording a pleasant prospect of stately trees, lawns, sunshine, and shrubbery. A formal garden of hedgerows and flower beds was set in the midst of all this, and a party was going on in the middle of everything. Canopies had been set up, tables underneath laid with food and drink. Several dozen people in widely varying costumes were enjoying the affair, many servants attending. Music came from a small orchestra. A game of croquet (or something to do with balls and mallets) was in progress on a greensward beyond.

  “What’s all this?” Thaxton said, stopping to watch.

  “I do believe that’s Princess Dorcas’s family reunion.”

  “Oh?”

  “A servant told me about it. Most of Incarnadine’s family were invited. Cousins, uncles, Prince Trent, the whole crowd. The castle nobility.”

  “Really. You rarely see them.”

  “Most of them keep to their worlds. And they don’t think much of Guests.”

  “Ah, yes,” Thaxton said. “I suppose we’re N.O.C.D. to them.”

  “‘Not our Class, Dear’?”

  “Right you are. Are they all related, do you think?”

  “Most are, distantly,” Dalton said, “from what I understand. They’re the remnants of the aristocracy that once ruled the Western Pale and its adjacent kingdoms. Hundreds of years ago, thousands, maybe, when the territory wasn’t the wasteland it is today. Over the years they took up residence in Perilous, and most of them live in one aspect or another.”

  Thaxton hefted his bag. “Well, we’re not invited.”

  “Not hardly.”

  They walked on.

  “Wait a minute,” Thaxton said. “I feel one coming on.”

  “Eh?”

  Thaxton cleared his throat, then versified as follows:

  “J. S. Bach

  Liked to run amach.

  His three-part invention

  Caused much dissension.”

  “Not bad, actually,” Dalton said. “Have you discovered, like I have, that there’s no good rhyme for Mozart?”

  Thaxton considered the matter. “Goat’s fart?”

  “Not the most felicitous. Beethoven’s hard too, if not impossible.”

  “We could change category. Or we could — what’s the matter?”

  Dalton had stopped to peer into a small alcove to the left. A pair of stockinged legs was sticking out from behind the arch.

  “What have we here?” Thaxton said.

  They entered the alcove and found a man lying face up. Dark-haired and bearded, he was dressed in a blue fur-lined gown and long-skirted orange doublet. The gown was finely embroidered with gold thread. Everything he wore was very well tailored and looked expensive. Gold and enormous jewels ringed almost every finger.

  The man’s lips were blue, the face ashen. The eyes looked off into nothingness in a lifeless final stare.

  Thaxton knelt over the body and took the right wrist. “No pulse.” He palpated the neck, then bent and put an ear to the chest. “No heartbeat. He’s still warm, though. Must have died minutes ago.”

  Dalton went to one knee and looked at the face. “What of, do you think?”

  “Could be anything. He looks about forty. You couldn’t rule out heart attack.”

  “There’s no telling age with these castle people. Some of them are centuries old.”

  “Quite right. And who knows if they’re susceptible to the usual medical inevitabilities? With lifetimes on that order, I would tend to think not.”

  “But they’re not immortal,” Dalton said. “It’s just a matter of time before nature catches up with them.” He looked the body over. “No bruises. No blood. Look at that jewelry. A thief wouldn’t leave those. I suppose we could rule out foul play.”

  Thaxton scratched his chin thoughtfully. Then he said, “Let’s turn him over.”

  “Should we touch the body?”

  “We can always put him back. Get his legs.”

  They shifted the body to its side, then gently rolled it over.

  Thaxton’s eyebrows rose. “Hello, hello, what’s this?”

  �
�Then again, foul play just might be the ticket.”

  A small rent in the fabric of the gown, a dark stain surrounding it, was located between the shoulder blades at a spot a little to the left of the middle of the back.

  “Knife wound?” Dalton asked.

  “Stiletto, I should think. Let’s get this overgarment off and see the wound.”

  They struggled to undress the limp body. Finding a matching hole in the doublet, they wrestled with that until they had exposed a white cotton undergarment, against which the bright bloodstain stood out.

  “There’s the entry point,” Thaxton said, fingering the cloth. “Not much blood. A thin dagger of some sort, that’s certain. Deep thrust, right into the back of the heart. The attacker’s aim was bad, though. Probably just nicked the aorta, causing a not-too-fast leak. Slow enough to let the victim walk out of the party and back into the castle. He got this far before internal bleeding did him in.”

  “The party? Is that where he came from?”

  Thaxton nodded. “Have you ever seen him before?”

  Dalton shook his head. “But he could be a Guest.”

  “Perhaps. Has the look of nobility about him, though.”

  “True. But do you really think he was attacked at the party? Didn’t look like there’d been any ruckus.”

  “No,” Thaxton admitted. “If it was done there, it was a quiet job.”

  “Why would he have come back to the castle?”

  “Who knows? To get help?”

  “Wouldn’t he have told someone first?”

  “Doesn’t make sense, does it?” Thaxton shook his head. “I dunno, just a hunch. Maybe he was attacked here or nearby. Maybe he isn’t one of the gentry. We’ll know soon enough.”

  “I’ll go fetch Tyrene,” Dalton said, getting to his feet. “You want to stay?”

  “Golf’s off for today, I should think.”

  “I’ll be as quick as I can. Be careful. The culprit could still be around.”

  “I’ll be on guard.”

  Dalton hurried off.

  It was quiet in the alcove, too quiet. Thaxton had a rough time getting the body dressed again, but managed to return things more or less to the state they had been found in.

  He got up and stepped back, viewing the body. He exhaled.

  Right.

  He began to search the floor around the corpse, widening his field of operations until he was back out in the hall. He found nothing, not even a drop of blood.

  He went back inside and stood over the body, thinking.