The Broken Bell m-6

by Frank Tuttle

  Mary laughed. “Aye, I reckon ye would at that.” She topped off my coffee cup with a bitter black brew as strong as anything I ever drank in the army.

  “Mr. Tibbles wouldn’t like that,” said Tamar. “Neither would I. But would you really? Men are always saying things they really don’t mean, just because everyone thinks they do.”

  “He means it,” said Darla. “And he’s right. There are safer places. Places only a finder would think of. Isn’t that right, dear?”

  She caught me with a mouthful of scrambled eggs, so I just nodded.

  Tamar sighed. “Well. If you think it’s a good idea, then…all right. We’ll go.” Her face took on a sudden expression of genuine concern. “You aren’t about to tell me I have to leave Mr. Tibbles behind, are you? Because I won’t. I simply won’t.”

  I swallowed. “No. Never. He goes where you go. That’s a promise, Miss. Me to you.”

  She beamed. “I knew you wouldn’t really go and fetch Father. You’re not that kind of man.”

  “Thanks. I think.” I drained my cup and wiped crumbs off my chin with one of Mary’s embroidered white napkins. “Finish up, ladies. We’ll be leaving soon. I’m going to go sit on the porch and see if anyone takes notice.”

  “Where are we going?” asked Tamar. “Is it a secret place? Somewhere forbidding and mysterious? Will I need a hat with lace, or a veil? I have both. You never know which you’ll need, so I brought one of each.”

  I dived in when she paused for breath.

  “A veil, then. Mary, thank you for breakfast, and your hospitality.”

  “Aye.” She shoved a paper bag of biscuits toward me. “Ye might be wantin’ them for later.”

  I took the bag and headed for the porch. Darla followed me out while Tamar shoved bits of bacon toward an anxious Mr. Tibbles.

  “So, have you decided where to stash Tamar, dearest?”

  “Of course I have. All part of an intricate scheme I formulated long ago.”

  Darla laughed. “In other words, you’re making this up as you go.”

  “I prefer to think I’m acting with situational awareness in a fluid event dynamic.”

  “You’re already talking like a general.”

  We kissed at that point. A passing cabbie shouted his approval.

  “You’re going to work?”

  “As long as we have clients, and we do. Not everyone has headed for the hills.”

  “Good for them.” I brushed her hair back, and a vagrant breeze pushed it right back on her forehead. “I’ll stop by before the store closes.”

  Her brow furrowed.

  “Oh.”

  “Oh? Had you rather I not?”

  “No, no, not at all. It’s the way you said it. You’ve got something going on after Curfew tonight, don’t you?”

  I did indeed. A meeting with Lethway, who’d tried to murder me when last we sat down to fancy cigars and light conversation.

  “Nothing terribly dangerous. And I won’t be alone.”

  She grabbed me and shivered.

  Tamar barged out, bag in her right hand and a squirming Mr. Tibbles in her left.

  “We’re ready to go,” she said. Mr. Tibbles yapped his assent. “Isn’t this exciting? Is Darla coming too? I wore the veil. I can put Mr. Tibbles in the bag when we get there. You won’t mind, will you, Mr. Tibbles?”

  Darla laughed softly and let me go.

  “Be careful,” she said, and then she was off.

  I darted out to hail a cab.

  There’s a trick to hiding young women in fancy hotels. If you ever need to do so, never mind the reason, there’s a right way to do it, and a wrong way.

  The wrong way seems the best way to honest folk. They think that by slipping furtively into the hotel and speaking in hushed tones to the desk clerk and paying in cash and calling yourself Mr. Smith you’ll simply sink down into a blessed state of total obscurity.

  That’s why honest people are so easy to find.

  Taking the sneaky approach just brands you as one of two things, in the minds of hotel staff. You’re either sneaking around on your spouse or you’re hiding from someone. So when inquisitive sorts start asking questions and perhaps handing out coins to the talkative, the hiding place is revealed as surely as if a giant hand reached down and ripped off the roof.

  That’s the wrong way.

  The right way?

  Tamar rushed into the hotel lobby a dozen steps ahead of me. The pillow she’d placed under her blouse did a credible job of simulating the middle stage of pregnancy. She let me get in the door and take a single step before she turned on me and let loose a stream of loud, heartfelt invective that turned the heads of everyone in the lobby.

  Once all eyes were upon us, she took off her wedding ring, which was actually a bauble purchased moments ago from a shady street jeweler for a couple of coppers, and flung it at my face.

  “I told you if your mother didn’t leave I would,” she screamed, putting just enough screech into it. “I will not spend another hour under the same roof as that mean-spirited old warthog!”

  “Honey,” I said, raising my arms in surrender. “It’s just another week-”

  “You said that last week. And the week before.”

  Right on cue, Flowers rushed in, freshly scrubbed and wearing the first new shirt he’d ever seen, much less worn. I didn’t trust his accent or his diction, so I’d told him to keep his mouth shut, and he did.

  “Come, Reginald,” said Tamar to Flowers. “See? He can’t stand your mother either. Now pay the man, and pay him enough to keep me here until you remove that awful woman from my house!”

  And with that, she turned and stormed up the stairs, Flowers in tow.

  The room was suddenly filled with barely-suppressed snickering. I made a heavy sigh and approached the desk clerk, a grinning little man in his early hundreds, with my hands in my pockets.

  “Trouble to home, is that it, sir?” he asked.

  “Guess you could say that.” I leaned on the counter and lowered my voice to a whisper. The room went as silent as a tomb, as two dozen ears strained to hear something that wasn’t a bit of their business.

  “How much for a room for the wife and son, for, let’s say, a week?”

  “Might be cheaper to just rent one permanent-like for your mother.”

  Laughter rippled through the lobby. The old man cackled.

  “Have a heart. How much? I can’t move Mother now. She’s taken to her bed. What am I supposed to do?”

  He cackled and named a price. It was a quarter again too much, but I didn’t haggle.

  I did tell him my name was Smith, which touched off another round of laughter, and that I’d also want to purchase extra meals for the boy and laundry service for the wife. More coins changed hands. My next sigh was very real.

  But it had worked. Anyone sniffing around for word of a single young woman who kept to herself and never left her rooms would be greeted with shrugs and shakes of the head. Tamar was an angry pregnant wife with a son in tow and a milksop for a husband.

  And that, my friends, is the right way to hide a woman in plain sight.

  I left my curiously estranged wife and headed for Granny Knot’s humble abode. Granny has a shack off Elfways-not on the trendy shops and eateries end, but on the old end, well removed from the last stop on the high-priced curio and ornate hat trail.

  Granny wasn’t home. You’d think finding an aged spook doctor during the day would be simple, but most of the times I’ve knocked at Granny’s door I’ve knocked in vain. I gave up after a time and settled in the shade of her porch and watched her ne’er-do-well neighbors sneak by. Crows cawed and pecked and hopped in the cemetery next door. I didn’t care to know what it was that they worried. Sometimes the gravediggers don’t bother to go the full six feet.

  My meeting with Lethway would commence in a few hours. I listened to the crows and planned my wardrobe. I’d don my new tan britches, my good white shirt and the shiny black shoes Darla got
me for Armistice Day.

  I would have to leave Toadsticker in the carriage. Swords simply aren’t worn in places like the Banner. I could probably get away with a dagger in my boot and brass knuckles in my pocket, but that would be the extent of my weaponry. Of course the whole point of surprising Lethway at the Banner with his mistress was to avoid a fight, but when tempers flare there’s no predicting how events might unfold.

  I wondered if Pratt would stay away, and decided he probably wouldn’t. He might keep out of sight, but I was betting he’d be nearby. Since seeing Fields use his magic secret door and returning with the head of the walking stick that had killed Tamar’s would-be kidnapper, I’d realized Pratt was playing his own games. I hoped I wasn’t being used as a stepping-stone to further his own agenda.

  A pair of street kids hopped up on Granny’s porch and gave me a pair of underfed hard looks.

  “Whatcha doin’, mister?” asked one.

  “Got any money?” inquired the other.

  Combined, they weighed maybe fifty pounds, with ten of that being dirt, but they took another couple of steps forward. The dirtiest one slipped a hand in a pocket.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. “Beat it.”

  “He asked you a question, mister.”

  “I said do you have any money?”

  I cussed and stood up and whipped Toadsticker out. They were off the porch and well into the street before my knees stopped popping.

  Granny Knot herself startled me by cackling.

  “I seen you, Bobby Doris,” she shrieked. “I knows where your granny walks.”

  The urchins doubled their speed. Granny cackled again, shifted her paper-wrapped parcel in her hand, and fumbled for her keys.

  “Wonderful to see you, Mr. Markhat,” she whispered with a wink. “I trust you are well?”

  I grinned and nodded and put out my hands. Helping old ladies with bags is just another of my many sterling qualities.

  “Don’t you be steppin’ on them bees,” she shouted for the benefit of a couple walking past. “I got ham in all my hats. Ham and windows, so the ghosts can see out.”

  We stepped inside, and she slammed the door behind her.

  “Ham? Hats with windows?”

  Granny shrugged. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is to babble inanities all day long, Mr. Markhat? I was rather proud of that one. It was both original and intriguing.”

  She walked into her cramped kitchen as she spoke, so I followed.

  “You’ve come for word from Mama, I presume.”

  “I have. Is there any?”

  She shoved a bag of salt into a cupboard and nodded. “On the counter. I’ll brew up some coffee, if you like.”

  “Thanks.” I spotted the tiny cylinder of tightly wrapped paper on the counter and pulled up a wobbly chair and read.

  Boy, it began. I done poked a stick in a hornet’s nest, like I had a mind to, and you ain’t never seen the likes of the buzzin’ and the flyin’ about.

  This here hex-master ain’t a local boy. I hears he showed up last year and took to lurking around the inns and the taverns, braggin’ about his hex-craft and showin’ off with lights and haints and so on. Damn fools hereabouts ate it up. ’Fore long, he was doin’ regular work, and askin’ dear for it too.

  Well, I done put a stop to all that. I told it that he ate up souls and children besides, and when they said about the fever last Yule that took all them babies I said well there you go. The word of a Hog still has some weight hereabouts, I reckon, ‘cause before midnight I had a dozen callers to my door, all itchin’ to tell what they knowed about this here hex-caster.

  He come from Prince, jest like I suspicioned. Still wears them Army doggers what you used to favor. He hides whenever wagon trains and stagecoaches stop in town, so I reckon he ain’t keen on meeting up with nobody from Rannit nor Prince neither, make of that what ye will.

  He’s done told it around that he’s comin’ after me. I reckon he’s got to now, or hightail it somewhere else, cause I done put the word out on him. I’ll be waitin’, boy, and he’s gonna regret ever hearin’ the Hog name spoke before I’m done.

  And there it ended. I bit back a curse. Mama had been long on drama but short on minor details such as names or descriptions or dates.

  Granny pulled up a chair across from me and shoved a plate of sugar cookies my way.

  “I take it Mama was less than informative?”

  I sought out a cookie. Badmouthing Mama to her best friend didn’t seem like the ideal way to pass the time.

  Granny chuckled. “She does enjoy the odd bit of obfuscation. But I daresay she will tell all, when the matter is settled.”

  “She may be going up against a former army sorcerer,” I said. “I hope the matter winds up settled in Mama’s favor.”

  “You will find Mama equal to her task. The coffee is ready. You take yours black, I believe?”

  All the sugar in the world wasn’t going to take the bitter out of Granny’s brew, which resembled tar in both flavor and consistency.

  “I do. These are good cookies.”

  She smiled and poured. I thought about Mama facing down one of the horrors we troops used to avoid even though they were on our side and a literal shiver ran down my spine.

  “Samuel, leave the gentleman alone, this instant.”

  Granny glared at the empty air above me until I felt the faintest of breezes and the icy fingers running down my spine departed.

  I stood.

  “Oh, sit back down. That was only Samuel, out for a bit of mischief.”

  I sat, but only with difficulty. Sometimes I forget what Granny does for a living.

  “Now then.” Granny put a cup in front of me. It steamed and smelled of chicory. “Mama tells me you’ll be getting married soon.”

  I nearly choked. “Mama tells a lot of things she ought not to.”

  Granny’s bright little eyes sparkled. “She says she saw your wedding, with her Sight. Claimed there were fireworks in the sky, a band was playing and a priest was saying the words.”

  “Fireworks.” I shrugged. “We haven’t had fireworks since before the War. Can’t even get them now. Hang burned to the ground, twenty years ago.”

  “Nevertheless. That is what Mama described. And soon, she believed. Did you know she can tell how far in the past or the future her visions extend?”

  I snorted and hid it behind my raised cup. Mama and her visions. She sure as Hell hadn’t seen a bunch of pig farmers trooping toward Rannit, knives drawn and my name on their lips.

  And she hadn’t seen any visions of what army sorcerers did during the War, or she wouldn’t be so eager to yank the hex-caster’s nose.

  Granny raised her cup. “Well, I suppose we’ll see,” she said after a while. “And please don’t worry about Mama. She’s far more formidable on her home soil than she is here, and even here she’s faced down vampires and emerged victorious.”

  “Can’t argue with that.” I drained the cup and rose. “Thanks, Granny. I’ll check back tomorrow, see if another letter has arrived.”

  “Don’t bother. I’ll send a boy if one comes. Samuel tells me you have an active few days ahead of you.”

  “Does Samuel have any sage advice concerning these active days ahead?”

  Granny cocked her head and was quiet for a moment.

  “He says, and I quote, ‘Tell that there fool he’s ta be mindful of archers if’n he wants to stay above the ground.’ I’m afraid Samuel is a bit of a rustic.”

  “Thank him for me.” It never hurts to be polite, even to thin air that was probably as empty as the Regent’s heart. “Take care, Granny.”

  “You do the same, Mr. Markhat. Remember what Samuel said.”

  “Always.”

  And then I was out on Granny’s porch, blinking in the sun. The pair of toughs I’d scattered saw me, threw a pair of poorly aimed rocks my way, and vanished. A shimmering in the air that flew past my face suggested Samuel decided to seek
them out and teach them a lesson about throwing rocks at Granny’s porch.

  I had to walk all the way back to the genteel end of Elfways to hail a cab.

  Darla added a cushion to my chair. I refused to ponder the implications of that as I waited for business to slow down.

  I didn’t need to wait long. The snatches of conversations I managed to catch were mainly concerned with cancellations of various orders. Everyone gave variations on the same whispered reason-we’re taking a holiday, they claimed. A holiday out of Rannit.

  Darla and Mary and even Martha took it with smiles and knowing nods. “Aye, they’ll all be back,” I heard Mary say in a brief lull. “Don’t ye be despairin’, you hear?”

  More nods, more smiles. I don’t know Mary well, but I know my Darla, and her smile was forced and her nod was just a motion.

  “Well, well,” said Darla when the last of the customers shuffled out the door. She perched in my lap, sending Mary into a fit of giggling and blushing. “A man, in a dress shop. What can we interest you in today, handsome stranger?”

  “Something in a taffeta evening gown. But no lace. I’m barely twenty, you know.”

  She laughed and kissed me. Mary fled for the back.

  I kissed her back, since there were no longer any innocents about who might be permanently scarred by our scandalous lack of decorum.

  “Tamar hidden safely away?” Darla asked somewhat later.

  “She is indeed. Along with our son. Did I mention we had a son? His name is Richard. Or possibly Reginald. He needs a bath. Maybe two.”

  “My, you certainly know how to get the most out of a morning, don’t you?”

  I didn’t have a comeback, so I settled for another kiss. That always seems to work.

  The door opened, all bells and chimes, and Darla leaped to her feet, smoothing her long skirt and pinching my ear as she moved away.

  We didn’t get much time, later. I had barely enough to let her know what I had planned, and where, and with whom. I didn’t even realize I was doing that until after it was done.

  She nodded and only asked me once to be careful.

  I hated to leave. But I had a number of stops to make, and any one of them could turn into a long one, and Lethway’s time at the Banner wasn’t negotiable.