Dragon's Met
Part Seven
by peregrin anna
c. 2001


(Disclaimers and notes may be found on the introductory page .)





Chapter 44

The drinking dens are spilling out
There's staggering in the square
There's lads and lasses falling about
And a crackling in the air
Down around the dungeon doors
The shelters and the queues
Everybody's looking for
Somebody's arms to fall into
          ~ Mark Knopfler


Darkness fell as Gary and Fergus crossed the moor on a meandering but well-worn footpath.  The grassy expanse was dotted with distant bonfires, brightening as the last rays of sunlight faded.  By the time Gary stopped glancing over his shoulder for glimpses of Gwenyllan, the moon was rising again, full and orange and brilliant behind scattered clouds.  Night birds and owls called, and a soft wind mingled the scents of the moor, the heather and the grasses that grew there, with the sharper tang of wood smoke.

They slowed as they climbed a rise, and just as Gary was about to ask how much longer it would take, they cleared the top of the mound and he could see for himself.  Below them, set in a complex of outbuildings and gardens, was a large stone house.  It wasn't quite the castle Gary had been expecting, but it wasn't anything to sneeze at, either.  Its windows blazed with light, and the gardens around it were illuminated by torches.  The main house and its gardens were surrounded by a high wall, also made of stone, and beyond it were smaller houses, barns, and fields, gathered in a rough semicircle around the manor.

Fergus extended an arm.  "Our feast awaits," he said with a grin.  Gary gulped back his sense of foreboding and followed him down the hill.

A few minutes later, they passed through a gate guarded by two men who wore red leather tunics, each emblazoned with a golden hawk.  They weren't about to let "two ruffians" into the yard, but when Gary showed them the ring Nessa had left with him they grudgingly let him pass, Fergus in tow.  Crossing the yard, Gary could see--and smell--the horses, chickens, and dogs that roamed freely through the small front garden and the more bedraggled, dusty areas near the barns.

At the doors of the Great House, as Fergus called it, more guards stood watch; they reeked of alcohol, and Gary wondered just how close their watch could be.  They didn't give Gary and Fergus a second glance; they were far more interested in the knot of elaborately-dressed young women whispering on a stone bench in the garden.

The doorway opened to a huge room filled with light and people and smoke, a sharp contrast to the night air and quiet of the moor.  Gary blinked and swayed as he tried to adjust.  The walls were hung with tapestries, bright embroideries of ladies and unicorns and hunting scenes.  Red banners emblazoned with the same golden hawk as the guards had on their uniforms hung from the rafters.  The hawk's pose, its talons outstretched as it landed for an unseen kill, set Gary's nerves on edge--as did the scene below the banners.

Dozens of people sat at long tables that marched down the middle of the room, from one huge fireplace to another, and more guests mingled in the empty spaces beyond.  Ladies swept from table to table in swirls of silk and velvet, colors as bright and majestic as peacocks.  Clouds of heavy, cloying perfume assailed Gary's nostrils, and smoke from the fires threw out a faint haze that dimmed the colors and faces that were farthest from him.  Jewelry of every description hung from necks, ears, arms, even hair, and sparkled in the light of the rush torches that lined the walls.  At one of the hearths, a group of three musicians tuned their instruments, and Fergus inclined his head in their direction.  "Duty calls.  Alert me if you need any help."

"Well, wait, what do I--what am I supposed to do?"  Gary knew he was woefully underdressed--he had no gold jewelry, no feathered hat, no velvet tunic.  He wasn't sure he could lose himself in this crowd even if he did keep his mouth shut.

"Just as we discussed on the trip here, friend."  Fergus gave him a cursory pat on the back.  "Smile, keep a goblet in your hand, and say as little as possible.  If a lady asks you to dance, just follow the crowd."  

Right.  That's what Marcia always used to say when she'd dragged him out to go dancing--"Just follow the crowd, Gary; watch and do what everyone does."  She'd never been able to understand why a talented athlete couldn't pick up a simple waltz or the macarena, but though he'd tried, his body had always refused to follow the steps.  "Are you crazy?  I can't--"

"Oh, there is Cecily!"  Fergus had honed in on Freckles, who was offering a tray of tankards to the musicians at the hearth.  Ignoring Gary's protest, he hurried off across the room.

Sighing, Gary ventured a few more steps into the room.  A bubble of silence settled around him, a watchful quiet that was an oasis--if not a refuge--in the middle of the crowded hall.  One or two people stared at him, gauging him up and down the same way Nessa had--probably wondering if he was good enough for them.  Others studiously avoided him, as if his presence troubled them and ignoring it would get rid of the problem.  Gary nodded when a young man who was frowning in his direction didn't look away fast enough to avoid direct eye contact, but the velvet-capped head quickly swiveled and bent low to whisper something to his female companion.  She trilled with laughter as they moved away.  This was starting to feel like a junior high dance.  

After all that, Nessa's sudden voice in his ear, and her arm on his elbow, didn't bother him as much as they might have.  "Gary, what a delightful surprise!  I was not sure if you would honor us with your presence tonight or not."

Was his presence really an honor, or just an annoyance?  He gave his head the merest shake and managed, "It's my honor to be here, Lady Nessa."  Then he swept a bow that would have crinkled Morgelyn's face into a scowl, and forced a smile onto his own.  "Your home is...very impressive."

So was her get-up, Gary thought: a gold-trimmed dress of deep purple silk, and a headpiece of the same fabric with a filmy veil falling from its twin, stiff points.  The violet fabric shimmered in the torchlight, and the low, tight bodice pushed her cleavage nearly up to her chin, with a gold and amethyst necklace between.  He gulped as he realized that Nessa had caught him looking at the display, and was now smiling at him coolly, as if this gave her some sort of advantage.  Probably, with a lot of guys, it did.  

"Thank you," she said with a regal nod.  Then she held out a hand and raised an expectant eyebrow.

"Oh!  The--uh--your ring--"  Gary took it from his pouch and was about to place it in Nessa's palm, but she turned her hand over and extended her first finger.  Forcing his smile even wider, as if this was just what he'd always wanted to do, he slid the ring over her knuckles.  Nessa held her hand up; the light from the rush torches caught in the ruby and cast a warm glow over her face.  How many times had she practiced that move?

"A gift from my late husband.  It would pain me to lose it, but you seemed...worth the risk."  

Every word she said was layered with meaning that Gary didn't understand; he was going to have to work to keep up with this little game, whatever it was.  If he didn't figure it out soon, all this was going to be a waste of time.  Since he was taller than most of the crowd, he was able to see Fergus, seated on the flagstones near the hearth and deep in conversation with Freck--Cecily.  Her simple dress, nearly as low-cut as Nessa's, must have given the bard a heck of a view, especially if the lewd grin plastered on his face was any indication.  Nope, Fergus definitely wouldn't think this was a waste of time.

Nessa squeezed his arm, drawing Gary's attention back to herself.  "You must be starved after such a long walk.  Let me find you a seat and some charming company, so that you may ease your appetite."  She was two steps ahead of Gary before she finished speaking, leaving him to trail in her wake.

"I--I'm not sure this is such a good idea," he faltered in a whisper.  He was still getting strange looks from the party crowd, though they all left a good amount of room for their formidable hostess to get through.  It was like Moses and the Red Sea.  "I don't really fit in--"

"Nonsense!" Nessa declared, throwing her voice to the surrounding press of nobles.  "You are my guest, and you will be treated with respect."  Her command was as intractable as the seasons; the gawkers smiled and resumed their chatter.  Her Ladyship had spoken, and it seemed there would be no dissenters.

"Sit here, Gary, and eat your fill.  Please," she added, as if she knew about the plan his frantic, regretful brain was hatching, "do not sneak off as soon as I have gone.  I would love to further our acquaintance, once my duties as hostess are complete."

"I--I won't leave," he said, and wondered how he was going to be able to keep his promise to Morgelyn if he couldn't see the moon set.  It would probably come about the same time his frozen smile cracked his face open.  "I'd like to get to know you better, too."

With a curve of her lips as acknowledgment, Nessa pointed to one of the benches and hurried off through the crowd.  He could hear her exclamations of welcome and delight even when she was nothing more than a flash of purple in the press of the crowd.  Rubbing his face to let the muscles relax, the smile unfreeze, Gary climbed awkwardly over the bench and slid into place just as the musicians began to play.

He'd never thought much about the phrase "tables groaning with food", but now he saw that it could be literally true.  The food at this table alone would have been enough to feed the entire village of Gwenyllan for a week.  A huge carcass--a deer, maybe?--held court in the center of the broad table, and guests were happily pulling off chunks of it with knives and their bare fingers.  A turkey the size of Spike, piles of fruits and sweets, dozens of loaves of bread, and trenchers of something that looked like stew filled the remainder of the sturdy oaken tabletop, and it really did seem to sag under the weight.  Certainly the benches were groaning, or at least creaking, as the feasters scrunched together, sharing plates and trenchers and even goblets.  Their voices were loud and the air was warm and sensuous, spice-scented.  Truth be told, it all made Gary feel queasy and confused, and he wasn't sure that he could eat.

It wasn't as if he'd had a clear head to begin with.  Too much ale, which these people drank like water, had entered his bloodstream that day, pressed on him by friendly hands, especially Fergus's.  Then a long walk across the moor, topped off with this strange, hazy scene--no wonder all the disorientation was catching up with him.  He was adrift in a world he didn't understand--not its social maneuvering, not its pungent odors, not its food.

"Oh, you must try the jellied eel!"

Gary winced at the squeaky voice of the young woman at his side and the sight of the jiggling mass in the bowl she offered him.  Shaking his head with a sheepish grin, he reached for the goblet an unseen servant had plopped down at his place.  It held wine, as sweet as Kool-Aid but heavier, and far smoother than the ale he'd been drinking all day.  By the time he'd worked his way through the first glass, a servant was at his elbow offering more, and the young woman's chatter wasn't quite so bothersome.  

"Is this not the most wonderful party?  Lady Nessa always has the best food at her feasts, and of course the most interesting people.  You must be new to this part of the country.  Have you been here long?  My father says that I am almost of an age to marry, but I will not wed a country simpleton.  I wish to marry a lord, or at least a duke.  Are you a duke?  I met a duke from London once, he was *wonderful*, so charming and refined..."

She didn't even leave Gary time to answer her questions, so he just tried to nod or shake his head when it was appropriate, and took samples of a couple of the dishes she passed him--fruit, bread, and even some fish--but not the eel.  Besides, he told himself as he nodded absently at the young woman's description of another feast--or maybe it was a ball--he wasn't here to eat.  

"More mead, good sir?"  The chatterbox poured more of the honey-colored wine into his goblet.  She watched him expectantly until he took a drink.  "Lady Nessa has hers made from her very own honey bees.  Can you imagine such richness?"

"No," Gary said honestly, looking down the table at the piles of food.  "I really can't."  

The musicians had shifted from quiet, lingering tunes to something with a beat, and Gary's neighbor was telling him with great excitement that the other half of the hall had been set aside for dancing once everyone grew tired of food.  The girls around him shot hopeful looks in his direction; he managed a weak smile, which got them all giggling like a gaggle of tipsy geese.  The high, affected voices and the smoky atmosphere, the surrealism of the entire scene, pushed Gary into autopilot mode; he let his mind churn on another level while everything swirled around him.  

What had he thought he was going to be able to do in a place like this?, he mused, taking another swig of the wine.  He'd had some vague notion of spying, some idea that he could figure out what Nessa was up to, especially when she'd seemed so interested in that story about, among other things, the Dragon's Eye.  Nodding absently at the description of a hunt that the young man across the table was using to regale the ladies, Gary decided that he wasn't going to find out anything here; he needed to get up and move, not stay trapped with a bunch of strangers until Nessa decided she wanted to talk to him.  So, he needed to get on with it--act like a spy.  

He wondered what would James Bond would have done--besides seduce half the girls at the table.  

Well, for one thing, Bond would never have found himself thrown six hundred years backward, but even if he had, he wouldn't sit here listening to the great-to-the-nth-power grandmothers of the Spice Girls twitter on about fox hunts and dances.  He'd walk around like he owned the place and overhear all the right conversations with his super-secret techno-gadgets, and he wouldn't be thrown by a few differences in fashion or food.  He'd act like he belonged, like he expected to find the answers, and he would.  Magnum, P.I. would have done the same.  Even David Addison would have made an attempt.

It all came down, Gary decided, to swagger.  They all had it, all those macho spies.  

He could do swagger.  

Planting both palms on the large wooden table, he grinned at the woman sitting to his right and pushed himself up--

--only to plop back down when the entire hall spun around him in a swirl of smoke and color and music and laughter.  

He picked up the bejeweled goblet and scowled into it.  What was in this stuff, anyway?  Or maybe a better question was, how much of it had he had?  The woman at his elbow leaned her head against his shoulder.  "Cozy," she mumbled, and Gary wondered if this had been Nessa's intention all along--get him drunk, keep him occupied, keep him out of the way.  Well, heck, a pretty woman and a couple of martinis had never stopped James Bond.  Slowed him down, barely, but that was about it.  

More cautious this time, Gary pushed the coifed head off his shoulder; she hiccupped and giggled and went back to her jellied eel.  He managed to swing one leg over the bench as he turned to face the rest of the room, then the other, and he pushed off from the table, hands out to his sides to still the spinning room.  This was what came from mixing his drinks, he could hear Chuck saying.  Too much ale this afternoon, and now the mead, when he was used to a beer or maybe two after running around Chicago all day--it wasn't a great combination.  And that stuff was a heck of a lot stronger than it tasted.

He took a few tentative steps away from the rows of tables, and looked back to the crowd of guests, swimming in an ocean of reds, blues, greens, and yellows--and one splotch of royal purple at the head table.  Nessa and a few others were laughing, talking, drinking the stuff in the goblets as liberally as if it were water.  She caught Gary's eye, raised her glass and her arched eyebrows, and smiled; he managed to wave back, hoping the slouch and the casual hand motion he affected would have been worthy of Sean Connery, or at least Roger Moore.  Licking her lips, Nessa mouthed a word that looked like, "Soon," and Gary gulped in spite of himself.  

Either he was doing better at this swagger thing than he imagined, or, more likely, the others around him were equally soused, because no one was staring at him now.  He made his way around the room, nodding, smiling, and utterly failing to engage anyone in conversation.  Finally, a loud clang and a familiar, "Excuse me," from somewhere behind him caused him to spin around, and he saw Fergus pick up a wooden harp from the floor where he'd dropped it.  Apparently Gary wasn't the only one who'd overestimated his own stamina.  

Nessa's seat at the head table was now in his direct line of sight.  She crooked a finger toward one of the uniformed guards behind her, and he bent over to hear her whispered instructions.  The pair lifted their heads together and looked right at Gary, then fell back into their conversation.  Nessa was being adamant about something, but for the life of him, Gary couldn't tell what was going on.  He took a couple steps toward the musicians, intending to at least consult with Fergus, but at some signal he didn't see, the benches at the rows of tables behind him pushed back simultaneously, and the revelers flooded the dance floor.  Still dizzy, Gary was carried along by the eddies of over-perfumed, over-dressed lords and ladies, until his shoulder was pushed into one of the wooden beams that held up the roof of the Great Hall, and there he stopped, grateful for the support.  

"Ah, 'oo have we ici?" cooed a high-pitched voice at his elbow.  Gary looked down to see a young woman with dancing blue eyes, her unruly dark curls pinned up and studded with jewels.  

"Hi--uh, good evening, my lady," Gary began, fishing for the greeting that Fergus had taught him.  He forced a stiff half-bow.  "My name is--"

"Gary!"  The crowd parted for Nessa, and she placed a possessive hand on Gary's elbow.  It was the same spot Marissa latched onto whenever they were walking together, but Nessa's touch wasn't like Marissa's at all.  Gary gulped, tried to control the unsummoned thought and his first reaction, which was to pull away from her.  He reminded himself that swagger was supposed to be the order of the day, and pasted on another smile.  

Some of the light had gone out of Nessa's ice grey eyes; the open friendliness that had marked their first encounters was gone.  She had swagger of her own, with some to spare, and Gary knew his only hope lay in letting her believe that he believed everything she said.  Like in football, when the kicking team was probably going to fake a punt--the defense might know it was coming, but they lined up for the play they were supposed to think was coming and then tried to break up the fake from there.  Like that one time when Hickory had played West Lafayette in the semi-finals--or was that the game with Valparaiso...

Gary gave his head a fierce shake, then had to blink away the dark spots.  That mead was really doing a number on him.  Luckily, Nessa didn't seem to notice his mental wanderings.

"I see you have met Elaine," she said, turning a smirk on the young woman.  "Her father is a--what is it, dear?  A miller?"  

Elaine's face turned red.  "My father is the Duke of Islingdore," she said, her voice even squeakier.  She'd lost the French accent.

"Ah, that is correct.  It was your mother's father who was a commoner, was it not?"  

Eyes flashing with fury, Elaine drew her lips together and nodded once.  

"Oh, look over there," Nessa continued, pointing across the room.  "The French minister's son.  Why don't you go practice your language lessons on him, dear?"

Ducking her head at Gary, helpless frustration in her eyes, Elaine moved off through the crowd, most of whom were forming small circles as the music changed yet again, into some sort of peppy dance tune.  Fergus was singing, but Gary couldn't make out the words.  Over heads Gary saw Elaine turn her half-hearted smile on a pimple-faced boy who couldn't have been more than sixteen years old.

"Now that distractions are taken care of--"  Nessa looked him right in the eye, and Gary had to resist the urge to squirm under her calculating stare.  "Tell me what is on your mind.  I know you did not come here to mingle with the likes of Elaine."  She flashed a smile that showed all her teeth.  "Tell me what you think of my party, Gary Hobson."

It was now or never--Gary threw himself into the role she expected him to play.  "I'm thinking that you look very lovely in that dress, Lady Nessa.  And--and that I would like to get to know you better."

"A very chivalrous speech."  Nessa snapped her fingers, and a servant appeared at her side with a tray laden with jewel-encrusted gold goblets.  She handed one to Gary and took another for herself.  Rings glittering from every finger, she raised the cup and touched it to Gary's.  "To learning the truth."

"To the truth," Gary said, with more fervency than swagger should have allowed.  He figured he needed to be polite, so he drank more mead from his own goblet as Nessa watched him over the rim of hers.  Before he knew it, he'd drained the cup, listening while Nessa droned out the roll of her social peers and inferiors, pointing to each and dropping comments about names, titles, and land--especially land.  They stood on the edge of the crowd, watching the dancers and nodding to the minglers who passed by and complimented Nessa on her party.

"What about your land?" Gary asked as a servant replaced his empty goblet with a full one.  The dancing paused, again at some signal Gary couldn't make out, and Nessa smiled as the crowd broke into new groups.  Several of the men in velvet tunics were pushing through the crowd, honing in on the spot where Nessa stood.  

"It is difficult to breathe in here, do you not agree?"  With a fluid sweep of purple silk, Nessa walked away from Gary, heading for an open door at the far corner of the room.  She checked back over her shoulder to make sure he followed, nodding politely but dismissively at those who spoke to her.

It just so happened that they passed the corner where Fergus sat with the rest of the musicians, surrounded by Cecily and a group of young ladies, some in servants' clothing, some more richly dressed.  Despite the break in the dancing, Fergus was strumming absently on his harp, but when he saw Gary following Nessa, the tune changed and he started to sing, flashing Gary a wicked grin.

"Out came a dragon from her den,
fa la lonky down dilly;
Who'd killed God knows how many men,
fa la lonky down dilly...."

The glare Gary shot his way had no effect on Fergus, whose grin spread even wider as he sang.

"When she saw Sir Eglamore
You should have heard that dragon roar..."

"You're a big help," Gary muttered.  The "fa la las" followed him out the doors and into the cool night air.  






Chapter 45

Round here we talk just like lions
But we sacrifice like lambs
         ~ Adam Duritz


Crumb set a bowl of dog food on Marissa's kitchen floor and got out of the way.  Spike's tail was wagging gratefully, but Crumb didn't want to be in the way of a hungry German Shepherd.  He was wiping his hands on a light blue towel when the phone rang.  At first, he thought he'd just ignore it--could be a friend, a relative, or a telemarketer, and was it really his place to answer Marissa's phone?  But then he remembered the frantic blinking the answering machine had been doing out in the foyer was any indication; it was already overloaded.  He picked up the call in the kitchen, on the off chance that it might be Marissa herself, or news about Hobson.

It wasn't.

There was a moment of stunned silence after Crumb snapped, "Clark residence."

"Cr-Crumb? Ish that you?"

"No, Fishbrain.  It's Spike."

"That's--that'sh pretty funny.  Spike.  Here, doggie..."

If Fishman had been younger, blonde, and female, he would have been giggling like a Barbie with a stuck voice box.  As it was, his chortling was more than a little hysterical.  In the background, Crumb could hear obnoxious rock music and raucous voices--sounded a lot like a bar.  Based on Fishman's slurred consonants, he guessed that the guy must have been there quite a while, finishing what he'd tried to start at McGinty's the day before. 

"Where the hell are you?" Crumb asked, resigned to being the clean-up crew.  He rubbed an irritated hand over the back of his neck--there were knots back there that had been missing since his retirement. 

"I've been--I've been drinking," Fishman confessed.

Crumb rolled his eyes.  "Oh, do tell."

"I need a ride home."

"So you called Marissa?"

More hysterical laughter from Fishman dissolved into a coughing fit, then: "Hey, Crumb, you ought to come down here and do stand up.  I'm sure they have open mike night sometimes--or, I know!  I could put you on my new show.  We're gonna need comic relief--"

Okay, so the little guy got braver when he'd had too much to drink.  "I'm sure you can handle that on your own," Crumb said dryly.  "So, what, you need a ride?"

"The bartender took my keys..."  Fishman trailed off, some of his manic glee fading.  "I--I couldn't remember." 

Crumb cringed at the noisy slurp that followed this bit of news.  Man, he hoped nobody was wasting good liquor on Fishman.  The guy probably didn't have any taste buds left.  "Couldn't remember what?  How to drive?  Where you parked your car?  Your name?"

"Hey, I reshemble that remark."  Another slurp.  "Marissa's address.  I couldn't rememb--they tried to call a ta--a tax--a cab, but I couldn't tell them where I wanted to go."

Crumb heaved a sigh from the bottom of his flat feet.  This was worse than baby-sitting a three-ring circus.  But maybe it was a good thing that he'd been here, and not Marissa.  This would have upset the hell out of her.  He might have made a mistake, pushing her and Fishman together with no Hobson to referee.  That wasn't a job Crumb wanted by any means, not full time.  Do that and he might end up with a mystic tingle of his own.

Or maybe he was just trying to rationalize what he'd done, pushing her off on the Hobsons like that.  Maybe it was guilt that led him to say what he did next.

"Stay put, Fishman.  Give the phone to the bartender.  I'll come get ya."

After enduring Fishman's blubbered thanks, Crumb talked to the bartender.  "Look, I'm gonna come take that guy off your hands.  Tell me where I'm going."  When he heard, he shook his head.  Fishman would be lucky to find his spiffy rental car intact tomorrow morning.  Considering the little guy's big mouth, he was lucky to still be in one piece himself--but the night was young. 

"Okay, I'll be there in twenty, thirty minutes.  And look, I'm a cop."  He left off the 'ex' part.  "I want you to hold on to this guy's keys and keep him right where he is 'til I get there, even if you have to give him more to drink.  Just make sure he keeps his mouth shut.  Anything happens to him, we can have a vice team down there before you can say, 'illegal activity', you got it?"

The bartender snorted.  "What is this guy, some kinda narc?"

"Worse," Crumb told him.  "He's a television producer."






Chapter 46

Candles in us
saved for something
like this...
we move by touch
melt and
are our own roof
burning
against
the dark
rain
          ~ Lyn Lifshin


By the time "Hi-My-Name-Is-Dorian-and-I'll-Be-Your-Waiter-Tonight" brought their drinks, Marissa was glad to let Bernie order for her.  She'd had enough of questions; there had been too many, that day, for which she'd had no answers, or answers that wouldn't be believed.  It wouldn't be fair, she decided as she took a sip of her Chianti and settled back into the soft, upholstered booth, to make Dorian the first waiter in the history of Cielo's to induce a breakdown in a customer by asking if she wanted a house or Caesar salad.  It didn't matter.

None of it mattered. 

Only Gary mattered, if she could only hold on.  She should have been trying to find him.  Instead, she was about to have--what was Bernie ordering, anyway?  She had no idea; it was too hard to focus on his voice as he stumbled through the order in broken Italian. 

The cab ride over had been one long interrogation.  On top of her session with Sergeant Piovani, which had covered exactly the same information, it had been too much.  It shouldn't have been.  It should have been just another round.  But these were Gary's parents, and everything they felt was leaking through the cracks in their armor and into her own.  Bewildered anger, hopeless grief, Bernie's fumbling attempts at cheering Lois up, wave after wave of emotion that was bound to crack Marissa apart, surely as ice cracked rock. 

She tried concentrating on her surroundings instead.  The wall at the end of the booth was brick; she'd brushed it with her hand when she set her bag on the seat next to her.  The fabric that covered the seat cushion was soft--probably not velvet, but something with a slight pile to it.  She could tell by the whir of ceiling fans and the way sound echoed that the ceilings here were high, like McGinty's, and it didn't seem to be too crowded.  Voices and clinking china were muted by linen tablecloths and deep, private booths.  The wine glasses were real crystal.  This didn't strike Marissa as Bernie Hobson's kind of restaurant.  He seemed more like a steak house kind of guy, not unlike her own father, and she knew this choice was a concession--to her, perhaps, but more likely to Lois.  This was definitely a Lois kind of place.

She was startled out of her speculation when Dorian asked in that loud voice some people used on her, as if she were deaf instead of blind, "So, Miss, what'll it be?"

Shaking her head, she tried to focus.  "Um...the house dressing is fine."

"On your baked potato?"  His chuckle died when no one joined him.

"Oh."  Marissa folded her hands in her lap, bit back a snarky comment about the volume of his voice.  "Sour cream."

Dorian's tongue clicked against his teeth, and he waited half a heartbeat before saying brightly, "Right.  Okay.  I'll be out in a minute with your appetizer."

Fingering the overstitched edges of her napkin, which was still wrapped around her silverware, Marissa wished for a safe topic of conversation.  Or maybe a simple, handy, two-alarm fire to clear out the restaurant and force them all home.

"This is a nice place," Lois said.  "Gary brought me here once, when we were celebrating my birthday."  She sighed.  "That was when he was still married to Marcia."

The lump that had been lodged in Marissa's throat since Gary had disappeared started to grow again.  Still, she managed to answer.  "He's always liked this place.  He told me their shrimp scampi's good."

"Yeah, Gar loved anything with garlic, even when he was a kid--"

Lois cut through Bernie's rambling.  "Marissa, you know we need to talk about this."

Even though distance wouldn't protect her, Marissa pulled away, pressing her back into the thick booth.  "I don't know what else there is to say." 

"There has to be more.  We want to understand--what's the reason for all this?"

"The reason?" she echoed, like a mindless parrot.  How many times had she told Gary there was a reason for everything?

"You were there, Marissa.  There has to be something."  The flat, nasal vowels of Lois's Indiana accent scraped like nails against Marissa's raw nerves.  She opened her mouth, but Bernie beat her to it.

"I'll tell you the reason--it's 'cause life's not fair.  I've always said that."

"It isn't fair," Marissa repeated softly, remembering her own words that day on the pier--and then Crumb's.  "It never is.  But--"

"I won't accept that.  What about the paper, Marissa?  I understand that you couldn't tell the police, but surely you can tell us.  Please."

"There was nothing in the paper."  Marissa was grateful for that one mercy, that one truth she could tell them without any shade of hidden meaning.  "This had nothing to do with any story Gary saw in the Sun-Times."

"No--no, that can't be true, he can't have just fallen in the lake.  It doesn't make any sense!"  A muffled thump; at her fingertips, Marissa's bundle of silverware jumped.  She crossed both arms tight across her chest.

"Hey, Lo, calm down."

"I don't want to calm down.  Don't you want to know why our son died?  Don't either of you care?"

Shaking under the sheer force of Lois's determination, Marissa brought one hand up to cover her mouth.  She couldn't take this much longer.  Of course she cared.  She cared so much that it was ripping her apart.

"Well, sure, hon, of course I do," Bernie tried to assure her, "but Marissa isn't--"

"Okay!  Got your salads and toasted ravioli all ready for you.  I brought out the breadsticks, too."  Dorian's too-chipper voice was like a scratch across a vinyl LP, and they all fell silent as he set plates on the table.  Marissa drew in one deep breath, then another, regaining what was left of her composure. 

She didn't know which way to turn, nor how much to tell them.  It wasn't fair to push them farther than they'd be able to go.  She'd told Chuck, told Crumb, that she wouldn't; promised herself that she wouldn't upset anyone again.  But what about her feelings, her limits?  It had been hard enough dealing with Josh Gardner's barely-contained curiosity, and with Sergeant Piovani's insistence that she must have missed something, or misheard something; harder still to put up with this.  Dozens of voices rattled around in her head, but not the one she missed the most.

She tried concentrating on her breathing, but the concrete things around her--the table, the voices, even her own hands, gripping the edge of the cushioned bench--seemed to fade into the background.  Without Spike's bulk pressed up against her, grounding her, she was untethered, floating away from this danse macabre.  Now it seemed that her arm had to stretch clear across the room to pick up her fork and stab spinach and croutons, and that the tastes of parmesan and spinach and garlic were from some distant memory.  Another Marissa, perhaps, had taken a bite of her salad and chewed it into infinitesimal bits so she could force it past the lump in her throat, and was listening to the silence across the table, groping for some way to reach Lois and Bernie without upsetting them even more.  Another Marissa reached into her bag and pulled out the scrying glass, setting it on the table after she'd checked for a clear spot.  It was a testing of the waters, just to see if they'd respond.  If they did, then all bets were off.  She listened to her own voice, somewhere down below. 

"There is this.  A girl brought it to Gary earlier in the day--that day--and he was holding it when he--when he fell in the lake."

"Hey, would you look at that?"  Bernie sounded impressed, and her heart jumped, but prematurely.  "Gettin' presents from the ladies--just like his old man."  For a moment, he sounded like Bernie had always sounded--full of bravado and unabashed pride in his son.  But there was no real curiosity about the object itself. 

Lois sighed again.  "Marissa, we know about that--that thing, that crystal ball.  The police told us they found it, and they said it couldn't have been important.  It's very nice, dear, but we're more interested in what happened to Gary."  Lois's voice was acrid as the cigarette smoke that drifted over from the bar.  "We understood that Gary could die saving people.  But not something like this.  Wasn't the paper supposed to protect him?  Why didn't he know this would happen?"

"And besides," Bernie added, "what good's a snow globe without snow?  Or little plastic reindeer?"

"Bernie, stop.  Now, Marissa, please--"

"But I think this might have--"  Marissa touched the glass, and waited, but this time nothing happened, no tingle under her fingers, no reaction from the Hobsons.  "He was holding it, and he said it looked different."

"Oh, Sergeant Piovani explained that."  Lois patted Marissa's arm, as if she were a deluded child.  "You don't understand how light can change the way something like this will look out in the sunshine.  It's the paper that's important, and we all know it.  What was there, Marissa--what did Gary see?"

They'd missed it completely.  Not even a spark of interest, of hope, had flared across the table.  In her disappointment, Marissa fumbled with an answer.  "Maybe--maybe the article just wasn't there--"

"I don't believe that!"  All the silverware jumped again.

"Well, he could have overlooked it," Marissa offered, even though she knew that wasn't true.  "Maybe it didn't appear in the paper at all, until just before Gary--"

Until you told him to take the globe back, whispered a nasty, insidious voice in her head. 

"Maybe he didn't see it," she finished weakly.

"Or maybe you didn't."  Bernie was serious now.

Well, of course she hadn't--but he was getting at something else.  "What do you mean?"

"We were wondering if maybe Gar was trying to save you," said Bernie, "and didn't tell you that you were in the paper because he didn't want to scare you."

The lump in Marissa's throat exploded into her chest.  She shook her head, afraid it would roll right off her shoulders, and reached for Spike before she remembered that he wasn't there.  "Honestly, Lois, Bernie, I don't--I don't think--Gary never said that anything like that was about to happen." 

"Of course he didn't--don't you get it?  That's the whole point!"  Bernie sounded excited, albeit more hysterical than usual.

"Isn't it at least possible?" Lois pressed. 

It was so much like what Chuck had thought...

For a moment, Marissa let herself believe that they could be right.  She tried to cover the crumbling of her composure by reaching for her meal, but she couldn't manage a forkful of salad, and picked up one of the breadsticks Dorian had doled out to her plate instead.  She hadn't eaten all day.  Hence the shaking.  Tearing off one end, she brought it to her mouth and nearly suffocated trying to chew and swallow it. 

"We think--Bernie and I--that something like that must have happened," Lois went on, relentless as time.  "It must have.  If it wasn't you, Marissa, then it must have been someone else, and you just didn't see it, because--well, because you couldn't see it."

"But Lois, there was nothing--"  Marissa gulped; her hands curled around the edge of the table.  This couldn't be right.  She had gone out to him.  She'd been in no danger, nowhere near the edge of the pier, Spike had seen to that.  "We were just talking."

"About what?"

"About the paper, about our friendship."

"There must have been more.  Think, Marissa."

She could feel her jaw tightening.  These people, who had raised the best-hearted guy she'd ever met, were talking to her as if she were a child, or stupid, or both.  She'd forgotten how much it had bothered her the last time, when Gary was missing and they'd assumed that the best she could do for him was to sit around and answer the phone.  But she couldn't find it in her heart to be angry with them, not now--well, not more than a tiny bit, anyway.  They were speaking out of their own defeat and sorrow, their misplaced determination.

Or maybe it was hers that was misplaced.

"I suppose--I suppose anything is possible," she finally whispered.  The outrush of air from Lois was like the cracking of a dam, and it sent Marissa away, back outside the scene, practically outside her own body, out to a safe distance. 

"Now, I want you to try to remember everything that happened in the park that day.  There must be something, there has to be."

"There's nothing else."  One hand fell limply into her lap.  Her voice was rising above the murmurs, above the soft whir of the overhead fans, above discretion.  It was hard, so hard, to make herself heard from such a great distance.  She touched the globe in front of her, willing one of them to pick up on the clue.  "Don't you believe me?" 

Didn't anyone?  

"Of course we believe you, Marissa."  It was a good thing Bernie was across the table, because he sounded as if he was ready to pat her on the head.  "We just want to know if there's anything else, anything important, that you might have forgotten."

Everything that was important was right there in front of them, and they couldn't see it.  And she couldn't tell them.  She just couldn't...what if she was wrong?  What would it do to them if she could convince them, and then Gary didn't...

...God help her, she didn't know what to think.

"Please, Marissa," Lois choked out.  "We just want to bring our boy home."

Defeated, wondering why in the world she'd hoped they'd respond some other way, Marissa pulled the scrying glass off the table, cradling it for only a moment, a moment that no one else remarked on, before placing it back in her bag.  "That's what I want, too."

She reached for her wine glass, but Lois intercepted her hand and squeezed it tight.  Marissa was shocked when the action didn't send every piece of her spinning in a thousand different directions.  She wondered if that meant that she'd given them what they needed, or if they'd decided that she never would.  Either way, she wondered if they would ever recover. 

"If only things had been different," Lois murmured.  Marissa could only nod as she pulled her hand free.

She knew that the Hobsons weren't blaming her, but she also knew exactly what Lois meant, and she wasn't that far off base.

If only she'd reminded Gary to look at the paper--

If only she'd been more adamant in warning him about the odd feeling she'd had about Kelyn Gillespie--

If only--then Gary wouldn't be--

"No."

"Marissa?"

She wrapped her hand around her water glass, slippery and cool with condensation.  "We were just walking along the pier.  That's all it was.  I'm sorry, I'm so sorry that I can't--that no one can find him..."

For the second time that day, her eyes were about to brim over.  She tried to hide it by taking a huge gulp of ice water, and the cold jolted her back to the present moment like a slap across the face.  She thought about what had happened in the archaeology lab that morning, and let her hope and faith settle around that.  She would find Gary.  She would. 

"Marissa, I didn't mean to--to upset you--it's just--we really want to know what happened."

"I do too."  She drew in a deep breath, and, more composed, tried to set her mind to the role she had to play now.  Not much longer, surely it couldn't be that much longer. 

The main course came, and they fell into silence.  Marissa ate numbly, like an automaton, resisting the temptation to gulp her wine, grounding herself by taking tiny sips and trying to taste the overtones, the oak and fruit that Chuck always went on about when he wanted to impress some woman.  All she could taste was warmth, bitter mingled with sweet, and it burned down her throat like fire.  Only the thought of home, of her rooms, her dog, the books waiting for her, enabled her to swallow the few bites of chicken that she chewed so carefully.

After what seemed like an ocean of silence, Dorian appeared with dessert.  Marissa tapped the wedge she found on her plate, and it sprang back.  "You know," she said, hoping her voice was steadier than the last time she'd spoken, "Gary never says that much about his childhood.  Can you tell me what he was like when he was younger?"

It was a question she'd heard her grandmother ask, in hospitals and at wakes; it was a way of pulling them out of the present grief and into the safe, warm haven of the past, where all the rough edges had been lived through and blurred, sanded away by time. 

"Well, for one thing, he was always trying to be just like his old man," Bernie said proudly.  "Once, when he was eleven, I went on a fishing trip to Michigan with my buddies, and Gar climbed on his bike and tried to follow us--"

"No, that was when he was nine, don't you remember?  It was the same year he had Mrs. Lawson for third grade..."

Like the sweetness of the past, the liquor-soaked layers of tiramisu soothed Marissa's nerves as they slid down her throat.  She settled back into the booth, allowing small bites of the cake to dissolve in her mouth before she swallowed.  Bernie and Lois were off to the races, and they only required occasional prompting to maintain their litany.  Time dissolved, became liquid; the present touched the past, and became future once more...

Marissa blinked.  Where had that thought come from? 

In the end, she didn't eat any more of the dessert than she had of the dinner. 

In the end, even with the Hobsons calmed down, all she really wanted was to go home.





Chapter 47

Looks like something's coming
Looks like there's gonna be a storm
Looks like everyone's running
Looks like everyone's torn
          ~ Tara MacLean


"It will be much more pleasant--and private--to speak out here."  Nessa swept through a large set of open doors, directly opposite the front entrance.  Gary followed her onto a torchlit stone terrace which overlooked a sunken garden.  The terrace was enclosed on either side by the wings of the manor house, and a short stone wall separated it from the garden beyond.  Like the smaller garden out front, this one had narrow paths defined by lines and knots of shrubbery, black shapes looming in the clear moonlight.  Couples walked through it hand in hand, and a murmur of low voices and laughter drifted through the air.

One of those couples came back onto the patio through a break in the wall between two stone pillars.  The woman was adjusting her headdress, and they studiously avoided looking at Nessa as they hurried past.  She waited until they'd gone inside before speaking. 

"You asked about my land."  She extended her arm in an expansive gesture, indicating the end of the garden.  Far off in the distance, bonfires like those Gary had seen earlier were going strong.  "Everything you can see, up to the farthest of those fires, is mine.  The people owe fealty to me; they grow the crops that sustain life here at the manor.  It was all my husband's, of course, but now that he is gone, it is better managed than it ever was in his day.  Of course, Edward would never have let a mere woman run his estate while he was alive," she added in a wry tone.

"Lady Nessa," Gary told her, earnest and a little bit rueful, "there is nothing mere about you." 

She smiled, and an emptiness that Gary didn't understand shone from her eyes.  "All women are mere, or have you forgotten that along with your past?"

"My--uh, my lady, I don't know--"  Gary had no idea how to respond.  Maybe Fergus's amnesia story hadn't been such a great idea after all.

"Never mind, Gary."  She patted his arm, then moved, skirt swishing, to stand by the large stone post at the garden entrance.  Stopping just behind her, Gary drew in deep breaths of the cool night air.  It was bracing enough to clear his head a little. 

"Forgetting the past is not a crime," Nessa continued, in a voice so low he was forced to step nearer to hear her.  "Indeed, at times I have wished I could." 

It was a strange thing for her to say.  Up to this point she'd given every indication of being completely satisfied with herself, but now Gary heard genuine regret.  Just what was it she was trying to forget?

"What--uh--what happened to your husband?" he asked, propping his elbow against one of the pillars.  He was trying to reclaim a little of his swagger, but it was hard not to let his suspicion that Nessa was capable of doing away with anyone who got in her way sneak into his voice.  He drank more of the mead in his goblet--just for courage, he told himself.

"Edward died two years ago from the same disease that took half the world.  Not even his physician from London could save him."  Her voice was flat, and she tilted her chin up when she glanced back at Gary.  "I am sure that you remember that dark time, no matter where you were or what has happened since.  How could the pestilence not have left an indelible mark on your memory?"

"Uh--yeah," Gary said, nearly choking on his mead.  Everything Morgelyn had told him in the graveyard the day before came rushing back; the memory of the stricken look on her face as she'd told the story was enough to undo the wine's calming effects.  The only thing he could think of to say was worse than inadequate.  "I--I do know about that.  I'm sorry--about your husband, I mean." 

Nessa nodded, as if his stuttering, uneasy response was exactly what she'd expected.  "In the end, he even asked me to send for Amalia." 

"Amalia?"  Gary shivered, remembering  the creepy conversation between Robert and Morgelyn the night before.  "That's--that's Morgelyn's grandmother."

One eyebrow climbed Nessa's elegant forehead, nearly to the edge of her headpiece.  "You seem to be replacing old memories with new knowledge."  She paused, but Gary had no idea what to say to that.  He couldn't tell if she thought that was good or bad.

He finally settled for: "What happened?"

Nessa's eyebrow slid back to a normal position, her expression perfectly neutral as she scanned Gary's face.  "She did not come.  She sent word that she was too busy helping the people in the village--peasants, but because they were freemen, there was nothing Edward could do to force her to come."  There was no mirth in Nessa's almost-smile.  "It was the only time I ever saw a woman defy him.  She did send a concoction of foul-smelling herbs, but by then it was too late.  He died an hour later."

"Is that why you and Morgelyn don't get along?"  Damn, he thought as soon as the question was out, maybe he wasn't supposed to have noticed that.

A delicate sniff cut semi-darkness between them.  "Why on earth should we?  She is a peasant.  But to answer your question, no--"  Here Nessa swung her hands behind her and leaned back against the post opposite Gary's.  "Quite the contrary, in fact.  I blessed the old woman for not coming.  Are you shocked?" she asked with a laugh--Gary couldn't hide his surprise at that one.  "I had no love for my husband.  He was a brute and a cheat, and I am better off without him."  When Gary didn't respond, she pushed off from her post and stepped closer to him.  "Perhaps you have lost respect for my virtue?"

He was offended by her notions of class and worth, not because he'd had some chivalrous opinion of her virtue--but Gary knew better than to say so.  Clearing his throat to get rid of the cloying sweetness of the wine, he said with a shrug, "No, no, of course not.  I'm just...I'm wondering what it is about your past that you'd like to forget."

Nessa tilted her head up to look Gary in the eye.  Her headpiece looked like a pair of upside-down ice cream cones about to slide to the floor.  Ridiculous, given the seriousness of what she said next. 

"I was married to Edward when I was fourteen years old.  By then I knew more about running my family's estate than my brother and father combined."  Her chin jutted out, daring Gary to challenge her.  "I had been by my father's side since I was a very little girl, watching and learning all that he would teach me and more besides, while my younger brother John was busy with fencing and riding and a hundred other pursuits that had nothing to do with the business of the manor.  Father himself  admitted I could manage our land better than John."

She stepped past Gary, brushing his elbow as she moved to stand by the railing.  He turned so that he could see her and put his goblet on the low stone wall.

"But I was only a girl," Nessa went on, "and I would never inherit the home I loved.  Father said it would be best for all of us to marry me off to a brute of a man, a lord twice my age who would never be gentle, or even faithful to me.  My father knew what Edward was, and still he gave me away with joy at our wedding feast."  Her voice dropped to a whisper, and the gaze she turned on him was haunted.  "No one will ever do that to me again."

Her hurt was real--Gary could hear and see it.  But it was also dangerous, and over the years it had festered and turned bitter.  What might have just been the loss of innocence had turned to something harder, something angrier--and Nessa had learned how to use the knife-edge of that betrayal to cut down any opposition.  So why, he wondered with a worm of fear in his stomach, was she letting him see it?  Did she think...was it possible that she trusted him?

"That must have been hard," he finally told her softly, wishing his words could reach the lost girl he thought he saw in her eyes.  Maybe that's what he was here to do--help her to let go of that bitterness and stop whatever it was she was doing or planning that would hurt the villagers.  "Now that--now that you can let the past go and decide what to do for yourself, it must be easier--"

The laugh that interrupted him was strident.  "I am a woman, Gary.  Unless I marry a better partner than Edward, I will never be able to decide for myself."

"But--but you own this land now..."  And you can heal, he thought.  He just wasn't sure if he should say that part. 

"Which makes me prey for every unmarried nobleman within a hundred leagues."  Nessa's spine had gone stiff, and her tone had turned practical.  "Now that father and Edward are both gone, my dear brother would have me married to one of his vassals, so that he can have his own clumsy say in how this manor is run.  Then, if I have no heirs, he will be able to leave it to one of his lackwit sons.  But I have made a bargain with him.  If I can prove to him that I am capable of managing and expanding my holdings by some means other than marriage within the next year, I shall be free to make my own match, to a man who is worthy of me--"  She slid Gary a sly glance and he could feel heat creeping into his cheeks--"no matter what his standing."

Swallowing a thousand "uh"s, he said, "G-good for you.  You should be able to do what you want."  Within limits, whispered a warning voice in his head.  But he did feel sorry for her--at least a little bit.

"The next time I marry," she said, wrapping the knife-edge of her voice in velvet, "I will choose the man, and he will be..."  Her voice trailed off as she widened her eyes, searching Gary's.  He felt completely disoriented.  Was it just the mead, or had he really seen that lost soul in her eyes, reaching up from a pool of bitterness and betrayal?  Was he imagining a pull between them, that feeling that she needed saving as much as anyone else around here--even it was from herself? 

Nessa reached out and touched his sleeve, sidling closer, and lowered her voice to match the "swiff-swiff" of her skirt.  "He will be a knight in deed, whether or not he has the proper name.  I want a partner, Gary, not a provider; I can provide very well for myself.  If the right man came along, I could provide for him, too."  Her face was an inch away from his; he could feel her breath on his cheek like a caress.

Fresh air or not, his head went all swimmy again, and the skin on his arm broke out in goosebumps under her hand.  Gary forced himself not to pull away from Nessa, reached for the top of the stone railing and used it to brace himself.  He knew what she wanted, knew he was supposed to be as drunk on Nessa's power and beauty as he was on the mead.  Lost soul or not, she was, as she kept reminding him, a woman, and this was a grown woman's game.  If he was going to play along, he should sweep her up in his arms like any self-respecting action hero and--and--

Nessa took care of the "and".  Her hand slipped up his arm, then behind his neck, and she pulled his face down to hers and kissed him, full and strong.  Gary could taste berries as her lips parted against his, and for a split second, he thought it was kind of nice.  The hand that wasn't on the wall reached around Nessa, going for the small of her back.  He hadn't kissed anybody since Renee--

What the hell was he thinking? 

Gary's eyes flew open and he yanked his hand back.  Nessa didn't notice; she was trying to deepen the kiss, exploring, daring him to push it further, to take more, take everything she offered.  Her eyes were closed, and Gary pulled away before she could feel the shudder that ran through his body. 

"This is--you don't even really know who I am," he said, in an attempt to cover up his distaste.  He stared down at the dark paving stones. 

Nessa gave a huff of a sigh.  "You think me too forward," she murmured, but he could hear the hidden laughter in her voice. 

"No..."  Glancing up, Gary gulped and pushed away the uneasy feeling that he'd just done something dreadfully wrong, concentrating instead on the bit of humanity that he'd heard and seen.  "I--I think you are lonely."  He didn't add that he suspected that most her loneliness was of her own making. 

Her eyes went round again, but this wasn't subtrefuge.  He'd nailed it. 

Nessa took two deep breaths and then lifted her chin.  "I have all this," she said, her arm sweeping in an arc that took in the bonfires in the distance, the grounds and her house.  "How could I possibly be lonely?"

"Because there's more to life than owning land," Gary said simply. 

"Not this life."  Nessa's words flared like sparklers between them, then she added, almost to herself, "It seems I was mistaken, or you would know that much."  When she looked up at him again, she placed a light hand on his elbow, but her smile was more forced than ever.  "Now, Gary Hobson, now you know me.  Do you like what you have learned?"

A loaded question if there ever was one.  Gary tried to gather his scattershot thoughts, realizing with a lurch of his stomach that she was still gazing at him expectantly, lips slightly parted.  Though she made no move, he knew that Nessa was about to try to kiss him again.  Fighting back rising panic with the wits he had left, he managed, "I know now why you want Gwenyllan." 

The pronouncement had the effect he'd intended; Nessa stepped back, her eyes shooting twin lightning bolts his way before she brought her expression under control.  He would never have even seen it if the moon hadn't been hanging in the sky just behind him, illuminating her face. 

For a breathless moment neither of them spoke, and tension thickened the air between them like incense. 

"I want to protect the people of the village," Nessa finally said, with affected diffidence.  "We are not so different, apparently, in that respect."

There were worlds of difference, but Gary didn't dare say that.  He'd seen two different people in her eyes tonight--a hurt young woman and a calculating, practical politician--and he wasn't sure which one was the real Nessa.  But he was sure that both of them were dangerous.  In combination, they were probably lethal. 

He had to choose his words carefully, push her without going too far--finesse rather than swagger, he thought wildly.  He forced a conspiratorial grin.  "It's generous of you to offer your protection--but I think we both know it's more than just charity."  Free labor from feudal serfs probably had a lot to do with it.

"Of course it is."  Nessa shrugged, as if she'd expected him to have figured that out a long time ago.  "After all I have told you, you must realize that a woman alone has little hope of defending herself without the backing of land, of power.  Your friend Morgelyn, for example--she is your friend?" 

An innocent question, but the arch of Nessa's eyebrow was too calculated, the gleam of her teeth too eager, and the turn of the topic too deft.  Mouth open, Gary nearly answered her honestly.  Of course Morgelyn was his friend, for reasons Nessa would never understand.  Even if she had known about the inexplicable connection between Gary's friends at home and those he'd found here, she could no more understand that kind of friendship than he could understand the world glittering just inside the doors behind them.  But he couldn't say that.  This, too, was part of the game, and he couldn't give his hand away.  If Nessa wasn't sure what he thought of Morgelyn, she could just keep right on guessing.

"She's helped me out," he said casually, flicking his hand as if to shake off a fly, "but, to tell the truth, I hardly know her.  I've only been here a few days.  What about you, what do you think of her?"

Nessa's mouth twisted.  "She is certainly interesting, Gary, but she is hardly worth your attention.  Nothing will ever come of her, with all her...unusual qualities...and she only worsens her situation when she tries to tell others what to do.  Do you know, I think half the reason Father Ezekiel advises the villagers against accepting my offer of protection is her urging?  She has undue influence over him."

Undue?  Something hard lodged itself in Gary's throat, and all of a sudden he couldn't swallow.

"One might almost say it is unnatural," Nessa added, staring out again at the bonfires. 

Forget swallowing--he was having trouble breathing.  Swagger, some distant part of his brain cautioned.  Don't forget swagger.  "I see what you mean," was the best he could do.

"It was an amusing story she helped to tell today in the village, along with that...that blind man."  She wrinkled her nose at the word "blind". 

Gary reached for his goblet again to hide his clenched jaw and flash of anger.  Nessa couldn't be baiting him, she couldn't possibly know--he curled his fingers around the cup's stem, clenching it so that its pattern of carved metal and jewels embedded itself in his skin.

Fingering the biggest amethyst in her necklace, Nessa went on. "It would be wonderful if it were true--if they could find that treasure--but of course it is only a story."  She waited, watching him like one of those hawks she seemed to like so much.  "These are hard times for everyone.  Those poor villagers have had such a difficult time in these years of trial.  What they really need is someone to lead them."

Gary sucked in his lower lip, nodding as if he agreed.  "And that someone--that would be you?"  She didn't answer, just raised her eyebrows at him speculatively.  "Do you think they'd give up their freedom for your protection?"  He made it sound as if he really thought they might, and, trying to look no more than casually interested, took a slow drink of his mead.

"Some of them have already approached me."  Nessa's hand dropped back to her side.  "Look what their freedom has bought them--fear, illness, and a future full of doubt.  Since the pestilence wiped out half the population, they have been growling at each other's throats, worse with every passing month.  You have seen how fear and suspicion run rampant there.  My tenants have much more surety.  If any of them were ever to cut a woman with a knife because he thought she was a witch, he would receive a much more just punishment than a mere scolding from a priest."

Choking on the dregs he'd just swallowed, Gary had to put one hand on the post behind him until his coughing fit passed.  Very smooth, hotshot--but what exactly was Nessa implying?

"Of course," she went on as if she hadn't noticed, "that event was entirely understandable.  Mark Styles and his friends roam around Gwenyllan like a pack of unleashed dogs.  Who knows what they will do next, now that they suspect her?"

The entire contents of Gary's stomach flipped over in sloshy rebellion.  "You think something's going to happen to Morgelyn?"

"I think these past years--even your own experience--have taught us that anything can happen to anyone."  Nessa's tone grew hard, her warning unmistakable.  "Things in Gwenyllan are about to come to a head, now that more people have fallen ill.  This might be the return of the pestilence--or something worse.  I can let it run its own course, or I can direct it, but with or without me, a line will be drawn."  She turned her head, facing Gary straight on.  "Someone with your talents and charms--I would hate to see you on the wrong side of it.  You do not belong with them, Gary; you never even have to go back there.  I can offer you so much more.  If you are willing to join me, we can direct the course of events together."

Part of Gary's brain absolutely goggled at that.  She honestly thought he'd make some kind of alliance and go along with her plans.  Maybe if she kept thinking that, he could at least find out what her plans were, but he wasn't sure how much swagger he had left.  He finally relaxed his hand and let the goblet dangle, upside down between his fingers, and the last drops trickled out onto the stones.

"I think--" he began, but at that moment a throat cleared behind him, and he nearly jumped off the patio. 

Nessa shot a look of impatience over his shoulder.  "What is it, Hugh?"

Gary turned and found a man dressed in plain but well-made clothes standing behind him.  "Forgive the interruption, m'lady," the man said smoothly, "but your guest from London has arrived."

"See that his quarters are made ready," Nessa said with an imperious wave, "and tell him that I will come to speak with him soon." 

"Yes, my lady."  With a deferential bow, Hugh started back toward the doors.  Nessa watched him for a split second before she turned back to Gary.

"I am afraid I must greet my new guest.  We can resume our conversation later, can we not?"  She followed Gary's glance to the moon, and a tiny frown creased her forehead.  "In the meantime, I will find you some charming company."

He'd been remembering his promise to Morgelyn, but the moon was still high in the sky, and Gary really wanted to know just what it was Nessa thought was going to happen in Gwenyllan--or what she was planning to do about it.  He forced a smile and nodded.

Fergus shot him a sharp look when he re-entered the main hall with Nessa on his arm.  One of the ubiquitous servants appeared immediately, exchanging the empty goblet in Gary's hand for a full one before he quite knew what was going on. 

"Now, we must find you a dancing partner."  Nessa released his arm and flashed him a brilliant, false smile before considering the crowd before them with her head tilted to one side.

"I don't dance," Gary protested.  Why didn't anyone ever believe him about that?

Nessa's answering laugh was high-pitched and edgier than before.  She leaned in close and whispered, "On the contrary; I am quite sure that you dance very well indeed." 

Get the hell out of Dodge, screamed Gary's brain, but the message didn't get through to his feet, and he couldn't think of the right words to set him free of this mess.  All the music and talk and smoke swirling around in here made it hard for a guy to think.

"Elaine!" Nessa called.  "I see you are in need of a partner for the next dance."  The dark-haired young woman with the fake French accent twittered her way over to the pair, a wild, hopeful grin splitting her face.  "Drink your wine, Gary," Nessa advised under her breath.  "This will be thirsty work indeed."

"Indeed," Gary muttered.  Before he could get another swallow down, Nessa was gone and Elaine had her hand wrapped around his arm, dragging him out to the dance floor.  He followed, thinking that he was doing the wrong Bond imitation--he had all the girls, but the information he needed was tantalizingly out of his reach. 

He really needed to work on his swagger.






Chapter 48

So let's find a bar
So dark we forget who we are
And all the scars of the nevers and maybes
Die
          ~ Jonathan Larson


"...and then there was the time I had coffee with Julia Roberts's makeup consultant--well, not with her, but we were in the shame sop, and she took my card and said she'd have Julia give me a call any--any--"  Chuck swept the air in front of him with a hand that didn't quite feel as if it was attached to his body.  "Any old day now.  Any day.  But you know, I'm not going to wait around.  I heard Michelle Pfeiffer's looking for a juicy role, you know, something a little different, and you know who's got it for her?"  He pointed a finger at the nose of the man next to him, missed and poked the tattoo on the big guy's bicep instead, right at the point where the dagger entered the heart.  "Chuck Fishman, that'sh who."

No response.  Maybe humor would work better.

"That'sh a very nice outfit you have there," he told the guy.  "The last time I saw that much leather was on a cow.  Get it?  A cow, 'cause...'cause that's funny!"

A growl sounded from deep inside the man's chest.  Considering the size of the chest, that was pretty damn deep.  Chuck wondered what a biker could have against a harmless little joke.  He was just about to ask when the bartender leaned his elbows on the counter between them. 

"Hey, Hollywood.  Your friend's here."  He nodded toward the opposite end of the bar.

Chuck peered down the expanse of pitted wood that had long since lost its polish.  Squinting against the somewhat brighter light near the door, he could see a vaguely Crumb-like bulk making its way toward them.  The biker next to him growled again, but the bartender leaned over and whispered something as he handed the man another mug of beer.  The next thing Chuck knew, the tattooed monstrosity was leaving, jostling into Chuck as he got down from the stool.

"That's okay, really, no harm done, it was only an accident, right?" Chuck called after him as he tried to mop up the third of a mug of cheap beer that had somehow ended up on his shirt and pants.  He looked up from his haphazard swabbing into the face of Zeke Crumb, and gulped.

"Making friends all over the place, huh?"  Crumb's eyes were exactly level with his.  Chuck could take the piercing dark stare for only a moment, then he looked away, into the swirl of amber in his glass.

For some reason, he'd expected to see Marissa with Crumb; expected the double-barreled shotgun of their anger and disappointment.  But there was only Crumb, and instead of chewing Chuck out, he eased his bulk onto the stool next to Chuck's with an expression that Chuck, in his less than coherent state, couldn't decipher.

"Whatcha drinkin'?"

Chuck shrugged, propping one elbow on the bar so he could rest his chin on his hand.  Things moved around a lot less that way.  "Well, I started with beer, but it didn't do the trick." 

"He graduated to scotch rocks a couple hours ago," the bartender told Crumb.  Chuck raised his glass and started to hum "Pomp and Circumstance", but at that Crumb did glare.

"Sorry, man, I dunno the words.  Marissa probably does.  Where is she, anyway?"

"She went to dinner with the Hobsons."

Chuck snorted into his glass.  "Oh, that's great.  She's taking her Oliver Stone act on the road?  Gonna throw all her little theories at Lois and Bernie to see if they stick?"

"Fishman..." Crumb growled between his teeth.  His forehead rippled into deep furrows, but all he said was, "Give her a little credit, will ya?"

"Yeah, okay, you're right."  Remembering, sort of, the tail end of the conversation he'd had with Marissa early that morning, Chuck finished off his glass and slid it across the bar to where the tap jockey stood staring at the unlikely pair.  He gestured for a refill with two fingers.  The bartender frowned and turned to Crumb, who gathered his lips in a disgusted expression, but shrugged.

"What the hell.  And I'll have a scotch and soda.  Just one."

Chuck blinked.  "You're gonna--but you--"

Turning in his stool so that his back was to the bar, Crumb leaned back and took in the dimly lit little hole in the wall with a practiced gaze.  "I am tired of pickin' up pieces, Fishman.  I need a drink.  Not to get drunk.  Just a drink."  They reached for the glasses the bartender brought, and Crumb took a sip, then looked at Chuck.  "So, what's up?"

Chuck twirled his glass back and forth between his hands for a few seconds before he answered.  "What's down is more like it."  With a deep sigh, he let go of the glass and sat back on the stool, knuckling at his watery eyes.  The smoke in this place was really getting to him.  "He's not coming back, is he?"

Crumb watched him over the rim of his own glass.   He took his merry time rolling his drink around in his mouth before he swallowed.  "No, Fishman, I don't think so."

Chuck sighed and let the music from the jukebox fill the space between them.  The jukebox, all green and pink neon, was the prettiest thing in the bar, and that included the ladies playing pool on the other side of the room.  But the music stank like last month's milk.  "I have this thing about AC/DC," Chuck told Crumb.

"Huh?"

"This group--"  Chuck swung his glass around to indicate the jukebox.  "I hate them.  They remind me of this girl I knew in college.  She left me after a week to be a groupie."  The drum solo reached a frenzied crescendo, then settled back down and let the guitars and the stuck-pig squealer of a vocalist take over.  "No more heavy metal for me--and no more women whose hair makes them taller than me."

"Fishman--"  Crumb shook his head, then started again.  "If you don't like this music, then what are you doing here?  How'd you find this place, anyway?"

"I just drove around for a while after--I needed someplace that didn't--"  Chuck took another gulp of the whiskey, trying to get rid of the lump in his throat.  The last thing he needed was to start blubbering in front of Crumb.

An unreadable expression on his face, Crumb turned back to the bar, placing his glass down on a napkin--as if anyone there would care about the finish.  "There are people out there who are worried about you, ya know.  What did you think you'd prove, comin' to a place like this?"

"Prove?"  Chuck shook his head and the room spun around him, further loosening his tether to reality.  Good.  "Nothing.  I don't wanna prove nothing.  I could never prove anything to Gary anyway.  I was never--never good enough, and now when Marissa--I can't even believe--"  Chuck tipped his head back and let the last of his scotch roll down his throat.  The tumbler slipped out of his fingers and landed on the bar with a clank.

He couldn't seem to get a grasp on the glass to right it.  It rolled out of his reach, down to the dark end of the bar.  "Fuck."  He leaned on the bar, forearms in the pool of indeterminate liquid that had been there since he'd shown up early in the afternoon.  "Sorry, Crumb.  I just..."

"Yeah," Crumb finished for him when he trailed off, unable to find the words to describe his current state.  They both stared at the ancient Falstaff Beer sign above the bar. 

"You must think I'm the biggest loser this side of the Missip--of the Mishish--of the Rockies."

"Nah."

"Well, then, Marissa does."

Crumb snorted.  "Don't worry, Fishman, she's probably not too happy with me right now, either."

"I've blown it.  I've totally blown it."

"Huh."  Crumb swiveled his bulk to face Chuck.  "You know what I think?  You really wanna know?"

"Why not?"  Chuck already knew he was a mess, not to mention a lousy friend.  Nothing Crumb had to say could hurt him, not anymore, not when he was protected by the thickest cushion of scotch he'd ever built in one sitting.

"I think, for once, you got every excuse to be an idiot."  Crumb nodded judiciously when Chuck blinked at him in surprise.  "You get this night--this one night--free, 'cause I understand a little of what you're goin' through." 

"You do?"

"You think I haven't lost friends?  Hell, Fishman, I was a cop.  Plus, I'm older than Methuselah, ya know."

Their eyes met for a moment, and Crumb pushed his glass, still two-thirds full, over to a dumbfounded Chuck.  "Go ahead, forget for a while.  I don't blame ya.  But there's one thing I want you to remember."  He pointed one--three--no, one--finger at Chuck.  "I have no idea why, but Hobson liked you.  You.  You were his friend.  He didn't care about you proving nothing.  I might not know everything that you yahoos got up to, but I do have eyes, ya know.  Hobson depended on you to help run the bar, and he missed you when you left, but he was glad you had a chance to do something you wanted to."

Chuck shook his head until his stomach threatened to revolt.  Oh, it was going to make him pay for all the abuse it had endured today.  "He was pissed at me for bailing."

"Not so much that he wasn't happy for you."  When Chuck opened his mouth to protest, Crumb cut him off, slicing his hand through the air.  "You weren't there the past couple months, I was.  So don't tell me I don't know what's what.  Hobson was easier to read than a billboard, most days.  And you know what else?   Marissa feels the same way about you."  Crumb leaned in close, wrinkling his nose, and Chuck realized that he must smell...well, not exactly lemon fresh.  And he had to be nine kinds of hammered to believe that Crumb, of all people, was actually granting him absolution.

"Look, Fishman, I don't know how you got so lucky, but there was one person in this city who liked you for who you are, and there's another one who still does.  Lots of us don't ever get that lucky."

Yeah, but Chuck would bet that he'd blown any chance he might ever have of getting back into Marissa's good graces--if he'd ever been there in the first place.  No matter what Crumb said, she'd kick his ass all the way back to LA with those chunky heels she always wore if he walked into her house like this.  "What am I supposed to do now?"

"Well for one thing, you're gonna pay your tab and get your butt off that bar stool."  Crumb stood as Chuck dutifully fumbled for his wallet.  Glancing down at the contents, Chuck realized that in his current state, he was about as likely to pull out the right bills as...well, hell, as Marissa would be.  The only thing he was sure of was that they were all green.  He handed the wallet to Crumb, who yanked out some money and tossed it on the bar.  "You got a coat?"

Chuck looked around.  "Uh...shit," he muttered, bringing one hand up to still his spinning head.  It didn't help at all, it was the room that was tilting and turning around him.  "Maybe out in my car?"

Clamping a hand on Chuck's shoulder, Crumb pushed him forward.  "We're gonna find you some decent food and coffee, if you can keep it down, and then water and aspirin.  Then you're gonna go back to Marissa's.  She might be pissed at you, she might not wanna talk to you until you sober up, but she's not gonna throw you out on your kiester."  Chuck staggered to a halt as they left the bar.  The fresh air made his face tingle.  Crumb grabbed him by both shoulders and looked him in the eye, his face eerily wan under the flashing blue neon sign. 

"When you wake up tomorrow, you remember that, and be grateful."

Chuck nodded, even though he wasn't entirely sure what he was agreeing to--his short-term memory was shot.  Something about Marissa, something about her not being entirely ready to bail on him.  Man, he hoped that was right. 

"Crumb?"

"Yeah?"

"What about you?"

"Me?"  Crumb shook his head.  "Alls I ask is that you don't toss your cookies in my car."






Chapter 49

Beware of pretty faces that you find
A pretty face can hide an evil mind
Be careful what you say, you'll give yourself away
Odds are you won't live to see tomorrow
Secret Agent man, Secret Agent man…
          ~ Johnny Rivers

Three bumbling dances later, Gary decided that drastic times called for drastic measures.  He ditched Elaine by telling her flat out that he didn't speak French and held no property, and then refusing her whispered offer to sneak off and join the revelers at the bonfires out on the moors.  Disappointed, she wandered off in search of a new prospect, leaving Gary alone and relieved--until he saw three more young ladies heading his way.  He ducked behind a servant, who misinterpreted his move as a request for more wine and obliged immediately, then moved away. 

Yet another goblet in hand, Gary slipped behind the nearest stone post and found a group of men discussing the price of Italian silks.  He tried to look interested, nodding and listening intently until the girls left.  About that time, the men realized he was there, and they shot him suspicious looks as they moved away.  The atmosphere in the room had changed just a little, as people got more comfortable--and probably more drunk, Gary thought with another sip of his wine--and some of the veneer of social graces wore off.  Even he could see that there were definite cliques around the room, and while the younger set was interested in dancing, laughing, and trips to the garden, more of the people his age were engrossed in private conversations.

He wove his way through the crowd, feeling just as out of place as ever.  The only thing he had approaching a clique was Fergus, and, Gary realized when he made it to the fireplace where the musicians were taking a break, the peddler wasn't anywhere in sight.  He didn't see the purple peaks of Nessa's headdress in the crowd either, and wondered if that was good or bad.  There was something he needed to ask her about, he thought through his mead-fuzzed brain.  What was it...

...Oh yeah.  What exactly was she planning for Gwenyllan, and what did it have to do with Morgelyn?  Was it worth staying around here to try and find out, or should he just go home? 

Home.  He'd never expected that that would be a relative term.

"Gary!  Gar-reee!  I want you to meet my friend--"  Elaine's voice was the closest thing to tires squealing on pavement that Gary had heard in three days.  Seeking shelter, he ducked behind heavy velvet curtains that separated a hallway from the main room.  "Ou sont-il?" Elaine squeaked, and Gary vowed to stay where he was until he was sure she wasn't going to follow.  He relaxed when the curtain stayed where it was, and, glad to be alone for a few minutes, looked to see what was behind him.

He was in an empty hallway, lit by a few torches in sconces along its walls, which were made of the same grey stone as everything else around here.  Heavy oak doors with iron fittings lined both sides of the hall.  Up ahead, the second door on his left stood ajar.  Gary could hear a murmur of voices, and he walked that way on tiptoe, keeping close to the wall.

Words became clearer as he got closer to the door, and he recognized one voice as Nessa's.

"...but now that you are here, things should move at a faster pace.  The appearance of a new sickness is timely, too."

The voice that responded was a man's, a smooth baritone that Gary thought at first might be Father Malcolm's, but then as he listened, he decided it must have been someone else.  Not enough simper or something.  "If all you have told me is true, Lady Nessa, the villagers will be asking for your protection in no time.  We just have to...to prompt them."

This was exactly what Gary needed to know.  But prompt them how?  He stopped just before the wedge of light that spilled out into the hallway from the barely-open door. 

"They must come," Nessa was saying, more desperate than she'd sounded yet.  "I must have that land, and the people to work it.  I will not marry that fool Lord Hilleston, and this is the only way to prevent it."  There was a pause, the man murmured something Gary couldn't make out, and her voice became calmer.  "Yes.  They say that every chain has a weak link, and this is true, but I have found that if one can break the strongest link, it makes a more satisfying snap."

Her voice pounced on the last word, breaking it like a stalk of fresh celery, and the cold pleasure behind it made Gary's skin crawl. 

"And the strongest link is...?"

"Surprisingly, it is not the priest," Nessa said.  "Father Malcolm welcomes this, for it will greatly increase his authority."

Gary could hear them moving around, farther away from the door.  It was harder to hear them, but he didn't dare go any closer; he'd be right in the light, and frankly, he didn't trust himself to make a smooth exit at this point.  But he had to know...he leaned forward, focusing all the brain cells that weren't alcohol-numbed on what he could hear of the conversation.

"...about the other?" the man asked.

"He is of very little consequence.  I doubt it will be difficult to turn them against him, given the way he..."

He what?  The other what--the other priest?  Was she trying to turn them against Ezekiel?

There was more that he couldn't hear; too much distance and the sounds of unpacking, then the voices got closer again. 

"...after all, there must be some of them left to work the land.  The disease is timely, but we cannot let it get out of control."

"Believe me, Lady Nessa," the man said smoothly, "I have seen it enough to know exactly what will happen.  Once we are finished with the first one, or possibly two, they will turn to you out of fear from the mere thought that there might be more.  Of course, we do not have to stop there.  We can target all those who you wish to be rid of."

In the dim torchlight, Gary could see his hand shaking against the grey stone wall.  Funny, he couldn't feel it.  Though he still didn't know exactly what they were planning, his gut instinct was to turn and run, run all the way back to the cottage and take Fergus's advice and get Morgelyn out of there, away, somewhere different, somewhere safe.  But how could he protect her, or Ezekiel, or anyone in the village, if he didn't know what to protect them from?

He drew in a steadying breath, telling himself that they were talking about something that would happen in a few days, at the soonest, and not the next few minutes.  He hadn't even heard who exactly they were going after, though his earlier conversation with Nessa--and just the fact that whatever had sent him here clearly expected Gary to ally himself with Morgelyn and Fergus--was enough to give him an elephant-sized clue.  But if he could find out what else there was to know and what this plan involved, maybe they could stop it before it actually happened. 

His thoughts were going in loopy circles and he needed to just focus, Hobson, just figure out what you can...

"Oh, if there is a treasure, we will find it and destroy it," Nessa was saying.  "But I doubt such a thing even exists.  It was only--"

Gary didn't hear the rest.  Back down the hall, a door squeaked open.  Heart pounding, he pressed himself against the wall--what could he say if caught?  Maybe he could pretend to be looking for the bathroom.  But what would they call it here?  Somehow, he didn't think a place like this would have an outhouse, but it couldn't have indoor plumbing and...he really should have been able to think a lot more clearly.

A shaft of light appeared and disappeared at the end of the hallway from which he'd come, and he tried to pull back into shadow.  There were more voices--soft and low and one, at least, familiar.  Fergus--Gary hurried down the hall.

"Gary?  What are you doing--" 

"Sh!" Gary hissed, clamping a hand over the bard's mouth.  He nodded toward the curtain, then pushed Fergus in that direction when he would have stood staring, first at Gary, then down the hall. 

"Did you and Nessa--"

"No!"

A soft giggle came from the doorway, and Fergus bent away from Gary's sharp look to roll up his tights, which had been in donuts around his ankles.  For a split-second, Gary couldn't even speak.

"I don't believe you!" he finally sputtered. 

"Me?  Fergus straightened up, returning Gary's stare.  "I was not the one kissing the enemy."

"I--I didn't--" Gary sputtered.  "She kissed me, it wasn't like--"

"Hello!" squeaked a cheerful voice.  Freckles.  Checking back over his shoulder, Gary saw the crack of light at Nessa's door widen.

"Out!" he commanded in a whisper, pushing Cecily and Fergus through the drapes ahead of him.  He kept right on pushing them until they were in the middle of the dance floor, lost with the other minglers waiting for the music to resume, and though Nessa scanned the crowd when she emerged from the hallway a few minutes later, Gary was pretty sure the three of them didn't look any more suspicious than the rest of the crowd.

"I was just trying to find out what she's planning," Gary started to explain, but his stomach roiled at the memory of what he'd heard. 

"Did you?"

Gary nodded--then shook his head--then felt so sick he wanted to sit down right there in the middle of the dance floor.

"And?" Fergus prompted.

"It isn't good.  Fergus, we have to--"

"I thought you said you were going to sing a song just for me."  Cecily pouted at Fergus, but, wide-eyed, he was still gaping at Gary. 

Running one hand through his hair, which did nothing to clear the thoughts whirling through his brain, Gary managed to focus on Fergus's unsteady form--or maybe it was Gary who wasn't so steady--as he muttered, "I think we should go now, don't you?"

"No, you must not go!" Cecily's lower lip jutted out even further, and she wrapped both hands around Fergus's upper arm.  "There is still much more dancing, and food, and mead--"

Gary's stomach turned at the mention of mead, but it flipped backwards and landed somewhere in the vicinity of his toes when he heard Nessa's voice at his elbow.

"Of course you shall not leave," she said, her grey eyes somehow darker than they'd been before, even though her mouth was lifted in a perfect smile.  "I have not even had the chance to dance at my own party.  What will everyone think?"

"My lady--excuse me."  With a quick, embarrassed curtsey, Cecily turned and fled to the kitchen, and when Gary turned from watching her hasty retreat, Fergus, too, had deserted him--again.  Before he could find words, Nessa had him back out on the dance floor, surrounded by dozens of others who seemed to have found their enthusiasm again, now that their hostess was going to join in the fun.  Fun, like home, being a relative term, Gary thought grimly. 

The next couple of hours passed in a whirl of--well, of whirls.  Gary never really did figure out what he was supposed to be doing, but that bothered neither Nessa nor the next partner to whom she handed him, nor the one after that.  He knew that later, all he would be able to remember was watching skirt hems and tights swirl through his exhausted vision, and trying to make noncommittal noises serve as his end of the conversation. 

Finally, blessedly, a man in green velvet clothes and bright gold tights whisked away his most recent partner, and he found an empty bench near a nice, quiet, dark, non-moving wall.  Gary lowered himself to it, waved away a servant who would have handed him another glass of mead, and let himself go limp.  God, he was so tired, and he had to figure out--Nessa was--that guest of hers--Morgelyn--he had to help--the villagers.  The villagers needed saving, but they were also the enemy, because they turned to an enemy, or at least he was pretty sure that Nessa was an--

"An enemy of my friend's friend is the enemy of my friend--no, wait, that's not right," he muttered, and only realized he'd said it out loud when the servant he hadn't even noticed approaching scuttered backward as fast as his feet would take him. 

So tired...

He needed to put his head down, just for a second, just so he could think.  He'd close his eyes and rest his head for a few minutes, and then he'd get Fergus and they'd go home, and everything he'd learned here tonight, everything that was happening, would start to make sense--except for the dancing.

He never had been any good at dancing anyway, he thought as his head connected with the welcoming wood of the bench.





Chapter 50

Sometimes I see myself fine
Sometimes I need a witness
And I like the whole truth
But there are nights I only need forgiveness
          ~ Dar Williams


Marissa had to retrieve her key from Mrs. Gunderson, which meant that Crumb had come and gone and Chuck was still...wherever Chuck was.  She was concerned about him, but until she knew where he was, there wasn't much she could do.

Home was an aching quiet, the false calm in the eye of the storm, where Spike and her overloaded answering machine met her in the foyer.  She considered wiping out all the messages without listening, but knew that wasn't a good idea.  It was as she feared; everyone--her mother, her sisters, her pastor, her friends who lived in the Chicago area, even Chuck's Aunt Gracie--they'd all heard the news, and they all wanted to know if she was okay, what they could do to help, where to send flowers and donations and...and dear God in heaven, she couldn't do this.  Couldn't even call them to say she was all right.  She wasn't, not now, not still vibrating from a couple of hours with Gary's parents.

"Oh, Spike," she murmured wearily, sinking down onto the couch and stroking the head that nuzzled her leg.  "What are we going to do?"  She sat in the stillness for a few minutes, forcing herself to focus. 

Email would work.  Just a quick one to her family to let them know she was still on planet Earth.  That way, she wouldn't have to talk to anyone, wouldn't have to endure sympathy and scrutiny, wouldn't have to tell the story with the ending she did not, could not believe.  It might seem cold to them, but she just couldn't deal with their concern in real time.

She fired up the computer, sent the email, and then, as long as she was there, tried scouring the web for anything that might help them find Gary.  She didn't know if it was frustration or the tea she drank that kept her awake, but she was still at it when a key turned in the lock.  Spike was at the door, barking, before she could get out of the desk chair.

"It's all right, it's just Chuck," she assured the dog, reaching for his collar and hauling him to her side so that Chuck could get in the door.  Spike's nails scrabbled on the foyer tile, and a wave of alcohol, coffee, cigarette smoke, and who knew what else hit her nostrils as Chuck staggered in with the cool night air--he must have staggered, she heard him bang into the door twice, and winced.  "What's wrong, Chuck?  Where have you been?"

"M'rissa!  Hey!  I've been all--all over town."  His hand swept the air in front of her, fanning the fumes that emanated from him and then knocking into her arm.  She nearly lost her hold on the still-growling Spike.  "With my buddy Crumb.  You're my buddy, right?  Zeke, my buddy Zeke."

Marissa pulled back into the living room entrance to make way for another, heavier set of steps.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, just get off my foot, would ya?"

"Crumb?  What's happening--is he all right?  Go sit, Spike."  Marissa snapped her fingers toward the sofa behind her.  Though the German Shepherd complied, she could hear his heavy, worried breathing, and knew he was as confused by Chuck's behavior--and repulsed by the odors that he brought with him--as she was.

"He'll be okay tomorrow," Crumb muttered.  "Right now I just gotta roll him into bed.  I'm sorry, Marissa--maybe I should have just brought him to my place."

"Marissa hates sorry," Chuck proclaimed solemnly, sending more noxious fumes her way.  "Don'cha?  Hates me, too, 'cause I'm one sorry spe-spec--specimen of a human being."

She hadn't thought the knife embedded in her heart could go any deeper, but she'd been wrong.  Reaching out a hand, she choked on his name.  "Chuck--"

"Human being, string bean.  Strung out being," Chuck sing-songed, just beyond her reach.  "Green being, if I don't lie down soon..."

"Ignore him," Crumb told her.  "Which way's his room?" 

She pointed up the stairs.  "End of the hall, on the left.  Crumb, what's happened?"

"He's had too much to drink and way too much time to think--if you can call what he does thinking.  Fishman, would you get a move on?"  Grunting, Crumb dragged Chuck up the stairs.  "I fed him and poured some coffee down him, and a lot of water, but he'll need more aspirin in the morning."

Marissa nodded as she followed them up the narrow stairway.  Spike tagged along at her heels.  "I understand, Crumb."

"Oh sure, you understand Crumb.  What about Chuck ?" 

The words drifted to her through a haze, Chuck's haze or her own, she wasn't sure.  Probably both. 

Once they reached the upstairs hallway, Marissa stepped closer to the pair, reached out until she found a sleeve, and knew, when the arm under that sleeve wobbled, that she had the right man.  She heard Crumb step away--but not too far--and tried not to make a face at Chuck's foul odor.  "I do understand you, Chuck.  I do.  You're not sorry, you're just upset--and I don't hate you.  Will you please, please get that through your thick skull?"  She shook his arm with each "please", determined to make him believe.  After everything that had happened, she just couldn't bear to let him think that she felt that way. 

"Really?"  Chuck hiccupped, then lurched right into her.  Instinctively, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, half-supporting him, half-hugging him.

"Really."  Tears stung her eyes, and that damn lump was back in her throat.  "I'm your friend, Chuck.  I could never hate you."

"Gary--Gary was my friend, too.  His cat--did you know his cat hates me?"

"It's okay.  No one hates you."  She tried to step back, but Chuck stayed draped over her.  Crumb reached in to peel them apart, but Marissa kept one hand on Chuck's arm.  "You do believe me, right?  Chuck, I don't want you to think that I--"

"Marissa."  Crumb's voice was soft; he lifted her hand away.  "He's asleep--or--or out of it, something, I don't know.  I'll get him to bed." 

Marissa backed up against the wall and let Crumb take over.  Spike padded over to stand next to her.  Grunts and mumbling--Crumb's--were followed by heavy-duty snores--Chuck's, then footsteps and a hand on her elbow.

"You all right?"

She nodded.  "I just need to get some aspirin and a glass of water, in case he wakes up." 

She shuffled stiffly toward the bathroom, feeling ancient, and heard Crumb mumble, "Better put a bucket in there, too."

A few minutes later, everything arranged on the night stand, Marissa and the ubiquitous Spike plodded downstairs, where Crumb was rattling his keys in the little foyer. 

"He's gonna be okay," he tried to assure her.  "I got his stomach settled with some food, and if he's really bad tomorrow, call me, and I'll bring that hangover cure I worked up in the Navy."

It should have been impossible to smile, but for a tiny second she did.  Crumb's remedy was infamous around McGinty's.  Poor Chuck would be lucky to survive it.  "Where did he--why--"

"He called here when I was bringing Spike home, from some dive down in the worst part of town.  You don't even wanna know about this place.  If I was still a cop I coulda busted most of the clientele based on what I saw in the first five minutes.  But he was just trying to--" 

Crumb cleared his throat, and Marissa sensed something new, something she hadn't yet heard, despite all that had happened in the past three days: weary defeat, a hollow note that reverberated off the high-ceilinged entryway.  "He was trying to forget what happened to Hobson.  It can hurt, you know--well, yeah, I know you know.  He was trying to make it go away.  It was just a way of--of coping.  A stupid way, but Fishman's never won any scholarships or nothin'."

Crumb's assessment of Chuck's mental prowess was only half as scathing as usual, without any edge at all.  He wasn't himself, and the reason why came to Marissa in a rush of guilty realization.  She nearly choked again, this time on the question she should have asked days ago.  

"What about you, Crumb?"

"Huh?  What about me?"

"Gary is your friend, too.  Are you--how are you holding up?"

"Look, Hobson wasn't--I mean he was--"  Crumb's voice dropped to a discomfited mutter.  "I don't know if he'd have called us friends." 

"He does," Marissa told him, imbuing her words with all the strength she had left to give.  It wasn't much, but Crumb needed it.  "Gary cares about you, and I do too.  I know I've sort of deserted you, and left you in charge of too much, but I'll try--"

"Don't worry about me, I'm fine."

Nobody could be fine after spending three days dealing with not only the Hobsons, but Chuck, probably Patrick, and Marissa herself.  "All I mean is--if you need someone to talk to, I'm here."  There was no answer, and she wasn't good at reading Crumb's silences.  "Do you want a--a cup of tea or some coffee or anything?  You don't have to leave."

"Thanks, but I think I do.  Can't remember when I've felt so worn out, not since I retired, anyways."  There was another pause, the keys jingled again, then he said, "Hobson, he--he reminded me of someone."

"Who?"

Crumb's soft words scuffed the silence between them.  "A kid, an idiot kid who joined the Chicago PD a few decades ago because he thought he could make the world a better place."

Marissa had to bite her lip to keep that sharp pain in her heart at bay.  She wanted to reach out and hold him up, the way she had Chuck, but she didn't know if he would put up with that.  Words were all she had to offer.  "You have, Crumb.  You both do."

"Maybe."  Crumb sighed.  "I'd better go; it's late.  I'll call you in the morning, okay?"

"Sure."

"You gonna actually be here?"

"I--I don't know," she admitted, expecting a rebuke that didn't come; there was just another one of those pauses which acknowledged their mutual sorrow.

"Fair enough.  Take care."  He closed the door behind him, but Marissa didn't hear his feet slap down the stairs until she'd thrown both the locks.  Resting her forehead against the polished wood, she let the door hold her up until she heard his car pull away.

She went up to bed, but though she'd been able to fall asleep in the middle of a public reading room earlier, now she was too restless to do more than doze.  Far into the night her fingers moved restlessly across the Braille texts she'd gathered at the library, her mind weaving the information into theories that she'd never remember in the morning, accompanied by Chuck's snoring, which went on without interruption for hours.  And all the while, Marissa kept the little globe next to her pillow, reaching out to touch it even as she dozed, just in case anything should happen.




Feedback:  'Tis a consumation devoutly to be wished.   peregrin_anna@hotmail.com


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