Free The Lark's Lament: A Fools' Guild Mystery by Alan Gordon Page A

even more corpselike by comparison. She posed in a manner that was meant to be grand, but swayed like a boat in bad weather.
    “Two fools, two of us,” she said. “I have an excellent fancy, my lord husband. Allow me to show this visitor the splendor of your house while you and Pantalan catch up on old times.”
    “Take both of them and leave me in peace,” suggested the Viscount.
    “Nonsense,” she scoffed. “He’s just what you need right now. Well, you need to have a cup of wine more than anything, but start with the fool. I would like to see you smile once this year.”
    “But—”
    “Husband, will you do me this small favor!” she shouted.
    Her voice echoed faintly about the room, muffled quickly by the dust-ridden tapestries. He looked down at his feet and nodded.
    “Thank you,” she said. “Sieur Pierre, if you will?”
    I offered her my arm, and she took it greedily. I caught a look of warning from Pantalan as I escorted her out of the room. She was tottering unsteadily despite her death grip on my arm, and when we reached the top of the stairs, she looked at them with trepidation.
    “I must beg your indulgence, Fool,” she said. “Will you put your arm around me as we descend? I am so fearful of falling.”
    “Of course, Domna,” I said.
    She leaned into me heavily as we negotiated the steps, and did not immediately relinquish my hold as we reached the bottom. I gently dislodged her, and she pouted for a moment. “I must apologize for my husband’s behavior,” she said. “He was the baby of his family, and has never truly grown up. Sometimes, one must treat him as the child that he is.”
    “There is no need for a noble lady such as yourself to apologize for anything,” I said.
    “That’s true, isn’t it?” she replied, brightening. “I often think that the world owes me an apology or two. Laurent! Fetch me wine, and bring it to the garden!”
    “Yes, Domna,” came a faint voice from somewhere in the château.
    “The garden is lovely this time of year,” she said. “Would you care to see it?”
    “Of course,” I said, and she latched on to my arm again and pulled me toward the interior courtyard.
    The garden was not all that lovely. Whoever had planted it must have had a mind for the spring and summer only, but this late in the year, little was in bloom and much was dry and brown. An elderly gardener, also dry and brown, was trimming back some bushes, a pile of sackcloths by him to wrap them for the winter. The stoppered neck of a wineskin poked out from beneath the top cloth, no doubt having been shoved there just before our entrance.
    “We’ll walk about the perimeter, shall we?” she said. “It’s my only exercise. It is precisely eighty-seven steps around if I go to the right, but only eighty-six if I go to the left. I’ve never understood why.”
    “You know your garden well,” I said as we began walking.
    “I know the exact dimensions of every place in this prison,” she said. “Château, I mean. I know over which point the sun will emerge on every day of the year, and which stars will pass over each night. I should become an astronomer.”
    The seneschal emerged with two large cups of wine and a pitcher. She motioned to him impatiently, and he brought them to us. She snatched one from his hand, saluted us briefly, and downed it in one gulp. She held it out, and he refilled it, then placed the pitcher on a low table and left us. I sipped mine slowly.
    “I know the life history of every servant here,” she continued. “And of every soldier that keeps us inside.”
    “And that of your husband?”
    “I know him, and I know him not,” she said, glancing up at me slyly. “You’re a tall fellow.”
    “Only from the feet up,” I said, and she giggled girlishly.
    “I like tall men,” she said. “I once was courted by a tall man.”
    “What happened to him?”
    “Oh, the family wanted to keep a foothold here,” she said. “I am that foot.”
    “Of