Free Snuff the Magic Dragon (and other Bombay Family Bedtime Stories) (Greatest Hits Mysteries) by Leslie Langtry Page B

clearly wanted to go back home. But he was smart enough to hold out for more information. I liked him immediately.
    “You will need to dress differently…” Stephen said. “But yes, I’d be interested.”
    At that moment, Tristan and Isolde waddled into the room, most likely to pirate some figs. They spotted Stephen, and to my surprise, leaped into his arms and began nuzzling the boy with their bills. Stephen giggled and squealed as Isolde scolded him, then ran her bill through his hair, looking for parasites. From that moment on, the pair of birds followed the boy everywhere, even sleeping with him at night. It was quite charming, really.
    I instructed Julian to make the arrangements and to set Stephen up in the guest bedroom. If Julian was surprised that I wasn’t putting the boy in the servant’s quarters, he did not show it. Of course, Julian occupied the second-largest bedroom in the house, so he’d have no reason to complain.
    I was quite pleased that I now had my translator and guide. I just needed a plan—something that would get us into the castle, the correct method for the assassination, and means to escape. And I needed to do it all without Stephen finding out what we were actually doing in Hungary.
    Baggie took his leave the very next day. I begged him to stay on, but he said he had an assignment waiting on him back home. Something in France. I did not question him further as it was strictly forbidden to know what other Bombays were working on. I had enough to think of on my own. I embraced my brother and sent him on his way with the package for little Stratford. I promised to visit when Rolfie came home with his new, Indian bride. I was sorry to see my brother go.
    While Julian made the necessary arrangements for our journey—travel, packing and so on—I picked Stephen’s brain for information on the culture and landscape we would soon be breaching. The boy was very forthcoming with information, and I sensed that he was desperate to go back home.
    “How did you come to be orphaned, Stephen?” I asked during one of our discussions a few days later. I was becoming quite fond of the child, and he seemed eager to please.
    “My parents were killed in an Ottoman attack when I was seven, sir. I lived here and there until Lord Allen found me and brought me back here with him.” Isolde sat in his lap and he petted her. Tristan was nibbling gently on the boy’s toes. Maybe he thought they were figs.
    “Do you like working for Lord Allen?” I asked. The aristocrat had the reputation of being a hothead. Two wives had died under his care, and two more had abandoned him. He had no children, and I wondered if this was why he’d taken on young Stephen.
    The boy squinted warily at me, and I realized that he was worried I might tell Lord Allen what he’d said. Clever boy.
    I shook my head. “I have no intention of saying a word to his Lordship. I barely know the man. And you do not have to answer that question.”
    Stephen was silent for a few moments. “He’s all right, I imagine. He has a bit of a temper though.” The boy looked at the door, and then back at me. “You really won’t tell him I said that?”
    “No. I really won’t,” I promised, wondering what the boy had been through.
    Over the course of the next few days, Stephen reviewed maps with me. To my surprise, he was very familiar with Cachtice Castle, where Elizabeth was being held.
    “My mother used to work there as a cook,” he explained. “I played in the hallways as a boy.”
    I was about to remind him that he still was, in fact, a boy, but something in his eyes stopped me.
    “I don’t recall the Ottomans breaching Cachtice. How did your parents fall into their hands?”
    Stephen frowned. “My mother got a job on the border with Turkey, cooking for the troops. My father was a soldier there, and she wanted to be near him.” He didn’t say another word, so I didn’t press him.
    “Are you familiar with the Bathorys?” I asked as