Free Bitter Gold Hearts by Glen Cook Page A

me through a maze of servants’ passages, chattering brightly about how she and Karl used the corri­dors to elude Willa Dount’s vigilance. Again I restrained myself from commenting.
    We had to go up a flight and this way and that, part through passages no longer in use, or at least immune to cleaning. Then Amber shushed me while she peeked between hangings into a hallway for regular people with real blue blood in their veins. “Nobody around. Hurry.” She dashed.
    I trotted along behind dutifully, appreciating the view. I’ve never understood those cultures where they make the women walk three paces behind the man. Or maybe I do. There are more of them around arranged like Willa Dount than there are like Amber.
    She swept me through a doorway into an empty room and rolled right around with her arms reaching. I caught her by the waist. “Tricked me, eh?”
    “No. He’ll be here in a minute. He has to get away. Meantime, you know the old saying.”
    “I live with a dead Loghyr. I hear a lot of old sayings, some of them so hoary the hills blush with embarrass­ment at his flair for cliché. Which old saying did you have in mind?” “The one about all work and no play makes Garrett a d ull boy.”
    I should have guessed.
    She was determined to wear me down. And she was getting the job done.
    Whump! The edge of the door got me as I was bending forward, contemplating yielding to temptation.
    The story of my life.
    I let my momentum carry me several steps out of orbit around Amber. She laughed.
    Karl came into the room spouting apologies and turn­ing red. He might have gone into a hand-wringing act if he had not had them loaded.
    “I smell brew,” I said. “The elixir of the gods.”
    “I recalled you were drinking beer in that place the other day. I thought it would be only courteous to pro­vide refreshments, and so I...”
    A chatterer.
    I was amazed. Not only had he managed to come up with an idea of his own, he had managed to carry it out by himself, without so much as a servant to lug the tray. Maybe he did have a little of his grandfather in him after all. A thimbleful, or so.
    He presented me with a capacious mug. I went to work on it. He nibbled the foam on a smaller one, just to show me what a democratic fellow he was. “Why did you want to talk to me, Mr. Garrett? I couldn’t make much sense out of what Amber told me.”
    “I want to satisfy my professional curiosity. Your kid­napping was the most unusual one I’ve ever encountered. For my own benefit I want to study its ins and outs in case I ever get into a similar situation. The success of the kidnappers might encourage somebody to pull the same stunt again.”
    Karl looked very uncomfortable. He planted himself on a chair and gripped his mug in both hands. He pressed it into his lap in hopes of steadying it so I wouldn’t notice it was shaking. I let him think he had me fooled.
    “But what can I tell you that would be of any use, Mr. Garrett?”
    “Everything. From the beginning. Where and how they laid hands on you. All the way through to the end. Where and how they turned you loose. I’ll try not to interrupt unless you lose me. All right?” I took a long swig. “Good stuff.”
    Karl bobbed his head. He took a swig of his own. Amber sidled to the tray and discovered that Karl had brought wine, too, though he hadn’t bothered to offer her any.
    Junior said, “It started five or six nights ago. Right, Amber?”
    “Don’t look at me. I still wouldn’t know about it if I didn’t eavesdrop.”
    “Six nights ago, I guess. I spent the evening with a friend.” He thought about it before telling me, “At a place called Half the Moon.”
    “That’s a house of ill repute,” Amber said, in case I didn’t know.
    “I’ve heard of it. Go on. They got you there?”
    “As I was leaving. Going out the back way so nobody would see me.”
    That didn’t sound like the behavior of the hell-raiser he was supposed to be. “Why the sneak? I