Page 43 of Blow Me Down
“Right, I think that just about answers that question. I’ll go see Bart now.”
Life returned to all three men’s faces as I spoke. I started up the hill toward the governor’s house, pausing briefly when one of the men made a comment about my stripy knickers. Or rather, the contents of the stripy knickers.
“Ham in a cloth sack, my as… er… bah,” I grumbled to myself as I marched along. I waited until I was past the tiny church that sat at the edge of town, then ducked behind the back of the church to the small cemetery to read Corbin’s note. He must have had something of importance to say if he went to all the trouble of sending his first mate with it. I perched on the edge of a crumbling headstone, making a quick apology to the stone’s owner before opening the parchment and spreading it out.
Dear Amy, the note read, written in a bold hand in indigo ink. I had a brief moment of warm fuzziness over the worddear, then decided I had been without a man for way, way too long and I needed to move on before I started indulging in the same sorts of fantasies that had kept me up half the night.
Dear Amy…
“Do ye like to come here, too, then? Bran and me, we likes it here.” Bas’s silhouette blocked the sun, the long black fingers of his shadow spilling across the parchment. The boy had cleaned up remarkably well, considering what there was to work with. He had been scrubbed clean (within an inch of his life, to his way of thinking), his hair had been trimmed, and he’d been given new clothing, faded and worn, but serviceable, and most of all, clean. Even Bran the raven—who had also received a bath to rid him of suspected lice and other parasites—looked less like something out of an opium-muddled Poe poem, and more like a proper bird. “We likes to talk to the dead people. Are ye here talkin‘
to ’em, too?”
“Eh…” I tried to formulate a rule against speaking to dead people, but after a moment of consideration, I decided it was a relatively harmless pastime. “No, I’m not here to talk to dead people. I have a note I want to read.”
He nodded. Bran squawked and bobbed his head in a nod, too. “Captain Bart’s men be lookin‘ for ye.”
“Thanks, I’ve already chatted with them.”
“Ah,” he said, his head tipped to the side as he watched me like I was about to stand up and start tap-dancing. “I polished me hook.”
I admired the rusty iron implement that had been crudely attached to a leather strap he wore bound around the remains of his arm, and made another note to myself to have a talk with the blacksmith about crafting the boy something a little more serviceable. “So you did. Um… Bas, I don’t want to bring up a painful subject, but how exactly did you lose your arm?”
His face went blank. I hadn’t really thought he was Paul, but he had remembered his mother’s death, so I had to consider him.
“That’s okay; don’t worry about it. Off you go, then.”
“Wot?”
“Go talk to dead people.”
“Aye, aye,” he said, animation returning to his face as he flashed a smile at me.
He and Bran walked off to the other side of the cemetery, pausing to talk to the headstones, looking like nothing so much as a miniature grim reaper and his pet raven.
Dear Amy…
“There ye be. Whew! I’ve just come up from the fishmonger’s. ‘Tis not a place for anyone with a workin’ nose on a day as hot as today,” Renata said as she plopped herself down on a headstone a few feet to my left. The tail of some newly deceased fish protruded from the covered basket she set at her feet. “But I got us a nice bit of mackerel for our supper. I do like a taste of mackerel pie now and again.”
“Sounds… delicious. Did you barter the elderberry wine for the fish, as I suggested?”
“Aye, that I did,” she said brightly, looking pleased with herself. “And a right good idea it was. Mr. Thomkins was that pleased to have the wine, and he gave me first choice of fish, somethin‘ he hasn’t done afore.”
“Excellent. Since you make that wine at little cost but your time, it makes sense to use it to acquire more valuable commodities. I have some ideas for further cottage industry projects that will provide you with even more creature comforts, but we’ll leave that talk for the next budget review.”
“Aye,” she said, her eyes suddenly not meeting mine. “Are we to be havin‘
another of them budget reviews soon?”
“I told you—weekly until we get a nice nest egg to pad the lean months, then we’ll go to a bimonthly system.”
I could have sworn she crossed herself, but the sun was in my eyes, so I couldn’t be sure. “I have a nice profit-and-loss graph I want to draw up for you ladies to study at the next meeting,” I added.
“What’s that ye have yerself there?” she asked quickly.
I looked down at the still-unread parchment on my knees. “It’s an IM,” I said without batting an eyelash.
“A what now?”
