chapter THIRTY-EIGHT
AIR
Air. They had disappeared into thin air. Both Reckless and the man Kami’en had put on him. Not even Hentzau knew where they were. And the spider had pulled her legs under her blue belly and refused to dance.
And, Nerron, still glad the wolves didn’t get him?
He returned to the palace of Louis’s cousin, his mood as dark as his skin. The building looked like one of the overwrought cakes sold in Vena’s bakeries. It had more rooms than Lelou had hairs on his head. But Louis was always easy enough to find. You just had to follow the giggles of his current favourite.
There. The linen room. Louis left no room untouched. Nerron pressed his ear against the door.
Time to move beyond civilised methods. He needed the hand. He needed the heart before Reckless could find it. And he needed to get rid of his companions. There was only one way to accomplish all of that. Three birds with one stone.
‘What are you doing?’ Eaumbre’s whispers sounded even more damp than usual. Nerron turned around.
The Waterman’s wet hair stuck to his angular head, as though he’d just climbed out of a pond. And he probably had. Nerron thought he could detect a slight scent of goldfish. Watermen dried out if they didn’t take a dip in a pond every now and then, the muddier the better. They also dried out if they were fed firemoths. Probably an interesting sight. Stop it, Nerron. Stay on good terms with him, He’s much more useful that way.
Nerron pointed at the door to the linen room. ‘Your royal master is getting impatient. Crookback wants the crossbow, but how can I concentrate on the search while his son does nothing but try to seduce every girl in Vena?’
Eaumbre’s face stayed as inscrutable as ever. Only his eyes hinted at what he felt on the inside: six eyes, filled to the rim with boredom and injured pride. Louis had let everybody in Vena know that his Waterman was nothing but an annoying babysitter his father had forced on him. There could be no doubt that Eaumbre despised his princely charge, but that didn’t mean he liked anyone else. And he was strong. Very strong. He could easily break every bone, even in a Goyl body, with one hand. Probably not a pleasant experience.
‘And? What should we do, in your opinion?’ The whispers filled Nerron’s ears like pond muck.
Through the door came a sigh that made even the portraits on the walls blush.
‘Bring Louis to the library in one hour. I’ll talk to him.’ Hopefully that sounded harmless enough. ‘And tell him to bring the hand.’
‘Why?’
Careful, Nerron.
‘I want to see whether it can point us to the heart.’
Six eyes. They were saying, You’re lying, Goyl. And I know it.
‘The library,’ the Waterman repeated. ‘In one hour.’
The Snow-White method had severe side effects – so severe that in Albion you got hanged for using it. Crookback probably had an even more painful method of execution in store, should he ever learn that it had been used on his son. But Nerron counted on the fact that its effects were easily confused with those of an overdose of elven dust.
One of the kitchen hands boiled the Witch tongue for him in the palace kitchen. The fool thought it was a calf’s tongue. Nerron prepared the apple himself. The fruit was the reason the formula was named after Snow-White, even though her apple had been prepared with a different kind of potion. Nerron cut out the stalk and the core and poured the tongue-broth into it. Black magic was a rather unappetising craft. He sealed the opening with dark chocolate to sweeten the deal. Louis could never resist chocolate.
The shelves were lined with rows of books as neat as those found only in libraries that were never used. Louis’s cousin loved to give himself the appearance of an educated man.
One hour. The Waterman delivered on time. The crown prince of Lotharaine did, of course, not knock.
‘The Waterman says we have something to discuss?’ As usual, he reeked of elven dust and the disgusting eau de toilette he applied as liberally as water. ‘Stay outside!’ he ordered Eaumbre as the Waterman tried to follow him. ‘You stink of fish again. Go and find my cousin. I want to go out.’
Eaumbre’s eyes brushed Nerron with a bland glance before he closed the door. Lelou obviously hadn’t taught Louis anything about the pride of Watermen. Quite a dangerous knowledge gap.
‘Did you bring the hand?’
Louis held up the sack.
‘I hope you kept it well away from yourself?’
‘Why?’ Louis frowned. The elven dust made thinking even more difficult than it usually was for him.
‘What is Lelou teaching you? Black magic is not particularly healthy. And it’ll be me who’ll have to answer to your father for any side effects!’ Nerron offered him the apple. ‘Here. The antidote tastes disgusting, but I asked the cook to make it a little more palatable.’
‘An apple?’ Louis flinched. ‘I never touch apples. Two of my aunts were poisoned that way.’
‘As you wish.’ Nerron put the apple on a lectern, next to a book on the family history of Louis’s Austrian relatives, which was gathering dust. ‘Go see a doctor if you don’t believe me. And keep an eye on your fingernails. Once they turn black, it may be too late already.’
Louis stared at his fingers.
‘I’m sick of treasure hunting!’ he burst out. ‘All that magical nonsense. I’m so over it.’
He took the apple and eyed it so warily that Nerron nearly gave up hope. ‘Is that chocolate?’
One bite and he slumped over. Nerron caught him before he hit the marble floor. Not so easy, considering Louis’s weight.
He leant over him and blew into his sleeping face. ‘Where is the heart of Guismond the Witch Slayer?’
‘What?’ Louis mumbled.
Nerron cursed so loudly he had to press his hand over his own mouth. Compared to the princeling, the vagrant on whom he’d tried the formula six years earlier had turned into a veritable font of wisdom.
‘Guis-mond the Witch Slay-er,’ Nerron whispered into the royal ear.
Louis wanted to roll on his side, but Nerron held him; he had to apply quite a lot of force against the princely weight.
‘Lotharaine,’ Louis mumbled.
‘Where in Lotharaine?’
Louis shuddered. ‘Champlitte,’ he whispered. ‘White as milk. Black as a sliver of night. Set in gold.’
Then he began to snore.
He’d be doing little else for the next ten years. Clairvoyance had its price.
Nerron got up. Champlitte. White as milk. Black as a sliver of night. Set in gold. What the devil? He sprinkled Louis’s clothes and hands with elven dust and tucked a few more sachets into his pockets. Then he dropped the apple into the swindlesack with the hand, and stuffed that into the saddlebag that already held the sack with the head. He opened the door – and found himself staring at the Waterman’s uniformed chest.
Eaumbre looked over Nerron’s shoulder.
‘What did you do to him?’ His voice grated on Nerron’s skin like a wet rasp.
‘He overdid the elven dust.’ Nerron surreptitiously put his hand on his pistol.
‘I wouldn’t do that,’ the Waterman whispered. ‘Where are you going? You think Crookback will get any joy from his crossbow if he gets his son back as Snow-White?’ The scaly face stretched into a grim smile. ‘But Crookback was never supposed to get the crossbow, was he? You want to sell it to the highest bidder.’
Well, at least he hadn’t guessed the whole truth.
‘And what if I do?’ Nerron’s fingers closed around the grip of his pistol.
‘I want a share. I’m tired of the bodyguarding business. Treasure hunting is so much more profitable.’
And Watermen came with plenty of experience, in their very own way. The girls they dragged to their ponds could vouch for that. The scale-faces showered them with gold and silver to make their slimy kisses more bearable.
Three birds . . . Seems like you’re going to be holding on to one, Nerron. The fattest and scaliest of the three.
A quiet cough.
Bug-quiet.
‘Can any one of those present tell me where I might find the crown prince?’ Lelou was standing at the end of the corridor, his notebook under his arm. What would he be writing at the end of that day? And the prince slept for ten years, his snores echoing through his father’s palace. . . .
Nerron pointed at the library door. ‘Eaumbre just found him. I think you should take a look at him. We were already wondering what he’s doing in the library without a girl.’
They were out on the street before Lelou’s cries alerted the guard by the entrance.
Crookback would find a particularly gruesome way to dispatch the Bug. But Nerron wasn’t going to miss Arsene Lelou.