Page 135 of Swordheart
“Your assistance would be most welcome,” said Zale.
“Yes, of course,” said Halla. She threw her arms around Bartholomew and he staggered back a step. “Thank you so much! I know Silas would be so grateful.”
“Oh, well…” Bartholomew snorted. “Probably he’d be rubbing his hands together in glee that he made me come all this way. But I’m glad to have helped.”
After he and Nolan had made their way back to the inn, the priest of the Four-Faced God turned to Halla. “I… ah… have something for you,” he said. “I did not want to announce it before the case, because had you lost, I knew that it would belong to that dreadful woman, and… well…”
Halla rose to her feet, puzzled. “Oh?”
“Yes. If you’ll follow me…?”
He led the three of them to a tiny cell off one of the side chambers. “Used for meditation,” he said. “At least… normally…”
He opened the door and a voice bellowed “Prepare for the coming of the worm!” Then it sang, “tweedle-tweedle-twee!” and whistled.
“What the hell isthat?” said Sarkis, reaching for his sword.
“Oh dear gods,” said Halla, sagging against the doorway. “You found the bird.”
“I found it in the nave the day of Silas’s funeral,” said the priest. “It was badly chilled, so I thought I would warm it up, and then it began saying all those dreadful things, and I realized it had been that awful pet of his.”
“Rat’s blood,” said Zale, staring at the little finch, who was hopping about inside a wicker cage. “What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s not a demon,” said Halla. “We had it checked. Silas thought it was probably inhabited by a ghost, but the ghost would have had to be a cultist or something.”
“The dead are bound beneath the earth and their tongues stopped with clay but the day will come when they are free to sing the praises of the worm!”
“Perhaps a very tiny god,” said Zale, tapping the bars.
“A very tinyangrygod,” said Sarkis.
“Tweedle-tweedle-twee…”
“You’ll take it back, won’t you?” said the priest hopefully. “I’ve been keeping it in here, but it scares the novices.”
Halla sighed heavily. “Yes,” she said. “Of course.” Sarkis looked at her as if she had agreed to keep a tame manticore in the house. “Well, I can’t leave it here.”
“Prepare for the coming of the day of hellfire!”
“What does it eat?” asked Sarkis.
“Anything. It likes chicken. We mostly gave it cracked corn because that was a normal bird thing to eat.” She picked up thecage by the handle. The bird whistled happily and then told her that the dead were waiting, and Halla began to feel like things were returning to normal at last.
Zale offered to stay in the wagon again that night, but Halla wouldn’t hear of it. “You’re not a guest,” she said. “You’re family. Which means that I can put you up in a room with a fireplace that doesn’t draw and not feel guilty about it.” Zale laughed.
“A real bed would be nice,” they admitted. “I’m completely out of sheets, as you very well know.”
“We have sheets. Acres of sheets. They may be mended within an inch of their lives, some of them, but we’ve got them. And the bird goes to sleep once you put something over its cage.”
To give Malva what credit she deserved, the house was not in bad condition. The compost needed turning and the chickens were indignant, but the garden was asleep for the winter anyway. Halla found the bedrooms largely untouched. Only Silas’s room and the two best guest bedrooms showed signs of recent use.
That awful old shrew took Silas’s room?Halla found that she was chokingly furious about that. It was one thing to be evil and grasping and lock your potential daughter-in-law in a back room, but stealing a dead man’s bed? That was justpetty.
Presumably a number of the family entourage had gone home after the will was read. One of the guest bedrooms smelled vaguely of lavender water and had no fewer than five quilts piled on the bed, which Halla knew from experience meant that Malva’s sister had been sleeping in it.
I suppose she’s back at the inn, then. Well, she wouldn’t have been much good at the trial, particularly if Malva was trying to convince everyone that her side of the family was a bastion of sanity and Silas was moving to senility.
“Can I help?” said Sarkis.
