Old Tin Sorrows

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"I want him to know he has to spend the rest of his life looking at that."

"Not now. Let's go on."

"You're right. Of course. Peters, get his attention away from the painting for a minute."

Peters turned the old man's head. I watched madness fade from Stantnor's eyes... No, it wasn't madness. Not exactly. He'd just been focused on something far away, that only he could see. On his own vision of hell. He was back now. For a few minutes, at least.

"I have another present for you," I told him. "You'll like this one, too." To make sure he paid attention I turned Eleanor's portrait to the wall. I replaced it with Snake's last portrait of Je

Je

Cook stopped feeding the fire, elbowed Morley aside, took Je

"There's why your stable burned. That painting. She sat for Bradon several times. But Snake Bradon had an eye that could see the true soul. Which is probably why he retreated from the world. A man with his eye would see a lot of awful truths.

"I look for truth but this time I didn't see it soon enough. Maybe I didn't want to. Like so many of the darkest evils, this one came in a beautiful package. Maybe the painting of Eleanor preoccupied me too much. Maybe I should have studied this one more closely."

Stantnor interrupted.

"Eight murders, General. Your baby killed eight mostly good men. Four she lured to the swamp on the Melchior place." Once I'd accepted Je

"Maybe I was slow because the murders weren't the kind you associate with women. I just didn't face the fact that in a house full of Marines everybody might think like Marines and be straightforward and bloody. Who'd picture a woman being daring enough to take on a trained commando with a Kef sidhe strangler's cord?"

I looked at Je

"I know who and how. But I sure as hell don't understand why."

She cracked. She laughed and wept and talked a yard a second and never made a lick of sense. It seemed to have to do with a fear that, if there were any heirs but her and Cook, parts of the estate would get sold off and once it was dismembered she'd be forced to leave for that deadly world she'd visited only once, when she was fourteen.

I was wrong about one thing. She hadn't committed eight murders. She'd committed eleven. She'd done in the three men whose deaths had seemed natural or accidental. She admitted it. She bragged about it. She laughed because she'd made fools of everybody till now.

Stantnor stared at her the whole time, aghast. I knew what he was thinking. What had he done to deserve this?

I started to tell him.

"Garrett!" Morley took hold of my arm.

"What?"

"It's time to go. The job's done."

Doom had gone already, his part complete, Eleanor laid to rest. Cook was trying to comfort and control Je

Then he had one of his fits.

This one went on and on and on.

"Garrett. It's time to go."

The old man was dying. Rough. Morley didn't want to stay for the show.

Peters just stood there, numb, doing nothing. He didn't know what to do. I did pity him.

I shook off the hold emotion had on me. I told Morley, "Stantnor owes me. I spent my whole fee and then some getting him his answers. It don't look like he'll hang around to be billed."

He looked at me weird. That kind of cold remark wasn't in character. "Don't," he said, though he had no idea what I was going to do. "Let's just go. Forget it. I won't charge you for my time."

"No." I snagged the painting of Eleanor. "My fee. An original Bradon." The General didn't argue. He was busy dying. I looked at Peters. He just shrugged. He didn't care.

Morley snapped, "Garrett!" He was sure I was going to do something I'd regret.

"Wait a damned minute!" I still had a responsibility here. "Cook, what're you going to do?"

She looked at me like I'd asked the dumbest question possible. "What I always done, boy. Look after the place."

"Get hold of me if I can do anything." Then I followed Morley. I didn't think another thought about the old man. If there'd been a doctor outside who could have saved him, I doubt it would have occurred to me to mention his distress.

Peters was at the vestibule door when Morley and I got there, carrying paintings and my stuff. He was staring at the great hall the way I'd stared at Bradon's painting of the swamp and hanged man. He had a shovel in one hand. He had graves to dig. I wondered if anybody would bother giving Stantnor a marker. He said, "I don't think I can say thanks, Garrett. You came when I called, but I don't think I'd have visited you if I'd known—"

"I wouldn't have come if I'd known. We're even. What're you going to do?"

"Bury the dead, then go somewhere. Maybe back into the corps. They'll need veterans with Mooncalled ru

"Yeah. Good luck. See you again someday, Sarge."

"Sure." We both knew we'd never see one another again.

A terrible scream came from upstairs. It went on and on till it seemed no human throat could have produced it. We all looked up. Peters said, "I guess he's dead." He said it with a complete lack of passion.

The scream came again. Now it was filled with mad rage. Cook boomed, "Miss Je

The girl had cracked completely. She flew out of the fourth-floor hallway carrying a dagger, screaming. Shocked, I realized she was yelling my name.

"Get moving, Garrett," Morley said. He'd seen berserkers before. Even a ninety-five-pound woman could tear me apart.

She was so far out of her mind, she didn't know where she was. Realization hit her too late. She hit the balcony rail full speed.

The heroic knight caught her in his lap. Broken, she dribbled down off him, wound up at one of the dragon's feet. She looked like the monster's prey. The hero had come to her rescue moments too late.

But this hero had been way too late to save anybody.

I turned and walked. Morley stayed behind me, just in case I did some damnfool thing like try to go back.

Morley and I didn't talk much on the way home. Once I muttered something about finding another line of work, and he just told me not to be a damned fool. I asked if he'd filled his pockets while he was there, or pla