The Incompleat Nifft by Michael Shea Read Free Book Online Page B

in advance. The man, a long rickety fellow, insisted on being the one who ministered Shamblor's medication when his breathing got rough. This was a posset in a gold cup that stood on a table by the bed.
    We had got Defalk into the house the day before by delivering him, drugged, inside a gaudy funerary memento sent to the house with the condolences of a fictitious earl. It was a great ceramic tombstone, all bewreathed with black-dyed plumes. Defalk, folded, just fit within the "stone."
    The memento was accepted with perplexity by the daughter. Within the hour I followed it, properly garbed, as the said earl, I spoke to Gladda with moist intensity, wringing her unwilling hand. When I had been a mere fopling, before the days of my family's increased fortunes (we were a great house latterly decayed) a jovial old gentleman had once given me a copper for some sweets. He clapped my little shoulder, and spoke words of encouragement and good cheer which had lit a little blaze that had warmed me ever since.
    But one always forgets precisely these small yet precious debts. The march of time, the whirl of events, the flow of circumstance! I had long known the kindly old man's name—Fleetmaster Shamblor—and still had never called, never squeezed that gruff but giving hand. And now I came too late! I had learned of the great man's death. And so I had sent that poor token she had already received, and had come myself with a plaque of graven silver commemorating his good deed to me.
    What? He still lived?! There was still a chance to meet those eyes, still a moment in which to—you get the drift. Within five minutes Gladda was leading me up to Shamblor's chamber, and with a fairly good grace too, considering the dry and suspicious woman that she was. She was no fool, either. People will sometimes lose sight of the most fundamental truths merely through the long habit of them. I'd tinctured my tale with circumstantialities, I'd done my research, but Gladda momentarily forgot what she'd never have doubted an instant if you'd asked her about it directly. Namely, that Fleetmaster Shamblor wouldn't give a fly a swat without something in return. The plaque was a costly thing—the silversmith we got it from was paying for it himself, though he didn't know it—and perhaps the spinster was persuaded by its value. Mind you, I gave her a perfect version of the rich man who has nothing better to do than go around making himself look soulful.
    At the magnate's bed, I laid the plaque tenderly beside him, sprinkled some more drivel on it, and wrung his suety hand. Shamblor peered up at me like a fish through ice. While all this went on, I did the thing I'd come for. I let a rat pellet fall from my codpiece, and as I rose from the bed, much affected, I crushed the pellet with my heel.
    I asked for the conveniences. Gladda blushed and directed me, remaining in the room. But out in the hall, I went no farther than the next bedroom door. This room was the only suitable place for lodging the sick man, once the other became unbearable, and the other room would become unbearable some time near midnight. I pulled some light, strong climbing cord from my doublet, anchored it to a window mullion, and let it fall outside. We had dyed it the color of the stone of Shamblor's walls. I reclosed the window but left it unlatched. I returned to the sickroom and took my wordy leave.
    Our plan was loose and chancy. In such a big house, they might choose another room. Or the rats might come too soon, and Shamblor be moved before we could get ourselves into it.
    Well, every big house, however fine, has plenty of rats in it, especially in damp waterside towns like Lurkna. But the staff was well paid and hard-driven by Gladda, and the bait was as slow as we'd hoped in bringing the invasion. Haldar and I climbed in just after dark. We chose our hiding place and lay listening till we had a good sense of how many servants were about, and what was the frequency of their