Book 04 - Old Tin Sorrows Read Online Free PDF Page A

the dining room, but informally. Guests and staff sit down together, if that presents any problems.”
    “Not to me. I’m an egalitarian kind of guy. I think I’m just as good as you are. I missed lunch, eh?” I wasn’t going to be happy here if I had to conform to the native schedule. I see six in the morning only when I haven’t gotten to bed yet. The trouble with morning is that it comes so damned early in the morning.
    “I’m sure something can be arranged, this once. I’ll tell Cook we have a newly arrived guest.”
    “Thanks. I’ll take a minute to settle in, then get down there.”
    “Very well, sir. If anything is not satisfactory, let me know. I’ll see that any problems are corrected.”
    He would, too. “Sure. Thanks.” I watched him step out and close the door.
     
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4
    I could not imagine things going awry, considering some scenes I’ve endured. Dellwood had installed me in a suite bigger than the ground floor of my house. The room where I stood boasted rosewood wainscotting, mahogany ceiling beams, a wall of bookshelves loaded down, and furniture for entertaining a platoon. A dining table with seats for four. A writing table. Various chairs. Leaded and plain glass windows unfortunately facing north. A carpet some old lady had spent the last twenty years of her life weaving, maybe three hundred years ago. Lamps enough to do my whole house. A chandelier overhead loaded with a gaggle of candles, unlighted at the moment.
    This was how the other half lived.
    Two doors opened off the big room. I made a guess and pushed through one. What a genius. Hit the bedroom first time.
    It was of a piece with the rest. I’d never met a bed so big and soft.
    I looked around for hiding places, squirreled some of my equipment good, some so it could be found easily and the rest maybe overlooked. I kept the most important stuff on my person. I figured I’d better hit the kitchen while the staff were still understanding. After I stoked the bodily fires I could wander around like an old ghost.
    In better times the kitchen probably boasted a staff of a dozen, with full-time specialists like bakers and pastry cooks. When I dropped in, there was only one person present, an ancient breed woman whose non-human half appeared to be troll. Wrinkled, shrunken, stooped, she was still a foot taller than me and a hundred pounds heavier. Even at her age she could probably break me over her knee—if I stood still and let her lay hands on me.
    “You the new one?” she growled when I walked in.
    “That’s me. Name’s Sexton. Mike Sexton.”
    “Name’s mud you don’t show on time after this, young’un. Sit.” She pointed. I didn’t argue. I sat at a table three-quarters buried in used utensils and stoneware. Plunk! She slammed something down in front of me.
    “You served with the General, too?”
    “Smartass, eh? You want to eat? Eat. Don’t try to be a comedian.”
    “Right. Just making conversation.” I looked at my plate. All kinds of chunks of something I didn’t recognize mixed up in slimy sauce, piled on rice. I approached it with the trepidation I usually reserve for the stuff they serve at my friend Morley’s place, the city’s only vegetarian restaurant open to a mixed clientele.
    “If I want conversation, I’ll ask for it. Look around here. It look like I got time to waste jacking my jaw? Been trying to carry it on my own since they threw Candy out on his ass. I keep telling the old skinflint, I need another pair of hands. Think he’ll listen? Hell, no! All he sees is he’s saving a couple marks a week.”
    I took a bite here, a bite there. There seemed to be mussels and mushrooms and a couple things I couldn’t identify, and all damned good. “This is excellent,” I said.
    “Where you been eating? It’s slop. I got no helper, I don’t got time to fix anything right.” She started tossing pots at a sink, sending sprays of water flying. “Barely got time to get ready for the next feeding. These hogs, you think they know the difference? Feed them hot