Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog (Magic Carpet Books) by Wilce Ysabeau S

Author:Wilce, Ysabeau S. [Wilce, Ysabeau S.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2008-05-01T04:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-FOUR

In the Jakes. Confession. An Awful Discovery.

THANK YOU, SIEURS,” Boy Hansgen said, when he had achieved all the way out and stood up. He offered a sketchy courtesy—So Below Me I Hardly Bother—the manacles on his wrists and ankles clanking. “I hope that my poor starved weight didn’t prove too heavy.”

Boy Hansgen had a syrupy kind of voice, slightly accented, and musical. The lantern light was so dim that it was hard to make out many details; my overwhelming impression was of a white shirt and extreme grubbiness. And there was no way to get around his smell. The goddess Califa could probably nose him in heaven.

“I do hope you won’t be complaining to the Warlord about your rations,” Lieutenant Samson said plaintively from the position he had taken up behind Hendrick and her rifle. “You’ve had the same chow we’ve had.”

“Ayah so, but perhaps your supper room is drier and your chow less sog. Or perhaps you are just used to hideous Army cooking. I will have that clean shirt now, and the wash.” Boy Hansgen had the same easy tone of command in his voice as Mamma; even as a prisoner, he acted as though he expected to be obeyed.

“Do not try any tricky stuff.” Lieutenant Samson was still safely behind Hendricks. “We’ll be happy to shoot you and give the Warlord our regrets.”

“I care for nothing at the moment but clean,” Boy Hansgen said, “and wouldn’t dream of blowing my date with soap. Lead on, and I shall follow as gently as a hairless Huitzil lapdog.” He twisted the last words into a tone that suggested he was nothing of the kind, but the others were exactly that.

Back we went across the sally port, Boy Hansgen stepping jauntily, as though he were on his way to a lovely dinner rather than a supposed interview with the Warlord, and then his death. He must really like to be clean; I do, too, so there we had something in common.

In the warm guardroom, Udo and the Skinner stood at Lieutenant Samson’s desk, Udo signing papers and saying: “...recommend you to the Warlord for your assistance, Captain Honeychurch—”

“Here I be, the man of the hour, the boy of your dreams!” Boy Hansgen said, and clanked his manacles together again so they rattled loudly. Now, in better light, he was shorter than I expected, and older, too. But of course that followed—he’d been Nini Mo’s sidekick, after all, and she’d been dead for over twenty-five years, so he would have to be pretty old. In the Nini Mo yellowbacks, he’s always illustrated as a young man, with short spiky hair and a bass guitar tossed over his back. No bass now, and the blond hair was matted, silver under the dirt, but he still looked pretty pugnacious and tough.

He continued, “Captain Honeychurch, dear brave Captain Honeychurch, my heart is pattering with pain to have to leave your tender care so soon.”

Captain Honeychurch glared and said, “Would that my care had been as tender as you deserved.

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