“Yes.”
“Isn’t it strange for someone to stay at someone else’s house while they’re not here?”
This elicited a contemptuous glance. Her eye lingered on my cheap boots and ill-fitting coat. “It is not uncommon for gentryfolk.”
Even the servants thought themselves worldlier than I, it seemed. But then, they were probably right.
I asked her more, but she gave me less with every question, withdrawing into herself further and further. I made a note of it and moved on.
I asked the next girls about Blas’s advances. While they corroborated the story, all of them claimed they’d never had a relationship with Blas beyond these unpleasant moments, and none of them had much else to say.
“I didn’t hear or see anything before he died,” said the final girl flatly. She was bolder, louder, angrier than the others. Less willing to quietly suffer servitude, maybe. “Not for the whole night. I know that.”
“You’re sure?” I asked.
“I am,” she said. “Because I didn’t sleep much before the guest came.”
“Why was that?”
“Because I was hot. Very hot.”
I thought about it. “Do you sleep near the kitchens?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Because the kirpis shroom is dying there. Could that be why you were hot?”
She seemed surprised. “Another one’s died?”
“They’ve died before?”
“They’re very sensitive to water. Too much and they shrivel up and die.”
“What kind of moisture?” I asked.
“Any kind. Rain. Humidity. Leave a window or door open nearby—especially now, when the wet season starts—and they’ll get sick right away. They’re temperamental as hell.”
I leaned back and focused. A fluttering at the backs of my eyes, and I summoned up my memories of searching the house, each image of each room flashing perfectly in my mind like a fly suspended in a drop of honey. No doors or windows had been open that I saw. So how might the kirpis have died?
“Did you or anyone else in the house happen to close an open door or window before Blas died?” I asked.
She stared at me. “After seeing what we saw, sir,” she said, “we could barely stand, let alone do our work.”
I took that as a no, they had not shut any doors or windows, and continued on.
* * *
—
EVENTUALLY I RAN out of servant girls, so I went hard at the cook, asking her about the blood in the kitchen. She was most unimpressed.
“Why do you think there might be blood in the kitchen?” she demanded.
“Did you cut yourself?” I asked.
“No. Of course not. I am too old, and too good. If you found blood, I am sure it’s from the larfish I cooked for Blas’s breakfast—not that he ever got to eat it.”
“Larfish?” I asked. I pulled a face. “For breakfast?”
“It’s what he likes,” she said. “It’s hard to get, out close to the walls, where he works.” She leaned closer. “If you ask me, he picked up something out there, at the sea walls. Some parasite or another. I mean—think of what the sea walls keep out. Sanctum knows what kind of strange things they bring in with them!”
“They don’t get in, ma’am,” I said. “That’s the point of the sea walls.”
“But they had a breach years ago,” she said, delighted to discuss such grotesqueries. “One got in and wrecked a city south of here, before the Legion brought it down. The trees there bloom now, though they never bloomed before. They weren’t trees that could grow blooms before.”
“If we could get back to the circumstances of last night, ma’am…”
“Circumstances!” she scoffed. “The man caught contagion. It’s as simple as that.”
I pressed her harder, but she gave me nothing more of interest, and I let her go.
* * *
—
THE GROUNDSKEEPER NEXT. Fellow’s name was Uxos, and he was apparently more than just a groundskeeper, performing odd jobs about the house, fixing up walls or fernpaper doors. A most timid man, perhaps too old to still be groundskeeper. He seemed terrified at the idea of trying to fix the damage the trees had done to the house.
“I don’t even know what kind of tree it is,” he said. “I’ve never seen it before in my life.”
“It had a bloom, you know,” I said. “A little white one.” I described it to him—the inner petals purple and yellow, the sweet and sickly aroma. He just shook his head.