The Banshee's Walk Read Online Free Page B

painting before me at once became familiar—there was Otter, there was Walking Paul, there was the Sarge, flailing away at Troll heads with his crossbow when the bolts ran out. “I hear her House has produced some interesting pieces of late.”
    Steven who rose before noon looked suddenly and furtively about.
    “I know something of her,” he replied, his voice a terse whisper. “The name is not known to me,” he then said, in a much louder voice tinged with disdain.
    I nodded knowingly, and a pair of jerks made their way to my palm, and then quickly into his.
    He motioned for me to follow, and I ambled away in his wake, happy to be rid of the Kelson and its unsubtle remembrances.
    “Here we have a pair of remarkable Galways,” he said, in a loud stage voice. “She’s not exactly embraced by the bosom of Rannit’s art community,” he added, in a soft whisper. “She refuses to depict anything involving the War. That doesn’t follow in line with the galleries, or even the Regent’s Council of Art. Makes her a pariah, truth be told.”
    “So is she able to sell anything?” I asked, whispering.
    “Sir, one of her artists could smear manure on a soiled bed sheet and sell it for twice anything here. The galleries claim they don’t want her, but the truth is it’s Lady Werewilk who doesn’t need the galleries. One vet to another.”
    I grinned, and another jerk appeared and just as quickly disappeared.
    “I find his use of perspective somewhat disturbing,” I barked.
    Steven made commiserating noises. We moved on, circling the gallery, and while Steven prattled on about this use of color or that sense of scale and perspective, I mused on more worldly matters.
    Lady Werewilk’s House might lack political power or even the kind of wealth that might make the Hill crowd nervous, but she had certainly caused an uproar in Mount Cloud. And if her crowd was selling their paintings like deep-fried money, that had to be putting a crimp in the coffers of every gallery on the street.
    Lady Werewilk hadn’t ever alluded to any such thing, and probably had never considered it. I doubted she thought of the money itself as anything but a way to keep track of whose art was lining the most walls.
    We’d come full circle, and I found myself standing before the Kelson that depicted Right Lamb. I inquired about the price just to be polite.
    Eight hundred and ninety-five crowns. That was an easy fifteen years of work for most of Rannit.
    “None of that is right, you know,” I said, not caring who might hear. “There weren’t any mounted lancers left, by dusk. And even if there had been, no one ever convinced a horse to charge a line of Trolls at night.”
    “Indeed, sir,” said Steven, with a small disgusted sniff.
    But he pointed as he spoke. Bottom left of the painting, a tiny hillock, one burned oak tree atop it.
    “I’m sorry you are not interested, sir.” he said. His eyes were grim. One Tree, they called it. Only six men out of two hundred left that hill alive.
    “Maybe another day,” I said, and then I got out of there.
    I guess I’ll never understand art.
     
    I ambled around Mount Cloud for another hour, and actually caught two more art shops open. I was shown out of both at the mere mention of Lady Werewilk’s name, the last time accompanied by a rather snippy “we deal in art at this establishment, sir, not amateur dabblings, good day.”
    Which only confirmed everything early-rising Steven had said. Lady Werewilk may or may not be making art history, but she was making enemies.
    Enemies who might be leaving surveyor’s sticks littered around her property.
    I checked a big brass clock in a shop and decided I had time for a cup of that high-priced coffee that I got hooked on during the War. Of course, we’d strained it through scraps of tent-cloth and used creek-water heated over a campfire, but I must admit I like the fancy café version better.
    I sat and sipped and watched people pass. Not once did I