I yawned because I couldn’t help it.
Evis stood. “Any sign of Buttercup?”
“Nope. She’s probably dancing atop the Brass Bell or tweaking Captain Holder’s long nose.”
Buttercup had simply vanished from the carriage well before we crossed the Brown River Bridge. Neither Darla nor I was worried. Diminutive she might be, but Buttercup was also a banshee who’d probably been wandering the wilderness all alone before the Old Kingdom started piling up rocks and calling them walls. If any ne’er-do-wells spotted Buttercup and attempted any mischief on her as she headed back to Mama’s-well, the dead wagons would doubtlessly collect what was left come the dawn.
Evis shrugged. “Probably. Look. Get some sleep and try not tear out your stitches. You’re safe here.”
I grunted assent. My belly wound was burning where Avalante’s smiling human doctors had smeared some stinging blue fluid all over the new stitches. My head was pounding, whether as a result of the poison or imp-spit or both or neither I couldn’t say.
Evis aimed a tiny little bow toward Darla and took his leave. She waited until the door was shut and joined me on the bed.
“I like him, you know.”
We scooted and rolled and got tangled in the fancy sheets and finally established a more or less comfortable position with me on my back and Darla on her side facing me.
“He’s a barrel of laughs, that Evis.”
She tweaked my nose gently. “He’s a good friend. And a gentleman. Not the pretend kind. He’s rich but he works hard. Halfdead but he’s got a big heart.”
“He’s a man of paradoxes, all right.”
“You can put that hand right back where it came from, mister. You’re here to recuperate.”
“I find that recuperative.”
“I’ll call for leeches. You know I will.”
I sighed. She smiled in weary victory.
“You know Gertriss is sweet on him, and vice versa.”
“Why does everyone say that like I’m going to be shocked? I was a finder while Evis was in knee-pants and you were learning accounting. I can tell when the wind blows, you know.” I tapped my temple. “Smarts, that’s what I’ve got.”
Darla snuggled closer.
“Gertriss is worried about what you’re going to say.”
“I’m not going to say a damned thing. What she and Evis get up to is their business, none of mine.”
“That’s not really true, darling. She wants your blessing. She needs it. So does Evis, you know.”
“He’s got it and he knows it.”
“Does he?”
“I said it plain and simple. He knows.”
“Be a dear and say it to Gertriss too, won’t you?” I swear she batted her eyes. “For me?”
“I thought we’d established that hands were to stay outside the sheets.”
“Yours, perhaps. Not mine.”
I did sleep.
Eventually.
Morning came, bringing with it the smiles and fresh-scrubbed faces of the Avalante day staff and the grumbled greetings and dark glasses of the Avalante halfdead who worked the day shift.
Darla and I picked scrambled eggs out of the same enormous breakfast plate and speculated just how far underground we were. I’d forgotten to count stair landings on our way down, and Darla had been too busy watching me for signs of imminent demise to even realize we were descending.
Doctors came and poked and prodded and frowned and whispered. I was finally pronounced healthy and whole after the obligatory physician’s lecture on the evils of alcohol and a sedentary lifestyle.
At last, the somber-faced physicians filed out, and I rose from my sickbed, a man ready to face a second helping of breakfast.
Alas, Darla and the Avalante day staff had other plans for me. We were to be moved to the Queen, we were, before the noon.
“Your wife’s clothes and accoutrements, as well as your own garments, are being conveyed to the Queen as we speak,” quoth Mr. Bevins, who was obviously unaware of my high favor within Avalante since he made it clear that no garment I was likely to own was worthy of being incinerated, much less conveyed. “We will be leaving within the hour. I suggest you make yourself ready.”
I gave Darla my famous raised eyebrow questioning glance. “Dear, when did we get accoutrements, and won’t they chase the cat?”
Mr. Bevins inflated. “Good day, sir.”
He had the grace not to slam the door behind him.
Darla found a water closet. Faucets squealed as she bemoaned the state of her hair.
I tiptoed to the door, opened it a crack, and listened.
I heard nothing. The absence of sound was utter and complete. I revised my initial estimate, putting us at least a hundred feet below the morning sun.
Darla wrapped her arms around my shoulders.
“I’ve never even been on a boat,” she said. “Do you think it will have proper bathrooms?”
I shook my head. “Holes in the deck, I imagine. We’ll sleep wrapped in scraps of sail. But it won’t matter since we’ll be exhausted from rowing all day.”
She laughed, her breath warm on the back of my neck.
“You’ve never been on a boat either, have you?”
“Of course I have. I know all about boats. Port, starboard, aft, sinking. We’ll have to fight pirates when we aren’t bailing leaks or trimming the jib. I hope they bring your rain boots. At least then your feet can stay dry.”
“Ha. This is a gambling boat, no? It’ll be a palace with a hull. Surely there will be bathrooms.”
“If not, I’ll commandeer you one. I am a Captain, after all. Which means I can stride manfully across the poop deck and shout out orders to the common seamen.”
She leaned against me and sighed.
“I don’t want to live on a boat, you know. Even if it has proper bathrooms.”
“We’ll be home before you know it, Darla. I promise. We’ll sort all this out, and we’ll go home and put up a new door and get a new rug and live happily ever after.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
I closed the door on the silent hall and we sat on the bed until they came to fetch us.
Darla need not have been concerned about the sophistication of the Queen’s facilities.
The toilets flushed. The his-and-hers lavatories ran with hot and cold water. The bathtub was a marble and copper edifice to the fine art of bathing, complete with scented bath oils, fluffy white towels, and a wall with a recess in which a dozen fat candles were merrily burning. Darla’s make-up and hair articles were already on her vanity, arranged just as they’d been at home.
There were closets-one for us each. Our clothes were there, pressed and hung. All three pairs of my shoes were shined and ready for duty. Toadsticker had been honed and polished, my hats were all hanging on fine silver hooks, and I was more than ready to trade my life as a landlubbing finder for a permanent post here on the raging high seas.
Our room was actually three rooms. There was a small sitting room into which the suite’s only door opened. That led into the bedroom, and off that was the bathroom-or as Darla called it, ‘my own copper Heaven.’
And it wasn’t just our stateroom awash in polished cherry-wood opulence. Every inch of the Brown River Queen was either gilded in gold or trimmed with hand-carved oak.
There was a lot of Queen to gild, too. She was more than four hundred feet long, from the big red paddle at the back to the blunt nose at her fore, and a hundred feet across her shallow, flat hull. Four decks rose above all that-the first deck being the casino and stage, the next being the staterooms, the next smaller rooms for the middling rich, and finally the top deck with its guards at the stair landings, where the Regent and his retinue would be housed.
We were hustled up to our room without a grand tour. But I’d caught a glimpse of the casino deck, and despite the haphazard presence of ladders and scaffolds and shouting carpenters, I’d been awed.