He knew that these precautions were futile-no Borgia would have found them difficult to outwit-and in any case, if orders came to temper him, they need only grab him after subduing him with a whip if it proved difficult to drug him. But he might have time to protest, to demand that he be taken before the Lord Protector.
As for whips- He resumed karate practice, alone in his rooms. A karate blow delivered fast enough would cause even a whip wielder to lose interest. There was no real hope behind any of it; he simply intended not to go peacefully. Duke had been right; it would have been better to have fought and died.
He made no attempt to see Duke.
He continued to hide food from his breakfast tray-sugar, salt, hard bread. He assumed that such food must be undrugged even though he ate none of it at the time, because it did not affect Kitten.
He had been going barefoot most of the time but wearing felt slippers for his daily exercise walks in the servants' garden. Now he complained to Memtok that the gravel hurt his feet through these silly slippers-didn't the household afford anything better?
He was given heavy leather sandals, wore them thereafter in the garden.
He cultivated the household's chief engineer, telling him that, in his youth, he had been in charge of construction for his former lord. The engineer was flattered, being not only one of the junior executive servants but also in the habit of hearing mostly complaints rather than friendly interest. Hugh sat with him after dinner and managed to appear knowledgeable largely by listening.
Hugh was invited to look around the plant, and spent a tiring morning crawling over pipes and looking at plans-the engineer could not write but could read a little and understood drawings. It would have been an interesting day in itself if Hugh had been free from worries; Hugh's background made engineering interesting to him. But he concentrated on trying to memorize every drawing he saw, match it in his mind with the passageways and rooms he was taken through. He had a deadly serious purpose: Despite having lived most of a summer in this big building, he knew only small pieces of it inside and only a walled garden outside. He needed to know all of it; he needed to know every possible exit from servants' quarters, what lay behind the guarded door to sluts' quarters, and most particularly, where in that area Barbara and the twins lived.
He got as far as the meander door that led into the distaff side. The engineer hesitated when the guard suddenly became alert. He said, "Cousin Hugh, I'm sure it's all right for you to go in here, with me-but maybe we had better go up to the Chief Domestic's office and have him write you out a pass."
"Whatever you say, cousin."
"Well, there really isn't anything of interest in here. Just the usual appointments of a barracks-water, lights, air service, plumbing, baths, such things. All the interesting stuff, power plant, incinerator, air control, and so forth, is elsewhere. And you know how the boss is-likely to fret over any variation from routine. If it's all the same to you, I'll make my inspection in there later."
"However you want to arrange things," Hugh answered with a suggestion of affronted dignity.
"Well... everybody knows you're not one of those disgusting young studs." The engineer looked embarrassed. "Tell you what- You tell me flatly that you want to see everything
in my department that is-and I'll trot up to Memtok and tell him you said so. He knows-Uncle! we all know- that you enjoy the favor of Their Charity. You understand me? I don't mean to presume. Memtok will write out a pass and I'll be in the clear and so will the guard and the head guard. You wait here and be comfortable. I'll hurry."
"Don't bother. There's nothing in there I want to see," Hugh lied. "You've seen one bath, you've seen 'em all, I always say."
The engineer smiled in relief. "That's 'a good one, I'll remember that. 'You've seen one bath, you've seen 'em all!' Ha ha! Well, we've still got the carpentry shop and the metal shop."
Hugh went on with him, arm in arm and jovial, while fuming inside. So close! Yet letting Memtok suspect that he had any interest in sluts' quarters was the last thing he wanted.
But the morning was well spent. Not only did Hugh acquire a burglar's insight as to weak points of the building (that delivery door to 'the unloading dock; if it was merely locked at night, it should be possible to break out) but also he picked up two prizes.
The first was a piece of spring steel about eight inches long. Hugh palmed it from some scrap in the metal shop; it wound up taped to his arm, after an unneeded plumbing call, for he had gone prepared to steal.
The second was even more of a prize: a printed drawing of the lowest level, with engineering installations shown boldly- but with every door and passage marked-including sluts' quarters.
Hugh had admired it. "Uncle, but that's a beautiful drawing! Your own work?"
The engineer shyly admitted that it was. Based on architect's plans, you understand-but changes keep having to be added.
"Beautiful!" Hugh repeated. "It's a shame there isn't more than one copy."
"Oh, plenty of copies, they wear out. Would you like one?"
"I would treasure it. Especially if the artist would inscribe it." When 'the man hesitated, Hugh moved in fast and said, "May I suggest a wording? Here, I'll write it out and you copy it."
Hugh walked away with the print, inscribed: To my dear Cousin Hugh, a fellow craftsman who appreciates beautiful work.
That night he showed it to Kitten. The child was awestruck. She had no concept of maps and was fascinated by the idea that it was possible to put down, just on a piece of paper, the long passages and twisty turns of her world. Hugh showed her how one went from his quarters to the ramp leading up to the executive servants' dining room, where the servants' main hall was, how the passage outside led, by two turns, to the garden. She confirmed the routes slowly, frowning in unaccustomed mental effort.
"You must live somewhere over here, Kitten. That is sluts' quarters."
"It is?"
"Yes. See if you can find where you live. I won't show you, you know how. I'll just sit back."
"Oh. Uncle help me! Let me see. First, I have to come down this ramp-" She paused to think while Hugh kept his face impassive. She had confirmed what he had almost stopped suspecting; the child was a planted spy. "Then... this is the door?"
"That's right."
"Then I walk straight ahead past the slutmaster's office, clear to the end, and I turn, and... I must live right there!" She clapped her hands and giggled.
"Your billet is across from your mess hail?"
"Yes."
"Then you got it right, first time! That's wonderful! Now let's see what else you can figure out."
For the next quarter hour she took him on a tour of sluts' quarters-junior and senior common rooms, messes, virgins' dormitory, bedwarmers' sleep room, nursery, lying-in, children's hall, service stalls, baths, playground door, garden door, offices, senior matron's apartment, everything-and Hugh learned that Barbara was no longer billeted in lying-in. Kitten volunteered it.
"Barbra-you know, the savage slut you write to-she used to be there, and now she's right there."
"How can you tell? Those rooms all look alike."
"I can tell. It's the second one of the four-mother rooms on this side, when you walk away from the baths."
Hugh noted with deep interest that a maintenance tunnel ran under the baths, with an access manhole in the passage Barbara's room was on-and with even deeper interest that this seemed to connect with another that ran clear across the building. Could it be that here was a wide-open unguarded route between all three main areas of servants' land? Surely not, as the lines seemed to show that any stud with initiative need only crawl a hundred yards to let himself into sluts' quarters.