Read Online Book 04 - Old Tin Sorrows by Glen Cook - Free Book Online Page A

guests like dukes and counts, firelords and stormwardens, and others a ranking commander might entertain.
    The ground floor boasted rooms meant for other purposes. The west wing was where, in times past, the businesses of the estate and its masters had been conducted. The doors to several rooms were open. I invited myself in. I didn’t find anything.
    From the west wing I walked across to the east, where I knew I’d be into the kitchen, pantries, dining hall, and whatnot. I’d been through some of that but hadn’t had a chance to pry.
    As I passed the brave champion still stubbornly skewering his dragon, I got that creepy sensation. I looked around, saw no one. My blonde admirer? I was beginning to think she was a spook.
    Not literally. The place was creepy at high noon. It had fallen from a ghost story, but I didn’t entertain the notion that it was haunted. The world is filled with the strange, the magical, the supernatural, but I didn’t figure I’d need haunts to explain anything here. Any schemes here had been set in motion by the root of all evil amongst the living.
    A closer examination of the dining room proved it to be what I’d figured, big, with decorations fitting the theme of the house. I wondered how many battles the Stantnors had fought.
    The room had a high ceiling, which suggested that part of the second floor east didn’t exist. True. I found out when I explored the pantry.
    A door there opened on stairs. One set went up, another down. It was as dark as a vampire’s heart in there. I went up. The way led to storerooms filled with housekeeping goodies, some of which looked like they’d been laid in before the turn of the century. Some dead Stantnor had saved by buying wholesale.
    Nobody swept or dusted but the place was orderly. It was inhabited by moths who found my lamp irresistible.
    Why so much room for storage?
    I came on stacks of four-inch-thick oak things, bound in iron, each with a number chalked onto the black iron. Curious, I looked closer.
    They were covers for the windows, to seal them if the house was besieged. They had to be as old as the house itself. Had they ever been used? Not in the past century, I was sure.
    I found a strong room in the southeast corner The door was latched but not locked. It was an armory. Inside were weapons enough for a company—as though there weren’t enough around the house already. Everything steel was covered with grease, everything wood coated with paraffin. Might be interesting to find out what the climate was like when the house was built. Troubled times, apparently.
    I spent too much time there. When I descended it was too late. Cook was banging around in the kitchen. I slipped out before she tripped over me.
    As I hit the fourth floor I caught a glimpse of white across the way. My lovely mystery lady. I blew her a kiss.
     
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10
    I’d had another visitor. This one had left in a hurry. He’d left a key in the lock with the door standing open. I saw why when I went into the bedroom.
    My visitor had murdered the suit of armor. He’d walked in, wound up with an antique battle-ax, and had let the poor boy have it. The ax was still there.
    I laughed. Bet he drizzled down his leg, thinking he’d walked into a trap.
    I sobered quickly. That was twice. Next time more care might go into the attempt. I was way out on a limb here. I had to take steps.
    I locked up, pocketed the key—which wasn’t identical to mine, so might be a skeleton key. I got the tin man out of bed and the ax out of him. “Sorry about that. But we’ll get our revenge.” I used the ax to rig a booby trap. Anybody who walked through the bedroom door was in for a rude welcome.
    Then I took an hour nap.
    I was early for breakfast, first to arrive. Cook was up to her ears in work getting platters ready. “Need a hand?”
    “I need ten. I don’t know what you’re up to, boy, sucking up to me, but you better believe I’ll use you. Get over to the oven and see how them rolls are coming.”
    I did. “Maybe