the vacated wooden chair.
Locked?
Yes.
He drew his dagger and slid the thin blade between the doors.
Ornate decoration was often accompanied by neglect of the necessary mechanisms, and this lock followed the rule, as he felt the latch lift away. Boots sounded downstairs. He tugged open the door and quickly slipped inside, crouching once more. A front room, an office of sorts, with a single lantern on a short wick casting faint light across the desk and its strewn heap of papyrus sheets. A second door, smaller, narrow, behind the desk's high-backed plush chair.
Torvald Nom tiptoed towards it.
Pausing at the desk to douse the lantern, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, crouching yet lower to squint at the crack beneath the bedroom door, pleased to find no thread of light. Drawing up against the panelled wood with its gold-leaf insets now dull in the gloom. No lock this time. Hinges feeling well oiled. He slowly worked the door open.
Inside, quietly shutting the door behind him.
Soft breathing from the huge four-poster bed. Then a sigh. 'Sweet sliverfishy, is that you?'
A woman's husky, whispering voice, and now stirring sounds from the bed.
'The night stalker this time? Ooh, that one's fun – I'll keep my eyes closed and whimper lots when you threaten me to stay quiet. Hurry, I'm lying here, petrified. Someone's in my room!'
Torvald Nom hesitated, truly torn between necessity and . . . well, necessity.
He untied his rope belt. And, in a hissing voice, demanded, 'First, the treasure. Where is it, woman?'
She gasped. 'That's a good voice! A new one! The treasure, ah! You know where it is, you horrible creature! Right here between my legs!'
Torvald rolled his eyes. 'Not that one. The other one.'
'If I don't tell you?'
'Then I will have my way with you.'
'Oh! I say nothing! Please!'
Damn, he sure messed that one up. There was no way she'd not know he wasn't who he was pretending to be, even when that someone was pretending to be someone else. How to solve this?
'Get on your stomach. Now, on your hands and knees. Yes, like that.'
'You're worse than an animal!'
Torvald paused at the foot of the bed. Worse than an animal? What did that mean? Shaking his head, he climbed on to the bed. Well, here goes nothing.
A short time later: 'Sliverfishy! The new elixir? Gods, it's spectacular! Why, I can't call you sliverfishy any more, can I? More like . . . a salmon! Charging upstream! Oh!'
'The treasure, or I'll use this knife.' And he pressed the cold blade of the dagger against the outside of her right thigh.
She gasped again. 'Under the bed! Don't hurt me! Keep pushing, damn you! Harder! This one's going to make a baby – I know it! This time, a baby!'
Well, he did his part anyway, feeding his coins into the temple's cup and all that, and may her prayers guide her true into motherhood's blissful heaven. She collapsed on to the bed, groaning, while he backed off, knelt on the cold wooden floor and reached under the bed, knuckles skinning against a large, low longbox. Groping, he found one handle and dragged it out.
She moaned. 'Oh, don't start counting again, darling. Please. You ruin everything when you do that!'
'Not counting, woman. Stealing. Stay where you are. Eyes closed. Don't move.'
'It just sounds silly now, you know that.'
'Shut up, or I'll do you again.'
'Ah! What was that elixir again?'
He prised open the lock with the tip of the dagger. Inside, conveniently stored in burlap sacks tagged with precise amounts, a fortune of gems, jewels and high councils. He quickly collected the loot.
'You are counting!'
'I warned you.' He climbed back on to the bed. Looked down and saw that promises weren't quite enough. Gods below, if you only were. 'Listen,' he said, 'I need more elixir.
In the office. Don't move.'
'I won't. I promise.'
He hurried out, crept across the outer room and paused at the doors to the corridor to press his ear against the panel.
Softly, the slither-click of bamboo knitting needles.
Torvald slid the dagger into its scabbard, reversed grip, opened the door, looked down at the top of the guard's hairy head, and swung hard. The pommel crunched. The man sagged in his chair, then folded into a heap at the foot of the chair.
The cat was waiting by the library door.
*
Uncle One, Uncle Two, Father None. Aunt One, Aunt Two, Mother None.
Present and on duty, Uncle One, Aunt One and Cousins One, Two, Three. Cousin One edging closer, almost close enough