else, indeed,”
else, indeed,” I agreed cheerfully. “Clean through him, you say? Better and better!”
By now I was bare from the waist up. I seized the husband by the scruff of the neck and shook him a bit, to clear his head. “Come to your senses, damn you! I mean you no harm.” I motioned toward the barrel with my hand. “Start smearing that flour all over me. Everything except my hair.”
His jaw snapped shut. A moment later, he hastened to obey. While he did so, I turned back to the cook.
“Some meat paste. Cold—lukewarm at least—not hot.” Fortunately, she was either quicker-witted than her husband or less confused, so I was not forced to shake her as well. By the time her husband was halfway through the process of coating me with flour, the cook had returned with some greasy meat paste on a wooden spatula.
By then, my plans were made. “Smear it here, and here,” I commanded, pointing to a spot just above my kidney and on the corresponding side of my stomach, just opposite. “I rather doubt that’s exactly where the Baron stabbed the Sieur, but it hardly matters. I dare say the surviving eyewitness will not remember the fine details.”
She smeared the meat paste over the spots indicated. I couldn’t see the result on my back, but the one on my belly made quite a gruesome-looking imitation of a wound. In dim lighting, at least—which was all there was in that misbegotten castle.
“And that’s it!” I exclaimed softly.
By now I was bare from the waist up. I seized the husband by the scruff of the neck and shook him a bit, to clear his head. “Come to your senses, damn you! I mean you no harm.” I motioned toward the barrel with my hand. “Start smearing that flour all over me. Everything except my hair.”
His jaw snapped shut. A moment later, he hastened to obey. While he did so, I turned back to the cook.
“Some meat paste. Cold—lukewarm at least—not hot.” Fortunately, she was either quicker-witted than her husband or less confused, so I was not forced to shake her as well. By the time her husband was halfway through the process of coating me with flour, the cook had returned with some greasy meat paste on a wooden spatula.
By then, my plans were made. “Smear it here, and here,” I commanded, pointing to a spot just above my kidney and on the corresponding side of my stomach, just opposite. “I rather doubt that’s exactly where the Baron stabbed the Sieur, but it hardly matters. I dare say the surviving eyewitness will not remember the fine details.”
She smeared the meat paste over the spots indicated. I couldn’t see the result on my back, but the one on my belly made quite a gruesome-looking imitation of a wound. In dim lighting, at least—which was all there was in that misbegotten castle.
“And that’s it!” I exclaimed softly.