The Gates of Winter - Mark Anthony [99]
“Good morning, Deirdre.”
He pronounced her name DEER-dree. She might have found it slightly charming if there had been any caffeine in her system; there wasn't.
“Hello, Anders.”
She slung her briefcase onto her desk and shrugged her leather jacket off, then looked down at the baggy sweater and faded jeans she had donned in a mad rush to get out the door. Anders wore another dark, elegant suit that could barely contain his shoulders.
“I hope you don't mind—I started on that cross-indexing assignment Nakamura gave you. I didn't know which desk was whose, and the assignment was sitting here, so I thought, bugger, maybe I'd better get to it.”
Deirdre forced a smile and held up the folder Nakamura had given her. “Don't worry about it. I'm all set.”
Anders kept typing. “I'll tell you, I never thought I'd be much into computer work. I was a bit worried about that when I decided to join up. But crikey, it turns out I'm a fiend for it. I got here at quarter to seven just to get a jump on things.”
She held a hand to her pounding temple. “I'm sure you did.”
“There's coffee over on the filing cabinet there. Help yourself.”
Deirdre couldn't resist the lure of caffeine and went over to investigate. There was a stainless-steel carafe, several mugs, and a carton of real cream. She filled a mug from the carafe, laced it with a generous dollop of cream, and took a sip. The coffee was superior.
She raised an eyebrow and gazed at Anders over the mug. “Who brewed this?”
“I did. The beans are Kenya Double-A. I got them on my last trip home. That coffee came from the best field in my family's plantation.”
So that was the source of the accent she couldn't quite place. He was Kenyan, descended of British colonials. As she moved back to her desk, she noticed the bouquet of flowers in the center of the claw-footed table.
“Someone sent you flowers?” she said, then took another vitalizing sip.
“Not bloody likely,” Anders said with a gravely laugh. “In case you haven't noticed, I've got a mug only a mother could love. And even my mum squints when she looks at me. I brought those in myself. I thought they might cheer up the place.”
Deirdre sat at her desk. For some reason it bothered her to drink Anders's coffee, but it was a matter of survival. By the third cup her brain finally kicked into gear, and she was able to focus on the papers Nakamura had given her.
She didn't know if it was ironic or simply fitting, but her assignment was to perform a survey of historical cases from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and determine if any of the Nine Desiderata had been broken in the course of each case. The goal of the study was to determine if the modern definitions of the Desiderata were in any way at odds with how the rules were applied in the first two centuries of the Seekers' history. Deirdre had to admit, it was an interesting topic. All the same, it was a bit on the academic side.
Be glad you have work to do at all, Deirdre. They could have ousted you from the order. Besides, research is exactly what you need to be doing right now.
However, as the day wore on, there was no opportunity to perform any more searches about the message on the keystone and Glinda's ring. The way the desks were arranged, Anders only had to turn his head slightly to see her—as well as the contents of her computer screen.
He did this what seemed like every ten minutes, asking her some question or another about how best to construct search queries, or what were her favorite indexing techniques. Deirdre did her best to answer his questions, and each time he'd respond with an outpouring of gratitude that made her cringe before he turned his broad back to punish his computer some more.
By afternoon, despite the warning of the shadowy stranger last night, she could only think that Anders really was