The God of the Hive - Laurie R. King [38]
In any case, a man living in the deep woods six years after Armistice had probably not had an easy War. But then, I had known that since the moment I saw those old eyes in the young face.
Back on the dead tree, I sat massaging my neck, stiff from yesterday’s violence and the source of my persistent headache. It was just as well he hadn’t agreed that we should leave, I thought: I’d have collapsed before we reached the crash site.
Goodman came down the front steps and went over to the enormous tree, retrieving a garden fork that he had left leaning against its trunk. He absently patted the trunk, a gesture remarkably similar to my mother’s touch on the mezuzah at our door, then headed towards his little walled vegetable garden beside the shed.
My eyes went back to the tree. I had seen no sign of fairies. Perhaps it was instead Yggdrasil, the World Tree where the gods hold court. Although that was an ash, and this an oak. And the dark preoccupation with Norse mythology belonged to Reverend Thomas Brothers, not Robert Goodman.
The name opened a door in my mind and out flowed all the anxiety and speculation that I had kept dammed up when talking to our rescuer. If Brothers was not dead, where had he gone, and who was helping him? Should I have directed a telegram to Chief Inspector Lestrade, to inform him that Holmes’ suspect was at large in the wilds of Scotland? Or would that simply further endanger the child?
Thoughts chased around my head, making my skull ache again, and I was glad when Goodman reappeared around the side of his motley construction with a full bushel basket. I climbed from my perch and went to the house, where I found Estelle setting out another dollies’ tea-party, this time with Javitz, the two deer Goodman had given her, and a two-inch-tall rabbit, crude but rich in personality. She had given the American the porcelain cup of honour, making do herself with an acorn, and was chattering happily about a doll she had at home. I could only wonder at the indomitability of the very young.
I settled to the tangle of dried beans in want of shelling, and she instantly trotted over with two acorn cups, giving me one. I thanked her, and she presented the other to Goodman, watching in anticipation for his reaction. Javitz shot me a father’s amused grin, while I wondered how one was to play the game, but Goodman did not hesitate. He raised his cup to his lips, took a noisy sip, and swallowed, the very picture of satisfaction. The verisimilitude of his act made me glance involuntarily at my own tiny woodland cup and to wonder, for an instant, if his might not contain actual tea.
Chapter 21
a ÷ (b+c+d) + e − (½ c)
Mycroft decided on Monday that the election of the Labour government might have a larger role in his current predicament than he had originally allowed; however, because it was not entirely to blame, he only deducted half of it.
He thought it was Monday, although it was difficult to be certain. Distressingly difficult. He had the impression that some of his food and drink contained sedatives—not a lot, just enough to make him drowsy. He hoped so. Humiliating to think that mere solitude might affect the control of his mind.
The room provided only two sources of external stimulation: the window overhead, and the gaolers.
In the roof a dozen feet over his standing head was a sky-light, four feet square, of translucent glass—or rather, regular glass that had been whitewashed at some time in its history, now darkened by decades of grime and generations of passing birds. He rather wished that the man wielding the brush had been less diligent, and thus provide a prisoner with a tiny glimpse of the sky. Instead, he had a featureless square that became visible at dawn then faded at dusk, propelling a diffuse patch across floor and walls in the hours between. (Logically, this prison might be constructed with an outer roof and fitted with an artificial light that rose and fell, confusing his time sense and rending