Universe Twister - Keith Laumer [122]
"You're Daph—I mean Lady Andragorre's aunt?"
"Why, yes, didn't you know? But you haven't said where she is . . ."
Lafayette was looking around the room. It was clean and comfortable enough, but decidedly on the primitive side. "I got the impression the Lady Andragorre is very well of," he said. "Is this the best she can do for you?"
"Why, foolish boy, I adore living here among the birds and flowers. So quaint and picturesque."
"Who chops the wood?"
"Why, ah, I have a man who comes in on Tuesdays. But you were saying about Lady Andragorre . . .?"
"I wasn't saying. But I don't know where she is; I came alone. Well, thanks for the goodies—"
"You're not leaving," the old lady said sharply. She smiled. "I won't think of it."
Lafayette pulled on his cloak, went to the door. "I'm afraid I have to decline your hospitality—" He broke off at a sudden sound, turned in time to see the old lady behind him, her hand swinging down edge-on in a murderous chop at his temple. He ducked, took the blow on a forearm, yelled at the pain, countered a second vicious swing, aimed a stiff-fingered punch at his hostess's ribs, took a jab to the solar plexus, and fell backward over the rocker.
"Double-crosser!" the old lady yelled. "Selling out to that long-nosed Rodolpho, after all I've promised to do for you! Of all the cast-iron stitch-welded gall, to come waltzing in here pretending you never saw me before!" Lafayette rolled aside as the old lady bounded across the chair, barely fending her off with a kick to the short ribs as he scrambled to his feet.
"Where is she, curse you? Oh, I should have left you tending swine back in that bog I picked you out of—"
Abruptly the old girl halted in mid-swing, cupped an ear. Faintly, O'Leary heard the thud of approaching hooves.
"Blast!" The old woman bounded to the door, snatched a cloak from the peg, whirled it about herself.
"I'll get you for this, Lorenzo!" she keened in a voice that had dropped from a wheezy soprano to a ragged tenor. "Just you wait, my boy! I'll extract a vengeance from you that will make you curse the day you ever saw the Glass Tree!" She yanked the door open and was gone into the night.
Belatedly, O'Leary sprang after her. Ten feet from the door, she stood fiddling with her buttons. As O'Leary leaped, she emitted a loud buzzing hum, bounded into the air, and shot away toward the forest, rapidly gaining altitude, her cloak streaming behind her.
"Hey," Lafayette called weakly. Suddenly he was aware of the rising thunder of hooves. He dashed back inside, across the room, out the back door, and keeping the house between himself and the arriving cavalry, he sprinted for the shelter of the woods.
Dawn came, gray and blustery, hardly lessening the darkness. Lafayette sat in deep gloom under a tree big enough to cut a tunnel through, shivering. His head ached; his stomach had a slow fire in it; his eyeballs felt as if they had been taken out, rolled in corn meal, and Southern-fried. The taste in his mouth resembled pickled onions—spoiled ones. In the branches overhead, a bird squawked mournfully.
"This is it," Lafayette muttered, "the low point of my career. I'm sick, freezing, starving, hung-over, and dyspeptic. I've lost my horse, Lady Andragorre's trail—everything. I don't know where I'm going, or what to do when I get there. Also, I'm hallucinating. Flying old ladies, ha! I probably imagined the whole business about the cottage. A dying delirium, maybe I was actually shot by those bumbling incompetents in the yellow coats. Maybe I'm dead!"
He felt himself over, failed to find any bullet holes.
"But this is ridiculous. If I were dead, I wouldn't have a headache." He hitched up his sword belt, tottered a few feet to a small stream, knelt, and sluiced ice water over his face, scrubbed at it with the edge of his cloak, drank a few swallows.
"O.K.," he told himself sternly. "No use standing around talking to myself. This is a time for action.
"Swell," he replied. "What action?
"I could