Lost City (NUMA Files 5)

"Madame Fauchard is touchy about getting old. I don't blame her. She must have been a beauty in her day. She would have caught my eye."

"If you like making love to a corpse," Skye said with a toss of her head.

Austin grinned. "It seems the pussycat has claws."

"Very sharp ones, and I'd love to use them on your lady friend. I

don't know why you were so worried. I'm bored to pieces."

Austin had been watching the arrival of more servants. A dozen or so hard-looking men had slipped quietly into the armory and taken up positions next to every door leading in or out of the great chamber.

"Sit tight," Austin murmured. "I have a feeling that the real party has yet to begin."

CAVENDISH WAS superbly intoxicated. The Englishman had shoved his raven's beak onto the top of his head to allow his rosebud mouth unimpeded access to his wine goblet. He had been gurgling wine throughout the medieval-style dinner, washing down the exotic game dishes everything from lark to boar like a human garbage disposal. Austin picked at his food to be polite, took an occasional sip of wine and advised Skye to do the same. They would need clear heads if his instincts were on the mark.

As soon as the dessert dishes were removed, Cavendish staggered to his feet and tapped the side of his water glass with a spoon. All eyes turned in his direction. He raised his goblet. "I would like to offer a toast to our host and hostess."

"Hear, hear," his fellow guests replied in boozy acknowledgment, lifting their drinks as well.

Encouraged by the response, Cavendish smiled. "As many of you know, the Fauchard and the Cavendish families go back centuries. We all know how the Fauchards, ah, borrowed the Cavendish

process for forging steel on a mass basis, thus assuring their own rise while my people faded into the sunset."

"The fortunes of war," said the ape from The Murders in the Rue

Morgue.

"I'll drink to that." Cavendish took a swig from his goblet. "Unfortunately, or fortunately, given the tendency of Fauchards to meet fatal accidents, we never married into their family."

"The fortunes of love," said the woman draped in bells. The guests around the table roared their drunken approval.

Cavendish waited for the laughter to die down, then said, "I doubt if the word love was ever uttered in this household. Butawyone can love. How many families can boast that they single-handedly started the War to End All Wars?"

A heavy silence descended on the table. The guests glanced furtively at Madame Fauchard, who had been sitting at the head of the table with her son seated to her right. She maintained the waxen smile she had held throughout the oration, but her eyes radiated the same heat Austin had seen when Skye mentioned her mortality.

"Monsieur Cavendish is most flattering, but he exaggerates the influence of the Fauchard family," she said in a cool voice. "There were many causes for the Great War. Greed, stupidity and arrogance, to name a few. Every family in this room joined the jingoistic pack in urging on the war that made us all fortunes."

Cavendish would not be discouraged. "Take credit where credit is due, my dear Racine. It is true that we arms people owned the newspapers and bribed the politicians who howled for war, but it was the Fauchard family, in its infinite wisdom, that paid to have the Grand Duke Ferdinand assassinated, thus plunging the world into a bloody brawl. We all know the rumors that Jules Fauchard bolted the pack, thus ensuring his untimely departure from the earth."

"Monsieur Cavendish," Madame Fauchard said, her voice a warning growl. But the Englishman was on a roll.

"But what many don't know," he said, "is that the Fauchards also bankrolled a certain Austrian corporal throughout his political rise and encouraged members of the Japanese Imperial Army to take on the United States." He paused to take a drink. "That turned out to be more than you bargained for and things got a bit out of your control, what with your slave factories bombed to dust. But as someone said a moment ago, 'the fortunes of war." "

The chamber was gripped by an almost unbearable tension.

Madame Fauchard had removed her plague mask and the loathing etched in her face was even more terrible than the Red Death. Austin had no doubt that if Racine had been capable of telekinesis the weapons would have jumped off the walls and hacked Cavendish to bits.

One of the guests broke the heavy silence. "Cavendish. You've said enough. Sit down."

For the first time, Cavendish became aware of Madame Fauchard's withering stare. The Englishman's brain had caught up with his mouth and he knew he had gone too far. His foolish grin vanished and he wilted like a flower under the heat of a sunlamp. He sat down ponderously, more sober than when he had stood only moments before.

Madame Fauchard rose like a cobra uncoiling and raised her glass. "Merci. Now I will offer a toast to the great, late House of Cavendish."

The Englishman's ruddy complexion turned the color of paste. He mumbled his thanks and said, "You must excuse me. I don't feel well. Touch of the indigestion, I fear."

Rising from his chair, he made his way toward the exit and disappeared through the doorway.

Madame Fauchard glanced at her son. "Please see to our guest. We wouldn't want him to fall in the moat."