Even after the last few weeks of rest and recuperation, my wife did not have the stamina for multiple sixteen-hour days driving across America. Thus, our progress, while not slow, was measured. Our fortunes had turned for the better, but we did not have much in the way of excess funds.
What excess we did have went to pay portions of our late rent and doctor bills and repay my sister for her assistance a few weeks back. We slept in the back of the station wagon, and during the seven-day drive, we only sprung for a hotel once. Even then, it was only because a Nebraska state trooper rousted us awake. The shower that morning was divine.
We arrived in Darien, CT, seven days and fourteen long hours after starting from Rexburg, ID. Our first stop was a thrift store in Norwalk, as my wife found the early fall weather bitingly cold. She was a starving artist—well, she still was at this point in the story—and thus, her ability to thrift shop was second to none.
When I resigned, I returned the black woolen cossack tunic and jacket combo that was the hallmark of my Order. My wife found us a pair of matching overcoats and me a few retired surplus uniform tunics.
"You aren't in the Order," she explained, "but I see it in your eyes, love; make no mistake, this is your calling." Her quirky smile brightened her eyes. "Let me do this for you; I am the artist here; I'll make you look like the world's best freelance Arbiter of Faith."
The peck on the cheek she gave me caught me off guard.
"Is there such a thing?" I asked. "World's best freelance Arbiter of Faith, I mean."
That time, it was a slow, more passionate kiss with a tug on my lip when we parted. In moments like those, my wife had the uncanny ability to disrupt my heart's normal rhythm.
"There is you," she whispered at the base of my neck, "and me, so yes."
***
"He said he would meet us here at 3:15," my wife griped.
I watched her look at the ancient mechanical clock on our station wagon's dash. The time read 3:45, and we'd been here for more than an hour, and that last sixty minutes had been torture.
We were down to the last of our holdout cash, and we might need it for a hotel during this job, so the smell of hand-made donuts over the last hour had sent our stomachs rumbling.
"That's him," my wife said as she pointed over my shoulder. "British racing green Range Rover."
We waited as the younger man than I parked with a space between us. He was animatedly talking to someone. A moment later, he stopped, pinched at his eyes, and took a deep breath before stepping out of his vehicle.
***
"David Felonni," he said. "Felonni's mortuary and funeral home."
"Pleased to meet you," I said. "My wife and I are happy to be here."
David's phone buzzed once, twice, and before he could check it, the little black box chirped rapidly. Mr. Felonni gave the sleek screen a glance and frowned.
"Is this a bad time?" I asked hesitantly, praying we would still have a job here.
David waggled his phone between us and said, "For me, it's not great news; for you, it is perfect timing."
"You mentioned a problem with your cemetery?" I asked. "Have the blessings and wards on the gate's iconography been tampered with or damaged?"
A deep and guilty look of chagrin passed over David Felonni's face. "It's not the cemetery. It is the funeral home itself. I didn't know what else would get you out here. I didn't want to tell you that the Diocese said it wasn't demons, but as today's fiasco shows," he waggled his phone between us again. "Something is scaring, frightening, manipulating, and extorting my clients."
***
In general, my history and business dealings with mortuary men and families, like Mr. Felonni, have been shrouded in darkness and half-truths. The industry is often hereditary, and besides the apparent stigma of death, these families, at least the ones that need my kind of services, worship the darker nature of the industry.
My wife and I are thankful that, all these decades later, our first introduction into the industry and its cult-like veneration of death was not so. The Felonni family was a relative newcomer to the industry, having only started in the wake of the Spanish flu epidemic of the late nineteen-teens. Others we've worked with since had familial ties dating back five hundred years or more.
***
"So what do you think?" David Felonni asked.
I nearly choked on a bit of donut and waved my hand about in an effort to buy myself time to swallow some coffee. Mr. Felonni had sprung for donuts and coffee before explaining the last nine months of problems in greater detail.
"You paid the Order to come out and check your wards and blessings twice," I mumble with a bit of donut still stuck in my throat, "and they found no issues?" I asked to clarify.
"I paid them the first time," David said. "They came out the second time because one of the local Fathers was conducting a funeral ceremony and witnessed the kerfuffle that happened."
"These voices you mentioned," my wife said, "are they saying the same things to all the patrons?" She paused and pursed her lips before she continued, "Or is it unique to the attendants?"
David's eyes widened a bit. " You know," he said, "I don't know. That is an excellent question. Most of my patrons and guests are reticent to explain what the voices say."
"Are they equally upset?" I asked.
"No, some, yes. It is different with each client, but they all refuse to pay the balance of their bills," David said. "My attorney has sixteen open litigation for non-payment claims. Having to front this much overhead costs is killing us."
***
"You'll be fine here?" Mr. Felloni asked with what seemed to be great skepticism. "I don't think anyone's been up here in at least five years."
The apartment over his family's detached garage was cluttered with bins, boxes, and memorabilia from days prior to taking over the business from his parents. The entire space was layered in dust, grime, and the occasional rodent dropping.
"We'll be fine," my wife said as she walked by us.
"Really, Mr. Felonni," I said, "this is good. Thank you for the cleaning supplies. We'll work here a bit, then head on over to the funeral home and get started tonight."
David Felonni turned to the disaster that was an unused bathroom and shivered. I almost chuckled, but I held it back when I caught the stern look from my wife.
***
"It's been three days," my wife said with an exasperated yawn.
I turned to her and watched as she put her brush down and rubbed at her eyes.
"I don't understand it," I said. "Every ward of binding, every blessing, is in good shape." I stepped down from the three-foot ladder and waved about the space. "I mean, outside of Rome, this is as good of Vatican silver work as one could hope to buy. It's top-flight journeyman quality. "
"So the Diocese was right?" my wife asked. "I mean, he's paying our fee, but we can't take advantage of that."
A triple beep from the side entrance door signaled someone's arrival. I looked at my phone and realized it was already 8:30 a.m. David Felonni backed into the side vestibule we were in, gesticulating at someone.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Spunklekrief," David said exasperatedly. "You'll have to wait until ten am. It doesn't matter what someone told you during your sister's funeral. I have no way of knowing if you were illegitimate or not."
I raised an eyebrow and looked at my wife. David pulled the door shut and leaned his head against it.
"Problems?" I asked slowly.
"Yesterday's 2:00 service, Edna Weingarten, 93 years young," David said. "Some rumors started spreading about the will, adoption, and siblings birthed out of wedlock. Not the kind of thing we worry about today, no offense, Father, but to their generation, it matters."
I've told Mr. Felonni that I am not an ordained priest, but like those folks back in Rexburg, it did not stop them from using the appellation in lieu of a name I do not have.
David turned to look at my wife and me. His face was worn, drawn, and concerned. He explained, "Mrs. Spunklekrief is Edna's executor, paid in full, with 1400 attendees, graveside service, flowers, and the whole shebang. She's threatening legal action and has stopped payment due to the brawl that broke out. Five were arrested, and one was hospitalized."
I turned back to my wife, and she looked from me to David.
"Tell me you've figured it out," David asked with what seemed like the last amount of desperation he could muster.
"Whatever this is, Mr. Felonni," I said, "It's not demons. As I just told my wife, outside of Rome, this silver inlay is as good as one could hope for when it comes to journeyman work."
David groaned audibly and started to sag against the door.
"I've covered your buildings twice now," I said, "but I've done it at night."
David looked up to me and I suspect his look was one of puzzlement and some small amount of hope. Truth be told, I was at my last-ditch guess.
"None of your problems happen at night; they happen when people are here, during your business hours," my wife said. "When you have clients and patrons on site.
"We'd like to stay through the day, move about a bit, listen, and observe. Maybe if I see this disruption happen like the local Father did, well," I said. I stepped over to Mr. Felonni and offered a hand. It may give my wife and me a new perspective.
"Um, the first service is at 11:00," David said. "I've got some family viewing rooms you can wait in. We can hook up the monitors in them to display the services going on."
"Do they normally have monitors in them?" I ask, suddenly thinking Mr. Felonni's problem might be far more mundane than he thought.
"No, no," David said, hooking a thumb over his shoulder. "They are in the conference room. It's where we show potential clients the options available to them. It's all top-of-the-line gear. We upgraded last year after a break-in. You'll be able to watch any part of our facilities with the click of a button."
"Hmm, let's not rock the applecart yet," I said, "would you mind if we observed from there?"
David looked startled and shrugged then he said, "10:30? I'll have time to get you set up around then."
"We'll get showered, put on fresh clothes appropriate to the somber occasions, and be back by 10:30," my wife said. Dear?" she asked, sticking a hand out so I could help her up.
***
The shower above the garage is a single-person affair, and the modest 10-gallon hot water heater limits the time you have in it. I let my wife enjoy the warm water while I mulled over what I knew. During the process of checking off all the things I knew it could not be, my mind started to wander.
I'd been up early on top of switching my sleep schedule to days. It'd been forever since I'd been on a night shift, fire watch as my Order called it. Before I met my wife for sure, but when was the first time?
I chuckled. Ah, yes, the demerits for the brawl in the locker room. That earned me and the eleven other men in my company three days each of tours, fire watch, or runner duties. You were lucky if you got the runner duties or the tours. They were entertaining. Firewatch, sitting in a guard shack, and not falling asleep was not easy. The memory came to me.
"Screw you all," Kittleson had said. His Norwegian accent was thick with frustration. "We're here to learn, to find out how to battle demons," He griped, each word's volume building on the last.
Vanev kicked the whole thing off with his raucous laughter and the snapping of the towel. Oh, the jibe, that's right.
Vanev pointed his finger at Kittleson and hollered, "Kittleson's a Farie lover."
Kittleson's composure was gone, he'd lost it when Vanev's towel snapped him in the ass, and now he was within arms reach of a laughing Vanev who never saw the punch that laid him out.
"Fae, you asshole," Kittleson said. "Elves, trolls, Mara, you illiterate backwoods Greek."
Vanev was from Macedonia, not Greece. Chronis, however, was from Greece, and well the fight was in full swing by the time Pater Brechet had walked in.
***
The kiss on my lips roused me. "There is some hot water left for you," my wife said.
I rubbed at my eyes and got out of the dusty armchair. "I'll be quick," I said. "Maybe we can grab some donuts and coffee on the way back?"
We were five minutes early, and David was nearly twenty minutes late, but it did not matter; he had one of the on-site staff get us set up. My wife pulled out her sketch pad, and I jostled the monitors around to better see the two services that the funeral home was preparing for.
"You think this is going to," my wife mumbled as she gnawed on a day-old donut hole.
Rich, we were not, and the day-old donut holes were one-third the price of fresh. Between the two of us, we owed a lot of money—nearly three thousand in back rent and untold thousands in medical bills. The hospital seemed to find new things to charge us for every time I logged in to make a payment.
"Help?" she finally said.
"Something's up," I explained. "Maybe it is just clients who watched the monitors like this or a staff member with loose lips. Mrs. Spunklekrief was the fourth client since we got here who's had problems."
It is depressing to watch those who grieve. The first two have services have only a hand full of visitors between them. The third was a minor local celebrity, a newscaster who died of an overdose. He had no family, but many of his fans showed up.
"We are here," I mumbled as I got up to refill my empty paper cup with the dregs of this morning's office coffee.
"We are here, and the 3:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. might be different," my wife said, looking at the schedule. David had dropped by around noon.
I slid my wife the cup, and she took a grimacing sip. I settled into an alternating watch of the four monitors we had going. My wife shifted seats and is now sketching me, watching the funerals of people I'd never met.
After the folks from the 3:00 service are seated and a chorus has been sung, I switch my gaze over to a different monitor and funeral room, where the family of the 5:00 p.m. deceased is talking to David about something. Ah, by the one lady's pointed finger, the flower arrangements.
"What did you say," my wife asked.
I turned, blinking my eyes, and replied, "Nothing, I've been watching the screens."
"No," my wife said patiently, "you said something about the three o'clock people being stupid for spending this much money."
I chuckled and stood so I could stretch. I made my way over to my wife as she continued to finish up a part of her sketch and asked, "How would I know what they paid?"
She stopped, cocked her head, and looked at me, "Wait, that wasn't you?" she asked.
I would have replied, but my eyes were locked on her sketch. Seven others were with us in this room. The people in her art are diminutive folk, a mix of males and females, all watching the monitors. They are seated at the edge of the conference room table, their legs dangling off the edge.
"Keep drawing," I said, tapping at her image. My wife didn't miss a beat once she cottoned on to the game. I eased down and around the edge of the table and listened.
Noises, whispers, chuckles, and guffaws were clear as day. I glanced at my wife, who was digging out her pastel chalks. The volume of the noise quieted down. I had a theory, a hunch that was really coming to fruition in my mind.
I waited. It took a while for my wife to set up the larger pad, organize her chalks, and begin her larger sketch in pencil. As soon as she started to put lines on paper, I began to hear the whispers again.
I gave my wife the thumbs up, and she grinned that devil-may-care smile I love so much. I pulled my seat closer to her and watched as she outlined the shifting forms of the Fae in the room. Why they are here, I have no idea, but they found this type of thing fascinating.
A section of her sketch has coins changing hands, and another section has two of the Fae pointing directly at the five o'clock monitor.
"Can you incorporate what's on the monitors?" I asked my wife.
"It's not so easy," she said. "They are moving about in the monitors while everyone's pretty still here in this room."
She gestures at her smaller sketch pad, and I pull it free for her.
"Three pages," she mumbles absent-mindedly.
I provided three of her precious pages; quality pastel boards are not cheap. While she worked on them, the whispered noise in our room died back down to nearly nothing. As I suspected, there were more of the Fae throughout both funerals.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone. A short text is all my wife and I will need to send, I think.
***
We were out in the hall now. David was looking at the sketches even as the funerals continued.
"Elves, fairies?" David said mockingly.
"Fae," I said. “They love drama, tragedy, sport, secrets, lies, and emotional games." David looked from the pencil sketches to me. "Think about it: all the drama, games, and fights are reality TV for them. It's on-demand, and most of all, they get to participate unseen.
"We have a way to test this," my wife said.
"But," I said as a qualification, "We've some supplies to gather. I'm not flush enough with cash to afford them."
A bump and a shout sounded from the 3:00 p.m. service. Without a wasted beat, David asked, "How much?"
"Five hundred," I said, waggling my hand. "We need some more artboards and a bit of powdered silver."
David let out a strangled laugh, "You're going to fix this with for under 500 bucks in art supplies?" He pinched his eyes again and let out a groan. "Of course you are. How long?"
"Tomorrow at the earliest," I said hesitantly, "The day after would be better."
David groaned and shook his head in the negative.
"I have something you can try," my wife said. “Turn the cameras off."
It clicked, then. The newness of the surveillance equipment and the quality of the silver inlay provided a conduit for the normally unseen and unheard Fae to interact with humanity. The Fae exploited that to their wicked hearts' content.
"If shutting the cameras off works," David said, "the day after then."
***
My wife and I rested that night and most of the day after. Our supply trip to Jerry's Artarama in Norwalk panned out, though at a higher cost than either my wife or I expected. We were out 300 out of the five hundred in cash he gave us.
That put us well out of the price range of powdered Vatican silver, but I'm a resourceful, classically trained man. The percentage of metal powders that make up the Vatican silver alloy is taught to all of my Order. The next morning, we found our products at a local jeweler, and I kept within the budget given to us.
"I put the receipts in my purse," my wife said.
Later that afternoon, all three of us were in the conference room as new three- and five-o'clock services began.
"Come in, sit down on one side of my wife, and listen in," I said.
David and I take seats opposite my wife. She brings new black pastel boards from her portfolio. The sound returns as she starts to sketch the room, the two of us, and those inhabitants seemingly invisible to the realm of humanity.
If I had to guess, it is the same God-given talent that allowed her to make the portrait of Saint Melini or even the inspiring images for our Codex Arcanum and the Codex Iconographia. I've said it before: my wife's pictures have soul, and here, in this place, within the framework of Vatican silver wards and blessing, she can put the unseen to paper.
The whispers were faint as my wife rough sketched with pencil, but if the look of shock on David's face is any indicator, then he's heard it also. That all changed when the first of her pastels swiped across the board. She smudges an edge with her thumb and continues with her portrait of a gaggle of Fae holding court over humanity's mundane dead.
"Oi," one little voice said to the monitor, "Tell her there's gold buried in the backyard."
"Ekezial," said another, lobbing a little fist at the first's head. "Don't be daft. Humans don't use gold anymore. They've got fake representative currencies now."
"Don't be calling me daft," the first said. "I ain't the one thinking representative currencies are real."
And like that, whatever workings of fae magics they'd employed degraded slowly as my wife's pastels lay down solid linework. When she begins to smudge, layer, dob, and blend, the sound is perfectly audible. David and I watched in fascinated amazement as my wife's art drained away their invisibility and made the noncorporeal real, on paper, that is.
There is more to my wife's work and the Fae's argument about economies built upon fractional banking. While she sketches, I take my notes of a sort. For I, too, am a classically trained man. My work is primarily based on Iconography, and before I dive into the deep end of the pool, I have my tests to run.
I take special note of a few things in my wife's pastel painting, the primary of which is a small dangling charm that hangs from the neck of each of the conference room's Fae. We three are largely ignored in favor of the onscreen entertainment. Oh, they glance at us and make faces, but they do not comment.
"Love, I said. The monitors, if you would," I asked.
I hit the gold mine with her sketches of the Fae seen on the monitors as I sketched out recreations of the charms surrounding their necks. If my suspicions are correct, then I've got what I need. It remains to be seen if I have the will to see it done.
I nodded to my wife, who shifted to a new piece of black pastel board. I begin my own work on a granite stone tablet. A thin line of silver solder to outline the given name we heard moments ago. A second tube of solder outlined the crest of Ekezial's charm. From there, I lay ninety-nine percent of a banishment ward in powdered silver.
When confronting a demon for the first time, banishment from our realm is the preferred method. It's less taxing on your mind, and you have a much smaller chance of losing a part of yourself to the demon. These are not demons in our strict sense. I believe and hope that, conceptually, the process is similar.
Humanity has no magics per se, but we do act as a conduit for those powers that might be available. Being the conduit was the part that I least enjoyed. Oh, don't get me wrong; I'm good at it, but for me, it is the puzzle that is enjoyable, not the enacting of the solution. I bite the side of my thumb, enough to set it bleeding. When a drop is ready to fall, I place it squarely on the rune of blessing that I've grounded into the stone of God's wonderful earth.
"Ekezial," I whispered as I bound all that is my mind and soul to the working on granite. I believe that is what separated me from many of my peers in the Order. They always bound a portion, that which they deemed as all that was nessisary to achieve their task. I only know one way to do things, Iconography or love, and that is completely.
"Ekezial," I said for the second time. The room quieted as the Fae in my wife's pastel sketches looked about.
I cleared my throat and said for the third time, thus sealing my working and acting as its conduit, "Ekezial. We know it isn't real. We use it because we don't have enough gold to represent all the transactions we do. We call it fractional banking; you use what we call the gold standard."
The murmurs and chatting continued for only a heartbeat before the room went silent. In my wife's ever-changing portrait, the Fae turned to the three of us, and I grinned.
"Mind telling us why you are here?" I asked.
Like a leopard on the pounce, the drawing of Ekezial lept at me, a small knife in hand. A moment later a flattened Fae was taking form in my wife's art. I've done this work long enough to know the simple Iconography for barriers.
"You wish to bind me?" Ekezial said. "Mortal beast, toy, play-thing, face my wrath." His knife flashed, but unexpectedly, he did not slash at me again but at his own hand.
Ekezial lunged forward for the granite stone and said with a sharp-toothed grin, "Your doom awaits mortal."
I never gave him a chance. With a pinch of my left forefinger and thumb completed the banishment ward. I saw stars as the conduit for the blessing ward's activation. The ward powered the banishment iconography. His name flared first, and then, as I suspected, the Familial crest all in the room wore around their neck. The silver lit up, melted, and fused solid lines into the slab of granite.
There were concussions, a dozen little pops, as the image my wife drew shifted into small dusty clouds where the Fae had been.
"All be damned," David said. With what seemed a sheepish smile, he continued, "Sorry, Father."
"I'm not a priest," I said.
"He's not a priest," My wife said at the exact moment.
"But the collar?" David mused.
"A familial crest; demons do something similar," I said, purposely mistaking David's comment about my collar for Ekezial's necklace. "Humanity uses surnames." I pushed the granite stone with its cooling silver inlay to the center of the table. "That will keep him out so long as it remains in this building."
"But?" David said looking at the sheet where I drew more than a dozen other crests.
I sighed and turned to look at him. "You have a barrister? An attorney who deals in contract law?"
"Yes," David said. "Why?" he asked.
"The Fae," my wife said with a giggle, "in all the stories, they love their contracts."
"Call him," I said. "The sooner, the better, I think."
***
An hour later, David's barrister was there sitting quietly. I don't know what David had told him, but the man did not seem to be out of sorts. In fact, it seemed like he'd dealt with oddities of every humanly nature before.
"We're up," my wife said as she started sketching on a new black pastel board.
I shifted my second working and started sketching out this Fae's familial coat of arms on the granite. My wife's image shifted visuals as she narrowed down on the lone Fae in the room with us. It went from petite beauty to, well, something that wasn't not by human standards anyway.
"Hold mortal," a harsh, raspy voice said. "Why have you banished my vessel from this palace of entertainment?"
I clued into the finer details of the coat of arms she wore around her neck.
"Margravine?" I asked.
"Gerd, Margravine of Norwalk," She growled.
I nodded and started the outline of her name on my granite stone.
"A name was asked, a name was given," she said, her voice seething. "A name must be returned!"
"I have none," I said.
"Humans have names," she bantered back, "all humans have names."
"I surrendered mine when I became an Arbiter of Faith," I explained, my hand pointing at my wife. "She forfeited hers when we married."
"He is my husband," my wife said without looking up, "and I am his wife."
"Unbalance cannot be had," Margravine Gerd growled, "Their names then." Her little fist pointed to David and his Barrister.
"You'd demand a name from your host?" I asked. "As to that man," I replied, "I do not know his name."
Gerd's hand flung towards David before she said, "This is no home; it is a business, and there are no rights of hospitality."
"That is where you are wrong, Margravine Gerd," I said as I completed her name's outline on my slate of stone. "Do people rest here?"
"No, they do not, not at all," she said, "He napps, but that is not deep sleep, nor is it rest, and does not make this a domicile."
I grind a wolfish smile, and in my wife's drawing, Margravine Gerd drew back. I think she realized my trap. Words mean things.
"His guests," I said, pointing to David, "have never broken the rules of hospitality, yet you and yours have. Even though his guests are here for the big sleep, they slept here nonetheless, and to many of them, this is their eternal home."
Margravine Gerd was quiet for many long moments, her little form circling closer and closer to me and my slate.
I suspected it would come. I've only faced down demons like this twice. The first time was during my training in Rome, and the second was back at the lake house a few months back.
Quicker than Ekezial, her little dagger flashed, and her hand started to well up with the sickly orange blood. That could be because my wife didn't have a pastel color directly analogous to their blood color.
"Defend your binding mortal," Margavine Gerd announced.
I let my teeth show in a grin to match hers and bit my thumb again. In a swift movement, we placed our wounded appendages on the slate. This type of thing, as I mentioned before, is about how much of yourself you are willing to risk.
"The mind and soul are perishable commodities," Prelat Brechet had said. "We guard them with more than our very lives. For in our minds lay the patterns of our Iconography and the understanding of how to work them. Should that information fall to the enemy, who knows what damage they might devise."
Should I lose one, I would lose the other, and the loss of both would mean I would be a mental slave to Margravine Gerd. We've got a term for that: a Renfield. It's happened, thankfully, the impetus battalion was able to put them down before significant harm was done.
Each time, the Order has had to change much of our Iconography to adapt to a foe that is, at least in my opinion, nearly as smart and cunning as we humans.
Demons are the polar opposite of the human mind. We build up, learn, grow, and achieve prosperity. Their natures are to abandon reason, tear down, and let entropy win. The Fae, Margravine Gerd specifically, are not like humanity or the demons.
Her mind, her soul, if her kind has one, was waves of heat blown by a sirocco wind. No, it is a torrent of spring droplets on sodden, newly thawed earth. Wait, she is the northeast wind driving down from Canada into the heart of the lower forty-eight. I chuckle in my mind. She is the seasons of time, repetition within the solidity of our world's yearly cycles.
There is an understandable logic to her mind, and with that, I hammer down. Like I said, I do this with nothing held back. Maybe one day I will fail, but not today, not to Margravine Gerd of Norwalk.
I held my left forefinger and thumb over the last of the Iconography on my slate and asked, "Need I bind you?"
"You could not bind me ephemeral," Gerd growled.
I laughed with more vigor than I'd meant and said, "Margravine Gerd, I am more than capable. I've bested stronger demons than you; I was the lover of Saint Melini, I am known to the Pope himself, I am married to a Skald of old, a woman so gifted that her talent has pierced your seemings, mundane and magical with mere crayons."
With my speech given, I put a little 'English' on my will in an effort to grind Margravine Gerd of Norwalk into the tabletop. It did not take much of my will to hold Gerd flat to the table—well, that's what my wife's art showed anyway.
"No," Gerd grumbled. "I submit, I declare that me and mine have erred, and hospitality has been broken."
I released some pressure, and my wife's art shifts as Margravine finds a sitting position.
I asked, "Are you willing to negotiate with the host's agent and redress all grievances in good faith?"
"I am," she said with what seemed like an all-too-eager grin. Maybe for her kind, this is part of their sport, the games they love to play and watch.
It was then that the barrister opened his portfolio and began to outline, in harsh legal terms, the penalties associated with the games played and the damages done.
Five more black pastel boards were needed for the negotiations, but in the end, David, Margravine Gerd, and the barrister had signed.
"The wereguild will be paid on the morrow," Gerd said once everyone had signed. "Me or my agent will pick the representatives of my kind to watch, from this room only. Me and mine will not set foot in the funeral rooms directly upon the pain of banishment."
"Done and done," the barrister said, closing his portfolio.
"Host," Margravine Gerd says with saccharine ease. "I have a grievance to redress with another guest."
It takes David a moment to separate the potential payout he will receive in gold tomorrow from his thoughts. My wife and I suspected this might come up after dealing with Ekezial, but we decided to define our own contingency plan.
"What," David asked. "What kind of grievance."
"Your Arbiter of Faith, a vassal in your employ," Gerd sneers, "has banished one of my vassals and his family while he also incorporated the enchantment into your domicile’s defenses."
"Your vassal struck at me when I inquired what he was doing," I said. "I acted in self-defense. See, here are the images my wife, a Skald, drew earlier today."
I toss over our earlier pastel boards, and her eyes narrow. Gerd flips through them with no small amount of shock. Her eyes narrow, and she sets them down.
"We have broken hospitality," she said. "Arbiter and Skald, what do you demand as weregild?"
I looked at my wife, who'd started on a new portrait, one that focused solely on Margravine Gerd. I have Ekezial's name and Family crest, not to mention all the other crests I’ve copied down; I need nothing more than that, not to mention our agreement with David Felonni for a completed contract. No, I need good will, for the future at least. I've no favors to call upon if in need.
"A small recompense and a modest future favor," I said.
"What is the recompense?" Gerd asked.
"Have Ekezial produce a scholarly dissertation on why humanity has moved to fractional banking over the gold standard, how that relates to trade, the economy, and the prosperity of those in power," I said.
If this treacherous idea makes its way into the Fae courts, I'll laugh my ass off.
Margravine Gerd blinks rapidly. "You've met Ekezial," she said with a tight-lipped frown. "He's not the scholarly type."
"Life is learning; you die when you stop," I mused one of Magnus Opaki's favorite sayings. "I'll leave it to you and your honor to decide the merits of his dissertation."
"Done," Gerd said pleasantly.
In my wife's sketching, Gerd pulled a bauble off her necklace and rolled it across the table. I snatched it up.
"Your marker of a modest favor from the Margravine Gerd of Norwalk," Gerd said.
My wife set down her pastels and pencils. She blew on the pastel board, and a little dust flew. With a deft hand, she spun it around, pushed it forward, and said, "A gift from the Skald to the Margravine Gerd of Norwalk, let all in your court know of your beauty."
In the corner of a mostly filled pastel board, my wife drew the image of Margravine Gerd staring at her portrait. Gerd’s mouth was agape, and her eyes were wide with wonder. Like I've said, my wife's work has soul.
Epilogue:
Our car was packed, and my wife was already inside. We are heading to a small job in Savanna.
I asked, "David, where did you get my contact info?"
"We are a tightknit trade," David said. "You probably can understand why, but after this started, I was talking about it at a convention in Rhode Island. The lady putting on the symposium passed me your name."
I raised an eyebrow and asked, "Oh?"
"Everyone calls her Granny," David said. "Look, safe travels, Father. I've really got to get back inside. All my clients are here to receive disbursements from the weregild."