South, I am sure."
I am sure, too, My Lady. Safe as a coyote among chickens. If ever he'd made a
right decision, it had been his escape to Middle California. To think that Paul
Naismith and the others had the manor to themselves ў it was a wonder the
Jonques had not overrun this land long ago. The thought almost kindled his
suspicions. But then the prospect of what he could do here overwhelmed all.
There was no reason he should have to leave with his loot. Wili Wachendon, weak
as he was, could probably be ruler here ў if he was clever enough during the
next few weeks. At the very least he would be rich forever. If Naismith were the
jefe, and if Wili were to be his apprentice, then in essence he was being
adopted by the manor lord. That happened occasionally in Los Angeles. Even the
richest families were cursed with sterility. Such families often sought an
appropriate heir. The adopted one was usually high-born, an orphan of another
family, perhaps the survivor of a vendetta. But there were not many children to
go around, especially in the old days. Wili knew of at least one case where the
oldsters adopted from the Basin ў not a black child, of course, but still a boy
from a peasant family. Such was the stuff of dreams; Wili could scarcely believe
that it was being offered to him. If he played his cards right, he would
eventually own all of this-and without having to steal a single thing, or risk
torture and execution! It was... unnatural. But if these people were crazy, he
would certainly do what he could to profit by it.
Wili hurried after Irma as she returned to the house.
A week passed, then two. Naismith was nowhere to be seen, and Bill and Irma
Morales would only say that he was traveling on "business." Wili began to wonder
if "apprenticeship" really meant what he had thought. He was treated well, but
not with the fawning courtesy that should be shown the heir-apparent of a manor.
Perhaps he was on some sort of probation: Irma woke him at dawn, and after
breakfast he spent most of the day ў assuming it wasn't raining ў in the manor's
small fields, weeding, planting, hoeing. It wasn't hard work ў in fact, it
reminded him of what Larry Faulk's labor company did ў but it was deadly boring.
On rainy days, when the weather around Vandenberg blew inland, he stayed indoors
and helped Irma with cleaning. He had scarcely more enthusiasm for this, but it
did give him a chance to snoop: The mansion had no interior court, but in some
ways it was more elaborate than he had first imagined. He and Irma cleaned some
large rooms hidden below ground level. Irma would say nothing about them, though
they appeared to be for meetings or banquets. The building's floor space, if not
the available food supply, implied a large household. Perhaps that was how these
innocents protected themselves: They simply hid until their enemies got tired of
searching for them. But it didn't really make sense. If he were a bandit, he'd
burn the place down or else occupy it He wouldn't simply go away because he
could find no one to kill. And yet there was no evidence of past violence in the
polished hardwood walls or the deep, soft carpeting.
In the evenings, the two treated him more as they should the adopted son of a
lord. He was allowed to sit in the main living room and play Celest or chess.
The Celest was every bit as fascinating as the one in Santa Ynez. But he never
could attain quite the accuracy he'd had that first time. He began to suspect
that part of his win had been luck. It was the precision of his eye and hand
that betrayed him, not his physical intuition. Delays of a thousandth of a
second in a cushion shot could cause a miss at the destination. Bill said there
were mechanical aids to overcome this difficulty, but Wili had little trust for
