The Book of Miranda | gxg | ✔︎

(44) For God So Loved The World

The curtains of Exie's villa all billow as the door flies open.

"Greetings, ladies, lords, and devil's wards," says Barnabas in the dramatic tone of a showmaster. He yelps as someone shoves him from behind, breaking his pose. "Hey!"

"Clear the door," says Juliet, propelling him inside. "I'm not a teleporter."

"I could show you how to fake the act."

"Another time. Hi Exie. Hi Des. Hi David."

"Close the door behind you," says David, laughing. "There's a grackle out there that would dearly love to take a stab at our bathroom mirror. We've been shooing it out all morning."

"Show it the shinies on the ship that just arrived today," says Barnabas.

"Another rich one?" says Exie, raising an eyebrow.

"Stuffed to the gills with assorted noblefolk. We were hoping you might recognize names." Barnabas strides forward and drops into a deep and deeply characteristic bow, depositing a small paper register on the table in front of Exie. She plucks it up.

"Olivier Bolton?" she says, glancing at me.

"Not one I know. Keep reading."

We work our way down the list, finding several minor lords and ladies, a deacon, and the right-hand woman of a sugar-and-fur syndicate operating out of the city of Coprana's main port.

"Don't touch the one with the shell tattoo on her left wrist," I say. "Short woman, olive tanned, black hair. The rest, tax to Hell and back."

"Even the deacon?" says Juliet.

"Overseas proselytizing and crimes against children."

"Tax and a shakedown, got it." She makes a note on a register of her own. "Barnabas, do we have Maurice on board for this one, or do we need to go with Iván instead?"

Our two human brick walls. I haven't seem Maurice outside the local school in ages; he melts into a puddle whenever the kids get excited to see him, and it feels cruel to keep dragging him away from them.

Barnabas confirms it. "Maurice has yet to recover from the paper heart one of the kindergartners made him in yesterday's class. He's been a tearful wreck all day."

"Iván it is." Another note. "We should really just write him off our intimidation roster. "Promote Bethel in his place. She'd enjoy that."

"Maurice will still tear a person limb from limb if they threaten the school," says Exie.

"True." Juliet cocks her head at the note she just made, then scratches it out and makes another beside it. "Maurice, reassigned to full-time teaching duty and part-time bodyguard at the local school. He does like taking on the child smugglers, though. We can keep him on for that. Barnabas, is that everything we have to report, other than the newspaper?"

"What newspaper?" says Exie.

Barnabas and Juliet break into identical grins. With another flourish, Barnabas produces absolutely nothing, then plucks a folded newspaper from a nearby bread-box. I'm still not sure why there's a bread-box in the villa's living room, but given that our adopted orange villa tabby likes to sleep in it, I suspect I've already found my answer. King Charles II gets whatever his little furry heart desires. Ostensibly for overthrowing the Puritans, but I'm pretty sure that's just a tongue-in-cheek reference to the snooty nobleman we had in here once, who complained about the cat hair the entire time Barnabas and Juliet spent conning him out of half his father's fortune.

"You see," says Barnabas, brandishing the newspaper with great solemnity. "There's been something of a scandal on the mainland. I am sure we all remember the church leaders whose son left home about a year ago. Heeded God's call and vanished to the jungle to visit the mission is sister spent six years funding. The search for him was quite high-profile, I've heard; he was set to inherit his father's position in the Church."