Kill the Dead Read Free

tube of greenish glass, the left holding the long, bared, white-shining knife.
Dro had halted the bucket, his hand still taut on the handle. He stayed like that, and watched her. He might have expected the not unnatural interrogation and bluff: Who are you? How dare you? My man will soon be here and see to you. None of that came. The girl simply yelled at him, in a shrill voice: “Get out! Go away!”
He paused a moment, letting her words hang. Then he said, pitching his own voice to carry level and clear, “Can’t I draw a drink of water from your well, first? I did knock. I thought there was no one home.”
He had a beautiful voice, marvellous diction that often worked like a charm on people, particularly women. Not on this one.
“Get out, I said. Now!”
He paused again, then let the handle go abruptly. The chain unwound with a screech and the bucket plummeted under. He did it to startle her, and so it did. The seventh sense was alert as a nerve, bristling. He walked around the well and back toward the door, toward her. He wanted to be sure, and that meant eliminating other explanations for her unfriendliness. As he went, he slipped the hood off his head. As he walked slowly, his lameness was minimized, and he was graceful. He kept his hands loose, free of the mantle, showing he had no weapon ready or considered.
Parl Dro was a remarkable looking man. Not as young, maybe, as he had been ten years before, but with an extraordinary handsomeness that had laid a velvety sombre bloom across a concert of strong features. Lips and nose, cheekbones and jaw were those of some legendary emperor on a coin. The eyes, with their fabulous impenetrable blackness, were an exact match with the long straight black fringes of hair. Characteristics, both physical and immaterial, hinted a zodiacal latitude somewhere between the earth sign of the bull and the fire sign of the serpent.
As he strolled into the light of the small lamp, the girl must see all this. See, too, the slightly cold and acid twist to the mouth that dismissed sexual immoderation and therefore threat of it, the invisible yet quite precisely ruled line that seemed to link the balance of both eyes—a mark of calculation, intelligence and control above and beyond the normal. Only a fool would judge this man robber, rapist or similar practitioner. And the girl did not seem to be a fool. Yet she was afraid, and menacing. And remained so.
As suddenly as she had thrown open the door, she slashed out with the knife in her hand.
Parl Dro stepped back, a sloping lame man’s step, but perfectly timed, and the blade carved the air an inch from his side. He was somewhat above average height, and the girl not tall. She had been aiming as close to his heart as she could.
“Now will you take yourself off!” she cried, in a panic apparently at her own intentions as much as the missed stroke. “You’re not welcome.”
“Obviously.”
He stood beyond her range, continuing to look at her.
“What do you want?” she spat at last.
“I told you. A drink of water.”
“You don’t want water.”
“How odd. I thought I did. Thank you for putting me right.”
She blinked. Her long lashes were almost gray, her eyes a hot, dry tindery color, nearly green, not quite.
“Don’t try word games with me. Just go. Or I’ll call the dogs.”
    “You mean those dogs I’ve heard snarling and barking ever since I came through the gate.”
    At that, she flung the knife right at him. It was a wide cast, after all; he judged as much and let it come by. It brushed his sleeve and clattered against the side of the well. He had had much worse to deal with a few days back.
    “Too bad,” he said. “You should practice more.”
    He turned and walked off and left her poised there, staring. At the gate he hesitated and glanced around. She had not moved. She would be shocked, but also dreaming that she had got rid of him. It was too soon for that.
    “Perhaps,” he called, “I’ll see you