The elf-wives curtsied. Hazelberry was slender and brown as the wood of her name, with a bright green leaf-cloth dress. Rose was plump and red-cheeked, with a rosy complexion and dusky pink skirt and bodice.

"These are their husbands, Bight and Burl." Buckthorn gestured toward the men. Two of them stepped forward to bow. Burl was short, scarcely more than a foot high, but almost six inches broad, with bulging muscles. Bight was tall and wiry.

"And these are the bachelors of this mountain, Loon and Gorn." Loon was slender, with a dreamer's eyes, and Gorn was so plump that Rod wondered if he moonlighted as a subordinate Claus.

"Thou art welcome to our fire, as I hope we are to thy mountain." Gwen inclined her head gravely, carefully not mentioning the matter of official ownership. "Wilt thou join us in meat?"

"Aye, and right gladly," said Gorn. All seven of them came forward and settled down cross-legged in a circle near the pot.

The juvenile Gallowglasses tracked them with huge eyes. Rod felt a thrill of pride. His children had seen elves before, but they never seemed to tire of them.

Gwen ladled a bowl full of stew and set it down in their center, then set a half-loaf of bread beside it, and another bowl of milk. The elves set to with gusto.

"We are told the family of this keep were the Counts Foxcourt," Gwen began. "Did they take their name from the manor?"

"Nay, they gave it theirs," Burl answered.

Gwen exchanged a look of surprise with Rod, then turned back. "What manner of folk were they?"

"Oh, bad folk, lady!" Hazelberry answered. "Horrid indeed, from the second Count to the last. There do be tales of the cruelties wrought upon their peasants, of the heaviness of the taxes levied, and of their delight in the floggings when folk had not the wherewithal to pay."

"And tales more foul than that," Bight said darkly, "which I will forebear to speak of, with younglings present."

"Oh, do not let us dissuade thee," Magnus urged.

"No, do," Rod contradicted with a glare at his son. "I think we can guess."

"Aye, guess worse deeds than they did," Geoffrey grumbled.

"That, I misdoubt me," Buckthorn answered. "Think whatever ill thou canst of the Foxcourts, and 'tis like to be true."

"So bad as that?" Cordelia's eyes were huge.

"So bad," the elf confirmed. "But finally came a Count who was so evil that he flouted even his duty to his family, and would not wed, though he did force his attentions on every woman who came his way."

" 'Force his attentions?' " Gregory looked up at his father.

"Later, son—in about ten years. So he had no legitimate son to inherit the title?"

"He did not."

"Were there no cousins who could take it up?" Gwen asked.

"Aye, there were two cadet branches of the line," Gorn answered, "yet both had removed to other dukedoms, and pledged their swords to county lords, thereby retaining knighthood; and both cast off the decadence of their sires."

" 'Twas not all of a moment, look you," Bight added. "The first knight, we are told, did keep faith with his lord, serve bravely in battle, and deal fairly with his peasants, though harshly. Their sons did leave off swilling of ale and despoiling of women, and the grandsons were as good as any knight, and better."

Buckthorn nodded, munching. "They had even become beloved by their serfs and tenants."

"Very impressive." Rod nodded. "So what happened after they took over the estate?"

"Naught, for they did not," Buckthorn said.

Rod let out a long whistle. "That bad? Two families turned down the chance for a noble title and estates, just because of the castle's reputation?"

Bight nodded somberly.

"What kind of closet skeletons could make a family refuse a title?"

"Any, an they walked." Magnus scowled. "Is not a haunting reason enough to deny inheritance?"

"No, not really. I know of quite a few families that cohabited very companionably with ghosts, or at least ignored them—the family manor house was so important to them that they were willing to share it with a few of their ancestors who were a little reluctant to move out. In fact, there was a time when the nouveau riche began to try to buy family ghosts to go with their fabricated coats of arms. I understand a real rage for that kind of thing hit my home, ah, 'land,' really hard, about four hundred years ago. One of my ancestors even pioneered a new fad in holograms."

Magnus glanced up at Fess, but the robot carefully ignored him.

"So family ghosts, just by themselves, wouldn't account for having turned down the title," Rod finished.

"Unless 'twas a truly vile haunting," Gwen demurred.

Rod nodded. "There had to be something especially rotten about the last Count Foxcourt, or his household."

"I assure thee, there was," Hazelberry said. "Name a vice or debauchery, and he did practice it."

"Yeah, but that wouldn't…" Rod's voice trailed off as he remembered some of the tales he'd heard about sadists. "No, strike that. I can think of some sins that would give the castle such an aura of evil that no one would want it, even with a title."

"Most truly," Rose agreed.

"And no one would want to take up the name." Rod frowned. "We were wondering about that part. I mean, 'Foxcourt' isn't your garden variety kind of nomer, after all. Was the manor known for its good hunting?"

"Nay," said Buckthorn. "There was some hunting, though no better than most—and the knights generally did course after boar, not fox."

"Or peasants," Burl added darkly.

Cordelia shuddered, Gregory blanched, and Magnus and Geoffrey grew somber.

Rod tried to bypass the reference. "Can't have been the source of the name, then."

"Nay," Buckthorn agreed. "Word hath come down from the first elves who dwelt here, that the name of this family was first spelled in a fashion far more elaborate."

"Aye, and spoken with a haughty accent," Bight seconded, "wherefore both we, and the peasants, were the more ready to bring it down to earth and pronounce it simply as 'Foxcourt.' "

All the elves nodded, and Rose added, "By the third generation, the family had taken our spelling of it, and by the fifth, all had forgotten any other."

"Hm." Rod frowned. "Makes it tough to find the original."

"Thou canst not," Buckthorn assured him. " 'Tis lost for all time."

Behind Rod's ear, Fess's voice said, "That is a challenge."

Rod agreed. The original spelling of the name had to be recorded somewhere in the Lord Chancellor's books—antique tax records, or maybe even the original deed to the property. It probably had nothing to do with the haunting, but Rod resolved to find it.

The guests had departed, filled with stew and emptied of gossip—after all, they'd been waiting two hundred years to tell it—and Gwen had decreed bedtime. Rod had mentioned to Fess that keeping a watch might be a good idea, and the Steel Sentry had taken up his post, right next to the children.

Which made him handy for bedtime stories, especially since the children were so keyed up that sleeping was the least possible activity for them. Quarreling ranked high on their list, though, with fighting right behind it, so Fess was watching for more than ghosts.

Not that they were out of line yet, of course. They were just barely bedding down.

" 'Tis a foul and brooding pile," Geoffrey gloated. "Nay, who doth know what deeds of glory a valiant man might achieve within it?"

"Naught, an he doth run at the sight of a spectre," Magnus answered.

"Thou dost not say I would run!"

"Thou hast it; I did not. For myself, I know I shall stand fast."

"Aye, transfixed in horror!"

"Boys, boys," Fess reproved. "You are both brave and bold, as you have proved many times."