Lady Marjorie Silvermane sighed at the knock on the door. She carefully set the vial half-full of a milky blue liquid into a wooden rack. It would not do to spill any of that particular concoction.
“What is it, Gavin?” Lady Marjorie tried to keep her impatience out of her voice, really she did. Her butler knew she was not to be interrupted when she was in her lab. It must be something important.
“A message from the Duke, m’lady.”
“Well, what does it say?”
“The messenger says that the Duke specifically instructed him to deliver it into your hand, m’lady.”
Her brother was trying not to give her any opportunity to claim that she had not received her message. He knew her too well.
“I will receive him in the small study in a few minutes.”
“Very well, m’lady.”
Lady Marjorie removed the heavy leather apron that protected her dress while she was working. Mostly protected it. She examined herself in the full length mirror set in one corner. Not much damage today. Just a couple of small acid burns on her left cuff. A couple of clicks of her tongue, accompanied by a snap of her fingers, and the small holes disappeared. The lace showed no sign of being damaged. A sweep of her hand and a light breeze cleaned her hair and clothes of any smell of the sulfur she had been using.
That will do, she thought. Her presentation was not perfect. She had not been expecting visitors today. But her brother’s messenger would not be able to report her being in dishabille.
She glanced around the room. Everything looked secure. No open flames, nothing bubbling away in a beaker. Satisfied, she stepped out into the hall. She set the two manual locks on the door. The third, she touched lightly while whispering a short incantation. No one but her could open that lock.
Lady Marjorie made her way down to the main floor. She nodded to Gavin as she stepped into a small room lined with books. When he opened the door to show in her brother’s courier, she had settled herself deep in one of the two red leather, wing-backed chairs that, along with a small table between them, constituted the sum of the room’s furnishings. The overall effect was a well-crafted informality. She used this room to receive guests who she could not leave to Gavin but who needed to understand that they were intruding.
The young woman’s back was ramrod straight and her uniform immaculate. Her five mile trip from the manor house did not seem to have ruffled a single hair. Lady Marjorie was not surprised. Her brother was both meticulous and demanding.
The messenger stood at attention just outside the door, waiting for permission to enter.
“Come, come, lass. Do not waste my time or your own, either,” Lady Marjorie said.
“Yes, my Lady.”
The young lady took a precise eight steps into the room. She presented an envelope to Lady Marjorie. Lady Marjorie accepted it silently. At a dismissive wave from the Lady, the messenger turned on one heel and took the same precise eight steps out of the room.
Lady Marjorie broke the wax seal and opened the envelope. The message was brief. Upon reading it, she stood and started pacing around the small room. What was Rudolph up to? He never did anything impulsively. Notifying her of an upcoming visit anything less than two days in advance was evidence of a rash spontaneity. And he would be here is just a few hours.
She looked around when Gavin cleared his throat. He had returned after seeing the Duke’s messenger off. He had been with her long enough to recognize her pacing was not a reaction to routine news.
“Please tell Genevieve that we will have a guest for dinner. And tell Mrs. Ettella to prepare the Duke’s rooms,” she instructed. Of course, Gavin would also arrange food and lodging for the retainers that always accompanied the Duke, even on trips just to the other side of his estate. He also notified a groom to ready the Lady’s horse. She would need a ride to calm her down.
Indeed, she stormed out of the study and up the stairs to her rooms just as he reached the door to the servants’ stair. That would give him exactly eighteen minutes. Lady Marjorie was as meticulous as her brother, even if she would never admit it.
Fifteen minutes later, Lady Marjorie had transformed. Gone was her genteel dress. In it’s place were what she called her “hazard wear”. A top hat held in place by a pair of long pins that doubled as effective daggers. A red bustier. A long brown coat. Dark blue trousers. Knee-high black boots. All in fine leather. Her outfit was only missing one thing. She looked over at the belt hanging on the back of her bedroom door. It held Erenthal, her pistol and her greatest achievement as an alchemist. A pull with her mind, and the belt floated off the hook and over to her. She fastened it around her waist and let it settle low on her hips. She was ready to go.
She arrived in her stables exactly eighteen minutes after her butler had last seen her. Her stallion, Darkness, was waiting for her. It had never occurred to her that he might not be. She gave his muzzle a pat. Giving herself a mental push, she vaulted into the saddle.
Lady Marjorie prided herself on her horsemanship. She rode with no stirrups, bit, nor bridle. With a clench of her thighs, she set Darkness off at a canter over the estate’s pastures. Neither one of them would be satisfied with such a sedate ride. Lady Marjorie wanted to be well out of sight of the house before letting Darkness have his head.
Where she was looking for was just past Burnham Wood. A chain of fields and walls and streams. Enough room to give Darkness his head and let him fly. And fly he did. Crossing pastures at a gallop. Jumping walls and streams in stride. They flew, and they flew, and they flew.
Eventually, even Darkness got tired. Just as well, Lady Marjorie thought. They were near the edge of the Ducal lands. Any further and they would be trespassing in the Queen’s Forest.
She turned Darkness around and sent him towards home at a trot. During the run, she had emptied her mind of everything but the thrill of speed. Now refreshed, she could reconsider the meaning of her brother’s visit.
Not a sudden need for sororal company. That was not like Randolph. Not a hankering for Genevieve’s cooking. Her cook was quite competent but no competition for the Ducal kitchen. Nothing to do with estate business. On the rare occasions Randolph involved her in that, he sent Hermun, his estate manager. Anything routine could have been handled by letter or, if it were something they had to discuss in person, when she attended lunch at Paddlethorpe at the end of the week.
Something must have happened. Something that needed an urgent response. For Randolph, changing dinner plans on the same day qualified as moving swiftly. Not only would whatever had happened need an urgent response, Randolph thought that response needed her special skills. Which meant things were dire indeed.
They were passing back by Burnham Wood, and Lady Marjorie was starting to contemplate what to wear for dinner. Abruptly, Darkness spooked, jumping to the side away from the Wood. Darkness, who she had ridden through a gang of bandits. Darkness, who had leapt over Whistler’s Gulch with her on his back. Darkness did not spook.
A flicker of movement caught her attention. A slender man with the head of a rodent was crouched at the edge of the Wood. A ratman. Where there was one ratman, there were more. Darkness had detected them before she had.
She set Darkness towards home at a gallop. If there were ratmen this close, they might be headed there. They might be there already. Even if they were not, the house was much harder to attack than the two of them out in the open.
They were not allowed to continue. A triad of ratmen appeared in their path, a pair behind them. They were there to prevent her escape. The main assault would come from the four springing from the Wood right next to her.
She pulled out one of her hat pins and threw it at her closest assailant. It embedded itself deep in their shoulder. She had been aiming for their throat. Cursing, she drew Erenthal and shot the ratman. Dead center in their forehead. One ratman down. But it should have been two. She was wasting time. She had to end this quickly, before they could mob her.
Darkness had continued to charge the ratmen in front of him. The horse had broken through lines of men more than once. When all three drew long, glimmering daggers, Darkness spun. He headed back the other way.
The ratmen were all chittering at each other. Lady Marjorie knew they were coordinating their attack. She was running out of time.
She had been knocked slightly off balance by Darkness’ abrupt change of direction. That caused her second shot to go wide of its mark. With a gesture from her free hand, she followed up the pistol shot by summoning a glowing, green arrow that did not miss. Two down.
Lady Marjorie felt a sharp pain in her thigh. At least one of the ratmen had a crossbow. The situation had gone from perilous to dire. This first bolt had not done significant damage. The next one might not. If she and Darkness managed to escape the trap, the ratmen could cut them down from a distance.
Another shot. Another hit to the shoulder. Not deadly, but enough to prevent that ratman from using a weapon. Too bad they had lots of sharp teeth and claws.
One of the ratmen leapt at them. Darkness swerved so that the ratman fell short. Lady Marjorie could not miss a headshot at that range. Three down.
The attacking ratman on the left let out a screech that dazed Lady Marjorie momentarily and caused Darkness to stumble. The remaining attacking ratman used the opportunity to jump on her back. She felt it try to bite her neck. Fortunately for her, it had underestimated the thickness of her jacket’s collar. She felt some of its teeth tickle her skin, but none penetrated.
The ratman on her back was too close for a spell and not in position for a shot from Erenthal. However, she did have a single hatpin left. She drew it and stabbed blindly behind her. Luck was with her. She felt the pin penetrate something soft. By the amount of agony driving the ratman’s shriek as they fell off her, she must have hit an eye. Her hat fell off with them. Four down.
That left six. The five corralling them were not much of a concern. If they had been skilled fighters, they would have been on the assault squad. The real concern was the sixth. That screech had had magic in it. The sixth ratman was a spell caster. She could not allow them to cast another spell.
Summoning another arrow was faster than taking aim with Erenthal. The mage was ready for it. The arrow splattered against some sort of mystic shield. Blast! The ratman would have the advantage if she got too close, with his teeth and claws. With that shield, she could not get him from range. That left one option.
She turned Darkness and charged directly at the mage. The ratman probably had a spell that could deal with them both. In her experience, people did not tend to act rationally when in the path of a half-ton of thundering equine. Indeed, the ratman’s lunge out of Darkness’ path slammed him into a stout oak. A moment later, his head was engulfed in a jet of flame shooting from Lady Marjorie’s palm.
Then, she was ducking under and struggling to stay on Darkness as he dodged and wove through the trees. By the time the horse managed to slow down without running into a tree himself and extract them from the Wood, the remaining five ratmen had fled.
They had left the bodies of their fallen. Those bodies might provide some clue why this gang were so far from their usual urban territory. Lady Marjorie did not dare stop to search them. The missing ratmen might just be clever enough to set a second ambush. Getting off Darkness would leave her too vulnerable. Besides, now that the combat was over, the wound in her leg was starting to hurt like blazes. She needed to get it dressed as soon as possible.
She set Darkness to trotting home. He would get extra oats tonight. And she would send a message to Paddlethorpe for Randolph to send some of his rangers to retrieve the bodies. Not that they would still be here when the rangers arrived. The ratmen would not have fled that far.
If Randolph’s problem had anything to do with this incident, dinner would be very interesting.
Den of the Red Wolf 