by Steve McHugh
Despite the danger that the nighttime in London brought with it, I wasn't concerned about my friend Thomas living there. I doubted there’d be any trouble he couldn't take care of. In fact, if he did have trouble, there would probably be less pick-pockets or thugs to prey on the rest of the city.
Chapter 3
Lord Tate's property sat at the far end of the wealthy district in London, a place where the streets were maintained regularly and the owners all had at least two servants. I led the horse to the front door, where another horse was hitched, and climbed down, just as the door opened and a haggard-looking man rushed out.
"Lord Tate?" I questioned, as he hastily attached a bag to the horse’s saddle.
"I don't know who you are, but I'm a very busy man, so please leave at once."
I walked toward the clearly nervous man. "I'm not here for fun, Lord Tate. We need to talk about Buckingham and the two princes."
His already pasty skin whitened further. "I don't know what you're talking about," he managed to stammer.
"There are a plethora of lies you could have told me about your involvement, but everyone in the country knows about those two boys, so unless you’re currently living under a rock, maybe you'd like to try again."
"I told you to leave," he snapped.
"Last chance."
Lord Tate whirled on me. "I said—"
I hit him in the stomach hard enough to bring him to his knees as he fought for the breath that had fled his body. I removed the bag from his saddle and carried both it and Lord Tate back into his house.
I'd expected many things from his living space, most especially opulence and grandeur of the kind you get from people who like to pretend they're more powerful and influential then they really are. Maybe even a few stuffed animals that he would brag about while throwing overly lavish parties, telling his guests that he’d killed them with his bare hands.
What I didn't expect were a dead maid and butler.
The latter was leaning up against the far wall, opposite the front door. He appeared to have just sat down, except for blood soaking through the front of his clothes. The maid was just visible in the hallway. She’d been stabbed repeatedly; her entire body was covered in blood, as were the floor and walls all around her.
I saw all of this before I’d even closed the front door and dropped the bag on the floor. I threw Lord Tate into the hallway, where he landed in the pool of blood surrounding the murdered maid’s body. He quickly scrambled away, as if it were the first time he'd seen her.
"Are you afraid of your own handiwork?" I enquired, picking the bag up and walking toward a room at the rear of the house, the open door showing it to be a study. Tate tried to scamper away, but I used a little wind magic, wrapping it around his leg, making sure he couldn't buck or twist free as I dragged him behind me. I dropped him by his desk before pushing the piles of paperwork and books that adorned the top of the desk onto the floor with an almighty crash.
"When I upend this bag onto your desk, what am I going to find?"
"Nothing of your concern," he said far too quickly.
"I swear, if this is what I think it is I'm going to be very angry." I placed one foot on his knee and pushed down, causing him to yell out. "And an angry me, would be very bad for your life expectancy."
The bag did not contain what I assumed it would. I was expecting correspondence between Tate and King Richard’s enemies. Maybe some money or jewels that could be used to buy their support after Tate fled the city. But what clattered onto the wooden desk top were the two crowns, the smaller spinning slightly before I stopped it with my hand.
"Tate. Why are there two crowns in your bag?" I lifted the smaller crown, a plain gold piece that would have been used for a young prince. The second, and larger, one had red velvet covering the centre. There were very few jewels on the crown, certainly nowhere near the number that adorned the crown of the current king of England.
"You cannot touch them," he said. "They cannot be sullied by your hand."
He moved to take them from the table, but I kicked him back to the floor. "Tate, I’ve been looking for a way to use some of this anger that’s been building up inside me since I arrived in London. For your sake, you really don’t want to be the person I decide to take out my annoyance out on. So I’ll ask again. What and who are these crowns for?"
I already knew the answer to my question, but I wanted it confirmed. I knew once the words left his lips I would kill him right there and then. I was begging for an excuse to put the sniveling little shit out of his misery. Unfortunately, Tate remained silent.
The momentary respite gained by his silence was just enough for me to calm down to a point where I wasn’t going to kill him outright. Instead, I grabbed him from the floor and threw him roughly into the chair on the opposite side of the table. "These are for Edward and his brother, yes?"
Tate nodded. "Richard's crown is tainted. We need a new crown for the true king. The prince's should match it in design."
"You were taking these to Buckingham."
He nodded again.
"He has the boys?"
Another nod.
"Where is he?"
This time Tate just stared at the crowns and didn't move.
"Tate, where is Buckingham?"
"Richard is an impostor. Edward is our rightful king. I am doing the right thing for this country."
"Really? Why kill the butler and maid?"
He actually had the decency to look ashamed. "The maid and I were having an affair."
"Are you going to tell me her name?"
Tate shook his head again. "You don't need to know it."
I accepted his desire to keep it to himself. "So, why kill her?"
"She found out about the crowns and was going to tell people she knew at court. We would have been stopped. So she had to be silenced."
"And the butler?"
"He wasn't meant to be here today. He was upstairs when I killed her, and he surprised me. Then he died too." His words were said softly, the shock of what he'd done was beginning to set in, but I couldn't let that shock get in the way of the answers I needed.
"So, where are Buckingham and the boys?" I asked, hoping to get his attention onto more immediate matters.
"I won't tell you."
I removed a small silver dagger from the rear of my belt and laid it on the desk. "Yes, Tate, you will."
"You won't stop them. Our rightful king will be placed on the throne of England."
I shook my head. "You’re either naive or stupid. The princes will be taken to France, assuming they're still alive, and Henry will use their names to come over here and fight Richard. At some point, there will be a terrible accident and the boys will die, leaving Henry to be king. The boys are just being used to further Buckingham and his allies' aims. They will no more sit on the throne of England, than I will."
Tate didn't want to believe me. He was clearly desperate to believe that he was helping Edward and his brother, but my words had triggered the one dangerous thing in a mind that's been made-up, doubt. Tate had probably never before considered the scenario I’d painted for him, but the second he let that possibility in, it began to fester. Unfortunately, I didn't have time for Tate to decide whether or not he wanted to help.
I grasped his hand and forced it onto the table as I picked up the dagger. I was about to plunge it through his hand, when the front door opened. "Nathaniel," Thomas called out.
"We're back here," I told him and released the lord's hand.
A moment later Thomas and a second man entered the room. The newcomer was tall and thin, with an almost bald head and a short, dark beard, which had been meticulously trimmed. There was nothing about him that would call attention to the fact that he was anything other than human.
"This is Raulf," Thomas said. "Raulf, this is Nathaniel."
"A pleasure to meet you, my lord," Raulf said, and we shook hands.
"Nathaniel will do, I'm no one's lord." I turned bac
k to Tate. "However, this murderous bastard is a lord, although not for very long."
"Why are they here?" Tate demanded. "I don't care how many you bring, I will say nothing."
"Well, Tate," I told him with a slight sigh. "I don't actually need you to say anything. Raulf here is going to get all of the information we need."
Tate stared at Raulf for several seconds. "I don't see how."
"Ah, well, you see, Raulf here is a Changeling."
Tate gave me a blank stare.
"Apart from weres like my friend Thomas over there…"
Thomas smiled and Tate flinched. Werewolves have that effect sometimes.
"As I was saying,” I continued, “apart from weres there are several species in the world who can change their appearance. The three most common of these are Shaman, who can turn into several different types of animals, shape shifters, who can change their own physiology as they see fit, and changelings who can become other people."
The import of this information dawned on Tate very quickly. "You're going to replace me with him."
I nodded.
"No one will believe he's me!"
"Actually they will," I corrected. "Because, you see, when changelings become someone else, they absorb their memories and traits along with their physical appearance. Raulf will, for all intents and purposes, be you in every single way that matters. He'll still retain his own personality and independent thought, but your memories and life will be right there with him. He'll actually be a better you. He won't cheat on his wife or murder staff members because he was too stupid not to get caught in a treasonous plot. By the way, it was good of you to send your wife and child away, we’d have had a much harder time arranging this if they were here."
"But what happens to me?" Tate eventually managed to stammer.
"When a changeling absorbs someone else, they absorb their features too. You'll be turned into a smooth, pink, fleshy bag with descriptive marks. Your body will be disposed of by whatever carrion-eaters we happen to have working in the city." I walked toward the door. "Thomas and I will be outside," I said to Raulf. "Are you sure you're up to this?"
"It is my honor to serve Avalon in this way," he said with a slight nod of the head. "The process will take some time."
"Good-bye, Lord Tate," I said. "If you hadn't been such a colossal waste of a title, you may never have met us. As it is, this is your own fault."
“Mordred,” Tate shouted, gaining my utmost attention.
“What did you just say?” I demanded.
“When Buckingham met me to arrange everything, he mentioned working for another man. He called him Mordred, after the character from the King Arthur legend.”
I darted toward Tate, grasped him around the neck, lifted him off the chair, and slammed him into the wall, his feet dangling uselessly above the wooden floor.
“Are you certain?” I asked. “Do not lie to me.”
Tate nodded as best he could. “I can’t tell you more though.”
I released Tate and let him drop to the floor. “You’d be surprised what the mind can recall, even when you can’t remember.” I turned to Raulf. “Dredge his mind clean, search for anything about Mordred.”
Raulf nodded and stepped toward the traitor as I walked out of the house with Thomas beside me, the screams of horror only reaching us as we closed the front door.
Chapter 4
The whole process took only an hour, but it was enough time for Thomas to run off and arrange for the Tate household to be cleaned and the bodies of the maid, butler and Tate himself to be disposed of.
While the Shield of Avalon had assigned Thomas to live in London and watch the tower, there were other agents within the city who were doing a similar job. All of them had an understanding, if you needed something removed or cleaned quickly; you could contact them. Occasionally the work of the SOA gets dark and dangerous, especially if they discover something, or someone, that needs stopping, or are in turn discovered. Being able to count on your comrades-in-arms to reduce exposure to yourself and your goals is a necessity. I didn't ask what species would be helping Thomas clean the house, or what they would do with the bodies and blood. There were some things better off unknown, but I was sure the three corpses would go toward feeding a few people for several weeks or months.
Left alone while Thomas made his arrangements, I paced up and down outside the house, impatient to learn more about Mordred’s involvement. At one time I’d considered him a friend, although those days had long since passed. Centuries ago, Mordred, along with a woman I’d once loved, used me to get Arthur where they wanted and then attacked us both, nearly killing me and mortally wounding Arthur. Only Merlin’s magic kept Arthur from immediate death. Since that day more and more magic is needed to keep Arthur in his state of neither living nor dead, as Merlin refuses to allow my friend and king to die without a fight.
Mordred disappeared immediately after the attack, occasionally turning up over the years to cause mayhem wherever he went and then vanishing for centuries after. The need for retribution to be visited upon Mordred had been coming for some time.
Hopefully, in stopping Mordred I would also learn the location of Ivy, a psychic whom Mordred had infected with dark blood magic, giving her an immortal lifespan, but one infused with constant torture and misery. I’d had the chance nearly seventy years previously to save her and stop Mordred, and I’d failed to do either. I swore that if I got the chance, I wouldn’t fail again.
“Nathaniel, I want to know, too,” Thomas said once he’d returned. “Mordred knows were Ivy is. I haven’t forgotten her.” Clearly he’d been having the same thoughts I’d had. Thomas had been seriously injured by Mordred’s followers, allowing my old nemesis to escape into the French countryside with Ivy.
“But?” I asked.
“But your constant pacing and glaring at the house is making me nervous.”
I took a deep breath and tried to calm my thoughts. Thomas was right, I needed to relax.
Unfortunately, Raulf, the new Lord Tate, had fallen asleep after the transfer was complete, and the hour turned into two before he resurfaced. The time had done very little to ease the anxious feeling that had settled inside me.
Raulf opened the front door and beckoned Thomas and me to join him in the study.
"How are you feeling?" Thomas asked as we entered the room.
"Lord Tate was not a healthy man, but I've expunged all disease from my body and am ready to work as needed."
It was always weird to see a changeling after finishing the transformation, the fact that I'd been talking to the original lord only a few hours ago was a little disconcerting. "Are you ready to tell us what we need? What did you discover about Mordred?”
“Tate was telling the truth, Buckingham mentioned Mordred only once in his hearing. But there was something else in the memory, a tone of fear in Buckingham’s voice. I believe that Mordred is definitely involved in the princes’ disappearance. How much involved, I can’t say.”
“Anything else?” Thomas asked.
Raulf nodded. "Tate was told to meet some soldiers at a tavern near Gatton Park, south of here. He was to pass over the crowns and then ride on with them. He knew nothing more than that, not even their destination."
"A ditch, I imagine," I said.
"That's what I feel too," Raulf said. "Although Tate firmly believed he could trust them."
"What's the name of the inn?" Thomas asked.
"The Huntress," Raulf replied. "Tate was told that it was a fine establishment."
"I guess we ride south then," I said. "When was Tate meant to arrive?"
"Tomorrow evening, but your arrival sped up his planned departure. If you left now, you'd be there by nightfall."
I shook Raulf's hand. It was an odd sensation. "You are to act as Tate would have, but any information you gather is to be given to one of the SOA agents whom Thomas will inform you about."
"Yes, sir," Raulf said.
"And be nice to
your wife, she didn't deserve to have a traitor as a husband, I imagine."
"I believe she knew nothing. And despite the fact that she is quite the striking woman, his list of sexual encounters with maids and whores is long and mostly unpleasant to think about."
"Well, this is a chance for Lord Tate to be the best husband in London."
I left Thomas and the new Lord Tate together to discuss whatever details needed to be arranged out and went to my horse. I'd taken the bag with the two crowns with me. Part of me had wanted to melt them down right away, but if the soldiers in the inn were expecting to receive crowns, I might be able to use them to find out where the princes were being taken.
Then there was the problem of Mordred. If he was involved and that possibility appeared to be very high, then it changed things. I knew that Mordred would only be part of anything if it meant the possibility of hurting Merlin, and by extension Avalon, but for the moment I doubted he had any notion of my investigation. I needed to keep it that way if I hoped to stop Mordred and his plans once and for all.
I attached the bag to my saddle and pulled myself up onto the animal, ready to calm the horse if necessary, once Thomas reappeared. As it turned out I needn't have been worried; Thomas arrived and the horse gave no indication that it was unhappy about it.
"You really have been practicing," I said.
"So long as I don't change, I can control it."
"And how are you going to keep up with me once we leave the city?"
"I don't think you need to worry about me being too slow.” He paused for a second and a serious expression crossed his face. “That bastard Mordred is involved. I want to kill him, Nathaniel. For what he and his friends did back in France, I want him to die painfully.”
“We will find him,” I said. “And he will tell us where Ivy is. Even if I have to remove one tiny piece of him at a time until he talks.”
