A Study in Sable

by Mercedes Lackey

  9

  FOR once, Sarah had been the silent one as Suki and Nan had their (much plainer) breakfast. Suki was full of all the wonderful things Puck had showed her, and who and what he’d introduced her to, and what games they’d had. Besides showing her to Elementals, and them to her, he’d also coaxed out many of the wild creatures inhabiting the overgrown garden, which was over three acres in size. Rabbits and hares, funny little hedgehogs and red squirrels, a pair of foxes with a litter of kits, a badger, and even a deer came out of hiding at Puck’s behest, and introduced themselves to the enchanted child.

  Since Suki, child of the London slums as she was, had never seen any of these creatures except in picture books, she was still head over heels about the experience.

  “But I’m ’fraid I ruint my dress,” Suki finished, glancing at Sarah sidelong. “There’s big stains on’t naow. . . .”

  “Stains don’t matter,” Nan said firmly, before Sarah could respond. “Not in the least. What’s a gown compared to meeting him? Besides, we can save that gown for the next time we go to the country to romp. It’s a good thing to have a gown that’s already ruined, just so you don’t have to worry about your clothes.”

  Suki broke out in a sunny smile.

  “Exactly,” Sarah said. “That’s why Nan and I have old things we don’t care about, so we can do whatever we need to without fussing over a dress.” She might have said more, but she interrupted herself with a huge yawn. “And—”

  “And now the coffee is wearing off, and you will fall asleep with your nose in the butter,” Nan said firmly, getting the tray and gathering up the dishes to put on it. “Go to bed.”

  Sarah had gone to bed, still lamenting that she had not gone on the excursion, as Nan put the breakfast tray on the stand outside their flat door for Mrs. Horace.

  There was no sign of Mrs. Horace, who usually came to tidy up about now, but then she was probably finishing her own breakfast. Nan and Suki got out her schoolwork, feeling much more inclined to tackle it after such a wonderful holiday. Outside, the sun was shining, the windows were open to a lovely breeze, and they were both looking forward to more Tudor history, having seen where a lot of it took place.

  But they were interrupted by a knock at the door. Since Mrs. Horace generally just tapped and came right in, this had to be someone else. Nan and Suki exchanged a puzzled glance. “I dunno,” Suki said, with a shrug. “Sarah didn’ say naught about ’spectin’ a parcel or such.”

  Then Nan got up to answer it, as a second knock came. It was John Watson, looking just a bit worried. He snatched his hat off as soon as she opened the door, gentleman that he was.

  “Oh good, you are home,” he said, looking relieved. “I tried yesterday, but no one answered when I knocked. I was afraid you might have been called out of town.”

  “Suki and I went to Hampton Court Palace, and Sarah could sleep through the house tumbling down around her,” Nan told him, and gestured to him to come inside. He did so, but did not take a seat.

  He turned to face her as she closed the door. She was about to tell him that Sarah was still dancing attendance on Magdalena, so if he needed both of them, he was rather out of luck. “Sarah—”

  “Sarah is not who I need,” he replied, interrupting her. “Lord A and I have something that could be rather urgent that I need your Talents for. Sarah’s would be superfluous; useless, really. The thing is, this will require a journey of several days. As few as four, as many as a week.” He cast a glance at Suki. “I’m not certain how you would want to handle your charge.”

  “That’s a problem,” Nan replied, frowning a little. “I can’t exactly leave her in the charge of a bird. Or that is, I could, because Grey is quite good enough to keep an eye on things, but Grey has the instincts of a parrot, and must sleep when the sun goes down, which is precisely when Sarah is gone. While we’ve left Suki at night before, it has always been in the charge of Mrs. Horace, and I don’t want to impose on her good will, even with extra pay, too often.”

  I’m glad Suki agreed to go to school with Memsa’b. Things will be easier to manage then. Of course, once she’s in her teens I shan’t have to worry about leaving her here alone, she’ll be fine.

  John frowned, but his expression was of someone who was frowning in thought, not disapproval. Finally he seemed to make up his mind about something. “Would Sarah object if we took Suki with us?”

  At this, Suki tried to be on her very best behavior and not jump up out of her seat to run to Nan and beg. That much was evident by how she dropped her eyes and clutched her book to her chest. But Nan didn’t have to see her jumping up and down to know that she wanted to go, badly.

  “Given that Sarah has already taken on a commitment of two-thirds of the day, I don’t see where she has any right to object,” Nan replied, a bit more sharply than she intended. “The question is whether you object.”

  “It will complicate the journey, but I don’t see it as insurmountable. Could you and Suki pack for a journey of three or four days and come with me? We can consult with Mary, then leave from Baker Street.” John seemed extremely anxious to be gone, which told Nan that in his eyes, this was a serious situation. “I believe you said once that Suki’s Talents are not unlike yours? She might be able to learn a great deal by watching you.”

  That’s a good point.

  “Let me see if Sarah has fallen asleep yet,” she temporized. Without waiting for John’s reply, she went to Sarah’s door, tapped on it, and poked her head inside.

  It was quite dark, because, of course, Sarah had closed all the curtains. “Mmmph?” Sarah said. She wasn’t much more than a shape in the bed, but the lump on the pillow rose up a little, so it appeared she was awake enough to do that much.

  “John Watson needs me for several days. He suggested I bring Suki so you aren’t troubled with her,” Nan replied, stating it as if it was a fait accompli, knowing that Sarah would be too sleepy to think of reasons to object. “I’ll tell Mrs. Horace, and she’ll bring up Grey’s food as usual, and your tea and supper if you want it. Grey should be fine here alone at night, and I’ll take Neville with us.”

  “Ah—all right?” Sarah replied, sounding bewildered. Nan did not wait for any other answer. She closed the door and went to the birds’ room.

  “Neville, you and I and Suki are going on a trip. Put anything you want in your carrier,” she said, as the two birds looked up from a horseshoe-nail puzzle-toy they were trying to work out between them. “Grey, you will need to keep an eye on Sarah and on the flat while I am gone. I will have Mrs. Horace bring you your meals as usual.”

  Grey spread her wings and bobbed her head as Neville strode over to their box of toys and began contemplating the contents. “If something seems . . . odd . . . with Sarah, I count on you to tell me when I return, all right?”

  “Yessssss,” Grey agreed, and cocked her head, which suggested to Nan that Grey had already noticed that something was up, but had not yet worked out what it was.

  Satisfied, Nan went to Suki’s room and helped her pack two portmanteaus, one with toiletries and clothing for an outing in the country, and one with books and toys. Suki was so tiny that two weeks’ worth of clothing fit in the portmanteau, with room to spare. Then she went to her own room and packed up her own things. Nothing that might outrage the sensibilities of people living in the country, of course, and mostly all plain and dark, with a pair of sensible boots, in case she found herself tramping in the woods or across fields.

  It didn’t take long, as she was used to packing and traveling light; by the time she was finished and went back to the birds’ room, Neville was sitting on top of his carrier as a sign he was satisfied with his selections.

  He hopped inside, and Nan fastened the opening, then went back out into the sitting room with the carrier and Neville inside. Suki had already laboriously brought the portmanteaus into the room, and John Watson ha
d taken charge of them; just as well, since they were far too heavy for Suki to carry for any distance.

  “I am glad to see you are swift packers,” John said with a slight smile. “I shall procure a cab, and we will be on our way.” He headed down the stairs.

  Nan paused just long enough to fasten Suki’s bonnet over her curly hair and drape a shawl over her, then put on her own bonnet and shawl before following him. She stopped long enough at Mrs. Horace’s door to apprise her of the situation and get her assent to make sure Grey’s food and water were taken care of, then she and Suki left to wait at the curbside where John had left the bags while he obtained a cab.

  It took him some little time, since the street was not terribly busy at this time of the morning. Suki looked hopefully up at Nan. “We goin’ on a train?” she asked, hopefully.

  “Almost certainly, I think,” Nan told her, and her little face lit up. “I also believe we may be in the real countryside.” The cab came at that point, and they all squeezed inside it. Fortunately, as usual, Suki took up very little room. She fitted between Nan and John and spent the trip to Baker Street grinning up at both of them.

  • • •

  The train carriage rocked gently, as it was not going particularly fast. Faster than a horse coach, but this was a local, not an express. Suki knelt on the cushions of the seat with her hands and nose pressed against the train window. Mary Watson smiled every time she looked up from her book and saw her. When John had arrived at Baker Street with Suki and Nan in tow, he found Mary had already packed their own cases and was ready for him. Presented with Suki, she not only made no objections whatsoever, she immediately hit upon the logical answer to why they were all traveling together—that Suki was their daughter and Nan was her nurse. All the details that needed to be roughed in were easily completed in the cab to Victoria Station.

  Thanks to the fact that Lord Alderscroft was funding this little expedition, they had their own compartment in the train from London to Sevenoaks, a village on the Kent Downs. Their journey would have been faster if there had been an express, but since the only train available was a local, which stopped at every station along the way, it would probably take the better part of the day.

  Suki clearly did not mind this at all.

  Since they had their own compartment, Neville could remain free, also. Nan had taken the precaution of purchasing a newspaper so he could relieve himself like a civilized creature. There would be a luncheon trolley, rather than a dining car, on this train, and he had expressed that he was willing to partake of chicken and cheese for his luncheon, so that was sorted. There would certainly be one or both in the sandwiches on offer.

  “Now,” Nan said, when Suki and Neville were accommodated at the windows, Suki kneeling on one seat, and Neville on the perch that served as the handle to his carrier on another. “Just what is it that is so urgent?”

  “Lord Alderscroft has gotten information that suggests there might be a practitioner of blood magic at Sevenoaks in Kent,” said John Watson, soberly, clasping his hands on the newspaper in his lap. “More often than not, those who take up blood magic are Earth Magicians, so Mary and I are not going to be of much help in finding him.”

  “And just how am I supposed to be of help?” Nan asked, looking at both of them quizzically. “I am not a magician at all.”

  “Two things; your ability at—what was it Lord Alderscroft called it?” John looked over at Mary.

  “Psychometry. The ability to read the history of an object by handling it,” Mary supplied.

  “Exactly. That, and telepathy. The young mage who conveyed this information was walking the Downs on holiday and came across what he describes as a heathen altar. Now, there are a great many altar stones and standing stones and megaliths in the Downs, and he thought nothing of it, until he got nearer and sensed the unmistakable signs that it had been used for a sacrificial table within the last several months. He thought it urgent enough to cut short his holiday and come straight to London to report it to Lord Alderscroft.” John glanced over at Suki, but she didn’t seem to have noticed what he was saying; she was chattering away to Neville, who was responding in quorks and occasional words. Neither seemed inclined to resort to the toys that had been packed for the purpose of entertaining bored children and birds. Both seemed enraptured by the changing landscape going past the windows.

  “Why is that so urgent?” Nan asked, curious now. It isn’t as if there wasn’t plenty of blood sacrifice in Africa carried out by perfectly good and decent shamans. Sarah, of course, was used to such things, having spent the first ten or so years of her life among the natives. When she and Nan had gone to visit Sarah’s parents at their hospital, Nan had very quickly come to accept such things as ritual dances, body scarification, and blood sacrifice as a matter of course.

  “Because we want to head this off before the mage in question graduates from animals to humans, of course,” Mary said patiently. “Blood magic is generally associated either with mages who have gone to the bad, or with people who are not mages at all, and are raising power with death because they have no natural way of tapping into it as Elemental Mages do.”

  “Oh,” Nan replied, thinking that this was a bit of an . . . assumption. Then again, England had been civilized for a very long time, so perhaps John and Mary were right, and she was the one making assumptions.

  “At any rate, our plan is to settle in at the Railway and Bicycle Hotel in Sevenoaks and investigate from there,” John told her. “I hope Suki is up to some long walks; I do have directions to the altar stone, but they are not exact.”

  “Suki is quite sturdy, I do assure you,” Nan promised. “She can probably out-walk all of us together.”

  But that put her in mind of something else they might meet out in the countryside . . . or indeed, the wilderness or part-wilderness, as the Downs seemed to be. Hmm. Probably time I should mention this. . . .

  “You do know that Sarah and I have gotten the blessing of Robin Goodfellow, right? And that he has a habit of showing up to see what we are doing when we are out of the city.” She tilted her head to the side. “I should also mention he seems to have taken a liking to Suki as well.”

  That made both of them stare at her, dumbfounded. “Ah, no. Lord Alderscroft didn’t mention that,” John said, after a long silence. “That could come in handy, if he’s inclined to help us out.”

  “No promises,” Nan warned. “But the possibility is there. So, we’re to take some long, healthy country walks until we find this altar stone, and I am to ‘read’ it and see what I can learn?”

  “That’s the essence. I hope you’ll be able to see who’s using it. Then we’ll try and match the face to someone who lives in the village. Alderscroft has no record of any mages at all there—which isn’t at all unusual.” John shrugged. “He knows everyone who’s titled, of course, but there are plenty of mages out there without a drop of noble blood in their entire pedigree, and they don’t bring themselves to the attention of the White Lodge as long as they’ve got their own local mentors.”

  “If they don’t have their own local mentors to train them—if they do come to the attention of the White Lodge, it’s generally when something has gone wrong,” Mary observed.

  “Like now,” John added.

  Nan was still not so sure. “Well, those mentors of their own—might they not be like Beatrice? Hereditary witches and that sort of thing? Wouldn’t they have all sorts of family traditions and so forth?” She was trying, as diplomatically as possible, to get the Watsons to see that there might be other ways of doing things than they were used to, ways that were just as valid as their own paths. Unfortunately, they didn’t seem to be getting the hint.

  “They generally are. And as a consequence, they can have all sorts of muddled ideas,” John told her dismissively. “They’ve got no real understanding of what they’re doing. Witches like Beatrice, who do know what they
are doing, are the exception rather than the rule.”

  Considering that I know a Water Master who’s been taught by an Elemental—one of the Selch that you entrusted the amulet of the Shadow Beast to—I think perhaps I have a better idea of what someone like that can do than you do.

  But she didn’t say that aloud, and really, it didn’t lessen her respect for the Watsons at all. This just had opened her eyes to a weakness in their thinking. And this was probably one of the reasons why Lord A had wanted her working with them in the first place. Though I would think, having been in Afghanistan, John might be a little more broad-minded . . . but then again, probably the native magicians—the real magicians that is—were all on the side of the enemy. That does tend to color your feelings about them.

  About that time, the luncheon trolley came along, and they had to turn their conversation to much more ordinary things—such as what sandwiches were available, who wanted lemonade, and who wanted Eccles cakes. Then they were occupied with eating, and when the eating was done, Suki was full of questions about the countryside they were going through, the stations they were stopping at, and the people who were waiting at the stations. Enough of these stations were still serving little villages, in which people still dressed in the manner of the countryside as their grandfathers and grandmothers had, that Suki was intensely curious about what their garments were and why they wore them. The train to Hampton Court Palace had brought no such questions, because it had gone through genteel or middle-class suburbs populated with people who dressed just like those in London. Here she was seeing farmers in their working smocks, country women with cloth bonnets or little cloth caps, blacksmiths in leather aprons. And she was seeing enormous shire horses, much bigger than the horses still drawing carts and carriages in London. “El-eph-an-tine,” she breathed, sounding out the word carefully.

  She hadn’t quite got all her questions answered when the train pulled into Sevenoaks, and it was time for Neville to go back in his carrier and all of them to gather up their baggage and disembark.