A Study in Sable

by Mercedes Lackey

  John cleared his throat self-consciously. “Well . . . this seems to be it. Nan?”

  “Wot ’bout me?” Suki asked.

  Nan considered that for a moment. Suki was absolutely no stranger to violent death. Like Nan, she had probably seen more murders in her first nine years of life than anyone other than a soldier ever would even be able to imagine in an entire lifetime. And Suki might well see something that she would not; no two psychometrists ever got the same visions from the same object.

  “Surely not—” Mary objected, but Nan waved her off.

  “Let me see if it’s dangerous first. If not, then you may help me, Suki.” Suki’s face was still solemn, and Nan added, “Don’t be disappointed if you don’t see anything either. You’re still just learning how to use the Talent.”

  “Oil roight,” Suki agreed, and hung back as Nan approached the stone table, knelt down in the soft grass next to it, and gingerly placed her hand—

  Blood. Blood poured over her hand, soaking her sleeve, blood streamed over the stone and—

  She took her hand away, blinking. Because, yes, the image had been horrific . . . and yet . . . completely lacking in any emotional impact. No horror. No terror.

  “What did you see?” John asked anxiously.

  “That this place has been used as a place of sacrifice, and very recently, too,” she said. “Let me try again.”

  She placed her hand on the stone again, this time prepared for the image of blood pouring over the stone and onto her hand.

  The blood poured over the stone, down grooves cut into it for the purpose, over her hand and into a bowl placed to receive it. There was an animal on the stone; it blurred before her eyes, but she concentrated, and then she could see it. It was a fallow deer, a stag, with huge, heavy antlers, its eyes were closed, and its throat had been cut. It was dark. The only light came from four torches thrust into the earth around the stone table.

  There was a man . . . a shadow against the starry sky. She struggled to see him. Slowly, he came into focus. Blond, square-jawed, in his midtwenties, she thought. He wore a pair of stag antlers on his head, and in his right hand, he held a bloody flint knife. He had painted his face and chest with the blood.

  And now she felt emotion, from that ancient warrior she once had been. Rage. Rage rose up in a flood over her, overwhelming everything else. Red, hot, raving anger so great she could scarcely contain it. She reached for her bronze sword—

  And broke contact with the stone. The vision vanished, and so did her anger.

  “Suki, come here,” she said carefully. Unlike her, Suki did not seem to have the spirit of a long-dead Celtic she-warrior in her. Suki might be able to see more than she could. Mary made a strangled sound, but John hushed her.

  Suki knelt beside her in the grass, carefully not touching the altar, not yet. “Suki, a man came here and killed a deer on this stone. There will be a lot of blood. Do you think that will frighten you?” Nan said, knowing already what the answer would be.

  Suki’s little face twisted with scorn. “Oi bain’t skerrit,” she said, dismissively. “Oi weren’t skerrit when Bob Malsey tookit ’is shiv an’ cut up Black Reggie so’is guts run out in street. Oi ain’t gonna be skerrit fer a liddle blood wot ain’t really there.”

  Mary made another little strangled sound. Poor Mary. She looks at Suki and thinks ‘delicate little flower’ when Suki is about as delicate as a ferret. “All right then, Suki, go ahead and touch the stone and see what you can see. If you don’t like it, just pull your hand away. I’ll be right here.”

  She took Suki’s left hand in hers so Suki could reach out to touch the stone with her right. The child’s eyes glazed over, but she gave no sign of being afraid. Nor did she give any indication that she felt the same incandescent rage that Nan had. Rather, she had a look of profound concentration, as if she was committing everything she saw to memory.

  Finally, and with no sign of any distress, the child’s hand dropped from the stone, and she sat there, blinking slowly, as she came back to herself. Then she looked up at Nan. “Oi sawr ’im. Sawr ’im good. Oi’ll know ’im.”

  Now Nan looked back at Mary and John. “So did I. I am fairly certain I’ll know him if I see him. I think we’re done here.”

  10

  “I CANNOT believe the two of you have any appetite at all after . . .” Mary shuddered, and looked askance at Nan and Suki, who were happily devouring buttered bread, cheese, and pickled onions. At the worst of times Nan was just as fond of cheese as Neville was, and all that walking had made her ready to devour the first thing put in front of her. There were also boiled eggs, apple tarts, and, in deference to Mary, some cucumber sandwiches—which were very nice, but not much good at satisfying a healthy appetite.

  Neville was watching them all very carefully and begging for the peeled shells when they ate their eggs. She couldn’t imagine how that could be tasty—but then, she wasn’t a raven. He had his own two eggs, and a little bread and cheese. For drink, they had water from a sweet, clear brook that Mary’s Elementals had assured them was pure.

  Nan had her mouth full, so she couldn’t answer. Suki just shrugged. “Weren’t skerry,” she said. “Wuz just a li’l blood.”

  Well, Suki might have been utterly unmoved by the experience, but Nan was still suppressing the rage of her former self at the thought of that sagsannach feis that had dared lay his filthy hands on. . . .

  She cooled the temper of her former self with a long drink of water. John was speaking. “I don’t think that hill was on Knole House land. I think it was a private farm.”

  “Well, that only makes sense,” Mary agreed. “If it were on the Sackville property, sooner or later a gamekeeper would find that altar stone. The only way it could be kept hidden all this time is if it was on someone’s farm.”

  “Then whoever is using it probably has legitimate access to the land, and that means he’s a farmer or a farmhand. There is a strong likelihood he will come to the market tomorrow. So, I propose two things. I will make an inquiry as to whose property that hill is on. You, Nan, Suki, and Mary, go spread yourselves about the market, and Nan and Suki, see if you can spot him there.”

  “It’ll be best if we split up,” Nan observed, “If you don’t mind having Suki with you, Mary.”

  “Not at all,” said Mary. “But Suki, you will have to behave as if you are my own little girl. That means obeying what I tell you to do without question or objection.”

  “Yus, mum,” Suki replied obediently, winning a smile from Mary.

  The walk back took longer than the walk out; for one thing, they were a good bit more tired, and for another, the adults were all thinking very hard about what they were going to do when they found the man they were looking for. Suki wore out completely when they were about halfway back. She didn’t whine or cry, but she did look up piteously and ask if they could please sit down for a while. Rather than that, John gallantly took her up on his back, in spite of his bad knee.

  “The next time we go hunting for something in the country, I propose that we hire some horses,” said Mary, who was starting to look limp and overheated herself.

  “Would you like that, Suki? If we found a nice little pony or a clever little donkey for you?” John asked.

  Suki’s head came up off John’s shoulder, and her eyes went big and round. “Coo!” she said. “Somethin’ loik!”

  About the time they reached the first houses, Suki revived a little more. “Thankee, Mister Watson. I kin walk naow.”

  “Are you sure, Suki?” John asked in a voice so kindly that Nan smiled. It seemed he and Mary were both completely charmed by the little rascal.

  “Sure’s sure, Mister Watson. Don’ wanter ’urt yer leg.” She waited while they all stopped, and John knelt stiffly so she could slide off his back. She brushed down her frock to make sure it was neat, and smiled up at him.

/>   When they reached the hotel, they were all tired, and showing it. Neville flew straight to their open window and disappeared inside their room. And since it was just about suppertime, and since they had long since walked off lunch, John handed the now-much-lighter picnic basket to the serving girl and said, “I believe we’ll just have supper right now.”

  Only the fact that she was starving again kept Nan awake through dinner. Suki fell asleep with her head on her arms, and Nan picked her up without her waking to go up to their room. She herself barely managed a washup and a quick check to make sure Neville had had food and still had clean water before she, too, was asleep.

  • • •

  After a fruitless search of the market, they met back at the hotel pub for lunch. They all sat in a row on the bench at their table, since the pub was quite crowded, with a group of four strangers on the other side of the table from them. Nan was nearest the wall, Mary next to her, Suki between Mary and John. Suki was clutching the most magnificent carved wooden horse Nan had ever seen, a beautifully made and painted toy with a mane and tail of real horsehair. Her eyes were shining so much they looked like twin stars. Since Suki knew better than to ask for such a thing, Mary Watson must have seen her gazing with longing at it and bought it for her.

  Suki has quite enraptured Mary, Nan thought with amusement. She looked up at Mary and happened to look just past her—and froze.

  There at the bar, just accepting his pint, was the man from her vision at the altar. There was no mistake; the square face, prominent cheekbones, straw-colored hair, serious expression—she’d have known him in a thousand.

  Suki, she thought, projecting the word into the girl’s head. They had been practicing Suki’s telepathy for a year now on a regular basis, along with her school lessons. She was very good at reception; projection was still limited to no more than a few words.

  ? It was more of a feeling than a thought, but Nan knew Suki had “heard” her. Good. All the excitement lately of going places hadn’t interfered with what she’d learned so far.

  Look past John Watson to the bar. Is that the man we are looking for?

  Suki cleverly held up her horse for John’s examination so she had an excuse to look up. Yus! came the reply.

  Nan tapped Mary on the wrist and bent to whisper in her ear—or, speak quietly, since a whisper would never have been heard in the din. “Suki and I are both sure. The blond man in the middle of the bar with the pint of bitter is the one we saw sacrificing the deer.”

  Mary cast a startled look at her, then got John’s attention with a little tap and bent to murmur in his ear. He nodded, as if what she had said was nothing more than a casual comment, and turned his attention back to his luncheon. Or so it appeared, anyway—but a few moments later, a tiny sylph with yellow butterfly wings zoomed in the open door and hovered over the blond man like an attendant spirit. When he had finished his pint and paid, she followed him out the door.

  John seemed in no hurry to finish his lunch, so although Nan was itchy with the need to jump up and do something, she followed his example. After all, John had learned the craft of being a detective at the right hand of Sherlock Holmes, and who was she to tell him how to follow a suspected person?

  “I think we should all go up to my room and discuss what we are to do this afternoon,” he said aloud, when he had finished the last of his lunch at a leisurely pace. Having made his statement, he climbed off the bench and—in a gentlemanly fashion—began to make his way through the crowd in the pub to the staircase. Being female, Nan and Mary had less trouble getting through; the men usually pulled at their caps and backed out of the way with a muttered “’Scuze me, ma’am,” which most of them pronounced, in the country fashion, as “mum.” With Suki sandwiched between them, they got to the stairs and trotted up, following John.

  In the privacy of the more spacious room, they all gathered together, John and Mary on the sofa, Nan on one of the chairs, and Suki on the floor, playing with her new horse. “Mary put a sylph on him, one that is comfortable being in town,” John said. “She’ll follow him all day, then come back to me once he’s gone home. I’m going to go back out in a few more minutes and find him in the market. I might be able to find out his name and possibly where he lives just by eavesdropping. If I can’t, I might be able to get it by talking to him directly, especially if he’s selling something rather than buying—it’s easier to have the excuse to talk to a random stallholder than it is to get the elbow of someone walking about the market.”

  Mary nodded. “It’s a pity we can’t help you, but—well, too many cooks, as my old nanny used to say.”

  “Oh, I know!” Nan said, brightening. “I can send Neville off to be eyes as well. That way if your sylph gets bored and wanders off, he’ll follow the fellow back to his farm.”

  “Excellent! All right, I am off,” John said. He and Nan left the room together, he to go on his quest, Nan to go to her room and talk to Neville.

  It took no time at all to impress the man’s image in Neville’s mind and explain what she wanted. With a grunt and a nod, he finished the last of the meat scraps that the chambermaid had left in his cup and hopped to the windowsill, then shoved off. He would certainly be able to make out Watson from above by his town clothing and hat, and eventually Watson would be in the vicinity of their target, if not actually talking to him, and Neville would be able to pick the fellow out of the crowd that way.

  And then we’ll corner him in his hole and— She felt that sudden rage rising in her again, the fierce anger of the warrior, and hastily shoved it down. And in doing so, she was terribly torn. On the one hand, she couldn’t reconcile the fact that she had sensed absolutely nothing of evil at that altar site with the fact that it had clearly been used as a place of sacrifice. On the other hand, every time that warrior-she-had-been had manifested, she had been in grave danger, and the knowledge that incarnation possessed had been of immense importance. And to complicate matters, that grove they had found had been a place of profound peace—peaceful enough that deer, who were usually sensitive to magical or psychical atmospheres, used it as a safe-haven and a bedding place. It was as contradictory as the information they’d given Sherlock Holmes about Magdalena.

  I’d give a very great deal for things to be nicely simple and black and white! she thought with irritation, as she returned to John and Mary’s room to find Mary sitting on the couch with a book in her hands and Suki still playing on the floor with her horse.

  “Well,” she said aloud. “Since John has gone out to be the investigator, what are we to do with our time?”

  “There are lessons,” Mary pointed out. Suki looked up from her horse and her eyes brightened; then she looked a little apprehensive. “Mebbe not ’rithmatic?” she said, hopefully.

  “I think we can skip arithmetic for a little,” Nan said. “This is too distracting a place for the concentration arithmetic needs. However . . .” She transfixed Suki with a glance that brooked no argument. “We have neglected telepathic lessons in favor of history of late, and it is time we made up for that.”

  Suki heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Oi’ll get me book,” she said, and left with her horse, returning a few moments later sans horse and with a book. She opened it at a random page.

  “Suki is very good receptively, but is still having trouble sending,” Nan explained to Mary, who was looking on with interest. “Suki, if you can sit with Mrs. Watson, she can see what you are supposed to be sending me.”

  Suki hopped up on the couch with Mary and opened her book again. Frowning with concentration, she attempted to send Nan the first sentence on the page. Nan had chosen a book Suki would not likely be interested in, a botany book called Culpepper’s Complete Herbal, that had both pictures and text. In order to properly strengthen her telepathic abilities, Suki had to learn how to send things that she might not herself understand or care about. The less she was invested emotionally in
something, the harder it would be for her to send clearly.

  Flea-wort, Nan heard finally, and recited the words aloud as Suki sent them. Descript . . . There was a sense of puzzlement, as if the word didn’t look right to Suki.

  But Mary said, as Nan sounded it aloud, “That’s right, Suki, it’s something called an abbreviation, a way to shorten a word.”

  The words came slowly. Ordinary . . . flea-wort . . . rises . . . on a stalk . . . The exercise was hard for Suki, and tedious for Nan, but it was the only way she knew of for Suki to strengthen herself. It was how Memsa’b had worked with her and Sarah, and how she continued to work with other young telepaths at the school.

  “All right, Suki,” she said, when Suki had sweated—literally—through half a page. “We’ll do the cards now.”

  Suki closed the book with a relieved snap, and Nan took a pack of ordinary playing cards out of her handbag. She shuffled them thoroughly, then went through them, one by one, while Suki recited what they were. Suki had made about five mistakes in sending the words from the herbal, but made none in receiving the cards. Then Nan shuffled again, and handed them to Suki, who now sent the images to Nan. She was much better at images than words; flawless, in fact. They probably didn’t even need to run the cards anymore, but Nan liked it as an exercise and a way to tell if Suki was tired or losing her ability to concentrate for some other reason.

  Suki really was tired after that, so Nan assigned her a reading lesson; read a story with new words in it aloud, look them up in the dictionary, then use them in an appropriate sentence that had not been in the story. Like “elephantine.”

  From time to time, Nan checked with Neville. Thanks to John Watson, Neville found their quarry fairly easily and perched himself out of the way on the eaves of a nearby building, where he would be inconspicuous but able to see the man clearly.