A Study in Sable

by Mercedes Lackey

  This was a world Sarah had never even dreamed existed until Magdalena introduced her to it. There was the spectacle of the opera itself, and then there was the theater going on behind the scenes, which could be even more histrionic than what was presented on stage.

  The cab pulled up to the hotel, and the two of them got out; for these rides Alicia—or rather, Magdalena—paid. They crossed the vast expanse of the lobby, getting friendly nods from the concierge and the desk clerk, and took the elevator up to Magdalena’s room.

  Their arrival was the signal for the concierge to notify the kitchen to prepare whatever Magdalena had selected for her supper before she left for the theater. While they were lighting candles, making sure the rooms were as Magdalena liked them, spritzing rose cologne about to scent the air, and making sure that if Magdalena happened to bring an admirer with her, all would be as it should be, the kitchen was hard at work. Magdalena was by no means the only guest of this hotel who wanted midnight suppers, especially not in the more luxurious rooms and suites.

  Sarah reflected, as she plumped a sofa pillow, that for an artist, Magdalena was astonishingly regular in her habits. She would entertain her admirers in her dressing room for an hour; no more, seldom less. Then one of them would be allowed to take her to the hotel in his carriage. About the time she left the theater, the supper arrived at the room, and the waiter who had brought it would arrange everything, including two place settings, with two extra place settings left on the sideboard. If Magdalena sent a note, Alicia and Sarah would eat together. If she came back alone, Magdalena and Sarah would eat first and Alicia would enjoy her share after Magdalena had been put to bed—before Sarah’s addition to Magdalena’s entourage, Alicia had eaten before her mistress arrived, but Alicia swore she didn’t mind waiting. Possibly, she didn’t; there was certainly enough fruit to stave off hunger in Magdalena’s dressing room, and plenty of time while her mistress was on stage for Alicia to make a sort of meal out of it.

  And if Magdalena arrived with a man, Sarah and Alicia would withdraw into the other end of the room and stay behind a screen, then eat after they had dined and vanished into her bedroom. The first time this had happened, Sarah thought she was going to perish of embarrassment, but she was used to it now. She and Alicia would play cards until the murmuring and laughter stopped and the bedroom door closed . . .

  And then they would ignore whatever sounds came out of that bedroom. Or try to. Sarah still had trouble doing that.

  “Doesn’t that make you . . .” Sarah had asked the maid once, blushing. Alicia had just shrugged.

  “If you are in service, you get used to being thought part of the furnishings very quickly,” she had said philosophically. “Besides, I’m not going to wait until this lovely quail gets stone cold just to avoid listening to the bedspring chorus.”

  The supper came up, and the dining table and sideboard were arranged. At almost the same time, a driver and three attendants arrived from the theater with the masses of flowers from Magdalena’s dressing room, which she and Alicia placed around the sitting room and dining room like trophies. When Magdalena and Alicia left to go to the theater, maids would come in and take them all away, to be replaced by the new tributes that night.

  And since no note arrived with the flowers, that meant that Magdalena, or Magdalena and an admirer, would be coming shortly.

  Tonight, however, Magdalena arrived alone.

  She flung her magnificent sable cloak over a chair and greeted Sarah by kissing her cheek. That sable cloak had become a signature garment of hers, like Lillie Langtry’s famous little black dress. “Six curtain calls!” she said with satisfaction. She glided into her chair and snapped her fingers in the air. “That, for that nasty little man in the paper who said I could not possibly equal Patti! The great Patti only got four when she sang Violetta in London!”

  Clearly, Magdalena was in an excellent mood, and Sarah relaxed. She had only seen Magdalena in a bad mood once—but that once had been quite enough, and she was always just a little on edge when Magdalena returned until she knew what mood her patroness would be in.

  Alicia served them both supper, and Magdalena kept up a nonstop stream of what could only be described as a monologue throughout the entire meal. Sarah didn’t mind. Mostly she tuned it out, because it was about Magdalena’s performance, or her admirers, or what they had told her, all mixed up in no particular order. Evidently tonight she’d had a new one; quite a good “catch,” it appeared, a “Marquess,” whatever that was. Some sort of nobleman who had come into London, on a whim obtained tickets for a box tonight, and Magdalena had enchanted him. Of course. Most women admired her, but men from six to sixty were utterly captivated by her.

  It appeared that this gentleman, one George William Thomas Brudenell-Bruce, was the 4th Marquess of Ailesbury. “Call me Willie,” the gentleman had allegedly told Magdalena. According to what Sarah gleaned from Magdalena, “Willie” had vast estates and profligate habits, exactly the sort of gentleman admirer that Magdalena liked best. She was just as happy to receive their admiration in the form of gowns or sumptuous furnishings or offers to pay her bills or lavish jewels as the little ballet girls were happy to get thin gold bracelets and necklaces and boxes of chocolates.

  So Magdalena was in fine spirits tonight, so much so that halfway through the meal, and a little tipsy, she invited Alicia to set a third plate and join them, which Alicia was quite ready to do. By the time Alicia helped her mistress to bed, Magdalena was toasting her own triumph with a last glass of wine and singing bits of “Sempre Libera,” her first-act aria. Even tipsy, her voice was glorious.

  Alicia emerged again smiling. “I don’t know how she does it,” the maid remarked. “You or I would want to die in the morning, but she’ll awaken fresh as anything and now that she can sleep at night, she’ll eat her breakfast like a prizefighter.” She gestured at the empty room. “I leave you to your ghastlies.” Alicia had become remarkably nonchalant about the haunts, which Sarah regarded as a distinct improvement over her initial terror.

  Sarah went about the room putting out lights until there were only two, and the dying fire in the fireplace. Then she composed herself on the sofa, and waited. She didn’t bother keeping Puck’s charm in her hand now, the spirits that were left were utterly harmless—if infuriatingly stubborn. The rooms went to silence, with only the occasional pop of an ember in the fireplace and the smell of dying roses, carnations, lilies, and, of course, camellias, in the air.

  Attracted, as always, to the presence of an active medium, the last four spirits left to dismiss appeared, one by one, fading into existence between Sarah and the fireplace. These last four had been . . . remarkably mulish. So far, Sarah had not even been able to get them to communicate with her, much less move on.

  Three of the four were mere thin wraiths, so attenuated by age and loss of power that they were difficult to make out, and it was only by virtue of experience that Sarah knew one was female and two were male. Like shapes of fog, they barely had a distinction between head and body. They didn’t seem to have a purpose; they didn’t seem impelled by anything. They had merely appeared, night after night, and . . . hovered. That would be uncanny enough, of course, for someone like Magdalena—possibly even more frightening than a spirit that actually did something, because having a vague shape with hollow, dark pits instead of eyes hanging at the foot of your bed and staring at you was not something most people handled well. But for Sarah . . . they were a distinct problem. She had tried invoking the door to their ultimate destinations—most spirits either went straight to it or fought to get away from it. There had been no reaction whatsoever. It was as if they weren’t even aware of it. How could she dismiss them if she couldn’t even get them to react to the door?

  The fourth spirit she was ignoring for now, because it was not like any ghost she had ever seen before. It was bright, brighter and stronger than the others by far, but the details about it
were vague, as if the spirit itself was keeping her from seeing what it was. It was definitely female, and that was all she knew about it. It wouldn’t speak to her, and like the other three, it was neither attracted to nor repelled by the door. The only difference between it and the others was that Sarah got a very strong sense of purpose and a sense of betrayal and anger from it, though not directed at her.

  But since it was so strong, she was leaving it for last. If I can work out a way to get the others through the door, I should be able to use that on the last one.

  And so, for the rest of the night, she concentrated on the lone female of the three she was calling the Lost Wraiths. She tried coaxing it, tried persuasion, tried bribery, tried commanding it . . . all to no avail whatsoever. By the time morning arrived, and the four spirits faded away in the predawn light, she was exhausted and no further along than she had been when she started.

  After a breakfast she was almost too tired to appreciate, she bid farewell to Alicia and wound her weary way back to the flat, where Grey greeted her with a whistle and kissing sounds. I cannot think what I am missing, she thought as she greeted her friend, made sure that Mrs. Horace had given the parrot a good breakfast of peas and carrots and a little scrambled egg and bits of toast, then pulled off her dress and practically fell into bed. I hope Nan is having better luck than I.

  11

  THERE was something to be said for being in a hotel in a market town. No one blinked an eye when Nan, Suki, John and Mary rose at the first cockcrow and came downstairs looking for breakfast. In fact, they found four hearty souls who had arisen even earlier and were now steadily shoveling food in their mouths, drinking poisonously black tea, and looking disinclined to think about anything else, much less talk to anyone.

  Under other circumstances, the silence might have been unnerving. This morning, it was precisely what they wanted.

  Nan had come armed; under her skirt and over her petticoat she had strapped a belt with the Gurkha kukri knife that Agansing had given her when he had judged her skilled enough to have earned one. She could reach it, easily, through a false pocket in the seam of her skirt. She had armed Suki as well, with a four-inch blade that was sharp enough to cut the wind. It was hidden under Suki’s pinafore; Suki knew how to use it, too.

  “Now remember,” Nan had told her, taking her little chin in her hand and making sure Suki was looking right in her eyes, “I gave you Puck’s charm. It’s in your pinafore pocket. You are not to use this knife except to get away. If something goes badly, I want you to run, then call for Puck as soon as you are safe. Only use the knife if someone gets between you and escape.”

  Suki had nodded and promised solemnly. Sometimes it made a lot of sense to treat her as a very small adult, and this was one of those times.

  They left the hotel and headed in the direction of Knole again—although this time, instead of taking the walking path, they were going to go a little further and take the road that branched off to the right immediately after the path. That road should take them to Sennoke Farm. By the time they got there, Cedric should be in the fields. Neville would locate him for them, and if he was alone, they were going to confront him. Nan was supposed to try reading his thoughts first, then John would approach.

  That was . . . just about as much plan as they had.

  And in case something happened to all of them, John had left a letter in his room, already stamped, to be mailed to Lord Alderscroft if they didn’t return.

  The Celtic warrior inside Nan was getting a little difficult to keep down. There was something about Cedric that had absolutely enraged the Nan-that-was, and she didn’t think the blood magic had anything to do with it. It was more like a purely personal animosity. It didn’t seem possible they had known each other in that past life—but it felt almost as if they had.

  They walked in absolute silence, even Suki, all of them sobered by the undeniable fact that they were walking into a situation over which they had little to no control, on someone else’s ground. And if they had not had not one, but two Elemental Masters with them, Nan would never have gone along with this.

  Overhead, the trees were full of birds, and there was a lark soaring invisibly above them, its singing drifting down to them as it exulted in the morning. The air was cool and a little damp and smelled of green things. Nan wished profoundly that they were walking off to another picnic and a chance to enjoy the Downs, instead of heading for what could be a nasty confrontation.

  The road they turned off on was not so much a “road” as a lane; it was plain dirt, pounded hard as brick with the passage of the years, with tall hedges growing on top of the banks on either side of it. That actually was good; it meant no one would see them coming. Neville stayed within sight overhead, but was cross-quartering the area to the right of the lane as they went, searching for Cedric Edmondson.

  Then, at last, he folded his wings and plummeted toward them; Nan held up her arm, and he landed hard on it. He rested the tip of his bill on her forehead and shared his thoughts with her. A moment later, she knew all that he knew.

  “Edmondson is just on the other side of this hedge, cutting a ditch. He’s all alone, and there is no one within sight or earshot of him. There’s no better time than now to deal with him,” Nan said, tension rising in her and knotting her shoulders. “Neville says there’s a stile a few feet along.”

  “All right then,” John replied, sounding grim. He straightened his shoulders and looked at his wife, who nodded slightly. “Nan, is there anything you need to do to ready yourself?”

  Nan considered that, then decided it was better to get her kukri out now and not risk its getting tangled up in her skirt. Carefully, she put her hand into her pocket, clasped the hilt, and just as carefully unsheathed it. Already she felt better having it in her hands.

  John was clearly taken aback as he looked at the lethal, curved knife with recognition in his eyes. “Is that—”

  “Yes,” she replied. “Memsa’b’s Gurkha associate Agansing taught me how to use it a very long time ago. I was only a few years older than Suki; Suki will certainly begin lessons with him when she starts attending the Harton School in the autumn.”

  Suki gave a little hop of happiness at this revelation. Nan patted her shoulder.

  “The Hartons impress me more with every new revelation,” John replied. “Mary, are you ready?”

  “Oh yes,” his wife said, her eyes gone very dark and fierce. “My allies are waiting. I thought you might be at a disadvantage, but if he’s cutting a ditch—”

  “There will certainly be water, and I don’t need much to make a weapon,” he finished for her. “All right then. Let’s find that stile.”

  They strode onward. The stile was just around a bend in the lane; a set of narrow, steep, pyramidal wooden stairs not unlike a stepladder, going up the side of the hedge facing the road and down into the field on the other. John went first, followed by Mary, then Suki, with Nan bringing up the rear.

  As Nan’s head topped the hedge she saw the farmland spread out before her, low, rolling hills covered in irregularly shaped fields divided by yet more hedges and hedgerows. To the right, three fields away, she spotted a lone man working along the hedgerow. Though his face could not be made out at this distance, she was sure it was Cedric.

  With one hand on the splintery top step, she concentrated with all her might on picking up something, anything, from his thoughts. At this distance, alone as he was, she should have been able to sense at least some of his thoughts—but there was nothing. Just a kind of blank . . . a sort of shadow in her mind where he should have been, but was not.

  John looked up at her, anxiously, as Mary kept an eye on the distant figure, who did not seem to notice them.

  “Anything?” he asked, intuiting what she was doing.

  “Nothing,” she said with a shake of the head. “That either means he’s one of the rare folk whose thoughts
I can’t sense, or he’s got a block from something.” It briefly occurred to her that the problem might be with her—

  But that had never happened before. Why should it now?

  John’s expression darkened. He didn’t like the implications of that any more than she did. “All right then. We have no choice but to confront him.” He looked down at Suki. “Child, you are our only hope if things go terribly wrong. Now tell me what you’re going to do.”

  Suki straightened her back, looking very proud to be so trusted. “Oi stays well back. An’ if yew an’ Missus Watson an’ Miss Nan starts t’lose, Oi runs. Oi gets over the hedge an’ runs till Oi fink there ain’t nobody chasin’, an Oi calls Puck.”

  John nodded decisively. “Exactly right. Mary? Nan?” He looked from one to the other, as if to say if you have any doubts, this is the last chance to voice them.

  They both nodded. And at his signal, they all headed to where Cedric, all unaware, was digging his ditch. They walked the paths beside the fields, rather than through them; no matter what else was going on, they were mindful of the fact that it was acutely bad form to trample a growing field.

  That is, that is what they intended to do. But as they got within about thirty feet of him, he looked up straight at them, and his face—and everything about him—abruptly changed.

  Or at least, it seemed that way to Nan, who no longer saw a farmer, attired in his trousers and boots, with his smock over it all, patiently cutting a ditch with nothing more in his hands than a spade.

  Once again, she saw the figure from her vision, crowned with stag horns, with symbols painted in blood on his bare chest, his face deliberately streaked in patterns with the same blood. And the Celtic warrior in her rose up and overwhelmed her.