A Study in Sable

by Mercedes Lackey

  Sarah tilted her head to one side, bafflement showing on her face. “I don’t understand. How does that have anything to do with what I have been doing for Magdalena?”

  “Because,” Pablo said, with a little gesture of conciliation, “I was asked for help by the spirit of Johanna von Dietersdorf.”

  The look on Sarah’s face was absolutely without price. Nan wished there was a camera there, so she could capture it. Even Grey gaped at the violinist. If the situation hadn’t been so serious, Nan would have laughed until her sides hurt.

  Then Sarah’s face took on another expression, this one of a revelation. “The very strong ghost—the one who wouldn’t talk to me, wouldn’t listen to me, and wouldn’t go through the door—”

  Pablo bent his head. “Indeed,” he replied.

  “That explains a great deal,” Sarah replied without rancor, then sighed. “So what are we to do about this?”

  “Ah!” said Sarasate, with a slight smile. “That is what we are here to decide.”

  • • •

  Sarah walked back to the manor with the violinist. She held Grey against her chest with both hands the entire way as he escorted her right to the door of Magdalena’s suite and knocked for her. She found his presence incredibly soothing, and hoped that at some point she would be able to ask him questions about being a “Spirit Master.”

  Alicia opened the door immediately, and her face was suffused with relief when she saw Sarah had Grey. “Oh thank God!” the maid cried. “You found her!”

  “Maestro Sarasate helped me, she came to him when she heard his practicing,” Sarah replied, making up a story on the spot. “If she hadn’t heard him playing and gone to him, I don’t think I would ever have found her.”

  Pablo gave a little bow. “It was my pleasure to be of service, señorita,” he said gallantly, with a sidelong glance and a little twinkle at her lie. “Now I must return to my practice, and you should rest after your fright.” With that, he turned and walked off, presumably back to his own guest room.

  “Get in here! You must be completely knackered!” the maid said. “And your poor parrot! She must be half-dead with fear!”

  “I think she was, I think there was a hawk chasing her,” Sarah murmured, allowing herself to be drawn into the sitting room and fussed over.

  “Is she hurt, or did she bite you? There’s blood all over your waist and skirt.” Alicia began tsking over the stains. “That is never going to come out—”

  “She bit me when she saw the hawk and flew out the window, I think she was terrified,” Sarah lied, a little appalled at how many lies she was telling lately. “She came to me as good as gold when Maestro heard me calling for her and called me back.”

  “Did he bandage your hand? He’s as good as a doctor! Here, let’s go in your room and get you out of those clothes, and I’ll see if there is anything to be done about the stains.” Alicia chivvied her into her room, shut the window firmly, and waited while Sarah put Grey on her stand before helping her out of the skirt and waist. Sarah was a little surprised at the amount of blood on them; she hadn’t realized how bad the bite had been.

  “I don’t think there is anything I can do to save this shirtwaist,” Alicia said, holding it up critically. “But I might be able to get the blood out of the skirt, at least enough that it’s not noticeable anymore. It’s a good thing you like browns.”

  “You don’t have to go to all that trouble,” Sarah protested. But Alicia just smiled.

  “Mistress rarely needs anything done, she’s so careful about her clothes. I don’t mind. Now you look a sight. You have a nice lie-down with cucumber slices and a cool cloth on your eyes while I see what I can do.” It was very clear that Alicia was not going to accept “no” for an answer, and truth to tell, Sarah was utterly exhausted. Her eyes were still swollen, her nose felt twice its normal size, her hand throbbed, and so did her head.

  I should try to think of something to add to the plan, she told herself. But her head hurt so badly, she really couldn’t think at all. So she did as Alicia had advised and laid herself down on the bed, changing the cloth over her eyes whenever it got warm. At some point her head finally stopped pounding, and somehow she drifted off to sleep.

  She woke to the sound of the first dinner gong with a start. Wrapping her dressing gown around herself, she took a peek into the sitting room.

  Alicia was there, mending something. She looked up when she heard Sarah’s footstep. “Oh, you look much better. I got most of the blood out of the skirt, but I advise you have that shirtwaist dyed if you really want to keep it. I was going to wake you, then thought I had better let you sleep. Would you like me to ring for dinner to be brought here?”

  “Would you share it with me?” Sarah asked.

  Alicia laughed, and they were on friendly terms once again. “I would love to, thank you. There’s a ladies’ maid here that used to serve Willie’s mother; she’s an absolute cat, terribly superior, and I have to sit right next to her in the Hall. I’ll ring for the maid, tell them you’ve got a sick headache still, and you need to be fit to watch over Mistress tonight. They’ve got enough servants here they can make us a tray before the dishes go up for dinner.”

  “Where is Magdalena?” Sarah asked.

  “She went down early; Willie asked her to play lady of the house. Almost everyone that’s supposed to be here for this house party arrived this afternoon.” Alicia waited for her to take in and understand what that meant.

  “He isn’t thinking of proposing to her, is he?” she asked.

  “Well, I don’t know, and it’s not my place,” Alicia admitted, ringing for the maid. “It might only be that now everyone is here and he can’t do without someone to act as hostess—and he discovered last night that Mistress can do the thing proper, without embarrassing him. So she can play hostess, and the guests can think what they like. He’s a Marquess and an Earl, and has pots of money, there’s no reason he can’t suit himself. After all, we’ve got half the peerage marrying these American heiresses with silver mines who don’t know a soup spoon from a demitasse spoon, why shouldn’t he marry a prima donna who was properly brought up?”

  I need to sound the way I did when I was still worshipping the witch, Sarah realized. This was going to be harder than she’d thought. “True enough. Would you like it if Willie proposed?” Sarah asked, making an effort to appear curious, and not appalled. “You’d be the lady’s maid to a real Ladyship then!”

  “If I could get that cat dismissed, I’d love it,” Alicia replied, and giggled. “No, that would be too easy. I’d have her as my under-maid. And I’d be sweet as sweet to her, because that would pour vinegar in her wounds of coming down in the world.” She eyed Sarah. “You go get into your nightdress and dressing gown and lie down again. I’ll get you when the dinner comes.”

  Sarah was not at all averse to following that advice. It was quite lovely to get into her night-things and the heavy silk dressing gown that Lord A had given her last Christmas. Coming from any other gentleman, such a gift could have been considered scandalous, but Lord A frequently bought her and Nan garments appropriate to roles they might need to play, if those roles were of ladies in the higher ranks of society. He’d bought Nan a silk dressing gown, too. And once again, she found herself overcome with shame that she had considered Nan somehow inferior to her, even if she had been under that witch’s fascination. After all, Lord Alderscroft treated them exactly as equals. . . .

  “Are you all right?” she asked Grey, who was watching her curiously, as if the parrot was reading her thoughts.

  “Hungry,” said Grey, and yawned. “Sleepy.”

  “We’ll both eat and sleep, and then . . .” Then, well . . .

  Then we’ll have to see. Not even Pablo knows what’s likely to happen tonight. He was going to try sending some of the worst of the ghosts back to “sleep.” The rest—well, he and Sara
h shared a concern: that they must be helped to move on.

  He was also going to try to explain their plan to Johanna. Or rather—he was certainly going to be able to explain it to her; as a Spirit Master, that was his forte. He could communicate perfectly with spirits. The question was what she was going to do, once she heard what they planned.

  “I have no control over that, Sarah,” he had said apologetically. “I do not control spirits; that would be the work of a necromancer, and such things, I will not do. So—we will see what we will see. If she does not like our plan for her sister, then . . . it may be she will do as she will do, and we will have to adapt ourselves to that.”

  About a half an hour after Alicia rang for the maid, she came to get Sarah again. Sarah brought Grey with her into the sitting room, where quite a repast was laid out. Certainly enough food for two, and then some; it looked as if someone had asked the servant who had served her at dinner last night to make up plates, for there was nothing there she would not have chosen for herself.

  The two of them—three, if you counted Grey—sat down at the table; Grey was between them, and they took turns offering the parrot bits of things they thought she would like. It was a much more pleasant dinner than last night’s, and Sarah was able to relax and chat with Alicia quite naturally as long as she didn’t think too hard about Magdalena’s manipulations.

  When they were finished, Sarah went back to her room to doze until Magdalena returned. It turned out to be a “nap” of about five hours, as Magdalena came in at around three, just as she had the previous night. Tonight she was as pleased as a cat who had gotten into the cream, and brought a half-empty bottle of champagne and a full glass with her. Alicia raised her eyebrows when Magdalena wasn’t looking; Sarah shrugged. Alicia coaxed her mistress into her room, and Sarah settled down to see what the silence of the night would bring.

  The clock on the mantelpiece had struck four before the rooms quieted down. And as soon as the last chime had struck—so did the Cavalier.

  With a sigh, she resigned herself to another grueling night. The only good thing about it was that the later Magdalena stayed up, the shorter the night was. And the more sleep she was going to be able to get after it was over.

  • • •

  Their quarters in the stable block were not nearly as uncomfortable as Nan had feared they might be. The Stable Master had cleared out the two rooms at the far end of the left-hand quarters over the stables; that put them over the tack room rather than over the horses. The rooms were plain and spare, but scrupulously clean, and scented with nothing more objectionable than leather and clean hay. Since the stable was set quite a distance from the manor, it was in a little bit of forest and meadow all its own. What came in the windows was a great deal of lovely, fresh air, birdsong, and, at night, the occasional bat. It was four days since the rescue of Grey. I wouldn’t mind staying here a week or more, Nan thought. Well, except for the food . . . Since they weren’t supposed to be here, they were having to make do with whatever could be brought over from the nearest village, and she was getting tired of bread and cheese, carrots, and pickles. She tried not to think of how Sarah was eating. She kept reminding herself that her younger self, before Memsa’b had taken her in, would have cheerfully subsisted on any of the four alone and considered just having a full belly to sleep on enough.

  Holmes, the Watsons, and Pablo Sarasate had joined Nan in her room; since there was only one bed, and it had only one door, it was easier to fit chairs into it. Nan sat cross-legged on her pillow while Mary Watson sat properly at the foot. The violinist had taken the chair nearest the window and sat with his back to it, sun streaming over him. He had removed his coat but seemed entirely happy where he was, basking in the warmth like an elegant cat.

  “The difficulty is,” said Holmes, “I believe we need to exclude Miss Sarah from most of our plan.”

  He glanced at Nan, as if he expected her to object, but she nodded agreement. “You’re right,” she concurred. “She’s free of Magdalena’s influence now, but there is no telling how long she will continue to be free. I would like to think that now that she is aware of what Magdalena is doing, she’ll keep her wits about her and her mind as her own, but . . . since we don’t know how Magdalena does what she does, I see no way of ensuring that she can’t control Sarah again.”

  Pablo shrugged as they all looked at him for his opinion. “I think that she is best left out of most of it. And for the same reason.”

  “We cast protections on her, but whether they will hold . . . I don’t know,” said Watson. “But at least I think I may know where Magdalena gets her powers from.” As they all gazed at him expectantly, he said, with a little pride, “Once I knew she was making people worship her en masse, it came to me. I believe she has lorelei blood—and so did her sister.”

  Holmes laughed, his face full of incredulity. “Oh, come now, Watson! This is more of your superstitious farradiddle! The lorelei is a romantical German legend—why, the story isn’t even a folk legend, it’s from this very century—”

  “Wait, hear me out, Holmes. Will you admit that nearly every nation with significant bodies of water has legends of beautiful singing women who enchant entire boatloads of men onto the rocks to their doom, or otherwise enchant them with song?” Watson waited expectantly.

  “Well . . . yes,” Holmes admitted. “The Greeks had the sirens. The Russians have the rusalkas, and the sirin. The Chinese—”

  “Indeed,” Watson replied, interrupting him. “Make the assumption that these legends have an origin in a real power—perhaps psychical in nature—perhaps merely the ability to manipulate harmonic sounds in order to render the human psyche susceptible to suggestion—”

  Holmes brightened. “Of course! My own experiments on the behavior of house flies in response to musical tones—”

  “Yes, yes, precisely,” Watson interrupted him again. “Let us assume that because of their higher-pitched voices, the ones who inherit this power are exclusively women. And because, unlike psychical manipulation, which depends on one mind projecting thoughts directly onto the mind of one other, sonic manipulation depends only on the response of however many people there are listening to the music, these sirens can affect more than a single person at a time.” He coughed slightly. “Then, of course, if the siren concentrates her efforts on one particular person, her results are more profound.”

  “By Jove, Watson . . . that is a tenable theory.” Holmes nodded. “Logical, and scientifically sound. There is hope for you yet.”

  Nan caught Watson’s wink at her when Holmes turned his head, and did her best not to snort. It was amazing, the contortions that Holmes would put his own logic into in order to avoid the simple conclusion that magic was real, and worked.

  “Now, to change the subject, the last obstacle to our plan has fallen,” Holmes continued. “The Marquess’s valet is none too fond of Magdalena, and is not anxious to see her become the lady of the manor. He has agreed to ‘make sure his lordship sleeps alone tonight’ by drugging the brandy he habitually takes before entertaining the lady in his bedroom. Sarah assures me that Magdalena’s maid will not expect to see her before three in the morning at the earliest.”

  “Have you prepared the note, Sherlock?” asked Watson.

  Holmes nodded, took a folded note out of his vest pocket, and handed it to Nan. “Maestro, can you arrange for the Marquess to be engaged in something exclusively male immediately after dinner?”

  “Easily,” said Sarasate, with a brisk nod of his handsome head. “I shall ask him about the British custom of billiards and cigars after dinner, and beg to have a taste of it. He is excessively fond of billiards, and the rest of his male guests are weary of musical gatherings after so many nights of them. I think it will take no effort at all to persuade them into an evening that excludes the ladies.”

  “And I’ve purloined one of the maid’s uniforms,” said Nan. “Mag
dalena has only seen me the once, and paid no attention to me. I can easily slip her the note, and she’ll think it is from Willie.”

  “And Sarah?” asked Watson.

  “I can tell her to come to the conservatory at eleven during dinner,” Sarasate assured him. “We are linked in partnership at dinner, it seems, for when she is not there, I have an empty place beside me. I suppose we are equally awkward to place, socially; we are too important to send to dine with the servants, but not important enough to put anywhere except at the foot of the table. If for some reason she does not come to dinner tonight, then I can bring her a note to that effect under the guise of being concerned about her.”

  Watson and Holmes both nodded with satisfaction. “I have one small item I would like to add to the plan,” continued Sarasate, and he reached down to his feet for something. When he stood up, he handed Holmes a violin case he must have brought with him. “I hope you know the Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saëns?”

  “I am familiar with it,” Holmes said with surprise. “Why do you ask?”

  “Above all things, we will not want Magdalena to employ her powers on us. We know they are sonic in nature. I have taken the liberty of writing a little variation for two violins on the Danse Macabre and left the manuscript in the case with this spare instrument of mine. I believe that if there are two of us playing, the effect will be too confusing for Magdalena to counter.”

  Holmes stopped just short of opening the case, turning just a little pale. “This is surely not—”

  “Not either of my Stradivarius instruments, no,” Sarasate chuckled. “It is a very good violin that I take with me for the purposes of playing at picnics and other places where I would not risk my beauties.”

  Holmes sighed with relief and opened the case. He took out the violin, quickly tuned it, then played a few bars of the music he had found with it. Nan shivered; there was something about that piece that was . . . wild, and uncanny. She had the notion that Sarasate had put something of his Elemental Mastery into the composition.