Night of the Highland Dragon

by Isabel Cooper

  The railway wound down out of the mountains and toward the coast. Rocks and trees gave way gradually to fields and houses. Judith couldn’t have said whether there were more of the latter than she remembered, or whether she was just unused to towns and even large villages, but she watched with interest as the buildings went by.

  It had been seven years since she’d taken the train anywhere, and longer since she’d been to a city. Those times when she had gone out had either been to Belholm to visit the seamstress there, to see livestock bred or inspect new kinds of crops nearby, or to go places one couldn’t reach by either road or rail.

  Aberdeen was dizzying. People rushed past her on either side: ants in an anthill whose sides were granite rather than sand and whose tunnels were the streets themselves, with the vast flanks of spired buildings rising up and almost blocking the sky. She smelled sea air and engine oil, and the voices of a hundred people flooded her ears, mixed with the complaints of horses and the shrieks of wheels on pavement.

  Staggering mentally, she reached both for her memory and for the task at hand. She’d been in cities before—she just had to knock the rust off her memories—and she couldn’t afford to lose focus. Keeping a short distance back and trying to become another face in the crowd, she followed Arundell out of the train station.

  If such an outburst wouldn’t have called attention to her, Judith would have spent the next half hour constantly swearing. The crowds did seem to mask her presence—she didn’t see Arundell show any sign of recognition, though he looked around a time or two—but they also made it damned difficult to keep track of her target. Three times, Judith went breathless and cold as she lost sight of Arundell. She could only keep walking the way she’d been going in the hope that he’d reappear.

  He did each time, but she knew that was as much luck as it was any skill of hers. She’d been a soldier and a sailor, but never a scout, much less a spy. She walked faster, elbowing her way through the crowd as she saw others doing, but still not daring to get too close.

  She did see Arundell turn in enough time to follow, and found herself on a wider street whose occupants were, for the most part, either fashionably dressed or obviously servants. A glossy carriage pulled by a matched set of gray horses sped by, blocking her view of Arundell. Judith did swear then and darted around the back, heedless of the mud spattering her dress.

  At first it looked as if she’d lost him. Judith stood with clenched hands in the street, her breath hissing out between her teeth, and felt her heart sink—just before red hair and a fine coat caught her eye again.

  Yes, that was Arundell. A slower look confirmed it. As Judith watched him while moving closer through the crowd, he climbed a short flight of steps and rang the bell at one of the better-looking houses, all mahogany doors and polished granite. The door opened, and a butler much more polished and forbidding than Janssen beckoned the visitor in.

  That was that, Judith thought as she watched the door shut, at least for a while. No ruse of hers would let her get into a stranger’s house, and she was no spirit to slip through the walls, nor did she have any talent for invisibility. Judith leaned against the wall of a neighboring building for a moment, sighed, and then got moving again, looking for a tea shop with a view of the house.

  She didn’t find one. The best she managed was a small bookstore, where she idled as long as she could before buying two collections of poetry and heading back out onto the street. Fortunately, as long as she tried to keep up with the crowd, walking back and forth made her less noticeable. It also kept her warmer. Even through coat and dress, petticoats and chemise, the wind was enough to make her wrap her arms around herself and shiver.

  After an hour and a half, she spied a quarry, though not her chief one—a woman in a patterned dress and apron emerging from the servants’ entrance of the house next door. “I beg your pardon,” Judith said, approaching her.

  “Ma’am?” The maid turned, surprised and suspicious.

  “Could you tell me who lives in that house?” Judith asked, gesturing to the door where she’d seen Arundell enter.

  The maid frowned, but Judith clearly had money and probably rank, both of which commanded an answer. “That’d be Mr. Baxter.”

  “He’s not a new arrival, is he?”

  “No, ma’am. He’s been there at least these five years that I’ve been in service. Are you lost, ma’am?”

  “No,” said a voice behind her: masculine, English, and far too familiar. If Judith’s heart had sunk before when she thought Arundell had slipped her watch, it plummeted now. “I don’t believe she is.”

  Fifteen

  Judith spun to face him, unsteady at first but catching herself with impressive speed. Under the moss-green brim of her hat, her eyes were wide and her mouth was open. William watched her, waiting for her to explain herself or flee. He doubted she’d attack him in the middle of Aberdeen, but he kept his weight back and his guard up just in case.

  “She’d been waiting for me,” he said to the maid. “Much obliged for your assistance, I’m sure.”

  Lulled by the confidence in his voice—Sound like you have every right to be where you are and do what you’re doing, said the memory of one of his instructors, and people will believe it nearly every time—and eager to be on her way, the woman bobbed a curtsy and left.

  William and Judith were alone now, the crowds around them anonymous and uninterested. Baxter’s house was near at hand with its resources and wards; William thought that gave him the advantage, but he didn’t know what Judith might have brought, or indeed, what she might know.

  In her face, he read dismay and embarrassment, but no fear. She stood quietly before him, armored in a dark wool coat and black leather gloves, and waited.

  “You’ve followed me,” he said, the only opening move he could see.

  “I can’t deny it,” Judith said, no more ashamed than she was afraid.

  “And would you care to tell me why?” William asked, lifting his eyebrows in an incredulous look that had intimidated more than one contact in the past.

  Instead of backing down, Judith cocked her head. “Would you tell me why you’re here?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “Isn’t it?” Her cheeks, already red with the cold air, flushed brighter. “When you come to my village as a stranger, with no good reason for your presence, and beasts start dying in horrible ways? When you stalk about in the wilderness at night and come back with a great bloody wound in your arm?”

  The question hit William like a quart of cold water. Damn all small villages and all gossiping landladies—or landladies’ daughters. “I assure you,” he began, “that I’ve done nothing against the law. And that means, despite your feudal pretensions, Lady MacAlasdair, that I have a right to take rooms where I will and even to go out at night once in a while if that takes my fancy.”

  “And I have a right,” she snapped back, “to protect my people.”

  “From what, pray tell? I haven’t done anything.”

  “So you say.” The city went on its way to either side of them, one passerby even catching Judith with an elbow. If she noticed, she gave no sign, just leaned forward and kept speaking. “If I ask around the other towns you’ve been to, will I hear about more stock slaughtered? Or will I hear about other deaths? Men? Women and children?”

  She would, if she asked about any of the towns where William really had been—not that he’d done the killings, but God knew how rumors would travel. He’d already heard vague muttering about a “ghastly accident” in Belholm, which meant they’d probably found the boy, with the signs of his murder gone along with the scavengers who’d reached him first. And the history William had given in Loch Arach had been both scanty and largely false in detail. The combination could be dangerous.

  “The stories I’ve heard,” he said, taking the offensive, “are mostly about you, my
lady. ‘Reclusive,’ they say. ‘Odd habits.’ ‘Odd family.’ There’s even a tale or two about your…excellent physical state.”

  Judith’s lips tightened. “How sweet of everyone,” she said. “People do like their folktales. But my family’s ruled our lands for years, and I’ve been at Loch Arach for the last twenty—as you’ll know, with all the friends you’ve been making in the village—without ever a virgin dying on an altar. Not even a lamb. You can ask anyone, if you haven’t already.”

  “Things change,” said William. “So do people. Your brothers, for instance. They both married recently, yes? And your elder brother’s sired a child—female, but still an heir under Scottish law, I believe? One might say that’s a very classical sort of provocation.”

  “One might,” said Judith, every syllable frozen, “tell you to go to hell.”

  “It’s not a command that’s ever worked on me so far,” William said, “though I suppose you might get your wish eventually.”

  If she’d been the slapping sort, he thought, his face would be bruised now. Her hands were clenched at her sides, knuckles stretching the leather of her gloves. “You have no right,” she began, “and no grounds to accuse me—”

  “You accused me first, my lady, if you’ll recall.”

  “Directly, aye. But what do you call all your prying, if not accusation?”

  “Curiosity. What are you hiding?”

  She smiled like a blow. “The secrets of the Orient, the Fountain of Youth, and the trick of turning lead into gold. Nothing that’s any of your affair.”

  “Then—” he began and stopped abruptly as another pedestrian ran into him. This one was heavier and cursed both of them roundly as he stalked off. William muttered an awkward apology, then turned back to Judith. “See here, the train back doesn’t leave for a good few hours yet. As bracing as it is to shout at each other in the fresh air, perhaps we should consider our fellow man and take this to a rather late lunch.”

  “Somewhere public,” Judith said. “And we’ll have a table in the window.”

  “And you have my word that I won’t poison you,” said William.

  Judith chuckled briefly and dismissively. “I wasn’t worried about that.”

  William usually liked to be underestimated. From her, it almost felt insulting.

  * * *

  In a restaurant a few streets away, William finally got to set down his briefcase. It was considerably heavier than it had been when he’d left Loch Arach that morning. In addition to more silver bullets, Baxter had passed along another of Clarke’s devices, this one a tin circle the size of a dinner plate, studded with pearls and glass beads in arcane patterns. Carried, he’d said, it would let William follow the traces of magic, as well as see in the dark. Clarke had a genius for both magic and metalworking; sadly, it did not extend to miniaturization.

  William would take what he could get, and that included news. There wasn’t very much, but what Baxter had told him was alarming. Interrogating the Consuasori brothers D Branch had captured in August had revealed that at least five of the cultists had gotten away, and two of the society’s grimoires had gone with them. If the missing material matched what D Branch had acquired, there could be plenty of trouble in the future.

  He ordered wine with lunch. He needed something of the sort—and he didn’t want to risk anything stronger. Not with Judith sitting there looking like an empress in the middle of gilt fixtures and velvet draperies, and not speaking a word until the waiter arrived. Then she ordered, not bothering to tell William what she wanted but speaking directly to the waiter, who looked startled but clearly dared not object, though his eyes met William’s in silent sympathy.

  If Judith noticed or minded, she gave no sign. Hands folded in her lap, posture book-on-the-head perfect, she waited silently. William didn’t think she was sulking. She wasn’t the type. She was, he suspected, biding her time.

  Once the waiter left, William struck first. “You do realize,” he said, “that the first death occurred before I arrived?”

  “Before I met you, aye,” she replied, parrying without any sign of effort. “And before you took rooms with Agnes. That’s not quite the same, is it?”

  “Do you really think I’d be skulking around the woods with my baggage?”

  A line formed between her dark brows. “I don’t know what you’d do.”

  “But it’s not likely, is it?” he pressed her.

  “Most things that happen aren’t very likely. It’s not very likely that one of my people would go mad all of a sudden.”

  “You think it’s the work of a madman, then.”

  “What else would it be?”

  “Do you think I’m mad?”

  “You don’t act it,” she admitted. “Mostly. But it’s not always so easy to tell.”

  At Judith’s request, they’d been seated beside a wide window. Outside, the sun was already setting. Winter was coming on, and the days up in Scotland were particularly short. People walked past, most of them not even glancing at the window. William heard laughter from other parts of the restaurant, footsteps on the carpet, and the soft, muffled chime of metal on china. Comfortable sounds. Civilized sounds.

  He sighed. “If you had any real evidence of your innocence or my guilt, you’d have shown it by now.”

  “Aye,” Judith said. “And the same’s true for you, is it not?”

  “So far,” he admitted. “So perhaps we should both call a halt to investigation for the moment.”

  “A temporary truce?” Judith smiled, arching her eyebrows.

  “For reprovisioning and tending to the wounded. I think we can each count on our dignity on that score.”

  Her laugh was low and throaty, and she tipped her head back a little with it, so that William found his eyes following the lines of her long neck down from the hollows behind her ears to where her skin disappeared under the green velvet of her dress.

  The waiter saved William’s dignity. Appearing with wine, chicken, and baked herring, he forestalled any conversation—and gave William a moment to figure out what to say next. That usually wasn’t difficult, but today was not proceeding at all according to the usual standards, even for him.

  “Is this your first time in Aberdeen?” he finally asked and waited for a reply that he was sure would be at least partly sarcastic.

  Instead, Judith simply shook her head. “But it’s been a great while. ‘Reclusive’ isn’t far from the mark. There’s enough at Loch Arach to occupy me most years. More than enough at present.”

  “In the absence of accidents and mysteries, what do you do?”

  “Keep the castle running. The village as well. I’ve no doubt they’d get along without us, but I like to imagine I help. I breed horses, and I see to the lines of cattle on occasion, and we’ve an orchard—apples, mostly, though I’m thinking of starting plums next year. And my brother Colin wants me to think about electricity,” she added, pursing her mouth in affectionate dubiousness. “And then I read in winter or the evening.”

  She spoke offhandedly, lightly, but William saw the real interest in her face, the animation that filled her posture and her gestures when she spoke of her plans and Colin’s ideas. It cost her a little, he thought, to keep herself to a mere summary, and he found himself smiling at her with real goodwill. “It’s not just duty with you, is it?”

  “I don’t know,” said Judith. “It’s a strange word, aye? There’s a part of the world, even if it’s a small one, that I can maybe make better. I like doing that. Building. I don’t know if it’s my duty or not. I stopped thinking of those things long ago.”

  William remembered a small estate in the Lake District and his uncle striding the lanes, nattering cheerfully about crop rotation and plowing, a pipe in his mouth. It was a strong memory. He’d tagged happily along as a boy, more intent on the large dogs that accompanied them but aware
of his uncle’s voice in the background, of a feeling that here was a stable point in the universe.

  “It’s possible to think too much sometimes,” he said.

  “‘So sharp you’ll cut yourself.’ That’s how my nurse used to put it—also a long time ago. And generally she was talking to Colin, not me.” Judith looked across the table at William and leaned back, assessing. “So, then—are you a recluse by inclination, or is Loch Arach a novelty for you?”

  Outside, the sun sank farther down the sky. Perhaps that was what made their table seem lighter and warmer.

  Sixteen

  By the time they’d finished their meal, it was full dark. Judith had barely noticed sunset fading to twilight, or twilight fading to night. When she stepped outside again, at William’s side, she reached, alarmed, for her pocket watch.

  “Don’t worry,” William said. “We’ve still an hour until the train leaves. Night comes on fast here at this time of year, doesn’t it?”

  “Aye,” said Judith, “and it’s darker in the cities. That is, there are more lights, but the sky’s darker. It’s a bit unsettling after so long in the mountains, I suppose.”

  She wanted to believe that unfamiliarity and surprise had been the foundation for her dismay. She knew better. Talking with William, she hadn’t been paying attention to the time, and she’d lingered, laughing at his stories, talking poetry (he’d read Kipling’s latest volume, which she badly wanted), and surreptitiously glancing at his broad chest or watching the sure way his hands moved. Walking beside him now, she felt the magnetic pull of her own desire and stuck her hands in her coat pockets so that she couldn’t do anything foolish like take his arm.

  The city was dark, and the artificial light, at least for her, only made the streets and the crowds more confusing. With a week or two, she might have learned to be at ease. Just then, she wished she could change form and fly out, leaving the whole dank stone maze of it behind her. Judith squared her shoulders and walked along. Lunch didn’t mean she could trust William, and even trust wouldn’t mean she’d let him know how uneasy she was.