After several hours they rose to leave. Arsenic found herself held back with a firm brown hand, while the others took to the deck and watched Lord Maccon wrestle the plank into place.
“A word, please, Dr Ruthven.” Lady Maccon was not asking, she was insisting.
“Aye?”
“Lord Akeldama wrote to me of your mother. He said that despite her profession, she has some admirable qualities.”
“Some.”
“He explained that he hired her once. Did you know?”
“I ken that he might have.”
“Did she give you, erm, what do they call it, training?”
“She has four daughters, Lady Maccon. She gave all of us training. She dinna trust the world.”
“Sad but wise. Have you ever had to use it?”
Arsenic looked at her, so much larger than life, so worried for her daughter yet so proud of her. “Every day, Lady Maccon. Every day.”
Lady Maccon looked briefly old and lost, then said, “It is a gentleman’s profession, medicine.”
“Exactly.”
“You’ll look after them?”
Arsenic knew Lady Maccon was referring specifically to her daughter and her new husband.
“’Tis my duty now.” Arsenic, however, was thinking about the entire crew. Bossy and efficient Primrose, precocious Spoo, dour Virgil, and grumpy Aggie – all of them. Even awkwardly sweet Percy. They were all hers to care for.
“See that you are very good at that duty, then, Doctor.” There was no mercy in Lady Maccon’s eyes. This woman would be ruthless in defence of her family.
Arsenic understood perfectly. “I willna fail them.”
A slight clearing of the throat caused Lady Maccon’s hard stare to swing to the door.
“Plank’s down,” said Percy, looking scared but defiant.
Lady Maccon squinted at him. “So go cross it, Percival.”
“Can’t without our doctor. Ladies first and all that rot.”
“Percival Tunstell, are you being a gentleman?”
“Will that persuade you to release our doctor, Aunt Alexia?”
“Are you being pert with me, young man?”
Percy arched a brow.
“Oh go on, both of you. Keep my child out of danger, and prison, and death, and such, would you?”
Percy sniffed. “I make it a point never to make promises I can’t keep, Aunt Alexia.”
Percy hadn’t particularly enjoyed the social call on Rue’s parents. Not that there was anything wrong with Lord and Lady Maccon. They were certainly easier to take than most of their generation, and definitely better than his mother at more than double the effect. It was simply that Percy did not enjoy any kind of social call. He’d only gone along to keep an eye on Arsenic, good thing, too.
Lady Maccon had managed a private conclave. Not that Arsenic had been at physical risk, but Lady Maccon could eviscerate emotions with little effort and no compassion. Fortunately, Arsenic seemed perfectly capable of standing up for herself. Impressive. Percy was left wondering if she would do equally well against his own mother, and then got angry at himself for entertaining the very idea. Poor Arsenic.
The Custard was off refuelling, so they dawdled returning through Cairo. Quesnel found them a nice watering hole on a lamp-lit square where he puffed on something quite smelly while the ladies indulged in coffee so strong no one could possibly actually enjoy it. They nibbled on a lovely flakey pastry drenched in honey and nuts. Percy thought gloomy thoughts about his mother meeting Arsenic Ruthven. Then he considered them never having reason to meet, as he couldn’t gather enough courage to actually court the chit.
Rue seemed happy to sit and more fatigued than she ought given her customary propensity for charging about. Percy gave her his piece of the honey pastry, she clearly needed sustenance. He also observed Arsenic whisking Rue’s coffee away and replacing it with coconut water in a masterful sleight of hand.
“How do we feel about Japan?” Rue asked, grimacing at the water but drinking it obediently.
Primrose beamed. “I’ve always wanted to go. I hear the embroidered silks are unparalleled.”
Quesnel nodded and blew a perfect dirigible-shaped smoke ring into the night air. “We studied the Paper City in engineering school. I look forward to seeing it first-hand.”
“Will we get to see the countryside, do you think?” Primrose sounded oddly wistful, as if she missed some supine country lifestyle, even though it had never been their lot.
Everyone looked at Percy. He was expected to be up on all information about other cultures. Luckily, knowing they were headed to Japan weeks before the rest of his compatriots meant Percy now had the opportunity to appear the miracle worker. He did enjoy lording his knowledge over others – precognitive perspicaciousness.
“It’s unlikely we’ll be allowed out of Edo. The Japanese authority is quite xenophobic, even after the Americans insisted they open up to trade. They confine most interactions to the Paper City. But everyone writes that Edo is something to see, even if it’s all we get. I’ve a number of guidebooks in my collection.” Which he’d purchased, of course, shortly after his conversation with Aunt Softy.
“You’ll be happy to know it is a culture that cherishes tea,” he added.
Primrose nodded. “Good. A sensible people then.”
Arsenic smiled, watching him from under long dark lashes.
Percy swallowed on a suddenly dry throat. It did glorious things to her eyes, that smile. And those lashes. Like the legs of a cellar spider, long and elegant. Erm, he considered, that’s probably not a compliment.
Arsenic said, “They’re reputed to be inclined to share medical knowledge. Is that true?”
Percy nodded. “Knowledge in general, actually. Where other countries trade for weapons or technology, Japan, as a rule, is more interested in intellectual tomes and intelligent conversation. A policy I greatly admire, in libris libertas and all that.”
Arsenic raised her brows at him. “Helluo librorum.”
Percy blushed. “A bookworm? I stand justly accused.” He became conscious of paying her too much attention and turned to Rue. “I’ll comb through my library to see if I’ve any double volumes or others that we might use for trade and goodwill.”
“Percy, you’re willing to sacrifice your library for the good of our mission?”
“Within reason.”
Rue grinned at him. “And how are the Japanese concerning the supernatural set?”
“So far as we can tell, they’re accepting bordering on reverent. Spiritualism has been integrated into Japanese culture as a matter of both worship and history. It’s difficult, scholars say, to distinguish between what is real and what is fancy in many texts. Some of their mythologies are so outlandish it’s assumed they couldn’t possibly be based in supernatural truth. Their shifters, for example, are supposed to defy the laws of physics, gravity, and thermodynamics. It was thought they were mostly imaginary. But with these new rumours from your mother and Lord Akeldama, who can tell?”
“We are to tell, apparently,” said Rue.
“It’s going to be a long time getting there. It’s the other side of the world.” Quesnel glanced at his wife.
Primrose allayed all fears in that way she had of being profoundly stable. “Percy will chart us a nice safe route, won’t you, brother dear?”
Percy glared at her. “Efficiency is my preference, sister, you know that. Besides, I’ve all the currents mapped and the charts prepared already. Why should I change them now? We can leave immediately.”
Everyone stared at him like he’d put the milk in after the tea or something equally damning.
Rue’s eyes were narrowed. “Prepared already, did you say, Percy? How’s that?”
“How’s what?” He did wish people would be more precise with their questions.
“How’d you know we were going to Japan?”
“You have precognitive abilities?” suggested Arsenic.
“Oh n
o, nothing so unscientific. Aunt Softy told me.”
“Who on earth is Aunt Softy?” asked Quesnel.
Primrose explained. “Our great aunt on our mother’s side. Grandmother Petunia’s younger sister.”
Percy nodded. “Lady Kingair and Madame Lefoux talked to me about Japan too. At the wedding.”
“What?”
“Who?”
“Percy!”
Percy held up a hand. “They want us to rescue this friend of theirs. The same one who’s gone missing in Japan hunting rumours of shifters.”
“Percy, really.”
“So, you see, I knew we were going to Japan next.”
“You did?”
“I should have mentioned this sooner, shouldn’t I?”
They all tutted at him, except Arsenic, who had her nose in Rue’s coffee and seemed to be shaking slightly. Was that amusement?
“Percival Tunstell, you do take the absentminded professor thing a little too far sometimes. Honestly.” That was, not unsurprisingly, his sister.
“Has he always been like this?” wondered Arsenic.
Percy was pleased she felt comfortable enough among them now to tease, but a little unhappy that she was teasing him.
Prim sighed. “Always. When we were little I think it was a defensive mechanism against Mother, but now it has become an indelible part of his personality. You’re not as annoyed by it as the rest of us?”
Arsenic shook her head. “Alis volat propriis.”
He flies by his own wings, translated Percy. He flushed with pleasure.
Then she added. “’Tis rather bonnie.”
“I say!” Percy was offended. Bonnie! I’m not bonnie! I’m wise and intelligent and insightful. Bonnie, my arse. He paused his internal diatribe. Although perhaps that’s better than not bonnie?
He looked at Rue. “Lady Kingair, your werewolf relative, said we should go to Japan next. So did my aunt. And so did Quesnel’s mother.” He gestured at the repugnant Frenchman, who was leaning back and dimpling at Percy’s discomfort. “So I deduced that was where we would be going. Pardon me for forgetting to mention it, but you know now, don’t you? Isn’t that enough?”
Quesnel’s dimples deepened. “Of course my mother is involved.”
“’Tis na odd?” wondered Arsenic.
“Not if you know them,” said Percy vaguely.
Arsenic nodded. “I sat with them a bit, at the wedding. Peculiar group. Powerful. They went to school with my mother. Did you ken?”
“Did they indeed?” Rue blinked at her.
“The assassin?” Primrose pressed.
“Aye.”
“Coils within coils,” said Prim, ominously.
Percy couldn’t see that it made any odds. Arsenic’s mother, Madame Lefoux, Aunt Softy, Sidheag Maccon – they’d all been trained as spies, hadn’t they? What else could one expect from spies? Or was that one of those things he’d deduced and no one else had? He opened his mouth to explain, but Rue cut him off.
“To get back to the point, what did they tell you, Percival Tunstell, about going to Japan?”
“They’ve lost one of their number. A lady who goes by the moniker the Wallflower. They want us to find her and bring her back.” Percy produced the photo of the matron from his waistcoat pocket, where he’d stashed it originally. Although, of course, that was a different waistcoat, which meant Virgil had been faithfully transferring the photo from one waistcoat to the next for weeks. Good lad, that Virgil.
He handed it over. “There, see? She went missing in Japan. Probably the spy Lord Akeldama sent.”
“A rescue mission as well as one of discovery? Only we’re after a woman who trained all her life to stay hidden. They don’t ask much of us, do they, the previous generation?” Rue looked resigned.
Primrose took the image and studied it. “Percy, occasionally you’re a complete ninny-hammer.”
Percy bristled. “I don’t see how. You said we were going to Japan, didn’t you, Rue? I just got us prepared.”
“You’re utterly impossible,” said Rue.
He had no idea why everyone was so vexed with him. Certainly he’d forgotten to mention it, but they knew now, didn’t they? It wasn’t as if the knowledge would have materially changed any actions prior to this moment.
Percy turned desperately to Arsenic. “You talked with them too, at the wedding?”
“Aye I did, but they said nothing of Japan. One of them was your aunt?”
“Great Aunt Softy, well, Sophronia really.”
“Sophronia? I believe my mother hated her. Or, more precisely, she hated my mother. Which is a perfectly respectable reaction to my mother. She’s quite prickly, and all the pricks are poisonous.”
Percy nodded, as if he could even hope to understand what it was like to be the daughter of a killer. Although his mother was a vampire who did, occasionally and with great delicacy, kill people, so perhaps he could comprehend it.
Arsenic gave one of her throat-drying smiles. “Mother used to call it annexing. Don’t mind me, darling, she’d say, nipping down to London. I’ve a foreign dignitary to annex.”
“And how did she feel when she found out you wished to be a doctor?”
“Delicious irony. She’s an odd sense of humour. I told her that someone had to balance all the death she dealt. She laughed and reminded me that she only killed bad men. Was I going to find out the moral character of my patients before I cured them? I told her that wasna how the Hippocratic oath worked. She called me a strange little mineral and accepted my decision. After all, arsenic is also medicinal.”
Percy nodded. “Logical.”
“Homo sum humani a me nihil alienum puto?” suggested Arsenic.
“Exactly!” beamed Percy. He did so admire a sagacious woman. Admittedly, Arsenic was the first to match him Latin-to-Latin, but he’d always suspected such females must exist. He was seized by the horrifying suspicion that she may be the only one. She must be protected, he decided. A unique specimen among humans. Should I write a paper?
Rue looked at Quesnel and then Primrose. “Are they flirting?”
“It’s like watching dirigibles crash midair, filled with hot air, slow and horrible yet inevitable,” said Quesnel.
“I don’t think it can be flirting when it’s done so badly, can it?” Primrose finished her coffee, eyes wide with wonder.
Percy glared at them all. It was all very well for them to pick on him, but they shouldn’t pick on Arsenic. She hadn’t the appropriate defences in place. “We are having a perfectly respectable intellectual conversation. Just because you lot are too dim to follow the nuances.”
“Definitely flirting.” Rue grinned at them.
Fortunately, at that juncture The Spotted Custard depuffed to its mooring obelisk, presumably stuffed to the gills with coal and water and suchlike necessities.
Percy was grateful it wasn’t part of his job to oversee the logistics of supplies. He was more of a theorist than a list maker.
He stood. “Shall we head back to the ship?”
Primrose stood as well and poked him with her elbow, hissing into his ear rather too loudly, “Offer her your arm, you goose.”
Percy, blushing hotly, offered the doctor his arm.
Arsenic took it with a shy smile and a lowering of her spidery eyelashes.
They led the way back to the ship.
“Complete ninny-hammer,” asserted his sister, behind them.
“Flirting,” confirmed Rue to her husband, who no doubt nodded wisely.
Percy stuck his nose in the air and ignored them, face hot. But not feeling overly distressed, for there was a small capable hand on his arm. And, after all, Arsenic thought he was bonnie.
EIGHT
On Handmaidens, Hats, and Hasty Marriages
Travel to Japan took the better part of a month, and Percy wasn’t thrilled about it. Really, at that rate, they might have gone by sea! But bits of the aetherosphere weren’t charted as well as they ought, and (in
deference to Quesnel’s spousal concern) Percy altered some current choices and refuel stations to ensure the safest route.
Percy didn’t tell Quesnel he’d made adjustments, of course. Let the Frenchman stew.
With so much time idle in the grey, Percy organized an intensive study of the Japanese language with Anitra. She already had a bit, and he’d been at it since the wedding, but now they focused. Others joined them, when their duties permitted, including Arsenic. She also continued to disturb the peace of his library, in the best of all possible ways, in honeysuckle-soaked silence and the occasional scone.
To Percy’s delight, Arsenic staunchly resisted developing any possible chatterbox tendencies. Their long silences might have become uncomfortable, except for their mutual joy in quiet and the ameliorating presence of Footnote. The cat divided his time between them. He showed a marked preference for Arsenic’s lap and Percy’s feet, and happily basked in the attention of whichever human was most easily distracted at any given moment.
Percy came in for additional teasing anytime Rue, Prim, Quesnel, or Virgil caught him with Arsenic. Philosophical to the last, Percy figured this was making him less likely to blush about it. Although no less fascinated by those spider lashes, and no less likely to swallow dryness when she smiled.
Rodrigo and Anitra, who were sensible sorts, made no comment. They occasionally joined them in the library, although it really wasn’t big enough for four (five, counting Footnote). If any discussion resulted and got too lively, they adjourned to the stateroom for tea (including Footnote). Rodrigo brought a much more mercenary perspective to any intellectual debate, being invested in seeing things dead. Also, he came from a background of religious belief in the supernatural, so he understood some of the Japanese mindset with regards to spirituality. After all, one had to believe in something in order to kill it, so Rodrigo’s perspective on the probable existence of various Japanese spirits and monsters was eye-opening.
Percy did find himself struggling to reconcile the written record with reality, but he’d met enough unexpected supernaturals by now to be sympathetic to the possibility of their actuality, in a way he certainly wouldn’t a mere three years ago. Still, physics demanded that fox shifters be scientifically impossible. The biggest fox recorded in his natural history volumes weighed in at forty-two pounds. A human toddler might weigh that much but not an adult. Should they exist at all, fox shifters couldn’t have hidden themselves among humans.
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