‘He hasn’t eaten anybody,’ Gussie repeated, trying not to sound too beseeching. ‘I am persuaded he has no intention of doing so. Furthermore, he has not destroyed any buildings, or any carriages either, and I do not believe him to be hazardous to the public in his present state.’
‘He must still be registered.’
‘Then you shall help us to do so, if you please.’
He inclined his head. ‘And that other dragon, also.’
‘Lady Margery has yet to join us,’ said Gussie cheerfully. ‘Indeed, she may be long dead, for all that anybody knows of the matter.’
Some of the energy went out of Mr. Ballantine. He developed the slightly sagging look of a beaten man. ‘Did you have to summon me?’ he said, not without a touch of plaintiveness.
‘We did,’ said Gussie. ‘On account of your being family.’
‘Family?’ came Theo’s voice. ‘Ah, do they begin to arrive? Tremendous.’ He had, at that moment, arrived from one of his perambulations about the park. He now turned about again, and strode away without a backward glance.
‘Lord Bedgberry,’ said Gussie, into the ensuing silence.
Mr. Ballantine had not spoken. His gaze now moved to Lord Werth, looking innocuous enough in a dark green coat, with no obvious signs of his more unusual pursuits about him. ‘Does your lordship not raise the dead, or am I misinformed?’ he said.
Lord Werth merely bowed.
‘And your ladyship has a talent for ice-sculpture.’
Lady Werth pursed her lips, and looked away.
‘Lord Bedgberry’s predilections I need hardly mention, and as for you—’ Mr. Ballantine looked enquiringly at Gussie.
‘Oh!’ she said. ‘You may think of me as the hand of Fate, if you like. The source of the Wyrding “affliction”. A spreader of the disease. A perambulating plague.’ She smiled.
Mr. Ballantine’s brows rose.
‘Welcome to the family,’ added Gussie.
Chapter Nineteen
‘I am not really a plague,’ Gussie said later, once Mr. Ballantine had been persuaded into leaving the slumbering Lord Maundevyle alone. ‘I spoke in jest, of course.’
‘Then you cannot turn an unWyrded person Wyrded?’ said the Runner.
‘Well, yes, I can,’ she admitted. ‘But only if they possess some latent capacity for it already. I could have no effect whatsoever on any ordinary human.’
‘You’re sure of that, are you?’
Gussie opened her mouth to say, with her customary confidence, that of course she was, but was obliged to close her lips again without speaking. Was she certain? She had, until recently, firmly believed herself unWyrded. Since then, her abilities had been tested only on Lady Maundevyle’s three children, two of whom had been deeply affected by proximity to her. Three, perhaps — for though Clarissa had appeared unchanged, she might, like Gussie, have changed in ways that were not so obvious as her brothers. Had Gussie permitted her knowledge of the Selwyn family’s formerly Wyrded ways to influence her conclusions?
What if their Wyrding had nothing to do with the past history of their family, and was wholly attributable to Gussie’s presence?
The thought turned her nauseous, and she turned an appalled look upon Mr. Ballantine.
‘Aye,’ he said grimly. ‘Didn’t think of that, did you?’
Collecting herself, Gussie sighed. ‘I suppose I shall need a license, too.’
‘Whatever you are is as yet undocumented,’ said Mr. Ballantine. ‘There is no such license, Miss Werth.’
‘Am I entirely illegal?’ said she with a bright smile. ‘A law-breaker! There, Aunt. I always told you I would someday come to good.’
‘There is no law against whatever it is you do,’ said Mr. Ballantine. ‘But in my opinion, there probably ought to be.’
‘I know,’ said Gussie with regret. ‘I am a walking disaster.’
Lady Werth here interjected. ‘I suppose it likely that this new policy will shortly expand to cover all the Wyrded, not merely those capable of dangerous transformations?’
‘I imagine it probable, ma’am,’ agreed Mr. Ballantine.
She gave a little sigh, and tapped her fingers against the arm of her chair. ‘Lord Felix will not like that.’
‘Who is Lord Felix, ma’am?’
‘My husband’s great-great-grandfather, I believe, or something of that nature. Perhaps the relationship is rather more distant.’
Mr. Ballantine blinked.
‘My uncle does raise the dead, after all,’ Gussie explained. ‘I do not know where you read of it, or heard of it, but it is quite true.’
‘I do not imagine Lord Felix will readily submit to being licensed,’ said Lord Werth, as though the word tasted foul. ‘He is not much in favour of modern methods.’
‘What will the penalty be, for failing to acquire the proper license?’ Gussie asked. ‘You cannot arrest us all, I suppose?’
‘Arrest is only a consequence for those deemed hazardous to public safety,’ said Mr. Ballantine. ‘For the rest, there’s a fine. Further punishments may be introduced, after the next parliament.’
Gussie saw her aunt and uncle exchange an uneasy look. Ill news for their family, and all who were like them.
‘How do you come to be so knowledgeable, Mr. Ballantine?’ asked Gussie, to cover the chilly silence.
‘You may not be aware,’ he said, clearly assuming this to be the case, ‘that crimes perpetrated by Wyrded citizens, and through Wyrded means, have been steadily rising across the kingdom for some years. I am part of a set of Runners dedicated to the pursuit and punishment of all such criminals, Miss Werth.’
Gussie again wondered whether he were Wyrded himself, and found it impossible to ask. Surely he must be? Who better to chase down Wyrded murderers and thieves but a Runner wielding some of the same powers against them?
Perhaps he detected some part of her thoughts in her features, for a faint gleam of amusement lit his eyes, even as he maintained a steady silence.
‘I see,’ she murmured, unexcitingly. ‘How thrilling that must be.’
‘It is exhausting, dangerous, frustrating and often punishing work,’ he said. ‘The more so since the Wyrde comes in so many varied forms, and it is rarely possible to understand the nature of another man’s Wyrde only to look at him. But I can well imagine that it may seem thrilling to you, ma’am.’
Gussie said nothing, for visions of Mr. Ballantine’s working life had taken strong possession of her mind. How she wished, sometimes, she had been a man! To travel about the country, hard on the heels of miscreants and rogues, dispensing justice for the wronged! She had no doubt the kingdom was full of men like Theo and Lord Felix, but less retiring (in Theo’s case), and rather less expired (as per Lord Felix); very much inclined to make the most of their Wyrded powers, in ways that came too much at the expense of others; of course Bow Street had made provision for it! Of course they had men like Mr. Ballantine!
Consumed with a sudden feeling of wistful regret, Gussie only belatedly realised she had mentally left the conversation, and abandoned her interlocutor. Her aunt had taken up the conversational slack, of course, being a well-bred woman; but Mr. Ballantine had noticed. He kept looking at Gussie, but not with offence. More with… curiosity.
‘I was daydreaming,’ she explained.
‘Thrilling derring-do?’ he said, with a ghost of a smile.
She sighed. ‘Of course.’
‘You have not had much opportunity to engage in daring deeds, I imagine.’
He spoke with more sympathy than she might have expected, given the dismissiveness of his earlier comments. ‘Very little,’ Gussie said. ‘In fact, I have scarcely left the Towers in my life, except for being abducted recently.’
His eyes opened wide. ‘Abducted?’
‘Yes, and that is how Lord Maundevyle came to enjoy his present condition. Perhaps I had better tell you about it.’
‘Perhaps you had.’
So Gussie did, mitiga
ting the blame attributable to Clarissa Selwyn as much as she could. She did not really believe Miss Selwyn to be a dangerous criminal; she was only addicted to fantasies of derring-do, as Mr. Ballantine might put it, and somewhat lacking in judgement.
‘I may have to pay a visit to Starminster,’ said Mr. Ballantine, when Gussie had finished.
‘Oh, no! I do not think there is any danger from them. Lady Maundevyle remains unWyrded, to my knowledge, and Charles is a wet blanket. All bluster and no bottom.’
He laughed at that. ‘A devastating judgement.’
‘Come to think of it, poor Lord Maundevyle is something of a damp squib himself. All he does is trail about the park, lamenting his condition and plaguing the wildlife. Now, if I had been a dragon—’ She stopped, aware suddenly of whom she was talking to.
‘You would have done the thing with some style, I collect?’ prompted Mr. Ballantine.
‘And so I would!’ said Gussie with spirit. ‘And I might have eaten a few people, too. Only those who particularly displeased me, but still, it is perhaps for the best that I am not a dragon.’
‘Only a plague.’
Gussie frowned. ‘Yes. Shall I have to be put in prison? I am more of a public hazard than Lord Maundevyle, I assure you.’
‘I hope not, ma’am. It would be a great tragedy to lock away so lively a wit.’
Gussie blinked. ‘How charming of you. I did not at all look for such a compliment.’
Mr. Ballantine bowed. ‘If you will permit me, I believe I may be able to assist you with your dragon problem.’
‘How very kind of you.’
‘I imagine it to be in the public interest for me to do so.’
‘Yes, of course. Must you arrest him? You must find it difficult.’
‘His lordship is rather unwieldy in his present state,’ agreed the Runner.
He was never called upon to exercise his dragon-repelling powers, however, for several events subsequently occurred to distract every occupant of the Towers — and to resolve the Dragon Problem, albeit in ways no one could have foreseen.
The first of these was the arrival of no fewer than three fresh respondents to Lord Felix’s ritual. How they came to present themselves all at once was a matter of some doubt, for they patently had not travelled together, nor would ever dream of doing so.
One was a lady of advanced years and a great many pretensions to refinement. She was elegantly dressed in a lavender gown and dark spencer — ‘I am in mourning for my poor sister, whom I shall doubtless soon follow into the grave’ — and kept a stock of sal volatile in the embroidered reticule hanging from one wrist, to which she frequently turned whenever anything the least unsettling occurred. Her name was Miss Horne, and whether or not she was Wyrded was a subject which failed to occupy Gussie at all, for she took an immediate dislike to the lachrymose old woman, as did everyone else. Since her repellent behaviour led to her being iced by Lady Werth within six hours of her arrival, her presence in this narrative will necessarily be brief.
‘I am terribly sorry,’ Lady Werth said later, of the lamentable event. ‘Only she aggravated me so much I could not help myself.’
Three hours sooner, Mr. Ballantine might have made some objection to this misuse of Wyrded power. But even he could not find it in himself to regret the sight of Miss Horne, poised in the act of raising a phial of smelling-salts to her long nose, much more charming as an ice-statue than she had ever been as a flesh and blood woman.
‘I trust she will regain her proper form in due time, ma’am?’ was all Mr. Ballantine said.
‘Yes,’ sighed Lady Werth, with proper regret. ‘In a day or two.’ She added, with a slight frown, ‘It is a pity she had so insisted upon taking the best chair.’
The second of the new arrivals was a pastry-cook from a town somewhere in the neighbouring county of Suffolk. Gussie was not able to catch the name, for Maud Digby arrived in a state of such high indignation, and expressed her displeasure at the summons at such a volume, more than half of her remonstrations succumbed to the echo persistent in the lofty hall and died away undeciphered. Gussie gathered that she was An Honest Woman, and Obliged to Earn her Bread Through Her Own Labour, with No Husband to Assist Her, and that Good Positions were Difficult to Come By. Since the third eye blinking from the centre of her forehead proclaimed her most inconveniently Wyrded, and no arrangement of her bushy brown locks could possibly hope to hide it, Gussie collected that Good Positions might indeed be Difficult to Come By, and sincerely regretted that the poor woman should have felt compelled to convey herself, through means unspecified, across many miles, with or without her employer’s leave.
A look of desperate appeal to her uncle revealed him to be thinking along similar lines, and in short order, the unfortunate Maud Digby was on her way back to Suffolk in his lordship’s own carriage, carrying a handsome purse with her by way of compensation. She had ceased to vituperate the moment she had seen the money, though had continued to grumble under her breath about the high-handed ways of the Quality.
Gussie could not blame her.
It was about half an hour after Maud Digby’s departure that the second dragon made her presence known.
Miss Horne (not yet iced, for that came later) went off into hysterics at once, but nobody had much leisure to attend to her, being too much occupied with the dragon herself. For she did not, as might be expected, swoop over the Towers with wings outstretched in a grand display of airborne splendour; nor did she come to a crashing and spectacular landing in the driveway beyond the great doors, and set up a spray of loose stone to announce her arrival.
Nobody noticed her appearance at all, in fact, until a great, wedge-shaped head, bejewelled in emerald-green scales, came snaking through the open door into the hall.
‘Pardon me,’ said the dragon. ‘I am summoned to attend upon Lord Werth. Is he here?’
Chapter Twenty
The aforementioned Lord Werth, together with his wife, his sister, his niece and his guests, gazed upon the dragon — or the dragon’s head, that being all that could then be seen — in speechless amazement. One might hold an arcane ritual with the intention of summoning a dragon, but one did so without in any great degree expecting success.
And unlike Lord Maundevyle, this dragon spoke.
The reigning silence was broken only by the thin shrieks of Miss Horne, who, prostrate upon the floor, appeared to be trying to inhale the contents of her pungent phial, much good it would do her.
The dragon flicked out her tongue, and tasted Miss Horne’s leg.
‘I might eat her,’ said she conversationally, ‘if only to put a stop to that horrible noise. But I am afraid she does not taste at all inviting.’
‘You may eat her with our goodwill,’ said Gussie, recovering herself. ‘No one much wants her, I assure you.’
Mr. Ballantine, roused to activity by this exchange, stepped forward. ‘Ah — nobody’s to eat anybody upon these premises, please.’
The dragon bowed her elegant head. ‘I shall confine my dining activities to the gardens, as is only proper.’
‘At least,’ added Gussie, ‘Pray do not eat anybody who is supposed to be breathing. If you should happen to find Lord Felix attractive as a dinner prospect, I dare say nobody should object to that either.’
‘I—’ began Mr. Ballantine.
Lord Werth here intervened, by stepping forward, and bowing rather low. ‘Lady Margery, I presume?’
‘You are Lord Werth?’ she said, without refuting this, which Gussie took for assent.
‘I am the present Lord Werth,’ her uncle agreed.
Lady Margery looked him over. ‘Hm,’ she said, and withdrew her head.
When she did not reappear, the assembled Werths exited the hall in a rush, and found her curled up in the driveway. She was not quite so large as Lord Maundevyle, but the difference must be so minimal as to be immaterial. ‘I declare,’ she said, as the family streamed out into the sun, ‘the Towers grows smaller every year.�
��
‘Perhaps you are growing bigger,’ said Gussie, but then thought better of it. ‘But I would not be surprised if the house were to be so obstreperous as to shrink. It has been taking its cues from the Book, perhaps.’
‘Is the Book, then, still in existence?’ said Lady Margery, in a tone of mild interest. ‘I had thought someone must have put it out of its misery long ago.’
‘We have often been tempted,’ said Gussie.
‘Do not delay. That Book will be the doom of the Werths one of these days, I am sure of it.’
Lady Werth said, ‘We keep it under strict lock and key, Lady Margery.’
‘I suppose that might do.’
Nobody, it seemed, wanted to admit that the Book had been the means of Lady Margery’s own summons.
‘Well,’ said the second dragon briskly, after a moment’s silence. ‘And why am I here? I see you have procured yourselves another dragon at last. I saw him on my way in. Must he crouch in the shrubbery like that? It is most unbecoming.’
‘We have not been able to convey much of anything to him,’ said Lord Werth. ‘He is a reluctant dragon.’
‘And sadly inept,’ said Gussie. ‘For he cannot even speak to us, as you do.’
‘Not?’ said Lady Margery. ‘Well! That is easily mended.’ With which words, she spread her great wings and leapt into the air.
Her departure signalled an immediate exodus from the driveway into the shrubbery. Gussie arrived there to find Lady Margery landed near the profusion of lavender bushes within which Lord Maundevyle still dwelt, drawn up to her full and regal height, and addressing his lordship in bracing tones.
‘Come, come! This behaviour is not befitting of a dragon. You are not a Werth, I perceive, and so there is only so much that can be expected of you. But I am sure you would wish to make some address to the family, at least? To maintain such a silence is the very height of rudeness, is it not?’
Lord Maundevyle appeared electrified by the presence of another dragon, and had, at long last, drawn himself up, and out of the slumped posture he had for some time maintained. But Lady Margery’s words could not please him. He made a choked, snarling noise which Gussie at first interpreted as an objection — possibly even a threat; but soon discovered to be an attempt at speech. The crimson dragon spat sounds from between his long teeth, and perhaps they were intended to be intelligible syllables, but they emerged as growls and stifled roaring, punctuated by puffs of pungent smoke.
Wyrde and Wayward Page 17
