A Prelude to Penemue (2 page)

“Safe,” Marius assured her.

“No, not here.
Not safe here. You and she—” the pain seized her and crushed the breath from her body, “must both go!”

“What’s going on here?” Anna stooped over them both.
“Princess?
How are you hurt?”

Hester could only shake her
head,
she was too overwhelmed to speak. Anna glanced toward the front line, then back to Hester.

“Dear Lord, you just…wait here. Judith!”

The healer emerged from the shadows and frowned at Hester. “Good for nothing,” she spat. “I had to leave good fighters to come and care for you.” The
Vedma’s
accent was strange and twisted with anger. “What did you think to take on her injuries like that? So you can die from them instead and have
us
all to decorate the gallows when your mother finds out? Do not look at me like that, child. I know who your mother is, just as I know who you are: Hester
Regalii
, run off with a mortal and got with child, too. And here she is, the Prodigal Daughter, battling the legions of Hell with us plebeians.”

Tears welled in Hester’s eyes and she trembled, blood oozing from her close-pressed lips.

“Be easy with her, Judith, she came to help.” Anna’s voice was stern. “Do you see her sister or her cousin lifting a finger out here? And there are few among us blessed with the ability to heal through that kind of empathic prowess. Besides, I like her.”

“Enough. This is going to take time to unravel. Husband of
Hester,
help me take her into the banquet hall. It will be quieter there and I can make sense of the mess she has made of herself. Plus, if she has been spotted, especially by the groundlings, they’ll stop at nothing to see her dead. Little would upset the Primacy more than to lose the Grand Dame’s wayward daughter before she is brought back into the fold. Pick her up, I said! Hurry now.”

“Be gentle,” Anna admonished.

Marius carefully scooped her into his arms. Every little movement was a fresh sea of agony. Hester moaned, but no one paid her any mind. With Judith at his side, Marius ran back to the hall where a score of servants, nobility, and the host of
Regalii
were waiting out the battle.

Judith swept the fine porcelain dinnerware from a table and ordered Marius to lay his wife down upon it. The healer was not gentle in the slightest as she prodded Hester’s ribcage. The screams were lost in the rising darkness that threatened to envelop her.

Outside, the furor grew louder. She heard Anna’s voice clearly, but the word was foreign.
“Automation!”

I must be about to die. I pray that clever child lives; I do not want my death to be entirely in vain.

Judith paused. “That hussy cannot possibly mean they have one of
those
.”

The walls shook as if every brick built into them were trying to tear itself lose and run away. Those who remained in the hall began to back away very slowly, even Judith, leaving Hester alone and immobile on the table. The nearby window shattered and the wall collapsed, sending a wave of debris cascading down over her. All she could do was roll onto her side and cover her face from the impact of stone and glass. What came through the wall was a blur of rusting metal and grinding gears with a foot as large as a
haywagon
. It moved on its own, with no driver and no apparent consciousness, like a child’s toy gone rogue. But Hester recognized a figure clinging to the back of one iron thigh. The
Insinori
girl was scrambling up the automation’s back, her knapsack jouncing and her curls plastered to her skull with blood and sweat. She pulled a tool from her pack and with it dug into the motorized creature.

The thing began to slow as the girl pried open a hatch, and a gust of metallic steam blasted out. The last thing Hester saw before darkness came for her at last was the little engineer’s face, half eaten away by caustic burns. One violet eye still twinkled as she raised her wrench in salute. Hester drifted away as the automation crashed to its knees and came apart at the joints with a din that would have woken the dead.

* * * *

The morning light was not kind. From beneath the overturned table, Hester could see naught but death and destruction. Cold autumn air blew in through the open wall, carrying the heavy stench of rot, both demon and
Nephilim
alike. From outside there was moaning, crying, but within it was silent as the grave. Bricks and wood had tumbled down over the table, much of it pinning her to the floor. A delicate hand lay exposed like a root nearby. Hester thought she recognized the signet ring, but she could not be certain.

“Help,” she rasped, her throat caked with dust and dried blood. “Please, someone help me.”

A shadow, then a movement in the rubble.
A man’s face appeared before
her,
light haired with a square jaw bearing deep wounds that would surely scar. She knew his name and whispered it aloud like a prayer. “Cadmus
Gyony
.”

“Lady Hester.” His surprise was evident. “You live!”

“I do. At least, I think I do.”

“Help here,” Cadmus bellowed. Footsteps came, and with them hands bringing more daylight and more foul air. She could smell smoke and charred meat. “
Lie
still, my lady.”

“For God’s sake, please call me Hester.”

He touched her hand. “Indeed, Hester. Emile! Where is that page? Emile! Get over here and make use of yourself.”

With exceeding grace, the lithe young man crept into the little cavern and knelt alongside her. He stroked her forehead tenderly, but said nothing. It felt like hours passed before she could be freed. Cadmus sent for a litter, although Hester objected.

“Lady…
Hester
, your leg is surely broken. Please, let us help. You have done so much for us.”

“I have?”

Cadmus nodded, pointing to the heap of rust and iron in the center of the smoldering ruins. Although Anna’s left arm was in a sling, hastily made of the manor’s curtains, she was carefully wrapping something atop the pile. She shifted the long parcel gently and out tumbled a wrench, clattering end over end until it came to rest on the scarred wood floor. Hester gasped.

“Kitty
Insinori
.
She was one of the youngest ever to be inducted into the League of Engineers. She was a marvelous clever thing, too.” Cadmus surreptitiously wiped at his eyes. “She will be missed, but she won us the day. They did not expect us to have her with us tonight.”

“I healed her.”

“And let her go on fighting.”

“But, she…fell. It was in vain.”

“No. It was everything we needed. Hester, you are a savior to us all.”

“Who else has died?”

“Many. But no talk of that
now,
let us get you somewhere you can rest and recover.” Cadmus directed the litter-bearers and sent Emile with them as they carried her awkwardly through the ruins, keeping her as steady as they could.

“You will be long in healing.” Emile’s voice shocked her. It was quiet but full of calm self-assurance. “Lady Judith
Vedma
did not finish what she began.”

“And she?”

“Fallen.”

“I see.” Hester bit her tongue, not daring to ask after her husband or her daughter.

 
“Hester!”
Lady
Damarus
Regalii
nearly leapt from her chair. Two servants gently held her back by her shoulders. “They told me you had perished!”

Relief at seeing her sister’s battered but smiling face brought tears to her eyes. “It was a near thing. How do you fare,
Damarus
? Does Mother know you are whole?”

“I would hardly call this whole!” Lady
Damarus
ran a hand along her bruised forehead and cheek and pointed to her rose silk gown, burnt and ripped to rags. It had been her favorite, Hester recalled.

“I think my leg is broken,” Hester said, feeling quite stupid.

“Bones heal. But where shall I find another bolt of such fine fabric? This dress took the lot!”

“
Damarus
, where is my husband?”

Her sister paused and glanced around her. “I have no idea. But you know, when I saw him tonight, I was surprised he was yet so handsome! Humans are so very fragile; it was quite a shock! Such short little lives, too. Are you sure it was not his time to die anyway? I have no idea why we must bother to protect them in the first place. They always just up and die not a few short years later. They are just like pets. Really, what is the point and purpose to it?”
Damarus
went on about the injustice of serving pets as Hester’s heart sank.