Seven for a Secret (4 page)

Abby Irene, pretending obliviousness, continued, “The murder of Cain will be avenged by God seven times.”

Sebastien nodded. “Seven is the number of God the world over. Hinduism offers seven chakras, and seven sages. In Islam, there are seven heavens and earth, seven doors to heaven, and seven fires in hell.” It was the religion of his mortal youth, though in a millennia past it had changed as much as Christianity. He would not say that, though. Not only were they uncomfortable with change, but the mortals hated to be reminded that their ancient traditions were often no deeper than a century—or less.

As if age and custom had aught to do with value.

He drew a breath to continue speaking—he only needed breath for that—and paused instead. They could sit and list sacred numbers all morning, and Abby Irene’s egg was
getting cold. “Abby Irene,” he said, making sure he had her attention before he spoke further. “How do you plan to use this information to bring down the occupation?”

The old sorceress gave him a bent, ironic smile. “Magic,” she said. “Sebastien, would you bring me over to my breakfast, please?”

Phoebe cleared her throat. “So if we have got werewolves, what are we going to do about it?”

Abby Irene rolled her shoulders. “What would you do with a cadre of invincible fighters, Mrs. Smith? If you were the Chancellor?”

“Send them to the Russian front,” Phoebe said promptly. And then she stopped herself and said, “No. I’d keep a few for myself, and send the rest to the Russian front.”

Abby Irene’s lips drew taut over her toothless jaws. “Just so, Mrs. Smith. Just so.”

“The first liniment, then, is composed of the fat of young children seethed in a brazen vessel until it becomes thick and slab, and then scummed. With this are mixed
eleoselinum
,
hemlock;
aconitum
, aconite;
frondes populeae
, poplar leaves; and
fuligo
, soot.”

—Montague Summers,
The Werewolf in Lore and Legend
, 1933

They secured their revolvers, braided their hair, and got into their nightgowns. Adele slipped into Ruth’s narrow bed as soon as the lights were out. Despite the trouble they were already in, Ruth slid an arm around Adele’s waist and spooned against her back, pushing her nose against the nape of Adele’s neck. She still smelled of lilies and hairspray, and under her nightgown Ruth could feel the outline of the wolfskin belt. It wasn’t really too dangerous, sleeping together fully clothed; neither the housekeeper nor Herr Professor was likely to find it suspicious. Most of the girls did it; they had all grown up post-War destitute in big families, sharing beds and body heat. They wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t. They all found it strange to sleep alone.

Ruth wondered, though, if any of the other volunteers were in love. You weren’t supposed to fall in love with other girls. But Adele loved her too—had kissed her first, in an act of desperation, one night when Ruth found her hopelessly crying and unable to explain.

And now they cuddled together, breathing in unison, and whatever the future brought, they would face it together. Just knowing that made uncertainty easier to bear. Ruth knew that the Bund was supposed to instill confidence and loyalty to Prussia in English girls. It worked on some—Adele and Ruth had both lived here since they were twelve years old, and sometimes it was hard even for Ruth to remember that there were other ways of thinking—and with some it was hard to tell. Everyone mouthed the rhetoric.

Which of them really believed in her soul what the Prussians said was anybody’s guess. Ruth presumed most of the girls didn’t have reasons as good as hers to distrust what the tutors told them. But Ruth’s grandmother had died in the camps. Her grandfather, who had barely escaped Prussia with his life to join his son in England before the invasion, had spoken in great detail of starvation, of men and women and children rounded up and shipped like cattle in boxcars to workhouses and to murder factories.

So she held on to that, to the memory of her Zayde’s toes nipped-off from frostbite, and it was easier to remember that everything Herr Professor Schroeder told them about the master race and their special place in the world was horrible lies. It helped her smile to him, and lie right back with conviction.

Whatever Herr Professor Schroeder thought about Ruth being the ringleader, it was Adele who made sure they were up and dressed, faces and hands cold-water scrubbed and their hair combed wet and braided tightly back before sunrise. So when the crisp knock came on their door, Ruth could simply open it and step through, ready for duty.
Rebecca, the maid who had come to awaken them, was too well-disciplined to betray either surprise or satisfaction at their preparedness. It was, Ruth thought, a skill she should also cultivate.

„Miss Krupps is expecting you,” Rebecca said. She was no older than Ruth, but a servant rather than a student—brown-haired and weak-chinned, with the watery eyes and transparent complexion of a true Englishwoman. She raised a flickering taper in a copper holder beside her face. There was no economy in using electric lights for one servant to walk up the back stairs and collect two disgraced girls from their dormitory.

„Thank you,” Adele answered. „Are you to show us down?”

„As you wish, Miss.”

Single file, they descended the servant’s stair, another mark of disapproval.

Miss Krupps was the housekeeper, and Ruth thought her as tidy and complete as a cat. She even looked rather
like a cat, green-eyed under her soft steel-gray bun, with a tendency to tuck away stray tendrils of hair as if grooming her whiskers and ears. She was soft-spoken and considerate and Ruth also thought no one with the slightest trace of common sense ever would care to see her anything but
soft-spoken and considerate. Some people wore their
authority with a booming voice and a swagger. And some wore it as if it were a veil—weightless, seemingly inconsequential, but always present.

Miss Krupps was wearing that authority as she stood waiting, aprons in hand, until Rebecca delivered Adele and Ruth unto her. „You’ve left your pistols in your room,” she said, disapproving.

Ruth, tying off her apron, said, „Yes, Miss Krupps. We thought they would only be in the way.”

Miss Krupps frowned. „Tomorrow, you’ll wear them. What is your duty?”

Ruth and Adele answered in unison, „It is our duty at
all times to be ready to defend the Homeland and the
Chancellor, Miss Krupps.”

Sternly, the housekeeper nodded. „Today, you may take extra marksmanship practice over the lunch hour to correct the oversight.”

Adele frowned at Ruth. Ruth, with an effort, managed not to return the grimace. Short sleep and no luncheon, then, in addition to the extra work. „Yes, Miss Krupps,” Ruth said, while Adele echoed her a half-beat behind.

Adele added, „We’re sorry, Miss Krupps,” and somehow managed to sound as if she meant it, though Miss Krupps studied them each by turn, gaze intent under an unpersuaded brow.

Finally, she nodded and turned away. „You won’t permit it to happen again. You’ll find scrub brushes, paring knives, and potatoes on the drain board. Please dice the potatoes for Bauernfrüstück, and let me know when they are done so I can have you start on the onions.”

Ruth tried to keep her expression ladylike and serene, as Herr Professor preferred, but she was afraid she glowered at Miss Krupps’ back for a moment too long. Adele saw the glare; Rut knew because Adele tugged Ruth’s elbow and moved her towards the big sink full of cold water, and a pile of potatoes suitable for serving a hearty breakfast to twenty-three—two adults, and twenty-one students ranged in age from ten to sixteen.

Abby Irene didn’t realize she’d nodded off over her breakfast until she felt Sebastien’s cool hand cupped behind her neck. When she opened her eyes again, she saw her own hands resting on either side of the breakfast tray and the cracked-open egg with a half-eaten toast point resting beside it, all distorted through the reading glasses slipping down her nose.

“Phoebe’s right,” Sebastien said. “I’ve abused you shamefully. To bed, Abby Irene!”

“I’m not a child,” she said grumpily, painfully aware of her own querulousness and how ridiculous it was to protest adult competence while still lifting her chin from her chest. Old age might as well be childhood, for all the capability and self-determination it stole. Her neck ached abominably, as did her crabbed hands. She closed her hands on the table edge when he would have rolled her away, knotting her jaw stubbornly. “I’m going to eat my breakfast, if you are quite finished with wronging the ancientry.”

His sigh stirred the hairs at the nape of her neck. She was supposed to be too old to feel a thrill at his nearness, but a shiver ran up across her scalp and around her throat nonetheless.

“Ancientry, are you now? I am not two-and-twenty, Abigail Irene. Nor are you a shepherdess.” He kissed her scalp, cool lips, the weight of his hands on her shoulders.

“Oh, but I am,” she said. She fumbled up the toast point. It was cold, but that didn’t matter. “And see, I have failed the sheep.” She would have made a broad gesture, taking in all of London, but she needed both hands to steady the egg cup and manage the toast. “And the wolves have come in among them.”

Sebastien, admitting defeat, gave her shoulders a soft squeeze before he stepped away. He came around her and poured off her cold tea into a potted palm. There was yet sunlight, though clouds promised to seal the sky by lunch-time, so he made sure not to come too near the window, though the back of the house still lay in morning shadow and the conservatory roof beyond gave the protection of shade.

He refilled the cup and set it by her hand, for which she rewarded him with a smile. He leaned a hip against the edge of the table, his shoulders against the wall, and folded his arms as he glanced down at her.

She was not used to seeing him defensive. She looked down, at the toast and jellied egg, and this time managed to get the damned thing into her mouth.

As she gummed it, Sebastien said, “Do you really think the Prussians would….”

She swallowed toast, washed it down with tea, and said, “Ulfhethinn.”

Sebastien blinked at her. “I don’t know that word.”

She sighed and pushed her spectacles up her nose, careful of potentially eggy fingers. There was nothing sadder than an old woman with food on her face. “Sebastien. Tell me you didn’t know any Vikings in the ninth century.”

He snorted laughter. “I walked East, when I walked. And I have forgotten most of that. So what are Ulfhethinn, mi corazón?”

“What is an Ulfhethinn, you mean. Plural Ulfhethnar. The wolf-hided ones. Do you know what a Berserk is?”

“Bear-shirt,” he said, nodding. “There was a werewolf equivalent?”

“History is divided as to whether they were shape
changers or merely possessed of a wolf-spirit—”

“Merely,” he interrupted mildly.

She covered her yawn with the toast-free hand and smiled. “As you say. But the Prussians have something of a fetish for Teutonic imagery. Which is to say Norse imagery, to a fair approximation.”

“It’s endearing when you lecture.”

She set the last corner of toast down on the plate. “Do you wish the answer, or not?”