The Shadow of Albion (37 page)

„That’s right, Lady Meriel. The coffee parlor is already reserved for you and your

little friend. It’s wet and it’s late. So why don’t you come inside? Especially in

consideration of the fact that I have a pistol in my pocket and I’m not-in the least

afraid to use it.“! With the light of the doorway behind him, neither woman could see

the speaker’s face. But once heard, the voice was unmistakable.

It was Geoffrey Highclere.

i The last ten days had been interesting, if one were of a I temperament that could

find intense and utter boredom interesting, and Wessex, alas, had been forced years

before to admit that he was just such a person. Any absolute condition was so rare

as to be peculiar, and the peculiar was the Duke of Wessex’s line of country.

Even the frantic sea-hunt for Princess Stephanie, whose disappearance was

gradually becoming common knowledge, lacked any sense of suspense, because no

one really expected to find either the Princess or’ the Christina after so long a time.

The sea did not easily give up her dead, and unlike the land, disaster at sea left no

evidence behind. And if the Princess had washed ashore anywhere along the coasts

of the British Isles, Denmark, or her Baltic neighbors, he would know about it…

which left only one coastline upon which she could have made her landfall: France.

Initially Wessex had ruled that country out – July was calm sailing weather, so the

missing ship could not have been blown off course. The Captain and crew were all

trustworthy and loyal, which ruled out mutiny. And if there had been pirates, one

source or another would have let slip that information. There was no way for the

Christina to have reached a destination so far off course.

No natural way….

But they lived in an unnatural age, and though Wessex half-disbelieved in the Art

Magickal, he could not afford to leave it out of his hypotheses. On the island once

called Logres, the Oldest People had constructed passages that led to Otherwhere,

connecting disparate places and times, so the thing itself was not impossible. Could

not the same sorcery that Christian magicians used to summon demons from their

proper sphere be used to annihilate space and time and cause a sailing ship to vanish

from the coast of Scotland to reappear off the coast of France?

Assume that it could. And suddenly de Sade’s appearance at the Danish court

became much more comprehensible – to attempt to sway the Prince Regent in the

direction of France by any means fair or foul – but more to me point, to somehow

use his arts to bespell me Queen Christina so that the Princess, captured and held

safe in France, became a hostage to ensure Prince Frederick’s new pro-French

position.

Wessex wished that Koscuisko were here, and not safely back in England. The

Polish Hussar was a jack-of-all-trades, and more than once had saved Wessex’s skin

and his own through the use of some scrap of arcane knowledge he’d managed to

pick up in the course of his vagabond career. Koscuisko would probably be able to

tell Wessex if de Sade had me capabilities the Duke had imputed to him – at the

moment, Wessex’s shatterwitted theory had all the respectability of a blind and

desperate guess.

Of course, there was the heartening fact that someone had tried to kill him just

yesterday.

He’d been walking back to MacLaren’s house very early in the morning. A

wearying day spent presenting the public face of England’s solicitude for her hopeful

ally had been followed by a slightly more interesting evening party given by a Baron

Anderssen, at which Wessex had sifted gossip, hint, and innuendo. He’d thought

nothing of walking home alone afterward, for the moon was nearly full and the

streets of the Danish capital notoriously safe. He’d taken a small candle-lantern with

him to light some of the darker corners of the streets he would have to traverse, bid

his host a warm farewell, and was on his way.

And he’d been followed.

Even with as many bottles as Wessex had drunk that evening – for it had been an

exclusively masculine gathering – he detected the presence behind him almost at

once. Two men; either very eager or not very skilled. In less than ten paces more he

had made up his mind what he would do about it, and began feigning the sloppy gait

and wandering attention of one far more intoxicated than he actually was.

A block later the narrow street opened out into a small square of the sort that had

a pump and trough at its center. Wessex had stopped at the trough and splashed

cold water on his face, then gone on…leaving his lantern behind.

As he’d hoped, the invitation was too good to refuse. He’d barely reached the

street at the far end of the square when they attacked.

„Can. I help you, gentlemen?“ Wessex asked, drawing his sword and turning on

them in one practiced moment. He blessed the happy accident that had let this

happen while he was in uniform; he need not deploy any of his more clandestine

weaponry against these bravos when his saber was ready to hand.

There were two of them – neither, from the look of him, a Dane. The taller one

looked to be Irish; he carried a stout cudgel and seemed more than willing to use it.

His companion was shorter and darker; he had a pistol thrust into his waistband and

held a dagger with a very keen edge to its glittering blade.

Wessex recognized him. It was Charles Corday – Gambit – Talleyrand’s

assassin.

„Allons!“ Gambit snapped at his companion. The Irishman began to move

forward, swinging his shillelagh back and forth in front of him in experimental

swipes. Wessex retreated warily. His saber was the finest Sheffield steel, but the

stout stick in his opponent’s hand could snap the blade with one blow.

„Sure now and it’s a terrible thing, but its Your Lordship’s life we’ll be wanting,

so you’d best be making up your mind to lie down at once, so says Sean O’Brien.“

„I tell you what, O’Brien,“ Wessex answered back easily. „Throw down that twig

and tell me who sent you, and I promise only to thrash you severely.“

Sean O’Brien threw back his red-maned head and roared with laughter. „Sure,

and it’s a rare waste to have to kill you, me Lordship,“ he said. But there was no

regret in his voice, only anticipation,, and his small eyes were cold. Without further

warning, he charged.

But Wessex wasn’t there. Like an acrobat evading a maddened bull, he slid aside

and allowed the force of O’Brien’s first ferocious rush to pass him by. His blade

flashed in the moonlight, and O’Brien went down with a roar, hobbled by a cut to

the thigh.

Wessex looked for Gambit, his eyes probing the shadows. He’d resigned himself

to having only one man to question, but to his faint surprise Corday hadn’t bolted.

He stood in the mouth of the alleyway, the pistol Wessex had seen held in both

hands.

„You are not so drunk as you appear, cher“ Gambit Corday said reprovingly in

his heavily-accented English. The barrel did not waver, even in the uncertain light: the

uniform of the Eleventh Hussars had been designed to be visible at all times, and

Wessex made an easy target.

„And you are nothing like a Dane, Frenchman,“ Wessex answered. O’Brien was

getting to his feet, and in a moment Gambit would fire.

„And I am not French. I am Acadian, me,“ Gambit said proudly, and then fired

with one lightning movement –

 – straight into O’Brien’s chest.

The Irishman fell back with a roar, blood fountaining from his wound for a few

brief seconds as his heart beat its last. The noise would summon the watch –

Wessex intended to be far from here when that happened. He glanced back at

Gambit.

An Acadian – a settler in Acadie, one of the New World colonies that had once

been French, but had been ceded to England almost a century ago. Her inhabitants

had not taken kindly to the change in government and had been dispossessed as a

result. Most of them had gone south to settle in the still-French Louisiana Colony,

though Wessex knew that the children and grandchildren of the Acadians still

mourned their lost homeland.

„We ‘ave been on opposite sides before, but now I't’ink we are on de same one,

me,“ Gambit said to Wessex. „Wat you look for – maybe it better dat you find it,

eh? You put it back where it.belong, an’ nobody bodder wit’ us over de sea.“

Wessex drew breath for a reply, but Gambit had already vanished. Wessex

could-hear the rattle of shutters opening in the windows above the streets, and knew

he had little time to waste if he was to escape undiscovered. He turned to the body at

his feet.

First de Sade, now Gambit. Their presence argued a major clandestine operation

being staged on Danish soil, but Wessex could not imagine what it was – or why

Gambit had felt the need to save him when his orders had obviously been to see

Wessex dead.

O’Brien had little of value about his person, and nothing in writing. It was

possible that the man had been unable to read. But he apparently had been able to

count very well… he was carrying ten Imperial golden eagles with Bonaparte’s

laurel-crowned image 6n their face.

Wessex pocketed the money and took to his heels. A few minutes later he was

safely within doors at Mac-Lareil’s house, being helped out of his uniform coat by a

silently-disapproving Atheling.

„Have mercy, man,“ Wessex protested. „I didn’t get a spot of blood on me.“

„Your Grace is perhaps mistaken,“ Atheling murmured, drawing Wessex’s

attention to a smudge on his scarlet trousers that was beginning to turn brown as it

dried. „But I daresay that I can save them, Your Grace.“

Wessex waved this aside; God knew Atheling had been given ample opportunity

to learn every method known to manservant of removing blood from clothing.

„May one ask if any events of unusual interest have transpired this evening?“ the

valet pursued.

„Nothing,“ Wessex said shortly.

Except that two men – paid in French eagles – had been sent to kill him tonight.

Except that one had killed the other rather than fulfil his commission. And that

Gambit, though in the pay of France, styled himself an Acadian … who wanted

Wessex to find what he was looking for, and then put it back where it belonged.

Wessex had a hunch Gambit hadn’t been referring to Princess Stephanie – but

what had the man meant?

Wessex had not the slightest notion. It was all very mysterious.

Things were looking up.

There had seemed no recourse but to do what Mr. Highclere said or be shot on

the spot, so Sarah had dismissed Simon and she and Meriel had gone into the parlor

Mr. Highclere had reserved for them. Meriel was white to the lips and shaking; if

Sarah had needed any further proof that this had not been a trap of her friend’s

devising, Meriel’s shock at seeing her uncle provided it.

The coffee room already had a collation laid out in expectation of their arrival:

pasties and cheese and a steaming pot of coffee. A vigorous fire blazed on the small

hearth, and despite herself, Sarah felt cheered – and hungry-She knew who she was,

now, but her orderly American world had been turned inside out: she had been thrust

into a strange mirror-image of an England she barely recognized, a world populated

with spirits and woodkin. Any daughter of the People knew that they shared the

world not only with the Speaking Animals, but with the Firstborn of the Great Spirit

– but Sarah Cunningham of Baltimore had never expected to see proof of that, let

alone find herself forced to masquerade as her own strange twin in a world that held

such creatures openly.

But despite the unbelievability of her whole situation, Mr. Highclere presented a

far more urgent threat than mere magical oddity. However strange and unreal this

new world might be to Sarah Cunningham, Mr. Highclere’s gun was tangible enough.

Reality and masquerade blended; bearing Meriel with her, Sarah swept past him

just as the true Duchess of Wessex would have done and seated herself upon the

long bench that ran around two sides of the room. Behind them, Geoffrey pulled the

sliding door of the coffee room shut, sealing them off from prying eyes.

„Now that you’ve got us, Mr. Highclere, what do you mean to do with us?“

With a detached clinical interest, Sarah heard her voice wavering between the

broad vowels of Baltimore and the clipped English way of talking she had learned as

the Marchioness of Roxbury. It was as if she had slumbered these past months, and

now was awake… but to what end?