by A. C. Cobble
Andrew shot the mistress a glare, and she smiled, letting her thoughts trail away unspoken.
“Lilibet was evil,” declared Sam, ignoring the secret looks between the two of them. “She had blood on her hands, more of it than I can fathom. I saw her kill a man with my own eyes! She crushed his skull as easily as I’d drink this ale. That kind of power should not exist in this world.”
“Aye, she killed some men, did she?” replied Andrew, standing up and pointing a finger at Sam. “So you killed her, ey?”
Sam frowned at him, suspicious.
“There is evil in the world,” said Goldthwaite, gesturing with her half-full mug of gin. “I’m not any more sure of this girl’s plans than you, barman, but I do know someone’s got to stand up to people like Lilibet Wellesley. Someone’s got to hold the road between despair and hope.”
“The dark path isn’t the way,” insisted Andrew. “It is too dangerous. The allure is too great.”
“It can be trod safely,” insisted Goldthwaite.
Andrew glowered at the mistress. “You have the knowledge, but you did not seek it. You’ve survived the path for so long because you don’t walk it. You’re standing upon the same spot your mentor left you. That’s a world of difference, seer.”
“Pour me another ale, will you?” asked Sam, sliding her mug toward the barman.
She’d known Andrew for years. She trusted him and knew that he wanted the best for her. He cared for her more than just a frequent customer, and the man would feel real sorrow if she fell to sorcery, but he was just a barman. He spent his days behind his counter, pouring libations, listening to his patron’s stories. He hadn’t seen what she’d seen. He didn’t know.
Sam turned to Goldthwaite. “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it was necessary.”
“I know that,” said the mistress, shaking her head, her braids swaying with the motion.
“You’ll do it, then?”
“I have one condition,” replied the mistress. She drew herself up. “I will teach you what I know, everything that I know, but you must promise me that you’ll never seek Kalbeth again. That is the price I ask. I will lead you as far along the path as I’m able to walk, but you must forget my daughter exists. No matter what happens to me, I ask for your word that you will not go to her.”
Sam sat for a long moment, ignoring Andrew as he plonked a full ale in front of her, spilling the golden liquid on his bar.
Goldthwaite waited patiently, watching her.
Finally, Sam nodded. She reached to the floor of the bar and picked up her pack. She flipped it open and fished out the Book of Law and the sheafs of parchment where she’d taken notes, struggling to translate the obscure grimoire. Even with the resources of Timothy Adriance and Lilibet Wellesley’s trove, she’d only gotten every fourth or fifth word, enough to give her tantalizing clues but not enough to conduct the rituals she sought.
“Can you translate this?” she asked Goldthwaite, flipping open the black leather cover.
Goldthwaite, her eyes scanning the yellowed pages over the rim of her cup of gin, nodded slowly. “Yes, girl, I can help with this.”
Disgusted, Andrew stalked away, muttering under his breath, snatching up an empty mug and filling it for himself.
Sam tried to ignore the man as he glared at her from the other side of his bar counter. She and Goldthwaite had much to do.
The Cartographer XVII
“Herman,” complained Oliver. “Is this really necessary? Surely not every piece of correspondence at the ministry needs to pass over this desk? We have thousands of people working hard on these matters, and I’d like to think a few of them can handle their responsibilities without my involvement.”
“It’s not ministry business,” apologized his chief of staff. “This is all personal correspondence.”
Oliver looked aghast at the pile of sealed envelopes on his desk. He poked a finger against the neatly stacked tower, and it collapsed, thick paper rustling as the envelopes spread across the polished wood in front of him in a slow avalanche.
“There must be… there must be fifty of these,” he stammered. “I hardly know fifty people, much less that many I want to get letters from.”
“Fifty letters?” queried Isabella Child. She tugged her dressing gown tight around her body and walked over to look down at his desk. “This seems a rather light post for a prime minister and a duke, if you ask me.”
Oliver frowned, scooting his chair back apprehensively.
Isabella turned to Winchester. “Did the duke not receive personal letters while in Westundon?”
“He did, m’lady,” replied the valet, looking up from where he was stoking the fire. “Red wine, m’lady, and a plate of cheese and breads?”
“That would suit,” she responded. “Some of those dried fruits too, Winchester?”
“Of course, m’lady.”
“Wait, Winchester,” demanded Oliver. “I never received anything like this in Westundon. A letter or two a day, nothing more. I know I’ll get more correspondence as prime minister, but this is outrageous. Surely this is not right…”
“Ah,” responded the valet, “in my capacity as your trusted servant, I tossed most of the correspondence addressed to you into the fire. I penned some responses myself, when the sender was of high importance, and I laid out one or two letters a day that I thought you might be interested in. Anymore, and I assumed you would disregard them. Chief of Staff Shackles is managing your post, now.”
Oliver frowned, standing up and staring at the pile of correspondence in front of him. He shook his head and repeated, “This is outrageous.”
“I’ll take these,” offered Winchester, scooping up the stack and turning back toward the fire.
“You can’t just throw those away!” barked Herman Shackles, clearly offended at the thought. He moved to take the envelopes from the valet.
Winchester handed them over with a shrug and stated, “I am certainly not going to read through that stack, and if you think the duke will, you’re horribly mistaken.”
“I, ah, I might,” mumbled Oliver. He thought perhaps that he should. Fifty letters, though. Fifty!
Shackles deposited the stack back on the desk, and Isabella began sorting through them.
“Sycophants, beggars, and thieves,” she murmured, pushing several of the envelopes to one side. She glanced at Oliver’s valet. “There are a lot of letters from women, Winchester.”
“Always unopened, I assure you, m’lady.”
She laughed. “Come now, Winchester. I’m no blushing virgin, and everyone in the empire knows that Oliver is not. How many of those letters each day were from his conquests? How many did he reply to?”
“None of them!” protested Oliver. “I never received letters from women. Certainly none I ever responded to.”
Winchester shifted, tugging at the sleeves of his livery. Under his breath, he said, “Perhaps the fire is stoked a bit too hot—”
“You wrote all of those responses?” questioned Isabella, staring at the valet and laughing. “I thought they sounded a bit… formal. Did you read what I wrote?”
“I read them,” admitted the valet, pulling at his collar now.
“And what did you think?” asked Isabella.
“You’re, ah, quite an evocative scribe, m’lady,” said Winchester, twitching like he was being drawn on the rack.
“I’m glad you got something out of it, then,” she said, shaking her head at the blushing and sweating man.
“The wine?” he gasped.
“Yes, Winchester, fetch the wine,” allowed Isabella with a stern look at the valet.
“You are not angry, are you, m’lady?” asked Winchester suddenly. “I, ah, I’ve always strived to serve m’lord as best I’m able. With a lady in the house, I know I’ll need to adjust…”
“You are right. A lady is in the house now, Winchester,” responded Isabella. “I suppose I cannot complain given where our correspondence has gotten me, but from
now on, any letters from aspiring paramours should be handed to me. And, Winchester? Do not read my private letters again. Understood?”
Flushing, Winchester shot Oliver a guilty look, nodded, and left.
Herman Shackles cleared his throat. “M’lord, these letters deserve some response.”
“We’ll figure out a system,” said Isabella. Shackles made as if to comment, but she declared, “Oliver is done for the evening, Herman.”
The chief of staff swallowed and then left as well.
“I think I may enjoy helping to run the household,” murmured Isabella, turning back to the envelopes. “We really must find you a system, though, or perhaps a social secretary? Aria and I shared a girl in Westundon who worked wonders for us. I’ve never met a more organized person. Unfortunately, she was quite pretty…”
Oliver grunted, looking at the letters as if they were some ominously marked snake. The thought of responding to such a pile was quite impossible, but how was he to know if important business was ignored? Winchester, as well as being intensely loyal, was a bit lazy. It didn’t surprise Oliver that the man had a habit of simply throwing things into the fire. As often as Oliver was away on expedition, a dearth of responses would be expected by the minor peers and merchants who tried to get his attention. As prime minister, he would be involved in official Crown business, and he wouldn’t have the excuse of travel. He cringed. Things were going to have to change.
“The Befuddled Sage, what is that?” asked Isabella, holding up an envelope. “Is that a pub? Do you get letters from a pub? My, you have an interesting life…”
Grunting, Oliver leaned forward and snatched the envelope from her hand. He tore it open, noting it seemed to have been sealed with candle wax, which flaked away cleanly as he put a thumb underneath of it.
The Befuddled Sage. It sounded familiar. Frowning, he read the page and then tossed it back down on the desk. He rubbed his face with his hands.
Isabella picked it up. “Sam needs help?” she asked. “That is the priestess who clung to your coattails?”
Oliver nodded. “The Befuddled Sage is a pub she frequented. Andrew is the barman.”
Winchester knocked on the door and then poked his head in. He had a decanter full of wine and a tray full of cheeses.
“Was one of these incinerated letters from Ainsley?” Oliver asked his valet. “Is she back from the United Territories?”
“I believe so, m’lord,” replied Winchester, setting down the refreshments.
“Let her know we sail in the morning,” instructed Oliver. “We’re going to Westundon.”
Nodding, Winchester left, perhaps still thanking the spirits he’d escaped with only a laugh from Isabella.
Oliver watched as his valet shut the door. He stood and walked across the room to pour himself a wine.
Sam in trouble. The barman hadn’t written anything else, hadn’t provided any details. Sam in trouble. Oliver wondered what she’d gotten herself into. He supposed it didn’t matter. She was working for his father now, he suspected, chasing the same spectres she always did, both those brought into the world by sorcerers and those from her past.
Sam was no stranger to trouble or to the Befuddled Sage. If the barman thought it worth writing about, Oliver surmised it was worth going to help. She was his friend, though the oddest, grumpiest, most ungrateful one he recalled ever having. Sipping his wine, he realized he should have told Winchester to pack him a trunk as well. His trunk and his broadsword. Whatever Sam had gotten herself into, he would do what he could.
“I’m going with you,” declared Isabella from where she leaned against his desk. “I want to meet this priestess of yours.”
“Where is she?” he asked the tattooed beauty sitting across from him in the small alcove at the back of the bar.
Kalbeth glanced away from Isabella and frowned at him. “I assume you mean Sam, but I’ve no idea where she is. Did she not move to Southundon, to the royal palace?”
“She did, but yesterday, I received a note from Andrew, the barman at the Befuddled Sage,” explained Oliver. “He said she needed help.”
Kalbeth pursed her lips but did not comment.
“Can you really tell the future?” asked Isabella, holding out her palm. “I’d like to pay for a reading.”
Kalbeth took Isabella’s hand and began kneading the flesh, tracing the lines on the peer’s hand with her fingers.
“Andrew said she left with an older woman,” added Oliver. “He hasn’t seen her since. Said the woman was, ah, perhaps a lady of the night.”
Kalbeth winced.
“What?” asked Isabella, looking down at her hand in surprise.
“Not you,” hissed Kalbeth. She glanced at Oliver. “My mother. Sam must have been with my mother. She’s the proprietress of the Lusty Barnacle. It’s, ah, a pub, where one can relax…”
Oliver nodded. “I’ll go there and ask around.”
Kalbeth shook her head. “Duke Wellesley, it is not a place for you to be seen. I will go there, and I’ll tell you what I find. I assume the barman was of no help? Are you staying in the palace?”
Oliver nodded. “You’re right. Andrew was worried but offered us no clues. He… Your mother, is she, ah… Does she—”
“Yes,” said Kalbeth. “She is more than a simple mistress. She taught me what I know, and she taught Sam’s mentor Thotham as well.”
Oliver smacked a fist on the table in frustration.
Isabella cleared her throat, and Kalbeth glanced back down at the peer’s spread hand.
“When I was a girl,” lilted the baroness, “my sister and our friends would pretend we could read each other’s palms. We’d make up futures for ourselves — who we’d marry, which palace we’d live in, how many children we might have, the kinds of fantasies little girls dream of, you know?”
“Not much has changed,” remarked Kalbeth.
“It is no longer a dream,” responded Isabella.
The palmist looked up at her and then to Oliver.
“What do you see in my future?” questioned the baroness.
“I see your dreams, the same as a girl and as a woman,” said Kalbeth. “They are clear and fluttering just out of reach. What you desire is not what you need, and what you need will hurt you deeply.”
“What does that mean?” asked Isabella. “Why must you seers be so obtuse? My father says it’s because you are charlatans, that you see no truth. Tell me plain, what do you see?”
Kalbeth shook her head and brushed a strand of jet-black hair behind her ear. “True seers see possibility, not certainty. We see the potential outcomes of chance.”
“And what of my dreams?” demanded Isabella. “What do you see of them?”
“You will live a life much different from what you imagine,” said Kalbeth. “Will you become bitter and let it poison you? Will you realize the new life is better than what you dreamt? I see those possibilities, but you are the one who will choose between them.”
Isabella frowned at the palmist.
“Sam’s tattoos,” interrupted Oliver, “they’re linked to spirits, aren’t they? Could you contact the spirits and find out where she is? I imagine it’d be a bit like scrying except the connection is already there. Easy, no?”
Kalbeth frowned and shook her head. “I have no way of finding those specific spirits.”
“Her tattoos?” asked Isabella.
“She has them on her chest and over most of her back,” said Oliver. “Kalbeth inked them and tied them to spirits of the underworld. They can grant Sam, ah, certain powers, which helps in the hunt for sorcerers.”
“How do you know all of this?” wondered Isabella.
“Because he’s seen Sam naked,” answered Kalbeth drolly. “He’s seen me naked as well. Has he told you about that?”
“Hold on!” protested Oliver.
“He has not mentioned it,” said Isabella, taking her hands back slowly. She turned to Oliver. “Do we have something to talk about?”
Isabella looked at Kalbeth, and the seer winked back.
“Andrew told me that when Sam left with this woman, your mother, he was afraid that Sam was walking farther down the path,” said Oliver, leaning forward and grabbing Kalbeth’s wrist, “farther down the path than she already is. You know Sam, how impulsive she is. You know the risks she’ll take, the danger she’ll be in… the danger she’ll put your mother in.”
Kalbeth freed her wrist and tugged her shawl around her shoulders. “Come with me. I’ll take you to the Lusty Barnacle. You wait outside while I speak to my mother. Where Goldthwaite is, we’ll find Sam.”
When they got to the Lusty Barnacle, the place was closed. The sounds of saws and hammers bled out from the open doorway. A pair of men looked to be hanging a new door, though it was rectangular, and the doorway itself was tilted far off-kilter. The men were kicking the doorframe in consternation. Oliver noticed the place had new windows, and a new name was freshly painted above the door.
A thickly muscled man wearing a vest and no shirt stood with his arms crossed in front of the building. His hard glare kept away a handful of disheveled people who looked as if they wanted to go inside. Poppy addicts, Oliver guessed. Beside him, Isabella stared, fascinated at the place and the people around it.
Kalbeth ignored it all and stomped up to the muscled man. “Where’s Goldthwaite, Rance?”
He shrugged.
Kalbeth’s shoulders squared, and she looked as if she was about to give the man a stern lecture.
“I don’t know, girl,” he said. “A couple of days ago, she sold the Barnacle. I haven’t seen her since. New owners ran off most of the girls, but they kept me on. Fixing the place up, see? Aiming for higher paying clientele.”
“She sold the place?” questioned Kalbeth. “A couple of days ago?”