“Do you now? I happen to have some friends there too. Perhaps we’ll be seeing more of each other then.”
“Perhaps.”
It’s late in the afternoon when the coach makes an unscheduled stop. We stopped just a few miles back for tea and to allow the horses to rest, so I know it can’t be another break. Connor must come to the same conclusion, as he sticks his head out the window and shouts, “What are you doing? Why have we stopped?”
The coachman doesn’t need to answer; I can see the riders approaching from all sides. Bandits. Connor sticks his head back into the coach and turns to me. “Don’t worry, love, I shan’t let them harm a hair on your head.” He takes a pistol from his pocket and pulls apart his walking stick to reveal a rapier.
“I can take care of myself,” I snarl, reaching into my jacket for my crossbow and a pistol identical to Connor’s.
There’s no time for talking, but Connor smiles at me with affection. We come up with the same plan, Connor turning to the left and me turning to the right. We let the bandits close in, waiting for half of them to dismount from their horses. They stroll up to the carriage, not looking the least bit concerned for their safety. They’ve probably done this dozens of times, robbing the innocent people along the road and leaving the bodies for the local wildlife to pick clean.
The apparent leader is a broad-shouldered man with a thick ginger beard. He has an older-model pistol than Connor and I, but at this range it wouldn’t really matter. “Hand over your valuables and we’ll—”
The man doesn’t get to finish as Connor puts a musket ball through his throat. I fire my pistol into the eye of another bandit. While the others are surprised, Connor and I leap out of the carriage. I waste little time in putting a bolt from my crossbow—a normal iron head—into the heart of one of the bandits still on his horse.
Then I jam the crossbow back into my sling and begin using the martial arts Hisae taught me as a novice. The bandits aren’t prepared for such fighting, relying on clumsy moves more useful in tavern brawls. I duck under one haymaker to punch the bandit in the kidneys and then take hold of his shirt to fling him against the carriage. A roundhouse kick sends another bandit flying, where he wisely lies in a heap.
One of those still mounted levels his musket at me. I mumble a few magic words and his rifle turns into a snake that sinks its fangs into his forearm before slithering off. The two remaining bandits stare wide-eyed at me, one screaming, “Witch!”
They wisely take off, leaving their comrades behind. I’m surprised to find Connor has already taken care of his share of the bandits, a half-dozen men lying bleeding at his feet. He doesn’t even have a scratch on him and I wonder if he has some magical abilities as well. He kicks the limp form of the ginger-bearded leader as he wipes his rapier clean with a piece of cloth torn from the man’s shirt. “Good to see you’re unhurt, lass. Shall we be on our way?”
“Good idea,” I say. I accept his hand to help me back up into the coach. The coachman wastes no time in getting the carriage underway again.
***
Our conversation once we resume our journey is a lot more open than before. Connor gestures to the crossbow underneath my jacket. “That’s a nice bit of equipment there. Don’t believe I’ve ever seen that before. Where’d you get it?”
I pull aside my jacket so he can see the sling. “I made it myself. Makes it a lot easier to conceal—and to take it out when I need it.”
“Quite ingenious, I must say.” Connor leans close enough that his nose is almost touching my left breast. I wonder if perhaps that’s his real goal, but his eyes seem focused more on the sling and my crossbow.
“That stick of yours is pretty nice too.”
He leans back and holds up his walking stick with the rapier hidden inside. “Yes, it’s quite clever. Got it from a bloke in Milan. In my business it pays to be prepared.”
“What business is that?”
“Armaments.”
I wince as if someone’s kicked me in the stomach. Arms merchants are about as low on my list of favorite occupations as bandits or the pope. Arms dealers like Connor equipped the men who took Henri from me so long ago. It seems impossible that a gentleman like Connor could work in such a horrible business.
“I take it you don’t approve?”
“Generally I don’t think people need any help in killing each other.” To my surprise he laughs at this. “Did I say something funny?”
“No. You are quite correct. Those like our friends back there don’t need my help. That’s why I don’t sell to them. I sell only to those who will use my weapons properly.”
“‘Properly’ meaning what?”
“I sell only to those fighting for a just cause.”
“And who determines whether it’s just or not?”
“I do.”
I snort at this, which back home would earn me a scolding for not acting like a proper lady. “So you like to play God then?”
“It may seem that way, but what happens with my weapons is my responsibility. I saw early on what happens when weapons are used unjustly.” As it turns out, Connor left out something earlier: during his first voyage at sea, his ship was boarded by pirates. Connor was taken aboard their ship and pressed into service. Being only a teenager, he found the life fun at first, a grand adventure far from the docks of Edinburgh.
Over the next decade, the atrocities he witnessed—and was forced to participate in—began to wear on him. When the Royal Navy caught up to Connor’s ship, he jumped into the ocean. For at least a week he drifted, clinging to a piece of the ship’s hull.
The current brought him to the Spanish coast, where he washed up on a beach, too hungry and thirsty even to move. “By that point I didn’t care if the gulls or something else devoured me right there on the beach. I knew I had wasted my life. I knew nothing awaited me but an eternity of torment.”
Connor obviously didn’t die that day. A fisherman chanced by and took him in, nursing him back to health. As he lay in bed, eating stale bread and drinking thin soup, Connor knew he had to atone for his many evil deeds. “I thought of joining the priesthood, but I couldn’t read and I didn’t have the patience in any case.”
While he tried to figure out what to do, Connor went to work with the fisherman. He found the actual fishing part to be tiresome; where he shone was back at the docks. “I discovered I had a gift for salesmanship. I could talk people into paying twice what the other fishermen were charging for the same fish.”
The final piece of the puzzle to turn Connor from pirate to arms dealer happened not long after that when some of his former brethren raided the fishing village. The fishermen had few weapons to fight back with and by the time anyone could get help, the pirates were already gone. “They burned the place to the ground. Killed the men and elderly. The women and children they took to sell into slavery.” Connor survived by virtue of being out fishing at the time; when he came back there were only ashes left.
From that moment on, he dedicated himself to helping those like in the fishing village by selling them weapons to defend themselves. His gift for salesmanship and years at sea allowed him to quickly establish a thriving business, one that made him into a wealthy gentleman and allowed him to return home to his native Scotland.
“I don’t spend much time here,” he says. “Haven’t got a wife or even a steady girlfriend. Probably got more than a few children scattered around the world.”
“And is it your business taking you to Orkney?”
“Quite so. There’s some poor blokes in Kirkwall who want my help. Lots of strange things happening out there recently. People disappearing and such. They want me to help them improve their defenses.”
I nod at this, though I know no amount of muskets or cannons are going to help. The real problem is a rogue witch recruiting the mortals of the area to her cause. I doubt there’s anything I can say that will turn Connor back, not without revealing myself as a witch.
As if reading my thought
s, he asks, “So Miss Joubert, what business brings you out here? I can’t imagine you’re out to join a nunnery.”
“I’m looking for a friend. She’s one of the ones gone missing.”
“And you thought you would need a crossbow and pistol to find her?”
“I like to be prepared too.”
Connor shakes his head. “You’re a very mysterious young woman, Sylvia Joubert. But my mother always taught me not to pry in a woman’s affairs.”
He leans back in his seat, but even when he pretends to sleep, I know he’s watching me, trying to figure me out.
***
Night has fallen by the time we reach Thurso. There isn’t much to see anyway, just a small village with a church in the center. The carriage drops us off at the inn, but neither of us feel like sleeping yet. We go over to the tavern, where a few drunks are still lingering. Connor tells the bartender to bring us two mugs of ale and then we sit at a table in the corner.
“I take it you don’t mind drinking ale,” he says.
“I’d prefer whiskey.”
“Not wine? I thought that’s all you French drank.”
My nose wrinkles. I’ve never liked wine, the drink always reminding me of the vineyard—and Henri. “I’m not like most French women.”
“So I’ve noticed.”
The bartender slams a pair of mugs down on the table and then waddles away. We’ve spoiled his dreams of closing up and going home for the night. Not to mention one of his troublesome customers is a woman. Far-flung towns like this aren’t the most open-minded.
Connor doesn’t press me for any more details on my life or why I’m going to Orkney. Instead, we spend hours discussing a subject of mutual interest: weapons. While most of his weapons sales these days are firearms, he thinks guns are far from reaching their full potential. “One shot and you might as well be done. That’s no way to fight. The first one to come up with a gun that loads more quickly will be a millionaire.”
We both still prefer the more old-fashioned weapons like rapiers, knives, and crossbows. These are far more reliable, not to mention it doesn’t take two minutes to reload a crossbow. “Guns are only good at scaring people,” Connor says. “Like those bandits earlier. Without my rapier—and you—I would have been a dead man.”
“There’s no denying they’re the future.”
“No, there’s not.” He taps his walking stick against the table and then sighs. “Won’t be long before that’s most all anyone uses.”
“That ought to be good for your business then.”
“Probably.” He takes a gulp of his mug and then turns to look me in the eye. “After this business of yours in these parts is concluded, what are you planning to do?”
“I’m not sure. Something will come up, I’m sure.”
“How would you like to come work for me?”
“Work for you?”
“Why not? I’m not a young man anymore. I could use a partner—someone young and strong to take over after I’m gone. What do you say?”
“I don’t think your customers would want to buy weapons from a woman.”
Connor snorts at this. “When people are desperate, they’ll buy from anyone.”
“I don’t know. I’d have to think about it.”
“Sleep on it, lass. We can talk about it some more on the ferry tomorrow. I think you have a lot of potential.”
“You’ve only known me for half a day.”
He smiles at this. “I can see it in your eyes. You’re the kind of girl who likes a challenge.”
It’s my turn to smile now. “My sister said the same thing.”
“Maybe she’s right.”
“She usually is.”
We get separate rooms, Connor giving me a fatherly kiss on the forehead before he goes into his room. “See you tomorrow, bright and early,” he says with a wink.
Remembering what Glenda told me about Morgana, I don’t go to sleep. I sit in a chair and pop open the brown vial I took from Aggie’s hope chest. The potion tastes spicy, like hot peppers. My eyes water slightly and I cough. I reach for the pitcher of water beside the bed and pour myself a cup.
There’s nothing for me to do then but think. If I were Sophie I would use a Glow in the Dark spell to read a book. If I were Aggie I would probably be fucking Connor or maybe some anonymous stable boy. Since I’m not either of my sisters, I stare out the window, at the harbor. The moonlight makes the water sparkle while in the distance I hear a wolf howl. The latter is ominous enough to give me a chill.
I think about what Connor said in the tavern. Since Henri died, I’ve never considered being anything but a witch. Once he was taken from me, there seemed to be little left for me in the mortal world. For nearly two centuries I’ve lived amongst the mortals without really being amongst them. I’ve existed on the fringe of their world, lurking in the shadows. I’ve learned to tune out their petty wars, focusing only on destroying the demons and evil spirits.
If I accept Connor’s offer, maybe I can do some good in the mortal world. Maybe I can help save villages like the little Spanish fishing village Connor saw burn to the ground. Maybe I can keep another innocent boy like Henri from being killed. Or maybe by selling weapons I would only be encouraging more death and destruction.
I still haven’t come to a decision when the sun begins peeking over the horizon. I wait an hour longer for Connor to knock at my door. Then I get up and cross the hall to his room. I knock on the door but don’t receive a response. I try knocking again, but he still doesn’t answer.
I get another feeling, like when I went in search of Henri. I use a Locksmith spell to unlock the door and throw it open. “No,” I whisper.
Connor lies in bed, his body rigid and cold. His eyes are open, staring up at the ceiling. I throw aside the blankets to examine his body. There’s no sign of a wound. A poison? Or perhaps it was natural causes; as he said, he wasn’t a young man.
I know it’s not either of these things. Morgana had killed him while he slept. She had bent his dreams, perhaps making him dream of falling from a great height or drowning. Now he was dead. And it is my fault for not protecting him.
I leave the room to find the ferry and make Morgana pay.
Chapter 11
There’s no one else going to Orkney that morning. I huddle in the bow of the boat so I won’t have to speak to the ferryman, not wanting to talk to anyone at the moment. I don’t cry for Connor; instead I stare straight ahead at the islands, trying to catch some sign of where Morgana might be hiding.
I’ve only met Morgana in passing at a few coven meetings. She didn’t look much different than most of the witches: elderly, chubby, gray hair, and brown eyes. I don’t remember ever hearing her speak; she wasn’t the type to call attention to herself. Maybe there was a reason for that; maybe she’s been secretly plotting this for decades.
The question is what exactly she’s planning. From what Glenda said, Morgana is putting mortals under her control. For what purpose? Even an army of mortals couldn’t do anything against the coven. Maybe she wants to use them as human shields to keep Glenda—or me—from destroying her.
The other question is why she killed Connor. Even if he sold the villagers some muskets and cannons, they weren’t any real threat to her. All the muskets and cannons in the world couldn’t hurt a witch—unless she was careless. I doubt Morgana is.
Maybe she did it just to get my attention. Maybe she thought if she killed Connor I would run scared back to the coven. If so then she really doesn’t know me. Or maybe she did know me well enough to know that killing Connor would make me angry. Maybe she thinks I’ll be more likely to make a mistake then.
There are too many questions and no real answers—at least not yet. Once I get my hands on Morgana, then I’ll make her talk. Then I can find out why she killed Connor and what she hoped to gain with this whole little stunt in the first place.
The ferry docks in Kirkwall, which isn’t much different than Thurso. The main diffe
rence is that it’s a lot windier here, enough that I wish I’d brought something warmer to wear. I wrap my jacket tightly around my body against the chill and then walk along the docks to find a boat I can take to search the other islands for Morgana. I know she won’t be here in the city or in any populated area. Whatever she’s up to is secret, which means she’ll have gone to ground somewhere.
With the coven’s money I requisitioned from Sophie I’m able to convince a grizzled old man to take me around the islands. “This isn’t a place for sightseeing,” he says. I show him the coins, which doesn’t do anything to brighten his mood, but does let me on his boat.
“I want to go to the smallest, least populated islands first,” I tell him. “Any caves or caverns or anything like that around here?”
“Nothing but cliffs and rocks,” the mariner says.
“Great.” It doesn’t take long to see that the old mariner is right; there really isn’t anything to see except for rocky islands and the occasional cliffs. Still, I tell him to sail as close to each island as possible, searching for any caves or crevices where Morgana might be hiding.
After hours at sea, my stomach begins to rumble. I wish I’d thought to bring something to eat with me, but I hadn’t hoped to be out here all day. I can conjure up some food if I want, but that would give myself away to the old man—and probably Morgana. She still might be able to sense me, but using magic would only be sending up a signal fire.
It’s past noon when I finally pick up a clue. Against the sandstone cliffs, I see a patch of stone that’s a shade of red-brown darker than the rest, as if the stone for that spot has been dragged in from somewhere else. I point to this spot. “Take me over there.”
The old mariner grumbles something under his breath, but he complies. The waves pick up as we get closer to shore, until I have to grab onto the sides of the boat to keep from being tossed out. “Storm coming in,” the old man says.
“Not a storm,” I whisper. This is magic; Morgana is trying to keep me away. That also means she knows I’m coming. But then I never expected this to be easy.
Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Call Page 95