Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Call

by P. T. Dilloway

  “How can you be sure?”

  Sophie smiles at me, which is almost as chilling as what I just witnessed in the circle. “That’s what happened to us.”

  “Us? You mean—”

  “Yes. You, me, and Agnes met a similar fate.”

  “But why?”

  “I’m not sure yet.” Sophie’s smile fades a little. “I warned you about Glenda, didn’t I?”

  “Are you sure about this?”

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense.” Sophie pats my shoulder. “Go home and look at that portrait of us. Really look at it. Then you’ll understand.”

  I vanish back home a few minutes later. The portrait still hangs in the living room, over the mantle. I stare at it for what seems like hours. The more I do, the more I begin to understand what Sophie meant. There’s Mama with her black hair and brown eyes. Aggie with her blond hair and blue eyes. Sophie with her brown hair and blue eyes. And then there’s me with my red hair and green eyes. We don’t look anything alike—especially me. The more closely I look, the more I try to see anything in common between us. There’s nothing—not even Aggie and Sophie’s eyes are the same shade of blue.

  I spin around and nearly lay Sophie out when she taps me on the back. “Don’t ever do that!” I shout at her.

  “You see it now, don’t you?”

  I nod to her. “There’s no resemblance between us at all.”

  “Exactly. And you know what that means, don’t you?”

  “Glenda gave us that potion and then had Mama raise us.” I think of all the times Mama harped on us about being “proper.” She said it was to teach us discipline, but maybe there was something more sinister involved; maybe she wanted to brainwash us into being good little witches so Glenda wouldn’t have to destroy us again.

  I sag onto the couch, burying both hands in my red hair that is nothing like that of my “sisters” or my “mother.” Sophie sits down next to me and pats my back. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I know this is very distressing.”

  “No kidding.” I look up at her, barely holding back tears. “What do we do now?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Leave me to find some evidence. Once I have it, then we can go to some of the younger witches, those who aren’t as loyal to Glenda. We can force her to step down.”

  “What about Agnes?”

  “You can’t say anything to her about it. You saw how she was blubbering in there. She’s not as strong as you and I. Once I have the proof, then we’ll tell her.”

  “So what am I supposed to do while you’re getting this proof?”

  Sophie only shrugs. “I’m sure you can think of something.”

  It’s later, when I’m unpacking my supplies from that disastrous assignment that I do think of something. Holding up the pistol and crossbow I used reminds me of the bandits—and Connor. I remember what he said to me in the tavern. Now seems like a good time to start a new business.

  Chapter 12

  It turns out that Connor is right: when people are desperate, they’ll turn to anyone willing to help them—even a woman. My first clients are ironically fighting against my homeland, the English, Dutch, Spanish, and Germans all battling the expansionist French king Louis XIV. I spend a sleepless night in Connor’s old house before I decide that so long as these other countries aren’t trying to invade France then it’s all right.

  Connor was also right to say that this business would be a challenge. Mama never took us even to the market, so I don’t grasp the concept of haggling. This nearly sinks my first deal with the English, who want to buy some naval cannons to expand their navy. When they try to negotiate a lower price, I reach into my jacket for my trusty crossbow. In turn I have three pistols aimed at me.

  “Are you mad?” the Englishman making the deal shouts.

  “Probably,” I say. “You can take what I’m offering or look somewhere else.”

  They make the deal without any bloodshed on either side. The Englishman even shakes my hand and says, “You are quite a negotiator, young lady.”

  I want to put a crossbow into his shoulder just for calling me “young lady,” but I hold back. Instead, I try to thank him as politely as Mama would. I wait until he’s gone to mutter a string of curse words under my breath.

  The rest of the transaction goes smoothly. I hire a team of workmen to load the cannons onto wagons and then transfer them to the docks, where the English take them. The same Englishman as before gives me a sack of coins. Now I am an arms dealer.

  “Are you going to count it?” he asks.

  “Not now. I trust you.” I don’t really trust him, but I can always track him down and turn him into a frog if he tries to cheat me. He doesn’t, so my bookkeeper tells me later.

  The bookkeeper came with Connor’s house. His name is Robert Hessman. At seventy he’s older than Connor was and looks old enough to be my grandfather. I call him Uncle Bob since he was close enough to be Connor’s brother and he thinks I’m Connor’s daughter.

  This one lie allowed me to take over Connor’s business with surprising ease. After Connor died, his will stipulated all his assets were to be held in trust with Bob, who would then decide what to do with them. I arrived on the scene a few days later, hoping to get a look at Connor’s books in order to learn about his business.

  Bob answered the door when I knocked. “Hello, sir. My name is—”

  “What?”

  “My name is—”

  “What?”

  I lean close to Bob’s left ear and then shout, “My name is Sylvia Joubert! I’m a friend of Mr. MacCullen. I was wondering—”

  “You’re who?”

  “Sylvia Joubert! I’m—”

  He cuts me off, motioning for me to come inside. I shrug and then follow him into the house. It’s smaller than Mama’s house in Marseilles, the parlor, library, and dining room much dustier too. Bob works in the study, which looks as if a blizzard hit from the amount of paper scattered everywhere. He sits on his stool and then turns back to writing in a ledger.

  While he works, he says, “I suppose you heard of your father’s death. Ghastly business.”

  “Father? No, I’m not—”

  He turns around and says, “Did you say something, young lady?”

  “I said I’m not—”

  “His things are upstairs. You’re welcome to take anything you fancy.”

  I stare at Bob for a moment and then shrug. I go upstairs to Connor’s bedroom, which is as dusty as the rooms downstairs. There are no knickknacks or trophies in the room or anywhere else in the house. There are only his clothes and sundry items, nothing providing any clues about who he was or what he did for a living. There’s nothing there to help me take up his business.

  I come down empty-handed to find Bob still working. I tap Bob on the shoulder and he turns around on the stool. “Still here, eh?” he asks. “Didn’t find anything you like?”

  “I was wondering—?”

  “What’s that?”

  With a sigh I snatch a piece of paper from the floor and then grab Bob’s quill. My written English is worse than my spoken English, so my note comes out, “I want to know his business.”

  He misinterprets this to think that I’m his bastard daughter come to ask about the father I didn’t know. “Your father was a very kind and generous man. I knew him for forty years. You’d be hard-pressed to find a better gentleman.”

  I nod and then use the quill to underline the last word of my note. Bob nods, finally seeming to understand. “Ah, you want to know what he did for a living?” I nod to him. “I’m not sure that’s something a young lady needs to know.”

  I scribble on the paper, “I am NOT a young lady!”

  “No need to get rude, miss. I’m only trying to be polite.” It’s a painstaking process not only to get the information from him, but for me to understand it. I learned basic addition and subtraction, but all of this nonsense about debits and credits is beyond me.


  Bob and I talk for hours—much of that time I spend writing notes to make him understand what I want—until nightfall. At that point, he says, “You might as well stay here for the night. It’s not safe for a young lady like yourself on the streets at night and I’m too old to provide much in the way of protection.”

  I sleep in the guest room upstairs while Bob toddles off to his room down the hall. I don’t get much sleep that night, wondering if I’m doing the right thing. Sophie said I shouldn’t tell Aggie or confront Glenda, but I hate lying around, doing nothing. I’m a specialist in offensive magic; doing nothing isn’t in my job description. I calm myself by thinking that it’s like tracking that bogeyman in Venice. I have to be patient and wait for Sophie to flush Glenda out. Then we’ll get things sorted out. In the meantime, if I can keep Connor’s business going, to help people defend themselves from tyrants, then that’s what I should do. At least then I’ll be doing something useful.

  A few days later I tell Bob that I want to stay and take up my father’s business. Despite him repeatedly calling me “young lady” he doesn’t have a problem with this. “It’ll be good to keep it in the family—so to speak,” he says.

  I’m lucky no other illegitimate heirs come forward to claim Connor’s estate. While I feel a little guilty about claiming to be his daughter, it does make things easier with Bob—and with the courts. Within a few months then I’ve established my new home in Edinburgh, in Connor’s house.

  One afternoon, six months after I’ve moved to Scotland, there’s a knock on the door. I answer it to find Glenda standing there. The glare she gives me indicates she’s none too happy. I worry for a moment that she’s discovered Sophie working to find evidence against her. Instead, she’s just angry with me. “I think we should go have a chat,” she says.

  We go down the street to a tavern, where we sit in the corner with mugs of ale, like Connor and I in Thurso night before his death. Glenda drinks her entire mug before she finally gets to the point. “What is it you think you’re doing here, Sylvia?”

  “I’m running my friend’s business.” I return her glare, adding, “It seems like the least I could do since Morgana killed him.”

  “The mortals don’t need anyone else helping them destroy themselves.”

  “I’m not. I’m helping them defend themselves.”

  “That’s a very fine distinction.”

  “So what are you going to do, take me to the archives and have Agnes give me a potion to make me into a baby?” I almost add “again” but manage to hold back at the last moment.

  “Not yet, but you should know better than to get involved with mortals. You remember what happened to Henri?”

  “That’s why I’m doing this. I’m trying to keep people like Henri from being killed.”

  “By selling guns?” Glenda shakes her head. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It doesn’t have to make sense to you. This has nothing to do with the coven.”

  She shakes her head again. “I’m worried about you. All three of you.”

  “Has something happened to Sophie and Agnes?”

  Glenda snatches my untouched mug of ale and drinks it down. “Agnes won’t speak to me. And Sophie—there’s something going on with her.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. Every time I meet with her, I get the feeling that she’s sizing me up.” Glenda sighs and then waves her hand to summon the bartender for another drink. “And now you’re cavorting around like this.”

  “You should have expected there would be consequences for what you did to Morgana.”

  “What would you rather I have done? Given her a tap on the wrist with my ruler and let her go on her merry way?”

  “You could have made her older. Twelve or nine, maybe. At least three.” I hold Glenda’s gaze as I say this, wondering if she’ll pick up on the reference.

  She doesn’t. “I couldn’t take the chance she would remember something. Then we would be having this problem all over again.”

  Glenda looks sadly into her mug of ale, but I’m in no mood for sympathy. “Look, unless you’re going to take me in or want me to go off and kill some more bogeymen, I need to get back to work.”

  “If that’s what you want,” Glenda says. While she always looks old, this is the first time she’s ever looked so ancient to me before. As I’m leaving, she says, “Try not to get yourself hurt.”

  I’m not sure whether this is a warning or not.

  ***

  The latest war in Europe keeps me busy for the next year. I still don’t know how to haggle, preferring the direct approach. A few thousand pounds—or whatever unit of currency the transaction uses—doesn’t really matter to me; I don’t need the money. Most of what I make I send back to Uncle Bob to invest how he sees fit.

  Glenda doesn’t come to see me again. The only time I see any of my fellow witches is when I go back to the archives eighteen months after poor Morgana’s “trial.” The latest archivist is not one of the Devereaux clan. Instead, she’s a stray, an orphan girl Glenda found in Stockholm named Ingrid.

  Telling her the type of spell I’m looking for is as harrowing as trying to talk to Uncle Bob. In this case it’s not because she’s deaf so much as dumb. The first time I try to explain it, she just stares at me. I make sure I’m using a spell to speak in her native tongue. I describe what I need again and she says, “Spells are over there.”

  This leaves me to find the spell on my own. I have to search the first level for twelve hours. Ingrid, the dumb cow, continues to stare at me, making no attempt to help. This was much easier with Clare around. She had all the spells memorized—and she knew how to put them back properly. Going through the pigeonholes, I find a half-dozen spells filed in the wrong place. Why did Glenda bring this idiot down here?

  Having no luck on the first floor, I decide to try the vault. Ingrid finally gets out of her chair to run towards me. “You shouldn’t go in there. It’s a bad place,” she says.

  “For you it is. I’ll be fine.” I push her aside, waiting until the cow has shuffled back to her chair before I open the metal door.

  I follow the winding path down into the cavern. There are more shelves here, only the pigeonholes for these are blocked with crystal caps. I pause at each one to read the description tag. As I do, the spells fling themselves at the caps like caged animals. I remember what Mama told me: the spells want to be used. Those in the archives want to be used so badly that they actually try to throw themselves at any witch who happens by. That’s the reason for the caps on the pigeonholes.

  As I near the bottom, I notice there’s a spell missing. The crystal cap is shattered, pieces of it lying on the floor. The description is gone as well, so I have no idea which one it is. I could try asking Ingrid, but I doubt that would do much good. That’s probably the one I need, I think to myself.

  I do find what I need near the bottom of the cavern. The spell is an enchantment for weapons so they can’t be turned against their owners. I have to be careful in removing the crystal cap so the spell doesn’t shoot out at me. I manage to snatch it with one hand as if I’m trying to wrangle a snake.

  With the same amount of care I open the scroll to read the words printed on it. I don’t say these aloud or else I would activate the spell. Instead, I read them silently several times, until I have it memorized. I carefully put the spell back into its pigeonhole and replace the cap.

  Upstairs I tell Ingrid that she has a missing spell. “The old lady took it.”

  “Which old lady?” Ninety percent of the coven look like old ladies.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t get her name.”

  “Don’t you have a sign-in sheet?”

  “No.”

  I shake my head sadly. “How old are you?” I ask her.

  “Fifteen—I think.”

  “You think?”

  “It’s hard to remember anymore.”

  I think to myself that if Glenda thought making this girl an
archivist was a good idea, then maybe Sophie is wrong about her. Maybe Glenda is exactly as she appears. For that matter, maybe she’s weaker than she seems. That would explain why she has us do all the dirty work for her.

  I file this away to think about later and then return to Scotland. I try the spell out by casting it on a sword. I try cutting my arm with the sword, but the blade is repelled as if there’s some kind of anti-magnetic charge on my clothes. I’m fairly certain then that my weapons won’t be able to be used on their owners.

  My first batch of these weapons goes to Germany. The second batch goes to the Netherlands. The shipload of muskets and I travel from Edinburgh to Amsterdam. Along the way we pass numerous English and Dutch warships, but no French ones. It would be ironic if my countrymen sink my ship.

  At a café in Amsterdam I meet the buyers. I never bring any security with me; as a witch trained in martial arts I don’t need any bodyguards. Thanks to magic I don’t need a translator either. I’m able to speak fluent Dutch to the buyers, which takes them by surprise.

  “You speak our language very well—for a Frenchwoman.”

  “Thank you.” I take a sip of my tea, always lamenting the need for these formalities. I would prefer they hand me the money, I hand them the guns, and we part ways. That’s not the civilized, cultured way to do things. Instead, we have to chat about the weather, the expected wheat harvest, and French wines.

  Only then are we finally able to get down to business. “Before I take delivery, I would like to inspect the merchandise,” the Dutchman says.

  “You don’t trust me? I’ve already done business with your allies. You can ask them if I’m trustworthy or not.”

  “I assure you, Miss Joubert, it’s only a formality.”

  I sigh and then put down my teacup. “My ship’s in the harbor.”

  I insist on walking to the ship. “It’s such a nice day. The sun and sea air is intoxicating,” I explain to the Dutchman. In reality I don’t want to get into his carriage and then have him try to drive me away to some secluded location to try raping and killing me—which would prompt me to have to hurt him very badly.

  I know something is up when I approach the ship and see no sign of the captain or crew. Apparently the Dutchman has decided he’d rather keep the guns and his money. I try not to show any sign that I’m on to them as I step onto the ship. “Everything’s down in the hold,” I tell the Dutchman, who’s such a gentleman that he takes my hand to help me aboard.