Fury from Fontainebleau

by Adrian Speed

  “The basket? Oh. Of course,” I sighed. I had no other way of carrying a bottle all the way back to Covent Garden. My collapsible silk sack was stuffed into the pockets of my proper trousers. “Er, thank you.”

  “’Tis my honour my lady, please do call again should the wine please you.” The seller bowed and retreated into the doorway of his shop.

  I picked up the basket and my umbrella and feeling there was nothing else to do, hastened away down the empty streets. All around me darkness was fast descending and the streets were emptying. Of course, they never truly emptied in old London as they didn’t in modern London, especially around the taverns. When I reached the hill up to St Paul’s there were still a few dozen souls around, heads bent and about their business. I looked back before crossing the road. The wine seller’s door was still open, and my skin pricked up as I could feel eyes staring at me.

  “Better get back to Covent Garden sooner rather than later,” I muttered and headed up the hill as fast as I could without drawing attention. What was it about darkness that brought with it the threat of danger? It was still the same city, they were still the same people, and yet the shadowy city seemed much more threatening than in the day.

  There were no streetlights, I realised with a shiver. The only light emerged from people’s windows and they were mostly shuttered against the cold. The light of the moon and the murk from window frames would soon be the only light left.

  I passed by a tavern and the folk inside jeered at me as I passed. I’d heard worse in modern London, and pressed on towards High Holborn. There were few of us out on the streets and I could feel my hackles rise. Were the footsteps behind me simply going my way, or were they following me?

  Had that wine seller decided the pieces of silver in my pocket were worth following me down an alley for? I could only be carrying a few pounds in total, but was that a fortune worth more than a life? I gripped my umbrella tightly as I passed by a dark alley.

  “Who’s that wine for then, wench?” Barely had I stepped past the alley than a man was behind me, his hand on my waist.

  “Get off!” I shied away, but it was harder to be nimble in skirts and I almost slid on the manure-slick cobbles. I tried to get a good look at whoever had appeared. The last of the light made his white shirt shine. That was worrying. In this age of mud, a white shirt was wealth.

  “’Tis only a question.” A second voice, appearing behind me. I turned again, another white shirt. This one had a silk sash tied around his waist and gold glinted on his hand. “’Tis a cold night, and if the wine is for no-one important, my friend and I can think of an excellent hearth nearby to pass the time with a cask.”

  “It’s for...” I thought of how the seller had snapped to attention at the sound of his name, “it’s for Sir Reginald.”

  The men laughed.

  “Oh, a Sir Reginald, is it wench? Aren’t you a lucky pretty thing to serve a Sir Reginald.”

  “I’ve got to get home,” I said and started crossing into the street to get away from them.

  “Oh now, come along,” a firm hand at my waist steered me back towards the wall before I could stop them. The two men had me cornered against the wall. One of them picked up the barrel.

  “I know this mark, it belongs to a very fine merchant,” the man said as he squinted at it. “Worth quite the pretty penny.”

  “And if Sir Reginald sent you to get it he probably left you with quite an... ample... coin purse,” light glinted off their smile.

  On the other side of the road a man stared at us for a moment. I wanted to cry out to him for help, but he had already passed down the street before the cry and reached my throat. It should have been obvious I needed help. A young woman, cornered in the dark by two men.

  But there were no police in 1666. There was no gendarmerie either. There was no justice at all.

  “No doubt Sir Reginald will not miss–” probing fingers reached down to my waistband and touched my coin purse.

  I dropped the basket of wine, gripped my umbrella with both hands and brought the bronze pommel up against his face with full force. He staggered back cursing while blood fountained over both of us, splattering down his white shirt. Before the second attacker had a chance to strike I whirled the point around and stabbed it as hard as I could into his stomach.

  The second man staggered back but gripped the umbrella with both hands out of instinct. Not the smartest thing he could have done. Twisting against his grip I pulled the blade loose with a click and drew its full length.

  “This is almost a yard of finest steel,” I growled. “Step. Back.”

  “Yeah? This is six inches.” Blood was streaming from his nose but a knife appeared in his hands. “And I find it’s very good at persuading stupid wenches–” I struck before he finished talking, forcing him to dive out of the way, rolling in the effluence of the street. While he was struggling to get upright I smashed the bronze down on his head again. He fell heavily and for a moment I thought I might’ve killed him, but his wheezing gave me a bit of reassurance.

  I stared up at the second attacker. He was holding onto the end of my umbrella in stunned confusion. I can’t have been his first prey to fight back, but probably the first to draw a sword.

  “Your friend has a broken nose and a broken skull,” I growled. “What would you like me to break of yours?”

  “Nothing!” The attacker dropped the end of my umbrella and held his hands wide. “Please don’t think ill of us. We desired only some sport for the evening.”

  “So you wanted to rob me?”

  “It... it wouldn’t be robbery if you’d given it to us.”

  With a flick of my hand I cut a line down his cheek. The man flinched in fear as I struck and then yowled in pain as he realised what had happened. He clutched at his face. Blood bubbled between his fingers and he yelped. I snatched up my umbrella’s mechanism and sheathed my sword.

  “Think of that, next time you want some sport,” I waggled the umbrella tip at him, but he wasn’t listening. He was already staggering away back into the darkness and to whatever drinking den he called home. I picked up my basket and by some miracle the wine hadn’t smashed.

  The wheezing of my first attacker brought my attention to him. He was in the middle of the road and unconscious. I had to defend myself, but I didn’t have to leave him to get run over by the first cart of the morning. With a bit of effort I dragged him to the edge of the street and propped him into the recovery position.

  Then I felt that prickle again, of someone watching me. I looked up to see the wine seller in the street. He had a pistol in one hand, silhouetted against the gloom.

  “I... I had wanted to ensure you returned home safely.” The wine seller announced. “I am unused to a knight’s lady travelling unaccompanied, and when I did not see your bodyguard follow you, I thought I should serve in that regard.”

  “You took your time,” I growled.

  “I would have stepped in before they... well... the pistol took some time to... I had never thought to serve a lady in this capacity and I am out of practice with a gun,” the wine seller stammered. “And I think I see now why you felt no fear in travelling alone.”

  No fear, I grimaced. Oh what it would be like to have no fear.

  “Still, now, brigands are less likely to strike a pair than one of us alone, I could still accompany you to your home and then hire a carriage to my own,” the wine seller offered.

  “But how can I trust you?”

  “My lady, I have seen you dispose of two men larger and broader than yourself with every skill of a trained swordsman. To think of attacking you is to think of suicide, even as I do carry a pistol,” the wine seller said and then turned the gun around to offer me the stock. “But to set you at your ease, I grant you my gun until you are home.”

  I thought about this for a moment. It would be safer to travel in a pair, and I could easily keep an eye on him. The wine seller was strong enough to haul around crates of wine, but I co
uld tell by the way he held a pistol that he’d never been trained properly.

  “I’ll take you up on that offer,” I said, and took the gun from him. I put the basket in his hand instead. “I live in Covent Garden.”

  We passed the way in silence and while he tried a few times to engage me in conversation, monosyllabic answers brought it to a halt. It was truly dark by the time we reached Covent Garden and the moon had risen high into the sky.

  “Those men... had a very fine appearance,” the wine seller said as we reached the square at Covent Garden. “What will you do if those men try to bring the justice against you?”

  I almost said, “Give them another scar,” but I quelled the urge.

  “Sir Reginald and I are firm believers in the king’s justice,” I said. “And I know I can count on you as a witness.”

  “Ah, of course,” the wine seller looked pale. “Our word against theirs.”

  “Which of course, can only happen if they know where I am,” I glared.

  “They’ll not hear it from me,” the wine seller said. “And if I do not see which house you enter I can truthfully say I do not know where you live.”

  “Then hand me the wine,” I demanded. “And I’ll hand you the gun. And off you go.”

  “Goodbye, my lady.” The wine seller bowed as he stepped backwards from me, turning to leave only once he was a good twenty feet away. I watched him go until I was certain he was out of sight, then slumped into the house Sir Reginald and I had rented, stomped upstairs to my bedroom and tripped over my stupid skirts.

  I fell hard against the floor boards and couldn’t summon the effort to move. I was tired. I was furious at myself and the planet, and I was absolutely furious at 1666. I lay there, refusing to yield to the universe until I drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter XIV

  I woke up stiff, and angry, and cold. Even with the heating stone putting out just as much heat as a fire the house wasn’t designed to be very warm. Cold air poured in from every crack in the floorboards and in my fury last night I had left the door open.

  I turned over and every single joint complained. My back, my knees, my elbows, all made me grimace in pain, and my bones chose that exact moment to deliver their complaint for a night on the floorboards instead of the bed.

  I tried to get up, but my feet were sliding inside the stupid tent of a skirt, unable to gain purchase on the floorboards for all the coats and petticoats. I was half way up before slipping and falling again, bringing me crashing down on the ground again hard on my elbow.

  Berzerk button hit, I tore my fingers at the knots and buttons imprisoning me in the woollen marquee. My fingers tore them out of the fabric or pulled the strings apart while the rest of me bucked like a yearling until I was out and kicked the hated thing into the fireplace. I wanted to see it burn. I wanted everything of yesterday that wasn’t me or my new sword to burn and disappear like a bad dream.

  But the twenty-fifth century confounded me. Whoever had designed these ‘heating stones’ had designed them so while they heated the room they intelligently didn’t ignite cloth. In the end I simply piled it all up in a heap in a corner of shame and pulled out the packing case from yesterday.

  About half an hour later I heard a knocking at the wall outside the bedroom.

  “The door is open, so I cannot come in until I know I am not catching you at an inopportune moment,” Sir Reginald announced.

  “You can come in,” I grumbled and Sir Reginald stepped around the door.

  I was dressed in the men’s clothes. They were hardly men’s clothes by my standards. The thick woollen jacket was almost large enough to be a dress, hanging down to my thighs. The trousers were tight enough to show off every muscle in my leg, and only came down to my knees where they met silk stockings. There were silver buckles on the shoes. If they’d just had a longer leg to them, I’d expect to see them in an Oxford Street window for twice the cost of my education.

  “And I guess you can call me Andrew while we’re in the 1660s from now on,” I added, trying to tease the last of my hair into the hat.

  “There’s not a more handsome lad in all of London, my dear,” Sir Reginald said, standing at the doorway and taking me in. “Although I think you may do better to curl your hair and pretend it is a periwig. If you should ever remove your hat it will all come cascading down.”

  “Back to the twenty-first century for a curling iron I suppose?” I muttered and let my hair fall about my shoulders again. I reached into the ample pockets and pulled out a hair band to tie it back for the moment.

  “Although that is rather fetching too, if old fashioned,” Sir Reginald nodded regarding my pulled back hair. “I took the liberty of mulling the Portuguese wine you brought back last night. Not as fine as true port, but it is quite warming and wholesome,” he said, and handed a mug towards me.

  “You mean you saw me on the floor and didn’t think to move me to the bed?”

  “Well I assumed you had your reasons my dear,” Sir Reginald said. “Was... was I wrong?”

  I knocked back the mulled wine. It was strong as a mule and hot as tea but I wanted it inside me. I wanted it to stop me thinking dark thoughts for a few moments.

  “Careful now,” Sir Reginald warned. “Port wine is strong stuff even after mulling!”

  “A little bit wrong, yeah,” I growled. I saw his eyes lower to the empty cup.

  “Let’s have some breakfast,” Sir Reginald offered. “Fresh bread awaits.”

  “Is there more mulled wine?” I said darkly.

  “Perhaps... a little...” Sir Reginald led me downstairs to the kitchen. When he took my mug the one he returned to me was a little bit smaller and much less full. By contrast he cut vast slices from a thick loaf and slathered it in butter. “Important to keep your strength up,” Sir Reginald said as he watched me drain another mug. “And I find wine on an empty stomach makes me very sour by lunch time.”

  “I’m sour now.”

  “I can tell,” Sir Reginald said and flinched in irritation with himself the moment the words were out of his mouth. “By that I mean, of course, to ask you what is wrong.”

  “I almost killed a man last night, because they tried to rob me. Or worse,” I growled.

  Tsuh. That was the sound, the sigh, the tut, the exclamation all at once. Tsuh, as Sir Reginald’s tongue clucked against his teeth and he sighed. “Which you knew would happen. So you gave me the umbrella.”

  “I hoped it would not happen,” Sir Reginald returned quickly. “But I knew that I would be apart from you often as you engaged in your investigation and I knew that of places to be a woman the dark alleys of London are of the worst.”

  “You didn’t think it was worth warning me about?”

  “I would have thought it was self-evident,” Sir Reginald frowned. “And... well... it should be obvious that such talk makes me uncomfortable.”

  “A simple warning of ‘hey, people might try to rob you’ was outside your vocabulary?”

  “Of course not, but nonetheless between the self-evident danger, the handing you the weapon and my... reluctance to offer you women’s clothing... I thought you had thought of the risk, assessed it, and determined it acceptable.” This time Sir Reginald took a moment to drink deeply, draining the remains of his wine and dipping his mug into the warming pan for another. Between us we’d consumed almost the entire casket of wine in less than half an hour.

  “The risk was not self-evident.”

  “So it seems, and for that you have my apologies.” Sir Reginald lowered his head in supplication. “And you can rest assured no-one is more furious and angry that I failed to tell you.”

  “I think I can make decent claim to that title.”

  “Of course,” Sir Reginald bowed his head again. “And neither can prove ourselves right. My experiments in creating objective measures of emotions were a complete failure.” He turned away as I struggled to figure out whether he was joking or not.

  “Perhaps you would
benefit from another few sessions with Dr Foster, the psychologist.”

  “The one on the Moon? In the twenty-third century?” I sneered.

  “Well we have a time machine in the basement and he and you already have a rapport.” Sir Reginald waved his hands in the air. “Take a break from the case for a few hours, go talk to him. Take a few weeks if you need it. Whatever it takes to make you happy.”

  “How can I be happy when last night I was forced to beat a man unconscious?!”

  “I don’t know! That’s an extremely personal question! What answers it for me will be different than what answers it for you!” Sir Reginald shouted to match me, even if his tone tried to stay happy. “That’s what Dr Foster is for! He helps you find the answer that works for you!”

  “And how would you live with it? How would you live with being threatened like that? How would you cope with beating a man unconscious?!” I yelled. Both of us were on our feet, yelling at each other, nose to nose. My fingers trembled with desire to grab Sir Reginald by his stupid lapels and throw him down on the table, make him as powerless as I felt.

  “If I give the honest answer...” Sir Reginald put his hand on the table and stepped back. “Do you promise to stop yelling at me and go to see Dr Foster?”

  “There’s a dishonest answer?”

  “Of course there’s a dishonest answer!” Sir Reginald threw up his hands. “We humans are layers upon layers of deceit. Even the best of us are forced to transform our thoughts into words and let dishonesty rise from between the difference.”

  “Then what’s the dishonest answer?”

  “The dishonest answer is that you learn from it.” Sir Reginald shook his head as he spoke. “You tell yourself that next time you’ll do better, you’ll find a better way, and you won’t be forced to resort to violence.”

  “Then... then what’s the honest answer?”

  “Do you promise me you’ll see Dr Foster?”

  “I’ll... I’ll...” I glared at the floor. “I’ll see Dr Foster.”