Tappan sighed, fearing the inevitable, “Come on, Crick—”
Cricket paid no mind to the boy’s plea, but stretched out a tensed arm as though to measure the space between them. He feigned a blow.
“We were talking about the prank,” Tappan admitted.
“That bloody dirt farmer, yeah,” said Cricket, speaking about Auk. “I had that situation under control, I just didn’t want to embarrass him too badly in front of our colleagues. We have more of a personal score to settle, you know. Don’t worry, though, I’ll settle it one of these days.”
“A…about that,” stammered Tappan, not sure he should be admitting culpability even as he did it, “it wasn’t Auk. It was me and Ben.”
Cricket smiled at him cockily. “Yeah, right, like you sissies could do something like that,” he laughed. “Why is everyone defending that man-lover?”
“I’m not defending anyone, Cricket,” said Tappan, dumbly pushing the matter, “it’s the truth. Me and Benson snuck down while you were sleeping. I knew you’d sleep so deeply you wouldn’t notice, so I thought it might be a little bit of fun. I didn’t think it’d blow up like that, though, I really didn’t. You’re so tightly wound is all—”
Calling Cricket “tightly wound” at that moment was a grave understatement. One of the shiphand’s eyes was ticking independently of the other, and his fists pumps unconsciously.
“We just wanted to have a little fun,” Tappan said soothingly, backing away and letting his hammer drop to the deck. “We didn’t mean no harm by it.”
Cricket nodded, dropping his fists and pacing territorially. He stepped past Tappan, breathing in as though to speak, but instead punched the unsuspecting shipboy in the back of the head.
“Is that fun?” Cricket shouted as Tappan fell to the deck. He rammed his boot into the boy’s belly. “Is this fun? Are we having fun yet?” Tappan felt blow after blow—sharp pains that ate into his body. He curled in on himself as he’d learned to do with his father, fending off the boots that kicked at his face.
“Oy, what’s going on here?” yelled a voice from above. The kicking stopped and Tappan felt a moment of gratitude.
* * * * *
Lucy stood happily at the ballroom’s edges, watching the spring and twirl of the countryside’s finest persons. As she observed, pleased but excluded, Emibelle joined her.
“I think it’s wonderful that you came to join us in that dress,” stated the newcomer, pleasantly out of breath. “I don’t care what anyone says.”
Lucy’s heart fluttered in embarrassment. “What’s anyone saying?”
“Oh, nothing, you know,” Emibelle said, waving her fan vaguely. “Just that you must be very brave.”
Lucy looked down at her dress miserably, but explained, “I couldn’t stand to miss the party.”
“No, nor I, to be sure!” Emibelle said in agreement. “Only think how I would have missed Master Lorey’s fine company. Is he not handsome?” she asked, leaning in conspiratorially.
Lucy wouldn’t admit that she thought so, and fought the red that rose to her cheeks.
“Oh, Goosey, you like him!” Emibelle said upon seeing this second blush in as many days. “That’s so sweet! I’m about to dance the next with him, I hope you’ll let me put in a good word for you.”
“No!” Lucy cried, again master of her own cheeks. “There’s no need to trouble yourself.”
“Please, I live to be helpful,” Emibelle said airily, her voice full of a joke that Lucy couldn’t quite understand. “If you feel something for him, don’t you think he ought to know?” Without a backwards glance, Emibelle moved off towards her dance companion.
“No! Emibelle!” Lucy pleaded in a loud whisper. She grasped at her foster sister, but was pushed back by the crowd. She made a final rush forward and captured Emibelle’s sleeve. “Come back!”
“Let go, Goose,” Emibelle called happily, smiling at the hand that held her, “the reel is starting. You wouldn’t want me to be late, would you?”
Lucy let go. On the dance floor the radiant Emibelle took her place beside the young Master Lorey, and they began to move the steps. She watched fearfully, examining every expression of the two dancers as they turned across the room. After the two had passed several minutes in the dance without any event, Lucy began to feel she might let her guard down.
A movement caught her eye, however, and she looked back in time to see Emibelle pointing at her, then laughing into her hand. Dunstan turned round to follow the young woman’s finger and frowned at Lucy from across the room. He exclaimed something that she couldn’t hear and his head fell back in laughter.
Lucy’s heart might have fallen through the floor. She heard nothing—saw nothing—except for Emibelle and Dunstan sharing a hearty, cynical laugh at her expense. Emibelle’s teasing she could handle, but handsome young Lorey’s cut her to the core.
He scorned her, Lucy realized. He laughed at her for being a child. Embarrassment becoming too much to endure, Lucy’s imagination began to play tricks. She was sure that the heads of her two tormentors were rapidly growing in size, floating above the crowd as they roared heartily at her pain. Everywhere she turned she saw fingers pointing, and she knew they must all be mocking her.
Unable to breathe, Lucy rushed from the room.
* * * * *
“What think you of the color pink, Master Lorey?” Emibelle had said when she regained the young man’s hand on the dance floor.
Lorey made a small shrug. “As I think of any color, I suppose,” he said, finding himself lacking in this topic, as with so many others that his dance partner preferred.
“What think you of ruffles, then?” Emibelle continued. “My dress, you see, has no ruffles.”
He looked down at her embroidered blue dress, which he could only assume was what she desired. “That’s a true thing,” he said blandly. “It hasn’t.”
“But ought it to?” Emibelle pressed. “Is that a criticism you have?”
“I think little of dresses, to be honest,” Dunstan explained, exasperated. “So long as they’re filled with girls of good company, I think I should like them all.”
“Surely not!” Emibelle cried, putting an embarrassed hand to her face. “How silly you are. I declare that the right dress can make even the best company that much better. As for bad company, I should think that a fine dress would almost make them tolerable. Though they’re a heart-sore, they should at least no longer be an eye-sore!”
“I suppose that’s one way of seeing things,” said Dunstan with a polite smile.
“But not yours?” Emibelle asked with a pout. “Do tell me more, Master Lorey, for I wish you and I to always be in agreement.”
At this Dunstan smiled uncomfortably and grew silent, finding himself quite out of his depth with this persistent girl.
“I was referring, anyway,” Emibelle said suddenly after a few moments of awkward silence, “to a very specific shade of pink. It is one that only the other day came flying towards your head, ruffles ruffling, as they do.” With a gesture to the side of the room, she added, “You may see it there, to its full effect.”
Dunstan turned to see the girl from the high-heather watching them attentively. She wore a look as intense as if she were indeed planning to wake the bull that rested below her homeland. He recalled in that moment her insistence, if they were to play, that she wouldn’t be a fairy but a King. He found himself chortling. Then, unable to help it, he threw his head back in laughter.
“Now, I’m sure, you do have an opinion of the color pink,” laughed Emibelle, thinking herself the source of his amusement.
“On the contrary,” Lorey corrected, catching his breath, “I’m entertained by her seriousness. I believe I’ve done wrong in ignoring a dance with a resident of the estate. I understand that she’s a ward of your father?”
“Yes,” said Emibelle, her own amusement faltering, “but I’d be careful to show her too much attention. I shouldn’t be saying this, but she can�
��t claim impartiality when it comes to you, though she’s far too young to harbor such thoughts. Why, only five minutes hence she was blushing like an apple at the mention of your name.”
“She…she likes me?” Dunstan asked with an odd little laugh, a light-headed sense of pleasure filling his mind. He lifted his head to glance at the girl in pink, but she had disappeared.
“And isn’t it silly?” Emibelle continued. “I think it’s precious, really, our sweet little Goose. She’s such a baby!” With a deep sigh and a renewed brightness in her eyes, the middle Delahaye continued, “But truly, I think we’ve quite exhausted our discussion of the color pink. What say you of a new topic?”
“Well and welcome,” said he, taking charge for the first time that evening. “I have just the one. What think you of fairies?”
Emibelle, fan a-flutter, frowned deeply.
* * * * *
Jas fought the look of disapproval that crept over his face the longer Whyl’s charade continued.
He and the Turnagain’s prisoner had rounded to the back of the estate where they’d repeated the names and instructions of the doorkeepers to the backhouse staff. Then, they’d been shown to a washing room. When the door closed behind them, however, Whyl immediately dropped the cat unceremoniously. It was skittering away before it hit the floor, a streak of orange. Jas stared after it, a frown creasing his face, “I thought we’d brought it in here to wash.”
Whyl shot his companion an incredulous look, asking, “Are we also servants of Lady Mirian?”
Jas blinked, finding in this question the line between the lie and reality. “Nay, of course not,” he said lamely, shaking the fiction from his head. “It’s just, now that the cat’s here…it might be a nice thing to make happen.”
“I said that so we could get in,” said Whyl brusquely. He looked about the room and began to search through the washing. “And now it’s time for the next task. We need to find nicer clothes.”
Jas picked up a pile of neatly folded garments lining the washroom and rifled through them without looking. He examined Whyl instead, as he asked, “How did you know it was the girl’s birthday? Or that there was a girl at all?”
“Lady Mirian said those things,” Whyl said hastily, not meeting his eye. “Didn’t you hear?”
Jas had not. He caught the doublet and cloak that were tossed to him and began changing. “So what do we do now?” he asked, getting his mind back in the task.
“Just follow my lead,” Whyl answered confidently. Walking ahead, shoulders high, he led their way through the servant hallways and into the party.
“But don’t you think we ought to have a plan?” Jas asked. It seemed to him that not even surviving hell aboard a cursed ship could prepare a man to infiltrate a rich family’s ball.
“I know what I’m doing,” Whyl replied so softly that the words seemed dangerous.
Jas backed off and watched as, speeding his step, Whyl jostled up to a partygoer and shot out his leg, causing the man to stumble.
“My apologies, dear sir,” said Whyl with a gentrified air. “I’ve told my wife I can’t navigate such long hemlines, but she swears to me that it’s the style.”
The man, balding and red-faced, nodded sympathetically. “I’ve considered telling my wife the same thing,” he told Whyl. “I find I must alter my step entirely in order to simply walk with some semblance of grace. Consider yourself forgiven. I’m Monsieur Barricort, Barrister of North Ombrin.”
“I’m Sir Doublin of Pru,” said Whyl without hesitation. He gestured to Jas, who had only come close enough to hear, “And this is my manservant Hemley. We’re greatly enjoying ourselves in your beautiful country. It puts our own homeland to shame.”
“I can’t speak of Pru from experience,” said Monsieur Barricort presumptuously, “but I’ve always felt Chaveneigh—Dunsmere in particular—to be as close to paradise as can be found in the living world.”
“A biased assessment,” Whyl said, laughing heartily, “but I’ll let you have it! The beauty of the landscapes, I declare, is second only to the beauty of the women.”
“My wife would be much obliged to you sir,” the Barrister roared. “And I’m once again inclined to agree.”
Jas watched as Whyl patiently laughed with the besotted man, hardly understanding his companion’s stunning ability to invent entire lives with such ease. For his part, the only thinkable course of action was to scream for all the house to hear that there was trouble afoot. Whyl, however, was debonair.
“So tell me true,” said Whyl after their mutual laughter had abated. “Is this really a ball to celebrate the birthdays of four different people? If so, you must grow your beauties uncommonly close together. I mean no criticism, of course! If we made such lovely women in Pru, I think we should do likewise.”
“No offense taken, dear man,” guffawed the Barrister. “It’s true indeed, the Delahayes have the singular distinction of having a mother and three children all born in the same month.” Guiding Whyl and Jas to the door of the great ballroom, Monsieur Barricort pointed out a woman in a sweeping, blue gown. “There, you see, is the Lady”—he shifted his direction—“their middle child is dancing with that Scadian boy there, and, let’s see, ah there they are, the eldest and youngest keeping each other entertained.” Shifting back from the door, the Barrister continued, “They’re a fair group, to be sure. You’d know them anywhere by their fine auburn hair.”
“There was another child I saw as I came in,” Whyl said. He made a show of searching for words as though they were on the tip of his tongue. “I’d assumed she was one of the daughters, you see, and worried that I’d come with the wrong number of gifts.”
“Ah, the Ward,” explained the Barrister. “I don’t see her at the moment, but I’m sure she’s around here somewhere. I believe I saw a streak of pink shoot through the ballroom at some point.” He looked again into the ballroom and Jas’s gaze turned to Whyl, hardly able to believe what he was hearing. Monsieur Barricort turned back and said, “But Sir Doublin, what’s kept your wife from attending?”
Jas had completely forgotten that Whyl was supposed to have a wife in this scenario, but Whyl answered smoothly. “She was ill, alas. Though she found great pleasure in dressing me from her sickbed.” Taking a step back, he displayed his outfit for the man. “What do you think, am I fit to meet a Lord?”
“Quite smashing,” said the old Barrister with gentle applause. “Though I’m not sure you should trust my opinion. My wife dances now with her brother—he’s of a livelier step than I these days—and she is the real expert.”
“Well, perhaps some wine will help ease my mind until she’s free to give me an appraisal,” said Whyl, looking towards the ballroom. “I think I’ll go get some. Would you like a glass as well?”
“If you’re going that way…” Monsieur Barricort said in affirmation. He motioned to a sitting room across the hall, “I think I’ll relieve my tired feet for a time. Come seek me out when you have a chance. You’re excellent company.”
“I shall,” said Whyl with a bow as the Barrister moved away.
Walking into the ballroom, Whyl turned away from the carefully laid tower of wine glasses. Jas followed him for a moment before asking, “Aren’t we supposed to get the old man a drink?”
Whyl shot him a look of utter disdain, which Jas found to be more out of character than anything else the strange person had done that evening. “You’re very new at this, aren’t you?”
“And you’re very old at it,” Jas observed, his face falling into a deeper frown as the evening drew on. “Forgive me if I sound doubtful, but where is this all coming from? You were but an innocent young man when you took a job with the Illiamnaut—I mean, you haven’t a wife nor are you from Pru.”
Whyl grinned at the shiphand as though he was a simpleton. “Don’t worry yourself about it. Just follow my lead.”
Jas followed, as instructed, though he asked under his breath, “Have you even been to Pru?”
He didn’t need an answer to know that Whyl hadn’t.
*
Chapter 12:
The Assassin
* * * * *
The Ziggerjon
Spirits of the Known World
By Xin Wee
*
Just as Chaveneigh has its fairies, Eischland its trolls, and Scadia its silver monkeys, so too has Illiamna claimed their own mischievous supernatural spirit in the Ziggerjon.
No man may see a Ziggerjon, as it has no form. They’re uniquely invisible spirits who exist for the sole purpose of playing tricks, ranging from cruel to mundane, upon their chosen targets. The object of a Ziggerjon’s obsession may be any Illian who happens to catch their interest. This Illian will then suffer what some in other countries might think of as “chronic bad luck.” This is why the Illiac term for “clumsy” is “ziggered.”
The tricks of the Ziggerjon are said to vary in severity, sometimes the loss of items in plain sight (such as misplaced housekeys), but sometimes a slight misstep that causes one to move in the way of harm. The home of a Ziggerjon might play host to many strange noises as he randomly elects to knock over items and leave open doors. The mischievous spirit won’t cause constant trouble—unless they happen to be particularly ruthless, that is—but will certainly begin their games when lulled into boredom.
It’s unknown how a Ziggerjon comes to be attached to any being in particular, but it’s believed that they’re transferred from person to person in the course of everyday interactions. Some will remain attached to their targets for many years while others go through Illians quickly, always on the move.
As with many myths, the amount to which people believe in the Ziggerjon tends to closely follow the amount to which the populace is educated. Peasants felt a strong urge to find peace with their mischievous spirits, and often built small beds for them in dark corners, occasionally throwing wild celebrations so that the spirits wouldn’t grow bored. Those in nobility, however, were usually taught of these spirits by their superstitious nurses and then never heard about them again, later dismissing the Ziggerjon as an invention of lower-class minds.
Some provinces took the superstition further, claiming that a Ziggerjon could choose to possess the body of a person or creature with which they come into contact. There’s no end of tales in which cats, goats, or small children wreak havoc upon a household as a result of a mischievous spirit’s control. These instances too claim the description of “ziggered.”
The Secret's Keeper and the Heir Page 24