The Gates of Sleep

by Mercedes Lackey

  And feeling particularly sadistic, she did not even give him enough time to leave the room before filling her lungs and producing the shrillest and most ear-piercing shriek she had ever coaxed out of her throat in her entire life.

  She needn’t have told him to summon the household after all—she was doing that quite well on her own.

  Not that it was going to help Marina. Nothing was going to help her now.

  Chapter Twenty

  ANDREW Pike had thought to spend his evening in his study, the room of burled walnut walls and warm, amber leather furniture that stood triple duty as his library and office as well, but found he couldn’t settle to anything. Neither book nor paper nor journal could hold his interest for long, and he found himself staring alternately into the fire, and out into the gloom, as the sun set somewhere behind the thick clouds. He felt both depressed and agitated, and had ever since early afternoon. He had been a Master long enough to know that, though he had no particular prescient abilities, he was sensitive enough to the ebbs and flows of power to intuit that there was trouble in the air. And the longer he watched and waited, the more sure of that trouble he became.

  He’d done what he could to cushion his patients from whatever it was, and had strengthened the shields about the place, layering walls built as solid as those of the Cotswold limestone, the red-baked brick, the cob and wattle. Now all he could do was sit and wait, and hope that the trouble would pass him and anyone else he knew by.

  Moments like these were hard on the nerves of those who had no ability to see into the future. The Earth Masters were particularly lacking in that talent; their minds tended to be slow and favor the past and the present, not the future. The past in particular; Earth Masters could take up a thing and read its history as easily as scanning a book, but the volume of the future might as well be in hieroglyphs for it was just that closed to them. Water Masters were the best at future-gazing when they had that particular gift, and even those poorest in the skill could still scry in a bowl of water and be certain of getting some clue to what lay ahead. Air Masters, known best for crystal-gazing, and Fire, who favored black mirrors, were twice as likely at their worst as an Earth Master at his best to have the ability to part the veils and glimpse what was to come. So with no more help in divining what was troubling him than any other mortal might have, all Andrew could do was wait for whatever it was to finally descend on them.

  Teatime came and went with no signs other than an increasing heaviness of spirit. Eleanor felt it too, though as was her wont, she said nothing; he read it in her wary eyes, and in the tense way she moved, glancing behind her often, as if expecting to find something dreadful following. When he saw that, he increased the strength of the shields yet again, and gave Eleanor orders to add sedatives to the medications of certain patients that evening.

  “Ah,” she said. “For the storm—” but he knew, and she knew, that it was not the March thunderstorm she spoke of, though the flickers on the horizon as the sun sank behind its heavy gray veils and gray light deepened to blue warned of more than just a springtime’s shower.

  When the storm broke, it brought no relief, only increased anxiety. The storm was a reflection of the tension in the air, not a means of releasing it. This was no ordinary storm; it crouched above Oakhurst like a fat, heavy spider and refused to budge, sending out lightning and thunder and torrents of rain.

  By now, Andrew’s nerves were strung as tightly as they ever had been in his life, and he couldn’t eat dinner. He wondered if he ought to prescribe a sedative dose for himself.

  But as he sat in his office-cum-study, watching the lightning arc through the clouds, and in the flashes, the rain sheeting down, he decided that he had better not. He should keep all his wits about him. If the blow fell, and he was needed, he could not afford to have his mind befogged.

  Having once shattered a fragile teacup and once snapped the stem of a wineglass when feeling nervy, he had chosen a thick mug for his tea this evening. His hands closed around it and clutched it tightly enough to make his fingers ache, and had the pottery been less than a quarter-inch thick, he was certain it, too, would have given way under his grip. As well, perhaps, that he was no Fire Master—his nerves were stretched so tightly that if he had been, the least little startlement might have sent the contents of his office up in flames.

  He stretched all of his senses to their utmost, searching through the night, questing for any clue, or any sign that something was about to fall on his head. It was dangerous, that—looking out past the shields that he had set up around the walls of Briareley. But he couldn’t just sit here anymore, waiting for the blow to fall—he had to do something, even if it was only to look! Every nerve in his body seemed acutely sensitive, and the muscles of his neck and shoulders were so tight and knotted they felt afire.

  Suddenly, a bolt of lightning struck practically outside his study window—he jumped—and as the windows shook with the attendant peal of thunder, another sound reverberated through the halls.

  The booming sound of someone frantically pounding on the door with the huge bronze knocker. Great blows echoed up and down the rooms, reverberated against high ceilings and shuddered in chimneys.

  This was what he had been waiting for. Or if not—at least it was something happening at last—something he could act on instead of just waiting. The tension in him snapped, releasing him as a foxhound set on quarry.

  He leapt to his feet, shoved back his chair, and headed for the door; ahead of him he saw Diccon hurrying to answer the summons, and poking from doorways and around corners were the heads of patients and attendants—curious, but with a hint of fear in their eyes.

  The pounding continued; there was a frantic sound to it. Was there a medical emergency down in the village? But if there was, why come here rather than knocking up the village doctor?

  Diccon hauled the huge door open, and a torrent of rain blew in, carrying with it two men wrapped in mackintoshes. The was no mistaking the second one, who raked the entrance hall with an imperious gaze and focused on Andrew.

  “You! Doctor!” he barked. “You’re needed at Oakhurst! Miss Roeswood has collapsed!”

  Andrew folded his stethoscope and tucked it into his pocket, using iron will to control face and voice. His heart hammered in his chest; his expression must give none of this away. They must not know, must not even guess, that he had ever seen Marina more than that once on the road, or all was lost.

  “This young woman is in a coma,” he said flatly, looking not at poor Marina, so fragile and pale against the dark upholstery of the couch she had been laid on, but at the impassive visages of Madam Arachne and her son. Marina might have been some stranger with a sprained ankle for all that they were reacting. Oh, certainly the Odious Reggie had come dashing through the storm to drag him here—not that he’d needed dragging—but now that he was here, Reggie merely watched with ironic interest, as if he expected Pike to fail and was pleased to find his expectations fulfilled. And as for Madam—he’d seen women evidence more concern for a toad than she was showing for her own niece. In fact—she seemed amused at his efforts to revive Marina. There was some devilment here.

  Was devilment the right word? If those wild surmises of his were true, it might well be…

  But he could do nothing here. Especially not if his guesses were true. “She is completely unresponsive to stimuli, and I am baffled as to the cause of her state. It might be a stroke—or it could have some external cause. If she had been outside, I might even suspect lightning—”

  There was a flash of interest at that. The woman seized on his possibly explanation so readily that even if he hadn’t suspected her of treachery, he’d have known something was wrong. “She was standing right beside that window when she collapsed,” Madam said, and her even and modulated tones somehow grated on his nerves in a way he found unbearable. “Could lightning have struck her through the window?”

  “I don’t know. Was it open?” he asked, then shook his head. “N
ever mind. The cause doesn’t matter. This young woman needs professional treatment and care—”

  This young woman needs to be out of here! he thought, his skin crawling at the sight of Madam’s bright, but curiously flat gaze as she regarded the body of her niece. The hair on the back of his neck literally stood up, and he had to restrain himself to keep from showing his teeth in a warning snarl. You are responsible for this, Madam. I don’t know how, but I know that you are responsible.

  He had to control himself; he had to completely, absolutely, control himself. He daren’t let a hint of what he felt show.

  And he had to say things he not only didn’t mean, but make suggestions he did not want followed. “—for tonight, it will be enough to put her to bed and hope for the best, but if she has not regained some signs of consciousness by tomorrow, you will need both a physician and trained nurses,” he continued, knowing that if he showed any signs of interest in Marina, Madam would find someone else. Devilment… she’ll want indifferent care at the best, and neglectful at the worst. I have to convince her that this is what I represent. And to do that, I have to pretend I don’t care about having her as a patient. “A physician to check on her welfare and try methods of bringing her awake, and nurses to care for her physical needs. She will need to be tube-fed, cleaned, turned—”

  “What about you?” Reggie interrupted, his eyes shrewd. “What about your people? You’re not that far away, why can’t you come tend her here?”

  “We have a full schedule at Briareley,” he replied, feigning indifference, though his heart urged him to snatch Marina up, throw her over his shoulder, and run for the carriage with her. “I cannot spare any of my nurses, nor can I afford to take the time away from my own patients to—”

  “Then take her to Briareley,” Madam ordered, quite as if she had the right to give him orders. “There’s the only possible solution. Where best would it be to send her? You are here, Briareley has the facilities, and you have the staff and the expertise.” She shrugged, as if it was all decided. “We want the best for her, of course. It should be clear to you that no one here knows what to do, and wouldn’t it be more efficacious to get her professional help immediately?”

  “It would be best—the sooner she has professional care, the better—” he began.

  Madam interrupted him. “What is your usual fee for cases like this?”

  She might have been talking about a coal-delivery, and if he had been what she thought he was—

  He had to react as if he was.

  He didn’t have a usual fee for cases like this because he’d never had one—but he blandly (and with open skepticism, as if he expected them to balk) named a fee that would pay for a half dozen more nurses and two more strong male attendants for Briareley, a fee so exorbitant that he was sure they would at least attempt to bargain with him. But he knew that he dared not name a price so low they would think he was eager to get Marina to Briareley—much less simply volunteer to take her without being paid. He had to look as if he was exactly what Madam thought him; a quack who was only interested in what he could get for warehousing the weak-minded and insane. He was walking a delicate line here; he had to make them think he was motivated by nothing more than money, yet he didn’t dare do anything that might cause them to send Marina elsewhere.

  Stomach churned, jaws ached from being clenched, heart pounded as if he’d been running. Everything told him to get her out of here—

  “Naturally,” Madam said, so quickly it made him blink. “Poor Marina’s own inheritance will more than suffice to cover your fees, and as her guardian, I will gladly authorize the disbursement.” The Odious Reggie made a sound that started as a protest, but it faded when his mother glared at him. “I’ll ring for a servant; she can be moved, of course?”

  “Of course,” he agreed, then did a double take, “You mean, you wish me to take her now? Tonight?”

  “In the Oakhurst carriage, of course,” Madam replied breezily. “I should think it would be the best thing of all for her to be in the proper hands immediately. We know nothing—we might make errors—she could even come to some harm at our hands.” The woman gazed limpidly up at him. “You understand, don’t you, doctor? There must be no question but what we did the best for her immediately. No question at all.”

  He shook, and strove to control his trembling, at the implications behind those words. That this creature was already calculating ahead to the moment when—she expected—Marina’s poor husk would take its final breath, and Briareley would boast one less patient. If nothing else would have told him that Madam was behind this, the cold calculation in her words would have given him all the proof that he needed. This had been planned, start to finish.

  “Well,” he said slowly, concentrating very hard on pulling on his gloves, “I can have no objection, if you are providing the carriage. And-ah-I can expect my fee tomorrow? I bill for the month in advance, after all.”

  “Of course,” Madam agreed, and rang for a servant.

  Not one, but three appeared, and when Madam had explained what she wanted, they disappeared, only to return with heavy carriage-rugs, which they wrapped Marina in carefully. Then the largest of the three picked her up.

  “My people will show you to the carriage,” Madam said, needlessly.

  The first two servants beckoned to him to follow, and the third carried Marina, following behind Andrew to the waiting carriage, his face as full of woe as Madam’s was empty of that emotion.

  The rain had stopped; they stepped out into a courtyard lit by paraffin torches, puddles glinting yellow, reflecting the flames. A closed carriage awaited, drawn by two restive horses; one of the servants opened the carriage door, while the other pulled down the steps. Andrew got into the waiting carriage first, followed by the giant carrying Marina, who took a seat across from him, still cradling the girl against his shoulder. “Ready to go, sir.”

  Andrew blinked. He had expected the man to put his burden on the seat and leave. Madam didn’t order this.

  But the look in the man’s eyes spoke volumes about what he would do, whether or not Madam ordered it.

  Good gad. She has the servants with her. No wonder Madam was worried about appearances.

  He cleared his throat as the carriage rolled forward into the damp night, the sound of the wheels unnaturally loud, the horses’ hooves even louder. “When Miss Roeswood collapsed—did you see or hear anything—ah—”

  “Peter, sir,” the giant supplied.

  “Yes, Peter—have you any idea what happened to Miss Roeswood?” He waited to hear what the man would say with some impatience. “Was she, perhaps, discussing something with Madam Arachne?”

  “No, sir,” the young fellow sighed. “I was polishing the silver, sir. Didn’t know nothing until Madam started shrieking like a steam-whistle, sir. Then I came running, like everybody else. We all came running, sir. Madam was standing by the fire, Miss was on the hearth-rug in a heap, Master Reggie was running out the door.”

  Interesting. “Madam screamed?” he prompted.

  “Yes, sir. Said Miss Roeswood had took a fit and fell down, sir, and that we was to send the carriage with Reggie to get you, on account of that you have to do with people’s brains. Said it was likely a brainstorm, sir.” The young man’s voice sounded woebegone, choked, as if he was going to cry in the next moment. “I moved her to the couch, sir, thinking it couldn’t do her any good to be a—lying on the hearth—rug. I hope I didn’t do wrong, sir—I hope I didn’t do her no harm—”

  He hadn’t seen any sign that anyone had hit Marina over the head—hadn’t seen any sign that she might have cracked her own skull as she fell—so he was able to reassure the poor fellow that he hadn’t done wrong. “This could be anything, Peter—but you did right to get her up out of the cold drafts.”

  “Sir—” the young man’s voice cracked. “Sir, you are going to make her come out of this? You’re going to fix her up? You aren’t going to go and stick her in a bed and let her die,
are you?”

  Good Lord. His spirits rose. Whatever devilment Madam and her son had been up to at Oakhurst, it was clear that Marina had the complete loyalty of the underservants. With that—if there were any signs of what they’d been up to, all he had to do was ask for their help. And then there would be a hundred eyes looking for it at his behest, and fifty tongues ready to wag for him if he put out the word to them.

  “I swear I am going to do my best, Peter,” he said fiercely. “I swear it by all that’s holy. But if there was anything going on—anything that Madam or her son were doing that might have had something to do with what’s happened to Miss Roeswood—” He groped after what to ask. “I don’t think this is an accident, Peter. And I can think of a very good reason why Madam would want something that looks like an accident to befall Miss Roeswood—”

  “Say no more, sir.” Peter’s voice took on a fierceness of its own. “I get your meaning. If there was aught going on—well, you’ll be hearing of it. Hasn’t gone by us that Madam’s to get Oakhurst if aught was to happen to Miss.”

  He couldn’t see the young man’s face in the darkness, but he didn’t have to. This young man was a stout young fellow, a real Devonian, honest and trustworthy, and loyal to a fault. And not to Madam. Allies. Allies and spies, of the sort that Madam is likely to disregard. By Heaven—

  “Thank you, Peter,” he said heavily, and then hesitated. “There might be things you wouldn’t know to look for—”

  “Cook’s second cousin’s your cook,” Peter interrupted, in what appeared to be a non sequitor. “And your cook’s helper’s my Sally’s sister, what’s also her niece. Happen that if someone were to come by the kitchen at teatime, just a friendly visit, mind, and let drop what’s to be looked for, well—the right people would find out to know what to winkle out.”

  Good God. Country life… connections and connections, deep and complicated enough to get word to me no matter what. “I may not know anything tomorrow—perhaps not for days,” he warned.