Lord Bobbins and the Romanian Ruckus (A TeslaCon Novel Book 1)

by Sean Little

  As promised, an expensive black clarence was waiting with matching black horses to pull it and a driver and footman to serve. The footman opened the doors and Bobbins, Ms. Shaw, and Clarke all entered. A flatbed wagon pulled by two sedate draught horses followed the clarence to carry the supplies that Bobbins would be purchasing.

  They had breakfast at one of Bobbins’ favorite restaurants, a tiny little hole-in-the-wall where only those in the know were allowed entry. Inside, an Indian man made magnificent egg dishes, well-spiced, and served them with rich tea, naan, and vegetables. Then, they went to Bobbins’ tailor who had several packages wrapped in thick brown paper ready for Clarke, and a large steamer trunk of clothes each for Ms. Shaw and Lord Bobbins. There was a final stop at an outfitter’s shop where Shaw gathered ropes, lanterns, and other odds and ends befitting mountaineering, forestry, and survival. Then, the clarence whisked them back to the airfield.

  Stevedores loaded the supplies back onto Endeavor, and the ship was airborne again. It took less than a morning. They would lunch on board the ship.

  Clarke and Shaw stood at the gondola rail watching London shrink beneath them.

  “You like London?” said Clarke.

  Shaw was silent for a moment. She looked at Clarke out of the corner of her eye. “It’s alright. I miss my family’s home in the country, though.”

  “As you should. There’s no place like home.”

  Shaw leaned over the rail and waved at some children waving up at them. “Where is home for you, Mr. Clarke?”

  “Please, call me Nicodemus. Or just ‘Demus. My friends call me ‘Demus.”

  “Where is home for you, Mr. Clarke?” Shaw repeated.

  “You lot are pretty formal, aren’t you?”

  “Perhaps your lot is too informal.”

  “Fair enough,” said Clarke. “Home was West Virginia when I was a boy, but since then I’ve made the world my home. I’d like to settle down, though; I have eyes on the west. Maybe Colorado or California. Maybe the Nevada territory. I don’t know. I’d like to get out of the big cities and do some farming. Raise some cattle, maybe goats and sheep, some pigs.”

  “My father was a pig farmer. They are much smarter animals than most people assume.”

  “I’ve heard that,” said Clarke. “How about you? You’re from Sussex, are you? Are you married?”

  “Never,” said Shaw disdainfully.

  “Boyfriend?”

  She narrowed her eyes to slits as if the mere suggestion was incredulous. “I have no suitors, nor do I wish for any. That includes grubby Americans, in case you had ideas to the contrary.”

  Clarke held up his hands defensively. “Easy, lady. I’m not proposing marriage. I’m just trying to pass the time.”

  Shaw pursed her lips and looked at Clarke from the corner of her eyes. “Why don’t we talk about you? Are you really all that Lord Bobbins’ files said you were?”

  Clarke shrugged. “Some of that might be true. Some of that is probably exaggerated. Most of it is attributed to a man who doesn’t really exist anymore.”

  “A changed man, are you? Did you find God?”

  Clarke shook his head. “Been looking for him, but he’s awfully elusive.”

  “That is not what my governess told me,” said Shaw.

  “Then maybe he doesn’t want me to find him,” said Clarke.

  “Again, this contradicts my governess.”

  “Your governess ain’t taken the Lord’s name in vain as many times as I have, I’ll bet.” After a moment of consideration he added, “Your governess also wasn’t a skilled murderer.”

  “Murder isn’t murder in an act of war,” Shaw retorted. “You were a soldier. That’s part of the deal.”

  “If a man is dead and I killed him, seems to me the circumstances and titles around it are arbitrary,” said Clarke. “Dead is dead.”

  Shaw pursed her lips. “My governess never covered that topic.” Shaw fidgeted, smoothing her blouse and coat. “I hate travel,” she confided. “It’s always been the thing I dread most. The interminable waiting. The having to be pleasant around complete strangers. The smell of seawater and sweat, horses and leather. Beds that aren’t really yours. I just hate it.”

  Clarke smiled. She was almost petulant. He liked it. He said, “I got used to it long ago. Best thing to do is to put it out of your mind and focus on relaxing. Lots of folks get their dander up when they travel, they try to control too much of an uncontrollable situation. They want to be the first ones on the train and the first ones off. They want to have a lunch prepared by someone else exactly the way they’d have it at home. Travel doesn’t work that way. And it shouldn’t would that way. Why travel if you’re just trying to replicate your own home? Just sit back and enjoy the ride.”

  “And this is your philosophy?”

  “It’s worked for me so far.”

  Shaw pointed toward the broad white face of Big Ben in the distance. “Almost noon. Chef will have lunch ready soon.”

  “How long will it take us to get to Romania?”

  Shaw shrugged. “At least a day, maybe a little less. We will not be climbing to altitude like we did over the ocean. We’ll be much closer to the ground, so that will slow us somewhat.”

  Clarke leaned closer to Shaw and lowered his voice. “I know you’ve seen that picture. The wolf. What do you make of it?”

  The bodyguard did not respond for a time, and then finally said, “I am not sure what to make of it, Mr. Clarke. It is a mystery. That is why we are going to Romania.”

  “You don’t believe in werewolves, do you?”

  Shaw turned her head and looked Clarke in the eye. “I do not believe I am sure what I believe, Mr. Clarke. Years ago, I would have said that werewolves were stories to scare children. Now, after two years in Lord Bobbins’ employ, I confess to being a bit more open-minded about such notions.”

  “I listened to some of his stories the past couple of days—I have to say, he spins a good yarn. Are you telling me that he’s telling true stories?”

  Shaw turned back to stare at the horizon. “I think it’s safe to assume there’s more truth than hyperbole to his stories, although I will say there is some hyperbole. Things have a way of happening around Lord Bobbins that people do not understand.”

  “So you think the werewolf might be real?”

  Shaw’s face did not give anything away. She said flatly, “I will believe what I see when I see it, and not before. But I am buying silver to melt for bullets when we get to the castle.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Castle on the Hill

  “It was called something unpronounceable, so I renamed it,” said Bobbins. “Welcome to Castle Bobbins.”

  “Not exactly a name that puts the fear of God into a charging enemy horde, is it?” said Clarke.

  “You’d be surprised, m’boy,” said Bobbins with a wink and an elbow to Clarke’s ribs. “There are places on this planet where the name Bobbins is only spoken in hushed whispers, and only by the bravest man in the room.”

  Shaw cleared her throat loudly.

  “Or woman,” Bobbins amended.

  The castle loomed before them in the fading light of the afternoon. As the sun was setting behind them, the castle was bathed in the last orange-yellow rays of the day, and thus looked much less intimidating than it would have if they had approached it in the middle of the night under a full moon. It was a large and imposing hunk of rock, mined from stone quarried from shafts that sunk deeply into the nearby Carpathian Mountains, and then sculpted by hand by masons who had long-since left the Earth.

  It was a small castle by latter-day European standards, hardly a palace befitting a monarch of the Empire, but an imposing outcropping, nonetheless. A single keep spire rose high into the sky, light blazing in some of the windows and arrow loops. The main keep was surrounded by high walls of dark, almost black, stone. A barbican complete with a portcullis and moat helped defend the entrance of the castle. The moat was dried up and m
ostly filled-in, but there was a time when it would have an obstacle for an attacking army.

  There was a day when guards in uniform would have prowled the narrow stone ramparts of the castle, keeping watch for invaders, but now the castle was less for defense of royalty and more for a rich man’s summer home. There was a skeleton staff for upkeep, but beyond that the castle was empty and cold.

  The castle was also not modernized for airship landings and lengthy stays, so the dirigible could not stay. The mountain winds would be too much for a grounded ship. The airship landed on the open field before the barbican, and the crew emptied the hold of all the goods and trunks and supplies. The chef and Sandsworth departed the ship along with Bobbins, Clarke, and Shaw. The Endeavour pilots gunned the engines and pointed the nose skyward. They would take the ship to the nearest aerodrome in Braşov and await a wire from Bobbins to return.

  The portcullis opened as they were unloading and a scarecrow-thin man with hollow cheeks and gaunt eyes wearing a thick coat and dark trousers wheeled a flatbed wagon through the entry. The wagon was being pulled by a pair of oxen. Their massive heads were down and their nostrils puffed smoke in the cool evening air.

  Bobbins moved to greet the man. “Ah, Mr. Sala, it is good to see you again.” The man pulled the cart to the pile of gear and stopped the oxen. The animals stood patiently. Bobbins stopped in his approach to the cart and clasped his hands to his chest. “By Jove, Vasile! You look awful, man.”

  The groundskeeper didn’t just look awful. He looked beaten, exhausted. Although he was a relatively young man, his hair was graying at an alarming rate. His eyes were wide and scared. Clarke appraised him from a distance. He’d seen men with those kind of eyes before: Andersonville.

  Camp Sumter was one of the most horrific atrocities of the Civil War. The prison camp for captured Union soldiers was filled with underfed, sickly, diseased men, men who had been living for months in their own filth trapped inside a Confederate stockade. The guards had been sadists. When the 141st made it to Andersonville and freed the captives, they had all been starving, flea-bitten, and in various stages of dying. Most of them wouldn’t survive the trip back to the north. To a man, they all had the same hollow cheeks and wide, frightened eyes. It was clear to Clarke that Mr. Sala had been through something horrible.

  Sala climbed down from the cart. He moved slowly, deliberately. “Lord Bobbins, I am glad to see you again,” he said with a thick Romanian accent. “Things have…not been well since you left.”

  “I can see that,” said Bobbins.

  Vasile tried to lift one of the trunks to put on the wagon, but whatever strength the man had once possessed had left him. He nearly collapsed, but Clarke caught him before he fell. “I’m sorry, m’lord. I have not…slept well since you left.”

  “You need rest, Vasile. Sit down. Rest. We will get you inside and Chef Gabler will prepare you some food. You will rest this evening, I swear it.”

  Vasile breathed a sigh of relief that bordered on crying. “Thank you, sir. You are too kind.”

  “Nonsense, think nothing of it,” said Bobbins. “Sandsworth, please assist Mr. Sala into the castle. Take Chef Gabler with you. Make sure there is a fire in the hearth, please. It will be a very chilly night.”

  “Very good, sir,” said Sandsworth. “Shall I take the liberty to prepare you a brandy, as well?”

  “What day is it?”

  “Friday, sir.”

  “As you know, Sandsworth, I only drink brandy on days that end in Y, so yes, you may.”

  Sandsworth and the Chef helped the poor groundskeeper back toward Castle Bobbins leaving Bobbins, Shaw, and Clark with the equipment.

  “I guess we need to get this loaded, then,” said Clarke.

  “I guess we do,” said Bobbins. He made no movement. He raised his eyebrows expectantly at Clarke.

  It took a moment for it to dawn on him, but Clarke understood after a fashion. “You’re using the royal form of we aren’t you?”

  “We are, yes.”

  “I guess we better get to it then,” said Clarke. He looked to Shaw. She pretended to be lost in her thoughts.

  “She’s my bodyguard, Mr. Clarke. She can’t very well guard my body if she’s lifting trunks and toting bales, can she?”

  Clarke drew in a sharp breath through his nose. “Fine. Splendid.” He began with the largest items first, struggling with overloaded trunks filled with whatever insane things a wealthy lord felt he needed to live. Clarke was much more from the travel lightly philosophy, but who was he to question a man who was going to give him fifty grand?

  It took Clarke nearly an hour to load all the gear onto the wagon, situate it so that it would ride properly, and tie it down so it wouldn’t fall off the wagon as it bumped over the uneven ground. By the time he finished, he had stripped off his coat and shirt, working in his undershirt, sweating even in the chilly mountain winds. Night had well and truly fallen and the darkness was almost total. Only a faint light from a bonfire in the distant bailey of Castle Bobbins and a scattering of stars overhead allowed them to see.

  “Well, that took enough time,” said Bobbins. He climbed into the wagon seat. Shaw climbed up next to him, maneuvering her skirts with expert precision. Without waiting for Clarke, she slapped the reins across the oxen’s backs and the beasts pushed into the leather yokes, starting the wagon.

  “Wait a second,” said Clarke. “There’s no place for me to sit.”

  “That’s true!” called Bobbins. “Good thing the castle is only a short walk, then! See you inside, Mr. Clarke!”

  Clarke watched the wagon bump and roll toward the castle until it passed through the portcullis. “Son of bitch.” He wiped the sweat from his forehead, put on his shirt, and picked up his coat. He took three steps toward the castle and a long, low, mournful howl lifted into the darkness from somewhere nearby, a lone wolf seeking a companion. Wolves weren’t new to Clarke, but this call froze him in his tracks. It was a haunting noise that did not diminish in the night winds. It felt like a bad omen.

  Clarke paused to tug his coat onto his frame and listened to the forest. He’d never been to Romania, but the woods sounded like woods the world over. Maybe there were a few night-bird calls that he didn’t know, and maybe the deer were a slightly different shade of brown, but the forest was always the forest.

  Clarke walked back to the castle, crossing under the portcullis. He paused to kick the lever that released the massive iron gate. It slammed closed making a hellacious noise as it did. The crash of metal caused the woods around the castle to explode with noise as birds and critters panicked and ran. The sound echoed off the nearby mountains, banging and clashing. No doubt there were some snowy ledges in the mountains loosened into minor avalanches because of it.

  When Clarke got to the main keep, the wagon with the oxen and all the goods was standing by the main doors waiting for him to unload it. Clarke spat out of frustration and reminded himself of the fifty grand. He unloaded the wagon in front of the doors, then drove the oxen to the stables in the corner of the bailey. Once they were settled with some hay and grain, Clarke returned to the keep door.

  When he returned, a pair of scrawny and tired-looking locals were carting things inside. Both men wore simple clothes of plain cloth, sufficiently thickened and fleeced for the coming winter. Although they were at least ten years younger than Vasile, both in their late teens or early twenties, and both had similar wide-eyed, exhausted expressions to the groundskeeper. When Clarke approached, both men bowed and scraped before him. “Sorry, sir. Forgive us, sir.”

  “For what? Please, continue.” Clarke grabbed the largest trunk and toted it inside for them. The two men were making a large pile of the gear in the entryway of the keep. Once Clarke got past that, he stood in the main hall of the newly christened Castle Bobbins.

  Even for a castle erected to defend minor lords in an economically poor area of Romania, the main hall was a disaster. The stonework was solid enough, but wooden beams betwee
n the stone were showing their age, and each was well and truly coated with dust, cobwebs, and droppings of various varmints. A massive fireplace stood at the far end of the hall and a modest fire burned in the hearth heating the stonework and warming the hall slightly. Above the mantle was a torn and faded tapestry bearing an old family crest, a crow’s foot clutching a stalk of wheat. In front of the fireplace was a long, wooden table with creaky-looking wooden chairs on either side of it.

  The great hall was towering, at least two stories, and venturing to three stories in some spots. Corridors jutted off the side of the great hall, leading to narrow stone stairways that curled to the upper floors. The stone treads were well worn from time and use. A small balcony on either side of the fireplace looked down to the hearth from the third floor.

  The entire castle keep smelled of dust, filth, and disuse. It had promise and potential, but it would take work.

  At the table in front of the hearth, Sandsworth and Bobbins were tending to Vasile. Shaw was lurking in the shadows by the wall, sitting in dirty wing chair over which she’d thrown a clean canvas tarp. The groundskeeper was sobbing into a steaming bowl of soup. “I tried to work, Lord Bobbins. Honestly. Andrei, Csupo, and I—we tried. It just became too much.”

  “I understand,” said Bobbins soothingly. “I’m not angry in the least, man. I just want to understand what happened.” When Bobbins looked up and saw Clarke, he beckoned him over. “This is Mr. Nicodemus Clarke. He’s agreed to look into these matters for us. Tell him what you were telling me.”

  Clarke sat across the table from Vasile. If it was possible, the flickering shadows of the firelight made him look even older. “Tell me about the werewolf picture.”

  Vasile swallowed hard, swiping his forearm across his eyes. His hands shook slightly as he tried to steel himself. Finally, he licked his lips and said, “Things have been…troubled here. When Lord Bobbins inherited the castle, the town rejoiced. Upon his first visit, there was a parade and songs. We hoped this would be the thing that put our humble village on the map and turned us into a destination for all of Europe. It did not happen that way.