by Stephen Hunt
Holten went to slap her then, but pulled back, regaining control of her temper at the last second. ‘Not today, my dear.’
They rode on in icy silence. Willow was shivering with cold by the time they eventually halted. Both Holten and her manservant wore warm coats in the coach’s unheated compartment. Willow only had her dress. Nocks pulled Willow up and untied the rope around her wrists. The door opened and she was pushed out into the cold. She found herself on a wide gravel drive lined with moss-covered ornaments; overgrown lawns beyond. A group of servants waited to greet them in front of a dilapidated but elegant house, four towering storeys of honeyed limestone, a wide sweeping frontage with two symmetrical wings jutting out at either side. Chimneys poured smoke into the sky, statues of angels striking a variety of positions under cupolas mounted on the roof.
‘Welcome to Belinus Hall, Mistress Landor,’ said the senior servant, stepping forward from the line of footmen and maids.
Holten raised a hand perfunctorily. ‘Take us to the master of the house at once.’
‘Of course. This way, mistress.’ He raised his eyes uncertainly to look at Nocks and Willow.
‘I’m being held against my will by these people,’ said Willow.
‘As you value your employment, ignore her,’ commanded Holten. ‘She’s a difficult child, highly-strung, lazy and probably better off confined to an asylum.’
‘We get all sorts here, Mistress Landor,’ said the servant. ‘Our discretion is renowned.’ He beckoned to the line and four burly, broken-faced retainers stepped forward who wouldn’t have looked out of place as bareknuckle boxers in a ring. ‘No trouble today, miss, if you please.’
Willow groaned as the retainers fell in behind the visitors. Whatever help she might receive, it obviously wasn’t going to come from these southern bruisers.
They entered through the house, moving quickly across a chequered diamond-patterned black and white floor, then through narrow wooden-lined corridors, staff bobbing, bowing and curtsying towards the visitors everywhere they went. It was almost as cold inside the house as outside, despite the dark smoke Willow had noted emptying towards the sky from the hall’s stacks. I thought the south was meant to be warmer than Northhaven? Willow was marched into a large drawing room on the ground floor, still cold but at least well-lit by a wheel-like gasolier. She stood there a moment, lost among the octagonal oak tables and slightly tattered sofas. At the other end of the room sat a man, looking small under an ornamental plastered ceiling shaped with spirals of vines and fir cones. Nocks pushed Willow across the carpet towards him, and as she drew closer, she saw the chamber’s occupant was anything but small. He was six foot of arrogance, sprawled lazily across a chair, lacking even the courtesy of getting to his feet to greet his visitors. He possessed the thick, curled black hair of a dandy. His face was blocky and handsome in its way, perhaps thirty years of age, but the noble’s expression seemed to alternate between languor and bitterness, and that was enough to make Willow take against him even without the dishonour of her present company.
When he opened his mouth to speak in a deep growl, the impression wasn’t softened. ‘Leyla, or should I say Mistress Landor now? Always a pleasure. You have done well for yourself.’
‘And so, shortly, will you. With my assistance, it goes without saying. This man,’ said Holten to Willow, indicating the nobleman sprawled lazily across a chair, ‘is your future. Treat him very well. It will be your privilege to provide Viscount William Wallingbeck with an heir to his house.’
‘More than one,’ drawled the viscount. ‘My mother lost two of my brothers and three sisters here to cold and illness before I was ten. Need to lay down a good crop to prepare for wastage. Hope for the best and prepare for the worst and all that.’
‘You’re insane if you believe I will have anything to do with this charade,’ spat Willow. ‘I don’t know who you are, I don’t love you and I won’t marry you.’
‘Love has so little to do with this affair that a college scholar with a magnifying glass would be hard pressed to uncover it,’ said the viscount. ‘As for introductions, you are I take it, the Willow Landor whose dreary farming father is one of the richest men in the north? While I am Viscount William Wallingbeck, title-holder to one of the oldest houses in the kingdom. Your children will have such honours it will wash away the stain of your low birth, and in return, your house’s dowry will help alleviate my gambling debts and repair the leaking roof at Belinus Hall.’
‘There is no stain in my birth. And I am not a cow to be traded at the local fair!’
‘I find breeding bulls an agreeable diversion,’ said the viscount. ‘From your comportment so far, I fear I will not be able to claim the same of lying with you.’
‘And we are in Arcadia now, my dear,’ said Leyla Holten. ‘This is very far from local.’
‘Divorce my fool of a father and marry this highborn pig yourself, then.’
‘Alas, my dear, I find myself far too comfortable with my present circumstances. And William is correct; his gambling debts really are rather severe. Why, my personal funds would barely cover the silver piss-pot his maids use to catch rainwater from the hall’s leaking battlements.’
‘And I do take exception at being characterized as a swine,’ said the viscount, standing up to admire himself in a mirror between two notably empty bookcases. ‘I’m a strikingly handsome fellow.’
‘Indeed so,’ said Holten, reaching out to run her fingers through his hair. ‘And quite the brute with it.’
Willow backed away from them. ‘You think there’s a priest in the capital who will marry me against my will?’
‘Oh, I’m sure we could find one or two,’ smiled Holten. ‘But I don’t have time to waste, and a formal ceremony is no longer necessary. You were probably too drugged to remember the flight south. We shared the transport with Prefect Colbert who had a suggestion that is simply perfect for our predicament. An obscure four-centuries-old law still vested on the statute book from the reign of King Morlan. If you recall your tutoring, Morlan was the dirty dog who enjoyed divorcing his wives almost as much as he disliked listening to churchmen lecturing him about why taking fresh queens was out of the question. His solution was ingenious. Divorces exclusively by royal decree … with a marriage licence on the bill’s opposite side. William’s never been married before, so the palace clerks only had half the paperwork to prepare, for which I’m sure they’ll thank you.’
Willow felt a rising sense of dread. ‘It’s not true!’
‘You’ve been married by decree regius since this afternoon,’ laughed Holten. ‘Consider the rest of the evening your honeymoon, my lady.’ She gave a mocking curtsy towards Willow. ‘I’ll have to arrange a proper title for your father too, now, I suppose. I would so hate to have the misfortune of sharing a table with you, and be embarrassed in public by being seated with lower precedence.’
Willow seized a vase from a nearby table and hurled it at her stepmother, ceramic smashing across the woman’s chest and sending her stumbling back into a panelled wall. Holten recovered herself, shaking with rage. ‘You little bitch! You dare strike me, mistress of your house!’
‘Well, you did warn me she would need breaking in,’ said the viscount, amused. ‘I trust the dowry is as large as your husband promised. It seems this will be a tiresome amount of work.’
‘Half now,’ said Holten. ‘The balance when she’s provided you with an heir.’
Willow suddenly realized how very alone she was, surrounded by Holten’s placemen and the poisonous woman’s friends. She backed away towards a high glass window, drawing out the stolen knife she had hidden under her dress. ‘I swear, I’ll kill the first one of you who tries to lay a hand on me.’
‘It won’t be me to do it,’ said the viscount, sounding bored. ‘A dreary rural maid like you, you must know how a recalcitrant cow is led to service the bull, and it’s never the bull that’s expected to tie a cow to the frame. That’s what farm-hands are for.’
/> ‘Nocks,’ commanded Holten. ‘It’s time for you to earn your pay.’
The malevolent manservant shook his head in mocking sadness, signalling the viscount’s burly retainers to move towards Willow and seize her. ‘I did warn you, girl. You’re shaming your marriage with this disobedience. It’s a pity I didn’t bring my horse whip down south with me, or I’d use it to whack some sense of duty into you. Had to throw it away, though. Too much blood on it, after I beat your pastor’s son to death with it.’
‘You’re lying,’ cried Willow.
‘Didn’t mean to, but I mistook him for one of those wild marauders out on the road, sniffing around the park. Easy mistake to make, in the dark.’
‘You knew who he was!’ shouted Willow. ‘You took him prisoner alongside me.’
‘Really? My eyes aren’t so good,’ said Nocks, derisively apologetic. ‘He died moaning your name, if it makes you feel any better.’
‘There’s no one coming for you,’ said Holten. ‘No one! You’re alone and this is your new life. Thankfully, it’s a decent distance from Northhaven.’ She contentedly rubbed her engorged belly. ‘Don’t trouble yourself to visit. We’ll be quite busy enough without you. Enjoy the season here; there’s so much to see and do in the capital.’
Willow glanced down at her knife and then rushed at Leyla Holten with the blade, incandescent with rage, imagining plunging it in and out of her chief tormenter’s heart, but Nocks was too fast. The manservant stepped into the path of her attack, throwing one of the viscount’s retainers in front of him as a human shield. Willow tried to halt, but only stopped as her knife met the man’s gut, a soft slap as the sharp blade buried itself smoothly into his flesh. Viscount Wallingbeck’s servant collapsed screaming onto the carpet, the blade lodged inside the man’s body as Nocks and the retainers swarmed over Willow, pinning her down.
‘How tedious,’ said the viscount, looking at the man dying on the floor. ‘That carpet’s been in the family for generations. In the name of the saints, drag him outside before he bleeds all over it.’
Willow looked down in horror at the man. ‘You’ve done it now,’ growled Nocks. ‘You’ll swing if he dies.’
‘No,’ commanded Holten. She clapped her hands and the retainers bound the struggling Willow across the largest of the tables, legs and wrists tied so tight that her circulation was nearly cut off. One of the retainers handed the stolen blade to Holten, the metal still slick with blood. ‘If she’s tried, Benner Landor might read about the court case in the papers. I’ve promised him a title for his grandchildren, not a noose for his disobedient little spare.’
‘The court can try me for three bodies, because I’m going to slit your throat, Holten,’ swore Willow. ‘I don’t care how long I have to wait. And I’m going to hunt your lapdog down too, for what he did to Carter.’
‘Oh, my dove,’ said Holten. She stepped to Willow’s side and ripped her dress away, then used the knife to slice off the corset, exposing her cold skin to the eyes of everyone in the room. ‘Much better. You’ll find yourself far too occupied for such nonsense after you have been bred a few times. You won’t allow her any maids, will you, William? I believe she’ll benefit from looking after her brood herself. Nothing like exhaustion to clip a shrew’s feathers.’
The viscount stood up. ‘More like my kennel of hunting hounds, I’d say. Need to be run out daily to stop them barking and biting.’
‘Mount her and consummate the marriage,’ ordered Holten as she and Nocks followed the noble’s servants dragging the groaning retainer through the door. ‘Do it now, William. I don’t want to leave any holes in the decree that can be challenged later.’
‘Perish the thought, Leyla. You have to appreciate the irony of the situation,’ said the viscount as he advanced on Willow. ‘Normally I toss coins at whorehouse wenches to have them bound to a frame for my sport. And here we are, the tables turned. A pity I won’t be so handsomely paid every time I have you. Still, we’ll just have to make the money last, my dear wife.’
Willow shook with horror as she felt the viscount running his hands admiringly down her spine, but that revulsion was nothing compared to the outrage of thinking of Carter murdered by Nocks. Left for dead in a stable at Hawkland Park. All the miles the two of them had covered out and back again from Vandia, all the terrors they had survived together. The skels. The empire. The sky mines. The slave rebellion. All of that only to be killed in Northhaven, in her own home, by a sadistic servant? Could fate be ludicrous, so random? Please God, I can survive anything, I will survive this, but how can I survive losing him?
‘Another problem solved,’ said Leyla Landor as she walked down the corridor. ‘The line of succession at the House of Landor has just been enormously simplified. If my son ever requires a half-sister, I’m quite capable of providing him with a brat myself.’ She halted, irritated. ‘Do come along, Nocks. I’m sure you’ve been party to such recreations frequently enough that you’re not required to hover outside the chamber.’
‘You’re just spoiling my fun,’ said the manservant from outside the closed door.
‘I enjoy playing the voyeur, but only when I’m loitering to be pleasured myself. That girl’s whining grievances are grating at the best of times, and these are a much greater irritation. If Willow thought being a Landor under my roof wasn’t to her taste, let’s see how she likes being Willow Wallingbeck of Belinus Hall.’
‘I thought they needed a witness?’ laughed Nocks, abandoning the door behind him.
‘Don’t be boorish,’ said Leyla. ‘You know the presence of the Privy Council by a marriage bed’s reserved for royal marriages. If there was a marriageable prince going spare, I certainly wouldn’t be wasting that impudent girl on him.’
‘Or a king going spare?’ grinned Nocks.
‘Don’t over-reach yourself,’ warned Leyla. ‘You’ve proved yourself very useful to me. It would be a shame for our association to be terminated now.’
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ said Nocks. He halted by a branch in the corridors. Down the side passage, the wounded retainer had been laid across the floor. Willow’s knife wound bubbled in his chest, the man attended by two of the viscount’s staff.
‘Isn’t he dead yet?’ asked Nocks.
‘We’ve sent for a doctor,’ said one of the staff.
‘Then go and fetch bandages and hot water for when he arrives,’ ordered Leyla. ‘Quick, quick!’ She waited for the pair to scurry away and then turned to Nocks. ‘I’ve just found a way for you to be useful to me again. Save William the doctor’s bill. Having a murder with commoners as witnesses might be a useful threat to hold over the silly girl in the future.’
‘You like to plan ahead, don’t you?’ Nocks bent over the semi-conscious retainer and placed a hand over his mouth, then closed the retainer’s nostrils with the other, leaning on the man’s body as he shook and shuddered, suffocating, until it was a body no longer, just a corpse. ‘There we are … she’s a murderer, now. Crowds in the capital always do enjoy seeing a rich girl swing at the gallows.’
‘Vicious little thing. Who would have suspected it? Willow would have buried that blade in me without a second’s regret. Still far too trusting, though. She appeared to swallow what you told her about the pastor’s son. Without hope, she should prove a lot more pliable. William will break her in a few months, and if I know him, once the thrill of the hunt has vanished, he’ll go back to leathering fresh whores. She’ll end up confined to the hall’s top floor, wet-nursing an ever expanding brood.’
‘Good for her, but I don’t give a shit about the little sweet-meat if she’s not going to end up on my plate.’ said Nocks. ‘We’ve got another problem for now.’
‘The lure’s been well baited.’
‘Maybe a little too well,’ said Nocks. ‘The pastor’s boy will pursue the girl. And the pastor will travel with him. He crossed a world to follow the lad before. What’s the trip down to the capital compared to that?’
‘I wou
ld have let them follow us by air,’ said Leyla. ‘But my dear interfering dolt of a husband had other ideas.’
‘A slow guild train’ll do nicely,’ said Nocks. ‘Old Benner doesn’t know it, but he did us a favour. We’re not hunting rabbits, this is a mountain cat. You put a snare in the open and bait it with a handsome young doe, and the cat’s going to get suspicious. It needs to believe taking the doe is its idea, not the hunter’s.’
‘He’s just one man,’ said Leyla. ‘And I know all about men.’
‘Not this one you don’t,’ said Nocks. ‘Jacob Carnehan’s the wildest mountain cat of them all. Taking him down is going to be as far distant from easy as both Poles of Pellas.’
‘You mistake me for someone else,’ said Leyla, coolly. ‘I always get what I want and I never fail.’
‘How nice that must be for you,’ said Nocks, running his finger down his scar. ‘When you do fall short, you’ll know it. That you will. A burning pain that you go to sleep with and wake up with just the same.’
‘Ah, my poor dear revolting little Nocks.’ A muffled scream of rage escaped into the corridor behind them. ‘There, you see. You have to earn everything in life,’ said Leyla, a smile twitching at her full lips. ‘Every penny, every title. Just ask Lady Wallingbeck.’
Carter awoke with a start. He was in a cabin, but not the schooner he had dreamt, wet with kelp and sea spray. A dry, warm cot, rather than a hammock. One of many in the room, alongside well-scrubbed carving tables. A sickbay, then. He could feel the distant drone of a hundred propellers, their vibration feeding through the fuselage. Just like the skels’ slaver carrier. But healthier quarters. An old man Carter didn’t recognize sat opposite him, a portly chap balancing on a stool, pushing a jelly paste around a clear glass dish. Whatever the substance was, it didn’t look fit to eat, covered in a mottled fur of coloured mildew.
‘Awake, are you? I am Mapple, the ship’s surgeon.’
‘Ship? This is the Plunderbird … or did I hallucinate that too?’
The surgeon nodded and tapped the side of his jelly, before sealing it with a transparent lid and placing it in a black surgeon’s bag by his boots. Carter noted the more traditional bone saw jutting out and was all too glad he wasn’t suffering from gangrene. ‘Aye to the matter of your location. But no more hallucinations for you. Not unless you’re partial to a pipe or two of strong dank. Mapple’s medicine has seen you cured. And a word to the wise … carriers are known as “ships”, by those that fly on board them.’