Provided, of course, she could keep people from noticing that all of the children she took to work for her died. The problem with using orphanages as a recruiting ground was that the people who ran them were generally busybody nosy-parkering sorts.
Well, she would deal with that difficulty later. For the moment, her experiment was going well, and she might not even need any more ghostly recruits if she could act in her own person as a man.
David was deep in the countryside at the moment. This was annoying, because she could not keep her eyes directly on him—but it was also something of a relief, because she was free to do whatever she chose without having to have him under her supervision.
And the cause was good. A “weekend”—which really meant a week or more—house party, at the estate of a very influential MP. Commons, rather than Lords, but in this case, that was all to the good. It was time for David to move a little out of his own social circle and into the circle that lived, breathed, and ate politics.
Not that the man was crude; it was his grandfather who had actually made the money. His father had undertaken the more genteel path of investing it prudently and skillfully. The son was a solicitor, with the specialty of estate management, and never saw the inside of a courtroom. Actually, he seldom saw the inside of his law offices; he had lesser solicitors and an army of clerks to do most of the work for him. The sole reason for becoming a solicitor, both in his and his father’s minds, was so he could go into politics, the taint of Money having become cleansed and purified by contact with the Law.
So David was there this weekend, under the Great Man’s prudently-extended wing. This would be a purely social occasion; the selected male guests would be examining him for any potential flaws, such as a weakness for dabbling in art or poetry, or a tendency to drink too much in public—or a too-flamboyant manner when drinking. The female guests would be probing his suitability as a husband—not that any of them would have a chance at him. Left to himself, he would marry in due course, but only within the ranks of the Elemental Masters.
Or at least, that was probably what he would do, though there were the odd marriages outside those ranks. It would make things difficult for him, of course, unless his wife was the sort to wish to play Lady of the Manor in the country, while he attended to his business in the city and his position as the chief of his Master’s Circle—Cordelia blinked at that thought, her attention distracted from assessing the two boys as they ate.
“Graves,” she told the maid assigned to care for them, “Give them the toys when they have finished. And at luncheon, see to it that they not be allowed the jam and cakes until after they have finished the nourishing meal Cook will make for them.”
The girl bobbed a curtsy. “Yes’m,” she said deferentially. She had been an under-housemaid, chosen by Cook because she professed to have looked after her younger siblings until going into service. She seemed competent. She would scarcely have done as a nanny, of course, had these been anything other than what they were—pale, passive little specimens unlikely to give trouble. But she was certainly up to watching them, seeing that they were kept clean and neat, and teaching them how to play with the toys they had been provided with.
Cordelia retired to her parlor, but to think, not to conduct business or attend to social obligations.
The Master’s Circle! How could she possibly have forgotten that? It was David’s obsession, and if he suddenly “lost interest” in it, his friends among the Elemental Masters would certainly take note and begin to wonder.
But at the same time, if Cordelia were to continue to preside over it, there would be very little time before she was unmasked. The Masters often performed so-called “out of body” work; the moment she entered into such a work in the presence of others, it would be very clear who she was. You could not mask the soul self—
—or could you?
Was it possible to disguise the persona that your spirit assumed when out of body?
If it was—it would take time to learn. If it wasn’t, she had better find out now.
Another delay! It seemed that every time she found a solution to the problems that beset her path, yet another problem arose! It made her furious, and that was bad; she had to control her anger, to make it icy, rather than fiery, or it would make problems for her. But it was difficult not to be angry. First, that wretched child medium had come to England—the one person who could uncover the ghost servants—
And at that thought, she mentally cursed. The child—somewhere in the country—was potentially within her grasp if only she could be found. She had started the hunt days ago—so where was Peggoty?
Surely, the wretched little girl wasn’t that difficult to locate! There were only so many places near enough to London that it was possible for Harton to travel there and back on the weekend!
Peggoty must have gotten distracted, or gone off into one of her dreams again. It would be the first time she had done so while engaged in a task for Cordelia, but like many spirits, the child was becoming more detached from the world as time went on. That was a flaw she had to constantly battle against, and was one of the reasons why she had to keep making more servants.
Well, it was time to reattach her, and throw a good fright into her as well.
Cordelia retired to her workroom, pausing in the closet that led into it to take three strands of hair from a tiny drawer, one of fifty in a handsome little cabinet meant to hold pills. Each drawer was marked with a name card; only twenty were filled in. Each drawer held hair clipped from the living head of the child in question before it had lain down for its last sleep.
She locked the door of the workroom behind her, and placed the hairs on the table in front of her crystal throne. Sitting down on her throne, and raising her hands, she called three Ice Wurms to her.
A breath of cold mist drifted down over the table, and three of the tiny, exquisitely detailed creatures coalesced out of it.
Like Salamanders, they were sleek lizards. Unlike Salamanders, they were nearly transparent, and looked as if someone had animated a series of three sculptures carved from the purest quartz.
Each of them went to the three hairs lying curled against the stone; each inhaled one.
And sat there, doing nothing.
Cordelia stared at them in growing disbelief and outrage. “Well?” she finally snapped. “Go get her! Fetch her back here!”
The Ice Wurm closest to her looked up at her with colorless, transparent eyes. She is not there to be fetched, it said shortly.
What?
Cordelia felt as if she had suddenly run up against an invisible barrier; stunned, and still in disbelief. “What do you mean, she is not there?” she demanded, with just a hint of uncertainty in her voice.
She is not there to be fetched. Not in this world. The Ice Wurm curled itself indifferently on the table, and its two brothers did likewise. If she is in another, we cannot tell.
For a moment Cordelia contemplated the notion that the creature might be lying to her. But—no, it had no reason to lie. She had other means of verifying the truth, and it knew very well she would mete out punishment if she thought she had been deceived.
So it wasn’t lying. Peggoty was gone—elsewhere. The Other World, whatever thing that might be. And there would be no fetching her back either, despite the claims of so-called necromancers. No one who had ever gone to the Other Side ever could be pulled back by mortal intervention.
The Harton woman. It had to have been her. She was the only one with the power to send a spirit on who would also have had any contact with Peggoty. Cordelia wanted at that moment to have the interfering cow’s throat in her own two hands—
Still, there was always the possibility, however remote, that it had not been the Harton woman. It might even have been the wretched children. It was best to be sure.
“Who did this?” she demanded of the Ice Wurms, knowing that they would be able to sniff out the least trace of whoever had last intersected with Peggoty’s being.
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But the answer brought a chill to her heart that nothing she had ever encountered before could match.
It is best that you do not know, Master, came the cool, sibilant voice. And it is best that we not tell you.
***
The endless rounds of empty conversation alternating with the endless rounds of polite scrutiny finally got to be more than David Alderscroft could bear. Perhaps it was the sultry days, and the warm nights that made it so hard for him to keep a cool, calm demeanor. It seemed much more difficult here than in London. And of course, a little talk with Cordelia always put things in perspective.
The trouble was, it was her perspective. The longer he was away from her, the more impatient he became with some of her obstinate opinions.
Another remedy to restlessness and unhappiness was in order. A polite inquiry to his host gave him permission to make free of the contents of the stable; his reputation as a good rider must have made its way even into these circles.
He did not consider himself to be so good a rider that he was willing to mount anything under a saddle, however.
He consulted with the chief stable hand, and soon found himself atop a steady, if unexciting, bay gelding. Unexciting was roughly what he wanted right now, anyway. He needed to be away from the watchful eyes, the endless gibble-gabble, the tiresome matchmaking games. Time alone, that was the ticket. He’d be able to think once he was alone.
He had studied the map, so he knew where he was. His host’s guests had permission not only to ride the grounds of this estate but the far more extensive lands of the neighbor’s. Highclere, was it? Highleigh? Something like that. The owner was away, scarcely visited the place except in hunting season, according to what he’d been told. That was good; the last thing he wanted was to meet up with anyone.
With that in mind, it seemed like the best solution (if he wanted to avoid more of the guests from this party) would be to ride over to the other property. He would be harder to find that way.
The dividing line was a hedge that must have been centuries old, and was far too tall to jump. He rode along it until he came to a gate in the hedge. The latch was at the correct height for a rider. He rode alongside it, opened the gate without thinking, and sent his horse through it.
And his horse suddenly shied violently back, just as a childish voice full of indignation piped, “ ‘Ere! Pay ’eed to where you’re a-goin’!”
It took him a moment to get his horse under control. When he finally did so, it was to stare down into four sets of indignant eyes; two sets of bright, beady birds’ eyes, and two sets changeable and human.
“What are you doing there?” he exclaimed.
One of the two children, for children they were, stood up, arms akimbo. “Might ast you the same thing now, mightn’t I?”
Her accent branded her as a Londoner, and from the streets. Her bold manner, however, was all her own.
And the bird that perched on her shoulder was easily three times as bold as that. The sight made him start. That was a raven. And if it cared to, it could probably take his eye out.
“Little miss,” he said cautiously. “You know that—”
“Neville is an uncommonly large rook,” the child said instantly, and turned to the bird, which ruffled his feathers and stared up at him, as if daring him to deny what the child had claimed.
It quorked derisively at him, proving it was no rook. The girl put her hand up to scratch the nape of its neck. He had once seen what one of those beaks could do to a bare hand, when a Raven-keeper at the Tower was a little too slow in feeding one of his charges. The bird had nearly added the finger to the menu for its dinner that day.
The girl looked at him as if she could read his thoughts, and her expression hinted at her amusement with him. He felt himself getting angry, and warned himself not to do anything nor say anything. These were only silly children. He gathered cold calm about himself, and looked down on them.
The other child had a Grey Parrot on her shoulder; the bird looked at him measuringly, then, without warning, barked a laugh so full of contempt it could have come from a human throat.
It stung, so much so that his next words were a challenge. “Who are you,” he asked icily, “and what are you doing on this property?”
“We’re guests, which is more’n you can say,” the first girl snapped at him. “Don’t you fret, we got permission to be here! Hev you?”
“Nan!” the second girl hissed warningly. The first turned to her, and the two went into a whispered colloquy. The ruder of the two kept looking suspiciously at him as if she expected him to mount his horse and ride them down.
He had never encountered children quite like these two—well, truth be told, he had never encountered a child quite like the one that kept glaring at him. The other seemed tractable enough, but this one! He was accustomed to street children who, at worst, offered to sweep a crossing for him, and if glared at, skittered away. This one challenged him outright, and acted as if he was the one who was the intruder here. Part of him noted that she looked like a little London sparrow, too, with her brown hair and brown frock.
Finally, the whispers ceased, and the rude one planted a fist on either hip and looked him up and down. “Sarah sez I hev to call you ‘sir,’ even though you come through from the other side of thet door, an’ I ain’t niver seed you ‘ere. So, sir,” she somehow made the word a title of contempt. “We got permission’t‘ be ’ere. We’re a-stayin’ at th’ Big ‘ouse. You got permission’t’ come ridin’ through thet door onto this land?”
“Actually, little girl,” he said, carefully coating his words in ice, “I have. By mutual agreement between the gentleman with whom I am staying, and the master of these lands, the guests of my host may ride here whenever they choose.”
Not that it is any business of yours, his tone said, though his words did not.
The little girl snorted. “Awright, then,” she replied ungraciously. “You kin go.”
She and her little friend cleared off to one side; he mounted, but was no longer in any mood to ride. Instead, he made a show of a brief canter in the meadow beyond the door in the hedge, cleared the brook a time or two, then trotted his horse back through the door, shouting as he did so, “Shut the door behind me!” and giving it the force of an order.
The little girl slammed the gate so hard the hinges rattled.
And it was only at that point that he reined the horse in and realized that those had been no ordinary children. Ordinary children did not have ravens and parrots perching on their shoulders and acting like playmates.
They’d had no hint of Magic about them, but in that flash of understanding, he had no doubt that they had some sort of psychical gift.
The second girl hadn’t spoken loud enough for him to hear her voice, but the first girl had been a plain street-sparrow Cockney. And how did that come about?
David’s host had said that the master of Highleigh was “an odd duck,” though he had given no details. Now David wondered if that was a simple description of eccentricity, or if the man was part of one or more esoteric circles. He could think of no other reason why a Cockney child of dubious ancestry and obvious psychical gifts should be on that property…
There was one way to find out, certainly.
He rode back to the house, to ask his valet to make inquiries.
An hour later he was possessed of interesting—and disturbing—intelligence. Interesting, because it seemed that the master of Highleigh was also the owner of that dangerous property in Berkeley Square that his own Master’s Circle had been forced to cleanse.
Disturbing, because the gentleman in question had turned over his home and land to the pupils and teachers of a school for the children of British expatriates for the summer.
Now, David knew of only one school likely to harbor psychically gifted children in London. He knew of only one reason—guilt—why a well-to-do London gentleman would have allowed the masters and children of that school to make free of his pro
perty for the summer. And he also knew that two children—two little girls—in that school were the keepers of pet birds.
The conclusion was inescapable. Isabelle Harton was living just on the other side of that hedge, along with her pupils.
All other considerations, all other concerns vanished in the apprehension of that knowledge.
She was here. She was, if not alone, without the oversight of her husband. He could go and speak to her if he liked.
He could. And in so doing, he could make an utter and complete fool of himself.
Or he might rid himself of the memories that continued to intrude on him, no matter what he did.
A dozen times he made up his mind to go back down to the stable and ride over and be done with it. A dozen times he reconsidered. And in the end, the silver chime of the first dinner bell, warning guests that it was time to dress, rendered it all moot. He had been able to escape his obligations for the afternoon, but he dared not shirk them further, and to abandon his place at dinner with no good excuse would be a faux pas he would be months in living down.
He permitted his valet to enter and dress him for dinner, in the stiff evening shirt, formal black suit, and tie that was considered necessary here, even in the midst of summer. The ladies of the party glittered in their jewel-tone gowns of satin and lace, ornamented (since none of them could even be remotely considered ingénues anymore) with small fortunes in gems. And as he made polite conversation and worked his way through the extensive menu, memories kept reintruding, of those times that seemed a world and a lifetime removed now. Times when the dinner menu was restricted to simpler fare than caviar and quail’s eggs on toast, roast pheasant and baked salmon, and a dozen more courses before the end of it all. Times when no one dressed for dinner, or if they did, the young men wore light-colored linen suits, loose and casual, and the young ladies in their muslins and flowers looked far happier than these prosperous dames in satins and rubies. Times when the after-dinner entertainment would be to gather around the piano or read aloud to each other, or for engaged couples, to stroll hand-in-hand in the garden—not for the men to split off in one direction to smoke cigars, drink brandy, and talk into the night while the women went off (again) to their own parlor to do whatever it was they did while their husbands conversed about “important business.”
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