The Drache Girl

by Wesley Allison

  “Thirty thousand a year?” Staff quickly calculated the difference between the figure and the three hundred eighty four marks a month of a naval commander’s salary.

  “Plus an expense account.”

  “Think about it, my boy,” said Shannon. “That’s a lot of money for a young man like you.”

  “Oh, I know it is.”

  “Good,” said Merchant, holding out his hand. “Do we have a deal?”

  “Yes.” Staff took hold of his hand and shook.

  “Good.”

  “I hope we haven’t splashed out thirty thousand marks,” said Shannon. “How do we even know we’re getting what we’re paying for?”

  “Come with me,” said Staff, leading the two men across the first class lounge to a group of thick comfortable chairs on the far side of the room. Sitting in one of the chairs, legs crossed, reading a newspaper through a pair of wire-framed glasses, was a man slightly older than the former naval officer. He wore a new black pin-striped suit, that even when he was sitting, seemed a little baggy on him. An empty whiskey glass sat on the arm of his chair. When the three men approached, he looked up.

  “Alastair Merchant. Wendell Shannon,” said Staff. “I’d like you to meet Terrence Dechantagne.”

  The two shipping magnates smiled at each other, and then reached out their hands. Dechantagne, setting his paper aside, stood up and shook hands with all three men.

  “I didn’t know you were out of the navy, Staff,” said Dechantagne.

  “Just out,” said Staff. “Now I’m with M&S Coal.”

  “Don’t be modest,” said Merchant. “He is M&S Coal.”

  The four men sat and made small talk and had a few more rounds of drinks. Staff knew that Terrence Dechantagne had always been a man of few words. It seemed that now he was even more so. In many ways he was a shadow of the man that Staff had known, as though he had been starved away to nothing. The jagged scars on his eyelids were only visible when he blinked, but there was something strange about his eyes. Of course, the former commander had heard what had happened to him at the hands of the lizardmen, so these eyes must have been a product of magical restoration, but they looked as though they were seeing something else, when they looked at you.

  When the dinner bell was rung, Staff was surprised that it was already eight o’clock. The four men got up and made their way to the dining room. Merchant and Shannon were dining with the captain, so promising to meet with him later in the week, they took their leave. The diners had assigned seating, so Dechantagne also bid him good night. Staff was led to a small table set for four near the starboard side windows. A man and a woman were already seated. The man looked to be in his sixties with thin grey hair and deep blue eyes, one of which was a bit on the droopy side. The woman, in her thirties, was strikingly beautiful, with long blond hair. Her gown, with its wide black velvet shawl collar and waist bodice, left her shoulders bare to her collarbone. Black satin ribbon accented a gold and silver appliqué detail on the neckline. Her skirt was layered taffeta generously trimmed with rows of black and gold lace with a velvet trim. Seated as she was, it stuck out into the aisle.

  “Good evening,” said Staff, as the waiter pulled out the chair for him.

  “How do you do?” said the man. “I’m Raoul Marchond, and this is my wife Matie.”

  “A pleasure. Radley Staff.”

  “I don’t believe I’ve seen you onboard, Mr. Staff,” said Marchond.

  “I don’t either,” said Mrs. Marchond. “I’m sure I would remember you.”

  “I just came aboard today.”

  “From the battleship? No trouble, I hope?”

  “No, sir. Fourteen years in His Majesty’s service. I was fortunate enough to be able to meet the Arrow. I’m on my way to Birmisia.”

  “Aren’t we all? Do you have any prospects?”

  “It seems so. I’m in coal.”

  “Then we have something in common, Mr. Staff. I’m in the business of steam engines. I’ve invested rather heavily in a railroad from Mallontah to Birmisia, so I decided that a trip to see the inaugural voyage of the train would make the perfect second honeymoon trip.”

  “I would have thought you would go to Mallontah and then make the journey on the train.”

  “Of course not, dear boy. It’s all freight, at least for now.”

  The waiter brought steaming bowls of chicken soup and a large plate with thickly sliced dark bread and thinly sliced gingerbread. As soon as they were finished with their soup, the bowls were taken away and large bowls of salad in light vinaigrette and topped with orange slices were distributed. The three had almost finished with the salads when a fourth diner arrived. It was the raven-haired woman who had been playing the piano in the lounge. Both Marchond and Staff stood as she was seated.

  “Miss Jindra,” said Marchond. “I was afraid we weren’t going to see you this evening. Allow me to introduce Mr. Staff.”

  “Call me Amadea,” said Miss Jindra.

  “Miss Jindra is a sorceress of some renown,” said Mrs. Marchond, smiling at the reaction she received, as the younger man’s face went unaccountably blank.

  Rare prime rib was served for supper with baked potato and Staff gave over talking to tuck in. He hadn’t had a meal this fine in years. He certainly never managed prime rib in the officer’s mess. Dessert was trifle, and also ranked highly among all the food that Staff had eaten in some time. It reminded him though of his days spent ferrying a group of colonists across the ocean on the battleship H.M.S. Minotaur, and of the nights he spent dining with a strangely commanding woman with almost hypnotic aquamarine eyes. His mind wandered from there to the evenings spent strolling along a distant shore and a few stolen moments of frantic lovemaking.

  With dinner over, he excused himself and walked outside. He leaned over the railing and watched as a pod of ichthyosaurs raced along beside the ship. They were so much like the porpoises of home waters, except for the vertical tails. After a few moments, he felt a warm body next to him and turned to see Miss Jindra in her deep purple dress.

  “Mr. Staff,” she said.

  “Miss Jindra.”

  “I gathered earlier that you had a rather poor opinion of practitioners of the art.”

  He shrugged.

  “Have you known many?”

  “I’ve known a few—a few sorceresses and quite a few wizards. You run across a lot of wizards in the service.”

  “And you don’t like them?”

  He shrugged again.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I find them to be self-important.”

  “Is it self-important magic wielders who bother you? Or self-important women?”

  He shrugged again.

  “Birmisia is not the place to go if you don’t like powerful women.”

  “Don’t I know it?”

  “Is it magic you are afraid of, Mr. Staff? You know there is a sorceress in Birmisia who may be the most powerful in the world. She is said to have destroyed an entire city with a single spell.”

  “That’s probably exaggerated,” said Staff. “She didn’t do anything particularly amazing when I knew her.”

  “You know her?”

  “Knew her.”

  “So you really are not afraid of magic.”

  “I’m not afraid of magic. I’m also not afraid of a steam train. That doesn’t mean I would stand in front of one.” He tried to change the subject. “You have an interesting accent, Miss Jindra.”

  “My father was a Brech, but my mother was from Argrathia.”

  Argrathia, in the southeast corner of Sumir, was one of the cradles of civilization thousands of years before Magnus the Great had conquered the world. But now it was a backwater country ruled by petty nobles and warlords. Its only revenue was the plundering of its past.

  Miss Jindra’s eyes shifted to look past him. Staff turned to see Mrs. Marchond standing behind him.

  “Mr. Staff, I was wondering if you could join me for a drink.”


  “Your husband?”

  “Raoul has retired for the evening. He gets weary on these long days at sea. Miss Jindra, you could accompany us.”

  “I think that I too shall retire,” said Miss Jindra.

  “Good night then,” said Staff to Miss Jindra, and offering Mrs. Marchond his arm, he led her forward toward the first class lounge.

  It was three in the morning when Matie Marchond climbed out of his small bed and stepped back into her gown. She didn’t bother putting on her bustle or her other undergarments. She simply rolled them into a ball, and tucked them under her arm. Then she bent down to kiss him, biting his lower lip hard enough, he thought, to draw blood. Then she stepped out into the corridor and was gone. Staff waited a few discreet moments and then stepped out the door, walking down the hall to the bathroom. Taking a quick shower, he put on one of the complimentary robes stacked on the small shelf, and then carried his clothes back to his room. There were no others in the hallway, and the gaslights were very dim.

  Staff slept in late the following morning, having drunk more than he was used to, and having been up very late. When he finally crawled out of bed, he found his clothing hanging on the inside doorknob, pressed, and his other shoes just inside the cabin on the floor, polished. After he dressed, he walked down the hallway to the bathroom, where he shaved. Breakfast was long past and he didn’t feel like eating lunch, so he went to the stern of the ship and sat on a folding chair on the sun deck.

  The day was anything but sunny. The wind was up, just as it had been the day before. The sky was already overcast, and as Staff sat, the temperature dropped steadily until he judged that it was below forty. No other passengers showed themselves, but the weather did not stop a waiter from coming out and asking the gentleman if he wanted anything, in a decidedly Mirsannan accent.

  “What do you have for a hangover?”

  “I’ll see what I can find, sir.”

  A few minutes later the waiter returned with a glass filled with a thick, red concoction. Staff sipped it.

  “Kafira’s fanny! What the hell is in here?”

  “Two eggs, two anchovies, a clove of garlic, a hot pepper, tomato juice, a twist of lemon, and a splash of healing draught.”

  “That’s supposed to cure a hangover?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Wouldn’t the healing draught by itself do just as well?”

  “Probably sir, but it would not be nearly as beautiful.”

  Staff drained the glass and handed it back to the waiter, who disappeared. He sat in his chair and watched the ocean roll past for several hours. His stomach did feel better after the strange drink, but he did not develop an appetite, and so stayed away from the dining room. Through the course of the afternoon, several passengers walked out on deck for short periods, but none stayed, and none of them were people that he knew. The same waiter came out twice, and Staff had him bring cups of hot tea. At last, he got up and went back down to his cabin, undressed and plopped back into his bed.

  Some time late in the night someone began tapping on his cabin door. He at first ignored it and pretended to be asleep. After several minutes, the knocking became more insistent, so he got up and opened the door. Matie Marchond was outside in the hallway. She had on a lime green dress, cut with black lace across the waist and draping down the front, with a black lace mock coat. Her bustle was so large that the rear of her dress scraped the far side of the hallway, though she was leaning as close to the door as possible. Staff looked at her for a moment. Her lusciously painted lips were slightly open and she was breathing heavily.

  “Are you going to let me in, or do you have someone else in there?”

  “What if I do?”

  She bit her lip and arched one brow. He let the door swing open, and she swept into the small cabin. She reached behind her and pulled something. Her dress fell to the floor. Apparently only one of the dozens of buttons in the back had been fastened. She unbelted her bustle and dropped it too. She wore a tight corset matching her green dress, that covered her from just below her breasts to mid-hip, but she had left the rest of her undergarments somewhere else.

  “To what do I owe this pleasure?” asked Staff.

  “Shut up and kiss me,” she purred, clasping his face in her hands and pressing her red lips to his mouth.

  This time, he never knew when Matie left. He slept right through, waking in the morning to a rumbling stomach. He got dressed and shaved, as he had done the previous day, but today made his way back up to the dining room for breakfast. Mr. Marchond and Miss Jindra were already seated and sipping tea when he arrived.

  “Missed you yesterday, my boy,” said Marchond.

  “I was a bit under the weather.”

  “I was just inquiring after Mrs. Marchond,” said Miss Jindra.

  “She decided to sleep in this morning,” said Marchond. “Late night playing cards with the girls.”

  The waiter brought what seemed like heaping piles of food—porridge, scrambled eggs, sliced tomatoes, sliced ham, sausages, black pudding, and potato farls. Staff ate like a staved man. He sat back with his tea, facing his now empty plate.

  “That’s what I like to see,” said Marchond. “A man with a healthy appetite.”

  “I have no doubt that all of Mr. Staff’s appetites are healthy ones,” said Miss Jindra.

  “Well, so much the better.” Marchond tossed his napkin on his own half eaten breakfast. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll cobble together a plate to take down to Matie.”

  “Will you walk with me on the deck this morning, Mr. Staff?” asked Miss Jindra.

  He shrugged and stood up, pulling out her chair for her. She walked out of the dining room first and he followed, noting her white day dress. It was trimmed with black lace and had several lines of black brocade running down the bodice. The most striking feature was the short sleeves, which barely covered her shoulders. Her white wide-brimmed hat, flipped up on one side, was also trimmed in black lace.

  “You are playing with fire; you know that, do you not, Mr. Staff?” She said when they reached the promenade deck.

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, I think you do. Affairs of the heart can be very messy. And affairs with married women can be even more so.”

  “What do you care, Miss Jindra?”

  “I like you, Mr. Staff.”

  “Oh? You’re jealous then?”

  She laughed. “Don’t get me wrong. You are very cute. But I am not after your body.”

  “Why don’t we leave off my business? Maybe we should delve into yours.”

  “What would you like to know?” she asked.

  “You’re really a sorceress?”

  “Yes,” she smiled. “I specialize in scrying. Do you know what that is?”

  “Spying on people. Have you been spying on me?”

  “Of course not. And it is not just spying on people. I find things that are lost. I get information for people. I can look into their futures.”

  “Like I said, spying.”

  “Don’t be that way.”

  “What way should I be?”

  “I can see that you don’t want to talk to me, so I will say good day.”

  She left him standing by the ship’s railing and walked to the far end of the promenade before disappearing into an open hatchway.

  Staff found a deck chair and sat down. The day was slightly warmer than the previous two days, though just as breezy. A few waiters were moving up and down the row of chairs, though there were many more people here than there had been on the sun deck the day before. He looked up to see Matie standing over him. Her hair was carefully curled and she wore a day dress with the same black satin ribbon and gold and silver appliqué detail, as the gown she had worn when they met.

  “Do you think you can do whatever you want?” she asked.

  “I don’t follow.”

  “I don’t want you spending your time with that little whore
.”

  “Which whore would that be?”

  “You know who I’m talking about—that sorceress.”

  “You came around a couple of times for a bang, Mrs. Marchond,” said Staff. “Don’t make it out to be more than it is.”

  Her face went dark red, and she turned and stormed off in a huff.

  Staff sat and relaxed for a while longer, then went in to the lounge and had a drink. When he came back outside, a man in a white jacket had taken his seat. Even Staff, who was not particularly astute in matters of dress, knew that it was far past the time for white jackets. He walked down to the far end of the deck and relaxed in another chair until the luncheon bell was rung. He found his table in the dining room, though none of the other three assignees were there.

  The waiter had just delivered him a Fostbeck sandwich, with a large pickle on the side, and a bottle of Billingbow’s soda water when a woman screamed. Staff looked up to see Raoul Marchond, standing a dozen feet away, aiming a pistol at him. For some reason, the event didn’t seem real, or at least it didn’t seem as though it was happening to him. He just sat, wondering how long Marchond had owned the old Rex and Stern model 5 .44 caliber, and why hadn’t he noticed before that the man was a lefty.

  “I’ll teach you to try to seduce my wife,” said Marchond and squeezed the trigger. The weapon produced a huge bang even in the large room, as well as a prodigious amount of smoke. The bullet shattered the window two feet to the left of Staff’s head. The second shot rang out, the bullet destroying his Fostbeck sandwich and shattering his Billingbow’s bottle. A third shot went straight into the ceiling. Staff, still seated, looked back up from his sandwich to see that Terrence Dechantagne had grabbed Marchond’s arm and forced it skyward.

  Marchond seemed to be struggling for control of the gun, but it soon became clear that there was something else going on. The older man’s face had gone beet red and he was shaking slightly. With his right hand he clutched his chest for a moment, and then collapsed to the ground.

  “Is there a doctor onboard?” said Dechantagne, looking down. “Or a priest?”

  Chapter Four: A New Dress and a New Hairstyle