“That may be so,” said the Honourable Rag, “but she was abusing that position of trust, and your wife’s hospitality, to rendezvous with another renegade wizard, this one pretending to be a Scholar of Inghail here researching in the barony libraries, but instead inciting some of the local rabble to a trumped-up cult of the old gods.”
He pushed the wizard forward a step so she glared at him. “This is the false nurse. As near as I can make out, she learned you were returning home this weekend, and decided that not only would she and her accomplice complete their run of theft from the local country houses—for I have learned that these two renegades were plying their wicked deceptions in Yellem and Garmont before coming here to Ragnor!”
“Infamous!” said Justice Talgarth.
“Indeed, sir,” said the Honourable Rag. “The false Dominus Alvestone and Madame Harcourt, here, arranged for their cultist followers to invade the Garth and despoil the house, while she used her magic to subdue the diners and staff. Domina Ringley had asked her assistant to perform an illusion as a favour to her sister and an honour to the Lady on this autumnal feast, but Madame Harcourt used the opportunity instead to enchant and confound us.”
“How did you spite her?” the legate asked, with a doubtful look at Madame Harcourt, who was sagging now against the Honourable Rag’s hands. With a glance at the Scholar, the Honourable Rag set her down on the drawbridge, where she slumped inattentive to her surroundings. Or apparently so. I frowned at the way she slid her hand slowly across the boards towards the Honourable Rag’s foot.
“It was only thanks to Mr. Dart of Dartington’s quick work, and the assistance of two of the servants here, that we managed to foil their evil. I escaped the worst of the enchantment only fortuitously, having left to visit the privy before the wizard began her work. But this, of course, left the diners alone to face their peril.”
Mrs. Etaris snorted. My respect for her went up yet another notch.
“Mr. Dart was the first to realize something was amiss. He took it upon himself to break Madame Harcourt’s concentration, and thus prevent the full completion of the ensorcellment, though with some grievous result to himself. Without his prompt action I don’t know how we should have managed. He was quickly attacked by Dominus Alvestone, who had seen what was going on—but while Mr. Dart subdued Dominus Alvestone and his attendant, your butler, Benson, had forced Madame Harcourt into the butler’s pantry and was immobilizing her. He managed to bind her with the assistance of one of the footmen, but alas, he was injured in the struggle.”
“And the footman?”
“The footman ran away, because at that point the cultists Dominus Alvestone and Madame Harcourt had ordered to come had arrived, and I was engaged in full battle with them.” The Honourable Rag held up his arm so everyone could admire his tattered scarlet coat. “Two of your maidservants, Justice Talgarth, are of remarkable courage, for they bound the fallen with rags and sashes after I had disarmed them.”
“How many are there?”
“Some two dozen,” the Honourable Rag said off-handedly, to surprised and impressed murmurs. I looked sidelong at Mrs. Etaris, who rolled her eyes. When I looked back at the bridge, I thought I saw movement from Madame Harcourt, but on second glance she was still, crumpled into herself, and the movement was in the water. Miss Shipston, no doubt, listening in.
“They are all bound and locked into one of the rooms,” the Honourable Rag assured his audience, with audible self-satisfaction. “Once I had finished rounding them up, I sent the maidservants to clean up and returned to the dining hall, which I found as I have said. Mr. Dart filled me in on what I had missed, and just as we were debating what to do with Madame Harcourt—Dominus Alvestone is unconscious and bound within—one of the servants rushed in to tell us riders were approaching. Down I came with my prisoner, therefore, to tell you of what has befallen.”
“I—I’m not quite sure what to say,” began Justice Talgarth, whose face was nearly as purple as his cape at this point. “I must thank you, Master Roald, for your decisive work.”
“It is nothing but what I felt called to do,” he said, most pompously, “and Mr. Dart and your servants were of great help.”
“Ware!” cried the Scholar-mage suddenly, in a thick accent. “The wizard—“
We all looked at the wizard. The Honourable Rag moved his foot back hastily as the dress suddenly collapsed into itself and a thick silvery smoke rose up. While they all backed away, coughing, the water below roiled and a sleek grey tail flashed in the air—and Miss Shipston rose up with a wriggling figure clenched tight in her hands. The Scholar mage chanted a string of words that set a series of flashes in the air, bright sparkly things like Winterturn fireworks, and the wriggling thing turned back into the body of a woman.
Miss Shipston sank under the weight. She bobbed upright a moment later, flexing her tail to get to the bank, where the envoy’s men had hastily gathered to collect the wizard in.
Then they all stared at Miss Shipston, until the envoy said: “Thank you. Lady Antoinette?”
The second woman walked away from the group to talk to the mermaid. “Miss Shipston? I have been sent by Lady Jessamine to speak to you.”
Miss Shipston stared. “M-me? What do you mean? How does the Lady know my name?”
“She has her ways,” said Lady Antoinette, and sat down on the drawbridge heedless of her dress, the better to talk. I felt more puzzled than anything, but relieved that someone, at least, would be there to help the poor woman.
The rest went inside and upstairs, leaving Lady Antoinette and a guardsman with the horses. Mrs. Etaris got off the chair, groaning as she straightened from kneeling on the hard wood, and promptly sat down again. I slid down to the floor.
“I guess we can’t go home just yet.”
“I expect we’ll be able to go presently,” Mrs. Etaris said. “Fortunately I don’t open the store the Monday after market-day.”
“Mm.”
“That was a good story of Master Roald’s, wasn’t it?”
“Mm.”
“Come now, Mr. Greenwing, surely you didn’t want credit? I think Miss Redshank and Mr. Dart fabricated a delightful tale for him to say. It has the merits of being mostly true, avoiding all mention of wireweed smuggling or the Indrillines or the Knockermen—or you—and yet explaining almost all of what went on tonight. And I daresay the accomplishment of Madame Harcourt and Dominus Alvestone with respect to the cult is quite correct.”
I thought back to Madame Harcourt’s voice, general size, and motions. “She could well have been the White Priest.”
“Indeed, in the old days that would have gone to a woman. The white priest is female, the black priest male, and the silver priest an androgyne of one sort or another. I shouldn’t be surprised if Dominus Alvestone turned out to have once been Domina.”
“But … it certainly seemed to be a real cult …”
“That it was being used as cover for the Indrillines’ harvest of wireweed does not prevent that, Mr. Greenwing. Things are not always simple, you know.”
I sighed. “I still don’t know how you knew where the stone was, nor why Violet—”
Mrs. Etaris patted my hand. “Once we’d realized that Dominus Alvestone was staying here, and that he was the Silver Priest, I thought about where I would hide such a precious fake, and came up with the old clay pits along the Ladybeck. They’re easy enough to get to from a boat, and I’d heard from Madame Bellamy, when I went to enquire about what kind of stone they might be using, that Dominus Alvestone had been seen punting along the Ladybeck and the Raggle at all hours, claiming to be a botanist looking for rare night-blooming plants.”
“A botanist …”
“Yes, I expect he, Domina Ringley, and Madame Harcourt were all three of them in it, more or less deeply. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know the depths of it, unless your friend Miss Redshank finds out from her connections and chooses to tell us. Madame Bellamy’s house is along the Rag, not far from
here, so when I had thought of the clay pits I followed the riverside path until I found Mr. Shipston, Mr. Clegger, and Miss Shipston herself. She was quite willing to assist me in finding it, and I was able to send Mr. Clegger to the posting-house to send an urgent message on to Justice Talgarth.”
“And the Lady’s embassy?”
“You and Mr. Dart met the Lady the night before last,” Mrs. Etaris said, smiling down at me. “She might well have known by her magic that there was enchantment here. And if not … perhaps Miss Redshank’s messages from the Green Dragon are not going only to the Indrillines on their way to the Western Sea.”
I nodded, mind whirling. We sat in silence for a while, listening to feet tromp back and forth over the drawbridge. “What do you think I should do about Violet, Mrs. Etaris?”
“Do?” I looked at her, and she smiled gently. “My dear Mr. Greenwing, there is little to be done.”
“Oh,” I said glumly, and sat there frowning at my pink breeches. “And Mr. Dart?”
“Magistra Bellamy is going to do some research on his behalf. Very discreetly. I believe neither of you will want to involve Dominus Gleason if at all possible.”
I looked at her, but she was examining her gloves to see if she’d torn or stained them. “Oh.” I was finding it hard to focus. I was so hungry, I thought, I would have been willing to eat even the stargazy pie. “Wait—what about the pie?”
“Oh,” said Violet, flinging herself into the room and grinning at how she startled us. “I’m sorry, Jemis.”
“You made it!”
She shrugged apologetically. “No. It was a message for me.”
“From—”
“From someone up to their ears in Lark’s family’s business,” she said, “and most desirous of no one finding out.”
“Roald,” I said, things coming together. “He’s been gambling far too high, hasn’t he?”
Violet shook her head, smiling. “You’ll do well at Inveragory, Jemis.”
“Violet—”
She paused, hand on the door, much the same way she had paused at the door to the priest-cote. This time I was no longer angry, though perhaps I ought to have been. My head was hurting, my nose itchy. Overall I felt half itchy and half bruised, and altogether befuddled, and generally—
I wanted to ask her if I could write to her. But instead I said, “Violet … go with the Lady.”
“And you, Jemis,” she replied thickly, and turned away hastily, but not so hastily that I didn’t see the tears forming. And that, as they say, was that.
Or nearly.
***
Mrs. Etaris and I walked back to Ragnor Bella together. We were quiet most of the way, until as we crested the rise by the Little Church Mrs. Etaris said, “We never do know the full stories to things, you know.”
I was startled out of my reverie. “I beg your pardon?”
“On adventures. We never do find out everything.”
“Oh,” I said.
She tucked her arm into mine. “Nor do the right people ever get the credit.”
“Oh,” I said again.
The morning light shone from behind us, catching the blue smoke rising from the town, and a grey glitter on the sweep of the Rag to the north.
The wrong sort of herring. A cult, two secret societies, Violet certainly-not-Redshank, Mr. Dart, the Honourable Rag, Mrs. Buchance, a university result I hadn’t dared hope for, an affinity for magic I hadn’t dreamed of, a life that was not at all what I had expected six months ago—
A life that I might very easily have lost, if Lark was an Indrilline and had gotten her own way. A job I once wouldn’t have been able to admit liking.
I sauntered along, enjoying the morning, Mrs. Etaris’ hand light on my arm.
Mrs. Etaris chuckled lightly at her thoughts, and when I glanced at her, said, “But then again, Mr. Greenwing, it would hardly do for us to get the credit for saving a dinner party to which neither of us were invited.”
She smiled mischievously. I smiled back.
The Etiquette Mistress, I tell you.
Note
Stargazy Pie is the first book of Greenwing & Dart. Book Two, Bee Sting Cake, carries on the adventures of Mr. Greenwing and Mr. Dart (not to mention the inimitable Mrs. Etaris) as Jemis tries to establish a place for himself in Ragnor Bella, Mr. Dart tries to disenchant his stone arm, and the whole neighbourhood, including an errant dragon, is eagerly preparing for the much-anticipated baking contest at the Dartington Harvest Fair. Bee Sting Cake will be available in spring 2016.
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Her first novel, Till Human Voices Wake Us, is also available.
Table of Contents
Contents
Blurb
Stargazy Pie: Greenwing & Dart Book One Page 29