Phoenix and Ashes em-4

by Mercedes Lackey

  She kissed his cheek and wandered back into the house; he waited, though his leg was really beginning to throb, until she was unlikely to see the difficulty he was in. Only then did he limp towards the door, and seize, with wordless gratitude, the cane that was in a stand beside it. His valet had silently, and without being asked, installed stands with canes in them in practically every room he was likely to be in, and at every outside door. Now he rested his weight on the handle and reminded himself to make sure Turner was properly thanked.

  As the dusk began to descend, shrouding the rooms he passed through in shadow, he wondered how difficult it would be to get electricity and the telephone up to the place. Mad Ross's wife, Sarah Ashley, a Yorkshire woman, was the local telephone operator, although there could not be more than three or four telephones in Broom itself—so it would certainly be possible to at least get the telephone installed up here. Yes, he would see to that, no matter what. It would be another way to get his mother connected back to the wider world. With the telephone would come invitations to go and do things from her old friends, and he knew from personal experience that it was a great deal easier to refuse invitations that came by mail than it was to refuse the ones that came in person.

  Yes. I'll get the telephone in at the very least, and electricity if I can manage it. That should help the staff out a bit, too. Electric lights took less tending, or so he was told.

  He paused at the foot of the stairs, looking up to the next floor with a feeling as if he was about to try to scale the Matterhorn. He gritted his teeth, braced himself, and with the cane in one hand and a death-grip on the balustrade, he began the long climb. His knee now felt as if someone was putting a bullet into it with every step he had to climb.

  Halfway up he had to stop. I really did overdo. I should have had one of the lads take the kids out after the first hour. He'd thought the leg was in better shape than that. Clearly, it wasn't.

  He made it to the top of the stairs on will alone, and stood there for a moment with sweat trickling down his back. He wanted to sit down, and knew he didn't dare; he'd never be able to get to his feet again. At least now he wasn't going to have to climb any more stairs.

  But it's a long way to my room.

  When he had just finished that thought, his valet appeared as if summoned by magic.

  And as he looked into Turner's concerned face, he decided that pride was a great deal less important than pain.

  "Milord, may I—" Turner began, diffidently.

  "Oh yes, you certainly may," Reggie sighed, and allowed Turner to help him back to his rooms. The valet was a lot more help than a mere cane.

  "Milord, if you don't mind my saying so, you've overdone." Turner regarded him sternly. "Now, it's not my place, and I'm no doctor, but—"

  "Please, old man, if you don't mind playing nurse, I've no objection to behaving like a patient," he replied.

  "Then, I believe that hot water is in order." Turner nodded briskly, and took him straight into the bathroom, almost carrying him—which Reggie was not at all averse to. "Have you actually eaten anything today, milord? Since breaking your fast, I mean."

  "Ah—" he blinked, and thought. "A sausage and toast at luncheon. A jam-bun and lots and lots of tea."

  "I thought so. The pain takes the appetite, doesn't it?" Turner helped him out of his clothing and into the hot bath; he sank into it with a hiss for the heat, and a sigh of relief as the heat took the edge off the pain of his leg. "You stay there for a bit, and let me deal with this, milord."

  Reggie was only too happy to do just that. Once he was in the hot water, he realized that it wasn't just his knee that hurt—the rest of his wounds and broken bones were aching; the knee was just so bad it had overwhelmed the rest.

  He remained in the steaming water until it had started to cool, when Turner appeared and helped him out again, and then into bed with a hot compress wrapped around the knee. There was already a tray with hot soup and some assorted sandwich quarters waiting.

  And when he saw the familiar bottle on the tray along with his food he did not object. Instead, he looked at Turner with a raised eyebrow. "Was it your idea or Mater's to get this refilled?"

  "Mine, milord. I thought you were likely to need it, and I also thought you would not wish to worry your mother." Turner's face was a study in the unreadable.

  "I don't pay you enough. We'll have to attend to that in the morning," he replied.

  Turner smiled faintly. "I believe, milord, you won't need me any more tonight. Goodnight, milord."

  "Good night, Turner."

  He took his dose first, then dutifully ate everything on the tray. It meant that his reading was cut drastically short once the narcotic set in.

  But considering how he had felt before he took the stuff, that was a very small price to pay.

  I hope someone warned Eleanor, was his last thought as he drifted off to sleep. I don't want her to think she was abandoned. . . .

  16

  May 1, 1917

  Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire

  ALISON WOKE LATE, WITH THE sun streaming in the window of her room in the Crown and Cushion, feeling entirely contented with her life. As it had happened, she had not had to do anything about Locke at all. The Old Gods didn't like machinery; by the time he had arrived at the Hoar Stones with the motor, the last vestige of Loki had long since departed his erstwhile host, and Warrick Locke was back to being his old obsequious self.

  Nevertheless, she felt as if he ought to be rewarded in some small way. So on the drive back last night, she had said, quite casually, "Warrick, don't you think it would be useful for us to have something at our disposal that is a bit faster than this? More powerful? It probably isn't going to be the last time we'll have to traipse out into the countryside. It might be a good thing to have something fast enough to take us to our destination and back to Broom in the same night."

  "It would be useful," he had replied, doubtfully, "But really powerful autos take a great deal of practice to handle, Mrs. Robinson, and to be honest, I understand they need a certain amount of strength too. Are you certain you want to take something like that on?"

  She had laughed. "Oh, I don't mean to handle it; a fine Guy I would look, got up like some demon racer! No, why don't you draw what you need out of the accounts and purchase something appropriate in your own name. Then if we need to make a fast run into the country, I can ring you."

  She didn't have to be able to see him—not that she'd have been able to in the dark, even if he wasn't wearing driving-goggles—to sense his rush of elation. She had settled back into her seat feeling amused and content; men were such simple creatures! Give them a new mechanical toy, and suddenly they felt like gods!

  As to whether a fast automobile would be useful or not, she had no idea, and didn't really care. It provided an excuse to permit him to draw out a great deal of money and reward himself without actually giving him the money, which would set a bad precedent. And he would be ever so grateful; although he was not doing badly by himself as her solicitor, he would never be able on his own to afford the sort of fast, powerful auto that she could purchase.

  It was a bit of an extravagance, but then, once one of the girls was safely wedded to the Fenyx boy, such things would be mere bagatelles. She had gone to bed feeling supremely satisfied with the night's work. She woke feeling, if anything, even more contented. Too contented to go back to Broom.

  It was, after all, May Day. She particularly did not want to return today, since May Day meant she would have to attend that tedious church fair and school treat nonsense.

  She had decided months ago that she was not going to help out with this function, even though it was to be held at Longacre Park. The only way she would be able to attract the attention of Lady Devlin would be to volunteer for literally everything, and she would be only one person among the horde of common housewives from the Women's Institute and Ladies' Friendly Society doing the same thing. And she really didn't want to attend, either. Merely a
ttending, no matter how much she and the girls spent at the church stalls on things they didn't want and had no use for, would still call up the question of why she wasn't participating. On the other hand if business had called her unexpectedly out of town, she would have the perfect excuse not to even go to the wretched thing. The mere idea of being surrounded by a pack of sticky children, forced to listen to recitations and to buy handmade garbage she would not even dare to throw away, made her nauseated. The only bright spot in the whole day would be in watching the virginal little maidens of Broom trotting around the phallic Maypole in the recreation of a fertility rite, without anyone else having the least notion of what they were doing. And that was not amusing enough to have to tolerate the rest of it.

  London, she thought with longing. Yes, and why not? She deserved it. The girls had been very good; they could do with a treat. She could renew her assault on Lady Devlin once her ladyship had recovered from hosting all those wretched children.

  A night or two in London would be just the thing. Some theater, there were things she had forgotten in the spring shopping trip. And above all, it would give her a chance to recover her powers before she returned home.

  When she went down to the dining room, the girls were already there, pensively eating toast and tea with Warrick Locke; they brightened up considerably when she suggested the trip.

  "Mother!" Lauralee said, her face alight with pleasure. "Oh, grand! There are ever so many things I forgot last March—that wretched laundress manages to ruin my stockings with appalling regularity—"

  "We were a bit rushed," Alison admitted indulgently. "And Warrick, you can get that automobile I was talking about; with me there, I can simply write a cheque for it and there will be no tedious nonsense with drawing money on account or answering to the trust about it."

  The usually dour expression on the solicitor's face brightened to that of a boy on Christmas morning. "That would be more convenient, Mrs. Robinson," was all he said, but she held back her own smile. Men were so transparent!

  "Then let's gather up our traps and make for the railway station," was all she said. "I suspect we can purchase a few more new things to eke out the clothing we have with us sufficiently. You know," she added thoughtfully. "The one thing we did not plan on is that we have no common clothing, and if we are going to be making excursions to— special sites—this summer, we really should not be wearing things that will draw attention to ourselves."

  "You can get some quite nice frocks ready-to-wear, Mother," Carolyn observed. "Nothing that I would wear to Longacre Park, but good enough for—excursions."

  "Then it's settled. Away you go, girls; be so good as to pack up my things as well, while I settle with the innkeeper."

  The girls scrambled to obey, leaving her to enjoy her own breakfast in peace, and in the certainty that what had begun so well last night was only going to get better.

  May 1, 1917

  Broom, Warwickshire

  Eleanor had had a restless and uncomfortable night, and was mortally glad that Alison and the girls were away. She had been reduced eventually to sleeping on the kitchen floor, near the fire, inside a circle of protection before she could actually get to sleep. Only when her circle was around her and a couple of her Salamanders were frisking about with her would the unsettled feeling that there was something horrible outside the walls of The Arrows leave her.

  Then, of course, she overslept—although, for her, oversleeping meant rising around seven. It didn't matter though, since the compulsions that Alison had put on her had weakened to the point that if she was merely in the kitchen at dawn, she would be left alone. So once she slept, she slept long and deeply, and only awoke at the insistent tugging of a Salamander on her finger. The moment she awoke, she knew by the chill even here next to the hearth what it wanted; the fire had burned down to the barest of coals, and before she did anything else, she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and got it rekindled. Then she returned to the pallet—which, now that she was able to take pretty much what she wanted or needed within the walls of the house, was now as comfortable, if not more comfortable, than her bed in the attic room. It looked as it always had, but she had carefully hand-stitched a tattered rag of a coverlet over the top of a very nice woolen blanket, had more blankets in hiding if she needed them, and had made up a decent mattress out of one of the featherbeds left in the upstairs maid's room. Anyone looking in on her as she slept would only see her wrapped in something that looked as if she had rescued it from the bin, and once she was awake, the sham was carefully hidden away in a cupboard that had once held enormous pudding-basins. Eleanor could not have boiled a pudding to save her soul, so the basins, now stowed in the cellar, were not required. In all the time she had been here, Alison had never once opened the cupboards, and Eleanor was fairly certain she wasn't going to begin now.

  So when she lay back down to wake up properly, it was with no sense of hardship. She did, however, want to think very hard about the dreams she'd had.

  Unlike the ones that had driven her downstairs, these had been quite interesting. Not pleasant precisely—she was left with the impression this morning that whatever else had been going on, she had been working very hard—but certainly not disturbing.

  "Am I supposed to remember them, or not?" she asked aloud. And that seemed to trigger something—a memory of—voices.

  She closed her eyes, and relaxed as Sarah had taught her, because she knew if she strained after those dream-memories, they would vanish.

  Voices. The first thing that came into her mind was the hollow, ringing quality of them. Then words. "She's not ready! I care not if she can wield the power, she is not yet ready to do so!"

  That was a female voice, more annoyed than angry. But there was something not—quite—human about it. As if it belonged to one of those fiery creatures that she had called "fire fairies" that had appeared to play with her in her dreams as a child. There was a resonance to it that she had never heard in a human voice.

  "When are they ever? But the knowledge must be there when she needs it." That was a male, gruff, with the impression of immense age. Now, if a volcano could have a personality, this would have been it. Immense power was in this one, held barely in check; a slow power, slower than that of the first voice, but somehow the impression was that the speaker's strength at need was exponentially greater than anything the first speaker could command.

  And a third voice—also male, and by contrast, quite human-sounding. "Very well. But see to it that she forgets when waking."

  After that—nothing. No matter how much she blanked her mind, she could remember nothing else, except that she had been working as if she were studying for the examinations to enter Oxford.

  Ah, now that was another clue. Whatever she had been "doing," it hadn't been physical labor, it had been entirely mental.

  Assuming it was anything other than a dream. Which was a rather major assumption. Yes, she knew very well that magic was real, and very much a factor in her life, but it didn't follow that things she dreamed about were also real. Whatever, that was all she had of it. With a sigh of frustration, she stretched, opened her eyes, and started the day.

  Which, once she was clean and dressed, was interrupted again almost immediately, by the sound of a great many people and wagons coming up the street.

  This was hardly usual for Broom, and even less so this early in the morning. What on earth could be happening out there?

  She left by the kitchen door and went to the garden gate to peer out, and saw, to her puzzlement, a veritable procession of wagons and carts carrying canvas and parcels and no few of the village women, all of it heading up towards the road leading out of the village. Where on earth could they be going?

  Across the road, watching with the greatest of interest as he leaned on his stick, was one of the oldest men in Broom, Gaffer Clark. Under the thick thatch of white hair and the equally white beard, it was hard to tell exactly how old he was, and he himself wasn't entirely sure, because
there weren't too many other people in Broom old enough to say that they knew they were older than Gaffer.

  Well, if anyone would know what this was all about, it would be Gaffer. But—asking Gaffer was like breaking down a dam holding back a lake of words. The moment you asked him the simplest of questions, a veritable torrent of words came out—as Gaffer would say, "Words bein' so cheap an' all, why not make a great tidy heap of "em?" He was never one to keep his thoughts to himself, and one of those was always that there was no reason to use one word when a dozen would do.

  Oh well, she crossed the street and approached him.

  He gave her that puzzled look that always came over the villagers, because of her stepmother's spells—the look that said, "I think I ought to know you, and I can't imagine why I don't." She just nodded to him in a friendly but subservient fashion; Alison wanted her to appear to be a very, very low-ranking servant who was not a native of Broom, and so she would try and fit in with that. Besides, that very guise would give her the excuse to ask questions.