The Perilous Sea

by Thomas,Sherry

  CHAPTER ♦6

  Eton College

  “TAKE A LOOK AT THIS,” said Iolanthe. She opened a drawer, took out a framed photograph, and handed it to Wintervale.

  Wintervale, Cooper, and Titus were in her room. They had just come back from their last class on a short day. It was hours from teatime, but she had offered to share a cake from High Street and Mrs. Dawlish’s boys were not known to turn down opportunities to eat.

  Wintervale whistled at the photograph. “Nice.”

  Cooper took the framed photograph from him. “Pretty.”

  “I kissed her,” said Iolanthe.

  Titus, who had been examining a tin of biscuits from her cupboard, did not look up. “I have killed more dragons than you have kissed girls, Fairfax.”

  “And how many dragons have you killed, Your Highness?” asked Cooper eagerly.

  “None.”

  Wintervale nudged Iolanthe. “Fairfax, I do believe the prince has insulted your manhood.”

  “My dear Wintervale,” said Iolanthe, “the prince has just admitted to having never brought down a single firedrake in his entire life. How could he possibly insult my manhood?”

  Titus glanced at her then, a slight, knowing smile on his face. The effect of that smile was a streak of heat across her skin.

  Cooper thrust the photograph toward Titus. “Do you want to see the girl Fairfax kissed, prince?”

  The prince barely scanned the picture. “Ordinary.”

  “His Highness is jealous because he wishes he could have kissed her,” Iolanthe said to Cooper and Wintervale.

  “I do not kiss commoners,” said Titus, looking her full in the eyes.

  She was most certainly a commoner, without a drop of aristocratic blood. And he had most certainly kissed her every chance he had.

  “No wonder you are so ill-tempered all the time,” she replied.

  Wintervale and Cooper laughed.

  The door swung open and Sutherland poked in his head. “Gentlemen, I have excellent news: we could be looking at twenty-four hours of debauchery.”

  “Every day of my life is twenty-four hours of debauchery,” Titus said, his attention again on the biscuit tin. “You will have to do better than that, Sutherland.”

  This took Sutherland aback. He was one of those boys who had thought Titus an insignificant Continental princeling who ruled over a dilapidated castle and ten acres of land. But after the events of the Fourth of June, Sutherland had become rather more respectful. And he stood at the door, blinking a little, not quite sure how to respond.

  “Don’t listen to him, Sutherland. His Highness knows as much about debauchery as he does about killing dragons,” said Iolanthe. “Now tell me your news.”

  Sutherland cleared his throat rather sheepishly. “My uncle has a house in Norfolk, on the coast. He has agreed to let me have the use of it to entertain a few of my friends. We can make a trip of it Saturday and Sunday—play a bit of cricket, shoot some grouse, and lay waste to a very fine collection of cognac.”

  Wintervale was on his feet. “I am all for it.”

  “And everyone else?” Sutherland gestured at the rest of the room.

  “They too, of course,” Wintervale answered for them.

  “Excellent. I will have my uncle issue a letter to Mrs. Dawlish, stating that he will ensure adequate supervision and allow only activities that strengthen both body and soul.”

  “Which encompasses laying waste to his very fine collection of cognac, I take it,” said Iolanthe.

  “Precisely!” Sutherland winked. “And if Kashkari returns in time, let him know he is also invited.”

  Sutherland sauntered off. Wintervale and Cooper, too, departed, after they had ransacked Iolanthe’s supply of cake. Titus remained, consuming a scone at a leisurely pace, studying her from across the room.

  It was possible that over summer he had become broader across the shoulders. And perhaps half an inch taller. But his eyes were still the same, young and ancient at once. And his gaze, focused entirely on her . . . heat again swept through her.

  They had kissed at every chance, but those chances were far less often than she liked. She only locked her door when she changed or bathed, so the boys were used to walking into her room after a perfunctory knock, often without even waiting for a reply—and boys came and went all the time. To change that abruptly might make someone like Cooper ask her why, in front of other boys.

  His room was the safer place, but he had not been in his room very much of late: he was constructing another entrance to his laboratory, a folded space that was currently only accessible via a lighthouse more than five hundred miles away, too strenuous a distance for her to vault to day in and day out.

  But when he was done, she would be able to reach the laboratory from an abandoned brewery a few miles away. In the laboratory, they would have safety and privacy. Not to mention, in the laboratory was the Crucible.

  And she had an inkling that in the Crucible, they might do far more than just kiss.

  “What are you up to?” He tilted his chin at the photograph, left by Cooper on her desk. “Who is the chit?”

  “That’s the chit who will save your hide.”

  His expression changed—he understood now that the girl in the photograph was her. But since she was protected by an Irreproducible Spell, her image could not be accurately captured. She had wanted to see what would happen if she were photographed, and the answer was that a different face altogether had appeared.

  He picked up the photograph and looked again. He would see a young woman of good structure and wide-set eyes in a fashion turban. “Where was this?”

  “Tenerife, the Canary Islands. On my way to Cape Town.”

  The steamer had been in port for supplies for half a day. She had gone ashore, walked around, saw a photographer’s studio, and decided to have a bit of fun.

  “Perhaps I need to rethink my policy on not kissing commoners,” he said.

  “I’m glad you can see past your prejudices,” she murmured.

  He gazed at her another moment. “I should go.”

  She gathered up her resolve. “Have you chosen a place? A place in the Crucible?”

  For when they wanted to do more than just kiss.

  He rubbed a finger along the back of a chair. “Have you been to ‘The Queen of the Seasons’?”

  “No.” There were so many stories in the Crucible.

  He didn’t quite look at her. “She has a summer villa.”

  She approached him slowly and laid her hand against the black cashmere waistcoat that peeked out from underneath his uniform tailed jacket. “Are you making the summer villa extra nice for me?”

  Their eyes met. “What if I am?”

  She smiled. “Just remember, no flower petals on anything, anywhere.”

  His expression changed briefly. “Do I look like someone who would strew petals on anything, anywhere?”

  “Yes.” Her smile widened. “You look like someone who thinks a few bushels of rose petals is the epitome of romance.”

  He yanked her to him for a kiss that lasted all of half a second. “I make no promises.”

  And then he was gone, leaving her alone with her still tingling lips.

  The next afternoon was the first cricket practice.

  Iolanthe changed into her cricket kit and knocked on Wintervale’s door. No one answered. Odd—she was under the impression that they were to walk to practice together. And Wintervale took such things seriously.

  She knocked again. “Wintervale! You there?”

  There came a thump, as if someone had leaped off a chair and landed heavily.

  She was just about to knock again when the door opened.

  “Where’s the prince?” Wintervale asked urgently, without preamble.

  “Out for a walk. Anything I can help you with?”

  As the words left her lips she saw the still-open wardrobe behind Wintervale. Understanding dawned. Wintervale was probably needed by his mother a
t home. His usual mode of transport was the wardrobe, which acted as a portal, but Lady Wintervale had sealed the portal last June, after Iolanthe had made unauthorized use of it.

  The irony was, Iolanthe could vault far enough to take Wintervale to his home in London. But she dared not reveal her secret to him.

  Wintervale thrust a hand into his hair. “No, it has to be Titus.”

  “Ah, Wintervale, there you are,” said Mrs. Dawlish, huffing a little from having climbed the stairs. “I’ve a telegram from your mother. You are needed home urgently. I’ve already sent for the carriage to be brought around, to take you to the railway station. You should be home in an hour and half.”

  Wintervale groaned. “An hour and half? That is an eternity. If only I were a stronger vaulter.”

  “What?” asked Mrs. Dawlish.

  “What?” Iolanthe echoed, since she also wasn’t supposed to understand what Wintervale had said.

  Wintervale shook his head, as if he were admonishing himself. “It’s nothing. Thank you, Mrs. Dawlish. I’ll be down right away. And can you make my excuses to West, Fairfax? I probably won’t be back before supper.”

  “Of course.”

  Iolanthe saw Wintervale to the waiting carriage below, then walked to practice by herself. As she approached the playing fields, someone called her name.

  She turned around. It was a boy of about nineteen, also dressed for cricket, tall, long-limbed, and straight of bearing. His dark blond hair was cropped short and he sported a rather impressive mustache. His features, slightly too irregular to be labeled classically handsome, were nevertheless quite attractive to look at.

  It took her a moment to recognize him—the last time she’d seen him, he’d had longer hair and no mustache. “West! Just the person I was looking for. Wintervale had to leave for a family emergency and he wanted you to know.”

  West, like Wintervale, had been a member of the school cricket team last Summer Half. Wintervale’s selection had thrilled everyone at Mrs. Dawlish’s house. But West was that much higher than Wintervale on the ladder, since he was widely expected to be the captain of the team come next summer.

  Iolanthe had briefly met him when her house team had played his house team. Her team had lost, but it had been an excellent match, the outcome uncertain until near the end.

  West offered her his hand to shake. “I hope nothing is terribly wrong in the Wintervale household.”

  “I should think not, but his mother likes to have him on hand whenever she is feeling unwell.”

  They walked a minute or so in silence before West asked, “You are a friend of Titus of Saxe-Limburg, aren’t you?”

  Until the past Fourth of June, she would have said that most of the boys in Mrs. Dawlish’s house probably couldn’t remember the name of Titus’s made-up Prussian principality of origin. But since then, she had fielded quite a few questions from boys who had seen the grand family entourage that had descended on the school and were consequently made curious about the prince. “Yes, I live next door to His Highness.”

  “He seems an interesting character,” said West.

  Iolanthe did not need to answer, as they had arrived at the cricket pitch and the cricket master wanted a word with West.

  But yes, an endlessly interesting character, her prince.

  Baycrest House, Sutherland’s uncle’s property in Norfolk, sat upon a high promontory jutting into the North Sea, with many gables, a cloistered garden at its back, and a small crescent of sheltered shingle beach to the north, accessed by a hundred feet of rickety ladders that had been bolted to the cliffs.

  The boys were quite ecstatic. Cooper, in particular, hollered as he ran up and down, as if he had never seen the sea—or a house, for that matter—in his entire life.

  The other boys and Iolanthe were just about to have a bite to eat when Cooper called down from an upstairs balcony, “Gentlemen, our friend from the subcontinent has arrived!”

  Iolanthe and the prince exchanged a look. She liked Kashkari. She was, in addition, quite grateful to him for the help he had given Titus and herself. Still, she was more than a little nervous at the prospect of meeting Kashkari again: Kashkari listened, and his intelligent eyes missed nothing.

  But this Half she was better prepared. During her summer of steamer journeys, she had made her way through a number of books from the ships’ libraries, especially those dealing with the political geography of the British Empire. Since she came ashore in England, she had read The Times every day. When she had time, she took a look at The Daily Telegraph, The Illustrated London News, and The Manchester Guardian—sometimes it felt as if she studied for Kashkari’s return more diligently than she’d ever reviewed for any examination in her life.

  Kashkari looked the same, doe-eyed, striking, and stylish. But after a quarter hour or so, Iolanthe actually began to relax. The boy who walked into Baycrest House did not seem to possess the same razor-sharp powers of observation Iolanthe had been half dreading.

  When he asked after her holidays and her family, and she told him about the Fairfaxes coming into some money and selling the farm, he only nodded and said it was a good time to get out of Bechuanaland, before the hostility between the English and the Boer tilted into open war.

  And then he moved on to Wintervale’s absence. “Does anyone know about the emergency chez Wintervale? Mrs. Hancock told me he went home near the beginning of the week and hasn’t come back yet.”

  “That’s right,” said Cooper. “He went in such a huge hurry he left half a Chelsea bun behind—and you know Wintervale, he never leaves food unfinished.”

  “Did anyone see him go?”

  “I was there,” said Iolanthe.

  This time, Kashkari’s attention was more focused on her. “How did he seem?”

  “Vexed, but hardly in a state of devastation.”

  Iolanthe had expected Wintervale to return the next day. When two days had passed and still no sign of Wintervale, she had become worried. But Titus had told her that it wasn’t that unusual for Wintervale to be gone as long as a week, if his mother needed him.

  “He should come back soon, shouldn’t he?” asked Kashkari with a slight frown.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if he turned up here tomorrow. You know Wintervale, he wouldn’t miss this if at all he could help it,” said Sutherland. “But back to us, gentlemen. What say you we go down to the beach, build a fire, and tell ghost stories when it’s dark?”

  Cooper all but squealed. “I love ghost stories!”

  Titus glanced at him. He always looked at Cooper as if the latter were a cocker spaniel that somehow managed to speak in a human tongue. But these days Iolanthe rather fancied that Titus was beginning to betray a slight fondness for the boy.

  But when he spoke, he was again the grand prince who could not be bothered with lesser mortals. “Commoners and their enthusiasm,” he said. “Where is the cognac I have been promised?”

  The day was growing late when they started for the beach. The breeze from the sea had become loud and stiff. Gulls wheeled overhead, seeking one last bite of supper while light still lingered.

  Iolanthe shook her head as she helped gather driftwood: the great elemental mage of their time, not allowed to snap her fingers and summon a roaring fire out of thin air. By the time they had a fire going, and sausages dripping fat into the flames, it had become quite dark, the stars tiny pinpricks against the inky sky.

  The ghost stories started with Cooper’s visit to a haunted house, followed by Sutherland’s uncle’s experience at a particularly hair-raising séance, and Kashkari’s tale of a spirit who kept visiting his great-grandfather, until the latter rebuilt a house that had been burned down by Diwali fireworks. Iolanthe contributed a story she had read in the papers. Titus, surprising her—and probably everyone else around the fire—narrated a chilling tale of a necromancer who raised an army of the dead.

  Kashkari, on the other hand, astounded Iolanthe by taking liberal swallows from the bottle of cognac
that was passed around—she would have thought that he drank sparingly, if at all.

  When all the ghost stories had been told, and all the sausages they’d carried down roasted and eaten, Sutherland produced another bottle of cognac to share. Iolanthe and the prince touched the bottle to their lips without actually drinking—anything that had a strong taste of its own could disguise the addition of truth serum or other dangerous potions. Everyone else drank with varying degrees of purpose and dedication.

  A small silence fell—and stayed. The boys stared into the fire. Iolanthe studied the interplay of light and shadows upon their features, especially Kashkari’s. Titus, too, watched Kashkari.

  Something was not quite right with him.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” said Cooper out of the blue. “My father is counting the days until I can join his firm of solicitors. And I don’t think I can ever tell him that I haven’t the slightest interest in the law.”

  Iolanthe was taken aback by the sudden turn in the conversation. “So what do you want to do?”

  “That’s just the thing. I haven’t the slightest idea. Can hardly go up to the old man and say, ‘Sorry, Pater, don’t know what I like, but I do know I hate what you do.’” He grabbed the bottle from Sutherland. “At least you don’t have to undertake a profession, Sutherland. You have an earldom waiting for you.”

  Sutherland snorted. “Have you seen the earldom? The manor is falling down on itself. I’ll have to marry the first heiress who will have me and we’ll probably hate each other for the next fifty years.”

  Now everyone looked expectantly at Iolanthe. She was beginning to understand: spirits were the truth serum of the nonmages—except they partook it willingly and shared under its influence what they could not bring themselves to say completely sober.

  “I might not be at the school much longer. My parents have decided that after their world tour, they will buy a ranch in the American West—Wyoming Territory, to be specific. And I have a sinking feeling they will want me to go out and help them with it.”

  It was the story she and Titus had decided upon, to explain her likely hasty departure from school one of those days.