Hobgoblin Night: Mask and Dagger 2

by Teresa Edgerton

  "But really," he added, with a smile, as they entered the cottage gate, "you have just arrived in town, and it is too soon for you to trouble your heads over this bitter debate."

  It was now growing late, so the cabinetmaker hitched up his horses, and he and the other gentlemen loaded Elsie's and Sera's baggage into the gig. "The school is located between here and the marsh," said Mr. Herring, lighting the carriage lanthorns, as Jedidiah assisted first Sera and then Elsie up into the open carriage.

  "I'll come by tomorrow and see how you like the place," Jed promised Elsie, giving her hand a comforting squeeze before he relinquished it.

  "Are we so near the marsh?" asked Sera, making room for the cabinetmaker on the narrow seat. "That hardly seems a healthy climate for children to grow in."

  "The climate in these parts is wholesome enough, and the children grow rosy and healthy." Mr. Herring took up the reins and spoke to his horses, and the gig started off at a smart clip. "It is, perhaps, not the ideal location for a school, but Miss Jamaica Barebones, the headmistress, has maintained Mothgreen Academy for more than fifty years. One cannot blame the climate because Miss Barebones finds it difficult to hire and keep schoolmistresses." He glanced over his shoulder. "I hope you young ladies do not suffer from a nervous disposition? The house . . . they say the house is haunted."

  "Stuff and nonsense!" sniffed Sera, though her skin crawled and the hair at the back of her neck stood up just the same. She had far more experience of ghosts than she cared to admit. She did not believe in spectres because she would not—past encounters to the contrary. Why, the existence of disembodied spirits would be an offense against Reason, a violation of every sensible, orderly principle that Sera held dear. She was not about to encourage the ramshackle creatures by allowing them a speck of credence!

  But Elsie, more tolerant, found the prospect delightful. "How exceedingly romantic. That is . . ." She paused doubtfully. "I hope the ghost is not a malignant spirit, or a mischievous one?"

  "Not at all," said Mr. Herring, as he turned down a dark country lane. "Rather a sad one, I should say. By all accounts, the spirit of old Izrael Barebones, who owned the house before. He was a scholar and antiquarian, most respectable, for all that he did entertain some odd ideas. Yet, he apparently died with some grave sin on his conscience . . . or perhaps just in possession of some knowledge he is desperate to communicate. He has been endeavoring to do so, without success, for some fifty years now.

  "It is not because of any gross misbehavior on the part of the ghost that the previous ladies left the Academy," he added. "It is merely that elderly spinsters (as so often take posts of that nature) are inclined to take the presence of even the most well-bred spectre sadly amiss. But it is far otherwise with Miss Jamaica Barebones and the other old ladies now in residence. They are all of a mystical bent, and just as eager to converse with the ghost as he is to communicate with them."

  Sera said nothing more, only sat very stiff and erect, and kept her concern to herself. A town undermined by tunneling hobgoblins, a school unhealthily located in the vicinity of a bog—sure to be a breeding ground for stinging insects, to say nothing of miasmal airs—a school, moreover, said to be haunted by a lugubrious spirit and run by a lady with the fanciful (not to say lurid) name of Jamaica Barebones. No, Sera could not help but entertain serious misgivings as the brisk little gig continued down the road, nor prevent herself from wishing, most heartily, that she and Elsie were safely back in the sane and sensible little town of Lootie's Bay!

  ***

  Though the night was overcast and most awfully dark out in the country away from the lights of the town, the road ran so smooth and straight, the carriage lamps sufficed to bring them safely to the gates of Mothgreen Academy. They drove past the gates and down a short drive between stunted fruit trees, and soon came up before the house.

  Outwardly, the building had a respectable appearance, at least by lamplight: two stories and an attic with dormer windows above them, two wings built of fieldstone, and a fine stucco facade at the front, with delicately molded figures of flowers and urns. With candlelight spilling out of a half dozen windows, the house presented a warm and welcoming aspect as the gig drew up in front, and the young ladies and Mr. Herring mounted the steps to the door.

  A gangling youth in a cotton smock—evidently the gardener and man of all work—opened the door and took charge of their baggage. "Miss Barebones is in the parlor. You can find your own way, I reckon, Mr. Herring, sir?"

  "Indeed I can," said Mr. Herring affably. "Do not trouble yourself, Nathaniel."

  Miss Barebones arose immediately from her seat by the fire and came to greet them at the parlor door. A fine, fresh, bustling old lady, dressed with taste and propriety, she looked as ordinary and respectable as the house itself.

  Mr. Herring pulled up chairs near the fire for Sera and Elsie, declared that he could not stay, as he had guests of his own, and departed forthwith. While Miss Barebones escorted him to the front door, Sera and Elsie took advantage of her absence to examine their surroundings rather more thoroughly than strict good manners might otherwise have allowed.

  There were chintz curtains at the windows, and a collection of fine china arranged on a mahogany sideboard. Yet the parlor otherwise had something of a masculine air, as though old Mr. Barebones, if not actually haunting the place, had at least impressed his personality on the room. There was a fireplace faced in blue and white tiles, with two belligerent brass pug-dogs "guarding" the hearth. Books in covers of calf and vellum, an antique hourglass, and a porcelain pagoda graced the mantel, and a display of ancient weapons was arranged on one wall. But more than these masculine appointments, more than the dark, heavy furnishings, was the odor of the room, an atmosphere of snuff or pipe tobacco pervading the chamber, though she doubted that Miss Barebones or the other ladies indulged in the vice themselves.

  The headmistress soon returned. Taking a seat on a horsehair sofa, she acquainted Sera and Elsie with their manifold duties. Mothgreen Academy offered instruction in the areas of history, mathematics, geography, poetry, composition, painting, needlework, and (the one essential for any ladies' academy worthy of the name) deportment. "There are only the five of us to do it all, you know, besides the servants, and we turn out young ladies who are completely educated, not only in the classical mode, but also in household management."

  "It sounds very agreeable, very sensible," said Sera, her initial prejudices beginning to fade. Through an open double door at one end of the room, she caught reassuring glimpses of her future pupils: a long procession of well-scrubbed little girls in calico wrappers proceeding down the hall and up a vast staircase toward the upper regions of the house.

  "They have just had their supper of bread and milk," said Miss Barebones. "And it is now time for bed."

  "They look rather sweet," said Elsie. And Sera had to agree.

  The other two schoolmistresses, impoverished gentlewomen of indeterminate age, entered the parlor shortly after that. Miss Eglantine was tall, spare, and severe-looking; Miss Fitch was a faded individual who struck Sera as silly but harmless.

  "You appear to be healthy and hardy young women. I only hope that your nerves are good," Miss Eglantine announced in ominous tones.

  Miss Fitch tittered and fluttered her eyes. "Oh, Rosabelle, pray do not speak so! You will frighten them away on their first night."

  "By the Nine Powers! Who said anything to frighten them away?" Miss Eglantine wanted to know. "It is you who will put ideas into their heads."

  The headmistress personally escorted Sera and Elsie upstairs to their rooms, lighting the way with a candle. "I do hope that Uncle Izrael does not disturb either of you during the night," she said matter-of-factly, as they climbed to the top floor—quite as though a resident apparition were the most natural thing in the world. "He does sometimes get restless when there are new people in the house."

  Sera felt only a little reassured by the discovery that her bedchamber was directly next do
or to Elsie's. But the rooms were neat and well aired, each with a dormer window and a view of the rose garden below.

  "Some of your pupils, the younger girls, are just down the hall," said Miss Barebones, lighting the candle on Sera's nightstand and turning to go. She paused on the threshold. "Some of them can be quite lively; they do not easily settle down at night. But you must be very firm with them. Should anyone come knocking at your door, you must just send her away."

  Sera and Elsie helped each other to unpack their baggage, moving from one room to the other. Then Sera took up her candle, kissed Elsie good night, and returned to her own bedchamber.

  ***

  A sharp rapping on her door woke Sera from a deep, dreamless slumber. Her first impulse was to ignore it, in the hope that whoever had knocked would grow discouraged and go away. But then the rapping grew louder, more insistent, followed by a brisk rattling of the doorknob.

  Sera climbed wearily out of bed, wrapped herself in a shawl she had previously draped over a bedpost, felt her way in the dark, and threw open the door.

  Only a dim oil lamp hanging from a beam near the top of the stairs lighted the corridor. Sera took a tentative step across the threshold, and then another. Except for herself, the hall was empty. She listened for footsteps retreating across bare floorboards, a creaking of hinges if one of the doors down the hall opened or closed—it was impossible to move silently in these old houses. There was not a sound but her own breathing. Sera shivered a little, standing there in her nightgown in the shadowy corridor, barefoot and puzzled.

  Behind her, the bedchamber door suddenly slammed shut. Sera jumped, gasped, and clutched at her shawl. Then she laughed, a trifle breathlessly, and scolded herself for reacting so foolishly.

  "Only a draught," she said aloud, with only the tiniest tremor in her voice. But when she put her hand on the knob and turned it, she found that the door refused to open. Rattle the handle and shake the door as she might, it simply would not budge.

  Sera ground her teeth, a surge of irritation banishing her fear. She had a strong mind to tell Uncle Izrael Barebones what she thought of him, but it was beneath her dignity to speak with imaginary spectres. Whoever it was, she thought, I'll not give him or her the satisfaction!

  And with that resolution, she straightened her spine and lifted her chin, and proceeded down the hall to Elsie's bedchamber, where she climbed silently into bed beside her sleeping cousin, and spent a very long, and very restless, night.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Which reunites the Reader with a certain Elusive gentleman.

  It was the thirty-first day of the season of Frost, a short ten days 'til the turn of the year, and grim winter held sway over vast stretches of Euterpe. But in Zammarco, the picturesque city of canals and bridges, the weather remained mild: frosty nights and mornings, and cool, bright, sunny afternoons. It was that time of the year known as the Winter Carnival, when the walkways and plazas were crowded with pedlars, open-air puppet theatres, strolling musicians, and masked revelers, when the gondolas and pleasure barges along the canals had been freshly painted and gilded, and decorated with ribbons and banners.

  But the city-state of Zammarco was traditionally a city of masks and intrigue—not only during Carnival. An aristocracy masquerading as a republic, Zammarco was ruled by a hereditary senate. The Senate, in turn, was wholly made up of representatives from the most powerful families, from whose ranks, invariably, rose the most powerful figure of all: the President of the Senate, or Oligarch, as he was more commonly called. The Senate as a whole, and the Conclave in particular, had earned a reputation for ruthless methods, a brutal efficiency enforcing its edicts. On the senatorial payroll, at any given time, were dozens of spies and paid informants, along with poisoners, torturers, and bully swordsmen.

  As well, The Most Exalted and Equable Republic remained, exclusively, a city of full-sized Men. Dwarves and gnomes might come there to visit or to conduct business, but an edict forbade them to settle within the city. The good citizens of Zammarco were fanatic xenophobes. This did not, however, prevent them from owning dark-skinned slaves from the southern continent.

  The Oligarch lived, at the Republic's expense, in a lavish residence on the lagoon, a great ornate building (it was never called a palace) with a prison and a number of public offices attached.

  To the Residence at nightfall, on the day in question, came a slight foreign gentleman, who entered not by the principal gate on the lagoon, but by a small "secret" entrance at the back. Sir Simon Blood was the name that he whispered at a wrought-iron grillwork, and a door swung open to admit him.

  His appearance was dapper if somewhat somber, considering the time of year. He wore his hair loose in a tumble of powdery white curls about his shoulders, and was dressed all in black, even to the falling lace at his throat and his wrists. His very eyes were a sober grey, his skin so fair it was almost white, and the only bit of color about his person was a tiny crimson patch, heart-shaped, that he wore under one eye. He carried an ebony cane, adorned with black tassels.

  The rugged-looking individual who opened the door led Sir Simon through a maze of marble halls and corridors. He lifted a tapestry to reveal a hidden door, knocked three times, and whispered a few words. The door opened soundlessly.

  At his escort's invitation, Sir Simon passed through, into a vast gilded and frescoed chamber. His guide did not follow him in, and the door snapped shut, as silently as it had opened.

  Sir Simon shook out his ruffles, glanced casually around him. But that casual glance was remarkably comprehensive; he had trained himself to notice the most minute details. At one end of the chamber, upon a sort of stepped dais, stood a gathering of perhaps a dozen aristocrats robed in senatorial red. They were grouped around a low marble seat, where sat an old man in a ponderous black wig and purple robes.

  "You may approach," said a haughty voice. Since his eyes had been momentarily elsewhere, Sir Simon could not at first tell who had spoken. He walked gracefully toward the dais, removed his hat, made a prodigiously elegant bow to the gathering, and waited politely for further instructions.

  These came from the man in purple, evidently the Oligarch, speaking in a harsh, rusty voice, ordering him to state his business. "It is to be a denunciation, I suppose?"

  "Indeed," said Sir Simon, in his pleasantly accented voice. "I am employed, as you may know, by the government of Imbria, to investigate the white-slave trade. In the course of my investigations, I have heard much of one particular group of scoundrels, who conduct their vicious traffic in human flesh from all the great cities of Euterpe. Since arriving in The Most Exalted and Equable Republic, I have identified one of the principal master-minds as a certain Count Azimet, resident in this city."

  There was a stir of excitement among the senators. "You have proof of this?" asked the Oligarch.

  Sir Simon bowed low once more. "Not any compelling proof, not as yet. But I understood that the correct procedure in Zammarco was to lay information with the authorities, and the Senate would conduct its own investigation."

  "Such information generally comes to us through one of our own citizens," said the haughty voice that had spoken before, and this time Sir Simon located the source: a proud, pale, ascetic aristocrat in a black wig. "We do not usually welcome the interference of foreigners."

  Sir Simon assumed an air of gentle, almost wistful apology. "I beg your pardon. I had supposed, since I was admitted here, that my friend Baron Onda had already presented my credentials. If you wish, I will—"

  "Ah, to be sure," the haughty senator interrupted him. "Our trusty Baron Onda—not in any way connected with the government of Imbria, but a longtime votary of the Glassmakers, which I suppose is your real connection—has acquainted us with some of your exploits. We apprehend that you are not even a constable or a thief-taker, but, in fact, a paid assassin!"

  Sir Simon delicately removed an imaginary piece of lint from one dark sleeve. He needed time to compose himself. Though he cherished few
illusions about his calling, the senator's words struck him most forcibly as an insult, particularly coming from a member of a body notoriously addicted to the use of the strappado and garrote.

  "I am a gentleman of independent means, and though my activities are occasionally sponsored by the Imbrian government—or the Glassmakers Guild, or some other body altogether, it can scarcely matter to you—it is not to murder people that they employ me," he replied steadily, though a tiny muscle twitched at the corner of his mouth, and his eyebrows met in a hard line.

  The frozen hauteur of the senator's face grew considerably more pronounced. "I stand corrected. These many deaths for which, according to Baron Onda, you are responsible . . . they were in fact committed under no authority but your own?"

  Sir Simon clenched one small, white (and surprisingly capable-looking) hand. How he might have replied remained unknown, for the Oligarch made an imperious gesture, indicating that for him this discussion held little interest.

  "You are correct in supposing that, in general, a single denunciation is sufficient to set the wheels of justice into motion," the Oligarch said in his creaking voice, nodding his heavy head. "Nor are you the first to question the source of Count Azimet's really quite extraordinary wealth. Many of our aristocrats, myself and my colleagues included, disapprove of his lavish, some might say decadent, style of living. Yet he is undoubtedly a man of power and influence, and rather more to the point: a member of one of our senatorial families. Under these circumstances, you must appreciate the need for more solid evidence.

  "If you should choose to continue your investigation and obtain that evidence, you may address us once more." The Oligarch shrugged. "In the meantime, you may go the same way you came."

  Though far from satisfied, Sir Simon had no choice but to bow once more, murmur a few words of gratitude for the Oligarch's kind indulgence, and withdraw by the door he had entered. He found his burly escort waiting on the other side to show him the way out.