Unnatural Issue

by Mercedes Lackey

  “You don’t mind being taken to my flat, do you?” he asked, as he helped her in and got in next to her. “I promise, I will have Garrick there as a chaperone. He’s as fierce as a dragon.”

  “I haven’t a reputation to ruin,” she said with a shrug. “I think I would like to see your flat. It’s probably stuffed full of naughty Hogarth etchings.”

  He looked at her curiously, gave the cabby the address, and settled back. “You’re a little chameleon, did you notice? You’ve got no trace of Yorkshire in your speech, and I would reckon that in a few months you’ll sound London-born if you stay here.”

  “Thank you, I’d rather not. This is a wretched place for an Earth Magician.” She shuddered.

  “Well, it’s no joy for Water, either, let me tell you,” he said feelingly.

  “But yes, I know, I mean, I know now, that I take on the accent of a place. I bartered a favor from one of the Elementals in the Ardennes, a bit of magic to make me ‘speak and understand like a native’ wherever I go—though it takes me a couple weeks to become comfortable with a foreign language.” She chuckled a little. “I suppose this is another case of ‘be careful what you wish for,’ though in my case it doesn’t seem to have done any harm.”

  “No, and it can be quite useful.” He hesitated a moment longer, then shrugged. “It certainly will serve to mask your presence. Unfortunately, Alderscroft and I would like to ask you to do the very opposite. I’ll explain when we get to my flat.”

  It was no more than a few minutes to reach the flat in any event. Peter paid the cabby and handed her out, and he soon had her settled in a much more comfortable chair with Garrick pouring her a good, strong cup of tea. She sipped it and smiled. “I feel so guilty being in a place like this, when I think of all the men—” she nodded her head eastward.

  “And women, too,” Peter pointed out. “There are some nursing sisters at the field hospitals, and their conditions are not much better than the men in the trenches, except that they get canvas tents to keep the rain off. But I know what you mean. I was just enjoying my own slice of guilt with my dinner.” He paused and let her get a little more comfortable.

  “If Charles has his memory back . . .” She paused. “I don’t know what will happen. I don’t know what will happen if he does not. But . . .”

  He could almost hear her thoughts. And again, he was tempted to tell her just exactly how close Rose and Charles were—it was the kind of closeness that didn’t require constant affirmation, because they both understood, at the level below thought, that they were the completion of each other. Like Maya and his “twin.”

  And as Peter sat there and watched those thoughts move behind her eyes, he knew that would be the wrong thing to tell her. It was something she needed to see for herself in order to understand how impossible her infatuation was.

  But this is a woman I would fight my entire family and all the world for, if she would have me.

  The realization hit him like a body blow, and he almost gasped. But he was an Elemental Master, and disciplined above all; he kept himself steady, and he knew that nothing of what he was thinking or feeling showed on his face.

  “If I find myself otherwise at loose ends,” she said slowly. “Once Father is . . . disposed of, of course. Well, I will get properly certified and go back. I cannot in good conscience sit in England in comfort while fine men are suffering so on the Front.”

  Oh, well done, he thought. He was still trying to come to terms with what his heart had just told him, but her words were just a reinforcement that this was right. This young woman would never be content to sit and watch—and he could never care for one who would be.

  But there were more important things than what he wanted right now. “Well, that rather brings us around to what I wanted to discuss with you.”

  He explained to her what he and Alderscroft had in mind, and she listened intently. “We have ways of letting it get about, among the Elementals, that you’d flitted back to England,” he continued. “After what happened to Charles, the last thing we want to do is confront Richard on what he’s made his own ground there in France, where he’s so incredibly strong. We want to bring him here. Ideally, we want to bring him where he would have the least access to—well—bodies and revenants.”

  She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “To be honest, that would probably be back on the moors,” she replied. “He had to have exhausted everything he could muster in the attack on the Kerridge’s estate. If we make sure to confront him before he has time to entrench himself again—”

  “Don’t count on that,” Peter warned. “He’s gotten impossibly powerful.”

  She paused, then nodded. “You would know better than I. You do have my consent to act as bait. Go ahead and lay your trail of crumbs, and it might as well end here in London as anywhere. Then—”

  “A wise general once said that no plan survives first contact with the enemy,” he said wryly. “We’ll do what we do best.” He refused to think about what would happen if they lost.

  “And one of those things is that I will see what I can do as well.” She licked her lips nervously. “I might be able to persuade Robin to help me.”

  That startled him. “If you can—that would make all the difference !” he exclaimed. “I was going to warn you that we are few, not even half a Hunting Party, and this was likely to be very dangerous. But if you can get the Puck—”

  “If. We’ll see. I have a half-holiday tomorrow, so before you start anything, let’s see if he’ll ‘come when I do call him.’ ” She smiled shyly. “I don’t want you to plan based on something that I can’t manage.”

  “True words, dear lady, true words.” He smiled at her, and then he thought of an excellent excuse to stay in close contact with her. “Well, before I whisk you back to your solitary chamber, I’d like you to finish partaking of Garrick’s most excellent tea and cakes, and then, as I understand you are a reader, I offer you the run of my shelves.” He waved his hand around the room, which was, indeed, wall-to-wall bookshelves. “Much more temptin’ than a lot of old etchings.”

  20

  “I CAN call spirits from the vasty deep,” said Glendower. And Hot-spur replied, “Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them?”

  Susanne had taken the train out as far as Hampton Court Palace. There were few visitors on such a bleak day, and none seemed interested in the maze. The palace and grounds were quiet and a little forbidding as the start of a winter fog began to wisp around the buildings. This was as close to forest as she could get, and the Puck and the Tudors seemed to have a special relationship anyway, so it seemed a good plan all around.

  The hedge-maze was very popular on warm days, but the visitors today were hurrying to get inside the buildings for their tours, and there was no “helper” on his platform above the maze. So she worked her way to the center of the maze unassisted—no great feat for an Earth Master—and stood for a moment beneath the leafless tree planted there, listening for voices. Just in case. People who got into a maze generally did so in groups of two or more, and they couldn’t resist talking and calling to one another, and laughing when they got lost.

  Silence. The only voices were distant, up near the Tudor part of the palace.

  So, here was the sticking point. As Hotspur had said in Shakespeare, anyone could call spirits; the question was, would they answer? Robin seemed to think that he and she had a special kinship, but would that be enough for him to come to her now?

  He had made it clear that he felt controlling her father was strictly human business, her business in particular. But that had been before France. Richard had learned something in the interim or, perhaps, bargained with something; it was hard to tell what her father might do. There were very powerful Elemental creatures out there, much too powerful to even think of controlling. Robin had warned her about even bargaining with such beings. “If they’re bad, they’ll cheat you. If they’re good, they’ll help you regardless if they take
an interest in you. But best just not attract the attention of either side.” Had Richard sought one of these things out? Had it sought him? He was strong enough that Peter was afraid of him, strong enough to have nearly killed Charles. Was he now so strong that the Puck could be persuaded to help?

  Well, she wasn’t finding out by standing under a tree in the thickening fog and doing nothing.

  She slipped a twig of yew out of her pocket and carefully drew the open-sided circle that she used to summon Earth creatures with. It was nothing coercive, more in the way of an invitation. The creatures themselves could close the circle if they wanted to feel protected; that was the point, offer them a safe space. She put the right signs at the four cardinal points, then drew up a trickle of power and sent it into the circle. Now it was a beacon for any Earth Elemental, and it said as plain as plain, “Please come, I would like to talk.”

  “Oh, fairest maiden, you needn’t have gone to all that trouble,” said a voice behind her, and giggled as she turned. A pair of mischievous eyes peered out at her from inside the hedge. They glinted at her as the voice continued. “An Earth Master on Queen Bess’s ground? We’ve been watching since you entered the gates.”

  “And glad I am of it, then,” she replied. “I need to speak to your Master, the Oldest Old One, if he would spare me a moment.”

  Before she could add that she had bread and honey, the little faun in the hedge giggled again and said, “Then you should turn yourself around again.”

  Half expecting a trick, she turned again, and there was Robin, arms crossed over his chest and a grin on his face, laughing silently at her. She was tempted to hurl one of the Bath buns she had brought with her at him, but instead she held out the brown paper parcel they were in. Without a word, he took it from her, opened it, and began tossing buns over her head to whatever was now behind her. The faun, and several other Elementals by the sound of the giggling.

  He was not in the guise of the Yorkshire gamekeeper now, nor the careless young fellow who had played with her as a child, nor even the relatively sober magician who had taught her. This was a Prince of the Fair Folk, silver circlet around his head, green velvet tunic, silver silk shirt and trim trousers tucked into silver-embroidered green boots, silver-lined half-cape in green velvet, massive silver chain around his neck and a silver belt at his waist. He didn’t have a weapon, but he didn’t need a weapon. Unlike most of his kind, Cold Iron bothered him not at all, nor salt. His hair, dark as the feathers of a raven, was in a single long braid down his back.

  “Off with you,” Robin ordered them, with obvious amusement. “None of your gossiping and goggling.”

  There was the sound of feet and hooves, and the whir of wings, and still more giggling that receded into the distance, muffled by fog. The fog was definitely growing thicker, but curiously, it seemed warmer in the maze now, almost as if it were spring and not the dead of winter. Susanne looked to Robin with a quizzical expression.

  “Yes, my doing,” he said, and made an odd little gesture. The fog shaped itself into a kind of couch, or perhaps a giant cushion, and he indicated it with a wave of his hand.

  She sat. It felt exactly the way, in a child’s mind, a couch made of fog ought to feel. Soft as swansdown, warm and comforting as a featherbed. Robin sat down beside her.

  “I am not sure where to begin,” Susanne said, hesitantly. “I know you told me to deal with my father myself, and I do agree that this should be merely mortal business. And it would be—except for this terrible war.”

  Quickly she described what had happened to Charles in France, as Robin studied her with an unusually sober expression. “So my father has gotten much, much more powerful,” she continued. “Meanwhile, the White Lodge members are scattered across France and all over Britain. The ones who are here will help me as much as they can, but I am not sure just how they can ever hope to best someone as powerful as my father is now.”

  Robin shook his head. “You plead a powerful case, my young friend,” he replied, and a flash of something in his eyes reminded her of just how old the Puck really was. “Nevertheless, nothing you have told me makes this my business.”

  “I know that,” she replied. “And if he were the same man that lived the life of a recluse, I would agree with you. But what he is doing is an offense against the very Earth itself. He can’t be going about it the way other necromancers have, at least not as I understand it from what Peter has told me. He’s poisoning the Earth, or else making use of those lands poisoned and ravaged by other mortals. Please, Robin—” she held out both hands in entreaty. “I don’t think he’ll stop once he has me. Peter says his idea is to ritually kill me and force my mother’s soul into my body.” She rubbed her temple, a headache coming on. “He may think he’ll stop with that, but I don’t think he can. I don’t think he’s sane anymore, if he ever was. He’s had a taste of great power, though, and even for sane people, a taste like that is never enough; I don’t think he’ll stop until vast amounts of England are as dying or dead as those battlefields in France and Belgium.” Her voice faltered. “I think to have a kingdom of corpses to rule over, he will bring the war here.”

  Robin’s eyes flashed at that, and she was glad she wasn’t the one making him angry, because what she saw there made her shrink into herself. But he confronted her sternly. “And what would you do if your dream of that mortal boy is thwarted and you lose him as your father lost your mother?”

  She firmed her chin and looked straight back at him. No point in asking how he knew what she had never told anyone. This was the Puck. “Let him go. Then—I told Lord Peter that I was going to become a real nursing sister and go back to France. I can use my magic there in truly useful ways.”

  Some of that icy heat went out of his eyes. “Good. Then let us make a plan. I can arrange for your father to learn that you are here easily enough—”

  “Lord Peter said the same.” She pondered that. “Perhaps you should speak with him.”

  “Perhaps I will.” Robin unbent a little. “Perhaps you should reveal your presence to the young mortal’s family.”

  She swallowed. That was one thing she really didn’t want to do, actually. But on the other hand . . .

  “I suspect, given how few mortals there are to aid, we will require at least that they have knowledge of what we are doing,” Robin continued, but he patted her hand comfortingly. “It would be best that way.”

  She nodded in agreement.

  “And it would be best to include them in your plans,” he continued. “After all, your father attacked him in France. Leave all that to Lord Peter. He is, I have observed, very good at diplomacy.”

  She blushed, but she had to agree that Lord Peter was much better at it than she was. She was Yorkshire blunt, which . . . was not diplomatic at all.

  “Time for you to go, else it will be dark and dangerous by the time you return to your dwelling.” Robin stood up, offered her his hand, and when she was standing, put something into it. “When you need me, cast this on the ground, and I will come to you.”

  She looked at it, curiously. It was a tiny oak leaf, made of silver. “Thank you, Robin,” she said, looking back up.

  But he was already gone.

  Susanne decided that for once, she was going to be a coward. She sent a note in the morning mail to Lord Peter, begging him to reveal her presence to Charles’ family. When she returned to the boarding house from her shift at the hospital, there was a note waiting for her by afternoon post.

  Don’t trouble your heart about it. It isn’t your fault that Richard Whitestone is a lunatic. I’ll handle Michael and Elizabeth. But expect to be summoned some time tomorrow afternoon.

  She winced a bit. All right, no one could prove she had been talking to Charles. And no one could accuse her of shirking her other duties to hang about his room. So it wasn’t likely she would be dismissed over the fact that she knew him. No one in the hospital knew how well, and Michael and Elizabeth certainly were not going to reveal why she kne
w him.

  So she was not going to find herself cashiered—probably not even assigned to another ward.

  Still, there was no doubt that they could make things very uncomfortable for her. She just hoped that Lord Peter was good at talking people around.

  The little parlor of the boarding house was unusually full. The young women were putting up holly and evergreen boughs, red bows and little tin ornaments, and their landlady contributed a few precious glass trinkets for the little Christmas tree. Susanne found herself with a little lump in her throat, remembering all the celebrations that she and the others at Whitestone had made together—with their own little Yule log and tree, the parlor opened up as it only was once a year, and special treats from Cook. Were they doing all that now? She hoped so.

  They hadn’t even noticed she was standing there, but that was hardly unusual, since she went out of her way to remain unnoticed. One of them started singing “Good King Wenceslas,” and the others joined in; the air was full of the scent of pine boughs and cinnamon, and the tiny parlor had never looked so warm and welcoming. She recalled with a sense of shock that Christmas was only a week away. And she hadn’t gotten anyone here anything! There would be some sort of exchange of gifts, and even if all the others gave her were little bags of nuts and sweets, she should get them something.

  Hastily she turned around and caught a bus for the shops. At least she knew exactly what she was going to get for each of the others in the boarding house—something that would be more than just a gift for each of them. And Peter’s generosity made it possible for her to do so.

  The apothecaries in question gave her quite the strange looks at what she was buying, until she explained that she was shopping for nurses who were being sent to the Front.

  They still looked a bit uneasy, however, so she alleviated their worries by asking for each of the hypodermic kits to be gift-wrapped. That was when they all relaxed; surely no dope fiend would ask for a gift-wrapped syringe for a Christmas present!