I picked up the story. “Through the diligence of some friends . . . ” I didn’t mention goblins either. “I was able to follow. I should explain that I am a ship owner, and my ship happened to be in port, and my crew ready to sail. We caught up with the Guillaume Tell. I led a boarding party to rescue Corwen and Freddie. To our surprise we found others imprisoned there. Witches and rowankind.”
“Rowankind?”
“When they were freed, their natural magic returned to them,” Corwen said.
I nodded. “The Mysterium was trying to discover if their magic could be used in any way. I believe they wanted to use their wind and water affinity on the Royal Navy’s behalf, but rowankind get sick on the sea. Some of them died of it before we got there, but we freed a great many.”
“Hold on . . . ” He turned to me. “You mean you pursued a Navy ship, boarded it, and snatched prisoners away from the Mysterium?”
I raised one eyebrow. “I didn’t say it was easy.”
“It wasn’t easy at all,” Corwen said. “The head of the Mysterium countered our rescue attempt with dark magic.” Corwen glanced sideways at Lord Essleborough. “Yes, the Mysterium is not above making use of the kind of magic it would hang anyone else for.”
“He attacked me with magic,” I said. “Freddie came to my rescue. He killed him. Tore out his throat.”
Maybe Lord Essleborough was reconsidering wanting to see Freddie.
Corwen continued. “Since then, he’s become more uncertain of temper. He’s killed twice, and attacked our mother, though luckily only her hands. There have been a couple of near misses, though.” I didn’t mention the sprite.
“We would understand if you want to turn around and leave the forest and never think of Freddie again,” I said. “We won’t think less of you for it.”
There was an ominous silence before Lord Essleborough drew a deep breath. “I understand, but it sounds as though Freddie needs me now more than ever. Take me to him, please. Let’s not waste any more time.”
* * *
As we entered the glade which was the heart of our small woodland community, I glanced at Lord Essleborough to see if I could gauge what he was thinking. I wondered what it looked like to his eyes. I could see rowankind and sprites going about the business of preparing food for the evening meal. I waved to Charlotte, and she waved back.
I suspected that to Lord Essleborough it looked like a Romany encampment without the wagons. A lord might not take too kindly to being brought into company with traveling folk. He gazed around him, but his expression didn’t give away his thoughts.
“You live here?” he asked.
“Visiting.” I answered. “We have business. We’re waiting for a message, and then we’ll probably have to leave for a time.”
“To Yorkshire?”
“Sadly not,” Corwen said. “Our family is safer if we absent ourselves.”
“I understand.”
“Come. My brother is this way.”
Corwen led the way down to the stream, across on a row of stepping stones and scanned the hillside. Freddie’s enclosure was surrounded by an invisible fence, a barrier Freddie couldn’t cross without permission, though we could enter as long as we did so between two small piles of loose stones.
“Freddie,” Corwen called.
Freddie appeared at the top of the valley side, paused for an instant, tasted the air, and then began to run down the steep slope. Halfway down, he hit a speed faster than his legs could carry him. He rolled, scrabbled to his feet, and rolled again, finally coming to a halt twenty yards distant.
He dropped to his belly and squirmed the rest of the way until Lord Essleborough knelt and put his arms around the dusty wolf.
“Why doesn’t he change?” Lord Essleborough asked.
“Because he needs my permission to do so.” The Lady was suddenly standing behind us. “I think it’s time.”
“Thank you,” Corwen said.
She inclined her head and left as quietly as she’d come.
The change was on Freddie, but it wasn’t going to be easy. Skin showed through his coat which now looked like the worst case of mange I’d ever seen. His nose had begun to retract but seemed to have gotten stuck somewhere between wolf and human. He let out a howl of pain. Fingers poked through the hair surrounding his front feet, but only on one hand, the other remained stubbornly clawed. There was a sickening crunch as the bones in his back legs stretched and twisted, his lower legs shortening to form human feet. Then with another howl, Freddie began to turn back into a full wolf. Had he found the transition too hard?
Corwen went down on his knees and grasped Freddie’s half-changed face in his hands. “This is your chance. You can do it, Freddie. You’re almost there. Don’t give up.”
Freddie whined, but his nose retracted further, and his eyes began to look human.
“Let me,” Roland said quietly, and Corwen moved aside. Roland looked deep into Freddie’s eyes and then planted a kiss on his forehead.
Freddie whined, and I thought the speed of his change began to accelerate. There was more skin now and less wolf pelt. Even so, it took a long time for the change to complete. When it had, Freddie lay gasping. Roland sat by him, one hand on his shoulder. He kept up a string of reassuring words. “I’m here. Here to stay. We can be together. Forever.”
He looked up at us. “Can he come with me to Gloucestershire?”
“As long as he’s safe and people are safe from him.”
“I’ll look after him. Guard him, protect him. Whatever is needed.”
“You’re taking on a lot,” Corwen said.
“I have the resources. Whatever Freddie needs, he shall have.”
Freddie groaned and rolled to his knees. “I thought you’d gone.”
“I’m back now.”
The two of them leaned in and clung to each other as if their lives depended on it.
Corwen had a smile on his face as broad as the River Thames.
“Is this what you hoped for?” I asked.
“Hoped, yes. Didn’t dare count on.” He turned to Freddie. “When you’ve said your hellos, come back up to the bower.”
We walked back up the hill, hand in hand, glad something seemed to be working out.
In the glade, Charlotte was still busy, but Livvy was skipping about here, there, and everywhere. “Mama says Freddie’s special friend has arrived.”
“Yes,” Corwen said. “A very special friend.”
“I shall go and say hello.”
She turned toward the path, but Corwen caught her with one strong arm around her waist and swept her off her feet, then he swung her high in the air until she giggled. “Let them talk, little Livvy. They haven’t seen each other for a long time, and they have a lot of catching up to do.”
“Talk? Has Freddie changed?”
“He has.”
“Oh.” She sounded disappointed. To Livvy, Freddie would always be the big, hairy brown dog who had saved her from the bad men on the Guillaume Tell.
It was an hour before Freddie and Lord Essleborough came walking up the hill together. Freddie was wearing Lord Essleborough’s shirt while Essleborough had his jacket on over his bare chest. They disengaged hands as they came into our camp. Freddie looked more animated than I’d ever seen him.
Corwen’s gaze locked fleetingly with mine, conveying a mixture of satisfaction and hope.
“It’s settled,” Lord Essleborough said. “Freddie will come to Gloucestershire with me.”
Corwen looked from one to the other and nodded. “Should you have any problems—”
“There’ll be no problems, brother,” Freddie said. “Or at least none we can’t overcome. Roland knows me better than I know myself.”
“I have dealt with this bad dog before when he’s been out of sorts. I think I can do it again,
though it may take time and patience.” Lord Essleborough looked at Freddie, who nodded. There had been some plain speaking between them, I thought, and Freddie had made some promises. I hoped he would keep them.
“Will you write to Mother?” Corwen asked Freddie.
“I will.”
“Maybe she can come and visit,” Lord Essleborough said. “You can all come and visit together . . . When the time is right.”
“That’s very generous of you, Lord Essleborough,” Corwen said.
“Please, if we are to be family, and I do believe we are, call me Roland.”
“Freddie is my father’s heir,” Corwen said. “The estate and the mill are his now. There are responsibilities and decisions to be made.”
“I leave all that in your capable hands, brother,” Freddie said. “You know I never had a head for it. I want nothing from the estate.”
“Legally—”
“When we get to Buckfastleigh, I will sign it all over to you.”
“Freddie is my family now,” Roland said. “I’ll provide for him.”
Freddie had found his partner for life.
“Just one thing before you go, Freddie,” Corwen said.
“What?”
“Your valise is in the bower. Put some clothes on and give Roland his shirt back.”
Freddie grinned at us and went to do just that.
It was both a sad and a happy occasion when we escorted Freddie and Roland back to the inn in Buckfastleigh.
Freddie was as good as his word. There was a lawyer in town, an elderly gentleman with rheumy eyes. Despite his somewhat shaky hand, he took Freddie’s dictation, added the flowery words to make it legal, and had Roland and Mr. Reynard sign as witnesses.
“There, that should do the trick,” Freddie said. “It’s all Corwen’s. Send it to the family’s man of business in London. I’m done with Yorkshire.”
Corwen took up more of the man’s time and signed ownership of the mill over to Lily in her own right, so the two papers could be sent to London together.
We returned to the inn.
From Buckfastleigh, Freddie and Roland would ride to Plymouth. Rather than take the mail coach, which might put too much of a strain on Freddie’s current state of mind, Roland intended to hire a post chaise to take them back to Gloucestershire.
“I’m glad to see you on two legs instead of four,” I said to Freddie as he prepared to mount the hired hack.
“For once I’m glad of it, too,” he said. “Thank you for my care, and I’m sorry if I did anything inappropriate. It’s all a bit of a blur. I’ll write, and to Livvy, too, care of Charlotte. I hope you can discover where the army has hidden Henry Purdy. It would be a shame for Livvy to lose her father.”
“We’ll do our best.”
“Farewell, brother, for now at least,” Corwen said and embraced Freddie. For once the gesture was returned. Maybe Freddie was recovering. We shook hands with Roland, and the two of them were on their way.
“Was that gentleman the wolf who nearly snapped my tail off?” Aileen Reynard had been watching from the inn doorway.
“He was.”
“Don’t look so dangerous now, do ’ee?”
24
Henry Purdy
THOUGH WE’D TRIED all we could think of, and set the goblins hunting for clues, in the end Henry Purdy saved himself by writing a letter.
His father brought it to the Okewood and placed it in our hands.
“It’s taken eleven days to reach me,” Reverend Purdy said. “Of course, he doesn’t know we’ve moved. It went to the old parish and was only forwarded on by the kindness of Reverend Patterson. Read it. Read it.”
Plymouth Citadel, 5th April
Dearest Father, My Beloved Charlotte, and Darling Olivia.
I am sending this by the kindness of Daniel Davy, a Devonian sergeant who owes me his life due to an illusion I created for him and his troops at Seringapatam.
I hope this finds you all well.
I have been shipped back to England on doctor’s orders. India is not kind to weak stomachs. I have been ill with dysentery, and as the army has few witches, we are valued like good horses, but like good horses, kept close in our quarters. We are counted among the cattle rather than the troops as we have neither rank nor official position.
I long to see you all again and will do my utmost to make that happen should the opportunity arise.
Your loving
Henry
“He’s in Plymouth,” Reverend Purdy said. “So close.”
“But in the Citadel,” I said. “It’s a fortress. Impregnable.”
“From the outside,” Corwen said. “It’s not a prison.”
“Have you seen it? Every time the Heart sailed under those guns, I felt as though I had a target painted between my shoulder blades. And the landward side has a drawbridge and a dry moat. Its walls are seventy feet high.”
“We’re not going to storm the walls,” Corwen said. “The only way this can work is by stealth and illusion. It sounds as though Henry has some talent in that direction, himself.”
He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. From the head down a change rippled through his body and he stood there, a perfect redcoat. His face was the same, but his hair was dark brown and his complexion florid, as if he was a heavy drinker. I’d seen him use illusion before, but not often. The Lady had endowed him with the ability when he first became one of her agents. This was as complete an illusion as I’d ever seen him make.
“Oh, perfect,” Reverend Purdy said. “I have an idea. I think I can get us inside the fortress if you can find Henry when we get there. There’s a chapel within the Citadel precincts, the Royal Chapel of St Katherine-upon-the-Hoe. I might be able to make a visit to the chaplain. Would that help? I can’t stand by and know my son is so close, and I did nothing to help him.”
Corwen’s illusion flickered and died. He frowned and changed again, but this time the illusion lasted for only a few seconds.
“Damnation!”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m out of practice. It’s like any other skill; the more you do it, the easier it becomes.”
“How long will it take you—”
He shook his head. “I don’t know, but we can’t go racing off tomorrow, that’s for sure. Maybe if I work on it all day tomorrow, I’ll be all right for the day after.”
The reverend looked downcast. I could tell he was trying to put on a brave face. “Henry’s waited eleven days. He can probably wait a little longer. It will take me a day or two to get an invitation from the chaplain in any case.”
Later, when we were alone in our bower, I asked Corwen if two days was long enough for him to recover his power of illusion.
“I don’t know. I’ll work at it.” And he did. He changed into a red-coated soldier again. “Time me.”
I counted slowly, reaching a count of forty-seven before the illusion faded.
“Again,” he said.
This time I only reached thirty-six.
“Two changes too close together takes too much power,” I said. “Don’t drain yourself. Wait half an hour and see if that’s long enough.”
He took out his pocket watch and set it on the bed between us.
Thirty minutes later he lasted for just over a minute.
“Better,” he said. “But not good enough.”
“How would it be if we stole a uniform and you only had to change your face?”
“That would certainly be easier, but we can’t guarantee finding a uniform to steal.”
“It’s an option, though.”
Corwen continued practicing throughout the evening until his face was gray with tiredness and I persuaded him to stop. His best time so far was two minutes and ten seconds.
“Come to bed.”
I’d slipped out of my clothes an hour ago but his determination to work on his redcoat illusion meant that he’d managed to ignore my most seductive pose, half in and half out of the quilt. It was time for direct action. I wriggled closer and put my hand across the front of his breeches. He gasped, and the redcoat soldier disappeared.
“That’s better. I thought you’d never notice. It’s time to get some sleep.”
“I’m never going to get any sleep with you looking at me like that.”
I chuckled. “Good.”
“Ah, Ross, I’m not sure I can do this.”
“What? Make love to me?”
“No, play the perfect redcoat.”
“Oh, that.” I shrugged. “You’ll be better in the morning.”
“Do you think so?” His voice dropped to a seductive purr as he nuzzled my neck.
“I know so.” I turned my head to catch his lips with mine.
It was all the invitation he needed.
Later, curled in our springy heather bed, I lay in his arms. Our child, or children if Aunt Rosie was right, made me more cautious than I used to be.
I would have been more than happy to sit back and let someone else rescue Henry Purdy, but there was no one in our present company who could pick a lock.
Except me.
Damn.
The next day, and the day after, Corwen continued practicing until he’d increased his time to four and a half minutes.
“Do you think that’s enough?” he asked.
“It will have to be.”
So we rode over to the reverend’s house and made our plans.
The following day dawned bright and sunny for the middle of April, truly springlike after a raw March. We drove through the town and up to Plymouth Citadel in Reverend Purdy’s gig. The reverend had the reins, I was dressed as a country miss, or rather, at my age, a country spinster, supposedly his daughter. Corwen lay on the parcel shelf behind the gig, blocking access to the ventilated dog box beneath the seats. I hadn’t known he could glamour the wolf as well as the human. He said it took more doing, so rather than a big change, he merely shifted one or two features. It was surprising what a flatter nose, drooped ears and a black patch on the side of his head did to change the silver wolf into a mongrel mutt, albeit a big one. I knew he couldn’t keep up the disguise for long, but if he could do it to get in and out of the gates, it would be enough.
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