Rowankind (3 Book Series)

by Jacey Bedford

  I disguised myself as best I could with flour drawn through my hair to create gray streaks. I patted too much rouge on my cheeks and donned a pair of metal-rimmed spectacles, bought a couple of years ago and endowed with magic to enable me to see in the dark. The magic had faded, so I managed to reverse the light spell to remove light from the lenses, creating slightly darkened glass to hide my eyes.

  We drove across the Citadel’s drawbridge and halted at the imposing baroque gatehouse. It stood twice as high as the walls and was built of Portland stone like the very best London mansions. Above its arch was the date 1670. I stared at the numbers and tried to slow my hammering heart. Reverend Purdy said he was here to see the garrison chaplain and when asked his business, said it was the Lord’s. Good answer.

  “Shouldn’t you keep your dog in the dog box?” one of the guards asked.

  “He doesn’t like it,” the reverend said. “Would you like to argue with him?”

  Corwen raised his head and snarled to show his fangs. The guard backed off.

  We were ushered through the gates with only the most cursory of inspections thanks to Corwen’s rumbling growl.

  As directed, the reverend drove us through the main square of the fortress to the chapel, a small rectangular building with Gothic windows. We’d been told the chaplain was inside. He pulled up the gig close to the chapel wall to give us a shaded area behind which we could change. The docile, dock-tailed cob stretched his neck out and began to doze, lower lip dangling, relaxed.

  “I’ll discuss err . . . ecclesiastical matters while you two amuse yourselves,” the reverend said. “Good luck.”

  I looked around from the vantage point the gig gave me. Solid star-shaped ramparts surrounded a large compound. I hadn’t expected there to be so many separate buildings. Which one housed the barracks, or was there more than one? And was Henry Purdy in the barracks anyway? His letter had said confined to quarters. Hell, couldn’t he have given us more of a clue? But of course, he hadn’t guessed his mild-mannered father would mount a rescue attempt.

  “Ideas, Corwen?” I asked, seeing the mutt resting on the back shelf of the gig now looked more like a big silver wolf with every passing second. He jerked his head into the air, nose first.

  “All right. Let’s see if your nose gives us a clue.” The reverend had given us a pair of gloves that belonged to his son, and though the scent was old, Corwen’s wolf nose was exceptionally keen.

  Corwen renewed his mutt glamour and jumped down from the gig, bolting across the compound and then appearing to suddenly become interested in a scent.

  “Hoy! Whose dog is this?” A red-coated and red-faced sergeant with a parade ground voice yelled to anyone who could hear him.

  I held onto my bonnet with one hand and my skirts with the other and ran to Corwen. “I’m sorry, Sergeant Major (it was always good to give them a rank above the one they had). My father’s visiting the chaplain, and Bowser here is normally so good. Come here, Bowser, bad boy!” I glared at Corwen who ignored me completely and lifted his leg against the wall. I turned a laugh into a choking sob. “Oh, Bowser, you’ll get us into so much trouble.” I batted my eyes at the sergeant.

  “It’s all right, miss. Dumb creatures are sometimes unpredictable.”

  “He probably smells a cat, Sergeant-Major. He’s such a bad boy with cats.”

  Corwen sniffed at the sergeant’s booted feet and then trailed a scent along the wall and sat down. He’d found something.

  “Come here, Bowser.”

  Corwen trotted to my side and made a little whiny noise in the back of his throat. Yes, definitely found something, and he was getting to the end of his ability to maintain “Bowser.”

  “I’ll take him back to the gig, Sergeant-Major, and give him a stern talking to.”

  “You do that, miss.”

  I touched my fingers to the lop-eared mongrel’s head as we walked across the parade ground straight to the sheltered space between the gig and the chapel wall, whereupon Corwen let Bowser go and turned into the silver wolf I knew and loved.

  “Well done. Do you need a moment?”

  His tongue lolled out of his mouth, and he panted at me.

  “Yes, of course you do. Better not make it a long moment, though. The sergeant has moved away and, for now, there’s no one outside that building. You’re sure that’s where Henry is?”

  He gave a little yip.

  “Right. Time to join the army.”

  25

  Rescue

  THE SILVER WOLF reared back on his hind legs and became a naked man, who then became a military man dressed in a red jacket with three stripes on his sleeve and the florid sergeant’s face.

  “That’s good,” I said.

  “I don’t know how long I can keep it up for. Now you.”

  I took off my bonnet and tied the strings to one of the spindles of the gig seat, and in an instant I, too, looked like a redcoat, this time a younger, smaller one with no stripes to my sleeve.

  “I can do something about the way you look, but I can’t do anything about the way you walk,” Corwen said. “Military bearing, now. Look sharp. We’ve got two minutes.”

  I snapped to attention and followed Corwen back across the compound to the stone building which seemed to be our best bet for finding Henry Purdy. At this time of day the barracks should be deserted, but you could never tell. The heavy door wasn’t locked. We stepped inside. Corwen let the glamour drop as soon as the door closed behind us. I blinked in the sudden gloom.

  The room was long and lined with narrow cots on each side, all neatly made up save for one, on which a soldier sat in his shirt sleeves, playing patience with a dog-eared pack of cards. At the far end of the room was a door.

  Corwen ducked back into the shadows and turned himself once more into the redcoat sergeant. It would be a shorter illusion this time.

  “Trooper!” Corwen barked in his best imitation of the sergeant’s parade ground voice.

  “Sir.” The soldier leaped to attention scattering cards all over the floor.

  “What are you doing in here?”

  “Sick, sir.”

  Corwen’s nose twitched. The trooper was probably telling the truth. “It’s a fine day. Get outside and get some fresh air.”

  “But, sir—”

  “What didn’t you understand, trooper? Get outside, now!”

  “Sir. Yes, sir.”

  I watched the trooper leave.

  Corwen immediately let the illusion drop.

  “Was he malingering?”

  Corwen shook his head. “Got the French pox. I could smell it on him.”

  “What a boon you would be to the medical profession.”

  “Only if I could cure the conditions I can detect. Poor bastard. Might as well put a bullet in his brainpan for all the good mercury will do.”

  He paced down the room toward the door at the end, following his nose. The door was locked. I took my roll of picks out of my dimity pocket.

  “Can you do it?” Corwen asked as I probed the lock, trying to get a feel for it.

  “Give me a moment.”

  “We may not have a moment.”

  “I’m going as fast as I can.”

  I inserted a flat blade, much ground down, and applied tension to slightly turn the barrel of the lock, then keeping the tension with my left hand I inserted a second pick, shoved it right to the back of the barrel and yanked it back, feeling the pins bounce. The barrel turned.

  “There.”

  The bolt clicked back.

  “You’re a genius.”

  “Lazy Billy would have done it in half the time.”

  We opened the door cautiously and stepped through, closing it behind us. In front of us were three cells. Each had a heavy iron door with a tiny grill in it at face height, and a wide slot at the bot
tom big enough for a plate and a taller slot big enough for a jug.

  The whole place stank of shit.

  Corwen went to the first door. “Henry Purdy?”

  “Who wants to know?” The voice had a distinct Scottish twang. Not Henry Purdy.

  “Henry Purdy?” Corwen asked again at the second door.

  “Next door,” the voice said. “If he still lives.”

  My heart began to race. Had we come through the most heavily fortified fortress in Devon to find a corpse?

  “Henry Purdy?” Corwen asked at the third door.

  “He’s in here,” came the reply.

  “We’ve come to take him home.”

  “Is he sick?” I asked.

  “Weak from sickness. I think he’s over the worst.”

  “Can he walk?” Corwen slid back the small trap-door over the grill.

  “Barely.”

  “I can walk,” a weak voice said. “If it means getting out of this stinking hole, I can walk.”

  “Who here is a witch?” I asked.

  “All of us except for Angus at the far end,” the man sharing a cell with Henry said.

  “Nay. Dinna listen to him, lassie. Ahm a witch.”

  “He’s a rapist and a murderer and goes before a firing squad in the morning,” the man said.

  “If you’re all witches, why haven’t you broken out?”

  “Cold iron. Have you seen these doors?”

  Cold iron had never worried me, but I know it affected some magicals more than others. I bent to the lock. “Damn, it’s a lever tumbler.”

  “Can you pick it?” Corwen asked.

  “Yes, but it will take longer. Keep a look out.”

  I bent to the lock and inserted a narrow wrench to apply pressure to the bolt, then I slipped in a finer pick and started feeling for the levers. I had to lift them one at a time until they caught on the bolt’s post. Delicate work, and time consuming. This time Corwen didn’t interrupt me. I don’t know how many minutes passed until I heard the first click.

  “Ha!” I breathed.

  “Done it?”

  “Not yet. Getting there.”

  The next lever was easier now I had the hang of it. Then the third, but the door still didn’t move. “Please don’t tell me it has six levers,” I mumbled to myself.

  The fourth lever clicked for me. “That’s it.”

  Corwen drew back the two heavy bolts on the top and bottom of the door. He dragged it open and coughed at the stench of the open slop bucket.

  “Sorry,” the voice said. “Pleased to meet you, even though you’re a little underdressed. I’m Robert Salt and this is your man, Henry.”

  “I’m saving the glamour for when I really need it,” Corwen said.

  I peeped round Corwen’s back. Henry Purdy was barely one degree better than a corpse, stick thin and pale as paper, wearing a dirty shirt covered in unnameable stains.

  I left Corwen to it. He was capable of getting Henry onto his feet, and I had another door to unlock. I pulled back the slider over the grid, and a brown face stared at me from the other side.

  “You’re the witch?” I asked.

  “Samuel Aloysius Bannerjee at your service, madam.” His face might look Hindoo, but his accent was that of an English gentleman.

  “Ahm the witch, lady. My door next,” the Scottish voice from the third cell roared out at me.

  “Don’t believe it, madam. Sammy’s your man.” Mr. Salt stuck his head round the door. “What o’clock is it?”

  “It wants fifteen minutes to noon,” Corwen said from inside the cell with Henry.

  “Then we must hurry,” Mr. Salt said. “They bring us food, such as it is, at noon.”

  “Leave me,” Mr. Bannerjee said. “You’re running out of time.”

  “Not if I can help it.” I selected another pick and applied heavy pressure to the bolt, sufficient to stretch all the levers and hold them in place, then I released the pressure gradually, dropping the levers onto the post.

  “Whew. That doesn’t always work,” I said as I drew the bolts on Mr. Bannerjee’s door. “Are you alone?”

  “I am, and I regret not being fit company, but I am most grateful for the assistance.”

  “How are we going to do this?” Mr. Salt asked.

  “We came in glamoured as a sergeant and a private soldier,” Corwen said, “but illusion is not my strength. I’m not even sure I can get us both back across the compound.”

  “Can you two hold a glamour?” I asked Mr. Salt and Mr. Bannerjee.

  “Yes, no problem,” Mr. Salt said, and Mr. Bannerjee nodded.

  “Corwen, I can make us invisible,” I said. “But I can’t hold it for long, and I’m likely to need to sleep for a week afterward. You’re going to have to get me and Henry across to the gig. If I can put one foot in front of the other, that’s all I’ll be able to manage.”

  “I can walk,” Henry said, sounding as though he could barely talk.

  “I’m sorry, you’re on your own from here,” Corwen said to Salt and Bannerjee. “We have a space in the gig for Henry, but it’s only a dog box. We can’t take you two as well.”

  “You’ve done us a great service,” Mr. Bannerjee bowed. “We can manage from here now there’s no cold iron in our way. We have a place we can go. And I think we can help you both to get back to your gig.”

  We closed and bolted the doors behind us. Corwen half-carried Henry through the barracks room to the door.

  “Right. Here we go,” I said.

  I’d always been able to do this, but I paid such a price for it afterward, that the very idea of it chilled me to the bone. The last time I’d used it I’d fallen unconscious in Hookey’s arms and woken up some days later aboard the Heart.

  Corwen had one shoulder shoved under Henry Purdy’s armpit and his right arm around his waist. I slipped my hand into his left and concentrated. The three of us left the building cloaked in invisibility. Corwen was naked. All the glamour in the world didn’t make real clothes, but at least he’d be able to change into a wolf instantly if he needed to. All we had to do was cross to the gig soundlessly and without bumping into anyone.

  Mr. Bannerjee boosted my invisibility spell.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Good luck, gentlemen.” We set out across the yard with Henry Purdy between us.

  Unfortunately, a squad of redcoats had recently been dismissed, and were walking toward us, or rather toward their barracks, some singly, some in groups of two and three, joking and laughing. Corwen staggered right to miss one of the larger groups, and then had to quickly weave left to avoid a soldier walking alone. That took us right into the path of two more soldiers and though Corwen scooted us farther to the right, one of them stumbled over my foot and measured his length on the cobbles.

  “What did you do that for?” he said.

  “I didn’t do nuffink. Must ’ave tripped over yer own lazy arse feet,” His pal responded, but stopped to give him a hand up.

  “You pushed me.” He pushed the other soldier with the flat of his hand.

  “Didn’t.” The second soldier pushed back.

  “Did.” Push.

  “Didn’t.” Push.

  Then they both burst into laughter and continued on their way.

  We staggered on. Even with Mr. Bannerjee’s help, my feet were definitely out of control. Corwen let go of my hand and put his arm around my waist. I wasn’t sure how he managed to get both of us to the gig, but he did. He left me hanging onto the wheel while he bundled Henry into the ventilated dog box beneath the seats. It was big enough to carry two retrievers to and from a shoot. It was a tight fit for a man, but Henry wasn’t in any position to argue.

  I heard voices inside the chapel. One was Reverend Purdy. I assumed the other was the garrison chaplain. It sounded as though
he was escorting the reverend to the door and still chatting about his time serving in India.

  I dropped the invisibility. Corwen boosted me into the gig where I sat swaying until I realized I could lean against the spindle back.

  The chapel door handle rattled, and the door began to open. I could hear Reverend Purdy quite clearly now, saying, “Oh, good heavens, don’t let me interrupt your day any more than I have already. I can see myself out.”

  “Nonsense, it’s no trouble at all. Besides, I’d like to pay my respects to your daughter.”

  Corwen changed into a wolf and jumped up onto the parcel shelf. I hoped he had enough energy to glamour himself into a mutt again.

  Good timing.

  The chapel door opened, and Reverend Purdy turned in the doorway to make one more effort to shed the company of the chaplain, but to no avail. In the end he had to introduce us.

  “Emma, my dear, please allow me to introduce Captain Jarvis.”

  “Miss Purdy, delighted to make your acquaintance.”

  I wasn’t sure I could speak without slurring, but I tried to sit up.

  “Captain Jarvis.” I nodded as prettily as I could, but just that small movement set my head spinning. “I’m sorry, Captain, you don’t find me at my best. Papa, may we go home, now?”

  “I’m sorry, Emma, I left you alone for too long.” He turned to Jarvis. “My daughter’s health is frail, sir. I thought the ride in the fresh air might cheer her up.”

  “Can I help? A drink of water, perhaps?”

  I shook my head, leading to another bout of dizziness coming hard upon the first one.

  “Thank you, but I should take her home.” The reverend shook hands with the captain and climbed up onto the gig.