Wyrde and Wayward

by Charlotte E. English

  Silence.

  ‘Perhaps there are other dragons about, one or other of whom you may ask. The Werths are not the only heavily Wyrded family in England. I am sure there must be another dragon or two, somewhere.’

  Silence, but a look of such soulful entreaty that Gussie relented. ‘Very well. If it is dancing with me that has done the mischief, I can see if another period of minor contact may reverse it.’ After all, until today she had been definitely, certainly unWyrded, with no powers at all. What did she know, about what she now may do?

  And it was not as though it was very shocking to touch an unmarried man, if he happened to be wearing the shape of a dragon at the time. She did not think even the highest stickler for etiquette and propriety could fairly fault her for it.

  Steeling herself — for the results of her last such experiments, however unwittingly performed, had been undesirably spectacular — Gussie laid a finger upon Lord Maundevyle’s long, red-scaled ear. One finger, and just upon the tip.

  She was rewarded with another impatient snort.

  ‘Oh, do not be so critical,’ she snapped. ‘This evening has been rather trying for me as well, you know.’ She punctuated her statement by wrapping her hand all the way about the ear and giving it a sharp tug.

  He gave a growl, curiously like a dog.

  ‘No complaints,’ she said severely. ‘You are owed for a great many bruises I need not have suffered, and I might add that this has been by far the least favourite of all the journeys I have ever taken in my life. And that is including the one I recently took under the aegis of your esteemed siblings, so you may imagine how strongly I feel upon the subject.’

  Nothing much was happening, however she might maul his ear. She laid both hands on his head for good measure, hardly caring that she poked him in one eye and half covered the other.

  A dragon he remained.

  ‘Well, perhaps it will take a little time to come into effect,’ she offered. ‘After all, you did not become a dragon until some half an hour after our dances. In the meantime, I do not suppose you are hiding any blankets hereabouts, or better yet, a bed? I am shockingly tired, and I collect we are not to be going on to any respectable inn this evening.’ She amused herself with a brief reflection as to the likely reaction of the innkeeper, were she to arrive there in company with a dragon.

  Or, alone and unattended, which would be far worse.

  To her dismay, but not to her surprise, Lord Maundevyle gave a shake of his head.

  ‘It did not even occur to you to consider it, did it?’ Gussie scolded, but she was too tired to remain angry now. Her vituperation dissolved into a weary sigh, and she sank down where she stood. ‘They say the secret to enduring adversity is to remain cheerful, and hold to an optimistic interpretation of events,’ she said. ‘So if I can contrive to convince myself that this cold stone floor is in fact the softest of beds, and that the disreputable remains of my poor gown are as good as a warm blanket, I imagine I shall be very comfortable.’

  Then, because holding conversations with herself was growing wearisome too, she fell silent. His lordship did not appear minded to do anything about her predicament — not that she could imagine what he might find to do, under these conditions — and since he had ceased to make any attempts at communication either, she concluded him to be too sunk in either guilt or self-pity to be of further use to her.

  All thoughts of leaving the cave she soon dismissed, for where would she go? Lord Maundevyle had flown much too far for her to expect to reach Starminster again tonight, even if she did have some idea of how to get there. And even if there were some village or inn hereabouts, she knew what a welcome she would be likely to receive if she were to try their charity. A lone female, attended by neither husband nor maid, her garments torn and her hair (doubtless) in wild disorder. She would be instantly turned out. Gussie resolved to spare herself the humiliation. A night in a bare cave was as nothing to that.

  So, she made herself as comfortable as she could against the wall of the cave — which was not very, at all — and ordered herself to see it in the light of a fresh adventure. ‘You did, after all, want very much to see something of the world,’ she reminded herself. ‘Well, here you are, well beyond the borders of Werth Towers, and swept up in an escapade many a young lady would sell her mother to participate in. You might try to appreciate it.’

  Such reflections could brace her up only so far. They could do nothing to alter the chill of the stone beneath her, nor the absolute impossibility of arranging herself upon it so as to achieve a tolerable repose.

  Some hours passed before Gussie fell, at long last, into an uneasy slumber. The snores of Lord Maundevyle had been shaking the walls of the cave long before.

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘Right,’ said Theo, at ten past eleven o’clock the following morning. ‘This is hopeless.’

  After an uneasy night’s sleep and a hasty breakfast, he and Miss Frostell had set out, attended by a severed head and a possessed gargoyle, to find the troublesome Gussie.

  To his chagrin, the pessimistic predictions of the abominable Selwyn siblings soon proved correct.

  ‘A dragon?’ echoed the owner of a smithy some three miles northwest of Starminster. ‘A dragon! I like that! Next he’ll be asking me if I’ve seen horses with wings.’

  The man had laughed heartily, and gestured with his hammer for Theo to be gone, taking his foolish questions with him.

  Miss Frostell had met with similar treatment in the village of Selington, though to her the proprietor of a haberdasher’s shop had been still less polite. Even the appearance of Great-Aunt Honoria’s head had been of no use, for while the haberdasher’s disbelief in so unlikely a story had, in the face of this vision of undeath, soon dissolved, she had not ceased to scream until Miss Frostell and Honoria both were safely out on the street again.

  ‘You would not think,’ said Miss Frostell, looking up at an unforgivingly blue sky, ‘that the passage of a dragon would excite so little notice, even if it did occur rather late in the evening.’

  ‘Small wonder,’ said Great-Aunt Honoria tartly. ‘Ignorance flourishes out in the countryside. Now, if this had happened in town—’

  ‘Aunt,’ said Theo. ‘You are certain Maundevyle came this way?’

  ‘As much as I can be,’ floating farther up and turning in circles, as though she might glimpse a scarlet dragon marauding the countryside at any moment. ‘He was heading northwest, but I cannot be certain that he did not change his direction sometime afterwards.’

  ‘He is unlikely to have gone due northwest without cease,’ said Theo. ‘And if there are no witnesses to be found who can point us in the right direction, then we are at a stand.’

  Miss Frostell stared at him, nonplussed. ‘At a stand? But you cannot be suggesting that we abandon the pursuit, surely.’

  ‘What else might you suggest, Miss Frostell?’ Theo, deprived of a satisfying dinner or breakfast and feeling the pinch of his insides, endeavoured not to notice the flush of Miss Frostell’s cheeks under the influence of a hot morning and an unaccustomed degree of exertion. The flow of blood beneath that pale flesh was of no relevance to the matter at hand, and not at all tempting—

  He looked away, scowling.

  ‘Perhaps a bite of luncheon, my lord?’ said Miss Frostell, observing these signs of incipient predation with a tolerant eye. ‘It is so difficult to think clearly while suffering from hunger-pangs, is it not?’

  Theo took her suggestion, and walked out at once into the fields surrounding Selington.

  When he returned, happily replete and only a little bloodied, he did not discover himself to have undergone any significant change of heart.

  ‘Now what have you to say, my lord?’ said Miss Frostell, evidently full of hope.

  ‘That we are going home.’ Theo had enjoyed a half hour’s quiet reflection as he stalked his unsuspecting prey, and had arrived at the only course of action that could make any sense.

  ‘Home
! We are to abandon Miss Werth!’

  ‘Yes.’ Theo licked a stray drop of blood from his thumb, glowering at Miss Frostell, who only smiled indulgently. ‘If she did not wish to be carried off by a dragon, why, she ought to have behaved with greater sense.’

  Miss Frostell set both hands upon her hips, a sign even Theo recognised as unpromising.

  But it was his great-aunt who said: ‘A consequence any woman of the smallest sense ought to have seen coming, we quite agree with you.’

  ‘Now you sound like my cousin,’ said Theo.

  ‘Since Gussie herself is not here to flay you with her wit as you deserve, I undertake to perform this duty for her.’

  ‘And you are doing a wonderful job of it.’

  ‘Thank you. You, however, are a blackguard.’

  ‘If Gussie don’t wish to remain with Maundevyle, it’s my belief she will get herself out of it,’ said Theo stubbornly. ‘In the meantime, I wish to consult my mother.’

  ‘Lady Werth?’ said Honoria, evidently startled. ‘What can she have to say to the matter?’

  ‘She is the only one among us who seems to have any understanding of the nature of Gussie’s Wyrde,’ said Theo. ‘And if anyone can outwit the Selwyns, it must be she.’

  ‘If we do not find her, the Selwyn siblings will,’ said Miss Frostell. ‘And then what? Is she to be dragged back to Starminster yet again?’

  ‘She didn’t seem to mind it the first time.’

  ‘That was different. She had not then understood the reason for her abduction, nor the extent of the Selwyn madness. I am persuaded they are all out of their wits.’

  Theo, watching as Great-Aunt Honoria turned herself upside-down and sprayed a delicate plume of blood into the air, had no response to offer.

  ‘Lady Honoria?’ said Miss Frostell. ‘Lord Silvester? Surely you will support me.’

  No answer came from Great-Uncle Silvester, not that any sensible answer ought ever to be expected.

  Honoria only said, ‘I perfectly agree with you, but how do you propose to proceed?’

  Miss Frostell opened her mouth, paused, shut it again, and returned her hands to her hips. ‘Well!’ she said.

  Theo waited.

  ‘Perhaps — perhaps there may yet be someone hereabouts who has seen or heard of Lord Maundevyle’s passage?’

  ‘I shall wait here while you investigate,’ said Theo. ‘You will not be much above two or three days about the business, I am sure?’

  ‘Miss Werth has always said that you were abominable,’ said the governess.

  ‘No, has she said that?’ said Theo.

  ‘I have always sternly disagreed.’

  ‘She was quite right, ma’am: I haven’t a single virtue to my name. And now that the point has been established, I invite you to step into the carriage, whereupon we shall return to Werth Towers with all possible haste. See, Jem is quite ready to drive us. My mother ought to be recovered from her indisposition before very much longer, I am sure.’

  ‘And what is Georgiana like to do about any of this?’ demanded Lady Honoria.

  ‘That’s rather up to my mother, isn’t it? But she—’

  Theo stopped, for a glimmer of something out of place against the clear blue sky had caught his keen eye. A fire-red something, rapidly drawing nearer.

  ‘What?’ said Miss Frostell. ‘What is it?’ This fatuous query Theo was not obliged to answer, for she turned herself about to follow the direction of his gaze, and promptly gave a scream (Theo could classify it as nothing else) of satisfaction. ‘There! Lord Maundevyle! He must have dear Miss Werth with him.’

  But he did not have Gussie with him. His claws, once he drew near enough to tell, were empty. The village of Selington did appear to be his destination, however, for he landed with an inelegant thud only some twenty feet away, his wings casting up such a wind as almost knocked Theo off his feet, and stomped away in the direction of a baker’s premises some two or three doors off the haberdasher’s. Only his head would fit inside the door, but this did not appear to trouble him overmuch. He withdrew it presently, a selection of rolls and pastries held carefully in his jaws, and took to the skies again, oblivious to the tumult he left behind him.

  This tumult consisted of yet another round of screams (bakers were no more used to dragons than haberdashers were to talkative severed heads); Miss Frostell’s futile attempts to get his attention (though she so far forgot her dignity as to jump up and down in the street, shouting his name); and Great-Aunt Honoria’s equally useless endeavour to catch hold of his spine-ridges, and sail along with him back to wherever he had left Gussie.

  ‘I did not imagine dragons to be fond of pastry,’ said Lady Honoria, once Lord Maundevyle’s stupendous form had once again dwindled away into nothing.

  ‘But perhaps he is in want of familiar food,’ said Miss Frostell. ‘I imagine I should be, in such a state.’

  ‘It will be for Gussie,’ said Theo. ‘Or is she meant to sup upon fresh-killed venison, like his lordship?’

  ‘Is that what he is eating?’ said Lady Honoria, in tones of great interest.

  ‘Smelt it on him,’ said Theo shortly.

  ‘I should think the Starminster estate well provided with deer,’ Lady Honoria said.

  ‘Slightly less so, soon.’

  Miss Frostell had ignored this exchange, standing with her face turned to the winds of Lord Maundevyle’s passage. When she began walking, Theo trotted to catch up. ‘The carriage, Miss Frostell? It is this way.’ He gestured in a quite different direction to the one Miss Frostell had chosen.

  ‘Surely there can be no more talk of returning home?’ said she. ‘We now know exactly which way the dragon went.’ She pointed, and strode on, undeterred by Theo’s snort of frustration, nor by his acid comments upon the likelihood of their being at all able to follow in the path of an airborne creature, who need not be at all inconvenienced by such trifles as hills, rivers, or buildings.

  ‘You propose to walk all the way?’ Theo finished. ‘It is like to be a great many miles!’

  ‘Come, Lord Bedgberry, this is spiritless stuff,’ said Miss Frostell, calm now that she was sure of her course. ‘It is not like to be many miles, or why would his lordship choose so poor a place as Selington to make his purchases? I am persuaded we will soon come upon them.’

  Since his aunt and uncle seemed to be much of Miss Frostell’s mind in the business, Theo yielded, though not with any very good grace.

  ***

  ‘I must warn you,’ Gussie had said earlier in the morning. ‘I am like to keel over of hunger before very much longer, and you will have a corpse on your hands. Most embarrassing for you.’

  Lord Maundevyle, recumbent still upon the floor of the cave, having scarcely moved since the night before, made no answer.

  ‘Though I am not at all sure that my aunt and uncle might not be better pleased to be rid of me,’ she reflected. ‘I am an inconveniently Wyrded Werth, as it turns out, and my aunt was perhaps justified in keeping me tucked away at the Towers.’

  In the strong light of a sunny morning, she had been able to explore her new quarters more thoroughly, though not much to her satisfaction. The cave was large enough to accommodate so monstrously-sized a creature as a dragon, but had little to recommend it beyond this spaciousness. No hidden depths, no trickling stream, no twisting passageways leading into an unknown network of caverns laced through the Somerset hills. It was just a cave, grey and hard and stony and utterly without interest.

  Or sustenance.

  ‘Well,’ said Gussie, when his lordship evinced no desire whatsoever to move, ‘then I shall have to procure my own breakfast, though I hardly know how I am to do so. Still, obstacles exist in order to spur us into useful activity, and activity leads to growth, does it not? I shall be equal to anything, after this.’ So saying, she made her disreputable garments as respectable as she could, acutely aware that she proposed to face her fellow man not only clad in the outlandish costume gown of last night’s
ball, but a shockingly torn specimen of evening attire at that. She might be taken for a beggar, save that the silks of her gown, however tattered or oddly styled, were too obviously costly.

  ‘I shall doubtless be taken up as a thief,’ she remarked. ‘And I can in no way assist you from the inside of a gaol. That need not trouble you, however.’

  This appeared at last to motivate his lordship, or perhaps her commentary had finally filtered through to his sleep-fogged brain. There came a great rustling and scraping behind her as the enormous creature stirred, and rose; and then, just as Gussie was on the point of exiting the cave herself, Lord Maundevyle stormed past her, and with an athletic leap hurled himself into the sky. He was even too generous to swipe her with his tail on his way past, or to contrive, “accidentally”, to jostle her into the dirt.

  ‘Excellent,’ said Gussie, satisfied, and sat down again to wait.

  When Lord Maundevyle returned, some half an hour later, Gussie had migrated to the thready grasses immediately before the cave, and sat sunning herself. The hour was some way advanced, which suggested she had slept longer and deeper than might have been imagined possible, under the circumstances. Weariness must be the cause, and the shock she had sustained the night before. She felt very well now, or she would as soon as her gnawing hunger pangs were satisfied.

  ‘Welcome back, my lord,’ she greeted him as he swooped in to land, setting up a thunderous shaking of the earth beneath the impact of his enormous feet. He needed a little practice, though he might never prove a graceful flyer. ‘I half thought you might be disposed to leave me here forever.’

  Lord Maundevyle snorted, and dropped several somethings at Gussie’s feet.

  ‘Nor would I have been altogether inclined to blame you,’ said she, browsing through his lordship’s offerings. ‘I have, after all, been as troublesome as I possibly could.’ He had brought her a selection of fare from some local pastry-cook’s shop, she observed, and though it was in no way refined stuff — simplicity itself — it was fresh and smelled like heaven. Surreptitiously discarding those one or two things most liberally bedewed after a sojourn in the dragon’s mouth, Gussie disposed of the rest at top speed.