by Mark Hayden
He hadn’t put himself forward. The new chief was anything but new in years, being much older than the disgraced Wesley. He was small, even by Gnomish standards, wizened and nearly bald. His beady eyes looked over me, then took an age to consider Mina. Saunders was clearly an old school Gnome.
‘He’s the Swordbearer,’ said Saunders in a nearly impenetrable Black Country accent. ‘He should kneel.’
I left that one for Lloyd.
‘I presented him as Watch Captain, Chief. He’s Watch first and clan second. The Watch only kneel for the King.’
‘It should always be clan first. Can I sack him?’
‘Not without killing him.’
‘Not today then.’ He looked at Mina again. ‘Who are you?’
‘Namaste, Chief,’ said Mina with a deep bow. When she looked up, she put her finger on her cheek. ‘How many Indian women do you think work at Merlyn’s Tower? I’m sure you know exactly who I am, Chief. If you need help with the spelling, it’s on this warrant to search and seize your records.’
‘Give it to Lloyd, then clear out, the lot of you.’
As I said, an old school Gnome.
Lloyd escorted us downstairs. ‘Will you ever be chief?’ I asked.
‘I hope so. One day. I didn’t stand this time because I’d be vulnerable. I’m the last of the Fifth House, and I haven’t had a son yet.’
Being the wife of a Gnome is not an easy job. Gnomes only father sons (i.e. other Gnomes) every eighth child. That’s seven mundane, human daughters before they get a son, and not all of those daughters come to term. It’s not considered polite to ask how many children any given wife has borne.
‘Does Saunders have sons?’
‘Two. They both died a long time ago. It’s the Third House that bothers me.’ He shook his head. ‘If something happens to me, get out quick, Conrad. When they put me in the Mine, lay your sword on top and walk away. They can’t touch you, then. If you don’t, the new Second might put you to the test.’
‘Let me guess: a fight to the death.’
‘Got it in one. And you can’t use the Anvil.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind.’
‘I’ll be in my office, downstairs,’ he said to Mina. ‘Chief Saunders has delegated this mess to me to sort out.’
‘I’ll see you shortly.’
Mina and I took a moment outside the Flint House compound to say goodbye. ‘Will you be alright in there?’ I said. ‘I know you will, but I have to ask.’
‘It depends. If they have written ledgers, it may take me a while, now go and play with your new friend.’
‘I hope you don’t mean Saffron.’
She blinked at me. ‘Why would I say that? I meant Scout, of course. I’ll call you.’
We had parked the car a good walk from Flint House, near Victoria Park. The car was empty when I got back to it, so I wandered into the park to look for Saffron and Scout. I found them, away by the fountain, and Scout was in trouble again.
You may be asking why I sent Saffron to look after the dog rather than meet the Gnomes. It was her suggestion, and it came to her about five seconds after she’d heard about Mina’s new title. We’d picked Saffron up at Earlsbury Station on our Way to Flint House, and we’d taken a moment standing round the car before we set off. I’d told Saffron on the phone that Mina had a new job, and when Mina had explained that she was now the Peculier Auditor, Saffron had pulled so hard at her blond mane that it needed rearranging. After doing it back, up she’d volunteered to take Scout to the park.
When I got closer to the fountain, I could see Saffron on one side and Scout on the other, with a park warden closing in on them, shouting, ‘What are you doing? That dog needs to be on a lead!’
That dog had something in his mouth, too, and Saffron had been chasing him fruitlessly round the fountain.
‘Scout! Sit!’ I said. He sat, and put Saffron’s now soggy and lightly chewed mobile phone on the ground. Luckily for her, it had a cover on both sides.
The three humans converged on the dog, and he wagged his tail. I bent down and scooped him up before the warden got any funny ideas. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘He must have slipped out of the car without his lead.’
‘That’s right,’ said Saffron. ‘Too quick for me.’
‘I’ll take him back now.’
The warden reached for his pocket. The jumped-up jobsworth was going to give us a ticket. Specifically, he was going to give Saffron a ticket. He got out his pen and opened the pad of fixed penalty notices.
Saffron reached and touched his pen. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘He’s such a little scamp. It won’t happen again.’
‘No, it won’t,’ said the warden. When he tried to write, his pen wouldn’t work. Little scamp indeed. I’m talking human here, not canine.
‘Saffron, we’re part of the solution, remember?’ I said, as gently as I could.
She turned to me. ‘What? You’re not serious.’
The warden was looking dubiously at us, and took a step back. ‘What’s going on?’ he said.
I put Scout down and gave him a treat. ‘If there was a good reason for there not to be a paper trail showing us in this park, then yes, we could sabotage this gentleman’s pen or give a false name. Today is not that day.’
The warden stared at his pen. ‘You did that?’
I took out a business card. One with the full RAF titles and logos on it. ‘This dog is going to be the new squadron mascot. I’m looking after him until he’s old enough.’
The warden read the card. He stood straight and said, ‘Earlsbury Council is proud to support our services. But even well-behaved dogs can scare children or run into the road if they’re not on a lead.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘We’ll leave it there for now, if you and your daughter could take him straight out.’
‘Ohmygod no,’ said Saffron. ‘I’m not his daughter.’
The warden raised his eyebrows.
‘This is Lieutenant Hawkins, Royal Military Police,’ I said.
The warden blushed and put his book away. ‘Well, thank you sir, ma’am.’
I slipped him a fiver. ‘For a new pen. C’mon Scout.’ I picked up the little scamp along with as much dignity as I could muster and walked towards the gates, leaving Saffron to stare at her phone. When she joined me at the car, she was carrying it in a (clean) poop bag.
‘Wait until I tell Erin about that,’ said Saffron. ‘Your daughter! It’s the hat that does it, Conrad.’
‘My head has been scorched by a Dragon and burnt with acid. It does not like the sun, and don’t change the subject. I wasn’t joking back there.’
‘It’s your bloody dog, not mine. You should have had the ticket.’
‘What happened?’
‘He wanted a bloody ice cream, that’s what. And when I wouldn’t buy him one, he jumped up and nicked my phone.’
‘How on earth do you know he wanted an ice cream?’
‘He stood by the van and howled. He also projected hunger strongly enough for every old lady in Earlsbury to take pity on him. I’m surprised it wasn’t the RSPCA who turned up to arrest me for neglect.’
I had to laugh. Saffron didn’t think it was funny until I held my hands up and said, ‘Fair enough. We’ll get him a lead for public places, and if he does it again, we’ll put his name on the ticket.’
‘Damn right we will.’
‘And we’ll say nothing about the fact that you sat on the bench with your phone and ignored him.’
It was her turn to blush. ‘What? How did you know?’
‘Because you will have been messaging every Hawkins in your contact book to tell them about the new Peculier Auditor. Did you tell them to hide all their ill-gotten gains under the bed?’
She grinned. ‘It’s a fair cop. I won’t do it again, but Mina’s job is public knowledge, right?’
‘Correct.’
She brushed back her hair. ‘Did it go okay with the Gnomes? And what
next?’
‘Mina can cope with our diminutive allies. As for what’s next, you’re going to read this folder while I go and get us some coffees.’ I opened the back of the car. ‘And you, Scout, are going to lie down and be a good boy.’
That folder was the best I could do for a handbook. England and Wales is divided into fourteen Watch Districts, and we had been given responsibility for District 5, also known as Mercia, covering the old counties of Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire. That is a huge percentage of the mundane population, but it’s actually the least important Watch, simply because there isn’t much magickal activity there.
You know about Clan Flint, and if you’ve read Vicky’s adventure of the Phantom Stag, you’ll know about the Arden Foresters and the Fae Prince of Arden. Beyond them, there isn’t a lot. A few isolated covens, a few Fae Nobles and a scattering of Mages. That’s all I could find in my predecessor’s records.
I got back with the coffees and passed one through the passenger window while I stood outside the car to have a smoke. ‘What do you reckon?’ I said.
‘Thanks for the coffee. Who did this?’
‘Me. I put it together from what records I had.’
‘And who made them?’
‘My predecessor, Mack McKeever, now of New England.’
‘Oh, him. I’d forgotten about him. It’s … pretty rubbish.’
I sighed. ‘I’m not surprised. Mack had a flexible approach to his duties. He definitely took bribes from Clan Flint, and I’ll bet he pocketed a lot of the summary fines he dished out.’
She looked at the file again. ‘Is Malvern in Mercia?’
‘Malvern is in Worcestershire, so yes, it’s in Mercia.’
‘That’s where Bertie lives. Hang on.’
She reached over to the driver’s seat. A discarded pair of latex gloves and her old phone case nestled in the folds of the poop bag. She picked up her phone and thumbed through to a contact. She pressed dial and swept back some hair to get the phone to her ear.
‘Hi, Bertie, it’s Saffron … thanks …’ A long pause. ‘Yes, that’s right … Any chance of lunch? … Yes, of course I’m on duty … He’s the Dragonslayer … One o’clock? … Great. See you soon.’
She looked up at me. ‘We’ve got nothing else on, have we?’
‘No. Lunch with Bertie sounds good. Who is he?’
‘She. Alberta Hawkins. I’ve no idea how we’re related, but we are. Everyone calls her Bertie, and no one can say no when she rings up. Once you get her going, you’ll find out all you need to know about magick in Mercia.’
She should have asked first, but she’d just analysed the situation and come up with a plan. I wasn’t going to knock that. ‘Good idea, Saffron. You put the postcode in the satnav and I’ll take Scout to find a lamp post. But not in the park.’
‘I thought you were a Navigator. What do you need a satnav for?’
‘Which has the worst traffic? The A449 or the M5 roadworks? If I could answer that, I’d ditch the thing. I also use autopilot when I’m flying. It has a longer attention span than I do.’
Scout did his business, I found a bin for the poop bag and the coffee cups, and we set off (A449 is the answer). This was the first time we’d been alone since Saffron was inducted into the Watch, and I wondered how she’d react. She sent a couple of messages while I was sorting out the dog, then put her phone away when I got in to drive.
I have been told that (for a man), I’m a good listener. For now, I was content to talk rather than pry. The first thing Saffron wanted to know was what I’d left out of the Dragon seminar, and when I’d given her the headlines, she wanted to know about my time in the RAF. In the backwash of chat, I did discover a few things about her. That she was the middle child of three, for example, and that her younger brother has no Gift. She avoided talking about her older sister, other than saying that she hadn’t stayed on at Salomon’s House after taking her Fellowship.
‘I’d forgotten how nice it was round here,’ said Saffron as we slowed down to approach the village of Colwall, up in the Malvern Hills.
‘How long since you came?’
‘I’ve only been once. When I was about nine. Nearly all the Hawkins are in the Thames Valley, but not Bertie. She comes to us. Turn right there, then right on to Mathon Lane. It’s along there.’
‘Is it occluded?’
‘No. Warded and guarded, yes, but not occluded. It’s about a quarter of a mile.’
‘You must have a very good memory if you haven’t been here since you were nine.’
‘No. I texted my father for directions.’
‘What’s it called?’
‘It’s the most stupid tradition in our family, but all the houses are called “Something Roost”, because we’re hawks. This one is Mathon Roost. I told my family that the landlord wouldn’t let me change the name of the flat, so in London I live at number 43.’
If I live long enough to retire and hand over Elvenham to the next generation, I don’t want to follow my parents to Spain. I want to live in Mathon Roost. Mina may have other ideas, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, I was going to sit back and admire.
The drive from the road twisted and turned, as magickal drives often do, as that makes it easier to put Wards and redirections in place. When we rounded the last bend, it was to find a beautiful, warm-brick cottage with a red tiled roof. Windows slumbered behind curtains either side of the wisteria-framed door. The welcoming image of the front was completed by planted borders and hanging baskets, but that was only the start.
Like a declaration of intent, a Triumph motorcycle was parked in front of the door. A gaudy, red Triumph, with this year’s number plates. Saffron leaned over and put her hand on the car horn for a good five seconds. Scout did not like that.
When I opened the tailgate to let him out, I pointed the finger and said, ‘You are going to be so good it hurts.’
Saffron was arranging her hair (she’d had the window open). ‘He doesn’t understand you. If he was that clever, he wouldn’t be a Familiar.’
Scout looked at her and barked. He understands exactly what he wants to understand, though I got the impression he had become a Spirit well before modern technology came on the scene.
The front door opened, and Bertie Hawkins held out her arms for Saffron to run into. You could see the family resemblance, especially in the eyes and the cheekbones. Lots of hair, too. Bertie’s was a light brown and straight down her back. She had thicker hips and a bigger chest than Saffron, but somehow looked lighter on her feet, as if she had a harness running up her back. She was wearing jeans and a man’s white shirt, which suited her perfectly, as did the red toenails showing from her sandals. It was only when you looked closely that you realised how old she was. You’d peg her mundane years at something around or over a well preserved sixty; in Mage years, that’s probably about ninety.
‘Saffy, darling! This is a surprise,’ she said when the hug was over.
Saffron turned round. ‘Bertie is one of three people who get to call me Saffy. Hmm. Bertie, this is Conrad.’
‘How d’you do,’ she said, matching her brisk words with a firm handshake.
‘Ma’am.’
She hooted. ‘Don’t call me that, whatever you do! It’s Bertie, or Miss Hawkins if you want to sound like a tradesman.’
I am a tradesman. Richer than most, yes, but a tradesman nonetheless. I just smiled. ‘A pleasure. You have a beautiful house.’
‘This isn’t the house, this is just the front. The house is through and down. Come on, there’s lemonade.’
She was about to move when she lifted her head and looked around, then down. ‘Who’s this gorgeous creature?’ she said as Scout scampered round. ‘Great heavens! Is that a bonded Familiar?’ She bent down to let him sniff her hand. ‘He is. I haven’t seen one of these in simply ages. Where did you get him?’
‘He got me. I was visiting friends on a farm in Lancashire when it happened.’
>
‘Assuming your farmer friends aren’t Mages, he won’t have been there. Did you sense him before that?’
‘I think so. He probably latched on to me somewhere in the Lakeland Particular.’
She considered Scout again. ‘Stranger and stranger. You must have disturbed something when you were rushing about. The dog form was very young when you bonded, wasn’t he?’
‘His eyes were still closed.’
She nodded thoughtfully. ‘In the dark days, when Witches were hanged, having a Familiar was a useful thing. Most Mages think they’re too much bother, now.’
I bent down. ‘You’re not too much bother, lad.’
We followed Bertie down a long, dark passage leading through the cottage, with closed doors on either side. Instead of a kitchen, we came to the top of a staircase that only led down, not up. There was a top floor to the cottage, but goodness knows how you get there.
And then you saw the down-downstairs and forgot about the front.
The doorway emerged into the middle of an open space the size of two badminton courts, with a vaguely kitchen and eating area to the left and behind, then a series of modern couches scattered around to the right and behind. On the right hand wall was a baronial fireplace with a vase of fresh flowers in front of it. On the rear right hand wall was a big television. The space was large enough for some couches to face the TV, some the fireplace and one looked out, which was where your eye was drawn first.
The whole of the far wall was glass bi-fold doors. Only the central pair were open, the rest closed and shaded to keep out the sun and the heat. Bertie slowed down enough for us to appreciate the space, and Saffron stopped to say, ‘Wow! I don’t remember this.’
‘I opened it out a couple of years after your last visit, dear.’
‘It’s stunning, Bertie.’
‘And a bugger to keep clean. Come on.’
Through the doors was a spectacular view to the east and south, down over the hills to the Severn Valley and the city of Worcester beyond. You didn’t notice the terraced gardens until you’d finished drinking in the view.
‘I hope you have a gardener,’ I said. ‘If you don’t, I am truly humbled.’