Witchfinder — Free Novel — Chapter 12

UPDATE:  A SLIGHTLY EDITED AND PRETTIED UP COMPILATION OF ALL CHAPTERS UP TO A WEEK OLD IS HERE

*This is the Fantasy novel I’m posting here for free, one chapter every Friday.  I’ve been posting director’s commentary at the end of chapters, but I think it detracts from the experience, so I’ll do that on Sunday, instead, for the previous chapter.  If your conscience troubles you getting something for free, do hit the donate button on the right side and down.  Anyone donating more than $6 will get a non-drm electronic copy of Witchfinder in its final version, when it’s published.  This also allows us to buy the very expensive food that Euclid (upon whom Pythagoras, aka Peesgrass of the refinishing mysteries is based) seems to need.  And, oh, yeah, the cover sucks, but I haven’t had time for a new one.

Oh, this is in pre-earc format, meaning you’ll find the occasional spelling mistake and sentence that makes no sense.  It’s not exactly first draft, but it’s not at the level I’d send to a publisher, yet.*

For first chapter, look here

For eleventh chapter, look here

For tenth chapter, look here

Lady In The Lake

Seraphim sat in his sofa, wrapped in a dressing gown which made no more than a pretense of keeping out the cold, but did so magnificently, in shimmering green silk with a pattern of flying dragons.  He’d asked for his cane with the silver top.  But even such an obvious means of support hadn’t convinced Gabriel to let Seraphim get up and be about his business.

No, instead, Seraphim had to sit on the sofa, his hands atop the dragon-head top of the cane, his mind trying to follow, by sound, the very strange events in his household this evening and, more difficult, trying to make sense of them.

And Gabriel…  Gabriel had entered what Seraphim, with the cruelty of an older brother, even if he was in fact the younger, had been known to call his housekeeper mode.  He had marshaled the housemades to remake the bed, he’d got someone to bring in a bowl of sweet and magically harmonious pot-pouri to disguise the stench of burnt feathers and scorched broth.

He’d threatened to have more broth brought in too, but Seraphim had negotiated that distressing sentence down to a glass of cold milk, which he supposed must be making its way from the kitchens.

And Gabriel had set the gardeners down in the lake, with crystal balls affixed at the end of lanterns.  The attack had come from near the lake, or at least the would be assassin had been found near it.

Seraphim should have thought, as Gabriel obviously had, that any body of water that large, around which serious magic was made, would have recorded the sequence of events and the strength of the attacks.  And since it would come to a high court, the least Seraphim could do was make sure that there were crystal balls imprinted with whatever had been recorded in the water, to present to his majesty when the time came.

But Seraphim hadn’t thought of it, and Gabriel had, which was probably why Gabriel was the one to whom word was brought of whatever the new disturbance was.

The first sense of it the duke had was a shiver across the surface of his magic, as though someone had opened a portal between words nearby.  But it could not be a full portal between worlds.  It was something more attenuated and lighter.

Then there had come a knock at the door, and Gabriel opening it and mumbling something to a man outside, who mumbled something in response.  And then Gabriel started to close the door, and Seraphim had had just about enough.

“Penny, open the damn door and let the man speak to me.”  He understood well enough – perhaps better than other people in the household – Gabriel’s penchant for taking charge, for being useful.  He remembered – and wondered if anyone else did – what Gabriel had looked like when he’d been brought in, as Seraphim had then thought, as Seraphim’s birthday gift.

Though older than Seraphim, and obviously very similar to the heir of the Ainslings, Gabriel had looked gaunt almost to infirmity, his face had been bruised and he’d appeared terrified.  As though he’d been threatened with something even worse than the hunger and the violence he’d endured so far.  Seraphim had seen the look on Gabriel’s face as he encountered each of the features of life at the Darkwater estate: regular food, toys, a warm and secure bed.  He remembered Gabriel’s delight at the roaring fires in the hearths that first winter, his amazed joy at the sweetness of fruit in winter.  And he knew Gabriel tried to make himself useful, because at the back of his mind, somehow, he still thought the Ainslings would send him back where they’d found him.

He’d been afraid of being sent back after that bad business in Cambridge too, though if Darkwater had been asked – he hadn’t – Gabriel had been more sinned against than sinning, and the fault lay with that damned Merlin fellow, who hadn’t lasted much longer before crossing over to the dark arts, either.

But as much as Seraphim loved and understood his half brother, this was the outside of enough and he would not stand for it.  He would not be treated as a cross between an excitable maiden aunt and an invalid grandfather in his own house, “Penn,” he said, in a warning tone, as Gabriel hesitated, his hand on the door.  “Let the man in, I said.”

The man came in.  He was one of the older gardeners, and Seraphim felt peevish annoyance that he couldn’t remember his name and that Gabriel probably knew it by heart.

The man wore a crushed felt hat, a dingy coat, and pants that were obviously worn while working, judging by the clothes of dirt adhering to them.  To this was joined an overall dampness, and scraps of what might be aquatic plants here and there.  He removed the felt hat – he should have done so on entering the house, of course, but even in a duchal house, the garden personnel was sometimes insufficiently educated in manners.  Clasping it in his hands and turning it over and over as he approached Seraphim, he bowed, “As I was telling Mr. Penn, sir, it is the lady in the lake, and a right mess she caused with our recording of the magic sir.”

This speech caused Seraphim to wonder if the reason they were treating him as a doddering and senile grandfather was that he had, in fact, gone around the bend.  Because none of this made sense.  He had to admit ignorance, of course, but he admitted it in the most haughty manner he could conjured.  “What are you speaking of?” he asked.  “I do not have the pleasure of understanding you.”

“The lady in the lake,” the man said, as though the matter were obvious.

“Unless she brought a sword with her, then it is unlikely it is the lady in the lake as such,” Seraphim said.  “And even if she brought a sword with her, she would have to be an impostor, as I’m sure Arthur’s sword is still where it resides, in the royal armory.  So, kindly explain.”

Gabriel huffed.  It wasn’t very audible, and the gardener probably missed it, or else, if he heard it he would have thought nothing of it.  But Seraphim heard it clear as day and knew exactly what it meant: that “huff” was Gabriel’s way of telling Seraphim to stop terrorizing the servants and being hard to please, and close upon it, Gabriel lost what patience he’d tried to summon.

As the gardener continued to twirl his execrable hat in his filthy hands, and stammer something that never amounted to a full word, Gabriel interrupted, “if it please your grace, what Marson is trying to tell you is that a woman fell into the lake, as they were using the magic recorders.”

“Fell from where?” Seraphim asked, turning his inquisitive glance on Seraphim.  “The trees?  And is she a woman or is she–”

“She is Miss Helena Felix,” Gabriel hastened, cutting what he presumed – truthfully – was Seraphim’s question about the magical nature of the intruder.

“Ah,” Seraphim said.  “The capable Miss Helena.  She stayed behind, then, while I was ill?”  He was trying to imagine what Gabriel must have told his mother to justify such a thing.  Good heavens, by now he might very well be engaged to the woman.  He started to open his mouth, then closed it, because he remembered suddenly that he didn’t even know if he was in fact engaged to Honoria.  He had to get Gabriel alone and ask him a few home questions without being attacked by maniacs with bolts and spells.

“No.  It appears she found occasion to come to us again, though,” Gabriel said.  “Marson has taken her to the housekeeper’s rooms, to change out of her soaked clothes and get a cup of tea, while they finish the recording in the garden.  And he’s given orders that the gentleman who … ah… got unfortunately killed by the bolt you sent out in self defense be put in the ice house, till royal officers can take charge of–”

“No,” Seraphim said.  And looked at Gabriel’s surprised face.  “No.  I must see them both.”

Gabriel’s eyebrows shot up.  “Both?  Miss Felix and–?”

“The dead man,” he said, and continued.  “Penn, if you please send one of the housemaids to tell Miss Felix I require her presence immediately.  And Marson, kindly have four under-gardeners carry the deceased gentleman up.”

“What?” the gardener said, clearly shocked.  “To your grace’s room?”

Seraphim allowed himself a smile.  “If I were feeling more myself,” he said.  “I’d go down and look at the corpse myself.  As is, though, I don’t feel up to taking the flights of stairs down, yet.  And the description I was given of his being a gentleman of average features, with dark hair, and richly dressed, you must understand it tells me very little about who he might be or whether I know him.  As such, I’ll thank you to bring him up.  You can carry him down again, and fast enough.”

“Yes, sir,” Marson said, but left with the sort of haste that betrayed his suspicions about Seraphim’s sanity.  His haste did not escape Gabriel.  As both the maids and the gardener left, he closed the door softly and turned to Seraphim, “I hope you’re satisfied, Duke.  Your servants will now think you have gone irrational, or perhaps that you intend to dabble in necromancy.”  But it was obvious it was just a joke, and, his face sobering, Gabriel told Seraphim, quickly, everything that had passed between the time of his coming back from the pyramids and the present.

“And you claimed Miss Felix was your fiancé?”

“You see how important it was to know what your mother knows about me?”

Seraphim sighed.  “Knows, nothing.  Understands, I suspect near all.  You know she always detects you in falsehood.”

“Perhaps,” Gabriel said, trying to appear unconcerned, but he bit the corner of his upper lip, something he only did when he was concerned.  He opened his mouth as though to say something, but at that moment there was a knock, and on Seraphim calling “come,” the door was opened by two maids who curtseyed then stood one on either side of the door, looking like statues.  In between them, a woman walked in.

She wasn’t ugly, Seraphim realized, now that he saw her without either anger or fear distorting her features.   She looked concerned, she was soaked to the skin, her hair clinging to her head like a dark bonnet.  And she was wearing a voluminous grey blanket draped over whatever clothes she’d worn when she’d fallen in the pond.  But through it all, it was obvious her features were good, and that she had grace and poise worthy of a princess.

Miss Felix made that blanket seem like a trailing royal cloak, as she walked in to stand a few steps from him and curtseyed.  “I was told your grace wanted to see me,” she said.

“I did,” he said.  “I would like to know how you came to fall in my pond.  I presume it was not simply a matter of leaning too far over a branch.”

Miss Felix looked over her shoulder at the maids by the door, then back at him.  Seraphim nodded.  “I believe, madam, he said, that inconvenient though they are, your chaperones must stay.  You can’t be in a room alone with two men.”

She looked impatient.  He’d swear she rolled her eyes, and he could not reconcile her air of obvious quality with this unconcern or ignorance of the social rules.  “Very well,” she said, at last speaking in an undertone.  “But the thing is, your Grace, that I don’t know what to tell you.  To own the truth, the secret I could tell is not mine, and on it depends the life of someone whom I once thought–” She stopped.  “No.  On my silence depends the life of someone who might have his deffects of character, but who, I’m sure, has done nothing to deserve death.”

Which, of course, was when the second knock on the door sounded, and on Seraphim authorizing entrance, as Nell stepped a little to the side and turned to look, Mr. Marson came in, leading four strapping boys, who carried, between them, a pallet on which was a form covered in a blanket.

The pallet was lowered in front of Seraphim, and the blanket pulled back at the same time a lantern was brought near that he might better examine the face of the deceased.

Seraphim saw a face that looked wholly unknown, and much as had been described to him: dark hair, regular features, a certain appearance of gentility.

And then Helena Felix leaned forward towards the corpse and gasped.  “Antoine!” she said.  She sounded more shocked than saddened.  “It is Antoine.”

Before Seraphim could ask her what she meant, and who Antoine might be, he heard running steps and someone burst in through the door, without asking.  It was his sister Caroline, her dress rumpled, her hair in a mess.  She curtseyed hastily, and looked around as if shocked at the mass of people in the room.  Her gaze raked the corpse on the floor, but she seemed not to be at all surprised, more annoyed, as though all these people were here for the purpose of annoying her.

“Seraphim,” she said, in a scolding tone.  “Seraphim, it is the most unlucky thing for you to have everyone here, because you must come with me right away.”

“Caroline,” he said, and was about to scold her on her lack of manners.  He had no time.

“Yes, yes,” she said.  “I know I’m being very shocking, and it’s all very bad, but Seraphim, we think Michael was taken by the elves.  They left a changeling in his place.”