Rogue Magic — Free Novel — Chapter 2

*This is the new free novel, being posted a chapter a Friday.  It will eventually acquire a cover.  Probably next week.  It will also eventually acquire its own tab (possibly when I remove Witchfinder, the prequel, which is being edited and will go on sale in normal channels in two weeks or so.)  One bit of retconning will happen.  Blythe is not the family title but the name.  I got confused.  I had made them the Earls of Timfarr.  I’ve changed that to Savage, because, frankly, fits better.  As always, if you donate $6 or more to this endeavor you’ll get an ebook in the format of your choice when it is done being edited.  (Possibly via a free coupon on Smashwords, but we’ll see.)  This is a savings, as the book will go up for 9.99.  Of course you’ll be donating in less inflated dollars, so you figure it.  Incidentally and unrelated — sort of — I’m putting up my backlist under Goldport Press.  The titles five or more years old are going up for 4.99 and I’ll try to put up Omnibus(eseses) of three for 9.99.  I might/might not, depending on what THEY think of the idea, contract to do bundles with Baen, for the various series(eseses.)  BUT failing that, they’ll be on Amazon, B & N and Smashwords at reasonable prices.  Paper editions as soon as my husband has time to set them because my mind gets all bent out of shape when I try to paginate so it appears sequentially.  For those who have been waiting patiently, yes, this means you’ll soon see sequels too, including for the Musketeers, vampire Musketeers and my Jane Austen stuff.  On Rogue Magic — doing this in interlaced first persons still feels WRONG as in “forbidden.”  But part of this is to experiment, right?*

Lady’s Gambit

Miss Helen Blythe, Sister of the Earl of Savage:

The moment Jonathan left the table, Mother turned to me.  I have no idea what set her off.  Perhaps it was my look after my brother’s departing form, which was probably both worried because I know very well what Jon is capable of, and wishful because I’ve long wished I’d been a man. If I were a man, I could have moved beyond the circle of good behavior; beyond the circle of what Mama expected from me.  If I’d been a man—

“How we’re going to get you married off, when you insist on these distempered freaks, I don’t know, my dear, but you must strive to control them.”

I didn’t know what Mama considered a distempered freak, or even what she’d said beyond those words.  I’d heard those words, only.  I knew they were addressed to me, because my sisters are good girls and never have distempered freaks.  Heaven knows how they manage it.  The first answer that ran through my mind was “Oh, do not worry, mama.  I don’t want a man.  I want to run away and become a pirate Queen.”

I realized I’d said the words aloud, as Mama’s mouth dropped open and her eyes threatened to pop out of her head.  Hanna, always the good sister, yelled out, “Mama, mama, she didn’t mean it, she was only funning.”

Only I wasn’t funning.  Or not exactly.

The problem with these daydreams I’d had since childhood, and the answers I thought to Mama but never actually said aloud, was that I suspected eventually I would start saying them aloud.  Apparently, for my sins, that day had come, and no wonder, what with my perfect older sister having an affair all along, and being pregnant by someone not her fiancé and then dying a month after the birth.

Yes, I know what you heard: about how Honoria had been secretly engaged to the illegimate son – and now heir – of the Earl of Sidell, who had been unjustly accused of necromancy and therefore was in hiding.  How there was a secret marriage and how then – fortuitously – his father’s death allowed them to announce it.

The truth is far more interesting, involving forbidden love and madness and an illegitimate baby who will forever be known as his brother’s son.  I also have more than a hint of a suspicion that the brother, my now brother in law, is in fact the lover of the king of fairyland.

All this I gathered from unconsidered bits that Mama let fall when she didn’t know I was listening, and also from my assiduous perusal of Jonathan’s private papers, which might be an action unworthy of a gentlewoman, but is absolutely necessary for me to survive in a world where no one tells me anything.

This is what I hate about society, and why I’ve decided to leave it.  They expect me to be a babe unborn and never to experience life as it really is.  Real life is far more interesting.

“Helen, say you were funning, tell mama!” Hanna said.  She was chaffing Mama’s wrists with vinegar and looked at me with that pleading look she gives, which always makes me feel like to deny her would be to kick a puppy or stomp on a kitten.

“Yes, yes, I was funning,” I said.  In my code of honor, which I’d come to more or less on my own, it was a great sin to lie, but killing Mama with a heart attack was probably a worse sin.  I wasn’t sure, because I hadn’t had the time to think about it, but it probably was.  I also judged she would recover far more quickly without me in the room and besides I had work to do.  Betsy must be frantic by now.  “If you’ll excuse me, Mama,” I said, and before she could answer, I dropped a courtesy and left the room.

I didn’t start running till I was on the stairs and then I took them two by two in a step Mama would consider most indelicate, not the least because it exposed my ankles.  Well and good.  Soon there would be no problem with that.

Betsy was waiting in my room, and wringing her hands as she’s wont to do.  I like her prodigiously much, but I think there is something about being raised to be a servant that makes you… well, anxious about doing anything not quite approved of.  It was a miracle, at all, that she had agreed to my plan of leaving this house, and making a life for ourselves.  Truth be told, I think the only reason she’d agreed was that she had been my maid for three years, and I’d read her all the same stories of adventure I read myself.  I think she was devoted to me, in a way some younger sisters are to older sisters, and that it were not for me, she’d never consider anything unconventional.

I wondered if it was a breach of moral code to allow her to get involved in this.  But it was so much easier for us to enlist in the navy and to pass if there were two of us and one could watch the other’s back.

Still, she looked awfully anxious and was wringing her hands together.  She stood there, with two carpetbags, and a whole lot of other stuff, and her eyes were tear smudged and she said, “Oh, Miss, I thought you’d never come and that the mistress had figured what was forward and that I was going to be turned out without a character, and you—”

Her mind failed at the thought of what they might do to me, and she started crying.  “Don’t be a ninny,” I told her.  “Of course no one found anything.  We must go, and as soon as possible.”  I sat down at my dressing table, pulled a towel around my shoulders.  “Quick.  Cut my hair, then I’ll do yours.  And you must put something on the floor to catch the hair.”

She obeyed, of course, but halfway through cutting my hair she started crying “Oh, Miss, all your lovely curls.” And it was all I could do not to dismiss her from my plan and this venture all together.  Only I didn’t dare.  If Betsy stayed behind, they would question her, and the girl had no more gumption than a half-weaned sparrow.  So, instead, I said, “Stop calling me miss.  What is my name?”

“Hank, Mi–  Hank.”

“Hank what?”

“Hank Cutter, Miss.”

I decided to let it go.  Like a puppy that you have to train little by little, Betsy would need to be broken of her bad habits.

She wasn’t a very good barber either, but that was good.  The rough cut made me look less like one of society’s ornaments.  It ended up with my hair mostly at my shoulders, except for the bit where Betsy had tried to cut off my ear, because she was crying so hard she couldn’t see.

Her hair was not much longer than that to begin with, which made sense, because of course, she didn’t have as much time to deal with.  It was a whispy blonde and even with it short, it didn’t do much to make her features less round and rosy and feminine.

It was a liability, but I figured some men lived with it too.  Fortunately I looked more like brother Jonathan than like my very feminine looking sisters.  The shorter hair, roughly tied back, made me look like a boy maybe of seventeen or so, a couple of years younger than I was.

Betsy helped me bind my breasts, and I put on an old suit I’d bought used, because all of Jonathan’s were too fancy for Hank Cutter.  Then we got Betsy dressed and I had to wait till she stopped crying, though I suppose very young boys – she’s my age, but looked no more than thirteen in male attire – might cry at leaving home too.

I bundled our cut hair, and stuck it under my mattress, to delay discovery.

Then I took out from my desk drawer the transport spell I’d bought from a vendor so that it wouldn’t have disappeared from our stock and Jonathan wouldn’t know right away.  I didn’t think he would care if I disappeared.  Certainly not care enough to follow me.  Our entire family is selfish, and Jonathan, mostly, cares about Jonathan.  But it was no use giving the alarm right away.  So I didn’t want to use just my raw power, nor did I want to steal a spell from our stock.  It had cost me a shocking price from a street vendor, even though it was stamped with the seal of Blythe’s Blessings.

The thought of the price reminded me to take my remaining money – my quarter allowance, withdrawn and turned into gold coins – and slip the pouch into my sleeve.

Then I turned to Betsy, “Are you ready?” I asked.

“Yes, M–  Yes,” she said, and sniffed.

I opened the transport spell and commanded “Take me to Portsmouth.”

 

UPDATE: FREE SOUP