Rogue Magic Free Novel, Chapter 5

*In which the book acquired a cover.  Sometime this weekend, and the creek not rising, it will also acquire a tab, while its older brother (Witchfinder) will say up a couple more weeks, as I finish edits to go to professional editor/friend. Now the standard stuff:  This is the new free novel I’m posting here a chapter at a time.  For previous chapters, page back to previous weeks.  This is pre-first-draft, as it comes out.  It is a sequel to Witchfinder which will soon be taken down (once edited) and put for sale on Amazon.  Meanwhile, if you donate $6 or more, I’ll get you a copy of Rogue Magic, once finished and edited, in your favored ebook format.  Of course, if you’re already subscribing to the blog at a level at which you get whichever books come out that year, you don’t need to worry.   Until I give this a tab, you can find older chapters by paging back to Friday (or the first, I think Sat/Sun or simply searching Rogue Magic.*

cover image credit © Ateliersommerland | Dreamstime.com

Not Portsmouth

Miss Helen Blythe, Sister of the Earl of Savage:

I didn’t know if this was Portsmouth, but I rather doubted it.

Betsy and I landed with a thud and a blast of light and – understandably – there was a time when I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t think.

The problem came after the light vanished, and the sound of explosion had vanished from my head, there was still the feel of being unable to breathe.

The reason for this was clear enough, since we were, in fact, immersed in water.  The moment I realized this, I held my breath, containing my desire to open my mouth and gulp in what was available.  I didn’t think a lungfull of water would help.

Betsy started to open my mouth and I clapped my hand it, holding her with that arm sort of around her.  She was struggling and whimpering, and it was much like holding an oversized heel.

Fortunately I knew how to swim, something Mama says no well brought up girl will know, since it is impossible to swim with your petticoat on.  She’s not quite right.  You can swim with petticoats on.  But I’d much rather swim naked, which was how I’d taught myself on the lake on our property, summer nights.

Breeches were not as easy to swim in as naked, though they were far better than petticoats.  So, I kicked to the surface with all my might, pulling Betsy along.  I knew where the surface was – I thought – because there was a great light that way.

Wherever we were – it couldn’t be Portsmouth, not even off the coast – there were fish of ever color and shape and if my chest hadn’t felt like it would presently burst, I would certainly have admired them.

As was, I was only aware of my head bursting through somewhere into air, and I took big gulps of air, and moved my hand from Betsy’s mouth – and then had to grab her under the arms, because the silly git was trying to lose consciousness and go under.

After I’d breathed in and out several times, I became aware that this was definitely not Portsmouth.

Look, I haven’t travelled much, and I’m not even very aware of where Portsmouth is.  Yes, my governess tried to make me learn geography, but like almost everything she taught me, this was done by making me learn lists “the seven best kings of England”, “the ten most tragic queens” and such.  All I’d retained about Portsmouth was that it was a nautical location, with shipyards and that I could hire as a cabin boy there, and eventually make my way to captaining my own pirate ship.  I had no doubt I could do that, as I’d read plenty of sea stories and biographies, and I knew plenty of people more dull-witted than I had made such a trajectory.  So why shouldn’t I?

Mama would say that piracy was a sin, but of course mama would say that.  Mama said all manner of pious and not very significant things, and besides look at how papa had preached morality all the time.  But I’d heard Jonathan and Seraphim Ainsling speak once, when they didn’t think I could hear, and what papa had done was no better than piracy and might be worse.

So, those were my reasons for choosing Portsmouth.  And I was willing to concede that the streets in Portsmouth might be made of wet cobblestone.  They probably were.  But I’d seen pictures in books, and those same streets were surrounded by tall buildings, and filled with people

The place we’d emerged…

A few steps from where we’d come up, there was a set of wet cobblestoned steps, leading up to…  It could be a cobblestoned street, only it wasn’t.  More like a cobblestoned plaza.  Only when you blinked and looked again, you realized it wasn’t cobblestones, really, but polished grey granite.

But it was what surrounded that … plaza?  Room? That made it unbelievable.  I was aware of Betsy first gasping and moaning, then making a startled little cry, as she doubtless also paid attention to what happened around us.  But I was too busy with my own wonder.

You see, above the plaza, above us, above this entire space, there was something like the gigantic inverted keel of a very old boat.  It shone with a diffuse light, which is what made me think I was swimming towards daylight.

Hanging from the keel – cavernous and black, and just barely recognizeable as wood – hung … strings of pearls.  Masses of them.

When we were little, nursie would let us make daisy chains, in spring, and sometimes I would festoon the space over my bed in loops and loops of them.  This was like that, but more so, with loops and loops and long ropes of pearls.  All manner of pearls, from the small and rosy to the huge and white to the ivory tones in between.  They all shone, perfectly visible by the deflected light.  And I thought if I could get even a yard of those and go back home, I could set up as an independent lady of means, and no one – No one – would be able to make me marry anyone I didn’t want to, nor die in child birth, as Honoria had.

It was because I was looking up that I missed them.  I didn’t hear their steps, which is odd, and I wasn’t aware of their approach until one of them said, “Swim towards the steps, and come up.  You are under arrest.”

Then I did look in the direction of the voice and my first thought was that the two men standing on the granite plaza, right in the center, were Roman.  This is because they were mostly naked, save for a white loincloth, and carried tridents and a net.

After the first shock I realized that I was confusing with the pictures of Roman Gladiators in the naughty book that Papa kept on the very top shelf of the library, which had all sorts of other Roman things.

But they couldn’t be Roman because… things were wrong.  For one, I was fairly sure that Romans didn’t have green hair.  And they certainly didn’t have little fins along their arms.

“Don’t make me fetch you with magic, land-heel,” the taller of the two barked.  “Come up the steps.  You are under arrest.”

I had no idea what he meant by fetching me by magic, though from the feel of him, I suspected he could.  But since this was not Portsmouth, it behooved me to find out what it was, before I made him use magic on me.

Though I could tell right away I was going to dislike him excessively.