Unnatural Issue Read online

  Peter sat back in his chair when he came to the end of his questions. “Well!” he exclaimed. “That be a no-nonsense course of learnin’ if ever I saw one, if a bit bare, and lackin’ here an’ there. Who taught thee?”

  She pondered the question for quite some time. Long enough that he wondered if she was going to tell him it had been the apocryphal old man she had supposedly served. Peter hoped she wouldn’t. She had been taught by a Master, and the Master magicians all knew each other, or at least knew of each other. It simply was not possible that this unknown Master had been carrying on his work without so much as causing a ripple in Alderscroft’s network. And he really did not want to start all of this with proving she was a liar. The truth was best.

  “Robin,” she replied.

  “Robin?” he repeated, and rubbed the back of his head, feeling puzzled. “I never heard o’ any Robin Earth Master hereabouts.”

  “Robin Goodfellow,” she elaborated. “The Land Ward.”

  It took him a moment to catch on, but when he did, his eyes widened. Good Lord. Robin Goodfellow? The Puck? He’s more than an Elemental, he’s a godlet! “Eh-h-h!” he exclaimed. “An’ why?”

  “Why did he teach me?” she hazarded. “Because I was strong an’ a child, and that is a bad mortal thing in magic. Because I hadn’t anybody to teach me. Because our land needed an Earth Master. And because it amused him?”

  “That last be more likely,” Peter muttered. But then he smiled at her. “Eh, he made good teachin’ of tha’, that’s plain to see. But now it’s late, time you were getting’ back. Come ev’ry night after supper, or at least, ev’ry night thee can. First thing I teach thee, ’twill be how to defend tha’self. Robin never did teach thee that, and is more than time tha’ learned it.”

  When she was gone, Garrick brought out stronger stuff than tea, a glass of single malt, neat. “I fancy you might need this, m’lord,” he said.

  “You fancy correctly, estimable one,” Peter replied, and downed his drink with indecent haste. “So, Robin Goodfellow, aka the Puck, aka the oldest Earth Spirit to walk our fair fields that I know of, undertook to train this girl.”

  Garrick pursed his lips. “That is on a par with the Chancellor of the Exchequer deciding he needed to train some shopgirl how to keep her books, if you don’t mind my saying so. Extraordinary!”

  “Not if the shopgirl in question was a mathematical genius, my lad,” Peter replied absently. “But there are great gaping holes in that education. Nothing offensive, very little defensive, all geared toward land service. Well at least I know how to fill those gaps.”

  “I should think so, m’lord,” Garrick replied with no irony at all.

  “And speaking of which, get your skulking gear. I’m going down to the local pub, where I anticipate I am gong to find the laddy I chased off today.” Peter stood up and jammed his hat down onto his head. “I fully expect him to try to beat me into pulp, and I intend to put him in his place.”

  Garrick’s eyes lit up. He didn’t often get to see this more aggressive side of his master, and Peter was well aware his normally pacific man got great pleasure from such demonstrations. “Very good, m’lord,” was all he said, however. “I’ll get the car. We can park it outside the village, and walk in.”

  It was an unusual night at the Stag and Crown. To begin with, Harry Dobbs, the barkeeper, had gotten an earful from old Dan Bennet, on the subject of the one man everyone in Branwell Village treated with extreme caution.

  That was Rod Cooper, a fellow who’d been big and strong and a bully as a lad and had grown up to be big and strong and a bully of a man. He’d always gotten his way by shoving others about, his father had encouraged that sort of behavior, and he’d never grown out of it. He was a ne’er-do-well and lazy too. He lived in his dad’s little tumbledown cottage, subsisting on poaching and doing as little work as possible. If you had asked Harry, he would have said stoutly that a stint in the army would do Rod Cooper a world of good. But there were enough people willing to pay Rod to move this, or haul that, no matter what sort of a man he was, more was the pity. That, and what he got for what he poached over and above what he ate, gave him the cash money he needed for what he couldn’t snare or trap. Which was mostly drink, so far as Harry could tell; he wore the same clothing year in, year out, and the same patched boots. He didn’t smell bad enough to make Harry throw him out of the bar, but that was probably because he smelled so strongly of woodsmoke that nothing else registered. The chimney at that cottage hadn’t been swept—except by the crude expedient of discharging a shotgun up it once a year—since Rod’s father died. How the man breathed in all the smoke that must ensue was a mystery.

  According to old Dan, the new gamekeeper up at the Hall had given Rod his comeuppance, destroyed his traps, and sent him packing. Now that was worth a round in any man’s estimation, but Harry did worry a bit what would happen when Rod screwed up his courage and went after the gamekeeper prepared, or caught him off the estate and unarmed.

  But then, even as he was polishing glasses and pondering this question, two strangers came in and introduced themselves, and Harry found himself looking into the mild blue eyes of the very fellow old Dan had been talking about.

  As the fellow got his pint and made idle talk, introducing himself to the regulars and endearing himself to them in the proper manner by buying the house a round, Harry found himself worrying about the chap. Because he was a little rabbity fellow who looked as if he’d break in two in a storm.

  And his manner was completely inoffensive. He quickly laid down hints about the acceptable amount and kind of poaching he would accept—he called it “wastage” and “culling” and went on about how a certain amount had to be done to keep the park, fields, and forests healthy. And everyone nodded sagely and agreed. The more Harry listened, the less he wondered why the fellow had been hired in the first place. He knew his business.

  “An’, of course, us don’t cull out of season,” the man continued, “No one could object to takin’ fish now, for instance, but shootin’ a rabbit that might be nursin’ or a pheasant that might have chicks or eggs?” He shook his head. “That’s bad, an’ no good gamekeeper’ll stand for that. I be as partial to a jugged hare as next man, but not till the kits are on their own. Now as for fox—”

  Harry braced himself. Foxes were a sore point with farmers, because the gentry liked their fox hunts and didn’t want anyone else to ruin their game.

  “Marster Michael don’t ride to hunt, no more do Marster Charles. Tha’ got fox comin’ for hens, and it happens tha’ canna get he, come be tellin’ me. We’ll lay a cunnin’ trap for he that won’t trap dog nor child.”

  Everyone perked up at that.

  So there it was, laid out nice and proper. It appeared this fellow was the right sort of gamekeeper for these parts. Everything was settled and the good-fellowship spreading, when the door was shoved open, and Rod Cooper loomed up in the doorway.

  Harry went cold. This could not be good.

  The talking stopped. Rod strode deliberately to the bar and just as deliberately shoved the gamekeeper aside so roughly that he spilled the man’s pint clean over. There was no doubt at all what would follow.

  “Pint,” said Rod, his glare challenging Harry to say anything, anything at all. He shoved his money across the bar. Harry filled a glass and shoved it back at him, while the gamekeeper reached over and helped himself to Harry’s towel to mop up the spilled lager.

  Absolute silence fell. All eyes were on Rod and the gamekeeper. Harry braced himself and thought about the stout cricket bat he had behind the bar. Would he dare to use it on Rod?

  “Think tha’ owes me a pint, laddie,” said the gamekeeper calmly and fearlessly.

  There was a collective intake of breath. Rod whirled on the gamekeeper.

  “I warned thee!” he growled. “I warned thee! Now tha’ hasn’t thy gun, and what’re tha’ t’ do about it, wee man?”

  “Put my pint on tha’ account,” the gamek
eeper replied, not shrinking back a bit. “An’ waitin’ for tha’ apology. Tha’rt in the wrong now, an’ tha were in the wrong then. Be a man, an’ step up like one.”

  Rod swung a fist that had laid out many a man before this. Rod might be big, but he was also fast, something that had caused men before this to underestimate him. But the fist swung through empty air, the gamekeeper wasn’t where he should have been. Rod was off-balance for a moment, spun halfway around, and the gamekeeper landed a hard blow to the back of his head that sent him reeling half across the bar.

  Those anywhere near them cleared off and away, but to his relief, Harry saw that a few of them were carefully putting their pints somewhere safe, cracking their knuckles, and looking determined. There would be no beating of the gamekeeper at least; if he couldn’t hold his own against Rod, the others would pull the local off.

  Then again, the gamekeeper was beginning to look as if he could hold his own.

  Rod caught his balance and turned, looking all around for the gamekeeper. He spotted the man and, more cautious now, moved in on him.

  Afraid for his tavern, Harry was about to put a stop to this himself when he saw the man’s brother standing at the door. The brother put his finger to his lips and motioned him back. Before Harry could react, Rod charged.

  “Tha’s not very polite,” the gamekeeper chided. “Tha’rt actin’ like a wee spoilt boy.” He ducked out of the way at the last moment, then spun about like a top as Rod passed him off-balance again, and planted a foot in Rod’s backside, sending him flying out the door that the brother was now holding open.

  That was a deep relief, and Harry began to feel more optimistic. There would be no breakage in the bar from whatever fighting ensued, and it looked as though the gamekeeper knew exactly what he was doing.

  He followed. So did Harry and the rest of the regulars.

  And there, in the light of the lamps outside the tavern door, Harry and the rest were treated to as neat an exhibition of scientific boxing as he had ever seen. For all that the man was little, he must have been whipcord tough. He was cool, collected, knew exactly where to land his blows and exactly how hard they should be. Within five minutes, Harry knew that he could have ended it at any time, but he was not going to. He was going to beat Rod so completely that no one in this village would ever be afraid of Rod again. He had to give Rod this much—he always came straight at a man he was going to beat up. There was no sneaking about and lying in wait and no filthy tricks. Possibly that was because Rod was too dim to think up any filthy tricks or plan an ambush, but at least this meant the gamekeeper wouldn’t have to keep watching his back.

  No one cheered, and no one laid any bets. They simply watched, bearing witness to something each and every one of them had hoped for and never expected to see.

  And no one went for the constable.

  Rod was unbelievably stubborn—or stupid. Perhaps both. Long after both his eyes were blacked, his face was a pulpy ruin, and both ears were swollen to the size of small apples, he was still fighting. Long after he was gasping for breath following yet another crippling body blow, he was still fighting.

  Finally even the gamekeeper grew tired of it. Or perhaps his hands were getting sore. He landed a gut punch that had Rod bending over and ended it with a clasped-hand blow to the back of Rod’s neck.

  The bully went down and did not rise again.

  The gamekeeper stood there for a moment, shaking his head sorrowfully.

  “Pride goeth afore a fall,” the brother said from the doorway.

  “Aye.” The gamekeeper shook both his hands vigorously. “I could use that pint now.” He glanced down at Rod. “Reckon ’e needs a doctor?”

  “Doctor won’ touch he,” old Dan offered. “Not ’less he be dyin’. Said so.”

  “Well, ’e won’t die.” The man chuckled. “Only wisht ’e might. So us’ll have that pint.”

  A dozen men scrambled to be the first to buy it for him. They all streamed into the pub, leaving Rod lying alone, to drag himself home and disguise his bruises as best he could.

  12

  THE atmosphere at Whitestone Hall seethed with emotion. The servants were all keeping out of the Master’s sight, even his housekeeper, who would slip in with a tray, place it on a table, and slip out again when he wasn’t in the room. Richard Whitestone was not merely angry, he was furious. He hadn’t known his daughter was missing until well into the afternoon of the day she vanished; he was ready to murder the housekeeper and the maid who had found her room empty that morning and had not seen fit to inform him. Instead, they had engaged in a futile search of the house and grounds themselves, with an inquiry at the village.

  Not until past teatime did the housekeeper come, reluctantly, to inform him. And of course by that point the trail wasn’t just cold, it had been obliterated. Too many people had passed over the roads she might have taken; too many animals and people had trodden any path she might have used to cross the fields. Not that he expected her to cross fields, she was only a female; women didn’t go tramping cross country, it took too much effort, and they were too ill-prepared. A man might decide to cross the moors, but Susanne? She’d have not the first idea of how to go about such a journey. She was used to regular meals and to sleeping in a bed at night. She would never know how to camp rough; she probably wouldn’t even think about provisions other than to pack a little buttered bread and think she had done enough. No, she would keep to the roads, and think herself sleeping rough when she slipped into a stable or barn to bed down on straw.

  That said, she had to eat, but a woman wouldn’t know how to forage, certainly would not know how to fish or hunt, and definitely would not know how to cook over a fire. Women expected things to be “civilized.” She must have hidden some money away somewhere; perhaps by taking things from the house and selling them. How would he have known if she did? He didn’t go prowling through the place, taking inventory! It could not have been a great deal of money, but she was used to eating the same simple meals as the servants, so a little would take her a long way.

  He paced up and down in his rooms, refraining from smashing things only by an effort of will. He could only assume that she had decided to try her hand at working as a servant elsewhere. It was the only logical course she could take. He supposed that since she had been working unpaid as a servant all this time, the idea of doing so for wages was rather attractive, despite that she was technically gentry.

  And so, he seethed. First, over the simple fact that she had escaped him. The ignorant little chit had the unmitigated gall to run away! It didn’t seem to have occurred to her that she was his, his possession, body and soul, to do what he liked with. It even said as much in the Bible, and the vicar preached regularly on the subject; since she went to church along with the housekeeper nearly every Sunday, she should have had that drummed into her by this time!

  And what was wrong with her? He had finally taken notice of her, elevated her to her proper stature, given her luxuries she hadn’t even dreamed of. And she repaid him by running away! Wasn’t this exactly the sort of thing that those maudlin serialized stories in Punch and other papers were all about? Wasn’t this the sort of Cinderella tale that servant girls were supposed to wish for?

  Why had she run from him? It made no sense.

  He paused in his pacing to pass a hand over his face, trying to find a motive. If he had the reason, he could surely find the girl.

  Was it rebellion? Was she simply so contrary that whatever he wanted for her, she would do the opposite?

  No. There is nothing to suggest that. He’d watched her closely. If anything, she had given him the impression of someone in the habit of obeying orders.

  Was she angry because he had neglected her all these years? Was this her way of getting her own back?

  But I saw no signs of anger, either. And surely she would have shown them when she was away from me. There was nothing in her previous behavior all these years to suggest she was resentful; if anything, sh
e was too accepting, taking the country attitude of “it is what it is” and dealing with what she had been given.

  Was it something more complicated than that? He knew she was uncomfortable in her new role; had she run because she felt out of place as the daughter of the house? He’d counted on that to keep her off-balance and preoccupied, but maybe she was more sensitive in that regard than he had thought.

  Oh, surely not. He snorted with impatience. She’d been a servant, for pity’s sake. Servants were dull creatures of leaden sensibilities, just barely human.

  But there is one way in which she could have completely fooled me. A man. It was more likely that she had a loutish lover somewhere. Had she fled to him? Stupid, romantical female . . . she would have known he couldn’t approve of a marriage to anyone from the village or the farms. Had she thought that if she just ran off to him, her father would be forced to agree to the misalliance?

  If so, that was extremely vexing. He thought he’d checked thoroughly for that possibility immediately on discovering she was the perfect vessel for his purposes, and had found nothing. How could she have been so cunning that she’d hidden a secret alliance?

  But females who fancy themselves in love are cunning. Look at how even the most stupid of them can fool those around them until it is too late! And I did not spend nearly as much time on such an investigation as I should have.

  But if that was what she had done, where was she? She could not possibly have met a man who lived too very far away.

  His first thought on considering that had been that she and her lover had elected to run off together. That was certainly foolish and romantical enough to appeal to a callow girl. He’d sent the stableman around to see what he could learn, but the results had been disappointing. No young man was missing from the village or surrounding lands, so whatever she’d done, it hadn’t been to “run away together” with anyone at all.