Unnatural Issue Read online

  The bat flew out of the window again as he picked up his book, having skillfully cleared the ceiling of anything it could eat. With his tea beside the lamp and the plate balanced on the coverlet beside him, Peter turned his attention to his reading.

  It was not something for those inclined to nightmare; he had decided to take Alderscroft’s task at face value and assume that there was a necromancer in these parts. So this volume was a handwritten account, taken from his father’s personal arcane library, of the tracking and defeat of a particularly crafty necromancer roughly a century before. Like this one, the necromancer had practiced his art out in the country. Like this one, he had been very difficult to find.

  Peter made a number of notes as he read; the necromancer in question had not been an Elemental magician, which had made finding him problematic from that standpoint. He had learned his art during a stint in Jamaica, where he had managed to save the life of one of the local lads that did that sort of thing. The author of the book speculated that this had been cunning on the then would-be necromancer’s part, that the man had himself been responsible for putting the Jamaican in danger in the first place in order to gain access to his knowledge. If so, that was both clever and unscrupulous.

  Once he had mastered his craft, if such horror could be called that, the newly minted necromancer had returned to England and settled in Cornwall, as far from anyone who might trouble him as possible. Clearly he had been aware that someone in magical circles would take an interest in him and his work.

  He had been the black sheep of a family of wealth and means, who gladly gave him a generous allowance to stay quiet and far away from them. Hence, the jaunt to Jamaica and the ability to settle anywhere he cared to. Once installed on the coast he had done something more clever still. He bought children from orphanages and the indigent from workhouses; oh, it wasn’t called slavery, but it was the same thing. The highly respectable citizens who ran such institutions did not much care what happened to those in their charge so long as they were gotten off the poor rolls—and they themselves were “rewarded” for their cooperation.

  He murdered them, of course; he used both their spirits and their bodies. Some of the spirits he bound to serve him as immaterial servants, the others, he bound back into their bodies to serve as his very material slaves. This got him a houseful of silent, obedient servants who never made any trouble. He had to replenish them from time to time, of course, as their bodies wore out and fell apart, but there were always more in the workhouses.

  Eventually he got the bright idea to reopen a mine on his property and created yet more dead-alive creatures to work it. Remote as he was, it took some time before his activities came to the notice of the Lodge, and it took longer still before they could actually find him. He had layers and layers of protections and shields, and many years to build them up.

  Peter’s tea was down to dregs by the time he got through the litany of all the things the Masters of the Lodge had tried in order to ferret the fellow out. The details encompassed several chapters, and Peter wisely decided that he didn’t want to read the actual confrontation just before sleeping.

  He set the book aside and turned the lamp down, extinguishing the flame. “Sufficient unto the day are the evils thereof, old boy,” he said to himself. After all, first he had to find out if this particular wild hare even existed.

  There was one good thing at least. These days, it wasn’t possible to just walk up to an orphanage or a workhouse and purchase a wholesale lot of orphans or the indigent. Oh, you could certainly still buy a child, or even an adult, in the larger cities—you could probably buy as many as you liked, women especially. But you couldn’t get them in job lots anymore. It would take time, a great deal of time, and a great deal of money. So this fellow would not have the means to produce the sort of army that the Cornish necromancer had built up. He could, possibly, have amassed a houseful of servants, but—

  But someone would have noticed. Country people knew everything about their neighbors, and someone with a big house but no one coming to church or chapel, the village or fairs, would certainly be noticed, and someone would have told Charles and his family by now.

  So if he existed, he was probably a lone recluse, off in some little cottage on the moors.

  So it wasn’t likely that Peter would find himself confronted by several hundred walking dead.

  “For these blessings, thanks,” he muttered ironically to himself, and then sent himself to sleep.

  5

  THE best way to approach this is obliquely, Richard thought. He had to be careful about this. He had to be convincing.

  He heard Agatha tap on the door, heard the door open and close again. He was standing at the window, as he always did when she turned up. “I saw a strange young woman on the property,” Richard said peevishly to his housekeeper, without turning away from the window. “You know I don’t like strangers here. If you’ve hired a new girl, you should have consulted me first. And if she is a visitor, you know I don’t allow visitors.”

  The woman put down the tray with his lunch on it. The crockery rattled as she did so. He must have annoyed her. Good. He wanted her to be the one that brought up the girl. “That, sir, is no stranger.’Tis tha’ own daughter.” Her voice rose; it sounded as if he had provoked her. Even better. “And I know tha’ said never to speak of her, sir, and I know tha’ can dismiss me for it, but ’tisn’t right, the daughter of the house brought up no better than tha’ meanest servant! And now she’s a young ’oman, and what’s to become of her? She’s not fit for her own class and not right for ourn!” She must have been very angry; her Yorkshire accent thickened considerably when she was angry. This was the first time in twenty years that she had shown her temper with him. He could hear the trembling in her voice. She was probably sure that he was about to give her the sack.

  Ah, perfect. And now for the fairy-tale turnabout that she was probably praying for, but scarcely expecting. This could not possibly have been better for his purposes. He composed his face into a look of astonishment before he turned to her. “My . . . daughter? That is what my daughter has become? A young woman grown?” He allowed his voice to falter. “Has it been that long?”

  That worked, as he had known it would. The sentimental old fool immediately softened her tone. “Aye, sir, it has been. Near twenty-one years. Tha’ has missed all that growing up. But she’s growed t’ be th’ image of her mother.”

  It was astonishing how easy it was to manipulate the woman.

  He sat down in his chair with a thud, as if astonished, shocked. He turned his look of surprise into one of pleading. This, of course, was exactly what the suddenly repentant father in a sentimental novel would do. At last, she would think, he had come to his senses. He had finally awakened from his long sleep of grief. It took no prompting at all to get her to describe how Susanne had grown up. How she had been essentially raised by the servants, sketchily educated, serving alongside them, as one of them, except, of course, that she got no wages. The more he heard, the more satisfied he became, though he took pains to feign guilt and distress. The more sorrowful he looked, the more Agatha waxed eloquent.

  Meanwhile, it was all that he could do to restrain his gloating. This would be ridiculously easy. Agatha was ready to throw the girl at him at the first hint of interest in improving her lot. The girl was so very uneducated, so very naïve, she would be overwhelmed when he took notice of her. Any improvement in her life would astonish her and probably bewilder her.

  And he would immediately launch a lightning campaign to keep her bewildered. New quarters, new wardrobe—females were obsessed with wardrobe—new status. Agatha indicated that she could at least read and write, so he would bombard her with “lessons” in the form of etiquette books from his library, ostensibly to prepare her for her new status.

  And all of this would serve to isolate her from anyone who might possibly continue to have an interest in her welfare. The servants would all draw back from any intimacy with
her—she would now be “gentry,” above their station, and not to be treated as a casual comrade. He would keep her so busy she would have no time for them, anyway.

  Then, when all was in readiness, he would “send her away to school,” and they would think nothing of it or assume that he was belatedly rectifying her neglected education.

  And, of course, the last thing that they would expect would be to hear from her. The gentry didn’t write chatty letters to their servants.

  Of course, she would never actually leave the property. He’d have her secured and execute the spell to bind Rebecca to the body immediately. Then he would leave, taking her with him, and direct his solicitor to dismiss all the servants and close the house. It would be best to pension them off, of course. Certainly they were mostly old enough to be pensioned off, and that would stifle any ill will.

  He didn’t need to be here, after all. His lands would continue to produce income in his absence, and he and Rebecca could live elsewhere for a year or two, or more. Italy perhaps. She had always wanted to visit Italy, and the rents for a remote little villa of the rustic sort were dirt cheap.

  In fact, that would be ideal. He wouldn’t care about hiring local servants, not when he could easily create much more satisfactory ones. Getting the reputation of being a magician would do him much more good than harm there; there was no equivalent to Alderscroft’s White Lodge in Italy, and so long as he did no harm to anyone within the parish of the local priest, the clergy would leave him alone. Animate criminals and no one will care.

  As for Rebecca, he simply had to look sorrowful and hint that signora was not in her right mind, and he had brought her here for her health, and it wouldn’t matter what she said or did. Being in a country where she didn’t speak the language would keep her isolated, particularly if he took a house in some remote area, far from where one would expect Englishmen to wander.

  So if she had an attack of conscience . . . he would exert control over her to get her to Italy—or perhaps Spain. Then once there, he would release that control and begin persuasion. Rebecca had always been biddable, easy to bring around to his way of thinking. He would convince her of the rightness of what he had done, reconcile her to it, and, yes, use magic to help that along if he needed to.

  Then the two of them would return to a house staffed entirely by people who had never met Susanne. She would be the woman he had met and befriended in Italy. They’d concoct some story about how they had met and fallen in love and married. He wouldn’t need to concern himself about Alderscroft at that point, because there would be nothing for Alderscroft to find. Once Rebecca was one with him in this, he would never need to practice necromancy again.

  But first—time to become the repentant father.

  “Send her to me,” he directed, doing his best to sound as if he was moments away from tears, when the woman finally ran out of things to say. “I have been a wretched fool, and no kind of father to my own child. It is time to make up for my neglect.”

  The woman went off, babbling. He paid no attention to her. He was much too busy planning the opening gambit in the campaign.

  Susanne had gone out to the clearing in the wood as soon as morning chores were done—and since she’d given everyone else such a good holiday, there were fewer of those than usual. She wasn’t disposed to argue. She’d had an uneasy feeling all morning, as if someone was watching her, and not in a good way.

  Someone? Oh, she knew who it was. Her father, of course, although she had no idea why he would be watching her. He was the only person who could possibly evoke such unease in her.

  She had hoped that Robin would turn up and give her some advice. She didn’t like this, not one bit. Why would her father be watching her? Why, after all these years, had he suddenly noticed her?

  A dreadful thought occurred to her. Maybe he had assumed that Agatha had gotten rid of her somehow as an infant—as, in fact, he had demanded. Was he getting ready to order that she leave?

  The mere thought made her sick with uncertainty. Unconsciously, she clutched at the moss she was sitting on as she stared at the still surface of the little pond. Leaving? That was impossible! This was her home, the only one she had ever known!

  Where would I go? What would I do?

  As she sat beside the pond, the uncertainty escalated to a state of near panic, and she fought to retain her composure. She’d never been farther away from home than the village. She knew nothing of the outside world except what she read in the newspapers! She’d never had to fend for herself—never had to do without a roof, a place, meals, clothing—

  Think, Susanne, she chided herself, clasping her hands tightly together and evoking the self-discipline she used when she worked magic. She forced herself to breathe slowly. What advice would she have given someone else? Say, if her father had dismissed one of the girls? Slowly, as she calmed herself, she realized that she was not without resources. Actually, she was better off than if she had been “properly” educated! At least she had skills that people were willing to pay for!

  It won’t be the end of the world if I am turned out, she told herself. It won’t even be much hardship. I have a great many skills now. I could be a kitchenmaid or a maid of all work nearly anywhere. I could work at the pub or the inn, or even Branwell Hall. Not that she had ever been next or nigh Branwell Hall, but she knew vaguely where it was, and such a big place was bound need a great many servants. I know all the work of the dairy, I can do plain cooking, and anything a cook directs me to do. I can clean and mend, I could be a housemaid. Agatha and Mary would give me references. In fact, now that she thought about it, such a situation would actually be an improvement over the one she was in now, so irregular as it was. She would be doing essentially the same work, only she would be paid for it. The more she thought about it, the more she wondered if she just ought to pack up and leave, and not wait for her father to drive her off. Granted, she would not be able to run off to tend to her land-magic when she wanted to—she would have to wait until her working hours were over—but there would be no great difference between working her magic by moonlight and working it by sunlight. The Coveners did almost all of their magic at night.

  And if she got a place at Branwell Hall, she might even end up working less rather than more. There were dozens of servants at the Hall; not that she had ever been there to see, of course, but people talked. The more she thought about the idea, the better and calmer she felt. She pictured herself in a really good, big dairy; she loved making butter and cheese, she found milking to be a soothing occupation, and she was good at it. I would make a good dairymaid. And, of course, cows always behave for me. It might be hard to get one of the well-paid and prestigious places as an upstairs maid, or even a ladies’ maid, but why would she want that? Dairymaid would suit her much better.

  But . . . no. The others more or less depended on her now. And they would be terribly hurt if she told them she was leaving. It would not be in the least fair to them. Things were melancholy enough at the Manor without her leaving hurt feelings in her wake.

  She sighed a little. I will just wait and see what happens. And no point in thinking too hard about going to Branwell Hall—who’s to say if I really could get a place there? The grass is always greener, and all that.

  She had come here longing for Robin to turn up and tell her what to do, but now she realized she didn’t need Robin—and that realization made her spirits rise a little more.

  In fact, Robin probably wouldn’t have been of much use. He was brilliant at magic, of course, being mostly made of it. He knew everything there was to know about the Elementals and the lesser and greater magical creatures of the land. And he was equally brilliant at knowing all there was to know about nature—telling you what plants were good for what, and where the larks were nesting. But his solution probably would have been to tell her to come live in the woods like a Gypsy, which would be fine in summer, but not so pleasant once the weather turned. Not to mention the fact that all the land hereabouts b
elonged to someone or other, and there would be some interesting explaining to do if she were found camped on it.

  She chuckled a little and stood up, feeling like herself again. She brushed off her skirts and made her way back to the manor. Her father could do whatever he chose; she hoped it would not be to drive her away, but if it was, well, she would find somewhere else to go.

  As she approached the kitchen, however, she saw Agatha waiting for her anxiously by the door, straining her old eyes as she peered toward the wood. Agatha had to be waiting for her and no one else; there was no one else likely to go off at this time of day but her, everyone else had duties to perform.

  And as soon as she came within sight, Agatha lost some of that anxious look and bustled toward her.

  “Where has tha’ been?” the housekeeper asked anxiously, brushing at little bits of grass and twig on her skirt. “Has tha’ got a clean gown?”

  “The woods,” she replied, taken aback, since Agatha knew very well—or should have—where she was going. What on earth was the housekeeper going on about? She knew very well down to the last stitch what clothing Susanne had and what state it was in. “And yes, yesterday was laundry day, and everything I own but what I have on is clean—but—”

  “Nay, no time for talk! Thy father’s asking for ye!” Agatha’s Yorkshire was as thick and broad as a slab of her best butter now, and her agitation was back. Her round face was creased with anxiety. “Hurry! Wash and brush and clean gown! He won’t like to be kept awaitin’!”

  Before she knew what she was about, Agatha had hustled her into the house like a hen shooing a single chick, and from there into the tiny closet she called her room. Before Susanne even had a chance to protest, off came the gown she was wearing, and Agatha chivvied her into a wash-up at the cracked basin she had on the dresser, standing there in the shift that was what plain country-folk used for undergarment and nightgown alike. As soon as Susanne was clean enough, Agatha whisked the newly laundered gown over the top of her head, clucking the whole time in disapproval because although it was clean, it was nothing like “fine” or even “best.”