“Ma?”
She aimed the cheroot at Evvie. “What did you think, that I’d just go along with it?”
“Ma, we wouldn’t be harming no-one! Just stopping them from getting in some places and taking off a few marks, it’s not like there’s not plenty more!”
“It’s taking the side of the law, Evvie, that’s what it’s doing. It might not be peaching, but it’s bad enough. And I ain’t doing it.”
“You’re...”
“I’m leaving. I won’t be telling no-one where you are, or nothing, so there’s no need to look so green. But you’d better think where you’re going, Evvie. You were good. You were nearly as good as me.” She paused, head on one side, staring into the distance. “Maybe better, I’ll admit it. And you can try as hard as you like to back away, but you got the taste for it and the smell of it on you. You’re one of us, Evvie. You always will be. And them respectables, there’ll always be those that can smell it. You won’t last, you’ll slip, and they’ll get you in the end. A rough foot in a satin shoe’ll always trip, you mark me.”
“But Ma...”
“And you watch that Thring. He’s crooked as a thorn bush, for all he’s giving your Mama the sheep’s eyes.
“’Bye, Evvie,” Ma Pether said. “And don’t think I’m not grateful you gave me a chance. I am. But it ain’t gonna work.” She lit the cheroot, and walked out. Steam from the pot rose to mingle with the fading smoke.
Eagle Estates
S
TUG PICKED A
box from a shelf, opened it. The herbs inside were losing their scent, he must get some more. He would have to order them. Or would that be worse? Evidence... Perhaps he should go himself, or send Simms. No, not Simms. Jacobs.
But what if Jacobs became suspicious? No, he would go himself. He had relied too much on other people. It would be better if he did it himself.
He put the box back on the shelf, aligned it with the edge. Noticed a smudge on the lid and polished it with his handkerchief. Not that anyone else would ever see it, of course.
That little witch of a female, Sparrow, not that he cared what she thought of his housekeeping. She should never have been here.
He had sounded out his contacts, carefully, very carefully. It had been difficult, and only possible to do at all because the gentlemen he was dealing with had had certain temporary financial embarrassments that he had, in the past, been able to assist them with.
“Duchen, Duchen... oh, there was something,” Robert Delaney had said, over brandy in the Conservative Club. “I believe it may have been to do with the Britannia School.”
“The Britannia School?”
“Oh, my dear chap, have you not heard? Well, no, I don’t suppose you would have. Quite a scandal, if it ever broke, but I can trust
you
not to go to the press. I don’t have an interest there, praise be.”
“A school hardly sounds like a place for scandal,” Stug said, topping up Delaney’s glass.
“It is if it’s being used as a convenient cupboard in which to store embarrassments,” Delaney said. “Cheers. Really the number of gentlemen who are incapable of discretion – by-blows left, right and centre, old boy. Boys one can get into the professions, of course, one way or another – but girls... well. Can’t have them ending up on the streets, never know when someone might recognise the family conk, what?” He tapped his own purplish and veiny nose, grinning. “So they got shoved off to the Britannia.”
“This girl...”
“I heard her name in connection with a rather unfortunate case – some chap with a touch of the other, you know.” Delaney looked around, then leaned forward, and said, “Not just the other. Half-Folk, old boy.
Definitely
the result of an indiscretion. His Papa had connections, got him a government post, he tried to act like a gentleman, but well, blood will out, as they say. Rumour has it he ended up going native in some godforsaken outpost, and disappeared. The girl was involved in some way, whether she was his by-blow or he’d taken her along for entertainment, who knows? Didn’t realise she’d surfaced again. If she’s popped up now to go after the family’s money, I suspect she’s out of luck – the chap’s father, old Holmforth, laid down his knife and fork soon after the news came through, and it all went to some distant cousin or some such.”
“What about government money? She’s not someone they’d still have an interest in?”
“I doubt it. Once young Holmforth had disappeared there was a distinct sense of relief in the department, frankly. Still, might be worth keeping an eye on – you never know when someone will prove embarrassing. But after all, she’s a female on her own – there’s a limit to how much damage she can do.”
Stug had put up with Delaney’s increasingly garrulous and eventually maudlin company for the rest of the evening, took him to a card game, and ended up with Delaney deeper in his pocket than ever.
It wasn’t as though he had intended it, of course, but Delaney was a gambler by nature, and who was Stug to dissuade him from his pleasures, or refuse to lend him money? The fact that he happened to have more than sufficient on him was simply a matter of him having visited his banker earlier that day, in the normal course of business, and getting out a little extra, just in case.
He wasn’t a bad man, not a
criminal,
not like the girl, if Simms was to be believed. Not like Simms himself, in fact. He was simply helping out an acquaintance.
And as a respectable man, an upstanding citizen... it was unjust. All these men who produced bastards as easy as winking! Not that a girl more or less would make any difference – Stug would never leave his carefully built-up business in the hands of a woman – but it just went to show how utterly unjust the fates could sometimes be. Here he was with a good reputation and a healthy business to leave, and no son.
Whatever he had to do was only a question of rebalancing the scales, making things the way they should be, after all.
But had the Queen decided? He was up here every dusk, and every dawn. Cora used to complain that he was never at home, but she had, to his relief, stopped that nonsense.
The Queen hadn’t turned the girl down straightaway.
Surely
that meant it was going well?
He didn’t dare go back before the date she had given him. She was such an impossibly capricious creature, as bad as any human woman, but with power. Terrifying power. So he came here, and waited, in case she should send a messenger, as she had done before.
He didn’t use the flute. It made them angry when he did that. He could only wait, and be conciliatory, and crawl on his belly to them because they had all the cards.
The sky outside the window thickened. Yellow-grey fog pressed against the panes, like something trying to get in. Stug fidgeted with the cover of the book on the table – if that stupid girl was half as smart as she thought, she would have taken this, a genuine antique, rare and ancient. He wondered what would happen to her if she attempted to use any of the spells it contained. Even the spell of summoning that used the elder-wood flute required will, and concentration. It might look simple, but then so did a bolting horse.
His thoughts were everywhere this evening. He pulled out his watch. It was hard to tell if it could any longer be considered properly dusk, with the fog – but the Folk took little account of time as it was measured this side of the Stream.
It was very quiet. The last shift-change had been minutes ago; and the ever-present humming roar of a modern city had dulled. The stillness got on Stug’s nerves.
He would wait one more minute, then...
The creature appeared absolutely silently, without so much as disturbing the crow feather that lay on the shelf behind it. Stug bit down on a shriek, but could not prevent the jolt backwards which sent him staggering. He would have fallen if the chair had not been right behind him. He sat down with a thump, his teeth jarring together.
The creature watched him with its head on one side. It showed neither amusement nor any other emotion; its huge faceted eyes, like great black glittering mourning brooches carved of jet, held no expression he could read, and its mouth was a rigid downwards curve. Its head and body were approximately human, though the limbs were excessively long and skinny. Gleaming wings were folded against its back.
“Wha...” Stug cleared his throat, and sat up straight in the chair. “Are you from the Queen?”
Its head tilted the other way, but it made no answer, though its wings shivered, making a low humming and sending the crow feather floating to the floor.
“Now, my pet,” said a voice. “Discourteous to startle the man in his own place.” The young man who appeared beside the creature seemed to step out of the air, as it had done, but more leisurely. Stug caught a glimpse of the landscape behind him, glimmering softly, its light entirely out of place on this grim, dank evening.
The insectlike thing shivered its wings again and rubbed its head against the young man’s arm.
He was beautiful, like all the High Folk; his hair danced in shades of copper and gold. His clothes were those of a gentleman – frock-coat, trousers, waistcoat, high-collared shirt – though their colours and materials, their glistening bronze and shimmering topaz, were nothing any respectable man would wear.
He patted the creature on the head and folded his legs up under him, balancing midair, and regarded Stug with blue-green eyes.
“I bring a message from my lady mother,” he said.
The son, then, Aiden. Even such a creature as the Queen had a son. A fine boy, if he had been human.
What does she say? Is it yes? Finally, is it yes?
Stug forced the questions back down his throat. “I hope she found my gift pleasing?” he croaked.
“Oh, the girl is well enough. But Mama...” He shrugged. “She has become... troubled, of late. Things please her for such a short time. Even those things that formerly were most amusing, now fade from her pleasure like flowers at summer’s end. She is becoming concerned, and plans for the future. Just think, my lady mother planning for the future! It is quite amusing.” He tilted his head, like the insect-creature, and his eyes, though human, and amused, glittered just as coldly as did his pet’s. “Perhaps it is your influence.”
Stug attempted a self-deprecating smile. “So humble a creature as myself could hardly hope for as much,” he said, loathing the shake in his voice, loathing the words.
Only until I have what I want,
he told himself.
Only until then.
“Indeed,” the young man said, his voice perfectly expressionless. “Now, where was I? Oh, yes. My lady mother... has been troubled. And there is something particular that troubles her. There is an old woman.”
The silence stretched out. Eventually Stug could no longer bear it. “An... old woman?”
“Yes, a terrible, ugly, tyrannous old woman, without grace or beauty, without
finesse.
She thinks herself a rival to my mother.”
“How could anyone be so foolish?” Stug quavered.
“Oh, the arrogance of this loathsome creature must be witnessed to be believed. One would laugh, except that it is an insult. You understand?”
“I...” No, he did not – the endless dance of the Folk and their rivalries was of no interest to him at all. He only wanted one thing from them, and never to have to deal with them again. But the gift was not yet in his hands, and he would have to bow and scrape and attempt to follow the steps a little longer. “Yes, of course it is an insult.”
“She has got above herself, recently. She crows. She flaunts. It is not to be borne. So my dear mother has decided that she must be put in her place.”
What is this to do with me?
Stug clenched his hands and held his mouth shut, feeling a muscle along his jaw jump and twitch.
“And you will assist her in this.”
“Me?”
“Yes. If you wish to be assured of her continued goodwill, that is.”
You were warned.
A voice in Stug’s memory, the voice of his father, colder than stone.
You were warned about dealings with the Folk, like dealing with a blackmailer. Always more than you thought you would have to pay, and always with a sting in the tail, always a twist on the bargain. You were warned, Joshua. You chose not to listen.
But his father was dead, and his sententious pratings had no place in this deal.
“What does the Queen desire me to do?”
“The old woman has a subject here. He has a child. She wants it.”
“A subject?”
“Yes. Our boundaries, to some degree, reflect your own; and like you, we have ambassadors. The old woman has a human subject, who is an ambassador here, the ambassador has a child, my lady mother wants that child. You are to get it for her. You understand?”
“I... I...”
“Need I say it again?”
“Only, my lord Aiden, the name...”
“Oh, I don’t know his
name
,” the boy said. “I’ve seldom troubled to learn the names of humans.” Something passed over his face, a shade of... grief? For a moment he looked almost human himself.
“Not his name, lord. The name of the old woman, her country.” Stug clenched his hands, feeling the sweat pool in his palms, his nails digging, stinging.
Who... who... let it be some pitiful little colony, some place where the ‘embassy’ is two rooms on the outskirts of Kensington, with a guard in an extravagant uniform shivering on the pavement.
“The old woman is Baba Yaga. It is the country of the bear. Russia.”
Russia. Dear god she wants the Russian Ambassador’s child.
Stug felt his knees weaken, and locked them.
“I hope that is sufficient information,” Aiden said, “as I begin to find this conversation tedious, and this place stinks. And roars.”
“My lord...”
Aiden raised a hand. “Oh, you will get what you wanted,” he said. “Once it is done. You will be given a son, under the conditions you requested. My lady mother keeps her word. I hope you will be wise enough to do the same.”
“J
ACOBS, WHERE ARE
the documents for the Shoreham properties?”
“With the lawyers, sir. I took them over yesterday.”
Damn.