The Wizard of London (5 page)

It
was at that moment that one of the men lunged for her with a curse. He had his
hands nearly on her, and would have gotten her, too, except for one bit of
interference. Sarah came shooting out of the gate like a little bullet. She
body-slammed the fellow, going into the back of his knees and knocking him
right off his feet. She danced out of the way as he fell, scooting past him in
the nick of time, ran to Nan, and caught her hand, tugging her toward the
street. “Run!” she commanded imperiously, and Nan ran.

The
two of them scrabbled through the dark alleys and twisted streets without any
idea where they were, only that they had to shake off their pursuers.
Unfortunately, the time that Nan would have put into learning her new
neighborhood like the back of her grimy little hand had been put into talking
with Sarah, and before too long, even Nan was lost in the maze of dark, fetid
streets. Then their luck ran out altogether, and they found themselves staring
at the blank wall of a building, in a dead-end cul-de-sac. They whirled around,
hoping to escape before they were trapped, but it was already too late. The
bulky silhouettes of the two men loomed against the fading light at the end of
the street.

“Oo’s
yer friend, ducky?” the first man purred. “Think she’d
loik’t‘come with?”

To
Nan’s astonishment, Sarah stood straight and tall, and even stepped
forward a pace. “I think you ought to go away and leave us alone,”
she said clearly. “You’re going to find yourselves in a lot of
trouble.”

The
talkative man laughed. “Them’s big words from such a little
gel,” he mocked. “We ain’t leavin’ wi’out we collect
what’s ours, an’ a bit more fer th‘ trouble yer
caused.”

Nan
was petrified with fear, shaking in every limb, as Sarah stepped back, putting
her back to the damp wall. As the first man touched Sarah’s arm, she
shrieked out a single word.

“
Grey
!”

As
Sarah cried out the name of her pet, Nan let loose a wordless prayer for
something, anything, to come to their rescue.

She
never would have believed that anything would—

Then
something screamed behind the man; startled and distracted for a moment, he
turned. For a moment, a fluttering shape obscured his face, and he screamed in
agony, shaking his head, violently, clawing at whatever it was.

“Get
it off!” he screamed at his partner. “Get it off!”

“Get
what off?” the other man asked, bewildered and suddenly frightened,
backing away a little from his agitated partner. “There ain’t
nothin’ there!”

The
man flailed frantically at the front of his face, but whatever had attacked him
had vanished without a trace.

But
not before leading more substantial help to the rescue.

Out
of the dusk and the first wisps of fog, Karamjit and another swarthy man ran on
noiseless feet. In their hands were cudgels which they used to good purpose on
the two who opposed them. Nor did they waste any effort, clubbing the two
senseless with a remarkable economy of motion.

Then,
without a single word, each of the men scooped up a girl in his arms, and bore
them back to the school. At that point, finding herself safe in the arms of an
unlooked-for rescuer, Nan felt secure enough to break down into hysterical
tears. The man who had her—
not
the silent Karamjit—patted
her back awkwardly, then muffled her face against his coat. And for the first
time since her granny had died, Nan felt safe enough to take advantage of the
comfort offered; she clutched at him and sobbed until they passed through the
gates of the school.

Nor
was that the end of it; though she completely expected to be set on her feet
and shooed away, she found herself bundled up into the sacred precincts of the
school itself, plunged into the first hot bath of her life, wrapped in a clean
flannel gown, and put into a real bed. Sarah was in a similar bed beside her.

It
all happened so swiftly, and with such an economy of action, that she was
hardly able to think until that moment. As she sat there, numb, a plain-looking
woman with beautiful eyes came and sat down on the foot of Sarah’s bed,
and looked from one to the other of them.

“Well,”
the lady said at last, “what have you two to say for yourselves?”

Nan
couldn’t manage anything, but that was all right, since Sarah
wasn’t about to let her get in a word anyway. The child jabbered like a
monkey, a confused speech about Nan’s mother, the men she’d sold
Nan to, the virtue of charity, the timely appearance of Grey, and a great deal
more besides. The lady listened and nodded, and when Sarah ran down at last,
she turned to Nan.

“I
believe Sarah is right in one thing,” she said gravely. “I believe
we will have to keep you. Now, both of you—sleep.”

The
lady’s eyes seemed to get very, very big. Nan’s own head filled
with peace, and she found herself lying down, obedient as a lamb. And to
Nan’s surprise, she fell asleep immediately.

***

Isabelle
Harton stood leaning against the doorframe of the girls’ room for some
time, feeling limp with relief. That had been a very near thing. If little
Sarah had not been able to summon the spirit of her parrot—

She
sensed her husband behind her, and relaxed into his arms as he put them around
her, holding her with her back to his chest. “Well, my angel. I assume we
are going to keep this ragged little street sparrow?”

“Sarah
desperately needs a friend,” she temporized.

“You
don’t fool me, wife,” he replied, tightening his arms around her.
“You would march straight out there and bring them all in if you thought
we could afford to feed them. But I agree with you. Sarah needs a friend, and
this friend is both clever and Talented. Karamjit says she is definitely a
telepath, and possibly other things. We can’t leave one of those
wandering about on the streets. You wanted her to come to you of her own
accord; well, here she is, and she doesn’t look like she’s
interested in leaving. When she comes into her full power, she’d either
go mad or become a masterful criminal of some sort, and in either case, it
would be you and I who would have to deal with her.”

“Or
one of our pupils. But you’re right, I would much rather salvage her
now.” She relaxed further, with a sigh. “Thank you for indulging
me.”

“No
such thing. I’m indulging both of us. And it isn’t as if the girl
hasn’t the potential to earn her keep. If she’s any good with the
infants, she can help the ayahs, and that will save us the expense of another
serving girl or nursemaid in the nursery.” He bent and kissed her cheek,
and she relaxed a little more. He was right, of course. They needed another
pair of hands in the nursery, particularly at bath and bedtime, and she had
been worrying about how to pay for that pair of hands. This just might work out
perfectly for everyone concerned.

“Then
I’ll ask if she wants to stay, and make her the offer tomorrow,”
she told him. “I doubt that she’ll turn us down.”

He
laughed. “Not if she has any sense!”

***

So
ended Nan Killian’s introduction to the Harton School. She joyfully
accepted Mem’sab’s offer of bed, board, and school in exchange for
help with the babies, and within days, she was being idolized by the toddlers
and fully accepted as the new pupil by the others. And best of all, she was
Sarah Jane’s best friend.

She
had never been
anyone
’s best friend before, nor had she ever had
a best friend of her own. It was strange. It was wonderful. It gave her the
most amazing feeling, as if now there was something she could always count on,
and she hadn’t had that feeling since her gran died.

But
that was not the end to this part of the story. A month later, Sarah’s
mother arrived, with Grey in a cage, after an exchange of telegraphs and
letters to which neither Sarah nor Nan had been privy. Nan had, by then, found
a place where she could listen to what went on in the best parlor without being
found, and she glued her ear to the crack in the pantry to listen when Sarah
was taken into that hallowed room.

“—found
Grey senseless beside her perch,” Sarah’s mother was saying.
“I thought it was a fit, but the Shaman swore that Sarah was in trouble
and the bird had gone to help. Grey awoke none the worse, and I would have
thought nothing more of the incident, until your telegraph arrived.”

“And
so you came, very wisely, bringing this remarkable bird.” Mem’sab
made chirping noises at the bird, and an odd little voice said, “Hello,
bright eyes!”

Mem’sab
chuckled. “How much of strangeness are you prepared to believe in, my
dear?” she asked gently. “Would you believe me if I told you that I
have seen this bird once before—fluttering and pecking at my window, then
leading my men to rescue your child?”

“I
can only answer with Hamlet,” Sarah’s mother said after a pause.
“That there are more things in heaven and earth than I suspected.”
She paused again. “You know, I think, that my husband and I are Elemental
Mages—”

“As
are a great many of my friends, which is why you got the recommendation for our
school. I understand your powers, though Frederick and I do not share
them.” It was Mem’sab’s turn to pause. “Nor does your
daughter. Her powers are psychic in nature, as you suspected, though I have not
yet deciphered them completely. She
is
being instructed, however, not
only by myself, but by others who are even stronger in some aspects than
I.”

“Haha!”
said the funny little voice. “There’s a good friend!”

Cor
!
I wunner what this El’mental business is
? Whatever it was, it
was new to Nan, who was only now getting used to the idea that her
“sense” was a thing that could be trained and depended on, and that
she was most unusual for possessing it.

“Oh,
bless!” Sarah’s mother cried. “I hoped—but I
wasn’t sure—one can’t put such things in a
letter—”

“True
enough, but some of us can read, however imperfectly, what is written with the
heart rather than a pen,” Mem’sab replied decidedly. “Then I
take it you are not here to remove Sarah from our midst.”

“No,”
came the soft reply. “I came only to see that Sarah was well, and to ask
if you would permit her pet to be with her.”

“Gladly,”
Mem’sab said. “Though I might question which of the two was the
pet!”

“Clever
bird!” said Grey. “Veeeeeery clever!”

Mem’sab
laughed. “Yes, I am, my feathered friend! And you would do very well
never to forget it!

A month had gone by
since Nan was brought into the Harton School. Another child picked up food at
the back gate of the Harton School For Boys and Girls on the edge of
Whitechapel in London, not Nan Killian. Children no longer shunned the back
gate of the school, although they treated its inhabitants with extreme caution.
Adults—particularly the criminals, and most particularly the disreputable
criminals who preyed on children—treated the place and its inhabitants
with a great deal more than mere caution. Word had gotten around that two child
procurers had tried to take one of the pupils, and had been found with arms and
legs broken, beaten senseless. They survived—but they would never walk
straight or without pain again, and even a toddler would be able to outrun
them. Word had followed that anyone who threatened another child protected by
the school would be found dead—if he was found at all.

The
three fierce, swarthy “blackfellas” who served as the
school’s guards were rumored to have strange powers, or be members of the
thugee cult, or worse. It was safer just to pretend the school didn’t
exist and go about one’s unsavory business elsewhere.

Nan
Killian was no longer a child of the streets; she was now a pupil at the school
herself, a transmutation that astonished her every morning when she awoke. To
find herself in a neat little dormitory room, papered with roses and curtained
in gingham, made her often feel as if she was dreaming. To then rise with the
other girls, dress in clean, fresh clothing, and go off to lessons in the
hitherto unreachable realms of reading and writing was more than she had ever
dared dream of.

She
slept in the next bed over from Sarah’s, in a room inhabited by only the
two of them and the parrot, Grey, and they now shared many late-night giggles
and confidences, instead of leftover tea bread.

Nan
also had a job; she had not expected pure charity, and would, deep down, have
been suspicious if she’d been offered this place for nothing. But
Mem’sab had made it clear if she was to stay, she had to work, and Nan
was not at all averse to a bit of hard work. She had always known, somewhat to
her own bemusement, that the littlest children instinctively trusted her and would
obey her when they obeyed no one else. So Nan “paid” for her
tutoring and keep by helping Nadra and Mala, the babies’ nurses, or
“ayahs,” as they were called. Nadra and Mala were from India, as
were most of the servants, from the formidable guards, the Sikh Karamjit, the
Moslem Selim, and the Gurkha Agansing, to the cooks, Maya and Vashti.
Mrs.Isabelle Harton—or Mem’sab, as everyone called her—and
her husband had once been expatriates in India themselves. Master
Harton—called, with ultimate respect, Sahib Harton—now worked as an
adviser to an import firm; his military service in India had left him with a
small pension, and a permanent limp.

And
now Nan knew why the Harton School was here in the first place. When he and his
wife had returned, they had learned quite by accident of the terrible
conditions children returned to England to escape the dangers of the East often
lived in. Relatives exploited or abused them, schools maltreated and starved
them, and even the best schools ignored homesickness and loneliness, insisting
that the bereft children “buck up” and “keep a stiff upper
lip” and above all, never be seen to shed a tear. Children who had been
allowed by their indulgent ayahs to run the nursery like miniature rajahs were
suddenly subjected to the extreme discipline of tyrannical schoolmasters and
the bullying of their elders.