The Witch Watch (5 page)

“Do try to have some courage about this, Gilbert dear,” Mother chided as she opened the door for him.

“It’s not about courage at all. I’m quite capable of living on my own here,” Gilbert protested. He pushed through, trying to keep the load of clothing steady as he headed down the stairs to the parlor. It was a bright day in April. Sunlight flowed through the windows and revealed the dancing motes of dust that their work had set in motion.

“That claim is yours to prove,” she retorted.

“It’s about common sense. I see no reason to pack up our whole life and go running off to America like this.” Gilbert set the load down on the floor beside the trunk.

“Perhaps you don’t. But I see no reason to stay here where we have no relations and so few friends.” She began to sort through the pile, putting wanted items into the trunk and setting the rest aside.

Gilbert looked at the trunk and at the pile of clothing. The two were of similar size. “I don’t see how you can hope to fit everything inside this trunk.”

“Then it’s fortunate I don’t plan on taking ‘everything’. I plan on taking just the personal items and valuables. The rest of it can all burn. No, not truly, but you know what I mean. You remember your father’s friend Mr. Hughes?”

“The barrister with the enormous nose and no hair?”

“Solicitor, not barrister. He has kindly offered to sell off the unwanted items and send me the proceeds.”

“What unwanted items?”

“I don’t think the furniture will fit in my trunk, for starters.”

“
Furniture!”
Gilbert said indignantly. “You mean to leave me without furnishings?”

“Very well. I’ll leave the furniture. I think you’ll find them less useful without a house to put them in, but you’re welcome to drag the tables and chairs through the streets of London if you think they will be useful.”

“You’re selling the
house
?” Gilbert boomed.

“Did you think I was going to just leave you the family fortune and crawl back to your sister a vagabond?”

“No,” Gilbert said after a pause that indicated the opposite. “But see, what you’re doing is going to make
me
a vagabond.”

“Well if you had a family I might consider giving you your share of the fortune now. But you’re strong, you’re young, you’re
single,
and you’re more than capable of seeing to your own needs. And if not, you can always come back to America with me. It would save me the trouble of finding someone to carry this trunk.” She held up one of his father’s suits to him and frowned. “Curse your unnatural size,” she said.

“It’s not
unnatural
. Father was tall as well.”

“Your father was tall, but you are a titan. Look at your shoulders. What a shame. Such a fine suit.” She dropped the suit into the pile of unwanted items.

“You’re getting rid of father’s suit?” This was absurd. Did Mother really want some stranger parading around in Father’s favorite suit? This almost felt like grave-robbing.

“I doubt very much he should need it again. The one we buried him in was quite lovely and he won't need another.”

Gilbert frowned. “This whole business is very sudden.”

“Not as sudden as it seems,” she said. “I don’t plan on leaving until near the end of the year. I should like to spend Christmas with my new granddaughter. Or grandson, if it comes to that.”

“Then why are we packing now?”

“Because you’re leaving for your new job soon, and I want your help in moving heavy things about the house. You’re like a horse that can work indoors.” She smiled and patted him on the head like a beloved animal.

“Won’t you miss it here?” Gilbert asked, not rising to the bait.

“Miss? Well, I’ll miss you of course, but if you’re set on breaking my heart then there’s little I can do to stop you. But if you must know the only thing I’ll miss is Victoria herself.”

Gilbert sighed. “You know, you might have an easier time making friends here if you didn’t insist on referring to Her Majesty the Queen by her first name as if she came over for tea. It really does offend people.”

“Well, I see it as a sign of affection. It’s their business if other people want to keep her at such arm’s length. I must admit I feel a certain sisterhood with her.”

“Is that because you share the same first name?”

“Don’t be silly. It’s because she’s the finest monarch in a thousand years, and has been good for the national character. Maybe people will get it into their heads that more women should be in places of importance. We certainly couldn’t do far worse than the men, no matter how hard we tried.” Mother held up another of his father’s suits, then disassembled it and held each piece up in turn. She dropped it all onto the unwanted pile with a sigh.

“I can see you’re trying to scandalize me for your own amusement,” Gilbert grumbled, “but I’m just not interested. Politics bore me.” He’d heard this sermon from her before, and he wanted to avoid the long version.

“For example, that fool husband of hers,” Mother continued, ignoring Gilbert. “He’s a lovely man, but is impoverished of common sense.”

“What’s wrong with Prince Albert?” He regretted asking the question before she answered it. Gilbert realized too late that he was bringing this on himself.

“This idea of his that we should have leniency towards ‘benign sorcery’. It’s quite dangerous and barbaric, and I wish Victoria would set him right.”

“He’s only suggesting that we shouldn’t go around killing people who use magic for medicinal purposes. I hardly see that as a call to barbarism.”

“Oh? Did you hear what happened last month? The assassination attempt?”

“No?”

“You really should pay more attention. Some fool hedge wizard tried to kill Victoria and Prince Albert. Some mad Irishman named McLean. He tried to roast them alive. Ended up setting their coach on fire.”

“If he was named McLean, wouldn’t that make him a Scotsman?”

“Oh, whichever,” she said impatiently. “The point is that lenience only encourages more people to dabble in it.”

“I don’t see the harm in healing people,” Gilbert said.

She gathered up the unwanted clothes and put them back in his arms, then gave him a gentle shove in the direction of the stairs. Gilbert obediently took his burden up while she followed after him with a few of the nicer items that she probably didn’t trust to his brutish embrace. “You’re too young to remember the forties,” she said as she followed him up the steps. “The Potato Famine brought in waves of tricksters and magicians of all kinds. Men that commanded animals. Women that could move unseen. It was chaos and crime for years after.”

Gilbert allowed himself an eye-roll while she was behind him. “You were still a young girl and living in America when that happened. So you don’t remember it any better than I do.”

“But I’m old enough to remember the gossip about it. And I remember well enough the trouble that comes from those who dabble in magic.”

“Are you sure the cause wasn’t poverty, homelessness, and starvation that came from hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the famine?”

“Which itself was the work of witchcraft!”

Gilbert sighed. “You don’t know that. Nobody knows that.”

“I can’t imagine any
natural
blight that could cause destruction on such a terrible scale. Use your head, Gilbert. The potato blight had to be the work of magic.”

“Perhaps. But if I was sick and a wizard offered me a cure, I might take it.”

“That would be most unwise. You could end up ejected from the church.”

“We’ve got to get out of this church,” Gilbert said as he paced in the aisle.

“I wonder why they haven’t attacked us,” Simon said. He was looking out through the stained glass windows, trying to catch some glimpse of their adversaries despite the distortion and pervasive darkness.

“I’ve been asking myself the same question. They know we’re in here and they know where the exits are. They have us cornered. Perhaps they’re waiting for reinforcements. Perhaps they’re reluctant to engage in violence in a holy place. If it’s the latter, we might be able to use it to our advantage.”

The sun had faded, and their only light came from the torches and lanterns gathered outside of the church. There was just enough light that they could move about without crashing into things. This was not a large church. It would take less than fifty people to fill it to capacity.

Simon threw himself down in one of the pews. The impact was very loud in the empty space. “This is terrible. We can’t stay in here forever. I’m already so hungry. I was given a meal before I entered the tomb last night, but I haven’t had a bite since then.”

“I don’t suppose you know any spells that might aid us?”

“You’re suggesting we use magic in
here
?” Simon gestured at the holy symbols at the front of the room. “I’m not even sure His Lordship would have done such a thing. At any rate, no. I don’t know any spells that would be of use to us.”

“We don’t need much. A cloud of smoke, bright lights, some noise in the distance? Something along those lines?”

Simon drew in a deep breath and began ticking off possibilities on his fingers. “If we had a dead dog, I could bring it back to life mindless and feral.”

“I suppose that’s not terribly useful,” Gilbert admitted.

“I could make a goblet of blood boil. I can ward off certain kinds of animated dead.”

“Forget the matter. I’m sorry I brought it up.”

“And as I learned last night, I can raise a dead viscount if supplied with a princess first.”

“Please stop telling me these unwholesome things.” Gilbert waved his arms to signal his surrender.

Gilbert went to the window and did his best to count their foes. He found it likely they were facing the same six men as the previous night. He knew the number of their enemy, but not where they were positioned. They would need to cover all possible exits, of which there were two. The Witch Watch believed they were going to face a powerful wizard, so they were bracing themselves for an attack that could fall at any moment. This would fill them with nervous energy and make the men prone to fidgeting. Gilbert hoped this would make it possible to see them. After ten minutes of silent observation, he perceived a few points of subtle movement in the shadows outside.

“I’m not going to lie to you,” he told Simon. “This is bad. It looks like they have three men out front. I’m betting the other three will be guarding the side door, with the mystery woman. They have good rifles and they know we’re in here. We have no weapons, we’re outnumbered, and they know we’re coming.”

Simon nodded. He seemed to be choking back tears.

Gilbert regarded him and thought about the long years of torment the boy had suffered. Gilbert had faced the threat of death, and his nerves had been tempered by it. His fellow soldiers had been mocking towards civilians and their assumed cowardice, and had thought it odd that folks with so little honor would value their lives so highly. Gilbert had always thought this was a backward way of thinking. Their purpose was to safeguard the lives of the innocent. Soldiers faced the terrors of the world so that commoners didn’t have to, and if commoners lacked courage then it was a sign that the fighting men were doing their job.

Gilbert thought they could simply surrender, but he wasn’t sure what the Witch Watch would do. Certainly he and Simon would hang. Or burn. Or whatever was in fashion for condemned sorcerers these days. But even if they told all they knew before they died, he doubted the Witch Watch would act on it. If restoring the life of the princess required additional sorcery, then they might prefer to leave her dead.

All Gilbert wanted was a course of action that would allow him to save someone. If he couldn’t save the princess, then perhaps he could save the boy.

“Look Simon,” Gilbert said. “I would rather you escaped from this unharmed. They were mostly concerned with me last night. It’s even possible - though not likely - that they overlooked you altogether. If they kill me, I’ll be no worse off than I was this time yesterday. I propose that I make a commotion and attempt to lead these bloodhounds away. You’ll be free to escape.”