The Sea Peoples(77)
Constance and her father were kneeling and holding each other desperately. Hawberk looked up at them as his callused hand stroked her hair.
“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you very much.”
Then his eyes went wide as he placed them. “It’s . . . it’s Miss Balwyn-Abercrombie and her people, isn’t it?”
Pip made herself smile—the expression sliding off her face was more like a snarl, and she was panting—and nodded.
“Yes,” she said. “Glad to be of help to you and Miss Hawberk.”
“But . . .”
Hawberk was no fool; and he had a nobleman’s lifelong habits of self-possession. Dumb unthinking gratitude was not likely to hold him for long.
“But why were you here when this man burst in? Who is he?”
Pip opened her mouth without knowing what was going to come out; from the looks on the faces of the others, they didn’t either but were glad she was the one who was going to say something.
“He’s under the influence of Mr. Wilde, your neighbor,” Pip said. “We believe he is part of . . . a cult, as it were . . . spreading the pernicious book known as The King in Yellow—sort of a group of spiritual, ah, anarchists. Known as the Esoteric Order of Dagon, among other titles.”
Finally I get some use from Uncle Pete’s tastes in literature!
“We?” Hawberk said sharply. “We believe?”
“A Society of those dedicated to stamping out the madness which that book spreads,” Pip said. “Deor—”
Deor held the knife up for Hawberk to examine. He did so with silent intensity, and after a moment recoiled.
“I’ve seen symbols like that in Paris,” Hawberk said, wiping his brow. “Copied in manuscripts relating to the trial of Gilles de Rais.”
Constance blanched visibly and stared at her father as he mentioned the notorious medieval mass-murderer and reputed Satanist.
“And in a ruined temple in Gwalior, in India, amid a bas-relief depicting unspeakable rites,” Hawberk went on. “I knew Wilde was vicious and probably mad, but this—!”
“We had reason to believe that Mr. Castaigne . . . Hildred Castaigne, that is . . . had fallen under the influence of Wilde and—from the letters I mentioned, please forgive me for being less than totally frank with you—had conceived a mad hatred of his cousin Louis Castaigne, and of Miss Hawberk and yourself. It seems we were correct. Apparently this man who attacked you, this Vance, was their tool—also a member of the cult, and a blackmail victim of Wilde as well. We do know that Wilde is a blackmailer on a huge scale.”
Phew! Pip thought. Those Men with Swords and Things with Tentacles books of Uncle Pete’s are really coming in useful! After a moment: And maybe that’s because they’re at least partly true? Oh, bugger, I wish I hadn’t thought of that.
Hawberk nodded. “What shall we do?” he said.
“You and Miss Hawberk had best lock yourself in,” Pip said. “We’ll see to Mr. Wilde, and then no doubt the authorities will take an interest.”
Constance began to speak, hesitated, and then said softly, with a tremor in her voice. “And Louis? Louis Castaigne?”
“He’s entirely innocent,” Pip said firmly, in her best dulcet tones. “Innocent of everything but having a mad cousin, that is, Miss Hawberk.”
Even streaked with tears and spatters of Vance’s blood, Constance’s face blossomed. Pip felt herself smiling as well, and then looked at Deor. The scop had an expression of profound sorrow in his eyes as he regarded the girl.
Oh, sod it. This world is . . . not really a world, is it? These people are all part of a dream of darkness. Can we really change that? Even if we kept Vance from killing them, is something bad likely to happen to them anyway?
“And now we’ll see about Mr. Wilde,” Deor said grimly. “If you don’t mind me borrowing this,” he added, moving the gauntleted hand. “I don’t care to touch this weapon directly.”
“I don’t blame you, Mr. Godulfson,” Hawberk said grimly.
The armorer’s brows went up as Deor turned and spoke to Thora in a different language. Pip didn’t recognize the rapid-fire sing-song syllables, but Thora put her knife away and pulled out the heavy automatic. She looked at it; then her face smoothed, as she obviously made herself not think about the strange archaic weapon. As she did so her fingers moved with the same automatic competence they would have shown with backsword or horse-archer’s bow or lance, ejecting the magazine and checking it, reinserting it with a snap, thumbing off the safety and racking the slide to chamber a round.
And evidently I know enough to recognize what she’s doing, Pip thought, slightly bemused.
She’d never bothered to learn much about firearms, except that the powders which had pushed slugs and shells out so fast didn’t burn explosively ever since the Blackout. Catapults and crossbows she understood intuitively, but apparently it had translated.
Thora tucked the weapon into the belt over her shirtwaist, and checked that it was ready to her hand under the loose thigh-length jacket that completed the outfit. Pip made certain that she could get to her kukris quickly, and pulled a few more ball-bearings out into the palm of her hand.
Constance Hawberk had been looking at them with growing puzzlement. “Thank . . . you again, all of you. And you, Miss Balwyn. I’ve never met anyone like you, but I’m glad I did.”