More!
Talons of glass curled out of the ground and down from the tree branches above them. They clutched at her, scraped her skin and caught her shirt, but she tore free.
Stop her!
A faceted wall of mineral rose up before her, and she lowered her shoulder and plowed through it with a hideous cracking sound. Fragments scattered across the lawn.
And now I’ll... I’ll... he had no more ideas. As she came toward him, violence in quicksilver, he hesitated.
And he was lost.
*
“Hello, Ingrid? It’s Shantay Petoskey. Is our girl there?”
“Just a moment, please, Bishop Petoskey.” The American woman took up her cup of tea, which was still warm, and drank. She’d given up smoking years ago, and she was in someone else’s house, but if there’d been a cigarette handy, she’d have snatched it up without hesitation.
“Shan? What’s happened?” The Rook’s voice was anxious.
“Hey, I’m fine. He did come to your house, though.”
“Oh, Jesus.”
“Yeah,” said Shantay. “He had your purse from the racecourse. Did you cancel all your cards?”
“Is he dead?”
“I’m sorry, Myfanwy. He was rabid; I had to put him down.”
The Rook sighed. “Yeah, okay. Thanks, Shan.”
“Don’t thank me too soon,” said Shantay. “It’s a good thing you got all your stuff out of the house, because your couch is ruined, and you’ll need to get your kitchen redone.”
“Great, well, the Checquy can pick up the tab for that,” said Myfanwy sourly.
“Fortunes of war,” said Shantay. “But I actually kind of like what’s happened to your backyard. You might want to think about keeping that. Very alternative-ice-sculpture chic.”
“I dread to think,” said the Rook. “Anyway, I’ll send a cleanup team around immediately. Do you want to go to a hotel tonight? I can have a car come and pick you up.”
“Nah, I’m fine. The guest room’s untouched, and it’s a bit late,” said the Bishop.
“Then I’ll see you at Balmoral tomorrow.”
*
“It’s a lovely day,” said Odette. “I didn’t think it would be. The weather reports all agreed that it would storm.”
“There was supposed to be a thunderstorm today,” said Felicity, “but Celia from the Finance section can control the weather in a mile radius around her. They brought her up from London so we could have a nice day here and take advantage of the Balmoral gardens for your grandfather to kiss hands.”
“Kiss hands?” repeated Odette.
“It’s what they call it when a government minister formally takes office. Now it’s just a term — they don’t actually kiss the monarch’s hand.”
“Someone better tell Grootvader Ernst that,” said Odette. “Because they did it in his time and — oh! Too late.” They watched as Ernst rose from his knees. Once again, he is a warrior and a general, she thought, happy for her grootvader.
“And now he’s kissing the King on both cheeks,” said Felicity, sounding very cheerful. “Splendid!” The startled-looking monarch was smiling broadly. “Royalty is always rather fond of tradition.”
Tradition was certainly the flavor of the day. The delegation of Grafters had come to Aberdeenshire to officially join themselves to the Checquy, committing themselves and their people back in Europe to the service of the British Isles. Dressed in their best, they had knelt on red carpets laid out on the lawn and taken an oath of citizenship and then an oath of fealty, and, when they had risen, they had been embraced by cheering Pawns and Retainers. Several of the embraces had been stiff and perfunctory, but most had been genuine.
“Your ancestor looks very pleased,” said Felicity. “I hope he’s not disappointed that he wasn’t made a member of the Court.”
“No,” said Odette. “I think he’s quite satisfied with the fact that they’re making him a duke.”
And once again a nobleman, she remembered. For all her life, and the lives of her family going back generations, Grootvader Ernst had been their leader, respected for his power, his age, and his foresight. But his lost noble status, his fiefdom long since stripped from him in the horrible aftermath of the Isle of Wight, had been abstract knowledge to the Grafters, less real than their fear and hatred for the Checquy.
“Once, we were nobles,” a Grafter mother might say, knowing that it was a nice thought but nothing to compare to being a member of the Broederschap.
But that wasn’t true for Grootvader Ernst, I’d bet, thought Odette. It’s so easy to know that he’s old without realizing, really understanding, that he was alive in those days. That the man who sits at the head of the table with a however-many-greats-grandchild on his knee and a beer in his hand was the man who rode horses to war, sat with his dogs in a great hall, bargained with kings, and invaded a nation.
And for him, noblesse oblige, the obligations and responsibilities of nobility, would be real, and eternal. Is that why he did what he did? Is that why he joined us to the Checquy? Not so that he could become a duke again, but so that he and his people could be of genuine service? She watched him talking with the King, and her heart was filled with love, not just for her liege lord and leader, but for her great-grandfather, who had taught her so much about honor and duty. Then she frowned.
“Felicity, that guy over there, the one who’s right up by the front. He’s not in the Checquy, is he? I mean, he’s wearing a dress military uniform.”
“No,” said Felicity, biting her lip slightly to keep back a laugh. “He’s not in the Checquy.”
“It’s just that he was at the reception,” said Odette. “He was one of the men I danced with.”
“Yeah, he’s one of the VIPs.”
“Oh? I suppose that would make sense,” said Odette thoughtfully. “He’s cute, isn’t he? We danced quite a few times. Chatted a bit. It was very nice.”
“You hit it off?”
“Oh, well, I don’t know,” said Odette, blushing a little. “He said we should go shooting sometime.”
“Really?” said Felicity.
“Yeah. I said I had some really nice shotguns but that I’d only ever shot clay pigeons, and he said he’d be happy to teach me.”
“Odette?”
“Hmm?”
“He’s third in line to the throne.”
“Oh. Really.”