At that Michael managed to lever himself up onto his elbows. “How did the house become so damaged?” he asked.
Arabella touched the back of his hand reassuringly. “We will explain later. For now we must put all our attentions on moving you to some safer place.” She paused, considering. “But where? Surely all of Fort Augusta is in ruins.”
“Woodthrush Woods,” Michael said, grasping Arabella’s hand. The very thought seemed to lend some strength to his tremulous grip. “Take me home.”
Dr. Fellowes frowned deeply at the prospect. “It is over two miles distant!”
“The Ashby house is in much better condition than this one,” the captain observed, “thanks to Miss Khema’s efforts. And she might be prevailed upon to aid us in transporting him.”
“We must move him there at once,” Arabella said to the doctor, then turned to the captain. “Give Khema my thanks for her invitation, but tell her that my brother’s health must take precedence for now, and ask for her help in moving him. After we are settled at Woodthrush Woods, I will consult with her as she requests.”
“I will do so,” he said, and with a brisk bow he departed.
*
After leaving the house, they waited on the road outside while Khema arranged for a huresh to carry Michael back to Woodthrush Woods. While the doctor inspected her brother’s dressings, Arabella looked back at Corey House.
The house, never beautiful, was now a collapsing ruin, so battered that in places it could scarcely be distinguished from the rocks on which it had been built. Even as she watched, a section of the roof fell in, sending a cloud of dust into the air. The landscape around it, too, had been demolished, pleasant paths and gazebos completely vanished beneath piles of rubble and thousands of Martian footprints. The Martians themselves were mostly departed, leaving only a few burnt patches on the sand, and the catapults with their pyramids of stones.
This place, Arabella knew, would be honored as a battlefield some day. For now it was nothing but a waste—a desolate waste of destruction and death.
A thin stream of refugees was emerging from the gate, looking about themselves and back at the ruined house in appalled silence. Arabella glanced from them to her brother, equally battered by the events of the past few weeks, then back at the refugees.
“Go and tell those people,” she said to one of the servants, “that if they cannot return to their homes they are welcome at Woodthrush Woods.”
The servant looked from her to her brother, who nodded. “As you wish, Miss Ashby,” the servant said with a bow, and moved off.
26
A STRANGE PROPOSAL
Some days later, Arabella was in the kitchen, supervising an inventory and considering how to feed her guests. Most of Woodthrush Woods’s servants, both human and Martian, had already returned—thanks to Khema, the fighting there had been much less than at Fort Augusta, and most of them had remained nearby—and they had been joined by many others from Corey House and elsewhere. This was fortunate, as most of the other Corey House refugees were of the gentry and unable to provide for their own needs.
She turned from a count of the bags of noreth-flour to find one of the servants waiting expectantly. “Your brother requests your presence, Miss Ashby. He says that the matter is rather urgent.”
After instructing Collins, the former Corey House majordomo, to continue the inventory, she hurried to her brother’s bedchamber, where she found him lying across a heap of pillows, with Mr. Trombley in attendance. A sheaf of papers lay atop the bed-clothes. “What is the matter?” she said.
Mr. Trombley swallowed and looked down. “I … I am afraid it concerns your brother’s last will and testament.”
“I see.” She, too, felt a sudden need to inspect the dusty floor.
Michael gestured to the papers. “Explain the situation to my sister,” he said to Mr. Trombley with weary impatience.
“Sir, I really must protest this—”
Michael stopped him with a raised hand. “Explain it.”
Mr. Trombley frowned, but nodded to him, then turned to Arabella. “As you know,” he said, “the Ashby family estate is entailed to heirs of the body male.”