“Then you decided to stay at Coldthistle,” he mused, leaning on the door frame and wiping at the sweat under his cap. “Well, my thanks again for the lamb. You ladies have a fine afternoon. It’s good, strong weather we’re having today. Go and make the most of it.”
And make the most of it I would. I told Poppy I would race her and the hound back to the house, and she agreed. We were all three of us out of breath when we arrived. A bank of clouds had followed us over, darkening the formerly sunny skies over the mansion. Chijioke’s whistle wound out from the barn, and Mary was doing a bit of washing under the overhang outside the kitchens.
Gaining access to George Bremerton’s room would require a distraction. Lee, of course, was the natural person to ask. He might be willing to draw his uncle down to the Red Room or out to the gardens for a stroll. Or, I thought darkly, he might simply want to be left alone and not pulled into a scheme to tarnish the memory of yet another family member.
I slowed down as we reached the yard, but Poppy and Bartholomew flew by, running at full tilt toward Mary and her washbasin. Poppy stopped short, but the little brown hound took a flying leap, plopping into the sudsy water and soaking him and Mary both. He barked with delight, splashing around and flinging water in every direction.
“Bad!” Poppy shouted at him, but she was giggling as she did.
“Would you control this infernal menace!” Mary screeched.
Poppy leaned into the basin, trying to fish out the slippery pup, who wriggled and bucked until at last he was on the grass and shaking away the droplets on his coat.
“Look what you’ve done,” Mary scolded, standing up to reveal her soapy frock and apron. “Mrs. Haylam will be very cross when I tell her.”
I stood back and watched, amused, biding my time while I concocted a plan to get Bremerton out of his chambers. From behind, I heard the crunch of horse hooves on the drive. Mary and I both turned to look, finding an elderly man riding in with a heavy satchel hanging from his saddle.
“That will be the post,” Mary said, waving to the man. “Can you collect it, Louisa? I’m in no fit state to be seen.”
She began gathering her things and wringing out the wet clothes, hurrying back inside the kitchen door. Poppy and her hound were of no use, rolling around together in the grass until both of them were covered in green smudges and dirt.
“It’s up to me, then,” I muttered, trotting off toward the drive. The man was balding, the naked skin on his head red from sun exposure and covered in brown speckles like an egg. He swung down from the saddle nimbly enough for a man of his age and dug in the bag tethered to the saddle.
“You’re a new face, miss,” he said kindly, giving a little bow.
I returned the courtesy and waited while he retrieved the messages.
“Just a few today,” he added, handing across a collection of folded and sealed packets. “Please send along me apologies to the master, young miss; the rains this week kept me from my usual route. Down t’Malton there’s all but a lake now formed in the south road.”
“I will tell him,” I said, hugging the messages to my chest. He touched his thumb to his forehead and grasped the saddle, pulling himself back up. Something prickled in the back of my mind. Messages. Rains.
I hadn’t gone to the house earlier because my contacts in Derridon sent a note to me at Coldthistle. It was about your mother . . .
That lying bastard.
“One moment,” I said, putting out a hand to stall him. He twisted in the saddle, regarding me with bright blue eyes. “Do you carry the messages from Derridon, too?”
“That I do, young miss.”
“And are there other messengers that might have come through?” I asked, trying to keep my tone light and unsuspicious.
“I doubt that greatly,” he said with a chuckle. “I’m the one knows this route best. Takes me all along the Derwent. Not much need of other riders, Derridon being as small as it is. ’Sides, I know all the men and boys that be riding this road, and the rains kept ’em all holed up in Malton this ha’week.”
“Thank you,” I said with a cooling smile. “You’ve been most helpful.”
He touched his thumb to his forehead again and clucked his tongue, the horse hopping forward and carrying him off, a spray of dirt and pebbles flying up in his wake.
No riders. No messengers. I knew now what to ask Lee even if it would hurt him terribly.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Seeking the Black Elbion
Many smarter than I have wondered at the miracle of creation, at the possibility of something appearing from nothing. In a similar vein I have wondered at the origin of the Black Elbion, a book that predates all known manuscripts and scrolls, yet I myself have seen crude depictions of it in caves scattered across Europe and Africa. In Asia. In the Americas. Beings that have not yet discovered the true nature of writing record it on their walls—a square with an eye, and a crisscross through that eye. I have seen it in France, in Belgium, in Egypt, Florence, the Levant . . .
But the mysterious how of it remains. How can this single image, an image of a book, appear again and again? Naturally, historians shrug this off as a coincidence. The symbol could mean anything. Yet I know it to be the Black Elbion. I have seen the real book. I have felt its insidious power.
The book calls to men. Its inky tendrils of sin wrap around the heart and do not let go. It speaks of power but at great cost.
I saw it first in a desert. It was luck or fate that drew me there, for I was intending to track rumors of a djinn sighted outside of Baghdad city, a diabolically tedious and ultimately futile search. Instead, I met a traveler going west, a woman swathed all in black. She went on foot through the desert, though the heat and the winds bothered her not at all. At first I thought her blind or delirious, her veiled form passing by us and into the great sea of sand, but then she stopped and turned, saw our tents, and approached. She would only meet with me and waved my guides away. In her arms she carried an immense square object wrapped in fur.
When she had taken some water, she revealed the book to me in that tent. I remember the sounds of the winds screaming against the canvas, a sudden sirocco surrounding the camp, as if the desert itself wished to shield the world from the book’s unveiling. Her eyes glowed gold as she took in my reaction.
“This was pulled from the bottom of the sea before Jesus walked with his apostles,” she told me. Her English was delicately accented and she must have hailed from the surrounding lands. “The Janissaries are in pursuit. I must get it to safety. Will you help, strange one?”
I looked into her eyes and then at the red crossed eye staring up at me from the book. Here it was. Its power was unmistakable and so was hers. I did not know if I would ever see the Elbion again if I took it and its carrier out of the desert, but of course I would have to try.
“Will you go west with us?” I asked her.
She nodded, grinned, and began covering the book again. The winds died down. “We will go west. The Black Elbion wills it.”
Rare Myths and Legends: The Collected Findings of H. I. Morningside, page 301