I posted this as a taster, but I am re-posting as a reminder, and will add chapter 2 right away as well. Bess is now on the faculty as more than an usher, but as a Knight of the Garter must also attend such things as the opening of Parliament on November 5th.
There are those disaffected traitors who do not trust to the tolerance promised by the Queen's grandson, and of course the Necromancer of Spain is still a problem, manipulating Spain's weak king. And as if that wasn't enough, there are always the generally nasty.
Chapter 1
“I have seen
it working, but it still offends my sense of logic that astrology should work.
I don’t see how the movement of the majestic heavens can affect our small lives
below,” said Rafe Sackwild.
Roger Bray was
working on astrological charts in the staff room.
“Well, now,
it’s interesting that you should say so, for you accept that there is no logic
behind some people being able to produce blue healing flame.”
Rafe sighed.
“Yes, I accept
that some people have a talent, as some people have a talent with art or with
music.”
Roger Bray
smiled.
“Ah, now,
music, my other love,” he said. “An excellent analogy. Some people can play music, others write it,
a talent in degrees. Now as I am
beginning to see it, the use of astrology to cast the future is but a form of
meditation, and one might as well use a crystal ball or throw about seeds to
read the patterns. The talent is in
staring at the heavens and reaching an inner talent of seeing. I did once believe
in the immutable message of the heavens, but since teaching, and seeing which
scholars succeed, and which ones could barely prophecy that the sun will rise
in the east to herald breaking their own
fast, I have adapted mine own thinking.”
“Come, this is
interesting,” said Rafe, pulling his chair closer. “We must infer that you have the necessary
talent which is why you have always guided us so well in such matters as
hatching and the attacks of enemies.”
“Yes, and I
tested it by asking those senior scholars to read the heavens for interpreting
the coming year,” said Roger. “Diccon de Bercy, in all seriousness, told me
that the hens would be off lay, and that someone would have a display of
fireworks. Tangwystl informed me that
she had a tune in her head and could not listen to the stars without writing it
down. Audrey said that she was afraid
there might be something wrong with the dragon eggs laid this year, and Bess
... your good lady is very good, you know.”
“She is not my
lady,” said Rafe, blushing fierily.
“Oh for
goodness sake! You do realise we have,
those of us who have noticed, a book on when your betrothal ring goes on her
finger now she is essentially teaching full time, don’t you?”
Rafe went even
redder.
“I have not
asked her,” he said.
“I would if I
was you,” said Roger. “You want her
comfortable when Frostfire comes into season, don’t you?”
“Egad!” said
Rafe. “And she has enough trouble from
hearing all dragons.”
“Exactly,”
said Roger. “However, when not
distracted, she informed me that her reading of the heavens were that there
were somewhere eggs which were neither alive nor dead, and that someone had
deadly ideas involving gunpowder. She
got quite upset; it appears to be some plot against the Queen and young
Rob. Rob, incidentally, could not divine
his way out of a burlap sack.”
Rafe laughed.
“Nor I; I feel
for him.”
“It is not
always comfortable, Rafe,” said Roger.
“You see, I have another young sister and brother at my parents’ home,
and I have been casting their horoscopes.
And it seems likely that unless I help out, Peter is likely to die.”
“Had not you
and Lil been considering rescuing them anyway, the way you rescued Joan?” asked
Rafe.
“Lil mentioned
this, too, and Joan is keen,” said Roger.
“I cannot help thinking that it seemeth unfair to take children from
their parents.”
“As I recall
you saying that you took Joan because you feared she would be forced to be a
lady in the household of a future husband.
How old is your other sister?”
“Kate is eight
... you are right. I was disquieted
about her ...”
“You can
always call on us, you know,” said Rafe.
“Don’t forget we now have portals at our disposal. We should not have to take all the dragons if
you wanted to be a bit more quiet, though one person has to take the portal
physically.”
“There is,
however, nothing to stop me visiting, and installing a portal in place,” said
Roger.
“A good idea,”
said Rafe. “Place it in some little-used closet or on the back of a door to the
jakes; I will set about designing one painted on cloth, or – even better, perhaps to gift your stepmother with it as a
hanging, or a board, a painting of you with Skysong.”
“Indeed, it
would be something to boast of, to have a son who is a draxier,” said
Roger. “I do not think they have any
idea that I have Joan, nor that Jennyth, my niece, survived when her parents
drowned.”
“All the
better,” said Rafe. “Isn’t there a girl in Joan’s year who is artistic?”
“Barbara Kett;
yes, she is in Topaz house, and she has nobody to give her a lift home for the
holidays and lives too far to go readily.
I will offer her a trip home in payment for a painting.”
“That, I am
sure, she will be pleased to accept as an exchange,” said Rafe.
Bess whirled
into the staffroom.
“We are going
to have to rescue Marjorie!” she declared, waving a letter. “Rafe, why are you
laughing?”
“Because not
so long ago you wanted to strangle her,” he said.
“Well, I’m not
sure I’m ever going to like her, but good lack, she has had precious little
guidance from her parents, and it would be poor spirited to abandon her when we
had reached a level of understanding.
She is to be married at harvest.”
Bess passed over the letter.
“My dear friends and relatives at the
school,
My parents have indeed arranged a marriage
for me, and it is to a youth named Perkin Aston; I do not know if you recall,
but there was a sister, Mary, who was at first with the paying students. My father formed a friendship with hers, and
they plot to harm the school somehow, and marrying me to this Perkin is a seal
of their friendship. I do not like him,
he is arrogant and cruel, and I believe he might try to kill my little
drakeling, Aurelius. I am sending him to
Isobel to stay, and I beg you to help me. I do not want the school harmed, and
though I know I should perhaps stay and marry Perkin to spy on him and his
father, I do not want to do so, I am so afraid, and I am afraid for Aurelius.
Your sister, cousin and friend, Marjorie.”
“Marry! But
that’s a pretty pair of villains come together,” said Rafe.
“Yes, and
right glad I am that neither has the ear of anyone powerful,” said Bess. “I
wish we might manage to send fabric or paper gates by drakeling, but the risk
of what might happen if they twist or bend is too great.”
“I was going
to send a portrait with the runes on it, if you will place them, to rescue my
sister and brother,” said Rodger Bray.
“Plainly it is a time for rescues!”
“A time for
rescues indeed,” said Lord Essex, grimly, coming in on this sentence. “I just
had a drakeling from my sister, who was one of the first to have them. She is
married to Northumberland, the so-called ‘Wizard Earl’. She just had time to send a message ere they
were all dragged off, her drakeling was very upset, he was sending pictures of
them being bundled under blankets and thrown into coaches.”
“Her own
drakeling has an inate sense of where she is,” said Bess. “Marjorie and the
little Brays must wait, for this is urgent.
When the drakeling has rested and
eaten, he shall ride on the head of one of our dragons, and we will go in
immediate pursuit.”
“Could this be
what is intended? To lure us?” asked
Rafe.
Essex shook
his head.
“My sister
said she hid in the priest’s hole in order to write the letter, and her
drakeling remained invisible when they forced Percy to tell them how to open
it, by threatening one of my nieces; she could hear it through the
panelling. They do not know she has a
drakeling, nor that we have message. You overthink things, good Rafe.”
“I’m a
philosopher, not a soldier,” said Rafe. “But I’ll willingly fight for the lives
of innocents. I was taught the sword.
How old are your nieces, Essex?”
“Dorothy is
the oldest child, she is six; Lucy is but four.
Algernon is two and Henry is a babe in arms, born this very year when
the queen tried to get my sister Dorothy and Percy to reconcile. It has not
succeeded,” Essex said. “Dorothy was going to bring her children to live with
Frances and me, until Algernon is old enough to need more of his father.”
“Aye, that
seemeth meet to me,” said Bess. “I will
ask my coruscation to speak with this drakeling. Rodge, Lil will wish to come, and perchance
other dominies?”
“No,” said
Essex. “Let us warn them, but not leave the school entirely unprotected lest it
be a feint, and any force in place watching for many dragons leaving. We five will be sufficient, methinks, four
dragons to take me as a passenger, and
on return, another five adults, for they have taken three servants as well as
my sister and brother-in-law, I seem to understand from the pictures of
Spellweaver, the drakeling, and four small children. You can do it, can’t you?”
Bess was later
to say that he had put her strongly in mind of a puppy with the look he gave.
“Frostfire
informs me that she can take three adults and a child without trouble, maybe
more,” said Bess. “I believe her estimate to be accurate. Lil Bray’s Glitterwing can carry as many.
Duskwing and Skysong can carry two adults easily,” she added the two youngest
dragons, Bonded to Rafe and Rodge Bray.
“We shall be able to carry as many as need be,” she said.
Essex nodded.
“Then let us
array for war,” he said.
Bess had a
hollow feeling in her belly. It was not
exactly fear, though she would admit to being a little afraid. It was ... apprehension, worry more than fear
for herself. She was going to war, and
she was not sure how well she would handle it.
Though she had defended the school more than once, somehow it was different
taking the fight to others. But those
innocent children must be rescued.
Rafe gave her
a tremulous smile.
“Only Essex
amongst us is a warrior,” he said. “But
Duskwing says that those who have taken his relatives will see only dragons
attacking, and not our cringing hearts.”
“Certes, I
hope so,” said Bess. “At least Frostfire is certain that she can follow
Spellweaver’s thoughts of where to go for her mistress. They are remarkable
little creatures to find places by pictures of people, without anyone sending
them having to know where they are going.”
“It is some
innate clairvoyance, perchance,” said Rafe.
“I had not
thought of it, but you are likely right,” said Bess. “And how do we discuss this so calmly, Rafe?”
“Because the
alternative is screaming in terror,” said Rafe. “Why are we going to do this,
not the Ruby Knights?”
“Because Essex
wants gentle people around his sister and her children,” said Bess, who was
quite good at divining the way Essex thought.
“I think from what pictures Spellweaver sent, he thinks it not a large
band, and so something we might deal with easily, and he wants clever, not
martial, and friends not underlings.”
Rafe nodded.
“I don’t say
you are wrong, Bess,” he said. “And
perhaps it is as well for us to be tried and tested in such a mission, for the
thoughts Rodge has reported on his horoscopes which you, too, have returned are
sobering.”
“I fear a mass
of gunpowder somewhere, perhaps one of the palaces,” said Bess.
“I wager it
would either be Richmond, or the Palace of Westminster when she opens
Parliament,” said Rafe.
“That’s it!”
said Bess. “Good; now I might write to
Salisbury and tell him to be on the watch.”
“There are
altogether too many traitors,” said Rafe.
“And ambitious men as well as those whose religious affiliation ties
them too tightly to a foreign power.”
“Yes, and why
anyone should put a fat old man with too many rings and more lace gowns than a
London courtesan above their rightful monarch I don’t know,” said Bess.
Rafe laughed.
“Now that’s about
as unflattering description of the Pope as any I’ve heard,” he said.
“I feel
uncomfortable that Catholics appear to give a form of worship to a man, not
God-made-man like Jesus, but a man who is elected by other men,” said Bess. “I
may have misunderstood it, of course.”
“It is of no
import, so long as any worship God, but as the Bible tells us, ‘render unto
Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and unto God, that which is God’s,’ our queen
being our Caesar,” said Rafe.
“True,” said
Bess. “It is only some who would see her usurped and under the orders of the
Pope.”
“And I wager
Philip of Spain does as he pleases, whatever the Pope says,” said Rafe.
“I won’t say
you’re wrong,” said Bess.
