Home From The Sea: The Elemental Masters, Book Seven (29 page)

His mouth fell open in shock. It was obvious that he had never been addressed by a female like that in all of his life. Nan actually felt a little amusement, but it was heavily overlaid by her annoyance.

His face darkened a moment later with temper. “Well, miss, you and your sister are out here, alone, without a—”

“Unless the Gower property has suddenly acquired a horde of bandits, a plague of gypsies, or an anarchist army, I hardly think we are in any danger, sir, though I
thank
you for your kind
concern
,” Nan interrupted him, her voice heavy with sarcasm. “The squire and the Manor are between us and the road, and the worst invaders we’ve had were the rabbits in the garden. We are quite all right alone, I assure you.”

His face darkened further. He
really
did not like being talked back to. “Well-bred ladies—” he began.

She was not sure where he was going with that, because suddenly something large and black—Neville, of course—darted down off the roof and knocked the helmet right off his head. And Nan was sure that if the helmet had not been there, Neville would have given the head itself quite a disorienting rap with his extremely formidable beak.

Neville bounced up off the constable’s head into a tree near the door, turned to face the man, and made hideous, threatening noises. Every feather on his body was standing out as he crouched down and half-spread his wings, looking quite ready to repeat his attack.

Constable Ewynnog was startled, and perhaps a bit frightened now. But there was worse to come for him.

For Neville was not alone. A moment later, a perfectly enormous fawn-colored bull mastiff with a black muzzle came bounding around the corner of the cottage, barking thunderously. The constable actually yelped and scuttled backwards, face white.

Nan immediately noticed the faint, green glow of magic all about the mastiff, and her quick mind put two and two together in an instant.

“Robin!”
Nan shouted,
“Off!”

The mastiff dropped to the ground at Nan’s feet as if he’d been shot, and remained there, growling. The beast was nearly the size of a fainting-couch, and only that faint glow of magic about it had warned Nan that it was very probably Puck in the shape of a dog. But when he responded to the name “Robin,” she knew she had guessed right.

“As you can see,” she said, turning to the constable. “We are quite well-defended. My pet does not react well to the appearance of strangers that he believes are threatening me, and as you see, the Gowers have lent us one of their dogs, which seems to be very protective.”

The constable remained frozen in place, mouth working, but no words came out.

“So now that you have ascertained with your own eyes that we are in no danger, thank you for your concern; my sister and I are going off for our walks.” Sarah joined her at the door, hamper in hand and Grey on her shoulder, and Nan took half the weight of it from her.

The two of them stepped out of the door, and Nan closed it very firmly behind her. She had a notion that if it had been left ajar, he would have invaded the cottage on some pretense or other as soon as they were gone—but if she closed the door, he probably wouldn’t dare to.

Not that it would do him any good. The most he would find if he searched were letters from Lord Alderscroft, which said precisely nothing, since he never used Mari’s name, but only referred to her as “your friend.” For the rest, their belongings looked exactly like the belongings of the girls they were supposed to be. Even their reading material was nothing out of the ordinary.

She eyed him with disfavor, as he stood there without moving. “I would stay where I am for now, if I were you,” she continued. “Robin always comes with us, and I am afraid he doesn’t seem to like you. Once we are out of sight, it will probably be all right to move.” She smiled evilly. “I hope you enjoy your own journey back to Clogwyn. It is a lovely day for it. You might want to call on the Squire before you leave, seeing as this
is
his property and he
does
have a right to know who is on it.”

She and Sarah set off down the path, the hamper swinging between them. Neville launched himself out of the tree, flying close enough to the constable to make him duck, and Robin got up and trotted along at their side. She didn’t look back.

“What is he doing?” she whispered to the dog as they headed off to the beach.

“Standing there like a cream-faced loon,” Robin replied, the human voice sounding very odd, coming from a dog. “Don’t worry, I’ve put it into the squire’s head that he really did lend you a dog. Welladay! Now I know what all the pother is about with him! What could have brought him out here, I wonder? Clogwyn never had a constable before.”

“Nan might not have been so far off the mark when she spoke of anarchists,” Sarah said quietly. “We’re not that far from the mines, where the men are striking for better wages.”

“They are?” Nan said, a little surprised. She generally didn’t read the newspapers, but Sarah always did.

“I shouldn’t be surprised if Parliament hasn’t put new constables all over, looking for people who are helping the strikers,” Sarah continued. “But what a pity they should have sent someone so unpleasant and so suspicious
here!
He’s a complication we could well do without!”

Puck snorted, and shook his head. “Interfering busybody that he is, he’ll probably go up to the Manor and try and bully his way around there as well.”

“I wish him luck with
that,”
Sarah said tartly. “Squire is going to show him the door as soon as he starts trying to play that game. Squire Gower might be the local gentry, but that doesn’t mean he’d consider a constable a friend or ally. And Squire is very particular about being treated with respect. He’d be much better off trying to toady up instead.”

“Little worm like that,” Nan muttered, “He’ll probably toady. Or he will if he’s the sort to bow and scrape to authority.”

“Someone like him?” Sarah made a rude little noise. “Of course he is. He won’t have gotten this position without being a toady. Not that he’ll learn anything except how delighted Squire is to have two such respectably connected young ladies as his tenants for the summer. And how many letters we’ve gotten from the great Lord Alderscroft in the last week. And how we told him we have especially
recommended Gower Cottage to Lord Alderscroft, should any of his friends feel in need of peace and quiet.”

Robin snickered. “A cream-faced loon indeed. I’ll have a talk with the rest of the squire’s dogs. I think he should have a proper escort back up the road to Clogwyn—just to encourage him to make good speed.”

“It would be nice if he had an escort of a swarm of bees as well,” Nan said, vindictively.

Robin barked laughter. “I shan’t promise anything, my pretty maid, but there are a few mischievous spirits that would enjoy plaguing him, I suspect.”

By now they were well out of sight of the cottage, and Robin turned from a fawn-colored mastiff to a white and brown one. “I’ll just double back and make sure he doesn’t go snooping and prying in your belongings,” the spirit said, turning on his heel and bounding back up the path.

“That made a good excuse—for him,” Nan said, when he was gone.

“Oh?” Sarah turned to look at her, puzzled, one hand holding her hat on as a brisk breeze suddenly came up from the sea.

“You remember him saying he didn’t want to meddle in anything that Llyr might be concerned in?” Nan reminded her. “I suspect he’s keeping well away from Mari Prothero. If Llyr—or the Selch—knew he was still helping us, they would start to suspect we haven’t exactly told the truth, and then they would want to
know
the truth, and that could put us in a very difficult situation. And Llyr might feel he needed to interfere.”

“And that would not be good,” Sarah replied, nodding thoughtfully.

“Exactly,” Nan agreed.

They walked on for some time, until Nan finally broached another subject. “When do you think we should actually tell Mari the truth?”

Sarah groaned. “I wish I knew,” she confessed. “But maybe we won’t have to. After all,
all
Lord A asked us to do was find out who she was, if she was getting trained, and by whom. Sooner or later
he is going to tell us that our work is done, and we can just go home. It isn’t as if she isn’t getting good training, and it isn’t as if she is some kind of danger or
in
some kind of danger. The worst that is happening is that she is being asked to pick one of those young Selch as a sort of temporary husband.”

“Pfaw,” Nan replied, making a face. “That’s bad enough. Maybe if she knew the White Lodge would protect her—”

“But
would
they?” Sarah demanded. “I mean, I know it would be different if Mari was a young man and really reluctant to deal with this bargain—Lord A would offer him the protection of the Masters immediately! But she’s not a young man, she’s a young woman, and I have the terrible feeling that what Lord A would say is something like, oh—”

“Young ladies enter into arranged marriages every day in this country,” Nan said, imitating Lord Alderscroft at his stuffiest. “She is one of the more fortunate! She is going to be able to
choose
her husband, it won’t last for more than two or three years, and then she will be free! Her husband is hardly likely to beat her, or indulge in drink, and the magic his kin provide will ensure prosperity for her and her father for the rest of their lives! I fail to see the problem.”

Sarah sighed. “Exactly.”

“But that doesn’t make it
right,”
Nan persisted.

“No, it doesn’t. But… well, she doesn’t seem unhappy to me. She likes us, and thinks of us as friends now. If we
tell
her, we could spoil all that and make her very unhappy indeed!” Sarah chewed anxiously on her lower lip. “Is it fair to make her unhappy just because
we
think she shouldn’t have to go through with this bargain?”

Nan sighed. This was giving her a terrible headache. “I don’t know,” she confessed. “Except I suppose we should just leave things as they are for now.”

After a few more paces, Sarah cast Nan a sidelong glance. “I know something that might make you feel a little differently about all this.”

Nan sniffed. “And what would that be?”

Sarah grinned. “That Selch Rhodri fancies you.”

Now, of all the things that Sarah could have said, this was the least likely that Nan would ever have imagined. She almost dropped her side of the basket.

“He—
what?”
she sputtered.

Sarah giggled. “He fancies you. He doesn’t fancy Mari at all, which is just as well, because she doesn’t in the least fancy him. But he certainly fancies
you.
He can’t take his eyes off you!”

“That’s only because he’s never seen a girl with a face that looks like a raven’s,” Nan muttered.

Above her, Neville quorked derisively.

“Stop that, you silly goose. You
don’t
look like a raven, and he
does
fancy you. Try paying him some attention! You’ll see!” Sarah giggled again. “I’ll even bet you. I’ll bet you… I’ll bet you that pair of gloves I’m embroidering. The blue-gray ones.”

Nan truly coveted those gloves. She loved the color, and she couldn’t embroider to save her soul. “Done,” she said, immediately. “The gloves are as good as mine, you silly wench!”

By that time they were down to the beach and walking along the shore. It looked like another beautiful day… and Nan had another idea.

“What do you think about sending for some bathing costumes and learning to swim?” she asked.

Sarah skipped at the very idea. “Oh I would
love
that! Proper swimming, not just paddling about in the surf! I’ve wanted to learn how to swim for ever so long!”

“Well, we’ve got Selch right here, and if they can’t teach us to swim, there’s no one who could,” Nan pointed out. “If we’re going to be gallivanting about the countryside for Lord A, you never know what sort of pickle we might find ourselves in. Knowing how to swim could be important.”

“Then we should ask them as soon as they come up out of the sea today,” Sarah agreed. “Besides, it will give them something to do while Mari gets her magic lesson from Idwal. They get horribly bored when they are not allowed to get her attention.”

The young Selch were already there when the girls arrived, and
as Nan had expected, they were in agreement over the idea of teaching the girls to swim.

“There’s no telling what may hap,” Rhodri said sagely. “And at least if someone throws you in a pond to test if you’re a witch, you’d be able to swim away.”

Nan blinked at him. “That’s… you surely don’t mean that?” she asked.

“Oh aye, he does.” Siarl bobbed his head. “That’s a common way to test for witches. If you’re a witch, they say, the water rejects you. If you’re innocent, it accepts you.”

“Aye,” Rhodri said cheerfully. “So you drown. But you drown innocent!”

All three of the Selch seemed to find that hilarious. Nan wasn’t quite so amused.

“But look you,” Rhodri continued, sobering. “If you really want to learn to swim proper, and not just paddle in the shallows like a pup, none of those rig-ups we’ve seen daft women in down the coast. All skirts and caps and wool—no!”

“Why not?” Nan demanded.

“Why not? Because you’ll get soaked with water and drown, that’s why!” He shook his head in disgust. “If you’re not going to go proper naked—”

“Rhodri!”
Mari interrupted him, affronted. “That’s right pagan!”

Rhodri shrugged. “And so am I,” he pointed out.

“Well, what should we wear?” Nan demanded.

“As little as possible,” he said flatly, and at her outraged stare, he added, “And ’tis not so I can see your legs, girl, nor any other part of you. ’Tis so you don’t become a corpse.”

Nan and Sarah exchanged a long look. “I suppose…” Sarah said, hesitantly.

“It wouldn’t be any worse than when we bathed in ponds in Africa,” Nan pointed out, then turned to the Selch. “No taking liberties!” she said sharply.

Rhodri leaned back, hands up in the air. “I’d never dream of it!” he exclaimed.