Home From The Sea: The Elemental Masters, Book Seven (41 page)

Constable Ewynnog had been watching the cottage for three days now. The girl never came out, and there was no sign, none at all, of the husband. The first day, he had been merely suspicious; the second, his suspicions had hardened, and on the third, he determined that it was time to investigate in person.

Because Daffyd Prothero had a very handsome little cottage, that was, as he understood these things, worth a goodly sum. And the simplest solution to the problem posed by the fact that the cousin would inherit it instead of the daughter would be to marry the cousin to the daughter, then be rid of the cousin. The cottage would go naturally to the daughter, as her husband’s nearest heir, without any more interference from other relatives. And a man who had rid himself of a wife would find no great moral difficulty in ridding himself of a cousin and son-in-law as well, particularly not one that was so cordially disliked by the daughter.

Oh there was no proof that Daffyd Prothero had rid himself of his wife, but Ewynnog was mortally certain he had. “A policeman’s instincts,” he told himself.

Well, Prothero might be clever enough to fool the ignorant villagers, but he was dealing with a trained constable now, and he would find he wasn’t able to pull the wool over
Ewynnog’s
eyes. Justice would be done. And he had brought the irons with him this time, to see that it was done.

So he marched down to the cottage in a bloodthirsty frame of mind, dropped the irons down beside the doorstep, and pounded on the door furiously. When Prothero opened the door, he shoved his way inside without asking to be let in.

Once inside, a quick glance around only made him more certain that his suspicions were correct. This was no common cottage; this was something on the order of the one the squire had for his friends and special visitors. It was far more than a touch above a common cottage, it was something a prosperous merchant would live in, like the postmaster, and without a doubt it was (in the eyes of a bloodthirsty anarchist of a fisherman at least) worth killing for.

“Where’s Idwal Drever?” he demanded, harshly.

“Out fishing,” said Prothero, rousing into a sullen anger. “And by what right have you—”

“You’re lying,” Ewynnog said, just as the girl stumbled out of what he presumed was the bedroom, in clothing that had obviously been slept in, face puffy and eyes red with weeping. “Where’s the babies?”

“What—” the girl began, her eyes going wide with shock, as her father shushed her.

“What babies?” Prothero demanded heatedly.

That was enough for Ewynnog, who leapt on the man like a tiger, wrenching his arm around behind his back, and shoving him against a wall. “You lying murderer! I’ve seen those two babies with my own eyes, and you have two empty cradles right there by the hearth! Where’s the father? Where are the babies?” He wrenched Prothero’s arm higher in the proper manner, getting a gasp of pain out of him. “Where did you get rid of them? In the sea? Confess!”

The girl shrieked something unintelligible in her coarse peasant Welsh. He ignored her, as he ignored her when she flung herself at him, tearing at his arm with her fingers, crying hysterically, “Let him go! Let him go! He’s done nothing!”

He had come prepared this time, in a stout leather coat and leather gloves, so she couldn’t tear at him with her nails as these fishwives were wont to do. He had Prothero under control, so he
gave the girl a smack across the face that rocked her back, then a shove with his boot that sent her reeling down onto the floor. Since it was obvious he wasn’t going to get an answer out of Prothero, he frog-marched the man out the door, the wench screaming and crying after him. He’d left those manacles just outside, and before Prothero could even guess what he was going to do, he’d clapped the man in the irons and grabbed the chain that held the irons to the wrists. His heart sang with the glory of the justice he was doing, and the thoughts of the praise he would get from his superiors. He had a triple murderer!

And best of all, he had timed his arrival so that the villagers would be off doing their work and wouldn’t see him bringing Prothero in. He wouldn’t put it past them to try to interfere, or even to attempt to free Prothero, and he was only one man; he couldn’t hold them all off. He’d keep Prothero safely locked up until reinforcements from Criccieth could come.

“You’re coming with me, Daffyd Prothero,” he proclaimed loudly, although there was no one to hear but the weeping girl who had followed them out.

“No!” the girl shrieked, and ran at him again, but now he was ready for her, and he gave her another smack across the face that knocked her back. She fell, and sprawled in the dirt on her face. “I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Idwal Drever and his children, and I am taking you in.”

And with Prothero in tow, the girl crying into the dirt, he started the march back to Clogwyn, a walk made all the shorter by the heady wine of success.

Nan and Sarah were doing their best not to dance with impatience, but it was taking the stationmaster a hideously long time to unload the two bicycles they had brought back with them.

They had not brought them for the sport.

A few days ago, Nan had gotten a horrible feeling that something was wrong. Two days ago, Neville had come chasing after her
with her locket in his beak—the one that had sprigs of oak, ash, and thorn in it. Understanding him immediately, she had managed, somehow, to find a fairy circle on the grounds of the school and had dropped all three into the middle of it.

She had been about to declaim one of Puck’s speeches, when Puck appeared without it, and had given her the gist of what had happened to Mari since Gethin had taken the babies, so far as Gethin’s plans were concerned. Gethin intended Aled and Aneirin never to know their mother, and to set Idwal under a geas that would never allow him any freedom. Puck was angry, but not terribly worried.

“Best to get the advice of the Water Masters, still,” he counseled. “The wench is heartsick, but the tale is far from being over. Just tell them what has happened, and get their wisdom. I know what I would advise if this were Earth-creatures, and that might be the same—there are rules for these things, and the folk must abide by them.”

“But—” Nan began, about to point out that if Constable Ewynnog noticed that Idwal was gone, there were going to be some difficult questions.

“I came because you called me in distress, but I’m sorting something myself,” Puck said. “Now I must be gone.” And he vanished straight out of the ring, before she could get another word out.

Far from reassuring her, that only made her more anxious, and she and Neville went straight to Sarah.

Sarah’s startled and dismayed expression only reinforced her own alarm. “Of all the times for Lord A to be in London!” Sarah said, looking as if she wanted to curse. “Some pother or other in the House of Lords—oh
damn
politics! What do we do first? Why did it have to be
now?”

That was when Memsa’b came in, wanting to know what had them all in a tizzy, and there was explaining all over again.

“Memsa’b, how do we get back there when our tickets aren’t for another two weeks?” Sarah cried. “Nothing’s arranged, no transport
to Gower Manor, nothing! Or do we go up to London and
try
to see Lord Alderscroft? What should we do?”

Memsa’b bit her lip, and thought for a moment.

“Sarah,” she said, finally. “Get me your return tickets. I’ll have Sahib run them over to the station and get them changed for tomorrow. Nan, there are two bicycles in the shed that Gupta and Agansingh use to get around the grounds. Tell them you are borrowing them, and ask them to take them and put them in the cart. If things are at a difficult pass, you’ll need transportation you don’t need to wait for. I’ll get your traveling things together. Quickly now!”

They all moved—very quickly. Rather than wait on the morning train, they managed to catch the last train into London, and from there, took the earliest out to Wales—changing into a set of bloomer-dresses on the last train to Criccieth. The whole way, they discussed what might be done.

The problem was, as Alderscroft explained, that no one had ever been in quite this situation before, and the one and only Water Master that Alderscroft could find for them at short notice, a Lord James Cliveden Almsley, confessed himself to be at a complete loss. All he could do was to offer them some books of folk-tales as compiled and annotated by Elemental Masters—books that the girls had anxiously gone through, without coming to any actual conclusions.

“Well, the main thing is to make sure that wretched constable—” Nan was saying, when suddenly, Sarah went absolutely white.

“I think we’re a bit late for that,” Sarah said, voice tight with fury, and pointed.

Nan looked where she was pointing. At the station rain-barrel, which currently contained so many water-creatures that it looked like a barrel of sardines. And all of them were gesturing frantically at the girls, clearly in a state of near hysteria.

“They weren’t there a second ago,” Sarah said. “I was looking right at the barrel and there was nothing in it but water. Something
horrible has happened, and you can bet that Constable Ewynnog is right in the middle of it!”

At
just
that moment, the station-master came up with the bicycles, looking both dubious and a bit disapproving. At any other time they would have paused to soothe his nerves… but not now.

Instead, they turned the birds out of their carriers, tied carriers and their own small bags on the backs of the bicycles, thanked him and sped off as fast as their legs could pedal.

The road to Clogwyn had never seemed so long.

N
AN
and Sarah had arrived barely in time to keep Mari—who had gone from hysterical weeping to hysterical rage and actually gotten her hands on a pair of wicked knives and the ax—from going after the constable to murder him.

So far as Nan was concerned, that part was something of a blur. She was certain they had both flung themselves off the bicycles while the contraptions were still in motion, and it was a wonder they both hadn’t broken their necks. She
thought
she had probably gone into her Celtic warrior self before it was all over. She
knew
Neville had certainly done his startling transformation into something ever so much more powerful than a large black bird. At least the girl had finally seen sense, and allowed herself to be led back into the cottage. Once there, they brewed a pot of the strongest tea they could manage, made her eat and drink, and when she seemed somewhat sensible again, they told her the little they knew.

Nan expected her to drop straight into despair again, but instead… her face took on an expression of calm fury.

“Then we need two plans,” Mari said, surprising Nan, and from Sarah’s expression, Sarah as well. “We need to get Da away from
that constable before anything worse happens, and we need to get Idwal and my babies back. And we need to do both at the same time, or nearly.”

“Once we have Idwal and the babies, the constable won’t have a crime,” Sarah pointed out. But Nan shook her head.

“No, Mari is right,” she countered. “We need to get Prothero away from the constable and get him into hiding, and we need to do that first. Now. Otherwise he could be sent to Criccieth or even farther away, and into a proper prison, and we’ll have a cursed hard time getting him out even with Lord A’s help, because until we can get hold of Idwal and the babies, he’s going to be charged with murder. And who knows how long it will take to get Idwal and the children?”

Mari shut her eyes, clearly thinking extremely hard. Then she got up, and poured a bowl full of water and set it on the table. Nan and Sarah couldn’t tell exactly what she was doing—they couldn’t see the magic—but after several minutes, Mari said out loud, “I know you’re lurking,
Tylwyth Teg.
I’m about to give you leave to do mischief on that human in the blue coat, so you might as well come out.”

At first, there only seemed to be an odd little mist on the water, as if it was heated, though of course there was no fire beneath the bowl. But after a moment, an odd little apparition condensed out of the mist; a mostly-naked little wench, clothed in little more than her long green hair and some water-weed, with eyes that danced with malevolent glee.