The Witch Watch (19 page)

The men played cards in their free time. Gilbert adored cards, but the games were ruined by constant cheating, brawling, arguments, and other interruptions. Instead, he saved his coin and spent it on improvements to their quarters. He had been assigned the evening watch, and so spent his free time during the day mending and cleaning.

“Very nice,” said a man named Plump when Gilbert had finished. “You sealed up that annoying hole that was letting in all the fresh air.”

“You will be glad that the wall is mended in a few months when the winds turn cold,” Gilbert said. He gathered up his tools and went inside to check his handiwork.

“But we have to put up with the stench now,” Plump replied. Other men in the room muttered their agreement.

“The stench would be less intense if you men kept yourselves cleaner. If the viscount gave us a pig it would refuse to lodge with you. I keep my own bunk and uniform according to military standards. It only takes a few minutes.”

“Actually, your bunk is the one making the foul smell,” One-eye said with a wheezing laugh.

Gilbert looked, and saw that someone had relieved themselves on his bed. He roared in outrage, and the men erupted into laughter.

“No!” screamed Gilbert.

They had ridden all night, and reached the house in Rothersby sometime before dawn. He had pushed the group relentlessly, only allowing for two brief stops. With each passing hour he hoped for some sign of their prey on the road ahead. He became more anxious as the hours wore on and their own horses began to reach the end of their strength. Both Alice and Simon had begun to falter on the way, their heads nodding in the saddle as he drove them onward.

They arrived to find what he’d feared the most: The house standing open to the night air, and no sign of the men they were chasing. They had already gone. Gilbert drew his sword and stormed up the path, leaving Alice and Simon to wobble after him as they were able.

He rushed through the front door. “Mother!” he cried, “Mother, are you alright?” He heard a stirring in the kitchen, and ran to investigate. The room was dark, but Gilbert caught sight of a large shape moving about in the moonlight. Gilbert lunged and grabbed the figure, throwing him against the wall.

“No! No! You promised to leave me alone! I don’t know anything else!” the man cried.

Light filled the room. Alice had arrived, carrying a lantern. Gilbert found himself looking into a familiar face.

“Leland?” he said with surprise. He looked different than Gilbert remembered. He’d put on quite a bit of weight in such a short time, and his face had been recently beaten. One of his eyes had swollen shut, and the other was filled with tears. “What are you doing here?” Gilbert asked at last.

“What?” Leland asked in dismay. “I live here. Who are you? Are you with those other men?”

“You live here?” Gilbert said in confusion. “This house belongs to Victoria Hiltman.”

“It did. I bought it from her three years ago. I already explained this to those other men. She moved to America. Jump on a boat to New York if you want to see her so badly. I’m nothing to do with her.”

“Three years?” Gilbert said in dismay. He released Leland and turned to face Alice. “What year is it?”

“1885”, said Leland and Alice in unison.

Sometime later, Gilbert found himself sitting on the steps in front of the house, staring off into the darkness. A warm light came from inside the house now. Simon and Alice had remained with Leland, and were tending to his wounds. Gilbert felt very alone, and lost.

Alice emerged sat down next to him. They waited together for a while in silence, save for the occasional yawn from Alice.

“Are you all right?” she said at last.

“You mean aside from being dead?”

“You seemed stricken when you learned you’d been dead for three years. The swords you’ve had in your chest have done you less harm than learning the proper date.”

“I don’t know how I went for so long without realizing it. Why did I never ask the date?”

“We don’t usually ask what year it is when we wake up. If you awakened with the feeling that you had not been asleep long, you probably trusted that notion, however wrong it may have been. You said yourself that your memories were scattered. I assume you have not recovered them?”

“Some. But I still don’t recall how I died. A bit more takes shape each day.”

“Forgive me if this seems callous, but I don’t understand why learning the year has been so upsetting. Certainly you missed the last three years, but that seems a small loss in comparison to the loss of your natural life.”

Gilbert drew in a long breath, which produced an unsettling sound. He didn’t need breath and he was pretty sure he didn’t even have lungs, but his body seemed to magically move air around as if he did. He was in the habit of taking a slow breath when gathering his thoughts, and apparently that habit had followed him beyond the grave. “My father died when I was about seventeen. I expected the funeral would be painful, after which the pain would fade. It would get easier as I got used to his absence. But when you lose someone, you don’t just lose them once. You lose them a thousand times. The funeral was the easy part. The hard part was the first meal without him. My first birthday without his blessing. Our first Christmas without him. The day I left for the military and he wasn’t there to see me off.”

“My father died three years ago,” she said quietly. “I’m still discovering moments like those.”

“Well, I seem to be going through this again, but for myself. For my lost life. I keep thinking about all the things I’ll never do. I’ll never get married. Never give Mother the grandchildren she always wanted. Never get to have the career I wanted. Never own my own house. Three years have vanished. Mother moved back to America and I never got to see her off. I wonder if she even knows that I’m dead.”

The wind stirred. The trees swayed, dark clouds of shadow against the starry sky. Unlike the trees in Ravenstead, the trees here had not yet decided to give up their leaves, and were noisy in their movement. Alice shivered and rubbed her arms to keep warm.

“Gilbert,” she said, looking down at the dark stone at her feet, “I am sorry I was so uncaring towards your mother. Back at Ravenstead, I mean.”

Gilbert nodded.

“The danger is not yet passed, I fear. I spoke with Leland about his attackers. Is he a relation of yours?”

“No. He was just a neighbor. I guess he bought our house when Mother returned to America? I wouldn’t have expected that.”

“Well, Mordaunt’s men took him for a member of your family. They treated him badly, as you saw, but they threatened him with far worse. These are horrible men we’re chasing. In the end, Leland bought his own life by telling them where to find Mrs. Hiltman.”

“I wonder if they’re really willing to go all the way across the ocean to inflict their harm on me,” Gilbert said, looking down the road as it ran west.

“Leland seemed to think so. They were very interested in how to find her, and the distance didn’t seem to concern them.”

“Did you say anything to Leland about us, or explain why we had invaded his home?”

“I baked him a story. It was not wholly true, but truth was among the ingredients. I told him we were chasing a group of ruffians, and that we only invaded his home because we expected to find them inside. I’m not sure what he’ll make of your confusion over the date, but there’s nothing to be done about it.”

“Did he recognize me?” Gilbert asked suddenly.

“No. Not that he let on, anyway. He didn’t seem to recognize you as someone that he once knew, and I’m sure he didn’t recognize that he was speaking with an abomination. In truth, I think his wits are in worse condition than his face.”

“Do you think he suffered any permanent damage?” He was surprised to find out how concerned he was for Leland’s well-being. He never cared for the boy, and thought him too slow and lazy, but it enraged him to think that an innocent party had been so senselessly harmed on his account.

“I’m sure he’ll be fine in a few days. They threatened him with a knife, but struck with their fists only. The damage didn’t look nearly as dreadful once Simon had cleaned the wounds. He has some skill in treating injury. He is quite unexpectedly gentle and timid for a sorcerer and a servant of Lord Mordaunt.”

“More slave than servant. I don’t think he ever had any choice in the matter until tonight.”

“I think you should hurry and stop the men who are set on harming you mother,” Alice said firmly. Gilbert thought this almost sounded like an order.

“You’re not coming with us?” he asked.

“I have to report back. You are mourning the loss of your own life, but I have to report the loss of four men, including our captain. I suppose we will eventually be assigned new personnel, as we have in the past. We’ve lost men before, of course, although never this many at once. The Ministry is in ruins. The men are all dead, save Archer. Lieutenant Jack is now our adversary. And I am still missing my father. No, I can’t go with you. Do you have any money?”

“A little. I found that some of his Lordship’s men had coin in their pockets after I pulled them off of the end of my sword.”

Alice nodded.

“So I am no longer under arrest?” he asked.

“I would say that you are, but I no longer have the means to restrain you.”

“What about Simon?”

“I have not placed him under arrest, and I would not do so now.”

“You’re letting a necromancer go free?”

“Not if he plans to engage in further necromancy!” she said testily. “I imagine you don’t realize it yet, but you will need his help. You can’t do business without a face. If you intend to inhabit the civilized world, you will need someone to speak for you. It would not do the princess any good to have you run off alone, where your nature would eventually be discovered. You would soon find yourself fighting the church.”

“I’m not afraid of the church,” Gilbert said defiantly.

“You should be. What they lack in skill is more than offset by their numbers and their tenacity. They destroyed many abominations before the Ministry was created, and I’m sure you would fall to them once they brought their full strength to bear. And even if you think you have greater cunning than most abominations, just
think
of what such a contest would look like. You would be obliged to slay dozens of zealous young men. Even if they are poorly trained, or misguided, their aim is to defend their homes from the ravages of witchcraft. How many of those men would you cut down to save your mother?”

“You are right,” Gilbert relented. “I will need to use my head more than my sword if I want to reach her.”

Alice yawned again, “Are you off now? It will be dawn soon.”

“I don’t think so. Our horses -
your
horses, really - are spent. I will need to see to them. Simon as well. Once we’ve taken some rest, we’ll head for Liverpool. Hopefully I can catch these men before they board the next ship to America.”

To Gilbert, the British Isles were inhabited by three brothers: The English, the Irish, and the Scottish. Each was likable, honorable, and made for good company, save for the fact that they unaccountably hated each other for the most inscrutable reasons, and vigorously denied their brotherhood. (There were also the Welsh, who were somewhat unifying. The other three agreed that no matter how much they might dislike each other, the Welsh were worse. Gilbert hadn’t encountered many Welsh, and did not have any opinion on them either way.)