The Sorceress and her Lovers Read online

  “Daddy was just playing with me, Nan.”

  Saba directed his attention to the food. Scooping up large helpings of scrambled eggs, potatoes, and beans onto his and his daughter’s plates.

  “Have some tomatoes,” said Mrs. Colbshallow.

  “Do you want tomatoes?” he asked DeeDee.

  “No.”

  “Me neither.”

  “You see how it is, Yadira,” said Loana, taking the last place at the table. “The two of them gang up on me all the time. It’s always what they want and never what I want.”

  Mrs. Colbshallow clicked her tongue disapprovingly.

  “Cucumbers, DeeDee?” asked Saba, ignoring both of the women.

  “Yes please.”

  “I thought I raised him better than this,” said Mrs. Colbshallow.

  “Well, I guess you didn’t,” said Saba, winking at DeeDee, who giggled.

  Seeing his pouting wife in the corner of his eye, he relented and scooped several cucumber slices onto her plate too. “What do you have planned today that has me and my progeny up at such an ungodly hour.”

  “It’s nearly 10:00,” said Loana in a shocked voice. “And you said you would take me to watch the rugby match.”

  “And what about these two troublemakers?” he indicated his daughter and his mother.

  “Well, they’re going too.”

  “I won’t be joining you,” said Mrs. Colbshallow. “I’m joining the Dechantagnes for luncheon.”

  “Good Kafira, Mother. You’d think you still lived over there.”

  “They’ll be no blasphemy in this house.”

  “My house,” said Saba without anger. “My house, my mother, my wife, my daughter, my blasphemy, my breakfast. You three keep forgetting that I’m the man here. Where’s the chutney?”

  “I haven’t forgotten you’re the man, dear,” said Loana, getting up to bring the chutney to him, and then pausing to rub his shoulder. “But you did promise rugby today.”

  “Yes, yes. Pass me some soldiers.” He winked again at DeeDee. “My potatoes need protecting.”

  One of the lizzies placed a plate of toast in front of him.

  “DeeDee, do you know the difference between toast and Mirsannans?”

  “You can make soldiers out of toast,” she recited.

  “That’s my girl.”

  An hour later, the Colbshallow family was walking through the park toward the folding grandstand that had been erected next to the football field. It was already more than half filled, even though it was thirty-five minutes before the scheduled start of the game and neither team seemed to be present. Football was still the most popular game among the children of Port Dechantagne and of course everyone enjoyed cricket, but lately rugby had surged in popularity and all the nearby villages fielded their own teams. Port Dechantagne itself was home to seven. One of them, the Longshoreman Lions today was playing the Villa Cochon Wildhogs. Saba led his wife and daughter to a spot in the center front of the grandstand and wiped off the lacquered wood bench seat for them with his handkerchief.

  “It’s a lovely day, isn’t it dear?” said Loana.

  “It’s very nice,” replied Saba, looking around for a kiosk. “Are they selling Billingbow’s? They can’t expect me to watch a sporting match without a drink, can they?”

  “So which team are you rooting for?” said a voice right by Saba’s ear.

  “Kafira’s tit!” he said, jumping up. “How in the hell can somebody as big as you be so sneaky?”

  Eamon Shrubb sat on the seat right behind him. Shrubb was indeed a big man, about the same height at six foot three as Saba, but much heavier built. His handsome face registered shock at Saba’s language.

  “Steady on mate. Women and children. And anyway, how could I have snuck up on you. I have my whole family with me.”

  Sure enough, the row behind the Colbshallows was occupied not only by Shrubb, but by Mrs. Shrubb and their three children. Dot Shrubb was slender and pretty, with copper-red hair. The boys were all spitting images of their father. Saba Shrubb had just turned eight and his younger brother Alasdair was not quite seven. Little Homer was exactly one hour older than DeeDee, who pushed past her mother and the Shrubb boys to climb into Dot’s lap.

  “The whole damn family is sneaky,” said Saba, pointing at his young namesake. “Look at that face. I ought to run you in right now.”

  “I’m so glad you’re here, Dot,” said Loana, reaching behind to pat the other woman on the knee. “I imagine you had a much easier time getting your husband here than I did with mine.”

  “Hi Loana,” said Dot. Her voice was that of someone who had never heard herself speak. Dot had been deaf since birth, and she seldom spoke. Saba thought that she probably got on so well with Loana because she only caught about a third of what was said. “You look very nice.”

  “Thank you. And you look so lovely. I really do believe yellow is your color. You should wear it more often. In fact, why don’t you and I go dress shopping later this week? We can make a day of it and have tea at Café Etta. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”

  “Dress shopping,” said Dot, nodding.

  “Who did you say you were rooting for?” Eamon asked Saba.

  “I didn’t say. Lions, I suppose. We have to root for the home team, don’t we?”

  Eamon nodded. “I notice you don’t have a Billingbow’s in your hand yet.”

  “I was just saying. There must be a kiosk around here somewhere.”

  “Let’s go look.”

  “Come along Al,” said Saba. “We’ll need you to help carry.”

  “Can I go too?” asked young Saba.

  “Wait here and save our seats,” ordered his father.

  “And protect the women,” said Saba, as the three of them started off.

  The teams were just arriving and finding their places along the far edge of the field, when the two men and one boy located a cart selling drinks. The queue was already forming, so they quickly took their places. Thankfully the wait was not too long. Saba ordered eight bottles of Billingbow’s Sarsaparilla and Wintergreen Soda Water. After paying the 96 p, including bottle deposit, they turned back to the grandstand, their arms full of frosty glass bottles.

  They were halfway back to their seats when Saba noticed a peculiar white smoke rising up from behind the trees to the south. A second later, a loud report sounded. It was like a cannon going off, and they could feel a rumble in the ground and passing through their bodies.

  “Kafira, what do you suppose that was?” asked Eamon.

  “An explosion of some kind. Let’s get back to our families.”

  They returned to the grandstand. People were evacuating the field; no longer interested, it seemed, in rugby. Many were probably hurrying back to their homes, but others were no doubt on their way to the scene of the blast. Whether it was a boiler explosion or a cannon, there could be little doubt it provided more excitement than could either the Longshoreman Lions or the Villa Cochon Wildhogs.

  They found their families right where they had left them. The women both looked nervous, but not as nervous as young Saba. His face was filled with worry and determination.

  “I’m protecting the women,” he said, shakily.

  “Good man,” said the elder Saba. “You can help your father get everyone home to my house. It’s closer. I’ll head over to the docks and see what’s what.”

  “Maybe I should come,” said Eamon.

  “Families to safety first.”

  “Why don’t you take them and I’ll go to the dock?”

  “Because I’m the boss.”

  “Whatever you say, Chief Inspector.”

  Eamon gathered his family, as well as Loana and DeeDee, and they headed in a group to the southeast. Saba started off at a jog to the southwest.

  The edge of the dockyard was only about a mile from the football field, and as Saba was in excellent shape for his twenty-eight years, he was barely puffing when he reached it. It took him only a few mi
nutes to locate the site of the explosion. It was just outside the shipping offices. It took him only a minute to suss out what had happened. There were no remains of a steam carriage as there would have been if one had suffered a boiler explosion, and the lack of a battleship in port precluded the possibility of a cannon. It had to have been a bomb, and sadly it wasn’t the only bomb with which Saba had experience. A charred place on the cement indicated where the explosion had occurred. Scattered around the immediate area were the bodies of several dozen humans with a few lizzies among them. Some of the people were obviously alive, moaning or screaming. Others were just as obviously dead.

  Two police constables were already on the scene and, along with a number of good samaritans, were tending to the injured. Saba grabbed one by the shoulder. It was PC Partridge.

  “Have you called this in?”

  “Yes sir.”

  Saba turned his attention to the closest victim. It was a young man dressed as a dockworker. The chief inspector didn’t recognize him. His eyes were closed and he was bloody, but it wasn’t immediately clear what his injuries might have been. There was no pulse in either the neck or the wrist, so Saba moved on. The next victim also appeared unconscious, but when touched, she sucked in a breath of air. She was a woman of about forty. One of her legs was completely gone below the knee and the other looked like it had gone through a meat grinder. Tearing the already shredded remains of her dress into strips, Saba tied tourniquets around both knees. Then he moved onto the next injured person. He had tended three others: a man with wounds quite similar to the woman’s, a dead teen boy for whom there was nothing to do, and a man who had escaped with only a few deep lacerations, when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

  Turning, he looked up into the long, thin face of Mother Auni. The Kafirite priest had arrived with a ten acolytes and a doctor, all from the Port Dechantagne hospital. Leaving the rest of the victims to their care, Saba looked around again for Partridge. He found him, just as a dozen additional blue-uniformed constables arrived, led by Sergeant Richard Butler. Saba nodded to Butler but immediately turned to one of the other uniformed men.

  “Wizard Bell.”

  “Chief Inspector.”

  Bell was about Saba’s own age and was about three inches shorter. He was notably thin. His uniform seemed to hang on him. That uniform from helmet to boots was the same as any of the other constables, but on his left shirt breast, instead of a badge he wore a peculiar interlaced symbol. Saba knew what it was called—a hexagram. It was a kind of six-pointed star; the points on top and bottom were large, while the two on either side were small. He didn’t know what type of arcane knowledge it represented, but it was clearly different from the fylfots worn by the Freedonian wizards of the Reine Zauberei.

  “It seems we have a bomber on the loose.” Saba pointed to the probable blast site. “I need you to find out whatever you can.”

  Wizard Bell sat down by the charred spot on the ground and began drawing out a series of symbols in the air. Presumably he could see them, but Saba couldn’t. He could hear the familiar magical incantation.

  “Sembor uuthanum edios nit.”

  “I want four men searching for bomb fragments,” said Saba, turning back to Butler. “Assist Mother Auni as needed and everybody else canvases the crowd and takes statements.”

  The police sergeant nodded and began ordering constables to carry out Saba’s instructions. The chief inspector watched as the last of the wounded were taken away and the first of the dead were loaded into the back of a police lorry. The final casualty count was eleven—seven men, three women, and a lizzie.

  “Chief Inspector?” Saba turned to find Bell back beside him.

  “Were you able to find out anything?” he asked the wizard, while waving Butler back over.

  “Not as much as I would have liked. The bomb was placed here about two hours ago by a lizzie. I don’t think it knew what it was carrying; probably just hired to run the errand. It was a cast iron pot filled with powder and set off with a clock—ingenious really. It was wrapped in sackcloth. Built by a man: about forty, dark hair. His first name begins with an s sound, or a soft c. I’m afraid that’s all I can tell you.”

  “No need to apologize. That’s a lot to go on. Thank you.”

  “I’m impressed,” said Butler. “I’ll get it written up and on the telegraph. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  “Give it to McCoort for the Gazette. It might help flush our bomber out. Get somebody watching the train station. With no ship in port, it’s the only way he could get out of town.”

  “Or maybe he’ll be smart enough to sit tight.” Eamon Shrubb’s voice was suddenly right next to Saba’s ear. “Port Dechantagne is a big town now. He could blend in here, or he could take a room in one of the outlying towns.”

  Saba suppressed his annoyance. “We’ll just have to hope for the best.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to have off today?” asked Butler.

  “We are,” said Saba. “And now I don’t even have to waste my time watching a rugby match. Bell, take the rest of the day off if you need to.”

  The wizard nodded, looking even more pale and gaunt than he usually did.

  “Come along.” Saba turned to Eamon. “The families are at my home?”

  The other man nodded.

  “We can enjoy a few hours at least. I’m sure Loana can throw together a decent tea. Say, what did we do with our Billingbow’s?”

  “Left them in the park, I’m afraid. No sense going back. I’m sure someone’s gone and drunk them by now.”

  An hour later, Eamon stepped out of Saba’s patio door carrying two bottles of their favorite soda water and two frosty cold glasses. The three boys and DeeDee were playing a spirited game of croquet at the far end of the garden. Saba sat under a large canvas awning, his feet propped up on the edge of a planter full of marigolds. He accepted the bottle and glass from his friend, and poured the one into the other.

  “Where are the girls?”

  “Dot is watching your wife try on clothes.”

  “Poor girl. She’s probably bored out of her mind.”

  “I doubt it,” said Eamon. “She really likes spending time with Loana. I think she feels less self-conscious with her than any of the other women.”

  “I can’t see why. She makes me feel especially self-conscious.”

  “Seven year itch, is it then? I figured it was about that time.”

  “What in Kafira’s name are you on about?” asked Saba.

  “You’ve been married seven years, haven’t you?”

  “You know good and well that last Restuary was our seventh anniversary. You were here stuffing your face with our food.”

  “Well, there you go,” said Eamon. “A man gets restless in his seventh year of marriage. It’s a well-known fact.”

  “It’s amazing to me that you happen to be an expert on just about everything.”

  “Not everything. Just marriage and women and those things that go along.”

  “So, you had a seven year itch, did you?” wondered Saba.

  “We’re not talking about me.”

  “Yes we are. Spill it.”

  “Well if you must know, I did find myself a bit restless in the spring of ’09.”

  “So you found yourself a bit of ‘how’s your father’ on the side?”

  “You know I would never…” Eamon looked for a second like he would get up and sock Saba in the eye. “I would never do that to Dot.”

  “Hey, I’m not the one who brought it up. So, what did you do to cure this restlessness of yours?”

  “I built an expansion onto the house—added two new rooms.”

  “My house is big enough already.”

  “I’m just saying, find yourself something constructive to do. Accomplish something for yourself and your wife and you’ll feel right as rain.”

  “I never said I felt anything other than fine,” complained Saba.

  “Just keep it in mind,” said Eamon. “Wat
ch yourself. You can’t afford to cockup. You’ve got it all going your way now. Besides, knowing the way you are, you’d end up with the governor or the sorceress.”

  “Very funny,” said Saba without mirth. He put his elbow on the arm of his chair and rested his face on his fist, as he looked across the yard and watched his daughter hit a croquet ball through a wire hoop.

  Chapter Five: Peter

  The L.Z. Frühlingshuhn descended from the clouds toward Royal Tybalt Hall, the top stories of which had been converted ten years earlier to a dirigible port. From the great window on the observation deck, Senta Bly watched as Brech City slid by below her. The buildings all looked like toy models of themselves. The boats in the Thiss and the carriages on the streets likewise looked like the playthings of children. It was a sight well worth the cost of a ticket, even without the three-day voyage from Bangdorf.

  “It’s quite a sight, isn’t it?”

  She turned to Kieran Baxter, who was sitting in one of the comfortable lounge chairs bouncing the baby on his knee.

  “I never get tired of it,” she said.

  “Funny, I wouldn’t think it would be that impressive to you… what with you being able to fly and everything.”

  “Who said I could fly?”

  “Can you?”

  She shrugged. “Sort of.”

  “I knew it,” he said, hopping easily to his feet, still holding the child. He stopped next to the sorceress. “Look. You can see right into the courtyard of Palace Eidenia. I always wanted to look in there. I expected piles of treasure or something equally grand.”

  “Looks like they’re storing old trolley cars in there,” said Senta. “Quite the let-down, I’ll bet.”

  “It always is when your fantasies meet your realities. They just don’t hold up.”

  She leaned in close to him. Her hot breath reached his cheek and the side of his neck.

  “Perhaps not in all cases,” he said.

  The ship glided lower, turning so that Palace Eidenia was no longer visible. Instead they had a splendid view of the Palace of Ansegdniss, for 250 years the meeting place of the Parliament of Greater Brechalon. The buildings below became larger and larger until suddenly they stopped being toys and became real full-sized structures. The dirigible slowed to a stop and at last all they could see was the roof of Royal Tybalt Hall.