Chapter Six
Shortly after noon, when most of the outdoor servants were at their lunch, Taz went to check the sundial mailbox, and to leave a note asking Miss Thornton if she could think of a way to insert his spelled flowers into a vase destined for Lord Baradine’s study.
Miss Thornton was before him, bent over the sundial.
Taz spoke as he approached. “Miss Thornton. I was about to leave you a message.”
“I have one for the Hawk,” she said, taking it from the cavity and passing it to him. “My cousin has been sent to the Midlands. It is to do with the weaver riots and the machine breaking. Cousin Delia expects him back in time for dinner.”
“Mine is from me.” Taz handed her the note. “I have spelled some flowers so they will record anything that is spoken near them. Can you think of any way to make certain they go into the vases for the dragon lord’s study?”
To his surprise, she nodded immediately. “Give them to me. I am to meet with the housekeeper in the stillroom this afternoon to help her with the vases for the house. I shall make certain to slip yours in.”
“They will need to be hidden among the others so their magic cannot be sensed,” Taz warned. “Can you stroll here for a little while? I’ll fetch them for you.”
When he returned, she was strolling as he had suggested, a basket on her arm, selecting a long-stemmed rose here, another there.
Good thinking. He joined her, handed her the blooms he was carrying, and held out his hand for her shears, then followed her around the garden, cutting the blooms she chose.
If there had been an observer, it would have been an innocent scene—the lady choosing flowers for the house, the gardener cutting them for her and removing their thorns before handing them to her to place in the basket.
“The spelled flowers have a green thread tied around them,” he told her. “Will you have the opportunity to retrieve them when the vases are changed?”
“I might. I told Cousin Delia I like arranging flowers. Since she does not, I am certain she will not object to me taking her place to help the housekeeper.”
“If you cannot,” he said, “just leave me a note and I shall look for my little spies in the compost heap.”
*
The housekeeper had organized the vases that needed to be filled by room, which made it easy for Sephie to carry out her mission.
She had not been given the task of arranging the flowers for the study—the housekeeper did that herself—but the housekeeper was repeatedly interrupted by servants seeking direction, and twice had to leave the stillroom.
By the second occasion, the study vases had already been filled, and it was the work of a moment for Sephie to hide Mr. Barberry’s spelled flowers in among the rest.
It took far longer to subdue her feelings of guilt at betraying her kind hosts. But surely the Welsh cause was a just one? Her father had thought so, and given his life for it.
The Welsh had no say in government, no rights over the land of their ancestors, and no share in the profits that were made from Welsh iron and other minerals, Welsh woolen goods and other textiles, and Welsh livestock.
English and Scots landlords controlled industry and agriculture.
The few native-born aristocrats in Welsh territories sided with their fellow nobles, and not with their countrymen.
Wales wanted home rule, and the English refused to even consider it. Indeed, a politician who was Anglo-Welsh, like Sephie, had introduced a Home Rule Bill into Parliament, and people congregated outside his house to curse him, mobbed his carriage when he tried to go out, and rioted in the streets.
Sephie had told the man who came to recruit her that she did not like the violent actions often blamed on the Welsh rebels, and nor did she want to help that villain Napoleon to invade England, but he had assured her that the group to which he belonged had no such evil intentions.
All they wanted her to do, he said, was to find out what the government thought about matters of importance to the Welsh, and what actions they were likely to take. She would be doing much good for the cause, and causing no harm to the Baradines.
Nonetheless, she was lying to her cousins, and she was spying on them. It was not a comfortable feeling.
Cousin Jasper did not make her feel any better the next day when he praised her work with the bowl, and exclaimed over her discovery that singing helped to focus her power. He was amused about her accident with the apple, and thought the wooden bowl showed potential.
“I’d like you to try some of the other basic skills, Cousin Persephone. You should have no trouble with starting a fire—just try to keep it small. Shall we begin with that? Let me explain the technique as I was taught it, then we’ll see how you manage and what changes you need to make.”
Sephie had tried to start fire before, but no one had ever explained the process to her—how she needed to draw heat from a nearby fire, the air around her, or even her own body, and compress it into a ball the right size for her purpose—a spark to put to tinder, a flame for a candle.
“The same method can be used in battle,” said Cousin Jasper, “but since we do not wish to set fire to the mansion, we shall keep to a ball just large enough to do good, and too small to do harm. And do not forget to end the spell. I set light to the nursery curtains the first time I succeeded in making a flame, and all because I let go of the spell without ending it.”
He demonstrated, with one hand holding a candlestick and the other pointing to the wick.
She focused on the tingle his magic use gave her.
It was almost undetectable, as if he was exerting only a miniscule portion of his power.
A flame burst into life just above the end of his finger, and he held it near the wick until it flared into life.
“There,” he said. “Shall I show you again?”
He was so patient and kind—not at all like all the governesses she had had, and certainly not like Granny, who blew hot and cold.
Even on the days she was loving and sweet, Sephie used to be on edge, waiting for that unpredictable moment when the old lady would turn irascible, finding fault with everything Sephie did, and bemoaning her peaceful life before she had this useless failure of a granddaughter landed on her.
“I think I understand,” she said. “May I try it?”
She had been thinking about what elements she needed to put into a song. Enough heat for a small flame. Just enough to light the candle in the candlestick she had taken from the shelf—the pair to the one Cousin Jasper held.
“Focus heat to make a flame,” she sang, while carefully visualizing exactly what she wanted to have happen.
How strange that it was happening just as Mr. Barberry said, the song and tune coming easily into her mouth without her needing to think or to practice.
“Keep it small and safe and tame.” It even rhymed!
Did it need to rhyme? That was a thought for later!
First, she needed to focus on the flame.
“Just enough to light the wick, then disappear and make it quick.”
She felt a tingle just before the wick caught alight.
It worked! The flame was a little larger than Cousin Jasper’s had been, and the heat from it stung her finger in the time the wick took to catch.
But then the magical flame went out, and here she was, holding a candlestick on which a flame danced that she had made herself.
Sephie could hardly believe it. She was so excited she forgot her cousin’s warning about ending the spell.
Her power surged within her, and the flame on the candle flared up, sucking all the heat in the vicinity.
It was only her reflexes that saved her from singed eyebrows, at the very least. She sang the words, “End spell,” and the flame snuffed out before it could do any damage.
Sephie wanted to sink into the ground. She wanted to run off to her room and hide under the blankets. Instead, she apologized. “I am so sorry. I let go of the spell without ending it. And after you warned me!”
Cousin Jasper hadn’t turned a hair. “No harm done, Persephone. It is probably best you practice while I am here, though. I expect I can counter anything that goes wrong. In this case, I was ready with…” He trailed off, frowning.
He must have been searching for words, for he concluded with, “a blanket from particles in the air, which I was going to use to smother the flame. But you dealt with it yourself, and very promptly.”
Cousin Delia spoke up, startling Sephie. She had been working in the corner, so quiet that Sephie had forgotten her presence. “Well done, Persephone, and just remember, Jasper is still the winner of the dangerous fires’ stakes. At least you did not set fire to the curtains.”
“I was only five,” Jasper protested.
Which put Sephie’s accomplishment today into stark contrast. She had not even been tested until she was fourteen, and she had failed the test. She had not been able to work a simple fire spell until today.
“Try again,” Cousin Jasper said. “Most people never have to use this spell, but if you need a fire and don’t have access to tinder and flint, you will be glad of the ability. Besides, it is good practice in visualizing your goal and controlling your strength.”
So Sephie tried again, and after the third time, Cousin Jasper left her to it and went to his own exercises. She could not have been more proud.
*
There was gossip in the servants’ hall when Taz went for his dinner. The prince regent, the prime minister, and several other important people had called to consult with the dragon lord and the lady catalyst.
Taz hoped that Miss Thornton had managed to place the spy blooms into Lord Baradine’s study. The meeting must be important.
He slipped away to the lake as soon as he had finished, to report.
But the Hawk was not available, so Taz left a message with the crystal on the man’s desk, giving credit to Miss Thornton for discovering the dragon lord’s errand in the Midlands, and listing the dignitaries who were visiting today.
“The Rose and I have found a way to record the meeting,” he said.
“But I won’t have results until I can retrieve the device. ”
Hopefully, the Hawk would be pleased, though he was unlikely to admit it if he was. Hebog’s one driving purpose was freedom for Wales, and he expected total commitment from his agents.
To be fair, he gave total commitment himself.
Taz had lived with Hebog for eight years after losing his family and his home in one terrible afternoon, and still returned to his mountain compound between missions.
The man lived for the cause. Everything he did, every breath he took, was dedicated to freedom for the country he loved.
Taz imagined that, even in the Hawk’s sleep, he plotted, schemed, and labored to that end.
On his way back from the lake, he saw Miss Thornton. She was walking with the nursemaids and the Baradines’ adopted children, who were a peculiar lot.
The eldest, Miss Mary, looked normal enough, even pretty, if you ignored the snake body that emerged from under her frock.
She walked—or, rather, slithered—beside her personal nanny, who held the girl’s hand.
In a normal baby of fifteen months, such self-perambulation would be precocious, if not remarkable, but the servants said she had been able to do it even when the Baradines first brought her and her nursemaid home, shortly after their wedding last year.
Perhaps it was to do with the animal body.
Master Alfred, who was a mere nine months old, gamboled along in the midst of the group.
His calf body was chest high on the nearest nursemaid.
He had a human torso, arms, and head where a cattle-beast’s neck would be, and the human child part of him looked twice as old his actual age.
Taz couldn’t see Miss Elizabeth. She was just a few months old and traveled in a pram pushed by one of the nursemaids.
Gossip said she had a human head and upper body, and an owl’s wings, lower body, legs, and tail.
Apparently, she was still covered with hatchling down, even on her head, while her two siblings had human hair.
What would happen when she developed her flight feathers? Would she be able to fly? And if she did, would she be old enough to keep herself safe? If not, how would one look after a toddler with the wings of a giant owl and the mind of a two-year-old?
With a shrug, Taz reminded himself it would be Lord and Lady Baradine’s problem, and not his own.
The whole cavalcade had turned and were walking back to the house. Miss Thornton slowed to allow the others ahead of her, then paused to look around. When she caught sight of Taz, she nodded and smiled.
Was she greeting him? Or did she mean him to understand that she had carried out her mission? Or both?
Whatever she meant, she must have assumed he understood, for she was now following the party inside. With a shrug, Taz moved on. He had a garden bed to finish mulching, and he needed to replenish the spell against aphids on the roses.