Chapter Four
Geography is a science of measurement;
for example, “How many minutes until I can
get out of this mosquito-ridden bog and go for a beer?”
Blazing Trails , W.H. Jackson
For a brief, stark moment, the tourists stared dumbstruck. Then all at once they sprang into action; which is to say, produced binoculars and barometers, excitedly looked around for signs of magic, and demanded one another get out of the way because it was impossible to see clearly with all the parasols and mustaches.
“Ahoy!” Hapsitch shouted, pointing to a levitating stone. “Poltergeistic activation at two o’clock!”
“Polter-what?” Elodie murmured to Gabriel, who did not respond. He was pulling a thin coil of braided iron and gold from his trouser pocket and hooking it around his left ear. Prompted by the sight, Elodie removed a similar crescent wrapped about her wrist and attached it with practiced ease to her own left ear. The simple device offered protection against any thaumaturgic sound waves that might disrupt one’s thoughts, although in Elodie’s experience its greatest effect was merely to make one look thrillingly expert.
Gabriel attempted once again to warn the tourists of their peril, to no avail. “This is ridiculous,” he growled as he watched them try to catch blazing pebbles in upturned hats and parasols. “They’re not even listening.”
“So they get enchanted,” Elodie said. “It’s their own fault.”
“It’s our responsibility. We are the professionals here.” He said this as if she needed reminding; as if he suspected she was half-inclined to join in the foolishness, which of course was utterly preposterous and insulting and goodness what a fantastic catch from the lady with the white-feathered hat!
“The point is,” she replied, “these people have been informed of the risk. It’s their choice if they wish to court a hideously painful death.”
Hearing this, the tourists paused, glancing anxiously at one another. “Did she say hideously?” someone whispered.
“When people are being irresponsible,” Gabriel countered, “it is incumbent upon the sensible among them to take charge before someone gets their hair set on fire.”
“Egad!” exclaimed a Miss Trevallion.
“I say, that’s not very jolly, old chap!” cried out one of the gentlemen.
“And what about free will?” Elodie argued, setting her hands on her hips.
“What about it?” Gabriel asked, as if free will was something he, as a university professor, simply could not countenance.
“Why shouldn’t they let magic transform them into frogs if that’s what they want?”
“Frogs?” squealed the other Miss Trevallion.
Gabriel shook his head. “The middle of a thaumaturgic squall is not the place to debate philosophy.”
“Codswallop!” Elodie retorted.
“That’s your best argument? ‘Codswallop’?” Gabriel was too proper to scoff outright, but Elodie had no difficulty imagining that he was doing so on the inside.
“I can offer ‘ absurdité ’ if you’d prefer me to move you in French,” she said.
This provoked him into a patriotic scowl. Her took a step closer to her. She tossed back a loose strand of hair and stared him down (or, more accurately, up, since he was some four inches taller). The air between them crackled with a magic considerably more potent than that which was exploding pebbles on the road beyond.
“Er, excuse me.” Algernon’s thin, shrill voice crept into their taut silence.
They both snapped their heads around to glare at him, and he squeaked, leaping back. “Don’t hurt me! I only thought you should know…”
“What?” Gabriel demanded.
“Er, the people have left.”
Glancing around, Elodie saw the tourists disappearing into various buildings. A raindrop struck her face with a sudden, tiny burst of cold, followed immediately by another. The storm cloud was going to break open at any moment.
“I’m finding shelter,” she declared haughtily. Snatching up her ER kit, she began to stride along the road. Some fifty yards away stood a large brown building, lumpy with old, weathered rock, capped neatly by a slate roof from which bulged two smoke-wreathed chimneys. A white picket fence encompassed its small, exuberant garden. A wooden sign hanging above its door depicted a sheep holding a beer mug in its mouth, which suggested the premises were an inn or perhaps a brewery. Quite frankly, Elodie felt excited about either of those possibilities. She quickened her pace. Gabriel followed, Algernon close behind.
None of them noticed a trio of elderly women half-concealed behind a hedge, watching them closely.
“So the servants of the old Queen come, tempest-tossed and bringing shadows with them,” one remarked in a crackling voice.
“What?” said the other two, staring at her. “Why are you being weird, sister?”
She bristled. “I’m talking about those scientists. I didn’t expect the Home Office would actually send someone to manage the disaster.”
“It’s damned annoying,” another added. “I’ve been making a fortune from these tourists.”
“I do like the girl’s knickers though,” said the third. General murmurs of agreement followed this.
“So when shall we three meet again, sisters? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?”
“Er, what’s wrong with in the house, Betty?”
“Hey, is that a cow flying over by Lew Jones’s cottage?”
“Well, damn. Looks like someone’s getting steak for dinner tonight.”
—
The building proved to be an inn named the Queen Mab. Its lobby glowed with luxuriant, red-gold light from a peat-burning hearth fire that promised warmth, coziness, and slow death from carbon monoxide poisoning. The geographers could not enjoy it, however, for the proprietor stood in the doorway, barring their entry. “You’re joking!” he said with a laugh. “You want three bedrooms?”
“Two, if that’s all you have available,” Elodie said, “since I’m sure the gentlemen will be happy to share a—” She stopped, noticing Gabriel’s scowl. “Three bedrooms, please.”
“I don’t even have one that I can offer you, lady. I’m full up. So’s the Taliesin’s Harp, the Pendefig Dyfed, and the Gwalchmai fab Gwyar’s Golden Tongue.”
“A village this small has four inns?” Elodie said with surprise.
In response, the innkeeper took a brochure from a table beside the door and handed it to her. Elodie stared rather bemusedly at its image of sheep dancing on a rainbow above a plum orchard.
D?lylleuad!!
For a Magical Vacation!
You’ll See Stars!
Disclaimer: neither the D?lylleuad village council nor associated service providers shall be liable for any injuries, up to and including concussion that results in seeing stars, due to being struck by thaumaturgic forces and/or airborne cattle.
“Oh dear,” Elodie murmured. Obviously this was what Motthers had meant by “another problem.”
“We’ve got tourists coming out of our ears, what with the Magical Extravaganza.” He gestured with a flourish when he said this, like some kind of used carriage salesman. But his expression was implacable. “I can’t help you at all.”
“Drat.” Elodie regretted now having made Algernon leave his tent behind—although then again, camping near an unstable thaumaturgic fey line during a thunderstorm was, while not a risk to one’s life, certainly a risk of continuing that life in the form of a shrub or unusually tall chicken.
“Three pound,” Gabriel said. Everyone looked at him.
“What are you saying, mister?” the innkeeper asked.
“Yes, what are you saying?” Algernon echoed with alarm.
“Three pound,” Gabriel repeated. “Per room.”
A pivotal moment of silence followed…
“Per night,” he added.
“Per night, hey?” The innkeeper grinned, stepping aside to allow them inside. “As I’ve been trying to explain, of course I can help! Croeso, fy cyfeillion. Never let it be said that a Welshman isn’t happy to let Englishmen come in and take over his house! The lad can have my youngest boy’s room, and my daughter’s should suit you and your wife, good sir.”
Instantly, Elodie’s pulse tumbled into panic. But there was nothing to be done: they were caught between a rock and a hard place—or, more accurately, no place at all.
Besides, sharing a room was no disaster. After all, nothing existed between her and Gabriel except a marriage license (and a subscription to The Fashionable Scholar magazine, which kept turning up in Gabriel’s mailbox despite Elodie having informed the publisher repeatedly, and increasingly desperately, of her correct address). The tremulous feeling in her heart as she glanced at her husband indicated no more than a desire for some tea after the tiring journey from Oxford.
In fact, not even that. An inclination for tea. A vague wish . There was no desire in her whatsoever.
The innkeeper led them indoors, saying that his name was Mr. Parry and he was entirely at their service (so long as they paid cash, extra for linen, and purchased their meals on the premises). “What brings you to D?lylleuad?” he asked as they went upstairs.
“Dr. Tarrant and I are geographers,” Gabriel said. “We’ve been sent here by the Home Office to investigate the thaumaturgic disturbances.”
“Investigate?” Parry echoed sharply. “What do you mean by that?”
“To inquire into the facts of a matter,” Gabriel answered. “From the Latin vestigium , to trace.”
“It’s our job to identify problems,” Elodie said before the innkeeper fell too far into confusion, “and fix any insofar as we’re able.”
“I don’t see why you need to investigate or fix anything,” Parry said sniffily. “No one’s been hurt. Except old Ellis Jones, but he shouldn’t’ve been smoking his pipe in the street. And it was completely unrelated that Lloyd Brown turned into a daisy bush. Besides, after the drought, we’re grateful for magic, we are. It’s done wonders for our economy. We’re going to be the next boomtown, even bigger than Llandrindod Wells, I’m sure of it! They just have healing spa waters. Our waters explode!”
“I hardly think—” Gabriel began, and Elodie interrupted before he sacrificed the Second Rule of Fieldwork: don’t cause trouble with the locals (the First Rule being take your own toilet paper with you, just in case ).
“How long have the disturbances been occurring?” she asked.
“About a month,” Parry said. “I’d just extended the inn to better cater for tourists coming out from Aberystwyth on day trips, so it was lucky timing for me.”
“Speaking of Aberystwyth, is Woodrow Jackson a guest here, by any chance?”
“Indeed he is. Odd chap.”
“Odd?” Elodie prompted warily. It was the kind of word people tended to use about Professor Jackson when they were too polite to say things like “addled” and “I didn’t understand that ‘disaster expert’ meant literally being an expert at causing disasters.”
Parry cleared his throat. “Well, for one thing, he told us he was a chair at Aberystwyth University. Obviously not in his right mind, thinking he’s furniture. He went up to Devil’s Knob yesterday, and we haven’t seen him since. If he’s not back by tomorrow, you can be sure that I’ll—”
“Send a search party?”
“Rent out his room,” Parry corrected.
Elodie chewed her lip worriedly. She retained an exhausting memory of the last time Woodrow Jackson went up somewhere alone then had to be dug out from the resulting landslide. Had he met trouble again, or was he just camping while he assessed the geographic situation?
Weighing these two possibilities, she added rescue the professor to her mental list of Urgent Tasks.
“Where is Devil’s Knob?” she asked.
But evidently Parry thought that, if he told her, she’d investigate and thus single-handedly destroy the village’s income, for he muttered something about “over that way,” accompanied by an imprecise wave of the hand. “Here we are now, these rooms are for you.”
Without a word, Algernon dashed into his and locked himself inside. Parry turned toward the other. “I apologize in advance for all the magazine pictures of Prince Albert Victor on the walls,” he said. “My daughter is a romantic.” And with that portentous word, he opened the door.
It was worse than Elodie had feared. She managed perhaps four steps into the room before every muscle in her body seized with anxiety. Beside her, Gabriel also stopped, his breath catching. Together, they stared at the bed set against one wall. It seemed to stare back at them coyly, all frilly pillowcases and pink embroidered roses. It did not even appear to be only one bed but a mere three-quarters of a bed, alarmingly narrow beneath a lavish heap of counterpanes that made Elodie feel overheated just looking at it. Light so pale as to be practically bridal white slanted through a window to illuminate the bed within the room’s warm duskiness; and indeed, if other furniture existed therein, Elodie was blinded to it by the gleaming, enticing, quite terrifying thing that was rapidly transforming from a bed to a torture device in her mind.
She began to regret not developing calm sobriety as a character trait. Her pulse had begun acting out an Italian opera while her imagination was already cozy in that bed with Gabriel and really, really not helping matters by sending her various animated images. Beside her, the real Gabriel seemed petrified—i.e., turned to stone.
Parry, oblivious to their taut silence, bustled about, tidying things away. “I’ll bring you up some fresh linen (five shillings). And if you come to the taproom, I’ll let you sample D?lylleuad’s finest plum brandy (fivepence per glass), or you might prefer a nice cup of tea to warm you up (threepence, milk and sugar extra, plus a teaspoon hire fee). It’s not a large bed, I’m afraid, but I hope you’ll be comfortable.”
In fact, it was so opposite of large, it might have served as an official antonym for the word. Elodie guessed it would prove barely adequate for one person, let alone both her and her estranged husband-cum-nemesis…
And that was a very unhelpful thought to have under the circumstances.
“All right, then?” Parry asked.
“Mm,” Elodie said.
“Hm,” Gabriel said.
They set their ER kits down with a simultaneous thump .
“I’ll leave you to it, then. And if you want—oh, bother. I didn’t realize that had been left here.” He dragged a rolled-up mattress from beside the dressing table. “I’ll just take it away to give you more—”
“No!” Elodie and Gabriel both shouted.
“That’s fine, don’t trouble yourself,” Elodie said with an urgent smile.
“It’s no trouble,” Parry assured her, hauling the mattress toward the door.
“Really, please, you’ll hurt your back,” Elodie insisted.
“I can manage, I can,” Parry insisted right back.
Abruptly, Gabriel stepped into his path and grabbed hold of the mattress. Laughing awkwardly, the innkeeper clung on. Gabriel tugged; Parry tugged; both of them frowned. Finally, Gabriel gave a decided yank, and Parry stumbled backward, relinquishing his hold. Gabriel clutched the mattress as if the very fate of the world depended upon it.
“Thank you so much for everything,” Elodie said at once, rushing to shake Parry’s hand. “We’re truly grateful,” she added as she guided the man toward the door. “You’ve been marvelous. Thanks again.”
And she shut him out of the room.
Turning back to Gabriel, she attempted a smile, but he had set the mattress aside and retreated to the edge of the room, where he bent over his ER kit, assiduously avoiding eye contact. Good, Elodie thought. I don’t want to look at you either . She crossed to the window on the other side of the room. They were now as far from each other and the bed as possible, an interesting case of geographic triangulation Elodie did not wish to explore. She peered out through the window’s mullioned panes, checking the atmosphere.
Thankfully the villagers had gone indoors, for the sky over the village writhed with a dark morass of storm that shed bright splinters of magic along with the rain. Trouble was not just afoot but organizing a parade.
“With this weather, we probably have four more hours of light at most,” she told Gabriel.
“Three and a half,” he said, checking his wristwatch, and Elodie rolled her eyes. “I’m going to inspect the immediate area for hazards.”
“I’ll survey the locals,” Elodie answered. Taking a beige linen skirt from her kit, she donned it hastily. It was only mid-calf length—a risqué style that was permitted in a disaster zone, since although Britain’s population liked their women in long dresses, they liked even better being protected from river tsunamis and exploding wildflowers. “Shall we meet for dinner to compare notes?”
“Agreed,” Gabriel said. He put on a long black coat, and while Elodie buttoned her skirt, he took a notebook and pencil from one pocket, his spectacles from another, and settled in with a contented frown to check items off a list. Then she noticed him glance in her direction, and the frown deepened . He added something to the list before promptly ticking it, his pencil moving with a stoicism that made Elodie suspect the completed item was make polite conversation with wife .
Although upon second thought, no, that couldn’t possibly be it, since he’d not done so the entire day .
She ought to have been annoyed. Instead, mischief bubbled up within her like a witch’s brew. Dignity tried to repress it—but given that an extensive education, the opinion of society, and several warning letters from her head of department had always failed to do so, her rather scrawny allotment of dignity had no hope. She smiled at Gabriel.
“And how are you?” she asked in a pleasant voice.
He looked up at her blankly over the fine silver rim of his spectacles. “What?”
“Well, I hope? Enjoying your days?”
A shadow of wariness darkened his eyes. “Why do you want to know?”
Elodie’s smile lounged back, putting its feet up on a metaphorical table. “Just making friendly chitchat.”
The shadow of wariness became a midnight of distrust. “Chitchat is inappropriate under the circumstances.”
“I would contend that the circumstance of a husband and wife about to sleep together in the same bedroom veritably demands chitchat.”
“Your argument contains several fallacies.”
Ah, here came her annoyance now, shoving mischief aside and tilting her chin up. “Only if one is being pedantic,” she replied coolly.
“One is being accurate . For example, I will be sleeping on the mattress on the floor, therefore the word ‘together’ does not apply.”
Elodie huffed a laugh that was about as far from real humor as one could travel without requiring a whole new kind of map. “You’re a geographer, you ought to appreciate the concept of relative distance. Also, you can’t sleep on the ground. Everyone knows that doing so gives you a headache.”
He cast her a look that said you give me a headache so plainly, no words were required. The conversation slammed to an abrupt halt. Elodie yanked her ER kit open with enough force to tear the lining. Gabriel removed the umbrella from his own kit with such vigor, it smacked against the dressing table. Elodie dragged out a coat (not noticing it was actually a purple velvet dressing gown) and pulled it on. Gabriel tossed his notebook on the dressing table (then straightened it and set the pencil exactly parallel alongside). Finally, snatching up her own umbrella, Elodie strode for the door.
At the exact moment Gabriel also strode for the door.
They collided.
BOOM!
Thunder shook the house—or else it was Elodie’s pulse rampaging through her veins. “Excuse me,” she said primly as she moved aside.
“Excuse me,” Gabriel said at the same time, stepping forward to open the door for her.
They collided again. The very air seemed to clench its thighs together.
“Ladies first,” Gabriel said with a politeness so extreme, it could have established its own religion.
“No, no,” Elodie said. “After you.”
“I insist. I think we’ve had enough troubles at doorways to last us a lifetime.”
This reminder of their wedding day, and her thoughtless comment that had so offended him, made Elodie blush scarlet. Without further ado, she marched out to the corridor. Gabriel closed the door behind them and followed.
Arrogant sod, Elodie grumbled to herself as she stomped over the creaky, timeworn floorboards. Obnoxious, irritating, arrogant sod . She could feel that arrogance pushing against her back, inspiring her to walk faster. Light from a window at the end of the corridor sent the shadow of him to loom like bat wings around her, domineering and darkening her world. Even his bloody shadow is arrogant, she thought.
Suddenly, she could repress her feelings no longer. Stopping abruptly, she turned, and Gabriel only just managed not to collide with her a third time.
“Just to be clear,” she announced, “I didn’t mean what I said about our deal.”
“Deal?” he repeated confusedly. He’d forgotten to remove his spectacles, and Elodie could see herself like a white star in one lens, superimposed over the night of his eye.
“On that day,” she clarified.
“What day?”
Elodie shook her head, astonished by his deliberate obtuseness. How could he so easily forget The Scene in Holywell Street After Their Wedding? The look on his face when she’d told him she’d got what she wanted from their marriage deal occupied a prime position in her own memory. She could not blame him for having been so aghast at the time; after all, they had just spent two days transforming the notion of “marrying for convenience” into something a great deal more interesting, and if only Elodie had taken better care with her words, she’d not have given the brutal impression that she considered their relationship to be anything less than a beautiful, enrapturing dream.
She’d also have followed Gabriel after he walked away, instead of going in the opposite direction.
Of course, standing in a pub’s corridor a year later did not exactly represent the ideal opportunity to explain herself, but she’d not had Gabriel so close to hand before—which is to say, she’d not dared to linger so long in his presence lest she trip over her own tongue again and make matters even worse. But considering the proximity they had been forced into on this assignment, clearing the air at least seemed worth an effort. And thus, with a perturbed spirit, and much fluttering of her heartbeat, she said, “I misspoke, that day. Although really, I cannot wholly blame myself. I’m sure any newlywed woman finds herself quiverish—”
“Quiverish,” Gabriel repeated blankly, as if she’d just spoken in Old French.
“Yes. And who can be eloquent under those circumstances? However, I take full responsibility for my mistake. I’m good at doing that, you must agree. I’ve certainly had enough practice. ‘Never was there a girl so proficient at making mistakes,’ as my mother likes to say. Indeed, one might even—what is that?”
Gabriel blinked at her. “What is what?”
“That.” She pointed over his shoulder at a framed picture of the Queen Mab that hung crookedly on the corridor wall.
Gabriel glanced back. “It’s a painting,” he said.
“I mean, what is the symbol drawn above the inn? The three spirals?”
Gabriel peered closer. “A triskelion. It’s an ancient Celtic symbol.”
Elodie raised her eyebrows. “I’m surprised you know something like that.”
“Then why did you ask me?” He straightened the painting, moving it back and forth by tiny degrees until it was exact. “As it happens, there’s one etched on the door of my parents’ house, since my father is originally from Snowdonia.”
“Really?” Elodie could not contain her amazement at this revelation. “You’re Welsh?”
“Half-Welsh.” He looked at her with mild surprise. “Surely you knew? You’ve borne the name Tarrant for a year now.”
While this wasn’t quite so exciting a statement as You bear my name, you’re mine would have been, had he only applied a little zest to his vocabulary, it nevertheless made Elodie feel like the storm had swooped in through her body, leaving her scattered and a little damp in places. “Thank you, but I need no reminder,” she replied archly. “So…do you speak Welsh?”
He frowned. She took this to mean yes.
“In that case, shouldn’t you be the one checking on the locals instead of me?”
His frown darkened. This time, she translated it as a most definite no.
“Fine.” Her feelings bubbled over again, and she didn’t even try to contain them. How could she simultaneously adore and dislike this man so much? (Mind you, she felt the same way about blue cheese, so clearly it was possible.) “This should be a straightforward job. Today we assess the immediate situation, tomorrow we make any necessary repairs to the fey line, and the next day we go home. Then you won’t have to be bothered anymore. And I’ll sleep on the mattress on the floor, so don’t worry about that either.”
“Bothered by what?” he asked.
Pretending she hadn’t heard this question, Elodie went to leave, but Gabriel moved to block her path. Arms crossed, head tilted aslant, he regarded her in much the same way he would a new rendition of an old map. “Bothered by what?” he repeated.
But Elodie hadn’t spent the past year ducking out and disappearing as often as possible from any potential confrontation to start now. “Shouldn’t you take those spectacles off?” she asked. “You only need them for looking at things up close.”
“My focus is exactly where I want it to be. Bothered by what, Elodie?”
“We ought to keep moving, we’re wasting daylight.”
He stared at her for a further taut moment, then shrugged and turned away. “I’m never bothered by anything,” he muttered as he went down the stairs.
Elodie almost laughed. How could such an intelligent man be so lacking in self-insight? He was a six-foot-tall, perambulating, jaw-clenching embotheration, and Elodie was not prepared to suffer any dictionary on the matter. Gabriel Tarrant’s level of tetchiness deserved a whole new word all its own.
She made a face at him (which didn’t count as undignified behavior since he had his back to her, therefore could not see it). Behind the grimace, however—er, and several inches beneath it—her heart ached like a heroine standing on a cliff’s edge, wistfully contemplating the horizon.
“If I was the sort of person who got bothered, I wouldn’t be working as an emergency geographer,” Gabriel grumbled. “And I will be the one sleeping on the floor.”
“I’m not asking you to do that,” Elodie said.
“I know you’re not. I’m saying it. I am a gentleman.”
“A gentleman wouldn’t argue with a lady. I will sleep on the floor.”
Reaching the lobby, he stopped, turning to her once again. For a fleeting second, she glimpsed in his eyes something that looked a lot like her own repressed misery…
BOOM!
Thunder crashed, reminding them of the disaster awaiting them beyond that of their own relationship. Elodie rubbed her forehead wearily. Gabriel frowned, of course.
“We’ll discuss this tonight,” he said. Which meant he considered the conversation permanently closed.
Elodie’s wistfulness combusted in a flame of irritation. “Don’t talk down to me,” she retorted, stepping on the lobby’s stone floor with a clunk of her bootheels, forcing Gabriel to move back. Unfortunately, because she was shorter than him, this resulted in him literally talking down at her.
“I’m not,” he said.
“Listen, I know you’re miffed—”
“Miffed?”
“—but if we’re to do a good job here—”
“Miffed!”
“—we need to work as—what is that?”
“What is what?” he asked with unconcealed exasperation.
Slowly, Elodie raised a hand, pointing behind him. “That.”
Gabriel glanced back, and his expression unraveled.
“Good lord. What the hell is that?”