Кейт Форсит - Relics, Wrecks and Ruins - Anthology of Speculative Fiction Short Works

To outside eyes, I knew I looked composed—it was the Grayle way—but every nerve in my body had coiled into readiness. If Charles was dying, or already dead, then his social and political protection was gone. My time had run out. Vengeful Isabel may have already called the Brotherhood. If she had, then forty-nine men and their forty-nine wary knives would be waiting for me inside, all intent on prising Havarr from my dead abomination hands.

I paused in the tower doorway, listening. The immense marble entrance hall stood empty, the butler’s desk unattended.

All quiet. Rather too quiet.

Seek the others , I ordered Havarr.

She phased out from her skin-sheath, the sudden loss of her weight within my arm a familiar jolt. Her elegant length hovered at eye level—no handle or hilt, just blade etched with its singular starburst design—then arrowed towards the back wall and disappeared through the marble. I felt her phase and solidify, phase and solidify as she swept through the building to the very edge of our energy bond—a radius of about three hundred feet——each shift like a tiny ebb and flow of power through me.

No other wary knives. No Brotherhood.

Yet I felt her unease as she resheathed into my forearm, only one layer under the skin instead of her usual three. Battle ready.

I stepped into the hall and looked up the impressive marble staircase. Shall we see what this is about? I asked. Her tense assent twanged across my mind.

Onwards, and upwards, then.

To add to the strangeness, Isabel stood at the top of the twelve flights waiting for me, impeccably dressed in a garnet silk gown and a delicate lace cap. No footmen and no butler. But then each floor had been empty of staff too. The building had been cleared.

She watched me ascend the last few steps. I expected a comment about my breeches and boots, but she only squinted in sartorial pain and gave a nod of welcome.

“Mathilda.”

I returned the nod, but before I could say anything she added, “Charles is dead. You should have given him the knife.”

Two years ago, at our last encounter, Isabel had demanded that I give Havarr to Charles to ensure his survival and the family’s fortune. A wary knife changed a person, their constitution enhanced in many ways including increased stamina and strength. But there has always been only one way to separate a wary knife from its partner: death. I suppose a good and dutiful wife would have at least considered the demand. I, with a regrettable lack of propriety, told her to piss off.

Now, she observed my silence with pursed lips. “Still the same Mathilda, I see. Come, we have business.” She turned and headed down a corridor, the walls lined with portraits of glowering Grayle forebears.

Although I had not seen Charles for nigh on three years, it still felt like I could not breathe. I pressed my hand to my chest as I followed my sister-in-law, feeling my steady heartbeat. One did not spend twelve years alongside a man without some emotion becoming attached to him, good or bad. In our case, good and then very bad.

Isabel stopped outside her private chamber. Her face—so alike her brother’s with its jutting nose and broad forehead—was composed, but bore the swollen evidence of past tears. If Charles was dead, she should be wearing mourning black. The news had not been released.

“When?” I asked softly.

“Early this morning.”

“His heart?”

She bent her head in stiff acknowledgment.

Charles had been born with the Grayle weak heart. “I’ll not make old bones,” he often said in the early years of our arranged marriage. The prophecy had upset me then, when we were still trying to like each other. Later, when I hated him, it had been a hope and a wish. Now it was a piercing regret. We had lost the chance for anything else: forgiveness, friendship, even perhaps an odd sense of family.

“I am following Charles’s last instructions,” Isabel said, voice clipped.

She opened the door and stood aside for me to enter.

The room had been redecorated since I last visited: the walls papered in the new fad for the botanical, and the old heavy mahogany furniture replaced by a deep blue, velvet chaise lounge and a secretaire in the scrolled and gilded Roman style. In pride of place near the window—and somewhat at odds with the Empire theme—stood a command chair from one of the plague ships, its smooth metal lines and attenuated shape built for the strange, elegant length of its Celestial captain.

The door to the adjoining room opened and an older man, dressed in the sober black garb of law, entered and carefully closed the door behind him. He held a number of wax-sealed packets.

“Countess Grayle, may I present Mr. Dorner,” Isabel said behind me. “Charles’s private solicitor.”

Mr. Dorner straightened his waistcoat with a quick tug upon its hem, and bowed.

“My condolences, Countess. Forgive me for rushing through the niceties, but time is of the essence and we must conclude this business before Lord Grayle’s demise is made public. His Lordship gave me instructions to be enacted upon the event of his death. As you know, his estate, including the earldom and Grayle Celestial Transport, is entailed and will pass to his cousin upon his death.”

I winced at the word entailed. The loss of the estate and title to cousin Gregory, a profligate of the first order, was my fault; I had not produced the all-important heir.

Mr. Dorner held up the packet, showing me the unbroken seal with the Grayle bear pressed into the wax. “If I may, I shall open it and read the contents to you both. It is what Lord Grayle wished.”

I nodded. So, Isabel was to be witness. To what?

Mr. Dorner broke the seal with a flick of his thumb and spread the paper. He looked up. “The document is dated yesterday, my ladies.” He began to read. “I, Charles David Paul Hallam, Earl of Grayle, do state that I am the father of the male child George Charles Paul, borne by Miss Katherine Amelia Holland, of London. I also state that, Mathilda Elizabeth Grayle signed the attached divorce settlement and that after that signature I married Miss Katherine Amelia Holland by special license and do hereby acknowledge her issue as my rightful heir.”

“There is a child?” Isabel demanded.

“Yes, my lady.” Mr. Dorner shot an anxious look in my direction. “There is a son. Born one month ago. A currently illegitimate son.” He cleared his throat and addressed me. “It was Lord Grayle’s dying wish that you sign this divorce document…” he held up another packet “…so that his marriage to Miss Holland is—or should I say will be or, more to the point, will have been…” he gave a small shrug at the awkward grammar of fraud “…legal, thus making the child heir to his estate.”

A son. I knew there had been another woman, but a son? I could not seem to make any sound.

“He has already married her?” Isabel asked, not yet following Charles’s twisted path. “But he is still married to you, Mathilda.”

Mr. Dorner’s pasty skin deepened into a flush. “The ceremony occurred yesterday, but the date has not yet been placed upon the document. It will be written in after the date of the divorce has been affixed.”

“A divorce needs to be ratified by an Act of Parliament,” Isabel said sharply. Ah, she had arrived.

“Lord Grayle has a great deal of influence,” Mr. Dorner said. “If Countess Grayle signs, it will be… will have been… ratified last week.”

Fury finally seared through my numb shock. “No!” Havarr phased out of my arm into the air beside me, twirling into a blur, her battle scream rising in my mind.

Mr. Dorner and Isabel flinched, both of them hastily backing away.