I slept little that night. Even so, I awoke early to don my hat and cloak, heading out one of McDowell Hall’s side entrances. A figure that might have been a Blackcoat standing across the cobblestone street caused me to pivot to a new direction. Instead of walking along the flat shores of the Tamesis, I went a roundabout way that crossed three of Dunhill’s nine hills. While McDowell Hall may reside in the wealthy neighborhood of Aldwych, it still quite a ways from the affluence of Knights Crossing, where the Duke resided.

I set to watching the gatehouse of Guillemin Hall myself. Chand would be espying from the rooftops, his color obscured with soot as he played at being a chimney sweep. While I wouldn’t know what he surveilled until we spoke that night, I was pleased to note that throughout the day a coach left and returned to Guillemin Hall not once, but three times. Behind its curtains I spotted a noble born matching Chand’s description of Lady Pawlett.

Morning, afternoon, and night, the sturdy black carriage, doors emblazoned with the Guillemin coat-of-arms and pennants with the family colors flying went and, a few hours later, returned. Pulled by two beautiful, chestnut steads, the couch started out of the gatehouse, scattering whatever unfortunates were in the way.

To my surprise, aside from the driver and a musketoon beside him, there were only four yeoman-at-arms that ran along side the coach as protection. Each was fit, wearing the Duke’s livery, and carrying pikes, clearly capable of protecting the Duchess’s person. While their numbers were less than I expected, it would still be unlikely that I could overcome them, even if Chand proved capable of using his sword cane and was willing to assist.

We discussed this at great length over the greater length of the McDowell banquet table that evening. The siblings had spent their day around the streets and mews of the great Guillemin Hall, speaking to other children, and listening in on the servants when able. From this they had gathered the critical information that the Duke would be seeing to the port in Glevum for several more days.

Discussing this over dinner, Aaron and Erin finished their meal and went to chasing each other around the Hall while Chand and I chased a plan. The Lady Pawlett was clearly keeping up a robust social schedule in her husband’s absence.

It was decided her evening departure would be the best time, with the streets less crowded with potential complications. It was her routine to go to the salon of an allied family, the Aberffraw, most nights, so we planned our abduction around the route she took most. Instead of spending my evening mooning over Chand and the emptiness of my large bed, I spent it creating concoctions for my phials. I placed each completed chemic carefully into the one of the cartridge boxes on my holster belt, the glass sturdy but capable of bursting when thrown with proper force. Given the nature of our quest, I prepared mostly incapacitating agents. Then I carefully cleaned and prepared my Kalthoff repeater and rapier.

The next evening, Chand and I put our plan into action. With my black, broad-rimmed hat and cape, I posed as a simple lamplighter along her usual route. Standing atop the crossbars on one of Dunhill’s many gas lamps, I disassembled it under the pretense of repairs, darkening the patch of cobblestone road around me. Nearby, my compatriot, face covered in the respirator mask preferred by the prosperous of Dunhill’s street vendors to protect against its constant smog, held up bottles I had prepared for him. Even masqueraded, his charisma shown as he called to the evening’s thinning crowd to buy as if the containers were filled with the Queen’s panacea. I think he may have even sold a few.

While the Duchess’s escort might not have noticed us, to their credit they were alert to danger from the rabble in the streets. Between the noise of the city’s mills and hoof and wheel on cobblestones, not much else could be heard. As such, many didn’t notice the bottle Chand threw into the guard nearest him. However, all noticed the thick gray smoke that filled the air, obscuring sight. The fumes changed the smog as milk flowing into tea, thickening it.

Chand continued hurling the smoke bottles around the carriage, throwing the yeoman into confusion. He had timed the assault perfectly, allowing me to jump from the gas lamp onto the coach. It’s roof held my weight, allowing me to put the boot to the musketoon, knocking him into the street. I put my rapier into the side of the coachman as the smoke enveloped us. I ordered him to drive or be driven through.

With the threat over his life and the smoke obscuring our numbers the coachman rallied the horses to full gallop, causing further panic in the streets as pedestrians scattered. We had barely left the chemical cloud when I snatched the reins and shouldered the driver off the carriage. I felt a weight tilt on the wagon, and glanced to see it was Chand, top hat in hand, pulling himself onto the driver’s bench beside me. I grinned with the mad joy of it and whipped the horses faster. I directed the team through a twisting series of streets in an obscure route down towards Gallowgate. 

The alley next to a four-penny coffin was our destination. In a part of the city with overcrowded houses and too many feet, it was one of the few spaces with enough room for her Ladyship’s carriage. With the horses halted, Chand and I both hopped down, mask and scarf in place to hide our identities. Chand yanked open the carriage door and I aimed the repeater in, the better to threaten her Ladyship into submission.

Lady Pawlett had clearly ascertained the direness of her situation. She had cast aside her feathered hat and hiked up her dress to better make a run for it. Seeing our banditried faces, she put her left hand over her right, making me think she was reaching for a pepperbox or hidden blade.

We should have been so lucky. She flipped open the lid on a pillbox ring. I pressed my scarf to my nose, expecting her Ladyship to throw her own cloud of irritant or poison. Instead, something purple and very solid emerged, growing into a slick-surfaced sphere within moments. It’s enlargement was so strange, I thought it might float away. 

Instead it burst free from the carriage, unfurling many appendages not unlike the leaves of an orchid. These outgrowths sprung from its eyeless mass, launching itself at us as it continued to grow.

The limbs of this impossible mollusk wrapped around Chand who cried out in surprise before it silenced him into muffled asphyxiation. Looking from it to the small ring it had emerged from, I quickly surmised, “Left-Handed Path.”

Lady Pawlett grinned as her monstrosity gave her the upper-hand. “You had better assist you fellow ratbag before the Devil-Garrote chokes the life from him.”

Instead of doing as she ordered I threw a vial of hypnotic into the carriage and slammed its door shut. While her Ladyship struggled with the soporific, I bent to the abomination that now covered Chand’s face, crushing his hat as it smothered him.

Pulling at its arms proved useless. Its boneless appendages possessed a demon’s strength. Its bulbous, eyeless center provided a target that I could attack with little possibility of harming Chand. so I stabbed at it with my rapier, pushing with all my strength to run it through. The thing’s purple hide proved as resilient as its extremities and the tip of my sword only drew its attention.

Before it could lay its tainted grip on me, I fired into it three times with the Kalthoff, causing it to wobble like a child’s toy until it exhaled a repellant gas, fowling the air as it deflated. I helped Chand to standing as it withered, shrinking until it could have returned to her Ladyship’s ring.

Chand reached for his crushed hat, attempting to salvage it, telling me he was shocked, but unharmed. I pulled open the carriage door to let the hypnogogic gas roll out into the alley harmlessly at our feet. Even in her desperate strait, the Duchess had clawed at the door opposite us, her hand still on the handle as she had fallen under sedation.

The streets beyond the alley had begun to become raucous even for Gallowgate. Widows and orphans leaned out from poorhouse windows to see what the commotion was. Chand quickly bundled Lady Pawlett up while I set the horses free. I did not know what fate awaited them, but it could not be worse than service to someone who walked the Left-Handed Path.

We moved as fast as we could, carrying her Ladyship as one might a carpet, until we arrived at our destination. Unwilling to hide our captive in McDowell Hall, we entered a disreputable tavern, a place Chand assured me both proprietor and patrons knew how to be selectively blind. From a back entrance we moved to a room we had rented in advance.

As speedily as we moved, Lady Pawlett was regaining consciousness by time I sat her in a chair and Chand bound her to it. His work became most challenging at the end as she began to thrash against the bonds. I hoped the chintzy chair would be sturdy enough to keep her.

Chand and I both retained our masks, his respirator and my scarf, as he pulled off the bag that he had placed over her Ladyship’s head. I expected screaming, cries for help, or begging, but instead she eyed us through the perspiration that rolled out of her now disheveled hair. In a distinctly unladylike tone, she said, “Oh, piss on you, you pigeon-livered vazeys.”

Both Chand and I said nothing, surprised at both her resilience and her language. I recovered enough to begin, “Your Ladyship, we are – “

She interrupted with, “Oh, I think we’re passed formalities, don’t you? My name is Glenda. You may address me as such.” A lock of her hair fell from its previously well-coiffed bouffant, which she blew out of her eyes. “What are your names?”

For the first time, I carefully studied the Duchess. She was younger than I had anticipated, perhaps at the beginning of her third decade with only the slightest blush of makeup, so expertly applied only the sweat causing it to run made it detectable. She was slender, as was the fashion, an impressive feat considering the delicacies that would be available to a woman of such standing. Her dress was made of the finest fabrics, not by any slave or factory, but clearly by a skilled tailor.

Seeing me eye her, Lady Pawlett’s initial vulgarities dropped away into the crisp speech I expected from someone of her personage. “Come now, don’t be shy. What is your name?” When I continued to be mute, she indicated my partner with a nod of her head. “I already know who this handsome young man is, yes? Chand, isn’t it?”

That stopped us both cold. Before we could think of how to proceed, she continued, “That respirator hardly covers your lips. Next time, perhaps you should use a physician’s peaked mask? It would disguise more.”

In a rage I had never seen from Chand before, he ripped off his mask and pulled his knife. Before I could think, he leaned over her Ladyship, pointing his blade at her throat. “How do you know my name?”

Lady Pawlett lifted her chin, eyes locking with Chand’s. “My husband has many bastards. It behooves me to keep track of all of them. And you, of late, have made much noise, have you not Chand Fitz Hindustan?”

With this new information and her Ladyship’s continued resilience against intimidation, Chand slowly withdrew both his person and his knife from her. I took the opportunity to insert myself between him and the woman that had expelled him and his mother onto the unforgiving streets of Dunhill. “I think I’ll keep my name, your Ladyship.” Chand shot me a glare as if this were a personal betrayal.

Lady Pawlett shrugged as best she could within her bounds. “Very well. To business then. Am I a hostage for ransom? Or has a rival noble commissioned my kidnapping?” She grinned, a gleam in her eye, “Or perhaps a foreign prince? One of those tall, Roslagen fellows?”

Glad my scarf hid my continued surprise as well as my face, I said, “Fortunately for you, none of those. But we all know noble families such as the Guillemin keep lockboxes on their premises in case of emergencies such as the ones you describe. You will tell us where in Guillemin Hall such items are kept and how to access the crowns therein.”

Glenda eyed me as if sizing up livestock. “You are of noble birth.”

Thinking of my father, the country doctor, and his occult ogre brother that murdered him, I chose the former in this instance. “No. I merely possess manners and an education.” Seeking to reverse the dynamics of the situation I added, “I am most curious, though, where you learned to cuss like a back-alley brawler?”

She laughed at this, a sound like breaking glass. “Oh, what an interesting opponent you would make if you were to live through the night.”

Damn this unflappable woman. “You won’t need worry about that once you’ve told us where the gold is kept in Guillemin Hall.”

Lady Pawlett raised her chin. “Why would I do that?”

“Because it will set you free. Once we infiltrate and take it all you will be released from these appalling surroundings.” Even with the Duchess radiating impervious smugness, I could feel Chand burning with anger behind me. It was like being caught between two celestials, one burning bright, the other cold.

I pivoted on the room’s rotting floorboards, indicating my partner, his features pinched with his barely restrained emotions. “Or I will turn you over to him, the one you cast out from your noble home and into the streets of Dunhill.” Returning to her Ladyship I said, “I wonder what skills he’s learned to survive in such a desperate place?”

“You killed my mother,” Chand seethed.

Whether this statement increased our intimidation or continued to tilt things in Lady Pawlett’s direction, I could not tell. Either way, it produced her first reaction beyond imperiousness. “I did no such thing. I merely insisted your father banish her from the house.”

“Which is why she died!” Chand hissed.

“Hardly,” her Ladyship rolled her eyes. “Your father is Guillemin V, the Duke of Glevum. He could have moved her to another estate, or returned her to his holdings in Hindustan. But he was too afraid of scandal, even with all his philandering. I could never divorce him, or force his hand. But he fears my whispers.” She snapped her teeth shut on the last word.

“Then all you need do is whisper to us the location of Guillemin Hall’s lockboxes and you can return to your marital bliss,” I laid out in a flat tone counter to Chand’s rising anger.

Lady Pawlett briefly considered this. Then, “No.”

Surprised as I was by her bearing under the duress of being kidnapped, the flat refusal still nonplussed me. Chand’s reaction was stronger. His knife hand came up again and he stepped closer to our hostage. “Then we’ll send you back to him a piece at a time.”

The savagery behind this threat must have been as unexpected to Glenda as it was to me. For the first time a pall fell across her face. Gently, I placed a hand on Chand’s bicep, feeling the tensed muscle there. “Glenda, my companion’s enthusiasm makes a point. You will not leave this room alive if we do not leave without instructions on how to find the Hall’s gold.” I looked at her closely, watching color return to her face even as she stared at Chand’s blade. “Why would you tempt that fate?”

Glenda sniffed and turned her gaze away from the blade. “My husband may be afraid of scandal, but he isn’t afraid of hurting me.” She stared at me with clear green eyes, rubbing her shoulder against the grain of the rope. “He has means of making pain you cannot conceive of.” 

At these words I felt Chand’s arm relax. While he didn’t lower his blade, the Duchess’s words gave him pause. I interjected with, “The beast from your ring is proof that you walk the Left-Handed Path. How do you think the Blackcoats or Redcrosse Knights would look upon that?”

Glenda ignored Chand’s continued glare to evaluate me. “It is one of the reason he fears my whispers. I do not walk his path but was married into it by arrangement.” Seeing me in something of a kindred spirit, she added, “And it is one of the reasons I fear him more than I fear you.” As if to regain her composure, she gazed around her squalid surroundings. “Even as you hold me here.”

“I am surprised the Duke would allow himself to be married to such a strong-willed woman.” Remembering her vulgarities from before I added, “And one of common stock.”

Lady Pawlett fluttered her eyelashes. “He’s certainly had moments to regret it, but he was the one who insisted upon it.”

“Then we are at impasse,” I said before realizing I was giving away too much, but having done it, continued. “We have no wish to hold you through the long and dangerous process of ransom. Nor can we allow you to return to your husband to tell him of Chand’s identity with nothing to show for it.”

This caused Glenda to laugh, a mad sound in the squalid room with Chand holding his knife close to her. “You have much less time than you think.” She shrugged one shoulder as if attempting to loosen her bindings. “He has branded me. He’ll be able to find me once he returns.”

“That will be a number of days, my Ladyship. Terrible things could happen in that span of time.” I imitated the academic tone of my maths tutor, a practical man who also taught me how to play cards and as such, quite a bit about bluffing.

“Indeed,” Lady Pawlett conceded. “May I suggest an alternative?”

Both Chand and I looked at her expectantly. 

“I suggest you murder my husband.” She said this in a manner as if requesting we trim her garden.

Certain I had heard her words correctly, but unable to immediately process them, I wittily replied, “Come again?”

She looked at me. “I would have escaped if you hadn’t dosed with me with whatever ether you threw into my carriage. You must have a chemist’s knowledge. Or access to one.” She did not speak to Chand, but indicated him with a tilt of her head. “And he must remember Guillemin Hall. He was there for years before I discovered how my husband defiled his mother.” I felt Chand bristle at these words and returned my hand to him. Having never seen him angry before, I found great pleasure in the knowledge that my touch calmed him.

Lady Pawlett continued crisply, “I will provide the Blackcoats incorrect information on my would-be kidnappers and a tale of my escape. You will be able to disappear into the backwind of the city. And you will provide me with the death of my husband.”

“Surely your Ladyship knows that as a woman you cannot, by law, inherit your husband’s estate.”

“I’m quite familiar with the ridiculous primogeniture laws that govern the Empire. However, I have a son. And he’s young enough that he will not miss the sum I will pay you with to kill his father.” She smiled in such a way that made me fear for her progeny.

I felt Chand begin to move again, but this time he shrugged off my hand. Before I need say anything he stepped behind Lady Pawlett to cut her free of her bonds. It was a rare enjoyment to see her surprise and relief.

Chand grabbed the only remaining chair in the room and moved it to face her. “Then let us talk terms, Glenda.” Elbow on his knee, he pointed his blade at her. “Please keep in mind you are bargaining for your life. Not just one in which you return home, but one in which you will soon be free of your husband.”

Rubbing her wrists, Lady Pawlett straightened herself. “Very well. You’ll earn every copper. As I’m sure your friend knows, a Lord of Dunhill always expects to be poisoned.” 

See the author’s published work here.

To read the previous chapter, go here.

Related Posts

• 

  The Dunhill Usurpers, Chapter 2

• 

  The Case with No Client, Conclusion

• 

  The Case With No Client, Chapter 3