Iridescent blue flashed as a feathered draca landed in the tree beside me. It appeared very like the one from London. Whimsically, I called up, “Did you follow all this way?” He cocked his head, a spectacular songbird until you noticed the scaled face.
I visualized a page of a different Telemann, Fantasia No. 8, and whistled the first few notes.
He sang those back, then sang the rest of the phrase.
That was unexpected. “Have I played that for you?”
A second blue-feathered draca winged to the branch. I had never seen two together. The scales on their faces differed. The first was unquestionably the draca from London.
They piped the opening four bars of the Fantasia in two-part harmony, every note perfect although raised an octave. Alongside the coaches, wig-adorned heads turned. I stood uneasily, the image of Telemann’s score lodged in my mind while the notes danced.
A third blue draca flipped to a neat landing at my feet. They were astonishingly adept fliers, agile as barn swallows and having the same forked tail, but as large as robins.
More heads turned. I muttered, “Shoo,” and kicked a clod of dirt. The draca winged away.
Emma was not the only one with someone to care for. I walked to the coach behind ours, tapped on the coach door, and called, “Miss Bathurst?”
There was a rustle, then the door unlatched, and a drawn, freckled woman’s face smiled hesitantly. “Miss Bennet. I was asleep.”
“You should sleep, then.” She was still recovering from ingesting crawler venom at the ball.
“No. I do not want to. Please join me.”
I climbed in and closed the door. “Let me check your bandages.” Obediently, she turned her back. I had helped her dress in this nightgown, the drawstrings removed to keep it loose. The bandages around her shoulders and upper back looked and smelled clean, but I unwound a strip to check. The scabs were crusted and rising into angry red scars, but dry. “The cuts are no longer weeping. That is good, but they will become very itchy. You must not scratch.” The back of her head nodded obediently.
Gently, I felt the ring of bruises around her neck. At the ball, those had beenhidden by a velvet choker. I had rather liked chokers, but after her halting revelations of captivity, the thought of wrapping a throat for decoration turned my stomach.
I pulled her blanket up to end the examination. “Your back is healing well. I must find you a proper dress at Pemberley. We will be overrun with royals.” That emerged with ill-advised distaste, so I forced a light tone. “Perhaps you will be introduced to the Prince.” I lifted her chin with a finger, watching her pupils shrink in the brightness. “How are the cravings?”
“Strong,” she said simply. “That poison was so foul. It burned my tongue. But if I even think of it…” A pink flush colored her freckled skin. “I do not shake anymore, at least.”
“I think it is like laudanum dependency. That requires weeks of recovery.” Her face fell, so I added, “Youwillrecover. This was done to you, but you can undo it. You have triumphed through the hardest days. Pemberley has references on draca and crawlers. An index listed crawler venom. When we arrive, I shall read that for advice.”
“I am much better. My memories are less clouded. You make me feel brave enough to speak of them.” She drew a long breath. “Mary, they have another woman captive.”
An unwanted image of a woman, butchered and dying, snapped into my mind, crisp as an anatomist’s diagram. I hid it behind an image of the Pemberley library index. “Do you mean Miss Rees? She also attended the ball.”
“Not poor Joane. I know she was killed. It was another woman. They brought her only a day before the ball. She was not yet… fully tested.”
“Then you must tell Lord Wellington and Mrs. Darcy.” They had interviewed Miss Bathurst once already, seeking clues about the captive wyves.
“No!” She clutched my sleeve. “Can I not tell you instead? Mrs. Darcy scares me. After I swallowed venom at the ball, I felt her come for me. She was dark and howling. She was like crushing ice…”
That was unnervingly similar to Lizzy’s own description, but I said, “That was fantasy from the poison.”
Miss Bathurst bit her lip. “Pardon me. Of course. She is your sister.”
“Tell me what you remember, and I will tell them.”
“When we were first… caught… they tested us with the venom. To see how strong we were. Only those who survived were brought to be imprisoned in the house.”
A lump settled in my stomach. “Some did not survive?”
“Most did not,” she whispered. “The man who hurt me was so cruel. Worse than an animal, as animals are not mindfully evil. He joked about how only the best-bred English wyves survived, but it was not really a joke. They argued endlessly about how to choose unmarried women with strong draca affinity. Should it be status? The family’s history of binding? For the last wyfe, they chose a friend of Joane, although Joane’s mind was so lost by then, I do not think she recognized her.” She pinched the black fabric of my dress. “She wore the same clothes as you and Joane. I heard her name, but I cannot recall it…”
Joane had only one good friend among the Marys. Frightened, I almost blurted it out, but that would compromise her answer. When interviewing, the patient’s lips speak truth, not the doctor’s.
Carefully, I prompted, “Miss Bottle? Something like that?”
