A woman in black walked past with a wrapped object approximately the length of a butter churn or rifle. “Excuse me,” Cecilia said, and the woman paused. “Would you be able to direct me toward Chanters House?”
“Sorry,” the woman replied. “Not from around here.” Without further word, she hoisted her parcel against her shoulder and crossed the street toward the teahouse.
“I think it’s that direction,” said a gentleman passerby, tipping his head toward the northwest. Cecilia was caught between gratitude, alarm that a male stranger had addressed her, and bewilderment that he was carrying a steering wheel beneath one arm.
“Thank you,” she said, and he lifted his hat politely before crossing the street.
She looked in the direction the gentleman had indicated, wondering if it might be wiser to ask for more specific guidance from a shopkeeper. Her immediate options were limited: a gentlemen’s tailor, a butchery, and a purveyor of popular magazines. Clearly the only shop she might enter without damage to her reputation was the butchery, but she disliked the atmosphere of violence within such a place. She was turning to see what might exist further along the street when a woman almost collided with her. Cecilia instinctively reached for her concealed pistol before remembering she was surrounded by innocent civilians.
“Watch where you’re going,” the woman scolded, then hurried across the street, drawing a long knife from her sleeve as she went. Another woman with a cutlass met up with her and they nodded to each other before continuing toward the teahouse. Cecilia turned backto the shops, thinking that she could visit the bakery farther along, where she might ask for directions and purchase some shortbread at the same time.
Three large men in black coats, each carrying guns, strode down the center of the street. Pedestrians began hurrying away. Cecilia checked her fob watch. Half past one. She might even have enough time to tour the village museum on her way back from the library. She had been on the lookout lately for a small silver dish in which to keep her earrings, and museums often had fine, inadequately guarded specimens of these.
Pleased with this plan, she replaced her fob watch, straightened her gloves, closed her parasol, withdrew her pistol from a lace-trimmed pocket, and turned sharply on her heel.
With two quick shots she felled one of the men in the middle of the street and sent the others running. She then spun back to embed her parasol’s blade in the arm of a woman hurrying up behind her with a sword. The butcher slammed his door shut, the tailor pulled down his blinds, and as Cecilia began striding toward the teahouse she noted with relief that the civilian population had fled. There was nothing worse than having to shout at people to run—most indelicate indeed.
Tossing aside her blood-soaked parasol, she pulled a small revolver from her waistband and shot it and the pistol at the remaining two men just as they reached the teahouse’s door. A bullet skimmed one’s arm, but it was too late—The Ancient Mariner was beginning to levitate. Both men leaped up through the open door and slammed it shut behind them, and the building rose sharply.
Cecilia considered shooting at the windows to destabilize the magic but decided the risk to the innocent pirates within would be too great. She could do nothing but stand helplessly in the street, laden with guns and regret, as the hijacked teahouse was maneuvered up and away from Ottery St. Mary.
The entire Wisteria Society had been kidnapped over tea and scones!
“Bother,” Cecilia muttered. It appeared that she’d have no chance of getting to the Chanters House library anytime soon.
“Arrrghh!” screamed someone furiously behind her. Turning, she shot the sword-wielding woman who was attempting once again to rush at her. The bullet struck the woman’s leg and sent her sprawling in the dusty street. Cecilia watched her for a moment as she cried and writhed in pain, then went to knock at the butchery door.
“Go away!” the butcher shouted from within. “I have knives and I’m not afraid to use them!”
“That is exactly what I need,” Cecilia replied. “May I beg your service? There are two people bearing gunshot wounds out here. Neither is fatally hurt but they require medical treatment. Would you be so kind as to assist them? I must hurry away myself.”
“What? You want me to what?”
“I believe butchers have surgical skills? Thank you, sir, for helping, it is very neighborly of you.”
“But that’s just a myth about butchers! I can’t even saw the cow bones neatly!”
“And yet I notice you have fine premises here, so you must be intelligent and industrious. I’ll leave the injured in your capable hands.”
“You want me to save the lives of two pirates that you shot?”
“Yes. I’m terribly grateful.” She stepped away, then, upon further thought, returned to the door. “Just perhaps don’t wear any valuables while helping them. Good day, sir, and my regards to your wife—er, if you have one, that is.”
Holstering her guns and gathering up her skirts, she hastened back through the village and along the hedge-rimmed lanes toward that distant field where the Wisteria Society battlehouses stood waiting for mistresses who would now be long in returning—if they ever did.
8
grand theft domicile—manna from heaven—captain morvath defines captaincy to captain lightbourne—a sniveling jellyfish—ghosts of cecilia’s past—more manna—hot-air balloons—they meet again—captain lightbourne is unmasked (twice)—a duel ending in an explosion—cecilia quits the field
Gentleness! How far more potent is it than force! Captain Morvath knew this to be so and calculated that, while the Wisteria Society could resist his wrath if he went into the field with all guns blazing, they would grow pliant under his surreptitious breaking and entering. Therefore, while The Ancient Mariner was being hijacked in swift and dramatic fashion, back at the strawberry field the gentlemen, servants, and tiger, on alert for frontal attack, were unaware that Morvath’s henchmen were picking their door and window locks, slipping in unobserved, and whispering the flight incantation beneath stairs and behind drapes. By the time the households realized they had been abducted, there was little they could do.
Mr. Rotunder and his crack troop of chambermaids did attempt to overcome their foes, but this resulted in the house crashing into a cow byre near Buckerell. Morvath’s crew were defeated but the house wason its side and Mr. Rotunder in need of a glass eye and several wooden teeth to add to his collection of replacement body parts. Therefore the household played no further role in the coming drama and instead had their own spin-off, wherein they reoriented their house with much hilarity, fixed the byre, dallied with the local gentlemen in humorous fashion, thwarted the robbery of the local tavern (and then robbed it themselves), and enjoyed bacon and eggs every morning thanks to the obliging farmer and his wife, who had been saying only the day before that the byre needed a new roof, and took these events as the generosity of the heavens.
The other households wisely surrendered and were transported unharmed to Morvath’s secret domain deep within the Blackdown Hills.
Ned watched the piracy from beneath an oak tree where he had established himself as supervisor of events, and where he sat drinking wine from a bottle and laughing every now and again to himself. It had all been too easy. Considering these people were professional thieves, they had pathetically inadequate defenses against theft.
Ned would rather have been involved in hijacking The Ancient Mariner, to ensure it went safely, but Morvath assured him his mole within the Wisteria Society would have everything in hand—subduing the ladies with a sleeping potion in their tea, securing the premises, removing the premises—and the more Ned argued, the more suspicious Morvath became.
