Page 103 of Confounding Oaths
“Followhow?” asked Mr. Caesar, not quite despairing but not far from it.
All eyes turned to Barryson. “There’s a way,” he confirmed. “But you won’t like it.”
Mr. Caesar’s jaw grew tight and his lips grew thin. “This is going to involve blood sacrifice, isn’t it?”
“Doesn’t everything?” asked Lady Georgiana.
Very much not in the mood, Mr. Caesar was reduced to an inartful but expressive: “No, it fucking doesn’t.”
“But this will. You want to get into Alfheimr, you need to talk to Freyr.” This was … only partly accurate. The hidden truths of the cosmos are what you mortals might call syncretic, and so while Freyr is one name by which one god who claims dominion over one part of my people’s realm is sometimes known, he hardly holds a monopoly on ingress. “You want to talk to Freyr,” Barryson continued, “you need to offer him a boar, a horse, or better still both.”
“And where are we going to get a boar and a horse at this time of night?” asked Mr. Caesar, increasingly convinced that the world was spinning, or had long spun, off its axis.
From his instinctive place in the shadows, Jackson gave a low chuckle. “This is London, Mr. Caesar. You find it the same way you find anything else. You put the right coins in the right hands.”
Barryson gave a sharp nod. “Give me an hour and I’ll have something. Meet me on Hampstead Heath, where you were going to duel the major.”
Mr. Caesar rested his head in his hands. “And then what? We slaughter some animals, walk into another world, and then tell the Queen of the Other Court ‘Excuse me, I want my sister back’?”
“I hate to say it.” This was Callaghan, who’d been holding his peace thus far and seemed able to hold it no longer. “But the lad’s right. This isn’t a plan, it’s fearsome close to being a trap.”
“Did I ask for your opinion, Infantryman?” replied Captain James, sharper than Mr. Caesar had heard him since they’d met.
Eerily monochrome in his harlequin’s garb, Sal slinked forwards. “We’re not in the field now, Captain. Every man here is with you because you’ve earned as much, but don’t throw it away on a fool’s errand.”
“Saving my sister is not a fool’s errand,” insisted Mr. Caesar with far more conviction than he felt.
“It will be if it fails,” Callaghan pointed out. “We’re not talking about some village full of Frenchmen here, we’re talking about strange magic and otherworlds. I’ll have your back, Captain, but sure and I’m taking a lot on faith with this one.”
Captain James stared at his men, hesitant for the first time since I, at least, had known him. “Kumar? What about you.”
“I trust your judgement,” the scholar told him, “and I wouldn’t ask any man to abandon his sister. But you have to admit, you’ll be risking all of us for one girl.”
“When you put it like that,” said Lady Georgiana, “it does seem rather foolish.”
Miss Mitchelmore aimed a sharp kick at her ankle. “Georgiana.”
“She’ssixteen,” pleaded Mr. Caesar. And he was, now, pleading in a manner that an uncharitable observer might almost consider unmanly. “You know her.” He turned to Jackson. “Youknow her. You’ve been to my house. You’ve fed us your terrible coffee.”
“No offence,” Jackson replied calmly, “but you’re nothing to me. And though I’m sure you’re too polite to say it, I’m nothing to you.”
A week ago, this would have been the exact truth. Now … now, like so much in Mr. Caesar’s life, things were more complicated. “Mary is my first priority,” he said—and of that much he could be entirely certain. “But I believe I am beginning to count you as …” The stumble was not quite fatal, but a lifetime of dancing around propriety could not be erased overnight. “I mean, I would not presume to call you friends, but I would not put you in harm’s way save for very great purpose.”
Jackson, however, did not seem convinced. “Those are veryfine, words, sir. But I’ve heard fine words from a lot of men in my life, and most of them would see me hang in a heartbeat if it would profit them.”
“And what about me?” asked Captain James. “Am I such a man?”
Still masked, his face still painted all in white, Jackson smiled. “You said yourself I deserved to swing.”
“You do. But you’ve not.”
I watched with interest as Jackson and the captain squared off against one another. There was a chance, just a chance, that this would end with somebody getting stabbed, and while it was looking increasingly likely that the evening would end insomekind of bloodshed whatever happened, a little appetiser never goes amiss. “I’m your man, Captain,” said Jackson at last, thwarting my desire for violence. “And if you say we’re doing this, we’ll do it. But I’ll tell you now you’re being a bloody fool.”
Captain James nodded once, slowly. “Barryson, go get the sacrifices. We’re doing this. Men, fall in.”
The Irregulars, save Barryson, fell into a column, with Mr. Caesar bringing up the rear.
“Much as I hate to play the part of the weaker sex,” observed Lady Georgiana, “I think Imightsuggest we leave this to the professionals. I’ve had a rather confusing night.”
