Page 26 of Dragons of the Great Wyves: Fire and Song
Hope replaced fatigue, but with a bitter edge. Every day in the saddle, I relived the idiotic words I spoke to Elizabeth by the lake. Why had I not listened and tried to comprehend the miracle I was witnessing?
My shoulders had tensed. I forced them loose and level. I had chased stories of the angel into Notts and back but never heard a firsthand account.
“Yousawthe angel?” I asked gruffly.
“Nah. Saw the hellfire. Three nights ago. Far away, past those hills, which was fine with me. Clouds lit up like gold fire. Night sky black as soot above them. Strangest thing.”
Three nights. But this was the closest I had come. “Are the remaining Blackcoats in that direction?”
He drummed his fingers on his trousers. “You tell me. But if you’re asking advice, I’d go the other way. The worst of them is what’s left. One man can’t challenge twenty. That sword’ll be no help. Men like that, they’ll shoot you at fifty yards for your hat.”
The house door opened, and the man’s wife came out. The rigor of etiquette was a relief. I bowed. “Madam.” The farmer gave a bemused snort.
She was staring in disbelief. “Lawks! You’shim.” She elbowed her husband. “That’sMr. Darcy.”
The farmer winked at me. “The Darcys are far from here, woman.”
“I am Mr. Darcy,” I confirmed.
The wife clapped her hands. She then giggled in a very unbecoming manner. That happened when some women were introduced. I never understood why.
Her husband boggled. “Damn it! Deuce it, I mean…” He flopped into a bow. “My Lord.”
“I am not a lord,” I said. My eyes had a will of their own, drifting to the distant forest he had mentioned. “You have been a gracious host. Thank you.”
The wife caught her husband’s sleeve. “Did you show him?”
The farmer rubbed his chin, avoiding my eyes. No, his gaze was on the wilting peas. “That’s not his business.”
“That’sMr. Darcy. He might know.”
Three nights. I could spare a minute. “Show me what?”
The pea plantswere tall and scraggly, the leaves yellow-edged and curling. The farmer plucked a pod, bright green and grossly huge, five inches long and thick as my thumb. It was lumpy, as if stuffed with rocks instead of an orderly row of fresh peas.
“Best open it like this,” the farmer said. He dropped it on the ground, then prodded it with the toe of his boot until it split. “You tell me.”
Sticky black bile leaked, and a long, fat, white grub squirmed free. Sulfurous rot stung my nostrils. The grub writhed, lethargically hunting an escape from the sun.
I squatted to look. Where the black bile rubbed off, the grub’s skin wastranslucent. Shadows of many paired legs were visible. There were folded pincers at one end and stingers at the rear.
“A foul crawler,” I said.
The farmer swore. “Here I feared they were grasshoppers.” His wife blanched, her freckles dark on pale cheeks.
Georgiana had seen visions of a blight. I had thought it a metaphor for war and conflict. Not so… tangible.
“Send a messenger to Mr. Campbell,” I said—thatwas the landowner’s name. “Tell him I was here, and that I ordered the field burned.”
“Burned!” the farmer cried.
“Do you want them to hatch?” He shook his head, horror-struck at the rows of swollen pods. I added, “They do not yet seem able to sting. Summon your neighbors. Cut the plants, stack them with straw, and burn them.Today.”
“They’re not mine to burn!”
“I will pay for Mr. Campbell’s loss. And yours, if he does not compensate you. If you have paper and pen, I will provide a letter.”
I would write to my attorney. No, to Mary Bennet. She would muster Pemberley and tell Georgiana.
