Page 16 of Dragons of the Great Wyves: Fire and Song
EMMA
While I ponderedwhy Lord Wellington would ask for me, Mr. Knightley and I ascended to a room I had never seen. It was on the top floor and very high-ceilinged; the attic had been opened to expose the building’s roof, and much of that had been replaced with hinged copper panels that could open wide. Below, a huge black-iron telescope rested on a wheeled platform, the tube eight feet long and ten inches across.
Remarkable as that was, nobody else paid it the slightest attention. Mr. Darcy, Lord Wellington, Georgiana, and Mary were waiting, and the ladies had not seen Mr. Knightley since his return. Georgiana hugged him, and Mary squeezed his hands for a long moment.
We gathered at a round table whose surface charted the sky. The constellations were drawn, and the sun, moon, and planets were inlaid with shining mother of pearl, their paths shown as engraved curves annotated with degrees and dates. Nebulae and stars were inset beads of different colors. Beautiful as it was, it had some scientific purpose, but I knew no more than that. Stargazing was a gentleman’s pastime, popular since the great comet passed two years ago.
A canvas bag rested in the table’s center, wrapping something long and narrow.
We took our seats. The setting felt deliberately equal—six people at a circular table—but everyone’s eyes were on Lord Wellington.
He worked his tanned hands together, eyeing the canvas bag, then he laid his palms flat on the tabletop. “I came to Pemberley for advice about strange events on the southern front. Mr. Darcy is an authority on matters of draca, and Miss Darcy”—he nodded to Georgiana—“has aided the military by assisting injured draca and wyves. I did not plan to involve others.” His gaze touched me on that last word. “But the situation has changed.”
Surprising me, he gestured to Mr. Knightley, seated to my left.
“I just returned from the occupied south,” Mr. Knightley said. “I went as deep as Brighton, almost the coast. We helped fourteen people escape, three of them children. I suppose those details are not relevant. But when we crossed the line of battle to return, we learned of a new terror.”
He pulled the canvas bag to him and, carefully, drew out a foot-long, scythe-shaped horn. Or was it a shell? Shiny olive-green, it had a pointed tip and irregular bumps on the inside edge. It looked like half a lobster’s claw, but sharper and much longer.
He placed it in the center of the table. Georgiana gasped. Mr. Darcy drew back with an expression of revulsion. They recognized it.
Mary picked it up, using two hands once she felt the weight. She turned it, examining the underside, and her nose wrinkled. “There is an odor. Very faint. Not the ocean… it is like crawler venom.”
“It is a foul crawler’s pincer,” Mr. Knightley said. “A huge one.”
Mary hastily pushed it back onto the table, where it rocked and clacked. I recognized it now and shivered. Crawlers had a pair of these pincers on their heads, although for the crawlers I had seen, they were the size of grains of rice. This was unimaginable. To think it had been crawling around Brighton…
Mr. Darcy said coldly, “Lydia Bennet summoned such monsters. They are unnatural. Afterward, we uncovered Wickham’s projects in the forest. He was farming crawlers. Breeding them to enormous size.”
“The French have them now,” Mr. Knightley said. “We collected that pincer while crossing the aftermath of a terrible battle. Many soldiers died to kill that monster, and the enemy has more. And always, there is a woman to control them.” He added, “The battle was at Horley.”
“Horley!” I exclaimed. “But that is in Surrey.” Everyone turned to me, everyone except Mr. Knightley. He seemed to avoid my eyes.
Lord Wellington prodded the pincer with a finger, testing its weight. “I came to Pemberley to discuss rumors of a Frenchwoman the soldiers call the perfumer. Miss Bennet has discovered her court title,la Demoiselle des Parfums. She is the mistress of Bonaparte, and she controls foul crawlers. One person like that is bad enough, but it seems the enemy has many. The threat has multiplied”—he tapped the huge pincer, making it wobble—“and grown.”
Abruptly, Georgiana stood. She walked to the telescope and stood, silent, her back to us.
Lord Wellington leaned closer. “Miss Darcy had a frightening encounter with Lydia and these terrible creatures—”
“It is the blight,” Georgiana said without turning. She sounded angry, not frightened. “It is spreading.”
Lord Wellington’s compassion became puzzlement. He looked around the table.
“Georgiana has seen visions of a blight,” I said. “A darkness in the east that corrupts life.” In her music room, she had shared that monstrous illusion, vivid and frightening.
For a stretched moment, Lord Wellington’s attention fixed on me. He had asked that I attend. Did he suspect I was the third great wyfe?
Mr. Darcy noticed our interaction, and he frowned, doubtless dusting off his lecture on why I must keep that secret. I could have recited that backwards, but even forwards, his last rendition had seemed quaintly old fashioned in a country where women commanded dragons.
Lord Wellington resumed, “Miss Bennet also reports that the French seek a flute made of dragon claw, one of the artifacts associated with the three great wyves. The artifact we found, the dagger, is immensely powerful. When our enemy stole it, they used it to raise the black dragon and sent her to destroy England’s navy, palaces, and Parliament. The dagger is lost in Pemberley lake, but I must assume the others are equally potent, and that Bonaparte seeks them all.” His gaze swept the table. “I asked you here because I know you have kept secrets about these matters. I do not question your motives, but ignorance is a weakness I can no longer afford. What do you know of the other two items?”
I could not answer his question, but hiding my identity felt uncomfortably like dishonesty.
Mary, in her quick factual manner, did answer. “Queen Mary sought all three items. After her marriage to King Philip, her agents smuggled several tons of Spanish silver into Guangzhou. Soon after, an amulet described as ‘a scarlet Chinese jewel’ arrived at court. The amulet is jade, hung on a gold chain, and holds a scale from Yuánchi. The last reference to the amulet was in 1557, when it was sent”—Mary’s stream of words hitched, then resumed—“to Surrey to be examined.”
Even she was protecting me. I knew what she had excluded. The queen had sent the amulet to “the Witch of Woodhouse,” my paternal ancestor, centuries past. Mary had asked me about the amulet months ago, but I knew nothing of it, and there was nothing like it in Papa’s things after his death.
“Surrey,” Lord Wellington repeated. “The recent French attacks appeared to be probes preparing for assault on Surrey, but I doubted that explanation. The better strategy would be for them to seize the rest of Kent, blockade the Thames, and starve London. Now, though, I understand. They seek the amulet.” He folded his arms, studying Mary. “What of the flute?”
