Page 115 of Miss Bennet's Dragon
I said, “When a draca leaves his bound master and wyfe, where does he go?”
“Nobody knows, ma’am.”
I remembered the image our drake had shown me, sparkling and cool. “Back to the water.”
After my father’s death, our firedrake was not held by the strength of my mother’s bond. I had forced him to stay. Imprisoned him. And he had known I would. Those images he shared—inescapable traps, crushing boulders—wereme, a woman with the power to seize him and the complacent selfishness to want him as a slave.
But my power was an illusion. I could release him, or he would die. One way or another, the keystone of our family’s estate was lost.
Inside me, an artifice of ego shattered like hollow porcelain. I had been proud to conquer our prestigious firedrake. It was satisfying to crush his protests with a thought, then celebrate with an extra dollop of jam on my morning crumpet. A captive drake was such convenient proof I was special. That I deserved the trust my father had placed in me.
I leaned close, and he stared into my eyes. “My beloved father is gone,” I whispered. “My dear sister drifts after him. Our home will be lost. But you have shown me a duty I can accomplish. You can be free.”
I lifted the command,Stay, I had driven through him like a spike. He reared, startled.
I stepped back. His wings half-spread, fanning the air. My skirts danced against my shins.
Mrs. Bruichladdich plucked at my sleeve. “Ma’am.” She had said that several times now. I ignored her.
“Go,” I said to our drake. Would I have to order him to leave?
Instead, his head dropped, a furious rumble building. His shoulders stiffened below furled wings.
Mrs. Bruichladdich grabbed my arm, hard. “Ma’am, there’s folks coming!”
“What?” I said as she tugged me toward the manor entrance. I heard shouts and pulled free.
A crowd was approaching, twenty men at least with Mr. Sallow in the lead. Beside him was a young man I did not know. He wore fine clergyman’s dress of shining black silk, but his vest and collar were brilliant crimson, a style I had never seen.
And beside him, in a severe black gown, was Lydia.
The crowd closed to ten yards from our draca house, then our drake’s shriek cut the air. His wings spread wide. His neck stretched, ebony teeth bared at Lydia.
The crowd stalled in a milling mass.
Mrs. Bruichladdich was calling for me to come inside. But whatever was happening, Lydia was the cause. I would not hide from my sister.
Across the dozen steps that separated us, I called, “Have you misplaced ‘Wickie’ this morning?”
“My husband is on an errand,” Lydia replied. “A most important engagement. But I can deal with my selfish sister before I join him.”
The young priest called out to the crowd. “Thisis the house of corruption! A den of sinful women in congress with Satan!” A few shouts rose.
That was too ridiculous. “I fear Longbourn will disappoint you. We are rather a dull lot. May I ask your name?”
Mr. Sallow answered for him. “This is Curate Mincekeep.”
My bemused disbelief became apprehension. I knew that name.
Hertfordshire society, naturally, adhered to the uncontroversial and undemanding mainstream of the Church of England. The few exceptions were families that followed the evangelists, a movement I found unpleasantly strident although I admired their support for liberal causes. Several of their founders were women who advocated prison reform and the abolishment of slavery.
But England had other, more extreme, factions. Curate Mincekeep led a populist movement fighting liberalization of the Church. He was notorious forfomenting violent protests against shelters for fallen women. One of his mobs had torched a shelter in London, killing two women.
The men behind him looked rough and unpleasant. I had seen a few of their faces in town, but there was no one I knew, and no gentlemen other than Mr. Sallow.
Curate Mincekeep shouted, “Our mighty inquisition will purge this evil!” Scattered yells rose.
That chilled me. The terrors of the Catholic Inquisition, and the equally violent purges of the Protestant Reformation, had ended with the Enlightenment. But before that, thousands of women were tortured into false confessions of witchcraft and burned at the stake.
