Lora of Two Worlds

Before long, Alvin arrived. He comforted his mother:

”Mother, Gareth and Carl have already gone with men to chase them. Even if they can’t catch up, it won’t affect the case. Don’t worry. From now on, if there’s something you can’t tell Father, tell me. Let your son handle it.”

He was still speaking when Nurse Quinn followed Aiden in. She spotted Alvin standing in the great hall, tall and long-limbed, and wasn’t that all her doing? Her face crinkled into a grin like a blooming marigold:

”Why, if it isn’t the eldest! I’d only just got home from the Countess’s, and now I’m summoned back. Aiden said it was good news. I thought he was teasing.”

”Oh, it’s good news, all right. Nurse Quinn, your whole family is on the brink of death and you don’t even know it.” Lora smiled.

Every eye turned to Nurse Quinn. Her grin froze.

Lora didn’t mince words: ”Nurse Quinn, you’ve lived in this house for years. Did you not know that harboring the King’s attainted criminals makes you an accomplice? If the Venns are stripped by Bill of Attainder, your husband, your son...”

Nurse Quinn dropped to her knees and prostrateed to the Countess, forehead to the floor: ”I thought, in Lohenheim, there’s nothing the Count’s house can’t fix. I truly didn’t think it through. My lady, don’t frighten me ”

”You overrate this house, Nurse.” Alvin’s face was stone. ”Lora’s right. If this got out, it wouldn’t just be your family, House Odenheim would be dragged in with you. To avoid any appearance of impropriety, the Count would have me turn you in himself, to show the world that from this day on, anything you do has nothing to do with House Odenheim.”

He looked ready to call the guards.

Nurse Quinn went chalk-white. She swung toward Alvin on her knees and prostrateed again:

”Young lord, spare us! I only took one silver mark from her. I thought, bringing her into the house was no great thing. A little favor... I’ll never do it again, my lord, my lady!”

Lora had Rosa bring quill and ink. She scratched out a few lines of spidery script on vellum and held it before Nurse Quinn:

”If you don’t want to go to the sheriff, sign this. The silver Grace Venn gave you, the jewelry and cloth the Countess rewarded you with, you return every bit of it. Then this is settled.”

Nurse Quinn couldn’t read. She heard ”settled” and pressed her thumb into the sealing wax and made her mark where Lora pointed.

Lora held it up, satisfied:

”This is your proof of harboring the King’s attainted. If you breathe one word of this outside, I’ll slap this on the Sheriff’s desk and send your whole family to the gallows.”

”Oh! You little terror! I wouldn’t dare! If I let one word slip, may my tongue rot and I go to hell a tongueless wretch.”

If I’d known this, I wouldn’t have made that mark, I’d have just denied everything... Nurse Quinn slunk out behind Aiden, crestfallen.

”Lil...” The Countess hesitated. ”I’m not saying you did wrong. It’s just... a girl should be a bit gentle, a bit modest. The way you just ”

Alvin, seeing his mother struggle for words, grinned:

”You weren’t the Odenheim darling just now. You were a regular harpy.”

Lora pressed her lips together. Blinked. Blinked again. Her eyes curved into crescents, and from between her lips she squeezed out:

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”Like this?”

The Countess didn’t know whether to laugh or weep. Alvin burst out laughing: this girl was a treasure!

But laughter was all they had. Gareth and Carl came back with bad news.

Grace Venn and her mother, in the Countess’s carriage, had sailed through the city gate. The carriage had taken them to the canal posting house and turned back.

By the time the brothers reached the posting house, the boat was gone. They’d split up, Gareth north, Carl south, to chase down the riverboats. They’d caught up to the boats, only to find the Venn women had never boarded. They’d hired a carriage at the posting house and taken the road.

Whether they were heading for Yorvik or somewhere else entirely, no one could say.

”She actually got away!”

Carl, the more he thought about it, the angrier he got. He pushed his knife away and stood to leave.

Lora tugged his sleeve and jerked her chin toward their mother: You’re supposed to stay and keep her company for supper. Making a scene now, do you want her to feel worse?

The Countess did feel wretched. A woman of the household, she’d made a mess for her children.

Lora put a piece of grilled fish on her mother’s plate with the serving spoon and smiled:

”Grace Venn’s reckoning hasn’t come yet, that’s all. At least she had the decency to take her mother with her. Let’s not dwell on it. Felix has already thrown the serjeant who took her bribe into the gaol. Mother, you can rest easy.”

”Yeah, Mother, next time someone talks trash about me, don’t believe it. Even if they tell you your son is dead, it’s a lie. I’m going to serve you to a hundred, God willing. Just spit in their eye next time!”

Carl, copying Lora, spooned a piece of stewed mutton onto his mother’s plate. He didn’t see his mother’s hand coming. She cuffed him on the head, the Countess, laughing in spite of herself:

”Child, talking about death and life! Asking for another swat!”

All three of them laughed.

At Yewholm, three men were also eating. The mood was grim, and none of them was the type to lighten it.

Leon picked up a roast chicken leg and was about to put it on his plate. Roland snatched it with his fork:

”Can’t even manage your own men, and you want the leg? If Armand hadn’t slit her gown, she might never have thought to frame my brother!”

Leon looked at his empty fork. He reached over and took the crisp roast pork brawn from Felix’s plate instead. Felix didn’t blink:

”Go ahead. I can’t eat anyway.”

”What’s this? She ran. Catch her again, done. Coming to me to pout, I’d rather watch you two bicker... Fine. I’m done too. You’ve ruined my appetite.”

Leon took a swallow of wine and said, unhurried: ”I hear the new Lord Regent arrives on the twenty-ninth?”

”Not the first, the twenty-ninth. His whole family’s in Lohenheim already, so there’s nothing to worry about. Today’s the eighteenth, not long now.”

Felix was Sheriff of Lohenheim. The Count was captain-general. When the new Lord Regent, Marquess Legard, took up his post, his rank would sit above them both. The old Regent had gone on sick leave. The Count had been acting Regent for two months. Once he handed the office over, he’d keep nothing but his military command.

But this time around, things were different.

Thanks to their early countermeasures, the south-side fires had been put out quickly by the garrison and the townsfolk. Losses were light. The arsonists had been caught. The Lohenheim garrison had neither distinguished itself nor disgraced itself.

The Crown Granary had only lost its gate tower. That was the Silver Shield’s own black eye.

The one who came out cleanest was Lord Dunbar. ”Wounded defending the Crown Granary”, he’d written a full page of dramatic color in his despatch to the King. If the Dowager Lady Elena stirred the coals a little more, he might even get a royal commendation.

The real standout should have been Felix, he’d caught the rebels. But two female prisoners had slipped away. Still, the King might see his aunt’s face and give his nephew a title.

In the Empire, a princess’s son takes his title from his father. The Prince Consort had no title, so his sons had to earn their own.

Felix, a civil sheriff, had almost no chance to distinguish himself in the field. The King would surely seize this opening to do his aunt a favor and win over his capable cousin.

”If I’m not mistaken, we’ll be drinking to Felix’s elevation before the week is out.”

Leon was plainly pleased. He drank an extra cup. Felix had refused Dorothy Dunbar in time. Lord Odenheim hadn’t been demoted. Since his rebirth, everything had gone smoothly, as if Providence itself lent a hand.

Ah yes, and he’d rescued a little cousin along the way.

That night, not everyone ate happily.

Brendan sat in his room, supper untouched. All day he’d been on tenterhooks, afraid Carl would talk. He’d worked out his excuses, one by one. But no word came from Father or his brothers.

His heart had just settled when he heard about Mother’s disaster. The girl who’d pushed Lil into the river, Grace Venn, had slipped through the net.

He laughed coldly.

If Mother hadn’t doted on her baby, she’d never have been so frantic to cover for him, never have lost her head and personally put the culprit outside the gates. Grace Venn was clever, pin the stain on someone else, and the road out was wide open.

What a waste. He’d handed the glory of fighting the fire to Lord Dunbar on a plate!