King's Errand Read online

  “Seth, if you would?” Vadim raised his eyebrows meaningfully and Seth took the hint.

  “Come on now, Reynard. This is no way to act, is it?” Placing an arm about his friend’s trembling shoulders, Seth gently and forcibly steered Reynard to the far side of the room leaving Vadim free to take on the little woman.

  “Please forgive my friend, m’lady,” Vadim said in his most persuasive tone. “Reynard is the most placid of men when he isn’t worried out of his wits. But he hasn’t slept or eaten properly in days so I fear his manners are not as they should be. Please, I beg of you, if you do have any information, any crumbs at all to throw at us, I would be most grateful, m’lady.” He tried a smile on her but Mrs. Wilkes only crossed her arms beneath her bosom, her eyes as hard as steel.

  “What use is gratitude to me, Lord Edgeway?” she asked, her mouth set in a forbidding line. “It cannot feed me, nor can it keep me warm and comfortable in my dotage.”

  Her dotage? Who was she hoping to fool? She wasn’t many years older than he was.

  “Then again.” A flash of cunning sparked in Mrs. Wilkes’ eyes. “Maybe it can.”

  Ah. So this was what she was pushing for. A deal to be struck. Vadim sighed. “Go on. I’m listening. How much will your… cooperation cost me?”

  “No taxes for a year.”

  Vadim almost laughed. She was nothing if not bold. “Six months.”

  “Ten months.”

  “How about eight months and I won’t shut you down?” he asked with a smile.

  “Nine months. Well, unless you want your men to catch a dose of cock-rot at some of Edgeway’s… less particular establishments.”

  Mrs. Wilkes might look like a respectable lady but she had all the moves and cunning of a seasoned player. Sensing victory, she smiled and extended her small, pale hand to him. “Come, Lord Edgeway. Let us shake on our bargain.”

  “But you haven’t given me anything in exchange.”

  “Ah! But you know that I will, me being a woman of my word and all.”

  Despite his misgivings, Vadim couldn’t help but chuckle. “Done,” he said, taking her hand in his. “Now, tell us what you know.”

  Carefully leading his horse through the snarled roots of heather and dry bracken, Anselm headed for the place where the rowan tree grew.

  Ahead in the distance, he spied the stepping stones jutting proud of the sparkling river, shimmering with a peculiar iridescent light. An illusion, or a light of their own? He couldn’t tell.

  Shielding his eyes from the sun’s glare, he stopped and looked about him.

  Nothing.

  There was nothing here save a pretty view.

  He exhaled a long slow breath, one that was half relief, half disappointment. ’Twas as he’d long suspected. He’d finally gone and lost his mind. The worst of it was, he hadn’t a clue where he’d misplaced his wits, let alone how to reclaim them again.

  Growing bored with the inactivity, his horse lipped at his ear, and Anselm absently caressed its warm velvety muzzle. Perhaps on his return to Edgeway he should ask Ma to help him exorcise the troublesome visions—or phantasms—that kept afflicting…

  Wait!

  What was that?

  Heart quickening, Anselm glimpsed of a flash of lilac within a clump of heather up ahead. Yes. There it was again. A small earthbound cloud of lilac. And a moving cloud, at that.

  Dropping the horse’s reins, he advanced. Creeping as low as possible, he headed toward the mystery that had haunted his dreams for so long. Thankfully, the lilac cloud stopped moving.

  Hardly daring to breathe, he moved closer, his heart hammering in his chest. His approach could hardly be described as stealthy, gimping as he was. With a stifled curse, he lost his footing and stumbled into a concealed rabbit hole, painfully wrenching himself in the process.

  Biting his lip, Anselm wrapped his arm tightly about himself and pressed on. With hindsight, he should have thought to bring his sword. Now he must confront this mystery cloud completely unarmed. He sensed no danger ahead, however, just the faint note of jasmine borne on the gentle breeze—something that shouldn’t have been possible so far north, particularly at this time of year. Jasmine generally preferred a much warmer clime, or at least full summer, before it could be persuaded to burst into bloom.

  He sniffed the air again. Yes, that was jasmine all right, and what was more, the scent seemed to be coming from the vicinity of that odd lilac cloud.

  Just then, he heard the unmistakable sound of someone snoring.

  Good. Whoever it was, they were sound asleep. For the moment at least, he was safe. All he had to do now was close in and trap his quarry.

  Closer.

  Two strides more and he was finally within striking distance—well, had he remembered to bring any kind of weapon. But as he looked down on the heather, Anselm exhaled his breath in a rush as, at long last, the identity of The Lulu was finally revealed.

  It was her. The old woman from his dreams, asleep on a blanket of many colors, with a small pillow beneath her unnaturally colored head, cushioning it from the cold ground.

  For several minutes, Anselm studied her undetected. Really, she was a most peculiar looking creature. But the old woman must have sensed him standing there for suddenly she opened her eyes.

  “Oh hello, pet,” she said, smiling up at him as if she’d expected to find him standing over her. “You must be Martha’s friend. Hansel, isn’t it?”

  “Anselm,” he corrected her, bowing before he could stop himself.

  “Of course. Anselm. How d’ye do? I’m Martha’s Aunt Ellen. Ellen Clooney.” The old lady extended her hand up to him and, in a daze, Anselm clasped it. Were it not for those long fingernails, each painted in the same alarming shade as her hair, her hand felt warm and remarkably normal.

  “How lovely it is to finally meet you,” she continued. An unfamiliar accent masked her words making them difficult to interpret. Anselm had to strain his ears to understand her. He must have been staring like a slack-jawed fool for the old lady suddenly tugged his hand, demanding,

  “Come on, then. Help an old woman to her feet, why don’ t you? I’m as stiff as can be after lying on this damp ground for so long.”

  “S-Sorry.” Rousing himself, Anselm hauled Ellen—or Lulu?—to her feet. She was not particularly heavy, and the top of her head only reached his shoulder. Her lack of stature, however, did not impede her in the least. In a way, she reminded him of Ma, albeit a much more gaudily-painted version. Mercy! Even a whore would be too modest to wear the dreadful colors Ellen favored.

  “What happened to your hair?” The question was out before he could stop it, shock rendering his manners all but useless.

  “Oh, do you like it?” Ellen visibly preened, raising her hands to lightly pat her static curls. “I had it done yesterday at the salon down the road. I always ask for Carole. Look. She did my nails too.” She waggled a perfect set of lilac talons in his face.

  Anselm was astounded. “What? You actually paid someone to do this to you?”

  “Oh, yes. Wednesday is Pensioners’ Special Day, and I was never one to resist a bargain,” said she with a laugh. “Anyway, enough about me. What kept you, lad? I’d begun to think you weren’t coming.”

  All Anselm could do was stare. She’d actually been expecting him. But how? It was utterly improbable, yet apparently not impossible, for here she was and there they both were. All alone in the middle of nowhere.

  “Is it far?” Lulu asked.

  “W-What?” So many thoughts assaulted him, Anselm found it difficult to comprehend or to think at all. His confusion was not yet ready to be expressed in words. Perhaps the old woman’s hair possessed a curious hypnotic quality for he couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away from the rigid fluffiness of all those identical curls. It took all the control he had not to reach out and touch her
head, to see how those perfect curls would feel beneath his hand. Springy, perhaps? Or would they be as solid as they looked?

  Lulu rolled her eyes, giving him a glimpse of the shocking shade of turquoise that adorned her upper lids. “Where are we going?” she repeated. “Is. It. Far?”

  Lulu had obviously decided he was some kind of dullard.

  “No. Not far.” In truth, Anselm had no idea. How far was what? Where were they to go? What the devil was he supposed to do with the woman? He could hardly take her back to Edgeway looking like that. People would think she was a witch. Even her clothes were of a strange, outlandish fashion he’d never seen. Beneath a long, beige surcoat that flapped about her legs in the breeze she wore trews, neatly tucked into the tops of her oxblood-colored boots.

  “Shall we make a move, then?” Martha’s odd relation tilted her lilac head to one side, regarding Anselm with concern. “Are you all right, lad? You’re looking a wee bit peaky about the gills, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

  “I-Is there any w-wonder?” he spluttered, coming to life at last. “Who the blazes are you?”

  “Ellen Clooney. I already told you th—”

  “But I was looking for Lulu!”

  “That’s right. That’s me. Martha’s aunt, Lulu.” The red lip tint she wore had seeped into the network of tiny lines over her upper lip lending her already odd face a rather vampiric quality.

  “B-But… ” Anselm raked back his hair in agitation. “Not more than a moment ago you told me your name was Ellen—”

  “Lulu’s more of… well, a nickname, I suppose you could call it.” She chuckled. “When our Martha was a wee bairn, no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t say Clooney. It always came out as Lulu and that’s who I became; Aunt Lulu. But you can call me Ellen, if you prefer. I really don’t mind.”

  Anselm shook his head. One of them was definitely as crazed as a nest of wasps, and all of his money was on the old lady. She was completely unbalanced. Perhaps her affliction was due to a dose of Syphilis? That would certainly explain some aspects of her extreme peculiarity.

  Insane or not, Anselm definitely sensed a family resemblance between her and Martha, who had often flustered him in a similar manner.

  “Well? Are you going to take me to see my Martha or not, Hansel? I don’t want to miss the birth of my first grand-baby.”

  “Anselm,” he corrected her. Again. “And it’s babies, for there are two of them. A boy and a girl.”

  “Oh, have I missed it?” Lulu twirled the pearl necklace hanging about her scrawny neck. “One of each, you say? Well, now. Isn’t that just marvelous?” Beaming with delight, much to Anselm’s consternation, she suddenly pulled him into a brief, uncomfortable hug, one that positively reeked of jasmine. “Tell me,” Lulu continued when she released him. “Are they well?”

  “Yes, perfectly well.”

  “Martha too?”

  “Yes, her too.” Her pale blue eyes twinkled so merrily in her gaudily-painted face, it seemed churlish to ruin Lulu’s happiness by mentioning that her niece had almost died as she’d battled to push her babies out into the world. He decided to let someone else pass on that particular snippet of news.

  “Do they favor Martha or her husband in looks, Hansel?”

  “Ans—” Oh, what was the point? “I’m afraid I could not say. I only saw the babes briefly and that was from a distance. But as I recall, they were both rather pink and wrinkled. Beyond that I could not tell.”

  “Ooh, you men! You’re all the same, no matter where or when you come from. Not one of you takes notice of anything important. I suppose there’s no point in me asking you how much they weigh, is there?”

  “They’re babies, madam. It should be quite apparent to you that they hardly weigh anything at all. Really, what an odd question.”

  Wait a moment. What had she just said? Where or when you come from?

  Before he could quiz her further, Lulu turned away, still muttering to herself. With surprising flexibility for one of such advanced years, she bent over and picked up her blanket. Shaking it out, she proceeded to fold it into a smooth neat rectangle while she continued conversing with herself.

  Anselm mind whirled as he searched for answers. But no matter how hard he racked his brains, he couldn’t work out where the old woman had sprung from. There wasn’t a town or hamlet for quite a goodly distance—certainly nowhere that boasted the kind of ungodly ‘salon’ she’d mentioned. Yet here she was, as large as life and thrice as colorful.

  Despite her peculiarity, Lulu looked as fresh and clean as if she’d just stepped outside her own home. Not so much as a speck of mud besmirched the highly polished leather of her pristine boots, and her liver-spotted hands exhibited little evidence of her having spent much time out of doors.

  Could she have survived a cold night out in the open with only one flimsy blanket as protection against the elements? Surely not. There wasn’t any evidence of her having constructed a camp-fire. And what about the wolves? How had she managed to evade their ravenous bellies? Anselm sneezed three times, eliciting a bless you from the old woman. Perhaps the cloying scent of Lulu’s perfume acted as a kind of a wolf repellent.

  “How did you come to be here, all alone and with—” Anselm glanced at the bag at her feet “—so few provisions?”

  Lulu smiled. “I came across the stones, of course. They brought me here.”

  The stones? “From the other side of the river, you mean?”

  “In a manner of speaking.” Lulu looked thoughtful as she considered his words. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. I came from the other side of the river.”

  Was she being deliberately obtuse? “But there’s nothing on the other side of the river, madam, nothing inhabitable, at least, not for many leagues.”

  “Not now there isn’t, I grant you. But last night… ” Lulu smiled a secret sort of smile, one that sent shivers racing up Anselm’s spine. “Let’s just say that last night the future was much closer than you could possibly imagine. Well, our future, at least—mine and Martha’s.”

  Anselm gave a huff of exasperation. “It’s no use. You aren’t making any sense at all. Speak plainer, if you will, and a little slower too if you don’t mind.” Preferably using words he could understand, for the old woman’s peculiar accent was making him squint with the effort of trying to interpret her rapid babblings.

  “You didn’t know?” Now it was Lulu’s turn to look surprised. “But… I thought Martha must have told you. After all, why else would you be here?”

  “Told. Me. What?” Anselm had a bad feeling about all this. Something told him Lulu’s hair color wasn’t the biggest shock he’d receive this day.

  “Why, that we’re not from round here, of course. Hadn’t you guessed?”

  “Plainer still, I implore you, madam. Your veiled riddles are beginning to give me a megrim.”

  “Very well. Then you’d better brace yourself, lad, for this will no doubt come as a bit of a surprise.”

  “What will?”

  “That Martha and I aren’t from around here.”

  “Ye-es, that much I’d gathered for myself,” he said through gritted teeth. “So where precisely are you from?”

  “Ah.” Lulu’s eyes sparkled. “I suppose you might call it… the future.”

  Chapter Seven

  Anselm gaped at the old lady in astonishment. Surely he’d misheard. “The f-future?”

  “Aye. That’s right.”

  She was lying. She had to be. Only she wasn’t. Deep inside his racing heart Anselm finally acknowledged what he’d subconsciously known all along, and suddenly everything made complete sense.

  Lulu’s revelation kicked his dusty intuition into a much sharper focus—a diamond-like clarity, in fact. Suddenly, in a flash of comprehension, all the mismatched fragments of the enigma that was Martha slid silently tog
ether, seamlessly merging to form a complete picture. At that moment, every odd thing she’d ever said and done returned to his mind, but now each one carried new meaning.

  “Not from your future, mind,” Lulu continued, “but the future of a whole other world.”

  Although her statement meant nothing, it explained everything.

  Blow by blow, each fresh revelation struck him with the ferocity of a mace blow. He was utterly defenseless, powerless to withstand such a sustained assault. ’Twas then he felt himself crumbling, from the inside out.

  His legs gave way, and Anselm collapsed onto his knees, dry needles of heather penetrating unheeded through the fabric of his trews. Desperately he battled to take in all that he’d learned, to find a suitable place to store this fresh intelligence within the crowded confines of his skull, but his brain throbbed in protest.

  Another world. Despite his turmoil, he burst into gales of helpless laughter.

  How many other worlds were out there, waiting in the void beyond the stones?

  Even now he fancied he could hear the ancient rocks singing to themselves. Oh, what a blind, stupid fool he’d been. How many times had he been out here, hunting with Lord Godric? Not once had he sensed anything untoward.

  Not until today.

  After months of confusion, a sure and certain tide flooded into the void within his mind, washing away every last trace of ignorance.

  Did Vadim know… about Martha? Of course he did. How could he not when he’d gone and married the wretched girl?

  “Here you go, lad.” Lulu pressed a small silver flask into his hand, already uncorked. “You’re looking a bit frayed around the edges. Take a wee sip of this to steady yourself. Tell me, are you prone to fainting spells?”

  “Not usually, no.” Although today might prove to be the exception. Praying the container contained something strong enough to bolster him, Anselm raised it to his lips and took a generous swallow. He soon regretted his lack of caution as a plume of white-hot liquid burned a fiery passage from his throat to his stomach.