“You are very kind, Madame.”
“Catherine, you must call me Catherine, Colonel.”
Owen watched his wife transform herself into the woman of the manner, with a small hint of the flirtatiousness he’d enjoyed when they first met. He’d not seen it in so long, it surprised him that it still existed. He found her a bit silly, but dared not laugh, and welcomed the change.
Catherine raised a hand to tuck a stray lock of brown hair away.” It will be an honor to have you here. How long will you be staying?”
“I shall do my best not to inconvenience you for long, Catherine. I hope to take rooms in Temperance soon enough.” Rathfield smiled. “I’ve been sent by the Crown for a specific mission. I am afraid, however, I shall have to take your husband with me. I hope you won’t mind.”
Her eyes flashed. “Not at all. I live to serve the Crown.”
“It’s good to hear that in the Colonies, Catherine.”
Owen looked at his wife. “The Prince has invited us to dine with him this evening. Hodge will be up with the Colonel’s things. I imagine we will head out inside the fortnight.”
Miranda clutched his neck. “No, Daddy, don’t go!”
Owen rubbed her back and kissed her head. “It will be okay, Miranda. I’ll be back before you know it.”
“I get scared.”
“I know, honey. More nightmares?”
Catherine folded her arms across her chest. “Yes, during her nap. The shadows in the woods are back.”
Rathfield smiled. “I’m certain there is nothing to fear out there, Miranda.”
The little girl hid her face against her father’s neck again and shivered.
Oh, Colonel, you have no idea what lurks out there in the woods. Owen nodded. “You’re probably right, Colonel. But, for now, no shadows, Miranda. Just friends-friends from far away.”
Chapter Six
27 March 1767 Prince Haven, Temperance Bay, Mystria
Prince Vlad retreated to his laboratory to open the packet from his father. When he’d built the new laboratory, he’d started with a barn so he had a massive open room that featured two lofts. The main floor contained his desk and drafting tables, dissection tables, closets for maps, charts, and equipment, and the largest or most recent of his specimens from around Mystria. The first loft had been ringed with bookshelves, which he had filled almost halfway with volumes from all over the world. A smaller bookshelf near his desk contained books he needed for current study, and piles of books supplemented its capacity. The highest loft, which he referred to as the attic, had a pulley and winch system on the main roof beam to help haul heavier items into the darkness. He’d thought he might store seasonal things there, like canoes, but he couldn’t fit them through the lower door and hadn’t yet opened a wall that high.
He sat at his desk, and turned up the wick on a lamp. He pinched the wick much as he might do to snuff a flame, then invoked a spell, and pulled his hand back. The wick caught quickly and burned yellow-gold. The spell-a variation of that used to ignite brimstone in the breech of a gun-was common enough, but those who could not use magick were often wary of those who did, so the Prince did not indulge himself over much.
Vlad turned the packet over and took a good look at the red wax seal. It bore the mark of his father’s ring, but he’d long suspected that the Queen had had the ring duplicated so she could read their correspondence. The outer packet showed no sign of tampering. Had agents softened the wax and scraped beneath the seal, the paper would be discolored around the seal itself. This did not surprise Vlad, since he doubted his father had packed the letters up anyway.
The packet contained four letters, each folded, sealed, addressed, and dated. Vlad laid them out in order, then looked again at each seal. These did show signs of tampering. A heated knife blade had been slid under the flap and used to lift the seal, then a drop of wax had been applied to reseal the letter later. Those doing the reading, however, had no way of knowing how much information the seal itself provided.
Around the edge of the seal ten symbols had been inscribed, appearing there similarly to the way numbers would have been displayed on the face of a clock. The symbols were astrological in origin, but only represented numbers. The number that stood on a line drawn vertically from the top of the letter to the bottom gave Vlad the cipher offset. A line drawn at right angles to that line at the level of the flap’s point would intersect two symbols. Their values would provide the word offset.
In the case of the first letter he examined, the cipher offset was a four. He took a clean piece of paper and drew a five-by-five grid. He put the numbers zero through four across the top and five through nine down the left side. Then beginning with the fourth letter, D, he filled in the grid. He finished with the letter C, which also substituted freely for the letter K. This provided him the first key for the cipher.
The word offset value came to eight. This meant every eighth word would contain the hidden message from his father-if there was one. If the date on the letter’s interior matched that of the outside, there was no message. The first two messages and the last had dates which matched, and Vlad chose to read them first.
They were as many of his father’s messages: encouraging and positive, but not in the manner of a man advising his son. They came more in the style of a priest advising a parishioner in a difficult time. Vlad, who had not seen his father in over a quarter century, had come to expect such missives. Still, it bothered him that his father remained distant even when Vlad shared details about the man’s grandchildren.
Then again, he is always guarded.
He had to be. Prince John had never been suited to the throne, and had willingly entered a monastery in his youth. When it became apparent that King Richard was unable to father children, John was recalled from the monastery, married to a Princess of Strana, and sent to Mystria to act as Governor-General. Vlad suspected this was less to teach his father to govern than it was to keep him free of court intrigues. When Richard died in 1740 while campaigning in Tharyngia, Margaret-the youngest of the three siblings-assumed the throne and sent for John. He returned to Norisle, abdicated in her favor, and again entered the monastery.
And Vlad, at the age of twenty-four, was made Governor-General in his place.
These letters, as with many others, amounted to sermons on the virtue of service to the Crown. While suspicious men might think John wrote them to disguise a loathing for the woman who usurped his rightful place, Vlad was convinced of their sincerity. His father would have ruled had he been forced to, but he truly welcomed a chance to return to the monastery where he could resume his theological studies. Moreover, the fact that the Queen had produced five children, all of whom had lived to adulthood, meant that Vlad would be saved the burden of ruling. That fact made Prince John-whom many referred to as Saint John-very happy.
The third letter contained a hidden message, so he refigured the keys and began to coax information out of the note. He picked out the words involved in the code, then broke them down, letter by letter, replacing them with the numbers from the key. Each word produced a three-number combination which corresponded to the page, paragraph, and word in a particular book. His father’s choices were limited, and after a couple of test runs, Vlad realized that A Treatise on Magick was the volume his father had chosen. The resulting note, while not wholly grammatical, managed to convey its intent.
“Sun, no word of dead walking. Proof required. Ranged magick whispers. Church rules black art. Eye shall learn more as directed. Instructions required.”
Vlad’s flesh puckered as he read. The message confirmed two things, and neither of them brought him joy. The first was that the code he shared with his father was compromised and that this third letter, though written in his father’s hand, had been composed and dictated by others. While the covering message matched his father for style, the coded message did not. His father was a passive being. He would have urged caution. Use of the word required wouldn’t occur to his father, neither would making a strong declaration as he did with Eye shall learn more. The request for direction was a clear solicitation of treason. The warning about the Church’s opinion about ranged magick would have been couched in terms of his beseeching Vlad to return to the ways of the Church.