Page 22 of The Magic of Pemberley (Fitzwilliam Darcy, Mage #2)

Chapter 22

D arcy left the diligence in a small town, choosing that over a city where there might be soldiers stationed. A nearby baker pointed him to a house that let out rooms to travelers, and Darcy bought several sugary pastries for use if he overextended his Talent.

After a cursory examination of his papers, a room was deemed to be available, and Darcy took his purchases there. He closed the door and settled himself to wait for the moment the dragon scale would come to life. Then he drew even more power than he had earlier, far beyond what he had ever used, to try to send word to Elizabeth. Sending so much over a great distance was unheard of – and beyond risky – but he had no choice. Chances were good he would be caught long before he reached the Channel, and getting word to England that Napoleon was a dragon was critical.

Without that, his entire mission was worse than a failure. It had made matters worse. Beyond the people no doubt killed in the fire, attacks on British troops would be redoubled.

The room was spinning around him by the time he was done. He choked down the pastries, hoping it would be enough to recover his life forces. Afterwards, he spent half the night lying awake and praying that Elizabeth had received his message. For all he knew, he might have exhausted his strength on an impossible sending that went nowhere .

In the morning, he had just finished dressing when the old man who had rented him the room burst in without even knocking. “What is it, my good fellow?” Darcy asked.

“Get out of my house!” the man spat, shaking with fury. “I will not have an Englishman under my roof, not after you tried to kill our emperor.”

Shock rushed through him. How had he been discovered? Then he realized it was not a personal accusation, but one that would be leveled at anyone from Britain. He tried to sound confused. “What is this nonsense about killing Napoleon?”

“One of your countrymen tried, but our emperor was too clever for him, and all of you can rot in hell for all I care! Out of here, you son of a whore, or I will bloody your nose for you!”

As if this decrepit old man could lay a hand on him! But Darcy could not blame him; he would be equally incensed if a Frenchman had tried to kill the King. He slung his satchel over his shoulder and strode out of the house.

He would have to be even more careful now, when his very nationality made him a target. If only he could pretend to be Flemish or Austrian – but his papers would put the lie to that. Fortunately, the sleepy ostler at the stable where the diligence stopped either had not heard the news or did not care, for he sold Darcy a ticket.

Now he was on a different coaching route, an indirect, minor one where there would be fewer soldiers watching the road. In the afternoon, Darcy swung out of the small diligence, his legs aching. The seats were not designed for someone of his height, and on top of that he had tried to hunch down to avoid drawing attention and kept his nose buried in a book – a French book he had no interest in – to avoid conversation. Now his neck was stiff, too.

His muscles protested as his boots struck the pavement. Rolling his shoulders to loosen them, he followed the other passengers into the inn with more eagerness than the unprepossessing building deserved. He was parched enough to enjoy even the cheapest wine. But he also kept a hold on his tie to Pemberley’s power, in case trouble arose .

But first, the necessary. He made his requests to the host and then followed his directions from the crowded taproom to the back of the inn, winding through a narrow brick passageway that could use a good cleaning.

A few minutes later, he turned back, his stomach grumbling. At least that would be easy to fix; the food had been good even in the poorest auberges in France. No wonder everyone hired French chefs in England.

An excited voice in the taproom caught his attention. “An Englishman? On the diligence ? Mon ami, we can avenge the attack on the emperor – and our fortune is made!”

Were they talking about him? Darcy pressed himself back against the rough wall.

“What do you mean?” Was that the coach driver?

“Look at this! Five thousand gold napoleons for the capture of an Englishman, last seen in Paris. Another five hundred francs to anyone who assists his capture! Tall and dark-haired, just like this one, might be traveling under the name of Harcourt or Darcy. It must be the blackguard who tried to kill the emperor!”

“Hah! We’ll teach him a lesson he won’t forget!” another man cried.

Good God! He had expected a price on his head, but five thousand gold napoleons was a fortune beyond belief. Anyone would turn him in at the mere hope of it. What smuggler would carry him to England when they could sell them for a thousand times more than his fare?

There was no time to think of that now. He had to escape. If he set foot in that taproom, he would never see England again.

Or Elizabeth.

There had to be another way out of the inn. He carefully retraced his footsteps down the dark winding corridor, past closed doors. Then light poured in, along with smells of cooking food and the sound of clanking dishes.

The kitchen. It was bound to have a back door. With any luck no one there would have heard the news yet. If he stayed silent, they would not discover he was English .

Pulling up the collar of his coat, he strode into the kitchen. There it was, just beyond the hearth. Ignoring the two women who turned to stare at him, he hurried through the door, finding himself in the back of the stable yard. A groom was harnessing fresh horses to the stagecoach.

Dare he try to get his satchel? It was in the overhead netting inside the diligence , so he would have to open the door to reach it. Too much of a risk, even if he could stay invisible for that long. And there were more grooms in the stable, so taking a horse was out of the question.

There was no choice. He would have to leave here on foot, with nothing more than the clothes on his back. At least he still had plenty of French coin, traded in Paris for his English gold. God only knew how he would get back to England, but first he had to avoid capture.

He cloaked himself in invisibility and walked out to the road. They had passed through a forest just before the inn; that would have to do as an escape route.

After walking for hours, following one path and then another, sometimes cutting across a field or meadow, Darcy found an abandoned hut. The latch was broken, and the door hung open, but it was shelter of a sort, and it was almost time for his connection to Elizabeth.

When the scale came alive, though, it was not Elizabeth. Or not only Elizabeth; he could sense her there, but also another presence, one he had felt in his mind before. The Eldest of the Dark Peak Nest.

The dragon’s voice resonated in his head. Think of what you saw of Napoleon.

Nothing could be easier; he had revisited the scene hundreds of times already, trying to comprehend it. He spewed it out to the Eldest in all its details .

The dragon’s touch in his mind was rougher than he remembered it, either because of the distance or the need for haste. Then, quickly, it was gone, and Elizabeth, too.

He sank back into a corner of the hut, regretting the lack of his precious moment with Elizabeth, but relieved that this heavy knowledge was in the hands of the Nest. Would Elizabeth somehow find a way to inform the War Office, too? Not that it would make much difference; all the might of the British Army and Navy could not hold against Napoleon the dragon.

He touched the silk handkerchief in his pocket, the one he had purchased for Elizabeth, as if it already carried an essence of her.

Once it was full dark, he built a small fire with sticks collected near the hut. He used his identity papers as kindling, since they were now a danger to him. Anything that identified him as British would put his life in danger. He would be better off claiming to be Swedish and saying that he had been robbed of his passeport .

The flames cast little warmth but relieved the chill a bit. It did nothing to take his mind off his empty stomach, but he curled up in front of it, his coat wrapped as tightly around him as he could manage. Finally, he drifted off into a fitful sleep.

He awoke abruptly to the sound of barking in the distance. Wild dogs hunting in the forest?

He scrambled to his feet in sudden realization. Hunting, yes. Hunting for him. Of course the villagers would not let ten thousand gold napoleons slip through their fingers. They would turn over every stone to find him. Including sending out the dogs. They would have his scent, too, from the satchel he had left behind on the diligence .

He had to get away from here. But how? He could not outrun a dog in the forest. No matter how far he went, they would smell him. If he climbed a tree, they would bark at it until someone came.

Unless he used the dragon Artifact, the one that would block him from any sense except touch. The dogs would not smell, hear, or see him. It would let him escape this – but at a price. Once used, it would never work again. But if the dogs found him and he was captured, it would be too late .

His fingers itched to open the pendant, to save himself right now, but he waited. Perhaps they would lose his trail, or he might be able to fight his way out. He would wait until the last minute to use the Artifact.

The barking grew louder, definitely closer. Two different barks, and perhaps other dogs who might be silent.

Then an unearthly yowl filled the air, high-pitched and vibrant, a sound he recognized. Darcy froze. Even if there were lynxes in France, they would be in the wilderness, not this small patch of forest near a village.

A flurry of yipping from the dogs, another scream of outrage from the lynx, and the sound of scrabbling. And then silence.

Had the lynx frightened off the dogs? Could he be so fortunate?

Then an image formed in his head. Come. A presence he knew as well as his own voice.

How could his lynx have found his way to France? True, he had followed Darcy all over England, but surely he could not swim twenty miles of the English Channel. If lynxes could swim at all.

But his familiar had never led him astray, so he cautiously emerged from the hut. His lynx sat outside in the dim moonlight, looking completely at ease apart from the blood dripping from the side of his mouth. Apparently the dogs had not escaped unscathed.

You saved me , he sent. Would his lynx understand those words?

Yes. Come . The lynx padded off, along a trail only he could see.

Darcy followed.

Darcy would not have survived the next few days without the lynx, who led him to wild apple trees and abandoned fields where a few turnips still grew, who brought him fish in the evening which he roasted in a fire, and once even a loaf of bread he must have stolen. In his old life, Darcy would have scorned bread that had been carried in a lynx’s mouth. Now it was a precious gift .

Each night his familiar went back and marked the trail they had followed, presumably to deter any scent trackers. No sensible dog would go near to what smelled like a lynx’s den.

He was weary, footsore, and tired of sleeping on the cold ground, but he was making slow uneven progress towards the west, or at least his best guess at that direction from the position of the sun. His map and compass had been in the satchel he had left in the diligence. If he was correct, eventually he would reach the coast. Then the hard part would begin, finding his way to the friends of the sea serpents, in the hope they would find a way to take him across the Channel without turning him in for the reward.

Then one night a squadron of soldiers trotted past the hedgerow where he was sheltering, set up an encampment not two hundred feet away, and began to search the area around him by lanternlight, swearing all the while about the damned Englishman and what they would do to him when they found him.

Darcy tried not to breathe. How could they possibly know he was here? They had no dogs. Could they have smelled the smoke from the fire he had cooked his fish in? Quickly he created an illusion to cover the remaining coals and made another of impenetrable brambles to hide himself. It must have worked well enough, for they did not find him. He sent a message to his familiar, telling him to stay away. Even a wild lynx had no chance against a dozen soldiers.

He would have to take greater care. No more fires. He waited until they were all asleep before he cloaked himself in invisibility and sneaked away. That day he took no rests, trying to make the greatest possible distance. His stomach growled, but he was not quite hungry enough to eat raw fish. By tomorrow, he suspected he might be.

But despite his hunger and fatigue, Darcy was exhilarated by his narrow escape, confident that he had left the soldiers behind. As always, the best moment was at sunset, when the dragon scale came to life and Elizabeth entered his mind, all warmth and pleasure, even when he reported no news. As usual, her message was to stay safe .

He gathered some leaves behind a stone wall to make himself a place to sleep. The lynx curled up next to him, sharing his welcome body warmth. If Darcy ever went on the run again, he was going to make certain to have a blanket with him. And a jug to carry water; the tiny flask in his pocket was not enough to keep him going between the occasional streams he passed.

Then the soldiers came again.

By the fourth night, Darcy was almost expecting them. He had tried everything to throw them off, changing his direction, walking inland instead of making his way to the Channel, retracing his own steps on the path and having the lynx cover his new tracks, and never a trace of fire. Today he had even told the lynx not to follow him, in case somehow the soldiers could sense his magical connection to his familiar. Yet still the squadron came trotting across the field.

He drew back into his makeshift hiding place between an ancient tree and a stone wall.

How did they do it? It was incomprehensible, and incomprehensibility usually meant magic. Could one of them be a mage, tracking him by repulsion? No, for then Darcy would feel it, too. It had to be some kind of unknown Talent, one without repulsion.

Still, whatever they were doing, it worked only to a degree. They kept discovering his general location, yes, but whatever magic they used could not bring them exactly to him. And why did they only come at night?

If only he could understand it, perhaps he could find a way to defeat their uncanny ability. Escaping from them would be harder now, with his belly too hollow to risk creating an illusion. He would keel over from exhausting his reserves. Without his lynx, he had eaten only a few berries all day.

He remembered his mother saying that some magical powers could not cross running water. What if he found a stream and walked through that? He had passed one earlier, not far away. It would mean being in plain sight, though. He would have to travel at night, with all the attendant risks.

It was as good, or as bad, a plan as any. He leaned back against the tree and waited, giving the soldiers several hours to set up the tents and retire for the night. Once the moon was high in the sky, he crept over the stone fence and tiptoed into the woods, wincing at each tiny sound of dry leaves or twigs underfoot.

When he was certain he was safely away, he cut back to the road, retracing his steps from earlier in the day until he reached the stream. He clambered down the bank and stepped into the water. His boots would not keep it out for long, but there was nothing to be done for it. Better wet feet than captured.

He headed downstream, picking his footing carefully to avoid twisting an ankle in the uneven streambed. At least he would be getting away from roads and paths that would be easy to follow.

He trudged on for hours, as the stream met a larger one and eventually widened into what might be called a river. He had to stay in the shallow water near the bank now, his stomach churning with emptiness and his muscles aching. His life as Mr. Darcy of Pemberley seemed like a faintly absurd dream.

Dawn broke, and by good fortune the fields around him were fallow, with no sign of human habitation. Still, it meant taking even greater care to avoid being spotted, and he needed to rest. Desperately. He had walked all day and most of the night.

Finally he found a hollow in the bank where he could hide himself. He collected some branches and brush to cover himself. Then he curled up in the hollow and fell asleep, cold and achingly hungry.

He stayed there until sunset, when the dragon scale grew heavy in his hand. Elizabeth’s presence filled him, replete with love and support .

It was a brief heaven-sent moment of connection, and Darcy longed to luxuriate in it, but he sent his prepared message. Working to get home to you .

Her reply came immediately. Stay safe, no matter what.

Then it ended, no matter how he tried to hug the sensation close to him. Now he was back to being hungry, achy, and filthy. He left his hiding place long enough to forage a handful of berries from nearby brambles. If only he knew more of what he could eat in the wild! If he ever made it back to England, he would learn that first. Starving was highly unpleasant. If he found nothing on his own tomorrow, he would have to call his lynx, even if it meant the soldiers would find him again.

Once it was full dark, he could continue down the river. Sooner or later it would lead to a town where he might be able to steal some food.

Then he heard hoofbeats. Again. Curse them! Quickly he huddled to the ground as they passed him, splashing through the shallows along the river’s edge.

Damnation, how had they found him? He held his breath. Would they keep going?

“No, too far, blast him!” cried a voice in French. “Come back and go slowly this time. He will not escape us again.”

Darcy’s head sank back. This was very bad. His hiding place would not hold up to even a cursory inspection, and he could not summon the reserves to use his Talent.

The sounds of the men thrashing through the underbrush surrounded him. “He must be here somewhere!” The voice was triumphant.

This was it. He had used up all his narrow escapes, and there was only one option left, the one he had hoped to save in case he needed to sneak aboard a ship. The dragon Artifact, the one that could hide him for a day and a night. Without it, he would be captured. Once in prison, escape would be impossible. This was his only chance.

Careful not to disturb the branches around him, he reached up and tugged out the invisible pendant that hung around his neck. Snapping it open, he pressed his forefinger against the sharp point inside until he felt the skin part.

And his body faded from view, just like when he made himself invisible. It worked!

He had to leave his little hollow, though. Sooner or later one of the soldiers would stumble over it, and they could still find him by touch. No, the safest place would be in the river.

Now the dangerous part. Even if they could not see him, the branches he had to move were visible.

“Look, there!”

Darcy froze, halfway out of the hollow. A shot rang out, and something slapped his right shoulder. But God, they had hit him, shooting blind! Warm wetness trickled down his chest.

His luck had run out. He bit his lip to smother a cry of pain.

“Do not shoot less you have to! The emperor wants him alive.”

“I thought I saw something move.”

It was like a hot poker deep in his shoulder. He stumbled to the water, stepping in to stand knee-deep, and pressed his hand against the wound.

The soldiers were everywhere around him, half a dozen of them carrying lanterns and pacing up and down the river. A tall, thin lieutenant stood on the bank, studying something in his hand. “Something is wrong. It says he is right here.”

“Could he be hidden from sight?” an older soldier asked.

“Possibly. There are mages with that ability.” The lieutenant broke off a long branch and began sweeping it over the water.

That could be his downfall. The Artifact would hide him from any sense except touch. But if he moved, that mysterious device the lieutenant held would know it.

There was only one choice. He crouched down and submerged himself, moving as slowly as he dared to reduce ripples that might give his position away.

The branch whistled past, just over the surface of the water.

That had been too close .

Damn, it was cold! He held his breath as long as he could, then rolled onto his back and moved his lips to the surface. Air, blessed air! But he could still hear them stomping around the riverbanks, swearing.

On and on. His arms and legs began to cramp with cold, but at least it eased the pain in his wound. The Artifact might hide him for a day, but he would freeze long before that. Would they never give up?

“It must be broken. He was here, but clearly is gone.” The tall lieutenant’s words sounded distorted and distant through the water covering Darcy’s ears.

“No matter,” said the older one. “Tomorrow at sunset he will use his powers again, and it has always led us true then. This time we will surround him rather than try to follow him.”

Sunset. Somehow they were sensing his evening contact with Elizabeth.

They tromped away, grumbling and cursing, but he did not move. It could be a trap. What if they only went a short distance and then returned? Darcy waited until he could barely move his fingers before creeping out of the water half-frozen. How would he make it through the night? He could not risk a fire.

His legs were not working properly, and dizziness almost claimed him more than once, but somehow he dragged himself as far as a hedgerow. It was likely the best shelter he could find, so he forced his way inside it, the brambles tearing into his skin.

He curled up there, shivering, the cold sunk deep in his bones. Could he possibly survive the night in his soaking clothes?

At least dying of cold would be less painful than whatever death Napoleon had planned for him.