Garth Nix - Newt’s Emerald

Truthful showed no sign of hearing his words. She was staring intently out the window at a caped figure, a short woman with her hood up and a hatbox on her hip, who had emerged from the doorway of the Black Lion. She couldn’t see her face, but there was something about the way she walked . . .

“It’s her!” she exclaimed, pointing so hard her fingernail scratched against the glass.

“Plathenden!” exclaimed Harnett, leaping forward to see.

“No,” said Truthful. “My maid! Agatha!”

“I must go after her,” said Harnett. “Stay here!”

Truthful waited for two seconds then disobeyed, following him as he went clattering down the stairs in a rush, calling out to his men.

“Keep watch for Plathenden!”

Harnett didn’t even notice Truthful until he was outside and the door shut behind them both. He was craning on tip-toe to see over the heads of the crowd and staggered as Truthful ran into him.

“Can you never do as you are told!” he snapped. “Stay by me!”

With that, he slid between two large meat carriers and slipped past a woman carrying a bag of potatoes almost her own size. Truthful followed as closely as she could at his heels, ducking and weaving, jumping up whenever opportunity allowed to catch sight of Agatha, always some twenty or thirty bobbing heads in front of them.

Finally the lane joined a somewhat broader street that ran up the hill and down to the seafront. Harnett paused by the corner of a house there, his head turning swiftly from left to right. Obviously he had lost their quarry. Truthful was just catching up to him when she saw the air shimmer behind him and to his side, and Agatha appeared out of the whitewashed wall, a stone knife in her hand.

“Charles!” screamed Truthful, in her true voice. At the same time she reached for a pistol, but the lock caught on the edge of the pocket of her coat, and she could not get it free.

Harnett whirled about and caught Agatha’s wrist, turning the knife aside so it scraped across his shoulder rather than plunging in his heart. He twisted harder and Agatha dropped the knife. But she did not surrender, instead raking at Harnett’s face with her left hand, the nails there suddenly grown long and sharp. He grabbed that wrist also, and the two of them struggled violently from side to side, Harnett shocked at finding his strength matched by a lady’s maid, Agatha’s face twisted in fury.

Truthful finally got her pistol free. Cocking the lock, she levelled it at Agatha’s back and after the briefest moment of consideration, pulled the trigger. There was a resounding crack, a great plume of white smoke, and then much to Truthful’s surprise, something whizzed past her own ear with a whistling cry.

The ball had somehow ricocheted off Agatha’s back!

“The bracelet!” shouted Harnett. “Touch her with the bracelet!”

Truthful had forgotten she was wearing the gold and silver wire bracelet, it was so slim. Dropping the empty pistol, she slid back her coat cuff and struck Agatha hard in the middle of her back.

“It’s not touching!” roared Harnett, who was slowly being overborn by the unnatural strength of the ferocious Agatha. “Pull your shirt-sleeves up as well!”

Truthful struggled to push her shirt cuff back and bring the bracelet forward, unfortunately tangling immediately with her cuff-links.

“Hurry!” gasped Harnett. He was down on one knee and Agatha’s talons were almost plucking at his eyes, “Hurry!”

“I am hurrying!” shrieked Truthful. At last she got the bracelet clear and pressed her wrist hard against Agatha’s back. She didn’t know what would happen, but the last thing she expected was for the woman to utter an unearthly scream and collapse at her feet, quite dead.

“Part-fay,” gasped Harnett, struggling to his feet. “Stone nymph, I suppose.”

“I didn’t know,” said Truthful slowly. She stared down at her former maid’s body. Agatha’s skin was already darkening to a stony grey. For some reason her eyes found it hard to focus. “I never really knew anything about her . . .”

Harnett picked up the empty pistol and looked about them. The crowd was silent now, everyone stopped, all business halted. All eyes were upon Harnett and Truthful and the body on the ground, still leaking the hideous, tarry substance. Harnett bent down, picked up the hatbox Agatha had been carrying and thrust it into Truthful’s hands.

“You must go! Take this with you. Fast as you can. I will wait for the constables, and will follow when I may. Please this once, do as I ask!”

He pushed her in the middle of her back. With a start, Truthful set off down the street. A great murmur rose up behind her, and she heard someone cry, “Murder!” and then Harnett calling out in clear, commanding tones.

“I am a government officer! Someone send for the constable, and be about your business!”

Truthful kept walking. The street zig-zagged so that when she glanced over her shoulder she could no longer see Harnett, but could only hear the roar of the crowd, and gauge its feeling from that sound. She felt desperately frightened, but not for herself. If the mob took it upon itself to have a lynching, there was Harnett alone . . .

Help must be dispatched, Truthful thought. At once! Still clutching the hatbox, she began to run as she had never run before, not even stopping when her hat blew off as she rounded the corner to the seafront and emerged into the south-westerly breeze.

A scant six minutes later, one of Harnett’s men on guard outside the Otterbrook’s right-hand front door saw a young gentleman carrying a hatbox come charging towards him, his driving coat flying open and no hat on his head.

“Halt or I shoot!” he shouted, drawing his pistol.

Truthful slowed, fell to one knee and dropped the hatbox. The lid came off and rolled against the lower step.

“Call Sergeant Ruggins!” she gasped. “At once!”

“You stay where you are,” ordered the nervous guard, looking down at the red hair of this strange, but also strangely familiar young gentleman. He backed up the steps and knocked upon the door. The porter inside, already alert to some peculiar circumstance, opened it a crack.

“Thank . . . you,” said Truthful, just managing to get the words out between great gulps of air. “I am . . . Chevalier de Vienne . . . Lady Truthful’s cousin. Please tell . . . Lady Badgery I am here.”

The guard and the porter exchanged a swift look.

“Better call Sergeant Ruggins from the stables,” said the guard. “And tell Mr Dworkin.”

The porter frowned, but disappeared back inside.

The guard kept his eye on Truthful, and the pistol was still in his hand. That hand twitched as she dragged the hatbox closer and looked inside.

There was a hat in it, which she didn’t expect. Or not exactly a hat, but a kind of helmet designed to completely enclose the head, a papier-mâché thing of sea-green with silver scales and fishy appendages at the side in place of ears.

“Chevalier?”

Truthful looked up. Sergeant Ruggins was at the door. He too had his pistol by his side.

“Sergeant Ruggins! Major Harnett may be in danger from a mob,” exclaimed Truthful, only at the last second remembering to pitch her voice low, so her first words came out as a squeak. “He is where a lane comes out on Ship Street, near a butcher’s. Please, you must send help!”

“Stay where you are,” ordered Sergeant Ruggins. His tone was not at all like it was when he usually spoke to Truthful.

“You must send help!” demanded Truthful.

“We’ll look into it,” said Ruggins. He moved down a step to let someone else look out the door, glancing back over his shoulder. “Ah, milady. Is that who I think it is?”

“Yes, it is my cousin, Henri de Vienne,” said Lady Badgery calmly. “You should have told us you were planning to visit, my boy. Come inside.”

“Major Harnett,” gasped Truthful once again. She picked up the hatbox and staggered to her feet.

“I’ll send men,” said Ruggins. “Before I do, was that you who . . . ah . . . caused the commotion in the stables some half an hour ago . . . sir?”

“Yes, yes,” agreed Truthful. “Only hurry. Major Harnett . . . the crowd, a lynch mob!”

“In Brighton?” asked Lady Badgery. “I doubt it, Chevalier. You live too out of the world to understand an English crowd. Come with me.”

That last command was said very sternly. Truthful bowed her head and followed, aware that she had put herself in the position of earning a terrible scold from her great-aunt. But Truthful hardly cared, she was so relieved that Lady Badgery thought Harnett was in no danger.

This feeling lasted only until she got inside and found Lady Otterbrook coming down the grand stairs to see what the commotion was at her front door. All of a sudden the likelihood of being found out struck her, and she would have turned and fled if her great-aunt had not such a strong hold on her elbow.

“Lucy. This is my cousin the Chevalier Henri de Vienne, the young man I told you about.”

Truthful looked sharply at Lady Badgery, who ignored her.

“Make your bow to Lady Otterbrook, Chevalier,” she said.

Truthful obeyed automatically, almost emptying the contents of the hatbox by accident as she did so.

“We are going to have take a dish of tea in the parlour you so kindly allowed me,” said Lady Badgery. “And catch up on family gossip. Then I fear the Chevalier has an engagement in . . . in Portsmouth and must ride on.”

“Alas,” said Lady Otterbrook. “Can you not stay to dine, Chevalier?”