Read Online The Wizard of London by Mercedes Lackey - Free Book Online

fer mournin’ is somethin’
only gentry kin afford. I ‘spect she’s easy’t’ gammon,
too; paid no attention’t‘us, an’ I was near
enough’t‘ get me hand into ’er purse an’ she would
never be knowin’ till she was home. An’ she didn’ ask fer a
cab’t‘ be brung, so’s I reckon she keeps ’er carriage.
That’s not jest gentry, tha’s quality.”
    “Right
on all counts, my dear,” Mem’sab said, a bit grimly.
“Katherine has no more sense than one of the babies, and never had. Her
parents didn’t spoil her, but they never saw any reason to educate her in
practical matters. They counted on her finding a husband who would do all her
thinking for her, and as a consequence, she is pliant to any hand that offers
mastery. She married into money; her husband has a very high position in the
Colonial Government. Nothing but the best school would do for her boy, and a
spoiled little lad he was, too.”
    Grey
suddenly began coughing, most realistically, a series of terrible, racking
coughs, and Sarah turned her head to look into her eyes. Then she turned back
to Mem’sab. “He’s dead, isn’t he?” the child
said, quite matter-of-factly. “Her little boy, I mean. Grey knows. He got
sick and died. That’s who she’s in mourning for.”
    “Quite
right, and as Grey showed us, he caught pneumonia.” Mem’sab looked
grim. “Poor food, icy rooms, and barbaric treatment—” She
threw up her hands, and shook her head. “There’s no reason to go
on; at least Katherine has decided to trust her two youngest to us instead of
the school her husband wanted. She’ll bring them to Nadra tomorrow, Nan,
and they’ll probably be terrified, so I’m counting on you to help
Nadra soothe them.”
    Nan
could well imagine that they would be terrified; not only were they being left
with strangers, but they would know, at least dimly, that their brother had
gone away to school and died. They would be certain that the same was about to
happen to them.
    “That,
however, is not why I sent for you,” Mem’sab continued.
“Katherine is seeing a medium; do either of you know what that is?”
    Sarah
and Nan shook their heads, but Grey made a rude noise. Sarah looked shocked,
but Nan giggled and Mem’sab laughed.
    “I
am afraid that Grey is correct in her opinions, for the most part,” the
woman told them. “A medium is a person who claims to speak with the dead,
and help the souls of the dead speak to the living.” Her mouth
compressed, and Nan sensed her carefully controlled anger. “All this is
accomplished for a very fine fee, I might add. Real mediums are very rare, and
I know all of the ones in England by name.”
    “Ho!
Like them gypsy palm readers, an’ the conjure men!” Nan exclaimed
in recognition. “Aye, there’s a mort’a gammon there, and
that’s sure. You reckon this lady’s been gammoned, then?”
    “Yes,
I do, and I would like you two—three—” she amended, with a
penetrating look at Grey, “—to help me prove it. Nan, if there is
trickery afoot, do you think you could catch it?”
    Nan
had no doubt. “I bet I could,” she said. “Can’t be
harder’n keepin’ a hand out uv yer pocket—or grabbin’
the wrist once it’s in.”
    “Good
girl—you must remember to speak properly, and only when you’re
spoken to, though,” Mem’sab warned her. “If this so-called
medium thinks you are anything but a gently-reared child, she might find an
excuse to dismiss the séance.” She turned to Sarah. “Now, if
by some incredible chance this woman is genuine, could you and Grey
tell?”
    Sarah’s
head bobbed so hard her curls tumbled into her eyes. “Yes,
Mem’sab,” she said, with as much confidence as Nan.
“M’luko, the apprentice to the medicine man that gave me Grey, said
that Grey could tell when the spirits were there, and someday I might,
too.”
    “Did
he, now?” Mem’sab gave her a curious look. “How interesting!
Well, if Grey can tell us if there are spirits