A Loom of Years

Seventeenth Weaving
@Anne E. Fraser 2006

The Council had just barely recovered from the loss of Ingrid when there was another death in the ranks.

Lothar had, unfortunately in Blaine and Olivia’s opinions, assumed control of Germany.  It was not surprising, since he had been Ingrid’s consort and successor, but still... Blaine had rather hoped that one of the young bloods of the German court would off the odious chap.  No such luck.

No, the newest loss was in a surprising quarter.  Nils of Scandinavia had retired from the Council, citing that he was weary of all the fighting and expressing his disappointment that the Council had drawn so far away from its original purpose of peace.

No Prince had ever retired before.  It had thrown the Council into an uproar.  Could Princes be allowed to just pack it in, as it were?  A Prince knew too much.  All the secrets of how one became Prince, the special powers, the ins and outs of other courts... this information was dangerous in the hands of one no longer initiated.  It was not only Rodrigo and Monique calling for a vote to have the defector executed.

Blaine stayed neutral for the vote. As he told Olivia, he couldn’t really blame Nils for being disillusioned.  The Council had indeed descended into something less than its noble beginnings, but he, Blaine, personally retained hope that it could, somehow, be turned around and made to plow the furrow it had begun.  But he also felt that a retired Prince threatened the stability and status quo.  Execution seemed harsh, when Nils was merely tired.  The emergency meeting dissolved into quarrelling .factions and nothing was decided.

As it turned out, nothing needed to be decided.  Nils took matters into his own hands.  According to a shaken and even paler-than-normal Paavali, the former Prince had sat and waited for the sun to rise.  Even the weak Swedish sun had been deadly.  Nils had not left a note.

And Paavali was now Prince of Scandinavia.  Whether he’d wanted to be or not.  Of course, Nils would not have chosen someone who did not want to be Prince, but presumably Paavali had not wanted to assume the power in such a manner.

Paavali was a worthy successor to Nils, though; cut from the same vacillating, indecisive cloth.
He always  voted with whomever he felt had the strongest voice on the Council at the moment.  He and Yves of Switzerland could not be trusted; Princes of powerless countries who nonetheless could make their votes count for the powerful ones.  Far too often, they sided with the unholy cabal that was Spain, Belgium and Germany.

Still, at least the Council entered the 19th century in relative peace.  The deaths of Ingrid and Nils had shaken them all into more or less cooperating, at least for the time being.

Blaine was thankful, as he and Olivia had their own worries in Great Britain.  After fading into obscurity for nearly two centuries, the magician Lord Avery had resurfaced and was causing problems in the magical community.  This time around, he seemed content to leave the vampires strictly alone, but the mages and witches in Blaine’s court were unhappy with what was happening within the magical community.  Avery was evil.

There didn’t seem to be any doubt that it was the same man.  Magicians were often immortal, or nearly so.  Avery was using a different name these days, although he still claimed the title of the Earl of Avery, but it was he beyond question.

Not only did they have to keep an eye on Avery, but Blaine and Olivia had heard that Etienne Corbeau was once again on the move.  Damn the devil, just when you thought he’d gone...

Blaine had a note sent to Gideon Redoak to warn him that his turnsire was abroad and probably looking for him. He offered the Baron the protection of the British court, which was politely refused.

“Silly fellow,” Blaine observed to Olivia, upon receiving this reply.

“Stubborn, you mean,” Olivia replied.  “Like someone else I know.”

“I am not stubborn!”

“Did I say it was you?”

“What am I going to do if Corbeau comes back to England, looking for Redoak?”

“Try and stop him, of course,” Olivia replied.

“Yes, I had so much success last time.”

She came over to where he sat at his desk, and knelt by his side, looking up at him.  “I want you to stop blaming yourself,” she said.

“Corbeau is a demon, Olivia,” he replied.  “A mad dog that should be put down.  Why is it that nobody seems able to do so?”

“I don’t know.”  She took hold of his hands.  “I really do not know.  But it is not your fault. It will not be your fault if Corbeau finds his way back into England.”

“It will if that rat gets any further than whatever dock he lands on,” said Blaine grimly.

-------------------


Der Nordstern sailed out of Bremerhaven, laden with cargo and a vampire.  A lonely mage had been placed in this northern Germanic port to keep an eye on shipping, just in case, and made her reports to her counterpart in the British court, magically.  She had seen one of Corbeau’s minions, all as evil as he was, negotiating with the ship’s captain for a large crate to be put aboard.

The new German Prince showed no sign of attempting to stop this or of even caring that the monster the rest of the Council wished to kill had been hiding in Germany.  Lothar had inherited more than the Princedom from Ingrid, apparently.

The ship was sailing for England. It would land at one of the Cinq Ports, most probably Dover. Probably half the crew would be dead or ill by the time it arrived.

When it did arrive, it would find a reception committee.

“But Gideon refused protection,” Olivia pointed out.

“Wrong, darling,” replied Blaine cheerfully.  “He refused the protection of the court.  He didn’t want to come and live with us.  I am Prince. It is my duty to protect my country and all who abide there from rogue vampires.  Nothing to do with stubborn young Barons whatsoever.”

She smiled.  “I love it when you are being devious.”

“Me, devious?  Never.  I must do my duty.”

They had lodgings in Dover; suitable for a Prince and consort, and more importantly, suitable for two vampires.  Der Nordstern would almost certainly dock there within the next day or so.  Garron of the weres and Orrick of the Nameless watched the docks during the day. Other agents of the British court were posted at the remainder of the Cinq Ports just in case the ship did not land at Dover.

It gave Blaine a certain amount of personal satisfaction when Der Nordstern not only landed at Dover, but did so after nightfall.

He and Olivia waited, backed up by the equally tense Garron and Orrick, for the crate to be unloaded. The trouble was, Der Nordstern was a cargo vessel and one crate looks very much like another.  Hard to tell if there was a vampire in one of them or not. Garron was looking frustrated, Orrick bored and itching to fight.  But who was there to fight? Sailors?

Sailors. One of the sailors caught Blaine’s attention.  The fellow didn’t walk or act like a sailor, despite the uniform.  He was too smooth, and didn’t swear. He was handsome and clean-shaven, under the carefully-applied dirt on his face. And he had no heartbeat, and did not smell of blood or sweat.  Vampire.

The devil!  Corbeau wasn’t in a bloody crate.  He’d been going to just saunter past the guards, dressed as a sailor on shore leave, practically thumbing his nose at them.

Garron growled, eyes glowing amber, and leapt out of his shadowed spot behind some barrels of pitch.  Blaine sighed.  Damned impulsive weres...

There was a quick movement on Corbeau’s part, even faster than Orrick could load and aim his crossbow.  Something silver flashed in the fitful dockside light.  They heard Garron scream and the thud as his body fell.

Blaine signalled to Olivia and they both stepped into the monster’s path.

“Well,” said Etienne Corbeau, kicking Garron’s body aside.  “A royal reception. I am honoured.”

“You are dead,” Blaine replied.  Not a trace of the bumbling, dishevelled clerk now.

“No, your pet is dead,” replied Corbeau, though he did not make the mistake of taking his eyes off Blaine to glance down at the fallen werewolf.  “A silver dagger is always useful. You could ask your old friend Claude, except that he is dead.”

Blaine drew the sword which, against his custom, he had brought with him.  Olivia already had her dagger in her hand.  Corbeau laughed and reached for his own sword. He’d apparently only had one silver weapon; the quarrel in Orrick’s crossbow was tipped with silver but neither Blaine nor Olivia bore the metal themselves.  Too late to curse that oversight.

“So you will go down fighting, like Armand and Darius, rather than sacrifice yourself like dear old Claude?” Corbeau asked.  “How romantic.”

Blaine’s sword moved, a blur in the torchlight, but Corbeau’s struck like a snake and the blades met, sparks flying from them, the metallic scream echoing off the dockside buildings.  A few sailors and casual standers-by had gathered to watch; now they moved back, away from the crazy people who still carried swords in the nineteenth century.

Again and again Blaine sought to stab Corbeau, to at least slow him down and inconvenience him, but every time the other vampire met his move.  Olivia and Orrick watched, fearfully, unable to intervene because any blow of theirs might strike Blaine by accident. The swords rang like clarions.  Olivia could not cast mind spells on all the humans watching; she could only hope that none of them had the presence of mind to run for help.  Any sheriff or other law official attempting to break up this fight would die.

Orrick kept the quarrel in the groove of his crossbow, aimed towards the Prince and his opponent, praying to whatever gods watched over the Nameless and vampires for a clear shot at Corbeau. It was impossible; the man moved like the air.  Blaine, though he fought grimly, was obviously no match for this opponent.

Olivia hefted her dagger thoughtfully.  There had to be some way.  Blaine was going to die, otherwise.  Gallantly, defending his country as had Claude, but still die.  She would never, ever forgive him if he did.

Then Corbeau spun, almost as if he could hear her thoughts (could he? Some vampires could read other vampires’ minds) and smiled.  He was incredibly handsome, but it was a cold beauty, utterly without redemption.

She threw her dagger.  She was a hunter, and what she aimed at, she hit. It was not soft silver, but good British steel, and it stuck, quivering, in the centre of Corbeau’s forehead, turning him into a ghastly unicorn. He screamed, then screamed again, incoherently, as Blaine’s sword sliced through his right arm at the elbow.  Blaine’s sword was also steel, so the arm would regenerate if Corbeau lived, just as he would recover from the wound in his head.

Cursing, dripping with vampire blood from his head and arm, Corbeau still moved like smoke.  He turned and ran from the British Prince.

Orrick fired his crossbow; the silver-tipped quarrel hit its target neatly but unfortunately not in a vital spot, and Corbeau fell, screaming once more, into the water below the greasy docks.

The three hunters looked at each other.  “Is it over?” Olivia asked.

“I got him between the shoulder blades,” said Orrick apologetically. “But at least he will have silver poisoning.”

They walked tentatively  to the side of the dock, Orrick loading a fresh bolt and Olivia with a replacement dagger in hand. Blaine still gripped his gory sword..  A thin film of blood lay on the filthy water, but of Corbeau, there was no sign.

“You are exiled from England,” Blaine called down to the lapping water. He felt a twinge in his side for the first time.  “You bastard,” he said.  “You cut me!” He spat at the water. “You are exiled from Scotland, from Ireland, from Wales, from the Isle of Man. You shall not set foot upon British soil again, as I am Prince.”

Olivia laid a hand on his shoulder.  “Did he hurt you?” she asked.

Blaine looked down at himself.  A sword gash burned on his side, but Corbeau’s long blade had not been silver.  “It will heal,” he said gruffly.

The three of them knelt at Garron’s side.  “Farewell, old friend and protector,” Blaine said. He put an arm around Olivia, who was weeping silently.  The wolves were hers. And Garron... Garron was a friend to them both.  His loss would be keenly felt.

Orrick hefted the body over his shoulder and carried it back to the lodgings.  Somehow or other, he would get it back to the court, so that Garron could be buried with the honours due a protector of the Prince and consort. Olivia picked up Corbeau’s severed arm, since it was not a thing that could be left just laying on the dock.

The small crowd of sailors from Der Nordstern, dockside workers and the usual wharf rats simply stood aside and stared as the battered hunters passed.    They had seen utterly impossible events happen this night; but already their minds were forming protective filters.  By morning, they would convince themselves they had witnessed merely another dockside brawl.

So it was that none of them, either the humans or the Prince and his two companions,  saw the hand emerge from the water, a mile or so out to sea, and grab onto a trailing line from a ship headed south.
 

Go to The Eighteenth Weaving