The Battle of Harmingsdown: Chapter 1

Sir Edmund Moulde, Patron of Moulde Hall, Steward of the Crimson Clasp, and Knight of the Noble Band of the Top Hat — to give a non-exhaustive list of his titles and honorifics — patented more inventions in his life than any known man or woman of note.

Indeed, this fact alone seems justification enough for the writing of this book; but as has become customary, in accordance with recent trends, I feel it is important to add a personal note of explanation:

I had the honor of meeting Sir Edmund Moulde before he died. I was young, barely nine, when my parents were invited to the annual Harmingsdown Day, still held every spring in Harmingsdown. I still have fond memories of that day and the festivities I took part in.

As dusk approached, we took lodging at a local tavern owned by the Mouldes. By serendipitous fortune, Sir Edmund had taken it upon himself to visit the town this day, and had chosen a seat in the corner of this very tavern to have a small meal.

Out of respect and reverence, the man was given wide berth by everyone in the tavern, save a young and unconcerned boy who, in his youthful innocence, knew only that it was because of Sir Edmund he had seen such festive sights that day. I simply wanted to thank the man for everything he had done.

I was properly punished by my parents for daring to disturb him, but I remember well how unperturbed Sir Edmund was at my actions. Indeed, he said something to me; just a few sentences before he sent me back to my parents.

It has tormented me to this day that I cannot remember what he said. I am certain, if I could remember, so much would be made clear.

~ Excerpt from the forward of “The Genius of Sir Edmund Moulde: his Inventions and Blueprints” by Lord Henry Herringfish, PhD, HME, Professor of Creative Engineering at Grimm’s School for the Erratically Gifted

NOTE: The referenced blueprints in this book have all been removed in accordance with Church Law. May the Touch of Her Eternal Flame guide us all.

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Edmund was an orphan from birth, as was fashionable at the time.

Sir Limmingsbald Wonthorpe III, noted writer of the age, wrote a dissertation on the rise of the pennies dreadful, the pulps, and the un-noteables. He documented the professional language of pen-pushers and ink-sots, who were desperate to wring the price of another evening’s spirits out of the downtrodden and destitute. He ascertained the pinnacle of their craft, and called it the Hero Delusion.

“Someone will come to save us all,” the pulps proclaimed. “The horrors of the world are beyond our ken, and new sciences and technologies give us only more mysteries to face. Only someone as mysterious as these new challenges, someone from the same world of intrigue, could possibly hold the answers to all of life’s threats.”

After Sir Wonthorpe’s subsequent dismissal from the Calligraphic Institute of Cliffside, his theories and musings over this depressing sentiment in society were forgotten by everyone.

By everyone, that is, except for Edmund Moulde.

He had found one of the only surviving copies of Sir Wonthorpe’s treatise while he was away at school, and found the content shallow, aggrandizing, poorly explored, and inappropriately cited. Nevertheless, there was a seed of something interesting in his thesis, and the idea had tickled the back of Edmund’s brain ever since.

Edmund never thought of himself as mysterious. Save for a few singularly uncommon events, his life had been very straightforward. The first eight years of his life had been spent in a crowded Orphanage outside the great city of Brackenburg. After his adoption by Matron Moulde and his subsequent rise to Heir of the Moulde Family, (a supposedly large but actually small estate) its fortunes, (supposedly large, but actually non-existent) and Moulde Hall itself; (supposedly large but actually even larger) Edmund found himself with two things he’d never had before. A family, and expectations.

In opposition to the estate, neither his family nor these expectations were small. One evening when he had a moment to himself and his curiosity brooked no delay, he counted up his surviving relatives only to discover no less than one-hundred and seventy-eight cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, and nephews, all varying numbers of removed. He and Matron were the only real Mouldes, related to the others only through distant blood, marriage, and custom.

Of all one-hundred and seventy-eight, Edmund was the one who had managed to organize the end of the generations-long feud with the Rotledge family, arrange a marriage for himself, find the lost Moulde Family Fortune,¹ and all before he had turned nine years old.

These achievements had made things worse for Edmund; the whole city of Brackenburg thought Edmund a genius.

Geniuses must go to school, so he did; but this period in Edmund’s life is far too painful to recount here. Those who are drawn to the lives and histories of others may feel free to fill in whatever coming-of-age dramas they wish, while scholars familiar with Sir Edmund’s life may chuckle in appropriate condescension.

Suffice it to say; time had passed, as it always does, to the chagrin of old and young alike. Edmund had left behind the short stature of youth and stretched like a willow branch to a more respectable height for one of seventeen. His spine had taken to a natural hunch, crafted from years of intense staring at books, fiddling with tools, and studying interesting concoctions. His hair had grown long, alternately hanging straight in a black curtain or tied back in a queue at the base of his skull.²

Edmund had grown emotionally as well, and therefore could accurately describe himself as “eager” when he stepped off the train — the Lord and Lady Grimbold — at Brackenburg station. The streets were as dark as dusk, though it was only just after lunch, thanks to the giant black cloud of smog that covered the city like an umbrella, fed by the powerful factories that filled the Farrows district. Even after five years, it was frighteningly familiar.

He paused a moment to take a deep breath of the brackish air, before walking down the station’s steps to the waiting black and silver carriage, emblazoned with the silver emblem of the Moulde Family, a spreadeagled raven with grasping claws. He nodded to the silent and skeletal driver, climbed inside, and pulled out his notebook to review the work he had done on the train as the carriage began to shake its way down the cobblestone streets.

Edmund flipped through his notebook’s pages, reviewing the thought processes that had brought him to his conclusions. There were many, and they were often times at cross-purposes, but they were all focused on the simple problem that Edmund had been adopted to solve: the Moulde Family, once the proudest and most powerful of the Nine Founding Families, was still little more than an embarrassment.

Now that his education was complete, he could finally put his plethora of plans into action. He had studied countless sciences, sent countless letters, and traded countless favors, all to prepare an intricate web of manipulation that, given a few years,^{3, 4} would prove Matron had not chosen poorly in adopting him.

Edmund flipped the page, and noted the number of paragraphs that he had crossed out. He had spent the entire train ride flipping back and forth through his notebooks, scribbling words out with remarkable speed as he adjusted, shifted, and rearranged aspects of his plans. Had anyone been in the position to ask, he could have lied and said he simply dissatisfied with his plan’s quality and was always searching for improvements. The truth was, to his everlasting shame, he had not expected the War.

Of his favored schemes, five wouldn’t work while Britannia was at war, and three had taken severe blows to their reliability. The few that required no adjustment were uncomfortably complicated⁵ to the point that Edmund doubted they would succeed without large amounts of luck.

Edmund kept his nose in his notebook until they had passed through the Squatling district, and arrived at Haggard Hill, the home of Moulde Hall. Of all of life’s great immutables, Moulde Hall was certainly one of the largest. It’s five stories towered over Haggard Hill, thick and black and foreboding.

If Edmund had expected any grand welcome, he would have been disappointed. As it was, he knew that the only things awaiting him were a rotting yellow gazebo, a garden full of dead flowers and gnarled trees, and the expectations of being Heir to the Moulde Estate.

All the same, even knowing of this interminable indifference of the building, there was something quite comforting about seeing the giant black mansion rising up out of Haggard Hill. For the first time in five years, Edmund truly felt like he was returning somewhere. There was an ache in his chest that could have been homesickness, but as he was returning home it had to have been something else.

He encapsulated the feeling in a tiny poem he wrote on the train as it tore across the countryside:

Poet-kings of later years herald this poem as one of Edmund’s greatest, containing all manner of poetic homages and emotive tricks. At the time, Edmund had simply wanted to experiment with the form. After all, the Haiku combined two of his many passions; poetry and mathematics.

Nevertheless, the poem sprung back into his mind as he saw Mrs. Kippling the maid and Ung the butler standing outside the mansion’s door as the carriage rattled up the path. He had not seen them in almost five years; Ung in his characteristic black suit, his face a blank mask of stoic passivity, Mrs. Kippling dressed in her cleanest dress, her face barely suppressed excitement. Matron was absent, but Edmund knew her well enough to know that she rarely left her room, except for emergencies.⁶

Even from the carriage Edmund could see the faint peppering of white in Ung’s black hair. The five years was beginning to show in deeper lines in his face. Mrs. Kippling, of course, looked exactly the same, for reasons Edmund had never scientifically explored. She was centuries older than Matron, having served the Moulde’s since Patron Plinkerton’s day, and a fateful visit to Patron Plinkerton’s laboratory, but as of yet, Edmund had been given no reason to experiment on her. Besides, it wouldn’t be proper behavior; True Gentlemen never dissected the help.

“Oh, Master Edmund,” Mrs. Kippling chirped as Edmund’s lanky body unfolded from the carriage. “You’ve grown so tall! Imagine, what a difference five years makes!”

“Welcome home, Master Edmund,” Ung’s bass voice rumbled across the hill like distant thunder. Placing his hand over his heart, he bowed low, narrowly avoiding headbutting Edmund on the nose.

For those unfamiliar with the culture at Grimm’s, it is good to remember that the School prided itself on forcing its students to do everything themselves. At the same time, the Founding Families took great pride in having people to do everything for them. As such, it was a struggle for Edmund to stop himself from climbing the side of the carriage and grabbing his bags for himself, and instead gesturing behind him with a vaguely dismissive air. “Take my bags up to my room, Ung.”

The niceties thus completed, Edmund walked up the steps to Moulde Hall. Yes, eager was certainly the correct emotion. He was about to experience a homecoming. He had never had a home to return to before, and it was a subject the poets wrote about constantly.

And indeed, it might have been quite wonderful, had he been able to experience it. Instead, his brain caught up with his eyes, and he turned back to Mrs. Kippling, and then back at Ung. Neither of them had moved a muscle.

“What’s the matter?”

“Begging-your-pardon-not-my-place,” Mrs. Kippling hiccuped, her hands flying to her chest. Ung was no more informative, his placid face as calm as the ever-present black smog that hung over Brackenburg.

He had almost missed it, their tense bodies, their darting eyes. They were not nervous, they were worried.

“What’s the matter?” he asked again, but this time putting a twist in his voice that he had discovered his fourth year. It was a clever little adjustment, adjusting pitch and tone in such a way as to perfectly suggest light flickering off the blade of a knife.

Mrs. Kippling glanced at the immovable Ung, wiping her eyes when she saw no support. “Oh, Master Edmund, it could be nothing, but… Matron. She’s…” Mrs. Kippling choked before falling back into demure silence.

Edmund immediately understood. “How long?”

“Not since yesterday’s breakfast. She’s been coughing a lot more recently, begging-your-pardon. She’s eating less too, not-my-place, and today…before you arrived…”

“Matron is currently in her room,” Ung finally interjected, his deep voice cracking through Mrs. Kipplings avalanche of words like a cannon through soldiers, “meeting with a gentleman.”

“He’s not Mr. Shobbinton!” Mrs. Kippling hissed. “She never meets with anyone in her room who isn’t the solicitor. Or one of the family, I suppose, but he’s no Moulde, I’ll stake my life on it, begging-your-pardon.”

Edmund’s first instinct was to tell them to mind their own business. His second instinct was to mollify this admonishment by telling them that he knew who this man was.⁷ His third instinct, however, was to remember that he was not at Grimm’s anymore. As Heir to the Moulde Estate, Moulde Hall was his responsibility. So too were the grounds, the servants, everything that entered the wrought iron gate at the bottom of the hill. He needed to tend to his plans for the long term prospects of the Family, and that meant he needed to care about the servants, not scorn their worries. It was a remarkable inefficiency, but still a necessity.

Edmund was uncertain if this was because he actually cared about them, or if he simply deplored the inefficiency of a distraught servant. In the end, the result was the same; his plans would have to wait.

“Thank you for telling me,” Edmund gave a small nod. “I will go upstairs at once and make sure everything is alright.”

The smile Mrs. Kippling flashed at him sparkled with relief. “Oh, thank you Master Edmund! It is so wonderful to have you home!”

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In his poem The Nature of Things, poets and aesthetes alike champion Edmund’s ability to explore every angle and probe every facet of the meaning of Home. The first stanza focused on its unchanging nature: no matter the season, the world’s events, or even how much it actually changes; Home never changes.

Matron’s room had changed. The curtains, once covered in dust, had been cleaned and drawn open to let in the midday sun. Her lunch sat uneaten on the table, and the iron kettle of tea had cooled from its usual boil to barely scalding. Perhaps most distressing, Matron was not seated in her usual chair with her umbrella clasped in her hands, staring at him like a vulture and daring him to explain why he had entered her room without waiting for her admission.

The room was bright, airy, and almost welcoming. It terrified Edmund to no end.

A faint cough drew Edmund’s attention to Matron’s bedroom. There she lay in her tiny bed with a man dressed in an unassuming white coat at her bedside. The man was staring at a piece of paper, tapping it gently with his pen like a conductor calling for attention.

Matron locked eyes with Edmund as he entered her room, undisguised fury on her face.

She hadn’t changed. Her eyes were still cold and dark, her sneer still sharp and strong. Her umbrella was still in arms reach, leaning against the bed-side table where a plethora of pills, powders, and poultices dominated the small surface.

“Out,” she snapped.

“Now, now,” the man slipped a stethoscope out from his coat, “We had an agreement that I would finish my-”

Her eyes darted to his. “Out.”

Her tone had not changed, her fists had not clenched, and her muscles had not moved any more than to throw a glare at the man, yet this was enough to turn his face ashen. The man nodded and turned to flash Edmund the smile of one who hoped a moment of sympathy would be forthcoming. He left the room disappointed.

Once they were alone, Matron’s frown deepened. “About time you showed up.”

Edmund’s mind was already working like a steam-engine, noting Matron’s tone, expression, and all the words she wasn’t saying. If anyone thought that Matron spoke in a brief and blunt manner, it was only because they weren’t listening carefully enough.

“Well?” It was a loaded word, full of skepticism and intrigue, demanding an explanation.

Edmund felt his throat dry up. Even though she was lying propped up in her bed; even though they both knew they were the only two people in the world who truly understood each other; even at age seventeen, after a lifetime of experience, education, and elocution; he was nervous to speak with Matron.

“I’m afraid my teachers were less than impressed,” he said after carefully clearing his throat. He made sure to adjust his pitch and rhythm, to speak every language that Matron knew.

The following conversation cannot be easily transcribed, as the multi-layered context and subtext of apology, curiosity, strategy, recrimination, self-doubt, suggestion, fear, and above all upper-class indignation, would require multiple chapters simply to catalog. Neither could a simple transcription of the words said be used, as the constant references to old family members, the weather, local sports scores, and periodic comments on each other’s physical health would only confuse. Therefore, their conversation will be, for lack of a better phrase, translated. Footnotes will be used to explain any untranslatable phrase.

“The other Founding Families are quite disappointed⁸ in you,” Matron sniffed.

“I did graduate,” Edmund said, “and with fair marks from what are considered the most difficult classes available.”

“They thought you were a genius.” Matron silenced his protests with a glare. “They will never forgive you that.”

“We don’t need their forgiveness.”⁹

“We need their solidarity! Are you a fool? If they decide you are no longer worth their consideration, the Moulde family will collapse.”

Edmund knew what she meant; the Moulde family had been disrespected for many generations, and disrespect for the upper-class was a knife-edge worthy of the greatest acrobats in the world.

“There are many who think I am a genius simply for being admitted to Grimm’s.”

“And those who do not,” Matron’s eyes glinted like onyx, “are plotting against us at this very moment.”¹⁰

Edmund resisted the urge to scratch the back of his neck, twist his heel into the carpet, or any of the other indicators of nervousness he had practiced over his years at Grimm’s. The truth was, he had not wanted to have this conversation yet. He had hoped to wait until after he had taken the time to review and polish all of his schemes; he wanted to show her plans that he was proud of, since there was no chance she would approve of anything less.

But Matron’s gaze was clear; she would also not accept any attempt of Edmund’s to delay any longer.

“We may just surprise them,” Edmund said.

“Hmm.”¹¹

Edmund felt his blood freeze. The glitter in Matron’s eye had dimmed. It had dimmed. He had expected a full-throated argument, a dismissal of his efforts, even a coy baiting of his abilities. Instead…

For his five years at Grimm’s, Edmund had assumed that he and Matron would work together when he returned home. He had never anticipated, even when he had suspected her ailing health, that she would not be willing…or perhaps able…to help.

The understanding was chilling; whatever threats were to come for the Moulde Family, Edmund was on his own. Was Matron really willing to drop him into the deep end like that?

Of course she was. It was practically how she said hello.

After a suitable pause, Matron sniffed sharply and pointed to her bedside table. A clearer command for help was never given.

Edmund moved to her bedside and poured her a glass of water. She took it from his hands and slurped it down with the sucking sound of an angry rain-gutter.

“We are at war,” she said as she handed the glass back.

For proper context of the following conversation, it is important to note how jarring it was to Edmund to hear Matron use the pronoun “we.” The Moulde Family — indeed, all of the Nine Founding Families — had survived primarily through fierce independence and self-centered pride. Even the most liberal of Patrons during the Founding Families’ heyday maintained isolationist views about the rightful separation between their own society and the country at large. The Crown was important, yes; and the Founding Families were technically subjects of the Monarchy, true; but even comparing a Founding Family to Royalty or the peerage of the realm was simply not done.¹²

Matron Moulde was not a liberal Matron. To hear her say “we” when speaking of the war…it was disconcerting. News of her coughing and the presence of a Doctor were less foreboding than the idea that Matron had embraced nationalistic solidarity.

“What do you know of war, boy?”

“I know little,” Edmund said, not quite modestly. If there was one thing he had learned at Grimm’s, it was how to recognize when what he thought he knew was but a fraction of what there was to know. It had become an illness, a case of chronic humility, which drove Edmund to profess that in spite of the hours of study and experimentation on any subject, he actually knew very little.

He wasn’t completely ignorant of war; weeks of playing games with Junapa in person followed by years of continuing to do so by post gave him an extensive understanding of tactics and strategy. Somehow she had managed to turn even the most banal game of draughts into a study of protecting supply lines.

“The Founding Families know war,” Matron continued. “We’ve fought in every war since the Crusades, sometimes on both sides. The Founding Families have always united when war is involved. It is expected of us, and the Founding Families always fulfill our expectations.”¹³

Edmund knew some of the history. When the Plague came to Brackenburg, the Families had banded their resources together to help keep the city functioning. When the War of Usurpation struck in 1520, the families united their militias under a single Flag of Brackenburg to keep the hated Huganots from spreading their loyalist creed, and, for that matter, the Rebels from spreading their reformist views as well.

“We had a regiment of our own in the olden days” Matron continued. “The Moulde Unmentionables. Four thousand soldiers strong, pikemen and cavalry. We cut back to a company of one hundred Musketmen in the early 1700s. Now we don’t have a single soldier to our name.”

“I suppose we will have to donate something nonetheless,” Edmund touched a finger to his lips in thought. Donate what? The Mouldes didn’t have any money; to their everlasting shame and embarrassment, the Mouldes were perpetually disadvantaged.¹⁴

“The silverware, perhaps, or a candle-stick.” Matron’s mouth twitched, the closest she ever got to a laugh. “I’m sure you’ll find something to offer the General when he comes.”

“General?” Edmund blinked. “A General is coming to visit?”

“Eventually,” Matron settled back into her pillows, licking her lips in lectural preparation. “One always shows up at times like this. He will come and sit and chat in a perfectly infuriating manner. He will call you mi’lady…well, mi’lud, likely…and ramble about the hunting this time of year, or the difficulties he’s had in finding a pair of socks that fit.”

“That sounds like a social call.”

“And it will continue to sound so. He’ll talk about military logistics and the cost of brass and all number of absurd things, right up until you have both agreed on how much money the military can expect.”

Edmund understood immediately. No aristrocrat ever talked outright about money and never would. “I’m not sure he’ll like what we have to give.”

“When has that stopped the crown from holding out its hand?” Matron sneered. “Besides, they’ll want to prevent a repeat of the last war. Lots of men and women died; your parents too, I imagine.”

At the orphanage, Mrs Mapleberry had explained in often lurid detail how the war had caused the death of many a young man, and as a result created more orphans than disease or famine ever had.

“I didn’t expect you to allow the Doctor entry,” Edmund changed the subject.

“Just getting him out of his office, were you?” Matron’s sneer was gently mocking.¹⁵ Walking him? letting him graze? Free-range doctoring? Needed the exercise to walk from the Hospital all the way to Moulde Hall?

“The Mouldes built the Hospital, it seemed a small compensation to ask for his time.”

“He’s been here every Monday for the past year, Quite an unpleasant waste of my time.”

“I will speak with him, and make sure he doesn’t bother you.”

“Unless necessary” went unsaid. “As long as you’re well” was not said either. “He’ll leave you alone when hell freezes over” was not even thought. “You are old, and even before Mrs. Kippling told me, I knew from Junapa’s letters you’ve been coughing more than ever recently. In spite of your callous disregard for anything approaching medical knowledge — most likely because of your spiteful relationship with your grandmother — you are over a hundred years old, and I will never let something as easily preventable as a cold or a cough end you” wasn’t even in his most outlandish fantasies.

Edmund patted Matron on her parchment-dry hand, the closest he would ever get to a hug, and left the room to find the doctor.

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