The Last Days of Yesteryear: Chapter 7

As has been repeated consistently, there is very little that we have of real factual record regarding Sir Edmund Moulde, the majority of his personal writings having been destroyed in the Great Brackenburg Fire.

There is, however, one exception.

Most everything we know about Sir Edmund Moulde and his ways of thinking comes entirely from a single surviving diary. Called by historians the Sir Edmund Codex, the entire journal was saved mostly unscathed from the ashes of Moulde Hall, the only damage being a blackened cover.

It is from this single diary that the majority of theories regarding Sir Edmund and his life have arisen. Indeed, there are several years of Edmund’s life that would be complete mysteries if not for the few pages or tangential references discovered in this journal.

What follows is an excerpt from this diary, dated the 28th of March, 1881, the day of Matron’s wake:

Dear diary,

When Matron Mother adopted me, She did so to ensure that the Moulde Family would continue.

This is not a controversial hypothesis: why does one bring another into a family, if not for reasons of continuance? For her, perhaps, it was a carefully studied strategy. When she saw her cousins arguing over a fortune she knew did not exist, an estate she knew was worth no more than the hand that guided it, she knew the family needed something new.

That was me.

Ever since the beginning, I had the duty honor of upholding the future of the Moulde Family on my shoulders. It was my responsibility to create something that would last, if not forever, at least another generation. That is the purpose of an heir.

For the first time in my life, I find my thoughts drawn to my own progeny.

Now that Matron is dead, I am the last surviving Moulde. If I do not pass on my legacy, my titles, my estate, then I will not have honored Matron’s will. The Family will die with me.

But I am troubled. The acquisition of an heir is an involved process, one that requires time, energy, and money; resources I do not have in abundance. The limited options I have make the prospect fraught with dangers.

I am ashamed it is not until this moment that the truth is now laid bare to me: having an heir includes having a child.

I have created life many times. I rebirthed Aoide, deep in the library. I invented my Revitalizer, the formula still lies in my memory. I kept Major Schtillhart alive during the War.

Why can I not get these thoughts of creating life out of my head?

Lady Brocklehurst had been particularly blunt; her daughter would give me an heir through the usual means. I am forced to wonder, if I asked Googoltha, how would she answer? My instincts suggest she will do little more than communicate a deep apathy towards the entire concept. An apathy I am uncertain I share.

Having an Heir is important vital for both Matron’s plans for me, and my own for the family. Does it matter how it happens?

The art of medicine is, in the end, entirely devoted to stimulating and utilizing a body’s natural processes to heal itself. Perhaps, as a scientist, the natural method of acquiring an heir is the correct one?

It is a duty I must admit to myself that I have no idea how to fulfill.

Oh, the physical necessities I can manage. I have read countless books on the medical realities of the act, and am certain that when the time comes I will be able to perform such behavior as is expected of me, but beyond the mere physical, I find myself at a loss.

Bones and muscles, gears and levers. Life is a machine, and I a blind watchmaker.

I have only just begun to feel appropriate resignation towards being Patron of the Moulde Family, must I now begin to consider being a father as well? In all my life, I have never met a father. I do not know what they do.

I admit it is a subject I have struggled to forget for some time. Partially because I am unfamiliar with the process, and partially because the idea of becoming a parent is so foreign to me. Indeed, myself as a father currently occupies the same portion of my mind as becoming a plumber: a possibility only in so far as there are no physical laws of nature that prevent it.

Bringing life into this world, with me as its father, someone else as its mother, I find the idea — I do not know this feeling. I do not have the words. Poetry still escapes me. It is an unpleasant feeling, in the upper chest, left dorsal. Halfway between a satisfied stomach and an aching bowel.

Life. Birth. Growth. Death. The organic machine of existence is full of fluids and grease. It is messy and awkward, unpredictable and dangerous. There are no guarantees, for myself or for anyone. I want no part of it.¹

---

The day after Matron’s wake, some time before lunch, Moulde Hall fell under attack.

Edmund was informed of this by an out-of-breath Enga, who had pushed open the study-room door without so much as a deferential knock.

“Begging your pardon for interrupting, Patron, but there is an emergency; you must come at once!”

Reflexively, Edmund’s hand flicked out to where his Lieutenant’s Shako would have been set, had he still owned one and been a commissioned officer. “Explain, please.”

“It’s Ung, sir. Moulde Hall appears to be under attack.”

To be “under attack” is an amorphous term, covering all manner of uncomfortable and scandalous situations. Indeed, in a very real sense, Edmund had lived his entire life “under attack” from various forces in society.²

Just the same, his time in the Great War had helped adjust his view of what “under attack” meant; and so as he followed Enga outside to the garden, he fully expected to need to take her aside later and explain how he expected the term to be used.

By the time they had reached the bottom floor, he had changed his mind; Enga likely had used the term correctly. He could hear the shouting and the reverberations of metal on metal. There were five…no, six voices…one of which was quite clearly Ung’s.

Breaking into a run, Edmund threw open the doors and ran outside into the foray. Sure enough, five interlopers had found their way into the gardens. Four of them, all dressed in brown leather vests and denim trousers, surrounded Ung like tamers circling a lion. At first glance, they appeared to be threatening him, but as Edmund watched he noted that these four were neither reaching for him nor striking at him. Instead, they were reaching for the small pile of wood and metal instruments that Ung was standing over like a warrior protecting his spoils. Ung gripped his shovel like a sword, cutting its broad blade through the air, fending off the four others while the fifth man stood back and watched.

“Be reasonable, old chap,” the fifth man, well dressed in a white suit, shouted over the fracas. “It’s our land after all, so we can do what we like with it, what? I say, it’s not doing you much good, fighting us like this.”

“Not doing us much good neither!” shouted one of the assailants as they leapt away from Ung’s fist.

“You will not touch the garden!” Ung roared, shoving back the thickest of his four assailants with the shovel’s handle.

“You are only making it worse for yourself, what?” the man shrugged, lifting a clear glass of brown liquid to his lips and sipping loudly, “It’s just a survey, dear boy. Really, you are overreacting, so.”

Edmund crossed to the man while clearing his throat. “Wislydale Rotledge,” he said, by way of, if not greeting, at least acknowledgment. “Please tell your people to stop harassing my butler.”

Edmund’s arrival seemed enough; the four men and women carefully stepped back from the vengeful butler, who drove his shovel into the dirt of Haggard Hill like a conquering flag.

“Ah, Patron Moulde,” Wislydale turned and raised his ubiquitous glass of alcohol in a slovenly toast. “Such a fine day, what? Jolly good to see you, and all that.”

“I never received your letter,” Edmund said, pulling up to the gently swaying man. “You must have written one, of course — I remember you teaching me the importance of such etiquettes.” It was the foundation of polite society; you always wrote a letter to anyone you wanted to visit, and didn’t arrive until you received a letter saying you were expected.³

“I’m sure,” Wislydale drawled, sipping his drink, “and if you happened to be busy at the time, and not notice my letter for a few days? Perhaps neglect to write a response in a timely fashion? Or perhaps you wouldn’t have sent a letter at all, and then we wouldn’t have gotten anywhere, would we? Besides, Haggard Hill is ours now, what? We hardly need to send you a letter every time we want to take a walk on our land. Dashed silly idea, that.”

“It’s not yours yet; the wedding hasn’t occurred.” Edmund waved his hand, encompassing the four others. “Would you please introduce me to your companions?”

“My employees,” Wislydale sniffed. “Surveyors. Or they would be, if they could get their equipment back. I purchased their services at great expense to myself, what, to explore the value of this little coal mine that has caused so much trouble.”

“They want to dig up the garden,” Ung said with more vitriol than Edmund had ever heard in his life.

“‘Ere, we need a line o’ thuds, don’t we?” one surveyor with glasses protested. “Or else we won’t get a clear sounding.”

“If our gear e’en works, anymore,” the shortest surveyor stared mournfully at the pile at Ung’s feet. “Whaddya ‘ave to go an’ do that for, anyway?”

Ung’s fingers tensed as he gripped his shovel’s handle.

“You’re using Audioscopy?” Edmund interrupted.

“Mmmyes,” Wislydale drawled, gesturing with his glass. “That’s what they called it. It’s the newest thing, apparently.”

Edmund knew the principle: Every type of ore, metal, and mineral vibrated at its own frequency. With a series of small explosions, just enough to send a sonic shockwave deep underground, you could measure how and where the echoes returned. Take enough soundings, and you could develop a map of exactly what was underneath your feet. You could find pockets of iron, copper, silver, ores of all kinds without ever picking up a pick-axe.

“How many soundings do you want?” Edmund asked, turning his attention to the surveyors

“We need two full lines,” the bespectacled surveyor said, after a look from Wislydale. “Twenty, maybe thirty each. Is a big ‘ill, this’un.”

“I’d ask if it was an inconvenience,” Wislydale sneered, “but again, as Haggard Hill belongs to the Rotledges…”

“Only once Googoltha and I are married,” Edmund reminded him. “Which we are not, yet.”

“But you will be, won’t you?” Wislydale’s eyes grew clear and lethal. “And if you are going to be married, and Haggard Hill will be ours, then what does it matter if the survey is done now or later?” he paused as he looked at Edmund through the amber liquid in his glass. “Unless, of course, it will not be done later, because you never intended to go through with this wedding of yours? If you always had some scheme to take Haggard Hill out from our grasp at the last moment? And if that’s not the case, you really have nothing to complain about at all, do you?”

Edmund said nothing.

“Besides,” Wislydale took a drink, “I received word from Patron Rotledge not two days ago that you promised a concession to Tricknee, what? And now the old fool’s gone and left the country, that concession falls to me. I have first refusal of anything under this rotting hill of yours, now. Unless you formally refuse your fiancée’s family access to their land…I say, that would be quite the scandal, wouldn’t it?”

Edmund’s jaw twitched. He was trapped. If he let the survey continue, he would be admitting to the Rotledges and Wislydale in particular, that they could walk all over him. That he would rather acquiesce to unreasonable and improper demands than cause a fuss.

If he stopped them, there would not only be a scandal but his whole plan would be put in jeopardy…

“Please wait a moment,” Edmund said.

In fact, it took twenty minutes for Edmund to remember which room he had stashed this particular invention, and to carry it back outside to the now flustered crew of surveyors.

“It’s an accelerograph,” Edmund explained as he handed the device over, “that I attached to a seismophone. I had planned to connect a magnetometer to improve the reception, but this should allow you to improve your results.”

“I’ll say!” the surveyor blinked through her thick glasses. “What’s the resonance sensitivity?”

“I was not able to test it completely,” Edmund admitted. He had built the prototype at Grimm’s, and there were too many uncontrollable variables and unpredictable explosions to get accurate measurements. “At least twenty-five on the Eckkert scale.”

“Twenty-five?” All caution of Ung’s shovel gone, the surveyors descended on their equipment like a swarm, talking and tinkering and discussing how drastically their entire vocation had changed. Ung stepped back, recognizing his threatening presence had become a tertiary concern, at best.

“Well,” Wislydale’s blurry eyes were suddenly sharp. “You swoop in to save the day again, what? Does this mean you’ll let me continue with my surveying?”

“How many soundings will you need?” Edmund called to the surveyors.

“With this?” The tallest surveyor hoisted Edmund’s device overhead, “Maybe…five per line! Twenty yards apart!”

“Do not touch the gardens,” Edmund cautioned, “and you may continue. Curve your line closer to the Hall, and if you damage a single flower or tree, I will ensure you never see the light of day again.”

Ung bowed his thanks to Edmund, while the surveyors continued tinkering away at their machines and pictographs. The bespectacled one was unfolding an electric paper-scroller. In a few moments, she had slipped a pen arm out of the box, and fixed it to the side where it waved back and forth as she rocked the box back and forth. The shortest surveyor was hunched over a metal canister. Edmund watched as the he opened it up and placed a small charge inside, pulling the string through a hole in the top. The most muscular surveyor, who wore dirty leather coveralls like a steel-worker, shoved her long circular shovel into the grass, twisting back and forth until she had pulled a foot-long cylinder of mud and clay out of the ground.

The hole dug, the short man pushed the metal canister into the hole, working it back and forth until only the domed top was sticking out of the ground. The thin surveyor handed the short one two strands of wire, which he connected to the dome. The short one lit a match, and touched it to the top of the dome, where the small piece of string stuck out. The surveyors edged away some five yards, and waited.

There was a deep thud, and the ground quivered. The surveyors eagerly jogged back to the equipment, and began to calculate their results. Edmund felt a strong pull to walk over to them, watch over their shoulder, ask questions about this sensor or that apparatus. He wanted to learn how they did what they did, and maybe apply it somewhere else…

“Right!” the bespectacled surveyor called back to Wislydale. “Nine more to go!”

“I suppose,” Wislydale muttered as they watched the surveyors work, “you will expect a copy of their report.”

“Of course,” Edmund nodded.

“I’ll bet you think you’re clever, what?” Wislydale sucked on his drink. “Get old Wislydale to survey the land for you, at his own bloody expense, what? Then you take the spoils and marry whomever you bally well please.”

“You could have waited for the wedding,” Edmund pointed out as a second thump echoed through the earth. It was a clumsy ploy, but Edmund was more curious than cautious. Wislydale was shrewder than this; if there was anything valuable left in Haggard Hill, why draw attention to it?

Wislydale coughed, and took another sip of his drink. “Yes, well…thing is, old chap; we have our own plans, you see. It’s not just the Mouldes who think they can impact the world, what? Bit of a big fish on our line, and we need a full accounting of our assets. That’s all this is about; to find out if there really is no more coal under Haggard Hill.”

“Very well,” Edmund gave a quick nod. “I will leave you to it, then. I have a great deal to do before this evening.”

“Oh?” Wislydale sniffed. “A busy Patron, are you? Off to some soiree, I’ll bet, what?”

Edmund shook his head. “I have been asked to attend Patron Redgrave at his mansion.”

“Ah,” Wislydale’s smirk vanished. “Making the bloody rounds. I see. Well, good luck, old chap, I suppose.” He paused for a moment, staring at his glass. “I expect he will want to talk about the wedding. "

“I expect so. If you require anything while I am gone, please ask Enga.”

“Of course,” Wislydale shook his head, as if in a dream. “You know, funny thing…” he took a deep breath. “I say, old boy?” He chewed on his lip a moment before taking another sip of amber liquid. “Dashed queer thing, and all…but I’ve just now thought…” he cleared his throat. “I’m a Rotledge, will always be a Rotledge, but…well, Googoltha is about to be a Moulde…and in some way you’ll also be…well, a Rotledge.”

Edmund didn’t reply. The legalities of Family names was complex enough that if he started to specify Wislydale’s statement, they would be there all day.

Wislydale’s eyebrows twisted in discomfort. “If you need any…that is, if there is ever anything I can do to…help. Anything at all…Please, don’t ask. It would put me in an awfully awkward position, what?”

---

The carriage door opened.

Edmund blinked, shaken from his thoughts. He hadn’t even felt the carriage stop. With the gnawing dread of a man approaching the gallows, Edmund climbed out of his carriage and took his first glimpse of Stately Manor.

The Redgrave Family was the last of the Nine Founding Families to establish themselves in Brackenburg. Their founder had moved slower than the other families, and was able to stake claim only to the smallest tributary veins of coal.

Yet, for all her slowness of ambition, the first Redgrave had the foresight of a falcon and spent the family’s coal buying up the verdant land surrounding the mines of Brackenburg. As the city grew, the other families, who hadn’t noticed the Redgrave’s steadily growing monopoly, were forced to purchase or lease the land. As the other families grew more and more prosperous, the city grew, and so did the Redgrave’s coffers.

Before long, their thriving farms expanded into wool and cotton, and the textile industry fell into the Redgraves’ waiting lap.

Times had changed since then; lands and leases had changed hands and now no one had a complete monopoly on anything; but the Redgraves never let go of their grip on the textile industry, and were the preeminent cloth and fashion family of Brackenburg.

As such, they were unbelievably rich, even for a Founding Family. Stately Manor, the original home of the Redgraves, was like a palace. Edmund was greeted by twelve perfectly dressed guards, standing straight and tall, flanking the long red carpet that stretched from carriage to front door. The guards were as still as statues, staring straight ahead as Edmund passed, followed by two servants who rolled the carpet up behind him.

Stately Manor was not quite as tall as Moulde Hall, but easily twice as wide. The wings of the house stretched far to the left and right, with windows three times the height of an adult. The walls were pearl white with golden trim that glinted in the gas-lamps that lined the garden rows. Trees dotted the grounds and exotic sounds echoed through the night air, promising exotic animals from the deepest recesses of faraway lands.

Edmund didn’t even get the chance to knock on the door; He had just reached the steps when the doors were opened from the inside by two doormen.

The inside of Stately Manor was no less astounding. Gold glinted on every surface, silver on every corner. The foyer was lit not by gas, but by large oil braziers hanging from the ceiling and perching on tall stands in the corner of the room. Four staircases swept away and up into the second and third floors, the banisters covered with marble statues and smooth banisters.

An array of twenty seven servants stood at attention and bowed in unison as Edmund crossed the threshold. Each one was impeccably dressed, shined to a polish matching that of the metal statuary.

In the middle of the foyer, a tall woman of middle age stood behind an old man in a wheel-chair. His head rested gently on his chest, his long gray beard fluttered in his steady breath. His glasses were three hairs away from slipping off the end of his sharp nose and tumbling onto the thick blanket that wrapped around his legs.

“Patron Edmund Moulde,” the woman held out her hand. “I am Luceena Redgrave, Patron Redgrave’s daughter. I am delighted to finally meet you.”

“And I you,” Edmund recited, turning his gaze to the old man.

Luceena stepped forward, bending down and resting her hand on the old man’s shoulder. He started up, sneezed, and blinked owlishly around the room.

“Eh?” He coughed, his voice tight with age. “Who’s that?”

“Patron Edmund Moulde, father,” the woman patiently explained before stepping back behind the man’s wheelchair.

“Ah.” Patron Enock Redgrave leaned back in his chair, his eyes starting to droop again already. “Moulde? Oh! Matron, so good to see you again. It’s been…ten years? Twenty?”

“Matron Mander is dead,” Edmund corrected, leaning down to take Enock’s hand.

“Eh?” the old man brushed Edmund’s hand away. “What’s that? Your voice sounds different. Are you ill?”

“No, dead.”

“Ah.” Enock sniffed, shaking his head. “I did warn you. I may not be as quick as you, a bit more tired…but I said I’d out-live you if you don’t do something about that family of yours. Jackals, all of them. Remember when I said that, Matron?”

“Patron,” Edmund tried again. “Patron Edmund Moulde.”

“Patron? What did you go and do that for?” Enock sighed, his hands fluttering in his lap. “Well, you always did think of things no one else ever thought of…like that boy. Heh. Adopting! Well, enough. Time for a drink.”

Edmund followed Luceena as she wheeled her ancient father through Stately Manor, passing rooms full of gems, precious metals, and expensive decorations.

“No, no, no!” Enock exploded when they entered an ornate drawing room. “This is Mander, not some pompous noble, or suckling peer! Not the drawing room, the drinking room! Quickly now!”

They traveled deeper into the manor, down hallways both thick and thin, until they reached a room full of bottles, casks, and barrels. Edmund couldn’t see the walls through the stacks of barrels, but from the echo of his footsteps he guessed the room had to be bigger than the dining room at Moulde Hall.

“Ah!” Enock sighed, giving a sniff. “My eyes may have faded, but my nose hasn’t lost its touch…Down the third shelf, there, Luceena…”

A short walk later, and the old man reached out to pluck a small bottle off a nearby shelf, and hold it gently in his hands. “There! This was bottled the year you were born. Did you know that? I found it twenty years ago, and decided to save it for when you finally died. Never thought I’d get the chance to drink it…you were always smarter and craftier than…than…”

The old man blinked and let the bottle drop to his lap. “You know, come to think of it…every woman I’ve ever known has been smarter and craftier than me. Funny thing, that. I wonder if it means anything?”

Edmund had noticed something very similar. Enock handed the bottle to Luceena, who began to work on the stopper. “Look at the country,” the old man muttered. “Things were better before Queen Iceabella died. Now we have that Willhelm boy. Huh…I wonder…”

A pop echoed in the stone cellar. Yes, at least twice as big as the Dining Hall. Enock shrugged as he pulled out two dusty glasses and held them to Luceena to pour. The old man’s arms began to droop as the glasses grew heavy with liquid.

Holding the glasses under his nose, Enock gave a loud sniff before handing one to Edmund.

The smell was pungent, full of flowers and black tar. It filled Edmund’s sinuses with vapor, and his mind with images of rolling oceans and great diesel engines blowing thick plumes of smoke into the salty air.

“Do you remember when we first met?” Enock sighed. “I’ve been trying to remember, but it’s getting harder these days. I don’t blame you for not choosing me. It would have ruined everything for both of us. Before I became Patron, after you got your old man sent to prison…I would have been there for you. Like you were there for…for…Well, seems to me that you’ve always been there…when my boys were born…when Iva died…and Jolia…Pattrick…so many names and faces…”

Edmund took a sip of the drink. It tasted like licorice and leather, with the sharp aftertaste of cold raisins. It coated his mouth and throat on the way down, where it sat and started to burn.

The old man sighed again as he held his glass under his nose. “I’m ninety-five years old, and I’ve seen it all. I remember seeing the first steam factory going up in the Fallows district. I remember hearing about this new kind of gas-lighting, and father and mother running about our new manorhouse, telling the servants where to put the pipes. I remember when my grand-father was Patron, and he brought home a box of fire-starters! Matches! We’d never seen the things before. He let each one of us strike one. I remember when the Denningtown Flyer left Brackenburg station for the first time; the big brass bell rang like a dragon’s roar. Cement; it was as thick as pudding, and if you let it alone it became harder than stone. I didn’t eat my pudding that night, to see if it would get just as hard. It didn’t.”

Edmund took another sip. Now he could taste burnt charcoal and sour lime.

The old Patron let out a sigh. “Now there’s telegraphs. Electrical turbines. Impressionists. Phonographs with these black disks instead of a good solid wax cylinder. And Photographs. New pens. Machines that fly. Even the oil isn’t the same anymore. Oil! I thought whale oil was the best there was, but no…the children say there’s a better oil…Kerosene, they call it. You think they’ll ever come up with a better steel? Better gold? Someday they’ll invent better air, perhaps, and replace it all. They’ll replace everything…”

Edmund set down his drink.

“Mark my words, Matron” the old man’s voice began to sag with fatigue. “They’ll replace everything. One day, they’ll have machines that do math. Music in your pocket. Newspapers that write themselves. Mirrors that reflect more than just your face. Cities in the sky. Machines that do everything. Those machine dancers will learn. They may even replace us, someday, Manderella Moulde. They may even replace us. Our children. They’ll replace everything, and make it their own…”

“How can we stop them?” Edmund asked.

“Stop them?” Enock’s head popped up again. “My dear Matron, you told me yourself just before you adopted that boy; it’s our only hope!”

---

“Welcome home, Patron,” Enga bowed as Edmund stepped out of the carriage. “Did the meeting with Patron Rotledge go well?”

“Well enough,” he said, hoping he was correct. “Any letters from the Brocklehursts?”

“In fact, yes, sir,” Enga said as she followed Edmund towards Moulde Hall. She had learned by now to not be surprised at Edmund’s surprisingly accurate questions. She pulled the letter from her pocket and held it out for Edmund to take, as they walked.

“And?”

Enga paused, her hand still outstretched. “Sir?”

Edmund turned to her, glancing at the letter. “Is it an invitation?”

“Sir,” Enga cleared her throat, obviously uncomfortable. “It is not my place to read any letters that you receive.”

“I didn’t ask if you read it, I asked if it was an invitation.”

“Sir, if I —”

Edmund stopped and turned to face his butler, staring her full in the face. She was sturdy, reliable, and a quick study. She had already taken over most of Ung’s duties without complaint and barely a stumble. All the same, she was still underdeveloped in a few specific ways…“Do you know what an invitation looks like? How heavy it is? Do you know if the Brocklehursts will send an invitation, and what kind it might be?”

“I…” Enga stammered, her eyes glancing around for some clue as to the proper response.

“As my butler,” Edmund began, “I will need you to be cleverer than the average butler. You will have to know things that other butlers would not know. You will have to do things no other butler would dare do. You will have to be sharp-witted, clear-eyed, and silver-tongued. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Enga nodded like a reprimanded soldier. “I understand, Patron.”

“I know you can do it,” Edmund said, giving a little ground, “but I need you to start practicing now. A…A lot will be happening in the coming months, very quickly, and I cannot be caught unawares. I will…need your help. Now.” His gaze returned to the letter. “Is it an invitation?”

“I —” Enga stared at the letter in her hand. Slowly, she hefted the envelope and ran her finger along the edges, feeling through the thin paper to the scalloped edges of the card inside. When she had finished, she said in a clear voice; “I would be surprised if it was not, Patron.”

“It’s a start,” Edmund said, accepting the letter. “Anything else while I was out?”

“Yes, sir,” Enga said, relaxing back into familiar territory. “Mister Wislydale Rotledge called, and said he would await your return. He is currently waiting in the Grand Drawing room.”

“The surveyors finished their report?” Edmund asked.

“He didn’t —” Enga paused, and drew herself up further. “I…I believe so sir. He seemed quite agitated.”

It took Edmund almost half an hour to make his way to his room, change to a more appropriate outfit, make several important notes, and then descend once more through Moulde Hall to the Grand Drawing room. For all Enga’s discomfort at stepping beyond accepted butler behavior, she had been quite correct; Edmund could tell the instant he walked into the large drawing room. Wislydale was pacing in front of the giant fireplace, a folder with a sheaf of papers clutched in his hands. His ubiquitous glass of alcohol was resting on the mantle.

“Ah, dear boy,” Wislydale stopped pacing as soon as Edmund’s foot hit carpet. “Sorry to disturb you. Sign this.” He pulled the papers away from the folder, and handed them to Edmund with uncharacteristically sober force. They had a decidedly legal look about them.

“Gladly.”

Edmund was delighted at the shocked look on Wislydale’s face as he took the papers and rested them on the nearby table. You expected me to refuse, or at least to demand the chance to read them. You expected an argument, and you don’t think I can read fast enough to know what I’m signing. Now, you’re worried I already know what’s in them. You’re wondering how many steps ahead I am…

The down-side was that Edmund now had a time-limit. He reached into his pocket, and slowly drew out his pen.

The stationary is from a law-office, but not Mr. Shobbinton’s; This is important enough for Wislydale to take immediate legal action, but not secret enough that he needed to wait for Shobbinton’s tight lips…

He unscrewed the top of the pen, and flipped it over, revealing the golden nub on the bottom.

Words that catch the eye: ownership, mineral, relinquish, forthwith and in perpetuity…this has to do with the Coal Mine beneath Haggard Hill…but the Rotledges already own all minerals they find; I gave them Haggard Hill as part of the wedding…

Edmund rested the pen on the dotted line.

…the wedding that hasn’t happened yet.

He looked up, with the pen pressing on the paper. “What’s the rush?”

Wislydale blinked, his worry turning to flustered confusion. “What? Oh, no rush, old boy. That is,” he grabbed at his drink and took down a mouthful, “Yes, a bit of a rush, but nothing you need concern yourself with, what? Rotledge family business, and all that.” His eyes darted back to the legal paper. The pen hadn’t moved.

“What sort of business?” Edmund asked.

With another drink, and a moment to breathe, Wislydale’s mock calm drained away. He grimaced as he resumed pacing. “Yes, fine. You’ve heard. Damned if I know how — dash it all if you haven’t inherited more than the estate…you’ve inherited Matron’s most infuriating traits, what?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Edmund said. This frustrated Wislydale further, which was a bonus, as it was also completely true.

“Don’t play innocent with me, Patron,” Wislydale huffed. “Yes, yes, you’re remarkably clever. I stand in awe, what? Do you need me to say it out loud? Would that satisfy your sadistic nature? Well, I won’t play your game. Ha, I wouldn’t be surprised if Tricknee told you himself.”

Ashamed. Excited. Tricknee had done something…the clues were all there, so Edmund was able to puzzle out the problem before he spoke again. “You are, of course, talking about Tricknee liquidating your assets before he fled?”

Wislydale sneered. “Have done with the games, Patron.”

As fast as Edmund thought, there were still a few questions. “What about the Rotledge Power Plant? Won’t that provide you with all the money you need?”

“That’s not my side of the family,” Wislydale pursed his lips. “Family politics, I’m afraid, old boy. No, I’m afraid my side of the Rotledge family doesn’t have a penny to our name, and dear Patron Rotledge is more unforgiving with debts than most. It’s nothing I can’t handle,” he straightened slightly, “but I do have several debts that must be repaid. Ideally before the wedding…whenever that will be,” he spat the last words with distrusting venom.

“Before the end of the year,” Edmund answered. “Patron Rotledge suggested July.” If you need money, you were not looking for coal; it isn’t worth as much any more. Were you searching for something no one was looking for centuries ago?

“Ha,” Wislydale took a drink. “It is a harsh time to be alive, Patron. Can you believe it, just last week my gardener asked for his salary to be paid? In money? When I was already compensating him quite handsomely by allowing him to be my gardener? Can anyone truly put a price on such exposure? I say, where will it end? There are price tags in stores, now, what?”

Edmund didn’t answer. He had a fairly good idea of the answer, but Wislydale didn’t wait before continuing. “Yes, well, it is of little consequence. I’m bally well not happy with the situation, but there it is, old chap. I need liquid capital as soon as possible, and that means I need you to sign the iron over to me at once.”

Iron? Edmund flipped through the report with an air of indifference. “I have my own estimates, but what do they say is the exact amount?”

“It’s all there,” Wislydale hissed. “Read it yourself. You’ve humiliated me enough for one day, what?”

It was a small vein for Britannia, according to the surveyors. They might not have found it at all, were it not for improved sounding techniques. The vein, in contrast to the coal from centuries past, stretched down instead of across, a quarter-kilometer deep into under Haggard Hill. If the iron were mined and sold…

Edmund flipped the last page and pulled out the hastily scrawled map of the entire Coal Mine under Haggard Hill. It really was amazing how much detail could be reached with just a few explosions. “You wouldn’t happen to have a sample of the ore, would you? I’d appreciate knowing exactly how pure the content is.”

“Pure? I say, iron is iron, what? And with the steel shortages still going on, I’ll be able to set the price. Now do be a good Patron and sign, won’t you? Unless you’d like a bit of a threat to help?”

Edmund looked up. “Threat?”

“So you can tell everyone you were forced into it? Had no choice? You know the sort of thing, what? I’d be delighted to oblige. I’ve come up with several over the years that I’ve always wanted to try —”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“Suit yourself,” Wislydale tipped back the glass. “I say, I couldn’t get a top up, could I?”

Edmund nodded, and turned back to the map. He knew Wislydale well enough to know his tells, and one he had never been able to quash was a need to distract. You don’t want me looking at the map too closely. Why is that, I wonder?

“I say, Patron?”

Edmund looked up. “Yes?”

“Will you sign or won’t you?”

Edmund glanced back at the papers, and picked up his pen. With a flourish, he signed his long and looping name, closed the folder, and held it out to Wislydale.

He could feel Wislydale relax, even from the other end of the room. “Jolly good. I knew you would. Better all around, what?” He crossed to Edmund, taking the folder in his free hand.

Edmund didn’t let go.

“Quite a solid contract,” Edmund said.

“What? Oh, yes, it is, rather.”

“I dare say air-tight. Not a lot of loopholes anywhere, for me or for you.”

Wislydale flinched. “Oh? I say, are you trying to insinuate something, old boy?”

“Not at all,” Edmund released the folder. “Now if you will excuse me, I have a great deal to do before the week is out.”

“Oh?” Wislydale collected himself admirably quickly. “What is happening next week?”

Edmund licked his suddenly dry lips. “Matron’s burial.”