The Last Days of Yesteryear: Chapter 18

Edmund read the document, slowly.

He had almost forgotten he could. Ever since Matron had died, he had been given so many papers to sign, and they all had been so important, that he had relied on the skills he had honed during the war. He had read countless legal briefs, contracts, and affidavits in the time it took him to sign his name.

Technically, if he was being honest with himself, he didn’t really have the time to read slowly now, either. There was a wedding to plan, a meeting with the Brocklehursts, a letter to Junapa, he was expecting Father Bromard to stop by…

But after all of it, after all the time he had spent planning and fighting and struggling to save the Moulde Family, this moment needed to be savored.

Edmund picked up the pen.

It had all started with pens. The first invention Edmund had ever made. He knew, even at such a young age, that pens were important. Would be important. He wanted to make them better, and he did. Then he leased the patent, and gathered enough of a fortune that he could pay of a hefty portion of the Moulde Family debt.

But not all of the debt. At best, he had slowed the family’s descent for a time. His genius invention became merely impressive, and then only a curiosity. Now, there were better pens everywhere. Times changed. They always would.

Edmund began to sign.

The room tensed.

There was a magic in it, that Edmund still found joy in. That he could hold the room on strings of tension as he did something so simple as sign his name. Everyone was waiting with baited breath. Perhaps something would happen before Edmund finished signing his name, perhaps it wouldn’t, but they weren’t sure.

Edmund finished his signature.

The room relaxed.

Edmund couldn’t blame any of them. Every solicitor to the Founding Families had to prepare for every eventuality, and a surprise revelation before a contract is signed was a cliché surpassing even the lost-lover-returning-from-the-war-and-halting-the-wedding.

Wislydale didn’t relax, in spite of the satisfaction radiating from the army of solicitors behind him. He stared down at the contract with the cold gaze of a falcon, watching Edmund’s hand as he picked up a black candle, dripped three drops of hot wax onto the bottom, and pressed his seal into it.

Wislydale didn’t move. “Say it,” he demanded. It was a compliment, really. Wislydale wasn’t a fool, and he still didn’t believe that Edmund hadn’t slipped some trick into the signing. He wanted his solicitors to hear it. He wanted it over and done with. He wanted no more tricks.

“I, Edmund Moulde,” he locked eyes with Wislydale, “do hereby relenquish any and all claim to the mineral known colloquially as bauxite that may be found under the land known as Haggard Hill; and I willfully and faithfully extend all such rights to Wislydale Rotledge, in perpetuity, to do as he wishes.”

The solicitors all nodded, smiling at each other with the looks of men and women who had done a good job. A satisfactory ending all around. No hard feelings. Good game. Until next time, old chap.

Wislydale leaned forward. “Section two.”

“I, Edmund Moulde, agree to utilize the Moulde Process to smelt the ore colloquially known as bauxite, separating it into the minerals aluminium and iron. I will give the purified aluminium and iron to Wislydale Rotledge to utilize as he sees fit. The cost and cleanup of the process is to be entirely my own responsibility.”

The tension in the room started to rise again, as the solicitors realized that Wislydale wasn’t joining in their satisfaction.

With a sudden burst of energy, Wislydale pushed himself away from Edmund’s desk and began to pace the room. He circuited the walls, forcing his solicitors to duck out of the way, before pausing in front of the drinks cabinet.

“Everyone get out.”

When the solicitors had all gone, Wislydale turned back to Edmund, his eyes cold.

“What are you planning?”

“Nothing,” Edmund said.

“Don’t lie to me, Patron.” Wislydale said, his voice almost pleading. “I have fought long and hard for this, and I will not see victory plucked from my hands. You are not a fool, you are not a coward, and you are not a child. Not anymore. What is your real plan?”

“No more plans,” Edmund said as he stood from his desk. “I am finished.” It was true enough, now.

“This agreement is nonsense,” Wislydale flung his hand towards the signed contract. “You can’t possibly mean to…to become my employee?”

“I do.” Edmund walked back to the drinks cabinet.

“I never thought I would live to see…a Moulde…no, any of the Founding Families with a…a job.” Edmund poured two more drinks and handed one to Wislydale. He pushed it aside. “Are you mad?”

It wasn’t a rhetorical question spat in anger, nor a dazed admission of bemusement. In all Edmund’s life, he had never heard a more sincere question asked by a member of the Founding Families.

“I don’t know,” Edmund admitted.

“You must be.”

“I don’t think so.”

“By Jove, think of the…no, scandal doesn’t cover it, what? A Patron of the Founding Families taking a…a position? Answering to an employer and taking a…a salary?”

Two hundred pounds a year¹ was what had been agreed upon. “It will take a bit of adjustment,” Edmund agreed. “I expect it will be difficult, and I will likely make quite a few mistakes in the —”

Wislydale’s fist thudded onto Edmund’s desk, before his shoulders sagged and he hung his head, leaning against the smooth oak surface. “You don’t understand what you’ve done. The talk will be…”

“I have no other choice.”

“Balderdash! By Jove, don’t you know why I’ve been hounding you this past year? Because marrying Googoltha is a stupid plan! It provides me and mine nothing, gives you and yours less, and ends a feud that no one much cared about, what? I say, the Oppingsdown Fortenbridges are angry at you for ending the feud — at the last Rotledge summer ball Lord Fortenbridge told me he thought our feud was more diverting than cricket!”

“I signed the agreement. I arranged the marriage. I pay my debts.”

With a groan, Wislydale threw himself into a seat. “Even at the cost of your Family? I say, old chap, your insufferable honor is causing real damage.”

Edmund looked up, his red-rimmed eyes full of scorn. “Why are you concerned? No love is lost between the Rotledges and the Mouldes, least of all with you.”

The glare Wislydale threw Edmund’s way was thick and spiteful. “Don’t presume my motives, Patron; I still don’t trust yours. A job? Why on earth didn’t you offer to lease the invention to us? I say, you’ve done the same before, I know it. That’s what every peer does when they invent something. It’s better than working for a living!”

Edmund shook his head. It was the one thing he knew. “If I lease the process to you, your smelters will see it. They’ll learn it. Do you truly trust you’re paying all your employees enough to not turn around and sell the process to the Vanndegaars? or the Scowers? Or the papers?”

Wislydale winced. “Whereas if you are the only one who knows it…”

“What good would it do me to give it to anyone?” Edmund sighed. “I learned well from Grimm’s…knowledge is power, and as long as I’m the only one who knows the process…”

“We’ll be richer together than apart.” Wislydale finished. “A pleasant dream, old boy, but by Jove you can’t be that foolish! You know there are scientists and metallurgists still hunting for a better Waller process, and once they find it…you’ll have nothing. You’ll be helpless. Useless. Becalmed in a sea of sharks.”

“Yes.”

“So what is your plan? How are you getting out of this? How are you going to turn all of this to your advantage?”

“I can’t,” Edmund said. “There is no plan. I won’t get out of this.”

“This is a terrible agreement for you.”

“I know. But it’s all I have. This, and debts.”

In the past, Edmund knew — he knew — that Wislydale would have laughed in Edmund’s face. He would have mocked his childish view that debts needed to be paid, rather than collected like trophies. He would have urged Edmund to cultivate his debts like a gardener cultivates curious breeds of flower.

But the times had changed. For a moment, the two men stared at each other, Wislydale scrambling for something to say, Edmund waiting patiently for Wislydale to find it.

Finally, Wislydale crossed his arms. “The wedding is in three weeks.”

“It is.”

“This is…not how a new family should start. A new union. With me raking you over the coals.” His eyes flashed. “Is that how you expect to overcome me? Appealing to my conscience?”

“I wasn’t aware you had one,” Edmund said.

“Ha!” Wislydale smiled, the first sincere smile Edmund could ever remember seeing without the aid of a drink in his hand. “Good, you’re still a Moulde.”

“And you’re still a Rotledge,” Edmund nodded.

They stared at each other a while longer.

“You lost,” Wislydale frowned.

“I did.”

“You are…simply accepting that?”

“I have little other choice,” Edmund shrugged. “I made several promises, and I will not back out of them.”

“So this is how the Moulde Family ends, is it? By Jove, I never thought it’d be my hand on the axe, what?”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Edmund muttered.

Wislydale took a deep breath. “Ah.” It was less an acknowledgement and more a release of incredulity. The sound one makes when a world turned upside down was righted once more.

“After all,” Edmund continued, “I can’t very well process your bauxite without a home, or a lab. I am still going to be married to Googoltha, and it would be quite a scandal if you were to demolish Moulde Hall and strip-mine Haggard Hill. No one needs to know I am currently your employee. If you tell no one, I will tell no one.”

“Rumors will still spread.”

“But who would believe them? The common-folk? The gentry? The Founding Families?”

“Quite. I still have trouble believing it.”

“And Googoltha is legally your niece. There is nothing unusual or untoward in paying her a generous allowance; especially if you are about to be as wealthy as you hope.”

“Indeed,” Wislydale nodded. “I must say, you honestly had me worried for you. I truly believed you had given up on finding an angle to work. Yes, I suppose it would be bad business to level your home and pull the rest of the bauxite out by the roots. Hm. I suppose I won’t begrudge you looking out for your house. I’d likely do the same if I ever was in much trouble as you were, what? Unlikely for that to happen, though. I never gamble big on long-shots. Dashedly risky, and you almost didn’t come out of it with all your limbs, what?” Wislydale glanced at the drinks cabinet before heading for the door. “I suppose I’ll see you again sometime, though I can’t think when. Some ball, I’ll wager, what what?”

“Probably,” Edmund said. “Thank you for coming.”

“Thank you, my lad,” Wislydale turned at the door, giving a half bow. “Thanks to your bungling, the Rotledge family is about to become the wealthiest family in Brackenburg! Bit of bad luck, really, was all it was. When you lost the factory, it was all over for you.”

It was over for me long before that. Edmund nodded.

“Patron?” Edmund turned to the doorway to see Enga, her eyes boring into his like rivets.

There was a pause.

Much can be communicated with a pause. For example, this pause informed Edmund that Enga needed to speak with him, but was unwilling to cross the room to speak into his ear. This meant she expected Edmund to rise from his seat and cross to her. As this would require Wislydale to rise as well, this told Edmund that Enga had something so important and secret to say, that she would rather risk Edmund’s improper behavior being commented on in the hallways of gossip for the next month, rather than have the Wislydale hear what she had to say.

“Please excuse me,” Edmund said, as he crossed to his butler’s side. He dipped his head forward, just enough to allow her to whisper without craning her neck.

“Patron…I’m afraid something terrible has happened.”

Edmund stopped himself from spitting a bitter “what, again?” from his lips, when he saw Enga’s normally solid lip begin to tremble.

“It’s Matron, sir.”

---

Edmund stormed through the driving black rain to see Ore-Man Jack standing just next to the dead gardens of Moulde Hall. His hands fiddled about his pick-axe like a school-boy caught at cheating.

Edmund walked past his hired ore-thief down the hill. “What happened?”

“Well, guv, it’s loike this,” Ore-Man Jack loped after him. “We was diggin’ quoiet-like, draggin’ the rock back to the elevator, when Knobby John, ’e ’eres a sound. So we stops our diggin’, ‘cuz you don’t want to make a sound when another team could ’ere you, roight? And we listens carefully, and then Knobby John, ’e whispers…‘it’s comin’ from dere,’ and ’e points…upward-loike, see?”

Edmund picked up his pace, speeding down the hill.

“Only there’s naught but topside above us, roight?” Ore-Man Jack gasped as he sped after Edmund. “So oi sends Peepers up to take a look, like. An’ she comes back an’ says, ‘oi just saw three robed men draggin’ somethin’ o’er the ‘ill. So oi goes and ‘as a closer look when oi see the coast’s clear…an’…” Ore-Man Jack paused as they arrived, and gestured at the sorry sight.

Matron’s grave had been dug up, her coffin opened, and her body was missing.

In the annuls of antiquity, as well as in the years after Sir Edmund’s life, the wrath of the scientist was well known. Entire museums have been devoted to the catastrophic vengeance a wielder of the chemical and physical forces of the world can bestow. Lightning guns, inductive cannons, mechanical automatics, repeater rifles, iron-side carriages, chemical bombs, magnetic crawlers, and of course, the fabled Steel Walkers of the Siam.

There are other weapons of science; terrible things that the sensible and sane dare not even whisper. The esoteric chemestries of Louis de’Stevens, for instance, or the mechanical processes of Dr. Eillis Dahrk. Twisted and terrible madness lurks in the heart and head of every scientist, where it festers like a boil until a single word, a chance meeting, or a perfect bolt of lightning sparks their infernal genius. Disease. Famine. Monsters born from the hidden pits of the mind, where sensible people dare not go. Nothing is impossible for the truly scientific.

In the span of less than a quarter hour, Edmund thought about each and every one. He even invented several new methods of ensuring that no one ever considered the Mouldes as anything less than a force of nature. The Empire itself would quake at the memory. Before long, all cohesion was lost and Edmund was awash in a constant stream of flames. Evil schemes morphed seamlessly into screams of fear and pleas for mercy. Eventually, even these faded into a steadily pulsing red.

Lost in his own fury, a part of Edmund deep inside his chest broke open; a place he had unintentionally locked away, for fear of what lay inside.

“Guv?”

Edmund looked away from the open grave, into the cautious face of Ore-Man Jack.

“Continue mining,” Edmund said. “And hurry.”

“Aye,” Ore-Man Jack stepped away, eager to escape Edmund’s gaze, only to tumble to the ground with a groan.

“‘Ere! What’s this about, eh?”

Lying on the earth, behind a shabby hedge, was Ung.

The fire in Edmund’s heart flared again — Where were you? Why didn’t you stop this? — Only to fade at the sight of blood on his servant’s face.

“‘E’s ‘urt,” Ore-Man Jack, said quite unnecessarily. “Looks loike ’e’s been stabbed. Seen a few stabbin’s in moi toime, eh?”

Edmund sank to his knees next to Ung, his hands and fingers working quickly. He had indeed been stabbed, several times by a long thin blade. Several minor bruises suggested fists, or perhaps a small round metallic object…a club, perhaps?

“Ung!”

Edmund looked up into the calm face of Enga. “Go,” he ordered, “fetch water and bandages from the second third-floor storage room in the east wing. Why hadn’t he moved the supplies to the first floor earlier? Fool Moulde! He turned back to Ung, only to lock gazes with a single bloodshot eye.

Thin blade, shallow cuts, deep stabs but carefully placed…nothing seriously damaged. Incapacitated, not killed. They wanted him out of the way. This was done by a consummate professional.

“Matron,” Ung wheezed.

It was unnerving to hear such a quiet voice from a man whose whispers could shake chandeliers. Edmund began to tear strips of cloth from the butler’s shirt. “Did you see who took her?”

“No,” the man groaned. “Shadows…sir…” his massive hand reached up to grab Edmund’s arm. “Saw…Googoltha…”

Horror and terror were uncommonly common in Edmund’s life. He had become used to their sensation, like one might acclimate to a warm bath. As such, his chilled blood and sinking stomach did not distract him. Instead, Edmund was consumed by the sense of impending failure.

“Where is she?” Edmund asked, a question of desperation, rather than thought-out reason.

Ung weakly shook his head.

While the physician in Edmund worked to repair Ung’s body, the Moulde in Edmund continued to think. Who would want Matron’s body? The Rotledges have no reason to threaten the marriage. The Brocklehursts gain nothing by defiling her grave. None of the Founding Families would risk everything by such an open declaration of war. Leeta digs up graves, but she’s to the north…

Ung’s hand gripped Edmund’s arm again. Edmund looked up, and saw the look in Ung’s eye.

“Who heals your wounded?” Edmund asked.

“Eh?” Ore-Man Jack started, suddenly the center of Edmund’s attention again. “What’s that?”

“A slipped pick, a rock fall, a shattered lantern — who heals your wounded diggers?”

“Oh…that’d…that’d be Fabers. She worked on a cliff-scraper, see, an’ she —”

“Fetch her at once,” Edmund snapped. “Bring the rest of your men, and organize a search party.”

“Eh?” Ore-Man Jack coughed. “Now…Don’t think I ain’t regretful o’ your situation, ’ere, ‘cuz I is, but we was contracted for diggin’, not huntin’, and especially not huntin’ folks what steals bodies from —”

“We aren’t looking for Matron,” Edmund hissed. “We’re looking for my fiancée. Fabers will tend to Ung until he is well enough to stand, and then she will join the search.”

“We ain’t exactly equipped for —”

“At the moment, Mr. Jack, I don’t give a damn what you are equipped for. I will begin searching immediately, and I expect you and your diggers to comb Brackenburg until they find her. Is that understood?”

“Aye, sah,” Ore-Man Jack swallowed hard. “Only…well…recognizin’ I wants to ’elp, truly I does…what do she look loike?”

---

It is said that the streets of Brackenburg have a magic all their own. In the time before the Great War, the streets were lined with gas-lamps and deep flickering shadows, Gothic spires and shaded windows. The streets were places of dark and twisted secrets, ticking valves and bursts of steam accented the placid covering of the ever-present black cloud.

After the Great War, everything began to change. Street lamps were being replaced with electric bulbs, crackling in the night. Purring steam engines and ticking gears vanished, while oiled pistons pulled in and out of roaring combustion chambers. Even the ubiquitous black smog had begun to shift from gritty soot to greasy smoke.

Edmund had only briefly stalked the streets of Brackenburg, during the year before he left for Grimm’s. It had taken him almost two years to work up the courage to explore the city without a carriage or escort, and that had been almost ten years ago. Now, his familiarity with the streets and buildings of Brackenburg came from his constant study of maps and charts. He knew how long it took for a cart to drive from the northern warehouses to the southern factories, and which streets received more than their fair share of foot-traffic. He knew where the police made their rounds, and which street-markets targeted which kind of shopper.

But it had been years since he had really and truly walked the streets. Much had changed, and he constantly found himself at a loss as to where to look next.

He could have found her in minutes, if he knew her better.

Where would she run to? Would she hide from the grave-diggers, or chase after them? Would she fight or flee? Would she return to Moulde Hall, or find somewhere else? Did she have favorite hiding spots, or a new one every night?

It took three full hours before Edmund realized that he was being followed.

Ordinarily, the sensation of being followed, especially in the darkness by a figure or figures of unknown size, shape, number, or intention, would be frightening. For Edmund, who had already explored several possibilities, it was a relief. Walking steadily, Edmund turned down a dark alley. He waited for a few moments, adjusting his outfit to a more presentable state, and then turned. “Googoltha?”

There was a small patter of sound, and then the woman stepped from the shadows. For all his efforts, it had been she who found him. A rush of questions flew through Edmund’s mind, each assessed, answered, and discarded until the only reasonable question for him to ask remained.

“Who took Matron’s body?” Would she tell him? Could she? She had to have seen the culprits, else why vanish into the night? Perhaps she saw them coming and hid while they worked, digging away at Matron’s grave. Perhaps she let them abscond for some plan of her own. Perhaps she helped them.

That was a chilling thought.

But it vanished as Googoltha extended her arm. Dangling from her fist, a thin metal chain wrapped itself around a metal sconce. At first, Edmund thought it was tarnished, before he realized the small insignia was spattered with blood. Edmund reached out and took the object from Googoltha’s hand.

He stared.

He looked up into Googoltha’s eyes. She stared back, unblinking.

They stood still for a moment, neither willing to move first, lest they betray some inner fear, some broken heart that would never be repaired.

Finally, Edmund slipped the metal necklace into his pocket.

In the time it took to find Googoltha, Edmund’s anger had cooled. If this sounds like an easing of tension, recognize too that in the smelter’s factory, molten iron eventually cools to solid steel.

He could burn down the world, but what would it serve? The innocent would be caught up in his conflagration, casualties of his careless waste of energy. Why seek vengeance, when he could punish? Why rage, when he could fight?

Why destroy in fire what he could torture for years?

---

There was no stopping the force that was Patron Moulde.

The Cathedral doors were thick and heavy, built as they were from fired oak and solid iron. They were not conducive to the rapid opening and slamming required of a furious man, but fortunately, Edmund’s fury was not the door-slamming kind. He bearly registered the doors’ weight as he pushed them aside. He did not hear his footsteps over the sound of the blood in his ears. He did not noticed the surprised and anxious gazes from the surrounding priests, and there is no telling what might have happened if he had. Instead, he marched with inexorable force through the main chapel, down the side passages, and through the hallways until he reached the same door Father Bromard had brought him too so many weeks ago. Without bothering to knock, he opened the door.

It must be said that Edmund Moulde was not a violent man. He had never raised his fists in anger, indeed, had never once struck another living being. His lithe form and awkward shape encouraged more subtle and unobtrusive methods of aggression.

In addition, of all the feelings Edmund had ever experienced in his life, he was the least familiar with hate. Not that he hadn’t been on the receiving end of his fair share — perhaps even more so — but for all the opportunity, before this moment he had never found himself burning with hate’s thick choking mist.

If he ever hated anyone in his life, he knew with a will of steel that he hated Father Bromard.

Before he could stop himself, before he could consider every ramification of his actions, his clenched fist was hurtling through the air.

The priest jerked backwards, blood already leaking from his nose. He pulled himself upright just as another fist collided with his chin.

Edmund was not strong, but he had made a practical study of pain and the human body, and he knew the principles of physics like a bird knew how to fly. Inertia was his bludgeon, angular momentum his blade.

A fist here, a foot there…

In seconds, Father Bromard was gasping for breath, holding his hands in front of his face in a feeble and ineffectual attempt to stop Edmund’s assault.

“Where is she?” Edmund forced his voice to remain calm and collected. He couldn’t let Father Bromard know how deeply he had hurt him.

Bromard spat, a spray of red streaking across a nearby parchment.

Edmund applied his fist to the priest’s stomach. “Where is she?”

“I’m afraid…” Bromard gasped, “I do not —”

A split second of consideration led to Edmund placing a fist across Bromard’s cheek, sending his body twisting across his desk. Reaching out, Edmund placed his hand on the back of the priest’s head. “Where is she?”

“What makes you…think I know anything?”

Edmund reached his hand into his pocket, and pulled out the blood-flecked sconce. With a casual flair that only comes from extensive training, Edmund set the sconce next to Bromard’s face.

There was a pause.

“She is in the Sanctorum Mortum,” Father Bromard’s voice was muffled, his face pressed against the table. “Carefully laid with great respect on a blessed marble slab. She is safe, protected, well cared for. As we care for all our flock.”

“She is not of your flock,” Edmund’s hand gripped tighter.

“No? She is here all the same.”

Edmund did not move. He did not speak. If he had, there is no telling what he would have said, or how many legends would have been told after.

Father Bromard’s eyes flickered up to Edmund, wincing through the pain. “It is a good thing we took her,” he said. “Apparently a demon attacked my fellow priests on their way back from Haggard Hill.” He glanced at the sconce. “How fortunate this demon dropped their stolen prize. I’m afraid Haggard Hill must be made excommunicate.”

“My hand is at your neck and you threaten me?”

“This is no threat,” Father Bromard coughed into the table. “This is a promise of what will happen if you stand in the way of the Order of the Holy Torch.”

“What is your way?” Edmund demanded. “Burn what frightens you? What you don’t understand?”

“It is because I understand that I am frightened,” Father Bromard heaved, his voice cracking with passion. “The world is changing, Patron Moulde, and it is changing too fast. Ironsides, batteries, plastics, diesel engines and automated machines. Steel plows that can dig canyons. Clawed engines that can smooth away hills. It used to be that only the Lord could bring the mountains low. Now, all it takes is a steam-shovel. I wonder if we are ready — If Britannia, or even the world, will ever be ready to wield this Godly power responsibly. That is why I do my job. I struggle every day to keep humanity safe until we can bear the responsibilities our new world will demand of us. If I do not…without wisdom, we will have an even greater and more deadly War. Death without meaning, pain without purpose, life without poetry…”

Edmund let go.

“I can’t think of anything worse,” Father Bromard pushed himself off his desk. “I know you can’t either. For all your scientific passions, you want the world to be just as predictable as I do.”

In the silence that followed, Edmund wondered if he had misjudged Father Bromard. Here, alone in his study with no one about to hear, confronted with the anger and hatred of a Patron of the Founding Families, Father Bromard wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t insulted. As he looked at the priest’s firm jaw, he realized the man was conflicted.

“Why did you do this?” Edmund spat.

“Because you defied us, Patron. We consecrated Haggard Hill, and even after allowing you to lay Matron Moulde to rest, you continued to defy us. Are you surprised at what we have done? You knew what you were doing when you challenged us.”

“You could have left me and mine alone!”

“Could I?” Father Bromard pulled a cloth from his pocket and dabbed at his nose and mouth. “You ask what I want? I will tell you. I want you to take Matron’s body with you, back to Haggard Hill, and lay her to rest once and for all. I want you to sleep tonight, secure in the knowledge that Matron’s body will never again be moved from its rest, and she will forever more be at peace.”

“Then, in the coming days, I want you to open your door when I knock. I want you to introduce me to your fiancée. I want you to tell me everything about her, and for my fellows to examine her. If she is no abomination, you may marry her without further interference. Otherwise, if Googoltha is indeed a scientific creation, a monstrosity reborn, I will remove her from your mansion, and cleanse both her soul and the world of her existence.”

No one knows how long Edmund stood there, whether he was thinking through the thousands of possible answers, or whether he was fighting down the urge to continue his assault on Father Bromard. However long it took, there is not a single historian in the world who would not sell their soul for an insight into what made Edmund say:

“No.”

Father Bromard didn’t move. His face didn’t twitch. In fact, if Edmund hadn’t spoken as loudly as he had, he might had thought the priest hadn’t heard him.

“Be very careful what you do next, Patron.”

“Careful? Were Matron’s body entombed in the earth, she could be no better protected than in the hands of the Church. I see no immediate need to remove her body from such sanctity.”

“You would leave her here?” Bromard gaped. “A Moulde…at rest in the Church?”

“A cadaver,” Edmund corrected. “Matron is gone. She is not a pawn, nor a tool for your schemes.”

Father Bromard’s eyes narrowed. “I urge caution, Patron. There is only so much that the Church will allow.”

Allow? Edmund shook his head. Was it really that simple? Was it really all just about power?

Edmund brushed himself off, taking care to adjust his clothes so he carried the proper air of Patron. When he looked again at Father Bromard, he caught a flicker of fear. “I am finished with you, Father, and the church. If you wish to place value in Matron’s rotting remains, the refuse of her passing soul, then I wish you well. I, on the other hand, will fight no more over it. She would never forgive me if I did.”

And with that, Patron Moulde left the cathedral. He never once looked back.

---

It was raining.

It was good that it was raining. Funerals were meant to be held in the black rain, with the skies weeping as loudly as any mourner. Matron’s first funeral had been dry and disrupted by upset solicitors and stern priests.

This funeral, her third funeral,² was more fitting. It felt right. No one would interrupt him. He was alone, like he wanted to be.

There was no grave this time, nor a sepulcher raised above the earth. Just a single stone on the ground. Ung had removed the rest of the broken sarcophagus, leaving the stone behind at Edmund’s instruction.

No name, no symbols, nothing but a reminder of the place Matron Moulde once lay.

In a moment, Edmund would return to Moulde Hall and take stock of the shattered remains of his family’s future. His factory’s reputation was in ruins. The Church had claimed the corpse of his families former Matron. Kolb had rejected him. His debts were so deep that he might never see the end of them.

Were there any options left for him?

Had he finally failed the Moulde Family once and for all?

Had he betrayed her?

It was a thought that had consumed him ever since the war, when he turned away from helping the Moulde Family in favor of helping the soldiers at Harmingsdown. With care and a delicate touch, he had created a truce that blossomed into peace, but to do so he had forsaken Matron’s demands of him. He had turned his back on the Moulde Family. Even if only for half a year, he had ignored his duty.

What would she have said? When he returned to Moulde Hall after his dismissal from the army, would she have been proud of his actions? Dismissive? Scornful?

Edmund gripped the letter in his pocket as he stared down at the smooth stone, bare of even her name.

Matron Mander Moulde.

She had always been Matron to Edmund. It was a title she wore like a crown, with pride and ferocity. The name Moulde had been their connecting thread; the blood of their odd little family. The one thing they shared apart from lunch and a taste for boiling tea. He had never really thought about Mander. It was a whole third of who she was, and he had never known what it meant. She wasn’t just a Moulde, or a Matron; she was a woman. A girl. She had felt emotions, like Edmund did.

Well, not like Edmund, obviously, and probably not like anyone else, either. She had been just as unique a person as anyone could be. She wasn’t a perfect symbol of Matronage. She was shrewd, adroit, fierce, and unforgiving. She was always right, and even when she was wrong there was a grain of right somewhere in her wrongness. Oftentimes, that grain was somehow more right than whatever was actually right at the time. She had ignored Edmund for most of his life, and somehow taught him everything he needed to know.

Now Edmund was Patron, but that was only a third of who he was. Patron Edmund Moulde. He knew how to be a Moulde, and he was learning how to be a Patron, but he had to never forget that he was Edmund. No matter what everyone else saw, he would never forget who he really was.

Who was he?

His whole life had been shaped for him. Now, he had to shape it for himself. How could he do that, without knowing his own shape?

Matron had possessed expectations of him, but there was only one that actually mattered. She held that expectation up to the end. She expected Edmund to figure it out for himself. He was Patron. It didn’t matter he wasn’t ready. It didn’t matter that he was afraid. It didn’t matter that others didn’t believe it, or didn’t think he could succeed. All that mattered was the way things were.

With trembling fingers, Edmund pulled out Matron’s letter.

He would never be ready, because there was no such thing as ready.

Scholars and students not clever enough to avoid their lessons will recognize this as the thesis behind Sir Edmund’s seminal work, Humanity, and its Innate Illusion of Qualification. In it, Sir Edmund details the historical and sociological failures of humanity to ever foresee the future in such a manner as to adequately describe it. Indeed, for anyone to be considered “ready,” there must first be an established state that can be classified as “finished.” Of course, preparation must be established on a scale, such that someone can be more or less prepared; therefore, “ready,” as a unique state, cannot exist.

Unless “ready” was simply a synonym for being prepared “enough.” And anyone who carried something valuable on their shoulders could never be satisfied with enough. Least of all Edmund.

Letters. Everything was letters.

When he was eight, Mrs. Kippling had offered him a letter from Plinkerton Moulde, the last great Moulde who had prophesied the return of the Moulde Family to power. The letter likely held advice, or perhaps directions on how to bring fortune and fame back to the Family, but Edmund had declined. He had recognized, even in his youth, that the past could not decide the future, only the present. The future was his responsibility, not Plinkerton’s. He needed to solve the Moulde problem his own way.

It had taken a decade of his life, and now…

He stared at the letter in his hand.

It didn’t matter what she had written. Everything Edmund needed to know was inherent in the fact she had written him a letter at all. Instructions, recriminations, abuse or support…In her final moments, she had thought of him. She wrote him.

Edmund thought about his last words to her. What had they been? He had no opportunity to say the things he had always wanted to say. Why did he think Matron wanted the same? They had spoken at lunch for many years. They had exchanged many words, all of them final. There was no more to say.

Bending down, Edmund lifted the stone from the earth, and lay the unopened letter down on the dirt, covering it again with the stone.

Perhaps, someday, he would open it. But he wouldn’t open it when he was ready to, he would open it when he needed to. Or perhaps not even until he wanted to.

Besides, he thought as he made his way back up to Moulde Hall, knowing Matron’s penchant for clever lessons, she might not have written anything at all.³