Goblin Moon (11 page)

“A fine day,” Lord Krogan said politely, as he
snapped the reins and the carriage began to move—then he spoiled
the effect by leering at her suggestively and adding, “And you, if
I may say so, appear in fine form as well.”

Sera ground her teeth and did not reply. At the rate
they were bowling along she would not have to endure the man’s
company for very long.

They continued on in silence for several minutes,
until the Viscount whipped up his horses and took a corner at high
speed, almost oversetting the carriage in the process.

“I think, sir,” said Sera, “that you have mistaken my
directions. This is not the way to my grandfather’s.”

Lord Krogan grinned at her and made no answer, except
to touch up the horses again. As they rounded another corner, Sera
clutched the side of the carriage, in order to avoid being thrown
out.

They continued on at the same breakneck speed for
some time. Sera gradually realized that Krogan had never intended
to take her to her grandfather’s at all. She had heard many wild
tales of dissolute gentlemen and helpless maidens, but she had
never given these tales any credit. Yet, as fantastic as it seemed,
she could not escape the conclusion that Lord Krogan was actually
attempting a daylight abduction.

“Lord Krogan,” said Sera, as steadily as she could.
“I demand that you stop at once, sir, and permit me to alight.”

Her abductor threw back his head and laughed. “You
have accepted my invitation, Sera. It is much too late to back out
now.”

By now she was growing genuinely frightened—but she
stiffened her spine, lifted her chin, and replied sternly, “I have
not given you leave,
sir
, to address me by
my given name. And if you will not stop, I shall certainly be
obliged to jump.”

Lord Krogan only leered at her. “I do not believe
that you will. You are a sensible girl, my dear, dear Sera . . .
and you must be aware how shockingly dangerous that would be.”

With a sinking sensation, she realized that what he
said was true: they were traveling at such a rate now, that any
attempt to leap from the carriage would certainly entangle her with
the back wheel.

Sera tried to think.
He can’t
mean to take me out of the town, for he would be obliged to slow
down passing through the gate, and I could jump. Merciful heavens!
We must be heading for some bagnio or—or a brothel. Can he possibly
suppose that I would actually consent to accompany him
inside?

“Lord Krogan,” she said severely, “if this is
intended as a joke or a—a romantic escapade, I hope you do not
flatter yourself that I will cooperate with you in any way.”

It was then that Lord Krogan made a serious
miscalculation, by turning onto another narrow lane much busier
than the streets they had been traveling. As the Viscount was
forced to slow the pace, Sera braced herself, ready to take action
at the first opportunity. Then a stately berlin rumbled around a
corner and pulled in front of them.

Lord Krogan hauled in on the reins, and Sera saw her
chance. She gathered up her skirts and leaped out of the carriage.
Landing badly, she twisted an ankle beneath her and dropped her
purse and her package. But she was up in a second, gathering up her
possessions and limping down the street as swiftly as she could
go.

Lord Krogan, declining to abandon his carriage, gave
her up for lost and did not give chase.

Chapter
9

Which finds Sera in no better circumstances than the
Former.

Sera looked around her, with considerable disfavor.
This was no part of Thornburg she knew, no place where she cared to
linger. The street was so narrow that the overhanging second
stories of the crooked old houses actually met in places, forming a
dim, winding tunnel between ugly, sooty buildings: tenements and
taverns and gin shops. An occasional lanthorn lit the way, swinging
from a rusty chain, but there was no room to accommodate even a
narrow sidewalk, forcing Sera to walk in the muddy, ill-paved
street.

The people were shabby and dirty; the neighborhood
reeked of garbage, poverty, and cheap spirits. Sera gathered her
flowered shawl more closely around her and set out briskly in what
she fervently hoped would prove to be the right direction.

Men like Lord Krogan should be
boiled in oil!
thought Sera, as she limped down the street.
They should be forced to swallow white-hot
iron. They should . . . Oh, I don’t know any punishment that is
harsh enough!

At first, she could not understand why she attracted
so much attention, why the women stared resentfully as she passed,
and the men made such rude remarks. Then she realized it was the
way she was dressed: the gown, gloves, and bonnet that appeared so
plain and old-fashioned among the Vorders and their intimates gave
a very different impression here. To these ragged and ill-fed
people she must appear the pampered daughter of a wealthy family,
who had never lacked for anything in her life.
Little wonder if they hate me
, thought Sera. She
lowered her eyes and walked on, as swiftly as she dared.

But when she passed a signpost, she glanced up,
hoping to gain some sense of direction. It was difficult to read
the faded lettering in the twilight between the overhanging
buildings, but she was just able to make out the name.

Capricorn Street
, said the
sign, and Sera felt a chill snake down her spine. Capricorn
Street—the name was certainly familiar. It had all the familiarity
of a recurring nightmare.

“
Don’t
you never go down Capricorn Street, for you’ll never return
again!”
The old warning came back to her, a memory of
childhood days in the old neighborhood. Spoken by the mothers and
fathers, or the older brothers and sisters of Sera’s friends, those
terrifying words prompted the younger children to imagine all kinds
of horrors. On Capricorn Street there were cannibal witches,
warlocks with wooden feet and staring glass eyes, feral dogs and
yellow demon cats—a whole collection of frights and bogey-beasts
designed to strike terror into childish hearts.

If Sera knew better than that by now, if she knew
that Capricorn Street was nothing more than a narrow dirty lane
leading from her own shabby-genteel neighborhood into a perfectly
ordinary slum . . . yet some of the old superstitious terror
remained.
And if there are no witches and
warlocks, there is crime and vice and every form of human
degradation—and that’s quite terrible enough.

But at least she knew for certain which direction to
go.

As Sera continued purposefully on her way, she passed
many groups of ragged children: dreadful little wraiths, with
pinched-in faces and knowing eyes, who conducted their games with a
sort of heartless, down-trodden weariness, that suggested a duty
rather than a pleasure. Even their laughter sounded shrill and
hysterical. Sera could not bear to look at them. She wished that
she dared to cover her ears, so she would not have to hear
them.

One of their songs, set to a peculiar jangling tune,
followed her all along the street:

Sally go ‘round the stars, Sally
go ‘round the moon,

Sally go ‘round the chimney pots
. . .

Both the words and the tune had a haunting quality
that disturbed Sera very much.

And as she walked, she grew increasingly aware that
someone followed her, a man, most likely, and almost certainly
drunk, by the sound of his shuffling footsteps and the leering
remarks that greeted his progress all along the dreary lane.

“Here now, missy . . . seems you’ve got yourself a
fine gallant,” someone called out in a rough voice.

“Don’t you take no for an answer, cully. She ain’t so
proud as she looks!”

Yet Sera knew better than to increase her pace.
If I run, they will join in the chase.

“How do you do, Miss Vorder?” Sera was startled to
hear her own name spoken by a voice that was gentle and cultured,
and somehow familiar—and even more surprised to note that the
foot-steps following her suddenly ceased, and everyone on the
street fell just as suddenly silent.

Sera glanced up. A tiny white-haired woman in a long
grey cloak fell into step with her. “Mistress Sancreedi!” said
Sera, recognizing the only one of Elsie’s many doctors who had ever
done her a bit of good.

“My dear Miss Vorder. What on earth has caused you to
stray into this part of the town?” Mistress Sancreedi was not much
taller than a dwarf, and even more daintily built than the little
Duchess of Zar-Wildungen, yet she possessed a natural dignity about
her which commanded instant respect. Though no longer young, she
was still a handsome woman, for old age had treated her kindly,
refining her beauty rather than spoiling it. The one jarring note
in an otherwise lovely face was a pair of yellow eyes, as unusual
in size and expression as they were in color.

“I come here not by inclination,” replied Sera, “but
by . . . by misadventure. I am going to visit my grandfather. And
if it isn’t impertinent for me to ask: what brings you to Capricorn
Street?”

The little apothecary made a dismissive gesture. “In
the course of my professional duties I come here often. Indeed, I
am well known in every part of Thornburg and move about quite
freely. Allow me, Miss Vorder, to extend that ‘safe conduct’
temporarily to you, by escorting you to your grandfather’s.”

Sera was more than happy to oblige. “You are very
kind,” she said.

They walked on in silence for some time. Though Sera
knew it was rude to stare, she could not help stealing a sidelong
glance at her companion, every now and again—for truth to tell
there was something decidedly eccentric about Mistress Sancreedi’s
attire. Over an antique gown of mossy green velvet she had laced a
stiff black bodice, and she wore, besides, a wide ruffled collar of
white lawn edged with point lace. Her big straw hat was embellished
with wax fruit and fresh flowers, but rather more startling were
the two live birds, a robin and a jenny-wren, that perched on the
crown. She carried a covered basket, which (by the sounds issuing
forth, and the occasional emergence of a striped paw or a
white-tipped grey tail) seemed to contain kittens.

She is undoubtedly the oddest
woman that I have ever met,
thought Sera.
But I know her to be a good one.

They passed another group of children, trudging a
dreary circle and singing the same song that had disturbed Sera
before. “Mistress Sancreedi,” she said aloud. “Do you know what
game these children are playing? And the verse that they sing: I
feel I know the words, though the tune is strange to me.”

“But it is not a game they are playing,” the little
woman replied. “Rather, they are weaving a charm against the
terrors of the night. Nor is it surprising that you should know the
words, which are based on an ancient invocation to the sun and the
moon.

“You frown, Miss Vorder, as though you disapprove,”
she added. “Will you tell me why?”

Sera shook her head, uncertain how to express what
she felt. “These children . . .” she said at last. “Their
circumstances are so wretched, their condition so miserable. I
cannot imagine anything worse than the lives they already lead.
What need have their parents to—to invent bogeymen with which to
scare them?”

“No need at all,” said Mistress Sancreedi. “These
children are quite capable of imagining their own bogeymen. You are
shocked by what you have seen here. The condition of these children
moves you to pity and disgust. But to see them at their worst, you
would have to come here at night.

“Few of these children have beds to sleep in,” said
Mistress Sancreedi. “They spend the nights huddled together with
their equally wretched brothers and sisters in a pile of filthy
rags in some draughty corner. Rats are their frequent bedfellows,
and the violent squabbling of drunken parents a familiar lullaby.
More often than not, these children go to bed hungry. Is it any
wonder if they sleep lightly and their dreams are more often
nightmares? But worst of all, perhaps, is their fear of hobgoblins,
whenever the moon is full.”

“It is very sad,” said Sera, with another shake of
her head. “But there is nothing supernatural about hobgoblins, you
know. They are just—just vermin. And they only come out when the
moon is full because subterranean tremors make their tunnels
unsafe.”

“As you say,” Mistress Sancreedi agreed. “They are
only vermin. But they possess a rudimentary intelligence, and
unlike rats and other vermin, they have clever little hands which
enable them to unfasten latches and pry open windows; they have a
hundred different ways of gaining entrance to these old, tumbledown
houses. Moreover, they run quite mad above ground, and their bite
is poisonous.”

“You would say that the poison is a mild one, and the
wound not serious if treated properly,” the apothecary added, when
Sera opened her mouth to speak. “But rosewater and oil of clove are
quite beyond the means of these folk. That little lad over there .
. .” Mistress Sancreedi indicated an emaciated urchin, not more
than six years old, who leaned on a crutch and stumped along on a
wooden leg. “He was bitten by a hob before he learned to walk. His
mother did not send for me until the poison had spread from his
foot to his leg. I came in time to save his life, but not to save
the limb.”

Mistress Sancreedi gave a weary little sigh, as
though she was suddenly oppressed by many such memories, and
changed the subject. “But tell me something of your cousin, Miss
Vorder. Has her health improved at all?”

“It has not,” said Sera. “I do wish that Cousin
Clothilde had been more reasonable and not dismissed you!” Yet it
was not to be wondered at that Mistress Sancreedi’s prescription—a
sensible diet, moderate exercise, and mild herbal draughts to aid
Elsie’s uncertain digestion—had not found favor with Cousin
Clothilde.