Gabrielle Thibault (she_has_designs) wrote in lightning_war, @ 2008-07-08 15:57:00 |
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Current mood: | enraged |
Midday Monday 14 September 1942, at the Malfoy townhouse on Widdershins Court in Londinium...
Gabrielle Lestrange looked up in alarm from her tea to notice there was a small party coming down the entrance to Widdershins Court, and frowned when she realised she recognised most of them. “Go upstairs,” she told Hyacinthe, and frowned. Both of the adult elves were gone and she had only Dobby at home. What in the world did Dracaena think she was doing? Was she really going to be removed from her home house by armed guards after she’d already agreed to move to Grimmauld Place? Only an hour or so before the Governors’ meeting? She put on a light cloak and came out, her arms crossed over her chest. “Dobby!” she called. “Follow me!”
“Tommaso Santino, what the hell are you doing here?” Gabrielle had addressed the Company leader in Italian. There was no reason to make things easier for Dracaena’s foul servants, who were actually daring to walk through the streets of Londinium. The male at Santino’s side had even come without the cloaks and veils they usually affected, his long pale hair hanging loosely around his face.
Santino lifted one hand, halting the party. “I’m here on the Lady’s orders,” he responded in Italian. “You’re occupying property that belongs to her, and we’re here to assist you in leaving it.” He grinned, all wicked enjoyment. “On her schedule, not yours.”
“This is preposterous,” said Gabrielle. “I have a meeting to attend in just one hour and the ink is barely dry on the deed to the Bolingbroke house on Grimmauld Place. Dracaena has not even been good enough to inform me how she will assist me with…” Gabrielle’s voice trailed off as she realised this was probably the only assistance Dracaena intended to offer her. And then Dobby started to run about her feet, crying and shouting in a thin reedy voice that she had never heard before. It was alarming and it hurt her ears. He sounded as though he were ironing his ears.
Keresek—that was the aboriginal’s name, she remembered it now—began to laugh maliciously. Those creatures never smiled or laughed unless something or someone else was hurting, or about to be. “We have your spy,” he said in brittle English.
“I wouldn’t worry about the meeting, Signora. You have bigger concerns at the moment,” Santino informed her coolly.
Gabrielle shook her head, her lips pursed tightly. She was tempted to kick Dobby to see if that wouldn’t shut him up, but he sounded as though he were truly in pain and she had to wonder, given what house-elves would do, what that meant. “What does he mean, you have a spy? I don’t send spies into Dracaena’s household!”
Santino smirked. “Perhaps you didn’t send this one. Perhaps you just left it there. But if any more are found, Signora, the Lady’s reaction will not be this pleasant.” Santino did not want to be pleasant himself, but the goal was to get her quietly out of the house without ending up in the papers, which rather precluded armed brawls. Gabrielle had been in her share of armed brawls and he knew that she would not balk at another.
“Where is this spy?” Gabrielle glanced down at Dobby, frowning. “Dobby was supposed to belong to Lucius. I understand Dracaena won’t have that, but he was the only one that I left there.” She frowned; she’d sent Zetty and Luffy through the door in the cellar a little after midnight, and she’d expected them back before breakfast. What had gone wrong?
“I’m sure you’re wondering about the other two. They don’t like ravens very much, do they?” Santino said blandly.
“Ravens…?” Gabrielle frowned. She didn’t know anything much about ravens, except that there were some in Cornwall which had red legs and beaks that the aboriginals claimed carried messages. Finally she glanced down at Dobby. “Stop that and be quiet!”
Dobby crumpled into a small lump at her feet and began to whimper, just at the very edge of the range of sounds she could hear. It was infuriating. “Why is he acting like that?” Gabrielle demanded.
“Because his mother is with us,” said Keresek firmly. “If you want her back, you will leave this place today. If on the other hand they don’t care…she can go where her mate went. In neither case do I care.”
“You heard the man,” Santino told her cheerfully. “And conveniently, we have some men here to help you along. Make sure you get out of the townhouse in a timely fashion. So I’d suggest packing, Signora. And quickly.”
“I want to see her, what have you done with my elf?” Gabrielle demanded, striding down into the garden. “And where is the other one?”
“Choughs got it,” said a girl aborigine, whose hood slid back as she spoke to reveal a face covered in some sort of tattoo. “Alastor saw, down by the kelpie pond.”
“Ch—chuffs?” Gabrielle scowled at the girl.
“Ravens,” Santino supplied helpfully.
Gabrielle gave him a withering glance. “How can birds kill a house-elf?”
“Choughs from the North will always kill them,” said Keresek, still smiling that malicious little smile Gabrielle so hated. “I believe they were messengers from the Pennchough. Strange things are happening.”
Gabrielle shook her head. “The…Pennchough?” The Cornish word was unfamiliar to her ears but she thought it could mean nothing good. It was probably meant to frighten her.
Santino shrugged. He wasn’t quite sure who that was either, but it wasn’t really his job to understand. “Regardless, Signora, we know what you’ve done. And we’ll know if you do it again. So I wouldn’t try it. The Lady has more important things to deal with than you.” He pulled out papers and thrust them at her. “These are from the Lady. They should make everything clear.”
Gabrielle took the sheaf of parchments in a vicious rustle of skirts. Dobby whimpered quietly behind her. “Culattina!“ she snarled under her breath. “This is outside of enough, Santino! She advertises in the papers this morning that I have left her bed and board, when in fact she has sent you to drive me out of it?”
Santino shrugged. “You have a house of your own now, don’t you? So we’re going to help you have all the independence you could want.”
“These papers are dated the eleventh! Servilia had not yet offered to sell me the house!” Gabrielle snorted. “That was the date on what she published this morning as well! She has been planning this!”
Santino shrugged again. “Signora, I have my orders. And no matter how much you howl and wail and protest, I’m going to see those orders carried out. The Lady has spoken. So you can either make this easier on yourself, or stand in the street and gnash your teeth.”
“Do you want your servant to help you, or shall I dispatch it like the filth it is?” the tattooed girl asked in a tiny, almost demure little voice.
Gabrielle frowned; she recognised that face. “Would you really murder a bound creature?” she asked in exasperation.
“Since you are the binder, you are the murderer,” the girl said sweetly.
“Do you want the elf or not, Signora?” Santino asked.
“Yes,” said Gabrielle. “Yes, I want it.”
The tattooed girl whistled loudly. Another teenage girl, a blonde, fully human from all appearances, was carrying a leather sack slung over her shoulder. She came forward and emptied it unceremoniously into the ground at Gabrielle’s feet. The elf tumbled out. It was trussed up in ropes shot through with copper and silver.
The blonde looked up at Gabrielle. “You might want to warn your servant that I’m going to let it go, and that attempting to hurt me will be more frustrating than fruitful.”
“She was the only one who could tie it up,” the tattooed girl said helpfully. “Even after I trapped it.”
“Zetty,” said Gabrielle curtly. “Do not fight them unless they attempt to do you harm. You have failed, but I will not allow them to hurt you. You have lost your mate; that should be punishment enough.”
“Grazie,” said the Italian blonde, who knelt to untie the elf. The rope was expensive. They were not going to give it away.
Zetty scrambled back to her mistress. “Missy,” she said, “badbad girls trapped me! And that one doesn’t stay changed!”
The blond girl smirked. “I thought they were being mean to you at first,” she told the elf. “But then you had to go and try that.”
“You smile like Nicodemo,” Gabrielle said sourly. “He’s behind all this, I know.”
“I should,” said the girl. “I’m his daughter.”
Santino made a face. He was sure that she wasn’t supposed to have mentioned that, but there hadn’t been orders. “Signora, it doesn’t matter what you think,” he told Gabrielle. “Now are you going to let the men in your house to help you leave the premises, or do I have to tell them to go ahead without your consent?”
Gabrielle sighed. Very little of what the house contained was hers, or Hyacinthe’s. “Nearly everything here belongs to Dracaena,” she said. “The movables are all hers. We have only some clothing and books and personal things. You just want to watch me pack. Will you at least be careful with the pianoforte? It belongs to Hyacinthe.”
“No, it doesn’t belong to her. It remains with the house,” Santino told her with a shake of his head. “The Lady specifically mentioned it.”
“Her husband gave it to her!” Gabrielle protested.
“It stays,” Santino told her in a tone that brokered no argument.
Gabrielle threw up her hands. “Send the girls up with me to the bedroom,” she said. “I’ll not be packing my intimate things in the presence of your men, and it sounds like that blonde there is equal to anything anyone here in this house could do.”
Valeria squared her shoulders and grinned. Santino nodded. “Go with her, Valeria. Make sure she actually packs and doesn’t try anything foolish. Moruith, you too.”
Keresek hissed and said something unintelligible. The tattooed girl spoke back to him, and then shrugged. He turned to Gabrielle. “If you touch my sister with iron,” he said in a voice that was almost sweet, “I will not kill you, for you are the Heir’s birth-mother, and that would be too near to kinslaying. But I will make sure you fall into the hands of someone who will. And I am sure that he will take his time.”
Gabrielle scowled. Widdershins Court was the one place in Londinium where one could not bear iron. And she carried it anyway, but she dared not use it, not when they were so outnumbered. Hyacinthe would not know what to do. They would end up at her brother’s home, or Étienne’s. The house at Grimmauld Place was not even aired. If she could even afford it now.
myr_avallenau (Keresek p’Steren, Moruith myr’Steren), paladina, voci_umbrarum (Dobby, Hyacinthe DeVries Moody, Tommaso Santino, Zetty) and she_has_designs