Margaret finished with the gun grease, wiped the wooden parts with a soft cloth, and carefully put the revolver in the box, engraved down. Angel told the gunsmith to engrave Purr and Meow on her revolvers — the mentor's sense of humor was sometimes quite peculiar. But over time you get used to it...
She put the brushes, grease, thinner and everything else in the gun drawer. The breeze played with white silk curtains, the scent of a coniferous forest and the gentle diffused light of a September evening streamed through the open windows. Margaret got up, stretched with pleasure and went to the bathroom, casting esurient glance at the new book on the table by the sofa. The author of "Count Vampire" had long disappointed her, and now she was devouring historical adventure novels, mainly in order to taunt Angel with retelling the plot and various details that the writers considered reliable.
Lathering her hands, Margaret checked in the mirror to see if there were any traces of gunpowder and grease on her face, and again thought that the corset made her slimmer after all. But even for a twenty-inch waist, she would never have squeezed into that murderess stuff again. Moreover, Angel, without any corset, could clasp her waist with his palms so that his fingers converged.
"And in general, you can't see it under the blouse," the girl thought. Although at first she almost died of embarrassment when the mentor handed her a pink box with bows and watched with a malicious grin as she, bursting with paint, took out her bodices like short blouses with buttons and underwire.
"Will you try?" he suggested and dodged the fireball with a dexterity that speaks of considerable experience.
"It would be nice if he came today," Margaret settled comfortably on the sofa, took a book and a knife for cutting pages. "Lions of the throne" - the title read. The girl, in anticipation, inhaled the smell of printing ink and dived into the book.
The twilight deepened, turned dark blue, and Margaret had already lit the lamp, when at last she heard light, almost noiseless steps. Angel, without his frock coat and vest, stood on the threshold, leaning his elbow on the doorframe and looking at the girl from under his arm, which he covered his eyes. He looked tired and the light from the lamp was unpleasant to his eyes. Margaret dimmed it and moved to the back of the sofa. The mentor lay down next to her, bowed his head on the girl's chest and grimaced, took her hand, pulled it to his temple with a beating vein. Miss Sheridan began to massage his temples, head and neck under his ear with her fingertips. Angel let out a long sigh and dropped his eyelids, wrapping an arm around the girl's waist.
She hadn't even realized before how hard he worked. Of course, Margaret understood that for everything that he showed her, funds were needed, and quite a lot, but she could not imagine how much time Angel spent on earning them. Sometimes it seemed to her that he was not sleeping at all, immersed in financial affairs during the day, and in magical affairs at night. Therefore, the girl tried to study hard, so that he did not have to bother with a negligent student instead of rest.
Angel's hand relaxed, the wrinkle between his eyebrows smoothed out, and his breathing became quiet, deep and even. He pressed the girl harder to the sofa, the vein in his temple stopped beating convulsively - Angel fell asleep. Margaret brushed his hair back from his broad forehead and touched it at the crease above his left eyebrow. The fever that had always pestered Angel during a migraine was gone, but the mentor began to snore softly. Margaret slid down the pillows and adjusted his head so that his neck would not arch. The snoring died down and the girl took up the book again.
It took two hours and four chapters before Angel got moving, yawned, rubbed his eyes and muttered:
"I fell asleep or something, right?.."
His voice was hoarse and unintelligible from sleep.
"You're so surprised every time, just like the first time," Margaret answered querulously: her left side was already numb, because she didn't move so as not to wake him up. Redfern propped himself up on one elbow, rubbed his neck, shook his head, chuckled contentedly, and lay back down.
"Well hey!" the girl was indignant. The mentor rolled over onto his back and looked up at her like a cat.
"It seems to me that you are not cheerful."
"Still would! You have crushed me everything that is possible! I'll be like a flounder so soon, and you can throw me under the door in an envelope. You're also awfully hard and bony. You should have eaten more..."
Angel raised an eyebrow at her.
"Is the session of your illogical complaints over? I just wanted to reward you for your diligence in your studies, but I might change my mind."
"Do you mean by a reward a stale candy from your pocket?" Margaret snorted and fenced off with a book.
"It was only once!" Angel exclaimed with sincere indignation. "You yourself wanted to taste the candy of the Regency Era; I did not force you! I had forgotten that it was lying there... And what is this?"
He raised himself on one elbow and looked at the green silk reticule, which had been gathering dust on the table for six months.
"My emBroydery," Margaret answered discontentedly and put her hand on his chest to return he back. "I started it at home and still can't find the time to finish it."
"But what do you need this thing for? You've got a hell of a lot of these bags..."
"Reticule, Angel," Margaret said with a smile. "It's called a reticule," and handed him her purse for review.
"But what do you wear in them?" perplexed, he reached inside and shook the purse. "Neither a knife nor a pistol will fit there."
"A jar of face cream, a comb, a handkerchief, keys to the box, a purse with a change..."
"So you take one bag and put it in another bag?" Angel asked in surprise. "But why?!"
Margaret beckoned him closer and, when he leaned towards her trustingly, whispered:
"Because there are no pockets on a woman's dress. Absolutely! Only shhhh, none of the men knows this, you are the first."
Judging by his physiognomy, it really was such a discovery for him that Miss Sheridan broke down and burst out laughing. On the one hand, there is nothing surprising - based on his questions, there were no living women here for a long time, but on the other... she turned a little pink. Quite often, when Angel returned home, Margaret, meeting him, caught the smell of female perfume and women in general. This embarrassed her, especially since Angel tried to keep his distance from her until he took a bath, and the girl could not understand what was the matter.
"Well, okay," the mentor threw the reticule on the table. "Today you have processed the targets so thoroughly that we will consider the trip to the theater deserved."
"To our theater?" Margaret worried. "But I can't, they'll see me there!"
"Don't worry," Angel replied contemptuously, "I'll take you not to your theater, but to a good one."
The girl was offended, but she did not have time to object.
"The Aventine Opera," Redfern purred, stretching sweetly and squinting mockingly at the pupil.
"Opera?!" Margaret moaned. "Again?! I haven't relived the last time yet! Wait," she suddenly perked up. "Are we going to the Aventine? Can we go to San Pietro later? And to the ruins? And to the chapel with Madonna, and to the terms, and to the Pantheon, and to the Arena, and..."
"Did you study so hard?"
The girl bit her lip. Angel sat down, looked at her sternly and asked:
"How can you not love opera?"
"But they are there all the time screaming and howling in vile voices, and..."
"Vile?"
"And I did not have time to see San Pietro! We were only in the square, please!"
"Margaret, you're pestering with requests."
"I'm sorry," the girl muttered, her head down. But his voice softened, and she hoped she would avoid the Opera after all. Margaret nearly died there after three hours of continuous torture with hellish sounds. Angel stroked her cheek and lifted her chin with a finger. Miss Sheridan smiled timidly - the mentor did not look angry.
"However, I have a few things to do in Ilara, and you will go to Aventine with me for three or four days. You, after all, mastered alchemy so much that we had to insert glass in the laboratory."
Margaret blushed deeply.
"It would be better if you did this more often, otherwise after you there is such an order as if you were not learning anything at all. Where are the explosions, where is the destruction, where is the manifestation of devilish creatures? Okay, go to the Library for Ermin's guide to the Holy City, at the same time take three books from the fireplace in my living room and take them to section N, bookcase seventeen, nineteenth shelf."
The girl climbed over the long legs of the mentor and left the room, but already on the threshold turned around - Angel grabbed the "Lions of the Throne" and began to eagerly thumb through to the new chapter. He would never have confessed to such a shameful fall, no matter how many times Margaret caught him doing it.
The library aroused in Miss Sheridan both awe and bitter regrets - even if she settled among the shelves, she would not have been able to study even a tenth of all these treasures in her entire life. Near each bookcase that went under the ceiling, there was a lift with a basket for books, flying lamps floated here and there, and the library catalog, if printed, could not budge even a circus strongman.
Margaret made her way to bookcase 17 in section N and got into the lift. It took her to shelf 19, however, placing Angel's books on it, the girl noticed some strange dents on the wall just below the ceiling. They were blocked by books on the last, twenty-second, shelf. Margaret pulled the lift higher, leaned out perilously with her knee on the shelf, and pointed the lamp towards the dents.
A half-erased image peeped out from behind the volumes: a pair of tiger's muzzles and an arc in the form of a ribbon with an inscription. Margaret climbed onto the shelf (although Angel scolded terribly when he caught her for this), with a spell she cleaned the dust from the inscription and read: "Fortitudo mea est in ira mea" - "My strength is in my rage." The tigers with bared fangs seemed to offer the doubting one to come closer and check. The girl carefully took out the books to reveal the rest of the relief, and realized that it was a coat of arms. But the lower part of it was almost completely erased, and Margaret could not make out the name of those who knocked out this motto on their shields.
Miss Sheridan returned everything as it was and slid into the lift. The library had a section with genealogical reference books - the girl liked to look at pictures in them and read funny stories in Latin about outstanding representatives of noble families. But to Margaret's surprise, the section did not contain a single reference book on the Riadian nobility or the aristocracy of the Deir Empire. Maybe Angel reads them and took them in his room? But then they should be in the catalog. The girl returned to the door, to the counter, on which lay a large slab of obsidian glass, and put her hand to the rectangle in the silver frame below it. The slab lit up.
"The genealogical book," Margaret said.
A long list appeared in obsidian, and Miss Sheridan scrolled through it in search of the necessary volumes, but they were not there. The girl sat down on a high stool and frowned in bewilderment. Even the genealogies of the Mazandran and Caliphate nobility were kept in the library, but why weren't there Deir and Riadian? Miss Sheridan tried several times to reformulate the question, but nothing was achieved. She sketched tiger faces from memory, wrote down the motto and finally remembered about Ermin's guidebook.
"Angel," Margaret said, returning to her room; the mentor threw the "Lions of the Throne" like a hot potato, "where in the library of the genealogy of our nobility?"
"Why do you need them? Are you looking for noble ancestors there?"
"No, where did I get them from? There are beautiful pictures and funny stories."
"You just insulted the entire continental nobility very badly," Angel said with a smile. "They think that these are their great coats of arms and the exploits of their legendary ancestors."
"But where are they?" The girl asked curiously. "Well, the genealogy of our aristocracy? Are you reading it?"
"No. Probably gone somewhere," Angel said indifferently, gazing at the pupil from under his eyelashes.
Lying, Miss Sheridan thought. He grudged every book, like not every curmudgeon - over treasures. If any volume had "gone somewhere," Angel would have killed the culprit on the spot. At first, Margaret trembled whenever she borrowed books from the library.
"Okay," the girl lay down on his shoulder and opened the guidebook. "What are we going to watch?"
Angel, hugging her around the waist, began to leisurely leaf through the book, but Margaret still felt that he was tense. It's strange. Why would he lie? He would say right away that there are no genealogies... but why no? Maybe that's why he lied so that she didn't ask. Miss Sheridan chuckled to herself. All the same, while he is busy with his own business during the day, she will have time to go to the Pontifical Library, where records of all noble Catholic families are kept and their family ties are still carefully recorded to prevent, God forbid, incestuous marriage. It's amazing how someone still messes with their head: in Riada, all titles were canceled, and until recently the counts with barons were for Margaret the same fictional characters from books as vampires and witches.
"We'll come to Aventine and I find out everything," thought the girl, comfortably curling up under Angel's side.
6th September
It was damp in Breswain, and a piercing wind blew from the sea. Brannon dived deeper into the scarf and longingly remembered the gentle Blackwhit September. The capital from the very first minutes pleased the Commissar with rain, cold and some unusually chilly weather. The harbor, where he and Broyd awaited the arrival of the frigate Kaiserstern, was even nastier. There is nothing to say about the smell. Nathan surveyed the rows of ships. Before his vacation, he sailed on them only twice in his life - to Mazandran and back, and now he was firmly convinced that a normal person would not voluntarily climb into this murderess trough.
"It's storming," said the RSD man who had accompanied them from the moment they arrived at the station. This gentleman's name was Buckley; he introduced himself as an interpreter, and the commissar, chuckling, noted that in RSD even interpreters wear a double-sided holster under their frock coat.
They stood on a high terrace above the pier, surrounded by a balustrade of peeling paint. The sea that stretched to the horizon was gray and looked heavy like liquid lead; it merged with a cloudy sky, through which the wind drove dark tattered clouds. Broyd raised his binoculars to his eyes, looking out for the Kaiserstern; Nathan made do with his own eyes, only covering them with his palm from the harsh wind.
"There's something creeping in there," Broyd said finally. The commissar focused on the small black cockroach, which tumble about in the waves, heavily rising and falling. Buckley flinched noticeably and leaned into the binoculars too.
"And what, it should be?" Brennon asked after watching the ship's disorderly motion for several minutes.
"No," Buckley said. "But, apparently, they have an inexperienced captain or... damn it!"
The ship soared to the crest of the wave, and Brennon squinted thoughtfully at the gray rags whipping in the wind.
"What is this, sails?"
"Stay here," Buckley ordered, turned and hurried down to the descent to the pier, where the carriage was waiting for them.
"But they'll get here faster," said the chief of police, trying to either cheer up the Commissar, or convince himself that everything is in order. The Dorgern frigate swayed on the crest of another wave and slowly sank to one side. The sails disappeared in the waves, and the ship was carried towards the port. Brannon swallowed. No one had a chance to survive inside this pelvis.
"Oh my God!" Broyd cried. "What will happen to them?!"
"Nothing good," Nathan muttered. "I'm afraid we'll never see Doctor Roismann, the minister's secretary, or the chief inspector again."
The chief of police leaned over the balustrade.
"Look! Buckley is trying to launch a lifeboat!"
Of course, the interpreter did not personally flounder - he pressed on several people in oilcloth raincoats and jackets, brandished some badge, pointed his finger towards the sea. The crowd that had instantly gathered on the pier, emitted excited and frightened screams, watching the approach of the frigate. "Kaiserstern" appeared and disappeared behind the humps of the waves, which, like huge paws, pulled him closer and closer to the harbor. Brannon tapped his fist on the railing. He didn't know what to do or how to help, but he couldn't be idle and finally went down to the pier where he found Buckley. He frowned after the skiff, which had just left.
"Do you think they will?" The Commissar asked. The sight of this trough did not inspire any hope.
"All they have to do is stay on the water," Buckley said. "I sent a man to the harbor master, and now several more lifeboats will be launched."
"But the waves are in our direction," Brannon watched as the people in the skiff were desperately fighting the sea, trying to get out of the port. "They will sail there for an hour, no less."
"If you can fly," Buckley said coldly, "you can go to the frigate yourself. Oh God," he hissed, "why this has to happen right now!"
Well, then, the commissar thought. So prove now that the Kaiser subjects were not killed by the malicious intent of savage revolutionaries.
The boats finally got out into the open sea, and they were immediately thrown down into the gap between the waves. The frigate, on the contrary, soared up to the very crest. The wave turned it around, threw it forward in several throws, and the ship swept past the port, as if it were being dragged by an underwater monster, to the lighthouse erected on the cape. A minute later, the lighthouse shook from the impact: the frigate crashed into it with such force that Nathan heard the crackle of wood and the grinding of stone.
The crowd on the pier burst into loud shouts; Buckley turned pale and ran away cursing. The commissar rushed after him, but lost his way in an unfamiliar place and, having skirted the crowd through some nooks and crannies, found himself on a hill behind the pier. There were also crowds of people; Brennon elbowed his way through and finally saw the frigate. Boiling waves beat it against the stone walls of the lighthouse, tearing it apart and swallowing piece by piece. Nathan gazed into the seething water with a sinking heart, but nowhere did he see a single person. So, no one survived...
The last thing to disappear in the waves was a piece of black side with silver letters "Ka.zer.ter.", and the commissar, taking off his hat, lowered his head. It was not at all such a gift of fate that he was waiting for, when on the way to Breswain he wished that the Dorgernians would have failed somewhere along with their damn vessel.