Tangled Tales of Myth and Magic (Paperback)

Being freshly deceased, the manifold advantages long enjoyed by the formidable Countess of Hexborough had come to as abrupt an end as her existence, except for three:

Her place of eternal rest had been secured in the family vault at Hexwood Hall, and her particular berth within it was as majestic as a tomb could be;

She had been neatly defenestrated, and had not therefore suffered a great deal over the course of her inevitable demise;

And finally, she enjoyed the services of a clever butler, by the name of Gurtin. His regular duties were not likely to expire, even if his erstwhile employer had. And then there was the defenestrating itself. Somebody had to have done it, and somebody ought to find out who. What else is a good butler for?

* * *

‘Well,’ said Gurtin, at about seven minutes past eleven on that fateful day, beholding with some distaste the mess the countess was presently making of the floor under the library window. What was left of her was leaking, and in quite a few places; blood, naturally, and a few other things.

‘Well,’ agreed his companion, a groom of the name of Derwent. He had been tending to the countess’s favourite steed, a great black beast with talons a foot long at least. Not easily daunted, Derwent; still, the horrible shriek the countess had uttered as she’d fallen had rather chilled his blood, for he shivered. ‘I’ll get a mop,’ he said resignedly, ‘or,’ (more hopefully) ‘a maid.’

Gurtin looked up. Hexwood Hall was new, and very grand indeed; the countess had made sure of both. Made of enchanted marble, built several storeys high, and bristling with turrets; the works. She had most likely fallen out of one of those turrets: Gurtin thought a window stood open, way up there, but couldn’t be sure. ‘I suppose she might just have toppled out,’ Gurtin suggested to the groom, or perhaps to himself. ‘She was leaning out to admire the view, say, and—’ He sighed. ‘No.’

‘No,’ agreed Derwent, with a snort. ‘Come off it.’

Gurtin came off it. The Countess of Hexborough had been precisely the sort of woman who would, some day or other, be defenestrated; the wonder was that it had never happened before.

He supposed he ought to discover the culprit, possibly send them a hamper of something nice, by way of thanks. ‘Did you happen to see what happened?’ he enquired of the obliging Derwent.

‘No. I was in the stable, with the Princess. But I heard something, all right. Terrible scream.’ He shuddered. ‘Gave me an awful fright.’

‘So you came out here, and...?’

‘And she was like that.’ Derwent illustrated the shattered corpse with a thrust of his prominent chin.

‘I see.’

‘Not yet, but perhaps you will. Clever fellow, and all.’ Derwent went away whistling.

A muffled roar emanated from the stables, and a tearing crash. Gurtin fervently hoped that Derwent would settle the Princess down, preferably before she broke free of her stall and— no, it didn’t do to speculate on what would happen then.

‘Sweet Princess,’ the countess would have said, fondly. ‘So energetic.’

He went inside.

‘Gurtie!’ said somebody shrilly. ‘What in all the Seven Hells was that terrible Noise?’

It was Miss Roxham, the countess’s companion. She had a way of speaking in capitals, when she chanced to become excitable. At present she was clutching a thin hand to her necklace of poison-green stones, and turning a white and frightened face towards the butler.

‘Murder,’ said Gurtin. He’d come in by a side door, into the passage that ran from the library to the servants’ stairs. At one end, the library door pulsated with curse-work, a roiling, queasy business that turned Gurtin’s stomach. At the other end, a green baize door cordoned off the kitchens, the pantry, and the so-on of the toiling class. An odd place to run into Miss Roxham, perhaps?

Heartily, she shrieked. ‘I knew this day would come!’

‘Which day exactly?’ enquired Gurtin, politely.

‘My poor Letitia.’ Miss Roxham shed a prismatic tear.

‘It just occurs to me to ask,’ said Gurtin apologetically. ‘But how did you know it was Lady Hexborough?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ snapped Miss Roxham. ‘Who else is like to be murdered, around here?’

An unanswerable point. ‘Perhaps you would be so good as to tell me about your morning,’ he enquired. ‘Perhaps you might have seen or heard something useful, you see.’

Miss Roxham drew herself up, and inhaled. ‘Well!’ she said importantly. ‘You are doubtless Wondering what I come to be Doing in this particular spot.’

‘I was,’ Gurtin agreed.

‘I’ll tell you. It began sharply at nine o’clock, when my Dear Letitia rang the bell to summon me to her bedside...’

* * *

‘Roxham, darling, I require assistance.’ Thus spake Letitia, Countess of Hexborough, when her faithful companion entered her bedchamber in answer to the Summons.

Not that she was supposed to be the one to answer a Summons at that hour, and in that location. But the bell had rung and rung and at length—’Yes, dear, what is it?’ said Miss Roxham, with her best attempt at a honeyed tone (fairly well developed, by now).

Her Ladyship was still abed, reclining against a mass of rose-coloured pillows, her slight frame enveloped in rose-coloured satin sheets. Anybody else would have been dwarfed into insignificance by the bed alone, never mind the chamber around it: the former a monstrosity of bronze posts and gold velvet drapes, the latter a nightmare of glittering honey-coloured marble and excessively proportioned windows. But Lady Hexborough had Presence.

She wielded it now like a bludgeon, fixing Miss Roxham with one of her sweet, suffering smiles. ‘Well, darling, I do not know what has become of Aurlandie—I’ve been ringing for her this age—and I simply must get dressed. It is shockingly late, isn’t it? It must be three in the afternoon at least. The cerulean organza, darling, with the violet slippers. And bring the cloak, the good one. I shall be going out directly.’

Print books are crafted to order and dispatched directly from the printer. Estimated delivery time is 1-2 weeks for standard editions, 3-5 weeks for deluxe editions.