Ancient Appetites

'Jaysus, I'll go with yeh,' Patrick declared. ''S bin a while since we had a bit o' drama.'

Francie nodded and tried to look enthusiastic. He'd had his fill of drama for one night. Standing up, he grabbed his cap and jacket and waited for Patrick to get dressed. He was standing with his hands in his pockets when he realized he should have been able to feel the letter his father had given him. He checked the pockets of his jacket but he already knew he wouldn't find it. He had dropped it somewhere out in the woods. Sitting down on the edge of the bed with his back to Patrick, he tried not to cry.

XXIV

AN UNJUSTIFIED ACCUSATION

It was after three in the morning when Clancy woke Nate to tell him he had been summoned to the main drawing room. Roberto had been attacked. Stopping only to pull on a pair of slacks, shoes and his dressing gown, Nate rushed down to see his brother.

He arrived, out of breath, to find Roberto stretched out on a divan, looking pale and uncharacteristically dishevelled and muddy, his waistcoat open and his shirt torn. He was holding a damp folded cloth to the side of his face. Sitting in armchairs on either side of him were the Duke and Gideon, and Nate was surprised to see Hugo there as well. Standing by the Duke's chair was Slattery, a strange smile playing on the corners of his mouth.

'What happened?' Nate demanded.

'Your brother was attacked in the woods,' Edgar growled.

'By whom?' Nate asked, then he frowned and added to his brother, 'And what were you doing in the woods at this time of night?'

'I was taking a walk,' Berto replied defensively. 'I can still take a walk when I like, can't I? I couldn't sleep.'

'Are you hurt?'

'The good doctor says I've cracked some ribs, but apart from that and some bruises and a rotter of a headache, I'm fine… apparently' Berto said in a sceptical tone. 'I don't feel fine. I feel bloody awful.'

'Someone riding an engimal, most probably a velocycle, ambushed him and almost killed him,' Edgar said. 'This, in an area surrounded by armed guards. We do not know if it was an opportunistic attack, or whether somebody was deliberately targeting the Wildenstern Heir. If so, it was a bold and extraordinary act of aggression.'

'Well, that's not likely, is it?' Nate stuck his hands in the pockets of his robe. 'Who could have known Berto was going to take it into his head to go for a walk in the middle of the night? Or where he'd walk? It must have been an accident. And you said they used an engimal? That doesn't sound like rebels or poachers – more like someone from the family'

Both Hugo and Gideon were following what was being said very closely, but said nothing.

'Sit down, Nathaniel,' Edgar said quietly.

Nate felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. He was missing something here. Something was badly wrong. He reached for an armchair and pulled it closer, sitting down clumsily. Slattery stepped out into the middle of the floor and gave him a little bow.

'Good morning, sir,' he began, his cold eyes locking onto Nate's. 'I'm pleased to say that my men and I have already investigated the scene of the attack and have reached some early conclusions based on the evidence collected thus far.'

The bailiff started to pace back and forth across the floor, delivering his speech with a dramatic air.

'You are right in supposing that it would take a great act of foresight to anticipate Master Roberto's spontaneous and ill-fated walk in the woods. So I would speculate that either our villain had the remarkable luck to find the Heir alone in the forest entirely by chance… or he followed him there with a view to instigating his attack.'

Slattery stopped pacing for a moment to draw a long breath.

'Given that Master Roberto walked from the house and that said attack was carried out using a large engimal – an unlikely weapon for a rebel, as you rightly pointed out, Master Nathaniel – and given that the perimeter was being patrolled by armed men, it would be fair to assume that the culprit could have also come from Wildenstern Hall. I am aware that members of the family do indulge in the occasional act of… aggression, in order to… well, to get ahead, shall we say? I could not rule out the fact that this might be just such an act.

'But then we found this,' he said abruptly, flourishing a cheap-looking brown envelope. 'And things got a lot more interesting!'

'Get on with it,' Edgar grunted, his engimal claw clicking restlessly.

Slattery nodded respectfully to the Duke. Taking out the piece of notepaper contained in the envelope, he unfolded it and handed it to Nathaniel. Nate took it and held it up to the light to read it:

A mesage for the Willdensterns,

Yor days of grynding good working people under yor

hele are numbered. Take this as a worning that there is

no place to hyde from us. We can reach past yor walls

and yor gards and strike wher you leest espect it.

Releese yor grip on the poor people of Ireland or sufer the

connsequenses.

Yors faithfully

The Irish Liberty Brigade

'Looks to me like their spelling is no better than their assassinating,' Nate quipped. 'I've never heard of them. 'The Irish Liberty Brigade'? Where did they spring from?'

'We'll find out,' Slattery assured him. 'But since this was left for us to find, it suggests that the person who followed Master Roberto from the house is in league with this group. Perhaps someone who is working with the rebels in order to advance their position within the family.'

Nate nodded, but thought it unlikely. It was only then that he noticed somebody was missing.

'Where's Daisy?' he asked. 'Shouldn't she be here?'

'She's vanished,' Berto muttered sourly from behind the cloth. 'Nobody can find her.'

'I bloody knew it,' Nate said through gritted teeth.

'Daisy was not the attacker,' Edgar declared. 'Although her complicity has not been ruled out. Carry on, Slattery'

'Yes, sir.' Slattery took centre stage again. 'As you'll know from your experience in tracking, Master Nathaniel, every engimal leaves a unique footprint, by which they can be identified. We were fortunate enough to be left with a perfect imprint of the offending velocycle's feet.'

He snapped his fingers and a footman brought forward a jacket. Roberto's jacket. Slattery held it up for all to see, clearly marked in a diagonal line of mud across the front, the track left by the attacker's engimal. Nate caught his breath. He recognized it instantly.

'Naturally, we checked it against all the velocycles in the stables first,' the bailiff told him. 'We nearly forgot one, as it was being kept in a spare stall with the horses.' His eyes held Nate in their unswerving gaze. 'It was your velocycle, Master Nathaniel, and its feet matched the print perfectly'

'This is absurd! It can't be… I…' Nate began. 'I haven't left the house all night! Someone must have stolen Flash and-'

'But the damned machine won't let anyone else ride it, Nate,' Roberto pointed out, looking utterly miserable. 'Nobody else can even sit on the cursed thing. I mean… I'd understand if it was an accident, you know? If that's all it was-'

'It wasn't me!' Nate shouted.