Hence the private caeliger. There were some problems with that, too—landing permits and so forth—because a strange airship roaming around as it pleases and landing at random fields for refueling tends to make people twitch, as if it’s the Aerial War all over again. But the arrangements got sorted out, and Kudshayn made it all the way to Thiessin before things went really wrong.
(No, I don’t know what. Apply to Great-Aunt Natalie for things that might qualify as “catastrophic engine failure” with a two-week repair schedule; that’s all I overheard.)
Of course Lord Gleinleigh didn’t want to leave Kudshayn stranded in Thiessin for two weeks. Since we only needed to get him across to Scirland, the earl made arrangements for a commercial flight after all. Only I gather there was some kind of trouble still, so Kudshayn wound up flying alone—apart from the crew, of course, since he no more knows how to pi lot a caeliger than I know how to bake a cake.
I’m not sure how the Hadamists got wind of it. Possibly that was an unforeseen side effect of something Lord Gleinleigh and I planned? I suggested he might want to invite some of the Draconean Friendship Society to dinner here at Stokesley, in celebration of Kudshayn’s arrival, but he declined. (He is not a very sociable man—I haven’t even called on the neighbours, nor have they called on us that I’m aware of—but I think it’s specifically because he’s worried we’ll let something slip that we shouldn’t. It’s all very hush-hush around here.) He suggested, though, that the Friendship Society might like to greet Kudshayn at the caeliger port, and so I wrote to them. I have no idea how the news might have gotten from them to the Hadamists, when those two groups are as far apart on the Draconean question as it’s possible to be . . . but it’s the only explanation I can think of. That, or a telegraph operator gossiped.
Regardless, the first Lord Gleinleigh and I knew of it was when we showed up at the airfield and found that, in addition to seven people from the Friendship Society, Kudshayn had a welcoming committee of several dozen more who think he’s a horrible monster.
If it weren’t for all the silly protocols we’d have had no trouble, because of course the Hadamists couldn’t cordon off the entire airfield, but Kudshayn had gone into the station building to fill out the paperwork they insist on when the arrival is from a foreign country. (It just occurred to me that their forms don’t have a blank for “species.” Do you think they’ll change that before the congress?) And if he’d landed at Winton there would have been far too much traffic in and out of the building; they would have been annoying ordinary people with their obstruction. But Lord Gleinleigh had arranged for him to fly to Alterbury because it’s more convenient for us, coming in from Greffen, and the field there is small enough that they were able to block the exits, so Kudshayn was trapped inside.
You can imagine how alarming I found the sight. Red masks all around the building, staring and blank, except where some of them were bold enough to show their faces openly. Their leader was one of the bare-faced ones. I’m sure you saw in the paper who it was: Zachary Hallman, and I have sat here for three minutes trying to think of an epithet I can attach to his name that won’t make you exclaim “Audrey!” when you read it. Nothing has come to mind, so I’ll just let you imagine something suitable. (Or unsuitable, as the case may be.)
He was parading around with a megaphone, shouting all sorts of horrid things—you know the kind of bilge they spew, human sacrifice and so forth. The Friendship Society were still there, but they’d retreated to a safe distance; they were outnumbered at least four to one, so I can’t blame them. They’d expected a nice little meeting with a visiting scholar, and instead they got a face-off with a pack of horrible bigots.
I suppose it was a balance of sorts, and our arrival upset it—because of course Hallman recognized me. That put a fresh wind in his sails, not to mention the crowd’s. Lord Gleinleigh told me to get back in the motorcar—as if I could sit idle! I strode forward before he could get any notions about manhandling me into it by force, and went over to where the trouble was.
Have you ever noticed what a dreadful-looking fellow Hallman is? No, wait—I don’t think you’ve ever seen him in person, as you were at sea when I met him. I don’t mean that he’s ugly. There are a great many people with ugly faces who are perfectly pleasant to look at. No, Zachary Hallman could be quite handsome, in a rugged sort of way, if it weren’t for the mean-spiritedness that has settled into every line of his face. He stepped forward and . . . well, I won’t write down what he called me, because I don’t want you being arrested for going after him. I don’t care a toss for what he says about me, but you have a father’s obligation to be furious at anyone who insults your daughter.
“Yes, that’s me,” I said, in my very best tone of saucy unconcern. “If you’ll pardon me, I have a friend in there who is urgently needed elsewhere.”
Lord Gleinleigh tried to shoulder his way in front of me and say something, but I dodged neatly around him. Hallman, meanwhile, selected three epithets to describe Kudshayn, none of them flattering. Then he said, “We know what to do with creatures like your friend . Let’s see how they like it if we burn them as a sacrifice to their heathen sun god!”
“Don’t tell me you believe that nonsense about those pillars being used to burn humans alive,” I said, with all the scorn I could muster, hoping it would hide the sudden bump of fear that they meant to light the station on fire. “Even if the Anevrai did that—which is very much in doubt among reputable scholars—modern Draconeans think the idea is appalling. They much prefer a good yak stew.”
It was something like that, anyway. I can’t remember precisely what I said, because I was busy trying to think of a way through this impasse. The Hadamists had all linked hands or elbows to form a human chain, like a grown-up game of “Country, country, we want soldiers.” Even if I managed to rally the Friendship Society, I doubted we could break their line. And we had quite a lot of bystanders by then, but they all seemed content to stand around and whisper to each other. If I could just get through to Kudshayn, though . . .
Lord Gleinleigh had given up on trying to get Hallman’s attention for the moment, and was instead hissing at me to stop being foolish and go back to safety. But then an idea came to me, and I smiled at Hallman. “Poor man,” I said, my tone dripping with insincerity. “So obsessed with the superiority of humankind . . . yet you haven’t learned to think in three dimensions. What good is your blockade when my friend can simply go over your heads?” And I cast my gaze upward, to the clock tower on top of the building.
They all fell for it, even the earl. Of course Kudshayn hadn’t climbed onto the roof; you know what he’s like. He would never dream of anything that acrobatic. But Hallman didn’t know that, and neither did the rest of his followers, and so they all had a moment of panic, thinking Kudshayn was about to come swooping down on them like the wrath of the sun.
That’s when I charged their line.
I chose my targets very carefully: a middle-aged woman and a scrawny fellow who probably works as a clerk. You would have been proud of me, Papa; I remembered my jujutsu training. Of course I’m terribly out of practice, so I didn’t attempt to dive over them, but I rolled right under their hands while they were distracted, neat as you please, and I thought that everything had come off just as I planned.