Page 39 of Triumph at Pemberley

“Foreign invaders intent on harming England. A great many of them, and more coming in all the time.” And it hurt, deep in his gut, with each new tramp of a foreign foot on his soil.

His soil? When had it become his soil?

Richard's eyes were wide. “Are you certain?”

“Yes.” And he was. He knew it as well as he knew his toes were at the end of his feet. “I sent Gentiane to scout after he brought me here, but it will take him time to reach the Channel.”

He could see the reality of it strike his cousin. England had been invaded, for the first time in centuries.

“Where?” Richard asked urgently.

Jack rubbed his forehead. “On the coast. I can show you the exact direction, but the land does not know the names of towns.”

“We need more than that.” Richard paused, and then said brusquely, “Come with me.”

As soon as Jack set his foot on the ground in the tiny garden behind Whitehall, the urgency building within him grew even stronger. It wanted him to do something, but what?

“Spread out the map here. Now,” Richard snapped at the crowd of officers surrounding him. “With the map’s north to the true north.” There was already a clerk standing there with a compass in his hand, ready to line up the large map with the cardinal directions.

Jack danced from one foot to the other as the map was unrolled and oriented. Not that the movement helped, but he could not stand still.

Finally they were ready. He hurried onto the map to stand on the spot representing London, heedless of his boots tearing holes in the paper. He pointed his finger towards the invaders without even looking down.

“Near Sandwich,” Richard reported.

Jack groaned as a new assault entered his awareness. More invaders. “And here, just now.” He pivoted his finger a bit to the right.

“Romney Marsh, damn their eyes.” He did not recognize the voice.

Nor did he care. The new vermin in his land were trying to do something, trying to dig something in, and he did not like it.

Something woke in his blood like a fire, or perhaps a disease. He tensed as the invaders burned at his very existence. By instinct he flexed something inside him, something like a muscle, and then… power roared through him, rippling out through the land.

Everything around him went grey. Where was he? Why could he smell the sea? Why was cold wind suddenly rushing past his ears? Then it died down, and the acrid odor of London soot was back.

He was on his hands and knees, with ashes all around him.

But there was only one set of invaders tearing at his body now, not two.

What had he done?

Frederica had always wanted to see the War Office, but she had not imagined being dragged by the hand behind Roderick, who was practically running through the building in the direction the guard had pointed. Her new husband shouldered open a door, as if he had forgotten that normal people waited for someone else to do it, or even used a handle. Then they burst outside again into a small parterre garden, just as a surge of power made the earth tremble.

Jack was kneeling in the smoking midst of what must have been a map. The grass underneath it was still green, though. What had happened?

Roderick pushed his way past several men and dropped to his knees directly in front of Jack. He gripped Jack's shoulders and leaned forward until their foreheads touched.

Apparently his ability to use words was gone along with using door latches. Frederica shivered. This King's Bond business was eerie.

“Who in hell is this?” demanded one of the men. Frederica recognized Earl Bathurst, the Secretary of War.

Richard said, “That is Mr. Glyndower, who has been training Mr. Jack Darcy in the use of his King’s Bond. Also my brother-in-law and a dragon companion.”

“Another one? Where did they all come from?” Lord Bathurst asked plaintively.

Frederica missed Richard's reply as Roderick dumped a sending in her head, a pile of incomprehensible words. She replied silently, English, if you please?

This time he made sense, and she translated for the others. “He says Jack needs food, immediately. Not in ten minutes, but this minute, even if you must grab it out of the hand of the person who is eating it. And drink - nothing too intoxicating, though. Wine will do, or ale, while you make tea.”