Another Missing Scene; My interpretaton of the most recent interesting gap in the narrative. What happened between the Nightingale and the Night Witch after her arrest...
NB this story takes place near the end of Broken Homes and therefore contains significant spoilers. You have been warned.
If only she'd met him years ago. The sneaking realisation that two of the most powerful wizards she's ever had dealings with are now her enemies. But the choice was clear. She kept thinking back to the farmhouse. She smiled to herself. She was acting like she'd have done in the Seventies if she'd have been faced with Hendrix. Damn the Nightingale was good. And fascinating. And like her, rather well-preserved for his age... She heard his voice outside the room, and tried to compose herself. All very well the young woman inside her acting like a rock star's groupie, but the old woman inside her was much more practical and told her to grow up.
Nightingale came in, and despite her trying to show the self-assurance of a Night Witch and magical mercenary, she caught her breath and looked down. A legend is still a legend, and she had now had first-hand experience of his power, and his face was not friendly. He pulled out a chair and sat down. No other officer, no tapes. Off the record.
She looked up. He met her gaze, and she tried to hold it for as long as possible, then looked away, shocked at herself. Poise all gone.
"So what are you then, Varvara? You've already spoken to my apprentices, and they are of the opinion, as I am, that you're too bright to be a hired goon. How far up the pecking order were you?"
"I did what I had to do to survive; you know how it is. When a powerful wizard tells you that he needs some work doing, you do it and like it. My employer... your "Faceless One" knew that I got things done, and he called me and told me what he wanted doing. I knew enough of him not to refuse, and I was paid not to ask questions. Asking questions would also have been very bad for my health, I'm sure."
"Oh, so it's the old "I was only following orders" tale, is it? You fought me and then suddenly you gave up. So why all meek and mild now?"
"Simple. A more powerful wizard has come along."
"Flattery, eh?"
"The truth. I know enough of YOU not to refuse. I was a Night Witch, remember? I didn't expect to survive the war, let alone the century. Every day is a bonus. I have learned to do what I must to survive. And you're sat right in front of me, while he is not. I confess that for a time I wondered if you were one and the same man - great wizard, in London - but the signare… not the same."
"I thought you said you'd only spoken to him on the phone?"
"I felt his signare on some of the things I was given to deliver, and in vestigia in places I had been instructed to go. People associated to him and their signare. He kept me at arms length, presumably because he didn't want me to find out too much. But he is not you, of that I am sure."
"But why suddenly surrender to me?"
"I was trained as a Night Witch. You could beat any of them, any of my instructors. The Faceless One is powerful, but I believe that he is no Nightingale. We were on the same side in the war, remember? Your exploits were held up to me and my comrades as heroism of the highest order; we should be honoured to call you Russia's ally. Until I saw you tear up that farm, I thought it exaggerated, but you amazed me. The speed, the control... No wonder you survived Ettersburg..."
He winced, and she decided to change the subject. She was beginning to sound too much like an awestruck teenager anyway. She had to try to stick close to him - where she would be safest. Part of her amusedly pointed out that getting close to a legend might be fun, but she squashed that idea straight away. She'd ended up on the wrong side, so that wasn't going to happen, no matter how much what remained of the young girl might sigh at the idea. She blushed and tried to hide it, and said the first thing that came into her head - based on memories of her youth.
"How do you find modern life, Master Nightingale? I hear you retreated from the world, while I was living my second childhood..."
Nightingale nodded his head, indicating that he was happy to let her talk. Probably expecting her to slip up and give something useful. Either that or he was happy just to talk with someone who understood better than most what he was going through. She was rather counting on that being a possibility.
She continued her reverie. "Many things have changed. I miss the dancing. When I was young, we danced together. Holding hands... holding each other. Now they just bounce about near each other. No sense of style... things have changed."
He smiled wryly. "Your dance card is probably going to be somewhat empty, I fear."
"Perhaps not. You and I shall dance for a little while longer, I think. You charged me with a great many crimes, remember. You can't just let me go, not without losing a lot of face with your employers. And I know a lot. I could help..."
He snorted. "Why should I trust you?"
"I'm a mercenary. I work for the highest bidder. I dance, if you like, with powerful men. I danced with one, now I think it better to dance with another. But the first will not take it well. He will quite probably kill me as soon as look at me; silence me before I talk. You tell me that you will put me in some kind of bracelet that means I will be unable to do magic without your people descending on me - what if my previous employer comes for me? I will be unable to defend myself; do you want that on your conscience?"
Nightingale steepled his hands and bent his head, resting forehead on his fingers. Varvara knew he understood, then. If he let her go, the Met would ask sharp questions, and if she turned up dead, it would be because of him. They were sat on opposite sides of the table, but he'd been a soldier before. He knew that sometimes the side chose you. She had blood on her hands, but so did he. He rememberd boasting to Peter how he'd dispatched two Tiger tanks during the war; now he was thinking about the men who were inside them. Varvara was nowhere near as skilled as Nightingale but a better magician than his apprentices, so she couldn't be left with them; ostensibly because they wouldn't be able to stop her escape, but also because they probably wouldn't be able to protect her either. He looked up at her, over his fingers.
She couldn't meet his eyes again, and looked down, before she continued. "If it is any consolation, I wish we had met 50 years ago. Things may well have been different."
He leaned back in the interview room chair and sighed. "Stalemate, Varvara. I admit it. But I take my duty to keep the Queen's Peace rather seriously. I arrested you and took you into custody because it had to be done. If I were your... previous employer, I'd have killed you. But I'm not him." He stood, and looked thoughtful for a moment. "Perhaps you will betray me. Perhaps you will think better of it. We shall see. At the very least, you will show us some of your forma, and describe the signare and vestigia of what you know of the Faceless One. " This last statement was quite clearly not a request.
"Yes, Master".
"I am not your Master, Varvara."
She looked up at him. "I think you know as well as I do that you are, oath or not. We have no choice. Perhaps you could tell the Met that I was working for you all the time, a plant, spying on..."
"Enough!" She stopped abruptly at his raised voice. "If you think for one moment that I will let the Met think that you are anything but a liability, Varvara Sidorovna Tamonina, if that's your real name, you have another thing coming. If you behave, and things you say turn out to be accurate and useful, I may... I MAY... allow you SOME freedoms. SOME. "
She bowed her head, contrite. In the circumstances, there was little else either of them could do.
He was still standing over her. "Varvara... perhaps one day we will dance. But I'll never trust you. I don't trust anyone. " And with that, he turned and left the interview room.
The following evening she was sitting in her cell in Chelmsford reading a book when Nightingale appeared unexpectedly, and clearly very, very angry. She'd seen him tear up a farmhouse and still keep his head, so this must have been something of quite epic import, so she kept quiet and waited to see what the issue was. "We're leaving."
She knew better than to argue, and stood, waiting to be let out of the cell. The duty officer started to ready some handcuffs but Nightingale waved them away, and she followed him out into the car park. She wondered if she dared ask what was up, but he had a face like thunder, so she meekly got into the car and they started back to London, blues and twos all the way. In the end, he spoke, obviously feeling that an explanation was necessary. He sighed a few times, as if he were thinking of words and then ruling them out. Finally, he seemed to decide what he was going to say.
"It seems that the Faceless One and I have swapped blondes. She was last seen in the company of the Faceless One, shooting my other apprentice in the back with a Taser. Twice."
So, the female apprentice in the mask had defected. No wonder he was so angry. She thought carefully about how to reply.
"I know you won't believe me, but that is news to me. In my communications with both of them, there was no indication of that possibility."
He grunted curtly, as if he was getting an answer he was expecting, but still didn't like. "You have nothing else to say? I need an honest opinion from someone else... close to the investigation."
She thought for a moment. "You've got the better deal. She was only an apprentice; I have a lot of combat experience. I have lived long. What she actually knows of you and The Folly will be negligible. She will be known throughout the demi-monde as an oathbreaker. Defector to an evil wizard and oathbreaker to another one. She will be persona non grata; no-one will dare speak to her for fear of you - or if they do, they will rush to tell you. He was probably hoping to keep her in The Folly but now her cover is blown, what use is she to him? "
"Good question. I was asking that of myself."
"The man is loyal?"
"As far as I know."
She nodded, and mused again. She continued, and was amazed to hear the following words coming out of her mouth. "Perhaps the Faceless One is just lonely. Looking for a witch to share his secrets with."
Nightingale snorted, but perhaps there was the hint of a blush as well. It seems that it had crossed his mind too.
"Whatever his motives, Nightingale, you have to face facts. You are one man with two other magicians beside you, one of whom is green as grass and the other is your prisoner. You face a man who has killed and will again, who uses the darkest arts to get what he wants, and as you have found out, has more magicians at his disposal than just the two. You will have to start trusting me. You can't do this alone, and my only chance of survival is tied with yours. If you die, so will I. "
His lips were a tight line. He didn't like it, but he knew she was right.
"And why should I trust you?"
"Do you have a choice?"
"What's in it for you?"
"I said before. If your defecting detective came back into your grasp, would you kill her? No, because it is against the law, which is the chain that binds you. The Faceless One will not be so kind to me. You may grate at the fact that you are stuck with me, but I'm stuck with you too. We will have to make the best of it."
He sighed again. "Don't make me regret this."
"Thomas, I assure you, if this all goes wrong, neither of us will live long enough to regret it."
If he noticed that she'd used his first name, he didn't mention it.
"Very well. I will take you to The Folly. You will be given a room of your own, and you may travel between that, the dining room and the exit. You may go into no other rooms unless I am present. The housekeeper will be instructed to stop you if you try, and believe me, you don't want to upset her. Constable Grant, I am sure, will be watching you too."
They drove on in silence for a while, but then he laughed. "I may even dig out one of my old 78's from the Coach House, and we shall dance." He looked towards her for a moment, with the hint of a sparkle in his eyes. "I admit, someone of similar vintage and skills will be good company, after a fashion. Let's see if we can't make a go of it.". He was trying to make the best of a bad situation, but she could see that the loss of an oath-sworn apprentice had hurt him deeply.
She kept her thoughts to herself, as they arrived in Brompton.