Chapter 10 – Lady in Red
It was very quiet in the gentlemen's parlor. The lords were gathered around the unconscious body of the bandit and trying to reason out what had occurred.
"Well, that was … " A gentleman searched for the right term. "Interesting."
One of them prodded the bandit with his toe. "Quite a brawl that was."
"Wasn't a brawl. A massacre, eh?"
There was laughter. "Indeed."
"I believe the gentleman had a weapon of some kind. Oh, yes, he did. Here are the pieces."
"Not very sporting at all."
Lord Torrance looked around the circle of men, completely agog. "The man turned into a cloud! And then he – and the fist through his middle – and you act as if nothing had happened! Don't you realize that he's eaten a Devil Fruit and now he's loose in the mansion? Are you all mad?"
Baron Brightwith interrupted the lord's hysterics. "Quite a good point, Torrance, and do be careful about sloshing that brandy. Now look here, gentlemen. Are we going to allow some inhuman Loguetowner take our birthright and save us in our own homes?"
There was a pause as they considered this.
"Yes?"
"It is his job, isn't it?"
"No!" The baron ashed on the body as he made his point. "As Lords of Runess, it is our ancestral duty to defend our island! We must take up arms now!"
His proclamation was met with silence.
"Then let me put it this way. Since our host is absent, I, as baron, am calling on you lords – " the mere was implied " – to follow me into the fray!"
More silence.
"After we've finished our brandies, yes?"
"Well, of course."
Merrick heard the screaming and dove behind a couch.
"We're going to die! Quick, back here!" When a hot, young body was not immediately squished up against him in the tiny space, he peeked out. Tashigi was pitching her shoes across the room with glee.
"Let me help," he said, leaping back into the room. He knew that distressed women were supposed to be easy but this was too good to be true.
She pushed a sword in his hand and picked up the Sarinyasa for herself. "Let's go."
"Out into the hallway? With the screaming? But we're safe in here," he protested, gesturing at the walls of weapons.
"And people out there aren't," she said ardently. "What happened to noblesse oblige?"
"Is that in any way like droit du seigneur?" he asked, but Tashigi was already out the door and in the smoky hallway. He followed her reluctantly, knowing that she'd get in trouble without him.
They were attacked immediately. Merrick went to his best en guarde position; feet at right angles, hips three-quarters to the front, knees evenly bent, shoulders, head, and neck relaxed, and arms bent to the correct position. Then he noticed he was holding a saber and not a foil.
In the meantime, Tashigi had cut down the bandit.
"You … splashed … my waistcoat…" Merrick said slowly, trying to come to terms with what was all over his front.
Tashigi turned on her heel and gasped. "You should get that under cold water as soon as we're finished or it'll set! But don't worry; I'm sure you can get it out with a little bit of Peerson's soap. Though the Quartermaster swears by Jolly Sailor."
He stared at her, clearly horrified.
"Oh no! It isn't hand-wash? Then if you have take it to a laundress, please send the bill to me. It's the least I can do. Really, Merrick, I'm so - " Tashigi's apology was cut short when two more sword-wielding bandits appeared at the end of the hallway.
"Don't stand too close, or you'll get backsplattered again," she said matter-of-factly.
Working through a slight daze, Merrick experimented with the right distance to walk behind a woman who was cutting her way through her enemies like a Nemesis unleashed.
And he'd tried to seduce this?
"This is complete-OW!"
Lord Fop's maid blew her hair out of her face and tapped her leg impatiently with the pistol she had just bashed across his head. His wig was askew. He just knew it.
"Open the safe, my lord," the man in the very ugly hat said.
Lord Fop was not quite sure what this other person did in his household. He was wearing very strong aftershave and had a sword.
Perhaps he worked with the dogs.
The lord turned to the maid. "Have you no shame, girl! I was going to give you a stipend for you and your progeny to live on!"
The maid snorted; he'd never heard one do that. "I wouldn't let your son touch me with gloves on."
The man prodded him gently, but firmly, in the neck with his pistol. "The safe, my lord."
The maid was rude but the man … the man's hat frightened him. It must have been fifteen years old. Completely out of style. Lord Fop decided it would be best to do what he said.
The maid sighed. "Mr. 11."
"What?"
"Smells like smoke."
"It's our colleagues getting excited. Go calm them down." The man nodded at Lord Fop. "I can handle him by myself."
The maid left reluctantly. And now Lord Fop was the focus of the man's attention. The man's grin was not reassuring. "Continue, my lord."
The bandits had surrounded the manor and were relieving the guests of their unnecessary items, which the bandits made sure the guests understood included their lives if there were any trouble.
Some bandits were having more fun than others, such as the one leering over the group of debutantes huddled in the corner of the tearoom.
"Who's the first to give up their pretty things?" He reached out to take a cringing girl's diamond necklace.
"Stop!"
The bandit turned around to see a young slip of a girl. He burst out laughing.
"You have one chance to drop your weapon and surrender to me."
This was rich. He held up his sword and stepped forward. "You could cut yourself on that nasty weapon. Now why not be a good lass and – "
The debutantes screamed and Tashigi wiped the blade of the Sarinyasa on her dress. Its color didn't hide just wine stains. "Is everyone alright?"
The shocked debutantes nodded.
"Good. Is there another way out – windows, excellent. Lock the door behind me when I leave. And push something heavy against it too. Then try and get out that way. I think someone set a fire." Tashigi paused. "Or Captain Smoker knows about the bandits. Either way, you should all leave."
Annalinalou hadn't understood much of that. She cleared her throat politely and said, "Excuse me, Miss…erm…Marine, but Chrissiania was taken away somewhere. You will rescue her, won't you?"
"Of course."
There was no reassurance that she would try to find her, that she would do her best, that her friend was probably all right. Clear and true, this girl in her simple dress, carrying a sword like it was a dance card, was going to find her friend and bring her back.
Annalinalou had never been more impressed.
"What does she look like?" Tashigi asked her.
"She's wearing a saffron chiffon with scallop beading at the neckline and – " Tashigi gave her a blank look so Annalinalou began again. "She's wearing a yellow poofy dress with shiny bits sewn on the collar and – "
"She's my sister. She was sitting next to your captain." Merrick bravely stepped into the room when he saw the vanquished bandit and the vulnerable young women in need of comfort. "Thank goodness you're alright, ladies."
Tashigi was good at remembering faces when it was important. It would be hard to miss a reedy girl with an eye tic. "I'll return. Merrick, you can stay here and protect them."
One of the girls giggled in a very malicious way. A few were scowling. They had all been on the receiving end of Merrick's 'protection' at one point in time.
"Maybe I'll come with you," Merrick said. He cleared his throat and straightened up. "My sister is in danger!"
He followed on Tashigi's heels, leaving the debutantes to make sense of a world gone mad.
"She was so forceful," one of the girls said.
"And brave," another added.
Annalinalou nodded. "Not at all like…"
The comparison hung in the air. Not at all like the aristocratic men they had spent their entire evening pursuing. Not at all like any woman they had ever met in their lives.
It was as if they had opened a closet expecting to find silk dresses and heeled shoes and instead had found …
Two bandits chased a screaming maid past the door.
Annalinalou picked up a candlestick. She hefted it in her hand, feeling the weight of it and then looked up into the newly awakened faces of her friends. "Come along, ladies. We have work to do."
Her hair was absolutely ruined, Chrissiania reflected, as the man dragged her by said hair through the hallway.
Where was that Marine? It was his job to save people! She would have liked to scream but the bandit hadn't liked it when she had. He'd told her to keep her mouth shut or he would shut it for her.
But her dress wasn't making it easy for him; the hoop was smacking him around the legs. She got grim pleasure from knowing he'd probably have bruises all about his shins later.
"Stop right there!"
The bandit swung around to face the challenger and Chrissiania gasped, not out of dramatics but from having someone yank on her hair. "My champi – what are you doing here?"
Tashigi came down the hall with her sword in hand and watched the bandit carefully. "Let her go."
"Don't come any closer. Or I'll …" The bandit got a better grip on the hair in his fist and he waved his sword under the debutante's chin. "Now put down your weapon!"
Chrissiania was at the end of her patience. An evening full of frustrated romantic ambitions was behind her and hours of getting her hair redone were in front of her. She aimed her heel into the dead center of the top of his foot and stamped her foot down – hard. There was a satisfying cracking noise and the bandit screamed.
It turned into a gurgle; that was all Tashigi had needed to make her move.
Chrissiania glared. "You stupid woman! I didn't want you to save me. Where's my hero?"
"Now, sister, you should at least thank her." Merrick stepped gingerly around the corner and over the body of the bandit. This one was number twenty something and he was getting quite used to the foaming, frothing, and final twitch.
His sister ignored him and stomped her foot. "I want the Captain! Not some silly girl playing with – what, Merrick?"
Merrick nonchalantly ran his hands through his hair so that Tashigi wouldn't see him making frantic 'cut-it-out' motions.
But Chrissiania's remark had reminded Tashigi that she should be looking for her superior officer. "I'm sure Captain Smoker's here somewhere. Um, sir?"
The siblings watched the sergeant major wave at the haze in the air. "Sir? Are you there?"
Merrick cleared his throat. "Your captain, he has good hearing, does he?"
Tashigi nodded. "That too."
The crack of firearms echoed at one end of the hallway and the siblings screamed. Tashigi knew she was good with the sword but not that good and the closest door was towards the gunfire. "This way!"
They ran back up the hallway, around the corner, and into a crowd of aristocrats. "No, not that way," Tashigi cried, as one of them strode past her. "They have – oh."
So did he. The man brought the butt of his rifle to his shoulder rifle and took aim behind the safety of the corner. "UNSPORTING!" he roared and pulled the trigger.
There was an explosion so loud it rivaled Captain Smoker on a very bad day.
"Ah – ha! Now that's showing them, eh?"
The other lords took their fingers out of their ears and cheered politely.
"First that girl and now my father's friends? Can't I get saved by someone I want?" Chrissiania wailed.
Tashigi peered around the corner. The bandits were gone and there was now a hole the size of a watermelon at the end of the hallway.
"I see you found Father's sea serpent gun," Merrick said to the man, who was readjusting his wig.
"That I did! What a marvel! Can't believe your father's never shot it!" he bellowed.
Another lord muttered. "Because there's a decided lack of sea serpents in the area, thank goodness."
Tashigi straightened up and identified herself; just in case they'd forgotten. "Sergeant Major Tashigi of the Marines! I advise all civilians to leave the premises immediately and – "
The man with the rifle stepped forward. "I should think you'll leave the work to us, young woman. This is clearly a job for the men - "
"Baron Brightwith. Shut. Up." Lord Torrance pushed the baron out of the way. If she was like her captain, heavens knew what the girl could do. Or, judging from the bodies they'd stepped over to get here, had already done. "My dear, I'll see to it that we leave."
"Thank you." The sergeant major smiled at him, which meant she probably wouldn't tear his head off with fiendish powers. "Now I have to go."
"Where are you going?" Merrick cried, as she took off down the smoky hall, which was getting worse by the minute.
"To find Captain Smoker!" It wouldn't be too difficult. She would go where the screaming was the loudest.
