"Who sez you don't catch a cold getting wet." Jenny tutted, sitting upright in the bed. "You need a hankie?"
"I wasn't the one who sneezed." Vastra sounded mildly put out.
There was an awkward moment of silence. "Well I din't sneeze neither." Jenny said, reaching for her bedside matches.
There was an even longer silence as they both mulled over the implications of these facts. Jenny took a deep breath and hastily struck a match. The sudden flare ruined her night vision but the meagre light of the candle as she held it in the air showed nothing untoward in their bedroom.
Frowning, Jenny threw her legs over the side of the bed, ready to get up and explore the room. She let out a shriek as something cold and clammy grabbed at her ankle. She kicked it away, scrambling back into the centre of the bed, swearing non-stop.
Vastra raised an eye ridge at such profanity. "What was it, my dear?"
"How the bleedin' hell should I know! Somethin' grabbed my ankle, I din't bother to look."
"How rude of it." Vastra's eyes narrowed. "Come out!" she commanded. "Whatever you are."
Something shuffled out from under the bed. Jenny and Vastra peered into the gloom at a dirty grey figure dressed in rags that was standing up slowly. It was rather short, Jenny noticed. It snuffled and shook whilst rubbing at its eyes. Another sneeze rang out. Vastra shot Jenny a bemused look which Jenny returned in kind.
"'m sorry." Came a hoarse whisper. "'m sorry I left you. I din't mean to."
Jenny blinked. "What was you doin' under our bed?" she asked tentatively.
"I din't mean to. They was just so big. I got scared. I'm sorry I bit you too." The figure's voice trembled violently.
Jenny's mind struggled, tired as it was by the walk and the rain, to comprehend what the figure was on about, but it didn't seem to be very threatening. She wriggled over to the side of the bed to take a closer look.
"YOU!" her hand shot out and grabbed at the figure's clothes, hauling it close. "You left me you little…!"
"'m sorry! 'm sorry!" the voice became shrill.
"Jenny?" Vastra laid a restraining hand on Jenny's arm.
"It's Peggy." Jenny told her through gritted teeth.
"The Ratspeaker? What on earth were you doing under our bed?" Vastra turned to Peggy as well.
"S'just where I came out. He punished me see. He punished me fer leavin' you."
Jenny felt a chill that was nothing to do with her walk in the rain. She let Peggy go. "Albie?"
"He said I shoulda died rather than leave you." Peggy's teeth were chattering, she was shaking so hard. Her voice shrank to a whisper. "He punished me."
Jenny made a note to have some very strong words with her brother next time she saw him. Peggy sneezed for a third time and wiped her nose on her sleeve.
"C'mon." Jenny stood up and grabbed Peggy's arm, pulling her gently along to the bathroom. The urchin was covered in unidentifiable dirt and dust. She looked like a pathetic ghost. Jenny drew a bath and gestured for Peggy to get in. Peggy glanced at Vastra, who'd followed them and was now standing in the doorway.
"I din't mean to leave her." She repeated.
Jenny shot a stern look at the Silurian, warning her against further remonstrations.
"I understand." Vastra inclined her head before walking back to the bedroom.
Jenny helped Peggy out of her rags and into the bath. There didn't seem to be any marks on Peggy, making Jenny wonder afresh about what the punishment was that Peggy had endured. She seemed utterly terrified, shaking despite the heat of the bath.
Vastra came back with one of Jenny's nightgowns. It was too long for Peggy and she looked even more like a ghost, staring pathetically up at them. Jenny decided an interrogation could wait until morning and led Peggy to one of their spare bedrooms, hastily airing the sheets by means of flapping them a few times.
"There. You can tell us what happened in the morning." Jenny turned down the light in the wall but didn't shut it off entirely. Peggy's wide afraid eyes followed her out the room. The fear in them stayed with Jenny as she made her way down to the basement, long since resolved as a place of fear. She picked up her sword and strapped it around her waist before heading out into the yard. Alice whickered softly in greeting and Jenny gave her a soft stroke as she passed, moving towards the feed bins. Vandemar had said they had a rat problem. In the house they would be harder to find but there would always be some in the stables, after the food for Alice.
She lit an oil lamp as she heard scuffles and squeaks in the dark. A few of the rats fled but one was too slow, almost as if it were waiting to be caught. She grabbed it, wrinkling her nose in distaste as she brought it level with her eyes.
"Bring my brother here. Or take me to him." She snarled. The rat's nose quivered and it twisted out of her grasp. She drew her sword and waited, still as a statue. The air shimmered and darkened, became heavy and then suddenly Albie was there. He looked just as distant as he had before.
"Be glad you are a sister to me. I would not usually take kindly on such summons." He glanced around at the stable. "But as it is, I have something to tell you anyway."
"Is it something to do with terrorising a child?" Jenny hissed.
"Hm?" Albie seemed genuinely puzzled.
"Peggy."
"Oh! She is not a child." He laughed. "She is a Ratspeaker. A Ratspeaker who disobeyed me. Failed me on two occasions."
"What did you do to her?"
"What concern is it of yours?" Albie found himself with a sword pressed to his throat. He sighed through his nose. "Really."
"How did she fail yer?"
"I allowed her to watch you for me, but she merely got you lost. She was meant to guide you to the Hawks, protect and defend you, but fled at the first opportunity."
Jenny was dumbfounded. "I can fight me own battles Albie. I been fightin' 'em that long without your help."
"Have you now." Albie said disinterestedly. "At any rate, it does no good if it is seen that my orders are disobeyed without repercussion. I am the Lord Ratspeaker."
"You're the Lord Ratbag is what you are."
"Do not speak about things you do not understand. This is Below. I am the Lord Ratspeaker. She disobeyed my orders." Albie leant against Jenny's blade. "And all this is irrelevant. I have something to tell you."
"I don't give a damn about anything you have to say."
"You will. There is something coming. There is a whisper in the darkness. It is stirring. Not yet. But it will come soon.
"Something from Below?" Jenny's curiosity got the better of her.
Albie laughed humourlessly. "Below has its own monsters I'll grant you, but this is from your world. This is human." He stepped backwards. "Well I've warned you. That's all I can do. And after all, you can fight your own battles." He smirked.
Jenny lowered her sword and grabbed his arm. "I've got a warning for you an' all."
"Yes?" he seemed amused.
"Touch her again and the rats will need a new Lord Speaker."
Albie sneered. "You think I care about her now? How she escaped I know not, but she came out in the Upworld and it is there she'll stay. You cannot belong to both worlds."
"You'd throw her out? Just for runnin' away?"
Albie's face closed, became blank. He stared at her in silence for a moment. When he spoke, it was devoid of any of his previous aloofness. "When you first came to the Rat Halls, you asked me why I did not return. And I told you that I could not return, that I owed a debt to the rats. Peggy also has a debt. She owes her life, and should have given it, if they needed her to. She is expendable."
"Not to me she ain't."
Albie rolled his eyes. "I wouldn't expect an Upworlder to understand."
"You was an Upworlder!"
"Not any more. She was sent with you as…"
"Bait? A sacrifice?"
"Insurance. We could not be seen to interfere, she was too small to be of note, but it was vital the situation was resolved. She was to keep you safe."
"When she got me lost…"
"She failed then too." Albie smiled coldly. "I was very displeased. I could not afford a feud with the Isle Dogs but to lose my sister because an uppity Rat Speaker took it in their head to talk to her? And then to have that Rat Speaker indebted to that ridiculous Marquis." He shook his head in disgust.
"What you'd sooner lose me on purpose by having me get eaten by massive hawks?"
"You were already about to get involved in the case. I merely offered a more direct route to the solution, which resulted in a woman's life being saved and political tumult being calmed. You would have arrived far too late, if at all, if I had not sent you."
Jenny tried to find an argument back but failed.
"Where did you send her? Where did she escape from?"
"Between." Albie's face shut down again.
"Would you have been sent there? If you'd left? If you didn't do what they told you? If you failed…"
"They chose me well. I was particularly suited to be Lord Rat speaker." For the first time, Jenny saw a shadow flit across Albie's face. It disappeared as swiftly. He wrenched his arm free from her grip. "Do not summon me again. Take heed of my warning. It is all I can give you. Claim the rat girl's life if you wish. Along with her punishment she was banished from the Rat halls and Below, and therefore no longer my concern."
Jenny got the feeling Albie almost wanted her to. "I claim it as my own." She stated, just in case it hadn't been clear.
He gave a curt nod. "You are fortunate. For the part you played at Goldhawk Road, her banishment will not be extended to you. In future, be more careful about your preference in company." He turned thrice widdershins and disappeared.
Jenny threw down her sword in a fit of pique. "What makes you think I care?" she shouted to the empty air. A rat squeaked near her foot. "Get out!" she kicked at it. It looked at her reproachfully and scampered out the door. Jenny clenched her jaw, screwing up her face against tears. She took a few deep breaths to try and calm herself. "You bastard…"
Try as she might, she could not understand what Albie had told her. She stood watching the small swirls of hay that had been spun into the air by Albie's disappearance. The dust motes gleamed gold in the lamplight. Alice whickered nervously and Jenny went to soothe her.
"Well?" Vastra asked, edging into the stables.
"Albie." Jenny said simply, giving Alice one final rub on the nose. She knelt and picked up her sword, checked it for damage then sheathed it, once she was satisfied.
"Did he come to collect Peggy?" Vastra tensed.
"Nah. She's banished. An' apparently so will I be if I'm not careful. Not that I care. Peggy's worth ten of him."
"Is she?" Vastra neither looked nor sounded convinced.
"Well, she's here now." Jenny sighed, feeling completely exhausted. "And stuck here. Can't go back to Below. Not to Lord Rat-droppings anyway." She picked up the lamp and stalked back inside. Vastra followed her, mouth twitching in amusement at Jenny's new name for her brother.
Jenny peered round the basement as she returned her sword to its stand, as if half expecting a spectral hound to appear. Below was a separate world, with separate rules. Her brother had been taken Below, and the person who had survived it did not feel like her brother. She struggled to process all that he'd told her. But that could wait until her brain felt less like a peasouper.
She looked in on Peggy. The newly ex-rat speaker was still awake, staring fixedly at the ceiling. Jenny moved into the room and sat on the edge of the bed.
"I talked to Albie. He tol' me you're banished from Below but that he won't be comin' after you. So, you're safe. It's up to you what you do. Not sure Vastra would be entirely welcomin' of a live-in Irregular but I can pay for a place for you. Make sure the Irregulars look after you." To Jenny's surprise she saw Peggy's face fall.
"He…let me go?"
"Yes."
"I'm stuck here?"
"Yes."
"I fell through when I was five. I…"
"It'll be fine." Jenny cut her off, unsure she could take any more stories of Below tonight. "Go to sleep."
"I can't. What if he changes his mind? What if he comes back?" The odd note of hope unsettled Jenny.
Something shot out and snapped at the air. Jenny looked at Vastra, who was stood in the doorway, in surprise. "If he does, I shall eat him." Vastra grinned, showing all her teeth.
Jenny wasn't sure that was the best way to reassure Peggy. "He won't. I claimed yer life as mine and I give it to you."
"I won't ever see the rats again?"
Jenny looked helplessly at Vastra. The Silurian shook her head. She walked to the side of the bed, shooing Jenny away and smoothed out the sheets. "Freedom is terrifying, isn't it?" She stared down at Peggy. "And lonely. How will you ever survive, unable to return to all you have ever known. You are not alone in preferring the cage. But you are fortunate, as was I."
"How?" Peggy asked.
"You have Jenny watching out for you. So sleep."
Jenny nodded encouragingly, to disguise any uncertainty she felt at being able to live up to those words. It got a slow nod in return and Peggy burrowed deeper under the covers.
As they made their way back to their own bedroom, Vastra glanced at Jenny. "Of course, I would only eat him if you said I could." She said offhandedly.
"If he turns up for her you can do what you like to him." Jenny's face was resolute and stony.
"He is your brother."
"Not any more. He's Lord Ratspeaker, whatever that means." Jenny blew out the candle. "S'not like with you an' your sisters. You miss 'em cos you remember what it was like to be a family. Mine all left me to the wind in the end. I had to find a new family. Gribble and Jacob were me brothers on the street. Now I got you and the urchins…"
"And Peggy is the latest addition to our family I take it." Vastra interrupted.
"Looks like." Jenny sniffed. It struck her only after they'd settled back down to sleep that Vastra had said 'our family'. A warmth spread out from her chest and filled her body. She smiled then sniffed again.
"Achoo!"
