At Summer's End
An excerpt from Shadow Game, by J.G. Arceneaux, still at large
October 17, 1856, Friday
Ravensburg, Kingdom of Württemberg
First light
“Josephine.”
My father’s whisper brought me instantly awake and I sat up in the hayloft where we’d sheltered for the night. The thin grey light promised dawn and the air in the loft was cool. He’d used my Christian name over his pet name for me and by it I understood we weren’t alone.
“Get your things,” he said. “It’s time to go.”
I nodded and rose without a word and grabbed my bag, a leather haversack I’d scrounged some months back at the beginning of our travels. I followed him down the ladder, glad of my trousers. In addition to turning father and daughter into two men on a hiking tour of the lower slopes, it was infinitely practical attire for roughing it, which we’d done for the past six weeks. My normally impeccably turned-out sire was stubble-cheeked, his hair in need of a barber’s shears, and his clothes looking a touch out at the elbows. I combed the straw out of my own dark mop of hair with my fingers, grateful he’d had the foresight to cut mine short. Like male attire, life was much easier with the reduced maintenance.
“William, this is Josephine.”
Father put me in front of a man more my height than his, garbed in a motley combination of corduroy knee breeches and velvet frock coat, lawn neck cloth and coarse work shirt. His head was bare as were his shins. I looked down and saw he wore sturdy boots more suitable for the mountains than a city’s streets and though his features were tanned by the sun his hands lacked the calluses and enlarged joints of a field labourer. I nodded in silent greeting and flicked a glance at my father, wondering who this individual was.
For his part, William nodded with a hint of a smile and jerked his head to the barn doors. “Outside,” he said and turned for them without further fuss, speaking to the air. “Everything as ordered.”
Ordered? Whose orders? We’d had no word from the home office for weeks. Had in fact spent the time since we’d left Bayern wandering the mountains like gypsies. Or rather, I had. Father had other tasks and most of them involved stopping in taverns and bierhallen talking to people and pushing on. I played his young companion who saw nothing, heard nothing, said nothing. It worked well enough and no one had given me a second glance and after a week away from soap and hot water, few ventured to look closer. I followed the men outside and saw a carriage waiting, if carriage it was.
As a wheeled conveyance, it had the requisite four wheels, but beyond that, it was anyone’s guess as to its purpose. Not quite vardo, not quite circus tent, and of a size somewhere in between, it stood in the rising mist hitched to two giant draft horses. The side lamps were lit and I saw a young man in the driver’s seat holding the reins. A door opened at the rear and a woman stepped down in a shepherdess’s skirt and blouse, her hair in a kerchief and gold gleaming in her ears. She turned and waved to someone behind the vehicle and I immediately heard the chuff of a horse’s hooves on grass. Another young man led a grey hunter to my father and handed him the reins, saddlebags packed to bulging.
That’s when I knew.
“Take me with you,” I pleaded, low.
“No, it isn’t safe.”
“Please.”
“We discussed it and you agreed.” Father relented and cupped my chin. “Stick to the plan, Jo. You know what to do.”
His voice was soft, velvet over steel, and I knew there was no talking him out of it.
“I will,” I promised, lifting my chin from his fingers and feeling the warmth of them fading from my skin. I stepped back and dredged up a smile and a nod. “Godspeed.”
“Take care of her, William.” And without another word, Jonathan Randolph Crane mounted his horse, echoed my smile and nodding, turned and galloped off into the morning. The mist swirled in his passage and closed the hole he made in it. I listened to the hoofbeats until I could hear them no more then turned to William, my heart heavy but determined not to show it. If I had to, I’d cry later. For now, I would stick to the plan and trust my father’s assurance that everything would follow through.
“Josephine Gabrielle Arceneaux.” I offered him my handshake. “Pleased to meet you.”
You are reading Josephine's journal. Since any campaign is a collaborative effort, Journal and RP entries by our other players can be read here.
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