rix_scaedu

Part 1 of this piece is here.

For those who need to ration time or spoons, this part runs to 2,055 words.

Mrs Hedges ducked back into the family throng and emerged in good order with her husband. “My husband, Mr Thomas Hedges, your highness.”

“Mr Hedges.”

“Prince Ramanchuk.” Mr Hedges, a shorter man than any of his male relatives with a moustache that insisted on trying to straggle, looked the prince up and down. “I understand you have a request concerning my daughter Millicent?”

“Yes sir. I was hoping you would permit her to be my companion at the captain’s table this evening for dinner.”

Mr Hedges considered for a moment. “I don’t see why not, as long as she rejoins us in the salon before the tea tray is brought out.”

“Thank you, sir. I will take good care of her.” That neat little bow again.

I’m sure you will, your highness,” replied Mr Hedges. “After all, someone did think highly enough of you to admit you to the Order of St Nathaneal.” The prince bowed again and he was slightly flushed this time, Millie noticed.

The captain was hosting a balanced group at dinner, of which Millie was the youngest. The captain and her cousin John, who had also been invited to the table, were both without partners and were being partnered by two middle-aged Nordic Countesses. The rest of the table was made up of married couples and Millie was seated opposite Prince Ramanchuk and between a late middle-aged Terrencian Baron with military medals and a black haired government official. Dinner passed companionably with both her neighbours encouraging Millie to use her school girl Terrencian and Prince Ramanchuk gaving her encouraging looks from the other side of the table. Millie remembered her mother’s strictures on young ladies and alcohol, and so only drank a little of each of the wines that accompanied dinner, contenting herself with water the rest of the time. Thanks to her cold she had to use her handkerchief more than she would have liked, but no-one seemed to think she was doing the wrong thing. Dessert was finished almost before she realised it and when the captain was satisfied that everyone had finished their meal he announced that port, coffee and cigars were available in the port and starboard smoking rooms, for gentlemen and ladies respectively, with coffee and light entertainment in the salon until the tea tray at eleven.

Millie thanked the government official for helping her with her chair then had to grab the table when her vertigo made itself known again. “Are you ill, Miss Hedges?” The government official looked concerned, as did the two ladies on either side of the Prince.

“Thank you, sir, but I think I’ll be fine in a moment,” Millie smiled wanly at him. “I was all right while I was sitting down but the change in position has upset my vertigo.”

“Sitting down again would make things worse wouldn’t they?” The official said sympathetically.

“Yes, I’m afraid so.” Millie looked for Prince Ramanchuk and found that he was almost at her side. “I’m sorry, your highness, but I think I need your help again.”

“Please don’t worry Miss Hedges, that is what I’m here for.” He came up to her and offered her his arm again and Millie took it gratefully. “Perhaps a slow walk along the observation deck to the salon? Fewer people seem to be taking that route.”

“That might be a very good idea. Lots of movement around me seems to make it worse.” Something occurred to her, “Wouldn’t you rather be taking port with the other gentlemen?”

“After dinner port is a Cadleran custom,” he waved dismissively. “I don’t object to it but I prefer vodka, or tea.”

“I see. Then a slow walk to the salon would be very acceptable.” She let him pick their path through the tables and chairs to the doorway and followed his lead when he turned right.

When they entered the observation deck on the opposite side of the ship to where they’d met that afternoon he said, “I thought you might enjoy the view of the southern sky.” The deck was dimly lit at floor level so that the stars weren’t blotted out. “If you stand at the railing, on a clear night you can see the lights of the cantons in the Alps. With your vertigo, though, I think we’ll just stay back here and look at the stars.”

“That does seem sensible,” Millie agreed. “May be on the way home I can get a better look at the view.”

“Will your vertigo subside?” Millie couldn’t tell from his tone whether Ramanchuk was genuinely concerned or simply making conversation.

“It should go away when my cold is better, it always has before.” She sighed. “I hope I don’t get it from travelling in airships because that would mean that the trip home could be just as bad.”

Millie didn’t find out what the Prince would say to that because at that moment he shoved her away from him and pulled his left arm free of her hand. She made an exclamation of shock but when she turned to ask him what he was doing, and almost fell doing so, Millie found herself looking at a fight that was four against one. One of those four was wielding some sort of club and she thought they must have come out of the darkened corridor she and the Prince had just passed.

Millie had never seen an all-out fight between grown men before, and she found that she didn’t like it. It wasn’t that much like the tussles and wrestling between her male cousins when they were all younger. It was clear to her that Ramanchuk was fighting for his life and that his assailants didn’t care how much they hurt him.

She looked around to see if there was anyone she get help from and sighed with relief when she saw a man at the far end of the observation deck walking briskly towards them. Then she realised that he’d taken a handgun from his pocket and wasn’t hurrying to reach the fight. As he walked he was doing something to the handgun with an object he’d taken from another pocket. When he got close enough he began talking, Millie assumed from the sounds that it was in Russkiy, but the only word she could understand was “Ramanchuk.”

Back in the fight all the combatants were looking the worse for wear and Millie was fairly sure that people’s bodies shouldn’t make some of the sounds she’d heard. One of the assailants seemed to have a broken arm, all their faces were bloodied and another man was moving stiffly, as if in pain. The Prince looked like he was tiring but he managed to throw one of the four men off, leaving only three for a few moments. The felled attacker was back on his feet almost instantaneously but something had come off him somewhere and slid across the floor to hit Millie’s foot.

Millie took a deep breath and knelt down to pick the object up then stood again. When she looked up from what she was holding, Ramanchuk was being held by the two relatively sound assailants and the fifth man was bringing his handgun, with an object on the front of the barrel, to bear. Millie looked down again and what she had was almost the same as Cousin Evelyn’s service revolver, so she clicked the safety over and remembering Evelyn’s words, “If you’ve decided you’re going to do it, then don’t think, just do it.” Millie brought her hand up, pointed her arm where Evelyn had told her to, and pulled the trigger. The recoil was just as bad as she remembered, as was the noise. The man with the gun stopped talking, dropped the gun and collapsed to the ground. Millie swung around to bring the handgun to bear on the Prince’s assailants and swallowed the resulting nausea. “Let him go unless you want to end up like your friend.” The two thugs hesitated. “Do you really want to bet that I can’t do that again?” They let him go. “Your highness, please come over here. You four, up against the wall. Now!”

By the time Prince Ramanchuk had limped over to her, Millie could hear running feet.

“Right, about face you four. Hands on the wall above your head!”

“Miss Hedges,” Ramanchuk was breathing hard and his face was a mess, “thank you. I was beginning to think that perhaps I had no friends here.”

“Well, I had hoped the man on the floor was coming to help you but, obviously, he wasn’t.”

“Where did you get the gun from?”

“One of them dropped it.”

“And how do you know how to use it? You would have been a schoolgirl during the war.”

“My cousin Evelyn taught me how to shoot her service revolver. This is very similar.” Millie took a deep breath.

“There’s a difference between knowing how to fire a gun and shooting to kill.”

“Evelyn told me where to aim to hit something vital. She said that if you were going to shoot someone it had better be because you meant to kill them and you’d better make it count, because you might not get another chance.” The main lights came on in the observation deck. “It looks like we have company.”

“What is going on here?” The demand was made in Terrencian and the speaker was the first officer who was leading a party of crewmen.

“I was attacked,” replied Prince Ramanchuk, “and Miss Hedges rescued me by shooting the leader of my assailants.”

The first officer and a man in a neat, grey uniform inspected the body.

“You did not think to fire a warning shot, Miss Hedges?” The first officer asked the question in Cadleran and looked at her enquiringly while the man in the grey uniform looked through a booklet he’d pulled from his pocket.

“I didn’t think I had time for two shots,” she replied honestly, “and the only place for a warning shot to go would have been through the hull of the airship and that would have been bad, wouldn’t it?”

“Ja,” he nodded approvingly, “very bad.”

The man in the grey uniform finished comparing something in his booklet to the dead man and put the booklet away. “Handcuff each of these men and tie a rod between their teeth,” he ordered in Terrencian, “including the one in the steward’s uniform. I don’t want any suicides in custody on my watch.”

“Kriminalhauptmeister, is that necessary?” The first officer seemed uncomfortable with the instruction.

“I believe the dead man to be Yevgeny Pavelovich Belkov, a wanted murderer within the Empire and considered so dangerous we have orders to shoot at the slightest provocation. He is supposedly in the employ of and supported by the Russkian Revolutionary Party and their agents are known to carry suicide pills.” The man in the grey uniform who was, it seemed, a Terrencian policeman, turned to Millie’s companion and asked formally, “Prince Ramanchuk, is there any reason you know of that the Russkian Revolutionary Party would send an assassination squad after you?”

“I’m a member of a princely family , I belong to one of the chivalric orders they’re trying to wipe out and I rescued one of my brothers and his family from a train that was allegedly taking them to an eastern labour camp, incidentally releasing everyone else on the train.”

“Allegedly taking them to an eastern labour camp?” The policeman seemed to question the wording.

“It was going in the wrong direction to transfer to that line.” The implications of that statement rippled through the listeners.

The policeman turned to the first officer, “Sir, if I may have assistance to take the prisoners to the brig, can you arrange for Prince Ramanchuk and the body to go to the infirmary and for Miss Hedges to be returned to her family?” He then addressed Millie in Cadleran. “Fraulein Hedges, although you did what any police officer in the Empire would have done, you will need to spend some time being questioned by my superiors when we arrive in the capital.”

“I should think so, sir,” she still had the gun trained at the prisoners as they were being cuffed and gagged, “after all, I did kill a man.”

rrI wrote this to natalief's prompt "I would like to remind you that Vertigo is, as Wikipedia says, "Not to be confused with acrophobia, an extreme or irrational fear of heights.""

It is broken into two parts and Part 1 runs to 2,335 words.

“Excuse me, miss, but are you all right?”

The foreign accented male voice was unfamiliar, so Millie opened her eyes to find out who was speaking to her. He was at least five years older than her, had very blond hair, and his clothes had a military cut. That, however simply meant that two years after the Great War had ended he was dressed like half the men on the continent, or so it appeared to Millie.

“Thank you. I get vertigo and I find that sitting down with my eyes closed helps.” Millie smiled up at him because he was being kind and it never hurt to be nice.

“Airships are perfectly safe,” he assured her with a responding smile, “especially since the war is over and no-one is shooting at them. You don’t need to be worried about how high we’re up.”

“Oh, I’m not afraid of heights,” Millie assured him. “Vertigo is a type of dizziness, although people can get it when they look over the edge of somewhere tall. Or if they have a cold, as I do, or with travel sickness.”

“You seem to have a multitude of reasons for your vertigo, miss. Might I be so bold as to ask your name? I am Uladzimir Piatrovych Ramanchuk, formerly of the Rossiyskaya Imperiya.” He bowed neatly.

“I’m Millicent Hedges.” Millie hazarded a little boldness. “Would you like to sit and talk for a while, Mr Ramanchuk? I suspect you may not care for dancing if you’re here on the observation deck and not at the tea dance in the salon.”

“Thank you, I will.” He sat down on the bench beside her but with a good hand’s width of space between them. “So, are you travelling alone, Miss Hedges?”

“No, I’m with my family.” She pulled out her handkerchief, blew her nose and put the handkerchief away again. “We’re going to two weddings in the Terrencian Empire, and you?”

“I’m returning to Terrencia after a visit to Cadlera. Unfortunately, the business opportunity I was investigating didn’t come to anything.” He looked at the view for a moment. “If you’re travelling with your family, I’m surprised you’re on the observation deck alone, Miss Hedges.”

“But I’m not alone, Mr Ramanchuk.” She had dimples when she smiled. “The elderly ladies two seats down on our left are my grandmother and my Great-Aunt Mabel.” She turned her head towards them and smiled while her companion leaned forward a little so he could see them too and tipped his flat cap to the two white haired ladies who waved back.

“You are well chaperoned,” he agreed. “So whose weddings are you going to?”

“Two of my second cousins, who are also second cousins to each other, are getting married but first we’re going to another second cousin’s wedding to the daughter of a family who are relatives on paper.” She fiddled with the bracelet on her wrist.

“These are long standing attachments?” He was gazing into the distance in front of him.

“I don’t think so. John was the first of us to meet the relatives on paper; they were kind enough to let him convalesce in their home when he was injured during the war. Evelyn and Max knew each other before, of course, but they met up again on the Western Front.” She considered for a moment then asked, “Are you returning home to your family, Mr Ramanchuk?”

“I’m afraid not. I haven’t seen some of them for a very long time. You’re lucky to have yours.”

“Yes, I know.” She was subdued. “We lost people in the war but so many lost everyone… I’m sorry if I was maladroit.”

“Not at all,” he waved a hand dismissively. “We were talking about your family, it was most reasonable for you to ask about mine.”

“So, what do you think the weather is going to be like when we arrive in Terrencia, Mr Ramanchuk?” The weather was always an acceptable topic, or so she’d been told.

“As we’ve been over Terrencia for the last hour, I believe I can safely say that the weather is fine,” he smiled at her, “but if you mean when we arrive in the capital, I expect that, being spring, it will be cool.”

“Cooler, do you think, than when we left Cadlera? I haven’t visited Terrencia before,” she confided. “Great-Aunt Samella and her family always came to us, before the war. Then there was the war and now Great-Uncle’s arthritis means he can’t travel that far anymore. Great-Aunt Samella puts it down to too much jumping off airships and blowing things up when he was younger.”

“What?” She had his full attention. “Excuse me, what did you say he used to do?”

“Blow things up and jump off airships. It sounds fantastic, doesn’t it?” She gave him a wry smile, “But apparently my great-aunt and uncle used to run around having adventures on opposite sides of the Détente Freundlich.”

“I know some of the things my father told me that he and his brothers used to get up to don’t bear believing,” he shook his head, “and although I think they played with explosives at one time, I don’t think they ever jumped off an airship.”

“I don’t believe that our brother-in-law ever played with explosives,” interrupted the shorter of the elderly ladies who had been two seats down but now stood in front of the younger couple. “I’m given to understand that he was always in deadly earnest.”

As the younger couple stood Millie made the introductions. “Grandmother, Great-Aunt Mabel, this is Mr Uladzimir Piatrovych Ramanchuk who was kind enough to enquire if I was feeling ill. Mr Ramanchuk, this is my grandmother, Mrs Hedges and her sister, Mrs Bennett.”

“Ladies.” He doffed his cap and bowed.

Both ladies smiled approvingly and murmured, “A pleasure, Mr Ramanchuk.”

Mrs Hedges went on, “We’re sorry to interrupt your conversation but the tea dance will be finishing soon and we should be getting ready for dinner before the others get back from that.”

“Yes, of course.” Millie turned to her companion. “Thank you for your company, Mr Ramanchuk. Perhaps I’ll see you at dinner?”

They shook hands as he answered, “Perhaps.”

As it happened, they met again before dinner. He was making his way to the first class dining room from his decidedly poky cabin, the cheapest available that was still in first class. She was clinging to a corner as if her life depended on it. “Miss Hedges, may I be of assistance?”

“Yes please.” She smiled at his offer. “We were on our way to dinner and this damnable vertigo suddenly came back. I don’t think anyone else noticed and I got left behind. I feel like I’m going to fall over if I let go of the wall.”

“Would you prefer to go back to your room or on to the dining room?” A quick glance told him that the corridor was empty except forthe two of them.

“If we could go on to the dining room, please?” Her face was looking paler than it had on the observation deck he noted, and it did not seem to be due to face powder. “John has something planned after that old man was so rude to him and his friends about dressing for dinner last night, and I want to see it.”

“I was annoyed at the Baron’s comments myself, as I believe the Captain was. You’ll note that he’s issued an order that we’re dining formally tonight, hence the regalia,” he indicated the sash across his chest and the medals pinned to his dinner jacket. “I’m rather looking forward to tweaking the old man’s nose myself. So, may I offer you my escort, ma’am?” He extended his arm for her to take it.

“Thank you, yes.” She transferred her cling from the wall to his arm. “If we could walk slowly, that would help.”

“Certainly, a leisurely stroll it will be. Now,” he tucked her hand more securely into the crook of his arm, “aside from meeting a riff-raffish, unemployed Russki, how has your journey been?

After maybe five minutes of polite conversation, they reached the queue to enter the first class dining room and soon realised that there was a queue because everyone was being announced by the Chief Steward as they entered. “Mr John and Mrs Felicia Roberts,” he boomed out into the dining room.

“Are they really doing that?” Millie looked apprehensive.

“Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt,” he assured her, patting her hand on his arm. “He’ll announce you as Miss Hedges, everyone may look at us for a minute and we’ll just take you back to your family.”

“But I’m a younger sister,” she whispered. “Miss Hedges is my eldest sister or one of our cousins!”

“It won’t be a problem,” he assured her. Then, eyes narrowed, he asked, “You haven’t been presented yet, have you?”

“Of course not, I won’t be eighteen for a month yet. Besides, people didn’t get presented at all during the war so I might not be presented either.” She confided, “This trip is the first time I’ve been treated like a grown-up.”

“A milestone in itself,” he acknowledged easily. Then he added, “It appears that the captain is receiving. All you need to do is give him your hand and make a small curtsey.”

A few minutes later and he was speaking quietly to the Chief Steward who then boomed out, “Major Knyaz Uladzimir Piatrovych Ramanchuk and Miss Millicent Hedges.”

For a moment Millie thought the room went quieter and most of it was looking at them, but then she was being presented to the captain so she gave him her hand and bobbed a curtsey. “Delighted, my dear,” and the captain, resplendent in a braided uniform with two rows of medals, bowed over her hand before he moved on to her escort. “Prince Ramanchuk, an honour to have you aboard, sir. Might I have the pleasure of your and this young lady’s company at my table this evening?”

“For myself, I would be delighted,” Millie’s companion bowed slightly, “but I was about to restore Miss Hedges to her family, so I would need to consult her parents before replying on her behalf.”

“Of course.” The captain smiled benevolently. “I look forward to your company, and hopefully that of Miss Hedges.”

As they walked away, Prince Ramanchuk said quietly, “You handled that very well, Miss Hedges.”

“I was too flabbergasted to say anything. You never mentioned a title.” Millie was concentrating on walking despite being dizzy and the crowd of people sipping pre-dinner drinks didn’t help.

“I didn’t think it was relevant. There are no lands or money to go with the title anymore.” He steered them carefully round a knot of people to see an elderly man, with a group of people who were obviously his family, being approached a young man in evening dress resplendent with dress medals. “Ah, we’re in time.”

“That’s John,” commented Millie as the young man with the medals bowed punctiliously to the eldest lady of the group.

Having done that, he turned to the elderly man and said, “Baron von Ulwald, I trust I’ve satisfied you that I do know how to dress for dinner?”

“Indeed.” The Baron’s eyes were fixated on the younger man’s chest. “That is the Adamantine Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, isn’t it?”

“With Golden Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds, yes.” The younger man made the correction without heat. “I’m not surprised you asked, there are only three of us after all.”

“You’re obviously not Otto, Count Dannerveld.”

“I’m not red haired and over two metres tall, so obviously not. I’m also obviously not Klaust Manfred because I still have all my fingers. That must mean I’m the nasty one.” The younger man’s expression hardened without changing. “May I suggest, Baron, that in future if people wish to maintain a relaxed façade and not ram who they are down other people’s throats, you let them without passing unpleasant comment?” He bowed again to the senior lady, “My apologies, Baroness, for the unpleasantness.” With that he turned on his heel and walked away.

“And that’s your cousin John,” commented Ramanchuk quietly to Millie.

“Yes, although I haven’t seen him quite like that before. It makes what they said he did in the citations I translated seem, well, realer. Before I thought the things he’s done didn’t sound like him at all, but now…” She trailed off and didn’t know where to start again.

“You’ve seen the wolf with his mask off and now you know what he really looks like.” Ramanchuk gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. “Let’s go find your parents.”

They found the Hedges and Bennett families gathered near an observation window with their aperitifs. There seemed to be a lively discussion going on among the ladies, directed, it seemed to Millie, by her mother. When that good lady caught sight of her youngest daughter she came bustling over exclaiming, “Millie, where have you been? We were just trying to work out where we lost you!”

“I’m sorry, Mother, but my vertigo came on again on our way here and you were all gone before I could say something. Prince Ramanchuk was kind enough to rescue me.” Millie didn’t let go of her escort’s arm.

“Well, you’re back with us now,” her mother said firmly, “so thank his highness and we’ll find you a chair to sit until they finalise tonight’s seating plan.”

“As to that, Mrs Hedges,” interposed Ramanchuk, “the captain has graciously invited both of us to dine at his table tonight. With your and Mr Hedges’ permission, I would be very happy to have your daughter Millicent as my dinner partner.”

Millicent’s mother blinked rapidly. “I’ll just extract my husband from the conversation and introduce you, if you don’t mind waiting, your highness?”

“Of course not, Mrs Hedges,” and he gave her the same neat bow he had given the captain.

Part 2 is here.