pride And prejudice And zombies: dawn of the dreadfuls

Epilouge

ENSIGN OSILLBURY approached the lady cautiously. It wasn't that he was scared of her, exactly. It was just . . .

All right, he was scared of her. Terrified, actually. Simply looking at her made his stomach do things that put sweat on his brow, and hearing her name gave him a creepy chill like centipedes running up his arms.

Surely, though, there should be no shame in that, given the things he'd seen her do—and the even worse things the men whispered she was capable of.

He stomped his feet as he came up the hill toward her, went out of his way to snap a few twigs, and when he was still about thirty feet off he cleared his throat for good measure. It wasn't wise to startle the lady. Not if one wanted to keep one's brains inside one's skull.

"What?" she said. The word came out quick and hard and cold. Like everything about her.

She was atop her great white stallion observing the battle below through a spyglass. The unmentionables had been routed, yet you'd hardly have guessed it from the look of distaste on her face.

Then again, she always looked like that—as if she were about to sneeze, or had a pickle tucked under her tongue.

Even though she wasn't looking at him, Ensign Osillbury saluted. Just to be safe.

"We found survivors in the house, Ma'am. Dozens, perhaps hundreds. It's really quite miraculous."

"But?"

"Lord Lumpley wasn't among them. They say he fell to the sorry stricken days ago."

"Hmm. The Prince Regent will be disappointed, no doubt." The lady finally lowered her telescope, though she still didn't bother looking at Ensign Osillbury. "I care not one whit. Tell Captain Ramsey: We rejoin Lord Paget's column directly. We have wasted enough time here as it is."

"Yes, Ma'am! Right away, Ma'am!"

The young officer had to jump out of her way as she spun her horse and charged downhill toward the road. It didn't pay to come between the lady and London. The man who'd brought word of Lord Lumpley's plight could attest to that. Rumor held that the lady had relations in the besieged capital—a daughter, some said; others, a nephew—and Lord Paget's order to divert to this remote corner of Hertfordshire had been met with displeasure, to say the least.

"Oh." The lady turned her mount and jerked her chin at the box that sat on the hilltop, near where she'd been watching the battle. "Have my ninjas attend to him."

And with that Lady Catherine de Bourgh, defender of the realm and head of the Order of the Ever Watchful, whirled away again and galloped off.

Ensign Osillbury started to hustle after her, but a hissing whisper stopped him.

"Please . . . pleassssssssse . . ."

The ensign turned and walked warily up the hill again. It wasn't fear that slowed him this time. He wasn't scared of the box's contents. He just didn't like looking at them. No one did.

The box was about three feet high and open in front, almost like a child's casket at a wake. As Ensign Osillbury knelt down beside it, he was careful to position himself at an angle so as not to look straight on at the bandage-wrapped homunculus strapped inside. All he could see was one of the stumps Lady Catherine had created with her own sword.

The man's arms and legs had been riddled with bloody bites when he'd come riding into camp, and after learning the lady was there with Lord Paget, he'd insisted on seeing her immediately, doctors be damned. The two knew each other, it seemed—the man had been some sort of student of hers. And when they were through talking, the lady had declared that she'd spare her disciple a trip to the surgery.

Those who saw it swore there'd been no mercy in her eyes, however. It was more like fury.

"Yes, sir?"

"Do you know," the man wheezed, "among the survivors . . . was there a . . . a Miss Elizabeth Bennet?"

"I don't know, Sir. Though, come to think of it, there were some young ladies tearing through the unmentionables rather like Lady Catherine herself, and I think I might have heard someone refer to them as 'the Bennet girls.'"

"Ohhh . . . thank . . . you."

Ensign Osillbury got the impression the man was speaking not to him but to Him.

"Umm, will you be all right up here, Sir? By yourself? While I go get someone to fetch you down?"

There was a moist, sticky rustle, and it took the ensign a moment to realize the man was trying to nod.

"I'll . . . be fine. I must accustom myself to waiting . . . for the help of others. Only . . . would you turn me a little more . . . toward the house?"

"Of course, Sir."

The soldier stepped behind the box—he was more than happy to do so—and shifted it a little to the left.

"That's fine. Thank you."

"Very good, Sir. I'll just, uhh, be off, then."

And Ensign Osillbury hurried away, leaving the man in the box there alone, watching for Miss Elizabeth Bennet—and practicing his waiting.