The Hare and the Oak Read online

  The Hare and the Oak

  CELIA LAKE

  Contents

  About The Hare and the Oak

  Also by Celia Lake

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Epilogue

  Author’s notes

  Excerpt from Point By Point

  About The Hare and the Oak

  Mabyn keeps her commitments.

  The land magic in Suffolk has been failing for years. When the current Lord asks the Council for help, Mabyn knows it’s her obligation to see it through. Even if that means immersing herself in a role she failed at in her younger and more optimistic days decades ago. Back when she was married.

  Cyrus likes a challenge.

  He doesn’t know Mabyn well, but Cyrus does have a gift for ritual, and a broad experience of the world. A widower with a grown daughter, he’s up for tracking down a lost heir and seeing if they can learn to take up the land magics.

  When they arrive at Baddock Hall, it’s clear there’s more going on than the current Lord’s troubles. The land is boggy, the gardens are failing, the bees have fled, and there’s no obvious cause. Together, Mabyn and Cyrus must face their own pasts while getting to the root of the problem and making space for the future.

  The Hare and the Oak is the fifth book of the Mysterious Powers series, exploring the institutions of Albion during and after the Great War. All of Celia Lake’s Albion books exploring the magical community of the British Isles can be read in any order.

  It is full of land magic, a late in life romance, a failing family line, and healing old wounds to the heart and soul. Enjoy this charming romantic fantasy with a swirl of sex set in 1926 with a happily ever after ending!

  Also by Celia Lake

  The Mysterious Powers Series

  Carry On

  The Fossil Door

  Eclipse

  Fool’s Gold

  The Hare and the Oak

  Point By Point

  Mistress of Birds

  Learn more about the world of Albion and future books at my website, celialake.com. Additional information linking characters, places, and timelines is available at bit.ly/celia-lake-wiki

  Sign up for my newsletter to be the first to hear about future books and learn about fascinating bits of research. Happy reading!

  Copyright © 2022 by Celia Lake

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover design by Augusta Scarlett.

  Created with Vellum

  Chapter 1

  THE COUNCIL KEEP, SATURDAY, MARCH 6TH, 1926

  “My mother doesn’t know I’m here.”

  Mabyn looked up from the desk in the Appointments Room. She was the Council Member on duty. It was the first Saturday of the month, and they took it in turns to hear requests from people who had a particular need from the Council. To be honest, most of the interesting matters came to them in other ways. Saturday petitions tended to be grindingly tedious disagreements, like matters about surveying that needed a mediator, petty grudges that had lasted at least a decade, or people who just wanted someone to complain to.

  The man standing in front of her did not fit any of those models. For one thing, he was rather young, by complaining or grudge standards. There were people who could hold a first-class grudge from their twenties, but it generally suited someone of sixty or eighty better.

  This man was well-dressed, in country tweeds, but he was decidedly younger. Old enough to have fought in the War, he had that look in his eyes, which made him at least late twenties, but likely not more than thirty-five. She took the rest of his particulars in; sandy brown hair, no visible disability, pocket watch, small rimmed glasses on his nose. A little twitchy, perhaps, but that was to be expected. Most people were when they showed up here. He was a bit more of an alarmed rabbit, though, than most of their visitors.

  She gestured at the chair in front of the desk. “Please have a seat. I am Council Member Mabyn Teague. You are?” More to the point, she wondered who his mother was.

  “Lionel Baddock. Lord Baddock.”

  She, of course, knew the name without consulting the map hanging on the wall beside them. The fundamental business of the Council was the Land. She hadn’t been on the Council for near thirty years for nothing.

  “Lord Baddock. Tea, or refreshment, before you lay out your concern?”

  “Thank you, no. I can’t be gone long.”

  That was an equally curious statement. He was a grown man. A bit younger than her son, but also a Lord in his own right. Presumably some degree of competent, and old enough to have come through the War, besides. “Please, begin.” Mabyn had never cared for Lady Baddock, but his nerves about his mother suggested there was something far larger going on here than Mabyn’s personal distaste. Lady Baddock was the sort who insisted upon impossible standards, and scorned all those who didn’t meet her particular benchmarks of competence. At the same time, she was primarily focused on the show, not the substance. Mabyn could respect one or the other, but both at the same time rubbed old wounds raw again.

  “I inherited the title shortly after the War. My father died in 1919. A bad heart.” Seven years, then. More than enough time to sort out most kinds of inheritance problems. She remembered the late Lord Baddock well enough. He’d been the sort of man who’d liked country living. He came to social events because his wife insisted, she’d rather thought. He would spend the day hunting or shooting or riding, then he would hole up in the billiards room or the smoking room, or wherever the men gathered, quietly amiable. Leaving his wife to her own devices, but that was quite a common mode.

  If he’d been a town man, rather than country, he would have spent all his free hours at his club. She didn’t know anything to his discredit, but she knew how easily a man could present one face in public, and an entirely different one at home.

  Baddock went on. “We hold Ipswich, the land around there. Over to near Bury St Edmunds, the Alton lands.”

  Mabyn nodded. “And Dunwich, the school, has responsibility for the northeast.” It was an odd arrangement, but the school’s magic made it a logical one. After a rather alarming storm in the thirteenth century, everyone had considered it best to have strong and consistent magical attention on the coastline on a regular basis. Once the school was established, it proved much more reliable than the vagaries of a single family line.

  “Exactly.” He hesitated, as if he’d come to the crux. “I have done the land rites every year since Pater died. The first year, everything was all right. Within the usual range. The second year, it wasn’t awful. But since then, it has gone worse every year.”

  Mabyn pulled a clean sheet of paper over, picking up her pen and making a few quick notes about the date and Baddock’s name. “Tell me about that. The ways it got worse.” She then added, “Please.” People who did not know about her former life might have thought her rude. And rudeness was a tool she wielded deliberately.

  “It started with a drought in 1921. That wasn’t completely unusual. They do happen. And that wasn’t just us.” Mabyn nodded. It had been one of the first sure signs to the Council, however, that something was seriously amiss in Albion after the War. “The dead fish in the moat were more so.”

  “A moat?” She frowned. “Oh, Baddock Hall. Built right after the Pact, it does have that striking moat. And gardens, I remember the gardens.”

  Baddock looked up with a shy smile. “They are not what they were. But yes, extensive grounds. The moat, and the drawbridges. We pull them up every night, still.” He hesitated, then went on.

  “The dead fish were followed by a blight in the apple orchards. Ergot in the barley. A whole field of hay that went to mould. Mysteriously dead deer in the nearby forest. Two completely failed harvests on the home farm. And then the portal started having problems. They seem to have fixed that, but it needs regular checks. We’ve not seen badgers or foxes for at least a year. The cows and the pigs keep getting sick. Not foot-and-mouth, thank God, but bad enough. Even Mother’s been ill on and off.”

  “Magical animals? You’d have star hares perhaps, or the nightjars?” She considered Suffolk and its environs. “The lesser silver newt, or the helical swift? Dusk-spines?”

  Baddock shook his head. “Nothing like that seen, for at least a year. It’s not conclus
ive, but.” He waved one hand. “The next village over, they did report a crescent owl last month, though.” They were more resilient birds, on the whole.

  “And I suppose the bees aren’t doing well.”

  Baddock looked mournful. “Not for years. We used to have excellent honey. There’s one hive still struggling on, but - they’re rather sad, I think.”

  Mabyn frowned. “And what do you want us to do about this? In as much detail as you can.”

  Baddock cleared his throat. “I had a bad War.” He didn’t explain, but Mabyn did not need the explanation. “I’ve tried. I’ve done the rites, I swear I’ve done them, diligently, attentively. They aren’t working. Not for me.”

  Mabyn did not need this man having emotions at her. She wanted to manage the problem - the serious problem - he had described, not the certainly delicate dance of managing his self-esteem. She wished it were one of the men on duty. Not her, anyway. Though, she supposed, better her than Livia Fortier or even Rhoda Morwen. “What do you propose?”

  He seemed a little uncertain what to do with that, as if he had expected to be fussed over. However, the practicality also seemed to settle him. “I am an only child. There are cousins, at several removes, none close. None of them have an interest in the land. I looked, I invited them, to see. They shrugged. The land shrugged.” He hesitated. “I should have come to you years ago, I know.”

  “Likely, yes.” Her voice was brisk. They had educational pamphlets and talks with enticements for attending for a reason. “But you are here now, thank you.” She did not suggest any of the things currently in her head. She wanted to see what he suggested first.

  He swallowed. “There is one thing. My father had a younger brother.” Baddock hesitated, “Samuel Baddock. He died before the War. But I have a locket with his hair, I found it a few months ago. And one with my father’s. Is it...” He clearly had thought about this, but not practised saying any of it out loud. “Is there a way to find out if there is a descendant we do not know about?”

  “You would lose the title, if there is someone with a better magical claim.”

  Lionel straightened his shoulders. “I want what’s right for the land. I can’t stand to see the land dying. Not if I could do something about it. Mother will have my head, I’m sure. She likes being the Dowager Lady Baddock entirely too much. She married in, of course.” Lady Baddock could have been a distant cousin of his father. People did persist in it for all that was not entirely advisable - or recommended by anyone who knew about breeding horses or hounds. “If someone else can keep the land strong, they should.”

  Mabyn had to admire his commitment here. She suspected the money - at least some of it - was entailed separately from the demesne lands, that often happened. Still, giving up a title was far more rare than most people realised. He should have come to them years ago, but she had to give him credit for trying to do the best he could. He was here now, and he was clearly giving his best go, despite whatever circumstances had held him back previously.

  “So.” She made a few more notes on the paper. “You have two lockets, one with your father’s hair, one with your uncle’s. You know of no other descendants they match.” That at least cut down on false leads. “And if we do find someone, or can identify another potential candidate, then what? It - even if someone is suitable, it takes them time to connect with the land. To see if they can act as the...” She frowned, trying to decide whether to go with the technical ritual language or the more commonly known. “Act as the bridge to the land magics.”

  “Baddock Hall is quite large.” Mabyn remembered that, yes. “I am the only one living there. Mother is in the Dower House.” Mabyn remembered that too, as being quite substantial. Scarcely a widow’s cottage. “Perhaps a candidate could stay, for some months. A full year, even, if that were required. We have staff, of course. I wouldn’t want them to go without, but they, we could have a guest. More than one, if needed. A chaperone.”

  Mabyn half remembered there was some sort of precedent about this. But she hadn’t looked at it in years, and frankly all the arguments over the past year about the examinations and teaching focus at Schola would have knocked all of it out of her head. “I would need to check what we have done in previous cases, make a proposal to the rest of the Council, and then see what is acceptable to you.”

  “Of course.” Baddock was very willing, here. It gave her an idea of how bad things were, in his estimation. He was not holding his ground, arguing that it was his land, he had the right to decide how this went. That meant this idea might just work.

  “Are you able to leave the lockets with us, or do you need to take them back?”

  “Mother will miss the one of Father. She notices. Mother rarely wears it, but she notices. She is out at a tea with friends.” He glanced over her shoulder at the clock. “It would be much easier if I had it back within ninety minutes.”

  “In that case, I will take samples of the hair. It may take us a few days, a week, to make a determination. Would your mother be concerned by a sealed letter from us?”

  Baddock raised an eyebrow, and as he spoke, Mabyn decided that she liked him rather more than she’d thought. “Any sensible person pays attention to a Council seal, Magistra. And the staff might mention it to her. But if you send it direct, it will get to me.”

  She grinned, despite the serious topic. “Would she know my name?” Some people kept close track of the Council Members, even the ones less in the public eye.

  “Your personal seal, I suspect she would not recognise. She might know your name.” That was fair.

  “Let me take the samples.” The room was thankfully fully stocked with the sort of basic supplies they might need. She had always rather pitied the staff who had to keep a long list of items handy and in good order. She was able to find a glassine envelope, something Alexander had recommended last year for certain kinds of samples. It was an invention from the non-magical community that was decidedly useful. Half their number had complained at dire length. But the more sensible of them - the ones with Materia expertise in particular - had taken to it with glee. Keeping one’s samples free from distracting influences was a delight.

  In this case she took a dozen hairs from each of the lockets. Enough for several uses, magically, not so many they would be missed. She did them one at a time, to avoid confusion, though Samuel’s hair was redder and lighter, easy enough to distinguish. Grabbing a larger manilla envelope, she slipped them inside.

  She glanced at the record book, and wrote the next record number on the top corner, along with her own identifying sigil. Once Baddock left, she would write up the initial report for the book, and then see what she could find in the library.

  It would be her responsibility to see this to a discussion of the Council. If they decided to act - and she expected they would in some form - it would be assigned to someone suitable. Not her, she was sure. Land magics were not her speciality, nor were the rituals involved.

  Chapter 2

  LATER THAT AFTERNOON

  The library was being annoyingly unyielding. Or at least, Mabyn was having absolutely no luck finding anything that backed up her scattered memories. She had half a dozen books out, and two dozen slips of paper laid out on the work table she had claimed.