Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Sword Princess (2 page)

His sister might be reserved, even listless and bored in social functions, but give her a spirited horse, the hunting hounds, and a quarry, and her eyes were suddenly aglow.

Make no mistake:
 
the blood of their hunting ancestors flowed through the veins of Princess Elena Petrovi
ć
-Njegoš.
 
Suddenly she jolted the horse to a stop, still somehow maintaining her saddle, aimed her rifle and fired.
 

BANG!
 
Once the bullet reached the heart of her prey, she jumped off the stallion to claim her quarry, pulling her
Shamshir
sword from its holder strapped to her left leg.
 
She held tightly to the weapon’s rhino horn hilt, the blade engraved in silver cross bar overlaid with a scrolling vine of wild roses.

Prince Danilo was an accomplished huntsman himself, but he was exerting a great deal of effort and yet was unable to keep pace with Elena.
 
He glanced back to see the servants, who would dress the animal for the evening tribal celebration outside the palace, at least a kilometer behind him.

Prince Danilo chuckled to himself as he rode towards Elena.
 
No other European royal family would think to celebrate in the city square with their people eating a deer their princess had killed.
 

Naturally, as the heir to the throne, Prince Danilo had been educated in Europe and had seen the world, understanding now the difference in other royal children’s homes and upbringing from his own.
 

And the difference in
himself
.
 
Montenegro had gained much status since he was a boy, only having just won Her independence from the Ottoman Empire in a fierce war of survival.
 
But the danger was far from over. Without strong allies, the small country bordering Serbia, Turkey, and Bosnia was fair game to anyone.

They had to be a fierce people—and his soft-spoken, beautiful sister was no exception.

“Let the servants do that, Elena.”
 
He glanced at his sister tying up the deer.
 
She continued her work without looking up.

“I won!” Elena smiled at him.

“You did, Elena.
 
But I will win next time.”

“I do not think so!”

He smiled in anticipation of the evening’s festivities, to which no European ball could compare.
 
There would be dancing and drinking around a great bonfire with a spit for roasting the deer.
 
There would be a pig as well.
 
The chiefs would wear crimson kappas and shining scabbards, and the maidens would wear red caps to which coins had been sewn as they danced round the fire.
 

The maidens.
 
Prince Danilo smiled.
 
He might find his own beautiful maiden.
 

Despite his tribal origins, their father, King Nicholas I of Montenegro, was determined to marry his daughters to European royalty, thereby creating strong alliances—and subsequently the continued independence of Montenegro—and even shy Elena was not exempt from the king’s plan.
 
Especially
shy,
beautiful
Princess Elena.
 

Prince Danilo frowned.
 
He hoped when he was king, it would not be necessary to offer his daughters as sacrifices.
 
He forced himself to interject as much joviality into his voice as he could muster.
 
“I will win because you will be in London in a finishing school for the rich, spoiled brats of European royalty.”

Her face fell, reclaiming the listless expression of unperturbed boredom for which she was famous in European circles, having oft been compared to Leonardo da Vinci’s “Madonna”.
 

“I don’t understand how you can be so mundane in the parlor and so vicious on the field, Elena.”
 
He laughed at the strange and predictable transformation from sharpened huntress to subdued Madonna, jumping off his horse to join her.

“I am a woman,” she replied with a shrug as she cocked her rifle, moving her eyes along the horizon as she aimed.
 
“We are more versatile than the man.”
 

“What are you doing now, Elena?”

“I shot a rabbit.
 
We must have enough food for all the people at the celebration tonight.
 
If you were not so lazy, I would not have to do all the work.”

“Elena, look at me.”

She lowered her rifle and stared into her brother’s eyes with affection.
 
“Yes, Danilo?”

“Why do you go if you don’t wish to?
 
You have already been to St. Petersburg.”
 
She had even trained under the Empress of Russia, which had not improved her social shyness.
 
All it seemed she had acquired were excellent skills in watercolor painting and pen and ink drawing.
 
Along with tennis.
 
Naturally Elena excelled at all sports.

She lowered her head in shame, clearly embarrassed that she had shown little improvement in the desired areas.

“Elena, you are so lovely just as you are,” Danilo murmured.
 
“Tell father that you are not going.
 
I will help you.”

“I wish to go.
 
And I
will
learn what I need to know,” she replied, bestowing upon the crown prince of Montenegro a glowing smile which few people were ever privileged to see.
 

“Why, Elena?” he asked.

“I am in love,” she replied, her black eyes resolute.
 
“And like the hunt, I will do whatever it takes to get my prize.”

Danilo watched as his wild sister rode toward the rabbit, her stallion straining beneath her.
 
She might be highborn, but she was Diana, goddess of the hunt.
 

Then suddenly a nightmare encroached upon them.
 
Danilo watched in horror as she rode near a thicket of trees.
 
Four men appeared out of the brush, pulling short swords from their long coats and rushing Elena as she rode by.
 

But her horse was not a timid beast, and Elena rode right over one of the men who tried to get the animal to throw its rider.
 

 
“Zaštiti princeza!”
 
Protect the princess!
 
He yelled to the servants, but they were at least a mile away.
 
There wasn’t time for him to reach her either.
 

Danilo threw his own rifle to his shoulder and took aim even as one of the bandits drew a pistol and positioned it towards Elena.

Please, God, guide my aim.
 
The Prince, guardedly breathing out so as not to disrupt the overly long shot, carefully squeezed the trigger.
 

KPOW!
 
The man stood for a moment, seeming to lower his pistol slowly, and then fell over into the grass.

Two men left.
 
Still enough to kill his beloved sister in an instant.

Dear God, don’t make me too late.
 
“Haw!”
 
Danilo kicked his horse into a fast run, even as the remaining men descended upon Elena.

She was pulling her rifle from its scabbard when a third man, cursing in a foreign language Danilo couldn’t quite make out, tried to grab her stirrup.
 
She discouraged his advance with the butt of her rifle adjoined to his head.
 
He fell backward, presumably blacked out.

Almost there.

As Danilo reached Elena, the last attacker lost his nerve and turned on his heels, making a mad dash for the woods.
 
Elena raised the rifle she had re-loaded.
 

She fired.
 
Only a side-step from her steed saved the man’s life.
 
Her bullet grazed his leg, causing him to stumble for a moment, but he caught himself and was on his own horse in a matter of seconds, escaping into the forest.

Elena pulled another cartridge from her pouch and ejected the spent shell.
 
She hurried to reload, but the skittish horse slowed her and the remaining assailant had covered some territory before she slammed the bolt home.
 
She started to pursue just as Danilo reached her.

“Elena!” he yelled.
 
“Stay here!
 
The servants and I will catch him.”
 
There might be more of them in the forest, and she was clearly the object of their murderous plan.
 
They didn’t care about him, the crown prince.
 
Perplexing.

“They would have killed me, Danilo,” she replied.
 
“They were serious.”

“The dogs!” he muttered, not letting up the speed of his horse as he pursued the remaining attacker.
 

As he expected, Elena was right beside him.
 
She understood, as he did, that she was the victim, and yet she would not let him fight alone, even with the servants not far behind at this point.

She raised her rifle even as she rode, aiming for the man.
 

“Elena!” he cried.
 
“Don’t kill him!
 
I want him alive!
 
We need information—”

“BANG!”
 
The report from her rifle followed his command.
 
Clearly she had no respect for her future king.

Damn
!
 
The man fell off his horse.
 
How would they get any answers now?
 
“Elena, I told you not to kill him.”

“I didn’t.”
 
She smiled at her brother.
 
“I missed his heart by at least a centimeter.”
 

“
Bastardo! Mi hai sparato!”
the fallen man muttered as he lay on the ground.
 

Italian
.
 
The man spoke Italian.
 
Why would an Italian wish the princess of Montenegro harm?

Unless he was hired by someone else.

“I told you he was alive.”
 
She pulled her sword from its sheath, smiling as she did so, but her eyes were fierce.
 
“But how long he remains so is up to him.”

The crown prince watched his sister approach her assailant, sword in hand—and he felt a twinge of pity for the bastard.
 

Danilo thought of the English finishing school his father was sending Elena to.
 
Danilo was well acquainted with English manners and the fine parties of the season.
 
Breakfast, shopping, and morning calls to close friends.
 
Rides in Hyde Park.
 
After dinner, soirees or the opera, followed by balls and dances.

There was a fierce, bloodthirsty expression in Princess Elena’s beautiful dark eyes as she touched the tip of the sword to the man’s throat, demanding answers.
 

London will never be the same.

“Who are . . . ?”
 
Sherlock Holmes asked, his pipe almost falling from his lips.
 
“And what are your qualifications, Miss . . . Miss?”

The young lady quietly moving about his laboratory glanced up at him inquisitively.
 

She knew very well that the Great Detective was unaccustomed to being surprised—and that there were few who had been allowed the privilege of seeing him so.
 
He glanced at the burning logs in the fireplace and at the glistening bottles drying on the racks with something approaching displeasure if not surpassing it.

She curtseyed, taking her simple cotton sheath dress in both hands.
 
“My name is Miss Mirabella H—”

“—Not important,” Sherlock interrupted.
 
“What is important is that you were dismissed from your prior place of employment—and that you are a relative of Mrs. Hudson’s, so I have no reason to think you were hired for your credentials.
 
How can I trust you will follow my directions to the letter, which most certainly includes not using my laboratory for your personal experimentation?”

How would he have known about her last position?
 
Aunt Martha would never have told him.
 
Mirabella felt her jaw drop in shock, which did not bode well for her powers of communication.
 

And how did he know
she was Mrs. Hudson’s niece
?
 
Technically she was a relation by marriage and bore her aunt no resemblance.
 
True, they were both Scottish, but that was quite common in London.
 
And Martha Hudson was from the north of Scotland, while Mirabella was from Dumfries, in the south.
 
A keen detective such as Sherlock Holmes would easily detect the difference in their speech, not to mention their upbringing.
 
The former Mr. Hudson, a successful merchant seafaring man, was brother to Mirabella’s father, a curate, who had taken far more interest in education than his adventuring brother.
 
Mirabella’s father had educated all his children at home, even the girls.

Suddenly her prospective employer threw himself into a full circle, narrowly avoiding knocking over jars of explosive chemicals.
 
He then moved to grab something on the newly cleaned wooden laboratory desk, waving it wildly in front of her nose.
 
“What is this?” he demanded.

Before she could stop herself, she clutched Sherlock Holmes’ wrist to prevent him from knocking her glasses off her head.
 
She hoped it didn’t anger him, but she could ill afford to replace them—either her glasses or her head.
 
“Why it’s a . . . a . . . spatu . . .”