Page 118 of Ruby Red (The Ruby Red Trilogy 1)

Instead, I counted the footsteps to every bend in the corridor. After forty-four steps, we turned right, after fifty-five, we turned left, then left again, and we reached a spiral staircase leading up. I held my skirt up as high as I could so as to keep up with Gideon. There was a light somewhere up there, getting brighter as we climbed, until finally we were in a broad corridor with many lighted torches along its walls. There was a large door at the end of the corridor, with two suits of armor standing on either side of it. They were just as rusty as in our own time.

Luckily I didn’t see any rats, but all the same I had a sinking feeling that we were being watched, and the closer to the door we came, the stronger that feeling was. I looked around, but the corridor was empty.

When one of the suits of armor suddenly moved its arm and pointed a dangerous-looking spear or whatever it was at us, I froze, gasping for air. Now I knew who’d been watching us.

The suit of armor also, and totally unnecessarily, said, “Stop!” in a tinny voice.

I felt like screaming with terror, but once again not a sound would come out of my mouth. Pretty soon I realized it wasn’t the suit of armor that had moved and spoken but whoever was inside it. The other suit of armor also seemed to be inhabited.

“We have to speak to the Master,” said Gideon. “On urgent business.”

“Password,” said the second suit of armor.

“Qua redit nescitis,” said Gideon.

Oh, yes—that was it. For a moment I was genuinely impressed. He’d actually remembered it.

“You may pass,” said the first suit of armor, and it even held the door open for us.

There was another corridor beyond it, also lit by torches. Gideon stuck our torch in a holder on the wall and hurried on. I followed as fast as my hooped skirt would let me. By now I was out of breath.

“This is like a horror film. My heart almost stopped. I thought those things were just for decoration! I mean, suits of armor aren’t exactly modern in the eighteenth century, are they? And not much use either, if you ask me.”

“It’s a tradition for the men on guard to wear them,” said Gideon. “They do in our time as well.”

“But I haven’t seen any knights in armor in our time,” I said. Then it occurred to me that maybe I had seen some after all. Maybe I’d just thought they were empty suits of armor.

“Get a move on,” said Gideon.

Easy for him to say. He wasn’t carrying a skirt the size of a tent around with him.

“Who is ‘the Master’?”

“The Order is headed by a Grand Master. At this period of course it’s the count himself. The Order is still young; the count founded it only thirty-seven years ago. Even later, members of the de Villiers family often held the post of Grand Master.”

Did that mean Count Saint-Germain was a de Villiers? If he was, then why was he called Saint-Germain?

“What about now? Er, I mean in our time. Who’s the Grand Master today?”

“At the moment, my Uncle Falk,” said Gideon. “He took over from your grandfather Lord Montrose.”

“Oh.” My dear, kindly grandfather, Grand Master of the Lodge of Count Saint-Germain! And I’d always thought he was totally under my grandmother’s thumb.

“So what position does Lady Arista hold in the Order?”

“Oh, none. Women can’t be members of the Lodge. The immediate families of the members of the Inner Circle automatically belong to the Outer Circle of initiates, but they don’t have a say in anything.”

That was obvious.

Maybe his way of treating me was natural to all the de Villiers family? A kind of congenital defect leaving them capable of only a contemptuous smile for women? On the other hand, he had been very gentle with Charlotte. And I had to admit that at the moment he was at least behaving himself reasonably well.

“Why do you always call your grandmother Lady Arista, by the way?” he asked. “Why don’t you say Grandma or Granny?”

“I don’t know. We just do,” I said. “So, why can’t women be members of the Lodge?”

Gideon put out an arm and shoved me behind him. “Shut up for a moment, would you?”

“What?”

---