A Birth day

"It's the strawberry cake Simone and I are making," Tara said. "Remember I took the strawberries for your fridge to make the fresh strawberry jam for between the layers? Did you forget already?"

"Go right before daylight," Marcus told them. "The fish always bite far better in the hour or two before dawn."

"Edward used to tell us that too," Evan said.

"And he'd be right," Marcus said. "Essentially, the prey that the fish feed on become more active during that time period and the water is still cool, so the fish have an easier time hunting for breakfast."

"Angus's bodyguard is also a science teacher. Who knew?" Evan teased.

"No, no. Just survival training," Marcus laughed, and as he did, an envelope fluttered out of the floo. Marcus caught it. It looked like the same sort of envelope and handwriting that Tyler had used yesterday. There was no name on the envelope, though, so Marcus opened it. To anyone else, this would look like just sheer gibberish at first glance. To Marcus, with his training, this was a code. A cipher code, to be exact, and without the key, it would take some time to break the code.

"Look like its' from Tyler, but I'm not entirely sure," Marcus said. "It's encrypted. Unless you or Angus have a key to it, I'll have to break it myself."

"No. I don't have a code. Tyler and Angus learned how to make codes when they were boys. It was a sort of game to them. I never caught on, but as they grew older, the codes got more sophisticated." Evan looked at the note. "That's Tyler's handwriting alright. Wonder what he's using a code for."

Ruby chuckled and looked at Tara as she mentioned the cake they were making " oh no I didn't , i knew you were nmaking something " she said and chuckled. Hearing Evan she nodded " all right sunrise it is then , hope your up for it" she said with a smile but paused as she saw the letter come floating threw the window. " huh" she said as Marcus opened it. All she could see was gibberish but when Evan explained tyler and Angus used codes to send messages she looekd to Marcus " can you break it, I realy don't want to wake Angus if its not needed." she said now stood with her arms folded as she waited to find out if he could actually break it.

She looked over at Angus then back to where Marcus stood with the letter " any luck?" she asked knowing if any one could break the code he could. She also knew if it ws important information they could pass it on or deal with it without waking Angus so letting him heal.

"Two hours before sunrise, if I heard him right. That makes it, what, four am?" Evan asked.

"3:30 am," Marcus laughed. "Why don't you split the difference and do one hour before sunrise and go at 4:30? there are actually several people up at 4:30 on this estate."

"Without the house being on fire? They're out of their minds," Evan teased. "4:30 sounds just a hair more reasonable. I can do that."

Marcus looked back at the code again, and when Ruby asked if he could break it, he looked at her.

"Well, of course I can break it, but I'm not going to be done with it in the next five minutes. Every code maker tends to have a style they like, and I don't know what Tyler and Angus liked. So I'm going to have to start from scratch. Unfortunately it's going to take time," Marcus told her. He had no intention of telling her that some codes took years to break. Instead, he chose to simply focus on what was right in front of him, so he got out a pad of paper and a pencil from the desk and sat down and started to work. What bothered Marcus was that whatever the message was, he was presuming that Tyler hadn't done it just for a lark and most likely, it had some level of importance to it for Tyler to bother encrypting it. What Marcus didn't know if whatever the message was could wait until the message was deciphered.

Ruby listened to the two men and chuckled "That's fine with me" she said without looking at the pair of them then looked to Marcus as he said he could crack it. She smiled and left him to work with a pad, pen and the letter knowing if anyone could crack it he could and quickly. Ruby moved to start making some small individual strawberry cheese cakes for the next day's dinner hoping to keep busy but it was now she noticed a squealing Caprice " okay seems someone needs a diaper change" she said and moved to pick her up.

Heading up the stairs she went to the nursery and cleaned Caprice up placing a clean diaper on her and a clean outfit before returning down to place her in the seat and the clothing in the washer.

The baby's squalling woke Angus with a jolt. Marcus reached over and laid a hand on his arm.

"No crisis. Just a wet diaper," Marcus told him. Angus breathed out. Much has he liked having kids around, sometimes a squalling baby was just a pain in the butt. "Sorry about that," Marcus told him. "That's annoying. I know."

"I didn't need any sleep anyway," Angus said slightly sarcastically. Marcus laughed.

"Hey, we got a message through the floo from Tyler, and its encrypted. Got a code key lying about?"

"Really?" Angus frowned. Tyler hadn't done that since they were kids. "Let me see it. Sometimes he just makes up his own."

"Well, I presume you know his patterns, so even if he made it up, we should be able to crack it together," Marcus told him. "I have some of the letters worked out, but not nearly all of them, and some of them aren't shaping up to make sense."

"That's because he sometimes not only encrypted them but then scrambled the damned words. He liked to try to stymie me with them. He never managed but sometimes it did take me several hours. I'll tell you who's bloody good with codes, strange as it sounds--Michael."

"No way," Marcus frowned.

"I'm perfectly serious," Angus nodded. "He's had to learn that with all the extracting he does."

"Well, now that actually makes sense," Marcus said. "Let's send him a bird and see if he's free."

"Fine," Angus said. Marcus sent a paper bird to the other building, and in about fifteen minutes, Michael was knocking on the door. Marcus answered, and he and Angus were both surprised to see he was dressed in some well cu jeans and a sportshirt, as if he'd been somewhere somewhat important.

"We pulled you away from something," Marcus said.

"Yes, and no," Michael said. "I was at a concert in the village park with Daniella. You know, the kind you take a picnic to and sit on your own blanket on the ground to listen to, but it was horrid. We were both bored out of our minds, and I was actually dozing. I think she was relieved to buggar back to Paris, and I'm not disappointed at being taken away from it either. What's up?"

"Feel like a little code cracking?" Marcus asked, him, showing him the cypher.

"Bloody hell," Michael frowned. "That's a cocked up mess if I ever saw one. Who designed that sloppy code?"

"My brother Tyler," Angus said.

"Amateur. Figures. Alright, well, let's give it a go," Michael said. He used a charm to make additional copies, and the three of them worked on it together for the better part of an hour, and then Michael laughed. "That little sneaky prat."

"What?" Marcus asked.

"you see at the front of each word there is a dash that is either horizontal or vertical? Well, the horizontal dash means the word is in English. The vertical dash means that damned word is Italian."

"Well, shit," Marcus sighed. "I wasn't thinking of two languages. I was thinking the letters were scrambled."

"They are," Michael said. "And, he's reversed the alphabet, so if you think the letter you're looking at is an x, well you're wrong. Since X is the third letter from the end of the alphabet, go to the other end and count three letters from the start."

"So the X is a C, and the Z is an A," Angus said.

"Exactly. And he's scrambled the letters to boot." Michael said. "And then, just for fun, every third Italian word isn't really Italian at all. It's French."

"So why all the cloak and dagger, after all these years?" Angus sighed, frustrated.

"I don't know, but I'm not liking it. I think it's a dire warning of some sort, just from what bits and pieces I've got," Michael said.

"Of course it is," Angus said. "Only a knucklehead encrypts an emergency message that takes three people to decipher."

Ruby walked back down to see Micahel and Marcus working on the letter she saw Angus awake and sighed hoping he would have slept a bit longer. She placed Caprice in her seat and sat down to watch the men before standing and moving back to the kitchen to continue making the shortcakes to put in the fridge " so any luck?" she asked looking up as she placed the small bases in the fridge to set ready for the topping.

Listening to them talk about the code she shook her head not understanding one sentance they had said. She was how ever glad that they knew what they were talking about but she did put a fresh pot of tea on for them knowing it might take some hours to solve.

"Not yet. These take time, Ruby," Angus told her, preoccupied and still working. "On average, it takes us both a matter of days to work these out."

Michael thought perhaps it was worth a try to divide the English, Italian and French words, and he gave Angus the Italian words, and he gave Marcus the English words, and he kept the French words for himself.

"I'm smelling the pot roast, Ruby," Angus told her. You might want to take some of the dry sherry I have in the pantry and deglaze the pan a little. Then if you mix up a cornflour slurry and add it to the roasting pan, it'll thicken your pan juices into a lovely gravy with the meat and vegetables."

"Don't forget you have to bring your pan juices back to a full rolling boil if you add a cornflour slurry in order for the cornflour to reach it's full thickening power," Michael added, "but he's right. It'll be delicious." Michael frowned deeper, as he started to translate a name. He didn't say anything but he didn't like what he was seeing. He scribbled a paper bird and sent it next door to Robert.

Ruby looked at Angus and smiled as he told her they had not yet and it would take time "Good thing I got the kettle on" she said with a chuckle. When Angus told her he could smell pot roast she moved back to the kitchen listening to what he said she moved and made the gravy, deglazing the pan with the dry sherry then mixed up the cornflour slurry and add it to the roasting pan just as Angus had said and it began to thicken the liquid.

"smells wonderful shouldn't be too long now," she said and sent the crockery to the table ready for when it was ready to be served. Now with that done, she made a tray of tea cups and a large pot of tea carrying it she poured out three cups and placed two down in front of Micahe and Marcus the third she carried over to Angus.

"Thank you," Angus said. His words so far told him nothing, but he also realized he was not getting the full translation when Marcus had a third of it, and Michael had the other third. It wasn't more than a few minutes when Robert came back, knocked and let himself in. He went over to where Michael was working.

"What have you got?" Robert asked quietly.

"Encrypted message from one of Angus's brothers. It's a tad complicated and in three languages. Angus has the Italian words, I have the French, and Marcus has the English. I know this is nothing, but here are the words I have so far from the French." He handed the pad of paper to Robert. Robert read the words, and he looked serious. He handed the paper back to Michael.

"Put a priority on it, Michael," Robert said. "Let's get this damn thing decoded asap. I'll be back. I'm going to find Jack and Yulong and Kate. I want them available within the next 30 minutes. Ruby, I suggest you get supper out of the way for everyone here. We could be busy within the next hour or two." Robert left in a hurry and went back to the main house.

Ruby looked up as Robert entered and crossed to Marcus who showed him his words she gave a slight frown as he spoke worried at how his deminor had shifted " okay" she said and checked the pot roast , finding it ready she began dishing it out " SUPPERS READY!" she called out as she floated the bowls to the table and a tray for Angus over to him. She added an extra one for Micahel and sent it over to him before picking up Caprice and placing her in her baby high chair.

Sitting down with a small jar of baby food she began to feed Caprice as she heard the girls come from upstairs " pork pot roast with roast vegtables and if your still hungry individual cheese cakes after." she said as Caprice grabbed at the spoon she held and moved it to her mouth s if she was not giving her the food quick enough.