He managed an elegant bow while keeping the tray upright. “Lieutenant Quincy Calloway – yes, those Calloways – at your service. I have been graced with the honor of being appointed your highness’ warden protector.”
Sibylla suppressed her opinion about the nature of that service beneath a polite smile. Young aristocratic sons often received plum positions on account of their names, their poor aptitudes notwithstanding. Still, this one might not be a complete bore. She’d heard Calloways could guess an object’s shape and size while blindfolded by clicking their jaws. That could be fun.
Sibylla took her book to where the lieutenant settled his tray on a card table in the center of her room. He’d brought her lunch: crusty bread with what looked like cow’s liver jelly, and sautéed spinach.
“I usually dine in the hall,” Sibylla said, setting her book beside the lavender plate.
Lieutenant Calloway placed a scandalized hand to his mouth. “I saw guards dining there earlier – men who hadn’t purchased their commissions. What if one of them were to sit across from your highness and try to speak with you?” His eyes fixed on her dress. “And is this all you’ve been provided to wear?”
Sibylla glanced down at her simple wool dress. The cut was sharp, militaristic even, with no unnecessary lace or pleats, in a dark gray that suited her. It never caught on brambles during the spring thaw when she walked the fields surrounding Helmscliff, or picked up soot from the fireplace, or ink specks from her magic.
“My dress is not your concern, lieutenant.”
“Your highness’ well-being is my only concern. To think so little attention has been paid to your station.”
Sibylla disregarded his apparent horror at her living arrangements and ruefully eyed the soggy spinach on her plate. “I assure you, I am very comfortable.”
His gaze wandered to the table. “The Barnmaid of Bareth?”
A dash of hope sparked in Sibylla. “Are you familiar with Salston’s works?” If nothing else, she had longed for a partner to discuss her favorite author. Harrod had as much interest in books as he did in croquet, and Lady Wayfeather, her lady-in-waiting, preferred to hum concertina ballads than discuss lascivious dramas.
“Unfathomable. No one’s considered your reading materials either. My predecessor’s military honors might have given him a touch of class, but there’s really no substitute for good breeding. Rumor is that his mother was a lady’s maid. Can you imagine? I’ll bring your highness something suitable to read directly.”
That lustrous mustache hid a viperous tongue. Lieutenant Calloway reached for her book, but Sibylla slammed her palm on the cover. Her cheeks heated in anger. “Your hand,” she prompted, expecting its removal. Her shoulders stiffened as she took on an air of authority that always won out over guardsmen’s occasional objections.
“Not until after I’ve had a word with Lady Wayfeather.”
“She’s never once objected to my reading materials. And I hardly think a lieutenant in her majesty’s–”
“As the son of General Calloway – Viscount of Highspits and commander to the queen’s Kettlebay guards – I’m well-versed in the proper education of distinguished ladies, such as your highness. I’m sixty-ninth in line for the crown myself, you see.”
Sibylla’s lady-in-waiting, a mere baroness, might put up a fuss on Sibylla’s behalf, but she’d ultimately have to acquiesce to this man, or jeopardize her comfortable position at Helmscliff. A man with influential connections really was as dangerous as a battalion when waging a war of positions.
Sibylla snatched her arm away, cooling her face with the backs of her fingers while the lieutenant gathered the book triumphantly to his chest. She now wondered if this lieutenant hadn’t been deliberately sent by her grandmother to cow her into matrimony. Well, she had no intention of letting either her cousin or this young fop have his way with her and her belongings. If he didn’t return her book, then she’d gleefully resort to theft. She might not have the Calloway’s jaw click to locate her belongings in the dark, but she still had a trick or two up her puffed sleeves.
3
Roger’s night of corpse-snatching failed to dampen his appetite. He ventured out at noon wearing a threadbare cloth cap and breakfasted on cold jellied eels from a waxed paper cone. The market teemed with girls hawking carrots and steaming mutton pies from handcarts, while coachmen hustled loudly for genteel fares. The crowds churned the street into a slop of mud, manure, and anything the locals tossed from their windows at night. No ordinances against that sort of thing existed here in the lower quarters.
Passers-by dropped coins into the hat of an Ibnovan performer with a chin-puff beard who jiggled a string of wooden dolls in ballroom finery, making them dance. The man touched his cap, and Roger noticed his missing little finger, a sign he’d once attempted “street magic” – putting whole eggs into narrow-necked bottles, or breathing fire using a match and a mouthful of starch. Street magic was just science, but Myrcnians mistrusted foreigners who attempted such heretical feats. Certain gangs still held to the tradition of scarring these so-called “false prophets” who faked royal magic. A lopped finger meant this performer had gotten off easy.
Roger’s thoughts turned again to the woman in the crypt. If he’d just arrived an hour earlier, he might have saved her life. But as for selling her remains – he didn’t believe in desecration. Consigning the dead to science gave them immortality, of sorts. In that respect, he’d done her a favor.
He was trudging up Hamtruckle Way when a poster plastered to a dingy brick wall caught his eye.
Roger stopped and stared. The likeness of a young Princess Sibylla smiled down at him, offering a silver tray of sweets. Her gown was hand-painted in cherry, and behind her stood an aproned chocolatier, tying a red ribbon into the princess’ hair.
Sibet.
Sibet, her highness Princess Sibylla, had been his childhood partner in crime. Or rather, he’d been hers. Sidekick, stuntsman, scapegoat, whipping boy, and eventually the eager object of her affections. But the folktales had lied. A servant couldn’t love a princess. Not if he wanted to keep his head. After his banishment he’d scaled the palace walls intending to explain to her why he’d taken the queen’s money – his mother’s illness, physician bills – and earned a prison stint for his pains, along with a broken nose. Maybe one day he’d meet her again at some banquet held by the Royal College of Surgeons, as a self-employed medical man with his name painted above the door of his own practice.
What was he doing, dredging up Sibet after all this time? He’d drive himself mad. He had dismissed that pie-in-the-sky long ago.
He forced his eyes off the poster princess, and onto the chocolatier behind her instead. His breath quickened. That corpse he’d liberated from its useless fate shared the face of this chocolate shop proprietress. The close likeness gave him gooseflesh. He scanned the poster for more.
Claudette’s Chocolate Delights &
Princess Nougats Propr. Mistress Claudine
Visit us in Stargazy Lane.
He’d heard of Claudette’s. It was one of those chocolate shops for toffs somewhere north of the Thimble District. Other thoughts piled into his aching head. A trip to Claudette’s might provide closure. Or answers. He could still pay his respects – even if he had sold her body for eleven shells.
Roger didn’t dare show up looking like a common workman. He searched the second-hand shops for a suitable hat to replace his lost one, and rationalized spending Dr Eldridge’s payment on a silk neckcloth. Now he had an excuse to splurge. He plucked a few winter roses from a churchyard, bought a black ribbon from a girl for a half-winkle, and retied his unraveling cravat.
The confectionery shop was a cozy corner affair with a tatty black rosette nailed to the door and flimsy mourning silk dangling from the gold-trimmed sign. The front window displayed a selection of sweets: dark chocolate skulls, sugared fans of brown jelly, black rose marzipans.
A bell on the door jangled too cheerily as Roger
entered. Black crape drapes swathed the windows and the marble counter stacked with cocoa coffin cakes. Children chewed licorice bows while their governesses gossiped over dainty cups of hot chocolate. The pair of shopgirls at the counter glanced his way. Their eyes traveled from his new hat, to his silk cravat, to his face. Then they broke into smiles.
“How can we help you?” trilled the first girl. “A box of princess creams for a lady friend?”
“Or perhaps a hot chocolate toddy?” added the second. “With a jot of whiskey, as you please.”
Roger swiped his hat from his head. It should have been a rakish move but came off clumsily due to nerves. “I- I heard word of Mistress Smith. Right sad it was,” he said and offered the flowers.
The girls stared.
“Only Smith ’round here is the man who brings the coals.”
Roger tried a sheepish smile. “Perhaps Smith were her maiden name. I mean to pay my respects to the proprietress… Claudine?”
The girls exchanged a grave glance.
“Aye, a right nasty affair. Mistress was always fair to us, weren’t she Mabel?”
“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” Mabel asked. “You saw the broadsheets and want to hear the full story. Well, it’ll cost you two winkles.”
Roger felt in his pocket and slid two coins across the counter. Mabel nodded, then leaned close and whispered. “The Greyanchor Strangler got her. She’d been ill, see, and wanted to take the healing waters at Fillsbirth.”
“The Greyanchor Strangler preys on them that falls ill,” added the first girl in a grisly undertone.
“That so?” Roger feigned nonchalance.
“We thought she’d gone on holiday, but she turned up dead in her bed two nights ago. The housemaid found her with marks on her throat and the window thrown wide. They buried her yesterday, when we had to work. Didn’t even get to kiss her goodbye.”
The first girl eyed the black ribbon on Roger’s bouquet. “You a gentleman friend, then?”
“Friend,” he echoed, regretting the flowers. He hid them behind his back. “Yes. Old friend.”
Roger’s head spun. Tales of some strangler chap had been circulating for months, in those cheap penny broadsheets that sold grisly headlines for entertainment. Mothers warned their children to be home when the lamp-lighters appeared, lest they be choked. He’d never taken broadsheet rumors seriously before, but now he’d seen that bruise on Claudine’s throat. Suppose she’d been choked unconscious, then boxed before she was quite dead…
His thoughts trailed off as Mabel impatiently cleared her throat, and Roger realized a queue had formed behind him.
“So, mister, what can I get you?”
“How much for the chocolate drink with whiskey?” he asked. Mabel told him.
Roger left the shop empty-handed and tossed the flowers on the nearest windowsill. Maybe that Claudine woman could afford her prestigious resting spot with those prices. “You can squeeze every penny out of them wealthy drips, but you’ll get no shelling to line your coffin from me,” he muttered.
He was chasing a shadow. People died every day in Caligo, and many were barely missed. Time to forget and move on.
The sun had set, and a single gaslamp illuminated the courtyard behind Eldridge’s College of Barber-Surgeons. Roger stood at the pump, scouring his bloodstained hands with sand. He had just finished preparing a hanged man’s cadaver for tomorrow’s lecture on the digestion system, which had left him spattered with gore.
“Aesophagus,” he recited. “Muscularis externa of the stomach.
Pyloric sphincter. The greater and lesser entrails.”
Roger had eviscerated the body, cleaned and painted the relevant organs with bright pigments, then packed everything back into place. Meanwhile, Dr Eldridge looked on, helpfully pointing out the different structures. As a physician he rarely touched dead flesh, relying on surgeons and assistants for such menial tasks. Dr Eldridge’s fingers had stiffened with age, and he was an instructor now, not a practitioner.
“The liver filters the blood, the spleen vents chemicals of anger, and the pancreas… is bloody useless.”
Roger was not a physician, nor surgeon, nor even a proper student. The price of a medical education, even the required surgeon’s toolkit alone, went far beyond Roger’s means. Medical students came from the upper middle and merchant classes, and did not generally claim a background of scullion, undertaker’s apprentice, and convict. However, physicians throughout the city had taken a shine to Roger once he proved he could wrestle a body cut from the gallows to any discreet anatomist with coin to spend. Dr Eldridge had taken him on as an unofficial dogsbody in exchange for off-the-record tutelage in the medical arts. After two years, Roger had experience in cutting, stitching, lancing, and injecting. He’d even performed an amputation – though not on a living patient. Yet.
“Delivery for Mr Roger Weathersby, man of science,” said a sardonic voice behind Roger, startling him. “And you don’t just wear the science on your sleeve, I see. You’ve smeared it all over yourself.”
Roger spun around, still drying his hands on his bloodied apron. A man stood under the courtyard gaslamp, face obscured behind goggles and a dust mask. He wore a mud-spattered military uniform, kneehigh riding boots, and a striking medal on his breast: the Order of the Kraken, the queen’s highest honor for nautical service.
From a yawn-inducing history book Sibet had foisted on him, Roger recalled one rare interesting anecdote. A century ago, massive tentacles slid out of the sea foam in Kettlebay to wrap around a fisherman’s dinghy. The fisherman had lopped off one tentacle and narrowly escaped with his life, then brought it to the palace packed in ice where the king – or queen? Roger couldn’t keep the royal lot of them straight – made the fisherman the first recipient of the Order of the Kraken. Since then, the monarchy never permitted more than ten living members, military or civilian. The lopped tentacle was rumored to still be on display at the Anathema Club, a social hub for men of science.
“Sir.” Roger wadded up his bloody apron and bowed. All citizens under the rank of baronet had to show respect to shiny medals, Kraken or otherwise – the lower one’s station, the deeper the bow.
“Lovely,” said the messenger. His voice rasped, as if he’d contracted a sore throat. “I didn’t realize you were capable of bowing. I’ll be sure to let her highness know.”
“Do I know you?” Roger stared hard at the man. “When you say her highness, do you mean…” He couldn’t bring himself to say the princess’ name out loud.
The messenger adjusted his dust mask but did not reply.
Roger hid the apron behind his back, imagining the messenger’s disgust. “You said there’s a delivery, sir? Or do you expect a… a tip first?”
“I expect you to invite me inside. All transactions are to be done in private. I have her highness’ express instructions to receive in hand your written reply. I am to proofread as needed or take dictation. And,” he added, “do not insult me with a tip.”
“I write my own private letters, thank you, sir.” Roger bowed again and led the messenger inside to the preparation room. He lit a lamp on a little writing desk near the window. A scalpel, drill, bone saw, and other recently-cleaned instruments lay out to dry on the dissection table. Jars of wet preparations like malformed pickles lined the shelves, alongside varnished bones and sheaves of papery dried muscle.
“Please don’t mind the smell, sir,” said Roger to fill the awkward silence. “I swabbed the place down with wine spirits a short time ago.”
The messenger glanced around the room. “I was expecting more corpses.”
“Oh,” said Roger as he unrolled his sleeves. “Well, we don’t leave ’em out overnight. Rats, drunken medical students, that sort of thing. Everything is kept clean as the royal kitchens.”
“And that?” The messenger pointed at the mask shaped like a crow’s head that hung from a hook on the wall. “Is this for some vulgar masquerade?”
“
It’s a plague doctor’s mask,” said Roger, eager to show off. He took down the mask and handed it over. “During the Doomsday Miasma two hundred years ago, doctors would fill the beaks with nice-smelling herbs. They often died anyway, but these masks still have their uses. Can’t even smell the stomach swill of a four day-old stiff when you wear it.”
The messenger turned the mask in his hands, then passed it back to Roger. “I trust you won’t wear it out on the street. It might remind people how scientists once started a plague, meddling in their laboratories with King Indulf’s divine fingernail clippings. Half of Caligo died because some natural philosophers exhorted the unification of magic and science.”
“There’s no proof science caused the Doomsday Miasma.” Roger struggled to control his irritation as he tucked the mask away in a cupboard. “In the old days, they used to blame disasters on heresy. Now it’s science. Any scapegoat’ll do.”
“Is that so?” The messenger pulled his dust mask tighter over his face and handed over an envelope. “Perhaps I’ll wait outside after all. Call me if you have a spelling question.” He turned on his heel.
Roger examined the folded parchment, rumpled from its journey. One corner was stained black. He turned it over and his pulse raced – Princess Sibylla’s handwriting. Did she want to see him again, to pick up where they’d left off? He glanced down at his bloodstained shirt and waistcoat. He should have had a broadcloth suit by now to match his silken neckcloth. A set of his own scalpels in a monogrammed box. The past five years had not gone as planned.
He sniffed the letter, catching a whiff of violets tinged with smoke. At last he opened it and read the first line of her looping script. He frowned. Snotsniffer? As children they’d teased one another, but she’d always treated him like a person, if not exactly an equal. He read the rest of the letter, his hackles rising, then sat at the writing desk with a pen and inkpot and scribbled furiously. When he’d filled a page, he proofread his handiwork. Finishing the second draft, he fumbled in his pockets and extracted the flower hatpin Ada had taken from the Smith crypt. The pin was the prettiest thing he had on hand, and dropping it in the Mudtyne would be a waste. He folded the pin inside the letter and sealed it with candle wax stamped with his physician’s medallion.
The Resurrectionist of Caligo Page 3
