“Perpetuity?” said Roger in alarm. It hadn’t quite sunk in that he’d be in the princess’ service for the rest of his life. But Sibet had mentioned the Act to him once when they were younger, in between complaining about her cousins and cursing the concertina. He hoped she hadn’t planned this fate for him all along.
According to the Act of Righteous Authority, a member of the royal family was permitted to keep one Straybound at a time. As a palace footman he’d known they existed, but their identities were shrouded in mystery. There were rumors the Crown Prince changed his Straybound every few months, and, since they were sworn to him for life, that meant they must have died. The high turnover of palace staff made it difficult to determine who was a Straybound – if Straybound were palace staff at all. Sibet had teased him that any one of the maids could be a cold-hearted villain capable of killing him with a knitting needle up the nose, should he misbehave.
Mr Murray stared at the cracks in the floor. “As a proxy for her most honorable grace, might you not divulge the truth so I may offer my wisdom to the newly blessed?”
Archbishop Tittlebury merely kissed his fingers and shook them in the air. “As you, my dear fortunate, are already aware… per the Safekeeping and Privacy of Royals Act, no one royal shall presume authority over the property of another, or interfere in the acquisition of said property. All the details therein shall remain confidential.”
Harrod snatched the pen that had assaulted him from Mr Murray’s trembling hand and jabbed it at the lawyer’s chest. “Not for you to know.”
“And what is your name?” Mr Murray scoured Harrod’s uniform for evidence.
Harrod leaned his head into the hall. “Jailer, remove the prisoner’s restraints. And this man, too.”
Mr Murray stood slack-jawed while Roger smirked. For once he wasn’t the only victim of Harrod’s officiousness.
12
Sibylla strode through the palace gardens until she reached the steep hillock at the furthest end. Malmouth grotto was only open to the public for one hour before dusk each day but the royal family had no such restrictions. Her father, Prince Henry, visited every morning, and the grotto would be the perfect place for them to discuss her half-brother’s wellbeing, or lack thereof. The extreme measures the queen had taken to pry his identity from Sibylla – sending Dorinda to Helmscliff when the palace was busy preparing for the Khalishkan emperor’s historic first visit – made her suspect the queen had recently gained proof her half-brother had survived into adulthood.
Passing beneath an archway covered in ivy, Sibylla descended a subterranean path excavated into the hill. The sound of her footsteps crunching gravel became hollow echoes of her soles on smooth stone. The architect Obden had created the grotto shrine nearly two centuries earlier to commemorate the end of the Doomsday Miasma. An inscription on the wall recalled how King Indulf rediscovered his faith in Myrcnia and the people of Caligo via their swift action against those who sought to blend science and magic to evil ends.
Sibylla bowed her head toward the small copper statue of the Lady of the Stream nestled beneath a protective awning on a limestone ledge. Her copper hair, polished daily by the priest who cared for the grotto, cascaded over an armored breastplate. Absinthe-green moss carpeted the stone ledges and crept up the statue’s fishtail.
Beside a basin – the wavy shell of a giant clam mortared into the rock – hung a tin dipper. Visitors could wash their hands and drink from the healing waters after hanging their prayer plaques on a wallsized iron trellis. Sibylla sipped from the dipper before peering down into the pool.
Its deep, clear water glowed blue even in ice-cold winter. A pair of silver ghost-carp spiraled lazily in the pool while gas fonts illuminated the grotto with a low, greenish light that rose and faded with the air currents. No one dropped coins into the pool out of respect for the royal family. Donations went in a large metal lockbox instead, and simple painted plaques of holy monarchs could be purchased for a few winkles. Most were simply carved and painted. The more desperate supplicants could buy grandiose gilded plaques at the cathedrals. Stealing the plaques, too, was rare. People in Caligo tended to believe in curses.
Sibylla removed her glove and dipped her hand into the water. Sensing a kindred creature, one of the ghost-carp swam up to brush her fingertips. She shook water droplets from her hand and wandered toward the trellis that held the prayer plaques.
Her father, Prince Henry, checked on the plaques daily. He believed it was his obligation to read the wishes written on the back of his likenesses. While Sibylla waited for him, she flipped the plaques over to read the various prayers. Someone had entreated Saint-Queen Ingrid for a sunny wedding day. Another, addressed to the current queen, begged a husband to stay true, while one of King Roderick’s devotees had a simple hankering for a pork haunch. Each royal’s reputation tended to guide the worshiper.
Sibylla glimpsed one plaque and gasped. An all-too-familiar face with rounded cheeks stared back. The likeness of herself was handsomely carved and painted by some novice priest as part of his training. Either that young priest had taken his vows as a joke or plaques bearing her face had become acceptable icons for saintly intercession during her absence.
She hunted through the others. While she found no depictions of her cousins, she collected a total of five “Divine Maiden Sibylla” plaques, fewer than Prince Henry but more than the crown prince.
Because money had been spent to leave them in her name, she treated each as a delicate artifact. One by one, she read them: a man asking for her help to bed the barkeep’s daughter; a woman wishing to heighten her husband’s passion for her; another begging forgiveness for fornicating with the haberdasher’s husband. Apparently, she’d attended one too many Salston productions for her reputation to come through unscathed.
But as Sibylla read the last two, her interest piqued.
Mabel says we owe it to mistress to ask for your help, so here I am writing to a princess after my shift when I’d rather be at home. You may have heard about the Greyanchor Strangler. Near everyone in our Quarter has.
Then, in tinier script as though the author suddenly realized she wouldn’t be able to fit much else…
Well, maybe you haven’t heard so far as the countryside, but here it is, Divine Maiden Sibylla, please have this man caught and quartered and displayed so I may spit upon him meself.
The final plaque – Mabel’s? – displayed better legibility and more reverence.
Divine Maiden Sibylla, I beseech thee, on behalf of the good people of Caligo and as a devout Myrcnian, to smite the beast that hath taken our dear mistress, Claudine Walston, on her final carriage ride. She were a goodly and kind mistress, and loved your highness so.
“Quiet, isn’t it?”
Startled, Sibylla’s breath caught in her throat, and she clutched the plaques to her chest. She had read the Greyanchor Strangler’s name and for a moment she believed she’d summoned him. Upon turning, she discovered her cousin Edgar marched stiffly toward her instead. He wore a black overcoat and a scarf wrapped three times around his neck. The eldest son of Crown Prince Elfred, Edgar never ventured far from his mother Lady Esther, or from Malmouth Palace. A favorite of the queen, Edgar usually got his way in all things, save Sibylla agreeing to marriage.
Sibylla forced a smile. “I didn’t expect to meet you here.”
Edgar scanned the iron trellis before his eyes narrowed on the plaques in her hand. “You’ve seen them, then.” He sniffed. “Your plaques. They should have thought to copy a more honest portrait. I’ve been trying to halt the manufacture of those ridiculous things for months, but the commoners won’t have it. At least the church is filling their coffers.” Edgar looked as though he intended to snatch the plaques from Sibylla’s hands. He was petty enough to do so, especially as no one had left any in his name.
Sibylla tucked the plaques neatly behind her back. “You appear in good health, cousin.”
He ignored her compliment. “The idea of praying
to a princess.” He tsked. “I might have a word with the priest who makes them. If he favored a more realistic likeness, there’d be less interest. I hear they’re being sent as far as the Fillsbirth grotto. The very idea…”
“I’m sure yours will be equally popular…” Sibylla glanced around the grotto. “…somewhere.”
Even if her father showed his face at the grotto now there was no sense staying. She couldn’t speak with him about her half-brother and risk Edgar reporting everything to the queen. Instead, she made her way toward the exit.
“But alas,” she said, “I only came for a quick peek. Who but Grandmother would schedule a dress fitting so soon after an overnight carriage ride? You’ll forgive me, but I’m certain I’ll be missed.”
“The plaques?” Edgar prompted. “I’ll get rid of them for you.”
“I simply must keep them. I am so sentimental, after all.” She bowed her head. “Later then.”
She veered around her cousin and hurried up the path. The gardens spread out in front of her and she chose the circuitous path back to Malmouth to avoid further interactions with Edgar. The idea of anyone marrying the man upset her. Her thumb traced one of the plaque’s indentations. While she might not be able to grant everyone’s prayers, she could look more closely into this Greyanchor Strangler. After all, those two shopgirls had cared so deeply for their mistress they’d made the trek to the palace grotto in the middle of winter.
While the queen practiced for the emperor’s reception in two days’ time by shooting sparks in the courtyard, Sibylla slipped unnoticed into Malmouth Palace. Once in her bedroom, she removed her coat and draped it over her traveling trunk, which the servants had delivered a short while earlier.
She hardly recognized her childhood haven with only its barest living necessities: a bed, wardrobe, and fusty chaise lounge. Her one remaining personal belonging was an oak writing desk that had belonged to her mother, filled with paper she’d collected from places as far as the milky seas of Andorna. Even the chairs from her reading nook were gone, and she was half-surprised no one had pried off the porcelain ivy-leaf moldings that wound up its walls.
As she set the prayer plaques on her desk, some writing on the picture-side of one caught her eye. She hadn’t noticed it before. It was Mabel’s plaque, and appeared to be a list of sorts, in a kind of shorthand, of six locations, each accompanied by a date. The final date lined up with Mabel’s mistress’ death. Helpfully, this Mabel had also provided a partial list of the Greyanchor Strangler’s victims along with the addresses where they’d met the murderer.
Sibylla removed paper from her desk and spread the blank sheets across the floor. A map of Caligo lived in her heart, with its familiar corners and cervices. She spread her fingers and let the ink flow until it stained her fingernails. Then, with a twist of her wrists, she touched the center of each sheet. Ink lines sinuously spread outward to form the arteries connecting Greyanchor Necropolis to the Medical district, Malmouth Palace to Brocade Circle, from one sheet to the next. The Mudtyne River formed a black spine of vertical bridges that eventually became the docks. At last the entire city lay unfurled before her, a black skeleton of streets on bone-white paper.
As Sibylla walked among the sheets of paper, she inked numbers upon the map to correspond, in order, with the locations where the
Greyanchor Strangler had claimed his victims: a humble flat above a tailor shop on Newbridge Street, a modest townhouse on Stargazy Lane, a pricy home near Skyes Park within view of the Starry Opera House, and so on. When she’d inked the six known crime scenes, she tried to discern a pattern, some preference in locale that might tell her where to send additional constables. But the six victims extended from one end of the city to the other, crossing the Mudtyne and back, in wealthy neighborhoods, slums, even two different hospitals.
She gripped the desk in frustration. Nothing. This Greyanchor Strangler might as well be drawing lots from a census. She glanced toward the prayer plaques. These two prayers deserved to be answered, but she didn’t know how. The constabulary should have been on top of any patterns and clues. Still, those shopgirls had trusted her, even given her a lead. She didn’t want to be a divine disappointment.
At the sound of footsteps in the hallway, she hurriedly gathered her drawings and stacked them facedown on her desk, lest someone think she had an unnatural obsession with murderers. She jumped when the queen arrived with an entourage in tow. She hadn’t expected to see her grandmother until dinner.
Sibylla lowered her head. “Your Royal Highness, Grand Merciful Mother.” She shifted her right foot behind her and placed her left hand over her heart.
As she held her curtsy, five of the queen’s attendants filed inside the bedroom. Among them, Sibylla recognized Dorinda, wearing a highcollared blouse and sharp smile. Bringing up the rear, a girl pushed a cart laden with boiled quails’ eggs, mustard tarts, and fresh milk. Sibylla waited for the nod that would indicate she could move, but the queen circled her twice before allowing her to relax.
“Your hair is too short.” The queen’s terse manner suggested a lack of sleep but her eyes brimmed with alertness. She had the look of a constant planner, ready for whatever the wind might blow onto the cold Myrcnian shores. As the queen tugged a lock of her graying hair, Sibylla noticed the horizontal scar across her left thumb – the telltale sign of performing Dorinda’s Straybound devotionals. Only a cut repeated daily in the same place could escape the Muir bloodline’s exceptional healing that quickly faded blemishes and scarring alike.
Since Sibylla had trimmed her hair several times without Harrod or Lady Wayfeather catching on, she wondered if they might be reprimanded in her stead. “It only appears short because it’s pinned up.”
“Take measurements for a new corset.” The queen beckoned to a woman with a seamstress’ chatelaine at her waist. “She is obviously in need of something stiffer with better boning. She’ll require new gowns as well as shoes and gloves for the theater, several dinners, and a ball. Azalea pink, Tympen purple, and Lipthverian blue. Also something silver for the reception. Be sure it has sheen. The finer quality the better, but nothing too cloying. No sense swaddling the sow.”
The seamstress pulled off Sibylla’s wrinkled dress before she could object. With tape from the chatelaine she measured Sibylla’s shoulders, waist, and bust. The queen had rarely cared what Sibylla wore. Even as a child, she had never been forced into heavy brocade dresses or elaborate tiaras and masks. Her gut twisted with every pinch of this personalized attention.
“Your face is nicely pale,” said the queen, “and I assume you’ve kept up with the concertina.”
Sibylla could still hear the crack of the instrument case, tossed out of the carriage from Helmscliff, but she kept silent lest she suffer a thorough dressing-down.
“She looks beautiful.” Lady Brigitte, Sibylla’s mother, appeared in the doorway, wearing a dusky blue dress and a hat so bedecked with carnations it would make a basket jealous.
Sibylla slipped free from the seamstress. After holding her tongue through the fittings, it was a relief to embrace her mother. Lady Brigitte smelled of jasmine and honeysuckle. Exhaling a deep breath, Sibylla’s tension drained away as she squeezed her mother’s waist. The rare sight of her parents always reduced her to an adoring child. Raised under the firm hand of the queen, she sometimes forgot their faces. When permitted to visit, her parents brought stories and gifts.
The queen snapped at a maid to move out of her way. “Lady Brigitte. You’ve finally returned. And no more punctual than your daughter, I see.”
“I came through Fillsbirth last night.” Lady Brigitte pulled hatpins from her hair.
“Have you informed your husband?”
“I will shortly, but as I haven’t seen Sibylla since last spring, I thought I might indulge in a peek.”
The queen scrutinized Lady Brigitte’s face. “The baths have improved your complexion.” She glanced back to Sibylla. “Dorinda, have a milk bath prepared for my g
randdaughter. We can’t have her looking inferior to her mother. Brigitte, now you’ve had your… peek, shouldn’t you be on your way?”
“As your royal majesty wills it.” Lady Brigitte bowed her head before whispering in Sibylla’s ear, “I have something for you, my dearest. After dinner, if you can make it to dessert without upsetting your grandmother. You’d never believe it, but feculent Fillsbirth has the most delightful shops.”
Fillsbirth was an industrial town south of Caligo, known for its shipping industry and steady supply of import goods. Lady Brigitte travelled there once a season to stock up on hats, silks, and lavender soaps from abroad.
Sibylla kept an eye on the queen as she spoke to Lady Brigitte. “Could you tell Father I’ve a new song to play for him? ‘The Ladies of the Stream.’ The sooner he hears it, the likelier I’ll remember the notes.” The shanty was an old favorite of her half-brother’s, and he’d often hummed it as a young man. Prince Henry would recognize the coded language as a warning. Perhaps she could finally get word to her father that they needed to speak, and soon.
“Of course, darling.” Lady Brigitte swept out of the room, leaving a wake of jasmine perfume.
With Lady Brigitte gone, the seamstress reasserted her control, snatching Sibylla by the arm and positioning her in the center of the room. She produced a heavy bag of fabric swatches and held them one by one against Sibylla’s face while the queen nodded or frowned. Sibylla’s nerves frayed with the extra fuss, but she bit her lip to keep from pouting. The queen expected a princess, not a melancholy child. When the seamstress had packed her bag, and her grandmother finished criticizing Sibylla’s physical condition, they all filed out of the room.
All except the queen.
“Let me see your glow.” It was not customary for her grandmother to ask for a magical display, but her stiff command brooked no objection. Sibylla held up her arms, palms facing outward, as her skin became translucent and her veins lit up to make her flesh flush blue. She selfconsciously held the proper pose until the queen nodded.
The Resurrectionist of Caligo Page 13
