“You’ll stand with the crown prince on the dais during the emperor’s arrival.”
Sibylla hated glowing in public. She’d caught her reflection once and thought the sight more ghastly than ethereal, and a few children always cried upon seeing their first royal “stars.”
“Shouldn’t Edgar be there?” asked Sibylla.
As the crown prince’s eldest son, Prince Edgar was second in line to the crown. He would soon turn twenty-one, old enough to perform his religious duties as well as marry. By his age Sibylla had already blessed her chapel, given countless benedictions, and ridden in several festivals. A deep frown settled on the queen’s face. She didn’t answer Sibylla, and Sibylla couldn’t ask her twice unless she wanted the queen to spark her earlobes. Instead, the queen trotted to the hallway where her attendants remained, and Sibylla was told to wait for the milk bath to be drawn.
The queen had never shown her favoritism before and had always praised Edgar as the future royal ruler to measure oneself against. Still, Sibylla had been holed up in Helmscliff too long. She knew nothing of the current palace politics. Perhaps Edgar had been caught bedding a maid. Or maybe the queen simply wanted to dazzle the emperor with the brightest collective family glow, and Edgar hadn’t measured up. Regardless of the reason, Sibylla didn’t relish taking Edgar’s place on the stage.
13
Archbishop Tittlebury, Harrod, and Roger waited inside the cramped cell for the prison tattooist to arrive and apply the ritual Straybound ink.
Myrcnian tribes of old used to mark their skin with colors and designs. However, since the founding of the church and the royal Muir line, tattoos were used solely for identifying criminals. During his last hard labor sentence, Roger had encountered old men with brands or ink applied to their foreheads. Facial tattooing had been banned at the start of the current queen’s reign, and now prisoners were marked on the neck – less disfiguring, easy enough for constables to check, and impossible to remove.
The tattooist painted the surface of a carved wooden block with ink, the stencil he’d use to apply the design. He chuckled when Roger unbuttoned his shirt, revealing his old black prison mark.
“Most men don’t live to bear my handiwork twice.” The tattooist pressed the cold ink stamp to Roger’s neck. “Did we hold you down last time?”
Roger shook his head.
“Well, ain’t you a tough lad,” the man said with a leer. He laid out a selection of needles, then opened a case of artist’s pigments in shades of blue, red, pink, and gold. “This’ll hurt three times as much. I’ll put the new one just above your zigzag. You ready?” He swabbed the side of Roger’s neck with gin.
Roger gritted his teeth and nodded. He managed to stay conscious by counting a prior cell tenant’s tallymarks etched in the stone. When the tattooist finally set his needle aside and closed his pigment box, Roger exhaled and let his taut shoulders slump.
Once his new tattoo had been cleaned, Roger was made to kneel before Archbishop Tittlebury, who held a golden hand mirror before his face. Roger beheld his new tattoo. A double-flowered rose in shades of red and violet, and topped with a golden coronet, adorned his neck just above his old prison zigzag. It looked more like an oil painting than a murderer’s brand. The outlines glinted with a metallic sheen, like it had been dusted with gold. The pink skin beneath the new tattoo throbbed. He ran a finger across the red and gold pigments.
“The Straybound Stigma,” intoned Archbishop Tittlebury, “marks you as both a murderer, and a redeemed man. By bearing the Muir Rose, you are transformed into an instrument of holy service until the day your Stigma – along with your mortal remains – shrivels to dust.” He exchanged the mirror for an oilskin bandage with a waxy adhesive, which he affixed to Roger’s tattoo. “The Stigma must remain covered throughout your probation, so the colors may set in time for the Binding. Should you uncover the Muir Rose too early, the colors and sheen will fade, and you’ll be forced to repeat the rite. Change the bandage daily and apply a liniment. Do you understand, dear fortunate?”
Harrod prodded Roger with his riding crop until Roger nodded with reluctance.
“And should you break your probation in any way, or come to trouble with the law before the Binding, or should anyone see your unbandaged Stigma before her highness has taken charge of you, then your divine intervention, as it is, shall be revoked. Your execution will be carried out as before. Is that also clear to you, my lad? Speak up.”
“It is clear, your grace.” The seriousness of the ritual hadn’t diluted Roger’s bitterness toward this spiritualistic blather, though he wasn’t about to argue.
Archbishop Tittlebury produced a stick of ambergris incense, which he waved over Roger in some purification rite. Tendrils of smoke swirled about Roger’s face, making him cough. Next came an unintelligible invocation in the old Myrcnian dialect, which Roger recited back to the archbishop in halting snippets – for all he knew, he’d just promised to plait daisies into his hair. Behind him, Harrod’s boot tapped impatiently on the stone floor.
At last Archbishop Tittlebury fell silent and placed an ambergris wafer between Roger’s lips. As it melted on his tongue, the archbishop kissed his brow.
“Rise, thou Straybound, toward redemption. May you serve well.” Archbishop Tittlebury leaned in and patted Roger’s shoulder. “I’ll see you in a week, at the Binding. If she hasn’t changed her mind.”
“Oh lovely, my bewitchment. I can’t wait.” An insolent grin spread across Roger’s face. “Strange way to deal with murderers. I wouldn’t trust me for a week, were I a killer. Which I’m not, point of fact.” He’d grown too lightheaded now to mind his manners. This was all too ridiculous for words.
“That’s six days of probation, to be precise,” Archbishop Tittlebury said. “In order to complete your transformation from murderer to Straybound, you’ll spend each day devoted to a single ideal: supplication, diligence, patience, reflection, and service, culminating in the sixth day, rebirth. Should you misstep, you will be hanged and mutilated as I said, and only have yourself to blame. Divine grace has its limits.”
After ceremoniously binding Roger’s hands with a strong silk cord, the archbishop handed the loose end to Harrod. “Captain Starkley, as an officer of her royal majesty’s the Queen’s Exalted Bench, I now turn over one Roger Weathersby to your keeping. You are charged with preparing the anointed for his Binding and have the power to punish him or terminate his probation at your discretion. Do you understand?”
“I do.” Harrod bowed low, pulling Roger down with him.
After Archbishop Tittlebury had departed, Harrod escorted Roger out of Old Grim to a coach drawn by a pair of stout black horses. He helped Roger inside, then seated himself on the opposite bench. As the coach pulled away, Harrod cut the cord around Roger’s wrists with a penknife.
“He makes it longer every time,” Harrod grumbled.
Roger rubbed feeling back into his hands. Perhaps Harrod did believe in his innocence. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have freed him. “What the deuce just happened to me? Other than you saving my neck.” Roger swayed woozily. The sight of the afternoon sun confused him. He wanted nothing more than to return to his garret in Suet Street and sleep off this ordeal like a bad hangover. “Sorry for putting you out, brother. Just drop me at the corner. I’ll find my own way home.”
“Sorry for putting me out?” Harrod crossed his legs and flicked the toe of his boot with his riding crop. “Perhaps I was too hasty in cutting your bonds. Do you really think that Archbishop Tittlebury would show his face in Old Grim just so a profligate like you might go home to his blood-soaked clothes and rotting cats? I should be taking you to another dank cell, not escorting you to my house so you can fulfill your week of probation in comfort.”
“I saw you back there, rolling your eyes and scowling as the old goat rambled on. You play the high and mighty hero, but I’ll reckon you’re no more pious than me.”
“Allow me to disabuse you of that notion by sha
ring the formal guidelines.” Harrod withdrew a booklet from his pocket and smacked Roger in the chest with it. “During probation,” he recited without cracking its pages, “the anointed Straybound may assume that he or she is above the law. Should this attitude persist, it may be best to follow through with the suspended execution. The officer of the probation will challenge the anointed with tasks that prove he or she has mastered each daily ideal.”
Roger sighed, leaned back and closed his eyes. His head spun from days of meager prison rations, his neck throbbed under the oilskin bandage, and his wrists stung where the manacles had worn through his skin.
“First day of probation: Day of Supplication,” Harrod continued. “After the anointed has made an earnest and humble plea for the commutation of execution, the probation officer should encourage further expressions of humility and gratitude.”
Roger opened his eyes. “Humility? Gratitude? Just because you rescued an innocent man? I’m no guiltier of those crimes than you, or even the high-and-holy princess herself. If you think I’m going to spend the next six days on my knees praying for forgiveness for something I didn’t do, then you’re a right bastard.”
Roger swung a fist at his brother’s face, but Harrod blocked the blow and seized his wrist.
“You will refer to her as her highness.” Harrod twisted Roger’s arm backward until he swore he heard his ulna crack. “Or Divine Maiden Sibylla if you’re feeling religious.” Harrod let go. “Your insolence will see you hanged yet.”
Roger slumped back onto his bench. “You really are going to enforce this sham, aren’t you? You said yourself I couldn’t be a murderer.”
“Sins always make debts, and someone always pays.” Harrod studied Roger, from his bruised face down to his hobnail boots. “A few days in Old Grim really took the piss out of you. Look there.” He tapped the carriage window. The coach was crossing Brandybones Square, where pale yellow ropes swung from a weathered scaffold. A sparse crowd gathered for the midday hangings, vying for the best viewing spots. “You can refuse her highness’ merciful gesture, and the hangman will cheerfully fit you for a new rope cravat. You are a convicted murderer in the eyes of the law, whether I believe it or not. No court in the land can change that now.” He raised the riding crop as if to tap on the window. “Let me stop the coach.”
“No!” Roger didn’t mean to shout with such desperation. He bent over his knees and hid his face in his hands.
“Don’t be a child. Haven’t you snatched a corpse off that very gibbet? You have a disgusting affinity for the dead. Perhaps you’d be happier joining them.”
“I can’t,” Roger’s voice rasped. “There are things I need to do. People to look after.”
“I already regret coming to fetch you,” Harrod interrupted. “There’s only one person for you to look after. I’ll explain in as few words as possible. You are now royal property, to be used as her highness Princess Sibylla wishes.”
“I’m not some stargazy pie to be bought and sliced,” Roger snapped, but the mention of food reminded him of his hunger now that he’d otherwise survived the morning.
Harrod rapped on the glass. “Turn back to Old Grim!”
Roger might have fallen to his knees if there’d been any room in the cramped coach. “Don’t take me back. I beg you.” He bowed his head. It was the best he could do.
Satisfied, Harrod opened the window. “Never mind, driver. Carry on.”
The ache in his stomach prevented Roger from saying more. He thought of week-old corpses he’d dissected in the summer whose stomachs had begun to dissolve from the gastric juices, and wondered if his own neglected guts had started to putrefy in a similar manner. He clutched his side. Those prison biscuits had been full of weevils.
Harrod glanced at him. “Will you survive another half hour?”
“It’s nothing.”
Harrod leaned out the window and ordered the driver to halt. He left Roger doubled over in the coach and returned a few minutes later with a mug of warm spiced port bought from a street vendor. “Here, tip this down your gullet, man.” Harrod supported Roger’s shoulder and helped him raise the cup to his mouth.
Roger gulped the drink. He thought he might be sick, but once the coach started up again and cold air blasted his face through the window, he relaxed.
Harrod’s hand still propped him up. Roger balked at the awkwardness of this physical contact. His brother’s sudden kindness surprised him, especially after that theatrical turn with the riding crop. Now he felt even worse about his intent to abscond at the first opportunity. But he had to check on Ada and Celeste somehow.
“I’m sorry I tried to wallop you earlier,” Roger said begrudgingly.
Harrod raised a dubious eyebrow. “I think you have sufficiently demonstrated the Straybound value of ‘supplication’ for today. You should rest.” He crossed his arms and examined Roger. “However, I must get you into halfway respectable clothes. My valet can give you a barbering. You haven’t shaved in over a week, have you? People will think you’re a Khalishkan peasant from the visiting emperor’s baggage train.”
Roger self-consciously ran his finger along his jaw. “Never bothered me before.”
The coach turned off the main road and bumped along a cobbled lane. They arrived at a row of townhouses with marble fronts and pillars before the doors. Painted shutters framed three stories of windows. How many corpses would he have to sell to live in such a fine neighborhood? The entire population of Caligo would have to die off first.
The coach halted. The driver opened the door, and Harrod helped Roger down.
“I suppose it’s a bit cramped,” said Harrod with a frown, “but I’ve had a private room prepared for you nonetheless. The archbishop would prefer I kept you in a cell, but I stand by my assertion that you couldn’t strangle a worm.”
Harrod guided his brother to the sunken stairwell used by tradesmen and servants. A muscular man with a sailor’s weathered face greeted them at the door. His dark blue butler’s coat was reminiscent of a naval uniform stripped of gold trim.
“This is my butler and valet, Samuel Dawson,” said Harrod. “He was my quartermaster on the HMS Whalestooth until he sustained shrapnel to his knee during a skirmish with an Arenberg frigate. He only survived because our shipboard surgeon was blasted overboard and never had the chance to prod about with his filthy scalpel. Dawson, this sorry excuse for a man is Roger Weathersby. I don’t want to see him again until he’s presentable.”
“Yes, captain.” Dawson bowed to Harrod and passed a dubious glance over Roger. “Wherever did you find this one, sir?”
The crooked grin Roger loathed appeared on Harrod’s face. “Hugging the yardarm with a rope around his neck.” With a nod to Dawson, he left.
Dawson assessed Roger with an appraising eye. “Roger, eh? More like Shiner,” he said, indicating Roger’s contused face. “And are you wearing a mute’s afflictions? By the state of ’em, that must’ve been some wake.” He cackled and, rolling with the side-to-side gait of a man still at sea, showed Roger to a pump out back.
Roger hauled five buckets of cold water to a tub in the servants’ washroom. Dawson poured in a kettle’s worth of boiling water. Confiscating Roger’s clothes, he left him to soak and scrub until the water turned a reddish-brown from the dirt and dried blood.
“Yer new clothes are on the chair, Shiner,” said Dawson as Roger toweled himself off. “The captain said to make you presentable, and as manager of this household, I won’t be having you besmirch his good name.”
Roger lifted a pale blue livery coat with ridiculous orange floral trim that would make even a palace footman cringe. “Looks like it were sewn from curtains swiped from old Queen Mildred’s court.”
“Don’t you speak of swiping from her royal majesty’s forebearers. The captain said the coat is part of your probation. A ‘test of submission’ or somesuch. Put it on, man, or must I instruct you in the science of sleeves?”
Roger didn’t relish the idea
of promenading naked before Harrod, so he pulled on the garments without further comment.
Just as he finished dressing, Dawson returned with towels and shaving soap. The butler gave Roger’s face a thorough going-over with his razor. He only nicked him once – deliberately, Roger was sure – but left him with nicely shaped sideburns. Though Dawson never commented on Roger’s bandaged tattoo, his eyes flitted to it as he worked. When he tied Roger’s new starched cravat in a mariner’s knot, he took care to cover both.
“How smart you look,” exclaimed Harrod as Roger was paraded before him like a prize racehorse. “To think there was a… man under all that grime. Dawson, don’t let him venture down Kingsblood Street alone. The streetwalkers will be so keen on him they’ll tear him to pieces.”
“He’s got the look of a footman, don’t he?” said Dawson, admiring his handiwork.
Roger wished he’d stayed naked.
14
Not until late afternoon did Sibylla catch sight of Lady Brigitte again. Her mother sat ensconced in the drawing parlor, playing a game of Contemplation and Crisis with a deck of gold-leafed cards.
Disquieted by Prince Henry’s continued absence, Sibylla loomed over Lady Brigitte’s shoulder, suspicious of her message-passing abilities. “Did you tell Father I needed to see him?”
“He knows you’ve arrived.” Lady Brigitte flipped the deck over. “But her royal majesty wanted to speak to him about some matter or another so he escaped to Glasspon Gardens around noon.” She looked at the clock on the fireplace mantel. “Oh dear, I was supposed to meet him an hour ago.”
“This is important,” implored Sibylla. She wanted to reprimand Lady Brigitte for allowing Prince Henry to leave without seeing her first, but she couldn’t be angry with her parents for flitting off, as she knew how uncomfortable they were under the queen’s scrutiny.
The Resurrectionist of Caligo Page 14
