“Delicious,” Emperor Timur said, though he had not yet tasted the pie. Instead, he studied Sibylla as if deciding, then and there, whether she was a songbird or a hawk.
Suddenly uncertain of which outcome she preferred, Sibylla used her napkin to blot the remaining ink beneath her fingernails. After the fingerbowls of cashews arrived to conclude the formal dinner, and the queen and emperor had set aside their napkins, an attendant rung a tiny bell to signal the meal’s end. Gentlemen and ladies withdrew to opposite ends, but Sibylla dodged the queen, her mother, and digestifs by exiting through the servants’ passage.
Eventually she found herself standing on the terrace. Overwhelmed by the day’s events, she leaned into the cold wind that snapped at her face and provided relief from this evening’s heat. She brushed her arms up and down to keep from freezing.
The emperor had not met her expectations of a perfidious monster who squashed his neighbors for his own pleasure and plotted to ruin the Myrcnian cheese industry. Even so, Khalishkans seemed no more enamored with Myrcnians than she’d been told, and with Edgar’s dismal display at dinner, Sibylla didn’t see how the queen could approve her marrying anyone but her cousin. Ceremonies had to be performed and magical abilities passed along. If Edgar couldn’t rust, or spark, or even glow on cue, then Myrcnia needed someone who could. But she’d played enough Contemplation and Crisis to know one sunken path could open another. An embassy could yet be gained along with her grandmother’s respect.
She bit into her lip.
Tomorrow held other trials. The first of her Straybound ceremonies loomed, knotting her stomach with dread. When it was some nameless convict she’d spared on Harrod’s behalf, the Rite of Cleansing hadn’t mattered to her. It was just another necessary step toward the eventual Binding. However, after this afternoon, her Straybound was no longer a faceless associate of Harrod’s. He was Roger – the boy with a clever tongue, whom she’d kissed.
At morning’s first light, Archbishop Tittlebury would ask her to read the accounts of her Straybound’s misdeeds and absolve him spiritually of the sins that had legally convicted him. Sibylla had always trusted Harrod’s judgment, yet doubt niggled in her heart. Not only had she never performed this rite, but now she worried that she couldn’t go through with it.
20
After the parade, Roger saw Ada back to Suet Street before returning to Harrod’s townhome. It was already late afternoon by the time he slipped through the servants’ door. Fortunately his brother was still out.
He locked himself back into his room and had started polishing his fifth pair of shoes when someone thumped on his door. Then the lock rattled, and Mrs Confit the cook peered inside.
“There’s some footman on the steps outside,” she said breathlessly, wiping floured hands on her apron. “I spied him through the window when he rang the bell. I can’t answer like this. Dawson’s still out with the master, and the other servants haven’t yet returned from the parade. You’ll have to do, lad.”
Roger pulled on his livery. “Aye, Mrs Confit. Right away.” He buttoned his coat as he raced upstairs.
Balancing a silver tray in one hand, Roger opened the door to a footman in more subdued livery than his own.
“Delivery for Mr Starkley,” said the footman, placing a letter on Roger’s tray.
On the ivory parchment, in miniscule saw-toothed calligraphy, was written Mr Roger Starkley, c/o Captain Harrod Starkley. It must be Dr Lundfrigg’s reply, and so soon. The tray wobbled in his unsteady hand.
“I’d warn you not to drop it, to avoid wearing the ‘coat of shame,’” said the other footman with a wry grin, “but I see my advice’d come too late.”
Roger dropped his eyes and waited impatiently for the man to leave so he could open the letter – his letter – in private. He closed the door and turned, nearly running into Dawson who stood behind him, still in his topcoat. He must have just returned by way of the servants’ entrance.
“I’ll take that,” said the butler, snatching the letter off the tray. “An’ you, Roger, can get the drawing room ready fer the captain’s return.” He glanced at Roger’s fingers, streaked with boot polish. “But don’t even bother until you scrub those hands. The cook will have a brush for getting the dirt off potatoes. Use that. And wear your white gloves next time.”
“Yes, Mr Dawson.”
Mrs Confit did indeed have a potato brush and had already brought her largest kettle to a roiling boil. Roger staggered up the stairs with the fluted copper tea urn and found that Dawson had stashed his correspondence out of sight. So much for intercepting it. He had a good idea who was going to read it first.
The butler was lighting the lamps in the drawing room. “It’s cold as a Khalishkan ice-wind with no fire in the grate. But take off that nice coat before you smudge it with ash.”
By the time Harrod arrived home, Roger was still crouched before the fireplace, his face smudged with soot, struggling to keep a flame burning.
“What’s this?” exclaimed Harrod as he burst in, a wide grin on his drink-warmed face. His naval uniform reeked of cigars, and his breath of Admiral Oakberry cognac. He shouted over his shoulder, “Dawson, go draw a bath hotter than a bowl of Jameson’s cock-a-leekie soup. I’ll boil myself sober.” Harrod clapped his hands as if summoning a dog. “Roger, come here.”
Roger rose to his feet and gave his required bow. He’d never seen Harrod so sloshed before.
Harrod waved a folded parchment in Roger’s face. “Dawson tells me he rescued this letter from your filthy fingers. He seems convinced you’d have opened it had he not intervened.”
“I didn’t realize it was illegal for a man to open his own letters, sir.”
“What lark is this?” Harrod squinted at the tiny handwriting. His jovial expression returned, and he handed the letter to Roger with a nod. “Well, well. Mr Roger Starkley. Now who might that be? Why don’t you deliver it to him?”
Roger didn’t wait for his brother to change his mind. He slid his finger under the seal and cracked the wax.
Meanwhile Harrod collapsed sideways onto the settee and kicked his glistening military boots indecorously over the armrest. “The letter certainly looks authentic. I suppose you could have swiped quality paper from my bureau, but as for the handwriting, no. You couldn’t manage that on your own. And the royal physician’s seal tops it off. Go on, man. Read it out loud. I can’t wait to hear what some mysterious person of means has to say to the likes of you.”
If Harrod had been less drunk, the whole scene might have unfolded differently. Even if Roger didn’t care to read the letter out loud, his gut told him to strike with Harrod in high spirits. In a wavering voice, Roger read:
My dear Sir,
As a fellow man of science, I would invite you to meet me at the Anathema Club, an exclusive haunt for science-minded gentlemen of society. It is located at 24 Brocade Circle, and I expect you at eight o’clock tomorrow evening. I will inform the servant at the door to let you in.
Yrs. Faithfully,
Sir Finch S Lundfrigg, M.D.
Fellow, Royal College of Physicians
Roger read the correspondent’s signature twice over. He hadn’t missed his brother’s surprise, either. The famous Dr Lundfrigg! He’d finagled an audience with one of the leading names in the medical field, and the royal physician to boot. Using Harrod’s seal and address had worked better than expected. No doubt the promise of a medical mystery had helped his chances. Now he just needed his probation officer’s approval to attend.
“My good man,” said Harrod with a boozy grin. “Of all the wild tales I heard today, this here is the most hysterical of them all.”
“I intend to take Sir Finch up on his offer,” said Roger quickly. “With or without your permission, sir.”
“Of course you aren’t going!” Harrod’s voice rose to a shout. “You are mine to command. And even if I wanted to let you go, which I don’t, my hands are tied. You have no idea the complexities of your situatio
n.”
“You’re the one who’s always harping on at me to better my society. A knight of the realm wants to speak to me after writing a very respecktical letter – addressed to me – and you forbid it. But what if I told you I’d clean his boots with my tongue. Would that change your mind, sir?”
For a second, Roger thought Harrod might slap him again. Instead, the captain rose to his feet with as much dignity as his intoxicated balance would allow, and turned his back to leave.
“Roger,” barked Harrod over his shoulder. “My bath will have gone cold by now. Go refresh the water. I’ll be up presently.”
Roger climbed the stairs to Harrod’s chambers, kettle in hand, wishing he could cram reason into his brother’s legalistic skull. But he’d need more than a bonesaw for that.
He trod softly on the thick hallway runner, making for the bathing room at the end of the hall. Inside, a copper tub and gold-draped picture window lent the cramped space a royal magnificence. He wasn’t about to refill the entire thing, no matter what the “master” said. A few scalding kettlefuls would suffice. When he’d made his third trip up from the kitchen, a somber-faced, rumpled Harrod leaned in unsteadily at the bathing room doorway. He waited for Roger’s bow before speaking.
“What do you know of the Anathema Club?” Harrod sounded a notch more sober than he had downstairs.
“Not much. The well-heeled medical students have ether frolics in the smoking room. I used to hear their chatter in Eldridge’s lecture hall. But that’s not why I’m interested. Dr Lundfrigg is an expert in blood chemistry. I might discover some clue to clear my name.” He didn’t mention his primary goal of getting Celeste into a hospital bed. Harrod had already made his opinions of low-class doxies known.
“I know from experience that a pleasant day of shore leave makes shipboard life nigh unbearable, but if you’re keen to suffer, I won’t stop you.” Harrod handed Sir Finch’s letter back to Roger. “You made this appointment, and you’ll keep it. Tomorrow is the fourth day of probation: reflection. That means you’re to spend the day in silent adoration. I’m sending you to the Chapel of the Solemnlych for a day of silent prayer, but you’ll be finished in time for your rendezvous. Perhaps this will be better than prayer. At least at this club you’ll have someone to adore.” Harrod clapped Roger’s neck, and his Stigma, still raw and tender, throbbed. “If you get caught, we’ll both be keelhauled. Maybe then you’ll believe I did this for your benefit and not my own.”
Dawson entered with a silken dressing gown and started unbuttoning the captain’s jacket. Harrod waved him off.
“I’m not that intoxicated, man. I can undress myself. Go see what Mrs Confit left out for your supper.” Harrod dipped his hand in the bathwater and sighed. “Dawson, let’s leave the door of this rascal’s room unlocked tonight, shall we? Perhaps he can keep himself in check when he has important people to see tomorrow.”
At long last, things were looking up for Roger Weathersby, man of science. Not even the act of bowing himself from Harrod’s presence stirred his ire.
21
Sibylla pulled low the brim of her hat. Eerie predawn light cast shadows on the faces of the statues residing in the corners of St Myrtle’s cloister. An ancient stone firepit accented the middle of the lawn, guarded by the watchful stone eyes of the four saintliest monarchs in Myrcnian history – Saint-Queen Ingrid, Celia the Devout, King Roderick, and Priest-King Rupert the Webbed. Three stacked rings of weathered granite stones, each carved with Old Myrcnian symbols representing the history of the royal bloodline, encircled a sunken pit of neatly raked ash more than three centuries old.
Archbishop Tittlebury reverently lowered his head. “Your highness.”
“I, Divine Maiden Sibylla, at morning’s first light on my anointed Straybound’s day of reflection, will now hear the crimes committed by the marked so I may judge, with sound knowledge and mind, his record of sinfulness against my grace.”
The archbishop handed her a jewel-encrusted tinderbox while two attendant junior priests bearing court records and police documents waited to one side. Sibylla smoothed her dress and knelt before the stone pit. She took the iron pyrite in her left hand and the flint in her right. One priest placed a woven wreath of yew branches, studded with a flammable tinder fungus, in the center of the ring. Sibylla scraped flint across pyrite, producing a tinny scratch but no flame.
She would not be defeated by hard chalk and fool’s gold. After a quarter-hour, however, the pit remained cold. Sparks showered off the stone, but not even a dull orange ember rewarded her efforts. Obscenities flew from her mouth. The queen could have set the pit ablaze with a clap of her hands.
The archbishop pulled a pouch from his belt. “A little gunpowder might help things along.” He took a pinch of black powder and sprinkled the nearest tinder-mushroom. “Mind your skirts.”
Sibylla tucked her loose petticoats back in place before taking up the flint and pyrite. This time the sparks ignited the yew in a flash, and the fire crackled and spread through the pit. Sibylla stumbled to her feet, the heat warming her face against the morning chill.
The archbishop nodded in approval. “As did Priest-King Rupert the Webbed with regards to Angus the Foul, today you will read out the crimes of your Straybound. Hereafter, your highness will have two days’ time to weigh the merit of his soul and offer him eternal redemption, or allow his punishment to be carried out forthwith, that he may seek forgiveness in the afterlife.”
“I understand.”
He motioned one of the priests forward. “For the sake of brevity, and per the guidelines set forth by the Act of Reasonable Intent and Solvency, the church has prepared an abbreviated summary of each crime. Should your highness wish, the entirety of the documents held herein may be read at your leisure.”
Sibylla nodded and Archbishop Tittlebury took the first of a curiously large stack of parchments carried by the younger priest.
“You will now read the sins of the condemned man.” He handed her the document.
She read out loud: “Emma Jane, dearest daughter to the late Mr and Mrs Jane, was violently strangled by one Mr Roger Weathersby, a resurrectionist, whereupon liberties indecent were taken until dead.”
At the sight of his name amid this unexpectedly vile crime, her throat tightened. Surely it was an exaggeration. Sibylla let the parchment fall into the sacred cleansing fire where it blackened and curled. She scanned the attached police file, as well as the court records, and one by one let them fall into the pit to be eaten by the “holy flames.”
The destruction of evidence connected to the Straybound’s crimes – investigation reports, coroner’s notes, even witness testimonies – was considered a vital step in the cleansing. It served partly to grant the Straybound an unblemished record in the eyes of society, but mostly so the royal could bestow a new identity. As with Dorinda, given a new name and position as household maid, nothing existed to connect her to the Murderess of Fraycable Street, save for hearsay, which faded after a few years of uneventful service.
Sibylla paused at the date of Emma Jane’s murder, a month after she’d been sent to Helmscliff. Certainly, Roger hadn’t committed any murders while they were together, but she knew little of his life after. A silly thought she tried to shake off as she finished burning the first folder of documents. The remaining records only deepened that niggling doubt, her confliction over his true guilt rising with each victim. The vast, horrific evidence couldn’t have stuck to him purely by accident. Her breath rasped in her throat, and the fire whipped nasty black smoke into her eyes. After the recitation of the ninth victim, she took the last record from the archbishop’s hand.
Her throat burned as she spoke. “Claudine Mary, wife of Daniel Walston, proprietress of Claudette’s confectionery shop, was brutally strangled until dead, whereupon her corpse was buried beside her beloved husband, Plot 715 of Necropolis Hill, then resurrected by one Mr Roger Weathersby, a resurrectionist, so he could commit violations of a most foul passion u
pon her resting soul before selling her remains, in an ill and callous nature, for personal profit.”
This last victim was the shopgirls’ mistress. The two women had left prayer plaques in Sibylla’s name, yet here she stood, answering them by destroying the evidence of Claudine’s murder. Shame prickled her skin as she watched the final documents turn to ash, and the sun lit the sky in a grey haze of clouds. Was this how royals answered prayers?
Her shoulders shuddered despite the heat from the fire. Even after the pit had been cleared, she stood supporting herself against the statue of Saint-Queen Ingrid. The sculptor had attempted to capture her glow by chiseling veins into her neck and forehead, turning her expression severe. Sibylla empathized with the long-dead queen’s misrepresentation.
Not only had Harrod failed to mention she’d be rescuing Roger, but he’d dubiously left out the horrific nature of the charges as well, perhaps in a misguided attempt to shield her. Now she had just two days to have a word with one brother or the other, else she’d be wearing an ill-fitting conscience to the final ceremony. The criminal who committed these crimes deserved to die, not be granted a reprieve and made Straybound – no matter his royal connections. Still, she couldn’t reconcile her memories of Roger with the vileness she’d read. A real monster had murdered those women, and surely Roger hadn’t become that.
Light rain sprinkled her cheeks and Sibylla tucked her braided hair into the collar of her coat. The smell of smoke permeated the air and Larksman Castle’s towers rose before her like sharpened charcoal sticks above the rooftops. She made her way across the moat-bridge and under a raised iron-lattice portcullis. Harried-looking naval officers stalked in and out of heavy stone buildings.
The Ordnance Board’s lacquered plaque stood next to an iron naval cannon in the courtyard. An ornate carriage waited near the entrance, its four black horses pawing and snorting impatiently. Workmen rolled barrels of gunpowder across the pavement toward Hangman’s Tower for storage. In her years knowing him, she’d never beaten Harrod in a game of hide and seek, but after this morning she’d be damned if the first time she saw Roger again was at the Binding ceremony.
The Resurrectionist of Caligo Page 21
