Betrayed by Nail! Roger cursed into the sawdust. He’d survived a hanging only to be buried alive – this time with no princess standing by on her little golden stepladder to spare his life.
As a hanged criminal his body would have gone to the anatomists in Mouthstreet, to be sliced and flayed by scalpels, and held in general awe. At least he’d have been among friends there, contributing to greater human knowledge one last time. But here… After he suffocated, his organs would start to liquefy, and patches of mold would sprout from his rain-soaked garments, as if he were an aged cheese. Freshly dead, he guessed he’d be worth ten shells. Once the rot set in, he’d be worth nothing.
Roger shivered, the moisture from the rain and sweat cooling on his clothes and skin. He jerked his head from side to side, pushing the shavings away from his face so he had a pocket of air to breathe. With his hands pinned against the coffin sides, he tore at the flimsy fabric lining. Pine coffins were cheap because they often contained knotholes that let in the damp, and which a less honest undertaker might try to hide. Sure enough, his fingers found a thumb-sized hole near his right ear. He extended his neck and pressed his nose close. If only he could reach those nippers!
Rocking his body, he pushed deeper into the sawdust until he rolled himself partway onto his side. From here, he could grab the front of his coat with one hand and reel it up, like a fishnet. The iron nippers slid up his body until they lay against his ribs. With one last teeth-grinding contortion, he had them in his hand. He couldn’t open the nippers in the narrow space, but he managed to scratch the clamp-end against the rim of the knothole. The wood splintered. He scraped and scraped.
This would take all night. Ada must be missing him by now, but Sir Bentley Morris’ tomb was a good ten minutes from here. Even if she somehow thought to look for him at the Smith crypt, Nail had surely locked the door. Crypt locks were engineered to ward off all but the most stubborn and practiced bodysnatchers. Not even a ghost could pass through.
What of Sibet? She’d discover him missing come morning when he didn’t show. She might send for Harrod, who claimed to know Roger’s every move. But that had all been a bluff to scare him. Harrod had washed his hands of him now, anyway.
The knothole widened by a quarter inch. Roger passed his fingers over the mutilated wood around the gap and kept scraping. So far he’d managed not to let his mind drift to the horrors that lay above him, separated by a few inches of wood and sawdust. Now thoughts of the “gardens” crept back into his brain.
He scraped faster. Who could be paying Nail to play farmer for a mushroom patch?
His hand stopped. He already knew the answer, though he’d nearly forgotten since he’d been so drunk at the time. A gentleman with an uncommon interest in strange mycology, Dr Lundfrigg had brought mushrooms to the Anathema Club to share with his favorite students. Mushrooms that, when eaten, created magic-like side-effects that could revolutionize medical science. The man whose hand he’d wanted to shake. But that didn’t mean he grew his “hobby” mushrooms in the bellies of murdered women… did it? To think he’d placed one of those mushrooms on his own tongue.
Roger dug his elbow into the sawdust, then pounded his implement against the side of the coffin.
No. The royal physician, Dr Lundfrigg, whom Roger had wished to emulate and impress, could not possibly be the kind of man to grow mushrooms in corpses.
But who else made sense? Not Nail. It required a man of experimentation and science. The medical students at the Anathema Club had mentioned no one else. He had let his own future prospects with Dr Lundfrigg bias his thoughts.
He spat out a mouthful of sawdust and thought through everything he knew about the strangled corpses and his interactions with Dr Lundfrigg. At St Colthorpe’s he had, at the physician’s direction, emptied a syringe into Celeste’s vein. He had wondered about its purpose at the time, but had trusted the more experienced man and stupidly gone along with his direction. Whatever he’d given her had probably hastened her death. Nail wasn’t his only accomplice now.
He remembered that she’d been given a morelle mauvingnon by a customer. Perhaps it hadn’t been just wine, but spores and a solution to help their growth. Still, why use a human to grow mushrooms when all you needed was inexpensive peat? Something about Celeste had been special, as Estella had shared the wine without developing the same symptoms. What if the bodies of the women somehow accounted for the spore’s ability to infest the blood and infuse the mushrooms’ magiclike properties? Roger had read enough of Dr Lundfrigg’s articles in The Speculum to know the physician believed blood could be exchanged between people. If salon women weren’t magical, but the blood-like substance he’d injected into Celeste was… Then, it might not have been an “experimental treatment” but a catalyst for magic – even royal blood itself. If Roger escaped, he vowed to beat the man into the pavement with his bare fists.
At last Roger had a theory for how the “Strangler” murdered. First the women – Celeste for certain, and likely Claudine, Margalotte and the rest of them – were given some form of mushroom spore to ingest, and over time the fungi spores began to germinate. Not in the stomach, but by moving into the bloodstream, then the kidneys and liver, and the other organs supplied by the blood. Under the microscope, he’d observed black specks – the spores – in Celeste’s blood. Dr Lundfrigg would have wanted to keep the true cause of death a secret. Killing, or having Nail kill, the women by strangulation would have created the sensational wounds to distract from the symptoms that had already ended their lives in a horrible fashion. Murder also kept the women and their precious cargo in the city in case they sought out the healing baths in Fillsbirth, as Claudine had.
Science truly had managed to create, or at least imitate, magic. If such a thing could be proved to the Myrcnian masses, the social fabric itself might rupture. Divine rule would be no more. The royal family deposed… beheaded? Revolutions had started over less.
Sibet. He choked – maybe on the sawdust, or some other mawkish tripe. His very blood tingled at imagining her harmed. Allowing himself to worry about her hurt his concentration. He needed to focus. He wouldn’t let himself jump to these alarming conclusions about political upheaval until he could escape. Though if he let his mind wander too far in the other direction, he’d be neck deep in her imaginary petticoats and ruffles, and that might cause complications of a different sort.
He must have scraped at the coffin for hours, working along the wood grain. The hole elongated slowly, until at last a loud crack startled him. The wooden side splintered outward as the weight of the stacked coffins above pushed down on the lid.
Forcing the nippers through the split in the side, Roger levered the opening wider. The plank wrenched free. He bashed his fist against the weakened coffin side. Weighted from above, it ruptured in a slow crescendo of popping, crackling wood. He tumbled forth with a crash as the entire coffin stack collapsed around him.
Escape!
Roger’s elation lasted barely a second. He sat up in the dark. Blue, glowing blobs lay scattered around him. Margalotte’s coffin must have splintered open when it hit the floor, sending mushroom pieces flying. Their dim glow barely penetrated the darkness. Roger patted down his pockets for a shard of flint or match. He had none. Groping on hands and knees in search of his kit, he found only spongy bits of mushroom and corpseflesh.
Where was the door? He crawled along the wall and found it with a few bumps to his head. As he’d already guessed, Nail had locked it from the outside. Roger bashed it with the iron nippers, even shouted at the door to give way. He shivered and sweat. To have escaped the coffin, only to die inches from open air!
In his fevered mind, the desiccated husks of Margalotte, Claudine, and Grausam twitched and sat up in their desecrated boxes. He could feel their dark eye-sockets watching, waiting for him to join their little party. Jaws clicked, dry bone on bone. He had no more garlic to protect him.
He awoke on his back with an aching head. Had he fainted? How
long ago? Turning his head to the side, his gaze lingered on the blue glow of a mushroom cap a few inches away.
Sitting up, he rubbed feeling into his tingling legs. It must be past morning now, though no daylight shone in anywhere. So much for his morning devotionals. That promised “curse” for missing them had been an empty threat – he hadn’t been struck by lightning or chased by wolfhounds. The corpses, too, had left him alone.
Still, he felt a bit… odd. The tips of his fingers and toes had gone numb, as if from frostbite, and now the tingle was spreading past the arches of his feet and the knuckles of his hands. His elbows and jaw and spine seemed stiffer than usual, harder to move, as if they’d been gummed with sap.
“I must get out,” he said to the darkness.
EAT ME.
The mushrooms seemed to whisper, and he wondered if their spores had embedded in his brain, or had he finally gone mad? Eat them? He remembered the medical students at the Anathema Club recounting tales of zapping one another with electric jolts, or turning their skin various colorful shades for seconds at a time. He tried not to think about what had nourished the fungi as he reached for a mushroom cap. Breaking off a tiny piece, he placed it in his mouth. The rest went into his pocket.
How long until he’d feel the effects? Would he shoot fire from his fingers, or electricity from his palms? Or summon the strength of five horses to deliver a fatal kick to the door’s solid iron hinges? Ha, no chance of that. What good were tricks like faerie-sparks or electric shocks, or floating water bubbles? If he could make a spark, maybe he could light a small flame, at least. He waited a minute, then two, then five. A quarter hour must have passed for all he knew before he admitted these mushrooms were a dud batch.
He reached for his nippers, thinking he might try bashing at the door hinges once more. The iron fizzed in his palm. Heat prickled on his skin, and then crumbled bits of dust collapsed into his fist. The parts of the implement that did not touch his skin fell away and clinked on the floor. He jumped to his feet as if an electric eel had sparked him.
This power wouldn’t last much longer. Roger threw himself at the door.
It was solid and several inches thick, but he knew the weakness would be the locking mechanism. It had held up under his physical assault earlier, but now as he pressed his hands against the first wide latch, it crumbled to dust within a minute. He found the other three latches, all connected to the central lock, and ran his fingers along them.
The numbing in his feet crept up his calves toward his stomach. This must be the Straybound curse, activated through his blood after his missed devotional.
Roger rammed his shoulder against the damaged door, once, twice, and on the third strike it swung open. He tumbled out of the crypt and landed under the entryway portico. Somewhere above, the sun shone, though only a dull gray light filtered through the low mist that engulfed Dolorous Avenue. When he looked over his shoulder into the crypt, he realized that the bundle Nail had brought – surely Celeste – was missing.
Now his legs below the thighs turned wooden. He collapsed to the ground. Pulling himself forward on his elbows, he crawled down the flagstone path to the avenue. There the mud was rutted and thick, but he bellied through it, fingers clawed, teeth gritted. He tried to shout, but managed only a parched rattle, as if his throat had been stuffed with straw. When he at last emerged from the trench-like road to a wide hilltop covered in more commonplace tombstones, he felt like he’d swum the full width of the Mudtyne.
He pulled himself on to one of the memorial stones and sat looking out over the vast acres of Greyanchor Necropolis. No one living could be seen.
With clumsy hands, he extracted the Straybound’s devotional pamphlet from his pocket and let it fall open at random. He tried to read, forming the words with his lips, but no sound came out. No good. All feeling in his limbs had gone, and now his pulse slowed, his blood oozing through his veins like treacle.
Roger toppled backward off the gravestone and lay in the grass, his legs still angled up against the granite, and stared at the rain-heavy clouds. He would have laughed if he could. His heartbeat stuttered in his chest.
Was he moving? His eyes had frozen open, and he watched the necropolis stones creep past his face. Someone had removed his greatcoat and was using it like a sled to drag him. He couldn’t call out. A faint reflection on the polished granite stones revealed a slender figure.
Ada had found him. By the sound of her sniffling, she thought him dead.
34
Lady Brigitte stepped back to examine Sibylla. “Beautiful,” she breathed. Pride adorned her eyes, and she clapped her hands in delight.
“I need to speak with Father.”
“He should be here soon. It is almost time.”
“Harrod is missing.” Sibylla strained to remain calm. She didn’t care about the ball. The private parlor, where she and her family had assembled to await the procession into the grand ballroom, was as stifling as a casket.
“Ah, yes.” Lady Brigitte adjusted the floral hairpiece on Sibylla’s head. “You needn’t worry.”
After Roger missed his morning devotional, Sibylla had sent for Harrod, only to have the palace steward report back that Harrod was not, and had never been, involved in the ball’s security. Panicked, she’d dispatched footmen to the Ordnance Board, his home in Burkeshire Gardens, and finally, in one last desperate attempt, to the Admiral of the Fleet himself. None had seen Captain Harrod Starkley all day. Without his particular talents, she would never find Roger.
Sibylla clutched at her stomach. “I can’t attend. I’m going to be ill.” Let the ballroom sink in a whirlpool, she’d uncover Roger somehow.
“Those are nerves, Sibet… or lies. You are getting better at telling them.” Sibylla detected a hint of admiration in her mother’s voice.
“I won’t be dancing a step until I’ve seen Harrod, which is why I need to see Father first.” Like a salmon in search of its stream, Prince Henry and Harrod shared the same ability to sense where their closest blood relations were hiding – a gift far more useful than her whistle-click. Discovering Roger on her own in a vast city would be insurmountable. For now, she’d focus on the missing naval captain. Prince Henry would tell her where to locate Harrod, and then Harrod would tell her where to find Roger. A sensible and simple plan. She wouldn’t lose her wits now.
“Oh, you mustn’t worry about the captain.” Lady Brigitte sighed, then added more softly, “He is indisposed, but I promise you’ll be together soon. I hope you two practiced the proper waltzes at Helmscliff.”
“But I need him now.”
“That’s enough, Sibet.” Lady Brigitte usually demonstrated such snappishness only after spending time alone with the queen.
Sibylla wished she had time to be patient, but the effects of Roger missing his devotional would be on him now: a living death, to prolong the disobedient’s mortal suffering, preceded the eventual stopping of his heart. By midnight, if not sooner, he’d no longer be of this world.
As she opened her mouth to object a third time, her cousin Edgar intruded, dressed for the ball in a dapper coat embroidered in silver and a narrow frown. “Lady Brigitte.”
“Edgar, dear.” Lady Brigitte smiled despite her nephew’s coldness. “Always the smart dresser.”
“As are you,” said Edgar. “That hairpiece – another Ibnovan gift?” His half-accusation hung in the air. Before Lady Brigitte could respond, Prince Henry startled them all by sneaking up behind his wife to place a kiss on the crown of her head.
“Such displays are revolting, don’t you think?” Edgar whispered to Sibylla.
Sibylla thought of sharing something truly revolting, but instead she dragged her father aside.
“Where’s Harrod?”
Prince Henry rolled his eyes before answering. “I’m afraid that is quite the story.”
“There’s no time.” Sibylla gripped her father’s arm so hard that he struggled to pry her fingers open. “Just tell me where he is.�
��
“Yes, well. You’ll have to wait with the rest.” He leaned in with a devilish smile and tapped the crown of her head. “But for my cuttlefish, I’ll give you a hint. The Sea Swallow’s Lament.”
That odious waltz in the middle of the ball. How did he expect her to glean anything from that? Lady Brigitte pulled him away to speak to the general in charge of the queen’s Black Stallions, but Sibylla had no intention of letting him escape. She attempted to sidestep Edgar, but he boxed her in with a sneer. Unfortunately, her whistle-click would draw unwanted attention.
“Once the foreign pests depart, Grandmother will be planning our wedding. You should reconsider how you treat me.” Edgar looked down his nose at her. “I’ve always thought of you as my–”
“Look at that footman’s hideous stockings!” exclaimed Sibylla, pointing to a yellowed pair of silks.
Edgar narrowed his eyes at the footman standing beside the parlor’s blue curtains, then stalked over to fire him as loudly as possible. Sibylla swore she’d reinstate the poor man later. Having diverted Edgar, she avoided a listing Crown Prince Elfred and chased after Prince Henry who’d wandered to the other side of the room. Edmund and Edward, in matching coats and their hair parted identically, bobbed into her path and stood there looking more like twins than brothers separated by a year.
“My deepest condolences, Weed-eyes. Our mother can’t stop crowing over your soon-to-be nuptials. She overheard Dorinda placing an order for a burial veil once the Khalishkans have been thrown out of the palace.”
“You mean bridal shroud,” chimed in his brother.
“Same thing. If only you’d taken better care to sharpen the emperor’s knife.” The boys grinned wickedly, and she could barely tell one from the other. Now might be the time to whistle-click a chandelier down.
“Come, come now, Edmund. Isn’t it better to keep her in the family?”
“A kiss from a cousin never hurt. If she doesn’t mind a few mistresses…”
The Resurrectionist of Caligo Page 33
