All the Pomp of Earthly Majesty
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All the Pomp of Earthly Majesty
Servant/Sovereign Book 2
Michael G. Williams
To those in need of rest
and to those who help them find it.
Contents
1. All the Pomp of Earthly Majesty
Notes & Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also by Michael G. Williams
Falstaff Books
Friends of Falstaff
All the Pomp of Earthly Majesty
Chinatown, San Francisco, 1912
Donaldina Cameron held her breath and listened: no alarm bells, at least not yet. She knew the Tongs had set up a system to warn each other about her, but so far, she had evaded it. Eventually, I shall have to set it off that I might learn where they watch. She dismissed the thought: not tonight. Tonight she had a child to save, possibly two, and that meant no such flamboyant escapades.
Very slowly, Donaldina peered from behind the brick chimney where she crouched. She saw no snipers or lookouts on the roof of the adjoining building—and, importantly, four skylights jutted from the slightly slanted roof. Donaldina eyed the one on the northeast corner. She didn’t need to consult the moon or stars to know her directions. Donaldina had etched the lines and contours of the city’s landscape on the map in her mind across a dozen years of doing just this sort of thing.
A motor truck’s two-cylinder engine sputtered and coughed as it trundled by on cobblestones at the end of the block, and Donaldina took the sound as the cover she needed. She bounced to her feet, ran nimbly across the asphalt roof while lifting the hem of her skirt a small amount lest she trip herself up landing on it, and leapt when she reached the edge. She landed, still running, and continued across a second roof toward the skylight on the far corner. Behind her, two young women followed after, one built like an ox and with a bundle like tangled ropes over her shoulder, one thin as a knife, and with a prybar and a hammer strapped to her back.
In the street below, Donaldina heard a police whistle and the pounding of a sledge against the building’s front door. The distraction was underway, and right on time.
Shouts and screams erupted from inside the building. Windows hung open all along its front, and the cries of the people inside soared to the roof like flames from a fire. Donaldina leaned over the edge of the skylight and peered in: the crib was larger than many she’d seen but still too small to be fit for human habitation. Three cots jammed against each other in a space six feet wide and eight feet long, with a door in the corner. She already knew the door would lock from the outside. The girl in the crib, pressed to the sill of the open window three stories over the street so she might watch the commotion below, lived as a prisoner.
The waif’s imprisonment had brought Donaldina here.
Donaldina gestured and nodded, directing her young assistants. The prybar failed to budge the skylight’s edge, likely rusted shut. Donaldina rapped briskly on the skylight to get the attention of the girl beneath her. When the girl turned her face up with a shocked expression, the woman held the hammer aloft with one hand and pointed to the far corner of the room with the other. The girl obeyed, scampering and throwing a threadbare blanket over herself for whatever protection it might provide.
The door at the front of the brothel gave way, and a half dozen police officers burst into the lobby down at street level. No gunshots yet, which Donaldina took as a bad sign: it meant the boo how doy—the hatchet men—were likely on the upper floors searching for her. The Tongs rarely used direct violence against the police, but several of the gangs of Chinatown had put a price on Donaldina’s head years ago. The soldiers of this particular organization would be only too happy to strike her down while their compatriots kept the police busy downstairs.
Donaldina smashed the glass with the hammer, one swift blow to each pane, lead and glass raining down into the room beneath. The sick-sweet stenches of sweat and flesh and filth wafted out, like lifting a lid from a chamber pot, but Donaldina wasn’t deterred. She handed the hammer back to the one of her assistants who bore Donaldina’s tools as the other assistant set down the rope ladder she carried and hooked it onto the edge of the window, unfurling it into the room. The two assistants teamed up, turning a crank attached to an apparatus they clamped onto the frame of the skylight. Donaldina stepped over them and clambered down the rope ladder, practiced, confident, and most of all sped by the knowledge they were being actively hunted.
Donaldina reached the bottom, took less than a full step to the cowering mass under the stained blanket, and yanked the covering away. “Come with me, child.” Donaldina’s voice was soothing but commanding. “We must hurry.” She spoke in Cantonese, her American accent sounding lazy, her vowels soft, but her meaning clear.
“Jesus woman?” The girl’s English was good.
The door flew open and a Chinese man in a dark suit, wielding a hatchet in each hand, shouted at Donaldina in Cantonese. “White witch!”
“Donaldina Cameron.” She nodded at the girl, not even glancing at the man with the axes. “From the Presbyterian mission. I’m taking you away from this place.”
Donaldina swept up the tiny mudlark—thirteen years old at most, and small for her age—with one arm and threaded the other through the rungs of the rope ladder behind her. The assistants at the top stopped cranking and released the spring-loaded mechanism to which the crank was attached. There was one loud click, then more in rapid succession as heavy springs turned the gears of a winch. Donaldina smiled grimly and finally addressed the man with the hatchets and his fellows crowding in behind him. “Not tonight, gentlemen. Not any night, if I’ve my way about it.”
The rope ascended quickly, lifting Donaldina back to the skylight. As the hatchet man below roared at them, Donaldina passed the girl up to her assistants, climbed after her, and the three of them hastily gathered their things to make their escape. Donaldina hefted the girl onto her own back. “Come,” she said over her shoulder to the assistants. “They were expecting us. We may yet meet resistance as we escape.”
The Tenderloin, San Francisco, Today
Emperor Norton, we call you forth.” Iria’s voice rang out clear and strong, echoing against the four close walls of the single-room occupancy they shared with Madge. Candles burned on every surface and in every corner. The complex pattern chalked onto the bare wooden floor, a thin line of salt traced atop it, flickered and glowed as the flames guttered in a breeze they did not feel, some current of cause and effect blowing in on the shifting tides of space-time in their tiny, closed-off room.
Madge held aloft a thick bar of sidewalk chalk, deep red, and three feathers from a pigeon the two of them briefly captured in the plaza outside San Francisco’s City Hall. “We summon and bind you, Emperor Norton, to serve our will!”
Light flashed and rippled across the oversized poster taped to the most north-facing wall. It bore a reproduction of the best-known portrait of the man who declared himself Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico: adorned in his preferred beaver hat and the cast-off uniform of a United States military officer, his gaze turned to regard something out of frame. Norton wore a serious and considerate expression at odds with his slightly ridiculous and intensely haphazard appearance. This was the photo of a beggar who called himself a king and believed every word of it. In the dim of the room, Madge waited to see the light flash in Norton’s eyes as he stepped out of the poster and into their summoning circle as though through a door in history.
Nothing happened.
Madge and Iria glanced at one another, then Iria snapped their fingers, remembering. “It’s his night at St. Boniface.”
Madge half-lowered her
eyelids at Iria. “His what?”
“He…” Iria blushed briefly but recovered. “He volunteers at St. Boniface sometimes. You know, around the corner. I…told him it was okay. Usually they’re done by now. I expected he’d be back already.”
Madge and Iria both turned as the door opened, and Norton stepped through. He wore in his usual regalia, just as Madge had expected to see him had he emerged from the portrait. She cocked her head at him. “What do you do at St. Boniface Church?”
“They host the Gubbio Project,” Norton said. “Many hands are needed to do their important work. I am honored to add mine to that number.”
“Is that…?” Madge turned to Iria.
Madge’s apprentice nodded at her. “The project to give homeless people somewhere safe to sleep.”
“They open the sanctuary daily, ask no questions, require no proof of indigence. They get right to the business of letting people from the street sleep on their pews.” Norton did not remove his hat, but he did adjust it briefly, set aside his cane, and settle into the single chair in the tiny room. “They fill a desperate need. I sometimes go and help pack the small bags of soaps and other supplies they offer their patrons so as to assist in maintaining their hygiene.”
“I’m kind of surprised you…well, you’re an emperor. Isn’t that…” Madge knew better than to say what she was thinking: beneath you. “Kind of hands-on?”
“Noblesse oblige.” Norton sniffed once. “I must never be too good to help my subjects. The people who sleep in St. Boniface’s sanctuary are more my concern than the very rich, who can take care of themselves—and who demonstrate it regularly by doing so to the extravagant exclusion of anyone else.” Norton cleared his throat.
Madge wondered how—if—Norton ever considered his own brief time at the top of the social and financial ladder, when he was the most successful commodities trader in San Francisco. Eighteen fifty must have been a hell of a year.
Norton clapped his hands against his knees and stood again, as though uncomfortable with that very same question. “Now. How might I be of service to my two favorite witches?” Norton doffed his beaver hat and just barely bowed to them, stamping the end of a sheathed cavalry sword against the floor as though it were the tip of a cane. He held exactly the posture and bearing of a man of his time unaccustomed to meeting his peers, much less his betters: left foot slightly ahead, left knee turned outward a few degrees, hat in his right hand. Norton smiled at the two of them as he returned to a less formal but equally controlled stance, the corners of his bushy mustache turning up and dragging his bristle-brush beard with it.
Norton’s demeanor, Madge considered, appeared downright enthusiastic. Perhaps this business of summoning the dead as servants wasn’t as morally gray as she had found herself wondering when they first called him back from the dead and bound his spirit. Iria kept reassuring Madge this probably wasn’t even the real Norton anyway, contending he was more like a thoughtform, a being made out of the collected ideas about Norton rather than the actual Norton himself. Madge spent a lot of time considering that and never quite allowed herself to believe it. Iria’s position was too tidy. It made it too easy to justify doing the summoning over and over again. The explanation smacked of a slaver telling himself his inventory were beasts instead of people.
Taking advantage is taking advantage, Madge thought.
“Welcome back.” Iria smiled down at Norton and gave a tiny little bow of their own. It was very slight, but Madge spotted it and failed to suppress a smile. She never would have guessed she’d live to see the day Iria bowed at someone.
For her part, Madge curtseyed somewhat awkwardly. “Your Majesty.”
The three of them beheld each other for a moment, and Madge found herself surprised for the second time: they all seemed genuinely happy to be doing this. The magic was doing its thing. They were being bound to one another, one ritual after another, tying more strings of significance around and between each other, knotted more tightly each time.
Norton broke the silence. “Have you some new petition for me? What shall be the second of the four keys to the city you wish me to obtain? I realize, of course, the advantage of being able to move about in time means you do not particularly feel the need to hurry, but this is a matter of some urgency for me. I need to know my city is safe.”
Iria raised one eyebrow, then the other. “Calling the shots already?” It wasn’t said cruelly, though. It was one part playful, two parts remember who’s in charge here. Madge wondered to herself exactly who was in charge.
“I’m curious, too.” Madge nodded at Iria. “You’ve been awfully secretive about this next key.” Then, to Norton, she added, “For reference, it’s only been two weeks. We…needed some recharge time.”
It immediately occurred to her that Norton would have no idea what it meant to recharge something, but he didn’t say a word. He nodded and turned back to Iria.
“Have you ever heard the phrase ‘hatchet man’?” Iria pulled a couple of library books off the desk in the corner and held them out to Norton.
The emperor twirled one corner of his mustache between his fingertips, his expression pensive, almost wary, like he felt this might be a trap of some sort. “The, ah, muscle of the, ah, associations in Chinatown.” Norton cleared his throat and raised a finger as he addressed Iria. “Are they still a force at work in the city?”
“‘Associations’?” Madge’s expression was very blank. “You’re not talking about the Six Companies, are you? The CCBA? Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association?”
Iria shook their head. “I mean the gangs. The second key is a hatchet from the Tong Wars.”
Madge raised both eyebrows. “Oh really?”
Financial District, San Francisco, Tonight
Mammon, demon of greed, defiler of the spirit of a place, whose name means money but also covetousness, the desire not just to own a thing but to take it from another, one of the seven princes of Hell, lifted the lid from a small box fashioned of Spanish cedar. He withdrew a cigar, set the lid back atop the box, and lifted a faceted crystal paperweight from his desk. Mammon flicked the switch, and a flame danced at the crystal’s top. The great beast of greed puffed fire into the end of his cigar, set the lighter back down, and leaned back in his chair.
“Shouldn’t I expect a gentleman of your refinement to offer such a cigar to his guest, also?” Etta Place sat across from him. They awaited the arrival of a team of costumers and tailors. Her dark, wavy hair had been styled a bit but not cut much. Mammon wanted his new asset able to operate freely across any time period necessary. Long hair was always an acceptable option, no matter the decade. Short hair, not so much.
“I’ve read you were a refined lady, if a bit of an adventuress,” Mammon replied. “I had no idea you were also a connoisseur.” He spoke as though ribbing her but produced a second cigar and lit it for her as she held it with a practiced grip.
Etta Place, companion to Butch Cassidy and wife of the Sundance Kid, lost to history at the beginning of the twentieth century because, it was assumed, she was the only one of them with the intelligence and skill needed to live out her life without being caught, savored the smoke of what Mammon knew to be a very fine cigar indeed. Etta had been in his company for less than two weeks, and he had learned almost nothing about her except that the trappings of modernity did not faze her. Of course, she had worked cattle ranches and bank jobs, driving a team of mules as often as she did a car. He suspected that was the secret of Etta Place’s success: she could adapt to any circumstance.
“I have my preferences, yes.” She raised the corners of her mouth at him, though it was not exactly a smile. “One of them is to get down to business if there is work to be done.” Mammon found her voice unusual: American, but structured, cultured, as though she had lived in England for a time. He wondered if that were the case. There were certainly those who believed it of her in the past. Ms. Place went on speaking. “How am I to go about stealing back these keys to
the city? And how much input do I have on the plan?”
“I admire your directness.” Mammon smiled. “But you’re the expert on all this. Let’s say I give you free rein to come up with a plan. What would you suggest? Let’s brainstorm this.”
Etta regarded the burning tip of the cigar for a moment. “The problem you have isn’t just that you want to corner the market on something, but also that someone else has already been tasked with soaking all of it up for themselves. So really you have two tasks for me, Mammon, not one: stop the rival doing the gathering, and steal what he’s already got.”
Mammon flicked both eyebrows up and down and grinned with delight. He loved to hear a mind work toward evil like this. His current chief business concern was Cuckoo, the app that convinced people to rent a little of their home to strangers for a night here and there. With each reservation, they sold off a little of the places defining them, both individual homes and the neighborhoods where they lived. Eventually, the money would be too good, and those homes would become hotels by another name. Mammon’s favorite moment of any Cuckoo board meeting was when someone would blurt out an idea so positively immoral it moved the goalposts on what they all knew would be permissible in future discussions.
“In that light, the obvious thing to do is to send me after our man Norton. I remove him from the board, then I gather up the keys he’s succeeded in collecting and put them back. Right?” Etta adjusted the hem of her dress, picking at a piece of string or other fluff. “Only, perhaps I don’t exactly return them to their proper places. Perhaps I bring them to you: whichever ones he’s gathered, and whichever ones he was going to get next.” Etta quirked up the corners of her lips again. “With the keys in hand, you’ve got a firmer grip than ever on what’s going on in the city of San Francisco and—thanks to me—your chief rival is out of the way. You’d be unstoppable.”