Cardinal Black

by Robert McCammon

  Matthew mostly slid off the bed rather than sitting up. When he got to his feet the floor seemed to pitch like a ship in a wild storm, but that passed soon enough. With his balance under control he went out into the other room to find Julian standing before the window staring out at an overcast, snow-covered morning that might be anywhere from six o’clock to eight. The snowfall appeared to have stopped, but the city beyond the glass was a vast panorama of gray shapes crusted in shades of blue.

  Julian glanced quickly at Matthew and then back out the window. He was fully dressed and had his cloak and his tricorn on.

  “Did you cry out?” Matthew asked.

  Julian didn’t reply at once. Then: “I don’t recall.”

  His voice was strained. Its timbre made Matthew think of Julian’s reaction to the woman in Adderlane whose child had been sacrificed. “Do you have some kind of condition I should know about?”

  “No, and no,” said Julian. His gaze was aimed upon the city before him, and Matthew had the impression that Julian was looking—somewhat fearfully—at an old enemy.

  “What time must it be? Is the sun even up?”

  “I doubt we’ll have much sun today. I think it’s just after six. You should go back to bed.”

  “What’s this about?” Matthew asked.

  “It’s about the fact that I am awake and I am going to take a walk.”

  “A walk? In this weather?”

  “Good for the soul,” Julian replied, with a slight grimace that might have passed for a smile. He turned away from the window. “I would think a servant will be bringing another supply of hot water sometime this morning. You might expect a knock at the door, I’d say in an hour or so.”

  “Excellent!” It was Matthew’s turn to grimace, and it was far from being a smile. “Am I supposed to let him in to see all this mess?” Matthew had already noted that the washstand was in the bedroom, and it had occurred to him on the edge of sleep that the fine service given to guests in the Grand Suite meant hot water was going to be delivered after daybreak.

  “Tell him the bedroom is full of sleeping beauties, we need no hot water until they awaken, and when that occurs we’ll summon with the bellpull.” Julian paused just short of the door. “I told the night manager that Count Pellegar will be paying double for the room. I doubt anyone will be coming up to check for damages, with that kind of promise. There’s no reason for anyone to believe anything but what I said, that Count Pellegar suffers from night fits.”

  “The same as you?” Matthew asked, the question delivered as sharply as a dagger’s strike.

  “I’ll return,” said Julian, “when I return. Best latch the door behind me.”

  “Oh, I thought I’d leave it wide open for the Turlentorts to wander in for breakfast!”

  Without another word Julian unlatched the door and left. Matthew immediately crossed the room and relatched it, thinking how if he turned around and the corpses of Pellegar and Brux were shambling toward him he was going right out the window.

  He considered returning to bed. Though he knew his mind and body needed further rest, it was impossible to turn off the mental scenes of the count and the baron being murdered. Those…and that constant ticking…ticking…of time going past, and Berry still under the drug’s power in Y Beautiful Bedd, and this shred of an idea that Pellegar and Brux’s visit to London had something to do with the book of potions. They could be here for any number of other reasons, and for that matter it wasn’t a sure thing that the house on Endsleigh Park Road was inhabited by the same man who’d partnered with Cardinal Black; the book could be on its way to another country by now, or being deciphered by some mad chemist in a cellar somewhere in preparation to poison the entire Parliament.

  “Stop it,” Matthew told himself, aloud, for he realized he was careening about in a dangerous circle that could only weaken his resolve. For the moment the impersonation of Pellegar and Brux—however insane that idea was—had to be done, and done well; it was all he and Julian had, and God help them in two ways: if they got into that house and discovered this had nothing to do with the book, and if they got into that house and discovered this had everything to do with the book.

  To get his mind off these ramblings he set about returning the ten gold bars to their pockets in the satchel. The pockets seemed snug enough to secure them for the normal use of a gentleman, but not accounting for someone violently slinging them out. This of course would have to go with them to the house and the meeting.

  When Matthew slid the fifth bar in, something made a strange rustling noise he could not readily identify.

  He looked inside but there was nothing but the five bars in their pockets. Still…there had been a sound from within the satchel that signified something else was contained in there…somewhere.

  He removed the five bars and put them aside. He sat on the floor with the satchel, his fingers searching within. In another moment he identified four small metal snaps at the corners of what he’d thought to be a leather lining but was instead a false front hidden behind the arrangement of pockets for the bars. He unsnapped those and was able to remove the entire back portion of the satchel, which he placed beside himself on the floor.

  Revealed was a parchment document, larger than the invitation, about six inches wide by eight inches in length. As he drew it out, Matthew found that it was one sheet of five possibly cut from a roll of parchment due to the uneven edges. He put them out side by side on the floor, and then he got up and fetched the nearest lantern for better illumination than the dawn’s murky light.

  The first sheet showed a strange illustration that Matthew thought ought to be out of the pages of The Lesser Key of Solomon. It was the depiction of a dragon with four wings, the mouth open and breathing fire. The next sheet truly gave Matthew pause, for it was a painstaking study of the wings with measurements marked not in inches but in feet. The third sheet showed the same to the head of the dragon and the fourth to the body and the forked tail, all the measurements carefully marked. It appeared that a professional draftsman had produced these plans, because Matthew realized that’s exactly what they were. And the fifth sheet: a clockwork mechanism operated by what appeared to be a large teakettle, with valves running the length of the dragon and into the wings as well.

  He’d never seen anything like this and had no idea what it was for. The thing was a machine of some kind, certainly, but beyond that he was lost.

  Disturbingly, he calculated that the dragon’s entire structure was somewhat over twenty feet in length, the span of the wings easily forty feet.

  Matthew was still engrossed in studying the diagrams when a knock at the door almost gave him no use this morning for a chamberpot. He answered the knock by cracking the door open and found it was another servant with a bowl of water so hot that gloves were necessary for the handling. Matthew decided he would brave getting his fingers scorched for the opportunity to shave and clean up with the items on the washstand. The servant cautioned him not to do it, but Matthew explained about the “sleeping beauties” in the bedroom and took the bowl, instantly wishing he had not because the damned thing felt straight off the coals. The servant asked him for the return of last night’s hot water bowl, which Matthew returned to him with numbed fingers and then closed and relatched the door once again.

  He put the five sheets of parchment back into the satchel but left the arrangement of pockets out so as to show Julian what he’d found. Before he began the task of washing his face and shaving, he angled the handmirror so he could see the closet behind him where the dead men were stacked. It just made him feel better. He used the cake of soap and the razor that was offered by the inn, and lastly he soaked a handtowel in the wonderfully hot water and just let it rest on his face while he reclined on the sofa and listened to the whine of wind beyond the glass.

  He was hungry and thirsty and yearned for at least a piece of toasted bread and a
thimbleful of tea, but going down to the tavern was at the moment out of the question. He decided to take the opportunity to go through the belongings of the recently murdered, and so he began with the largest trunk.

  Suits, blouses and stockings in colors that assaulted the eyeballs lay before him. He’d thought Prussians of the noble class would be more austere, given to blacks and grays, but the owner of this fashion festival knew no restraint. Matthew plucked out a robin’s red breast of a jacket and tried it on, finding that it fit rather tightly around the shoulders but the length was ample enough and the sleeves would allow the puffs of lace cuffs to explode forth. He held up a pair of yellow corduroy breeches against himself. The leg length looked all right but he wasn’t sure about the waist; he declined to try them on, thinking that new breeches might need to be purchased before tomorrow night. The same with the two pairs of boots in the trunk, being too small for comfort. He found another huge wig and a teakwood makeup case full of jars of white cream, red and purple paints, sundry powders, black eyeliner and applicators for all of it and he knew he was rummaging around in Baron Brux’s dandified atmosphere.

  He had not checked the sealskin coat that Brux had been wearing last night. It was thrown over another chair in the bedroom. He picked it up and found it equally as heavy as the polar bear monstrosity. There was an object in one of the inside breast pockets. A powder-blue purse came to hand. Undoing the three brass buttons that secured it, Matthew cast his eyes upon a trove of coins both gold and silver. He angled the contents toward the light and made out a wealth of gold guineas and sovereigns, also a few shillings and some coins that appeared to be of Prussian mintage. Matthew had no idea how much all of it was worth, but it was clear that the count and the baron had come loaded for bear. Or, at least, a bearlike admiral of the Royal Navy.

  He was still going through the luggage and sorting out the various articles of clothing when he heard a tapping at the door. He unlatched and opened it to Julian, whose newly shaven face was ruddy with the cold. There was another difference about him, as well; a few paces into the room, he removed his tricorn and displayed his perfectly bald head.

  “Lock up again,” he instructed before Matthew could speak. When it was done, Julian sent his tricorn spinning away upon the sofa. “How do you like the first step in the trans-formation from Devane to Pellegar?”

  “Delightful,” said Matthew. “Doubly cold up there, I’d think.”

  “I found a barber open early, he did the chore. Have you put the corpses in the fireplace and burned them up yet?”

  “Uh…no, I was going to do that after I’d had a bite to eat.”

  “Well, say no more!” Julian reached into his cloak and brought out an object wrapped up in waxed paper. He offered it to Matthew. “A bakery was also open. A piece of raisin cake, specialty of the day.”

  “Much appreciated,” Matthew said as he took what might be meager replenishment, but welcome all the same. “I presume you’ve already eaten breakfast?”

  “A tavern around the corner serves very excellent beef hash and eggs. I deserved something substantial after having my head scraped.”

  “I might deserve a trip to that tavern for what I’ve found. Look here.” While he ate the raisin cake, Matthew first showed Julian Brux’s purse with all the money, and then he brought the diagrams out of the satchel. “What do you make of those?”

  “Plans drawn up by a lunatic, it looks to me,” Julian said after surveying all five of the sheets. “The measurements are…twenty feet in length? And the wing span forty feet? Of what purpose could this be?”

  “I don’t know, but evidently the count and the baron prized these diagrams highly enough to hide them in the satchel. And I believe the diagrams as well as the gold bars are destined for the admiral’s house tomorrow night. Otherwise, what are they doing here?”

  “Agreed. I see you’ve shaved. You let the servant in with the hot water?”

  “I handled it,” Matthew said. He motioned toward the bedroom. “I’m in the process of going through the luggage. I can wear Brux’s jackets and blouses but not the breeches nor the boots. I found his makeup case too, which I detest to use but it’s a necessity. You need to go through Pellegar’s things and see what you can wear.”

  “Well,” said Julian as he joined his tricorn on the sofa, “here is my suggestion. First I’ll do as you say, and then we take some of their money, go out and get you an ample meal and after that we find whatever else is lacking. I’m sure we can locate a bootmaker with some ready-mades on hand. The same with a tailor and the breeches. I’ll need to also use that makeup case. The bald head won’t be enough, and at some point I’ll have to lower the muffler from my face.”

  “All right, that sounds good.”

  “And further,” Julian continued, “we dress up as the count and the baron tonight, and go have our supper.”

  “Tonight? Why?”

  “Because we need to get used to the costumes. Starting tonight, when we have all the garments in order, we don’t need to leave this room as anyone but those two. It will be vital that we play these parts as if we are the count and baron. Our lives may depend on it, and you know that very well.”

  “Yes,” Matthew said, “I do.” The idea made sense, however bizarre. But Matthew considered it as a dress rehearsal for a play…an extremely dangerous play, and one that had to be acted out with extreme vigilance.

  Within the hour they left the Mayfair Arms, bundled up in their cloaks and walking into the bitter cold of the gray and snow-swept day. Julian had discovered that he could wear Pellegar’s breeches and the tricorn adorned with the gaudy feathers, but the jackets were too small and the boots too narrow. The polar bear coat, being an extra-large monstrosity, did fit him and so that was a positive point. Matthew had shrugged into Brux’s sealskin coat and found it tight around the shoulders but it would do as would the second outlandish wig and the purple tricorn. Pairs of calfskin, ostrich and what looked to be crocodile-hide gloves fit both men. Thus the conspirators had their tasks before them and set off first to get Matthew fed and watered, which occurred with a platter of baked chicken, green beans, yams and a mug of hot cider at the tavern a block away where Julian had secured his breakfast.

  Though the day was inhospitable and the cold bone-cracking, the citizens of London were taking this in their stride. There was no shortage of people on the sidewalks, and on the streets a parade of wagons, carriages and coaches were carving paths through the snow. Matthew and Julian set off from the tavern in search of a bootmaker and had to visit several before they found ready-mades in their sizes and in the more exotic and expensive leathers suitable for Prussian noblemen.

  Then it was off to find a tailor, and in the area around the Mayfair Arms with its coffee shops, theaters and other refinements there were many to choose from. The second shop they entered supplied to Matthew a pair of brown-checked breeches that were the most flamboyant in the establishment, and to Julian a bright yellow jacket that the tailor explained was made for an eccentric nobleman who unfortunately—before claiming the item—died from heart failure after a night carousing with the wenches of Whitechapel, which to Matthew was many worlds away from the strange new land he currently explored. Matthew also purchased a purple cravat that was nearly the same color as Brux’s bruise of a tricorn, and recalling a jacket in the baron’s trunk the color of shiny brown mud with a bright red piping he considered his costume complete.

  ****

  Upon the hour of seven o’clock in the evening, as the fireplace in the lobby of the Mayfair Arms burned its logs so quietly one might think it had been tamed by the management, and as various guests lounged about in the seating areas and the musical trio tuned their instruments for their nightly presentation, two men who might have hailed from another planet descended the staircase.

  One wore a massive white polar bear of a coat, a red tricorn adorned with half a dozen feather
s of various hues sticking up from its golden band, a pair of gray breeches with red stripes up the legs, gray stockings, an eye-stunning yellow jacket, a lavender-hued blouse and a white cravat wound around the throat. On his feet were greenish-black boots made from the hide of the South American python and his hands were protected by ostrich-skin gloves. It was apparent this gentleman was bald beneath his tricorn. His face was whitened by powder and the cheekbones heightened with red rouge.

  The second man of the moment was taller and slimmer than the first. He was made much taller if one counted height by the elaborate white wig that wobbled atop his head and was in turn topped by a purple tricorn. This curiosity of nature wore a long coat of gray sealskin, a pair of brown-checked breeches, pale yellow stockings, a maroon blouse, a jacket the color of brown street mud that yet had a strange and somewhat fascinating shine to its fabric, a pair of calfskin gloves and on his feet boots that few but the most seasoned world travellers would recognize as gray elephant hide. The gentleman’s face was a white mask from chin to the hairline, with red arcs drawn above the eyebrows to give the face the illusion of further length.

  As these aliens to the more sedate style of the London elegant came down the stairs, they gathered a few stares, shrugs and contemplative puffs of clay pipes from idlers in the lantern-lit lobby, but that was the limit of interest. The knowledge among the guests here was that if one could afford lodgings at the Mayfair Arms, one was entitled to show their colors to the world, no matter which world they represented.

  “Ow,” said Matthew very quietly, as his left ankle in its elephant-hide boot threatened to turn on him in anger for being pushed into such an unyielding enclosure. In truth, the boots would’ve needed a long breaking-in period before they were comfortable, and these bastards wanted to hobble their owner before the bottom of the stairs was reached.