The Silver Blade

by Sally Gardner

  Sido was wearing a heavily embroidered gown, her hair was dressed high on her head, and sprinkled with diamonds. The shell was still resting safely at her neck. In the mirror she saw someone else, someone completely detached from herself.

  Milkeye escorted her into the dining chamber where the candles were all alight and the long table laid as if for many guests, decorated with bowls of sugared fruit and silver vases of lilies. The blooms were fleshlike, their smell heady.

  Sido was wondering who would be joining them when she noticed, in the centre of the table, a strange cake stand. What delicacy was hidden behind the frosted glass, she couldn’t imagine.

  Kalliovski not so much entered the room as materialised, seated at the end of the table. With him was Balthazar. Sido was taken aback to see the size of the dog. There was no doubt he was more like a huge wolf of almost mythical proportions. And his terrifying eyes were all too human. He snarled, revealing a mouthful of pointed teeth, and Sido noticed that Kalliovski held the dog tightly on a chain.

  They sat together in silence, Kalliovski studying her closely until Sido, unable to stand his gaze any longer, asked, ‘You are expecting other guests?’

  ‘All my many friends,’ he replied.

  Still no one came. He clicked his fingers and Milkeye poured champagne for her, and her alone, and served her tasteless morsels of food. Kalliovski watched. He neither drank nor ate, but then, addressing Milkeye, he said, ‘The Marquis de Villeduval might like to join us.’

  Sido stopped eating and watched in horror as the frosted glass of the cake stand was pulled back to reveal the Marquis’s lifelike head. She stood up, knocking over her champagne. The delicate, fluted glass shattered on the stone floor.

  She ran to the door. Milkeye barred her exit.

  ‘You always were so clumsy, Sidonie,’ said the head of the Marquis, ‘and I see that there is little improvement.’

  Sido closed her eyes and put her hands over her ears. She willed the room to disappear. Milkeye held the chair for her to be reseated.

  The Marquis said, ‘And you still have that irritating limp, Sidonie.’

  Sido had lost her voice. She was shaking.

  The head sniffed in the exact same way the Marquis used to. Everything about him seemed so real. This was the devil’s work.

  On Kalliovski’s orders, Milkeye lifted up the contraption and moved it closer to her.

  ‘I knew things were coming to a pretty pass when ladies stopped wearing corsets,’ said the severed head of the Marquis.

  ‘He is, you must agree,’ said Kalliovski, ‘a lot more entertaining - and much less expensive - now he is dead.’

  ‘Stop it!’ shouted Sido. ‘Stop this charade. What do you want of me? You have done enough. You have ruined our family, had the Marquis killed - what more do you want?’

  ‘That is a little exaggerated. I once wanted you for my bride and if you had done as you were bid, I would be a different man. No, instead, you ran away. I told you I never forget.’

  ‘He has no mercy. He shows no mercy,’ said the Marquis’s head.

  Sido rose to her feet and, regardless of Milkeye, refused to sit down again. ‘I will not stay here. I would rather go to the guillotine than stay here.’

  ‘There is no need to over-excite yourself. Such drama. I always remembered you as so silent, so interesting. Give me the shell and you shall have your freedom.’ Kalliovski spoke with calculated precision.

  ‘May your soul burn in hell!’

  ‘The Marquis always was very wrong about you, wasn’t he?’ said Kalliovski. ‘A foolish man. If you’ve had enough to eat, let me show you something.’

  He came closer and the temperature in the room grew colder. Sido shivered. The red glove stroked her face and she flinched. He took her hand and led her to a room adjoining the dining chamber.

  ‘Here are my guests.’

  On several benches stood rows of heads. On the shelves above were glass jars containing organs. Artificial limbs hung from the ceiling.

  ‘This,’ said Kalliovski, ‘is where I make my automata. I have a choice of heads from the guillotine, for I don’t forget my friends. I have death masks taken of those I knew so that they may keep me company. This one is Remon Quint, the renowned keymaker.’

  ‘Why are you showing me these obscenities?’

  ‘Because if you don’t give me the shell, I will be forced to take more drastic measures, and if those measures result in your death, so be it. As an automaton you will be more beautiful, I think, than the Sisters Macabre, and you will keep me company for all eternity. I might make you my bride after all.’

  Sido backed away as Kalliovski addressed the head of the keymaker. ‘Such a pity you couldn’t dine with us tonight,’ he said.

  Remon Quint’s eyes opened.

  ‘Citizen Quint, may I introduce you to the Marquise Sidonie de Villeduval. Tell her what you’ve made for me.’

  ‘A key.’

  ‘Tell her what kind of key.’

  ‘A key to a soul.’

  ‘Such a key is impossible,’ said Sido.

  Kalliovski’s laughter, like the drone of bees, travelled around the chamber, his words stinging her. ‘Nothing is impossible. Citizen Quint, tell her whose soul it is the key to.’

  ‘Yann Margoza’s,’ said the keymaker.

  Kalliovski clicked his fingers and the heavy eyelids of Remon Quint closed abruptly.

  Sido shuddered. ‘The shell would never belong to such a one as you.’

  ‘Consider my offer, for I will not make it again. Take her back to her chamber.’

  Mr Tull, accompanied by Anselm, waited in the long gallery for his master. Anselm was tapping his foot, looking more restless and disturbed than Tull had ever seen him.

  Mr Tull was feeling nervous too. For all his assiduous planning, the kidnapping of Sido de Villeduval hadn’t turned out well, no, indeed it hadn’t.

  ‘He wasn’t my father, was he?’ said Anselm, turning on Mr Tull.

  ‘Who wasn’t?’

  ‘The butcher Loup. He wasn’t.’

  ‘Don’t ask me, I don’t know. He said he was.’

  ‘He was a liar, he only said that to protect the master.’

  ‘What are you on about? You’ve been down here a bit too long. Sent your brain mushy, has it?’

  ‘You see, I know. I know the very truth of truths.’

  ‘Good for you,’ said Mr Tull, thinking once again that the boy seemed a bit odd.

  ‘It’s Count Kalliovski.’

  ‘What is?’ said Mr Tull. ‘You’ve lost me there.’

  Anselm’s foot was now tapping a frenzied beat. ‘No, I mean, I am Kalliovski’s son.’

  ‘Look, could you stop fidgeting? You’ve been drinking, haven’t you?’

  ‘No. I just know I’m the devil’s son.’

  ‘Well, that ain’t a lie,’ said Mr Tull. ‘He has a few, so I’m told.’

  ‘No, you see, you don’t understand. I am the master’s one and only son,’ said Anselm, grabbing Mr Tull by his coat.

  ‘Get off me! What the hell is wrong with you? You’re talking absolute gibberish. Bloody Frenchman!’

  They both turned and jumped to see Kalliovski sitting in a wing-back chair, listening to them.

  ‘Anselm,’ he said, ‘wait outside.’

  Anselm, suddenly calm, did as he was told without a word.

  ‘You have let me down,’ said Kalliovski as the door closed.

  ‘No, master, it wasn’t my fault. I did everything to the letter, but I wasn’t to know they would find a body in the Hampstead pond, and that some buffoon would think it was Sido de Villeduval.’

  Kalliovski sat looking at him. ‘Then you had better find another way to bring Yann Margoza to me.’

  ‘I have, I’ve got a plan. Anselm has already put it into action.’

  ‘This does not reassure me,’ said Kalliovski, as he slowly peeled off one of his red kid gloves.

  Mesmerised, Mr Tull could not look away.
He felt an insane urge to burst out laughing when he saw that the hand was just like any other man’s. Slowly Kalliovski took off the second red, bright-red, poppy-red glove to reveal his other hand. A skeleton hand. He beckoned Mr Tull, spinning sticky threads of darkness from his fingers. Mr Tull moved closer and his screams choked in his throat as the skeleton hand almost throttled him to death.

  ‘Do not fail me if you ever wish to grow cabbages in Kent.’

  ‘I won’t. I’ve got a plan,’ gasped Mr Tull.

  Next to see his master was Anselm.

  ‘So, you think you are my son?’ said Kalliovski. ‘What makes you believe you could ever belong to me?’

  Anselm felt his words, knife sharp, cutting through his reason. ‘I was left in—’

  ‘A basket of stinking animal entrails. But that doesn’t make you my son. No, you see, you are a common murderer. Take the killing of Citizeness Manou. You kill like a coward, full of rage. Rage will be your undoing. I have never murdered anyone in anger.’ As he said it, he thought he heard Anis laughing. ‘Anger is an emotion that is useless unless properly controlled. It will destroy you.’

  ‘I know I am—’

  ‘Know? You don’t know anything. You understand even less,’ said Kalliovski. ‘If you can bring me the shell from Sido de Villeduval’s neck, then perhaps I will find some use for you. If you fail me in this …’ Kalliovski was now beside him, his breath coffin stale. ‘If you fail me, however hard you try to disappear, know this: I will find you. Were I you, I wouldn’t trust my own shadow.’

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Sido found herself once more dressed in a plain linen gown. This time the dance had nearly defeated her. Curled on the bed, her knees pulled up tightly towards her chest, she felt her courage ebb. The shadows were closing in and she knew she was completely alone. How long would this torture go on before Kalliovski decided to murder her? She closed her eyes against the inevitable and, for a moment she wasn’t sure if she were asleep or awake, for when she opened them a woman was sitting beside her. Her clothes were colourful and bright; she was dressed as for some strange fete. Her hair was jet black, she had dark eyes, high cheekbones and a full mouth, and in that face Sido saw someone she recognised.

  ‘I am Anis,’ said the woman, ‘mother of Yann. Come, I have something to show you.’

  She held Sido’s hand as the walls of bone faded and were replaced by a deep mist. When it cleared, they were walking over the rooftops of Paris and then down into a dark courtyard where the tumbrils waited to take the condemned to die.

  Sido turned to look at Anis and said, ‘What are we doing here? This is the Conciergerie.’

  Anis put her finger to her lips as like two ghosts they drifted down the cold corridors. The smells and noises of the prison brought back memories of the Abbaye and filled Sido with dread. Now they were in a tiny cell and there, lying on a narrow bed, was a young man.

  ‘No,’ said Sido, ‘no! What is Yann doing here? Tell me this is not so, tell me this hasn’t happened.’

  ‘This is now, and his end will be tomorrow, but for you.’

  ‘I don’t understand. You talk in riddles.’

  ‘Go to him.’

  Sido sat beside him. He looked through her and said to the air, ‘Sido.’

  ‘I am here.’

  ‘He can’t hear you,’ said Anis, ‘and he can’t see you.

  He is broken by the knowledge of who he believes his father to be. I would never have had him learn of it. It is this knowledge that makes him think you will love him no more.’

  ‘That is not so. Why can’t I tell him? Yann …’

  ‘Come.’

  ‘No, wait. I must tell him …’

  She felt Anis’s hand in hers and once more they were travelling, this time out of the city over tree tops to where, in a woodland clearing, a young man stood laughing among a group of gypsies. Sido wondered if this too were Yann, for he looked so like him.

  ‘This is Manouche,’ said Anis. ‘This is the man I love. He is Yann’s spirit father.’

  Then Sido saw soldiers coming through the trees, saw bright flashes from their muskets.

  ‘Warn them,’ Sido shouted. ‘Why don’t they run? We must help them!’

  ‘This is the past. What has been done is done. No tomorrows can unpick history.’

  The guns fired again. The acrid smoke cleared and all was quiet, all were dead.

  Once more Anis took Sido’s hand and they rose higher to see scorched earth in the clearing below them. In the burned trees hung the bodies of the gypsies, like broken birds of paradise.

  In the room of bone once more, Sido longed to hold fast to Anis so that she might never leave her. She felt Anis’s fingers, velvet soft, touch her face as she whispered, as if in prayer:

  ‘That is the shell of the shells he gave thee.

  You are blessed, he loves thee much.

  Don’t be afraid, stand up.

  He is within you as I am beside you,

  You are one with us.

  Yann is Manouche’s ghost child. Don’t lose faith.’

  And she kissed her in the middle of her forehead and was gone.

  The sleep that followed was deep and peaceful. Sido woke to find an angel in her room; his golden hair, his amber eyes so luminous that she wondered if she were still dreaming. She sat up knowing, as if Anis were whispering to her, that this was no angel. This was death’s seducer.

  Anselm, for once, was at a loss, for never before had he seen a creature more beautiful than himself.

  ‘My master wants to know if you will give him the shell.’ His voice was almost a whisper.

  ‘No,’ said Sido.

  ‘My master says he will have it from you whether you are dead or alive.’

  The memory of Anis’s words gave her courage. ‘Leave me be and tell your master my answer is still no.’

  Anselm couldn’t understand why he felt no anger. Usually by now such obstinancy would have been enough to rouse the red dragon in him, but looking into Sido’s blue eyes he felt almost at peace, the voices in his head quietened, the flame beneath the cauldron of his fury spent.

  He tried again, hoping to ignite something in himself that would make it possible to take hold of her and pull the shell from her neck. He went closer. It would be so easy, and then Kalliovski would embrace him as his son.

  Sido stood up. For a moment he wasn’t quite sure what had happened, for she began to fade away in front of his eyes. All he could see was a blinding light coming from the shell and it felt like the sun burning him.

  Try as he might, he could get no closer and the light was so strong. He knew he was defeated and turning, he ran like the devil’s own wind from the room. Outside, Milkeye watched him go and knew he wouldn’t be returning.

  Kalliovski, looking out of his window on to his artificial garden, was told of Anselm’s failure.

  ‘A pity. Sido leaves me no alternative,’ he said.

  Behind him stood the Seven Sisters and, from one glass eye of each, a tear rolled without permission down their dead skin faces.

  ‘So,’ said Kalliovski, ‘there will be another to keep us company.’

  He rose and, hauling on Balthazar’s heavy chain, said to him, ‘You may have the first and the last taste of her innocent beauty, that is my gift to you.’

  At Sido’s chamber, Kalliovski removed his poppy-red glove. From his skeleton finger tips, skeins of black threads hungrily searched out the lock in the iron door. At a signal from his master, Milkeye opened the leather case containing Remon Quint’s key. The dark threads seemed to devour it as they pushed it into the lock. The door opened. Kalliovski freed Balthazar from his spiked collar and let the ravenous hound in, swiftly closing the door behind him. Sido’s scream filled the air. As he walked away, his red-heeled boots clicking on the stone, he heard the howl of a hungry dog.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  ‘What is your name?’ The prison governor looked down the list.

  �
�Yann Margoza.’

  He had been caught as he was leaving the cafe. He had no will to fight. In a strange way he was relieved that at last it was over. Death finally had hold of him.

  ‘Well, now, isn’t that interesting? And they tell me you’re the Silver Blade. Are you?’