The Stockholm Octavo

by Karen Engelmann

  “Breakfast time, and I for one am famished. Bring your coffee, and we will go downstairs. I never eat in the upper room and I need to show you something,” Mrs. Sparrow said. We entered the deserted gaming parlor, lit by the ends of last night’s candles in the chandelier. The stoves were cold and the floors unswept, as it was a Saturday and there would be no cards tonight; people did not go out, knowing they had to be at their best early next morning for church. There was a pair of gold pince-nez and a lone yellow glove on one table, on another a lady’s slipper. I was not the only reveler with a headache, judging by the numbers of empty wine and Champagne bottles strewn about. We sat at the one clean table, covered with a white linen cloth and set with breakfast: a bowl of apples, hard bread, a plate of cheese, and a ceramic pot that held herring and onion, soft wheat rolls, butter and jam. Mrs. Sparrow nodded for Katarina to go and close the doors. Only slits of sunlight seeped through the cracks between the curtains.

  “Katarina loves cleaning up after these wilder soirees; there is much more lost and found. She sells it at a stall on Iron Square and does very well,” Mrs. Sparrow said. “She is saving for her wedding, you know, to the porter.” I winced at the word wedding, and she patted my hand. “Patience, Mr. Larsson. Patience and vigilance.” She refilled our cups with coffee, then sipped hers as though it were the finest cognac. Several minutes passed, and she finally put down her cup. “I have deciphered my Octavo. I wish to share it with you.”

  She reached inside her skirt pocket and brought out the deck of German cards, then laid them out in the now familiar pattern between the plates and cups. But I was alarmed to see familiar cards, including the Under Knave of Books, my own Seeker. “Who are they?” I asked.

  “The eight are not all confirmed. I have been puzzling them out these weeks, trying to watch for signs and confirmations. One thing is certain: I am surrounded by power.”

  I laughed with relief and spread a thick layer of strawberry jam on a roll. “Then I am excused, Mrs. Sparrow, for that red-cloaked Knave cannot be me.”

  “On the contrary; it is you,” she replied, looking up with a start. “Why else do you think I would share this?”

  “You said you were surrounded by nobles. I am a commoner,” I protested.

  “I said power, Mr. Larsson, not nobles. It is the former that interests me.” She returned her attention to the Octavo. “Here is my Companion, the King of Books. The noblest of kings in the deck, a man of learning and refinement. A powerful man who engages fully in life—striving is in his nature. He is also a warrior—see the helmet beneath his crown? And he carries a scepter topped by the fleur-de-lis—a connection to France for certain.” She touched the card gently. “There are many men who fit this description, and in another time, in another Octavo, I would look further than the obvious choice. But this time, it is he—the man who has been my friend these many years.”

  “King Gustav?” I asked, knowing full well that she would see no other.

  “And next to him, the King of Wine Vessels. Duke Karl.”

  “Duke Karl is no king,” I said, biting into the roll.

  “But he is eager to become one. He has called on me many times since midsummer.”

  “I am surprised you allow him entry again, given his treasonous leanings.”

  “Duke Karl is the king’s brother and military governor of Stockholm,” she answered, “and besides that, he pays me royally to relate the vision of his two crowns over and over—like the favorite bedtime story of a spoiled child.”

  “And have you laid an Octavo for Karl? You did have a vision for him.”

  “I did ask. Once. He doesn’t have the patience.” She tapped her index finger on the face of the King of Wine Vessels. “In my Octavo, Duke Karl is the Prisoner, and I mean to hold him fast. I have warned him to do no harm to Gustav or both his crowns will vanish.” I looked at her askance. “Every good fortune-teller embroiders,” she said.

  “What about the Queen of Wine Vessels? The very same card as my Companion.” I waited for her to say the name, but she did not. “The Uzanne.”

  “The Uzanne in the role of my Teacher? No. There is nothing I wish to learn from her. There are fifty-two cards in the deck and tens of thousands of people in just the Town. We have only a playing card in common. But I am glad you have finally placed her in your own Octavo, Mr. Larsson. She will be useful to you in your search for love, I am sure of it.” Mrs. Sparrow reached for an apple and began to peel it with a knife. “The Queen of Wine Vessels here, my Teacher, is Duke Karl’s wife, the Little Duchess. A clever woman, treacherous enough and close to the throne; the two stand opposed to my King. Look, she lies beside Duke Karl in the spread, although from what I hear she seldom does the same in life.” She caught my raised eyebrows. “The cards confirm many things, even the scandalous. See how Duke Karl looks away?” She cut a slice of apple and popped it in her mouth.

  “And the Courier? Really, Mrs. Sparrow, I cannot see how I fit in here at all. If it literally involves taking notes and packages about the Town—well, anyone—”

  “Not for the event my Octavo portends.” She placed her hand on my own, and the hair on my arm rose. “My Courier must come and go in places high and low without the least bit of notice. He requires skills of observation, conversation, and discretion—the sort who can blend into the crowd, with clothes that are well made but not showy. It must be a man who can hold his drink and converse politely if superficially with almost anyone—I have seen you do that at the tables. You know how to lie and when someone is lying to you. Your office allows you access to any business, and your sex allows you access everywhere else. In short—you are perfect.”

  I could not help it; I blushed at her compliments. “What about your Trickster, then, the Over Knave of Cups. He is also among my eight as the Prize.”

  “Who is your Prize, Mr. Larsson?” she asked. I admitted that I did not know as yet but thought that a wealthy lodge brother with a fine daughter seemed likely. She cocked her head to one side and studied the cards. “My Trickster is not someone with whom you would have had much contact, although you might encounter him as my Courier. We have done business together already of a most satisfactory nature. The fan maker Nordén.”

  “I know that name . . . he is new to our Freemasons Lodge, at the invitation of Master Fredrik,” I said.

  “Nordén is a student of the mysteries, and a Royalist through and through. We are kindred spirits in many ways.” She continued around the octagon and claimed the Magpie was probably Mrs. von Hälsen. “She has been a wealth of information since I returned her fan Eva. I cannot get her to be quiet.”

  “Who is the King of Cups, your Prize?” I asked. “And your Key?”

  “I have an idea but need my Companion to confirm the last two cards. I am waiting for Gustav to call on me. Or at least to answer my letters. He has been . . . occupied.” She finished the apple, core and all, and wiped her hands on a linen napkin. “As for my Prize, the indications of Cups are love and affection, grace, refinement. Note the exquisite foreign garb. This is France, is it not? There are four Cups in the spread, and each of these has ties to France. Nordén returning from Paris, Mrs. von Hälsen’s tragic love affair began in Brittany, and I was born in Reims. The Reims Cathedral is where the kings of France are crowned. I went every Sunday to the cathedral there until I was nine. On the floor of that church is a labyrinth in the form of an octagon.”

  “So the King of Cups . . . is the French ambassador?” I asked.

  “No. I believe it is the French king.” She saw the doubt in my face and picked up her Key, the Knave of Printing Pads, holding it before my face. “One reads the spread as a whole. Look at the Key. Here is a Knave between two Kings, one hand on his musket, the other about to draw his sword. Aligned to both, brave, willing to sacrifice. He wears a rich garment, a man of means. This is Count Axel von Fersen of course—remember the vision?”

  “But the escape failed, Mrs. Sparrow.”

  “The first
attempt failed. But Gustav is intent on saving the French king, for not only does he know that the monarchy is sacred, but France and Sweden have been allies for two and a half centuries. The sun and the North Star are joined with holy bonds that cannot be broken.” She tapped the ends of her fingers together and smiled. “What progress with your eight?”

  I began with the news that it was The Uzanne that had sent Carlotta away. “Is this not a connection to my Companion?” I asked.

  “Indeed it is. And a potent one. Perhaps The Uzanne has someone else for you.”

  “I have not completely given up hope,” I insisted, despite hearing that Carlotta had landed at a fine manor in Finland and charmed a gentleman already.

  “Nor should you,” she said, “until you hope for something better. So. What else?” I described the Superior’s unrelenting pressure, his insistence that I join the Masons to trawl for daughters, my newfound connection to Master Fredrik, and the invitation to The Uzanne’s class.

  “Excellent! You must attend and pay close attention to all persons that connect with The Uzanne. The eight will be drawn toward her, just as my eight are drawn to Gustav.”

  “One more thing, about Master Fredrik,” I said. “He asked me to look for The Uzanne’s fan. He suggested I start on Gray Friars Alley. With you.”

  “Did he?” Mrs. Sparrow set her cup down with a clatter. “We may need to adjust our strategy.”

  “Our strategy? Am I really to be entangled in these lines of inquiry?” I asked. She rose and left the room, returning with a portable writing case. “What has become of The Uzanne’s fan?” I asked.

  She scribbled two notes, blew the ink dry, and folded one note inside another. “Cassiopeia is not here, that much I can say. But right now you must see to my errand, Courier,” she said, rising from her chair, her voice suddenly high and quick. “The Nordén shop is on Cook’s Alley, just across Old North Bridge and near the Opera House; it is so French you can smell the perfume two streets away. On Monday morning you will take this letter to Mr. Nordén.” She picked up an unsealed envelope that had been waiting on a nearby chair. From it she took a letter, ripped it into small pieces, and replaced it with the notes she had just written, then sealed it with wax. “We are friends, Mr. Larsson. There is no one else I trust.” I took the thick envelope, painfully aware of the fact that this was the first time in many years that anyone had called me friend without liquor or a loan. “But be careful. There is always the risk of treachery,” she said.

  “A fan shop seems an unlikely spot for treachery,” I said, placing the envelope into my satchel.

  Mrs. Sparrow rose from the table and walked to the curtained window, her face an ivory oval against the deep blue curtain, her dark clothes melding into its folds. She pulled the drape aside and looked for some time at the sky. “Darkness falls earlier and earlier, doesn’t it?” she said.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Temptation

  Sources: J. Bloom, various household staff at Gullenborg, R. Stutén

  “MISS BLOOM, WHERE ARE the fabrics from Stutén?”

  Johanna did not hear the question, so entranced was she by the silver stitches on the cream satin shoe she was cleaning. The threads made a pattern of initials—KEU—near the toe, and curled up in arabesques around the covered buttons that edged the opening for a foot. The embroidery was scratchy to the touch, rare metal forced to serve a simple needle and give substance to the seductive shell of smooth matte fabric. The heel was curved outward, and painted to resemble the pink of a shell, lustrous and warm at the same time. The inside of the shoe was lined with kid leather the color of beeswax and just as soft and malleable to the touch. Johanna rubbed a dampened cloth over the interior of the shoe with slow reverence. She expected to smell sour sweat or mildew when she held the slipper close to her face, but it cupped the perfume of cedar instead.

  “Miss Bloom!” The Uzanne had sent Johanna to purchase “a pleasing range” of dress fabrics, sending a note to the proprietors that they should not interfere with Johanna’s choices. This might be risky with any number of the girls she had employed, but Johanna had returned with impeccable colors and fabrics in perfect lengths. Not a scrap had been stolen. So far Johanna had resisted the temptations purposely placed in her path: a silver ring left on a sideboard, a half-dozen freshly baked cardamom buns on a plate, a lace kerchief outside in the gardens. And she was slowly engaging with the staff, suggesting healing tisanes for the gardener, mollifying the thorny Louisa with her manners, and even beginning to teach the stable boy Young Per his letters. Only Old Cook remained unmoved.

  “The fabrics, Miss Bloom!”

  “Yes, Madame.” Johanna stood and hurried to the cabinet where she had placed the lengths of cloth. She carried them out into the room and arranged them on a window seat where the light was best.

  “Did you enjoy your errand in the Town?”

  “Oh, Madame, I find the Town enchanting. I cannot think why anyone would live elsewhere.” The mercer’s shop was a wash of color, the silks spilling over the counters, and undulating folds of brocade pushing into waves of stiff linen, flannel piled into embankments to stop the ribbons from drowning. Mr. Stutén himself had held her by the elbow to keep her steady.

  “You will be often in the Town, Miss Bloom, gathering things of various kinds that will be of use to us,” The Uzanne said.

  Johanna smiled at this use of the word us. “It would give me much pleasure to be better acquainted.”

  The Uzanne walked over to the folded lengths of fabric. “Which three fabrics would make the most seductive gown, Miss Bloom?”

  Johanna touched each bolt edge gently. She lifted out a green the color of a willow leaf in May, and then a striped silk in robin’s egg and cream, and a shell pink that matched the heel of the shoes she had been cleaning. The Uzanne surveyed her choices, took each piece of cloth in turn and cast it across the floor, a stream of bud leaf and spring. “A lovely combination, Miss Bloom. You are looking toward the season at the opposite end of the year. And at my shoes,” The Uzanne said. Johanna gave the graceful curtsy she had been perfecting in her room. “Who in the household could wear such colors? Louisa?” The Uzanne watched Johanna’s face closely, noticing the tiny movement between the brows that was the only sign of her displeasure.

  “No, Madame, Louisa has a sallow tint. It might better suit the kitchen girl, the one whose skin is eggshell.”

  “Perhaps,” said The Uzanne, “but the kitchen girl is all angles and large feet. Who else?” Johanna did not answer. “I can hear your thoughts, Miss Bloom. Cook is old and jowly, the scullery maids are ugly pockmarked twins, and the girl who carries the chamber pots and slops stinks—the smell would enter the cloth and never come out.” Johanna pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. “You might wear these colors.”

  “Madame?” Johanna’s head jerked up in surprise.

  The Uzanne seated herself at an inlaid dressing table before a trifold gilded mirror so she could watch the girl’s face. Before her was an array of silver brushes and horn combs, jeweled hair ornaments, an alabaster jar of pulverized coccinella to redden her lips, a porcelain canister filled with white arsenic powder for her face, a vial of belladonna, a crystal flacon of perfume from Paris. She fingered a locket, opened it to reveal a miniature of her late husband, Henrik. “We have spoken of your skills in the making of medicines and tinctures.”

  “Indeed! Master Fredrik is much relieved by my tonics.”

  “I cannot stomach strong tonics and it is insomnia that torments me, not alcohol.” The Uzanne waited.

  Johanna glanced at the snaking tangle of the fabrics spread across the polished floor. “I might make a calming powder, Madame. Something you can breathe in from the fabric on your pillow, something that will perfume the very air and bring blissful slumber. My father spoke of such a cure that the Egyptian pharaohs used. Valerian. Hops. And jasmine.”

  “The pharaohs?” The Uzanne’s eyebrows rose in amusement at this cleve
r girl.

  “I have a kit but will need more ingredients. Some implements. Someplace to work with a source of heat.”

  The Uzanne rose and indicated that Johanna was to follow. They took the back stairs to the cellar kitchen, a room full of steam from boiling soups, smelling of rosemary and roasted meat. The chatter stopped when they entered, and only the hiss of a kettle over the hearth was audible. “Miss Bloom will be working here on my behalf. She is to be treated with respect.” The household staff curtsied brusquely; they tolerated these strays Madame adopted only to be booted out in time, thinking this practice assuaged The Uzanne’s frustration with her childless state. “Miss Bloom is learned in the apothecary arts. She will be making medicines for us.” The Uzanne gave orders to supply Johanna with whatever she required.

  Old Cook grunted a reluctant affirmative. “Keep in mind, young miss, that I hear every word and know every deed in this house.”

  “Cook, we depend on you to help maintain the reputation of Gullenborg,” The Uzanne assured her, “and you have taught me the importance of feeding every desire.”

  Old Cook was not flattered into submission easily. “You may be a lady, but mind you’ll do your own washing up, missy.”

  “I can well look after myself, Cook,” Johanna said, staring at the black granite pestle she held.

  “There will be none of snitching and snatching here neither,” Old Cook said, wagging her finger, its end flat from a misguided chop. “I catch you in the pantry like I did the last one . . .”

  “I am no thief,” Johanna replied coldly.

  “And keep your hands out of my cooking pots,” she barked, her cough overtaking her scolding.