The Stockholm Octavo

by Karen Engelmann

  “I am not an idle tattler, but a practical one.” I leaned over the stairwell balustrade to see if anyone else was there, but all was quiet. “What was the purpose of your secretive message?”

  “There was a chance the delivery would be made by another. It was crucial you wait for me before indulging your appetites, Sekretaire. The note was signed with a G—for Grey. It was better that you did not know who was coming, lest you refuse me,” she said.

  “I might still,” I said, placing a hand on the door. “What exactly is the nature of your call?”

  “It is a charitable one.” Johanna glanced at the market basket she carried, covered with a starched white cloth that could not keep the scent of fresh baked goods from escaping. “The Uzanne has heard of your misfortune and wishes to . . . end your illness.”

  “Oh. Well.” I stopped to adjust my course here. Perhaps The Uzanne, inspired by the imminent return of her fan, meant to hurry my convalescence. The plan to buy time was working. And Johanna might have information to trade. I gave her a nod and reached for the basket, but Johanna held tight and did not move. I heard the faint click of Mrs. Murbeck’s door downstairs; she was listening. Johanna frowned at this.

  “I need a word. In private,” Johanna said.

  “I will give you a word, but not so many more. You are a pale substitute for the Miss C that I hoped would appear,” I said, taking hold of her arm none too gently and escorting her inside. Johanna emptied the basket on a sideboard. There were small crocks filled with fresh butter and preserves, a rich pâté and a glistening sausage, two loaves of new bread, and several cakes wrapped in cloth. My mouth began to water. “I appreciate the concerns of Madame for my well-being.”

  Johanna pulled two glass bottles from the bottom of the basket, corked and sealed with wax. “This visit does not concern your well-being. It concerns hers.”

  “She has sent medicines,” I said, picking up the blue bottle. “But is it the healing arts she has you practice or the black?”

  She stopped at my accusation, then gently placed the second bottle on the table. “I am an apothicaire. If you follow my instructions, you will be well. The clear bottle holds a tonic that is bitter but will speed your recovery. The blue flask was prepared at the request of The Uzanne. It is delicious and soothing and the end of all cares. I would urge you not to drink it at all.”

  I lifted the blue bottle in a salute. “Then I will begin there,” I said, taking a knife to cut the seal. It smelled of honey with a hint of nutmeg, blended in the finest cognac.

  Johanna stopped the flask as I lifted it to my lips. “You are known in the Town as a reckless man of the taverns; no one would find it strange if you drank the whole bottle. The Uzanne said that no one would care.”

  I smiled. “No one would care if I was drunk?”

  “No one would care if you were dead.”

  I put the flask back on the table and stepped away. “Won’t you sit down and stay for coffee, Miss Bloom?” I went to the door and opened it to find Mrs. Murbeck pressed so hard against it that she nearly tumbled in.

  She put down the tray and handed me a note. “Just arrived from your brother Fredrik,” she whispered, “and the young lady, is she the one?” I shook my head furiously and put the note in a pocket. I made hasty introductions, then indicated the door to Mrs. Murbeck with a quick jerk of my head. She raised her eyebrows in alarm, as if this would be most improper, and she set about pouring coffee and slicing the cake, all the while nodding and smiling at Johanna. Eventually she retreated to her listening post in the hall, and I drew the heavy curtains over the entryway to muffle the conversation.

  “There is something you and your mistress want, besides news of my demise,” I said.

  Johanna was staring at nothing. I could see that she had learned to mask her feelings well. “Madame claims you have an item belonging to her,” she said.

  “Word was sent via Master Fredrik Lind that I would deliver this item as soon as I was well,” I said.

  “Madame does not wish to wait.”

  “And how were you to take this fan from me if I refused?”

  “It was only a matter of time once you drank. Your rooms are not so large or overfurnished.”

  “A stupid errand, Miss Bloom. You would be blamed for my death and sent to prison.”

  Johanna looked up at me, her calm face a cipher. “There would be no need for blame; you would have brought death upon yourself. And The Uzanne wants me at Gullenborg, for I am useful. But eventually, I will be forced to leave.” She put a lump of sugar in her coffee and stirred it slowly, the chink of the spoon on porcelain suddenly loud as she paused.

  “Why leave a nest so exquisitely feathered?”

  “It is still a cage.” She glanced at her reflection in the mirror and removed the woolen scarf that was wound around her neck.

  “And what will you give to be set free?”

  “I have given you your life, Mr. Larsson. I think it is my turn to ask for a favor.”

  I looked closely at Johanna. Here was a face I wanted to read but could not. I stood and opened the window a crack, thinking that a breath of frigid February air would help to clear my thoughts. “So? What price have you set?”

  Johanna came to the window and stood beside me. She smelled of jasmine, and the tips of her fingers were stained a faint red. Her shallow breathing finally betrayed her nerves. “I understand you work in Customs and know the shipping business well. I need passage away. I have the money.”

  “You will pay the ticket yourself? My life comes cheap.”

  “And I may need a place to hide until the ship can safely sail.”

  “Is that all?” I turned to find her face close to mine.

  “Do you have the fan?” Johanna asked.

  I hesitated, but there was little harm in showing her. It remained my intention to confer with Mrs. Sparrow regarding Cassiopeia before she went anywhere. I went into the bedroom and returned with a folded muslin shirt of no particular merit, handing the garment to Johanna. She did not hurry but sat down and unfolded it carefully, as if she were a housemother inspecting the ironing. When the blue fan box lay before her, she wiped her hands on her skirt before removing the lid. Johanna opened the Butterfly and studied her, happiness crossing her face. Then she looked up at me. “She is lovely.”

  “The Butterfly. She was meant for my fiancée.”

  I said no more and she did not probe, but closed the fan and placed it on the table. “Any woman would cherish such a fan. Any woman but one.”

  I picked up the box and gently eased the velvet lining up along one side with the tines of a fork, letting Cassiopeia drop into Joanna’s hand. She opened her, studying the face with its solemn scene of the empty coach. “Such a sorrowful thing,” Johanna said, then turned the fan over to study the verso, the indigo blue silk with its glittering sequins and crystal beads. She stared at this for some time before she spoke. “Here is Cassiopeia, under the North Star,” she said, tracing her finger along five crystal beads, a look of pleasure on her face. “The fan maker was quite careful with her stars. Here is Cassiopeia’s husband, King Cepheus, and at the very bottom is her daughter Andromeda. The belly of Draco, Camelopardalis, Triangulum, and here is Perseus, the daughter’s rescuer.”

  Her eye for detail was impressive. “I never did well with the classics,” I muttered.

  She laughed. “Do you imagine I studied the classics, Mr. Larsson? My father was an apothicaire and needed an assistant he could trust. My mother’s only concern was prayer, and my brothers dead, so he was left with me.” She closed and opened the fan. “He told me the ancient Greek myths sometimes when we were working in the shop and then showed me their counterparts in the heavens at night.” Johanna traced her finger along the W again. “Queen Cassiopeia sacrificed her daughter Andromeda to a horrible serpent. She chained her to a rock.” Johanna shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “The queen was a cruel mother, and the father did nothing.”

  “It is n
ot uncommon,” I said.

  “No,” she said, frowning down at the open fan resting in her lap.

  “And so you ran,” I said.

  “Yes. I will not be sacrificed, or chained.”

  “And how does the story end?” I asked.

  “The daughter was rescued.”

  “And Queen Cassiopeia was given a throne in the heavens.”

  She looked up at me, and the furrow in her brow disappeared. “So many people believe, because maps of the stars are static. But the queen was punished for her cruelty and arrogance, chained to the North Star, where she circles endlessly around the pole. Perhaps there is hope even for me.” She gazed again at the starry fan, the pleasure of discovery once more lighting her face. “There is a mistake in this heaven. Deliberate, I would say. Cassiopeia is reversed.”

  I realized now that Mrs. Sparrow had intended this reversal to break Cassiopeia’s magic and show the queen hanging upside down and powerless. But I wanted to hear what Johanna might say. “Why would that be?” I asked.

  She pressed her lips together in the most charming way, releasing slowly into a smile as her thoughts became clear. “It is a subtle insult, I would say, to have the fan’s namesake hanging upside down. Perhaps it was a ladies’ game.”

  “And so it is, but not the sort of game that I imagined.” I reached for the fan, but Johanna did not release her. “Nor the sort I would have agreed to play, had I known.”

  “Nor I,” she said simply, looking into my eyes.

  “And The Uzanne, what does she make of this heavenly sky?” I asked.

  “Only that it is blue and spangled and holds a dark secret. She may not have done well with the classics either, Mr. Larsson.” Johanna touched the empty quill that ran along the central stick. “She intends to make her own history. She is traveling to the Parliament in Gefle,” she said, her calm manner now betrayed by a subtle shift in her shoulders, which had crept up in fear. “She wants her fan when she meets the king.”

  “I witnessed her lecture on Engagement. It seems no harm was done, except perhaps to conjure sinful thoughts. And Master Fredrik described the demonstration of last week. He was frightened, too, but it seemed more like the magic of a quacksalver’s traveling show.”

  “She will not be so entertaining in Gefle, Mr. Larsson. I don’t yet know the details, but she is a conspirator with the perfect disguise: no one would suspect an aristocratic lady of anything but trifles.”

  “And you intend to act as The Uzanne’s accomplice?”

  “Act, yes,” she said. “If I do not play my part, how can I hope to learn more? That is why you must give me the fan.”

  I could hear the scrape of Mrs. Murbeck’s shoes outside in the hall as she adjusted her position. “And if you return without Cassiopeia, what will happen?” I asked.

  Johanna stared at the painted black coach, the orange sky, then folded the fan shut. “The serpent will devour the girl. The queen will come for you. And deaths will follow sure, deaths of much greater consequence than ours.”

  I thought of the Stockholm Octavo, two interlocking forms, one shifting the outcome of the other, and more powerful when combined. “Is there a death whose consequence is small?” I asked. She made no reply but placed the fan back in the box. “Miss Bloom, if you go back with empty hands, the outcome is certain to be dark,” I said. “Might we conclude that Cassiopeia’s return could have the opposite effect?”

  She looked at me curiously, her head tilted so that the low sun made a line of gold on her hair. “What would that be?”

  “Hope,” I said, “of a rebirth.”

  “There is always hope.” Johanna spotted the slip of paper resting under Cassiopeia, cream colored on the blue velvet lining. She drew it out and read aloud: “ ‘Keep her safe. I will tell you when to send her on her way.’ What does this mean?”

  Suddenly, I saw the Ace of Printing Pads: a cherub’s face above two regal lions, ready to do battle on a coat of arms. And close to the angel’s face, a small bird, whispering a message. An exhilarating heat coursed through me—my Prisoner! “It means a Sparrow has sent an urgent message,” I said. “You are one of my eight.”

  “Eight what?”

  “Eight people. It is a form of divination called the Octavo.”

  “I remember this word. You spoke of it that night in The Pig,” she said. “You were engaged to be married.”

  I lifted the coffee cup to my lips and drank, despite it being cold and disappointing. “Things did not go as I planned.”

  “What future outcome did the Seer predict?” she asked.

  “A golden path.” I did not say love and connection, thinking it sounded foolish, fearing I had said too much already. “What is curious is that my Octavo began with a demand that I should marry, despite my wishes.”

  She leaned forward, nodding, her eyes filled with sympathy. “As did my flight to the Town. We hold that abhorrence of matrimony in common as well, it seems.”

  “Yes. Was that what brought you here?”

  She told me of her gray life in Gefle, of her betrothal to the widower Stenhammar, meeting Master Fredrik, working at The Pig, and then becoming Miss Bloom. She told me how Gullenborg had been a paradise of color and sensual pleasure at first, then a place of industry and usefulness. “But nothing is as it seems, and soon I will be trapped.”

  “You are the Prisoner of my Octavo, and I am meant to free you,” I said, gently taking her warm hand and bringing it to my lips.

  She curled her fingers around my hand. “But what of the others The Uzanne will soon hold captive?”

  “I will need your help, Johanna, but together, we can change the course of larger events to our favor, and push The Uzanne from the game entirely.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  An Alliance of Adversaries

  Sources: M. F. L., J. Bloom

  Now or never, without further ado. HE must be held accountable! HE has mismanaged the nation and let the people be destroyed. The First of the Realm, who instigated a war of thieves and sold our people to the Turk, bound them to dictatorship, the Cowardly Arrogant Scoundrel!

  MASTER FREDRIK PICKED UP the trampled notice from the pavement, then dropped it as if it were a glowing coal. “God in heaven, The Uzanne is papering the Town with sedition!” he said. The treasonous notice was grabbed by a passing gust and sent twisting up over the rooftops, to drift down and burn another reader on another street. Master Fredrik hurried on with his package of crisp notepapers and envelopes with their sharp triangular flaps, heading for Tailor’s Alley, praying that the driver had done his honest duty. He stopped short by the window display of a bakery, filled with perfect rows of Shrovetide buns, golden brown domes of sweet cardamom bread dusted with a flurry of powdered sugar. Master Fredrik felt in his pocket for a coin and was moving toward the door of the shop when his eye caught a reflection in the glass, a girl in a gray cloak carrying a market basket. “I have been waylaid by the devil, disguised as a cream-filled pastry,” he said to his mirror image, then turned and called out to the girl. “Miss Bloom!”

  Johanna quickened her pace, and Master Fredrik trotted after her as quickly as he could. “It is Miss Bloom, is it not?” he said, out of breath, catching hold of her cape. “I understand you have been to see Mr. Larsson.” A look of fear flashed briefly over her face, then she nodded. “Did my note arrive?”

  “The landlady brought a note, yes.” Johanna pulled her hood lower.

  Master Fredrik exhaled loudly with relief. “So you were there on an errand of charity?” Johanna nodded, and Master Fredrik pulled her closer. “She sent you to get her fan.” Johanna did not reply. “I was to deliver the fan myself, together with Mr. Larsson.”

  “Madame could not wait for a man to do a woman’s job,” Johanna said, trying to pull free.

  “Your gloves are lovely,” Master Fredrik said, releasing his hold on her cloak. “Practical and beautiful. The dark green hides the dirt, but the embroidery announces a fair hand. They a
re hers are they not?”

  Johanna looked at him as though he had gone mad. “I must return to Gullenborg, Master Lind.”

  “You are nursing the sick, Miss Bloom. It takes time.” He gently took hold of her hand, tracing a line of embroidery on her glove. “Our mistress collects what is both practical and beautiful. Her folding fans are the preeminent example of this. But Madame collects other things as well, persons of both use and beauty—like us. Well, I am useful, but can hardly call myself beautiful. Lord knows I try.” He laughed but stopped when he saw the pained look on Johanna’s face. “But I create the useful and beautiful. I wonder if you feel collected, too—living in her rich house, wearing her lovely gloves, looking more and more beautiful and being of such . . . crucial service.”

  “I was in need of a position. It was not my intention to be collected.”

  “Ah, but you are. I know it, for I have been pinned there long myself.” Master Fredrik leaned in toward Johanna, speaking in a whisper. “We become so tightly pinned that we believe we cannot act as creatures with free will. But we must.” Master Fredrik tightened his grip on her hand. “What of the medicines The Uzanne had you bring to Mr. Larsson?”

  “How do you know what I was told to bring?” Johanna said.

  “The kitchen of a great house is the larder of secrets, Miss Bloom,” Master Fredrik said, “and Cook spoons them out when she pleases.”

  “I promise you he will recover, despite what Cooks spills. I would never . . . ,” Johanna said.

  “Never what?”

  Johanna faced Master Fredrik squarely. “I would never cause harm to the innocent. It is my intention to prevent it.” Her skin began to blotch with approaching tears.

  Master Fredrik loosened his insistent fingers but did not let go of her hand. “It is freezing, Miss Bloom, and it is Wednesday. Mrs. Lind will have a bowl of hot pea soup and fresh pancakes waiting for supper. We need a chance to speak in confidence. Even the bitterest enemies can form alliances in time of war.”

  Chapter Forty-Three