The Stockholm Octavo

by Karen Engelmann

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  The Royal Suite

  Sources: E. L., Captain H., J. Bloom

  ON MY WAY BACK to Tailor’s Alley from Mrs. Sparrow’s for a few hours’ sleep, I went by Auntie von Platen’s again. There was a cluster of lively gentlemen outside, a large cluster given the hour. Hinken was barring the door, exchanging jests, a wicked iron implement at the ready should things get out of hand. I caught his eye and he nodded that I should go around the back. “My room,” he said.

  “There is a queue here!” a man called out angrily.

  “I know your habits, Magistrate. You wouldn’t want what’s in my room,” Hinken said, leering at the man, who backed quietly away.

  I pushed past two girls in the kitchen doorway, wrapped in thick blankets and smoking clay pipes, asking the fastest way to Hinken’s room. They pointed to a passage that connected to the central stairway. I hurried through this fetid tunnel smelling of rose water, jasmine, and piss, then climbed the three dark flights to the royal suite, two steps at a time. I knocked softly on Hinken’s door, then knocked again when there was no reply. The attic floor was quiet and dark, warmer from the heat rising through the rest of the house, and I feared that she was deep asleep or sorely injured and would not wake. Then I heard her voice. “This room is taken for the night.”

  I pressed myself into the door, as if I could melt through the planks. “That is what I hoped, Johanna Bloom.” The click of the bolt and handle’s squeak were like the opening notes of a song, and then she stood before me, the faint flame of a rush lamp illuminating her face. Her hair was tangled and damp, a long gash marred her pale unwashed cheek, and her form was swallowed by men’s drab garb, no doubt from Hinken’s duffle. But the gaze that fell upon me was flawless, open blue. I stepped inside, and she closed and bolted the door. Daybreak sent a gray wash into the room, cold and unflattering. A seagull cawed a greeting to the bakers, on their way to start the morning bread.

  “She succeeded then, in the end,” Johanna said.

  “No. She failed, and a gunman tried. But Gustav has bested them all,” I said. “He lives.”

  Johanna placed the rush lamp on the nightstand table and stood stiffly, hands clasped together. “She will try again.”

  “I have been to Gustav’s sickroom this night, Johanna—a press of admirers and friends. She would not dare.”

  “I am her protégée. I know what she would dare.” She looked down at the floor, shaking her head, then back at me. “I will try again, too.”

  “Johanna, leave it. She will not reach Gustav, but she will reach you.” I pried open her clasped hands and took them in my own. “Remain here and hidden until Hinken sails.”

  “And where will you go?” she asked. “Do you really think you lie outside her web?”

  I did not answer for a moment; I had never thought of going anywhere. “I am a man of the Town,” I said finally. “There is nowhere else.”

  Her hands slipped from mine and I felt them warm on my face, palms soft on the stubble of my beard. “There is a world, Emil.” And in the kiss she gave me was a glimpse of it.

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Attending the Living and the Dead

  Sources: E. L., Captain H., M. F. L., L. Nordén, M. Nordén, Mrs. S., Mrs. Lind, Red Brita, various mourners and neighbors

  I ARRIVED WELL AHEAD of the agreed-upon hour and took a seat in the back of the near-empty Pig. When Hinken entered, I stood so fast that the bench toppled back with a crash. “Calm yourself, Emil. Your cargo is quite safe,” Hinken said quietly, righting the bench and sitting down beside me. “You might have told me he was a she.”

  The innkeeper came up, and we ordered beer and the day’s offering. When the man was out of earshot, Hinken leaned over the table. “You are getting a good return on your favor to me, Sekretaire. I will include the additional costs I have incurred. I like the girl.” He laughed when he saw the pained look on my face. The mugs of beer arrived, and steaming eel in lemon balm sauce with black bread to wipe the bowls.

  “I need to see her,” I said.

  “She has informed me of her predicament. And yours.” He raised his glass to me. “Steer clear of Baggens Street; you are probably being watched.” I argued hotly that this seemed unlikely—the Town was focused only on Gustav. Hinken shook his head at my naïveté. “Sekretaire, my life is a constant game of chase, capture, and escape. I know the rules well.” His experience trumped my conjecture. “Keep an eye on your cards, and I will keep my eye on the goods,” he said, forking a large white chunk of eel into his mouth. “And take up your gaming again. It will keep your mind off Miss Bloom.”

  I TOOK HIS ADVICE, painful as it was, and stayed clear of the orange house. That night I played cards at Mrs. Sparrow’s, and next morning took up watch again on Castleback, outside the palace. The scene took on a cautiously festive air, as news from the bedchamber was that Gustav was mending. Peddlers roasted chestnuts and skewers of meat on braziers, and the trinket sellers moved up from the quay, doing a brisk business in pennants with the three crowns and portraits of the king. Uniformed guards stood by as coaches streamed through the Outer Courtyard, protection for the nobility within. There had been many acts of violence against aristocrats since the shooting, the citizenry placing the blame for the shooting squarely in the House of Nobles.

  I never entered the bedchamber again after the sixteenth, but those who came and went were generous with their reports: extravagantly dressed visitors came bearing extravagant gifts; longtime enemies came seeking to make amends and left in tears at their folly; the three finest surgeons in Sweden were on call around the clock; the bullet had not been extracted, but Gustav was alert; Gustav sat in an armchair and felt much improved; Gustav laughed with the Russian ambassador; Gustav ate a hearty dinner followed by a dessert of ices; Duke Karl was a constant visitor, but the queen was seldom seen. When I asked about The Uzanne, no one could say.

  The weather was leaning milder now, a boon to those on watch. It was on a sunny day with a brisk wind that Master Fredrik ran up to me, looking utterly distraught. “Can it be you have not heard the news?”

  I looked around, but the crowd appeared calm. “What?” I asked. “Is the bullet removed?”

  “No, Emil, it is Christian Nordén. He has passed over.” It took several moments before this dire news sunk in, and then my knees nearly gave way. Master Fredrik caught my arm and pulled me upright. We walked together to the relative privacy of the vast colonnade. “Miss Plomgren claims that Christian fainted the night of the masked ball, overcome by the notion of harsh questioning postshooting. Or the shock, perhaps, from the brutal attempt on the king.”

  “Those are not fatal blows, Master Fredrik,” I said, grateful for his arm to lean upon, overcome with regret that I had so neglected the distraught Christian.

  Master Fredrik stepped out of the sun and lowered his voice. “Miss Plomgren claims to be grief stricken, and unable to recall specifics.” He paused, his brow furrowed with concern. “They say it was as if he fell asleep and did not wake up.”

  This statement was not lost on me. “The Uzanne,” I whispered.

  “I confess to drawing a similar conclusion.” Master Fredrik stopped and stared down at something crushed into the cobblestones. “I feel in part responsible.”

  “We all are,” I replied.

  “You know that Miss Plomgren is now Mrs. Nordén?” he said. I shook my head, eyes wide. “She will take charge of the Nordén Atelier, together with her new husband, Lars. She vows the shop will flourish.” Master Fredrik stooped and picked up a trampled lady’s glove. “But I fear it will be on terms that hardly suit the widow and her coming child.”

  Margot.

  THE WINDOWS OF THE NORDÉN ATELIER were draped with black crepe bunting, a single votive lighting a display of black fans. Neighbors stood in clumps outside, whispering. A wreath of boxwood hung on the door, but Margot had refused the chopped-off pines that Anna Maria suggested, calling the practice barb
aric. The front room was drained of its elegance and charm, the pine coffin resting on the two slender desks. Half a dozen mourners sat on gilt wood orchestra chairs borrowed from the Opera, courtesy of the Plomgrens. Margot seemed to have shrunk in size and lost all color, despite her advanced pregnancy. Mr. Plomgren looked at his daughter, an undisguised happiness on his face. Mother Plomgren’s gaze took inventory of the room, her feet tapping restlessly. Master Fredrik sipped coffee with Mrs. Lind, and the neighbor Red Brita wandered into the back room, where refreshments were served, and emerged with a saffron pretzel. Anna Maria, veiled and tearful, clung to the grieving brother, Lars. But then she raised her head and looked at me, and I read panic behind the black net of her hat.

  Margot was Catholic and Christian a Lutheran, so no priest or minister from either church would say the prayers. Master Fredrik agreed to read Psalm Twenty-three, and the men followed the hearse all the way to the Sluice. We did not cross to South Borough but returned for the funeral luncheon; the ground, just starting to soften, was not ready to receive the coffin, and so the box would be placed with the other winter dead, waiting for spring.

  It was after most everyone left that I finally sat beside Margot. She gazed at a distant, invisible spot and shook her head. “Gone. All gone. My husband. Our shop. My country. My new king. My future. I have only to think of the child, and I cannot think what,” she said. I had no words, so we sat together in silence. I looked down at Margot’s feet, crossed at the ankle; her shoes were polished and clean, the toes pointed and with an upturned end. I could see that the heels had been repaired, and newly painted a deep blue. They were not the shoes of a woman who was to be left alone. Eventually her focus returned to the room and she said, “I have lost all connection to this place.”

  I leaned toward her, and could smell the lemon verbena scent that was a trademark of the atelier. I looked at her face, drawn and pale, the lips with a line of dark red where they were chapped and bitten, the crease between her eyebrows deep and troubled. I held my breath and took her hand, turning her palm up and tracing a line with my finger. “We are connected, Margot. You are one of my eight.” She focused on me a puzzled look. “I will help you. That is all you need to know right now.”

  She gave me the faintest of smiles and turned her hand to twine her fingers through mine. “Thank you, Emil. I will need my friends.”

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Blood Oranges

  Sources: E. L., Dr. af Acrel, sickroom guests, Captain Jo. C•••

  THE NEXT DAY, I resumed my watch at the palace. There I met the Superior, who shared my affection for Gustav and my unkempt appearance; neither of us had slept well since the attack or taken much care with our grooming. Our days were given over to watch and worry. His nights were given over to prayer. My nights were given to the cards and long walks down Blackman Street to the corner of Baggens, leaning in for a glimpse of the orange house. The Superior and I were sharing the latest word from Gustav’s bedside when I saw her on the far side of the colonnade. In truth what I noticed first was the basket, filled with fruit, brilliant against the gray throng. The basket was carried by a young girl of perhaps seven, with hair so blond it was almost white, dressed in a velvet coat the color of dawn. The child carried her basket as if it contained the crown jewels, her face a mixture of pride and fear. Someone was bringing a treasure of Spanish blood oranges to the injured king. It was The Uzanne.

  The crowd parted for the child. The Uzanne followed, a gray silk fan trimmed with silver clasped unopened in one hand, the other outstretched just above the girl’s shoulder but not touching it, as if she were guiding the child forward by magnetism alone. The Uzanne, too, had a radiant smile. I called her name and pushed through the crowd to confront her, to knock the oranges from the basket and keep her from entering, but the guards, noting my unkempt appearance and wild red eyes, held me back. I called out to The Uzanne again and she turned her head. Her look of irritation was barely masked. “Sekretaire?” she said.

  “Sekretaire Larsson, Madame. We met at one of your lectures.”

  Her eyes widened slightly. “You are . . . well?”

  “I was saved, Madame, saved by . . .” I stopped before I said Johanna’s name or hurled an accusation that I could never prove. The people around me were quiet now, listening. “I believe I was saved by your generosity. I meant to thank you in person, but my convalescence was lengthy and the contagion deadly.”

  She turned around to face me full on and took two steps in my direction, the blond child left alone with the basket of fruit. “So you found the medicines to be beneficial?”

  “The one that I could swallow. The other bottle was broken, and a pity . . . your girl promised an incomparable rest.” I shook my head in mock sorrow. “I trust she returned your fan? I hoped to have the pleasure myself.”

  The Uzanne leaned forward. “We have met more than once, I think.”

  “I am often mistaken for someone else,” I said, pressing through the crowd to get close.

  “That can be useful.” The Uzanne held up her fan, as if to snap it open, but stopped herself. “You have been of service to me before, Sekretaire. Perhaps when this is over, you will assist me once again. Something else of mine has gone missing.”

  “When what is over?” I asked, lunging for her. A guard clamped hold of my arm and squeezed until it felt the bone might break. “When what is over? Your murder of the king?” I shouted. The Uzanne turned and put an arm around the child, shepherding her inside. I continued shouting as they disappeared into the crowded hallway outside Gustav’s chambers, then was evicted from the outer courtyard with a wicked boot for yelling like a madman.

  I waited until well after dark but did not see her leave. When I questioned visitors to the sickroom, they reported that The Uzanne spent at least a quarter of an hour with His Majesty, pledging her love for Sweden, and cooling him with her fan. She promised to help him rest, a favor he was much in need of in his suffering. The witnesses said that she performed some kind of magic, for His Majesty had never rested so well in years.

  Chapter Seventy

  Equinox

  Sources: E. L., Mrs. S., Captain H.

  THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED became a blur; the combination of fear and hopeful anticipation caused a constant humming in my ears and a nervous jumpiness about my limbs. Only when I held a hand of cards did I feel at ease. The gaming at Gray Friars Alley had resumed in full, and even the seekers were beginning to come with their queries. The police were instructed to protect Mrs. Sparrow on orders from the military governor of the Town, Duke Karl. He had not forgotten the sibyl who had seen his two crowns, and one was close at hand.

  “It’s the spring equinox.” I heard Hinken’s voice behind me. It was midnight, March the twenty-first. “I will be sorry to miss the first snowdrop.”

  “And why is that?” I asked, distracted by a player who seemed to see my cards before I laid them.

  “We will be at sea, Sekretaire. I came to tell you good-bye.”

  “Trump,” said my nemesis.

  I spread my cards faceup on the table and turned to Hinken. “When?” I asked.

  “High tide. In five hours.” He carried a plate of flounder in white wine and mussel sauce and held it up to his nose, inhaling gratefully. “The last supper,” he said. “Are you coming?”

  I felt the blood pounding in my ears and Mrs. Sparrow’s sphinxlike gaze on me from across the room. My opponent at the table scooped my coins into his pile of winnings. “Coming where?”

  “To say good-bye, Sekretaire. You gave away your berth, remember, and the Henry is packed to the rafters. Our passenger’ll be appearing late, near to half-past four.” He wagged his empty fork at me. “Don’t try to come to Auntie’s either. She’ll have my balls if there is trouble.”

  THE FIRST OFFICIAL MORNING of spring was hardly one a poet might conjure. The penetrating damp was visible in patches of rolling fog, and the dark in the east was so dense it made one doubt the sun’s ex
istence. But torches crackled in the spitting wind and the muffled voices of sailors carried a celebratory note, excited to be free of winter’s bonds at last. There were four ships setting out, so Skeppsbron Quay was crowded with crews loading the last provisions on board. I found her near the Henry’s bow, sitting next to a crate of clucking chickens and staring out at the Salt Sea. She did not embrace me, or stand, or even smile, but wrapped her gray cloak more tightly around her. “Why are you sitting with the livestock, Johanna? There is a warming hut nearby,” I said.

  “The hens are a good reminder of what I had become, and why I am going.” She finally turned to me, her face undecipherable. “Has she come for you yet?”

  I told her about the blood oranges, the white-haired child, the gray and silver fan. “I only saw her once, but she is there every day.”

  “So she will have everything she wants in the end,” Johanna said.

  “No. No she will not.” I grasped her pale hand, wanting to insist that she stay, that I was sure we need only find her eight; that we could stop The Uzanne and all would be well. But I was no longer sure of anything—except that The Uzanne could not have Johanna Bloom. My throat thickened beyond speech, and I took the fan box from my pocket and pressed it in her hand. Johanna opened it carefully, as if some viper might spring from inside, then stared down at the fan resting on the blue velvet lining. She snapped her open, and the white of the silk shimmered in the torchlight, the blue and yellow butterflies animated by the play of shadow and light. Then Johanna closed her, pleat by pleat, an expertise that was the result of hours of practice, and placed her in the box. “No, Emil. The Butterfly was meant for your fiancée.” She replaced the lid of the box and handed it back to me. “I would never hold you captive in a life you did not want.” Two crewmen came and took the chickens, leaving a wake of feathers and piercing, hysterical squawks. She embraced me then and her gray cloak fell back and off her shoulder. She was wearing a dress the color of a June sky.