A Conspiracy of Alchemists

by Liesel Schwarz

  “Ladies, speaking of sustenance, will you do me the honor of joining me for dinner?” Marsh said. “I for one am curious to see what miracles of gastronomy are about to be served up in the dining cart.”

  “But of course, darling. I would love to. How lovely of you to ask.”

  The three of them were shepherded into the dining cart and shown to a table.

  Marsh seated himself opposite Elle and the baroness who had somehow appeared in the seat next to her. She watched the waiter discreetly remove the silver from the table and replace the knives and forks with ivory-handled steel cutlery. The Orient Express catered to the needs of their Shadow passengers in every way, it seemed.

  Dinner involved five courses for Elle and Marsh. The baroness’s meal consisted of five matching liquid courses, served up in crystal goblets. Elle was amazed at how interesting and elaborate the dishes were, considering that they were on a moving train. The kitchen rather quaintly matched the solid and liquid menus for the convenience of guests.

  Elle took a bite of her roast breast of pheasant while watching the baroness take a sip of pheasant blood from the gold-rimmed goblet before her.

  “Hmm.” Loisa murmured, and pursed her red lips. “Delicious. I do adore pheasant, don’t you?” she said. “Especially this time of year.”

  Elle nodded and smiled. To her surprise, the baroness was turning out to be most agreeable company, when she wasn’t flirting with Marsh. Knowing that the baroness was well fed made her seem much less scary.

  The baroness, in turn, spent most of the time chatting with Marsh about people and past events that Elle knew nothing about. Marsh flirted back with consummate expertise and it was not long before he had the elegant baroness giggling into her goblet, almost spluttering her dinner over herself and the tablecloth.

  How does he do that? Elle wondered with no small measure of annoyance. She found herself feeling annoyed about the fact that she was annoyed. The man was driving her to the brink of insanity.

  The corners of his mouth curled up into a little smile and she felt something inside her quicken. It would be so easy to fall in love with a man like him. He was absolutely mesmerizing. But he was a liar and a manipulator too. She pushed the thought firmly out of her mind and concentrated on the baroness’s convoluted tale of how they used to go sledging downhill at night a hundred years ago.

  Desserts were tiny slices of dense chocolate cake with cream for her and Marsh and a cup of sweetened mulled pork blood for Loisa, followed by cheese on a board.

  Marsh put down his spoon and sat back. He patted his waistcoat and signaled for a cigar. “That was a most excellent dinner. But, ladies, if you would excuse me; I am in dire need of a good cigar, a snifter of brandy and some male banter in the saloon. Loisa, could I perhaps impose on you to amuse my lovely companion while I excuse myself?”

  The baroness’s face brightened. “It would be my pleasure. There are many hours till dawn and the train at night can be so dull sometimes. I know Eleanor and I are going to be great friends.” Loisa gave a little moue. Marsh smiled and left the carriage.

  Then she turned to Elle and focused her sharp dark gaze on her. “Shall we play some cards?”

  Elle felt a small frisson of fear run over her. She didn’t think she could ever become accustomed to the stare of Nightwalkers. Even the non-threatening kind.

  “Let’s,” she agreed.

  Loisa held her arm and signaled a waiter. “May we have some playing cards, please?”

  The waiter returned with a deck of cards on a small wooden tray. The baroness had taken off her gloves. She curled her white fingers, slightly blue at the nails, around the deck and started shuffling the cards, faster than the eye could follow. She cut the deck expertly and placed the cards face down on the table.

  She looked at Elle with a conspiratorial smile. “Finally, we are alone. I have been dying for him to go for a brandy.”

  Elle looked at her with some surprise. She had thought that quite the opposite was true.

  “So tell me, darling, what have you done to capture my poor Hughby’s heart like that?”

  Elle blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “Ah, you didn’t know it, do you?” She gave Elle a sly look.

  Elle suddenly felt like a mouse watched by a sleek cat. “Um, viscount Greychester and I are merely good friends. We are travelling on business.”

  The baroness snorted and gave her a knowing smile. “Viscount Greychester never does anything unless it is for his pleasure.” She drew a wooden case from her reticule and pulled out a cigarillo.

  “You don’t mind, do you?”

  Elle did not smoke herself. She failed to see the point and it was a rather smelly habit, but Loisa Belododia made even smoking, the most unladylike of activities, look elegant and sophisticated. She had to admire the woman for that.

  Loisa lit the cigarillo and deeply inhaled the smoke. “Most of us smoke, you know. It reminds us of what it felt like to breathe. Some say that cigars poison the lungs.” She shrugged. “Who knows if that is true? Who cares. We are dead anyway.” There was a touch of sadness in her voice. She picked up the deck and started dealing the cards. “Gin rummy?”

  Elle nodded. Why not? How many people could claim to have played gin rummy with a highborn Nightwalker—on a train?

  Loisa brightened as she looked at her cards. She pulled one out of her hand and placed it on the table before her and picked a card from the deck. She slipped it into the fan of cards in her hand.

  “So how long have you known the viscount?” Elle said, trying to sound casual.

  Loisa stared at Elle. “Long enough. I am one of the few who has stuck with him regardless of what others were saying at the time. But you are so very young. Too young to know about the gossip,” she said.

  “Gossip?” Elle said.

  The baroness let out an elaborate sigh and fanned out her cards. “Oh, I am not sure I should tell. It’s never good to drag up old ghosts.”

  Elle leaned forward. This sounded important.

  The baroness put her fan of cards face down on the table. “Oh, very well, I’ll tell you,” she said. “But you have to promise not to say anything.”

  “You have my word,” Elle said.

  “You must know by now that Hugh is a high-ranking Warlock, yes?” She arched her carefully shaped eyebrows at Elle.

  Elle nodded. “He has mentioned it.”

  “But do you know that he is one of the youngest Warlocks ever to be elected to the Council? The Council, as I’m sure you also know, guards and controls the use of Shadow force across the world. Statesmen and kings rely on them to keep the balance in the natural order of the world. It’s their role to keep the Shadow in check so the balance is maintained.”

  Elle nodded again. “So I have been told.”

  The baroness sat forward, her gaze intense. “Without the Council of Warlocks, the world would be in chaos. Creatures like me would be hunted down and killed by the religious and those who have no tolerance for the Shadow. The world would turn to chaos just as it did in the Dark Ages when the first Council in Rome collapsed. And not only for Nightwalkers, but for all creatures of Shadow.”

  She shuddered. “The Dark Ages was a terrible time. Not many of my kind survived. They came after us, armed with iron and fervor, seeking our destruction, no matter what the cost. We were hunted. Then came the inquisitions and the burnings.” She picked up her cards and spread them in front of her face. She gazed at her cards. “We lived in secret, like animals. Always hiding.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Elle said, not wanting to offend. “I’m sure that must have been awful for you.”

  “We, the immortal ones, have to put our faith in such fragile creatures. And all for the simple fact that they can venture into the sun. I will never understand why some of my kin made pacts with day-dwellers in the way that they did.”

  “The system seems to have worked though. Everyone seems to be living in relative peace nowadays. There is much tol
erance.” Elle said.

  The baroness narrowed her eyes. “Warlocks are not immortal. Like all who live in Shadow, they have their weaknesses. And there are some that say that the Council grows weaker every day. They say that there are others who would be more suitable to the task of Guardians. Some say that the Shadow should have more power than the Light.”

  Elle looked at her cards. “I must confess that I don’t know much about the topic,” she said as tactfully as she could. She put a card down and picked one up from the deck. She smiled. “Gin,” she said, and fanned her cards on the table.

  The baroness laughed and clapped her hands.

  “Well done. Let’s play again!” She picked up all the cards and in a whirr of movement she started dealing another hand.

  “So you were busy telling me something about Hugh,” Elle said, steering the topic away from the political debate.

  “Ah yes! Hugh, how could I forget such a delicious boy?”

  Elle smiled. “I don’t think he could be called a boy. I mean, how old is he? Or at least, how long do Warlocks live?”

  The baroness pouted again and laid down two cards. “To me, he will always be a boy, but I would say that they live about ten times as long as normal humans, maybe more. When Hugh and I met two or three human lifetimes ago, he was barely a man. Oh, you should have seen him then. He was so awkward and gangly, with the floppy dark hair and those long black eyelashes. He was adorable.” The baroness licked her lips. “But the boy grew to be a man with much sadness within him.”

  What happened?” Elle found that she had quite forgotten about her cards.

  “Hugh had just come into his powers when he met a girl. I don’t know, it must have been about a hundred and fifty years ago now. Time goes so fast, you know. The woman’s name was Rosamund. She was very beautiful. All blonde curls, if you like that kind of thing.”

  Elle started. “Did you say ‘Rosamund’?”

  “Yes, I know, it is such a frivolous name, but it was fashionable back then, I believe.”

  Elle nodded. “Do go on,” she said.

  “Well, Rosamund fell madly in love with Hugh. But Hugh was too busy studying and learning about being a Warlock. He was largely oblivious to her until her family started hinting to his about marriage proposals. His family thought it a good match, but Hugh balked at the idea. He refused to propose.” The baroness rolled her eyes. “Rosamund was furious. You see, she had told all her friends that she had bagged herself the handsome son of an earl and so she ended up being utterly humiliated when Hugh didn’t do as she had planned.

  “Gin!” The baroness put her cards down on the table.

  “Good heavens,” was all that Elle could say. She picked up the cards and dealt another hand.

  The baroness leaned forward and said in a low voice, “But that was not the worst of it. In retaliation, Rosamund started spreading scandalous rumors about Hugh. All of which were completely untrue, of course. Hugh would never do such things to anyone.” She placed a card onto the deck. Elle picked it up. It was the Jack of Hearts.

  “What happened then?” Elle shifted the card in her hand.

  “Ah,” the baroness patted the air with her dainty hand. “There was a huge scandal. Rosamund’s family were saying that Hugh had seduced their daughter against her will and that he had unnatural occult proclivities involving young maidens and rituals. The rumors tore through society. Rosamund’s family wanted to involve a judge. There was a lot of negotiation behind closed doors and the matter was brought to a close quietly, with no charges proven. But in a way this was worse than a public trial. Hugh was ruined.”

  “That’s awful.” Elle felt her insides clench with mortification.

  “Yes, it was,” the baroness said. “In the end, I heard that Rosamund ran off with a soldier. He was killed in battle and the last I heard was that she had turned her hand to witchcraft to survive. Some say she took to using magic to suck the youth out of young women to feed her own unnatural immortality. No one knows where she is now. But I hear she is still alive.”

  “Witchcraft?” Elle thought about the crystal in her luggage.

  “Yes, the low-class kind. She showed a lot of promise to begin with, but in the end it turned out she never had any real abilities. The poor thing. Just enough to deceive people. You know, fortune-telling, calling up spirits, potions and such things.” The baroness shuddered. “Peasant tricks. Terribly voyant.”

  She discarded another card and studied her hand. “All that would have been fine, but Hugh’s reputation was in tatters. No one wanted him anywhere near their daughters after what had happened. He was shunned from social occasions for being licentious and a libertine. Ostracized in a time when being seen in society was everything. And I can tell you that the accusations of such dishonorable deeds broke his young heart. I watched him turn bitter because of it.” She looked up at Elle. “And for what? For the whims of a spoiled girl.?”

  The baroness paused to take a last drag form her cigarillo. “Hugh developed a very deep distrust of women after Rosamund. Especially ones who had the power to hurt him. I remember how He became utterly ruthless for a while. Took his pleasure when and where he wished. But in the end, he simply got bored and gave up. He devoted himself to his study of the Craft and the business of the Council. Being a Warlock is everything to him. He believes in no greater cause.”

  Elle stared at her cards. It felt like her stomach had fallen out of her body and in its place a big lump of mortification and guilt had formed. Had she really threatened to cry rape if Marsh did not do what she demanded? No wonder he had been so angry. She suddenly felt like weeping.

  “So you would imagine my surprise to see him here with you, on this train. Sharing a compartment. It’s all so very intimate.” The baroness put her cards down.

  Elle cleared her throat. “I can assure you that there is nothing between us. We are merely travelling on business. It was safer to arrange matters in this way.”

  The baroness stared at Elle. Her eyes were suddenly serious. “Whatever you are up to, please promise me that you won’t hurt him.? He is a good boy, and anyone who trifles with his affections again will have me to deal with.”

  Elle swallowed. She wasn’t sure, but she could have sworn that she had seen the briefest flash of fang when the baroness spoke.

  “I won’t do anything to hurt him,” she said solemnly, and not just because of the threat the baroness had made.

  She also made a mental note to start carrying some garlic on her person as a precaution. The baroness nodded and a small smile crept onto her lips. “Ah, I can see it now. You love him too. This is so wonderful.”

  Elle felt herself grow warm. She smiled at the baroness. “We are just friends. Nothing more. But enough of such serious talk. Shall we order some coffee? You should see the machine they have that makes it. I do hope it’s still running this late.”

  “Let’s,” Loisa said slowly as if she was making up her mind about something. She signaled to the waiter. And brandy.” Then she took both of Elle’s hands in hers. “My dear Miss Chance. I think you and I are going to be firm friends.”

  They played a few more rounds of cards. Elle felt like she had passed some unspoken test and she found herself relaxing.

  Loisa was warm and funny once you got past the fact that she was a deadly Nightwalker. After her second brandy, Elle felt her eyes grow heavy. She was doing her best to keep stay awake, but the cards grew blurry before her eyes. She stifled a big yawn behind her hand.

  “Time for bed,” Loisa announced. “Good night, my darling. Tonight was a wonderful evening and we must meet again soon. I am going to sit on the roof to watch the moon for a while.” They kissed one another on the cheeks warmly and bade each other farewell.

  CHAPTER 37

  Back in their carriage, Elle closed the compartment door firmly behind her. She rested against the door , her mind reeling with snippets of earlier conversation.

  She started undressing, and took a few dee
p, liberating breaths as soon as the laces of her stays gave way. Her new nightdress was made of soft cotton and it was slightly too big for her. The fabric slipped off her shoulders as she pulled it over her head.

  She gazed off into the distance as she ran her hairbrush through her hair. She stopped combing and studied the hairbrush. It was fine squirrel with silver on the handle. All of her luggage had been replaced, quickly and discreetly. Her mind was so full of other thoughts that she had hardly noticed it happen. And Marsh had attended to all of it, without mentioning it.

  Marsh.

  She had the nagging feeling that she had been completely wrong about him. Could he have forsaken his Brotherhood to keep her safe? Was the baroness right? Did Marsh have feelings for her? Did she have feelings for him? She thought about the baroness tickling Hugh’s chin and how annoyed it had made her. Was she jealous?

  She slammed her hairbrush down. Damn. She did have feelings for him. How inconvenient.

  She slipped into her bunk. Being in love with Hugh Marsh was utter madness. There was no future with him. The image of Rosamund’s wrinkled old face sprang to mind. The same Rosamund? It had to be. She had seen how he’d kissed her hand.

  Would Hugh watch her grow old, slowly while he remained the same? Would she also end up a wrinkled, mad old lady in a house while he visited with a new, younger woman? She didn’t think she could stand that. No, it was best that she left the whole matter well alone. As soon as her father was safe, she would go back to her old life. Flying was her passion, but somehow flying freight seemed so dull now, but what were her alternatives? She definitely did not want to belong to the Council of Warlocks, though. She shuddered at the thought.

  The door slid open and Marsh entered their compartment. Their eyes met and he looked away. “I’m sorry, I did not know you were in,” he said.

  She sat up half way in her bunk. “It’s all right. I’m sorry, I should have closed the screen,” she said.

  “I hope Loisa didn’t drive you completely mad with her chattering,” Marsh said.