by S. E. Grove
“That’s simply appalling!”
“Yes,” Theo agreed. “Appalling.” And not half as bad as the truth, he thought.
15
Verity Revealed
—1892, June 4: 15-Hour 15—
Before the plague began to take its terrible toll, pilgrims from Ages near and far would travel to the Papal States to visit the shrines decorating the peninsula like so many precious jewels: monuments to the wondrous miracles that have taken place in this once-blessèd land. Now the shrines are less trafficked, and some have, tragically, fallen into decay. But the miracles they preserve within their crumbling walls are no less marvelous today than they were then.
—From Fulgencio Esparragosa’s
Complete and Authoritative History of the Papal States
SOPHIA RACED BACK toward her cabin, trying to ignore the returning nausea that she had overcome at such a high cost. They must have put Theo in a different cabin, she told herself. He got caught up talking to someone. Or he’s exploring the ship. She felt a flash of frustration. Of course he would forget to come find me. It struck her as strange that Remorse had not visited her, either, but perhaps she had obligations to do with the mission.
She worked her way down the covered passageway, noticing that all of the cabin doors were open and the rooms were empty. Why is there no one here? she wondered uneasily. She went up the first flight of stairs that she encountered and found a passageway identical to the one below—also empty. The fantastical, unreasonable thought flashed through her mind that she was the only passenger aboard. She could not help but remember Grandmother Pearl’s story aboard the Swan, about a Lachrima who had been set adrift on a ship it would not abandon. Sophia took a deep breath to steady her nerves and her stomach. I’m not thinking clearly, she told herself firmly. There is an explanation for this.
A moment later, she discovered it. From a large room at the end of the passageway came the smell of roasted chicken; it turned her stomach, even as it reminded her that she was very hungry. Some thirty Nihilismians were sitting at three long dining tables, eating and conversing quietly. Sophia tumbled through the doorway. She could not see Remorse or Theo, but then again there were so many people and she was having difficulty taking them all in.
As she hesitated, a tall man with a gray mustache rose from his seat and approached her. “Miss Tims,” he greeted her with a slight bow. “I am Captain Ponder. Are you feeling better?”
Sophia looked at him, baffled. “I am still seasick,” she said. “I am looking for my travel companions—Theodore and Remorse.”
The captain paused a moment. Then he turned and beckoned to the middle-aged man who had ushered her aboard ship. Wiping his mouth quickly with his napkin, he joined them. “Yes, Captain?”
“Miss Tims is asking after her guest, Theodore Constantine Thackary.”
The man gave her an apologetic look. “I am afraid he did not arrive, Miss Tims. I was standing where you saw me the entire afternoon, welcoming passengers until fifteen-hour.”
“There was no note, or anything?” she asked weakly.
“I am sorry. No.”
Sophia swallowed hard. “I see. What about Remorse?”
“Thank you, Veering,” the captain said, dismissing the man. “Remorse suspected that you would be unwell and chose not to disturb you,” he told Sophia, “asking that we do the same. She left this for you.” He took an envelope from his jacket and withdrew an envelope.
Sophia took it numbly. “Do you mean she isn’t here?”
The captain cleared his throat. “Did you expect her to be? Perhaps there has been some misunderstanding. Remorse is not aboard the Verity.”
“But she is sailing to the Papal States for her mission.”
The captain met her with silence. Then he spoke carefully. “This is not the case. Remorse booked a ticket for you, Every Tims, and your guest some weeks ago, but never for herself. You are Every Tims?”
Sophia stared at him, stunned. “Yes,” she said, her voice just above a whisper.
“I cannot say how this misunderstanding arose, but perhaps the letter holds some explanation.” Taking Sophia by the elbow, he led her to an armchair at the side of the dining room. “If you are feeling well enough afterward, please join us for the evening meal.”
Sophia watched in silence as Captain Ponder returned to his seat. Then, with shaking hands, she opened the envelope.
Sophia—
I apologize for what will seem a terrible deception. It is a deception, but a necessary one. Maintain that you are traveling to the Papal States as Every Tims, and the captain will look after you well. He has sailed this route many times, and you are certain to have an uneventful journey. Ponder is more open-minded than other Nihilismians, and you will find him not discourteous to your uncle.
You and Shadrack will be met in Seville by my associate, who will mention me by name. I expect he will also explain the need for this elaborate ruse more fully. There is something else: I have left cargo in the hold marked with your name. Give the cargo to my associate when you disembark, and he will get you access to the diary.
Sophia, I am sorry that I could not travel with you, and I am sorry for my deceit. There are reasons why I must remain in Boston. However my actions may appear, please believe in my good intentions. This was a good decision, truly. You will not regret it.
Your friend,
Cassia (Remorse)
The letter fell from her hands. Sophia did not notice. Looking up at the dining room, she realized fully what had occurred. She was traveling alone across the Atlantic, under a false identity, on a ship full of strangers, to meet another stranger. She understood, then, that this had not been a good decision at all: it was the most thoughtless, dangerous, misguided thing she had ever done.
16
Losing Bligh
—1892, June 4: 17-Hour 17—
Members of parliament pay for their seats and, based upon their views, fall in with one party or another. Every six years, voters in New Occident select which of these parties will designate the prime minister, who must already be an MP. Almost invariably, the prime minister chosen by the elected party is already a popular party leader.
—From Shadrack Elli’s History of New Occident
GORDON BROADGIRDLE STOOD in front of the full-length mirror in his office, surveying his ensemble. He understood, in a way many of his colleagues in parliament did not, that a man’s appearance could make the difference between success and failure. Those who admired MP Broadgirdle, which was to say most of parliament and the larger part of Boston, called him “handsome”; those who feared him, which was to say everyone who knew him, called him “imposing”; and those who feared but did not admire him called him nothing at all.
The very few brave enough to admit that something about the handsome, imposing member of parliament made them uneasy had difficulty explaining why. Perhaps it had to do with how he parted his thick black hair right down the center of his sizable head, making a severe white line down his skull. Or perhaps it had to do with how his piercing black eyes seemed to say one thing from beneath his dark brows, while his words said another. Or perhaps it had to do with the thin mustache that clung to his upper lip like a centipede, spindly above the imposing black beard that covered much of his face. The centipede seemed to have a mind of its own. When Broadgirdle smiled, it squirmed unpleasantly.
He caressed one end of the centipede now with a large hand, white-powdered and finely manicured; his other hand rested on his broad chest. It was a great matter of pride that his name matched his girth, and he relished the intimidating effect of his presence. It was enough to walk into a room and advance purposefully toward a slim or average-sized man, then stare down at him from a great height, like a mountain contemplating a rickety cart at its base. People who laughed at Broadgirdle’s name before meeting him were invariably reduced to silence when presented
with the massive chest, the formidable black beard, and the piercing stare.
Broadgirdle used this to his advantage. He relied on his appearance as the primary instrument of blunt force, and he reserved his words for when they were most needed. This had the effect of making those words, when he used them, seem all the more potent.
He turned away from the mirror and examined the speech he had prepared for this occasion. It filled three white pages, and he looked it over once more, mouthing the words as he would deliver them to the Boston public, which was anxiously waiting to hear whether the rumors regarding the prime minister’s murder were just that—rumors—or whether they were based on fact.
A light knock at the door indicated that the time had arrived. Notes in powdered hand, he strode to the door. Accompanied by his assistant, he proceeded to the long colonnade that looked out onto the steps of the State House. The crowd below, which poured out across the steps and onto Boston Common, buzzed like a hive. Its palpable anxiety was tinged with an edge of morbid excitement.
Alone, Broadgirdle walked to the center of the colonnade and stepped up to the dais so that he was clearly visible to all below. As he came into sight the crowd hushed in a wave that fanned outward until it reached the very edges of the common. Broadgirdle waited, calm and confident.
The task of announcing Bligh’s murder should have fallen to the parliament’s majority leader. But Broadgirdle, the minority leader, had asked to do it, and everyone was too afraid of him to refuse. Ostensibly, they had chosen Broadgirdle because of his voice—and it was true that along with his size and his stare, his voice was powerful. Rich and stentorian, it rang like the deep pealing of bells when he spoke before an audience. In private, he moderated it to a restrained but forceful current. He waited now, gazing down, until everyone in the crowd was silent. Then he spoke.
“People of Boston, friends. My colleagues in parliament have asked me to make this urgent announcement because of the extraordinary turn of events that has taken place today.” He paused, and let his words hang over the crowd. No one stirred. It seemed the entire city was listening.
“As you know, Prime Minister Cyril Bligh and I have had our differences these last few months. We have had different visions for New Occident. I wished to see a nation that was mighty in its dominance. Cyril wished to see a nation that was mighty in its compassion. These are fundamentally different ways of viewing the nation, and the world.” He paused again, and it almost seemed that his audience had grown even quieter. “It made me terribly happy,” he said, and the centipede curled awkwardly as Broadgirdle smiled, “when only three days ago our visions became radically more compatible. Cyril expressed to me his change of heart, and his desire to follow the plan I have advanced to him since the winter—the plan to unify our Western Age by force, where necessary; by expansion, where advantageous; and indeed by compassion, where possible.”
There was wave of murmuring below: whispers of disbelief and confusion. Broadgirdle waited only a moment before moving on. “Unfortunately, by so doing, by agreeing to my plan for asserting the dominance of New Occident, Cyril made my enemies his enemies. Shadrack Elli and Miles Countryman, two of Cyril’s closest supporters, suddenly became his fiercest foes. And the foreigner who had been living secretly with Cyril these many months, an Eerie woman by the name of Goldenrod, no doubt resented his change of heart.” Broadgirdle unrolled the last sentence with a faint sneer and heavy innuendo, and the crowd obligingly gasped.
“I am sadly accustomed to the malicious retribution of my opponents and their underhanded methods. I am thereby prepared to deal with them. Cyril, as a man championing compassion even in the face of certain aggression, was not so accustomed or so prepared.
“I regret very much to tell you that today, this afternoon, Prime Minister Cyril Bligh was found murdered.
“The prime minister is dead. May he rest in peace.”
Broadgirdle had intentionally planned his speech so that the announcement of Bligh’s death would be his final words. He knew that once the words were out the public would erupt, and he was right. A roar rose from the crowd that was part wail of lament, part howl of outrage, part cry of incomprehension. The hive had been attacked, and it swarmed now, fierce and angry and confused.
Broadgirdle turned his massive back on the confusion and left the dais. The members of parliament who stood by the colonnade waited to shake his hand as he passed. Even the members of his own party were a little taken aback by how he had managed to insult the prime minister while seeming to eulogize him and how he had used the opportunity of Bligh’s death to make a political gambit. But they were accustomed to Broadgirdle’s bold moves, and those who had been bold enough in turn to confront him had, without exception, lived to regret it. So, one by one, his colleagues congratulated him as he walked by—some sincerely, some more ambivalently; all of them fearfully.
Once back in his office, Broadgirdle put the speech aside to be filed and called to his assistant, a thin wisp of a man by the name of Bertram Peel. Duly scurrying to his side, Peel prepared the wooden writing desk he carried everywhere: he smoothed the paper, lifted the pencil, and looked up expectantly as he always did, at the ready.
Bertie Peel was Broadgirdle’s greatest admirer, which was just as well, because they spent most of every day together. There is a certain kind of person who, from many years of being bullied, becomes convinced that bullies run the world, and that if they run the world they must have a right to run the world, and that if they have a right to run the world they must be running it as it is supposed to be run.
Peel was such a person, and from this conviction he derived a great admiration for the greatest bully of them all, Gordon Broadgirdle. To Peel, Broadgirdle was a figure to be carefully observed and emulated, for even if he could never hold sway as Broadgirdle did, it fell upon him—Peel—to do his very best to try. So, in imitation of his supervisor’s habits, Peel made a vigorous center part down the middle of his head, kept well-powdered hands, and cultivated a wilted centipede of a mustache. He looked like a younger, emaciated version of Broadgirdle, which made the supposedly handsome and imposing MP appear all the more so.
“I would like you to take a letter to our accused minister, Shadrack Elli.”
“Certainly, sir.” Peel waited expectantly.
“Dear Minister Elli, comma. I was aggrieved and shocked to hear of your wrongful arrest in connection with our prime minister’s death, full stop. I would like nothing more than to see you restored to freedom, full stop. In the meantime, comma, please do not hesitate to contact me if I can be of any assistance, full stop. Yours sincerely, et cetera. And deliver the letter by hand, Peel. Wait for a reply. He will say ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ We have already agreed on terms. If they do not allow correspondence put through at the jail, you will let me know, and I will speak to the warden.”
“Very well, sir.”
“And on your way back from police headquarters, stop by my house and tell my housekeeper to bring dinner to the State House. We have a long night of work ahead of us, Peel.”
“Yes, we do, sir. Thank you, sir.” Peel scribbled a final note to himself so he would not forget about the dinner, and then he turned on his heel, trembling but also slightly exhilarated, as he always was when Gordon Broadgirdle, MP, showed the world what he was made of.
—17-Hour 57—
THEO SAW THE dispersing crowd as he made his way back to East Ending Street from Boston Harbor. When he arrived, he found Inspector Grey sitting at the kitchen table with Mrs. Clay, the one writing notes tirelessly in his notebook while the other sat rigidly, eyes damp from recent tears.
“Inspector Grey is here to speak with you and Sophia,” Mrs. Clay said. “I told him I was worried, since you took off again so soon after coming home.” She gave him a significant look.
Grey stood up and offered Theo his hand. “If you have a moment, I have some questions for you, young
man.”
Theo disliked anyone who called him “young man,” but he had a feeling Inspector Grey used the words more out of thoughtlessness than condescension. He seemed like the type who followed rules without ever pausing to consider what use they served. “Of course,” Theo said, attempting to strike a balance between helpful and aggrieved. “Anything I can do.”
“Is Sophia Tims not with you?”
“I’m afraid not,” Theo answered gravely, avoiding Mrs. Clay’s eyes. “It seems she has sailed to the Papal States.”
“What?” Mrs. Clay exclaimed.
Grey looked from her to Theo. “This was unexpected?”
“She had spoken of her plans to me and to Shadrack. But she came to a decision very recently.”
Mrs. Clay burst into tears. “I can’t believe it,” she said, burying her face in her handkerchief.
“Why is she sailing to the Papal States?”
“Sophia’s parents disappeared when she was very young. They were explorers. She recently learned of a clue to their whereabouts in Granada.”
Grey eyed him in silence. “I see,” he finally said. He bent over his notebook and wrote quietly. “And where were you this morning and afternoon?”
“I was here in the morning,” Theo said truthfully. “Then I went to meet Sophia at the public library. She never showed up.” He felt an unexpected pang of guilt at his words. They made him imagine how Sophia must have waited and waited at the harbor, finally accepting that he would not arrive. Had she suspected that something had detained him? Or had she assumed that he had simply failed her? “I came home and Mrs. Clay told me what had happened and that Sophia wasn’t here. I realized she might have left for the Papal States. So I went to the harbor. Her name is on a manifest for a ship called the Verity. It sailed at fifteen-hour.”
Mrs. Clay sobbed into her handkerchief.
“Fifteen-hour,” Grey repeated. “Several hours after Bligh was found. Had you seen Sophia at home earlier in the day?”
