Band Sinister

by KJ Charles

  That was a startling thing to hear. Guy opened his mouth and found himself unsure what to say.

  “It has occurred to me that I ought to apologise,” Rookwood went on. “Not that I had any part in James’s actions, but I can’t help feeling his responsibility has descended upon me along with his house. For what little it’s worth, I regret the wrong done by one whose name I bear to your family. I imagine the consequences were unpleasant.”

  “Unpleasant. Yes, it was rather unpleasant,” Guy said. “He ruined my father. He tainted our name beyond repair and made us all the objects of contempt and mockery. He took my mother away.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Eight. Amanda was five. We never saw her again.”

  “No,” Rookwood said. “Again, I am sorry. There’s not much more to be said than that, but if my regret for the part James played in this is of any use to you, you have it.”

  They were walking as they spoke, around the maligned house. Rookwood Hall didn’t have much in the way of gardens, no tended flowerbeds. All the cultivation Guy could see was fruit trees and what looked to be a kitchen garden.

  “The part he played,” he said. “What does that mean?”

  Rookwood shrugged. “He didn’t abduct Mrs. Frisby. She made a choice.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Guy demanded furiously.

  “Exactly what I say; it wasn’t an insult. I hold that women ought to have the same right and duty to self-governance as men, for good or ill. They don’t, legally, but that doesn’t make them any the less moral beings.”

  Talk of moral beings and self-governance from a pleasure-seeking rake was so ludicrously unexpected and hypocritical that Guy lost his breath. Rookwood went on unawares. “I can’t apologise for your mother’s decisions because they aren’t mine to account for, even by proxy. I should prefer to put the bad blood between the Frisbys and the Rookwoods to rest if I can. That’s all.”

  As if he’d intended anything of the kind; as if any olive branch could stretch over the abyss between them. “I see. Is that why you offered us your hospitality when you very clearly didn’t want to?”

  “Oh, dear. I had hoped it wasn’t too obvious.”

  Guy swung round to face him and was stopped in his tracks by Rookwood’s smile. It was real, and amused, and relaxed. He looked— Guy crushed back the memory of the smile when he’d bent to kiss Corvin. He couldn’t find anything to say.

  “Quite seriously, anyone in such a plight would have had a claim on my hospitality,” Rookwood said. “I’m not a monster. And David Martelo wouldn’t have permitted any other course of action.”

  “I must ask,” Guy said stiffly, one of the ongoing worries he hadn’t considered rising up like bubbles in a stew. “The doctor, and the woman you hired. Their fees—”

  “I should take it as a personal favour if you would allow me to account for that.”

  “Certainly not.” Guy fervently wished he could accept. Heaven knew what extortionate prices a London doctor like Martelo could demand. He and Amanda lived within their allowance, but not so far within that they had guineas to spare. He prayed Amanda’s ten pounds from the publisher would cover it.

  “My house, my responsibility,” Rookwood said. “And if you want David paid at all you’ll let me do it. He’s far too involved now; he won’t take a penny from you.”

  “But he will from you?”

  “I can manage David Martelo.”

  Manage. Guy shoved down thoughts of that, and the commanding Let’s have you. Oblivious, Rookwood went on, “And you wouldn’t even have needed the woman were it not for the need to safeguard your sister’s reputation in my house. An attendant’s fee is cheap at the price if the alternative is offering my hand in marriage.”

  Guy’s mouth worked for a moment while the outrage rose up inside him like a pot boiling over, and then it erupted. “Of course you would rather anything but that! I suppose you think my sister is beneath you because of—of what happened? Well, she isn’t, and if she was it would be your damned brother’s fault, but she’s not and let me assure you,” he said furiously, ignoring Rookwood’s efforts to get a word in, “she wouldn’t dream of stooping so low as to a man of your reputation and—and vile habits. And you may keep your bribes. I don’t want to owe you anything!”

  “Hoi!” Rookwood almost shouted. “Will you please calm down?”

  “No! Your family is an affront to decency and your coven here is even worse with your murders and disgraceful goings-on, and— Just stay away from my sister!” Guy turned on his heel and stormed off, ignoring Rookwood’s, “Frisby...” because he could hear the amusement in it. The damned swine was laughing. Laughing! How dare he laugh? What made him think he could ridicule Guy?

  It took him about five minutes’ walk off the grounds and down a country lane to conclude the answer was: because he was ridiculous. Coven? Murders? He’d read Amanda’s book again the previous night in the intervals while she’d slept, and the spirit of the damned thing had apparently seeped into his brain.

  He attempted to tell himself that he’d been justified in his fury, if not his words, and walked on fuming, but a mile or so in the afternoon sun sucked all the anger out of him and left him feeling nothing but foolish. Rookwood’s remark had been extraordinary, yes, not the kind of thing anyone would say, but he seemed to make a habit of shockingly blunt remarks. Guy had taken it as a caustic dismissal of Amanda’s suitability as a bride, because he’d heard that too often, and between the days and nights of terror and that quivering sensation in his belly at what he’d seen, it had all become too much to be borne.

  It wasn’t remotely unreasonable, if one was fair about it, that a man would prefer not to marry an inconvenient invalid with whom he’d never exchanged a word. And that went double when he had Lord Corvin murmuring his adoration. Lord Corvin was a very attractive man, or at least Guy supposed he must be, with a smile that would doubtless be devastating if that was the sort of thing one wanted. It was quite clearly the sort of thing that Rookwood wanted, law or no.

  And Rookwood had let Guy and Amanda ruin his party, and he’d apologised for his brother and even offered to pay the bills that had been nibbling at the edges of Guy’s tenuous calm. And in return Guy had taken the first opportunity to shout at him for no reason except that his nerves were red raw and he couldn’t stop picturing Corvin on the couch, and Rookwood smiling down at him.

  “Oh Lord,” he said aloud. What could he do now? What if Rookwood’s mood went from amusement to offence? What if he demanded Amanda should be removed and her leg was injured, or he turned Martelo against them, or he forbade Guy the house and left him unable to care for his sister?

  “Stop it!” he said aloud to the teeming thoughts in his brain, and walked faster, as though he could outrun his own stupidity.

  He’d been walking for an hour or so, and was on his way back, when he heard hoofbeats. A rider was approaching at a quick trot, and Guy recognised the lean build with a dull sense of inevitability.

  Rookwood reined in his horse, approaching at a walk, and looked down from his superior vantage.

  “Mr. Frisby. Could we, perhaps, speak? I seem to owe you another apology.”

  Guy blinked up at him. “What?”

  Rookwood swung down off his horse, a graceful movement. His riding breeches were evidently of excellent manufacture, and stretched well over his long, muscular legs. “An apology. I am prone to flippancy, and I feel you detected disrespect to Miss Frisby where none was intended. Nevertheless, the misunderstanding arose from my misplaced sense of humour, and for that I apologise.”

  Guy gaped like a fish. “But— I was awfully rude to you.”

  “You were,” Rookwood agreed. “But you have a duty to Miss Frisby’s name, so it was quite correct to take up arms, whereas I have John Raven and Lord Corvin as bosom friends, and thus barely notice insult, much as a beekeeper no longer feels the stings. And you have also had a rather trying few days, so perhaps we might simpl
y agree to put that exchange behind us.”

  “That’s very generous of you,” Guy muttered, face burning.

  “Think no more of it. Now, I spoke to David. He assures me that Miss Frisby’s progress is excellent and, even better, we have finally secured a capable nurse who will take the night watch, assuming that meets with your approval. If you would like a second truckle bed made up downstairs, say the word, but David does not think it necessary, and begs that you will have a proper night’s sleep. Before that, I hope you will join the rest of us for dinner.”

  “Dinner?”

  “The evening meal,” Rookwood explained with great gravity. “We really are quite civilised, and not as bad a set as popular opinion holds. Except Corvin, but one can’t help that. Don’t dress.” He lifted his hat, mounted with effortless elegance, wheeled his horse, and set off back down the path, leaving Guy gaping.

  HE TRUDGED BACK TO the house and sat with Amanda for an hour. She mostly dozed, and Guy watched her, the natural sleep, the better colour in her face. If everything else was a calamity, he could still not regret that she had come to this house and Dr. Martelo’s care.

  The prospect of dinner loomed over him like shades of the prison house. He was not looking forward to this and felt a dreadful certainty that it was some joke at his expense, some opportunity for mockery, as when the bigger boys invited one to play and then it turned out one was to be the ball.

  Surely not. Rookwood apologised, he told himself, and They were pleased for Amanda, truly. It did no good, because he couldn’t stop thinking, What if Rookwood knows I saw him?

  Guy was well aware that he could march to the local magistrate and lay charges. Possibly some people in his position might feel that made them powerful. He didn’t. For one thing, the idea of bringing charges against one’s host was repugnant. For another, he was well aware that if Rookwood felt threatened, he could all too easily retaliate. Guy’s mind was as fertile as Amanda’s in its own perverse way: he could come up with infinite paths leading to disaster. The things the Murder could say, destroying Amanda’s reputation all over again, making Guy look a weakling or a pander, making them talked about. Guy loathed being talked about; it made him nauseous even to imagine people gossiping and whispering and sneering.

  Well, if Rookwood had offered this olive branch because he was aware Guy knew his secret—or because he feared it after the stupid accusations Guy had flung—Guy would take it. He would give Rookwood no reason to consider him a threat. He would do his best to be polite and go unnoticed, and Rookwood’s companions would doubtless forget about him quickly because Guy was eminently forgettable.

  He just prayed he wasn’t seated next to Lord Corvin.

  He came down to dinner at the gong, wondering if everyone else would appear in the correct black garb despite Rookwood’s assurances, and was relieved to see they did not. The very opposite, in fact. The stocky man with a Northern accent was frankly rather shabby and Mr. Raven’s cuffs and wrists bore smears: not dirt, but bright colours. Rookwood and Corvin both looked admirable, but the balance of the gathering was entirely normal.

  Rookwood made the introductions, for those whose names Guy hadn’t previously grasped. George Penn, a composer, was the other black man in the group, slightly older than the rest of them, with skin of a markedly lighter shade than Raven’s. The quiet fellow with prematurely greying hair was Ned Caulfield, another musician. Guy had heard the piano and violin distantly over the last few days and was glad to express his admiration.

  The Northerner, introduced as Harry Salcombe, said he worked with Mr. Street. “I’m a geologist,” he explained.

  “You study the Earth?” Guy hazarded.

  “And its formation, yes.”

  “Oh.” It sounded rather dull, but Guy knew what was required. “That’s fascinating. Could you tell me more?”

  “Oh dear,” Corvin said, from the top of the table. “On your own head be it.”

  “Well, Mr. Frisby,” Mr. Salcombe said, visibly settling in. “How do you imagine the Earth came to be?”

  Guy blinked. “Well, Creation. The Bible tells us—”

  There was a chorus of hisses, as though everyone present had inhaled sharply, and Mr. Street said, “Be gentle with him, Harry.” Mr. Salcombe flashed him a grin, turned back to Guy, and began to explain the beginnings of the world.

  The next hour was a blur. Guy had no interest in modern science whatsoever, still less in rocks, and preferred the classics to the Age of Reason in which they supposedly lived and of which he saw little evidence. But Mr. Salcombe’s enthusiasm was matched only by his imagination. He started by dismissing the Book of Genesis as a goatherders’ fairy tale and, while Guy was still reeling at the blasphemy, went on to assert that the earth had been created not six thousand years ago, as proved by Bible genealogy, but millions, and not by a benevolent God but in lava and flood and fire. He spoke of creation and a painful birth, of land emerging from chaos and destruction, until Guy could take no more.

  “All this is just wild speculation. We’ve thousands of years of scholarship, and Biblical research, which tells us the age of the world.”

  “Aye, six thousand years old if you add up the generations in the Book of Genesis.” Mr. Salcombe rolled his eyes. “On the one hand, one old book, translated from Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English. On the other, the evidence of stone and earth and our own eyes. What do you think your God gave us eyes for, and minds too, if not to look at things and think about what we see?”

  “But you don’t see it,” Guy protested. He wasn’t generally argumentative, and certainly not with strangers, but this was too disturbing to be borne. “You may draw certain conclusions from looking at rocks, perhaps, but how does that constitute more than a theory? How does that allow you to dismiss thousands of years of scholarly thought? What proof have you?”

  “Hold on,” Street said, leaping up, and almost ran from the room.

  “There’s plenty of scholarly thought behind geology,” Salcombe said, entirely unruffled by Guy’s challenge. “Avicenna, who was a Persian scholar of eight centuries ago—”

  “I know who Avicenna is,” Guy said, somewhat nettled.

  “You should read him on the formation of mountains, then. And James Hutton, too, Theory of the Earth, same thing. Six thousand years, indeed.”

  Street hurried back into the room, something in his hand. “You wanted to see something? Try this.”

  “For God’s sake,” Rookwood said. “You bring those things around the country with you?”

  “I found that one.” Salcombe spoke with a note in his voice Guy couldn’t interpret.

  He wasn’t really paying attention anyway, because Street had handed him, of all things, an oval stone split along its length. Guy cautiously took the two halves apart and saw a thing.

  It might have been a carving, except that the other half of the stone fitted it too perfectly, and the thing seemed to be in a different sort of orange rock which was nevertheless of a single piece with the grey stone. It was some sort of insect, over three inches long, with a great helmeted head and antenna and far too many legs, depicted in startlingly clear detail, and Guy had never seen anything that resembled it in his life.

  “What is it?”

  “Pediculus marinus major trilobos. Lyttleton found a great number in the limestone pits at Dudley.”

  “But what is it?”

  “That’s what it is,” Street said. “It’s a kind of sea louse, what we call fossilised, preserved in stone. They’ve been gone from the earth for thousands and thousands of years. Specimens have been found all over the world, and they can reach a foot in length.”

  “A foot?” Guy tried to imagine what this flattened, leggy thing might have looked like in life and at the length of his forearm. He failed. “How is it so big, when lice are so tiny?”

  “Many creatures were huge then. We’ve found thigh-bones of creatures larger than elephants, the teeth of unimaginable predators. The remnants of a worl
d before ours.” Street’s eyes were distant, seeing a vista Guy couldn’t imagine. “A world of life gone to dust, or to stone, before humans were thought of. And there are so many more creatures like this, so many different species. Plants, animals, insects. A whole dead kingdom under our feet.”

  “Cheery, isn’t he?” Corvin said.

  Rookwood sighed theatrically. “Knowledge is the highest pursuit of man and the spur to all progress, and you treat it as drawing-room entertainment.”

  “But,” Guy said. The stone louse sat cold in his palm, an alien, terrifying thing. How could it be this old? He had a book in his possession that was a hundred and fifty years old, and barely touched it because of the crumbling edges of the paper. Human achievement gone to powder, while this mindless thing of stone lasted millennia. He felt peculiar just thinking about it. “Entire species?”

  “Animals the like of which you’ve never seen. Far, far more than this.” Street held out his small, callused hand for the stone.

  Guy gave it back reluctantly. “It’s an extraordinary thing, I grant you. But—but really, how does this square with the teachings of the Church?”

  “Well, it doesn’t,” Salcombe said. “That’s all.”

  “Or you could suggest that the book of Genesis might be read as an extended metaphor, or perhaps that our translations from the original Hebrew lack nuance,” Rookwood said. “There are many great minds attempting to reconcile the new learning with, ah, revealed truth. But I’m afraid you won’t find any of them here. This is for the most part an irreligious gathering. Atheistical, even.”

  Guy’s jaw dropped. He wasn’t quite sure if atheism was legal; it certainly wasn’t acceptable in decent company. He’d never met a self-confessed atheist in his life until this bizarre sojourn. He’d also never met a black man, a Jew, or a geologist. Or a viscount, come to that. He wasn’t sure exactly how his quiet rural existence had brought him to this point, but Amanda would be wringing every detail out of him for months.

  He cleared his throat. “As a Christian, I cannot approve.”