The Raven's Seal

by Andrei Baltakmens

  The two dark eyes narrowed on her. “What a thing it is, to be an honest man with two defiant children! If you don’t know, you guess.”

  “Leave the girl be!” soothed Meg Redruth, hushing the child, who had grown restive in her grasp.

  “Mark my words: she knows!”

  The girl sat again and lowered her head. “It may be he is at the Saracen. He thought to go there earlier and—”

  “The Saracen!” crowed her father. “Bad company. Bad company. Plots and schemes are made at the Saracen. Half the evil in this city, mark you. What sort of thing is it for an honest man’s son to be at the Saracen? What time is it?”

  “It’s late, Father.”

  “Fetch him back.”

  “Father—”

  “Silas!”

  The whole mass, man and covers, rose, and one foot only touched the ground, showing an absence from the knee where the other should be.

  “Are you too proud, girl, to obey your father? Should I go myself? Should a father wait upon his own son to say, ‘By-your-leave,’ and, ‘An-it-should-please-you,’ to have his own boy back home at a respectable hour? Fetch him back, I say. Will I have two disobedient children?”

  “No, Father.”

  “Fetch him back. Here, where’s my boot, my staff?”

  “Silas. My girl is a decent girl. Think on the hour, you old fool.”

  “’Tis the hour when an honest man expects his kin to be under his roof.”

  The children under the table were alerted and called sleepily to their mother, who continued hushing the little one on her knee and had no more chance to argue.

  The little lodging broke into a tumult of voices and complaint.

  The girl stood. She was still dressed, for the room remained dull and cold even a few steps from the smouldering stove.

  “I will go,” she said. “Do not stir yourselves more.”

  Cassie waited until the old man had reclined on the bed, picking at the blankets and arranging them around his throat. The other children had to be quieted and persuaded to sleep again. Then she bent over the rushlight and extinguished its meagre flame. She tugged her mother’s shawl closer over the seated woman and wrapped it tightly about the baby as well, and then she went to the door, undid the bolts, and pulled it wide. For a moment the frost, the night, and the cold colour of the few scattered stars streamed in at the doorway. She peered into the uneasy silence of Porlock Yard.

  “Bring him quick, mind. Don’t linger!” urged Mrs. Redruth in a low whisper.

  “You are a good girl, Cassie,” said her father, relenting.

  The girl shivered, drew her shawl tighter over her head, and stepped out into the fast wasting night.

  THE SARACEN’S SHIELD, under the ferocious sign of a moon-shield and scimitar, balanced on the edge of the Pentlow in Calderhithe, and seemed to have a mind to get into the river altogether, as though to wash off the taint of its patrons, extending a set of rooms over green and rickety pilings. Here, the quality of Airenchester paused to carouse with the lower orders, though it is hard to say who gained the greater profit thereby.

  The long tables were full, coins rattled, and tankards struck the benches; and in the corners, certain figures bent to their business and none came near. Mr. Grainger and Mr. Quillby had a settle by the fire and were pretty pleased with themselves at this discovery.

  “You left the Stepneys’ ball early,” observed Quillby.

  “It was becoming intolerable,” said Grainger. “All flirting and convention. I would be free of that, at least.”

  “There were no compensations for attending?”

  “I saw Piers Massingham in a superior mood and gave him no satisfaction. There is some reward in that, I suppose.”

  Quillby frowned. “You will bait him too much one day. He is ambitious and ill-tempered. I hear he has drawn blood in quarrels before this.”

  Grainger dismissed this with a wave of his hand.

  “I thought, perhaps, she was there?” continued William Quillby, after a moment’s reflection.

  “My dear fellow, who do you mean? Are you looking for topics for the society pages? I could supply you a scandal or two.”

  “Obliged, I’m sure, but you know quite well I mean Clara.”

  Grainger raised his cup and addressed it rather than his companion. “Miss Grimsborough was there.”

  “And how was she?”

  “She looked quite fetching, not entirely fashionable, but charming.”

  Quillby allowed himself a sigh, lost in the hubbub of the room. He accounted himself an admirer of Miss Grimsborough’s, but no suitor. “How an angel like that has such an Ogre and a Terror for a father, I don’t know.” Captain Matthew Grimsborough, the young lady’s father, was master of the city watch, a dour, unyielding man, and the bane and perplexity of his daughter’s admirers.

  “But I have no name, and few prospects, to offer her,” Quillby finished, downcast.

  Grainger looked aside at his friend and said, “You know more about this town, high and low, than anyone—which I esteem, if no other will.”

  “That is all very well for you to say,” said William, without rancour. “But I have no property to draw on.”

  Grainger prepared to speak some further encouragement when he checked himself.

  The street door had opened, and a girl came in. She was simply dressed and alone. The heat in the Saracen was fierce, and she let fall her shawl to her shoulders. A very fine profile, Grainger thought. The strong line in the cheek, the nose, the firm chin, the pleasing mouth, held his attention. She looked around. Grainger saw the set cast of her face: determined and undaunted.

  “My dear fellow,” he said instead, “can you pass the bottle?”

  The girl pushed through the crowd towards an open booth at the other end of the common room. A collection of low, suspect men lounged around a table on which were spread copper coins, tankards, clay cups, pipes, tobacco, and an unsheathed knife. Thick smoke stirred about them. She stopped behind a narrow-shouldered boy.

  The bottle was set in his hand, but Grainger put it down.

  The girl touched the boy on the shoulder and said something. He shook her off and did not look up. She tapped him the shoulder again, and he looked around. She spoke and gestured. He scowled and shrugged. The girl arched up, a flicker of anger in her eyes. She gestured again, towards the hill. A man at the table laughed and shook his hand at the boy. The girl folded her arms. Slowly, the boy yielded and stood from the bench.

  “Say,” asked Grainger, “who is that girl there?”

  “Which girl?”

  Grainger leaned forward and pointed. “That fine, angry girl, there, with that surly lad.”

  Quillby squinted at the shadows of the common-room. “I don’t know her. I can’t say if she has ever been here before.”

  “But what is her name?” Grainger persisted.

  “How the devil should I know?” Quillby drank and put his cup down. “The boy is often here.” He lowered his voice, and Grainger leaned closer to catch him. “He runs errands and trails after Dirk Tallow’s crew.”

  Grainger caught the arm of the pot-boy.

  “Another bottle, sir?” said the alert servant.

  “Presently. Who is that girl there?”

  “A girl, sir?”

  “Thaddeus,” said Quillby, as though calling him away.

  “That girl,” persisted Grainger. “Look there. She is marvelously angry!”

  “Don’t know her,” concluded the pot-boy.

  “The young fellow, then, with her.”

  “That! That’s just Silas Redruth’s lad, Toby.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And that bottle, sir?”

  “Get on!”

  The girl and the boy were leaving. Near the door, the girl rested a hand lightly on the boy’s head in a gesture more tender than impatient.

  “As I thought,” said William, hasty to conclude. “But the girl, I think, is decent enough. What ca
n you want with her?”

  “Nothing. Nothing at all. Yet, she’s an extraordinary creature.”

  “Surely you have no thoughts of her?”

  “None. Not a thought in the world. I have not seen her before. It is the slightest thing. No matter at all. She is leaving.”

  Grainger turned to the cup and the dark green bottle, poured a fresh measure, and eased closer to the fire.

  MORNING, and the shadow of the Bellstrom Gaol reached far across the city. A cold, clear dawn had intervened. The line of carriages outside the Stepneys’ place was gone, and the quality dispersed to their tasks and their pleasures. The lady of that house floated to her bed and would not come out before midday.

  Thaddeus Grainger passed through his own hall. He had let himself in and carried the mud of the riverside and dead leaves across the floor. He had a good house in town, on a quiet avenue of plane trees and iron fences. The hall was rather dreary by morning, and the house partly shut up, for the elder Graingers had been dead many years: Mrs. Grainger in her second childbirth when Thaddeus was still a boy, and Mr. Grainger drowned crossing a river in the high lakes some time later. Thus, the son was master of the house and his father’s properties and income, but kept only a small staff: a butler and housekeeper, a married couple who had been with the family since his parents’ marriage.

  “You are home, sir,” remarked Myron, passing beneath the stairs as Grainger went up with a cautious tread.

  “You greet the master of your house pretty coolly,” said Grainger, stopping and speaking with great self-command.

  “You are free to choose your coming and going, of course,” returned the imperturbable Myron.

  “I am going to bed. I don’t wish to be disturbed. I must call on the Pearses later.”

  “But Mrs. Myron,” added the butler, “sat up for you half the night.”

  “She had no cause for that, but I thank her and you, Myron,” said his master, softly. It was the first wholly sincere thing he had spoken that night. “I have had quite an unusual evening.”

  “Then, sleep well, sir.”

  With no more to say, Grainger wearily ascended to his darkened room.

  CHAPTER II.

  A Call and a Challenge.

  WITH ITS BACK TO the river, a tall old house had long been muddled up among the counting-houses, warehouses, and shops of Staverside. It retired behind small alleys and curious little mews, except for one courtyard, reached by a narrow lane and guarded by an iron gate, where a basin filled with slimy water was girdled with angry bronze dolphins. That morning found Mr. Massingham passing the basin with three of his nearer friends: Mr. Harton, Mr. Kempe, and a fresh gentleman, the youngest, of a reluctant disposition.

  “Shall I ring?” said Massingham, with every appearance of nonchalance.

  “If you please,” replied the young man.

  Harton made no sign. He was broad-shouldered and proud of his whiskers. Kempe was slight, with a short nose and close eyes, and something strained in the compression of the lips, but he nodded his assent.

  “Very well,” said Massingham, and rang the bell, afterwards striking the door with his cane for good measure.

  The door was opened, presently, by a very small maid.

  “We are here to see your masters,” declared Massingham. “Announce us.”

  The girl curtsied and fled within, leaving the four to pass unaided into the house.

  “I don’t think we’ll wait,” said Massingham.

  At length, after climbing several stairs (Mr. Massingham seemed to know his way pretty well), they came into a parlour.

  They entered the friendliest and brightest of rooms. The draperies on the windows, drawn back to admit as much of the sun as possible, were as colourful as can be. The ceiling, decorated in the Italian fashion, was bright and blue, and painted with clouds and a dizzy collection of cherubim. Friendly furniture, all white and gilt, upholstered in the merriest of reds, with nothing hard or dour about it, stood all around. Along one wall were tall shelves, with the friendliest and most mild books in profusion, and at the very back of the room were two small, unassuming desks.

  Two elderly gentlemen had risen and bowed as the others came in. They had old-fashioned white wigs and old-fashioned coats and the appearance of brothers, smiling the friendliest and gentlest smiles of welcome, shaking hands with Massingham as though they were the closest of associates, and gesturing the rest to make themselves comfortable withal.

  Only the younger gentleman had any difficulty at all getting into the room and would have seemed to prefer to address the floor, except that he made use of his stick as a sort of prop to hold his head up and nod to the two old gents as Massingham made the introductions.

  “Mr. Palliser,” said Massingham, “this is Mr. Withnail, and Mr. Withnail—”

  “This is my brother, you see,” quoth Mr. Withnail, with a twinkling smile.

  “The two gentlemen of whom I have told you, and who are so graciously prepared to assist us.”

  “If you please,” said Mr. Withnail (the other one), “we have taken the liberty of preparing some papers.” He pointed, delicately, to a frail chair set up at an angle to the smallest writing-desk.

  “A memorandum of our terms,” added his brother.

  Mr. Palliser, meantime, was rubbing his lips together and seemed not at all inclined to go to the desk.

  “Perhaps the young gentleman has some questions,” said Mr. Withnail.

  “That we would be pleased to answer in any fashion,” added his brother.

  The young gentleman opened his mouth and closed it again, and then started, “I would like to know…which is to say…in the case…”

  He left off faintly. Massingham was at his side, drawing him away with a light hand on his shoulder.

  “Come now,” said Massingham, “what is there to know?”

  The youth, indeed little more than a boy, with his collar too high and his cuff too long, could not find the means to reply but resumed his inspection of the floor.

  “You know that your affairs are disordered,” said Massingham in a low voice. “You owe sums here and there. They are of little importance to one of your credit and standing, but they are woefully disordered.”

  The boy nodded, disconsolate.

  “Why,” Massingham roused him, “you even owe something to Harton here, who is in a much worse state than you! Isn’t that right, Harton?”

  Harton, hearing his name, made a grunt of assent.

  “These two gentlemen, in a kindly, straightforward fashion, which does them all honour—gentleman who have my personal approbation and highest respect—have the means to guide you through your difficulties. They will consolidate your affairs in a direct, business-like manner to which your status as a gentleman need not answer. Have we not discussed this?”

  Again, the boy nodded.

  “Therefore, as a gentleman, consider your position. Set your affairs in capable hands.”

  “If you say so,” muttered the boy.

  “It is your choice,” warned Massingham. “You are free to leave at any instance. Come, this sulking and indecision is not manly.”

  Stung, young Palliser stepped towards the desk. One of the Withnails came towards him, bowing. “If the gentleman has any doubts, he is most welcome to withdraw. He should feel no sense of obligation.”

  “No, no doubts at all,” said Massingham, with a hand upon the other’s back.

  Palliser was set before the desk, and many curling papers surged before him. In the most considerate fashion, Mr. Withnail was at his side.

  The quill on the desk was blunted and made a spot of ink on the parchment.

  “Kempe,” said Massingham, “fetch another pen, will you?”

  The fresh quill was brought, wordlessly; a few marks made. Then Palliser leaned in and signed his name two or three times.

  “Is that all?” he asked.

  “Assuredly, that is all,” said Mr. Withnail, smiling.

  The gent
lemen made ready to leave, all except Massingham, who had thrown himself onto a little damascene sofa by the window and lounged at his ease.

  “Are you not coming with us?” asked Kempe, surprised.

  “I have a small matter to discuss with the brothers,” said Massingham, brushing at the threads in the fabric. “Go on, and I’ll meet you at dinner.”

  “Of course.”

  The brothers, side by side, saw the three out of the parlour, and even stood on the stairs as they made their way down. Looking back (had any of them looked back, for Palliser was in a dark mood, Kempe equally thoughtful, and only Harton had a clear conscience), they might have seen the brothers Withnail still waving and smiling, the friendliest hyenas ever to hunt amongst this desert of brick and stone.

  THE FOLLOWING DAY, Grainger, having settled with himself that he must call on the Pearses, as good form required, was confined in an upright teak chair and pinned under the gaze of a mature aunt of the family, while Miss Miranda Pears played skillfully on the fortepiano. Miss Pears held her head tilted exactly while she touched the keys. Miss Pears, within a year or two of her majority, had pale skin, smooth shoulders and neck, and fine hair, somewhat between brown and blonde. Her father doted on her and had provided her with admirable accomplishments and the promise of an excellent income after marriage. Grainger, consequently, had no reservations about her expectations or her talents. Her company soothed him, sometimes interested him, and yet rarely moved him, which he found strangely irksome at times.

  Miss Pears let a note trail off and said, “Thaddeus, I don’t believe you are listening.”

  “Nonsense, Miranda. I am enraptured. Your playing is wonderful.”

  “I can never tell when you are making light of me,” said Miss Pears, with a faint smile. “I hope I should know better in the future.”

  Grainger arched his back and stretched his legs before him. “Please continue. It is my mood. Make nothing of it.”

  “Piers Massingham asked me to play the other night, after you left. He was quite particular.”

  “Piers Massingham,” announced the aunt, whose stare had not shifted from Grainger, “has purchased two new riding horses.”

  “Aunt Lucy,” Miss Pears admonished, “you do say the oddest things.”