Cadaver & Queen

by Alisa Kwitney

  “Front gates.” Byram, who usually walked slowly to disguise his limp in public, was lurching toward the heavy oak and steel doors. He pulled them open with surprising ease; Lizzie hadn’t realized how strong he was.

  “Wait up,” said Will, but Lizzie was already following Byram out the doors and through the black iron front gates. The sky was gray and overcast with darker clouds rolling in, and a strong wind was blowing leaves off trees and forcing Moulsdale to keep one hand on the brim of his tall black hat. Grimsbald, hatless, seemed wary of the small crowd of villagers, his hand going to his hip as if expecting to find a sidearm holstered there.

  Lizzie was now close enough to hear that one of the crowd, a woman, was shrieking abuse in a high, hoarse voice. “Give ’im back! Murderers! Thieves! Give me back my child! I seen ’im just yesterday and ’e were fine! Give ’im back, I say!”

  “My good woman, please, calm yourself.” Moulsdale’s calm, authoritative voice seemed to subdue the woman for a moment. “I am terribly sorry, but your son cannot go home.”

  The woman collapsed, sobbing so loudly that two men had to help support her.

  Moulsdale cleared his throat. “Mrs. Collins, our doctors labored with all their might to save your son, but despite their best efforts, I am afraid we could not save him.”

  Mrs. Collins breathed out sharply, as if she’d been punched. “No,” she said. “There ’as to be some mistake.” In her tired face and dishwater blond hair was the faintest resemblance to the cheerful blond boy from the infirmary.

  “I am terribly sorry,” said Moulsdale. “I wish it were a mistake.”

  “All ’e ’ad was a cough, and it was gettin’ better,” said Mrs. Collins flatly. “And now you tell me ’e’s dead.” Her eyes went vague and unfocused for a moment. “I should never ’ave brung ’im ’ere. Everyone told me. They steal the body parts of the poor, they told me.” Suddenly focused and fierce, she looked past Moulsdale at Grimbald and Shiercliffe. “And that’s what you’ve done wif my Bill. Where’s the body to bury?” Her eyes searched Lizzie’s face, as if she might hold the answer, and Lizzie felt suddenly guilty, as if she were somehow responsible for this woman’s awful distress.

  Moulsdale held out a gloved hand. “My dear woman...this is grief speaking, not sense. Surely you do not believe that our hospital trades in such gruesome practices. Your son died of an infectious disease, and had to be disposed of with particular care.”

  “The ’ell you say!” This was from a burly blond man. “Bill’s my nephew. You say ’e’s snuffed it?” The man jerked his chin up, revealing the battered, flattened nose of a fighting man. “I say, gif us back the body.”

  Moulsdale exchanged a look with Grimbald.

  “I’m afraid that’s impossible,” said Grimbald. “As Professor Moulsdale already explained, the boy died of an outbreak of contagious fever. He had to be buried immediately, and all his clothes and linens had to be burned. If you like, we can show you the spot so you may place flowers.” His tone, cold and dismissive, made flowers seem an absurd ritual, like sacrificing a pig.

  Now there were angry murmurs from the rest of the crowd. Lizzie had never seen a mob before, but she had read about race riots in the New York Times. There were about twenty villagers gathered now, and each of them was looking at her as if she belonged to some alien race. They’re afraid of us, she realized. And that makes them want to hurt us.

  “Lies!” Mrs. Collins was shrieking now, spittle flying from her lips. “Gif us our Billy back!”

  “‘For, behold, the Lord will come with fire,’” said an old man, his voice hoarse with tears, “‘and with His chariots like a whirlwind, to render His anger with fury, and His rebuke with flames of fire.’”

  “Aye, ye ha’ the right of it,” said the quiet man with the pugilist’s nose. “Burn the lot of them.”

  The crowd picked up the word burn and passed it back and forth.

  “Billy will have his revenge,” said the old man.

  “I don’t think they like Grimbald any more than you do,” Byram said in a low voice.

  “Nice to agree on something,” she whispered back, as if her knees weren’t shaking. Forcing herself to lock them, she realized that whatever had happened to Billy was only the spark. The locals here did not view Ingold as a hospital, or a medical school. They saw it as something sinister.

  “Miss Lavenza.” Shiercliffe looked younger with her hair coming loose from the wind. She leaned in, so that only Lizzie could hear what she was saying. “Go and fetch your roommate. Bring her here at once. Do you understand? At once. But do not run. Walk.”

  She held Lizzie’s gaze for a moment, and then Lizzie was off, walking as swiftly as she could back up to the school.

  It felt like ages to find Aggie, who had left breakfast and was busy rolling bandages with a few of the other newer nursing students. The ward sister seemed annoyed at the interruption, but when Lizzie explained that there were a group of angry townspeople gathered by the gate, she nodded brusquely to Aggie, who threw aside her bandages and moved so quickly that Lizzie had to struggle to follow her.

  “Did you get any names?”

  “Mrs. Collins, the blacksmith’s wife.” Lizzie fought to speak around the stitch in her side; she hadn’t had much exercise in the past month. “There was an old man, too... He said something about burning Ingold down.”

  Aggie’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “Right,” she said, pulling down her sleeves as she walked.

  They pulled open the heavy doors together and then raced down the hill. “Nancy,” Aggie called out. “Miles, Mr. Connelly.” What she said next came out in a thick, North country accent that Lizzie could barely understand, filled with “tha” and “thee” and words that didn’t even sound like English.

  “What’s she saying?”

  Byram shook his head. “They’re talking in dialect.”

  “She’s telling them that we aren’t killing off their loved ones,” said Will. “She’s reassuring them.”

  Byram raised an eyebrow. “You speak Yorkshire?”

  “I don’t have to. Just look.”

  Following his gaze, Lizzie saw that Mrs. Collins was listening to Aggie, and so were the men.

  “If you say these city folk aren’t butcherin’ our kin, lass, I believes ye,” said Mrs. Collins, looking defeated.

  “I don’t,” growled the flat-nosed man.

  “Pack it in! Her ma came fer yer wife’s lying in, and yer ma’s layin’ out. Aggie ’ere came with ’er, as I recall. Sewed up the shroud.”

  “As is right and proper. We wants our loved ones to bury,” said the man in a low growl.

  “I understand,” said Shiercliffe, “but there is a risk of contagion. Please try to understand.” She looked at Aggie, as if appealing to a peer, but the man broke in.

  “I understand all too well. Ye cut the limbs off our folk and sew ’em onto yers. Spare parts, that’s what we are to ye.” He spat on the ground. “Out of respeck fer yer ma, Aggie, I’ll leave. But learn what ye mun, and then leave this place.” He stared at Grimbald and Moulsdale, then turned on his heel and began to march back down toward the village. After a moment, the rest of the crowd began to peel away and follow him.

  “Miss DeLacey, thank you.” Shiercliffe leaned forward and said something in a low voice near Aggie’s ear. Lizzie wasn’t sure, but she thought it sounded like the same dialect the villagers had been using. Aggie’s eyes widened. “’Tweren’t nothing,” she said.

  Shiercliffe straightened and her face assumed its usual forbidding expression. “It was nothing, you mean. Proper English, Miss DeLacey.” She turned and began walking up the hill, while Moulsdale and Grimbald stood a moment longer, looking down at the dwindling forms of the departing villagers.

  “That was unfortunate, Ambrose,” said Grimsbald.

  “Indeed. But what can one expect
from the superstitious lower classes?” He began to lumber up the hill, and Byram and Will fell into place beside him, while Grimbald walked just behind them.

  Lizzie glanced at Aggie, who was looking back down at the village. There was a worried crease between her eyebrows. “Is he right? They won’t actually try to burn the school down, will they? They don’t really think we’re all a bunch of ghouls, do they?”

  “What do you mean, we?” Aggie looked at Lizzie. “We live up here at Ingold, sure, but just how much do they tell us about what’s going on?”

  “We’re only first years, though. After we pass the end of year exam...”

  Aggie snorted derisively. “They won’t ever tell the likes of me what’s really going on.” The sky, which had been cloud-free moments before, was suddenly overcast. “I should’ve known what they were about. I shouldn’t have left Billy.”

  Lizzie reached for the other girl’s hand, which was icy cold. “It’s not your fault, Aggie. He had scarlatina.”

  The wind whipped Aggie’s red hair into her face, making her look like some romantic painting of Ophelia, distraught and a little wild with grief. “That’s the odd thing,” said Aggie. “Even if he did have the fever, it wouldn’t have killed him overnight. And they wouldn’t have had to dispose of the body, neither.” She met Lizzie’s eyes. “What if they did steal the body, Lizzie. Or worse...”

  She didn’t say the words out loud, but her meaning was unmistakable.

  What if the faculty had killed him?

  25

  Victor settled down behind the row of triple-stacked specimen cages, using an unopened crate of fish food as a chair. Then, setting a bowl of soup on his lap and balancing a mug of tea on the corner of a salamander’s cage, he tucked into his dinner. Experience had taught him that whenever he or Igor sat down to eat, Makepiece was likely to barge in and assign them some new task. He and Igor had gotten quite creative about finding secluded corners so they could consume their meals in relative peace, but this time, Igor was off on an errand, and Victor wasn’t really hiding from the professor.

  Over the past week, he had managed to avoid Elizabeth, hoping that the time apart would clear his head and give him a chance to figure out what to do next. She was so damn stubborn about putting herself in harm’s way in order to help him. He wasn’t even sure what posed the greater danger—the cabal of professors who ran the school, or his own craving to touch her. It would have been easier to resist if he weren’t aware that she craved his touch, as well. Didn’t she realize the consequences if she were found in his arms? She would be expelled from the school, outcast from polite society, reviled, ruined.

  He had to stay away. If only he could find a way to unlock the secrets concealed inside his head before he saw her again.

  He swallowed a spoonful of soup and wondered what the school cook had against the use of salt and herbs. Probably thought they were wasted on Bio-Mechanicals. Pushing the bowl aside, he watched the salamanders as they scrabbled at the glass walls of their cages. Know how you feel, he thought. I can’t figure a way out, either.

  The laboratory door opened with a squeal of unoiled hinges, and Victor froze for a moment, listening. “Are we alone?” Moulsdale’s voice was instantly recognizable.

  “As good as,” replied Makepiece.

  “What about...?” Moulsdale’s voice trailed off.

  “All taken care of.”

  “Do we have everything we need for tonight? Ichor? Organs? What about the electrical equipment? We don’t want the circuits to overload, like last time.” There was a clink of glass, and Victor suspected that Moulsdale was inspecting things.

  “If you don’t mind,” said Makepiece, “these are in a particular order.” There was more clinking as Makepiece presumably restored the vials to their rightful places. “And yes, we are prepared for tonight, but you keep demanding instantaneous results. For the kind of outcome you desire, we will need to space out the treatments.”

  “We don’t have time for that, I’m afraid.” Moulsdale sighed. “Still, you know what I always tell the students—‘Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien.’ That is to say, ‘Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.’”

  “I know Voltaire as well as you do, Moulsdale. I also suspect that while neither of us is perfect, we might both be considered enemies of the good.”

  The two continued talking as they left the room, their voices fading into silence as the door closed after them.

  Now there was something new to worry about. It sounded as though they intended to perform a Bio-Mechanical procedure tonight, but that didn’t explain why Moulsdale was so interested in the outcome, or why Makepiece sounded defensive. Victor turned his mug so the unchipped side faced him and took a sip of his tea, yearning for something stronger. He imagined a glass of beer, the distinctive yeasty taste of it on his tongue, and was startled to find the room whirling around him. Christ, how strong was his imagination?

  Suddenly, it hit him. Moulsdale had asked if they were alone. What had Makepiece said? “As good as.” He knew I was here. He knew, and he didn’t care, because he’d taken care of me.

  Victor was sure of it; he’d been drugged. He stood up and managed to take one staggering step before losing his balance. He dropped his tea mug, but before it hit the floor he was off and gone, soaring through the air, looking down at the Thames River and the crenelated towers of Windsor Castle.

  * * *

  Victor was inside the castle, moving briskly down a long hallway. On one side of him, curtained windows stretched from the ornate rococo gilded ceiling to the bloodred carpet underfoot. On the other side of the hall, there were oil paintings darkened by age, and white marble busts.

  It was as much mausoleum as palace, with all the monuments to the past.

  “You understand that at no point are you to speak to Her Majesty,” said Grimbald, appearing beside him.

  “Unless she directs a comment to you,” amended Moulsdale, huffing with the effort of walking at the pace Grimbald had set. His heavily jowled face was red with exertion. “If she asks you a question, answer as briefly as possible and then look to us to elaborate if necessary.”

  There were dreams that you recognized as stews created from the stock of memory. This, he could tell, was one of those dreams.

  “I don’t understand,” Victor said in the dream. “Why does she want to have me there at all?”

  “Because she’s smarter than many credit,” said Grimbald, sounding none too pleased about this. “Because she’s read Machiavelli.”

  “You know that Her Majesty is considering appointing us to be her personal physicians,” said Moulsdale, pausing to dab at his brow. “Well, by meeting one of our most promising students, she is taking our measure.”

  Surprised and pleased by this unexpected praise, he was startled when Moulsdale gripped him hard by the shoulder.

  “You’re an arrogant young whippersnapper, and the queen knows that. She will play on your pride, boy, and your ambition.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  Moulsdale’s grin was unexpectedly boyish. “Why, be your own cocksure self, of course. Tell her the truth. Earn her trust.” He leaned forward, and Victor forced himself not to flinch from the sour-sweet odor of Moulsdale’s breath. “But do not forget that in the end, you must make Her Majesty trust us to serve her as loyal and capable servants of the throne.”

  Victor nodded. How could I have forgotten all this? The corridor seemed draftier and darker than it had a moment before, and the candle flames flickered in their wall sconces as he passed. At the far end of the hallway, a pair of gilt-embossed doors flew open, revealing a bearded Indian man in a turban. He pointed at Victor and said, “He is to enter alone. You two must wait outside.”

  Before Victor could assimilate what was happening, he was ushered into the queen’s sitting room, and the heavy doors were sh
ut, sealing Moulsdale and Grimbald out in the corridor.

  It was even darker inside than it had been in the hallway, with a candle-bearing chandelier the only source of light in the shadow-filled chamber. The old queen, it seemed, did not approve of gaslight, let alone electricity.

  As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, Victor saw that he was in a room cluttered with side tables and knickknacks and painted screens, every surface covered by a lace doily and every lace doily covered by cluster of small, framed miniatures. Victor noted that the royal children all seemed to have inherited the unfortunate combination of their mother’s protuberant eyes and their father’s weak chin. There was a faint doggy odor in the room, combined with the subtle hint of old-person smell. Despite all its riches, Victor felt as though he were in the drawing room of a fusty maiden aunt rather than the reigning monarch of an empire that spanned the globe.

  The bearded Indian man said, “Is that all?”

  It was only then that Victor noticed the old woman in the wicker wheelchair. “Thank you, Munshi.” Queen Victoria’s voice was breathy, but still held the ring of command.

  The munshi took hold of the curved, cane-shaped handles on the back of the wheelchair and moved her to the center of the room before bowing and stepping back against the wall. For a long moment, the monarch said nothing, staring at Victor as though taking his measure. He stood very still, keeping his eyes slightly downcast. The woman who had ruled much of the world for longer than Victor had been alive was much older and shorter and fatter than he had expected. She also did not look healthy. Her white hair was thin under her lace cap, her heavily jowled face sallow, her body unhealthily stout beneath the heavy black cloth of her dress. The Widow of Windsor, still in mourning for a husband dead forty years. It was difficult to imagine this forbidding old woman carrying such a passionate torch for any man.

  “So you are the young doctor whom I have heard spoken of with such effusive praise.” Queen Victoria’s pale, slightly protuberant eyes were clouded with cataracts, but something in the way she regarded him let him know that he was in the presence of a sharp intelligence.