A Broom at the Masthead (The Drowned Books Book 1)

by M. J. Logue

  The speaker coughed, and spat with an audible splat. "God damn, I hate these wet nights. The damp gets to my chest. I met your father at Bristol, Mistress Russell. He asked me if I thought it was worth it. I said no. Does that satisfy you as to my good intentions?" Prince Rupert of the Rhine blew his nose noisily. "And may we now repair to my carriage, as my head is giving me hell?"

  55

  The rain had stopped, and the moon was riding high above scudding silver clouds, and Thomazine was long abed.

  It had been an accident, Rupert said, and he had been so distressed about it that Russell had had to accede. He had not meant to attend Crediton's supper, with the pain in his head from the old wound that always flared up in the damp and gave him grief, and a wretched cold in the head that hurt him like the very devil when the wind was in the east quarter.

  - To which Russell, who had taken a pike in the cheek at Edgehill in a battle against this man, twenty-five years ago, and who likewise found that all the bones in his head throbbed when the wind backed, could only agree, with heartfelt sympathy.

  And then, late, Rupert had thought that actually, as the man was a friend, and might have gone to some trouble for this, he would endeavour in courtesy to at least attend briefly, even walking with a stick and in considerable pain. It was a matter of streets away. He could be home before midnight to seek his own bed, and the comforts of it. Had called for his own carriage, and as he was drawing up to the house, had seen the Russells getting into a carriage of their own.

  "I knew your wife, you see," he said simply. "By the hair. There are so few ladies at court with such bright hair."

  - except, of course, that it was not a carriage of their own, but a hired vehicle. The driver of the hired carriage must have panicked, at seeing Rupert's own vehicle clattering in pursuit. That was all he could think. A plain man, a common hired carriage, suddenly pursued with intent by a very official, crested, gilded, expensive-looking vehicle - such a man would not be unreasonably afraid.

  That was what Rupert thought, anyway, and seeing the older man's embarrassment and distress at thinking himself the cause of such an incident, Russell was not of a mind to argue. Of course that was what had happened. The hireling had panicked, not unreasonably, and in his panic had misremembered his way, in the dark, in the strange streets.

  And in the prince's own private apartments, it seemed so very likely. The whole thing was just odd - that he was standing in his old enemy's personal quarters, while a man he'd faced down across a battlefield and cordially loathed twenty years ago fussed and fretted like some greying old mastiff, muttering self-reproach. Rupert had wanted to summon his own personal physician to examine Russell's ankle - unless, he said earnestly, Russell had his own that he should prefer to consult? (To which Russell had murmured something polite and non-committal, thinking of Luce Pettitt, and what he might say if summoned at gone midnight on a wet November night to come to Westminster and poke his friend in the ankle.)

  Looking at the supply of potions and nostrums scattered around, it was clear that Rupert had a personal physician. One, if not several. Russell's ankle was not broken, though it was badly sprained, and had it not been for the presence of his wife he would have sworn more considerably than he did, having a prissy gentlemen in a nightcap wrenching at it. It was also clear from the stained linen covering the old wound on Rupert's bristly skull, and the faint scent of rotten meat, that the prissy gentleman in the nightcap was perhaps not so efficient as he might be.

  He was tired. He was getting old, and he was not used to being thrown around the cobbles as much as he might have been twenty years ago, and he wanted nothing more than to limp to his bed - a bed - any bed. Rupert had been very apologetic about Thomazine's state of undress, and had been very courteous to her with his eyes averted, which was somehow rather touching. Still, he was a bachelor and not well-equipped with ladies' clothing, and so he had lent her a vast silk brocade dressing-gown which had pooled about her feet, tall as she was, and she had sat with her dirty bare feet tucked up underneath her in the big carved chair by the fireside, with her chin on her hand and her hair in a wild tangle about her face. (To Russell's sure and certain knowledge, Rupert was very well-equipped indeed with a fairly intimate knowledge of ladies' clothing and a number of mistresses with whom he was on very fond terms. But perhaps that was a matter best left for another day.)

  There was a beautiful little French clock, all gilt and intricate traceries, on the table, next to a blue and white Delftware bowl of cooling water and a pile of fine linen patched with stains. It chimed the quarter hour, the half hour, the hour...Russell could have willingly thrown it on the fire. It kept chiming. It was relentless. And Thomazine was long in bed, and still Rupert would go on and on, talking of the good old days. And it was sad, and Russell pitied him, that he had no one else who would talk to him of those days when he had been a man of fire and glory, and not an ageing, ailing man of letters living on memory. It was sad. And Russell, who had been a man of fire and a little glory himself in those days, and who was now a staid old married man with a throbbing ankle and not an inch of his person that was neither scraped nor bruised, was just plain weary, and he wanted to go to bed, and not re-live the great battle at Edgehill.

  Struggling to keep his eyes open, in the stuffy warmth, half-numb with too much good brandy, and he sat upright quite suddenly and said, "Willis."

  Rupert, stopped short in the middle of an anecdote of some petty skirmish at some bridge or another, blinked. "Was he there?"

  "No. Willis. Royal Society Willis. You mentioned him."

  “I had not realised you were interested in natural science, Major Russell? Perhaps you would like to join one of the society’s lectures, at another time? Master Willis is one of its founders, you know. He has done some fascinating work into the brain –“

  Thankful Russell’s brain had ceased to function with any clarity about an hour ago. “Tomorrow,” he said firmly, and rudely, and stood up. Being on the outside of the better part of a pint of brandy, and having forgotten all about his sprained ankle due to the numbing properties of same, he gave a yelp of anguish.

  Rupert grinned. “Help yourself to a cane. I’ve a number. And - welcome to the society of the walking wounded, major.” He raised his glass mockingly. “It only gets better. Good night.”

  56

  He got lost, of course, but there seemed to be silent and officious servants in every corridor, and they were all very kind, and he was very aware that he’d been rolling in the filth of some backstreet midden. Tap. Tap. Tap. Hobbling along, slowly and painfully, trying not to crane his neck at the works of art so casually displayed on the clean sky-blue and gilt walls amongst the antiquated and downright bizarre weaponry – dear God, he’d never seen so many paintings of ladies with their shifts off, and he a most respectable married man, and he wasn’t sure whether it was entirely loyal to look, but he did anyway, for the purpose of later comparison.

  “Here we are, sir. I’ll have a man bring you hot water and fresh linen in the morning.”

  “And, ah, my wife?”

  Which embarrassed the servant not at all. He merely dropped his eyes in a knowing manner, as if they were two men of the world who knew exactly what the other was saying without a word being exchanged. “I’m sure something may be found, sir. Good night.”

  And then departed as noiselessly as he’d come, leaving Russell wishing, most fervently, for a length of twine with which he might later find his way back to Rupert’s parlour, like Ariadne in the maze. (It was Ariadne he was thinking of, he thought. Probably. She was definitely the one with the big ball of string and the bare bubbies, painted in about twice life size at the top of the stairs.)

  “Thankful, ‘s that you?”

  She sounded all sleepy and cross, and did not sit up. He sat down, though, on the bed with a thump, and she said something rude at him because he’d sat on her foot.

  “And you stink of brandy,” she muttered, and then rolled over
and looked up at him through a red-amber curtain of loose hair. “Well? What did you discover?”

  He yawned. “That I’ve no head for spirits?”

  “Thankful!”

  He thought she might have hit him, but since everything hurt anyway, one more jab in his much-abused ribs more or less was little hardship.

  He was fairly sure, after she curled herself up to his back under the blankets, that she cursed him some more for taking over the warm patch in that vast expanse of icy sheet, and having cold feet.

  But he was very sure she’d missed him. A while later, when she folded her arms over his, about her middle, he lay there thinking that life was, actually, rather wonderful. Would not be wonderful in the morning, but right now, right this minute, he could have asked for nothing more.

  57

  He was afraid, and that was a thing he had not been, of anything, in twenty years and more. And he hated it, and more and more, he thought it was not coincidence - that it was not, as he suspected Thomazine imagined and was too kind to say to him, the black humour of a man who imagined slights where there were none, and thought himself the object of every eye when he was not.

  He could not see how the things were connected. But there was starting to be a pattern, of blood and fire, and of - of coincidence, if you could call a random pattern a pattern. What he could not conceive was why some vengeful eye might have chosen to light on him, save that he was wholly unremarkable.

  And twenty years ago he might have tossed his head, and said that it was proof of his having been marked especially for the Lord's trials, to test his mettle. And now, with - with dependents, damn it, with roots and ties and obligations - he just tossed his head and said, under his breath, that if he found the son-of-a-bitch who had hurt and frightened his wife, he was going to skin them and roll their bleeding carcass in salt.

  It was personal. And the thought that someone had marked him as sufficient of a man to be hurt and frightened, and not as a frigid automaton, frightened him more than anything else.

  She was wan and a little forlorn this morning, and there was a bluish-yellow to her skin like spoiled milk that he did not like. Not sick, not feverish, but wanting sleep and wanting to be comforted; he could comfort her a little, but not in Prince Rupert's lodgings, which were not home. Where you could not whisper endearments without an echo, and where there were impassive servants in every place you might consider being private with your wife. She had crumbled her bread on her plate at breakfast and smiled nicely at the Prince, but her eyes were heavy, and her mouth had a sweet downward curve. (He thought her cheeks were thinner, too, and he did not care for that. He might have words with this son of his, if the child was going to wear his mother to a pack-thread before even his entry into the world.)

  And Rupert had precious little experience with breeding women of his own, which was a petty and cruel consolation.

  No, he had spent most of the morning with his hand on the hilt of his sword - which was stupid, when he thought about it. Stiffening at the rumble of carriage wheels, for fear of a second attempt at their kidnap, although he had endorsed Rupert's tale of the hireling taking fright for Thomazine's benefit. (She's pregnant, Russell. A condition which affects her belly, not her brain. She will not thank you for treating her as a child. Even so.) She hadn't believed him, but she had feigned comfort by the pretence for his sake, and he had pretended to be comforted by her unconvincing comfort, and so they lied to each other, without words.

  She had not wanted him to see the great blue-black splash of bruising on her poor flank, where the snapped stay-bone had stabbed her like a dagger. It had bled a little, on her shift. He said nothing. He had suggested that she, perhaps, leave off her pretence, and wear loose jackets.

  "Then all would know I am carrying your son," she said, and he wondered if she knew her hand had gone to her belly, where the child did not yet show as any more than a glow in the heart.

  He had been going to say that he did not mind, that he was proud, that he was the happiest man alive: and then he looked at her shadowed green-gold eyes and he understood her point.

  He had said nothing, had only kissed her gently, and she had clung to him a little. But it was a little something else to add to his list of vengeance. Thankful Russell was a great believer in meeting fire with fire. And someone was going to burn, for this work.

  "And this is my wife," Russell said proudly, and Thomazine gave a feeble smile and allowed him to pull her forward.

  Willis was a sober, respectable, gentleman of prosperous appearance and intelligent demeanour, the sort of kindly, trustworthy doctor that would see to a family of the better sort, in a little country town. Neither too high nor too low, not too plain and not too fashionable. He bowed politely over her hand and Thomazine caught a glimpse of something dreadful on the elbow of his good black coat, and her eyes flew to Russell's face in absolute horror.

  Not quite so much like a plain county-town doctor as he thought, then. Her Uncle Luce was a sober and mostly-respectable medical man of prosperous appearance, and Russell was fairly sure that he'd never been seen in public with the contents of a man's brain-pan on his sleeve.

  "Charmed," she said faintly, and looked at her husband instead, he being apparently easier on the eye than a thing that looked like grey porridge.

  Rupert had not accompanied them. He had looked somewhat wan himself that morning, picking at his breakfast like an ageing raven, peevish and sore. (He hadn't had his wig on, either, and Thomazine had been hard pressed not to stare at his close-cropped head. It was not a look she had ever taken to, she said afterwards, and she had not the faintest idea why a man should choose to crop himself like a convict in the name of vanity.) He had written them a note of introduction to Dr Willis, and then he seemed relieved to be free of them.

  It was a relief to Russell too, to be fair, because he could not and would not be comfortable in the apartments of a man who'd spent most of his gilded boyhood attacking not only Russell himself, but his father-in-law and most of his friends. He seemed very old - and he wasn't so much older than Thankful, but being dark and sallow, he seemed that much more - well. Aged. Thomazine put her hand his again, and he squeezed her fingers comfortingly, and then glanced down at her, frowning slightly. "You all right, my tibber? Hands are cold?"

  "It isn't the warmest," she agreed faintly. And how should it be? Because Dr Willis chopped off the tops of hanged villains' skulls and stirred about the insides with a spoon in here, and it must stink like a shambles, on a hot day, and it was truly astonishing how much of an unladylike turn of speed the demure Mistress Russell could put on in her fashionable borrowed skirts.

  "We had something of an accident yesterday evening," Russell said absently, watching the door swing ponderously closed behind her. "Unsettled in her stomach, poor maid. She didn't sleep well, either."

  "I've a colleague who'll see to her," Willis said, and left his cadaver with as much good cheer as if he'd been getting up from his armchair to greet a guest.

  "Sorry," Russell said to the flabby, bluish-white body on the table. Seemed rude not to.

  It did stink, mind, though it wasn't a smell he was likely to forget. Did know what rotten blood smelt like, thank you. Had spent rather a lot of time after the battle at Edgehill, with the scent of his own in his nostrils. And he had a fairly good idea what it felt like, having your brains scrambled. From the inside. He had every sympathy for the ne'er-do-well on the table, with his greasy, hairy scalp peeled back like the shell of a boiled egg.

  Willis came back in, dusting his hands on his white linen apron like a grocer. "There we go, major, your good lady all settled in the kitchen with my housekeeper. They can have a lovely little coze while we talk of - what was your interest, sir? Anatomy?"

  "I imagine," Russell said warily, because he wasn't quite sure what his interest was.

  Willis nodded. "Poor soul," he said, and Russell had the disconcerting impression the doctor was talking of the body on the table, and not
Thomazine. Advancing on the cadaver with an air of purpose, and a saw, and Russell winced.

  Willis glanced up, his eyes bright under fierce triangular brows. "It's all right, major. He doesn't mind. He can't feel it, you know."

  "I'm sure. I - " and why not? Touched his fingers to the scar under his hair, just above his ear. "Was shot in the head myself, after Naseby. I have a degree of fellow-feeling."

  "Ah?"

  And backed up a step sharply as Willis put his saw down and came for a closer look. "There is nothing to see!" he yelped.

  "Just there, where the -? You intrigue me, sir. Pray, be seated."

  Had little choice, at a head taller than the good doctor, unless the man was likely to provide himself with a mounting-block to poke at the dents in Russell's skull. Which, ordinarily, pained him not at all, until the man started jabbing his sharp fingers into the scar. "Any pain, sir? Tenderness?"

  "Yes!"

  "Ah, I see why you have consulted me, then!" And the wretched leech was actually reaching across the table for a pair of scissors, with every intent of cropping Russell's hair to the skin for a better poke.

  "It hurts, sir, because you are pulling my hair! Kindly desist!" He yanked himself free and glowered, panting, with most of his hair worked free from its bindings and fallen in his eyes.

  "Do you suffer from the headache at all, I mean. Any disturbances in your vision, or imbalance?"

  Only, he thought, after an evening with the indestructible Rupert. "Not in these twenty years, doctor, and I am not here to discuss my anatomy."

  "Such a shame," Willis said, and his fingers lingered tenderly over the old scar on Russell's head. "Would you consider -"

  "No."

  "In the interests of science, you understand. It would be perfectly safe. Fascinating -"

  "No!"

  "Would it not be astonishing were we able to see a man's bones, without harming him?" Willis said longingly, and Russell, who was presently in possession of those coveted bones, bridled.