The Fugitive and the Vanishing Man

by Rod Duncan

  “I need to speak to the consort,” he said, his voice deep, his tone abrupt.

  The consort had positioned herself in front of the window, so that anyone presenting themselves would need to squint. Coloured silks hung around, defusing the light to some extent. Threads of smoke rose from incense burners to either side of the divan on which she sat.

  “Ma’am,” he said, bowing.

  “Bad news?” she asked.

  He couldn’t quite make out her expression.

  “Why should there be?”

  “Trouble follows you. Are we to be attacked? Or is it a plague this time? Bears? Mosquitos?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Then what?”

  “I need to speak with you alone.”

  He heard her sigh, as if that was confirmation. “Bad news clings to you, magician.”

  But she signalled to her handmaids nonetheless, and to others in the room, who curtsied towards him before slipping away to rooms further into the apartment. Two women remained. Chaperones. One sat to either side of the divan, facing outwards so as not to look directly. But they were listening. One of them he trusted. The other, a young girl with copper coloured hair, was in the pay of Janus.

  He clasped his hands behind his back to stop any fidgeting giving away his anxiety.

  What he wanted to ask was whether she thought she might yet have been poisoned. What he said was: “How are you feeling?”

  “If I eat, I’m sick. If I don’t eat, I’m sick. It’s a miracle my belly grows, for it’s getting no food. And I have spots.” She touched the side of her nose.

  It was a pimple, he thought. “Is the baby well, do you think?”

  “I’ve felt no kick from him. How can I know?”

  “That joy will come,” Edwin said, soothing.

  “You said I’d be well, magician. But I feel so bad, I want to die.”

  Inside, his panic was growing. How could he know the difference between morning sickness and a slow poison? “This is the way of things for those with child,” he said. “The sicker you feel, the better the baby is faring.”

  “How can you be sure?” There was a sting in her question. Fear, perhaps. Giving birth might be more dangerous than going into battle.

  “It’s what the midwives say.”

  “Wearing a dress doesn’t make you a woman,” she said.

  That took him aback. “I… I don’t claim to be.”

  The chaperones hadn’t moved, but he could sense their tension. “You’re right,” he said. “You’re right. But I still want the best for you.”

  “You’ve no need worry. The ox told you I’d be well. And the baby.” Now the catch in her voice sounded more like anger than fear.

  “Do you not believe the augury?”

  “What does it matter what I believe? I’m the consort. I’m only a woman.”

  “It matters to me.”

  “Ah, yes. It would. I can see that.” She tilted her head, but he couldn’t read her expression against the daylight streaming in from outside. Silk hangings shifted in the breeze. The smell of autumn, always stronger.

  “Would your chaperones still be able to do their job from the other side of the room?” he asked.

  The girl with the copper hair gave herself away with a sideways flick of the eyes.

  “I think they might.”

  Both young women got to their feet. The consort waved them away. When they had retreated to the far corner of the room, Edwin got down on one knee, bringing himself closer to the divan, closer to her ear.

  “Sometimes we must work to help the auguries,” he whispered. “They say you will be safe. But–”

  “Why did you send my maids away?”

  “The girl… Please don’t look at her, ma’am. Janus pays her.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He’s not the only one with spies.”

  The consort leaned closer. Her voice was little more than a breath. “Should I get rid of her?”

  “If you did, he’d only place another.”

  “How do you know he hasn’t already?”

  “I don’t.” He frowned. “If you were to fall sick…”

  “I am sick!”

  “I mean, if you were to lose the baby, I’d be thrown from the battlements.”

  “Like your mother.”

  He clenched his jaw till his teeth ached.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “If you lost the baby, I would be killed. And if that happened, Janus would become First Counsellor. It’s what he wants above all things…”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Please be careful what you eat. And if your health should take a sudden change, please send word to me. You may not like me. But we are in each other’s care.”

  CHAPTER 16

  The canoe had been pushed in among a tangle of dead bushes and covered in brush, so that even standing close, it was impossible to see. Mrs Arthur supervised as they hauled it to the water.

  Elizabeth had lived for years in and among boats, on the waterways of England and on the Atlantic Ocean. But she’d not experienced travel by canoe. The first surprise was the quiet. Paddles slipped through the surface of the water, clean and silent as knives. She scanned the hills on either side, fearing bands of warriors. But the country was empty and vast.

  Dip and pull. Dip and pull. The cry of a hawk circling in the distance. Hills of brown grass. Dip and pull. Elizabeth’s mind drifted. Somewhere ahead, was her brother.

  She thought of the bow top wagon she’d lived in as a child. It’d had a name: something like vargo or vardo. She couldn’t quite remember. At night she’d lain in a nest of blankets in the back, the rolling motion lulling her towards sleep. Another child lying next to her. Holding his hand. The sound of her father at the front humming a travelling tune. A woman’s voice joining his in harmony: the same woman who tucked them in at night. The smell of her skin. The softness of her kiss. There had been a mother once. Elizabeth had dreamed it. She knew she had dreamed it. But before the dreams it had been a memory. And before the memory, it had been real.

  That she must have had a mother was a biological truth. She’d lived with the knowledge of it for as long as she could remember. Strangely, she didn’t think she’d asked her father about it. She’d pondered it for sure. But more in terms of how the other children in the travelling show must have felt with a real mother in their lives instead of the knowledge that one had carried her.

  There had been a brother. Then there was not. There had been a great illusion, which they did together on the stage. The Vanishing Man, the daybills had said. Yet they’d been children. Then there was only her and she’d played both parts. She was sister and brother and the audience never knew. It was a pretend game. The great secret between herself and her father. Riding at the front of the wagon she would sometimes be Elizabeth, sometimes Edwin. Even some in the travelling show didn’t know. One child but two personas.

  Dip and pull. Dip and pull. Navigating between sand shoals. Rocks slipping past under the surface, green-grey, big enough to rip a hole in the fragile hull. The pigeon fluttered in the carrying basket. They eased towards the right bank, following such current as the great, slack river could show.

  It seemed strange that she could remember learning the hand movements of the quick-change act, but not the day her brother left. Releasing the side of the canoe, she twisted her hand in that almost-dance, unclipping imaginary fastenings, fleet as the fingers of a musician.

  “Your spells won’t work over water,” Mrs Arthur said, the first words she’d spoken in hours.

  Elizabeth looked back and was about to protest that she hadn’t been making magic, that she couldn’t. Mrs Arthur shifted her oar, so that it cut against the water, turning the boat. Her gaze gave nothing away. But her words already had.

  Elizabeth put on a smile. “You’re taking me to see my brother. I wouldn’t do anything to harm you.”

  Mrs Arthur nodded. “Can you ke
ep us hidden?”

  The first rule of deception is to tell what others already believe. So Elizabeth said, “Not over water.”

  “But at the camp tonight?”

  “It would help if I knew who we’re hiding from.”

  “Spies.”

  “Aren’t you spies?”

  “We are.”

  “Spies of the King of Crown Point?” Elizabeth had picked up the title from their conversations.

  “Not all the king’s servants want the same thing,” Conway said.

  “What does my brother want?”

  “Do you not know?”

  They’d come in close to the bank and sand was scraping the bottom. Conway stepped into the shallows and the boat lifted. He pulled the prow forwards until they grounded properly. Then Elizabeth got out to help and together they hauled the canoe up onto the beach. When Mrs Arthur stepped out, it was onto dry sand.

  A few yards of beach led to brittle grass and then to a low scarp of dark rock. Conway guided them into a crevice, which widened inwards to an enclosed space. The remains of an old campfire proved that it had been used before. Looking up, Elizabeth could see a circle of sky.

  “Are we safe to light a fire?” Conway asked.

  Elizabeth longed for the comfort of one and with the rocks all around they would not be seen. So she mimed the unclipping of fastenings, as she had done before and had been taken as magic. Conway and Mrs Arthur watched her fingers dance.

  “A small fire will be safe,” she said, at last.

  Dry branches caught easily and made little smoke. Conway did the cooking, fetching water from the river, resting the coffee pot in the embers. Soon he had beans and chillies and bacon simmering and the smell of it was making Elizabeth’s stomach grumble.

  “Show me some magic,” Mrs Arthur said.

  Elizabeth regarded her across the fire. She could easily palm a small object, making it seem to disappear. But it was impossible to know how they’d react. That one word “magic” meant different things to different people.

  “What would you like to see?”

  Conway glanced to his wife, as if for permission, then said to Elizabeth, “Can you summon animals?”

  Mrs Arthur scowled. “It’d be more useful if she told us what dangers we’ll see tomorrow.”

  No luck there, Elizabeth thought. She lay back on the ground and looked up at the sky, which was losing its brightness. “I haven’t seen my brother for years,” she said.

  “How many?”

  “We were small.”

  “Was it your mother taught you magic?”

  “It was my father.”

  “He also had the power?”

  “Yes,” she said, trying to keep her voice level.

  “Then you have the power from both sides,” Conway said. There was awe in his voice.

  Elizabeth felt the stirring excitement in the beat of her heart. These strangers knew of her family. They knew parts of her history that she’d lost. But to ask about her mother directly would reveal her own ignorance.

  A flicker of movement caught her eye. A small bird had alighted on the rim of rock above her. If they’d been in England, she’d have called it a wren. It flitted across the circle of sky and landed again, angling its head to look into a joint in the rock. Hunting for insects perhaps. The others hadn’t seen it. Elizabeth looked away from it and sat, making her movement gentle, hoping the bird wouldn’t be alarmed.

  “Are there many animals in this land?” she asked.

  “If you know where to look,” said Conway. “Coyotes, mountain lions, bears, lynx…”

  “Eagles,” said Mrs Arthur. “Hawks, grouse, songbirds.”

  “Songbirds,” Elizabeth echoed the word. She nodded and closed her eyes. She raised her hand and made her fingers dance. Then she looked up, as if aware of something for the first time, feeling them follow her gaze. The wren fluttered across the gap of sky. It chirped for the first time. There’s no accounting for luck, but the wise conjurer grabs it when she can.

  Conway kissed his knuckles and crossed himself. Twice.

  Mrs Arthur nodded, as if such miracles were commonplace. But there was something new in her eyes, which might have been respect or fear.

  Elizabeth woke in grey light to see the dark outline of Mrs Arthur bending over the pigeon basket. Then the woman was slipping out through the rocks and away. When she returned, Elizabeth pretended to be asleep. But later, when the bedrolls had all been packed away and the Arthurs were getting the boat ready, she checked the wicker basket and found it empty. A message had been sent.

  CHAPTER 17

  Edwin was jolted from a dream by the rattle of the door handle and a feeling of panic. His first awareness was the knowledge of the room and the blankets, then a realisation that he had fallen asleep in his clothes.

  The corridor lantern was spent. Or someone had snuffed it out. Either way, the spy hole showed only black.

  “Who is it?” he whispered.

  “Pentecost,” came a voice.

  He slid the bolts, opened the door, felt the brush of the air on his face as the assistant to the Pigeon Master slipped inside.

  The pigeon loft of the castle was as much a place of intrigue and politics as the Great Hall or the king’s bedchamber. Its master was a wealthy man and difficult to bribe. Not so Pentecost, the assistant.

  Edwin couldn’t see the man’s face in the dark. Nor would Pentecost be able to see how he was dressed. But a masculine pitch of voice would form the image.

  “What news?”

  “A bird came in late,” Pentecost said. “The bell didn’t ring. No one saw.”

  “Who found it?”

  “That’d be me. It has your mark on it.”

  “Did anyone see you coming here?”

  “No… sir.”

  Edwin caught that hesitation before the pronoun. It was a sign of respect that the man had cared to think about it. Edwin found himself smiling in the darkness. Illiteracy was another of Pentecost’s virtues. Another reason to trust him. But he knew how to recognise the mark of each person in the castle and many beyond it. Edwin’s own mark was the leaping hare, copied from his mother’s pistol.

  “You did well,” he said. “How would you like your payment?”

  “Please keep it for me, sir. Same as always.”

  For all his lack of letters, Pentecost had clear thoughts in his head. Holding no money, his corruption would never be proved. Edwin wondered how many accounts the man had stored up. Perhaps he would not be so poor when all that was counted. One day he’d surely cash in those hidden riches. Then there’d be no more sight of him.

  He touched Pentecost’s shoulder in the dark and felt him flinch. Finding the man’s hand, he opened the fingers and took the tiny glass vial.

  When he was alone again and Pentecost’s footsteps in the corridor had receded beyond hearing, Edwin struck his steel and lit a lamp. The wax bung at the top of the message vial seemed pristine, though it was impossible to know for sure that it hadn’t been tampered with. The sender’s mark was a triangle with a line cutting through it. That was Mrs Arthur or one of her husbands. The wax also bore the leaping hare, so it would in any case have come to Edwin in the morning. But this way, there would be no record in the ledger of the pigeon loft. No one would know that a message had been received.

  He crumbled the seal and dropped the fragments of wax into the lamp flame, making it spit and sputter. The paper slipped easily from the tube. Uncurled and unfolded, it made a scrap smaller than the palm of his hand. The ink was reddish brown, the letters small and precise.

  We bring one who carries your face, your gun, your powers, your name, your blood. Come to the East Cairn after midnight in three days.

  There could be no sleep after such news.

  First there was confusion: reading the message over and over again. Your face, your gun, your powers, your name, your blood. His mother. It had to be his mother. He couldn’t get past that ridiculous thought. The gun h
ad been hers. But she was dead. He’d seen it. Not the death itself, but her last look at him before they’d pulled the sack down over her face. She hadn’t screamed as they dragged her to the battlements. In his mind, he saw her go over the edge. Again.

  Then, in the last watch of the night, the thought of Elizabeth came to him. She was him and he was her. But in the past they had been sometimes two people as well as one. Then, the she of them both had been called Elizabeth. The he had been Edwin. It had been a game. It had been real. It had been secret. Almost memory. Almost dream.

  The she of him. The he of her.

  That set the tripping beat of his heart, set its power and its weakness. He wanted to jump up. He wanted to climb the walls of the castle, or fall down in an almost faint. He wanted to be not alone. The impossibility, becoming possible, that there might be someone else, someone out there who was more fully she. That they would not be alone.

  It was that otherness, that separation, which Edwin had felt through all their life. Being different. Others might look and see a slim man wearing feminine silk and think the oddness was centred in that mismatch: the taboo of crossing genders, or mixing them. But the otherness was something apart from that. Something real. To slip silk around his body was merely to give it form, so that it could be seen, to say I am not the one you think me to be.

  And yet there was a dream from before. A bed of blankets in the back of the wagon, the rocking and jolting of the road, another warmth, another body in the same nest. A sister. Elizabeth had been her name. Or maybe it was their name. For sometimes they were each other. There had been stage lights and cigar smoke and heat underneath the canvas roof and behind the glare of the lights, row on row of men and women, the country people who came to see them perform.

  The ringmaster, wearing a sequinned jacket, burgundy red, and top hat, addressing the glare-hidden audience, describing the Vanishing Man as if it were a display of supernatural magic. The boy would disappear from one cabinet, cross via the ether to the other side of the stage and materialise in the other cabinet. He would carry a playing card signed by one of the audience, as proof that it was not an identical twin.