The Fugitive and the Vanishing Man

by Rod Duncan

  “This might hurt,” she said.

  That proved an understatement. With her little finger, she dabbed a drop of soapy water into the corner of his left eye. The sting of it made him suck air through his teeth.

  Through his one good eye, he watched her do the same to herself and double over in pain. But when the tears had stopped running and they looked at themselves again, he understood the genius of her idea. She’d performed the same trick as with the parchment. Each of them now bore one red and weepy eye. Anyone looking at them would be too conscious of that unsightly blemish to think of the finer points of their complexion.

  “How long will it last?”

  “Long enough,” she said.

  She held up her pistol in one hand and a copy of the agreement in the other. He matched the move, except that her pistol was loaded. Those objects would be the convincer. She would be holding them when she fired a shot in the air and disappeared in a pyrotechnic flash. He would be holding them when he emerged. Who would doubt that they were one and the same?

  The flintlocks seemed more ceremonial than practical. They could be worn from the belt and upset no one at the feast.

  “This is it then,” he said, meaning the last moment for them to be alone together before they performed the Vanishing Man.

  “We’re ready,” she said.

  She’d agreed to help him to this point. But for everything that lay beyond, their hopes fell in different directions.

  “Good luck,” he said, not understanding how he could mean it whilst yearning for his own plans to succeed. Yet somehow he did. It was a kind of love.

  The upper corridors were empty, but expectant voices bubbled up through windows from the courtyard below. Descending the stairs, the sounds and smells became more vivid: roasting meats and spices, conversation and laughter. The ordinary people cared nothing for negotiations and treaties. But tonight they would feast and drink. Tomorrow could care for itself.

  Outside the royal apartments, the Master at Arms was in full flow, relating a tale of military prowess, to judge by the sweep of his sword arm. His audience, two ladies-in-waiting, giggled, hands before mouths. On seeing Edwin, the Master at Arms broke off to stare.

  “God’s blood, magician! But what have you done to your eye?”

  “An accident.”

  They’d fashioned a story, Edwin and Elizabeth, a magical experiment gone wrong. But the Master at Arms asked for no more explanation. Pulling an expression of disgust, he looked away, as did the ladies-in-waiting.

  “What will the Newfies think of you?” said one.

  “They’ll say you’re a devil,” said the other.

  It was working like a dream.

  In the courtyard, the fire was in its first blaze, sending up flames half again the height of a man. The servants had to turn their faces away from it as they passed carrying serving trays and wine butts. Janus was nowhere to be seen. Nor at first could he see anyone from the embassy. Then a hand touched him lightly on the shoulder and he turned to see Gilad next to him.

  “Light-footed, as always,” Edwin said.

  Gilad examined him. “You, my friend, should get to a doctor.”

  He seemed genuinely concerned about the eye. Given a chance, they might even grow to be friends, Edwin thought.

  “It was an accident,” he said. “It’ll heal.”

  Gilad seemed not so sure.

  On the far side of the courtyard a bottle slipped from a servant’s grip and smashed on the flagstones. The kitchen boys laughed. The overseer shouted.

  “You’ve done well,” Gilad said. “Getting the words of an agreement.”

  “With your help.”

  “I’m sorry you’ll not see it signed.”

  “I might yet.”

  “We’re leaving tomorrow.”

  “Then I still have a few hours.”

  Gilad laughed. “I like the way you think. But next year perhaps. Or you could come back with us to the Rock. Talk to my king face-to-face.”

  “Perhaps,” said Edwin.

  Gilad nodded a respectful farewell and headed back to-wards Brandt’s apartment. Through the whole conversation, he’d not once dropped his gaze. Edwin had the queasy sensation that the man had been seeing him in the way that a conjuror sees another: storing away each detail for later.

  The fire was falling in on itself, forming its bed of embers. The lower benches were already filling with castle workers and their families, with farmers and traders from beyond the walls. But if he ran, Edwin thought he could get to the Room of Cabinets, warn his sister and be back in the courtyard in time. With enough light, Gilad would surely see through her disguise. When the time came, she would have to stay away from him.

  But as he stepped inside, he came up against a rush of servants moving in the other direction, getting out of the way. Timon, the king and the consort were approaching, shoulder to shoulder. Edwin backed up to the wall to let them pass, but the king saw him and stopped.

  “My faithful magician!” the king’s voice boomed. “This is your day. I’ll have no slinking in the shadows.” He put an arm over Edwin’s shoulder, like a brother, then dropped his voice. “All will be done this night. One way or another. I want you to promise that you’ll give Mr Janus your loyalty too, if he becomes First Counsellor. Will you do that?”

  “Yes, sire. I promise.”

  “Good! Good! But what has happened to your eye?”

  “An accident.”

  “Never mind, then,” said the king.

  Edwin found himself being pulled along, back into the courtyard, up onto the raised platform, just as Brandt was emerging on the other side, followed by the other twelve men of the embassy.

  The room had been a wonder to Elizabeth when she first arrived in the castle. Its objects with their familiar-yet-strange textures and scents had each been the door to a lost memory. It had taken only a few hours for her to understand that the room would be her prison. How quickly those objects of wonder had become ordinary.

  But now, with everything prepared, she felt a pang of impending loss and stepped back to open one of the cabinets. That camphor smell: the last trace of her mother. With no remains and no grave, part of her mind had been carrying a hope. Perhaps denial was a kind of grieving. But there had been perfect sincerity in Janus’s cruel words. All doubt was gone, replaced by another kind of grief.

  She closed the cabinet, took one final look around the room, then stepped out to meet her fate, whatever that would be, not expecting to return.

  Two floors down, she found a window alcove from which she could spy on the throng of people and lights below. But for a square around the fire, the whole courtyard had been filled with long tables. The lower classes were seated to the right. The more well-to-do to the left. And at the far left, on a raised platform, sat the dignitaries. It was her first time seeing most of them, but from Edwin’s descriptions she could name them all.

  The king sat in the middle. To one side sat the consort, Red, the Master at Arms, Tomo and the Hunting Master. To the other side sat Brandt, Timon, Gilad, Edwin and Janus. When the time came, her brother would make his excuses and head to the storeroom where the lacquered crate lay waiting. From that moment he would disappear and Elizabeth could take the risk of being seen. She would enter the kitchens by a back door, order help in carrying the gift back to the embassy, then lead the way.

  It was that most risky thing: a performance without a dress rehearsal.

  From her shadowed lookout, she watched the feast. They’d be eating tenderloin and soft white bread on the high table, gritty crust and beef shin stew away to the right. But whether they were drinking fine Oregon wine or strong dark beer, the effect would be the same. The din of chatter and eating increased. Tipsy, they’d be less likely to see through the trick. But if they drank too much, they wouldn’t see the full marvel of it, nor believe their memories when they sobered up the following day.

  The noise of the feast became louder. Here and there groups
of men and women were standing to toast each other. One reveller tried to clamber up on a bench and ended up sprawled on the table.

  Elizabeth missed the moment when her brother left his seat. But when she looked back, he was weaving between the benches, on his way to the kitchens. As he stepped through the doorway to leave the courtyard, she began to count in her head, trying to keep slow and regular, though her heart had begun to speed. When her count reached sixty, she set off. Along the corridor. Around the corner. Then down one flight of steps. The upper stories had been deserted. But here at ground level, servants were hurrying about. She was following the same path that Edwin would have walked a minute before. Any of these people might have seen him. The trick was not to hide, to occupy the centre of each passageway. Into the kitchens, the heat and smells suddenly intense. Striding between preparation tables. Then to stop, turn, summon up all her bravery, trusting that masculine voice, long practised.

  “I need four of you to help carry. Men not boys.”

  Three were there in the kitchen. They beckoned a fourth from outside, then set off following her, along a path she’d memorised from Edwin’s description. Second exit from the end of the kitchen. Short passage. Third storeroom on the left.

  She began to open the door, but froze. Edwin stood immediately inside waving his hands in warning. Slamming it closed again, she wheeled to face the kitchen servants, mustered all her authority, pointed back the way they’d come.

  “Wait over there.”

  They obeyed. Hesitant. Casting questioning looks to each other.

  Opening the door a crack, she slipped inside.

  “You should be in the crate!” she hissed.

  “It’s Gilad,” he whispered. “You can’t let him get too close. He’ll see the difference between us.”

  Something scuffed against the outside of the door. The servants, trying to listen. She jabbed her finger towards the crate. Edwin nodded. He took her hand, placed it on his forehead, his eyes not leaving hers, as if he had some premonition, or had guessed her plans and knew that he would never see her again. When he pulled his hand away, the weight of the tragedy hit her.

  “I love you, my brother,” she whispered.

  For a moment he smiled. Then he was down on his knees, opening the secret hatch at the bottom of the crate. As he tried to worm his way inside, it seemed they might have made a mistake, that the space would be too small. But then he twisted his back, bringing his shoulders level with the ground. The fruit at the top of the crate shifted and heaved as he pushed himself inside. His legs disappeared. Then he brought his hand around to close the panel, completing the illusion.

  The servants scrambled back as she opened the door. And when she beckoned them in, they looked around, wide-eyed, as if expecting to see another person. So they had overheard something. But then, nothing was too strange for the Magician of Crown Point. Remembering the Arthurs, she made her hands dance in the air, miming the undoing of corset stays. The servants were trembling with fear by the time she gave the order:

  “Pick up the crate. And be gentle. It is a gift for the guests of our king!”

  CHAPTER 38

  She led them back through the kitchen and then out into the noise of the courtyard. A man and a woman were standing on one of the tables near the corner, singing a duet. As Elizabeth led her strange procession between the tables, they broke off their song. The chatter died down all around.

  “What is this?” the king asked, a half-smile playing over his face, as if he thought it might be a joke that he hadn’t quite seen through.

  Elizabeth had the men place the crate on the end of one of the long tables, closest to the king. “A gift for our friends from the west. Apples and pears from Oregon.”

  “Thank you,” said Brandt. His face was flushed from the wine.

  Elizabeth bowed towards Brandt and then, deeper, towards the king. The noise of chatter began again behind her. Her rush of panic was subsiding. The first task was over.

  But now she had another problem: to move away from the crate, to stop the minds of the audience resting on it. The actual trick and reveal should always be separated by as much time and space as possible. But going back to her brother’s seat would put her directly between Gilad and Janus, the man who might see through the disguise and the man who wanted her dead. Some shadow lay over that end of the table, but not enough to trust.

  Two of the kitchen servants were still waiting to be dismissed. “The fire’s getting low,” she said. “Throw on more wood.”

  She made her way between the king’s platform and the ends of the long tables, as if she were Edwin returning to his seat. Gilad was beckoning. She waved to him, a vague gesture, a suggestion that she would be there presently. But she was slowing to a stop. One of the revellers blew a stream of tobacco smoke towards her face then laughed.

  “Shorry, magician.”

  She could smell foot odour. The chatter had become a din.

  Then the kitchen servants were back, carrying armfuls of split logs, tossing them into the middle of the pile of embers. Sparks leapt into the night air. Those sitting closest to the fire wouldn’t thank her. New yellow flames licked from the logs, growing taller as she watched, brightening. Quickly brighter than the lamps and torches around the courtyard. But further away, the shadows deepened. It would have to be enough.

  “We thought we’d lost you,” Gilad said, when she lowered herself into her brother’s seat.

  “The duties of a magician,” she replied.

  “If only magic were real,” he said, laughter in his voice.

  “You shouldn’t tease him,” Janus said, from the end of the high table. “It’s a precarious job.”

  “How so?” Gilad asked, speaking across her.

  “A magician is only as good as his last prophecy. Fail and fall. That’s the way with magicians. They always do in the end. One mistake and they’re thrown from the top of the castle. Like your mother, Edwin. I can still remember the sound she made when she hit the rocks.”

  Elizabeth’s hands had bunched into fists, as if through a will of their own.

  “Edwin is too clever for that to happen,” Gilad said. There was still a smile in his voice, as if such banter was not dangerous.

  “He’s not as clever as he thinks,” Janus said.

  It wasn’t just rudeness. Elizabeth could feel a dangerous game at play, but didn’t know the rules. Even with the shadows, coming back to her brother’s place had been a mistake. It was too soon to perform the trick, but she had to get away and let Edwin take over.

  She stood. “Excuse me.”

  “You can’t be leaving already,” Gilad said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She stepped down from the platform, made her way back towards the crate. Her brother wouldn’t be expecting her so soon. But when he heard her speak, he’d understand. He’d be ready to reveal himself.

  As she reached the crate, a hand tried to grab her arm from behind. She twisted free and wheeled to discover that Janus had followed her. Gilad was there too.

  “Running away?” Janus asked.

  Elizabeth was aware of the king and Brandt watching from the high table.

  “This isn’t a night for argument,” Gilad said.

  Janus wouldn’t be stopped. “This magician refused my wager. Did you not know? He is a coward and a cheat. If his magic were so strong that he knows the future, then he’d take my bet.”

  All talk on the high table had stopped.

  Timon’s face showed alarm. “You turned down a wager?”

  Janus nodded. “The magician said our guests would sign the agreement. I said they would not. I challenged him to put money behind his words. But he refused.”

  Edwin would know what to do. And him so close, he would be hearing every word. Anything she said might be the end of them both.

  “He’s lying,” she said. There’d been no witnesses, after all.

  “Lying?” asked the king. He seemed angry. But there was no
way back.

  She nodded, feeling the tension and the hush rippling out from person to person. Quiet fell in the courtyard. A hint of pleasure flickered across Janus’s face.

  “I demand satisfaction,” he said.

  The king closed his eyes. His cheek muscle twitched. “This does not please me,” he growled.

  From somewhere Janus had found a handgun. He placed it on the table before the king.

  “Yours too,” said Timon, his face grave.

  She unholstered her flintlock and put it down.

  “Are you both resolved?” asked the king.

  “I am,” said Janus, taking up his gun.

  When she didn’t at first answer, Timon hissed at her, “You’ve got to say it!”

  So she did. “I am.” And found herself reaching to take her pistol, as if her hand had been animated by someone else’s will.

  The wood of the handle felt warm, the turquoise cool. For a moment the barrel pointed directly at Janus’s chest. Then she realized what she was doing and angled it down at the flagstones.

  “If you must do this thing, then do it quickly,” said the king.

  “How?”

  “Walk away,” said Timon. “Then turn and fire. Simple as that.”

  Her thoughts were spinning. Janus was not a fighter, Edwin had said. He calculated everything. He took no risks. Yet he seemed too certain of himself. Unless there was a trick.

  “Choose your ground,” said the king.

  Everyone was staring at her. She had to think. The crate rested at the end of a long trestle table, running directly away from the king, ending near the far wall of the courtyard, a doorway lay immediately beyond. She clambered up.

  Timon stood. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “I’m doing what the king asked. I’m choosing my ground.”

  She took a step away from the dais, away from the crate, feeling the flex of the tabletop underneath her weight. It took a few moments for the people sitting on either side to understand what was happening. Then they were getting to their feet and scrambling clear. Elizabeth stepped over wine goblets and between platters. She glanced over her shoulder to see the king, the consort and the embassy moving away to either side. Only Timon remained, grim excitement in his eyes as he pointed to the table. Janus climbed up. They were both of them above the throng now. Janus still wore that half-smile, as if every choice she made was playing further nto his plans. Something was very wrong.