Merciless Reason

by Oisin McGann

  The fact that Miriam also seems to have gone in for archaeology—showing a particular fancy for exploring the origin of engimals—leads to a net result in that I am burdened with a wife who seems determined to put herself and our unborn child, in harm’s way.

  I will never understand this desire to wander the land, digging holes in the ground in order to discover the garbage of past generations. On top of this, she has informed me that where she disturbs the crop of any farm she visits, she is paying the tenant for the inconvenience. It is one thing for her to put herself in danger by gallivanting around without a proper escort. It is quite another for her to dish out good bloody money to our tenants for the pleasure of digging holes in our own land.

  When I married Miriam, I thought her a good match: a young new wife whose forward-looking character would complement my plans for a modern Ireland. Instead, I seem to have been lumbered with something of an intellectual ninny with less sense than God gave a gaggle of geese. It is time I reined her in, I think, before she does herself a mischief.

  Nate marked the page with a piece of string and closed the book. Whatever his mother had been, an intellectual ninny she was not. Though Nate had never heard mention of her interest in archaeology. But then, he would have been three years old in 1845 and, truth be told, he had not enquired into her interests much after her death. As a child, it did not occur to him, and as an adult it seemed … too late.

  IX

  A TRADITIONAL DEATH TRAP

  DAISY CARRIED A SMALL LAMP, but did not light it. She was wearing a light dress, a warm cardigan and comfortable shoes. It was three o’clock in the morning. The gas-lamps in the corridors of Wildenstern Hall had been turned down and most of the rooms were completely dark. Daisy was making her way down to the basement where Gerald’s laboratory lay. In one hand, she held the little oil lamp. In the other, she carried a broom handle.

  At the door to the laboratory, she stopped. All was quiet around her. The huge house emitted little ticks and creaks and groans as its structure settled in the cold of the night, but otherwise she could hear nothing suspicious.

  Three days had passed since her conversation with Gerald on the roof of the tower. In that time, she had continued combing through the accounts for their many businesses throughout the country. Over two dozen wagons, as well as numerous horses and men, had been pulled away from their normal work for some purpose she could not uncover. Pieces of machinery and equipment from a score of different factories were also unaccounted for. Many of these businesses were suffering from these losses, struggling to stay up and running.

  And then there were the engimals. Many were missing from the Wildensterns’ zoological gardens, and Gerald had been buying more in from all over Europe. Engimals, particularly the rarest types, could be hideously expensive, but he didn’t seem to care. They were imported—and then they disappeared. None of the relatives seemed to realize that Gerald was driving the North American Trading Company towards bankruptcy. Either they didn’t know, or they were too scared to do anything about it.

  Keeping three feet back from the door to the laboratory, and a little to one side, Daisy reached out with the broom handle. She tried to push down the handle of the door, but it was hard to get any leverage on the handle while standing so far back.

  Daisy had little experience in dealing with booby-traps. Many of the family members lived in such fear of being killed in their sleep that they set lethal devices around the doors and windows of their rooms. The house was riddled with secret passages and hidden rooms, some of which were also death traps. She had no idea if Gerald had rigged this door to kill any intruder, but she had seen devices that used blades, spikes, garrote-wires, crossbows, firearms of various descriptions, acid and explosives. She hoped that standing three feet back from the door would give her some degree of safety.

  “What are you doing?” a loud voice said from behind her.

  Daisy gasped and turned round to find Tatiana staring at her. The girl was wearing a frilly white nightdress covered by a pink dressing gown. She was hugging a badly worn doll and Siren, her ever-present bird-like companion, sat perched on her shoulder, close to her ear.

  “Is it your mission in life to give me a heart attack?” Daisy hissed.

  “More of a hobby,” Tatty retorted. “Why are you sneaking around trying to open doors with a broom handle?”

  Daisy felt annoyed and foolish at the same time. “Keep your voice down! And what are you doing up at three o’clock in the morning?”

  “Following my sister-in-law around in the dark. You haven’t answered my question yet.”

  “I was trying to see if I could find Gerald’s private accounts books,” Daisy told her. “They might tell us something about this secret scheme of his. I know he keeps them down here—or at least he once did.”

  “I see,” Tatty said. “And the broom handle?”

  “Obviously, I’m trying to avoid any lethal devices that might be set around the door.”

  Tatty took the stick off her sister-in-law and laid it on the floor. She held out her hand for Daisy’s lamp. Daisy sighed, struck a match and lit the lamp’s wick before handing it over. Tatty used the light to look all around the edges of the door. Then she examined the frame. Siren leaned forward with her, as if ready to offer an opinion on the matter at hand. Daisy watched nervously. She knew that Tatty had taken to educating herself in the ways of the family, but this was a serious matter. A person could be killed opening the wrong door in this house.

  “Perhaps he doesn’t keep anything of value here any more,” Tatty commented. “There doesn’t seem to be any trigger that I can see.”

  And with that, before Daisy could stop her, she tried the handle. Nothing happened. The door was locked. Tatty laid her doll on the floor, took a small purse from a pocket in her dressing gown and opened it, taking out two thin pieces of metal. She slid one, and then the other into the keyhole.

  “Since when could you pick locks?” Daisy asked in a shocked whisper.

  “Since I was about nine,” Tatty replied. “My nanny taught me.”

  The lock clicked open, and Tatty picked up her doll and pushed the door open. Siren let out a frightened squawk and launched itself into the air. Daisy grabbed Tatty by the collar and pulled her to the side an instant before a semicircular blade flashed down from the ceiling, swinging from a cable-like pendulum. It swept back and forth through the doorway as Tatty clutched her doll to her breast, taking deep breaths. A lock of her blonde hair floated down through the air—the blade had a keen edge. Daisy picked up her broom handle and used it to stop the swinging blade.

  “That would have cut your head right down the middle,” she muttered. “Your nanny should have taught you some caution.” She stepped across the threshold, peering into the darkness and the floor suddenly gave way beneath her. Tatty caught her friends flailing hand as she fell, but it took all of the girl’s strength to stop Daisy from plunging down onto the spikes lining the bottom of the pit fifteen feet below. Putting down the lamp, she and Daisy clasped their hands together and, with Daisy pushing against the wall of the shaft with her feet, Tatty was able to haul her out.

  “A ruddy trap door,” Tatty sneered. “How traditional.”

  “Good God, you’re strong, Tatty,” Daisy remarked. “I wouldn’t have thought you capable of holding me up like that. You’re a marvel. Perhaps that Wildenstern blood has its uses after all.”

  “It’s all the training I’ve been doing,” Tatty told her. “Though I do worry I’ll end up with hands like a boy.”

  “You’re one of the richest, most fashionable women in Irish society, dear. If the worst came to the worst, you could always start a craze for gloves.”

  “That’s true, I suppose.”

  Thinking this must surely be the end of the death traps, Daisy picked up the lamp and they jumped across the gap. Siren followed them in, swooping arou
nd the room on the lookout for more hazards. The two young women waited on the stone floor on the other side of the trap door for some new surprise. Nothing presented itself.

  It was a large room, echoey and chilly at night. Off to one side, they could see the double doors that opened onto a corridor leading to another part of the basement. There, among the massive steel stanchions that formed part of the building’s skeleton, Gerald had a bank of hideously expensive refrigerators. In these, he stored some of the subjects of his experiments. He still kept some of his arcane electricity generators there too, though Daisy wasn’t sure if he had any use for them now.

  They continued on across the cold and dusty laboratory to the door that led to Gerald’s study. Daisy looked at Tatty, who shrugged, then she took a deep breath, grasped the door handle, twisted it and then jumped back. The door opened with a squeal, but it was merely the hinges needing oil. Once again, nothing tried to cut, stab, shoot, or blast them.

  “I daresay he’s getting mellow in his old age,” Daisy said. “That wasn’t so hard. I’m half expecting the desk drawers to explode or something like that.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past him,” Tatty warned her.

  As it turned out, it wasn’t necessary to open any drawers. The study was about twenty feet square and filled with shelves, filing cabinets and a few glass display cabinets showing small, dissected engimals with their parts labeled. The books that Daisy was looking for were on a walnut bookcase which stood against the wall behind the desk. Taking note of where each one stood, she took a few down and started to examine their contents.

  The pair of young women would not be able to reset Gerald’s­ booby-traps, but Daisy didn’t want him knowing what the intruders had done there if at all possible. Tatty, who found book-keeping­ extraordinarily boring, kept watch at the door, hugging her doll. Siren started to play a low spooky tune, but Tatty shushed it—she needed to be able to hear if someone was coming. Siren flew to the other end of the room in a huff.

  Daisy did not want to stay too long. She knew Gerald was out of the house, as he so often was at night now, but he could still come back early. Or Elizabeth might decide to come down and root around in his work again. She wasn’t too worried about the servants. They knew to mind their own business where family maneuvers were concerned.

  There was no way of telling where Gerald went at night, though Daisy had tried to have people follow him on more than one occasion. Knowing his obsessions, she was sure he had another laboratory somewhere and, judging by the amount of money and resources he was siphoning from the family business, whatever experiments he was carrying out must be taking place on an industrial scale.

  Looking around this dark, neglected space, she played with the idea of trying to find out who Gerald planned to bring in to help him control the family. She had already accounted for all of the relatives, and Gerald didn’t trust any of them, but she could not conceive of anyone without Wildenstern blood who could handle the task. Whatever their quarrels, the family always closed ranks against outsiders.

  For the sake of speed, Daisy only read down the columns labeling each entry in the books. Gerald kept direct control over some of the Company’s factories, as well as a few ships in the fleet and a small army of private soldiers. He kept a number of armories well stocked and maintained too.

  “He’s pulled machinery from three different factories,” she said quietly to Tatty. “Steam presses, pumps, engines, steel mills. But there’s no mention of where they’ve been taken. What’s he up to?”

  Tatty knew she was not required to answer and, for once, actually stayed silent. Daisy kept combing through the ledgers. Then she came to something that didn’t fit.

  “Tatty? Do you remember when we had that run-in with the Knights of Abraham? And we forced them to hand over the orphanage, because they were using some of the orphans in their experiments?”

  “Of course,” Tatty replied. “You said it was a vile place. We closed it down and arranged for the children to be sent to foster homes. Why do you ask?”

  “Well, you and I saw some of them delivered to the foster parents ourselves,” Daisy said. “But we didn’t follow up on all of them personally. We just assumed our instructions would be followed, didn’t we? And that if there were any problems, we would be informed.”

  “Yes. So?”

  “Well, according to this”—Daisy pointed to a recent entry in one of the ledgers—“we’re still paying to feed and clothe nearly a hundred children from that orphanage. And Gerald has added a note to the end of this column: ‘Have words with Red. Rates of accident and injury are unnecessarily high. Productivity is being affected.’” She looked up from the book to gaze at her friend. “What the dickens does that mean?”

  The following afternoon found Tatiana sparring with Cathal, as Daisy spectated. A young man and woman crossing bare blades like this was considered highly improper, but Tatty was on a mission to throw such conventions aside, and Cathal had never cared much about them in the first place. Siren was flying in circles around them, playing a lively waltz, which jarred somewhat with the aggressive antics of the combatants.

  Daisy was bouncing Leopold on her knee. Elizabeth entrusted the boy to her like this sometimes and Daisy suspected that this was intended as an insult—Elizabeth treating her as a kind of nanny or governess—but she was happy to spend time with the boy. The two of them got on well, and Daisy felt that someone should teach the lad some morals before he got too old for them to sink in. The only principles he learned from his mother were concerned with scheming, manipulation and betrayal, along with the Old Testament style of religion that his mother felt was appropriate for a future ruler of the world.

  Daisy, on the other hand, believed a child needed a more rounded code of ethics if he was to live a good Christian life. And seeing as his wayward father was not here to do the job, Daisy, Tatty and Cathal had taken it upon themselves to ensure that Leopold grew up as reasonable a human being as his breeding would allow.

  Daisy had mixed feelings about letting the boy see Tatty and Cathal at their fencing practice, but she couldn’t deny it was good fun—and given the nature of the family, there were some skills Leopold needed to start learning early. For the Wildensterns had a unique means of encouraging ambition, cunning and ruthlessness in their family: they permitted the assassination of one male member of the family by another, as a means of improving one’s rank in the family. In the Wildensterns, a man could kill his way to the top of the pile. But any such killing had to be carried out according to the family’s Rules of Ascension. As long as this was the case, the crime would be covered up, hidden from the authorities. There were eight rules:

  Number One: The Act of Aggression must be committed by the Aggressor himself and not by any agent or servant.

  Number Two: The Act must only be committed against a man over the age of sixteen who holds a superior rank in the family to the Aggressor.

  Number Three: The Act must only be committed for the purpose of advancing one’s position and not out of spite, or because of insult or offence given, or to satisfy a need for revenge for an insult or injury given to a third party

  Number Four: All efforts should be made to avoid the deaths of servants while committing the Act. Good servants are hard to find.

  Number Five: The Target of the Aggression can use any and all means to defend themselves, and is under an obligation to do so for the good of the family.

  Number Six: Retribution against the Aggressor can only be carried out after the Act has been committed. Should the Aggressor fail in his attempt, and subsequently escape to remain at large for a full day, only the Target of the Aggression and no other person will be permitted to take Retribution.

  Number Seven: No Act of Aggression or Retribution must be witnessed or reported by any member of the public. All family matters must be kept confidential.

  Number Eight: Any bodies r
esulting from the Act must be given a proper burial in a cemetery, crypt, catacomb, or funeral pyre approved by the family.

  Leo clapped his hands as the young man and woman clashed blades, watching with rapt attention as the well-matched opponents glided around the floor.

  They were using épées: swords with thin, triangular-sectioned blades that were wielded with small, sharp movements, designed to develop speed and fine accuracy. Tatty had been training with this weapon for longer, and she had a natural grace that suited this style of fencing. But Cathal had the agility of a cat and astonishing reflexes. What he lacked in technique, he made up for in savagery. And, Daisy noticed, the two were learning from each other. Even their fighting styles were becoming very alike.

  “You still move like a donkey,” Tatty informed Cathal as she lunged forward, aiming a strike at his chest.

  Cathal took a step back and parried her blade. He was breathing heavily behind his mask, but showed no signs of slowing down. With two quick steps, he darted back along the line of her lunge, nearly landing a strike to her stomach. She deflected it and danced sideways.

  “And you repeat yourself like a parrot,” he replied, waiting for her to make the next move. “Pipe down and fight.”

  “What’s the matter, can’t you talk and fight at the same time?” she asked breezily, circling him, waving her sword in the air. It was difficult to see her expression through her mask, but her body language said it all. “I can. I can do lots of things at the same time.”

  “It’s true,” Daisy spoke up. “There was one time, after a party, that Tatty maintained a lively conversation while throwing up several times in quick succession. She hardly needed to pause for breath. It was something to behold.”

  “Daisy!” Tatty exclaimed. “My God! How could you tell him that?”

  “I prefer the time when we spent that week in Brittas Bay,” Cathal said, poking his sword at Tatty and forcing her to put up her guard properly. “She was bathin’ in the sea and started talkin’ to a crab as she walked after it along the sand. She followed it into the sea and I kept pace with her. She was still talkin’ after her head went underwater. You could even see the bubbles coming out of her mouth.”