The Sorcerer's Appendix

by P. J. Brackston

  “That rather depends what it is she does not know, doesn’t it?”

  “Oh, my poor darling.” He blew his nose loudly.

  “Herr Arnold, let us begin again. I am pleased to find you living, as Evalina will be.”

  “Will she? Can she forgive me?”

  “She would rather you alive and sinful yet repentant than dead and blameless, I am certain of it.”

  “But the deception …”

  “You were clearly a man driven to desperate measures. And on that matter, please do tell me why, and how, you came to remove your own appendix?”

  “Ah, that.”

  “It was not sorcery, this much I know.”

  He gave a small, dry chuckle. “Alas, I would not be here to talk to you now had I relied on my skill with magic to remove it. Although, there was one aspect of the operation where only magic would assist me. As fortune would have it, this was the one piece of sorcery with which I have always had some measure of success.”

  “Which is?”

  “To be able to render a person—or indeed a part of that person—temporarily senseless of pain.”

  “Good heavens!”

  “Surprising, is it not? It certainly made my task easier. In fact, I doubt I would have attempted it otherwise. A pity I could not have had such reliable results with my other spells.”

  “But why do it? Such risky surgery, and unaided, all simply to evade your debts?”

  “You know of those? Of course you do. Your reputation tells me you would not have come this far without knowing as many facts as were there to be found.” He gave a sigh and sat back a bit on his seat, letting his hands fall to rest upon his knees, his eyes at last dry. It was the posture of a man ready to tell all. Gretel had seen it before. “I had not enjoyed good health for some weeks. I had a suspicion that it was my appendix that was making me unwell. I knew, deep down, that it would have to come out. It was then that the idea came to me. You see, had I simply vanished people would have assumed I had deserted my dear Evalina. I needed to leave something that indicated my demise.”

  “Even your murder?”

  “Yes, even that. When I became ill I seized upon the idea. I could cure myself—I was confident of that—disappear, and leave some clue as to my probably fate.”

  “A cryptic one, if I may say so.”

  “But not too cryptic for Gretel of Gesternstadt?”

  “You imagined I would find you? You hoped to be discovered, even?”

  Herr Arnold sighed again. “In truth, it may be that I did. When a man acts out of despair and follows a drastic course, is there not often a part of him that wishes to be found out? To be stopped?”

  Gretel knew this to be the case oftentimes, for she had observed it before in some cases she had solved. “A perverse part of human nature,” she agreed. “But Herr Arnold, could you not have simply shared your troubles with your devoted wife? Surely together you could have found some other way out of your difficulties?”

  “Oh, Fraulein, she is so precious to me: I did not wish to worry her.”

  Gretel clucked. “Those words are written on the tombstones of so many men,” she warned him. She noticed then his appointment book on the table beside her. In it were many names written against dates and times, and many accounts checked and settled, by the look of it.

  “I see you do brisk business here as a physician,” she said.

  “I have the inhabitants of Baumhausdorf to thank for that,” he told her. “The nature of their … work … means that they often return home sporting injuries of one kind or another. Then there are the frequent quarrels and brawls here where they sustain further hurts and wounds. And of course, there is the drop,” here he paused to nod to the window and the view of the balustrade outside. “I spend a good deal of my time setting broken bones.”

  “Ah, yes,” Gretel recalled the pixie with the broken arm. “I have in fact seen and admired some of your work. Alas, you do not, it seems, have a similar facility for magic. Given which, I do not understand why, when you are such a skilled and accomplished surgeon and bonesetter, you would not choose to follow this career in Gesternstadt? Why did you instead doggedly pursue the profession of sorcerer, despite all evidence pointing to the fact that you had no talent for it?”

  Gretel would have to wait for her answer, for at that moment there came an urgent hammering upon the door. The sorcerer-physician was clearly accustomed to such a frantic summons, and moved swiftly but without panic to open the door. A young woman, flushed and anxious, all but fell into the office. Gretel recognized her as the maid from their guest house who had filled her bath for her and helped her with her toiletries. She was a little alarmed when the girl ignored Herr Arnold and addressed her words to Gretel herself.

  “Oh Fraulein, you must come quick!” she panted.

  “Whatever has happened?”

  “Your brother, he found a game of cards and was invited to play.”

  Gretel rolled her eyes. “Yes, that sounds like Hans. I expressly tell him to do one thing and he does another. Thank you for your concern, young Fraulein, but he is a fair player. I don’t suppose he will lose all of our money.”

  “I’m sure he is a very good player, Fraulein. That is the problem. I think some of those he was playing with were not nearly so good as him and employed methods of which he did not approve, so that now he has accused them of cheating!”

  SEVENTEEN

  Herr Arnold, kindly accompany me, I may have need of your services,” said Gretel. Although there might have been truth in this—and indeed she hoped there was not—she was more concerned that the sorcerer might flee when her back was turned. Fortunately, by appealing to him in his capacity as a physician she had secured his cooperation, and he followed her out of the office.

  As Gretel hitched up her skirts and hurried over to the inn she kept telling herself that things were probably not as bad as they sounded, and that with a few careful words and a few rounds of ale, things could be smoothed over and the matter brought to a safe and happy conclusion. However, when she entered the barroom and saw the tableau awaiting her, she had to admit to herself that the situation was indeed ticklish. There were five men seated at the table. Three kept to their seats, their cards laid flat in front of them. The fourth, Hans, still held his hand. He was keeping particularly still, due to the fact that the fifth man—all sinew and bristly chin—had reached across to hold the tip of a very sharp blade to his throat.

  “A little soon in the day for a game of cards, is it not, brother?” Gretel asked.

  Hans replied without even moving his eyes in her direction. “Ah, but this game was begun last evening, so is in fact a very late game, rather than a very early one,” he explained. “After a bite of breakfast I happened upon these gentlemen …”

  The man holding the knife growled. “Gentlemen, ha! But a moment ago I was a barefaced liar and a cheat. Ain’t it strange how a person’s opinion can change. Well, you’ll not sweet talk your way out of this.”

  “I’m sure my brother spoke in haste.”

  “Not really,” said Hans carefully.

  “I’m certain he was mistaken,” she said pointedly stressing the final word.

  “No,” Hans insisted. “I wasn’t,” he added, his voice rising to a squeak as the point of the blade was pressed a little harder to his throat.

  “No one calls me a cheat!” the card player growled.

  “But …” Hans could not help himself, “there is no other explanation. The cards cannot be as you claim. Our fellow players have theirs upon the table and I count three aces among them. As I have held the fourth since they were first dealt, you cannot also have another. D’you see?”

  His adversary shook his head. “Who’s to say it ain’t you’s the cheat? Could be that yours is the fifth ace, eh? What say you to that?”

  Hans’s voice, though strained, was still impressively determined. “I say my ace gains me nothing, whereas yours gives you the winning hand. See?” He place
d his cards upon the table. Even Gretel could see it was a poor collection of unrelated cards and of no value whatsoever, despite its ace.

  The knifeman grunted. “If that’s all you was holding, why were you raising the bid?”

  “I was exercising my right to bluff, rather hoping that you had insufficient funds to see me for long, so that you would be forced to fold, and I would win the pot. A not unreasonable expectation, if I might say so, given that you have only one coin and a broken bottle stopper in front of you and do not, if you’ll forgive me, have the appearance of a man carrying a large amount of money on his person.”

  This remark drew upon the bristly man unwelcome scrutiny from all present. He shifted uncomfortably in his ale-stained shirt and homespun jerkin. “You play an unfair advantage in that respect,” he pointed out. “For while you wear the clothes of your office, how are we to know what manner of wealth you might possess, eh?”

  This statement put Hans into the sort of mental dilemma Gretel knew he was ill equipped to deal with. On the one hand he had accused someone of playing false, of cheating. On the other, he himself was dressed as a clergyman, no doubt enjoying the small but important quarter that office afforded him, while he was not, never had been, nor was ever likely to be, an ordained priest.

  Gretel hastened to steer the discourse back on to safer ground. “It would appear that the case is far from proven, and that there is no satisfactory way to find that proof.”

  The knifeman glared at her. “Has always been my experience that a sharp edge on a blade can prove a lot of things.”

  “But would you dull that edge upon a man of the church? That is not something I would wish on any man’s conscience. Then again, you have your reputation to protect, I understand that.”

  “But …” Hans tried to protest but Gretel shut him up. He might be about to spill the beans about how he came by his attire, or wail on about the business of cheating. Either way could not bring about a happy resolution.

  “It seems to me,” she said calmly, “that you are both, despite your differing backgrounds, men who share a passion for the game. Men who enjoy the thrill and the challenge of the cards. Am I right?”

  There came an assenting grunt from the knifeman and a squeak from Hans as a result of his trying to nod and piercing his own skin on the knife in doing so.

  “As I thought. In which case, you both no doubt hold a grudging respect for the other’s skills. There is, I venture to suggest, much you could learn from each other.” She waited for this idea to permeate the dense skulls of those listening before continuing. “Hans, I feel certain you have already learned a lesson regarding the hazards of bandying about accusations of an inflammatory nature while among people of brief acquaintance. And you, sir, I suspect, are in fact curious as to how my brother has amassed such a large pile of money in front of him through his brief stint at your table, while you appear to have lost all of yours.” There was another pause while the two considered what she had said. After a suitable hiatus she went on. “I recommend a course of action that could please all concerned. I suggest that the current pot on the table be divided equally between all five players,” here she was forced to hold up a hand to quell oaths and curses, “so that the game may continue. And during that game, and for subsequent hands, that shared money be used so that Hans can impart his highly particular and effective knowledge to his fellow sharps, so that they too might, in future, enjoy similar success at the table.”

  “But, Gretel, what of professional secrets … ?” Hans started.

  “Hans! Consider your current position! Very carefully.”

  In the end his reluctance was overcome and Hans set to tutoring the other card players. So beloved was the subject to him that he soon forgot what had brought him to this point, and was taken up with enthusiasm to impart all his wisdom and clever tactics. His unlikely students listened attentively.

  Gretel and Ernst sat at a table a little way off and the chambermaid was persuaded to fetch them coffee and cakes. Once settled, Gretel was able to resume her questioning of the sorcerer, all the while keeping half an eye on her brother in case of another situation developing from which he would have to be extricated.

  “Herr Arnold, it still will not sit right in my mind: why did you insist on plying the trade of magic when your true and notable gift was for bone setting and surgery? Surely there cannot be many physicians able to successfully remove their own appendix? Such skills would be in high demand, and would have earned you a good living.”

  Ernst dabbed at his lips with a napkin, carefully removing lebkuchen crumbs. His droopy sleeve dipped briefly into his coffee cup as he did so. “I had hoped to improve my work with magic, so that I could support my wife and I as easily that way.”

  “But why try?”

  “There is more to the way a man earns a crust than the work involved, Fraulein. Surely you, as a professional of some standing, will acknowledge that?”

  “I do.”

  “With every title, with each position within a society, come certain associations, certain expectations.”

  “I grant you that is the case, but I would not have considered sorcery to be a particularly, shall we say, estimable profession? Certainly not over and above that of a uniquely talented surgeon?”

  “Ah, but in whose eyes?”

  “Anyone’s, I should imagine.”

  “But I am not concerned with anyone. I am concerned only with a certain one.”

  Gretel drained her coffee cup and frowned while she processed this statement. The only “one” that Ernst could possibly be referring to was his wife.

  “Forgive me, Herr Arnold, but I suspect your wife’s adoration for you would remain unchanged were you to take to collecting night waste to make your living.”

  “Darling Evalina would love me still, of course. But … there would always be that tiny speck of disappointment. And such irritations can, over time, grow to become intolerable.”

  “Surely a disappointment can only arise from a thwarted expectation. Only if Evalina had always anticipated marrying a sorcerer would she feel the lack thereof …” Gretel stopped. She experienced a joyful moment of things falling into place, of puzzle pieces slotting in where they should go, of reasons for and why fitting into their rightful positions in the case. “Of course! Evalina had always envisaged life as the spouse of a sorcerer. To begin with, that sorcerer would have been Otto Voigt.”

  At the mention of the Head Sorcerer’s name Ernst’s face darkened and his grip on his coffee cup tightened. “The post of leader of the Sorcerer’s Circle carries such cachet.”

  “It does?”

  “Certainly! It is the very pinnacle of our profession. The status, the title, the office itself … With it comes a standing in the community of practitioners of magic like no other. As the wife of such a man, all that went with it would have been Evalina’s. By giving him up for me, she gave up much else besides.”

  “Full house!” came the knifeman’s gleeful cry from the card table. The others made astonished and congratulatory noises.

  Ernst frowned, pushing his plate away, his appetite quashed by thoughts of his rival.

  Gretel said, “But give it up she did. And willingly, for she loves you then as she does now. She is not a merry widow, Herr Arnold. She is nursing a broken heart.”

  “And that thought wounds me as a knife to my own! But what choice did I have? I had so badly managed our money. However hard I studied and practiced I could not perform magic well, not reliably.”

  “And covering for all those mistakes was a costly business.”

  “It brought about my ruin. I had taken so much from my dearest wife, at least by appearing to be the victim of a murder she could claim on the insurance policy I had taken out. She will not want for money in the future.”

  “I fear you may be mistaken on that count. I am not here on her behalf alone, but also under the instructions of the insurers. They wished me to find proof of your death, or proof of your
life.”

  He nodded sadly. “And Evalina? What did she wish for?”

  “Your safe return, nothing more.”

  Tears brimmed in his eyes. “Alas, that is something more I cannot give to her, for if I were to return I would be arrested for fraud and made bankrupt and there would be no payment from the policy. She would face a lonely future, socially outcast, and destitute to boot. My poor darling!”

  And with that he fell to quiet sobbing. Gretel signaled to the barman who had come to restock the bar, and he brought over a bottle of schnapps. Gretel poured a generous glug into Ernst’s cup.

  “All may not be as bleak as you imagine. Come, drink up. Let us remove Hans from his position as instructor as soon as possible and then return to your office. I shall need paper and ink. Can a trustworthy messenger be found?”

  “He can. Do you have a plan, Fraulein?” Ernst asked, a tiny glimmer of hope appearing in his expression.

  “Naturally, Herr Arnold. I am never without a plan.”

  It took a further hour for Hans to divest the greater part of his card playing knowledge to his pupils. As soon as he had finished, he and Gretel went back to the surgery with Ernst. Hans had sustained a flesh wound to his throat, so he sat and allowed the physician-sorcerer to tend to it for him.

  Gretel took up a sheet of paper and set a quill to it, writing in her customarily haphazard hand. “This letter,” she explained, “will go ahead of us, by way of introduction and to set in train what I hope will be a solution to the greater part of your problems, Herr Arnold. Indeed, it should secure a satisfactory outcome to the case for all concerned.”

  “To whom are you writing?” he asked.

  “Allow me to keep that information to myself, for now,” she said. She helped herself to sealing wax and used the handle of her lorgnettes to imprint upon the seal a mark that was unique to herself, and she trusted would be recognized as such. Next, she selected a smaller piece of paper and dashed off a note.

  “This is for Cornelius,” she explained. “I require him to meet us here an hour after darkness falls.”