“Oh!” Mary exclaimed. “Why Cousin Babette…Cousin Ekaterine.…” She quickly stood and smiled at them with big, innocent eyes. “I fear I did not hear you enter. I was…at prayer.”
“Of course,” Varanus said, pretending to be beguiled. “Ekaterine and I were on our stroll, and we spied the church.”
“It seemed an interesting place to visit,” Ekaterine said.
Mary blinked a few times and asked, “You thought an old moorland church would be interesting?”
“Ekaterine is a great lover of churches,” Varanus said quickly.
“Oh I am, I am,” Ekaterine added, nodding with enthusiasm.
“Small, unassuming churches?” Mary asked.
Ekaterine did not pause in her reply:
“They thrill me in ways that I never thought I could be thrilled. Once I saw a small, dilapidated chapel in the wilds of Cappadocia.” She placed a hand to her breast as if on the verge of a swoon. “It altered my life forever.”
“Yes, thank you Ekaterine,” Varanus said. “That will do.”
Mary looked at Ekaterine with a puzzled expression, which Ekaterine answered with a bright smile. Mary turned back to Varanus.
“How are you finding our Yorkshire moors, Cousin Babette?” she asked pleasantly.
Attempting to deflect our suspicion with idle chitchat? Varanus mused. It was rather funny, to be honest.
“Most romantic,” she replied, all smiles and charm. “They have such…such sublime desolation.”
She saw Korbinian reclining upon the altar, running his fingertips along the edge of the golden cross. He looked toward her and clicked his tongue.
“For shame, liebchen,” he said. “Stealing my very wonderful line.…” He smirked at her. “Though you do say it so very well.”
“Have you visited the ruins of the priory?” Mary asked.
It was a leading question, Varanus knew. An excuse to suggest that they go someplace else.
“Not yet,” Ekaterine said, a little sadly. “I should very much like to see it up close. I said as much to Babette when we first spied the ruins from a distance. A most remarkable sight.”
“If you hurry,” Mary said, “you may be able to visit them before it grows dark.” She looked toward one of the windows. “Oh, but you must hurry indeed. Do not let me keep you.”
“Nonsense,” Varanus said. “It is already far too late for us to make a proper examination of the priory ruins. It would be a wasted journey. Thankfully, we shall have plenty of time to see more of the moors during our stay.”
“Quite so,” Ekaterine agreed. She looked up at the walls and ceiling of the church. “I daresay there is more than enough to fascinate us here until nightfall. All these little carvings.… Remarkable.” She looked at Varanus. “I cannot quite make them out. Could they be scenes from history? From the Bible?”
Varanus looked up at the carvings, her eyes seeing them clearly despite the darkness of the church. The images depicted were of varied sorts, displaying countless scenes of human activity. Some were biblical, others mundane. And while most of the scenes depicted great lords and clergymen, war and politics, more than a few were given over to more humble topics: peasants working the fields, toil and revelry at harvest time, shepherds tending their flocks upon the moor.
“A portrait of life in medieval Blackmoor,” Varanus said, “accompanied by corresponding scenes from the Bible. Remarkable.”
“Delightful,” Ekaterine added. She reached up and touched one of the carvings with her fingertips. “Quite a lot of hunting scenes.”
“Evidently hunting was very popular for my ancestors,” Varanus said.
Mary smiled at them politely, but with growing irritation at the realization that they were not going to leave. Finally she said:
“Cousin Babette, Cousin Ekaterine, I think I shall return to the house before it grows dark.” She took a few steps toward the door and turned back. “Do you care to accompany me?”
The girl was trying very hard to get them to leave, Varanus noted. She suspected that Mary’s country boy was still lurking in the church, hiding until their departure. It would be terribly awkward revealing what they knew to Mary, but perhaps the boy would prove sufficiently pliable to nip the unfortunate romance in the bud.
“No, I think we shall remain for a few minutes more,” Varanus said, smiling at Mary. “But you go on ahead, my dear. Tell your mother that we shall return in time to dress for dinner.”
Mary hesitated, frowning a little, but she forced a smile and nodded.
“Of course.” She huffed and did her best to hide it with a laugh. “I shall see you both at dinner.”
She cast another look toward them—or rather, Varanus realized, toward the vestry. Forcing another smile, the girl turned her face toward the dying sun and departed.
Ekaterine looked toward the door and said softly, “Charming girl. What a lovely smile.”
“Quite,” Varanus said.
She looked toward the adjacent vestry. The door to the room was slightly ajar, likely so the person hiding within could hear what was being said in the sanctuary. For a moment Varanus hesitated. She looked toward the altar and saw Korbinian there, seated atop the stone block with one arm resting on the top of the golden cross. He really was terribly aloof when it came to the sanctity of religion, Varanus reflected. It was blasphemous and at the same time immeasurably charming.
“Why are you so concerned about this child, liebchen?” Korbinian asked, sliding off the altar and slowly walking toward her. “She is blood, yes, but distant blood. And she has shown you no great kindness, nor has her family. Her father hungers for your birthright. What delicious shame it would bring upon him if his daughter were to become pregnant by some peasant boy.”
Varanus narrowed her eyes at him. What he said was true, but it was also callous. Ah, but of course, he was playing the Devil’s Advocate, voicing her own doubts and uncertainties that she might confront them.
“Perhaps she is pregnant already,” Korbinian continued. “Or perhaps she is willful. What if you can do nothing to prevent her downfall? Your intervention would do nothing but poison her against you.… You are in a strange country, liebchen, surrounded by wolves and jackals who wear the masks of kin. You cannot afford to bring any of these Blackmoors to anger, not even this girl.”
Varanus looked Korbinian in the eye and replied softly, but as if to Ekaterine, “To intervene may be foolish, but it is also right.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Ekaterine said.
Korbinian smiled at Varanus and kissed her gently upon the lips. Drawing back, he looked into her eyes and said:
“That is why I love you, liebchen. Such practicality, but with a good heart.”
Varanus flashed a smile back at him before looking at Ekaterine.
“Let us see if we can find Cousin Mary’s beau,” she murmured.
“Yes, let’s,” Ekaterine replied, grinning a little. “I am rather in the mood for meddling.”
“Aren’t you always?” Varanus asked.
Ekaterine thought about this for a few moments before she answered brightly, “Yes, come to think of it.” The idea seemed to please her.
Varanus crossed to the vestry and gently pushed the door open. The room beyond was clearly long abandoned. It was furnished with a writing table, some chairs, a wardrobe for vestments, and various adornments. But they were all covered with dust and cobwebs and had likely not been used within living memory. Nevertheless, even in the fading light Varanus spotted footprints upon the floor and the places where the webs had been disturbed in passing.
With quiet footsteps, she approached the wardrobe, Ekaterine following close behind. Korbinian made his way to the writing table and sat upon it, leaving no mark of his passing. The wardrobe door was slightly ajar, and Varanus reached for it slowly, placing her fingertips against the edge. With a nod to Ekaterine, she flung the door open.
The wardrobe was empty.
Something of a disappointmen
t, Varanus thought. She had expected to find the boy there. It was really the only hiding place.
She looked at Ekaterine and asked, “Have you any clever ideas?”
“Witchcraft?” Korbinian suggested, his tone sarcastic and his expression mirthful.
Varanus frowned at him as if to say, “Hush.”
“I was only trying to be helpful,” Korbinian said, grinning.
Ekaterine knelt by Varanus’s side and began tapping her hands against the back wall of the wardrobe.
“Perhaps some manner of hidden compartment,” she said.
Now that was a thought. In the walls, or perhaps.…
Varanus knelt as well and rapped her knuckles against the floor panel of the wardrobe. She heard a hollow sound, though by appearance it stood upon solid stone. She exchanged smiles with Ekaterine, and the two of them began to examine the wooden panel. After a few moments their search revealed a metal ring set flat into the wood. With its aid, the entire floor panel of the wardrobe lifted, revealing a hole that led down past floor and foundation into the earth. It was lined with wood and masonry, and a worn ladder led the way down, perhaps twenty feet or more. At the very bottom, a low tunnel led off away from the church to places unknown.
“I daresay the boy has fled,” Varanus said, standing and brushing off her dress. She offered a hand to Ekaterine and helped her up. “Where to, I wonder.”
Ekaterine looked out of a nearby window for a few moments before pointing. Varanus looked and saw the ruins of the priory rising in the distance against the dying sunlight.
“There, I suspect,” Ekaterine said. “It seems as logical a place as any for the tunnel to lead. Unless it empties out somewhere along the way.”
Korbinian joined them at the window and rested his chin upon Varanus’s head, murmuring, “How peculiar that monks and priests would need a tunnel to link the two. Better to go above ground, surely.”
Varanus frowned. Korbinian was certainly right about that. Before the Reformation, there would have been no need for hidden passages. And after the persecution of the Catholics had begun, there would have been no priory left for the outlawed priests to escape to. It was all too strange.
“If it is a priest hole,” she said to Ekaterine, “it will surely let out somewhere in the hills. Unless we are mistaken and this is simply some old cellar.”
Ekaterine took another look down into the hole and raised an eyebrow at her. “A cellar?”
“Perhaps not,” Varanus said. She shrugged and sighed. “Alas, a delicious mystery to be sure, but not one we can investigate tonight. It is too dark down there even for my eyes, and we have no lantern.”
“And besides,” Ekaterine added, “it will soon be time for dinner. And surely that is an event not to be missed.”
Varanus made a face and peered down into the pit again.
“It’s not that dark, I suppose,” she said. “Is it?”
Surely better than dinner with Maud and Elizabeth.
“Oh come along,” Ekaterine said, laughing. She took Varanus by the arm and led her to the door.
Chapter Nine
London
Luka waited two days before venturing out into the streets again. In the meantime, he held court in the Old Jago Pub, listening intently to the reports of Bates and his men and waiting to see the effects of his first night’s work. What he heard pleased him: the neighborhood was filled with talk about the corpses of Higgins’s men and the violent defense against Jones’s boys at the clinic. By the evening of the second day, enough rumors had circulated that a few curious folk ventured into the Old Jago to sneak a look at him.
He had caught their attention. Now all that remained was to gain their allegiance.
The girl Cat soon proved eager to earn her keep. She spent the day out in the neighborhood, spreading word of Luka’s ultimatum and—evidently—adding her own embellishments to the story. A rumor soon surfaced that Luka was a gang lord plotting the conquest of the entire East End, and though the gaucheness of it irritated Luka, he felt no need to contradict it. And Cat proved more directly useful as well. She revealed herself to be a deft hand at recruitment. By noon on the third day, she had presented him with a small but growing cadre of street urchins and low prostitutes to serve as informants—for the proper pay, of course.
Now she sat with him at his table, scavenging over the remains of her dinner and washing it down with liberal amounts of gin. She was a drunk, but at least she was a useful drunk. That was more than could be said for the Doctor’s son, so there was that to be considered. And perhaps she might make something of herself given the inclination. She had cleverness, Luka saw, and tenacity.
Luka folded his newspaper and dropped it onto the table. He took another drink of wine and stood.
“Come,” he said to Cat.
“Come?” Cat asked, looking up from her gin. “Are we goin’ somewhere?”
“Osborne Court,” Luka answered. “I have allowed the neighborhood to whisper about me long enough. Now it is time I returned to my rounds.”
“Oh?” Cat asked. “Am I te be part o’ ye rounds an’ all?” She smirked at him and rose from her chair.
“In a manner of speaking,” Luka said. “You will accompany me. And after I look in on the good Doctor Constantine, you will show me to Miss Sharpe’s establishment in Honey Lane and introduce me to her.”
Cat stopped mid-stand and stared at him, her mouth slowly working around the word, “Wha’?” After a moment she shook her head and managed, more clearly, “Wha’ are ye talkin’ about? Miss Sharpe threw me out on me ear! Ye walk in there wi’ me an’ she’ll have us both thrown inte the street!”
“I think not,” Luka said, walking to the door. “I suspect that the scoundrel Jones managed the protection of Miss Sharpe’s establishment. With him gone, she will be wondering who is to replace him.”
“I ‘spose tha’s the truth,” Cat said. She hurried to catch up to him and followed him out into the street. “Still, it donne mean she’ll be any happier fer ’t. Miss Sharpe is a wee bit particular, ye see? Donne like bein’ told her own business.”
“It is no matter,” Luka said. “I do not mean to tell her her business, merely to make plain my own. Like everyone here, she may do as she pleases so long as she does not break my peace.”
He put on his hat and paused a moment to light his pipe. It would be good for the local people to recognize him for it. Let those who would commit crimes in Osborne Court tremble at the sight of a match or the smell of tobacco.
With Cat in tow he went along to Osborne Court. It was not yet evening, though nightfall was not long off. A couple of Bates’s men were on guard outside the clinic. They stood near the door, chatting away in the fading light, each armed with a stout club, though to be frank, neither looked particularly ready for violence. They might scare off the odd troublemaker, but if Jones or some other gangster made a concerted effort to attack the clinic, there would be little they could do but delay until help arrived. Luka sighed a little at the realization. How much easier it would be to manage this place with half a dozen Shashavani. He needed soldiers, not ruffians.
Luka nodded to the men as he entered the clinic. They touched their hands to their caps in reply at his passing. Inside, he found Doctor Constantine at the desk, making his initial notes for the evening in the logbook. And, much to Luka’s irritation, he saw that Constantine was not alone. Young Friedrich lounged on the sofa, in the midst of speaking to Constantine on some point that could be of little significance in Luka’s estimation.
“Honestly, Constantine, the possibilities inherent in these Crookes tubes are endless,” Friedrich said. “They are the key to radiant matter, that I assure you.”
“If you say so,” Constantine replied, glancing up from his writing. “But between the two of us, I doubt that this ‘radiant matter’ of yours even exists. In fact, I—” He paused at the sight of Luka and slowly smiled. “Ah, Mister Luka! Come in, come in. And the young lady as well. Please d
o make yourselves comfortable.”
Constantine stepped around the desk as Friedrich rose to his feet and joined him, grinning.
“Hello, Luka,” Friedrich said, offering his hand, which Luka took and shook on principle of hospitality but with little enthusiasm. Nonplused, Friedrich turned to Cat and took the hand that she offered, bowing slightly and smiling at her. “And hello to you, my dear. I don’t believe that we have been introduced, and I am much the sadder for it.”
“Ooh, a charmer,” Cat said, putting on hand to her breast. She smiled, perhaps entertained by the display. “Well, we canne have that, now can we?” she asked. “Perhaps ye should give me yer name, an’ then ye needn’t be sad ’tall. At least one of us ’ll know who t’ other is.”
“You will know,” Friedrich said, smirking a little. “But I will not.”
Cat smirked back, replying, “’Tis the idea.”
This made Luka smile a little. At least the girl wasn’t swooning at the first sign of a cheap smile and a fancy accent. There was promise there, that was certain.
Friedrich smiled at Cat and bowed his head, saying, “Please call me Friedrich. I am a doctor, you know, like Constantine here.”
“Well truly charmed to meet ye, Doctor Friedrich,” Cat said.
There was a pause and then Friedrich asked playfully, “Will you tell me your name?”
“No,” Cat replied with a grin.
“I wonder, Doctor von Fuchsburg,” Luka said, “why you are here. Surely you have more important places to be.”
“Oh, yes,” Friedrich said. “I came to see Constantine settled in. I have some business here in the East End, near Whitechapel.” He clapped Constantine on the shoulder. “But my friend said I simply must see the clinic with him, and so here I am.”
Luka cleared his throat. “Of course,” he said. He turned to Constantine. “Are you settling in well, Doctor?”
“Hmm?” Constantine asked, looking up from the logbook again. “Oh yes, quite well. I’ve had a few cases already. The local people all seem quite decent at heart.”
“Have you had any more trouble with ruffians?” Luka asked.
A Cautionary Tale for Young Vampires Page 13
