by Louis Bayard
“Good evening,” I said.
And then, after consulting my pocket watch:
“I’m sorry, good morning.”
I kept my voice as light as I humanly could. But it was still an outsider’s voice—the voice of someone who hadn’t been invited—and Lea Marquis flinched before it. She set her cigar box on the floor and took a step toward me and extended her arms in a gesture that hinted of welcome before it resolved into defiance.
“You don’t belong here,” she said.
But I was already ignoring her, turning instead to the woman who stood close by—the woman whose mouth I could see trembling inside her monk’s cowl.
“Mrs. Marquis,” I said in a balmy voice.
The sound of her name seemed to cause a change of sorts in her. She threw off the cowl, the better to show off her curls. She even—ah, she couldn’t help herself, Reader!—she even smiled at me! Looked for all the world as if she were back home on Professors’ Row, coaxing us to the whist table.
“Mrs. Marquis,” I said. “I was wondering if you could tell me. Which of your children would you care to save from the noose?”
Her eyes darkened; her smile swirled with confusion. No, she seemed to be thinking. I must have misheard.
“Don’t, Mother!” called Artemus.
“He’s bluffing,” said Lea.
And still I ignored them. Bent all my attention, all my force, on their mother.
“I’m afraid you have no choice, Mrs. Marquis. The plain truth is somebody has to swing for all this. You do see that, don’t you?”
Her eyes began to flick back and forth. Her mouth folded down.
“Cadets can’t be killed and carved open with impunity, can they, Mrs. Marquis? If nothing else, it would set a bad precedent.”
And now the smile was utterly gone, wiped clean, and without it, how bare her face was! Not a trace of joy or hope in any corner.
“You have no business here!” shouted Lea. “This is our sanctuary.”
“Well,” I said, folding my hands out, “I hate to contradict your daughter, Mrs. Marquis, but I believe that little heart of hers—the one she was just holding, yes—I believe that makes it my business.” I tapped my finger against my lips. “Academy business, too.”
I began to walk now. Slow easy steps—no clear pattern—no sign of fear. But that sound still followed me: the drip drip of Poe’s blood on the stone floor.
“It’s a sad business,” I said. “A very sad business, Mrs. Marquis. Especially for your son, who has such a—such a brilliant career ahead of him. But you see, we have here a human heart, which in all likelihood came from a cadet. We have a young man who’s been drugged and kidnapped and—and I think it’s fair to say, assaulted. Isn’t that right, Mr. Poe?”
He met me with a blank face, as if I were talking about somebody else entirely. His breathing—I could hear it—fretful and short. . . .
“Why, what with one thing and another,” I said, “I’m left with very little alternative, Mrs. Marquis. I do hope you see that.”
“You’ve forgotten one thing,” said Artemus, the muscles flaring along his jaw. “We have you outnumbered.”
“Do you now?” I took a step toward him and cocked my head like a sparrow . . . but my eyes never left his mother. “Do you think your son really means to kill me, Mrs. Marquis? On top of all the others he’s killed? Would you stand for such a thing?”
She’d been reduced now to pushing her curls into place, a faint echo of the coquette she must once have been. And when at last she spoke, it was in a mild, propitiating tone, as if she’d forgotten to put someone’s name on her dance card.
“Come, now,” she said, “nobody’s killed anybody. They told me, they assured me there was no—”
“Hush,” hissed Artemus.
“No, please,” I said. “Please, Mrs. Marquis, I insist you speak. Because I still need to know which of your children I’m to save.”
And this was her first reflex: to look first at one, then the other—to weigh them, as it were, in the balance—before the horror of weighing them at all grew too strong for her. Her hand went to her collarbone, her voice tumbled out in fragments:
“I don’t—I don’t see why . . .”
“Oh, yes, it’s a very difficult business, isn’t it? Now if you’re worried about Artemus’ cadet standing, then maybe you’re hoping his sister was the mastermind of all this, and he was just a dupe, as it were. Much like you, Mrs. Marquis. Why, if we could make a strong enough case against Lea, then Artemus might get by with, oh, a few days in the brig, and still be around to collect his brevet commission next spring. All right, then!” I clapped my hands together. “The Case Against Lea Marquis. We begin with the missing hearts. We ask ourselves, who would have need of human hearts? Why, your daughter, of course! To please her beloved ancestor— and cure her tragic condition.”
“No,” said Mrs. Marquis. “Lea wouldn’t—”
“She needs hearts, yes, and she knows her brother doesn’t have the . . . should I say the stomach for it? So she recruits his nearest and dearest friend, Mr. Ballinger. And on the night of October twenty-fifth, she sends Mr. Fry a note to lure him out of barracks. How thrilled he must be! A covert tryst with a handsome belle. Why, he must think his wildest dreams have come true! How disappointing, then, to find Ballinger there instead. With a noose. Oh, yes,” I said, glancing over at Poe, “I’ve seen how easily Mr. Ballinger can disable an opponent.”
“Lea,” said Mrs. Marquis, gouging her fingers into her palm. “Lea, tell him—”
“Ballinger being such a good friend of the family,” I went on, “he’ll gladly do anything for your daughter. He’ll even hang a man . . . and, under Lea’s guidance, carve the heart out of his chest. The one thing he won’t do, I guess, is stay quiet. And so he has to be taken care of.”
Keep moving, Landor. That was the command I kept foremost in mind as I wove a path round those torches, as I listened to the dripping of Poe’s blood . . . as I smiled on Mrs. Marquis’ crumbling white face. Move, Landor!
“I suppose that’s where Mr. Stoddard comes in,” I said. “Being, I suppose, another admirer of your daughter’s—so many to choose from, eh?—he takes care of Ballinger. The only difference is, he doesn’t wait around for someone to take care of him.”
For the first time, even Poe found the strength to protest. “No,” he murmured. “No, Landor.”
But he was already being overridden by Artemus’ voice, whistling with cold: “You are vile, sir.”
“Well, there you are,” I said, smiling like an aged uncle upon Mrs. Marquis. “The Case Against Lea Marquis. It’s not a bad one, I think you’ll have to admit. And until Mr. Stoddard can be found, I’m afraid it will have to stand as the likeliest explanation. Of course”—and here I lifted my voice to a still lighter register—“I stand ready to be corrected. So if I’m wrong . . .”
And now, for the first time, I met Artemus’ eyes. Met them straight on.
“If I’m wrong,” I said, “somebody really should tell me. Because, you see, I need just one person to hand to the authorities. The rest of you may do as you like. Why, as far as I’m concerned . . .” My eyes took a quick sketch of the torches and the burning tree and the charcoal brazier, with its ceiling-high flames. “. . . as far as I’m concerned, you may all go to Hell.”
We had come now to the part of the play that was out of my hands. Enter Time.
It was Time, yes, that would have to pile atop young Artemus Marquis, bow him down until all he could see was the choice that fronted him. And as though to dramatize the transaction, his shoulders did indeed begin to bow, and the skin started to sag from those proud cheeks . . . and when he again spoke, even his voice had dipped below its usual frequency.
“It wasn’t Lea’s idea,” he said, faltering. “It was mine.”
“No!”
Her eyes steaming, her finger pointed like a rapier, Lea Marquis came charging on us.
“I will not al
low this!”
With a sweep of her cassock, she bent her arm round Artemus’ head and drew him back a space, locked him into a private conference right there among the torches. Much like the one Poe had overheard, probably: a steady drone broken by scalding whispers.
“Stop a minute . . . what he’s doing . . . divide us . . .”
Oh, I could have let them go on, but Time had made its exit, and the play (I felt this with a kind of tingle) was once more mine.
“Miss Marquis!” I called. “You might be well advised to let your brother speak for himself. He is a first classman, you know.”
I don’t think they even heard me, to be honest. No, what pried them apart finally was his silence. For after the first exchanges, the only voice that could be heard from their huddle was hers, and the more she talked, I think, the clearer it became: he had already started down that road of his. Nothing to do, then, but watch him go.
So it was that in the very moment her arm crooked more tightly round his neck, in the very moment her voice rose to accents of new urgency, he chose to step away from her, to stand in the murdering glare of the brazier fire, his features baked into a mask of resolve.
“I killed Fry,” he said.
His mother doubled over, like someone absorbing a knife thrust. Spat out a groan.
“I killed Randy, too,” he added.
Lea, though . . . Lea made no sound. Dead in the arms, dead in the face. Except for this: a single tear, traveling down the chalky plains of her face.
“And Stoddard?” I probed. “How was he involved?”
For a second, Artemus looked as helpless as I’d ever seen him. Waved his arms in the air like some inept conjuror and said, “Stoddard was my accomplice, if you like. He might be said to have panicked. You might say he panicked and ran.”
How many different notes there were in his voice—how horribly they clanged against one another. I could have spent many days trying to set him in tune. But I didn’t have days.
“Well,” I said, rubbing my hands together. “That sounds just fine, don’t you think?”
For confirmation, I turned to Mrs. Marquis, who was on her knees now.
The monk’s cowl had once more fallen over her head. Not a single human extremity could be found among those coarse brown folds; the only thing left was her voice, faintly rasping.
“You can’t,” she whispered. “You can’t.”
Don’t think I wanted for pity, Reader. But understand: I had, at the same time, the sound of blood in my ear. Poe’s blood, still dripping on that stone floor. I would have done anything to make it stop.
“Yes, yes,” I said. “All that’s left to do . . . yes, I think all that’s left to do is claim the evidence. Miss Marquis, I’d be most grateful if you’d hand me that little bundle of yours.”
But she’d forgotten where the box was! How frantic she seemed as she cast her eyes round her, sifting through the patches of dark and fireglow— before finding it in the last possible place: right by her feet.
Opening it once more, she gazed at its contents with a frozen wonder. Then switched her gaze to me. It will be a long time before I forget that look of hers. Cornered, yes, the hounds baying on every side, but with this distinction: the slightest inkling of hope, as though some path of escape lay just beyond her tether.
“Please,” she said. “Leave us alone. It’s almost done. It’s almost—”
“It is done,” I said, quietly.
She backed away: one step, two steps. I matched her. And by now, she had given up any idea of putting me off. The only idea she had left was: Flee.
Which was what she did. Dashed straight for the rock altar with the box still in her hands.
My first thought was that she would destroy it, that last bit of evidence, hurl it into the brazier or hide it behind a rock or God knows what. But when I went to follow, I found Artemus cutting me off, Artemus opposing his weight to mine.
And so we were joined, the two of us, in perfect silence, just as we’d been joined in that closet, battling over Joshua Marquis’ saber. And this time, there was no doubt about who had the upper hand.
Youth, yes, was having its way with age, and Artemus was driving me back—and not simply back, I soon realized, but in a very particular direction. I can’t say when it occurred to him, but as soon as I felt that first stab of heat on my spine, I knew where I was headed: straight into the pyre of that charcoal brazier.
How strange to look into Artemus’ eyes and see nothing there—nothing but the reflection of that towering fire. From somewhere nearby, I could hear Mrs. Marquis’ low keening, and Lea’s litanies, but the sound that weighed most heavily on me was the crackle of that fire—caressing my back—engorging my skin.
A fire in my legs, too: the burning muscles of resistance. Futile resistance, for the distance between me and the flames was falling away, and the fire was kissing my shoulder blades, tongueing the very hairs on my neck. I could see it, yes, in Artemus’ eyes, I could see him, steeling for this last push.
And then, for no apparent reason, his head jerked back. I heard him cough out a cry. And I looked down to find, fastened like a tick to Artemus’ trouser leg, the balled-up form of Cadet Fourth Classman Poe.
Drugged though he was, and bleeding freely, he had crawled toward us and closed his teeth on the left calf of Artemus Marquis—a bite of thoroughly respectable breadth and depth. And he was now undertaking the one job he could still manage: anchor. Trying to drag Artemus to earth.
Oh, Artemus tried to shake him off, but Poe’s will seemed to have grown in ratio to his frailty, and he wouldn’t be budged. And Artemus, knowing he couldn’t take on both of us, chose to move against the weaker part. He raised his fist and, after a brief calibration, prepared to smash Poe’s crown.
He never got that far. In the time it took him to make his strike, I was already making mine. My right fist caught his jaw, and my left seconded it in short order, slamming him under his chin.
Down he went, and down went Poe, still keeping vigil on that leg, so that when Artemus tried once more to rise, Poe’s weight kept him pinned to the ground. By then I had grabbed one of the torches and lowered it to Artemus’ face, and held it there until it raised a chain of shining sweat along his brow.
“That will be all,” I said, between clenched teeth.
Whether he had it in mind to argue the point, I’ll never be able to say, because that was when the sound came. The sound of something going terribly wrong.
Lea Marquis stood before the rock altar—her eyes big as moons, her cheeks smeared with something that looked like clay. She stood there, yes, clutching her throat with a red hand.
It was clear in an instant what she’d done. Seized her final gambit, that’s what. Mad to win herself new life, she’d followed Henri le Clerc’s instructions down to the letter, and it was the last thing I would have expected and maybe the first thing I should have expected. Instead of offering up that heart, she had consumed it. Swallowed it whole.
Narrative of Gus Landor
39
In the end, I think, it came down to this: she couldn’t see it all the way through for Henri le Clerc. Something in her bridled. And so the heart she was tasked with devouring lodged itself halfway down her throat— and began drawing away her life’s breath. Her knees buckled . . . her body curved in on itself . . . she spilled onto the ground like a load of kindling.
And Artemus and I, who not twenty seconds before had been wishing each other dead, now rushed to her side, and behind us came Mrs. Marquis, her slippers scuffing the stone, and dragging after her, Poe. All of us gathered round Lea Marquis’ sprawled form and stared down at that pale face, rouged with heart tissue, and those eyes, jolting from their sockets.
“She can’t . . .” Mrs. Marquis gasped. “Can’t . . .”
Breathe, that was the word she was searching for. And in fact, no words at all were coming now from Lea Marquis, not even so much as a cough. Just a high forlorn whistle, like the son
g of a bird trapped in a chimney. She was dying before our eyes.
Poe had both of his hands pressed round Lea’s head. “Please! Please, God, tell us what to do!”
God being absent, we did our best. I levered up her torso, and Mrs. Marquis pounded her on the back, and Poe cooed in her ear: help was coming, help was on the way. I looked up then and found Artemus standing over us, holding the very lancet he had used to open Poe’s vein.
He never proposed, never explained, but I knew at once what he meant to do. He was going to carve a channel of air straight through his sister’s throat.
Such a fierce look to him as he straddled Lea’s chest . . . such a terrible glint to that blade . . . I could well see why Mrs. Marquis moved to take the lancet from him.
