Sixty-One Nails

by Mike Shevdon

"Have you been in his office today?" asked Blackbird.

  "Yes, several times."

  "Can I take a look?"

  "You can look, but he's not in there."

  Blackbird went to the double doors and pushed one open, standing in the doorway to observe the room. Satisfied that it was indeed empty, she stepped through. I stood in the doorway behind her. She walked around the large desk with its dark, polished surface and green leather inlay, the walls stacked with row upon row of legal texts. She slowly circled the office, drawing her forefinger across the polished surfaces. "Not here," she said.

  "I told you he wasn't there," said Claire, from over my shoulder.

  That wasn't what she meant. She meant he hadn't died there.

  I stepped back into the ante-office and she came after me and pulled the door closed behind her.

  "If you get another call like that, put the telephone down straight away. Don't speak to them, don't listen to them. Just put the phone down, OK?"

  She nodded. "Do you have any idea what happened to him?"

  "Perhaps. When did you speak to him last?"

  "Yesterday. He had an evening engagement and I left him to it. He never went home. His wife is frantic with worry and calling here every ten minutes. I've already called all the hospitals and alerted the police, but there's no sign of him. I was sort of hoping your historical mystery might have something to do with it. He's a keen historian. It's possible he went off on some wild goose chase. "

  "Does he do that a lot?"

  "No, nothing like this has happened before. That's what's so worrying. What if he's been kidnapped or something? We deal with all sorts here, organised criminals, gangs, murderers, everything. The police are coming in an hour or so to talk to me, but there have been no demands or ransom. In the absence of anything else, I think they're hoping he'll just turn up." Blackbird glanced at me. It must have crossed her mind, as it had mine, that if one of the Seventh Court had been outside my door last night then they might have been in other places too.

  "If you don't find him, the ceremony will still go ahead?" Blackbird asked her.

  "It won't be the first time we've had to improvise to make sure it happens, but yes, it will go ahead. "

  "So the ceremony has changed?" I asked her.

  "The ceremony has been conducted under the offices of the Queen's Remembrancer for almost eight hundred years and is virtually identical to how it was originally performed. Even the words are identical, if a little archaic. In every respect, the ceremony is legally identical to the ones carried out in the thirteenth century. "

  "But you said you'd had to improvise," I challenged. "You can't be using the same horseshoes that were used eight hundred years ago, surely?"

  "Actually, the shoes are the originals and are the oldest horseshoes known to be in existence. There have been some minor changes, though, of course. Countless different people have been involved in performing the ceremony and some of the items have had to be renewed, but in every respect it is as identical as we can make it to the ceremonies performed in the reign of King John."

  "Which of the items have had to be renewed?" asked Blackbird.

  "Why are you so interested in this?"

  "It's possible," Blackbird said, "that changes in the ceremony have something to do with your missing Remembrancer."

  "Then you should inform the police. Anything that can help to find him…"

  "The police aren't going to find him, Claire."

  "Then you know what's happened to him? If you do…"

  "No. But there are things here that the police can't deal with. We can try to help you but you have to help us too. There is a great deal at stake."

  Claire looked from one of us to the other. "What do you want from me?" she asked.

  "We need to know what has changed in the ceremony. I can't tell you when it changed because we don't know, but something changed at some point, maybe in the last hundred years or so and it may have a lot to do with why your boss didn't make it home last night." She folded her arms, chewing her lip as she considered our request. "And this will help to find Jerry? "

  "It may explain what has happened to him," Blackbird offered.

  Claire weighed that. "Come through into the office. I'll bring you what I have."

  She brushed past us and opened the doors to the Remembrancer's office. She brought two chairs forward from the wall and we were invited to sit across from the empty chair of the absent owner. Claire disappeared for a few moments, and then returned with a rectangular bundle wrapped in soft black cloth. She unfolded it on the desk, revealing a thick brown leather-bound book. "This is the Journal of the Queen's Remembrancer, or at least the latest version of it. The earlier ones are in the restricted archives of the Public Record Office at Kew. This one is from about 1870 onwards." She smiled apologetically. "The duties of the Remembrancer were made largely ceremonial after the Queen's Remembrancer's Act of 1859."

  She slid the book towards us. "Please be careful with it, it's quite delicate. There are some cotton gloves here," she glanced at me, "but they're probably too big for your hands." She passed them to Blackbird who was clearly a more suitable person, in her eyes, to be handling valuable documents.

  The leather binding of the journal showed its age and use. Each hand that had held it over the years had added to the smoothness of the leather until there were two burnished patches, one on each side, where you might naturally hold it to lay it out to write. Blackbird slipped the soft cotton gloves on and moved the book in front of her. I stood up and moved behind her so I could look over her shoulder.

  The book was a little smaller than a standard letter size and creaked when it opened. She turned to a page indicated by a length of red ribbon sewn into the binding. There were rows of neat script. Each short entry described an event, the annual Trial of the Pyx being one, but there were others. Each had a date, written out in long-hand, the nature of the event and a list of those present. Some small details of the event were recorded and, occasionally comments were added about some aspect of the duties or roles performed.

  On the previous page was the entry for the last year's Quit Rents Ceremony. It detailed the attendees, including the City of London's Comptroller and Solicitor and various representatives of the Corporation of London. Certain attendees were starred, though why they were picked out wasn't obvious. Blackbird leafed slowly backwards through the volume, finding almost identical entries for each year of the ceremony. After we had gone back about fifteen years, the hand changed to a more circular script, but the entries remained the same. Each year the knives were submitted and the horseshoes and nails counted. A response of good service for the knives or good number for the nails was given in return. The formalities of the ceremony were completed and the entry ended with some benign comment about an amusing address or ceremonial presentation.

  Blackbird leafed back to 1945 and then slowed. I realised she was checking to see if the ceremony had been disrupted by the war, but there were the entries again, good service and good number for each year between

  1939 and 1945. We went back again, stepping slowly back in time. I came to understand that the role of Remembrancer lasted between ten and twenty years, almost regardless of what happened in the world at the time. There was one script that lasted only three ceremonies and I could imagine some illness overtaking the person, particularly as the hand became more difficult to read until it was passed to a smaller, neater hand that wrote in precise rows of near identical characters that were more difficult to decipher than the hand that had preceded it.

  The First World War was the same. There was no indication of the carnage going on in Flanders, just entries for each year, notes of visiting dignitaries and acknowledgement of the service and the number.

  Claire stood up and went to the door. "I'll be just a moment," she said, unsure about leaving us alone with the book. "I have something else to show you." She slipped out of the room, leaving Blackbird and I to leaf through the faded pages.r />
  "It's like a heartbeat," I commented, more to myself than to Blackbird.

  "This is it, Rabbit. This is the ritual. Don't you see?" Despite her calm outward appearance, I realised from her tone of voice that she was excited.

  "The City of London isn't the same as London, the city. It has defined boundaries, its own Mayor, a corporation to manage its affairs and it is founded on the one thing humanity will protect to the end: wealth. What did the leaflet say? This is the oldest legal ceremony in England other than the coronation. Here you have the link between the kings of thirteenth century England and the legal system that preserved the existence of the monarchy into the present day."

  "It's not perfect protection, though, is it?" I remarked. "The French overthrew their monarchy and founded a republic. We had periods where the position of the king or queen was very precarious. Anything could have happened."

  "But it didn't, did it? Even Cromwell didn't succeed in removing the monarchy permanently. Maybe there was more than one reason for restoring the monarch to the throne."

  "I don't think there's any way of…What's that?"

  The hairs on the back of my neck prickled and before I realised it I was upright. Blackbird stood, her chin coming up, almost as if she was almost scenting the air. Tension built in the room like the moment before a lightning strike and I found myself backing away from the doorway.

  "I thought you might like to see this. It's not really… Is something wrong?" Claire entered through the half open door carrying a small bundle. Wrapped in a soft black cloth, I could see heat-haze writhing off it like poisonous dark fumes. Blackbird backed away with an expression of tight distaste on her face. I couldn't get enough oxygen. The presence of the object was suffocating. "What is it?" Blackbird asked.

  "It's the Quick Knife," Claire said. "And I'm afraid it's broken."

  Fifteen

  Claire stepped forward and laid the broken Quick Knife on the desk and folded back the cloth.

  It was difficult for me to see the knife clearly for the haze around it, but there were clearly two pieces to it. I backed further away and I could see Blackbird was having trouble maintaining her composure.

  Claire looked up from the table at us, curious at first while a slow understanding grew in her eyes. She looked again at the knife and then back at us. There was a tense silence as she considered our reaction. I think Blackbird was trying to act normally, though she was failing. I wasn't even trying.

  "You're from the other courts, aren't you?" Claire spoke quietly and it wasn't a question. She stepped back and pushed the door closed behind her. I wished she hadn't.

  "Other courts?" Blackbird simply repeated the phrase. "One minute. I need to get the box."

  Claire opened the door again and stepped out, closing the door behind her, but leaving the knife unwrapped on the desk. I considered edging around the room and running out of the building. I glanced at Blackbird who clearly had the same thought.

  The door opened and Claire entered carrying a dark wooden box. She placed it onto the table and opened it, then re-wrapped the knife in the soft dark cloth and placed it into the open box alongside a similar knife that gleamed with a dull sheen. As she closed the lid, the tension in the room evaporated. Blackbird and I visibly relaxed.

  "Well, that was exciting, wasn't it?" Claire said in a slightly brittle manner, turning to lean on the edge of the desk, regarding each of us in turn.

  Neither of us spoke. It was clear that Claire knew more about this than we had thought, but what she knew and why was still an open question.

  "I think it would be a good idea if we had some tea, don't you? Yes, that's probably the thing. Please, make yourselves comfortable again. I apologise for the disturbance. It never crossed my mind." She went back to the door, turning back, almost as if she were checking we were still there. "Give me a few moments."

  We were left alone again, though the door had been left ajar.

  "What is that?" I asked Blackbird.

  "She called it the Quick Knife. It may be a corruption of Quit Knife, for the ceremony, do you think? "

  "I have no idea, and I don't really care. Are we leaving?"

  "No, this is important. She clearly knows more about this than we imagined. If we leave now we may miss something."

  "I won't miss the contents of that box. Did you see it?"

  "I've never seen anything like it. It must be part of the ceremony. Didn't the leaflet mention a pair of knives?" She delved into her coat to retrieve the leaflet. "Here it is. 'Two knives, one blunt and one sharp.' Which one do you think that was?"

  "I don't know, I couldn't see through the haze around it."

  "Haze?"

  "Like fumes, coming off it, distorting the air around it. You couldn't see them?"

  "No, but I could feel them."

  "It's dangerous, Blackbird. That's not a ceremonial blade. It's intended for something much darker. "

  "That's the point, though, isn't it? We're looking for something much darker."

  The door pushed open and we both lapsed into silence as Claire entered with a tray loaded with a teapot, milk, sugar and even a plate of biscuits.

  "Would you mind moving the journal, please? I must apologise for my thoughtlessness earlier. It never occurred to me that you were, well, like that. "

  "Like what?" Blackbird moved the journal across the desk away from the tea and the dark wooden box. "From the other courts. I think 'Fey' is the proper term, is it not?" She put down the hot teapot and set about arranging cups and saucers, not meeting Blackbird's intense scrutiny.

  "It is," I answered, winning a sharp look from Blackbird, but my curiosity at her use of that particular word was too strong to let it go. Besides, I wasn't telling her anything she didn't already know.

  She gestured to Blackbird to take a seat, and we both looked at the box containing the knife.

  "I could move it to the sideboard if you would be more comfortable?" she offered.

  "It would make things easier," Blackbird responded. She picked up the box and was then caught as she made to move towards me and I backed away. Just the thought of what was in the box was enough to make me stay clear of it. She smiled an apology and turned the other way to discover a worried look on Blackbird's face. She was made of sterner stuff, however, because she smiled a nervous acknowledgement and moved around towards the door, allowing Claire to get past and place the box on a small table near the leaded window where the dark wood of the box was set against the warmer tones of polished chestnut beneath it. "There, that might be better. Shall we have tea now?" Her version of a disarming smile had a fragile quality to it and I wondered just how confident about this she really was.

  "That would be kind," Blackbird agreed and we moved to sit around the desk, Claire at one end of the desk and Blackbird and I at the other. She poured out three measured cups and added milk in precise quantities, making me wonder how often she performed this small ritual. "It would be helpful if you could show me some credentials?" she suggested, handing each of us a cup and placing the plate of rich tea biscuits near to us, so she could move the tray out of the way.

  "What sort of credentials?" Blackbird countered.

  "I am sure you understand that I need to make sure you are who I think you are, if you see what I mean?"

  The brittle smile returned.

  "A demonstration?"

  "If you wouldn't mind?"

  "Give me your hand, then."

  She demurred. "I'd rather not, if you'll forgive me. I was warned against direct contact. A simple change of appearance would suffice." She appeared ruffled by this exchange.

  "Very well." Blackbird shifted slightly in her seat and then her form melted, reforming into the red-haired girl from the coffee shop in the square, except she wasn't dressed in quite the same style. This was simpler, with none of the polish or gloss that had been part of that persona, but a simple fresh beauty that left me wondering, yet again, who I was dealing with. She held it for a moment and
then melted back into the Blackbird I knew. It was impressive, and disconcerting, and it was pure Fey. Claire had acquired the look of a deer caught in the headlights, but she dissembled well. "That's, well, that's fine, and your colleague?"

  Claire turned to me. I glanced at Blackbird and she shook her head slightly. "I'll vouch for my colleague. "

  "I'm afraid my instructions are quite specific. All parties are to identify themselves. I'm sure you understand the reasons."

  "Something small then, please, Niall?" she suggested. I guessed that she was trying to steer me away from summoning gallowfyre, as I had with Marshdock. I was somewhat at a loss to come up with an alternative, though. I didn't want to change my whole appearance as Blackbird had done as I was only just getting used to the face I was wearing. If I reverted to my real appearance then Claire might recognise me as the person the police were seeking, so that wouldn't do either. I looked around and my gaze caught the reflection from an ornate mirror on the back wall. "Something small?" I nodded towards the mirror.