by Ben Galley
‘Of course,’ Asha mumbled, staring elsewhere, acting aloof.
‘Prissy madam,’ Gavisham whispered under his breath as he slid through the doors. A withered boy stood behind the counter, puckered with freckles and gaunt as a starving tick. ‘Are you in charge here?’ Gavisham enquired, sketching a short bow.
The boy was a stammerer, and took a while to get into his sentence. ‘Suppose so,’ he said, and then shrugged—a hopeless little gesture, one that had Gavisham intrigued.
‘What happened to the town?’ he asked, putting his fists on the counter.
The boy’s eye glazed over as he spoke, this time clear as a bell. ‘Plague hit us, in the winter.’
Gavisham quickly leant back. He knew what sickness could do to a town. Cholera, lungsnipe, pox—he had seen his fair share in the prisons of Francia, and in the war after. Plagues lived in London too, in the docks and the factory boroughs. Miasmas, they called them, clouds of sickness floating in the fog. Damn filthy living is what it was, if you asked Gavisham.
The boy was still talking. ‘Started on Tilly Sue’s birthday. We was all there, eating cake. Old Reverend came down with a coughing and a spluttering. Somethin’ chronic it was. Left blood all over the table.’
Gavisham raised an eyebrow. ‘He died right there and then?’
‘Not right away. Next mornin? Maybe afternoon. Everybody came to pay their respects and such.’ The boy lowered his head. ‘Everybody. Didn’t know it was plague, see.’
‘Then they all got sick?’
‘One after the other. Till it got near all of us. First the coughing for a day or two. Then the fever, and then that’s it.’ The boy’s voice cracked, and he spent a moment frozen, staring into nothing, eyes welling. And then slowly, he remembered himself, and turned back to the customer standing before him. He tilted his head to the side. ‘Is there anything I can help you with, Sir?’ he asked, almost mechanically.
Gavisham took the opportunity to make this quick. ‘There should be a wiregram for me. The name’s Gavisham. Arrid Gavisham.’
‘I’ve seen it,’ the boy said, disappearing down behind the counter. There was a rustling and then a grunt of success. The wiregram flopped onto the counter.
‘Thank you kindly,’ Gavisham said, sliding a silver dollar across the counter.
‘Y—, you don’t have to …’
‘For your troubles, lad,’ Gavisham replied, nodding. He left as quickly as he could, barging the swinging doors aside and striding out into the sunlight. Asha made to follow him, but he held up a finger.
‘Not until I’ve read it,’ he warned her. His eyes skipped frantically over the lines, then again, making sure he had read it right. Then he slid the wiregram into his top pocket and clapped his hands.
‘We’re getting on a train,’ he announced.
Asha hopped down the steps. ‘Say again?’
Gavisham looked around at the tracks and platforms. There was not a locomotive in sight, not even a whiff of steam. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of walking. Let’s get a train, catch up with that circus.’
She followed his eyes. ‘What train?’
‘The next train,’ Gavisham hissed. ‘Right after we pick up some supplies and some alcohol.’
Asha looked confused, and highly judgemental. ‘Bit early to start drinking, isn’t it?’ she asked.
‘Not to drink, to sterilise.’
‘What are you …?’
Gavisham grabbed her by the shoulder, making sure to grab the left, and not the scars on her right, and marched her towards the nearest general store. ‘There was a plague here. Killed almost everybody. The boy in the office told me. Could have snapped him like a matchstick.’
‘Did you …?’
‘No!’
‘So we’re leaving? No comfortable bed for one night?’
‘It hit this winter just gone. It’s still a plague-ridden town. But be my guest, please. I’ll be waiting on the platform.’
Asha frowned. ‘You’ve got a point.’
‘I know I do, now come on.’
Their visits to the stores were very quick indeed. Asha seemed to hold her breath for the entire duration, breathing only in short gasps until she could gulp down fresh air the moment they got out the door. The first general store had the food, the second the alcohol. The shopkeepers seemed drunk, and Gavisham did not blame them. A plague will eat away at those it does not kill. Grief is its poison, and the truth about grief is that it will always have a friend in alcohol. Like old veterans banging tankards over battles long forgotten. It works—for a short while.
With all the swiftness their tired legs could muster, they headed back to the station, where Gavisham dealt with the tickets while Asha moseyed about, kicking at the dust and praying for the sight of steam on the horizon. Gavisham got the impression she liked the idea of plague about as much as he did.
It was with a disgruntled face that he walked out of the ticket office. ‘The next train is tomorrow morning,’ he said, baring his teeth. ‘We’ll sleep on the benches.’
He expected Asha to put up a fight about that, but instead she just nodded. ‘Beats sleeping on the cold, hard ground.’
Gavisham cast a look back at the town, as if the entirety of it was some infectious thing, a tumour hidden in the prairies. ‘And it beats dying of plague in a saloon.’
*
She had him right where she wanted him. Alcohol might have had a friend in grief, but it also had a friend in boredom. And their empty platform was boredom incarnate. The hours had dragged on and on, the sun had taken an age to set, and ‘Asha’ did what she could to win an award for the dullest conversation ever.
To make matters worse, the benches were harder than they looked, and it was hard to find a comfortable spot without finding a bothersome nail sticking into your spine.
All in all, it had been a perfect occasion to reach for the bottle—with a little encouragement. They had used it to wash their hands, and once they were done, Asha had poured a splash in her flask and downed it. She had just shrugged when he looked at her, a stern expression on his face.
If there was one thing Calidae had learnt in her short time on this earth, it was that no man could hold the piercing gaze of a woman forever. Hold a man’s eyes long enough, and he will fold.
The tired Gavisham had folded like a wet newspaper. He had grabbed the bottle and poured himself a healthy measure.
Two hours later, and their bottle of clear spirit, something Gavisham called moonshine, was nearly empty. The man insisted on holding it up every now and again, perhaps to wish more of it into the bottle. He lolled against the arm of the bench, boots kicked off. He was ever so slightly cross-eyed, which made his mismatched colouring even stranger.
Calidae waved her flask in the air drunkenly. ‘To the train that never arrives,’ she cheered.
Gavisham threw her a confused gaze. His face broke into a hysterical grin, and he lifted his flask to clank against hers. ‘To the train.’
Calidae’s trick was very simple indeed. She never took more than a fraction of a sip. Just enough to be seen drinking, but not nearly enough to get her drunk. She had left that to Gavisham. Whenever her flask got too full, she would just dribble a little of it between the wooden boards between her feet. The drunker he got, the easier it was to dupe him.
‘I’m not saying it isn’t hard to bloodrush—it is, very hard. Suffrous just had a knack. But what I mean is …’ Gavisham paused to think and completely dropped his train of thought. ‘Hmph,’ he said, knocking back more moonshine.
It was time to move her scheme along. Calidae bit the inside of her lip, waiting for him to get lost in his own drunken ponderings, staring blearily at the tracks.
‘And to the lost,’ she said, raising her flask once again.
Gavisham gave her another cock-eyed stare before sighing deeply. ‘The lost,’ he croaked. ‘To Suffrous.’
‘Suffrous,’ Calidae echoed him, feigning another gulp. She swayed
a little for dramatic effect, but kept the mood sombre. Gradually, she reached out to place a hand on his knee. She leant a little closer to him, fixing him with those eyes of hers again, those piercing blues.
A dozen different expressions were tried on and then cast aside as Gavisham processed what was happening. ‘No,’ he said, shaking his head like a wet bulldog. ‘Not that.’
‘I …’ Calidae began to say, quickly retracting her hand.
Gavisham mumbled away to himself. His eyelids were already drooping. ‘Sleep, that’s what we need. No more of this,’ he waved a hand at her. ‘You’re needed,’ he slurred, almost inaudible. Calidae narrowed her eyes.
‘Agreed,’ Calidae said, slurring her words to sound just like him.
Now it was just a waiting game: first, the heavy breathing; then the first snore: then a twitch, almost as if it caught him by surprise; and that was it. He tumbled off the shelf of shallow dozing and descended into a deep, drunken sleep.
Say one thing for Calidae Serped: she was patient. A whole hour passed before she moved, listening to the growling of his snores. Then, moving at a speed one notch above glacial, she reached out. Her fingers were splayed, forefinger and thumb poised to pinch. Calidae winced as the bench creaked underneath her leg as she shifted forward. She was stretched to her limit now, holding onto the arm of the bench with her other hand. With great care, her fingers delved into his breast pocket, feeling for the wiregram, lighter than a shadow. It took a few moments of grimacing, holding her breath, and manoeuvring before she latched on to it, and slid it out, inch by inch. Calidae let herself breath only when she had it firmly in both hands. With Gavisham still snoring away, she read the wiregram, her lips moving silently:
Gavisham, fine work. Two orphans. Two estates. Bring the Serped girl back with you. She will be most useful to us. Another orphan for the pile. See that nothing happens to her. I shall deal with her upon your return. Nothing changes for the Hark. Our friends will have him ready for you. Head to Washingtown. On the night of the Bloodmoon, he will be yours.
BD
Calidae was shaking so much she almost ripped the paper. She clenched her jaws together as tight as she could, until it hurt. Only then did she dare to speak, once the fire had died down, and once everything had fallen into place in her muddled head.
‘Thank you, Bremar Dizali,’ she whispered. ‘You have just told me exactly what I must do.’
Nobody heard her save for the moths that pestered the lantern behind her, and the mouse that hid beneath her feet, lapping at something wet under the floor.
Chapter XVII
MACHINATIONS
11th July, 1867
The Emerald Benches was a place of two opposing halves. Not merely in the sense of the warring factions that called the Benches their home, but in volume. At one moment, it would be filled with raucous shouting and yelling, as if a mob had broken in. At another, it was a vacuous cavern of seething silence as each party stared at its opposite, gnashing its teeth and scraping its fingernails on its knees, its eyes mere slits of distaste for its opponents.
The Benches were half a thousand years old, and since their inception, nothing had changed. Two parties: the Cardinals and the Cobalts, the Empire’s elite, rightfully, and in some cases unrightfully, elected to represent their respective constituents. But it was a sham, a quarrelling nest of lords and ladies, bickering over old wounds and their own importance. Their contempt was as finely tailored as were their charcoal suits. Their words dripped with formality, and yet were rotten within, like a month-old apple wrapped in velvet.
Prime Lord Dizali idly watched on from the front-most of the Emerald Benches, listening to the cantankerousness of the ministers surrounding him. The Emerald Lord who had been speaking had been overwhelmed, shouted down for his preposterousness: legislation for protecting chimneysweeps and factory children was far from anybody’s mind at the present time. Dizali picked at something under his fingernail, waiting for the uproar to calm down, and for the Voice to call the Benches to some semblance of order once again. He had witnessed brothels with more decorum. All in good time.
‘Order! ORDER I SAY!’ bellowed the Voice, a red-faced man with cheeks full of broken veins and a sweat-soaked brow. The Benches were unrulier than usual today. He banged his pitiful gavel against the ancient bell propped up on the flat of his pulpit, at the far end of the Benches. ‘There will be order, or I will call an adjournment!’
The arguing and shouting continued unabated. Spittle flew like fireworks from both sides. Dizali decided it was time to act. He had let them squabble enough for one morning. He had a plan to put into action, after all. Adjusting his coat, the Prime Lord got to his feet and raised his hands. He could see the Voice throwing up his hands in despair out of the corner of his eye. The Voice held the power of silence and order, and yet Dizali, as Master of the Benches, had the command of their ears. A little coin here and there fills many of the potholes along the road to command. And Dizali’s purse-strings had been rather busy of late.
‘My Emerald Lords and Ladies!’ he roared. He had been saving his voice since the session started.
Though he may not have been heard, he had been seen, and slowly but surely, the Benches calmed themselves. Seats were taken, arms were crossed, and eyes were narrowed anew. Dizali took a moment to tuck his fingers inside his suit jacket and stare about the room. He even spared some time to look up at the high ceiling, and at the great chandeliers that hung there, stuffed with myriads of crystals; and above them, the great paintings of the history of the Empire. A thousand years splayed across the arches and gilded ribs of the ceiling.
‘You have questions, I am sure …’ he began.
One was immediately hollered out from the back of the hall, from the Cardinal’s side: ‘And just when are we going to talk about the real matter at hand here?’
Dizali despised being interrupted, but he let it play out. Over the last week, he had teased out every thread of this moment, followed every strand.
‘And what matter is that, Sir?’ Dizali looked up at the Cardinal party, scanning faces until he found the culprit. ‘I presume you speak of the war in the east? Of the Red Tzar’s hunger for Ottoman land? Or perhaps the growing war in the west? And of Lincoln’s struggle with the Shohari?’ he bellowed in reply.
There were mutterings now in the Emerald House. Dizali had shamed them, and he knew it.
‘Or perhaps you wish to discuss matters closer to home?’ he asked.
There was a murmuring, like an autumn wind through summer trees, colder than usual. Dizali wanted to smile, but he refrained. He let the chuntering grow into a clamouring, let the complaints rain down. The lords and ladies of his cabinet sat either side of him. He turned to each with a knowing look as the Benches descended into uproar again.
‘Five days, it has been, since the Hark estate was burgled!’
‘Violated, I say!’
‘And not a word of the culprit! Not a damned explanation!’
‘And a traitor? What is the meaning of this?’
The Voice began to bawl once more, hammering his little bell, but to no avail. Once more Dizali held up his hands for silence, and once more, the Voice despaired in his pulpit, shaking his head, and wondering what the point of it all was.
‘As the papers have been rife with speculation, let me put it to you simply and plainly.’
‘Please do!’
Dizali’s face flashed with anger. ‘Lord Umbright, if you speak out of turn again, I will have you ejected from the hall. Perhaps in the street outside you can find something more worthwhile to do than interrupting your Prime Lord with injudicious yelping.’
The Lord Umbright lowered his head and said no more. Pompous Cardinals, Dizali cursed inwardly. They always needed a firm hand.
Dizali continued. ‘As you all are aware, two tragic crimes have occurred in the last week. Firstly, the late Prime Lord Hark has been discovered to be a traitor to the crown and to the Empire. Now I for one, was ini
tially shocked and appalled at such accusations. Outraged even. All of us here knew Karrigan Hark to be a true and just man, a fine servant of the Empire.’ Dizali paused here for effect. ‘And yet, my Lords and Ladies, we have been all of us deceived.’
There was a flurry of concerned mumblings from both parties.
‘The newspapers, usually so concerned with gossip and keeping their pockets full of coin, have been proved correct. I myself have seen the evidence produced from their anonymous sources, and let me tell you, it is most disturbing. Letters, in great number and with great secrecy, were exchanged between our good Prime Lord and the so-called king of the Endless Land, Lincoln. I have seen his signature and seals with my own eyes.’
And here, a collective gasp. Dizali once again fought the urge to smile. The Voice rang his bell pre-emptively. He was resoundingly shushed by both parties. He almost made to leave, but then thought better of it, and slumped back into his leather chair.
‘It appears that Karrigan Hark, not content with building his own private empire, sought to pervert ours with clandestine dealings with America, and with not a thought to include either the Benches, or the Queen. We can only assume that these were the tip of his treachery, and no doubt we shall uncover more as time goes on,’ Dizali lectured, now striding back and forth over the hall’s diamond-patterned floor. ‘I for one am still outraged.’
The shouts of ‘Hear, hear!’ were nearly deafening. For one of those rare moments, both parties had found a common enemy. Their worst fears—and in many cases, darkest wishes—had been confirmed. Karrigan Hark had betrayed them. Dizali watched the Emerald Lords and Ladies clench their fists and bark angrily at each other. He knew that it was not just anger there, but something else entirely. They knew the law almost as well as he. They had seen their opportunity the moment the headlines had landed on doorsteps, barely five days ago.
