“Stephen!” the young lady called. “If you launch a broadside at baby Anne and myself just when she is sleeping, I shall have you flogged at the capstan and-oh, what is the phrase. .”
The fairer boy paused, then shouted, “Keelhauled!”
Lady Susan grinned happily. “Indeed. Keelhauled!”
The darker boy appeared to subtly alter his course, as if the shrubberies to the north of the gardens had always been his intent, remarking only, “It’s just the Dutch do that, actually,” and kicking up the damp late-autumn leaves with his heels.
Palmer smiled at the young lady’s management of the boys before letting his thoughts drift back to the mother of the prudent warrior. He had met the captain’s redheaded wife in the past, and on the first occasion, some years ago, he had found her a good-humored and intelligent woman, and loyal consort. He had seen her again after her husband’s return to England, and on official business. Palmer had received information that a man taken captive on Westerman’s ship, who had later died from his wounds, might have been possessed of certain knowledge Mr. Palmer wished very much to have. He had found Mrs. Westerman as helpful as the grief and confusion caused by her husband’s injury would allow. James Westerman himself seemed drunk, childlike, petulant, but Palmer had left their orderly and apparently thriving estate in Sussex thinking well of the captain’s wife and family, and grieving for them.
Mr. Palmer’s most recent meeting with Mrs. Harriet Westerman had been in London, and extremely unpleasant. She had appeared at the Admiralty without an appointment and had taken him to task, in vehement tones and in public. She had accused him of harassing her sick husband. It had been an uncomfortable situation and Mr. Palmer had his profession’s hatred of scenes. Yet now he sought her out.
Examining his pocket watch again, he watched the minute hand finally creep to the head of the hour. Of her companion, Mr. Crowther, he had no personal knowledge, so knew only what the world knew: that the man was known for his expertise on the marks left on a body by violence; known for his wealth and eccentricity; known for having a father murdered and brother hanged for the killing, for having refused his rightful title and seat in the Lords to instead sell his estate and study the science of anatomy in obscurity, till Mrs. Westerman plucked him free and made him help her save the lives and fortunes of young Lord Sussex and his sister. Mr. Palmer had read the pamphlets and listened to the gossip and drawn his own conclusions.
He stepped forward.
2
Jocasta Bligh pumped the handle and filled her pail in the center of Arnold’s Yard. Her arms were strong and she took some pleasure in the work, even on a morning as gray as this, twitching with the winter to come. As the water reached the brim of her bucket she became aware of a presence over her shoulder, a hopeful shadow. Without turning, she spoke.
“Give us it here, Hopps.” Then, putting her own bucket to one side, she took another from the old man who had arrived behind her. He was a shrunken, wasted-looking thing, his teeth all memory and wearing hardly more than rags. “Why don’t you get a girl in to do for you mornings, Hopps?” she said, working the pump again. “I’d swear you have the blunt to do it, what with the rent we pays you, and I know you ain’t spending it all on your fancy clothes.”
Hopps looked down at his ragged linen and laughed a laugh that sounded like rocks dragged over gravel. His breath hit the back of her neck with the smell of rotted onions. “Oh, Mrs. Bligh! Why waste the money on some young thing, when you have strong arms still. Gives a man pleasure, it do, to see you working that thing!”
She turned and passed over the bucket a little quick so he panted a bit as he took the weight.
“Most obliged, madam,” he said, looking a little sorry. “But are you not singing today? It is how I know that the day has begun when I hear the pump going and you crooning some tune from the north. I should have thought a stranger was in the yard till I looked through the window and saw your skirts.”
Jocasta was famous around the yard for many things, among them her patchwork skirts, voluminous, multicolored, constantly reworked and visible a dozen yards off. No one could say if she had many or few; they changed little by little like the foliage on the pear tree that hung over the pump. You could hardly say they changed one day to the next, till a moment came and you looked and saw gold where all had been green before.
Crossing her broad arms over her chest, the woman looked down at her dried-up wisp of a landlord.
“Here I am though, and as for the singing, we all have dreams from time to time that leave us quiet in the morning.”
“Every day I have them, Mrs. Bligh. And always worse to come when I wake.”
Jocasta made no reply, but took up her own pail and hauled it back to her own door, shoving it open with her thigh and growling at the little rust-colored terrier that yapped about her. Every morning she fetched water from the pump in Arnold’s Yard for boiling or washing, and every morning it was the same. Boyo thought it was a game and jumped at the swing bucket and bounced around her ankles and skirts till the water splashed and her stockings were soaked. There, now the step into the hallway was wet and she could hear Hopps’s laugh from the courtyard, enjoying the show.
“Dog, will you settle?”
She kicked the door to, got the pail to its place and dipped in a jug to fill the kettle. Her thick knees clicked like knitting needles and as the enamel tapped the wooden side of the bucket she sat back her bulk on her heels. Time flowed around her like water; some more years would pass and then she too would struggle to fetch her water. The dream she’d dreamed in the night whispered through her head and away; she tilted her head as if to pour it out of her mind and into the light. It was The Chariot, or at least something like it-it had run past her or run her over, or had she been swung up inside it to ride alongside a demon in a mask?
Boyo barked, and the sound swept the dream pictures from her.
“All right, all right, I know! The tea’s not ready and neither of us fed and there will be a dozen people to tell the future to before we can be just ourselves again.”
She got the kettle on the fire, then twisted around with a grunt to where her pack of picture cards sat on her table. She spread them flat, let her fingers hover over them a moment and drew one out. The Chariot it was. The prince driving it, spear in one hand and the other on his hip, the golden horses surging on below.
“Trials coming then, are they, Boyo?” Jocasta said and rubbed her chin, then clambered heavily to her feet. The dog cocked its head on one side. “Same as every day in a dirty town then.” She looked around her room. Her walls felt thin all of a sudden, and the fire small. If The Chariot did come, how much of its turmoil would she stand before her sanctuary was all crumpled to nothing and she herself was back out in the gutter? Well, so turns the wheel. Let The Chariot come, for now she was warm again and the kettle was beginning to sing. “So let’s see what business we can make of living today, shall we?”
The cards waited on the rough little table for their first visitors. Mrs. Jocasta Bligh earned her bread plucking truth out of them with a patient hand, and a frown on her heavy face.
3
“Let me understand you correctly, Mr. Palmer. You wish us to go and examine a corpse?”
“Yes, madam.” Mr. Palmer had decided that a character such as Mrs. Westerman was best approached with a mix of respect and hesitation. He had allowed himself to stumble over his words a little as he arrived. The important consideration was that Mrs. Westerman should feel she was being humbly asked for help; that he was a supplicant, not that she was all but being given an order by a servant of her king. He should be careful to avoid waking her temper again. To Mr. Crowther he hoped to offer a puzzle and see if flattery might draw him into usefulness.
Placing his teacup on the side table, Mr. Palmer cleared his throat. The clock on the mantel of the drawing room in 24 Berkeley Square seemed very loud. The space was lit by three high windows looking out on to the Square, and could
have easily contained a party of thirty. Small groups of gilded chairs and settees were scattered around it at discreet distances, the walls were decorated with classical, pastoral scenes and molded garlands, of flowers and bows; large porcelain jars, richly patterned, stood sentinel in every available nook like fat footmen. There was a great deal of gilt in the scheme. Mr. Palmer conjectured that Mr. Owen Graves, a young gentleman plucked from obscurity by the convulsions of the House of Thornleigh, and thrust from scribbler to guardian of one of the great fortunes of the nation, had probably bought the house furnished, and possibly in haste.
In dress and demeanor Mr. Palmer’s hosts formed a distinct contrast to the room in which they sat. Mr. Crowther’s thin figure was dressed in black and he could have passed for a parson. There were some stains, possibly chemical, around his cuffs, though otherwise his person was neat and gentlemanlike, though his manner was dry enough to be offputting. Mrs. Westerman was dressed like a countrywoman-a rich and certainly handsome countrywoman, no doubt-but she was not polished and powdered to the degree usually seen in Town. She looked a great deal older than when Mr. Palmer had first seen her; in her face and manner there was a weariness, a brittle quality. The peculiar sickness of her husband had no doubt caused a strain. She could not be above five and thirty, much his own age, and he knew he was still regarded by some in the Admiralty as a young man. Mr. Palmer saw the morning’s newspaper folded on the settee, a pile of correspondence on the writing table at the far end of the room. The pair had been camping out in a distant corner of all this grandeur, waiting for him.
“Perhaps it would be better if I explained matters from the beginning.”
Mrs. Westerman tilted her head to one side, examining him as if he were an optical illusion to be squinted at. “That might be best, sir.” Her tone was somewhat clipped.
Mr. Palmer began. “I have already spoken to you, madam, something of these matters. I shall repeat the story for Mr. Crowther’s benefit and so bring myself to the reason for my visit and my request for your assistance. If that is acceptable.” He turned his head toward Mr. Crowther’s narrow profile. The man did not look up from his contemplation of his fingernails. “We heard this spring that certain gentlemen of importance in the French Court were apparently crowing over some new master of intelligence they had recruited and expected to have in place in London shortly. Though we had no particulars.” He paused. “The war with the American Rebels does not go well.”
Mr. Crowther glanced up at that, with a slight tilt to his eyebrows as if to say, “I did not need a Mr. Palmer to tell me that.”
Palmer glanced at the newspaper on the gilded couch and cleared his throat again. The government and the Admiralty were being criticized at every point, for being either too slow or too foolhardy-both with equal vigor. The brief patriotic fervor that had flared when France made treaty with the Americans had died away. The country was sick with a war fought on the other side of the world and with people she believed to be her kin. The Navy struggled to protect trade, Spanish flags were flaunted in the Channel, and every piece of information that Palmer could not prevent slipping to the French was like a musket shot against his king. He was still young enough to feel those blows, and drive himself to greater efforts, more ingenious methods, stranger allies in his attempts to stem the flow. If the French received the intelligence they hoped from this new servant in London, it would be worth more to them than a dozen ships of the line. He thought of England as a body bleeding vital knowledge of her strategies, struggles and capacities into the waters around her coast. Better organization of that flow could make the wounds gout blood. He must do what he could to put pressure on the injury, sew up the tear. He watched Crowther’s long fingers.
“I believe the captain found out something of that. .” Palmer lifted his hand to try and conjure a term from the air “. . spymaster our European enemies wish to install as he interrogated the individual from the French vessel he captured in May.”
Crowther looked at him down his long nose and said simply, “Why?”
Any question was an indication of interest, surely? Palmer seized on it and turned to Crowther, speaking quickly. “You know, perhaps, sir, that the ship was laden with supplies for the American Rebels, and this man was not one of the naval officers. I believe his work was intelligence. Captain Westerman indicated as much to his officers after his interrogation of this individual and before his accident. He also made some expression of anger about what he referred to as ‘traitorous scum in every corner imaginable.’ That they stained every beauty. Though what he meant by that, we cannot know.”
Mrs. Westerman stood suddenly and began to walk up and down behind her chair, her skirts sweeping over the carpet in regular clicking sighs. The contrast between her activity and Mr. Crowther’s stillness was unnerving. “Yes, yes, Mr. Palmer,” she said agitatedly. “You told me as much months ago-but as I told you James remembers nothing of his last cruise as yet. There is no reason to believe he ever will. You have questioned his officers and I even gave you sight of his private letters home to me. That did not prevent you from harassing my husband under Dr. Trevelyan’s roof ten days ago.”
“Madam, I did not harass him! The information is so crucial that if there were any chance-” Palmer stopped himself. “I did receive two weeks ago a name from a connection I trust in Paris. That name was Fitzraven. I wondered if it might be familiar to your husband. It did not seem to be. I could discover no more.” He drew breath, but could not resist adding in a rush, “I would have explained as much to you at the Admiralty last week, if you had given me a chance to speak in my defense.” He thought he saw the corner of Mr. Crowther’s mouth twitch at that, and Mrs. Westerman scowled briefly.
Palmer continued more calmly. “The role of this Fitzraven, his status, his importance in the schemes that move against us-nothing of that could be discovered. Only the name, and with that I was unfamiliar. However, I have made it my business to keep a close watch for him.”
Mrs. Westerman had come to a stop and they were both observing him now, with something like curiosity. The thin November light caught the red lights in her hair.
“There are some individuals in the city I employ to listen for items of interest,” Palmer went on. “Any whisper of that name, anywhere in the city, was to come to me-and this morning I hear that a body was pulled from the Thames at first light, and the body was named by a member of the crowd that watched him dragged up the Black Lyon Stairs as Fitzraven.”
He looked up at Mrs. Westerman. Her expression was neutral; Mr. Crowther was sitting with his fingers tented and very still. “I have arranged for one of the Westminster magistrates, a Mr. Pither, to request your assistance,” Palmer plowed on. “It is not unnatural that he would think to do so, given your investigation of events in Sussex last year. He would like to add a little luster to his name by a connection with yourselves.” At this, Mrs. Westerman’s lip curled. Drawing himself straight in his chair, Mr. Palmer made his final appeal with a certain solemnity. “I have come to you to urge you to supply that assistance and find out what you can of the circumstances of Fitzraven’s death.” He then added with a half-smile as the thought occurred to him, “Perhaps a little show of resistance to doing so might be of use. If Pither can tell the story of how he persuaded you, it will cloud the matter in a way advantageous to our greater cause.”
“You seem to have a great ability to find things out yourself, Mr. Palmer,” Crowther said with a faint drawl, “and arrange all manner of complicated affairs in a short space of time.” He drew a neat enameled pocket watch from his waistcoat and examined it. Then met Palmer’s eye. Mr. Palmer noticed that though Mr. Gabriel Crowther might be a gentleman the wrong side of fifty, his blue eyes seemed icy and exceptionally clear. “Why do you not look into the matter yourself? Or use one of these gentlemen you trust. Why such unconnected amateurs as ourselves? Why trust a recluse and a known harridan with the secrets of your king?”
Palmer looked up swiftly at Mr
s. Westerman to see how she took this description of herself. She did not flinch but continued to examine the wall to his right. He took a moment to select his words.
“Three reasons, sir. The first you should be able to supply, if modesty did not forbid. I have not your expertise in seeing the stories a dead body can tell of itself. Very few men do. For the second let me speak to the matter of trust. I know something of you, Mr. Crowther, and all that I have heard suggests to me a man who is unlikely to go gossiping in society of such matters.” Crowther gave a wintry little smile. “Mrs. Westerman has served on her husband’s commands. I believe in her loyalty and her principles. Your temper I have felt the heat of, madam, but I see no sign of foolishness in you.” Mrs. Westerman still did not look at him, but he was sure he was attended to, and carefully. “The third is related to the confidential and delicate nature of intelligence in time of war. I must know, for the sake of our country’s interests and those that serve them, what is afoot here. Is there a conspiracy to betray this nation to the French? Who is involved in the matter and what damage might they already have done? Who was this master sent to lead? What was the nature of this man Fitzraven?”
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