by Clio Gray
But he was so weary, and felt like a hot wire was being pulled back and forth through his chest where he’d stretched his scars too far. He needed rest. Isaac was already walking away. He’d said his piece and was done, so Joachim turned back to Greta.
‘Are you tired?’ he asked.
‘I’m not, but you are,’ she said. ‘Come on. Let me get you upstairs. There’s got to be more than one room up there because this place is like the biggest barn I’ve ever seen.’
Joachim smiled. He liked the girl. Honest and direct, and wise beyond her years. If Ireland grew girls like her in plenty then it was a place that could only do well. He heard her stomach grumbling loudly as she stood and realised they’d eaten nothing all day, not since they’d arrived in Deventer. Fine for older bones like him, but not for a child like her.
‘Sorry,’ Greta said, but did not complain.
‘Ask Isaac,’ Joachim said. ‘There must be food and drink here somewhere.’
‘I’ll ask,’ she said. ‘But first, upstairs. If I find anything I’ll bring it up to you in a couple of shakes.’
Greta knocked on the door of the room she’d seen Isaac going into and entered on his call. She’d been impressed by what she’d already seen of Deventer. That place they called the Brink had been amazing, and the library was the grandest place she’d ever been. Peter would love it. And if he was still alive when she got home she swore she’d get him to the Athenaeum by hook or crook, just to see the look on his face the second he walked in.
Yet this little room Isaac brought her into had her entranced all over again. For starters it was round, and she’d never been in a perfectly round room before, and all across the white-painted walls she could see patterns – moving patterns – going from floor to ceiling like she was standing in the middle of a kaleidoscope. The roof was domed, and she’d never seen that before either, and right at the centre of the dome was a small round skylight through which she could just make out a pinch of the moon and a small scatter of blurry stars.
‘It’s called a camera obscura,’ Isaac told her with pride, pronouncing the words carefully to accentuate their importance. Greta showed no hint of understanding but Isaac pushed on with his talk anyway, having said it plenty of times before. ‘There’s a labyrinth of lenses going from that little hole in the roof to one of the pillars right outside the Athenaeum’s doors so we can see whoever is standing on its steps.’
Greta shook her head to indicate she didn’t understand, so Isaac demonstrated with his hands, miming the dome and the skylight, the pillar outside the door, Greta getting the gist and giving a short laugh.
‘So what’s out there now? Hundreds of little midgets dancing?’ she pointed at the shapes upon the walls, tracing several of them with her fingers as they quickly slid up and down the surface. Isaac smiled again.
‘It’s the rain, my dear. You’re looking at the rain.’
Once more he took to hand demonstration, Greta picking up quickly on what he was saying as he repeated the few key words she had grasped…rain…upside down…mirrors. Then it was time for Greta to do a little miming of her own, but food was easy and Isaac had it in a second, leaving the round room, beckoning for her to follow. He’d not thought of this and wished he had.
This was part of his remit, to see to any visiting scholars’ needs after the doors of the Athenaeum were closed for the night. Not that there were any visiting scholars at the moment, only Hendrik and this odd assortment of people he’d brought with him. Caro he’d met plenty, and Ruan Peat he recognised from once before, but now there were two others, this girl and a monk. He stopped abruptly, suddenly realising that to get to the little kitchen at the back end of the library he’d have to go pass Hendrik, and Louisa.
‘Not go past,’ he shook his head apologetically, shrugging and pointing. Greta’s stomach was growling again and Isaac heard, held up a hand, going back into the round room and returning with the little packet he’d made up for himself – several mean lumps of rye bread, sausage and cheese and a lit candle to see her way to bed.
‘Take,’ he said, pushing it towards her. Greta hesitated, but Isaac pushed the packet at her again and she took it, along with the candle, smiling so radiantly his old heart jolted within his chest.
‘Thank you,’ Greta said, bowing briefly, and then was off up the stairs to share her meagre repast with Joachim, but Joachim was so exhausted he’d lain down on his bed and gone straight to sleep. Nevertheless, she carefully divvied up Isaac’s piece and laid half of it on his bedside table and, as a final gesture, lit a candle before creeping away and shutting the door quietly behind her. She stood for a few moments leaning at the rails that kept folk from tipping precipitously over into the library below, the mezzanine like a minstrels gallery buttressed out from the library walls, leaving a gap of maybe six foot by ten at the centre. She saw Isaac moving slow and silent amongst the shelves, fitting new candles into holders, pouring ink into inkwells. And she saw the two flickering lights at head and base of the makeshift bier, the slump of Hendrik’s Grimalkin’s shoulders at the very edge of the green sofa, his raw read head lolling, almost touching the winding sheet.
God help him, she whispered, lifting her own head, stretching her neck. And God help Peter and Mogue Kearns, wherever you are.
34
LOUISA’S LAYING OUT, AND LAYING DOWN TO DIE
Joachim did not sleep well. Two hours in his eyelids had flickered open against his will and he was awake. The rain was tappering on the Athenaeum’s roof, running helter skelter down its windows, gathering in its gutters, pouring from them into the street below.
He could smell the library beneath him, the dusty aroma of a hundred thousand musty books, the wax used to polish its floorboards and desks, the faint hint of the cigars and cigarillos the habitués used when they were studying, the even fainter hints of Hendrik’s burned-down house that emanated from his own clothes. He was aware too of the tiny flicker of light to his right where someone had lit a candle on the table by his bed, a small point in the darkness. He levered himself up on his elbows, feeling a slight dampness at his chest scar as he did so. He touched it with his fingertip but when he put it to the light he saw no blood, so that was good.
He also noted the paltry offerings of food, reminding him how hollow was his stomach. Greta Finnerty. Undoubtedly she. He sent up a quick prayer of thanks for Greta before taking a small bite of bread and cheese, getting it down with several convulsive swallows, but needed a glass of water to get down anymore and so swung his legs from the bed, lifting the candle in its holder and padding his unshod way from his room and down the stairs. The noise he made was minimal, but enough to bring Isaac hurrying from his room who, on seeing Joachim, merely nodded and retreated, leaving Joachim to his own devices.
This is the hardest thing I’m ever going to have to do. God give me strength.
He went down the central nave of the library towards the bier, the candles there swaying wildly as candles always do when they’re almost at their end.
Just like life, Joachim thought, plucking two new ones up, setting them solidly in the soft wax, extinguishing their fellows as he did so. The new coming from the old.
Hendrik was awake, sitting on the sofa, Caro curled up beside him, deeply asleep.
‘Can I join you in your vigil?’ Joachim asked, soft as he could, so as not to wake the boy. Hendrik stared at him a moment, but the small act of replacing the candles was a kindness he could not overlook and he nodded, waved his hand, and Joachim sat down. They shared the silence for a good while, neither moving nor speaking, until Joachim deemed it right to say what he had come to say.
‘I could lay Louisa out for you, if you will allow it. It’s what I do. Laying out the dead, if we’ve not been able to save them. A last duty, seeing them right.’
Hendrik said nothing. He’d been pondering this very aspect of Louisa’s death, dreading handing her over in the morning to some stranger to strip her down, wash her most intimate parts w
hen she was at her most vulnerable, Louisa always the most modest of women. The very idea of it was unconscionable, and yet not to have it done was even more so, a paradox that had been chasing its tail through his mind for hours, and here was a solution. Brother Joachim – Hendrik still could not think of him as anything other, keeping Wynken, the father, at a distance – but both a stranger and a familiar. Family and yet not. Another paradox. He took his time. Thought about the implications.
‘Did you ever think of us at all when you went?’ Hendrik eventually asked, keeping his voice low, one hand laid gently on Caro’s head, fearing that any sudden movement would wake the boy. The only part of Louisa he had left.
Joachim placed his own hand involuntarily over the heart that had been so recently bruised by an accidental arrow, painful now, far more so than before, metaphorically speaking.
‘But of course,’ he said, in the same low monotone Hendrik had employed. ‘How could you think otherwise?’
‘Because you left!’ Hendrik hissed, turning his face towards his father with such sudden rage that Joachim had to turn momentarily away.
‘But I sent you letters,’ Joachim murmured. ‘Did you not receive them?’
Hendrik closed his eyes and shook his head.
‘Mother would not allow me. She put them unopened on the fire the moment they arrived.’
His anger gone as soon as it had come. Loss and grief in every limb, only the warmth of young Caro here to keep him company. Caro stirred as Hendrik moved his hand across the boy’s head but didn’t wake. Hendrik was too tired to carry on this conversation.
‘Letters are nothing,’ he said shortly, ‘when your father abandons your family.’
Joachim blinked into the darkness.
‘I hoped they would offer explanation,’ Joachim whispered, thinking of the woodcutter in the Brink George had so delighted in. ‘I hoped you would understand that…when a man has discovered…darkness, and I did, Hendrik, discover darkness in that war I went into…well, that sometimes…when a man comes out of such things…such things he has seen that no one should… well… he has to try and find the light…and for me that was the Servants. And God forgive me if I did wrong. Oh God, and my own son, forgive me if I did wrong.’
Joachim shook his head. He’d put down all those words and excuses in his letters that he now knew had gone unread. The tragedy of the situation struck father and son at the same moment, Hendrik bringing his teeth together, tightening his jaws to try to stop the tears because at last he understood.
Any day before this one he might not have, but now he was in his own darkness and had seen things he never should have seen, he understood, and a sob came from deep within him as he accepted it, lay his burning head against his father’s shoulder and began a gentle weeping. He was more comforted than he could say when Joachim encircled his arm about his son’s heaving shoulders, keeping him safe. Always keeping him safe, just like he’d done when he was young.
Louisa’s laying out was performed by Joachim with the utmost respect and care. The clothes she had on were the only ones available for her to be buried in, so Joachim removed them, brushed them down, washed her body as was necessary before dressing her, placing the herbs he’d asked Isaac to fetch from the early morning market, between their folds.
By the time Hendrik was awake – for when he’d finally slept he slept so deeply that not even Joachim’s moving around had awakened him – all had been taken care of. Louisa was there on her bier when he opened his eyes, just as he had left her, except there was no smoke or blood about her face; hair combed and braided; jaw discretely, eyelids closed – hiding the empty socket – sealed with wax, for which Hendrik was immeasurably grateful.
‘Thank you,’ Hendrik said to Joachim, who was still arranging the last niceties of Louisa’s cuffs and collar when Hendrik got himself off the sofa.
‘The coffin is on its way,’ Joachim replied. ‘A simple thing, pine and white satin. I hope you approve.’
‘I do,’ Hendrik replied. ‘It’s just as she would have wanted.’
‘And I’ve been to see her priest,’ Caro offered. His eyes were still swollen from his night of crying. When he’d been awoken by Joachim’s comings and goings from the library’s kitchen with jugs of water he’d been at first outraged and then terribly shocked and embarrassed to see Louisa naked on her bier, a nakedness hurriedly covered by Joachim throwing a sheet over her. Caro had been about to shout out into the morning until Joachim shushed him, pointing at Hendrik asleep on the sofa.
‘It has to be done, lad,’ Joachim said. ‘Far better to do it here than anywhere else.’
Caro had subsided but was desperate to get away and Joachim gave him the perfect opportunity.
‘You knew her,’ Joachim said, ‘undoubtedly far better than I did, so why not go and fetch her priest? She has need of him now more than ever.’
Caro left the library quick as he could on his errand. He’d hoped, when he first woke on the sofa, that the fire and Louisa dying had all been a nightmare he’d conjured up. He couldn’t bear that his wonderful, warm Louisa could really be dead. He started crying again the moment he left the Athenaeum. The rain had stopped, but the smell was still there, that stink of burning coming from the Singel real and visceral, and Louisa really gone.
Greta was the next to emerge, coming bleary eyed down the stairs, short red hair all on end except for a flat patch at the back where she’d lain on her pillow. She was ravenous, Isaac’s small supper from the night before nowhere near enough to fill the void.
Isaac still refused to pass Louisa’s dead body to fetch food from the pantry but when he’d been sent to the market for Joachim’s herbs he returned with a basket of fresh baked bread, butter, cold meats, sauerkraut, and some rollmopped herrings soaked in caper oil. All this he carefully placed on the desk closest to the door, Joachim bringing plates and cutlery from the kitchen.
No sign of Ruan yet, but he was a sleepyhead of the first order as both Hendrik and Caro knew, and both were glad of it. The last thing either of them wanted to hear this morning was one of the rude, abrasive comments that seemed to fall from Ruan’s lips like stones scurrying down disturbed scree, unable to stop themselves, uncaring of any damage they might do when they landed.
Hendrik had consented to letting Joachim see to the burns on his scalp, ears and forehead. The beneficial effects of the ointment that Joachim knocked up from goose fat, tallow and herbs were so cooling and immediate that Hendrik was managing to think in straight lines, as he’d not been able to do the night before.
‘I’ve never been one for prayers,’ Hendrik said, once Caro, Greta and Joachim were gathered with him around the table on which Isaac had strewn his wares, ‘but I would like to say something before we eat.’ Hendrik had situated himself so he could see Louisa, unwilling to let go this last sight of her, not when the undertaker with his coffin might arrive at any moment. ‘But I would like to say this.’
He took a deep breath before carrying on, the hint of a smile twisting on his lips as he saw Greta snatching back her hand at his words, the faint growl of her stomach reminding him to keep his speech short.
‘What I would like to say is that I’m truly grateful for you all being here, and… for Brother Joachim especially. You have done me a great kindness,’ he said, turning towards his father. ‘Louisa would have hated to have been…mauled at by people she didn’t know. And I know you didn’t know her, but you were the next best thing.’
He was quiet for a couple of moments, his head bowing slightly before he went on.
‘And there is someone else I would like to thank, someone who is not here,’ he said. ‘George Gwilt, who took Louisa’s place down there in the cellar, and who is still down there now.’
Joachim closed his eyes. He’d not expected this. The brief exchange he’d had with Hendrik the night before, and then again this morning, had given him only the faintest glimmer of what his son had grown up to be, but to have become someone so graciou
s was a blessing indeed. Joachim had never questioned his calling and certainly never fully understood the impact his leaving had made on his family. He’d always assumed they were pleased to see the back of him, giving them the chance to claw back the business before he sent it toppling to the dust.
Hendrik’s brief rage had unmasked this belief as a selfish and self-serving lie, one that Joachim had stuck to all these years because it made him feel good about his decision and what he had chosen to do with his life. But more than two decades later George was dead because of it, if indirectly, and Joachim regretted it with an intensity he could not express.
The silence following this pronouncement lasted only a second or two before Greta brought them all back to the here and now.
‘Erm if it’s alright with you, and if you’ve said all you’ve needed saying, then I’m really hungry and I’d like to dig in. Battlefields aren’t going to stop coming just ‘cos you wish it, and it’s always best to be prepared for the one that’s about to come next.’
Hendrik could not stop himself and let out a wheezy laugh, Joachim joining him involuntarily, father and son jolted from their navel gazing by this young girl who had only hunger on her mind.
‘By all means,’ Hendrik managed to croak out. ‘Greta is it?’
Greta got stuck in immediately, nodding wordlessly in reply, and just as well for five minutes later there was a knock at the door, Isaac out of his cubby hole in as fast a flash as his old legs could carry him.
‘Don’t recognise him,’ he said breathlessly, directing his words at Hendrik. ‘Muddy boots. Filthy clothes. Definitely not a scholar. What do you think?’
Hendrik nodded. He’d already spoken to Isaac, told him no one was to be let in without his say so, library doors to stay locked and bolted. No one welcome, at least not until Louisa had been buried.
