Circle of Shadows

by Imogen Robertson

  They watched him go and Crowther told her how the murder of the Countess was to be concealed. She wrinkled her nose, but said nothing. ‘What news from the Duke, Mrs Westerman?’

  ‘The Countess wore a ring with an owl on it. Lady Agatha wore a necklace with one too. And Chancellor Swann wishes to speak to us. What is it, Crowther?’

  ‘The owl. Fink had a fob with an owl design – it went missing when he died.’

  Harriet frowned. ‘Good Lord. Can it be coincidence?’

  Crowther shook his head. ‘I doubt it, Mrs Westerman.’

  V.8

  BY EARLY AFTERNOON FRUSTRATION AND hunger had driven Pegel down the stairs and out into the streets of Leuchtenstadt, leaning heavily on a staff his diminutive manservant had filched for him from one of the neighbours’ woodpiles. He was beginning to doubt his ability to break the code. Pegel was used to excelling, and had come to enjoy it. If he left now with the names he had collected, his belief that the man in green, Dunktal, was Spartacus, leader of the Minervals he had come to hunt, then he would be praised and rewarded. If he rode into Ulrichsberg with the coded messages made readable he would impress a man thought unimpressible. He would be able to ask anything. But he was not sure he could do it. He kicked at a pebble and it danced into one of the gutters that ran along the street.

  He stared into the water; it was one of the many channels that ran along the streets of Leuchtenstadt. It was an aspect of the old town that appealed to him, these little rivers flowing in the gutters. He was told by his landlady, with a wink, that if he stepped in one he’d marry a Leuchtenstadt girl. He doubted it. He chewed a pastry still warm from the oven and, to avoid seasoning his food with his disappointment over the coded messages, he began wondering idly if it would be possible to describe the motion of water in the language of mathematics. A thing so simple, that was also so complex – was there a key? A way to unlock? His thoughts became wordless and he looked up from the water to the cathedral spire. Dark red, yet so light, so apparently delicate was the structure, it seemed to lift away from the earth and take the body of the cathedral with it into the air. Pegel liked the earthy sense of humour of the stonemasons who had carved the waterspouts around the flying buttresses, the frogs and demons, the spitting woman and hanging arse, what private revenges or jokes had they built into the stone? Was the woman the wife of the man who carved her? His mother-in-law? Pegel was sure that no one could resist folding themselves into their work. It was another reason he preferred mathematics to literature. Less personal. He dusted the last of the pastry from his hands then became still. Surely it could not be so simple? Would they use a phrase so readily bandied about as a key? It was certainly memorable. In his excitement he leaned on his right ankle, and the joy of inspiration gave way to a stream of curses.

  Swann was waiting for them by a shallow pond, surrounded with high beech hedges. In its centre stood a statue of a young boy, one stone leg bent, pouring water from a giant conch into the pool below. Harriet was glad of her cloak. The naked statue made her feel cold. She thought of the new Duchess, wondered what her life had been up to now, which of these many statues would become her favourites, or if she would claim the right of a new bride and have them replaced with her own fancies.

  Swann did not greet them. He had been seated on a stone bench examining the boy, and now he stood slowly and came towards them.

  ‘The Duke has enjoyed this winter,’ he said as he joined them. ‘There was an ice fair once a week, with skating on the grand lake, and each of these little garden rooms was made into a grotto where the guests could retire to warm themselves. We burned enough fuel each evening to warm a village for a month.’

  Harriet frowned. The straight-backed servant of the Duke had never spoken to them in this way before, and there was something strange in his tone. Something lost and floating. A sheen of sweat lay on his brow.

  ‘Chancellor, do you know of this group who met in the secret chamber?’ Crowther’s voice was quiet. He sensed something out of joint here too. Swann was carrying a cane. He placed it in front of him and leaned on it, swaying a little forward and back. His eyes were unfocused, looking up over the fresh-clothed beech hedge into the solid grey sky.

  ‘The last summer was cruel, this winter worse. We will need guidance. Help. And my sovereign thinks only of how he loves to skate.’

  Harriet examined his profile. He seemed to see something other than the world they saw. She had only just heard the Duke talking of the need for fresh blood among his advisers. He had arranged an advantageous marriage. These did not seem the actions of a man who thought only of skating. ‘Your Excellency?’ He turned his hooked nose slowly towards her, and she thought of a man sleeping, trying to wake. ‘Chancellor Swann? Were you one of the seven people who met in that room? Was Lady Agatha another? Was Fink?’

  Swann frowned and waved his hand. ‘We have done much good. Now we are hunted.’

  He staggered slightly; the cane slipped away from him and twisted on the gravel. Harriet reached out to put a hand under his elbow and guided him back to his seat on the bench. He sat rather heavily and a silver flask clattered from the folds of his cloak.

  ‘Crowther! He is unwell. Help me.’

  He sat on the other side of the Chancellor and lifted the man’s chin. ‘Swann! Swann – can you hear me?’ The man’s eyes were half-closed and his hands were beginning to twitch. ‘Who is being hunted?’

  He blinked and managed to turn his head in Crowther’s direction, looking at him as he might a particularly stupid child. ‘It is all for the greater good. We shoulder the burden of control for the greater good.’ A thin thread of saliva hung from his lip.

  ‘Crowther, we must get help.’

  ‘A moment, Mrs Westerman. What do you mean, Swann?’ Crowther took him by the shoulders and shook the man. A little sense flickered into Swann’s eyes again

  ‘I serve the secret superiors. We obey. For the greater good.’

  Crowther snapped his fingers in front of Swann’s swimming gaze. ‘For God’s sake, Crowther,’ Harriet hissed.

  ‘Why did you summon her last night, Swann?’

  His voice was becoming slurred. ‘There was no meeting. We did not meet.’

  ‘Crowther! Now!’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Westerman! Go, fetch help. And Manzerotti.’

  Harriet set off across through the hedges and back towards the palace at a run. Crowther let Swann slump against him. He could hear Harriet calling out, her shouts bouncing off the cold stone and amazing the statues.

  Swann was half-carried into his chamber by Crowther and one of the footmen while Harriet followed with his cane and flask. As they let him fall onto the bed Harriet heard the clip of heels on the wood floor and Manzerotti appeared in the doorway; he paused there a moment to take in the scene.

  ‘My dear Mrs Westerman, Mr Crowther, what on earth have you been up to?’

  Crowther disentangled himself from Swann’s flowing cloak; Harriet saw him flinch as his injured shoulder jarred. He turned first to the footman. ‘Salt, water, a basin. Now.’

  The man turned to go, but Manzerotti put a hand out. ‘First, give me your gloves.’

  The servant looked amazed, but stripped them off and handed them to the singer before running for the door.

  ‘He was distracted, but able to walk and speak some fifteen minutes ago,’ Crowther said. ‘Then his speech became slurred and he was no longer able to stand unassisted.’

  Manzerotti nodded.

  ‘This fell from his pocket,’ Harriet added, and handed Manzerotti the flask.

  He took it, now wearing the footman’s gloves, unstoppered and sniffed it. ‘Nothing obvious.’ Harriet undid her cloak and began to undo the buttons at her wrist. ‘Keep your gloves on, Mrs Westerman,’ Manzerotti said sharply. Harriet became absolutely still, remembering the mask for the first time. He set the flask down and bent over Swann’s body. He was murmuring and his lips were a little blue.

  ‘Your assistance, Mr Crowth
er.’

  Crowther managed to lift Swann into a seated position while Manzerotti removed cloak, hat and wig. Harriet took the Chancellor’s hands and pulled off his black gloves. It was awkward, the hands loose, but still twitching from time to time, her own fingers made clumsy by her gloves. They came away. The skin of Swann’s hands was mottled and red.

  ‘Gentlemen.’

  Manzerotti and Crowther paused to turn towards her. Then looked at each other.

  ‘It may be a symptom rather than the cause, but he must be washed,’ Manzerotti said. Crowther nodded. The footman returned and Crowther began to mix salt and water. His hand hovered over the glass by the Chancellor’s bed.

  ‘A different glass,’ Manzerotti said to the servant, ‘more water and flannel.’

  Harriet shifted to begin unbuttoning Swann’s waistcoat. She noticed that it was beautifully made, and on each button, a half-shade lighter than the black velvet that covered them, was embroidered the arms of the House of Maulberg.

  The footman was back again. ‘Shall I get the physician, sir?’ he said.

  ‘If you must,’ Manzerotti snapped. The footman backed away, bewildered, then, noticing the gloves and cloak on the floor, bent down automatically to pick them up. Manzerotti’s arm shot out. ‘Don’t touch them.’

  Crowther put the fresh glass to Swann’s mouth and forced the contents down his throat. Almost at once his stomach began to heave and Manzerotti sprang out of the way. Harriet managed to get the basin under Swann’s head almost at once. It started to slip in her hand and she felt Manzerotti’s fingers round her own for a moment to steady it. Swann vomited up liquid and bile, and she heard Manzerotti tut as his sleeve was splashed. Then he moved Harriet out of the way as he took Swann’s forearms and plunged his hands into the other bowl of water.

  Swann groaned. Crowther tilted his head against his own chest and poured more of the salt water down his throat, and at once new shudders ran through Swann’s body and Harriet gripped the bowl. Crowther took a cloth from the stack that had been brought in and wiped the vomit and spittle from Swann’s face.

  Harriet set the bowl on the floor and staggered back towards an armchair, suddenly aware of her own laboured breathing and the thudding of her heart. Manzerotti glanced towards her. ‘Mrs Westerman, if you would be so kind?’

  She nodded and struggled to her feet, then took the bowl in which Manzerotti had washed Swann’s hands. He began to dry them with another cloth. She knelt and removed Swann’s shoes.

  ‘Well?’ Manzerotti asked.

  Crowther had tilted Swann’s head back and opened his right eyelid with thumb and forefinger. Harriet could hear the Chancellor’s breathing. Heavy, rasping. It made her own lungs sore just to hear it.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Crowther replied. ‘He’s not dead yet. There is nothing obvious in the vomit. If some substance has been ingested through the skin, perhaps it can be sweated out.’ Harriet retreated again and the two gentlemen manhandled Swann under his covers. She noticed that Manzerotti lifted out Swann’s hands and laid them on top of the sheets. Crowther banked up the fire. Then they took seats either side of her and all three watched the figure in the bed.

  ‘It is Swann’s habit to walk in the garden every day at this time for an hour or so,’ Manzerotti said; his light high voice sounded almost soothing. ‘It is usual that he ask not to be disturbed.’

  ‘He asked to see us.’

  ‘Lucky that he did. He would most certainly have died otherwise.’ Manzerotti stripped the footman’s gloves from his hands and threw them in the fire as he spoke. Without further comment Harriet and Crowther did the same with their own. Harriet watched hers burn with regret. She had intended to give them to her maid when they returned to England. The fire caught and crisped the leather, making the fingers curl together. Then they waited in silence for the court physician.

  V.9

  BY THE TIME GEORG had come back with another man, a bedsheet taken from his own house, a wide plank and a number of ropes, Michaels had cleared the rest of the earth away from the body. Her legs were curled up under her dress. He laid the donated linen over her, and then tried to push it into the soil below. The colour of the earth around the body was changed, darker, thicker somehow. The body rolled back into his arms like a lover sleeping and he found himself staring into a death’s head. There was a leathery skin clinging to parts of the skull. The long dark hair was loose, seemed unattached to the skull, but rather laid over it. The dress was thin and stained dark along the length of the body. Michaels held himself still. He thought of what the boy had told him, tried to make her alive again in his mind, laughing at simple magic tricks, worrying a system of magic of her own out of the library of the Alchemist. They had taken their chances, she and her sister. Now her sister had a house with a library in it and a reputation to protect, and this girl’s path had led her into the forest and the earth. He saw the glint at her neck, the little gold cross Mrs Padfield had told him of. He lifted the remains up in his arms, placed them on the board and folded the cloth around her while the priest continued to pray. He hoped she’d died quick, and not known the blow was coming.

  Harriet did not have long to recover herself from the shock of Swann’s collapse before the Duke himself arrived. She, Crowther and Manzerotti stood and the Duke nodded to them, remaining just inside the door with his spaniel in his arms and with Colonel Padfield and Count Frenzel at his side.

  It was Frenzel who spoke first. The skin around his mouth was white.

  ‘Who has done this?’

  The Duke looked at him askance. ‘I rather think you have stolen my line, Count,’ he said. ‘However, I feel sure if our guests knew, they would tell us. Reymen?’ His personal physician scurried past him to the bed and took Swann’s wrist in his hand.

  ‘Weak, sire,’ he said eventually.

  ‘Will he live?’ the Duke asked. The physician looked hopefully at Crowther and Manzerotti. Neither man moved.

  ‘I do not know, sire.’

  The Duke studied Swann’s thin form on the bed for a long moment. ‘Time will tell, I suppose.’ Then he turned on his heel and left smartly. Half-crouching, the physician followed him and his advisers.

  ‘What are we to do?’ Harriet said, then caught her breath, realising she was now including Manzerotti in the we she spoke.

  The singer stood and bent over the bed to examine the hands. They looked as if they had been burned. ‘I think it was the gloves.’ They still lay on the floor by the bed, looking both dead and malevolent. ‘We cannot leave him unguarded. Whoever poisoned them may try again as soon as we leave. Your sister is something of a healer, I think, Mrs Westerman?’ Harriet stiffened, and though Manzerotti did not turn round he must have felt it. ‘No, we have not been gossiping and swapping receipts, madam. Colonel Padfield mentioned it.’

  ‘She makes and sells some household remedies in our village,’ Harriet said at last.

  ‘That must be excuse enough. Let her come, her husband and Mr Graves. They will make less convincing nurses, but better guards. He must not be left alone.’

  Harriet nodded.

  ‘We should also send for Herr Kupfel. Though I doubt he will come willingly,’ Crowther said. Manzerotti turned and raised one beautifully groomed eyebrow. ‘It is likely that the drugs that disorientated Clode and rendered the victims passive came from his collection of receipts. Where there are instructions for the creation of two dangerous drugs, there are probably instructions for the creation of several more.’

  ‘I agree. Where are these papers now?’

  ‘Stolen at some point. With some of the elements needed to create them, and a number of volumes on alchemy and magic ritual. Kupfel might know some manner to ease the workings of whatever did this to Swann.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ Manzerotti drawled, studying the frayed flesh on Swann’s hands. ‘That is a collection of papers I would give a great deal of gold to see.’

  Harriet shuddered and she stood to hide it. ‘I will go to
Swann’s offices. Perhaps he has left some sign of what he meant to tell us. I assume it will be given out that the Chancellor is merely indisposed.’

  ‘You should not curl your lip, Mrs Westerman. It does not suit you. Yes, I imagine so. Do you think they will let you rifle through his papers, dear lady?’ She could hear the smile in Manzerotti’s voice.

  ‘The Duke has asked us to look into these matters. I go with his authority.’

  ‘But you speak German so badly … Still, perhaps it is better that Mr Crowther and I keep vigil here and you give yourself some other occupation round the court.’ He looked at her, his head on one side. ‘We would not want to ruin our present good understanding by spending too long in each other’s company, now would we?’

  She had no answer for him and turned to leave the room. As she went she heard his low laugh and felt her cheeks burn.

  V.10

  THE PANE RATTLED ONCE, then again. Pegel shut his workings into his notebook and put the originals into his jacket before going to the window. He saw Florian below, looking up at him from under his thick blond hair, shielding his eyes, and smiled. He opened the window.

  ‘Come on up!’

  Florian waved and trotted off to the rear of the building, and Pegel had plenty of time to place his notes and papers behind one of the loose tiles of the roof slant before unlocking the door and taking his seat again. The stairs creaked, and Frenzel was in the room, smiling a little shyly with a paper-wrapped parcel in his hands.

  ‘That for me?’ Florian nodded. ‘Do I get to keep it this time? Hand it over then.’

  As Jacob ripped off the paper Frenzel said, ‘Where have you been? The Professor keeps asking for you.’