And would that be so terrible a thing?
Unthinkable. It was a service. Savage Mouth was a revenant. She could have died anywhere, anytime, and what then? She would have risen. She would have scratched and bit and fed. He and William should be given a Royal Charter. The remarkable revenant hunters, by His Majesty's Appointment. They sniffed out the fiends and eliminated them before any could be harmed.
At the school, filing through the lecture hall and imagining the rows filled with the shades of souls he had squeezed the life from. Had he filled the room yet? No, not so many, but enough. The doctor wasn't there. He was never there. The boys instead. He knew their names but could not tell them apart. A Thomas. An Alexander. A William. There were too many Williams in his life, and that made him giggle a bit too. Boys, he called them, but they were ages with his landlord surely? Did they seem young, or did William Hare seem like an ancient now?
His mouth was moving and he heard his voice, his slur almost vanished as he worked them. They opened the crate and the boys peered in. One stepped back, colour vanishing from his face. Questions from that one. Where exactly? Who exactly? How exactly? Was she from the Canongate? Something about the Asylum. How could they know about the Asylum?
No. Not acceptable. Not part of the deal, to have the questions. He grabbed Hare's wrist before his friend could make poor bluff of an answer. Yes, the Canongate. Found by an old woman who fetched them and made a sale of it. No idea how she died. No idea who she was. Mary? Couldn't say. Not their business who she was, only what she was.
The boy was in a state, gnawing his lip. They had stripped the clothes while they waited for her to turn, but that was not enough. She was too much the person, whoever that person might have been. The boy gave Bill scissors, asked him to shear her hair. Oddness, and they wanted to be gone, but they had no money yet. He clipped, and made a bad job of it, but it was enough to have them paid. Davey boy gave them a queer look as they passed on the way out, but he did not let it trouble him as he marched into the night.
His pockets were full. He was a king again, and shame and whisky waited.
Chapter 19
William Fergusson
Thursday, April 10th, 1828
Knox examined the woman on the table, who Fergusson knew was called Mary, and was delighted. "Perfect," he said, as he bent over her strapped down form, holding a lantern high so he could take her in. He began with close inspection of a leg, and his head drifted up over her naked body like a sniffing animal. She stared at him, so hungry, but the restraints were tight. There was an appalling desperation in her eyes, that had been so grateful but a few weeks before. "You gave a good price?"
"We did, sir. Tom thought to add an extra pound in lieu of her youth and robust condition." It had galled him when his friend made the offer, but Tom had not known her. She was no different from any of the others. He couldn't see a person in there at all.
The doctor straightened, squinting at him in the dark. There was a moment's pause, enough to make Tom and Alex shuffle with discomfort. The doctor knew. Somehow, he had divined that this woman was recognised. How was that possible. "What did you call it, Mr Fergusson?"
His lips moved, and nothing came out. The Doctor's good eye crawled over his face, reading him in impossible detail. He replayed his words. Dear god, had he used her name? No. It clicked. "Her. I called it 'her'."
"For shame, Mr Fergusson. Our subjects do not breed sexually. How they reproduce remains a mystery, but they are changed from what they might once have been. There are no hims or hers. Whatever change it is that we hunt has fused the genders into one, creating an asexual thing. There are species of shark and snake that this subject has more in common with than a woman." He paused. "Remember your lessons, Mr Fergusson."
That was all the warning he would be offered, and he gave a too frantic nod. The doctor held his gaze a moment more, then turned back to Mary with a clap of his hands. "Something different for this beauty, I think. We have made our baseline observations of what happens to these bodies under ordinary conditions, have we not?" They each nodded, eager to humour his high spirits, but did not understand where he was going. The same thing happened to the revenants as to any other corpse. Decomposition commenced. How they remained animated had yet eluded them. "Now we shall change the conditions around it and observe over a longer period. We shall not cut, at least not yet. We shall watch, and note. Perhaps an abnormality will present itself that will take our inquiries in a new direction."
He led them to the store room where a large barrel was waiting for them, and bade them roll it to the dissection room. It was heavy, full of fluid. There was a tang of whisky on the air around it, stronger than the lingering haze their two suppliers had wafted through the place. They manoeuvred it into one corner of the room, straining at the weight as Knox barked instructions. Alex rolled his eyes at his friends, making them smile despite the labour. They had discussed on more than one occasion that they were developing muscles more often seen on dock labourers than pasty academics.
"Crack it open gentlemen, and try to contain your student thirsts. This draught is for our new subject." With the lid off the aroma of cheap whisky was eye-watering, and Fergusson felt the stir of nausea in his belly. It should be one of the benefits of cutting open the decomposing dead all day and night that he developed an iron constitution, but the world retained a sense of humour about such things. His face whitened and grew cold. The Doctor barked a laugh. "Our Mr Fergusson prefers a weaker spirit, I suspect. Take a few moments boy. I am curious to the effects a preservative might have on the revenant form's rate of decay. Another time, perhaps, we will douse one with the contents of your stomach and observe that, but not today."
Ignoring the smirks on the faces of his friends, he stumbled into the corridor, light-headed. The whisky smell was strong there too, but nowhere near as bad as in the room. He sat against the wall with his head down, and waited for it to pass. For a while he listened to Alex and Tom swearing as they carefully unbound the revenant from the table and restrapped it, then could not help but smile at the splashing cacophony as they tried to fold their struggling burden into the large barrel. Knox laughed, in unusually warm humour. They had all come to trust that new deliveries would be forthcoming from the Irish, and that had relieved some of the pressure on their secret work. Where the first subjects had been treated with careful reverence, each cut carefully planned in advance so as not to waste a limited resource, their investigation was growing more bold as their supply remained steady.
Yet Knox had not met the suppliers since the first delivery. However they went about the business of tracing revenants, it was taking its toll. The older man in particular grew more wretched and hollow eyed each time they met, just as the weasel with him grew colder and more withdrawn. They were common men, far removed from the world of science, and must certainly believe that they were dallying with devilry. Whatever downward slide the two men were on it was rapid, and he did not share the doctor's apparent belief that it would continue to suit their needs, no matter what price they paid to encourage it.
The observation served them nothing, and so he had not shared it. Although they received a regular supply of true corpses from other local suppliers, as well as from further afield through contacts of the doctor's, none of them were providing revenants despite the careful suggestion that livelier goods might fetch a higher price. The two Irish were all they had. What was that old expression? Make hay while the sun shines?
Knox led his friends out of the room, and he struggled back to his feet. Alex and Tom each gave him a look promising that his absence from their grim duty had been noted and would be subject to reprisal at some later date. They were drenched with whisky.
"Mr Fergusson! How good of you to remain behind to congratulate your fellows on their wrestling prowess." The doctor's merry mood was infectious, and Fergusson smiled despite himself.
"I did not wish them to feel under appreciated."
Knox laughed. "Good!
Yes!" He clapped again. "Very well gentlemen, you are dismissed early for once. We have no cutting to do this evening. Instead, we shall leave our asexual subject aside. Every few days, perhaps each week, we shall crack upon our fermenting brew and make fresh observations of it. When we are satisfied that our observations are exhausted, we shall put it to the knife and see what the preservative might wreak upon its internals. Until a new subject arrives then, your nights are your own. I will see you in the morning for your usual duties. Paterson is around to lock up when you leave.
They bade him farewell, though he was already striding along the corridor. "I should go home," Tom said. "I need to change out of these things. Lord knows what my parents are going to think when they smell me."
"They're going to think you have wasted away the evening in a tavern," Alex told him. "There's no getting away from it. You're going to smell like a distillery for a week."
Fergusson clapped them each on the shoulder. "Well, if you're going to be hanged for it anyway Tom, perhaps we should make a truth of it."
Tom paused. It had been too long since they had an evening free. "Royal Oak?"
"Royal Oak."
#
"I know who she is," he told them. "Mary. Mitchell, maybe. Or Paterson. Mary though, I'm sure of it."
Around them, the Royal Oak clattered and sang. Students staggered and revelled. Some of them were supposed to be the great minds of the next generation. As he watched them stagger and swear, slapping the bottoms of the serving girls and guffawing at their own bravery, he found it difficult to give them quite so much credit.
Alex craned around to survey the smoky room for whoever they were speaking of, missing Fergusson's meaning entirely. Tom leaned forward. "The new subject?" That brought Alex's attention back to the table quick smart.
"Holy God ... no wonder your stomach turned. Who was she? Not ... she's not family is she?" As quickly as that, the subject was a 'she' again.
Fergusson looked around. Their corner of the public house was away from the bar, and comparatively still. There was enough noise to drown out their conversation. Though everybody knew they assisted Doctor Knox in various matters, hey did not wish to advertise the exact nature of their out-of-hours curriculum. "No, nothing like that. She's from the Canongate I think. A prostitute. Well, she was a prostitute. I don't think she still is, but ..."
Alex was grinning, and even dour Tom had an eyebrow raised. "Aye," said Alex. "One never forgets the first love."
"Or the first dip of the wick," said Tom.
"A memorable enough moment, Tom," Alex chided, "but it's not a lass's face that lingers. You'll come to know that one day."
Tom batted his shoulder. "I know it already, and it was this one's face that made him recoil. It must have been love."
Alex turned back to him. "That right, Will? Lovestruck for a working girl? You should write that up. Right romantic, it sounds. You'd have led her from her wicked path in no time. Redemption, true love, a pretty whore turned good ... they'd be lining up to publish it."
Fergusson tried to smile, but couldn't make himself. Kind eyes made mad and predatory still haunted him. "You're idiots, both. She was a patient at the Infirmary."
Alex settled, seeing that he was troubled. "Magdalene, was she?"
"Aye, and still in their care a few weeks ago. She must have left. She said something about wanting to."
"They're not prisoners," Tom said. "Some people want to say so, but they can leave whenever they please. Sisters will even try to set them up with a job, if they don't want to go it alone."
"Maybe she died at the Asylum," Alex said.
Tom shook his head. "The Irish said he bought her from some old woman in a back lane."
"Could be," said Alex. "I could hardly make him out. His accent. And he was three sheets to the wind."
"No, that's what he told us," Fergusson said. "And it was a lie. However he got the body, he didn't want us to know about it."
They stared at the candle flickering in the centre of the table, rolling the implications over in their heads. Alex took a breath. "It may not have been a lie," he said, his words slow as he tested out the idea. "Could be the sisters did sell her. That place is like a little nation state in the centre of the city, and they keep to themselves. If a girl died there, and came back, they might want to cover it up. Avoid awkward questions, or journalists at the door."
Tom spluttered uncomfortable laughter. "You must be looking for your own publishing deal? That's the stuff of penny dreadfuls."
"What's your pleasure gents?" A shadow loomed over them, and they started like naughty children. It was Flo, one of the serving girls who knew them well from their visits over the last couple of years. Fergusson smiled at her and ordered another round, waiting until she was out of earshot before he continued.
"A fine try Alex, but it's not likely. The sisters are what they seem. Pious servants of Christ. I can't easily see how they would make the acquaintance of those Irish. I've rarely seen anybody less godly looking than the quiet one."
Tom drained his drink. "Truth. I do not often judge by appearance, but he makes me shudder."
Fergusson nodded. "Not who you'd expect the sisters to turn to in a storm. Besides, if they could subdue the thing why not just destroy it themselves? Nobody would be the wiser, and there would be greater scandal in them selling the bodies of the women they profess to be saving than in rumour of a revenant appearing within their walls."
"Does the good Lord no favours though," said Alex, still not convinced. "The unholy appearing among His protected few." None of the three students were believers. Though atheism was a provocative stance to take in public, it was common enough among those who were led to pull things apart and understand their mechanics. No dissection had yet uncovered the still-flashing spark of the Divine amidst the gore.
"All the more reason to take care of it themselves. No, I won't have it. He lied."
Tom shrugged. "Well, what of it? He's making good money retrieving these things. Why would he advertise his methods?"
Fergusson raised a hand to silence him as Flo approached with their drinks on a tray. He admired the way she weaved between swaggering boys, the tray swinging with her without a drop being spilled. She dished the pints out among them,and he slid her some coin. "Rest for yourself, Flo," he said, as she noticed it was double what they owed.
"You wooing me, Mr Fergusson?"
He laughed. "Consider it apology for when we were those," he said, nodding at the crowd of mostly first-year students. Revelry diminished considerably as studies piled the work on.
"Oh you were always gentlemen, you three."
Alex slapped her across the buttocks. "Not then, and not now," he said, and they all laughed. Flo's chortle, as she returned to the bar, was a little more professional than theirs, and noticing that made Fergusson embarrassed.
He turned back to Tom. "It's the methods that worry me, Tom. What did Mary die of? You saw her corpse."
"Well ..." Tom stared at his fresh pint, as though it might whisper the answer to him. "All right, I don't know. Maybe when we take her apart."
"A few weeks ago her fever was dying, and she was in rare health aside from that. She's not some street-battered old crone. I don't know how they live in the Asylum, but I will wager a month's allowance that they're kept warm and fed. Whenever they have medical difficulties they bring them to the Infirmary, which most ordinary folk still won't think to do. They might be among the best-kept women in the city, at least among their station."
"And there were no wounds," Alex agreed. "Some scrapes and bruising, but probably postmortem. The Irish had to get her into a chest, after all. Having barrel-dunked her, I'll attest to that being no mean feat."
"A healthy young woman. No evident cause of death." Fergusson spread his hands, point made. "You see my concern."
Tom shook his head. "Not really."
"I can't make it clearer."
"No, I take your meaning well enough, Will. I jus
t don't see why it's your concern. Or mine. Or Alex's, for that matter."
Fergusson was about to make an outraged comment, when he noticed Alex nodding along. "You too?"
Alex shrugged. "You're shaken, Will. I see that. But it's only because you met her, or somebody like her, before she died and turned."
"It was her."
Alex raised a defensive hand. "I'm sure it was. I wasn't there. Does no harm to assume you're remembering right. You must admit though, you see a lot of Magdalene women when we do Infirmary time. They more or less blur into one for me. Still, this one stuck in your memory for some reason. It's like the doctor says, though. Whatever she was, she isn't any more. Not a she. An it."
"But how did she–"
"It hardly matters. She is. She did. You're asking questions we don't want the answers to, Will. Can you imagine what would happen to us, to the field of medicine and anatomy, if we were to pursue this each time a subject appeared on a table, revenant or not? It would end us, don't you see? Bodies are the necessary tools of our trade. Does the chemist account for his reagents? Does the physician seek the provenance and source of his magnets and copper wire?"
Fergusson shook his head.
"Then why must we? You're being naive, Will. You're peeking under stones that have been put there with good reason."
He slumped, defeated. "I suppose it would be unfortunate if, after all our work, our whole field of study shrivelled up around us."
Alex grinned. "We'd be doctors of nothing. A brand new field."
Fergusson nodded, sipping his pint as the conversation drifted down more frivolous channels, trying to forget the echo of her voice in his head. I have wondered what might be waiting, she had told him when they talked.
Try as he might, he could not stop himself wondering along with her. What had been waiting for the girl called Mary, and were the Irish responsible for it?
The Flesh Market Page 17
