The Dark Volume mtccads-2 Page 8

  From the darkness behind her a firm hand fell hard across her mouth and soft lips pressed full against Miss Temple's ear, the words that slipped between them scarcely louder than a sigh.

  “Be still, Celeste,” breathed the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza, “or it will mean the death of us both.”

  Two. Exile

  CARDINAL Chang took another sip from the metal mug, less from any desire for tea than a restless need to measure, again, exactly how tender his throat still was and if, upon clearing it, he found any residual taste of blood. He did not, though the rawness persisted. It had been a week since they'd come ashore. The Doctor had done what he could to leech the ground blue glass from Chang's lungs. Indeed, he had saved his life with the foul-tasting orange liquid. Chang abruptly drank the rest of the liquid and with a tight grimace walked back down the corridor to return the mug to the three trainsmen crouched around their stove. Looking again as he went, Chang's quarry was not to be found in any of the compartments he passed.

  Chang sank back into his seat and looked out the window at the utterly uninteresting countryside. He'd spent each moment in that godforsaken village in those godforsaken woods ridiculously unable to see beyond regret and reproach. He had never realized the degree to which his heart had held Angelique at its core—it had taken her death to spell it out. The courtesan had rejected him utterly, but the only sin he could charge her with was honesty. Chang swallowed and winced. Honesty was the cruelest thing of all.

  HE REMEMBERED carrying Celeste to the fisherman's hut, but the rest of that first night blurred in his memory as any catalog of endless work—building a fire, rummaging for food, and coping with the storm, the likes of which he'd never seen. The hut was all but flooded, roof torn open, tree branches crashing around them, the downpour endless—and through it all, with each worsening moment, Chang had been driven farther from his companions and deeper within his own brooding soul. He did whatever was required. He carried Celeste to the cart the next morning, and from the cart into Sorge and Lina's cabin, one small bare foot slipping free of the blanket as they climbed the steps. He helped Elöise gather clothing, he went with Svenson to arrange matters with the fishermen and their hardbitten wives—until it became plain that his presence only complicated things, and so he spent even more time alone.

  At one point he realized he had not spoken a word for five hours. He had carried an armload of wood to stock the stove and found himself in Celeste's sparse room, looking down at her body on the bed. He could hear the whisper of her breath, its rasp as delicate as any lace-work. Her skin was wet, her hair darkly coiled, the bruises marking her neck and face like a language Chang alone could read. At another time it would have aroused him, but instead Cardinal Chang found himself wondering who this young woman was to have changed his life so much. He watched her chest rise and fall—the size of her rib cage, the sweet proportionality of her breasts, abstractly curious to their softness—while at the same time keenly aware of the pain in his own chest, his tattered appearance, his poverty, his profession, and perhaps more than anything, the steady grasp with which sorrow was taking hold of his heart. That two so unsuitable people might be alone in a room together under any circumstances, much less in a tiny fishing village on the Iron Coast, was not to be imagined.

  Chang would finish this business as quickly as he could and dis appear into the opium den. He would remain beyond every well-intentioned effort of Doctor Svenson to find him, until those efforts ceased. He would remember them all, two more kindly anchors to weigh him down, until the end of his days—the arrival of which, in his present mood, Cardinal Chang would not resist at all.

  He had been interrupted standing over the bed by Elöise, come to place a fresh cool cloth over Celeste's forehead. As soon as she leaned over to smooth the hair from Celeste's face, Chang left the room.

  He had walked to the water, stalking through the sodden woods to stand at the band of sharp black rocks that bordered the shore. A creature of the city, Chang stared at the line of breaking waves as if he were looking at some strange undiscovered continent. The biting wind brought a grim pleasure, the roaring of the water echoed his spinning thoughts, and the expanse of sky conveyed the futility of his struggles. He wondered how he had been able to leave Angelique's shattered body, how he had gone on, fought on the airship—how, in truth, he had not died with her. The answer, of course, was because she had never wanted him to.

  HE SAT on the rocks and took a volume of poetry from his coat pocket, Lynch's Persephone. Yet the very first poem, “Arcadia”—an ironic account of the Princess's innocent life in the Edenic gardens of her mother—caused him to close the book. Chang stuffed it back into his coat and winced at the coldness of the wind.

  He looked down at his boots and scuffed the sand. He frowned. There was something buried… something blue. Making sure he was unobserved, Chang used a small, flat black stone to dig, and quickly uncovered the broken remains of a blue glass book. The pieces were of various size and jagged—if he hadn't known better, the fragments might have come from a large, brightly colored bottle. With a great deal of care he excavated a deep hole in the sand, then pushed all the glass he could find into it with his boot. He refilled the hole and covered it with stones, and continued down the sand, watching closely for any further flash of blue, but there was nothing.

  INSIDE THE cabin, Elöise was speaking to Lina. Chang did not enter, turning back to the barren yard and the stark trees beyond it. The cabin felt like an over-large coffin. He thought wistfully of his city routines, longing to be standing in the cool, dusty darkness of the Library stacks. But then he sighed. It did not matter where he was— his world would still seem lost. Behind him, the door abruptly opened.

  “Cardinal Chang!” called Elöise. Chang turned to her. She waited for him to speak, realized he did not intend to, then nodded with a smile. “Good morning. I was wondering if you had seen the Doctor.”

  “I believe he was dragooned by Sorge—something about an ailing goat.”

  “Ah.”

  “Is Miss Temple in danger?”

  “She is unchanged, which, as the Doctor says, is good news. She has even been able to drink a little of the Doctor's herb tea.”

  “She is awake?”

  “For instants only, and never herself within them, but able to take a swallow and slip back to sleep, or into dreams. She dreams constantly, I think… like clouds passing before the moon, they cross her face… and her hands clutch so…”

  “The Doctor will return as soon as possible,” said Chang flatly, wondering when and for who else Elöise had ever evoked the moon and clouds. “He cannot love goat-tending.”

  Elöise nodded at the sand still clinging to Chang's boots. “You walked to the sea?”

  “I did.”

  “I so love the sea,” said Elöise. “It lightens my heart.”

  “On the Doctor's suggestion I searched again for any refuse from the airship, or any corpse washed ashore.”

  “I'm sure that's very wise. And what did you find?”

  “That the sea does not lighten my heart at all,” said Chang.

  SVENSON CALLED to them from the muddy lane behind the house that ran to the village. Limping a step behind came Lina's husband, Sorge, whose conversational skills were such that Chang was certain the Doctor had shouted to them as soon as he could, to escape the torpor.

  “The fellow himself,” Chang observed to Elöise, smiling at Svenson's awkward waving.

  “He is a very good man,” replied Elöise quietly, and they said no more until the Doctor reached them. Svenson shook hands with Sorge, refusing any thanks, then waited until the fisherman stumped up the steps and into the house.

  “How fares the goat?” asked Chang.

  Svenson waved the question away and turned to Elöise. “Our patient?”

  “Very well, I think—of course, you must see for yourself.”

  “At this point your observations are fully the equal of mine, but I will be in momentarily
.” He paused, and Chang was on the verge of excusing himself, so obviously did Svenson long to say more to Elöise. Instead, before he could, the Doctor turned to him, glanced down at his boots, then back up at his face. “Did you find anything?”

  “Nothing at all,” said Chang.

  He was not sure why he did not mention the broken glass to Elöise—hadn't she as much right to know as Svenson? Wasn't her life as much at risk? Could it be that he did not fully trust her even now?

  “Yet I am unsure if I have walked the same ground you searched before. Sorge has mentioned the power of the tides—something might have come ashore some distance away.”

  A complete fabrication—the Doctor and Chang had never spoken of this at all.

  “Why don't I show you?” offered Svenson. He turned to Elöise. “We shall just be two minutes.”

  “I will see if Lina will make tea,” Elöise replied, smiling, with the exact same careful tone.

  AS THEY walked to the sand Chang quickly described finding the blue glass shards. They stopped at the ring of black rocks, where Svenson lit a cigarette, hands cupped round a match. The tobacco caught, and after a deep breath and an exhaled plume of pale smoke, the Doctor waved a pale spidery hand back toward the house.

  “I did not want to say in front of Mrs. Dujong, for I do not know what it means—and after your own discovery I am even less sure. Something has happened in the village.”

  “Something aside from sick goats?”

  Svenson did not smile. “The men will not speak of it openly… I am convinced we must go with Sorge and see it for ourselves.”

  THE BODIES were laid out on flat squares of canvas that would, once the families were satisfied, be sewn around them for burial. Several men from the village were still there—to Chang, all alike with their drab woolen coats, bearded faces, and wrinkled hard stares—and they silently made way for the two outsiders. The Doctor knelt by each corpse. From Chang's perspective, the damage was clear enough—the throats of each groom gaped wide, the wounds nearly black with clotted blood—and so he turned his attention instead to the stable. The double wooden doors were open, the muddy yard marked by too many foot-and hoofprints to untangle. Chang could see from his clothing and plastered hair that one of the dead men had lain in the rain. Any traces of blood would have been quickly obliterated by such a storm. He looked to the village men.

  “Where was the other?”

  Chang followed them inside. A stall door had been cracked at the hinges, as if the groom had been driven—or thrown—against it with great force. The floor was covered with damp straw, and while there were grooves and hillocks indicating a struggle, there was no way to know who or what had made them. Several stalls were now closed with rope, their wooden slats snapped or broken. Something had stirred the horses to violence.

  He turned at the approach of Svenson. The Doctor studied the straw, the stall door, and then, completing the circuit, the rest of the main stable room. He glanced once to Chang, with a deliberately blank expression, then turned to the villagers.

  “It seems plain enough, I am sorry to say. Sorge has suggested a wolf, or even wolves, driven out by the storm. You see the wounds required great strength.”

  “And teeth?” asked Chang mildly.

  “Indeed.” Svenson frowned. “The narrative is unfortunately clear. The first groom hears a disturbance and opens the doors to see what it might be—from the distress demonstrated by the horses, we know the disturbance was significant. Once outside, he was attacked. The door still open, the beasts gained entry and slew the second groom, again—” Svenson gestured to the battered stall “—with notable ferocity.”

  The men nodded at each point the Doctor made. The horse snorted.

  “Would it be possible,” Svenson asked, smiling encouragingly, “to see where these fellows slept?”

  Their quarters were undisturbed: two bunks, an iron stove, moth-eaten blankets, and a rack of woolen stockings set to dry. A metal box of biscuits had been knocked from its shelf, the pale contents, more than likely rife with weevils, spilled out on the straw. Chang cleared his throat and met the ever-suspicious faces of the villagers.

  “Where is their privy?”

  HE HAD merely wanted to be away from the piggish stabbing eyes, but once he strode down the path to the tiny wooden shed, Chang felt the effect of too much tea—drinking being the simplest way to avoid conversation with their hosts—at that morning's breakfast. The privy's door was ajar. As he pulled it open, Chang saw its upper hinge had become dislodged. He wrinkled his nose. The hole cut into the seat of sawn planking was spattered darkly around its edge. Even he could smell—burning through the standard reek of the pit beneath—the foul, acrid traces of indigo clay. He leaned forward, squinting at the stained wood… a viscous smear… stinking dark blue mucus. To either side of the hole were smaller marks… fingerprints. He pictured the position of the hands—the forward position, from the placement of each thumb. Someone had vomited their twisted blue guts out.

  THEY SAID nothing more on their return, accompanied as they were by the villagers. Chang had managed to subtly direct the Doctor to the privy—forcing himself to discuss wolves with their hosts in the interval. Though he did learn that of five horses driven into the woods, two remained unaccounted for—and in the fishermen's opinion most likely eaten.

  Once back at Sorge and Lina's cabin, the two men paused at the base of the steps. Chang knew why he did not want to enter, but was curious about Svenson's obvious hesitation.

  “They will wonder where we have been,” said Chang. “Or at least Elöise will.”

  Svenson looked back through the wood to the shore.

  “Perhaps we should walk a bit,” he said.

  They retraced their steps to where they had spoken before, the wind having grown bitter in the intervening time. Svenson lit another cigarette with difficulty, Chang tolerantly holding his leather coat open to block the wind. Svenson straightened, exhaled, and looked over the sea, grey fatigue lining his pale face.

  “The blue stains. We must assume our enemies from the airship survive… in some fashion.”

  Chang said nothing—this much seemed obvious.

  “Miss Temple is not free from fever,” Svenson went on. “She cannot be moved. Our hosts here—their goodwill, their suspicions. I do not like to say it, but you have seen the way they stare at you.”

  “What has that to do with anything?” snapped Chang.

  “You did not hear the villagers gabbling as soon as they got the news. They are all wondering if you had been at the stables, if you had come ashore to kill them all—if you were in fact a living devil.”

  “A devil?”

  “One assumes they are inspired by your coat.”

  “And if I am a devil, it reflects upon yourself and Mrs. Dujong—”

  “Miss Temple cannot survive a disruption of place or care—she is our only concern.”

  “I disagree,” snarled Chang. “You hazard that our enemies live. It seems obvious that, with the horses missing, they are on their way back to the city.”

  Svenson sighed heavily. “I do not see how it can be helped —”

  “Helped?” Chang cried out. “Do you not know what this means? Missing on that dirigible is the Prince of Macklenburg and a government minister! As soon as word reaches the city of our survival, we will be hunted by the law! Our descriptions will be published—bailiffs, soldiers, men like me out in droves for the reward. What sort of disruption will that be?”

  “We do not know this for certain—the stains in the privy suggest grave illness—”

  “The two grooms were slaughtered!”

  “I am aware of it. What do you suggest we do?”

  “Find their killer. It is the only way to protect ourselves.”

  “You cannot,” insisted Svenson. “If these people see you rampaging back and forth, their every suspicion will seem to be confirmed. They'll burn us all for witches!”

  “So I should stay indoo
rs while you hunt the killer? Or should we give the task to Mrs. Dujong?”

  “Do not be ridiculous—”

  The rest of Svenson's words were torn away by the wind. Chang turned on his heel, striding away, his white face even paler with rage.

  MISS TEMPLE lay on her side, turned away from the door, hair dark in the dim room and sticking to her throat where it was damp with sweat. One bare arm lay outside the woolen blanket, fingers—shorter and slimmer than he had recalled—clenched feebly. Chang tugged the glove from his right hand and reached out, hooking the curls from her face and tucking them behind her ear, the back of his fingers brushing across her cheek. He looked down at the thin scored plum line above her ear that tucking the hair back had revealed… if the bullet had flown but half an inch to the side… he could easily imagine the bone-shattering damage, her crumpled body, the gasps as she expired—how different everything might have been…

  He heard footsteps outside, Elöise and Svenson talking. With a sudden darting move Cardinal Chang leaned down, brushed his lips across Miss Temple's cheek, and stalked out of the room.

  “Cardinal Chang—” began Elöise, startled by his sudden appearance. Chang strode past her to the door.

  “Cardinal Chang,” said Elöise again, “please—”

  “I require some air.”

  In seconds he was down the steps and marching away into the trees, the calls behind him like the cries of crows.

  FOR THE first minutes he did not mark where he walked at all—generally south through the trees, away from the village. But the farther he went, the closer he came to the flooded part of the forest. He cursed aloud at the effort required to pull his boot free of the sucking mud, and shifted his course toward the shore.

  Chang had not been to this part of the woods before. He leapt a rushing watercourse and climbed a small rise, beyond which he expected to see the ocean. With a bitter smile, he realized that once on the other side he would be happily hidden from any prying villager's eye.