“Hello, sir.” Sibylla lifted her veil so he could see her face. Dr Eldridge squinted but made no sign of recognition. “It’s my understanding you employ a Roger Weathersby here.”
Dr Eldridge’s eye twitched. “Don’t know him. This is a reputable school for aspiring young surgeons, not whatever you’ve heard!”
Sibylla tried to get out, “I’m a relative–” as Dr Eldridge shut the door. “A wealthy relative!” she yelled from the stoop. The emperor feigned disinterest by pretending to birdwatch, though she saw no birds. She’d turned to leave when the door opened a crack on whining hinges.
“Wealthy?” Dr Eldridge pressed his face into the gap.
Sibylla leaned close to the door, and in a hushed voice said, “Very.” The old man swung the door wide again. “How can I be of assistance?” Sibylla blotted her eyes with the silk kerchief Mr Maokin had given her, holding it so Dr Eldridge could see its fine embroidery. “I’ve news of a dead uncle, and the fortune he’s left sweet Roger. Do you know where he might be working now, or at least where he lives? He’s always been so fond of the medicals. I’m sure he’ll be making donations soon.”
Sibylla dared to face the emperor, not quite able to meet his eyes. The emperor hung his head in sorrow to match hers. At least he was having fun. What a fool she was to play-act in front of him, surely destroying her chance to secure a Khalishkan alliance for the sake of a probable murderer. Her eyes misted with only the tiniest effort.
“Oh–oh, you poor dear.” Dr Eldridge offered his own kerchief, which she used to blot her cheeks. “But I’m afraid Mr Weathersby resigned some days ago.”
Sibylla shook her head in pity, then gracefully returned the doctor’s kerchief with a full shell coin tucked inside. “For your troubles. Any hint of where I might find him will do.”
Dr Eldridge felt the heft of gold wrapped in cotton, and his eyes brightened. “I don’t know his living arrangements, but he worked at Grausam’s Undertaking for a time.” Dr Eldridge’s eyes seemed to scour the creases of Sibylla’s clothing for loose change. “And if you see the lad, remind him that Eldridge’s College of Barber-Surgeons accepts anonymous donations, even from those with… grim reputations.”
Upon their departure, a pit of apprehension took root in Sibylla’s stomach, and she squeezed her hands into fists to stop from nervously filling the carriage with ink-bees. She couldn’t make sense of it. Roger had never mentioned working as an undertaker, and Harrod could have paid for his apprenticeship at any of the city’s medical colleges.
For his part, the emperor remained silent, though undoubtedly his opinion of her lessened with each stop. When they arrived in Grausam’s neighborhood – an unsavory spot of taxidermy, dental transplant, and boil lancing services – Sibylla held onto the fantastic hope Timur might stay behind this time. He did not.
Instead, he paused outside the undertaker’s shop to admire the upright coffins leaning against its brick exterior. “What an interesting practice.” His hand lingered on a cast-iron theft-proof model. “We don’t bury our raw dead in Khalishka, only their bone’s ash.”
On any other day, Sibylla might have enjoyed a discussion of differing funerary customs, but today her skin prickled with foreboding. A part of her hoped to find Roger as she’d always imagined him: smartly dressed with a satchel of instruments in one hand and a basket of fruit, gifted by a grateful patient, in the other. Unfortunately, reality had no intention of cooperating.
As they entered the shop, a drippy redheaded youth shrugged on an official countenance that failed to put her at ease. “How may I be of service, my lovely?”
“Are you Mr Grausam?” asked Sibylla.
“Sorry, he’s just popped out. But would you care to view our newest model of lead-lined coffin? Just in from our supplier–”
Sibylla broke in, uninterested in spending more time than necessary inside this establishment that smelled of astringent and wood rot. “I’m looking for Roger Weathersby. He worked here some time ago.”
“I can assure you, we don’t employ no-good malefactors here.”
Perhaps sensing her discomfort, or because he also found the smell displeasing, the emperor intervened. “We have no interest in bringing harm to your friend.”
At the word “friend,” the youth threw up his arms in protest. “I’m no friend of this Weathersby. He may make love to jammy tarts on public thoroughfares wearing pinched silken hats just to hide his horns – knocking ’em off so he can do in-dekorus things to their lady bits – but I can assure you here at Grausam’s Undertaking and Coffining Services, we never allow such defecation of our clients. We treat the deceased with the utmost care. Else your burial expense is on us.”
“But you do know where he hangs his… silken hat. Don’t you?” Sibylla pressed.
“More like where he hangs his filthy gravesnatcher’s mask.”
“Simply give us an address.” The emperor undid his coat to reveal a silver pistol and short sword in the Khalishkan style, guardless and slightly curved. “And we’ll be on our way.”
The redhead dropped any pretense of withholding information. “Suet Street. Butcher shop, topmost floor, just follow the flies.” A salesman’s grin reappeared on his face. “Please come again. At Grausam’s, you kick the bucket, an’ we do the rest.”
Outside the shop, Sibylla gulped fresh air.
There were no more chances after this. If Roger couldn’t be found on Suet Street, she wouldn’t risk offending the emperor by asking to postpone dinner.
The emperor caught her arm as she stepped off the footpath and spun her out of the way of an oncoming brougham. He loosened his grip at once, then helped her regain her footing. “Mind the path you travel, lest the shadows overtake you with ghost-breath.”
Her heart hammered from the close call. “Lin’s Parade of a Thousand Sins.”
“A favorite of mine, also.” His deep voice cut through the noise and bustle of the street.
Sibylla caught herself staring into his eyes, and her face warmed with shame and embarrassment. She’d taken the Emperor of Khalishka, a man who defined continents, to see Caligo’s nostrum salesmen, weathered medical institutions, even the local undertaker. If she’d been a spy sent to undermine his opinion of Myrcnia, no doubt she’d have earned a ribbon. Her grandmother would never forgive her, let alone the people of Myrcnia. She’d only be so lucky to return to Helmscliff now. It wasn’t too late. She didn’t have to climb the stairs to Roger’s abode. She could spare herself the sight of his plummeting worth, but if she turned back now, she’d never know how far he’d fallen.
24
“St Colthorpe’s Charity Hospital,” said Dr Lundfrigg as he led the way down a corridor, “is a most modern institution for the merciful treatment of Caligo’s poorest citizens. It is funded entirely from the royal coffers. I like to keep a presence here, as one of my many responsibilities as royal physician to the queen. “
“Modern” was not the word Roger would have chosen to describe the gothic arched windows and occasional arrow slit that ventilated the tunnel-like corridor. He struggled to keep up with Dr Lundfrigg’s flapping coattails. Residual effects from the Skullflash still sparkled behind Roger’s eyes, despite a self-prescribed glass of sodium bicarbonate in water. A haze still blurred his memories of last night – he recalled bruising his jaw in a free-form tallycracker game, but not Dawson dragging him home. Luckily, Harrod had been so impressed with Dr Lundfrigg’s offer that he agreed to let Roger go, to fulfill his final day of probation: service.
“Three hundred years ago this was a fortress,” continued Dr Lundfrigg, “two hundred years ago an abbey, one hundred years ago a prison for lunatics, and now the main chapel houses the men’s medical ward. Women and children are treated in the annex, while the madmen have been relegated to the dun… downstairs. I have a specialist who knows procedures to turn even the most violent maniac as gentle as a lamb. This is, after all, the cusp of the Scientific Age.”
“There’s no en
d to the wonder of science,” said Roger, unable to believe he would be making the rounds in an actual ward. “I hope to learn as much as I can.”
A few civilians nodded to him as they passed, almost as if he was a real surgeon. None of his old mates would recognize him now.
Dr Lundfrigg paused outside a door. “Before we enter the ward, Mr Starkley, I want you to remember two things. First, a good surgeon cuts slowly enough to see what he’s doing.”
Roger nodded intently.
“Second, a great surgeon cuts with such speed, the patient doesn’t have time to realize pain. It’s better to act too hastily than too slowly. You don’t want your patients throwing you to the ground and leaving a trail of blood as they flee. Understood?”
“Yes, doctor.”
Dr Lundfrigg opened the door with a grand sweep of his arm. “Impress me, Mr Starkley.”
The ward was a high-ceilinged room lined with iron beds, not unlike the misdemeanors’ bay in Old Grim. Some of the patients’ families had set up camp around their respective invalids. Many had brought children, picnic baskets, bedding, and one woman stirred a pot of broth on a portable tin stove.
“The beds only cost a winkle a night, but families must provide their own rations,” explained Dr Lundfrigg. “I’d like your thoughts on the patient in bed number three.”
Roger approached a metal-frame cot where a boy of about thirteen lay fidgeting, as if waiting for permission to join his friends playing dash-the-can in the streets. A brother, by the look of him, held down the younger boy’s shoulders.
Roger crouched by the bed so that his head was on the same level as the younger brother. “What’s your name, lad?”
“Joe,” said the boy. “Joe Brash. An’ I’ll pummel you soon as look at you if you touch my leg.”
“And what happened to your leg?”
Joe lifted the blanket, and Roger’s eyes were drawn to the unnatural arc in the shin, almost like a second ankle.
“He were a porter,” interjected the older brother. “He followed the omnibuses and cabs, chased ’em from one end of Caligo to the other, and got paid fer helping nobs with their trunks.”
“Aye,” said Joe. “Until that day I didn’t run fast enough. Coach and pair clipped me.”
“They near flattened you, numbskull.” The brother tried to push Joe back on his pillow when he reached for the crutch propped against the bedpost.
“When did this happen?” asked Roger. “Does it hurt?”
“It don’t hurt so much now.” Joe gave his brother a shove, then flopped back on his pillow. “But I can’t run. It happened months and months ago.”
“You didn’t have it looked at right away?” Roger held a tentative hand over the boy’s leg. With a nod from Joe, he ran his fingers over the lump of badly healed bone.
“Physicians are fer toffs,” said Joe matter-of-factly. “Had a mate who saw a physician once. He took a healing powder fer jaundice that knocked him dead like a poisoned rat.
“He don’t mean that,” the older brother interjected. “Begging yer pardon, sir, but them’s all exaggerations. You prescribe yer healing potion, I’ll pay for it myself, and Joe here’ll be cured.”
Aware of Dr Lundfrigg listening to all this, Roger chose a tactful response. “St Colthorpe’s is open to all. Perhaps you should pass that news ’round your tenement.”
The brother leaned close to Roger’s ear. “Someone told him this is where they send the medical students to botch operations on folks as can’t afford better. But you look sober, and you sound like one of us.”
“Well,” said Roger, directing his words to the reluctant Joe, “you’ll not do much running unless you can trust me to fix this leg.”
Dr Lundfrigg cleared his throat. “And how do you plan to go about that, Mr Starkley?”
“Hear that?” shouted Joe. “Mister! He’s not even a doctor!”
Roger focused on Dr Lundfrigg’s question. He’d seen the broken bones of the dead, both fresh traumas and long-knitted fractures from early youth. “I’m afraid there’s no such thing as a magic healing potion. Bone will heal itself, but it must be set proper and splinted. I can’t bend bone that’s fused crooked. Which means the tibia – your shin bone – must be broken again, then splinted and braced.”
Joe blanched and tried to wriggle from his brother’s grasp. “I won’t do it!” he screamed. “You lot of poxy bastards will eat shit first!”
The brother stammered apologies to Dr Lundfrigg and tossed a murderous look at Roger, who still crouched by the bed.
Dr Lundfrigg nudged Roger with his knee. “Well? Does the lad truly understand what’s best for him? Can he choose to reject your treatment?”
“He’s old enough to be hanged for making the choice to steal,” said Roger. “But he only understands that medical treatment will hurt like blazes.” He placed a firm hand on the boy’s head. “Joe, look at me. Think about your life since the injury. Can you still work as before? Do you get by?”
Tears dripped from the boy’s chin as he shook his head. “I can’t even keep up with the costermonger’s cart, can’t carry nothing, neither. Now I paste labels on bottles of shoe blacking, and my brother must buy me suppers. I ain’t no good, sir.”
Roger blinked. This was the second time in five minutes he’d been called sir. It must be a record. “If you let me reset your tibia – your shin bone,” he told Joe, “you’ll have a chance to chase coaches as before. But maybe you’re just another wet-eared ninny. You want to live under your brother’s thumb forever?”
“I told you I’d pummel you.”
“Spoken like a mustard-colored cowardling,” Roger bluffed. “Are you scared more of the crunching, or the grinding?” He rose and turned to Dr Lundfrigg. “I’ll see the next patient, doctor.”
“Wait!” Joe grabbed Roger’s sleeve. “I ain’t no cowardling. I’ll take yer crunching, grinding, and I’ll throw it right back in yer face.”
Roger shrugged off the boy’s hand, pretending to be unconvinced by his change of heart – he wanted to be certain of the lad’s commitment to this horrid procedure.
“Don’t we have none of that ether to spare, doctor?” he whispered.
Dr Lundfrigg shook his head. “Not unless you want to dip into your own expense account.” He raised an eyebrow, perhaps probing the depth of Roger’s generosity. “Otherwise there’s always hypnosis.”
“I’ll just use my all-purpose surgeon’s fluid.” Roger produced his flask – this time refilled with actual gin skimmed from Harrod’s cabinet – and encouraged Joe to tip some down his throat. A thickset orderly arrived with an instrument cart, and showed the older brother how to help restrain the boy. After taking a slug of gin himself, Roger selected a wooden mallet from the cart.
Dr Lundfrigg hovered close by. “Remember my words from before, Roger, my sharp young lancet. The best surgeon is a quick one.”
The orderly held Joe’s leg steady while the brother had the foresight to tie his own neckerchief around the boy’s eyes. Roger found the knob of badly knitted broken bone, and tapped it once with his hammer. Gritting his teeth, he reminded himself that a boy with a crooked leg would never have a normal life. At least this way, the lad had a chance of healing enough to walk without a crutch. He swung and heard a crack like ice splitting on a pond. Then Joe’s howls filled the ward. No time to think. Roger gripped Joe’s knee in one hand and ankle in the other, then pulled the ends of the tibia outward. He fought the withered yet contracted calf muscle until the two halves settled into a shape more resembling a straight line.
“Splint!” shouted Roger. Someone thrust a scrap of wood into his hands, along with some strips of linen. As he secured the splint, he noticed the boy had fainted. Roger showed the brother how to tie up the splint and advised him to make Joe wear it for two months at least.
The brother looked doubtful. “This’ll cure him?”
Roger hesitated. If the brothers followed his advice, in theory the bone should knit. But it
was difficult to trust in forces you couldn’t see; no wonder people preferred “magical” healing elixirs to surgery.
Dr Lundfrigg spoke up. “He has a one-in-five chance of healing, provided the leg is kept straight.”
“Is that good?” asked the brother, and Dr Lundfrigg gave a wan smile.
“Time to move on, Mr Starkley. Bed five, tumorous growth on the clavicle. I want to see how well you wield a knife.”
As Roger turned to follow, the brother grasped Roger’s hand.
“Thanks for trying, sir. I’ll do my best to keep him knocked out for the next few days.” It didn’t sound like a joke.
Roger spent the better part of the morning on one routine case after another: a small tumor, an ingrown toenail, plantar warts, and a putrefied finger Roger lopped off with only the slightest hesitation. They bypassed a patient in the late stages of consumption. “Nothing for us to do here,” murmured the doctor, and pulled Roger past with barely a glance.
“I’ve seen enough of the simple procedures,” said Dr Lundfrigg at last. “Let’s take a turn through the women’s ward, shall we? Perhaps we’ll find a more interesting case.”
They entered a wide sunlit hall in the annex where rows of female patients lay side by side. The hall seemed somehow emptier than the male ward. With husbands at work and children under the care of neighbors, fewer families accompanied the ailing women.
Roger felt a sudden swell of emotion. He knew this room. For how many hours had he sat here, years ago, holding his mother’s hand until she passed?
With one step, then another, some subconscious force pulled him in the direction of the bed where she’d lain.
Dr Lundfrigg held him fast by one arm. “I forgot to mention that I took the liberty of arranging that matter we spoke of last night. Your… widow is here in the women’s ward under my personal supervision.”
Roger could have kissed his hand.
The Resurrectionist of Caligo Page 25