The Resurrectionist of Caligo

by Wendy Trimboli

  Sibet’s face appeared inches from his own. She must have climbed up the ladder. Her lips moved quickly. Was that her voice, tinny and distant? A strange euphoria washed through him, and his vision flickered. He relaxed.

  “…being of sound mind and sacred blood, on this, the day of consumption, do hereby, with the blessing of the divine Priest-King Rupert, solemnly absolve Roger…” Her voice faded.

  Had he died?

  But then she squeaked out, “Roger… Xenophanes, Roger Xenophanes Weathersby.”

  His lungs burned, yet his oxygen-starved brain latched onto the most idiotic thoughts. He had no middle name. She’d made that up. The X was just his old mark, from before he could write his name.

  A bright light flared before his eyes. He heard a blade scrape and scrape at the braided silk. The light shrank, like a window rushing into the distance, became a pinprick, then disappeared.

  He regained consciousness sprawled on his back. His hands clutched a severed piece of cord. On the ceiling above him a mural depicted Saint Myrtle in her mythic flight across the moors. A dozen wolfhounds appeared to leap over the stone ribs of architectural struts, frozen in pursuit. In the corner of his eye he saw Sibet sheathe her blade.

  The quavering voice of the ancient archbishop rose in a singsong chant.

  “May the blessings of our merciful daughter fall upon her servant, newly born to share her bonds, her burdens and her blood.

  Let us remember Saint Myrtle the Chased, princess of old who fled her most divine obligation of marriage and was torn asunder by dogs. May she be a reminder to the Straybound of the fate that awaits the defiant and the shirker, be one a pauper or princess.”

  The burly men propped a shaking Roger onto his hands and knees. They tugged off his cravat and neck bandage, tore open his shirt, and removed the pewter physician’s medal he wore against his skin.

  The archbishop kissed his two fingers, and again drew the Blood Line across Roger’s forehead. “From this day forth, you shall have no other allegiance, nor master.”

  An acolyte approached, carrying a gold tray of various vessels.

  “Your highness,” intoned the archbishop, “consecrate your instrument so that he may be bound to you for eternity. His is an oath only his master may sunder by means of the blade. He is yours in all things, and on the day of your death, he too shall die.”

  Roger gasped, afraid he might start laughing manically, partly from lightheadedness but mostly at the archbishop’s rubbish. “Please.” Air scorched his bruised windpipe as he spoke. “There’s a real Greyanchor Strangler. I’m here, but he’s the one that should be. If your lot can do all this, then help–” His voice broke off in pain as Sibet dabbed a finger in one of the vessels and bent down to smear unguent on his Straybound tattoo. It burned the raw, wounded skin of his throat. He hissed through his teeth.

  “And now,” announced the archbishop, “let us bind the blood.”

  Sibet lifted a gold chalice from the tray and held it under Roger’s nose. “Drink, Straybound, from the cup of my mercy,” she recited in a practiced voice as if he hadn’t spoken a word to her.

  It was half-full of a blackish substance that smelled, to his experienced nose, of old blood mixed with ambergris and preserving spirits. He turned his head and gagged.

  “It’s almost over,” she whispered. “This is the worst part – the loyalty test. Those masked men expect you to fail. They want to see your throat slit. But you won’t fail me. Not this time.”

  Roger managed to take the cup in hand, making every effort not to inhale. He squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed the entirety in three gulps. He very nearly retched. When the substance hit his stomach, he felt the fizz of some alchemical reaction. Pinpricks spread throughout his body until the underside of his skin itched worse than measles. Yet to scratch, he’d have to flay himself alive.

  The archbishop clapped his hands and beamed. “You may take the hand of your master and rejoice. You are now and forevermore Straybound reborn.”

  When Sibet held out her hand, he kissed it desperately, unable to form words, his reason nearly gone. This must be the bewitchment. He felt pulled to her by some primeval urge in his very arteries, deeper than lust. The faintest voice of the man of science within him called out, as if from the bottom of a well. Your blood has been meddled with, Roger. And not just yours. Blood connects everything: Claudine, Margalotte, even Celeste. They’ve been meddled with, too. Their blood speckled black. You need to find out how, and why.

  He gulped down air as he regained his bearings. Even bewitchment wouldn’t prevent him from catching the Greyanchor Strangler before the murderer struck again. After all, now he had a princess of Myrcnia at his side, even if she hated him.

  While Archbishop Tittlebury hunted the sacristy for a book of devotionals to bestow on the new Straybound, Sibylla seated herself on the pew beside Roger. He hunkered in silence, head in hands. The slender nick across her thumb, from drawing the Blood Line on his forehead, reduced years of memories to a scrape. She didn’t know which of them had borne it worse – him or her. By looks alone: him.

  “Well,” she said at last. “It’s fortunate our feelings for each other have run their course. Otherwise, this would be an awkward situation. How’s your throat?” The sight of what the ritual had done to him made her stomach churn. Still, she’d be steel for them both and treat his Binding to her as nothing more than a paper cut.

  “Attached, your merciful highness.” He spoke into his hands.

  Sibylla slid closer along the bench, unsure if holding the knife to Roger’s back or watching him thrash in the air had chased away her resentment. Only a cooling pang remained. “If I know you at all, right now you’re cooking up a pot of Dodge’s famous rage stew, to be eaten in sullen silence and passive aggression. I hardly blame you, but our emotions won’t change our fate.” She stared down at the dagger in its sheath – for use at her discretion, the archbishop had advised, should she ever wish to sunder her Straybound’s oath.

  Roger lifted his chin, his eyes bloodshot, but didn’t reply. Had it not been highly inappropriate, Sibylla might have laid a hand on his shoulder. “I suppose there was as much a chance of you rising from graverobber to respectable surgeon as there was for me becoming an architect of embassies.” She looked up at Saint Myrtle the Chased being pursued by wolfhounds.

  “If only I’d had a chance to do a proper autopsy, then I’d have seen what’s been done to them.” He seemed to be having a conversation with himself.

  Sibylla placed her hand on his thigh, then pulled it away when her face grew hot.

  Roger’s shoulders tremored as he finished buttoning his shirt. “I’m no Strangler, just some idiot scapegoat, cross my heart. A blighter with bad luck.”

  “Is that so?” Sibylla stuffed her emotions into a box. This was no space to be vulnerable. “Then, however did we get here?”

  “You have to listen to me, Sibet. I may be a resurrectionist by trade, but that don’t make me a murderer. At least two women have been done in the same way, and they weren’t strangled. They had something put into them, causing peculiar changes to their stomachs. First the chocolate shop owner, then the lady actress, both took ill before they was strangled. If they was strangled at all. Now a doxy is dying at St Colthorpe’s with similar symptoms. I’ve examined her blood and it’s a horrific black syrup. Contaminated, I’m sure.”

  When she didn’t grant him the reaction he wanted, he cut off his medical diatribe with a frustrated wave of his hands.

  “See, there’s the rub. There is no simple explanation. No constable in his right mind would listen to my madman’s rant. But if you don’t help me, there’ll be more murders. The Strangler must have his reasons – or hers. And I mean to find out what they are.”

  Sibylla unsheathed her knife and studied Roger’s eyes. She wouldn’t give up either. Even if she never impressed the queen, she could still answer two prayers.

  Claudine Walston, Margalotte Remley, Emma Jane.
A litany of victims, and Sibylla, in consigning all related records to the sacred flames, had erased all but their names from their headstones. Someone had invented a wraith and framed Roger as the Greyanchor Strangler. When the real culprit murdered again, he’d inspire a horrific new ballad: The Throat Mangler or Corpse Lover. Whip up a public frenzy about some killer on the loose, and facts were no longer facts. Who cared if things didn’t add up, so long as a suitable miscreant got what he deserved?

  Well, she cared – for Mabel, and that other shopgirl, and the poor Straybound sitting next to her.

  “Well, I didn’t think you’d entirely lost your mind.” Sibylla stared at her gold knife. “I’m not doubting your prowess at sleuthing, but any drunkard off the street would have worked as a scapegoat. There must be some reason you were arrested for Claudine Walston’s murder. She wasn’t the first victim, or the last. Even if you don’t know it, she’s the reason you became the Greyanchor Strangler. Whatever possessed you to dig her up?”

  She’d read the court records out loud before setting them ablaze in the “sacred cleansing fire,” but they’d only given evidence of Roger’s guilt, including his alleged defilement of Ms Walston’s corpse – scandalous like some winkle tale, but hardly an investigation.

  “We don’t all have a train of servants jumping to our every wish. Medical schools need stiffs, and a resurrectionist needs cash. I didn’t dirty my hands unearthing her, though. A crypt without night guards is easiest for a lone wolf like me.”

  Sibylla wrinkled her nose. “You really must take care, Dodge. Claudine was interred with her husband. As in buried in the ground, beneath the dirt.” She closed her eyes to remember the detail from the court paperwork. “Plot 715: Claudine, wife of Daniel Walston – strangled and buried beside her beloved husband.”

  “I think I’d remember digging her out of the ground,” Roger snapped. He seemed to realize his insolence and lowered his eyes. “Your highness. She weren’t buried as a Walston either.”

  Sibylla’s fingers twitched, and an inky bee floated up between the pews. Roger stared at it, mesmerized. “Now that is strange.” She flicked a second bee into the air. “Placed in a grave that wasn’t her own, and ‘resurrected’ by an unlucky gravesnatcher.” Another bee drifted up. “I’d swear I was reading a Salston play. And that hatpin you sent me, and which I politely returned. It belonged to her?”

  Roger split the bee with his fingertip and studied the ink on his fingers. “I didn’t lie. Not about that. She weren’t the only one. I saw one on another blonde lass. An actress, pretty as jam and laid out on a bed of lilies.”

  Margalotte. Sibylla dispersed a bee, and sent its two halves floating in opposite directions. Margalotte Remley, an actress of repute, understudied the role of Madam Barstowe, first made famous by Dame Angeline.

  “If I may speak plainly, your highness… Why do fine ladies insist on taking valuables to the grave? It’s a waste and causes undue temptation for the resurrectionist. Better in the pockets of paupers, if you ask me.” With a solemn dip of his head, he added, “Assuming there are no orphaned daughters to inherit.” He winced as he wound his cravat around his throat, where the silk noose had left a red line.

  “Let me help.” Sibylla took the ends of his cravat from his hands and tied an elegant knot. “You’ve given me an idea. Those women, I believe they share one person in common besides the Greyanchor Strangler.”

  “You mean that salon lady, don’t you? Dame Angeline.” Roger combed his fingers through his hair. “It’s true Claudine and Margalotte worked there before. And… someone else I know. It’s possible all the Greyanchor’s victims do.”

  “Then it’s time I see this salon for myself.” Sibylla swiped the last bee from the air. “There may be no hope for either of us. You and I are like poor Myrtle up there, our fates are sealed, but I’m not going to ignore this. Dead women don’t wander into stranger’s crypts without a helping hand. And if both these women were Angeline girls, then maybe…” Sibylla’s voice trailed off. Perhaps she had recited one too many declamations, or awakened some undiscovered desire within her. For once, she wanted to crush someone else.

  Harrod and Archbishop Tittlebury met them in the vestibule where Harrod presented Roger with crimson livery fitted with gold lace and tail pleats, and the archbishop handed him a gilded book of devotionals. Roger’s ineffectual attempt to hide his grimace with a bow aside, Sibylla’s thoughts returned to the strangler stalking the streets of Caligo, a pit of culpability settling in her knotted stomach.

  The archbishop placed his hand on Roger’s head. “Now my lad, for each morning of the year, you must recite a specific vow from this book. The recitation will invite her highness to grace you with Her divine and precious blood. You mustn’t fall lax on your duties or divine punishment shall be Her will.”

  Roger nodded, looking flummoxed.

  “He means you’ll die,” Harrod helpfully interjected.

  Roger appeared unconvinced, so Sibylla lay a hand on his shoulder and lowered her voice in his ear. “It’s not the devotionals so much as the schedule. You must keep to it or else the Binding will kill you.”

  “That bewitchment.” He pulled at his cravat, and his lip curled. “I’ll reckon it’s just poison, and she supplies the antidote.”

  Archbishop Tittlebury sucked in his breath. “Young man, Lady

  Sibylla is a divinity. Divine beings do not poison their subjects.” He turned to Sibylla. “Your highness may have need of that dagger within the next few days. I do suggest you keep it upon your person until this instrument fully accepts his deliverance.”

  “Your grace is too kind.” Sibylla glared at Roger darkly. She had no interest in eliciting a pious tirade from the ancient archbishop, who smiled brightly before asking, “Will your highness do me the honor of a dance at tomorrow’s ball? I shall be wearing my holy hat, as it were, and these vestments tend to intimidate the young ladies.”

  “It would be my pleasure.” Sibylla had nearly forgotten the Royal Heritage Ball, and after this morning’s breakfast would have preferred not to attend. However, if she intended to stay in Caligo, she couldn’t upset the queen. Even Harrod had been roped into some sort of security detail. Still, the real Greyanchor Strangler wouldn’t politely wait out a formal dance before striking again. In the meantime, Sibylla would do all she could to find him.

  She gestured for Roger to follow as Harrod took her arm to escort her down the steps leading to the street below.

  “All affairs in order, then?” Harrod raised one curious eyebrow. “I thought it might take a bit longer.”

  “Perhaps you’d like a Straybound of your own?” Sibylla prodded Harrod with the hilt of her dagger. “I’m sure you can find another princess to subdue.”

  “Sounds like a lot of bother. I’ll settle for making it through the ball.”

  Behind her, Roger made a sound almost like a growl. His eyes drilled into his brother’s back – no doubt biting his tongue with enormous effort. He didn’t seem to know how lucky he was to have a brother who’d merrily lie on his behalf.

  Not to mention, she’d be the one enduring physical hardship – bleeding herself once a day so he could live – and for years to come. Yet by the look on Roger’s face, he suffered alone. The resentment she’d buried bubbled up. She, too, wanted to sulk. Except no amount of wringing would undye this wool. Perhaps if she handled her own heart, then she could manage his.

  “What do you say, Roger?” She’d keep her composure in the face of this mare’s nest. “Meet any good chaps in prison for Harrod to take on?”

  “I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy,” Roger muttered. “Not even my brother.”

  “No one’s having a good time here,” she said, but Roger remained sullen. Well, she was no tyrant. This could be a true rebirth. Even innocent men deserved benevolence. “I always liked seeing you at your studies. We can start them up again. A new name, a new life. Why don’t you visit your garret one last time, and pack up any poss
essions you wish to keep? If the guards give you trouble, bare the tattoo on your neck.”

  “No one is changing my good name,” said Roger with a snarl.

  “Your highness can’t mean to allow…” Harrod trailed off as her eyes darkened to express how little patience she had for his opinion on the matter.

  Sibylla loosely shrugged. “Drop the name change if you must, Roger, but I expect you to return with your pixie ward.”

  “I can try, your highness. I don’t exactly own her.”

  “Still not clear on the Straybound thing, hm?” Perhaps she should have Dorinda explain things to him. How sordid. She sighed. “Just retrieve your ward and meet me at my chambers before breakfast tomorrow. I dine at seven with my family. You can arrive with the tea at half past six and do your morning devotional.”

  “Don’t be late,” added Harrod gravely. “Or you’ll invoke the dreaded Straybound Curse. You’ll find yourself begging to be locked in my coal room, should that happen.”

  “Enough. I swear you two are nearly as ridiculous as my cousins,” Sibylla snapped. “But yes, Roger, don’t be late. This won’t be like your old writing lessons where I punished tardiness with a run to Beadle Street for pickled whelks and a slap on the wrist.”

  After Roger bowed himself from their presence, Harrod paced back and forth, searching for the cab he’d sent a messenger boy to summon. He adjusted his hat no less than four times and dug the heel of his boot into the steps like he couldn’t contain himself. “He’ll need tighter supervision, your highness. Mark my words. You’ll be asking me to drag him back to you by afternoon tea tomorrow, but I’ll be buried in security meetings and Khalishkan dignitaries.”

  “Let us hope not,” Sibylla said. “For all our sakes.”

  29

  Roger felt like an interloper amid the daytime bustle. He banished thoughts of Straybound curses and crowds as he hurried toward the hospital, and Ada. What were the chances Celeste had survived the night? The detached surgeon part of him knew – not likely. He’d failed to cure his first real patient, blundering unprofessional fool that he was. But even with Dr Lundfrigg’s help, he had no positive diagnosis for her malady. There was only one thing left to do: perform a postmortem examination. Perhaps he could still save others.