by Elsa Hart
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To Elizabeth Blackwell and her Curious Herbal
CHAPTER 1
It has been suggested that the surface of the earth was once smooth, and that beneath it was an abyss filled with water. After many years, the crust of the earth became dry and brittle. At a command from God it cracked, and the waters that had been trapped within surged and roiled through the broken land. Thus the Flood was not a deluge from above that covered the mountains, but a welling from below that created them. The world inherited by man was but the jagged ruin left by that great devastation.
This was just one theory that was being debated in Signore Covo’s coffeehouse one drizzly spring morning. The year was 1703. Queen Anne occupied the throne, and for the citizens of London, there were enough new laws, new wars, and new books to sustain any argument. But Covo’s was popular because it inspired a more fanciful variety of conversation. Its walls and ceilings, encrusted with objects intended to provoke wonder and speculation, made serious gentlemen feel comfortable entertaining thoughts of subterranean giants, unknown civilizations, and even, with the appropriate tone of deprecation, magic.
Upstairs, Signore Covo reclined in a chair before the hearth, legs outstretched, affecting the casual elegance his English companion would expect from a secretive Italian noble. Wearing a bemused half smile, he watched Mr. Simon Babington, silver-buttoned and bewigged, pace across the floor.
“I am not an ignorant man, Covo. I know that through a glass lens, a man may observe living creatures in a drop of water. Fiery Noctiluca holds no mystery for me. And as for corpuscular philosophy—”
“Not even Newton himself could confound you,” said Covo.
“And he has tried,” said Babington. “He has tried. So you see there is much about the world that I understand. But for all my knowledge, I cannot fathom how a man as aloof, as conceited, as uncooperative as Sir Barnaby Mayne has attained such clout in our community.”
Covo rotated his hands so that his steepled fingertips pointed to an ornate clock standing in the corner. “Time,” he said. “It has a deleterious effect on youth, but there are advantages to its passage. Mayne has spent forty years funding travelers and having their briny crates delivered to him from as near as France and as far as China. He knows which letters to write, which parties to attend, which societies to join, and which monographs to debate. He has played the game, Babington, and he has played it for a long time. I cannot help but admire the old obsessive.”
“Admire him?” Babington exclaimed, with an indignant quiver of his cheeks. “He knows I’ve been pursuing an edition of Palissy’s Fontaines for more than a year, but instead of alerting me to the rumor that one had surfaced in Lovell’s Bookshop, he sniffed it out and bought it for himself. It is against all etiquette. He isn’t even interested in hydrology! He only wanted it because he knew I did. Prior to this, if I had come across a Picatrix or a Liber-Razielis I’d have told him at once. But no longer. No longer.”
“You might ask to borrow the book from him,” said Covo, pleasantly.
“And take my place among the toadying supplicants begging for access to his cabinets? It would please him too much. No, Covo. What I want is revenge.”
“What exactly are you asking me to do?” Signore Covo’s eyes slid to a pair of rusty swords displayed above the mantelpiece.
Following the look, Babington blanched. “Of course I don’t mean— What sort of man do you think I am?”
“What sort of man do you think I am?” asked Covo curiously.
The question prompted an uncertain laugh from Babington. “I really cannot say.”
“Tell me, then,” said Covo, “what manner of revenge you intend.”
Babington cleared his throat. “I want to take something that Sir Barnaby wants.”
“You have a particular item in mind?”
“Not just one item.” Babington lowered himself to the chair opposite Covo. “Is the name Follywolle familiar to you?”
“Naturally. He was one of you.” By one of you, Covo meant the set of gentlemen who considered themselves collectors. They were known for dedicating their disposable income, and in some cases their indisposable income, to the acquisition and display of rarities of art and nature.
“Then you know Follywolle is dead,” said Babington.
Covo nodded. “Several months ago, at his wife’s family estate in Sweden, where he had lived these past ten years.”
“He kept his whole collection there,” said Babington. “And now that he has gone to await the Resurrection, his widow intends to auction it.” He shuddered. “The man is to be pitied. His life’s work. Evicted from its shelves, predated upon, torn to pieces.”
“A tragic fate,” said Covo.
Babington, not noticing the mocking smile that curved Covo’s lips, carried on. “Of course Sir Barnaby has a contact already in Sweden.”
“Whom he has asked to pick the carcass, if you will,” murmured Covo.
Babington frowned disapprovingly. “Some respect, Covo, really.”
“My apologies,” said Covo. “I was charmed by your metaphor and could not resist the opportunity to extend it.”
“My point,” said Babington, “is that Sir Barnaby’s contact in Sweden is to send him a catalogue of all the items to be sold at the Follywolle auction. What I want is to ensure that Sir Barnaby is prevented from acquiring a single object he desires.”
Covo repressed a sigh. What children these collectors were. “Mayne is a savvy competitor,” he said aloud. “He is hardly likely to discuss the items upon which he intends to bid.”
“Which is why I have come to you,” said Babington. “Is this not precisely the kind of service you offer?”
“Allow me to clarify,” said Covo. “You wish me to discover what Sir Barnaby Mayne intends to purchase from the Follywolle auction without alerting Mayne to the fact that his privacy has been compromised?”
Babington’s gaze grew distant as he fixed it on a desirable future. “Yes,” he murmured. “Yes, that is what I want. I want Sir Barnaby to choose from among the books, birds, bones, shells, and statues those he believes will most complement his cabinets. I want him to clear spaces on his shelves for his new acquisitions while he waits in eager anticipation for their arrival. I want him to instruct that poor curator of his to prepare lines in the registers. And after the crates are delivered to my door instead of to his, I intend to publish a monograph on whatever object he craved most.”
Covo drew in his long legs, planted his hands on the arms of his chair, and rose to his considerable height. “I believe I understand what is required of me. I presume you are similarly cognizant of what I require of you?”
Babington’s rapturous expression soured as he removed a heavy purse from his pocket and counted out coins. “The rest when I have what I want,” he said. Covo accepted the coins with a short nod.
As Babington moved to
the door, his gaze wandered over the walls and ceilings of the chamber. “Your décor grows more dense every time I visit. What is this?” He pointed to an arrow that dangled from the ceiling, tied with a length of golden thread.
Covo’s expression grew more serious than it had yet been in the course of their conversation. “That is the arrow of an elf queen. They say that when allowed to swing freely, at midnight on the full moon its point will lead its owner to treasure.” Covo paused delicately. “A prize for any collector.”
“Come now, Covo. Do you take me for a credulous man? I will not condone you making a mockery of a serious pursuit.” Babington’s tone was chiding, but his gaze lingered on the arrow. Covo smiled inwardly. When Babington had gone, Covo stood for a long moment in thoughtful stillness, watching the arrow swing.
CHAPTER 2
The London residence of Sir Barnaby Mayne comprised two adjacent houses near the center of a stately terrace in the fashionable neighborhood of Bloomsbury Square. Cecily Kay, obeying the instructions Sir Barnaby had given in his letter, knocked on the door of number seven. She was surprised when the first sound to reach her from within was of shattering glass.
Several moments passed before the door was opened by a maid whose dark eyes, soft features, and undefined chin called to mind the countenance of a young squirrel. She appeared anxious. Cecily’s keen nose detected a sharp odor wafting over the stoop, and an explanation suggested itself. She looked at the maid sympathetically. “A broken specimen jar?” she asked.
The maid’s face registered bewilderment. “Yes, my lady. How did you know?”
Cecily, who was almost a head taller than the other woman, nodded over her at the interior of the house. “Spiritu vini,” she said. “I must assume that in the home of one of the most esteemed collectors in England, the smell of strong alcohol at midday may be attributed not to afternoon carousing, but to the project of preservation. That, in combination with the sound of breaking glass— I hope no one has been injured?”
“A mop, Thomasin!” The words arrived disembodied on the doorstep as if the house itself had spoken them. The maid gave a nervous start and glanced over her shoulder.
Of the qualities of life on land Cecily had missed during the two months she had spent at sea, hillsides textured by leaves and dotted with flowers ranked high while extended, formal welcomes ranked low. She was more than happy to release the maid from her duties at the front door. “Go ahead,” she said quickly. “I can manage.”
“Thomasin!” the hoarse, impatient voice called again. The maid spun around, hurried to the far side of the room, and disappeared through an interior door. Cecily turned to her possessions, which the coachman had stacked beside her on the stoop before driving away. They included a battered, salt-stained trunk and three neat bundles of pressed plants. Cecily moved the bundles inside first, then dragged the trunk over the threshold. She closed the door, patted the grit from her hands, and surveyed the room.
It was a large square chamber lit by two windows facing the street. The door through which the maid had gone was directly opposite the front entrance. There was another door to Cecily’s right. With the exception of the space taken up by doors and windows, the walls were lined from floor to ceiling with cabinets, the top halves of which were fitted with open shelves, the bottom with wide, shallow drawers. Display tables filled the center of the room in such a dense arrangement that the spaces between them were only wide enough to permit the passage of a single person. Every surface—every inch of oaken shelf and every tabletop from corner to corner—was covered in stones. It was as if the very foundation of the earth had been disassembled and set out again in neat rows of boulders, rocks, and pebbles, each tagged with a red paper label.
Cecily had seen collections before, but never one vast enough to require that an entire room be devoted to the matter and substance of mountains, caves, deserts, and coastlines. The thought of all that awaited her in the rooms beyond filled her with anticipation. She bent eagerly over the table closest to her and examined the label attached to a nondescript green stone. A kind of Smaragdus, she read, which, being heated red hot, shines in the dark for a considerable time, about one-sixteenth of an hour. Its neighbor was a spherical gray rock identified as the Eagle Stone, named for the common opinion that the eagle carries it to her nest—
“Who is that in the Stone Room?” The same voice that had summoned the maid cut off Cecily’s perusal. She crossed the chamber as quickly as she could, holding her skirts tight to keep them from catching on a corner as she squeezed between the display tables. When she opened the inner door, she found herself facing a spacious landing punctured to her left by a dim stairwell. On the other side of the landing from where she stood, a long, dark hallway extended toward the back of the house.
“Sir Barnaby Mayne?” she inquired of the gloom. As her eyes adjusted, she discerned two figures at the far end of the hall. One appeared to tower, stork-like, above the other.
The reply was impatient. “Yes? Yes, who is it?”
“Cecily Kay.”
“You have arrived too early, Lady Kay. Have a care where you step. My curator has broken a jar.”
Cecily advanced cautiously. Spheres of candlelight clung to the walls, caressing the corners of paintings. As she entered the hallway and drew nearer to the figures, she realized that the one who had appeared so tall was in fact perched on a step stool in front of a shelf crowded with jars. At the base of the stool, glass shards gleamed wickedly from a spreading pool of liquid. The alcohol fumes stung her eyes. With no rug to soak it up, the puddle was expanding, sending out sluggish arms toward the buckled shoes of Sir Barnaby Mayne.
Cecily would have known him to be the master of the house at once, even if she had not recognized him from the portraits on the frontispieces of his published books. Though age had made him frail, thinning his cheeks to translucence and carving furrows around his eyes, the authority he projected over the space around him was unambiguous. His shoulders, encased in black velvet, appeared broader than they were, as if they were appropriating breadth and volume from the darkness surrounding them. He wore a gray wig that rose high above his brow and fell in luxurious curls down his chest, framing the pristine lace that cascaded from his collar.
He spared her only a glance before returning his attention to a glistening gray lump near the center of the puddle. “As you see, Lady Kay, you have arrived not only early, but at an inopportune moment. My curator has selected the hour before the tour begins as an ideal time to demonstrate his capacity for clumsiness, a defect I make every effort to identify before I offer employment. I will not tolerate it, Dinley.”
The man standing on the stool stepped down gingerly into the puddle. Cecily judged him to be in his early twenties. Gaunt cheeks and angular features were gentled by a pair of large, dark eyes. Cecily was not certain whether to attribute the tears that glazed them to the fumes or to his employer’s reprimands. “I—I will obtain a new jar,” he managed.
“Action at long last.” Sir Barnaby put a hand to his heart in mock surprise. “I thought him afflicted by paralysis. Well? Why do you linger? Every moment the specimen is exposed to the air hastens its decay. Go.”
The curator scurried away. Cecily, heedless of the puddle dampening the hems of her skirt and petticoat, crouched to examine the gray lump on the floor. It was an aquatic creature, long-since deceased, with a body resembling that of an eel. Its open jaws, which increased the size of an already disproportionately large head, bristled with needle-like teeth as long as her little finger. “I’ve seen a fish like this before,” she said. “Is it the vipermouth?”
“Mine is the only specimen in England,” said Sir Barnaby. If her astuteness had impressed him, he gave no indication of it. “Do not linger so close,” he added coldly. “I will not see it damaged further.”
Cecily stood and surveyed the shelves above the step stool. By the light of the nearest candle on the wall she could see the fins, scales, and sinuous coils of fish
and snakes suspended inside the glass jars. A door beside her creaked hesitantly open, spilling light from an adjacent room into the hallway. She stepped out of the way.
“Something was broken?” The question, delivered in a heavy accent, came from a man with an appearance of general dishevelment. His clothes, though fine, sagged at the knees and elbows. The skin around his eyes was swollen with fatigue, and the unkempt mass of curls on his head looked less like a wig than like a gray cat posing as a wig to escape pursuing hounds. As he spoke, he extended a foot forward.
“Stop!” Sir Barnaby’s explosive exclamation came too late. The newcomer’s heel met the toothy head of the fish with a wet squelch. He hopped backward in dismay. “Ah, Sir Barnaby, I did not see.” Still balancing on one foot, he picked up a sodden cloth from the floor and scraped it over the bottom of his boot. A fragment of the ruined creature dropped from the sole of the shoe. “I am most sincerely sorry,” he said, sounding mortified.
“You have destroyed it.” Sir Barnaby uttered the words in a voice like a pestle grinding against an empty mortar.
The man quailed and closed his eyes tightly for a moment as if he thought he could escape by taking cover behind his eyelids. When he opened them he noticed Cecily and seized the opportunity to address someone other than his enraged host. He executed a tremulous bow. “My gentle lady,” he said. “I am Helm. Mr. Otto Helm. A visitor to your England from my country of Sweden.”
Cecily, perceiving Sir Barnaby to be too much in the grip of anger to facilitate the introduction, introduced herself.
“Kay,” murmured Helm. “Kay. Kay.” He rubbed his forehead. “Ah, yes. Kay. Of course. I am knowing the name of your husband. He is in the office of consul, yes? In Constantinople?”
Cecily recognized in Helm the fatigue of a traveler worn out by the sustained effort of existing in unfamiliar spaces. “You are nearly correct,” she said kindly. “He is in Smyrna.”