Gosling hastily crossed his ankles to hide the open manacles. He had been so engrossed that he had not heard the door open.
“Still here?” Grimwade asked brightly.
“We just couldn’t force ourselves to leave such generous hospitality,” Gosling said.
“You are too kind.”
“Why don’t you just kill us and get it over with,” Bryn muttered. “I’m tired of sitting around down here.”
“I do not intend to kill you. What a barbaric suggestion. I was just detaining you here until such time as I had decided what I wanted to do with you.”
“I thought you had already decided what you wanted to do with Bryn,” Gosling said, smiling.
“Hmm. Perhaps I had. But what I have decided now is that I will set you both free.”
They sat up eagerly, holding out their manacled wrists.
“But first there is something you must promise to do for me.”
They lowered their wrists.
“You remember the fellow you were originally hired to kill?”
“Anton Leyander,” Gosling said.
“Indeed. Well, I have decided that you should be allowed to kill him after all. In fact, I want you to kill both him and his friend Edric Edison. If you, Gosling, will agree to perform this task, I will give you both your freedom, and the standard fees for two assassinations. What do you say?”
“I say, what choice do I have?” Gosling said.
“Exactly. There is to be a masquerade at the castle tomorrow. I will provide you, Gosling, with an invitation. You will enter the house, wearing an appropriate masquerade costume – which will also serve as an excellent disguise – and there you will kill Edison and Anton. It will be an easy matter for you to locate them, for they will both be dressed as white-faced clowns.”
“And you know this how?” Bryn asked.
“I have my spies,” Grimwade said, smiling.
“I am to do this alone?” Gosling asked. “What of Bryn?”
“He is to stay here until I am assured that the two are dead.”
“A hostage?” Gosling asked.
“If you like. Do you agree?”
“Again I say, what choice have I?”
“Come then, Mr. Gosling. You and I can continue our discussion upstairs. You have at least saved me the trouble of bending to unlock the manacles. I am glad I did not send down the best silverware!”
Gosling blushed. He got to his feet, kicking aside the manacles.
“Please don’t leave me alone here with him,” Bryn said.
Chapter Sixty-Four
Sheldrake stood before the looking glass, trimming his moustache with scissors. Over his shoulder, distorted slightly by the circular reflection, he could see the shadow of Henrik, slumped in a chair. The old man was still not recovered, and hadn’t shifted in days. Smoke from an incense burner clouded the room, making it difficult to see the old man clearly, but he seemed to be smiling. The incense was an attempt to mask an odour that had pervaded the rooms of late: a smell of something rotten that others had commented on. Sheldrake had not been able to identify the source. Without Henrik to clean his chambers, he had obviously overlooked something.
“You must tell me if you discover the source of that smell,” he said over his shoulder.
Henrik said nothing.
Sheldrake missed the old man’s counsel. Musing on his present situation, he had found himself spiralling down into darkness. His confidence and determination had been badly knocked by recent events, and he hoped Henrik would quickly overcome whatever ailed him and offer his support.
The recent audience with Lady Julianne had left Sheldrake feeling confused, and she had not responded to his report on the court martial with the enthusiasm he had anticipated. She needed his strength and experience, and desired him physically because of them – he had no doubt of that. And yet, her words had seemed at odds with these facts. She had said that she found some of his decisions worrisome, and that she would replace him at her earliest opportunity.
Lady Julianne had made it clear on earlier occasions that it was too soon for her to openly reveal her relationship with him, and this he could understand. The townspeople must see that she yet mourned her husband. The traditional summer solstice celebration was being dedicated to Eòghan’s memory for just this reason. Such outward signs were prudent. But the same caution need not be demonstrated in private. There had been none present but him, and still she had kept up the pretence.
“Why would she do this?” he asked aloud.
Henrik said nothing.
“Unless...” Sheldrake mused. “Unless there were others present, observing in secret.”
Sheldrake had often found himself aware, on some uncanny subconscious level, that he was being watched. He did not know who the observers might be, but he had sensed they were there. Always he pretended not to know he was being scrutinised, but he conducted his actions with the presence of the watchers in mind. This would easily explain Lady Julianne’s coldness towards him earlier in the week. And as for replacing him – of course she must give consideration to that. If he was to become her lord and husband, a new Captain of the Guard would have to be found.
Sheldrake looked at his reflection, surveying his moustache critically. Had he trimmed one side far shorter than the other, or was it just a distortion of the glass? His hair, too, was less even than it had seemed when he applied the scissors. Henrik had been far more skilled at barbering. He tilted his head until the moustache looked level in the mirror image. His attention was drawn to his own eyes then: there was something in them that gave him pause.
“Sometimes I see my face in the looking glass, and I am surprised by what I see,” he said. “I have had other faces over the years – been other people. Such a number that I cannot remember them all. And different names also...” He snipped with the blades of the scissors, and tilted his head the other way. “Sheldrake is a recent acquisition. Gareth I have been before, at least once. Perhaps it was the name I was given at birth. I do not recall. And there must have been a mother, a family perhaps, but...” He looked towards Henrik and shrugged. “All I remember is that I did not like that life. I was dissatisfied with my lot, and wished for something else. I had a friend, Leland I think he was. His was the first name I took.
“Each of us have a friend like Leland, I think. Someone we wish we could be rather than ourselves. I thought his life was all that mine was not. In many ways, it was – but I learned it was less than the ideal I longed for.”
Sheldrake lifted the scissors towards his hair, thinking he might try and remove some of the errant tufts, but then he decided against it.
“Leland – or was it Lachlan? It doesn’t matter, Leland will do. Leland and I had been friends since we were old enough to escape our homes and wreak havoc in the marketplace. The thing I remember best is not the mischief we got up to out of doors, but the times when we were forced by the wind and the rain coming in off the sea to stay inside. I liked being in Leland’s room. It was the kind of room a boy should have. Cluttered with things. Kites and bows and arrows and other projects from summers past. Toys from earlier still: carved wooden soldiers in a battered wicker basket, their paint chipped and their swords broken or missing; tangled skeins of fishing line with bone hooks carved by his grandfather; boxes of charcoals and chalks and half-finished drawings, abandoned when the rain cleared; puzzles and games, and the assorted seashore detritus typically collected by boys. You could almost read his whole life from the items assembled in that room.
“I wanted that room to be mine. I killed Leland with the hunting knife he had been given by his uncle the previous year: he’d proudly showed it to me when he’d received it – his first adult hunting knife – and he had displayed in his room for a while until, having no real use for it, he had lost it amongst the rest of his belongings. He didn’t know I’d taken it. Until I thrust it into his gut. That was the first time I watched someone die. It is one of
those things that marks our growth from boys to men.”
Light was fading from the sky outside. Sheldrake paused to light more candles around the room. They also helped hide the odour of decay.
“It is not enough to remove a man and take his name – there is other surgery to be performed. Unwanted tendrils which must be excised. People who knew the previous incumbent and might challenge you as a usurper. But fewer of these than you might expect.
“Leland had a mother. My adolescent self thought her the most beautiful woman he had ever seen – don’t laugh, I was young. She was my first infatuation and, sadly, the shortest-lived. I would observe her without her knowing I was there. Boys do that, don’t they? Seeing her made me feel things that I had no words for then. Leland’s mother taught me much – but not in the way you are thinking, old man.
“Leland’s mother had work she went to after dark. She always wore a clean, plain dress when she went to it. I imagined her working in the kitchen or laundry of one of the grand houses in the wealthier part of town. It made me sad that she had to work so hard to provide food and shelter for Leland and herself. One day I bought a rose from the market, and decided that I would give it to her when her work was finished. I watched her house that night, and followed her when she left. I was surprised when she headed not towards the better part of town, but in the opposite direction.
“I was young and did not know this district by name or reputation, but I was not so innocent that I did not know what sort of people were drifting through this place. When Leland’s mother joined them, another pale ghost waiting in the shadows of a doorway, a cold hand clutched at my guts and twisted them. I stood where none could see me, pulling the rose apart, shredding the petals, the stem grasped firmly in my fist, the thorns drawing blood. I followed them, his mother and the man whose arm she took when he approached her. And I sat outside the door of the room the man rented for the night, “a shilling whether you want it for the night or just for an hour,” the old woman at the door had said.
“The man and Leland’s mother talked briefly. I entered the room silently, and stood watching: she lay spread on the bed, the man on top her rutting like a bull. I did not move until she spotted me standing by the door. Then I ran, leaping onto the bed, straddling the man’s heaving buttocks and stabbing again and again, in the neck and in the back, with Leland’s hunting knife. Until the man beneath me shuddered and lay still.
“Leland’s mother screamed, her face splashed with the man’s blood. She lay pinned under the weight of the dead man. My own face and clothes were drenched in blood when I climbed off the bed. As she fought to get the dead man off her, I emptied the oil from the lamp over them both and over the bedclothes. Then I touched the lighted wick of the lamp to the oil, so that it caught light. I tossed the lamp onto the bed and left them.
“I walked down the stairs, hearing her screams. Of course, no one in that place gave any thought to the sounds, until the smell of smoke and burning flesh revealed the true reason for the screaming. And by then it was too late.”
Sheldrake’s face gleamed in the candlelight, his eyes bright as he relived the experience.
“Leland’s life was a disappointment to me. I have made better choices since, but Leland – if that was his name – was the first.
“People will believe we are whoever we appear to be. If we can make the appearance convincing enough, we can be anything. I did not know this at first – but as I progressed, I grew more confident, more ambitious, and took on more challenging lives. Until I now find myself close to what I consider to be the apex of my existence – where I feel I am ready, finally, to take a wife and join the nobility.
“The ground has been well-prepared. Lady Julianne stands ready to accept me as her champion and husband. I have moulded the Guardsmen of Sangreston into a disciplined unit which is mine to command. And my actions as enforcer and protector have endeared me to the hearts of the common people, who will gratefully accept me as their lord.
“At tonight’s masquerade ball, I shall affirm my position by proving myself the very personification of sophistication, dignity, and wit!”
Sheldrake strode out grandly. He returned moments later and hurried towards the bed where various garments had been laid out.
“I shall make a better impression, I think, if I do not go naked.”
Chapter Sixty-Five
Julianne laughed nervously. “I feel as though I am about to give my first – and possibly last – performance, without the benefit of a script.”
Doran Jarrett stood back and surveyed his handiwork. The women who had applied the make-up and fitted the dress aside so their director could get an unobstructed view.
“If you require a playwright to put on paper suitable speeches for various moments during the forthcoming proceedings,” Doran said. “I shall be happy to oblige.”
Julianne shook her head. “I believe I will speak more convincingly if the words are my own. With the aid of your preparations here, I should be able to capture the attention of those present: it is then up to me to seize the opportunity and persuade them of my ability. Hopefully the image you have created for me will give me the confidence to do that.”
Doran’s people moved in again, adding the final elements to their creation: tear-drop ear-rings of black jet and a silver locket containing a lock of her husband’s hair.
Doran smiled.
“Well?” Julianne asked.
Doran’s smile broadened. “Stand straighter. Now lift your chin slightly.” He nodded.
“I must see. How does this person that I am to become appear?” Julianne asked.
Doran held the mirror before her.
“Is that truly who I am?”
The woman in the mirror had a most regal countenance. Her dress was simple, almost plain: a close-fitting bodice and a full skirt in velvet the colour of night sky. Her hair had been swept back and taken up. The arc of her eyebrows had been sharpened almost imperceptibly. A pale translucent powder lent her skin an ethereal quality, while carefully brushed shadows accentuated her cheekbones. Her eye make-up tended towards cooler colours, adding to the strong, slightly aloof image they had created for her.
“I could not have wished for a more striking appearance.” Julianne turned her new face left and right.
“You will have them agape and waiting to accept whatever it is you wish to tell them,” Doran said.
Julianne clasped her hands in front of her. “I hope I can convince them that I am capable of governing them. In truth, I am afraid: my stomach is quaking, and my heart pounds such that I imagine all can hear it.”
Doran made the pretence of listening, head on one side, cupping a hand to his ear. “I do not hear it,” he assured her. “The fear you feel is only anticipation: once events begin, the unease will fade and you will, in some detached corner of your mind, marvel at your performance. It is the nature of acting.”
“Is that what this position of authority entails – acting?” Julianne asked.
“To a large extent. To ensure that the populace believe that you are able to lead them, you must first appear confident in your own ability, even though you may not in all reality feel this confidence inside.”
“Mr. Doran, you are a wise and generous man, and I hope that I will be free to turn to you for advice and support in the days ahead.”
“Of course, my lady.” He bowed.
“And I expect to favour your theatre with my patronage in the months to come: I must keep up my social engagements, and encourage the people to help keep alive our artistic traditions. Especially since your opening night parties provide ideal opportunity to meet the most influential members of our business and social community, and to soak up all of their most useful gossip.”
“You are indeed most perceptive, my lady. And perhaps a little devious,” Doran said.
“If I had been a man, I would have no need of such craft.”
“I think you will make a most excellent lord, my lady.”
“Thank you, Doran.” She breathed deeply, then appeared to relax completely. “Time to make my entrance I think.”
People had been invited to fill the main hall of the castle. All had been lured by the promise of a sumptuous spread, wonderful entertainment, and the social advantages to be gained from being seen at such a gathering. Here were minor town officials; retired officers of the Guard and their wives; members of the wealthier families; a few of the town’s more popular figures, Doran among them, and several of the more successful merchants currently in Sangreston. Various degrees of nepotism and bribery had allowed entry to the persons who made up the rest.
Since this was a masquerade, all wore some form of costume. Those of minor standing, who needed to be seen there, wore simple disguises that were easily penetrated, while those whose purses and status permitted it, wore more elaborate costumes. Here were ladies large and small with faces concealed behind cat masks and feathered bird masks; across the room was a man with the head of a bear; by the main stairs stood a group which included a bewhiskered mouse, a fox, and a ghostly figure with skull-face.
In one of the narrower hallways, a small man in suede breeches and shirt was wearing large brown and white furred feet and the head of a dewy-eyed rabbit.
“What a darling costume!” someone remarked.
Beneath the mask, Gosling cursed He lifted it free of his head a moment, wiping sweat from his eyes, and shoving his eyeglasses back up his nose: immediately they slid down again, hanging by one arm from the assassin’s ear. Gosling cursed again. He held the glasses up for a moment and looked about. He spotted a clown standing by a collection of potted bushes, arranged in a corner to give the impression of a small copse. Pocketing his eyeglasses, and replacing his mask, Gosling crept forwards, putting the bushes between himself and his prospective victim.
The unsuspecting clown was pulled through the bushes when no one was looking, and gave a little yelp. Gosling cut the clown’s throat. The assassin lifted the mask and discovered the face of a wrinkled dame – she bore no resemblance to either Anton Leyander nor Edric Edison. Gosling wished Bryn was there to guide his hand. “Beg pardon, ma’am,” he said. “I mistook you for a man. An understandable mistake, you must admit, given that face and lack of cleavage.”
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