Lemprière's Dictionary

by Lawrence Norfolk

  The docks had always been a rough sort of place, always had its own codes and customs, its own running feuds and vendettas. But recently it seemed to Eben that the codes and customs had fallen into abeyance and the feuds and vendettas become more virulent. A new viciousness was afoot. He had seen a man kicked to the ground and left for dead on Butler’s Wharf. There were reports that a customs man had been set alight on the south bank and made to run a gauntlet. Habitual disputes escalated into fisticuffs, fisticuffs into brutal beatings. For the first time in his life he found the port a threatening kind of a place and an important consequence of this change was Captain Roy.

  The amputee was a variously respected figure along the wharves and quays of the port. Protected by rumours of a vast buried treasure, by respect for an unparalleled knowledge of the world’s ports garnered in his younger years at sea and by sympathy for the loss of his legs, Captain Roy had patrolled the docks from before even Eben’s residence there. In the mornings he hawked matches around the city markets. The afternoons and evenings inevitably drew him back to the river. No-one laid a finger on Captain Roy. That was the code. Then, two weeks ago, on the first day of the month, he had come upon a party of mudlarks. They were loading a wherry with cases. Captain Roy had pointedly ignored their thievery and continued along the quay. That too was the code. A few yards past and he had heard quick footsteps. Suddenly he was being lifted up and thrown into the water. The high sides of the ship offered no hand holds. His stumps pumped ineffectually. He was drowning and the mudlarks were leaving him to his fate.

  Apparently a lighter had hauled him aboard, choking and spluttering, shivering with the cold, cursing his assailants. He was dazed with shock. There was no room for doubt, they had tried, quite casually, to kill him. That was not the code.

  Hearing of the incident, Guardian had asked of the Captain’s whereabouts and found him, still shivering, under the short pier beyond Tower Stairs. One glance at Captain Roy had convinced Eben that twenty years of solitary living must come to an end. The Captain was installed at the Crow’s Nest that afternoon. The docks had changed and, indirectly, his own life had changed with them. So far, his guest had proved an agreeable companion. They shared similar enthusiasms and conversed in familiar terms. Roy had resumed his match-selling, Eben his watch on the Vendragon. This evening was to be their first outing together. It was an experiment and also, Eben understood, a token recompense for his hospitality. At Captain Roy’s expense and insistent invitation they were going to see the Stone Eater.

  Two hours, four miles and five shillings later, the two Captains stood in a crowded room in Cockspur Street waiting for Francis Battalia, the Stone Eater, to make his entrance. Captain Roy had caused a minor fracas outside when four heavy-set men led by a smaller, colourless fellow had walked directly to the front of the queue and entered without paying. Why should he pay when they had not? It was explained that they had not gained admittance and indeed, looking about the room, Eben could see no sign of them. A flight of stairs ran up to the floor above. The crowd were young men and women, mostly of the poorer sort. A head of pretty red ringlets caught his eye, two youths with her, he looked again, then once more. It seemed an unlikely place to find him, to find himself for that matter. The red head said something and they both turned to her. The spectacles, the daft coat, he was right. He waved across the audience and called. ‘Young Lemprière!’ The young man was looking around. He gestured again. ‘Join us,’ he called across. Eben watched as the three of them edged through the crowd toward him.

  ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance, Lydia.’ Eben shook the proffered hand.

  ‘And Mister Septimus Praeceps.’ Lemprière concluded his introductions. Eben introduced Captain Roy to all three and appraised the young man introduced as “Septimus”.

  ‘Have we met?’ he asked frankly. The face was familiar. Distant, but remembered.

  ‘The De Veres’, this Christmas last,’ Septimus said.

  ‘Of course, yes….’ But the memory was from somewhere else, and long before last Christmas. He groped for it.

  ‘What news from the Vendragon?’ Lemprière was asking and Guardian wanted to tell him about the new wind blowing along the quays, about Captain Roy and his own hanging fears but what he said was, ‘A few lights below decks, little else. She is loaded and ready to sail. What did you find at Coade’s?’ Lemprière wanted to tell him an even stranger tale then, confide a more pervasive suspicion.

  ‘Nothing to advance my understanding of the Vendragon’s purpose.’

  ‘Statues,’ said Captain Roy. ‘That’s what she’s hiding.’

  ‘He knows that,’ Eben said.

  Attendants at the rear of the room were turning down the oil lamps. Eben’s eyes were drawn to Septimus’ face once again.

  ‘Saint Helier!’ he exclaimed suddenly. ‘We met on Jersey.’

  ‘Jersey?’ Lemprière looked from Eben to Septimus.

  ‘I think not,’ said Septimus.

  ‘Never forget a face,’ said Eben.

  ‘Impossible,’ said Septimus. ‘I have never set a foot on Jersey.’

  ‘Sssh!’ hissed a young woman in front of them.

  ‘It is quite dark in here,’ said Lemprière by way of a compromise.

  The crowd shifted, then parted to allow a short stout man through to the low stage at the front. He turned an ugly, intelligent face towards the crowd.

  ‘I am Francis Battalia,’ he announced, ‘commonly called “The Stone Eater”. My first performance tonight is the Gravel Plume.’ With this, he scooped up a handful of gravel, filled his mouth and tipped back his head. His cheeks twitched, then contracted and the gravel shot up in a sheer column, hung there then down, back into his mouth. Instantly, the act was repeated. The gravel shot up once more, the column a little thinner this time. Lemprière watched as the Stone Eater’s throat constricted, wrestling the gritty particles down towards his stomach. The gravel plume thinned further as more and more was swallowed, rose and fell until only a single tiny nugget was left, held between his teeth. He blew, the particle flew up, struck the wooden ceiling and rebounded downwards to be instantly swallowed. A moment’s silence, then the whole room burst into loud applause.

  ‘Thank you,’ said the Stone Eater. ‘Now, for the Pebble Cannonade, I must don my hat….’

  Eben enjoyed the performance more than he had anticipated. Only Septimus distracted him. Glancing across at the young man only confirmed his first thought. They had met on Jersey, he was sure of it. If only he could recall the circumstances, or even the year. Never forgetting a face seemed to mean remembering little else.

  ‘For my next performance I must beg my audience for sustenance,’ the Stone Eater was saying.

  ‘Go on,’ Lydia nudged Lemprière.

  ‘You brought the damn thing especially,’ Septimus chipped in. Reluctantly, Lemprière drew a cream-coloured stone from his pocket.

  ‘For the Big Rock Swallow, I beg of you a rock,’ the Stone Eater went on. The same face, thought Eben.

  ‘Sssh!’ the young woman admonished Lemprière, who was suddenly reluctant to offer up his stone, protesting as Septimus pushed him forward.

  ‘Sssh yourself!’ Captain Roy hissed up at the woman. A small burst of applause greeted Lemprière’s hesitant arrival at the front of the stage. He advanced, holding his rock.

  ‘Ugly little man,’ the woman remarked to her consort who looked at his shoes, only to find Captain Roy there.

  ‘Thank you,’ said the Stone Eater, taking the Coade fragment from Lemprière. He handled the rock, then frowned. There was something odd about it. Francis Battalia tipped back his head, carefully fitted the rock into his mouth and began working his throat. Slowly, inch by inch, the rock descended. When only the tip was visible he was suddenly seized with panic. Something about this particular rock was deeply disturbing. Then, three things happened very quickly. Sir John Fielding appeared at the back of the gathering and told everyone to remain where they were, Captain Roy bit
the complaining woman on the leg and Francis Battalia swallowed the stone which would bring his career to a premature and undeserved end. Thereafter matters grew confused.

  The woman shrieked and lashed out. A posse of officers rushed into the room and up the stairs. Lydia fell back against the wall. An oil lamp crashed to the floor. Septimus jumped away from the flames. Captain Roy bit the woman again. The four queue-jumpers ran down the stairs pursued by Sir John’s officers. Septimus shrank back against the wall. The woman tried to kick Captain Roy. Lemprière pulled Lydia away from the smashed oil lamp. The oil extended a tongue of flame across the floorboards. Sir John’s officers jumped on the four queue-jumpers. The spectators did not remain where they were. Captain Guardian saw Lemprière stare intently at the colourless little man who had accompanied the queue-jumpers. Sir John Fielding did not see the little man signal to Lemprière. Septimus seemed to be glued to the wall. The constables busy hitting the queue-jumpers did not see the little man walk casually out the door. Captain Roy bit Lydia by mistake. Lydia hit the complaining woman by design. Francis Battalia swallowed hard and asked for calm. The constables dragged the four men away. Sir John Fielding thanked all concerned for their cooperation and everyone gave Sir John a round of applause.

  ‘Septimus?’ Lemprière stepped over the dying oil lamp flames and shook his friend by the shoulder. Septimus did not reply. He was pressed back tight against the wall, his eyes screwed shut. His face was drained of colour.

  ‘Leave him,’ Lydia’s voice came from behind him. She was busily stamping out the last of the flames. When they were extinguished she took hold of his shoulders and pulled him forward.

  ‘He is not hurt,’ she said as she led him towards the door, his eyes still closed. ‘It’s the flames,’ she said by way of explanation. ‘Don’t worry I have seen it before.’ Lemprière realised he was being dismissed. He rejoined the two captains.

  ‘Haven’t seen a fright like that since my whaling days,’ said Captain Roy. Captain Guardian nodded.

  ‘Fire,’ said Lemprière. ‘He has a great fear of the flames.’ He had not realised before. Guardian nodded once more.

  ‘I was wrong about him,’ he said. ‘Yet he is the very image of the man I met on Saint Helier.’ The circumstances of the meeting had come back to him. A drinking bout.

  ‘It was twenty years ago, at least.’

  ‘Image of the man?’ Lemprière asked. ‘How?’

  ‘He resembles the man I remember exactly, but your Septimus would have been an infant, either that or he has not aged in two decades.’

  ‘I feel certain he would have mentioned such a visit,’ he told the Captain, ‘had it taken place.’

  The three of them stood there, part of a crowd unsure whether to stay or go. Judicial footsteps thudded through the floor above their heads.

  ‘They should have paid like everyone else, I suppose,’ Lemprière said, thinking of the queue-jumpers. Safely in custody now. Eben looked sideways at him. He was thinking of the little colourless man, the slight gesture of recognition he had made to Lemprière as he coolly made his escape. Was the lad part of that mob? Hard to credit really, but still….

  ‘They weren’t nabbed for that, oh dear,’ Captain Roy scoffed at Lemprière. ‘They weren’t in the audience at all.’

  ‘Then what? Who were they?’ But even as he spoke, Lemprière was remembering the little lieutenant outside the inn the day he had spoken with the Widow, the same man, Stoltz. So the four men dragged away this evening….

  Eben told him. ‘They were Farina’s men,’ he said.

  ‘Five pallets, five chairs, a table, a map of the city, five half-empty glasses, five plates, five half-eaten meals….’

  ‘How many men Sergeant?’ Sir John interrupted the inventory.

  ‘Four, Sir John.’

  ‘Once more.’

  ‘Four, Sir John.’

  ‘Thank you Sergeant.’

  Stoltz had escaped in the confusion, or arrived back in the middle of it, or had never been there in the first place…. No, the information had been good.

  ‘Charge them with conspiracy, affray, anything.’ He dismissed the sergeant wearily. Cells were springing up all around the city, but Stoltz would have been a catch. Farina’s right-hand man, his eminence grise, the administrator and paymaster of his rabble. Stoltz might even have led him to Farina, who was a phantom. His raids always came too late, his quarry was always forewarned and left him warm sheets, swinging doors, smoking candles, tight-lipped servants who “Never saw nothing”. Tonight, once more, he had struck at the man and missed. Farina was still at large, working himself into the seams of the city, feeding on its discontents, growing stronger and stronger.

  In return, the city fed him well. There were crimes looking for motives and, parasite to host, Farina would give them that. The case against Clary would collapse within days. Sir John knew him for an arsonist, the Sun-Fire office knew him too, but neither of them knew the why of the matter. Garrow and Leech were the same. The prisons were filled with deserters, luckless conscripts who had fired the Savoy Prison the week before. A turnkey was siezed as hostage and nearly set alight. The incendiaries were locked up in the Tilt-yard now, but public sympathy was with them. On the south side of the river a customs officer had been set alight, then made to run the length of a jetty. A man, still unidentified, had been stabbed to death in broad daylight alighting from the Dover coach. Sir John had found out he had sailed from Cherbourg the day before, but knew no more. His trunk was filled with papers and the papers were filled with figures, but none of his belongings were named. Even his Bible had its flyleaf cut out.

  That was the nub of it. Nothing explicitly named. All these troublesome events were portentous in some way, weighted with something that he could not grasp and, he suspected, Farina could. The Lottery Suicides were still rising, what did that mean? A Mister Wyatt had invented a moveable hospital. It was erected on the terrace at Somerset Place, a clever affair with windows and ventilation ports. Once dismantled, it fitted onto two wagons. Clever, but it unsettled Sir John. A hospital should be fixed in place, a stable point like the Examiner’s Office or the court, like Parliament, the palace or the prison. Things which stayed in place when everything else was adrift. Henry would have grasped it, and would have known what to do. He, however, seemed to fall behind as the pace of events grew faster and faster. He was going backwards. His guide-boy was regressing in sympathy; he had had to resume use of the string. Only his investigations into the strange murders (figuring now, in his private thoughts as “The Ritual Murders”) gave him any encouragement, and even here his progress was fumbling. The woman, Karin, when fed and returned to the Examining Office, had sat before him as he questioned her gently and persistently, leaving some areas alone, returning to others several times until every corner was swept out and the results lay sifted in an orderly pile before him.

  She had last seen the latest victim five months before at a tavern called the Craven Arms which Sir John knew of old. Rosalie had disappeared that night and her whereabouts between then and the night of her death were still a mystery. A visit to the establishment and a number of discreet questions there had told him nothing about this missing time. A club met there on a regular basis, pigs, pork, something of the sort. Drinking games occupied most of their efforts, marshalled it seemed under the aegis of the tavern’s proprietress, an incredibly ancient woman whom Sir John remembered as very old from twenty years before. Her husband was an invalid. She endorsed her patrons as good boys, on the whole. They could be foul, but in essence they were young men intent only on their cups and their tarts. The intricacies of the Game of Cups were explained to Sir John by the crone; how it was played, how won.

  ‘Rosalie was the prize that night,’ the crone told him.

  ‘Prize?’

  ‘The winner would take her for the night, if capable.’

  ‘And who was the winner, that night?’ Sir John asked slowly.

  ‘Oh dear me, a newcom
er for certain, never seen him before and only once since. The name though, let me see, he was back here a month or so ago, a Frenchman I believe….’ A maid walked through the kitchen carrying a dead goose.

  ‘Jemmy!’ the crone called over. ‘Who was that lad won the Game of Cups, the newcomer, had a French name?’Jemmy thought for a moment.

  ‘Pierre,’ she said. ‘Skinny-looking sort. They called him, let me think, was it Long Pierre?’

  ‘That was it,’ the crone said uncertainly. ‘Long Pierre.’ Sir John turned his head slowly towards the crone. A faint smile spread itself across his features.

  ‘Lemprière,’ he pronounced carefully.

  ‘Yes,’ said the crone with sudden strong conviction, ‘that was his name. Lemprière.’

  Not half a mile away and oblivious to this invocation, its subject sat cocooned in his thoughts. Through a mild April broken only by his visit to the Stone Eater and a snow squall on the fifth, Lemprière patrolled the kingdoms of his dictionary.

  Like a future-ghost, he moved among the Isauri and war-like Lacedaemonians, the Lestrygones who ate sailors washed up on their shores and the Mandurians who ate dogs. In Latium he pushed through thick-leaved laurels over ground where Rome would later rise and teem with painted courtesans stalking through the Suburra, stalls crammed together in the Tabernae Novae and prisoners wailing up from the subterranean levels of the Tullianum. Over the tracts of Mesopotamia, Pannonia and Samartia, he traced lines which were borders, marked points which grew into cities. He saw villages which would later rival Rome and Babylon: Lutetia, Olisipio and Londinium, and stranger places which would sink into the earth leaving only disbelieved stories: Ophiodes, the topaz island, so dazzling it appeared only at night, the labyrinths at Lemnus, Crete and Assinoe where the sacred crocodiles lay embalmed hidden deep within one of three thousand chambers; Samothrace, where mysteries began their lives before sucking in the thoughts of men. He searched through Trapezus on the Euxine coast and out to sea where, on triangular Leuce, in a different version of the tale, Achilles took Iphigenia as his bride. But she was not there. From the enclosed Palus Mæotis through the Cimmerian and Thracian Bospori to the Mediterraneum, north to Liburnia, south over the Syrtes sandbanks to Melita and Utica where the Carthaginians fled when the siege was lost and the city burned. Along the rocky shores of Seriphus, Danae’s landfall, over the fertile hills of Naxos where Ariadne cried for Theseus and inland to the Scamander, called Xanthus by the goddesses who bathed there before the fatal judgment of Paris; Minerva, Juno, Venus. He searched for them all.