The Raven's Seal

by Andrei Baltakmens

  “Say,” spoke Quillby, leaning close to his friend’s ear. “Is that not the fine girl you pointed out to me before?”

  Grainger had been meditating on the fire. He roused himself and stretched around. “Where?”

  “There. Do you not see?”

  Grainger saw the girl pass through a cluster of coarse men. He saw her pause for a pot-boy to scurry by; saw her get in among Massingham’s party, who still kept their carouse; saw a hand fall upon her hip, the girl call out and slap at the same hand, and trip in the press and confusion towards the man who had trapped her.

  Grainger rose and took three quick strides.

  “Massingham!”

  The girl had already recovered herself, but Massingham had one fist bunched up in her top-skirts, and he held it there still.

  “Why, Mr. Grainger? She’s a pretty enough wench, but I don’t see why you should have any precedence here,” drawled Massingham, with a lazy backward tilt of his head.

  “I know her to be an honest girl, and you will treat her like a lady.”

  The girl hissed and raked her strong hand across Massingham’s where he grasped her. He cursed and released her skirts. “A lady, in truth!” laughed Massingham.

  As Cassie pushed away from the man who had captured her, batting at two or three others who pawed at her at the same time, Grainger pressed forward. “You will regard her as you would any lady, if you know how.”

  “Do you insinuate some deficiency in my conduct?”

  “I insinuate nothing. I state the case as a gentleman would understand it.”

  The fiddlers had got themselves in some confusion and broken off. The rain did not relent, nor the hubbub of the crowded room, but at the table a cool silence had fallen.

  “As a gentleman,” said Massingham, “and for the honour of a gentleman, I demand satisfaction for that remark.”

  “Granted, granted heartily,” said Grainger, with a strange, fierce smile.

  “Then you will retract?”

  “Not in the least.”

  “Sir,” began Cassie, “it ain’t worth it to start—”

  “No,” said Grainger, not unkindly but without looking at her. “It will suffice.”

  “Harton!” called Massingham, but Harton was nodding in his cups, and when one of the brightly coloured women nudged him, he made only a bleary reply.

  “Dead drunk!” she announced with a titter.

  “Very well then. Kempe.”

  Mr. Kempe had seen it all pass.

  “Kempe will attend to it,” said Massingham. “He’ll do.”

  “He may speak to Mr. Quillby,” said Grainger. “He will answer for me.”

  “Thaddeus,” said Quillby, who had drawn to his friend’s side by this time, “perhaps you should consider—”

  “No,” said Grainger clearly. “I am decided.”

  “We had best go,” said Quillby, in a low voice. He bowed slightly to Kempe, who seemed yet undecided as how to react. “I am at your service, sir.”

  Grainger roused himself and looked around. The girl was gone.

  IN A MOMENT, Grainger was outside, under the old sign of The Saracen’s Shield, leaving Quillby to make haste, write out his address for Kempe, and drop a few coins in the landlord’s hand. The girl was already walking steadily along the lane, and Grainger ran to set himself before her.

  “Hold,” he said, seemingly half to himself, “hold a moment.”

  The girl would not look at him, but stared past him into the rain. She had clear grey eyes, he noted, and her face was set in concentration, determination, and something of anger. “I thank you, sir,” she began, “but you hazard far too much on my account.”

  He did not correct her, but said, “That gentlemen and I have been at odds for some time.”

  She looked full upon him. “But I am an honest girl! I would not be in such a place if not at great need.”

  “I believe that to be so,” he said. “With all my heart.”

  She moved away from him, into the shadow of a shop door, as the wind swept whirling up the street, bringing up the scent of the river. There was a wildness in her glance. “I must go on. He’s not here!”

  “What is your name?” he urged.

  “Redruth. Cassie Redruth.”

  “Thaddeus Grainger, at your service.”

  He would have made his usual gallant, negligent bow, but the girl stepped forward and took his hand, and he was surprised by her strength and fervour.

  “I thank you, sir. But I am not worth it.”

  “I think you are,” said he.

  Quillby had got himself out of the Saracen, for he had been presented with a great deal of advice on the matter of duelling and the due part of the seconds in the last few moments. He was calling Grainger’s name.

  “Come inside,” said Grainger to the girl. “Surely you cannot mean to continue tonight!”

  “But I must,” she said, distracted. “I must find Toby.”

  She dropped his hand and stepped away from him. Quillby was labouring up the street. Grainger turned but his head, and in that instant the girl had slipped away, turned the corner into Haldstock Narrows, and was gone from him.

  “Thaddeus,” said Quillby, quite hoarse, “you chance a great deal for this simple girl. Consider your position.”

  “I believe she thinks I am perfectly sincere,” said Grainger. He was looking the way she had passed.

  “Then the more fool she,” concluded Quillby ruefully.

  CHAPTER III.

  A Play of Blades.

  NO MORE THAN A MILE from Airenchester, the wreck of an old abbey slumped on a prominence in a bend of the River Pentlow. Hemthorne Abbey grew bleak in winter: cold, filled with shadows. A crumbling gatehouse led into a courtyard, in which most of the flagstones were upturned and broken by the prying grass, surrounded by a cloister where the monks once paced and measured the hours and turned their thoughts from the traps and deceptions of this world. It became a strange, secretive place, shortly before morning, while the sky was heavy and dim, and clouds massed on the horizon. An apt place for a particular purpose, and so some few steps would turn here before dawn.

  AT MR. GRAINGER’S house in town, Grainger and his friend, Mr. Quillby, broke their fast in the dark hours of the morning. Grainger set to with an appetite, but Quillby restricted himself to a cup of coffee and a small roll, and the greater part of his energies were set to tearing the roll into smaller and smaller portions, rather than eating it.

  Under a side-table lay a long leather case, wrapped, for the sake of concealment, in an old cloak. Quillby could not but glance at it, as his little bit of bread made a dry paste in his mouth, and each time Mrs. Myron came into the room, to place a plate or refresh a cup, his attention was drawn there against his will.

  “You are pretty cool about it,” he remarked, when Mrs. Myron had left again.

  “Is that censure or praise?” asked the other.

  “Neither. A mere observation.”

  Grainger paused, looked along the table and down at his plate. “I am ravenous this morning,” he admitted. “I can only say I anticipate the work of a moment. There will be a pass, a cut, and then for one side or the other it will be over, and honour is satisfied.”

  “I cannot see why you set your honour on this unknown girl,” said Quillby, with a mix of nerves and exasperation.

  Grainger, turning his fork in the air, replied, “She is quite peripheral to this. Mr. Massingham and I have been at odds for much longer: this is merely the seal on our enmity, and to say true, my dear William—” he smiled, strangely pensive, “I am so confined, so bound by manners and good sense and station and idleness, that a simple challenge, a plain, honest decision, is exhilarating to me.”

  Quillby contemplated this, taking a final mouthful of cold coffee, but it did not lessen his confusion or apprehension. He glanced at the French clock on the mantle and compared it to his own pocket-watch. “Perhaps we had best start.”

  “With
good heart, William. With good heart.”

  Mrs. Myron watched the two gentlemen as they stepped into the street. The master kept a horse in a stables at the end of a nearby lane, and they would ride to Hemthorne Abbey. The morning was dark and the air bitter. Quillby shifted his burden under the cloak. This was by no means hidden to the eye of Mrs. Myron. That good old lady whispered a blessing and let the curtain fall.

  IN HIS CHAMBERS in one of the better neighbourhoods in Haught, Mr. Massingham entertained at his leisure, though his party was in somewhat greater disarray. Bottles clustered on the table, and one or two rolled under the table—drained dry.

  Massingham reclined on the chaise-longue, wrapped in his dressing-robe, while he waited to be shaved. He had a glass in hand, almost empty, and from moment to moment he tapped it, as if listening for the tone or the tolling of a bell. Mr. Harton, wearing a smallsword, practiced steps on the floor, and modeled his prime and quatre with satisfaction. Young Mr. Palliser lolled at the table looking disconsolate, and occasionally rested his head wearily on his arms. In the corner, unnoticed, Mr. Kempe marked the time, and paused to reread a scrap of a letter he had in hand. The boy came with soap and hot water.

  “Stop capering, you oaf!” snapped Massingham. “You are not engaged today.”

  “I would that I were,” replied Harton, tracing a shaky line. “I could show a trick or two.”

  The boy unfolded warm towels for Massingham’s neck and sharpened the razor.

  “Why so glum?” demanded Massingham of the room in general. “Have no doubt: I shall satisfy my honour as becomes a gentleman.”

  “No doubt. No doubt,” opined Harton.

  Palliser roused himself. “But it is such a wretched, risky thing. If you were not here, I think my affairs would be hopeless indeed.”

  Harton smothered a guffaw, but Massingham saw him nonetheless and was not pleased. He was soaped up and shrouded in towels, and the boy, whose hands were quick and fine, scraped one cheek clean.

  “You are hopeless, in any case,” observed Massingham. “But have no fear. I will undertake to assist you until Kingdom Come if need be. What do you say, Kempe?”

  Kempe had folded away his letter, risen, and stood before the long window. Only a little grey light outside showed how the morning progressed.

  “It is snowing,” said Kempe.

  THE SNOW CAME to Hemthorne Abbey. A light shower blew in from the north, and as the sunlight strengthened, it touched those sharp flecks of ice with flashes of brilliance. The snow fell on the crooked old flagstones and dusted them finely; it gathered in the corners of the empty windows, and shored up on the windward side of the broken columns.

  The snow faltered as two men on horseback rode up. Quillby and Grainger dismounted and left their horses in the shelter of a single wall. They looked about, but the place stood empty. And then they passed quickly beneath the arch.

  After a while, a carriage rolled along the familiar route of summer pleasure-seekers. It stopped some distance away. Massingham and Harton were riding, and Kempe sat in the carriage with the surgeon, though, at the last, Palliser had refused to attend, for his nerves would not accommodate it. The masses of cloud in the north unravelled. Harton instructed the driver, and then the four made their way to the ruined abbey, and they too passed beneath the arch.

  GRAINGER AND HIS friend walked up and down the cloister, stepping over weeds and fallen stones, as they endeavoured to keep warm. In his agitation, Quillby huffed and blew little puffs of air, which hung in cloudy threads before him. Grainger had his arms folded and occasionally beat them at his side, though he had made fists of his hands and could not seem to unclench them. Whatever his thoughts, they tumbled untouched through his mind. So the apprehension of a fatal hour may strike very lightly, when there is yet only the doing to contemplate and not the effect.

  Therefore, they were not inclined to speak, until Grainger remarked, “They come pretty tardily upon the hour.”

  “Perhaps they will withdraw and not come at all,” suggested Quillby in a bright, forced way.

  The sound of footsteps and rough voices echoing in the passage destroyed this happy speculation. “No. Here they are.”

  “You are late, sir!” called Grainger, as Massingham appeared. “Perhaps you are reluctant.”

  “Quite the contrary,” drawled Massingham. “Kempe delayed us intolerably haggling with the surgeon.”

  The surgeon was a grave, tall gentleman, wrapped up in a great muffler against the cold, and so revealing only a pair of resigned eyes, who bowed slightly to Grainger and Quillby as he would to all potential patients. He had with him a large black bag, the function or contents of which he had no need to refer to.

  Kempe came quickly to where Quillby and Grainger stood. His lips moved nervously, and he cast glances back to his associates. He bowed deeply before Quillby: “Your servant, sir.”

  “And yours.”

  “I suppose there is no chance—that is: if a full and frank apology were rendered immediately, for the assault on Mr. Massingham’s honour…”

  “I mean no assault on the gentleman’s honour,” said Grainger dryly.

  Kempe paused, pursed his lips, and then asked, “Do you mean to withdraw?”

  “I simply observe that Mr. Massingham forgets his station, abuses a lady he has no right to approach, and disregards the duties of a gentleman,” concluded Grainger.

  “I take it that this is your final word.”

  “Thaddeus,” hissed Quillby. “If you choose to persist, the entire consequence of this will be yours.”

  “Aye? And what could I do elsewise, in this position?”

  Grainger addressed Kempe directly. “You are correct, sir. It is my final word.”

  Kempe vented a long, slow breath; there was some reproach, or even self-doubt, in his reply. “Then I am truly sorry for this.”

  “Come, let us measure the blades,” said Quillby.

  Kempe assented, and the two withdrew. The bundled swords were unrolled, and the blades nicely compared. Quillby placed two over his forearm and presented the hilts to Grainger. Grainger selected a rapier with a French guard. The length of grey steel came heavy and cold to the hand. The blade was almost triangular when followed to the point, which was cruelly sharp. Grainger hefted the weapon and ran his eye along the line. “It will suffice.”

  Sufficient also was the sword Massingham took. He swung at a clot of snow. It was agreed that both would remove their greatcoats or cloaks, hats, and coats. Massingham folded his embroidered waistcoat and downed a measure of brandy from a flask Harton presented him. Grainger looked wistfully at Quillby, who merely frowned. Time to begin. Beyond the hill, a rustic church bell tolled the hour.

  Gravely, they went to their places. The clear ground was white with new snow. The clouds broke, and the sun shone brilliantly among the channels of clear sky and struck through the tumbled windows in the old abbey wall to throw shafts of light here and there and illuminate patches of carved rubble and snow. The wind caught up little handfuls of flakes and fluttered them about. Thus, an observer may have seen Grainger and Massingham stand so, with the sun to one hand. Quillby and Kempe were stationed between to judge the bout. Kempe raised his own sword at an angle between them.

  “Gentlemen, are you ready?”

  Massingham nodded, impatient. “Come then, let us see what an ill remark breeds.”

  “You are hasty,” observed Grainger, “to set down lessons without comprehending the moral.”

  “And you are ever free with your tongue.”

  “Gentlemen! Are you ready?”

  “I am,” granted Grainger.

  “Then on your guard.”

  The blades crossed: steel scraped on steel.

  “Begin.”

  There came a ring as the swords touched. A beat. Grainger lunged, the blade leaping in his hand. A tear was heard across the stillness of the courtyard.

  “A hit!” cried Grainger. “A hit!”

  The comb
at halted. The surgeon indicated faint interested, but did not move. Kempe, alone, scampered to Massingham’s side. He plucked at his arm, but there was only a rip in the cloth of the shirt-sleeve: no blood and no wound.

  Massingham shook his arm, whipped the air with his blade. “Continue.”

  “Let us resume,” said Quillby faintly.

  Grainger raised his rapier again.

  They set to, in terrible earnest. There was a pass, a thrust and half-lunge, a parry. Grainger gave way. Massingham jabbed towards the high line. Grainger was forced to retreat, deflecting the flurry of blows from his face. They shuffled across the courtyard, and their steps fell muffled in the snow.

  The two men, knees bent, scuffled back towards the shadow of the arch. The one, feinted and weaved arcs with his sword before the shoulder; the other, grunting in fury, slashed at the guard. Grainger stepped back and out of the line, narrowly deflecting a long thrust, and referred his riposte to the low-line. Massingham halted, scrambled to recover, and took three rapid half-steps backwards.

  They paused, and their breaths, heavy and ragged, misted in the frozen air. Grainger let the point of his sword fall, and it traced a line in the snow as the two men made their way back to the centre.

  They resumed in silence, with aching wrists and raw throats. Grainger feinted once, twice, but the rapier drooped, dull in his hand, and the blades skittered and clashed. Massingham charged like a bull, attempting to bind the blade, and was thrown off by main strength.

  They circled each other in barred sunlight and the snow-blown courtyard.

  Massingham came on again, after drawing one deep breath. He lunged and was fended off, swung at the head and twisted towards the wrist. Grainger took this blow on the guard, hastening back to get room for another pass, and found Massingham pressing him to retreat again.

  Grainger lunged with a small, quick step, and the heel of his boot struck a broken stone hidden by the snow and ice. He slipped and tumbled back with a shout of dismay. In his fury, Massingham did not hesitate. He raised his hilt and struck. Grainger caught himself against the ground and parried with a clumsy stroke. He dashed the point away from his heart, and it was driven into his thigh as he sprawled on the cold stones.