The Raven's Seal

by Andrei Baltakmens

  They walked on, and in that hour even the prison clamour seemed somewhat stilled.

  “The thing is,” she said, “to go forward. You have been ’peached against, that’s plain.”

  “I must confess, I hear that word often, and have not the slightest notion what it means.”

  “Don’t be green! Impeached. Sworn against. And falsely sworn, for all that.”

  “You are right. I am certain that man, Thurber, was lying or suborned.”

  “Aye, but by who? That’s what you have to bring out.”

  “William has said as much. The testimony against me was bought. I have determined enemies.”

  “And has it not occurred to you, that while you are here a guilty thing, a murderer red-handed walks free?”

  “You are right. We have cause to resist this.” He stopped and turned to her, and then his nerve failed. “But I am in the confines of the gaol. I have not the means to discover these things.”

  “You are a natural!” she exclaimed. “See you that all the cutthroats, low-folk, and villains of Airenchester will sooner or later step through the gates of the Bells?”

  “True,” he said. “But I must confess, I have not stirred from my cell but once these three days, and when I did I met a ruffian who I am certain was prepared to murder me for the buttons on my coat.”

  To his utter astonishment, she laughed aloud. “You are a fine gent! You would fence with cold steel and risk murder and mayhem to protect your name and honour, and yet scruple to tangle with a low brute for your very life and freedom!”

  “You are right,” he said, shamefaced. “I daresay it is absurd.”

  “The thing is, to never yield. They are all bullies and brutes, I know. But they will topple like nine-pins if you stand up to them.”

  He drew a deep breath. “You are right. We will face this out.”

  She drew her shawl closer about. “You were good to me that time. I don’t forget. And I don’t forget that my word was taken for nothing and torn to bits and trampled down. We will make them swallow the truth instead.”

  “It is that man Thurber,” said Grainger. “I have had time to think on it. He must have been forced to lie in the witness box. It weighed very heavily against me. It is material. Therefore, we must get the truth out of him.”

  “Aye, leave that to me.”

  “You misunderstand me. I do not say that it is work for you. You would place yourself in unknown, perhaps intolerable dangers.”

  “But I could get that much nearer to the likes of him than anybody else. Don’t think on that. I am a grenadier’s daughter, and I will not shirk.”

  “Nevertheless,” he said gravely, “I beg you: no risks.”

  “I will be all care and caution. I know a way to bring him out.”

  The yard bell was ringing. The last light of day had failed, and the call went out for the locking of the gates.

  “You must go,” said Grainger. “You cannot be caught in here.”

  “I will come again, soon,” she said.

  “Is that wise?”

  “Listen to you! They will think I am your doxy and make nothing more of it.”

  Before he could reply to this astonishing conclusion, she had slipped away from him. She gathered her skirts and quickly climbed the slick, steep stairs at the end of the passage, while Grainger watched her disappearing heels, bemused. Then he returned, wearily, but with a straighter back and clearer eye, to his watchful cell.

  IT WAS THE later hour of the day in the tap-room, but among the smoke and confusion and braying voices, there was little to tell what may have changed. In one of the doorways, the same three men were throwing dice in a state of ferocity and inebriation. Swinge was at the tap and scowling at his flock.

  Thaddeus Grainger crossed the yard with every sign of caution, and yet a certain tension and watchfulness in his bearing. He nodded coolly to Mr. Tyre, outside, and that gentleman returned his gesture carefully.

  Grainger was recognised at once, and a whistle and a mocking cry went up: “Silver-buttons! Hey, Silver-buttons, come back?”

  The first of the men, he with the broken teeth and sour grin (Noyes, or Noyesy to his friends) rose to his feet.

  “Well, Silver-buttons, come back to see yer old mates? And now I ’spect you wants to go in and partake of the company.”

  “Indeed,” said Grainger. His voice was not steady, but he smiled most pleasantly. “If you would be so kind as to let me pass.”

  “Well,” said Noyes, with a glance at his lounging friends, “I would, but you know my fee, Silver-buttons.”

  “And I say that you may take your fee and your silver buttons all together, and go directly to the devil with them,” said Grainger, without the slightest change in composure.

  It was not the expected response, and the man so addressed scowled and bunched his fists. “That ain’t a friendly reply.”

  “It’s all you’ll get.” Grainger stepped forward. “I mean to pass.”

  With a bellow, Noyes shuffled forward, swinging his fists. Grainger stepped backwards, but days of tension and sleepless nights had dulled his responses, and he was struck at the side of the head by a flailing fist, a blow that left his ear burning and his head dazed.

  Absurd memories of schoolboy fisticuffs occurred to Grainger, but stronger than this was his loathing of Noyes’s leering mouth and broken teeth, and he drove his fist into the man’s mouth, splitting his lips on those fetid teeth.

  Noyes bellowed again in black rage, and his companions had gained their feet. Grainger was struck a blow to the chin, not knowing where it came from, and one tried to grapple him from behind. Grainger lashed out with an arm and an elbow, and was pleased to strike something, but then he was kicked heavily in the ribs and found himself staggering and falling to the side.

  The shout had gone up at the start of the fight, and it was answered now by a roar from Swinge, who burst through the tap-room doors, laying left and right about him with a knotted stick, in as great a fury as a dragon of the Abyss called from its rest.

  “Hold off, damn you! Hold off, I say!”

  Grainger weathered a glancing blow on the shoulder. Swinge had Noyes by the collar of his coat and was shaking him.

  “Leave off,” growled the gaoler. “I will not have my paying gents abused!”

  “Ain’t nothing in it,” said Noyes (between shakes). “We was only being lively.”

  Swinge fixed a baleful eye upon Grainger, as he drew himself up from the ground. “Chumming up, is that it?” demanded the gaoler. “Have you something to say against these cullies?”

  Grainger touched a hand to his mouth. When he brought it away, there was blood on his thumb. And yet Noyes stood no better, for he was bleeding from the lips and the gums, and his sagging, haggard mouth was a red ruin.

  “It is a curious form of fellowship,” said Grainger. “But the business between these fellows and myself is now concluded.”

  “Gah!” With an exclamation of disgust, Swinge pushed Noyes away.

  When Grainger stepped back, Mr. Tyre was at his side.

  “That was well done,” said Mr. Tyre, in his dry way, “but it would be wise to walk on. Noyes is a brute. He will be put to the lash for his crimes, on the morrow.”

  With a hesitant gait, Grainger entered the tap-room. The rest had returned to their own diversions. The clerical gentleman he had observed that morning, walking beneath the arches, was reading from a small black book beside a candle of his own at an empty table, as calm as a baronet in his own library. Grainger dabbed at the corner of his mouth with a handkerchief. The wild, vengeful strength of a few moments before had abandoned him. Mr. Tyre sat on the edge of a bench, and began filling a minute pipe with the slenderest quantity of tobacco.

  “You are learning the ways of our little society,” remarked Mr. Tyre.

  “I admit: I am rather a slow study,” said Grainger, “but a very determined pupil.”

  ON THE NEXT morning, the broad yard of the Bel
ls was shivering cold and grimy grey. Grainger went abroad, and his cheeks were flushed and clean-shaven, though the bruise on his chin showed forth blackly.

  A procession crossed the yard with slow steps. Four strong men carried a pallet, and on it a form wrapped in pale rags. A prisoner had discovered the one infallible way through the prison gate and would not answer a further summons.

  Edgar, the gaoler’s son, oversaw this exit with a grave demeanour and an icy, devout eye.

  “Who is that?” asked Grainger.

  “His name is Barnes. You should know him. A pilferer who came in with you.”

  “No. No, I do not recall him. What has happened?”

  “Took in the night. Was not up to it, I suppose.”

  The great lock undone, the gate opened for this burden to be removed. For a moment, the clear air of the street and the hill, the line of roofs and the sky, was visible. The four men passed through. Swiftly, the gate closed; the key turned in the lock.

  CHAPTER VIII.

  Introductions and Reports.

  THERE WAS, in the neighbourhood of Steergate, a dingy, cheerful little tavern called The Dog and Drover, though it had sheltered no honest drover for sixty years, and the only dogs it entertained snapped and scuffled about the kitchen scraps at the back. It remained a musty, crowded place, frequented mainly by servants and small shopkeepers.

  On this raw night, The Dog and Drover exhaled a foggy air, while a face hovered for a moment above the glass and then withdrew. This face was clever and shifty, framed with lank dark hair: Toby Redruth. Not much seen in Porlock Yard these days, he had taken up with the porter boys, a company of youths who carried messages and other items about the town, doing duty as guides and carrying lights for those who walked out after dark. Toby left the window and returned to where Cassie waited: “He’s there.”

  “Thank you, Toby,” came the grave response.

  “I’m against it,” continued the boy sourly. “You won’t come by nothing here.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.”

  “It’s bad enough you made yourself known in court.” A whining tone got into the boy’s voice. “Now you want to go a-tampering with witnesses, as well.”

  “Thank you, Toby. I don’t intend to tamper with no one. Come and point him out.”

  But there was no need to point out Josiah Thurber, footman to Miss Greenwarden, of Dendermere Square, whose part as witness in the Steergate Murder had made him a bright light and legal authority amongst the company of The Dog and Drover. Tonight, as it had been these last weeks on every occasion his duties allowed, Thurber held an intimate court among his admirers, and narrated and elaborated upon his adventures on the Fatal Night, and likewise upon the Famous Trial.

  Cassie slipped down into the tumult of the cheerful little tavern. There was straw underfoot and smoke overhead, with limited space between. Thurber proved a sandy, gingery sort of man, quite stout, and now rather red in the face. Light freckles stood out on his cheeks and nose, and under the crooked line of his disordered horse-hair wig. As he spoke, he was afflicted by a cough, soothed only by the application of more ale from the pot before him.

  “I wouldn’t say he had a dark look,” resumed Thurber after one of these slight fits of coughing. “More a sinister look, I would have it. A look that meant no good for someone, had he but known it—here, Jack, there’s a young lady standing. Offer her your stool, why don’t you?”

  He had seen Cassie, and she had given every sign of earnest attention, whereas Jack, it must be said, was nodding somewhat in the heat and fumes. Jack grudgingly yielded his place.

  “Do you mean to tell us,” said Cassie, “you saw his face?”

  “It was that dark, I mean, that dark a night, I could see only the lines of his face. The outlines, I mean. Now the other gent, that was killed, I saw him full plain, for they passed by a lighted window, and it was the other one as drew himself aside, like, as if he were not wanting to be seen, and I said to myself, ‘There’s something odd here.’”

  “I thought you said you didn’t pass them,” interposed the displaced Jack.

  “I never passed them. I mean I saw the gent in passing, as it were—now look here! this young lady is nearly pushed off her stool. Make space for her on the bench here. That’s right, prop her up!”

  Cassie was brought by degrees nearer still into the orbit of the celebrated witness. More ale was poured to sooth Thurber’s cough; more pipes were filled and smoked down. The tavern grew merry, and when the murder and the trial were played out (Thurber had a sharp eye on the girl, when he described his triumph on the stand), a few songs were sung, the company generally in good pitch, though indifferent as to harmony.

  Thus, when the old Dutch clock in the corner tolled the midnight hour with a hoarse voice, the company was rather hoarse itself, and heavy-headed. Cassie remained in the corner, by Mr. Thurber, who nodded over his ale but still fixed on her for long moments. No one else in a sensible state was near.

  “So you never saw his face,” said Cassie, in tones of hushed fascination. “The other one: the murderer.”

  “No,” replied Thurber, whose head and voice fell, so that his companion must bring herself all the nearer. “It were that dark, and he were wrapped up in a great coat and muffler, with such a hat besides. I only knew it were the other one, the murdered gent, by the fine dress they described.”

  “He must have been very alarming, for you to recall so well, Mr. Thurber.”

  Thurber’s hand, having fallen by steps from the table to the bench, and thence to his interlocutor’s knee, tapped out his response: “I have my wits about me, girl.”

  “You said he was tall…”

  “Tall enough. Both of them were very close together.”

  “You have uncommon sharp eyes, Mr. Thurber.”

  The hand advanced a short way towards the lap and was intercepted there and turned aside.

  “Sharp enough to remember you, my lovely.”

  “Why, what can you mean?”

  “I saw you in the witness box, my dear, stand up for him, the prisoner.”

  She laughed merrily, and took hold of the hand before it could shift again. “You’re a lively one! I was paid a pound for that. I expect you got a pretty fee and all!”

  “That fat lawyer,” said Thurber, with an admonishing air, “saw through you.”

  She stiffened at this, but if Thurber saw a flicker of anger, he applied it to the provocation of the wandering hand and thought no more of it when Cassie said, “You were pretty cool on the stand. Nothing could shake you.”

  “I was ready for him,” said Thurber, with a sniff of contempt for the defence.

  “You were well-versed.”

  “They said I made an honest, upright, un-im-peachable witness,” Thurber agreed.

  “How did they get you in?” said Cassie, all fascination again.

  “Why, bright-eyes, I got myself in!”

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  “Gent comes in to the Drover. A jolly, liberal sort, very free, says, ‘I am looking for witnesses to the murder.’ ‘I am that witness, sir,’ says I, right aways. ‘I saw the gent on that night.’ ‘Saw his face?’ says he, rather sharp. ‘No, sir. Saw the rest of him, from behind.’ ‘Tall gent,’ says he. ‘Well-dressed?’ ‘Both well-dressed,’ I says. ‘Not tall.’ ‘Middling, you might say.’ ‘Middling.’ ‘Seen them here?’ ‘In the street.’ ‘In the dark?’ ‘In the dark.’ ‘So middling tall, as you might say, considering it was in the dark, from behind.’ ‘So I might say.’ ‘You are a very honest man,’ says he. ‘That,’ I tells him, ‘I can’t deny.’ And I gets two pounds for saying the same again, under oath!”

  “Who was the gentleman?” asked Cassie. “Was he a tall, sour-faced fellow?”

  Thurber shook his head.

  “Or yet a lawyer, name of Babbage?”

  “Not him, neither!” Thurber’s triumph was complete.

  “Who was it then?”

  “Gen
t by the name of Brock. Solid, grey-haired, respectable man.”

  “This man, Brock, did he tell you about the limp? Did he tell you to say the man you saw was limping?”

  “Nay, lass! When I told him as much he was as taken aback as you, but right pleased.”

  For a moment, the girl became lost in thought. Thurber, certain of his superiority, brought himself closer still.

  “Now, my girl, that fellow, Grainger, what was he to you?”

  “Why, what a silly question. I met him but once in my life,” she said, though the words rolled heavy in her mouth.

  “You’re a clever lass, and no mistake. Ever been in service?”

  “Can’t say I have.”

  “You’ll do. Come to Dendermere Square. Everybody knows me there. Miss Greenwarden needs a maid. I’ll get you in, see if I can’t. Miss Greenwarden said I was very civic and proper.”

  “I’m sure you were.”

  Thurber’s hand making its way to her waist, Cassie was obliged to rise, and her suddenness startled those at the table out of their repose. It was time for them to disperse. Thurber nodded to them with an air of infinite patronage, as they made their good-byes, and for Cassie he had one last wink, and a reminder: “Dendermere Square. They all know me there!”

  Toby, wearying of his vigil, had long since gone to whatever task occupied him this night. Cassie Redruth covered her head and set out for home. The Bellstrom, on its high hill, marked her progress until she came by the river and the familiar ways of The Steps.

  MR. WILLIAM QUILLBY was much exercised with writing letters. From his small, high garret at the top of the small, high stairs, he penned them and sent them forth, until his fingers, always of the inky sort, were quite drenched in India ink. He threw letters at the highest offices of Airenchester, at the inns of the court, the halls of the council, the chambers of state and counting-houses. Few, if any, returned. They got by the doors, and into clerks’ hands, and thus to desk drawers (and sometimes the fire), and expired there. A few returned, forlorn and broken, to his desk. They were mostly dismissals, penned with a ghastly semblance of regret. Only one startled Quillby. It was a note from Lady Tarwell, which read in part: