Ancient Appetites

by Oisin McGann

  Wildenstern Hall was a looming, menacing sight for those who lived around it. It had been designed that way. Its rooms and corridors had seen countless dramas and this night they were to witness another. It was not the first time that screams had echoed through the hallways of this house – but it hadn't happened for a while.

  Daisy was sitting up late in her rooms, praying for patience as she waited for Roberto to come in and say goodnight, as he did without fail every evening before they both retired – like all good Christian gentry, she and her husband slept in separate rooms. He had disappeared again and she would not be able to sleep until she knew where he had gone – or at least, until he came back and gave her a half-convincing excuse. It wasn't jealousy so much as fear for his safety – that, and the unbearable thought that he was keeping some terrible secret from her. Well, perhaps there was a little jealousy too, but that was one of the deadly sins and she did her best not to harbour it.

  She heard a screeching cry of pain.

  There came another shriek as she pulled a dressing gown on over her nightdress and hurried out into the hall. Roberto was rushing up the hallway and Nathaniel was just opening his door.

  'Did you hear that?' Berto asked them.

  'You mean the awful, agonizing screams?' Nate waved in the general direction of the sound. 'Yes, yes I did.'

  'Where's it coming from?' Daisy asked.

  A gang of five footmen approaching from the other end of the corridor, all carrying pistols, looked intent on answering her question. Clancy was at their head and he stopped at a section of wall halfway between the door to Nate's rooms and the elevator. Running his hands down the wall, he stopped at the dado rail and pressed something. A hidden door clicked open and a man in a footman's uniform collapsed out onto the floor, moaning and clutching his leg. Clancy examined him quickly, put his gun away and then looked to the other servants.

  'A stretcher, quickly!' he barked. 'And someone call for the doctor.'

  Two of them hurried back to the service elevator. Clancy noticed Daisy and the two brothers looking on; he stood up and strode towards them.

  'A false alarm, sirs, ma'am,' he reassured them. 'McInerney there entered Lord Wildenstern's room without knocking, thinking it empty' he reassured them. Lord Wildenstern being the Duke's brother, Gideon. 'McInerney was returning some shoes he had been polishing. His lordship was asleep at his desk, with the lights turned down; McInerney did not see him until it was too late. He surprised Lord Wildenstern, who thought the man was an attacker. His lordship pulled on a cord that opened a trap door under McInerney's feet. He fell from the floor above us into the compartment behind this wall.'

  'My God,' Daisy exclaimed. 'Is he hurt?'

  'A broken ankle, I think, Miss Daisy. It could have been worse.'

  'Gideon has a trap door?' Berto blurted out. He turned to his brother. 'I don't have a trap door. Do you have a trap door? And Gideon's being a little jumpy, isn't he? What's-?'

  'What's he got to be so scared of?' Nate finished for him.

  There was a long pause.

  'His wife?' Berto suggested.

  'Then perhaps he's not the only one,' Daisy snapped. 'But why resort to "wife" jokes when jokes about husbands are so much easier?'

  'He's not joking,' Nathaniel told her. 'Eunice is obsessed with her children's place in the family. She'd do anything to help them get ahead. With Gideon gone, they'd all move up a rank.'

  'Dear God.' Daisy sighed. 'Is this whole family insane?'

  'Just the lucky ones,' Berto replied, moving closer to the injured man to get a better look. McInerney had fallen a good ten feet from the floor above, where Gideon and Eunice had their rooms. Nate felt a little put out that there was a booby trap beside his bedroom and he had never known about it. The servant was tall and athletic, with lean features and blond hair. His face was twisted in pain and his ankle was the size of a grapefruit.

  The stretcher arrived and four of the servants carried the unfortunate man to the service elevator. Clancy took his leave of his master and went with them.

  'Did you notice?' Daisy asked softly. 'The injured man – he looked a bit like Nathaniel. Apart from being rather handsome, I mean.'

  'What do you mean? He's a servant,' Nate retorted.

  'No, she has a point.' Berto shook his head. 'He did look like you. If he walked into a dark room…'

  'Someone might mistake him for you,' Daisy concluded.

  Nate was quiet for a moment.

  'But why would Gideon set off a booby trap if he saw me coming into his room?'

  'I can think of a couple of reasons,' Berto said thoughtfully. 'Either he thinks you bumped off Marcus and you're still looking to get rid of any competition…'

  'Or he killed Marcus and thinks I might be out for revenge,' Nate muttered.

  'I wish you'd both stop finishing my sentences,' Berto said sourly. 'I'm more than capable of doing it myself.'

  Dr Alexander Warburton was a small man whose narrow limbs contrasted greatly with his large potbelly. He wore well-cut suits to make up the difference. His half-inch-thick glasses were evidence of his failing eyesight and he was developing a habit of forgetting the names of his nearest relatives in the Wildenstern family, a sin whose grievousness was compounded when one considered that they also made up his entire list of patients. However, he still seemed very capable of spouting pompous strings of Latin whenever he felt he needed to impress someone with his expertise.

  For this reason, Nate preferred to have Gerald around whenever he was dealing with the good doctor. Gerald's memory, in either English or Latin, was better than Warburton's and Gerald revelled in every chance to correct his former mentor. It made sure that Warburton stopped beating around the bush and got straight to the point. And when he was forced to think faster, Warburton was a useless liar.

  '… So, as I've already explained,' the doctor concluded, 'the tissue and bone damage to Marcus's body was extensive, in keeping with a fall. Not that I had any doubt on the matter, Nathaniel, because you will already know there were witnesses who actually saw it happen.'

  'But those injuries could have been caused by something other than a fall, right?' Nate persisted. 'Or he could have been pushed or thrown off-'

  'I don't know what you're implying,' Warburton protested, despite the fact that it was quite clear what Nate was implying. 'Gerald will tell you, he saw the body before it was embalmed. Marcus was killed in a climbing accident. It's as simple as that.'

  He sighed and leaned back in his chair, putting his feet up on his polished walnut desk. Taking off his glasses, he started polishing them with a handkerchief while he gazed myopically at Nate and his cousin.

  'All right, look, Nicholas… Nathan… er, Nathaniel… I know what you're afraid of-'

  'I'm not afraid of anything-'

  'You're afraid that this was an Act of Aggression, yes?' Warburton shook his head. 'You think we're all covering it up and you're worried that whoever may have bumped off Martin… eh, Marcus… will come after you now that you're being groomed to take over the business in America, yes? It's perfectly understandable, Nich… Nathaniel – it's just wrong, that's all.'

  'His nails,' Gerald muttered.

  'What?' Warburton frowned, putting on his spectacles.

  'I didn't notice until Nate specifically asked me about them,' Gerald said. 'Marcus's fingernails were freshly manicured when he was brought in. Who gets a manicure before they go rock-climbing? And more to the point, how could his nails be in such perfect condition after he'd climbed a few hundred feet? There were no rope burns on his hands or arms either. He was harnessed up to a rope. You really think he fell and never even made a grab for it? You have to admit, Doctor, it all smells a bit off.'

  'No, it doesn't,' Warburton snapped. 'If it were an Act of Aggression, I'd tell you, all right? And when you've been around as long as I have, you learn a thing or two about spotting the difference between an accident and an assassination, thank you very much. Now if you'll exc
use me, I have work to do!'

  As they walked away from the doctor's office, Nate turned to his cousin with raised eyebrows.

  'Well?'

  'Oh, the old boy's lying, no doubt about it,' Gerald snorted. 'But then, that's his job, isn't it? He's the family doctor.'

  Nate nodded. That was how it worked. If somebody committed an Act of Aggression, it was immediately hushed up. If witnesses were needed, they would be ordered, bought or blackmailed into co-operating. Evidence would be manufactured. Warburton would have to do his best to ensure there was a presentable corpse, but as the family doctor, he was sworn to silence. Some day, it was assumed that Gerald would take over that particular role.

  'So something's definitely up,' Nate said, almost to himself, playing with the gold rings on his fingers, as he always did when he was nervous.

  'Yes,' Gerald grunted as he lit up a cigarette. 'And if I were you, I'd sleep with the door booby-trapped, a pistol under the pillow and the lights on for a while.'

  'No change there, then,' Nate replied. 'It's good to be home.'

  Leaving Gerald back at his laboratory, he returned to his rooms alone. Nate sat in his living room, lost in thought. He had always quite liked Warburton. He remembered once, when he was a child, Edgar had insisted that his sons should join the fox hunt; Warburton had argued against it – Nathaniel was only six and barely able to ride. It was brave of the doctor to even try taking on the Duke, but Edgar was having none of it. Out in the countryside in the rain, Nate had been thrown from his horse and broken his leg. Warburton had stayed with him, accompanied by one of Edgar's Maasai servants, while some others went to fetch a brougham to carry him home. The Duke had carried on with the hunt.

  Sheltering from the rain under a tree, the towering black footman had held the injured young boy in his arms and kept him warm. Nate had been fascinated by the man's dark skin, wanting to touch it and feel its warmth. To keep the child's mind off the pain, the footman had told him stories of Africa; of its wild animals and engimals, of the strange people and the incomparable beauty of its landscapes. Nate was in no doubt that he had become obsessed with Africa and its engimals because of that day.

  He called to memory the Maasai he had met in Kenya. The men were magnificent fellows; they wore ochre on their bodies sometimes and had beads in their hair, and checked blankets flung over their shoulders. The warriors were known as moran, and their bravery was the stuff of legend; they fought with a heavy-balled club and used it to deadly effect. The tribes wandered the land with their cattle, living simple lives. Nate recalled how he had suffered pangs of jealousy when he had seen the closeness of their families.

  He didn't know until much later that the Maasai servant who comforted him that day under the tree had been stolen from his own home as a child, and would have known little more about the Dark Continent than Nathaniel. The man must have read about it in books. Cradled in his arms, Nate had never even thought to ask the man his name. One rarely did with servants. But Dr Warburton had reminded him to thank the servant and had shown his own appreciation with a curt nod – something the Duke would never have done.

  A diffident knock on the door woke him from his daydreaming. Nate responded and Clancy stepped in.

  Winters is here with a message for you, sir. He says he was instructed to give it to you personally.'

  Nate sat up, his interest aroused. Winters was Marcus's manservant, and would already have been questioned about the circumstances surrounding his master's death, but Nate was determined to go over every detail again himself. This was as good a time as any.

  'Show him in.'

  Clancy left without another word, leaving Nate alone with Winters. He could not have been more different from Clancy in appearance: tall and thin with refined good looks, he moved like a dancer. His face was expressionless; if Nate hadn't known, it would have been impossible to tell that the man had lost a beloved master only a few days before. That was how good a servant he was.

  'Good afternoon, sir,' he said softly, bowing his head. 'Master Marcus asked me to give this to you in the event of his untimely death, sir.'

  He handed Nathaniel an envelope.

  'And you're only giving it to me now?' Nate asked.

  'My apologies, sir, but Master Marcus made it very clear that you were to receive it alone.'

  His heart pounding, Nate ushered the footman into his living room and tore open the envelope. There was a folded piece of notepaper inside. This was it, he was sure. The key to explaining Marcus's death. His eyes flicked down over it. Written on the paper in Marcus's neat, flowing script, were the words:

  Find Babylon

  He did not realize he was holding his breath until he let out a yell of frustration.

  'That's it?! Those are his last words? What the bloody hell's Babylon got to do with anything?'

  'I'm sure I wouldn't know, sir,' Winters replied.

  X

  A VERY GRAND FUNERAL

  Daisy Wildenstern was no stranger to death. With all the new steam-driven machines, industrial accidents were becoming a new and increasingly common way for poorer people to pass on into the next world, while common illnesses and poor nutrition still claimed huge numbers of their children every year. The Grim Reaper showed a stubborn defiance of modern medicine, striking down even the noblest members of society with terrifying diseases such as typhoid, smallpox and tuberculosis. Funerals were a common sight in Victorian Ireland.

  And they were expensive. Daisy's father was a self-made man, a former draper's assistant who had started with next to nothing and gone on to make his fortune. She remembered when one of her older sisters had died of influenza at the age of twelve, the family had nearly bankrupted itself to pay for a decent Christian funeral. Society judged people on how they buried their dead. Struggling families would often go hungry so they could put money aside in case their children should die. Anything to avoid the disgrace of a pauper's burial.

  Perhaps it was because of her humble origins that Daisy felt uncomfortable sitting in the coach with her husband as it followed the hearse from the house to the family's church. Or perhaps it was the obscene, overwhelming pomp with which the Wildensterns were burying their favourite son.

  For a start, the coaches for carrying the mourners were completely unnecessary. The road that wound round the hill from the house to the church was little more than a mile long – an easy walk, and one that Daisy did every Sunday unless there was inclement weather. She could have walked it faster too, but a more rapid procession would have given the spectators less to see. The lampposts that stood along the road were hung with wreaths and under them, standing along each side in orderly lines, were the workmen from the railroad – the 'navvies', as they were called. They were a strange breed – a culture unto themselves, dressed in velveteen coats, their felt hats held to their chests as the funeral procession passed.

  The hearse resembled some kind of devil's flowerbed, laden with elaborate wreaths and black velvet and dressed with a mass of black ostrich feathers. The horses too wore sprays of the bushy plumage. The coffin was barely visible through the glass sides, but Daisy knew it had cost more than most middle-class people made in a year. Attendants walked solemnly alongside the coaches, wearing long black tail coats, tall-crowned hats and black gloves. The whole procession was led by mutes dressed in gowns and carrying wands. Marcus was being laid to rest with all the ceremony of a state funeral. Daisy wondered if Queen Victoria – when she eventually gave up the ghost – would be treated with such honour.

  There must have been a thousand people lining the road and around the church, come to pay their respects. Even the weather seemed to have submitted to the Wildensterns' grief, with swollen grey clouds hanging in a brooding sky. Daisy had been given an ostrich-feather fan with a tortoiseshell handle and she waved it in front of her. She wished for rain, if only to clear the muggy air.

  Along the edges of the crowd were armed guards, and she knew there were more dressed in plain clothes among th
e spectators. Most of the important men of Ireland were gathered here today and many feared an attack by the new rebel organization that had emerged recently – the so-called 'Fenians', named after the legendary Irish warriors, the Fianna. To her it seemed slightly absurd; the family had marginally less power than God in this country and the greatest threats to their safety were their own relatives. But she still found herself feeling nervous. If Marcus's death had not been an accident, whoever had done away with him might well have their sights set on Roberto.

  She sat in the lead mourner's coach with her husband and Edgar. There were no horses drawing this vehicle; instead, four velocycles pulled at the harness, trained to move with their engines silenced. None were as impressive as Nathaniel's beast but the engimals still drew stares. Because of the Patriarch's great bulk, Nathaniel and Tatiana had been forced to take the second coach. The blinds were drawn and it was just as well, for Roberto could not contain himself; his body was racked with sobs, and tears streamed down his face. Daisy had never seen Edgar show any emotion other than a kind of muted pleasure or bursts of intimidating anger, but today he too was different. His face was impassive but his head was slumped on his chest and his breath heaved in and out like ocean waves. His sunken eyes were rimmed with red. She gazed through her veil at this implacable brute of a man and realized that he had truly loved his son.

  They disembarked at the church and the coffin was lifted from the hearse and carried in on the shoulders of six footmen especially chosen for their uniform height and looks. Daisy took Roberto's arm and walked inside with him as he struggled to compose himself. Nathaniel and Tatiana followed them, and she could hear Tatty's shuddering breaths at her back. Edgar ignored them all completely, limping on his cane just behind the coffin.

  Behind Nate and Tatty walked Edgar's brother Gideon with his wife, Eunice. Daisy hated them both with a passion. Even now they wore masses of gold jewellery when everybody else had dressed in sober colours, the women trading gold and silver for jet necklaces and brooches. Like the other Wildensterns, Gideon and Eunice believed that the precious metal had healing properties. But they took this belief to extraordinary lengths; clinging to the hope that draping themselves in gold would grant them long life despite their enormous appetites for rich foods and their sloth-like lifestyle. After them came their gaggle of obnoxious offspring – five sons who were the image of their father and reflected all of his worst qualities. Then there was Edgar's deaf sister, Elvira, a footman pushing her in her wheelchair while she tried to pick up snippets of conversation with her listening horn. Alongside her walked the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland – the Queen's representative, sometimes known as the Viceroy – and then, behind them, a great horde of other relatives Daisy still did not know. No doubt they were all wondering how Marcus's death would change their positions within the family.