Eros Element

by Cecilia Dominic

  “Patrick.” The look he gave Edward made him feel as though he were a device being picked apart by the Irishman’s brain.

  A servant brought in more tea and croissants at Edward’s request, and he poured, pleased to see his hand shook less than at breakfast. Of course the pot was also lighter, but he would take the improvement.

  “So you’re a tinkerer,” Edward said.

  “I prefer the term inventor,” Patrick said and helped himself to a croissant. “Can’t seem to resist the chocolate ones.”

  “Oh, and what is your training? I fear I missed out on much of the introductions since I was, well, unconscious after we landed.”

  “Landing isn’t the most accurate term for what you did.”

  “What would be?”

  “Try falling from the sky with the chutes opening and catching you in barely enough time for you all to not be smashed to bits. It’s a miracle you survived.”

  “Well, yes, I suppose.” Edward experienced a jolt of anxiety at the thought of what had almost transpired. Smashed to bits? How terrifying!

  “So if your brain isn’t working like you want it to, don’t worry, it will. I’ve been hit on the head enough times to know it comes back.”

  “In fights?” Edward kicked himself for vocalizing another assumption based on stereotype. What must Patrick think? Edward wasn’t putting forth his best enlightened self.

  “Aye.” Patrick held his teacup as if to toast Edward. “Mostly against university types like you who didn’t want to see beyond my hair and beard to my brain. Luckily my skull is harder than theirs.”

  “So what professional training and education do you have?”

  Patrick poured more tea to warm Edward’s cup, thereby disrupting the delicate balance of cream and sugar flavors, but Edward didn’t say anything. Edward had never cared about insulting others previously, but he found himself not wanting to alienate his new red-bearded colleague.

  “My father was a blacksmith, and I learned from him. Then I went across to the States and learned what I could until I met Chadwick, and he convinced me to stay in one place long enough to get a degree.”

  “And that was…?”

  “Harvard.” He grinned, and Edward tried to school the shock from his facial expression.

  “Harvard, that’s impressive.”

  Patrick dismissed Edward’s comment with a shrug. “It’s a school like any other, and Chadwick helped pay for it. I owe him a lot, hence why I’m on this crazy trip with him. But that’s his tale to tell. Let’s look at the beastie you’ve taken apart. The best thing to do is put it back together so you can learn how they work.”

  “And you can help me do that?”

  “If you’re fine with a redheaded Irish brute for a teacher.”

  “Oh, most definitely.” Edward took the last sip of his tea, which wasn’t bad even if not perfectly sweetened, and set the cup aside. “I’m ready to learn, Professor.”

  “Then the first thing will be how to catch and disable them. There’s another one flitting around outside the window.” He picked up one of the teapots and filled it with steaming water from the faucet on the wall adjacent to Iris’s room. “Watch and learn. You have to put them to sleep so they won’t cry out. I heard Miss McTavish captured the one in front of you.”

  “Yes.” A smile pushed through Edward’s sour expression in spite of his efforts to keep his facial expression neutral at the mention of her name. “She’s quite clever, you know.”

  “Aye.” Patrick balanced on the settee and held the steaming spout under the butterfly. “Did you know she’s engaged?”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Musée du Louvre, 13 June 1870

  Monsieur Anctil bowed at the waist and straightened with a grin. Iris blinked to clear the sense of disorientation from her little trip through time, and she noticed he was short for a man, about her height, and he had a bald spot between his salt-and-pepper curls. She took his proffered elbow and smiled through the tightness in her cheeks from wanting to scream at him to leave her alone, let her figure this all out before she moved to something else. Studying the past should allow her to do that, right?

  “Did you learn anything interesting?” he asked.

  “Perhaps. I always need some time to think about things after I see them to allow my mind make connections.” As they left the gallery, the feeling the waving statue watched Iris dissipated, and she took as deep a breath as Marie’s corset lacing allowed.

  “That seems wise,” he said. “So many people talk before thoroughly sifting through the evidence. As an archaeologist you know the importance of finding all the pieces before you make a conclusion.”

  “Yes, exactly.” Iris thought she heard something different in his accent but dismissed it as a trick her ears played on her. She couldn’t trust her senses until she felt completely anchored in this time, and the path they took through the Egyptian gallery didn’t help. The sarcophagi in particular whispered to her, and she clenched the fist not on Anctil’s arm in an attempt to dampen the sensations.

  What had happened to her?

  “Ah, the tombs will not hurt you,” he said. “They are full of dead things. It’s the living you need to fear.”

  “Pardon?” Iris asked. They descended a stairwell that wrapped around a pedestal with a headless winged statue on it. She pretended to admire the details in the drapery and wings while checking to see if anyone else was around. She wondered where Bledsoe had gone.

  “A recent find in the Ottoman empire,” Anctil said, seemingly oblivious to the strangeness of his previous words and their effect on her. “Firmin was very excited, but I find it a pity we now have to go so far abroad when we could make our own discoveries here at home. There are rooms full of the junk found during the rebuilding and renovations no one has bothered to sort through. I’m sure there are many Roman artifacts from their original construction of the sewers and many items that could shed more light on medieval life.”

  “I thought something similar.” Now they crossed a courtyard, and the sun on Iris’s face cleared the residual cobwebs of her strange experience from her mind, which turned to analyzing the situation. Something strange had happened to her. Anctil appeared immediately after and made an odd comment, which he passed over. The likelihood of his accosting her—minimal since she observed workmen and cleaners at irregular intervals, and she suspected some of them might be part of Lucille’s city-wide network of spies. Anctil had information. She would have to play the role of slightly intelligent but not too clever archaeologist to get it from him.

  “The emperor has been preparing to start a school.” But before she could ask what kind, he said, “Ah, here we are.” He held open a large wooden door carved with floral patterns, their sharp edges rounded by time and exposure.

  Iris walked in and blinked at the brightness of the colors and gleam of the jewels and gems in their glass cases. One cabinet in particular drew her closer. It contained several little cases similar to the one she found in the volcano egg.

  “What are these?” she asked. “They’re beautiful.”

  “Ah, but also deadly, Mademoiselle. You have found the poison cases used by courtesans and female assassins in the Renaissance.” He pulled a key from his pocket, unlocked the case, and opened the lid. A rosy hue came to his cheeks pinked as he said, “Their unusual shapes are so they could be hidden on a woman’s body, sometimes inside certain crevices, although that was risky. Some of the poisons were ingestible, and others could be absorbed through the skin, and in such small amounts, they had to be potent. You can imagine the disaster should the containers open accidentally, so most of them had a trick to gaining access to them.”

  Iris’s cheeks heated as well. Could she really be here having a conversation about things that could be hidden on, or worse in, a woman’s body with a foreign man? “I see the concern. How did they wor
k?”

  “The devices were such that natural and certain other motions of the, eh, person wouldn’t be enough to pop them ajar.” His face reddened more, and Iris wondered if he’d made some sort of innuendo. “So there were often two actions required. This one, for example.” He picked up a jeweled ebony comb, the part that showed thicker than one would expect, but Iris imagined it would not stand out in a tall curly hairstyle. She guessed he chose one that went outside, not—blush—inside a woman’s body, but that wouldn’t help her solve the mystery of the one she found.

  “That’s beautiful, but what about this one?” She pointed to a gold one almost identical to the one in her valise.

  Now his flush reached to the top of his head. “Ah, yes, Mademoiselle, that one is for the most vicious of courtesans for whom a poison ring or other jewelry would be too obvious. Only four or five of these particular devices are in existence, all having rumored connections to the infamous House of Borgia.”

  “How do you open it?” Iris asked. She acknowledged the part of her brain that screamed that having this conversation could ruin her reputation. The desire to know, both for her own curiosity and for the purposes of increasing her overall historical education beyond the whitewashed version from school, immolated the lattice of caution so carefully installed over the years by her mother and other sources of Victorian propriety.

  Apparently Anctil also decided to go full steam ahead in spite of his growing redness, now almost purpleness. “As you can see, it’s somewhat flat so as to fit more comfortably under a breast—Madame de Venile was particularly well-endowed—or in other intimate places. It required a twist to a specific point to reveal the contents for sprinkling and a pull at another to open it completely.”

  He moved the two halves, and they clicked along.

  “It seems noisy for a murderous device.”

  “That is because it has not been lubricated.” The poor man looked about to explode, Iris was sure of it from the color he turned and the way his hands trembled. “It was much more quiet when the original goldsmith assembled it.”

  “How do you know where to twist it?”

  “The Italian mistress’s hands were sensitive enough to feel where the points were, but in case they couldn’t for some reason, the craftsmen put clues on the outside.” He gestured for Iris to follow him to where sunlight shone through a window. “See the marks? They are more than mere scratches or carving. They are signals in the language of the poisoner.”

  “I see.” Iris ran a gloved finger over the surface, which had been decorated in the pattern of a feather, perfect for the shape of the deadly little gold box. “What is it a feather from?”

  Anctil put a hand on his chest, and Iris thought she could hear his rapid heartbeat. “Ah, and the archaeologist’s mind comes forward. I would suspect a phoenix or some other mythical creature symbolizing death and rebirth, for every death one causes results in a change in oneself.”

  “Typically not for the better, I would imagine.”

  Now Anctil breathed heavily, and he clasped Iris’s wrist. His fingers pressed points of pain through her glove. “Mademoiselle, you must listen to me very carefully.”

  Iris tried to jerk away, but he held fast and gazed at her with dilated pupils. “Monsieur, what’s wrong? Are you ill?”

  “Not in the way you might think. You must be très très cautious, for you tread a dangerous path.” He reached into a pocket and pulled out a piece of paper with a crude drawing and an address.

  Iris fell through time again, but in her memory, to the night she’d found the gold poison case in her father’s study. The symbol on the paper, a square inside a circle, resembled the one that had been etched on the window. Now Iris recognized them as both potential Pythagorean shapes symbolizing a combination of earthly and heavenly—or this life and afterlife—paths.

  “The cult of Pythagoras is alive, Mademoiselle McTavish, and they do not want their secrets to be disturbed.”

  He let go of her wrist, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed to the ground. The case fell from his fingers, and a gold flash drew Iris’s gaze outside, where a clockwork butterfly flitted against the window.

  Johann Bledsoe heard a discordant note to the one he played and put the violin down to examine the strings of his bow. But the sound, more a scream, continued. Before his mind registered his actions, he placed the violin on the chair and sprinted down the hall and across the courtyard in the direction it had come from. He recognized the double doors to the Renaissance art wing.

  Iris! What has that girl gotten herself into now?

  He found out when he pushed through the doors and found a crowd of workers and Monsieur Firmin around Monsieur Anctil, who lay on the floor, his skin a ghastly shade of gray. Johann discovered Iris at the back of the crowd by the window, which she had cracked open. Wet tracks down her cheeks and her trembling chin identified her as the source of the sound that had interrupted his practice. She clutched his arm when he approached.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  The look she gave him from beneath her wet lashes didn’t say damsel in distress. Rather, it was the cool expression of a master schemer, and he had to simultaneously respect her and remind himself she couldn’t be trusted.

  “What did you do to him?” he hissed. “You can’t go burning my bridges all through Europe. Anctil is a decent sort.”

  “Was a decent sort, you mean,” she shot back. “And I didn’t do it. He was holding this.” She opened the palm of her other hand and showed him a small gold case, the shape suggestive of something a virginal English girl shouldn’t know about. He reached for it, but she stopped him.

  “I suspect it has poison on it or that Anctil was given something slower-acting at breakfast. Possibly something that was meant for me. Either way, he was kind.” Now tears welled in her eyes, and he knew they were real.

  Johann wanted to marvel at the crack in her typically solid composure, but there were other problems at hand. He dug a handkerchief from his pocket and gave it to her to wrap the container in. “Make sure you don’t have any holes in your pockets or reticule.”

  “Of course,” she replied with a huff that told him his barb hit home.

  Yes, I’m a cad. She’s obviously upset, and I had to tease her. “And you’re going to have to be careful with those gloves.”

  “It’s this one, and it’s kid skin, so whatever is on it should wipe off. However, I want to bring it and the case to Doctor Radcliffe before I do. Perhaps he has some way to determine what was used.”

  “So you want to carry a priceless Renaissance artifact out of the museum in the name of knowledge?” He shook his head. “You are cut from a different cloth.” And that’s something Edward would do. Dammit, she is perfect for him.

  “Yes, and then I want you to accompany me to…” She rattled off an address that sounded familiar.

  “That’s L’Hôpital des Enfants,” he said. “Why there?”

  She gestured toward Monsieur Firmin, who approached them. “I’ll tell you later.”

  “He is gone,” he said. “The museum doctor has pronounced him dead. The gendarme would like a word with the young lady.”

  “I will accompany her to the interview,” Johann said.

  “That is not necessary.” Iris stood straighter. “If you would allow me another brief word with the maestro, I will come momentarily.”

  “Of course.” He inclined his head and walked away.

  “I can’t take this now. What if they search my reticule in the office?”

  “Well, I’m not taking it. Your glove will have to do for the poison sample.” He frowned—his favorite mistress had given him that handkerchief, which he couldn’t take back now.

  Oh, well, easy come, easy go. Like the woman who gave it to me.

  “Oh, and one of the clockwork devices followed us,” s
he whispered. “It was flitting outside. You must find it and capture it. I don’t want our conversation getting back to your friends in the Guild.”

  “They’re not my—” Her words struck him. How did she know about his troubles? “Fine, but be careful what you say.”

  “You know I’m good at monitoring my words.”

  “All too well.”

  “Excellent. Now go. Find it, and I will meet you after I speak with the gendarme.”

  Johann watched her walk away and imagined a rod of steel instead of a backbone. His handkerchief fluttered to the floor behind her, and a chink in the case told him she’d dropped the poison holder into it.

  His handkerchief was easy enough to retrieve, and he was careful to hold it by the corners. He couldn’t help but be impressed at how Iris strategized the situation.

  If she were a man, she would be formidable.

  A whirring noise caught his attention, the device flitting outside the window. He glanced around to ensure no one saw him, swung a leg over the sill, and stepped outside.

  Iris sat with her right hand curled tightly around her left one in her lap. The museum guard had been joined by a young but dour-looking man, who wore a dark suit and introduced himself as Inspector Davidson. She answered their questions with enough information to be truthful but not enough to give away anything about her and the others’ quest. She wished she knew where Anctil had been poisoned or if that had been the cause of his death.

  Death, death, death… It seemed determined to follow her, and she pushed the thought away that she had somehow attracted it after that last argument with her mother before she became ill.

  No, I’m not going to think about that now. Those memories will make me look guilty.

  “Mademoiselle?” The head of museum security sniffed so hard his entire moustache jumped.

  Iris put an automatic polite smile on her face, her best weapon as a woman in a man’s world. “Je suis desolée, Monsieur. It has been a trying day. Poor Monsieur Anctil…” She wiped at her eye with her right hand.