The Fugitive and the Vanishing Man

by Rod Duncan

  “But I’m concerned that we may be missing out on all the benefits of his knowledge.”

  “How so?”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Edwin caught Janus’s frown of confusion.

  “Doctor Winnowbrooke said that her diet should be meats like venison. And fruits. Is that so?”

  “It is our natural food,” the old man replied.

  “So it is the food best conducive to health?”

  “Indeed so.”

  “Then all other diets may bring illness?”

  “Yes. This is the knowledge of the ancients.”

  “In which case, I cannot allow you to prepare food for the consort–”

  “What is this madness?” Janus cut in.

  Edwin had put on a frown, that he hoped would be taken as concern. “…I cannot allow it without my king also benefitting from the same good health. Doctor Winnowbrooke must prepare enough food for him also. And… if I may say, for all the others in line to the throne.”

  The king was frowning again, but this time from thought not displeasure. Slowly at first, his head began to nod. Then he stood and extended his hand to Edwin. “This is why I love my counsellors. You see things that others miss. It shall be so. We shall all eat the same. And you too, my faithful servants. I will not see you deprived. The consort will not be alone at her table.”

  He flicked his hand in dismissal. The red gem in his ring glinted.

  In the corridor, Edwin was setting off to march away, but Janus grabbed his arm above the elbow, fingers digging in.

  “I know you’re keeping the Arthurs up there,” he hissed. “In that room of yours. But all your plots will be exposed.”

  The kernel of an illusion must never be where and when the trick is seen. Edwin’s trick had been in two parts. First he had revealed the Arthurs, fleetingly, as if by mistake, hurrying them between buildings. Then he had got them away from the castle without any of Janus’s spies knowing. This had been expensive rather than difficult. Mrs Arthur and Conway would already be paddling back up the Snake River towards Lewiston.

  But it hadn’t been until Janus’s giveaway accusation that he’d realised how well the trick had worked. Nor how powerful it might be. He now had easy means to keep Elizabeth fed without more questions being asked.

  He slipped into the kitchens, furtive, but with the intention of being seen. He had no idea what his sister liked to eat, so picked to his own tastes: two cold sausages, two apples, half a loaf of bread, butter wrapped in paper. Also two wooden bowls. Two was the number. Both the Arthurs had to eat, at least in Janus’s mind.

  Having bundled everything into a cloth and tied the top, he set off. But through the door and just out of view, he stopped. He only had to wait a couple of seconds before one of the kitchen boys scampered away across the courtyard. What was the price of such a morsel of information, Edwin wondered.

  His own money came from a stipend, which the king gave to all his advisors. At one time it had been paid in hack silver. But coins were now being struck at Crown Point, with the profile of the king on one side and the image of the castle on the other. His allowance was enough to cover the cost of food, clothing and to put a little aside for retirement. But not enough for all the bribery it took to remain in the precarious position of counsellor. Janus sold influence to make up the difference. Edwin sold charms and talismans. At least Janus’s customers got something more than jewellery.

  Edwin followed the same circuitous path back towards the Room of Cabinets. Not to hide his destination this time, but to pretend to hide it. He saw no one watching on the way. But that didn’t mean much.

  When he opened the door, Elizabeth was standing, waiting. The sight of her made his heart constrict. His sister, who had been in Newfoundland. His sister who had seen the new king in the east.

  Left alone in the Room of Cabinets, Elizabeth had wanted to run. Or to have someone to fight. Any tangible action would have done. She opened the one window, inhaled lungfuls of autumn air, trying to clear her head. She’d crossed into the wilds seeking a helper in the form of her lost family. Instead, she’d found… The truth was, she still didn’t know what she had found. All she felt sure about was that she yearned for movement. She paced from one end of the room to the other. She ran on the spot. But even without boots, her footfalls reverberated on the floorboards. Her presence was supposed to be secret.

  Then the door tumblers turned and he was back: her brother, the source of her consternation. She could smell the food even before he’d unwrapped it. Grabbing the bread from his hand, she tore off a mouthful, following it with a bite of sausage, surprised at the hunger she found in herself.

  “When did you last eat?”

  After she’d managed to swallow, she said, “Don’t know. I lost track. It must have been… yesterday. I’ve had some of your wine but it goes to my head.”

  “I’ll bring water next time.”

  “Soon. Please.”

  She was aware of him examining her as she ate. There were depths of strangeness in him that she couldn’t fathom. And how strange she must seem to him.

  “Tell me about Newfoundland,” he said. “Why were you there? Or how? I need to know everything.”

  “It was an accident. A bad one. Our boat washed up there and we had to hide or we’d have been made slaves. But that’s where I learned about you. I met a man who’d seen you in the Yukon. I showed him my pistol. He recognised it… So here I am.”

  “What man?”

  “His name was Elias. He worked making explosives.”

  Recognition sparked in Edwin’s face. He nodded slowly.

  Elizabeth had been eating too fast. Or perhaps it was the tension his questions had made in her. But suddenly her stomach felt too full and it was hard to swallow. She placed the bread back on the paper it had been wrapped in.

  “What about the new king of Newfoundland?” Edwin asked. “What’s he like?”

  “He’s a man with an army. Not the worst of that kind. He said he’d be fair to the people – which is what all tyrants say. But then he stopped his men from looting. And he asked his old enemies to be advisors – so he was giving them power. I’d say he’s got clear thoughts in his head. As for goodness and badness, I don’t know.”

  “His age?”

  “Hard to say. Seventy perhaps? Stiff in his movement. But no other sign of bad health.”

  Edwin stepped between the cabinets and dropped himself into the window seat.

  “You look as tired as I feel,” she said, following. This time she didn’t attempt to sit next to him, but stood with folded arms.

  “Everything’s in turmoil in the castle,” he said. “There’s a lot to explain. And I don’t have much time.”

  She made herself hold his gaze. “What was our mother’s name?”

  He blinked, as if startled by the question. “Ellyza,” he said. “I thought you knew.”

  “Ellyza. Like…” Elizabeth’s stomach constricted.

  “She named you after herself.”

  The strength had gone out of her legs. “I… I didn’t know.”

  “I can see her face in yours,” he said. As if his words might make her feel better, instead of worse. As if all the thoughts she’d held about the woman who’d abandoned her weren’t now at war.

  “You did see her die?” she asked.

  “You asked me that already! Don’t you know it hurts me to think of it?”

  She did, but still wanted to know every detail, every sensation. She yearned for a share of that grief he carried, which should have been her birthright.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s been a long few days. For both of us. But I have to know about the king of Newfoundland: will he be sending an ambassador? Will he make an alliance? Everything hangs on that.”

  “How should I know?” she asked, terribly weary.

  “You can’t,” he said, this mystery, her brother. “But you’ve been there. You can guess better than me.”

  “Can I s
it?”

  He got up, sidestepped out of view of the window. She took the seat, closed her eyes, thought, regathered her energy.

  “He’s sure to have advisors telling him to make an alliance,” she said. “And some telling him he shouldn’t. He’s a new king. He won’t want to cross any of them. But there’s no danger in talking. So yes – he will send someone. I’m sure of that.”

  “Will they agree?”

  “To what?”

  “To an alliance. Combining the forces of Oregon and Newfoundland. One nation to hold each ocean.”

  “What happens if they do?”

  “There’s going to be a war, Elizabeth. One way or the other. But with this alliance it’ll be done more quickly. Fewer lives will be lost.”

  “Isn’t it about who wins?” she asked.

  “The Gas-Lit Empire has to fall,” he said. “It’s an abomination.”

  She felt a vertiginous lurch, a twist of her stomach, as if the castle might tip her out of the window behind her back.

  “You’d bring chaos to the world?”

  “Don’t tell me you’re on their side?” he said.

  And Elizabeth looked away.

  CHAPTER 20

  Elizabeth woke, with no sense of time having passed, though it was night and had been day when she lay herself down. Sloughing off the blankets, she felt her way between her mother’s cabinets to the window and looked out towards the hills on the far side of the Columbia River.

  The Oregon Territory had a different beauty at night. She could see less of its fertility but more of its grandeur, the topography carved out in black and silver. Her mother would have known nothing of the place when she set out from the counties of southern England. Yet she had left. An argument can only drive a person so far. To have crossed the world, she must have been impelled by a stronger force. Thinking of her brother’s antipathy for the Gas-Lit Empire, Elizabeth shivered.

  At first the Room of Cabinets had seemed to be a refuge. But with this argument – Edwin wishing the destruction of the order she had grown up with – it had taken on a different aspect.

  She rummaged through the pile of clothes he’d left for her. The moonlight was too thin to see by, so she struck her flint and lit the lamp, keeping the wick low enough to give shape to the clothes, but not colour. The trousers were loose around her. The belt kept them up, but emphasised the femininity of her figure. She chose a coarse-woven shirt, the material prickly over her bare arms. A long coat over the top hid her waist and did away with the need to bind flat her breasts. There would be scant chance of meeting anyone in the castle corridors in the early hours of the morning. But her heart beat heavily all the same as she slipped out and locked the room behind her.

  On bringing the bucket, he’d made her memorise a route to the nearest latrine. That was when he’d thought he couldn’t do the emptying. But his enemies now believed the Arthurs were staying in the room. Edwin could empty the bucket himself and there would be no need for her to risk stepping through the door.

  Yet she was doing just that. She’d thought of leaving the bucket behind. The task did give her a kind of purpose. Not quite a justification for the risk. But at least a direction to go in. Julia would have called her choice foolish. But Julia had a direct way of thinking about the world and could divide logic from emotion, something Elizabeth had always found difficult. Tinker, on the other hand, would have been out and exploring with no regard for risk. She missed them both, so terribly.

  In the morning, the empty bucket would reveal to her brother what she had done. He might see the needless risk as a betrayal. But she would feel more a traitor if she tried to hide this nocturnal walk.

  Carrying the oil lantern in one hand and the bucket in the other, she stepped away down the corridor, keeping up the gait of a man, but placing her feet lightly all the same. That made it harder to think herself into the role. If she did meet anyone, she trusted that they would get out of her way.

  The second staircase on the right. Turning right on the corridor one floor below. Then down again: the first set of stairs this time. Turn left. Twenty paces. The door to the latrine should have been on her right. But her legs were shorter than his. Another two paces, and there it was.

  She emptied the pail down the sluice hole then pumped water into it and emptied that as well. The job was half done. Her heart had slowed. But as she set out again for the return journey, she felt the tension coming back to her. On the way there she’d been almost silent, but flushing water down the chute might have alerted someone.

  Passageway. Staircase. Passageway. Climbing once more, aware that she was rushing in a manner that Edwin would not have done. Her footsteps were quiet enough. But she could hear them. And so might others.

  The second staircase. Shadows swinging more wildly than the lantern in her hand. She wanted to put out the flame, to be hidden by darkness. But that would be wrong. If she did come across anyone, they must see her well enough to recognise her brother.

  At the top, she waited, listening, trying to think her heart into beating more slowly, though that had the opposite effect. There had been a sound. It could have been someone snoring in a room or a dog growling outside in the courtyard. She waited, breathing deeply, then stepped out onto the final passageway leading to the Room of Cabinets.

  “Who goes there?”

  It was a tentative challenge, spoken softly. Elizabeth turned, held up her lantern, careful to leave some of the light on her own face, though it made it harder for her to see.

  A man stood in the corridor facing her. Not a guard. And not one of the grand people of the castle. He shuffled towards her.

  “Edwin,” she said, using the resonance of her chest to lower the voice, hoping he would leave. When he didn’t move, she added, “Magician to the king.”

  Instead of backing away, the man approached, small steps and hesitant. He angled his head as if trying to see, then raised a hand to shield his eyes from the lantern light.

  “Are you well?” he asked.

  So the man was on speaking terms with her brother.

  “Sick in the stomach,” she said, for he had glanced at the bucket.

  “It’s me,” he said. “Do you not know me? Were you sleepwalking?”

  “I… I was sick.” He was too close. She lowered the lantern, casting her face into shadow. “Why are you about at this hour?”

  “On your business,” he said.

  “Perhaps I was sleepwalking,” she said, trying to cover the strangeness that he was clearly feeling. And yet, her identity did not seem to be a question in his mind.

  “There’s been another message,” he said. “It came in two hours ago, but I haven’t been able to get away. A bird flew in just after midnight. I couldn’t see the wax. My master read the message and threw the pieces into the fire. He should have written it in the ledger. But he didn’t. He burned the paper. When he left, I followed. But he doubled back on himself and I had to run.”

  Elizabeth’s mind was reeling with all the new information. The man was one of Edwin’s spies, that was clear. A worker in the pigeon loft. “What direction did he go?” she asked.

  At that the man’s shoulders dropped and she caught a sigh of released tension. She’d clearly got her question right. Beyond how she looked and dressed and moved, it was the way her mind was working that had made this man accept her.

  “My master was on the way to the South Staircase.” This was voiced in an even quieter whisper, as if it carried great meaning.

  “What did you do?”

  “I cut across the courtyard.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “Took the door next to the kitchens. Then I was up the serving passage and waiting out of sight when he came past.”

  It would have meant something to Edwin. The man was assuming she’d understand.

  “Tell me everything,” she said.

  “Well, that’s the thing. I did hear them talk – some of it. And it’d be worth you knowing what they said.”

>   “I’ll pay what I usually pay.”

  “I’m not saying you won’t. But times’r troubled. More than usual, I mean. And I’m thinking that I’ll be wanting the silver in my hand this time. Just in case. The wind’s changing. I can feel it.”

  “How much do you need?” she asked.

  “Just what I’m owed for my years of serving you. And serving your mother before that.”

  It sounded like a large sum. She had no idea if Edwin would have easy access to so much silver. “It might take me a few days to get it all together,” she said.

  “But you do have it?”

  “Yes. Of course. You can trust me.”

  “And you’ll help me get it out of the castle?”

  “Yes.” Her words were surely storing up trouble for Edwin. “Now tell me what you heard.”

  His voice had seemed that of a middle-aged man. But now he giggled in the manner of a child. “What I heard. Oh yes. Mr Janus says to my master, what is it? And my master says, I’ve got news just in. And Mr Janus, he says it better be good. Or I’ll make you suffer for waking me. He says it just like that. Sharp-tongued. And my master says it’ll be worth a fortune to him and that the usual price’s doubled. After a quiet, I hear Mister Janus counting out coins until there’s enough. Then my master says he’s had word from someone called Bartholomew and his gang. Says they found a boat hidden by the Snake River. They waited to see who would come to get it. Turns out it was Mrs Arthur and one of her men. Bartholomew’s gang grabbed them and knocked out a few teeth. They held them over a fire till they talked.”

  Elizabeth felt nausea rising up from her stomach. “What did Mrs Arthur tell them?”

  “That a new magician’s come to Crown Point. A powerful one. And he’s hidden right here in the castle.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Breakfast with the consort on the last day of October. The redness of her eye had faded. So had her nausea. With every mouthful of dried fruits she swallowed, the king’s face beamed more brightly, though he hadn’t touched his own food. Timon had heaped cold meats onto a plate and was chewing with purpose. Janus had taken the middle way: a little bit from every platter, trying to show solidarity with everyone.