“Ethan!” Pell said upon spotting him. “Do you bring news?”
“I’m afraid not. I’ve come because I need your help.”
Pell quirked an eyebrow. “Even better.”
“You might be less enthusiastic when you hear what I require of you. Mister Thomson,” he said to the sexton, “might we borrow a pair of spades?”
“Spades? What for?” He didn’t wait for Ethan to reply. “Never mind. I don’t care to know. Take this one.” He handed Ethan the spade he had been using, and climbed out of the grave. “Mister Pell, you know where the other one is kept. Bring them back when you’re done.”
“My thanks,” Ethan said.
Pell led Ethan to a small hut set back in the farthest recesses of the churchyard. There they found the other spade.
“What is this about, Ethan?”
“We need to dig up a cadaver in order to keep the body from being mutilated.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’ll explain along the way.”
They walked around to the front of the chapel, where Diver still waited for them.
“Don’t we need a third spade?” Pell asked.
“You won’t be digging,” Ethan said. “You’ll be standing by the gravesite, making it seem that we’re not doing anything wrong.”
A faint smile curved Pell’s lips. “I see.”
Diver and Pell greeted each other—they had met before on a few occasions—and the three of them marched through the city streets to the Common Burying Ground, and the grave of Patience Walters.
“She was a conjurer?” Pell asked, as they stood over the grave.
Diver toed the fresh dirt, looking pale.
“Aye,” Ethan said. “I don’t know what Ramsey has in mind, but I’m certain that I don’t want him having control over the shade of a spellmaker.”
Pell glanced at the sun, which was already sinking toward the western horizon. “Then I’d suggest you start digging.”
Ethan shared a look with Diver, hoping that it would reassure his friend. They both began to dig.
The air was warm, and what little breeze there was helped not at all. Within a few minutes, Ethan’s hands began to burn. He knew he would have blisters before long; it had been too many years since he had toiled in this way. But despite all this, he felt good. At last he was doing something that Ramsey could neither anticipate nor prevent.
A few people walked past as they worked, but having Pell with them served its purpose. No one questioned them.
Ethan paused to remove his waistcoat and resumed his labors. His shirt was soaked through, as was Diver’s. By the time Diver’s spade struck wood, Ethan was breathing hard. He could almost hear Kannice telling him that he was too old for this sort of thing.
They cleared the dirt away from the coffin and paused to rest. Diver leaned both his arms on the handle of his spade. Ethan gazed down at the coffin, sweat dripping from his brow. The faint stench of rot surrounded them, not yet overpowering, but promising to be once they disturbed the coffin.
“Now what?” Diver asked, wrinkling his nose. “Do you want to take the coffin, or leave it and just take her body?”
“I don’t like the idea of carrying a dead body through the city streets,” Pell said. “Especially one that smells as badly as this one. Even I can’t protect you from the sort of attention that would draw.”
“I could conceal the body with a spell,” Ethan said. “And me along with it. I might even be able to mask the smell. No one would know we had it. Not that I relish the idea, but leaving the empty coffin here for Ramsey to find does have some appeal.”
Diver checked the position of the sun. “If we take the coffin, what will we do with it?”
“That’s a good question,” Pell said. “I don’t think the rector would want it on chapel grounds, and we can’t bury it again just anywhere.”
Ethan nodded, but his thoughts were elsewhere. It’s one of my own. Perhaps he had been thinking of this the wrong way. Maybe the fact that he knew of no countermanding symbol for the one Ramsey had created didn’t matter at all. Maybe it made his work easier rather than harder.
“What if the symbol isn’t important at all?” he said.
Diver and Pell shared a look.
“But you said the symbol enabled Ramsey to control the shades,” Pell said. He kept his voice low and shrank back as he spoke, seeming to fear Ethan’s reaction.
“Aye, it does. What I mean is, what if the form of the symbol doesn’t matter as much as whatever spell Ramsey casts on it? In other words, it’s possible that the importance of the symbol lies not in how it looks, but rather in what Ramsey has done with it.”
“I’m not sure I follow,” Diver said. “I’ve never understood all that you do with your spells and such. And I don’t see how that would make a difference as to where we take the body.”
Ethan wiped a hand across his damp forehead. “It might make no difference at all. Or it might mean that we wouldn’t have to move the body anywhere.”
“I’m lost as well,” Pell said. “Now you’re saying we don’t have to move the body? Does that mean you did all that work for nothing?”
“Not at all. But I have another idea that might protect Patience from Ramsey’s spells, without alerting him to the fact that we’ve been here, or that we’ve taken steps to thwart his plans.”
“And this has to do with the symbols?” Pell asked.
“Aye. Ramsey’s symbol is what enables him to control the shades. From what he told me, I know that the symbol itself has no inherent power, he made it up himself. It’s not an ancient rune that raises the dead or any such thing. He carved it into the corpses as a way of placing his mark, and therefore his power, on the cadavers.”
Pell’s face paled.
Diver, though, still appeared confused. “So…?”
“So, what if I were to do the same thing? I could place a symbol on her, too. Something Ramsey wouldn’t find that would enable me to guard her from his conjurings.”
“Do you know how to do that?” Pell asked, his features sharp in the late afternoon light.
“I’d be inventing the conjuring; I’ve never done this before, or anything remotely like it. But I have an idea of how I might word the spell.” He didn’t mention that he couldn’t be sure if any conjuring he attempted would work, or that he wouldn’t know for certain one way or another until after Ramsey had desecrated the grave and tried to add Patience to his army of shades.
Diver regarded Ethan the way he might a fiend. “You want to open this coffin and carve a mark into her body?”
“I don’t want to do anything of the sort!” Ethan said. “I don’t want to be here, digging up the grave of a friend, and I certainly don’t want to be guilty of the same foul deeds as Ramsey. But neither do I wish to see the shade of my friend being used as a marionette!” Nor do I wish to see her soul lost forever. This he kept to himself. He paused, exhaled. He hadn’t meant to respond with quite so much heat. When he went on, it was in a calmer tone. “I think I can do this, and thus deny him access to the ghost of a conjurer. Despite the horror of what I’m contemplating, I don’t feel that I have much of a choice.”
Ruth had said that they trusted him, and had given him permission to do what was necessary. He hoped that she and Darcy would someday forgive him for this.
A hint of color had returned to Pell’s face. “Ramsey won’t expect it.”
“No, he won’t. And that’s the best reason for doing it.” Ethan looked at Diver. “If you can help me prise the lid off the coffin, I can do the rest.”
His friend nodded. They both placed the tips of their spades under the edge of the lid—Ethan at the head, Diver at the foot—and pushed down on the handles. With a shriek of iron on wood, the lid rose.
Instantly the air around them turned sickeningly foul. Pell spun away from the grave, covering his mouth and nose with both hands. Diver threw his spade onto the grass and scrambled out of the hole.
“You said that you know a spell to mask the smell?” Pell said, his voice muffled.
“Aye.” He pulled out his knife and cut his arm. “Madesce nidorem ex cruore evocatum.” Dampen odor, conjured from blood.
Ethan felt the spell hum in the earth, and regretted casting it. Ramsey would feel it. He might even guess its origin. Worse, the spell had no effect. Reg stood beside him, barely visible in the daylight. Ethan looked his way; the ghost wore a scowl, his bright eyes trained on the disturbed grave.
“It didn’t work.”
“Obviously,” Diver said. “Try it again.”
“I can’t. The risk is too great. I’ll get this done and we can put the lid back in place.”
He lifted the lid the rest of the way off the coffin, doing his best to breathe through his mouth. Not that it helped much.
Patience’s corpse was not as far gone in decay as others he had seen in recent days, which actually made this worse. Her skin was mottled, blotchy, her body distended.
He hesitated to touch her, not only because he dreaded what he was about to do, but also because he didn’t know where to place his mark, or what mark to use.
“Get on with it, Ethan,” Diver said from several paces away.
Right. Steeling himself, he worked the corpse free of the burial cloth. Then he loosened the ties of her mantua and rolled the body onto its side so that he could reach her back. With his knife still in hand, he cut a symbol into her skin that was both similar to Ramsey’s and different: an inverted triangle with a line from each leg converging at the center of the top piece.
He didn’t wish to use blood for this conjuring; he didn’t like the idea of using blood spells on the dead. But he also didn’t think that mullein would be strong enough.
Mulling the decision, it occurred to him that he had a third choice: Janna’s sachet.
He pulled the gathered herbs from his pocket and held the bundle in the palm of his hand.
“Tegi hunc corpus et spiritum contra magias, sit immune ab aliena auctoritate, ex herbis et signo meo evocatum.” Protect this corpse and its spirit from magick, keep it free from the influence of others, conjured in herbs and this symbol.
The thrum of power from this spell seemed to make the earth tremble. Pell, who had conjuring blood in his veins and so could feel the conjuring as Ethan did, gaped at him. Ethan stared at his empty hand where Janna’s sachet had been, marveling at the potency of her concoction.
“Do you know if it worked?” Ethan asked Uncle Reg.
The ghost opened his hands.
“What does that mean?” Pell asked.
“It means he doesn’t know.”
“Who doesn’t know what?” Diver asked, looking from Ethan to the young minister.
“My spectral guide doesn’t know if the spell worked. We won’t know until Ramsey comes and desecrates the grave.” We might not even know then.
Ethan rolled the corpse back onto her back, retied her gown, fitted the burial cloth around her as well as he could, and put the coffin lid back in place, taking care to line up the nails with the holes they had been in. “Diver, see if you can find a rock.”
It took him a minute or two, but soon Diver had found a rock that was about the size of his fist. He tossed it to Ethan, who wrapped it in his waistcoat and used it to hammer the lid down until it sat square and was fastened tight to the coffin sides once more.
He climbed out of the grave and retrieved his spade. Diver grabbed his as well, and together they shoveled dirt back onto the coffin. When they had finished, Ethan smoothed the earth as much as possible, trying to make it appear that the site had not been disturbed since Patience’s burial. At last, he picked up his knife, which he had left on the ground when he picked up his spade, and wiped the blade on the grass. He hoped he wouldn’t have to conjure with blood until he had a chance to wash the knife properly.
The sun sat on the horizon, a great orange ball, and a cool wind, the first in days, had freshened from the east.
“I’m grateful to both of you. I couldn’t have done this alone.”
“I pray that it works,” Pell said.
Diver nodded. “I do, too.”
Pell walked toward the burying ground gate.
Diver lingered, however, looking uncertain. “I didn’t mean anything before. I just didn’t expect that you would … You surprised me, that’s all.”
“It’s all right, Diver. I’m sorry I got angry. To be honest, I was afraid of what I intended to do. I shouldn’t have spoken to you the way I did.”
“Well,” Diver said, “buy me an ale and all will be forgiven.”
They followed Pell, and Ethan put his waistcoat back on. As they reached the gate, he glanced back toward the gravesite. A fine, pale mist had settled over the grass and grave markers, looking ghostly in the gloaming. Ethan shuddered.
Chapter
SIXTEEN
The three men walked back to King’s Chapel and returned the spades to the churchyard hut. After Pell bade Ethan and Diver good night and went into the chapel, the two friends made their way to the Dowser. Ethan washed the blade of his knife at a pump along the edge of Sudbury Street before entering the tavern and buying Diver an ale and a plate of oysters.
They took seats near the back of the tavern. Ethan sipped an ale of his own, but he had left his appetite in the Common Burying Ground. Diver didn’t appear to notice. He ate his oysters, drank his ale, and bought himself seconds of both.
Kannice had been in back when they walked in, but she saw them now and joined them at their table. She eyed Ethan as she sat.
“You don’t look well. Are you feeling all right?”
“I’m fine. I had to do something earlier today that I hope never to do again. I’m still recovering.”
“What was it?”
He shook his head. “Truly, Kannice, I don’t even wish to speak of it. Perhaps I’ll tell you eventually, but not tonight.”
She cast a dark look Diver’s way.
“It wasn’t his fault,” Ethan said. “I forced him into it, not the other way around.”
She continued to glare at Diver, her lips pressed thin. Ethan thought she might find a way to blame his friend anyway. But she stood and draped her towel over her shoulder. “I’ll leave you.” She scanned their table. “You’re not eating?”
Ethan shook his head. “I can’t. Not yet.”
“Are you sure you’re well?”
“Aye.”
He saw the doubt in her eyes, but he couldn’t bring himself to say more. The truth was, he felt ashamed of what he had done and feared her reaction.
She returned to the bar, but she eschewed any banter with other customers. He could tell that she was worried about him, or angry with him, or some blend of the two.
“What are you going to do now?” Diver asked, talking around the oyster he had just popped in his mouth.
“I’ll be heading back to the burying grounds in another few minutes. I expect Ramsey will be there, too, and I want to see what he does.”
“To Patience, you mean?”
“To Patience, and to Missus Tyler. I believe he’s still gathering more shades to his cause.”
“You’ve been involved in some dark business over the years, Ethan, but this is the worst. I never thought I’d say this, but maybe Kannice is right: Maybe it’s time you found another line of work.”
“Maybe it is.”
“We could start a business together, you and I. I don’t know what we’d do, but we work pretty well together, and—”
“Leave it, Diver. It might be a good idea, but it’s not a decision I’m likely to make this evening.”
“Right. Sorry.”
Ethan drained his ale. His stomach felt hollow and sour; eating something probably would have been a good idea. Instead he pushed back from the table and stood.
“I have to go,” he said. “Again, my
thanks for what you did today. I know it was…” He shook his head. “Unspeakable. I’m grateful.”
Diver shrugged. “Of course. Anytime you need help, you know where to find me.”
Ethan smiled, laid a hand on the younger man’s shoulder. He walked by the bar without stopping, but he tipped his hat to Kannice as he passed.
Once on the street, he attempted a concealment spell. He had to cast three times before it worked, which essentially defeated the purpose of the spell. Ramsey would know what he had done and would be watching for any sign of him. He dismissed Uncle Reg, and alone navigated the streets to the Common.
He went first to the Common Burying Ground, knowing that in a choice between the shades of Missus Tyler and Patience Walters, the latter was the greater prize by far.
Concealed as he was, he could position himself anywhere in the burying ground, but he chose to keep his distance. Ramsey would have men with him, and—damn the man—could rely on his spells. Ethan hoped to watch and learn; he had no interest in another confrontation.
He stood in a far corner of the cemetery, thinking that over the past few days he had spent enough time in burying grounds to last a lifetime. He chuckled to himself at the irony.
Silver moonlight shone down on the grave markers, casting long shadows across the grass. The cool wind still blew, and somewhere behind him an owl hooted, low and resonant. But otherwise he saw and heard nothing.
He began to wonder if perhaps the pulses from his concealment spells had convinced Ramsey to delay his return to the burying grounds. And as this thought came to him, he felt a powerful conjuring hum in the ground. He drew his knife and pushed up his sleeve, expecting to feel a finding spell flow around his legs. But none came.
He hadn’t yet cut himself for a warding, and now he wondered if the spell had been directed at him at all. It hadn’t come from close by. In fact, it had seemed to originate some distance away; and it hadn’t come from the waterfront either. He closed his eyes, trying to recall precisely what he felt. With his eyes still closed, he turned until he was facing the direction whence the spell had come.
A Plunder of Souls (The Thieftaker Chronicles) Page 23