Merciless Reason

by Oisin McGann

  But Nate was ready for it this time. Twisting to Healy’s left, inside the arm, he drove his whole body up from the floor, swinging his right elbow from the waist, pushing with his feet—he straightened and rammed the elbow hard up under Healy’s chin. The blow lifted Healy off his feet, sending him back in an arc, spitting blood as he landed flat on his back in a spray of sawdust on the wooden floor. Two gold teeth and a single white one clattered to the floor after him.

  Nate waited another few seconds to be sure the man was down, then he sank onto his knees. All around him, people whooped and shouted, delighted with the mill, even if most of them had lost money on it. As notes and coins changed hands, Ronan pushed his way through the roused crowd and lifted Nate’s right arm.

  “Ladeez and Gindemen, I give yeh the new bare-knuckle champeen of Boston, Massachusetts, efter an epic bettle here in the Peggy Sayer—NATHANIEL ‘THE AVENGER’ WILDENSTERN!”

  Many cheered, and there was more than a few wolf whistles. Others, however, were already counting the cost of betting on the favorite. Ronan leaned in close to Nate and whispered in his ear.

  “Someting tills me you won’t be hanging around, lad. But if yeh fancy it, there’s some serious money to be made with a performance like dat. Yiv got flair, boy, and plenty of sand—no doubt about it. Come inside when yer ready, I’ll have yer money for yeh. I’m always happy to pay for a good show!”

  He patted Nate on the back and walked back through the crowd, graciously accepting the congratulations of the spectators. He paid no more attention to Pat ‘The Axe’ Healy, who still lay on the floor, an anxious friend slapping him lightly on the face.

  Nate put his hand against the misshapen left side of his face and winced, hissing in a breath. The cheekbone was broken. He poked his finger into his mouth and felt a molar come loose, and then the left canine. He spat them out onto the dusty floor. It would take him weeks to grow new ones. His left eye was swollen shut, the vision in his right a little blurred. By the feel of it, he had broken a couple of ribs too—he most probably had internal bleeding, though he had no way of telling how serious it was. His knuckles were raw and bloody, his shin too. His stomach, shoulders and upper back felt as if they had been beaten with an iron bar. Two women strolled past, and one tutted in disappointment:

  “Tch. He ain’t pretty no more.”

  Still Nate did not let the snake-like thing in his abdomen work its power on him, despite its restless movements. His extraordinary talent for healing would do the job quickly enough—and there was less of a price to pay. He groaned and leaned forward, taking the weight of his body on his hands.

  Someone squeezed his shoulder with a strong but friendly grip.

  “There are simpler ways to ease your conscience, sir, than picking fights with men the size of steam engines,” a voice said.

  Without looking up, Nate replied: ‘I don’t think I care for your tone, Clancy.”

  “My tone is appropriate, sir, if I’m addressing Jim Hawkins, formerly of the Odin. However, if I am addressing Nathaniel Wildenstern, Duke of Leinster, rightful Chairman of the North American Trading Company and Patriarch of the Wildenstern clan, I shall temper my words accordingly.”

  Smiling sadly round bloodstained teeth, Nate looked up at his old manservant. He squinted through his one open eye.

  “That remains to be seen,” he chuckled, coughing. “So … when did you get yourself a dog?”

  IV

  NEWS FROM HOME

  THE TWO MEN DID NOT TALK as Clancy helped his former master walk to Ronan’s office to collect his winnings, and then out of the Peggy Sayer. The basset hound was tied up outside and Clancy took its lead with his free hand as he led the Duke of Leinster to a slightly more civilized tavern.

  They sat in a pair of overstuffed chairs near the roaring fire in the hearth. There was a whiskey for Clancy on the table between them, a coffee and some hot buttered toast for Nate. The bow-legged hound flopped down by its master’s feet. The two men had never done this before, shared a drink as equals. Despite this ghost from his past, Nate savored the comfort. He cradled his drink and tried to forget his injuries for a few moments. He would not have thought Clancy would be such a welcome sight. Perhaps it was the pain that was making him so vulnerable.

  “It’s good to see you again, old friend.”

  Clancy was not accustomed to such warm words from those he served, and he lowered his eyes and sipped his drink to hide his unease.

  “How long have you been looking for me?” Nate enquired.

  “Since you left, sir,” his old servant replied. “From the very day you disappeared. I was charged by some of your family to find you as quickly as possible, and at any cost. We employed the finest detectives: Dupin, Holmes … and then the Pinkerton agency over here. The final piece of information was supplied by a Lieutenant William Dempsey, from the ship that rescued you from the sea. He took a handsome price for the information, and has since jumped ship. He will be making his way back to Ireland, hoping to retrieve his son. I wished him luck. But to get back to you, sir—you led us a merry chase.”

  “It was not meant to be a chase—I did not intend to be found.”

  “My apologies, sir. But it was imperative we found you before others did.”

  Nate grunted. He stared into his cup, casting his mind back over the three years he had spent away from his family.

  “Tatiana and Daisy, they’re alive, aren’t they? I thought at first that they had died in the explosion in the church. But I saw a newspaper—one of the society pages—while I was in Johannesburg. They were at a ball or a dance or something.”

  “They are alive and well, sir. As is your son.”

  Nate sniffed and nodded, suppressing the terrible longing that welled inside him. More than anything, he wanted to go back and make things right, go back to Tatty and Daisy and especially to his son. It seemed he was an even more neglectful parent than his own, cold-hearted father. When he was younger, he would have expected better of himself. Not any more. But he was still determined not to return home. The risk of others discovering what he had learned was too great. His coffee smelled good, and as he sipped it he could feel its warmth spread into his bones. For some reason, he was suddenly very sensitive to the draught from the window behind him; he felt a chill on the back of his neck. Clancy leaned forward, locking his eyes on Nate’s.

  “Sir, that is not all. I gather you’ve been avoiding high society at every turn, so it could well be that you’re not aware of this … but … your cousin, Gerald, is also still alive.”

  Nate felt his stomach lurch, the drink turning sour in his mouth. Sensing a change in the atmosphere, the basset hound raised its sleepy head and looked around. Clancy put his glass down on the table.

  “That can’t be,” Nate coughed, spilling some of the coffee over his hand. “He’s dead. I saw him die. I bloody killed him!”

  His voice was a little too loud, and heads turned, but Nate paid them no mind. He laid his cup down and grabbed Clancy’s wrist.

  “How can he still be alive, when I threw him off a bloody cliff?”

  “How can you still be alive, sir,” Clancy asked quietly, “when he stabbed you in the heart?”

  Nate breathed out and absent-mindedly put a hand to his chest, where the scar still marked his skin. The thing inside him twisted and turned, agitated at what it was feeling—what they were feeling. Gerald; the man who had been his best friend, who had murdered both of Nate’s brothers and tried to kill dozens of their family—Nate could not bear the thought that the cur was still drawing breath. But there was more to this feeling of sick dread than his personal hatred for his cousin.

  When Nate had last known him, Gerald had been making headway with his research into intelligent particles. It was an area of study Nate now knew could lead to disaster.

  “He is guardian to your son and is consorting with Elizab
eth, the child’s mother,” Clancy told his master. “Because you are missing and your son is Heir, Gerald has been able to take control of the family, and the Company with it. Your cousin has proved himself to be a ruthlessly efficient opponent to anyone who stands against him. He is effectively the Patriarch, and he is not shy about wielding that power. He has reintroduced the Rules of Ascension. There have been several murders in the last three years.

  “And he has not forgotten about you, sir. He too has sent people out in search of you. Teams of assassins have been hunting you since he seized power in the house.”

  “Mmm,” Nate mumbled. “That would explain those chaps who attacked me in Natal, in Cape Town. Their approach was a bit too professional for a gang of local muggers. Tenacious buggers. Barely escaped with my life.”

  “Yes, sir. And they will not have been the only ones hunting you,” Clancy agreed. “But they are merely a sideline. Your sister-in-law keeps me informed with regular letters. Miss Daisy says the schemes Gerald has set in motion across the country and beyond have created even more enemies. The rebels are talking about revolution … I suppose they always talk about revolution, but this time they may well be serious. The government, the Crown, even the Irish people are saying Gerald is insane, sir, but I fear that he is not.”

  There were many times when Nate had wished he could have spoken to Daisy, but the feeling had been especially strong recently. He wished he could apologize for leaving her and Tatty alone in that house. To tell her he had stayed away for everyone’s sake. That he’d stayed away despite what he felt for her now. But he had decided it would be simpler if he was dead to them—gone forever.

  “What about his research?” he asked in a low voice. “Is he still working with the engimals, with the intelligent particles?”

  “With single-minded devotion,” Clancy replied. “And on an unprecedented scale. His control of the Company seems steered by his need to learn their secrets.”

  Nate lowered his head into his hands and let out a guttural string of curses. Damn Gerald, curse him and the rest of the rotten-souled blackguards who helped to make him what he was. Nate pushed breath out through his teeth. He could never get away from them. No matter how hard he tried, his accursed family always dragged him back in.

  “I have kept all of the letters, so that you may read them yourself,” Clancy continued. “As well as a selection of the Irish newspapers from the last couple of years. I have chartered a ship that will carry us to Cork.”

  “You seem very confident that I’ll be returning with you,” Nate muttered.

  “No, sir,” Clancy said to him. “I only pray that you do. It is now the sole purpose of my life—and I will spend the rest of that life trying to convince you to rejoin your family.”

  “Good God, Clancy!” Nate sighed. “There’s no escaping them, is there? I’d have an easier time shaking off the plague.”

  “Perhaps, sir,” Clancy agreed. “Though I suspect many of your relatives will welcome your return with the same enthusiasm that they would greet that famous disease. Should I take this to mean you will be coming home, sir?”

  “I suppose so.” Nate climbed stiffly to his feet, a resigned expression on his face. “But only if you curb that insolent tone of yours.”

  “I can assure you, your Grace, that from this moment on, I will address you with all the respect due to a man of your rank.”

  As the manservant stood up from his seat, the basset hound also jumped up, tail wagging furiously, tongue out, big watery eyes looking eagerly from one man to the other, ready for action.

  “What’s the dog’s name?” Nate inquired.

  “Duke, sir. He’s somewhat selfish, bloody-minded and a trifle irresponsible. But he has a good heart and makes up for his belligerent nature by putting himself in the way of harm for the sake of those he loves.”

  “Sounds like a bloody liability if you ask me.”

  “Nevertheless, he gets the job done,” Clancy said. “And I am very fond of the animal.”

  “Right, then,” Nate grunted, a new resolve setting on his face as he hobbled for the door. “Let’s go home.”

  V

  THE ROUND WINDOW

  DAISY STARED AT THE PLANS, studying the dimensions and symbols, her brow furrowed in frustrated confusion.

  “But what is it?” she demanded.

  She and the chief architect were examining the plans of the church that she had commissioned, which was under construction on the Wildenstern estate. It was being built to replace the last family chapel, which had been utterly destroyed by a bomb in a coffin at a funeral. The architect looked uncomfortable for a moment and then shrugged.

  “No idea, ma’am,” he said. “But whatever this feature, this … contraption is, your cousin has already had the bulk of it installed. It is taking up more space than we had anticipated, and I have had to compensate. As you can see, the balcony is now deeper, and the nave below it is shorter by several feet. That’s at least two fewer rows of pews—so that’s about thirty fewer people that can be fitted in. And we can’t simply make the chancel at the other end shorter.” He pointed at the platform where the altar and lectern stood. “It would ruin the entire balance of the building’s interior. But Mister Gordon is insistent that his design for the organ and its surrounding structure takes priority over everything else.”

  “His lordship has never struck me as a devoutly religious man,” the architect commented. “But perhaps this obsession with the organ and its surrounds is his way of showing his love for Christ.”

  Given that he was the one who blew up the last church, Daisy thought, I would consider that highly unlikely. She was more inclined to suspect it was a means of also destroying this one.

  The architect was a dapper, middle-aged man with thinning hair, a neat moustache and a blunt but professional manner. Daisy had found him to be a pleasant and capable man. He moved his finger towards the back of the church, pointing at the outline of the balcony that would overlook the congregation of worshippers.

  “This is the organ, but these other structures are a mystery to me. Mister Gordon has had them manufactured and fitted by his own people. We were ordered to simply provide the stone base and supports to his specifications and leave space. You see these here? I presume they are pipes, but they are shaped more like the roots of a tree. What this thing is or what it does is beyond me. I’ve never seen some of these symbols before, but …”

  “But what?” Daisy prompted.

  He winced, unwilling to put his thoughts into words.

  “But … well … they look like something one might see in a book on mathaumaturgy. My son reads such books for titillation and he sometimes leaves them lying around the house. I believe they make use of symbols such as these.”

  “That is not as strange as you might think,” Daisy told him. “Thank you, Arthur. I’ll take this to Mister Gordon and discuss it with him in person.”

  “Discuss what with me in person?” a voice said from behind them.

  Standing at the door of the spacious boardroom was a slender man in his twenties. He had a shock of dark hair that was not cut often enough, a pale complexion and a face that was slightly misshapen. Thin pink scars traced irregular patterns on the skin of his face. His eyes were a cold winter’s blue and hinted at the arrogance of someone who was confident that he was more intelligent than anyone else he knew. That confidence was well-founded.

  But Gerald had changed in the last three years. In fact, most of the changes had been sudden. Daisy suspected that this was down to the fact that he had felt forced to betray the people closest to him. Or it might have been from the trauma of being thrown by his best friend off a four-hundred-foot waterfall onto the submerged rocks below. It was difficult to tell. But the sardonic spark that had always been at the root of his personality had been extinguished, leaving a jaded, obsessive intensity. It made him next to
impossible to deal with.

  “You’ve changed the church plans again, Gerald,” Daisy said to him. “We were almost finished, for heaven’s sake. What is it all about?”

  “It is an experiment,” Gerald replied, as if that explained everything. “I had to rethink the dimensions of my design. It couldn’t be avoided. Walk with me, Daisy. I’d like to talk with you.”

  Daisy sighed quietly and excused herself from the architect, catching up with Gerald as he walked out of the room. The boardroom was a large, light, airy room on the tenth floor of the main tower of Wildenstern Hall. Gerald led her to the lavishly appointed elevator and told the uniformed boy working the brass lever to take them to the top floor.

  Trapped with him in this enclosed space, Daisy tried to suppress the fear she felt. The tension of living in this house for the last five or six years had aged her. She was not yet thirty, but she felt older, and she was starting to find lines on her strong, attractive face, etching their contours too early. The first few strands of grey had appeared in her thick black hair. Some of the color even seemed to have gone out of her blue eyes, but that probably had more to do with how she regarded her life now.

  While her husband, Berto, had still been alive, she had spent so much time worrying about his safety. But there had been a kind of system of life in the house that she had come to understand. Gerald’s actions had changed all that. These days, everyone lived in abject fear of him … especially after what he had done to his cousin, Ainsley. And now here she was, going up to the top floor with him.

  Shutting her eyes, she told herself over and over again that she was there of her own free will. He had not hypnotized her or taken over her mind or whatever it was he did. Gerald could not make her do anything she didn’t want to do. She focused on this with all her will.