Black Iron

by Franklin Veaux

  In the courtyard, the creature bowled through a small group of people, dressed in the overalls and caps of apprentices, huddled together beneath the overhanging roof. It hissed angrily, scrabbling on the wet ground. A large black coach sat waiting in the alley behind the cathedral. Its driver opened the door. The creature flung itself into the coach.

  One of the apprentices watched the driver close the coach door. His name was William, and he was, those who knew him would agree, a nervous sort of lad, generally respectful of his elders and reliable enough in his way, but lacking that essential ingredient of initiative that made for an outstanding assistant in the artisanal trades. That made the next thing he did quite extraordinary.

  In the cathedral, Thaddeus threw his body against the side exit. If this is locked, he thought, it’s all over…

  The door slammed open. They stumbled into the wet rainy night. Somewhere behind him, a thousand miles away, he could dimly hear the pealing of the cathedral’s alarm bell. Soon the fury of the Cardinal’s entire guard would swarm the cathedral, looking for answers and revenge.

  “Run!” Thaddeus said. “Move!”

  Alÿs froze. Thaddeus dragged Alÿs after him, charging across the cathedral lawn toward the pub and the streets beyond.

  Across the street, the two members of the Queen’s Guard were racing toward the cathedral, Max two steps in front of Julianus.

  For the second time that evening, Thaddeus locked eyes with Julianus. Max and Julianus stopped dead in their tracks. Thaddeus heard angry shouting voices behind him. “Stop them!”

  Thaddeus shook his head, just a little bit. “No,” he said. “No.”

  The two Guardsmen started to move. “Alÿs,” Thaddeus said. “Run!”

  23

  Commander Skarbunket’s boots were soaked through. The rain showed no sign of wanting to let up anytime soon. The candles under the eaves had long since gone out. The gas jets hissed and spat under the steady assault of the rain.

  He had sent some of the men home. The streets were quiet and, save for patrolling officers, utterly deserted. Skarbunket gave a silent prayer of thanks for the weather. People were, by and large, much less interested in standing up to The Man when doing so meant being cold and wet.

  Mayferry, Levy, Tumbanker, and Bristol were accompanying Skarbunket along the cold, wet streets. The five of them had already made a complete pass of Highpole Street from north to south and back north again, and were nearing the mosque once more. He’d assigned the remaining police, the ones he hadn’t sent home, to patrol the side streets in groups of two.

  “You kept watch on the flat?”

  “Yes, sir, for most of the night after we cleared it out. Nobody came, nobody went.”

  Skarbunket snorted. “I sure would like to know who left that ‘anonymous’ tip.”

  “I’ve thought that very same thing, sir,” Bristol said. “We should have taken Mister Thaddeus Mudstone Ahmed Alexander Pinkerton into custody for a more formal chat. I have a feeling there are a lot of dark places he might be able to shed light on.”

  “Tread lightly with that thought, Mister Bristol,” Skarbunket said. “The Bodger twins have friends in high places. They do business with the finest members of the body politic that the military and genteel classes of London have on offer. And when I say ‘finest’ I mean ‘most politically connected,’ not that other kind of finest.”

  “But they’re commoners! And not even that, they’re blacksmiths!”

  “Even so. The thing about the Bodgers is—”

  Across the water, the bells of the great cathedral began to peal.

  The policemen looked at each other.

  “Is that—” Levy started to say, but the others had already started at a dead run toward the bridge.

  They arrived, panting and out of breath, to a scene of absolute chaos. All the lights around the cathedral blazed brightly. Men wearing the colors of the Cardinal’s guard swarmed the cathedral grounds, shouting orders at each other. A group of four grim-faced men with rifles held up their hands at the policemen’s approach.

  “Commander Skarbunket, London Metropolitan Police,” Skarbunket said. “Behind me are Mister Mayferry, Mister Bristol, Mister Levy, and Mister Tumbanker, also of the Metropolitan Police. What’s going on?”

  “Platoon Commander Hans Gisler, Pontifical Swiss Guard.” The man who spoke was tall and fair, with brilliant blue eyes set above a thin nose and the sort of lips better suited to barking orders than whispering sweet words of tenderness. He was dressed in the red robe of the Cardinal’s personal guard but had dispensed with the peaked steel helmet in favor of a flat beret of red velvet. “What can I do for you, Commander Skarbunket?”

  “We heard the alarm bells. What happened?”

  “There has been an attack in the cathedral,” Platoon Commander Gisler said.

  “Against?”

  “Father Henri Angier and Cardinal de Gabrielli.” Behind him, two men loaded a stretcher into the back of a carriage. The stretcher was covered with a bloody sheet.

  “Suspects?”

  “Escaped. Only…”

  “Yes?”

  Gisler paused for a moment, looking the dripping, out-of-breath policemen up and down. He nodded. “Maybe you’d better come inside, Commander.”

  Inside, all the arc lights were blazing, lighting the whole of the cathedral bright as day. Father Angier’s body lay where it had fallen, unseeing eyes staring up at nothing. The pool of blood around the body had started to congeal, red-black beneath the harsh electric glare. Near the open doorway to the Cardinal’s quarters, more blood had pooled on the floor. Levy turned green and looked away, hand over his mouth.

  Skarbunket knelt next to the body. The man’s throat had been slashed so deeply that the cut nearly exposed his spine. “Remind you of anything, Mayferry?” he said.

  Mayferry got on one knee beside him and examined the body curiously. “The shopkeeper. It takes a lot of strength to cut that deeply with one stroke.”

  “Or a lot of rage.” Skarbunket stood. “Are you okay, Mister Levy?”

  Levy glanced over at him, then immediately looked away again. “Not really, sir.”

  “Good man. Where’s the Cardinal?”

  “We summoned his personal surgeon,” Commander Gisler said. “He’s badly wounded. We’re taking him to the Turkish ambassador’s physician, who is reputed to be the most skilled physician in London. He’s going to need it.”

  “He’s alive, then?”

  “For now. It doesn’t look good, Commander. He’s lost a lot of blood. But that’s not what I wanted you to see.”

  “What is it, then?”

  “Over here, Commander.” Gisler pointed to the floor between the pews. What do you make of that?”

  Skarbunket looked down at the pool of viscous blue ooze, already turning gelatinous. He knelt and touched it with his fingers, then brought them to his nose. “Whew! Ugh. This is the stuff they use to make animates, isn’t it?”

  “That’s exactly what it is, Commander.”

  “So the perpetrators brought an animate with them to attack the Cardinal?”

  “Not exactly, Commander.”

  “‘Not exactly?’ What, exactly, does ‘not exactly’ mean, Platoon Commander?”

  “It appears, Commander…well, if eyewitness accounts are to be believed—”

  “And they rarely are,” Bristol muttered.

  “—that the animate was the perpetrator,” Gisler finished.

  “Excuse me, what?” Skarbunket said. “What does that mean?”

  “There were two guards stationed outside the main entrance. They responded to screams and gunfire inside the cathedral. They ran in to find Father Angier dead and the Cardinal on the floor with an animate over him holding a knife. They shot the animate, which appeared to be wounded. It fled, along
with two people, a man and a young woman dressed as a boy. Only—”

  “Yes?”

  “One of the men, Sergeant Tobler, swears he heard it speak, Commander.”

  “The animate? Speak? Nonsense. Animates are mindless. They can’t speak,” Skarbunket said.

  “Precisely. There was a great deal of noise, confusion, bells, gunfire. I am not sure I put a lot of stock in it. He is not entirely clear on what it said. But still, something isn’t right.”

  “You mean other than an animate running around the cathedral slicing people up?”

  Gisler shot him a cryptic look. “Other than that. The guards stationed outside say they heard a woman scream, then a gunshot. That would be from the Cardinal’s gun, which has been fired.” He gestured to where the weapon lay on the ground. “They came in to find the animate over the Cardinal. Sergeant Tobler fired his weapon, striking the animate. The two suspects fled through the north transept exit. The animate made its escape through the chapter house and out the back exit.”

  “I see,” Skarbunket said. “Did anyone see it leave?”

  “No, Commander. The exit through the chapter house is barred from the inside. We do not normally station anyone outside that door unless there is a meeting in progress.”

  “An oversight I’m sure you will be addressing in the future,” Skarbunket said. “Curious the perpetrators and the animate exited in different directions. There was nobody else in the cathedral when your men came in?”

  “Other than Father Angier, no, Commander. Father Brisson had already retired to his quarters across the way after Mass. He left Father Angier to clean up and lock up.”

  “Wait,” Tumbanker said. “Something doesn’t make sense. Why would the woman scream if she was one of the perpetrators?”

  “You’ll have to forgive Mister Tumbanker,” Skarbunket said. “He has a habit of placing his finger directly on the problem. I fear what it may do to his career. Please continue.”

  “Your Mister Tumbanker has spotted exactly the thing we’re curious about,” Gisler said. “And there’s another problem as well.”

  “Really? Oh, good. I was thinking there weren’t enough of those. I await this news with bated breath,” Skarbunket said.

  “Sergeant Tobler believes he recognized the woman,” Gisler said. “He swears it was the Lady Alÿs, dressed as a boy. She comes here often.”

  “Chickens, perhaps a couple of pigs…” Skarbunket said dreamily.

  “Sir?”

  “Nothing, Mayferry. Just contemplating the path not taken. A career I might have had. One that did not involve a princess of the French royal family turning up at the scene of not one but two grisly murders in about as many days.” He surveyed the cathedral. “Platoon Commander Gisler, I must commend you on your openness. It has been my experience in the past that the Papal Guard is rarely so willing to accept assistance from the outside.”

  “The first priority of the Pontifical Swiss Guard is the safety and security of the officers of the Church,” Gisler said. “We pride ourselves on our willingness to reach out to our brothers in local law enforcement to work together to—”

  “You have no idea what’s going on, so you need our help,” Skarbunket cut in.

  “I wouldn’t precisely use those words, Commander.”

  “Ah, I imagine not. And the involvement, or possible involvement, of the Lady Alÿs adds a political wrinkle that puts you in a very dangerous position,” Skarbunket continued. “The Cardinal is quite close to the French royal family, is he not? So doing anything indiscreet might bring down the wrath of both the French Crown and His Eminence on your head, which is a formidable combination for one head to take.”

  “Again, I wouldn’t put it quite—”

  “Not to mention Her Majesty the Queen,” Skarbunket mused, “who is quite fond of the lady, from all accounts, and not exactly noted for her kind and gentle disposition.”

  “While there is a political dimension—”

  “Best just to hand it off to the local plods, so if we make a mess of things, it isn’t your neck on the block, eh, Platoon Commander?”

  “We understand each other exactly, Commander Skarbunket.”

  “Splendid. Glad to be of service,” Skarbunket said. “Well then. Since we all understand each other exactly, let’s get started. Take me through the action as you believe it unfolded, Platoon Commander.”

  “We believe that the assailants entered the cathedral with the animate before or during Mass. After Mass, the Cardinal retired to his quarters, as he usually does. Father Angier was slain about this time, probably while he was cleaning up.”

  “And he was standing here.” Skarbunket walked over to the body.

  “Correct, Commander. Then the Cardinal came out of his study…”

  “With his firearm?”

  “Correct.”

  “Why?”

  “Commander?”

  “Why did he come out with his firearm?” Skarbunket said. “Is he normally in the habit of carrying a gun about the church with him?”

  “No, Commander. He probably picked up his weapon when he heard the scream.”

  “So the animate killed Father Angier. Then the Lady Alÿs, if it was she, screamed. This aroused the Cardinal’s curiosity, so he picked up his gun and came to investigate.”

  “Yes.”

  “Hmm,” Skarbunket said. “That seems, and I mean no offense, Platoon Commander, but that seems a very odd thing, does it not? Why not simply go into his quarters and kill him there, where he could be taken unawares? Why warn him and allow him to arm himself?”

  “Perhaps you can tell me, Commander.”

  “I don’t know yet.” Skarbunket paced over to where the Cardinal had fallen. “Go on, please.”

  “The Cardinal fired his weapon. The two guards outside the cathedral rushed in and saw the animate stabbing the Cardinal. The Lady Alÿs and the unidentified man fled through the transept entrance. The animate departed through the chapter house.”

  “I see.” Skarbunket walked back and forth between the body of Father Angier and the place where the Cardinal had fallen, lost in thought. He paced the circuit several times, then spun around. “Those candlesticks on the ground there, Platoon Commander. Where did they come from?”

  “I believe those are normally on the altar, Commander,” Gisler said.

  “Did any of your men approach or disturb the altar?”

  “I don’t believe so, Commander.”

  “So if the animate was here,” Skarbunket said, walking over to Father Angier’s corpse, “and then it approached the Cardinal here,” he continued, walking to where the Cardinal’s blood still pooled on the floor, “then it would go nowhere near the altar. How did the candlesticks end up on the floor?”

  “What are you suggesting?” Gisler said.

  “Suggesting? I’m suggesting nothing. I’m observing, Platoon Commander. What next?”

  “That’s it, Commander.”

  “Hmm.” Skarbunket walked back and forth. “The animate was damaged by the Cardinal’s shot. That’s the puddle of gunk here,” he said, pointing to the floor in the central aisle between the pews.

  “We believe so, Commander.”

  “And there is another puddle of gunk here, near the place you say the Cardinal was attacked. That would be your man, Sergeant…”

  “Tobler.”

  “Of course, Sergeant Tobler. So if the animate killed our unfortunate Mister Angier over there, what was it doing in the aisle here?”

  “No idea, Commander.”

  Skarbunket walked up and down the aisle. He bent over. “Mister Mayferry, Mister Bristol, what does that look like to you?”

  Mayferry and Bristol bent over. “A bit of animate ichor, sir,” Bristol said.

  “Animate ichor? Is that what it’s called?” Skarbun
ket said. “I had no idea. Hm. There’s no end to the things you can learn every day. So if the Cardinal shot the animate over there,” he pointed, “and Sergeant Tobler shot it over there, then how did it end up bleeding over here?”

  “No idea, sir,” Mayferry said.

  Skarbunket got down on his hands and knees. He looked under the pews. “Huh. What’s this?” he said, fishing the cap out from beneath a pew.

  “It looks like an apprentice blacksmith’s hat, sir,” Mayferry said.

  “And this?”

  “A long black hair, sir.”

  “Platoon Commander Gisler, remind me again what kind of hair the Lady Alÿs has?”

  “It’s long and black, Commander. What are you thinking?”

  “I am thinking I will need to talk to Sergeant Tobler, if you could be so kind as to direct me.”

  “Of course. Allow me to go fetch him.” The Platoon Commander scurried off with the expression of one relieved that his problem was turning into someone else’s problem.

  “So what are we thinking, sir?” Bristol said. “Were Thaddeus Mudstone and the princess here?”

  “Oh, yes,” Skarbunket said. “I would bet money, that is, if I weren’t on a civil servant’s salary, I would bet money on it.”

  “So what is it? French conspiracy? Italian conspiracy?”

  “I’ll wager you they were here, Mister Bristol, but not that they were involved.”

  Mayferry looked taken aback. “That hardly seems plausible, sir. Why do you think they weren’t involved?”

  “That candlestick,” Skarbunket said.

  “Sir?”

  “It doesn’t add up. When things don’t add up, it means you’re missing something. When you imagine what happened here, Mister Mayferry, can you account for why that candlestick is on the floor over there, or why there’s that bit of animate ichor here?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Exactly. That means whatever it is we think happened, we’re wrong.” He looked down at the cap in his hands. “We met Mister Thaddeus Mudstone at the Bodgers’ shop, and lo and behold, the Lady Alÿs, or a person who may be the Lady Alÿs, shows up in the company of Thaddeus Mudstone dressed as a blacksmith’s apprentice.”