The Crimson Shard

by Teresa Flavin

  Blaise caught his breath again when he examined the face. At first glance she was beautiful, but after a few moments he had seen something beyond that. The painter had made a likeness, but he had also brutally exposed her character. The eyes were hard and knowing, and the lips were tightened into an almost imperceptible sneer.

  “Of course it is ours,” said Amelia, puzzled.

  Blaise’s head began throbbing again. “It’s a portrait of Livia, Throgmorton’s daughter.”

  “The same Throgmorton who is pursuing you? How can that be?” Henry examined the portrait. “And in our picture gallery? I have never noticed it before.”

  “Never?” Blaise murmured. “It was there, hanging in the top row.”

  Henry turned to his sister. “You are certain you know this painting?”

  “Yes,” Amelia said. “It has always been there. I have watched the servants dusting it.”

  “You were seeking this last night.” Henry peered at Blaise. “The housebreaker caught you there.”

  “Yes, sir.” Blaise hung his aching head. “I had to have a closer look at the painting.”

  Sunni spoke up. “You don’t know why there is a portrait of Livia in your house, sir?”

  “Our grandfather collected the paintings before we were born. They have nothing to do with us.” Henry shrugged. “Besides, how can one be expected to remember them all?”

  “Maybe this girl only looks like Throgmorton’s daughter,” Amelia said. “I often see resemblances in paintings.”

  “It is her, miss,” Sunni said. “If you look carefully, the name Livia is painted into the background. There, to the left.”

  Amelia blinked. “So it is.”

  To Blaise’s relief, she didn’t notice the other name he and Sunni had found on the hand mirror, painted to look as though it was engraved in the silver. It made him shudder every time he read the tiny letters.

  “But we don’t know who painted it.” Blaise pointed at the bottom right of the painting. “The artist only signed his initials: M.B.”

  “Do you have any idea who M.B. is, miss?” asked Sunni. “Sir?”

  “I know very little about painters,” Henry said unapologetically.

  “Neither do I,” Amelia said.

  Blaise’s wound was aching, and he had to sit down.

  Sunni turned to him. “Are you all right?”

  “Still a bit sore,” he said. “Go on. Show them the date.”

  Sunni moved her finger below the artist’s initials, and the Featherstones crowded close to see.

  The four numbers were small, so she read them aloud: “This portrait of Livia was made in 1583.”

  Amelia put one hand to her cheek, looking perplexed.

  “Are you sure you don’t know anything about this?” Blaise asked.

  Henry glared at them. “I am telling you, my sister and I know nothing of this person Throgmorton, and even less of his daughter! I have never seen either of them in my life.”

  “Sorry, sir, but I had to ask,” said Blaise. “We thought Throgmorton and Livia were from your time, but after seeing this portrait, we don’t know which time they come from.”

  “But,” said Sunni, “this painting proves Livia has been in 1583. And she was there long enough to have her portrait done.”

  “They move freely into the future and the past,” said Amelia, eyes wide.

  “I do not know what to make of all this. It is the most puzzling thing I have ever encountered,” Henry said. “But what I do know is this: Throgmorton has put a price on your head, and his blackguards could be waiting on our threshold at this very moment. Go with my sister now and let her do what needs to be done.”

  Sunni and Blaise went to remove Livia’s portrait, but Henry waved them away. “Leave that here. I will return it to the gallery myself. Perhaps it is time I learned what else is there.”

  Amelia ushered them upstairs. “Sunniva, you come with me. Blaise, gather your belongings and wait in your chamber until I summon you.”

  It felt as if hours passed. Blaise lay on his bed, fully clothed, his satchel carefully packed. His head was no longer throbbing, but it was spinning with questions.

  When Amelia finally knocked, he had already counted all the carved leaves and birds on the bed’s headboard twice, trying to keep his mind off the name on the mirror in Livia’s portrait.

  Amelia led him by the elbow to her sitting room, a comfortable hideaway filled with her books, watercolor sketches, and sewing materials. But he nearly jumped out of his skin at the sight of a black-caped figure at the window, gazing out over the garden.

  Amelia laughed and the figure whirled around, revealing a white mask covering the face from forehead to nose. Black fabric hung like a hood from under its three-cornered hat, covering the hair and neck. A long gown poked out from under the floor-length cape.

  The figure snapped open a red lacquered fan and twirled around.

  “Do you know me?” a voice purred.

  “Sunni?”

  “What do you think?”

  “You look amazing,” said Blaise. “And creepy. All that’s showing is your mouth and hands.”

  “And the bottom of a gown,” said Amelia. “Unless they know better, Throgmorton’s men may still be searching for two boys, so dressing as a girl will be a further layer of protection.”

  “You’re not getting me to wear a dress, miss.” Blaise shrank back. “There’s no way.”

  “Relax,” said Sunni. “You’re getting a cape and a mask like mine.”

  “It is simplest and most anonymous. My brother brought these masks from Venice, and they are very effective.” Amelia steered him toward a table piled with fabric and a sewing box. “There is a grand Jubilee Masquerade at Ranelagh Gardens tonight, and both men and women will be wearing costumes exactly like this. No one will look twice at us. We shall be able to move freely to Mr. Wheatley’s.”

  “But I’ll wear breeches under the cloak, right?”

  “Yeah, with these shoes.” Sunni held up a pair of black shoes with gigantic bows on each buckle. “Have fun.”

  “Now, to construct your cloak. It will hide you and your satchel from prying eyes.” Amelia pulled a midnight-blue cape from the jumble on the table. “This was mine, but we shall adapt it for you.” She draped it across Blaise’s shoulders, and he groaned inwardly that he was going to have to wear a woman’s clothes. “I shall add some trim at the bottom to lengthen it for your height.”

  She measured and pinned and snipped. An old hat of Henry’s was called into service. Amelia tacked a black drape inside it that would hang down to cover Blaise’s head and chest.

  “I shall have to line this hat with stuffing,” she announced. “Even with your bandage, my brother’s head is still fatter than yours.”

  When Sunni and Blaise were dressed up to her satisfaction, Amelia made them remove their masks long enough to eat a three-course lunch. It was mid-afternoon by the time she let her brother know that everything was ready. At his orders, the footmen streamed out of the mansion, combing the gardens, stables, and fields for spies. The maidservants peered from the upper and lower windows, then scoured every passageway and room till they were certain no one was secreted in the house.

  One of the footmen brought the carriage around and held its door open for the strange parade of cloaked figures that floated toward it. Once they were inside, all that could be seen through the carriage windows were two rows of stiff white masks. The carriage rolled away toward London like a spectral hearse.

  They made their way through villages on the outskirts of London.

  “We are not far from Wheatley’s home in Chelsea,” said Henry. “The footman shall drop us there and take the carriage to a nearby inn. Keep your masks on at all times.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Blaise. “And thank you. I don’t know what we’d have done without you and Miss Featherstone.”

  “Do not thank us yet,” Henry said. “There is still the small matter of transferring you into
the hands of your next protector.”

  At last the carriage came to a halt in a quiet street. Sunni and Blaise struggled out of the narrow door in their long capes and special-occasion shoes and gazed through their mask holes at Wheatley’s house. Unlike the others in the street, all its shutters were closed. Sunni had never seen a house that said “go away” more than this one.

  “Oh, dear,” said Amelia. “Has Mr. Wheatley left? His house looks abandoned.”

  “No,” said Henry, sighing. “His house always looks this way.” He waved to the footman, and the carriage tottered away.

  When, after Henry’s repeated knocking, a servant pulled open the door, he jumped back at the sight of the four cloaked, masked figures.

  “Mr. Wheatley is expecting us,” said Henry, his voice muffled.

  “Who may I say is calling?”

  “You are new to this establishment, are you not? I have not seen you before.”

  The servant frowned. “Yes, sir. May I have your name?”

  “By heaven, is Wheatley expecting such a string of visitors that I must give my name?” Henry pushed past, pulling Sunni and Amelia with him. The surprised servant backed away when Blaise stepped in and shut the door behind him.

  Sunni examined the dark hall, swiveling her head around to see through the mask’s eyeholes. Books were stacked against the walls in crooked towers. A dusty mirror hung slanted on one wall, catching the light of the single candle illuminating the narrow space. But the thing that she noticed most was the smell: a faint odor of rotten eggs.

  “Now,” said Henry. “Will you let your employer know that Mr. Featherstone and his party have arrived?”

  “If you had only said so, sir,” the servant muttered sourly. “He is expecting you.” He flung open the door to the shuttered front room, where a round table was set with a cold meal. He lit a few candles against the gloom. “He is occupied and begs you to take refreshment while you are waiting.”

  “Occupied!”

  “Yes, Mr. Featherstone. Please wait in here. He will see you when he is able.”

  “Is able!” Henry raised his mask like a visor on a helmet, revealing his deep scowl.

  The footman scurried away. “I will bring tea, sir.”

  They filed into the dingy dining parlor and hesitantly took seats around the table. Once Henry had taken off his hat and mask, the others followed. Sunni and Blaise swung their satchels into their laps.

  “Why are all the shutters closed in daytime?” Blaise murmured to Sunni.

  “And why does it smell so rotten?” she whispered back.

  Amelia wrinkled her nose as she ran a finger through dust on the tabletop. “The edges of these meats are curling up, they have sat out so long. Is that what I smell?”

  Henry said, “Knowing Wheatley, it is sulfur.”

  “Why has he got sulfur in his home?”

  “The man is a natural philosopher, Sister, and takes an interest in chemistry. He investigates the workings of nature and the universe as a matter of course.”

  Sunni eyed a pot of cheese and wondered what chemical changes it was undergoing as it sat there. Blaise prodded a piece of ham with his knife, and a small army of ants scattered.

  Sunni squeezed her eyes shut. Between the sight of the ants and the eggy smell, her big lunch was in danger of moving upward and out.

  Amelia scanned the table with horror. “Mr. Wheatley does not seem used to providing hospitality.”

  “I cannot help that.” Henry crossed his arms over his chest, looking slightly uncomfortable.

  The servant backed into the parlor with a tray containing a tarnished teapot and stained cups, deposited it on the table, and disappeared without a word.

  Amelia poured several cups out and wrinkled her nose again. “This tea is fishy.”

  “Leave it, then!” said Henry, getting up and pacing around the parlor.

  No one spoke. Sunni fidgeted in her seat, trying to keep her stays from digging into her, while Blaise sat rigid in his chair, looking as if he were scarcely breathing.

  Henry kept checking his pocket watch. “We have been here for over half an hour. What is occupying him?”

  As if on cue, the servant put his nose around the door. “Follow me, if you please.”

  Late afternoon sun filtered in through the small windows in the stairwell, highlighting floating dust motes in the air as they climbed. The rotten-egg smell grew stronger and was tinged with other unidentified but equally unpleasant odors.

  On the second floor, the servant opened a door and bowed, before ducking away with a strange look on his face.

  “Come!” Wheatley growled from within.

  The room was a darkened pit of heat and stench. Wheatley was slumped in a wooden chair, dressed in a loose dressing gown, with a striped cloth wound around his wigless, and seemingly hairless, head. His gaunt cheeks were shaded with dark stubble.

  There was no furniture, other than a few tables covered in opened books, papers, skulls, broken clockworks, and a large hourglass. Stuffed reptiles and snakes were suspended from the ceiling on ropes, like prey waiting for a giant spider to consume them. Several small, glowing furnaces stood in and around the hearth, their outflow pipes hooked into the chimney to take smoke and fumes up and away. Fearsome iron hooks, tongs, and bellows were scattered about.

  A number of graceful but oddly shaped glass vessels balanced on stands and tripods. Some were like the head of an elephant, with a long, tapering trunklike appendage on one side and a small spout on top. There was a dark substance smoldering at the base of one vessel.

  “By heaven, Wheatley, do you intend to poison yourself and everyone else?” Henry cried, shaking his friend by the shoulder. “Is this why you cannot keep a servant for long?”

  Wheatley’s eyes were wide and bloodshot. “Good day, Featherstone . . . Miss Featherstone. And the two runaways . . . Ah, you are costumed for the masquerade.” He got up, teetered slightly, and came to greet them. “Welcome to my laboratory.”

  “More like the Devil’s inferno.” Henry fanned the air with his mask. “Explain why you summoned us. Quickly, man, before we are overcome by fumes.”

  “I have been working since I last saw you,” said Wheatley. “It is going well.”

  “Working at what?”

  “You shall see.”

  Sunni thought she would vomit if they didn’t get out of there soon. “Mr. Wheatley, have you spoken to the magicians?”

  “No.” Wheatley shrugged. “The magicians I know of are not capable of solving this.”

  Blaise held his nose. “What do you mean, sir?”

  Wheatley sidled over to one of the furnaces and checked inside. He slammed the doors shut and turned back to them. “A question. Does the painted door grow its handle out before one’s eyes? Like a plant bursting from soil?”

  “It’s more instant than that,” said Sunni. “The handle just appears.”

  “And then retracts when a person has passed through? Returning to its flat, painted state?”

  Sunni and Blaise both nodded.

  “That sounds to me like the work of astral magic. If we were in Venice during the 1580s, we could perhaps call upon certain artists there who were said to have mastered celestial forces to bring their paintings to life.” Wheatley darted about, picking papers off the floor and peering at them. “But their magical abilities died with them. I know of no one who can work with such powers now.”

  Sunni gulped. Fausto Corvo was a master of astral magic. He had to be one of the artists Wheatley meant.

  “Artists had magical abilities?” Blaise asked with a waver in his voice.

  “None more than one named il Corvo — the Raven. But he vanished under mysterious circumstances, never to be seen again. There was one other I heard of, who might have learned some magical skills.” Wheatley screwed up his face as he thought. “Bellini. Maffeo Bellini.”

  Sunni started coughing. She had never expected to hear that name again: the rival painter Soranzo h
ad paid to ferret out Corvo’s magical secrets using deception and bribery. Maffeo’s treachery had forced Corvo and his three apprentices to flee Venice, thereby provoking Soranzo’s obsessive hunt for him.

  “That is all very well,” said Henry. “But we are in the year 1752.”

  Amelia held a handkerchief to her nose. “Can anyone aid Sunniva and Blaise in this century, Mr. Wheatley?”

  “Miss, I have been working all night toward this goal.” Wheatley’s bulging eyes gleamed. “I believe the painted door’s magic is quite simple. Throgmorton knows how to awaken it and then put it back to sleep, as one lights and extinguishes a candle. But his power goes beyond this simple action.”

  “How?” Blaise burst out.

  “He opens not only the door, but time itself.”

  “Using the symbol he writes on the door?” asked Amelia.

  “I have not got to that yet,” said Wheatley. “Though perhaps the number nine identifies him and allows him through.” He suddenly weaved away toward his glass vessels and peered into the one containing the dark substance. “No, there is much more to this than a number.”

  “Come, man, explain — or I shall fall dead from this toxic air,” said Henry.

  “I am grappling with the question of the red elixir.”

  “The red elixir?”

  “Alchemists who desire to make gold must seek the red elixir,” Wheatley muttered as if he were talking to himself.

  Blaise breathed out. “Alchemists?”

  “Throgmorton may have used a cunning version of the alchemical red elixir on the painted door. That is my conclusion.”

  “But we don’t know what the red stuff was,” Sunni pointed out.

  “They said it was crimson,” said Blaise. “But that’s all.”

  Wheatley gave a low snort. “Not crimson. Crimson is extracted from scaly insects. That will hardly open the door of time.” He gazed at the substance in the glass vessel and checked the hole at the top, which was tightly sealed. “It was more likely vermilion, and even then . . .”