The Bullet-Catcher's Daughter

by Rod Duncan

  The Royal Courts of Justice and the Patent Office Court stood next to each other, ill-matched neighbours on that great thoroughfare. Just as the Normans had constructed their most magnificent castles and palaces in the midst of the people they wished to awe and conquer, so had the International Patent Office chosen London as home to its central institution. The Kingdom had been the last major nation to add its name to the Great Accord. It was a reluctant addition to the Gas-Lit Empire. What better symbol of its capitulation than to have the frivolous spires and turrets of the Royal Courts overshadowed by austere masonry?

  Climbing the steps, I craned my neck to see the top of the mighty columns before me. Taken by itself, the portico was of similar height to the Royal Courts. But behind the apex of the portico a mighty cliff of grey granite blocked out the sky, into which rows of identical windows had been set.

  Four soldiers in blue German uniforms stood to attention in front of the great doors, which were not yet open. A different day would have seen the position of honour occupied by men from a different nation – China, Ethiopia, the Confederacy, Russia… It would be half a year before the cycle began to repeat itself. The perpetual rotation of the guard served as another symbol. The Patent Office belonged to no single nation but was served by all.

  A small crowd of men and women huddled next to the wall to one side. Petitioners, I took them to be, here to plead cases before the court. A couple were dressed in the manner of the Republic. Three seemed African. Two were Middle-easterners, from Turkey perhaps. I caught snatches of French from the group nearest the door. None of us were at ease and none of us warm.

  At half past eight I heard a low clunk and the doors began swinging inwards. One of the soldiers shouted something I could not understand. In perfect time with one another, the guards shouldered their muskets, stamped, turned on the spot and marched to positions on either side of the entranceway. Stamping and turning once more, they lowered their guns and resumed their motionless vigil.

  The small crowd, which had grown whilst we waited, now started shuffling through the doors into a high, echoing hallway, where rope barriers funnelled us into something that resembled an orderly line. One by one, those in front were called forwards across the polished stone to answer questions at a high reception desk. Peering beyond it, I could make out corridors and staircases leading off into the building. The stone lintel above each entranceway was adorned with a different Greek letter.

  If the intention of the architect had been to intimidate, he had succeeded.

  “Next,” called the man behind the desk.

  I stepped towards him more boldly than I felt.

  “Name?”

  “Elizabeth Barnabus.”

  “Your business?”

  “To observe an appeal by Mr Swain of North Leicester against the–”

  “The court doesn’t begin session until ten.”

  “Please. It’s too cold outside.”

  He peered down at me, frowning. “Very well. Do you have on your person any firearms, blades, impact weapons, projectiles, pointed weapons, black powder or corrosive chemicals?”

  He reeled off the list in a single, well-practiced breath. I shook my head.

  “You need to say it,” he explained.

  “No. I don’t have any of those things.”

  “Do you agree to submit, whilst in this building, to all instructions given by officers of this courthouse, under the powers and penalties of the International Patent Office, even in such cases as these instructions conflict with the laws of the Kingdom or any other nation?”

  “Powers and penalties?”

  “Just say yes.”

  “Then, yes.”

  “Then by the power of the International Patent Office, I grant you entry. Passage Theta. Up the staircase. Third floor. Turn left. You’ll find the courtrooms at the end of the corridor. There’s seating outside. I trust you’ll find it warm.”

  Warm it was, with plush chairs and thick carpets that softened the distant murmur of activity in the building. I stared down the corridor, wondering at the number of people it would take to populate so many offices and so many courtrooms.

  Then I fell asleep.

  I dreamed I was having tea with Julia, sitting in the bay window of her house. First she was playful. Then agitated. Then she was gripping me by the shoulders, whispering urgently. Something about the Sleepless Man. She shook me.

  “Wake up!”

  “What?”

  “Elizabeth!”

  I opened my eyes to see her crouched before me. Her father stood by her side.

  “My things?”

  “We have them here,” said Mr Swain, placing my battered travelling case at my feet.

  Julia gripped my hands in my lap. “We were so worried about you. The men-at-arms–”

  “Your coins saved me.”

  “But they were waiting for us outside the hotel this morning. I fear we’ve led them to you.”

  “They can’t come into the building,” I said. “The Kingdom’s laws don’t hold here.”

  “You must leave eventually,” said Mr Swain.

  I lifted the travelling case onto my knees. “When the time comes, I hope I’ll be able to evade them.”

  Men in lawyers’ robes had gathered outside a set of doors over which read a sign: “Court of Appeal 3 – Anglo-Scottish Republic”. Others began to arrive – citizens of the Republic to judge by their clothing. The building seemed to have done its intended job, for they advanced as if each step might be a mistake. Compliant enough, I thought, to accept any judgement.

  When he arrived, the man-at-arms was starkly conspicuous. Though stripped of his red jacket and insignia, he could not have been mistaken. He marched directly to me. Stopping a yard short of my chair he clicked the heels of his mirror polished boots.

  “Your name please?” he demanded.

  I stood but still had to crane my neck to look him in the eyes. “To whom am I speaking?”

  “Are you Elizabeth Barnabus?”

  “I see you have no sword or flintlock,” I said. “By which I gather that you aren’t an official.”

  Then I sat down again and turned my attention to Julia, who had the chair next to mine. Her fingers were gripping the arm rests. Her face had turned pale. The lawyers were staring at us. One of the younger ones stepped closer, the better to hear our conversation.

  The man-at-arms cleared his throat and tried again, addressing the space above my head as if I were still standing. “I gather I am addressing Miss Elizabeth Barnabus, even though you will not confirm it. You are a fugitive from contracted servitude to the Duke of Northampton. I am empowered to demand your presence at–”

  “Empowered by whom?”

  “By the Duke of Northampton, who demands your presence at his estate where you–”

  “I see no insignia,” I said, cutting in again.

  “It...” His face had begun to colour. “It isn’t permitted to bring them into the Patent Office Court.”

  “Then I’m not obliged to go with you.”

  The young lawyer chuckled. “She has you there,” he said.

  The man-at-arms knelt bringing his face to my level, though it clearly offended his dignity. “Come willingly and I’ll see you protected,” he whispered. “Your new life will be pleasant. You’ll be comfortable. My master’s favourites are given the best food and clothing.”

  “My duties?”

  “The Duke is an old man. He’ll not bother you often.”

  “And when he dies? What happens to his property? Who would inherit me?” The pitch of my voice was rising.

  “It’ll be long before you’re troubled by that. He’s in good health. The old Duke, his father, achieved ninety-five years.”

  We both turned to look as Julia stood.

  The man straightened himself. “This is not your business Miss–” he began.

  But Julia had brought her arm back and was now swinging it forward again. A soldier should have quicker
reactions. For a fraction of a second he was staring, dumbly bewildered. Then Julia’s palm connected with his face with a stinging slap.

  Everyone was staring now. He got to his feet, his cheek blotchy, reddening where she had caught him.

  “You wish to press charges, sir?” asked the young lawyer, his voice mocking.

  The man-at-arms ignored the jibe. “At five this afternoon they’ll close the building. You’ll be thrown out. My men’ll be waiting. With insignia. The crowds won’t help you this time. They turn on a woman in chains. I’ve seen it before. They’ll tear your clothes. Throw filth in your face. You’ll be a stinking, ragged thing thrown at my master’s feet. He’s sure to treat you accordingly.”

  He wheeled and began to march away down the corridor. The young lawyer began to clap. Others joined in. Some stamped their feet and wolf-whistled. They kept up the din until the Duke of Northampton’s man had turned the corner and was gone.

  “Forgive me for intruding,” said the young lawyer to Julia. “But the man was a cad. And that was a very fine hit.”

  “Can he do what he said?” she asked, her voice shrill.

  “Outside this building, yes. You can appeal a contract of service, but it would take months. Years even. And in all that time, your friend would be in the Duke’s possession.”

  The court doors opened and people started moving through. The lawyer seemed torn. “Duty calls, I am afraid.” He offered Julia his name card. “In case you require legal representation. Or for any other reason.” Then he bowed and hurried after his colleagues.

  “Lawyers are born to take advantage,” said Mr Swain grimly. “But I must follow him. Though I’d abandon my case if you thought my staying could help.”

  “Go,” I said. “Both of you.”

  Mr Swain bowed to me, something he had never done before. Then he followed the lawyers into the courtroom. Julia gripped my hand and would not release it.

  “I’ll be safe,” I assured her.

  “I can’t leave you!”

  “Unless you do, I can’t make my escape.”

  “You’re still holding something from me,” she said. “I can see it in your face. Is your brother to rescue you?”

  “I believe I will escape. And in a manner of speaking, my brother will indeed help. But I can’t tell you more.”

  She dropped my hand. We stood for a moment looking at each other. Then I picked up my case and hurried away.

  Like everything in the International Patent Court, the ladies’ washroom had been built on a huge scale. Thirty stalls faced thirty simple hand basins across a tiled room. The air smelled of bleach and carbolic soap, both appropriately austere. Large, frosted glass windows bathed the room in soft white light. Like the corridor outside, the washroom was empty – the only sounds a dripping tap and my own breathing.

  Closing the stall door behind me, I opened my travelling case and began the transformation, stripping off the female layers, replacing them with the symbols of a male persona. Turn by turn, I wrapped the binding cloth around me, the familiar pressure across my breasts and release around my waist starting to do its work, the modification of shape that triggered a deeper change.

  No need to rush this time. I intended to step out of the building in daylight. The disguise must be flawless. Using the small mirror on the inside of the case, I applied the facial hair, using the tips of my fingers to touch it down against the adhesive.

  No doors had opened or closed whilst I had been working. The emptiness of the place seemed wrong. Perhaps this wing of the court was unusual in that respect. Other sections of the building might be bustling with activity. Or perhaps it was an unusual time.

  I listened for a moment before opening the stall door. A man in a woman’s washroom would cause a commotion if discovered. Then I listened again at the exit door and, on hearing nothing, stepped out into the corridor.

  And there facing me stood Julia Swain, her eyes wide with shock.

  Chapter 35

  Hold this book at arm’s length. At first it seems possessed of no weight. But slowly it becomes a brick of lead in your hand. Such is the burden of those who carry the secret of a great illusion.

  – The Bullet Catcher’s Handbook

  I glanced up and down that long corridor. We were alone.

  “Mr Barnabus?” Julia’s eyes flashed to the battered travelling case. She stepped towards me and I retreated into the washroom. The tap still dripped. Our footsteps sounded suddenly loud on the tiled floor.

  “Mr Barnabus?” she asked again, then cast around the empty room with her eyes. “Elizabeth?”

  I knew the moment when understanding hit her because her face became brittle.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, using my deep voice out of habit rather than any desire to prolong the deception. “I wanted to tell you. It just...”

  I could see her fingers trembling as she reached out her hand towards my face. “All this time?” her voice was a whisper. “You knew how I felt for him. All this time, and I...” She didn’t touch me. Her cheeks had gone pale and she was backing away. Then she bolted for the nearest stall. The door clattered as she barged inside. She threw herself to her knees and vomited into the toilet bowl.

  “No one knows this,” I said, having to force myself to speak in my female voice. Everything about this was wrong. “Without this, I’ve no life. I’m so sorry.”

  She retched again into the toilet.

  Despite the male clothing, when I fled from the washroom it was with the gait of a woman. But as I walked the long corridor my training took over and the pattern of my footsteps began to change. I tried telling myself that there had been no other choice. What was done could not be undone. I should put it from my mind.

  Retracing my journey through the high-ceilinged hallway and past the rope barriers, I stepped out once more into thin daylight. Northampton’s men stood at ease under the portico, musket butts resting on the stone floor. One of them carried an iron collar and manacles connected by a loop of chain.

  None of them even looked at me as I brushed past. It should have been a moment of triumph but all I could feel was gnawing guilt.

  When I was a child, my father devised an illusion that required the lighting in the tent to change on his command. In his mind’s eye he’d seen the colour of the torches flicker from yellow to blue. Knowing no means to create this effect, he travelled to London’s Spitalfields to consult the Jewish scientists who had colonised an area of shops and houses to the east of Petticoat Lane Market. Within those few hundred yards of brick and cobble, he said, lay more knowledge of chemicals and medicines than could be found in any other single place in the Gas-Lit Empire. That had been twelve years ago and I could now recall little but a name – Strype Street.

  I asked a barrow boy, who said he had never heard of the place. Then a chestnut seller who scratched his head and said it might be south of the river, or perhaps north of it. But when I mentioned the colony of Jewish scientists, a kind of disgust spread across his face – which I took to be recognition. “That’d be east, then,” he said.

  I set off as he had indicated and soon found others to confirm and refine the directions. Fleet Street gave way to Ludgate Hill. The Great West Door of St Paul’s Cathedral gradually emerged from the thin fog. Its towers and dome loomed as pale outlines in the grey sky. On another day I would have stopped to wonder at the grandeur of it. But so focussed was I on my goal that the cathedral was merely a way marker, as were the great banks of Threadneedle Street. Two miles of London’s cobbles and uneven paving should have left my feet sore, but with my goal seeming close I hardly noticed.

  Having deposited my travelling case at the Bishopsgate Coach Station and received a chit in return, I began to pick my way through the final few streets. I had already passed several Jewish shops and businesses. As I finally turned onto Strype Street I saw an apothecary with its window display of giant flasks – blue, red and yellow. A painted sign on the building next door boasted of laboratory glasswa
re at wholesale prices. The street was shorter than I had thought it would be – little more than fifty yards from end to end.

  Suddenly, I remembered gripping my father’s hand. An image flashed into my mind of following close behind as he stepped through an entranceway sandwiched between two shops. Climbing a narrow flight of poorly lit stairs, we had come to a room of burners, stills and retorts. There we met a man with a beard so long that it rested on his round stomach. I sat on a high stool while they talked, my nose wrinkling against a strange smell – oily yet sweet. I kicked my feet as I watched a clear liquid heating over a spirit flame. Three glass marbles in the bottom of the flask jiggled and danced as it began to boil. When it was time to go, the bearded man told me I was a good girl and pinched my cheek. Then he took a jar of marbles like those I had been watching and tipped one into my hand.

  The dislocation of exile had so separated me from my past that these memories, vivid and unexpected, felt like imposters in my head. It was as if they belonged to another person. Someone I loved, perhaps.

  I had almost reached the end of the street now, and not found what I was looking for. Then I caught a scent in the air. I inhaled again, more deeply this time. It was sweet like over-ripe fruit yet somehow less wholesome. The same smell from all those years ago. I slowed, scanning the buildings to either side.

  The entrance was like and yet unlike the one in my memory. There had been no door before. Now there was one, though it stood ajar. The position seemed the same, but the shops that abutted to either side had changed. In the memory I was safe, my father’s warm hand engulfing my own. Now I stood tensed. Steeled against shadows.

  The sound of wooden shutters clattered me back to the present. A Jewish man dressed head to foot in black was closing up the herbalist wholesaler across the street. Glancing around, I saw a thin scatter of people hurrying about their business. One figure in the distance was staring in my direction. I had been standing for too long.

  The laboratory smell strengthened as I stepped inside. I pushed the door closed behind me and began climbing the narrow staircase, feeling my way. As I approached the top, one of the stairs creaked loudly under my foot.