The Secrets of Blood and Bone

by Rebecca Alexander

  “Do not touch her!” boomed Julian. A note of urgency in his voice made Felix pull his hand back.

  Gina opened her eyes and stared straight at him. She seemed conscious of him, or at least some part of her did, because her mouth stretched into a grimace, and the grinding words started again. Finally, he began to recognize some elements of what she was trying to say.

  “Death—fast—deathfast—touches her. Touches her—with death.” She moaned, not in pain, but in some sensual frenzy, her body writhing. “He lives—within.” Her words came faster, less intelligible. “Stop him—stop him!”

  She screamed, as if in terror, and the crowd around him shouted in some reply, the drums beating faster now, the dancers swaying, whirling, stamping closer and closer. When she looked at him again, it was with terrified eyes and this time he reached to touch her, to comfort. A shock hit him as if he’d been electrocuted and ran through his body as it was jerked back. He hit the floor hard, bright flashes before his eyes as his head smacked against the wooden floor. He rolled over, his muscles slow to respond, landing on all fours, staring at Gina. She was white-faced, her eyes still staring, as if she were dead.

  —

  It took Julian some time to persuade Felix not to call 911 as he assured him Gina’s state was normal. It was one of the crowd, a doctor, who finally persuaded him to leave her for a few minutes. A cautious hand to her neck, not followed by a shock, assured him that her pulse was strong, and within a minute her eyes closed and she lapsed into a sleeplike state. Julian helped him lift her onto a rapidly supplied couch, and the other celebrants formed a circle at the other end of the room and started singing. Julian stood with him, watching Gina.

  “That was surprising,” he said, looking at Felix intently. “Tell me, what did you feel when Elegba traveled through you?”

  “Is that what you think happened?” Felix knelt beside her. “Gina?”

  Julian spoke to someone and after a few moments Auguste appeared with a glass of what Felix hoped was water.

  “Felix?” Her voice was weak.

  “You’re back.” He smiled, a warm wave of relief spreading through him. “I was really worried for a second.”

  “What happened? I remember the drumming and dancing—did I join in?”

  “No, but you did start talking.”

  “Anything interesting?” Gina put her hand to her temple, and winced. “My head hurts.”

  Julian’s voice was soothing. “You were blessed by a visitation by an orisha, Elegba. He seemed to have a message for us, or perhaps for our professor.”

  “But I wasn’t part of—” Gina rubbed her forehead for a moment. “I think I need to go home. Felix?”

  Julian began shaking his head. “She has been blessed; she should stay and recover.”

  “Thank you, Julian, for a very interesting session, but I think I’ll take Gina home now.” Felix injected as much authority as he could into his voice, and gripped Gina’s hand, helping her to stand. “Are you OK?”

  “At least let Auguste drop you home,” suggested the older man, but Gina waved the suggestion away.

  “I’m fine, I’m really all right. I just need to get rid of this headache.” She pulled on Felix’s hand, as if she couldn’t bear to stay any longer.

  They escaped into the spring day, clouds scudding overhead, the street quiet after the cacophony of singing and drums. She leaned heavily on Felix’s arm.

  “What do you want me to do?” He was beginning to get concerned, now he could see how pale her lips were in the light.

  “Get a cab.” She smiled at him, her lips quivering. “I really am fine. What the hell happened?”

  “I think Julian would say you were possessed by an orisha, a spirit connection to the divine, to give us a message.”

  “That sounds like a lot more fun than what happened.” She tried again to pull the torn shirt together.

  “Here.” He slipped off his jacket and she pulled it on.

  “I’m sorry—he said there was a message?”

  “Never mind that now.” His waving attracted the attention of a cabdriver, who pulled up smartly next to the curb. “Do you want me to come with you? I’m not sure you ought to be alone.”

  “I’ll be fine. Thank you, Felix. I’ll phone you after I’ve had a rest. I’m just tired.” A little mischief creased the corners of her eyes. “I didn’t get much sleep last night, you know.”

  He stepped back and waved as the door shut and the driver pulled away. He started walking in the direction of the French Quarter, well signposted for tourists. Without his jacket the sunshine was misleading, there was still a little nip in the air. A message for him? He tried to recall what she had mumbled.

  Deathfast? And who was the “he” she had shouted, something about something that lives within? And death, did it refer to the strange half-life Jack lived in? He stopped at a crossing, waiting for the lights to change. The message could be coincidence, even Julian made no attempt to interpret it as a message for his group. The focus was on Felix, and he felt uneasy at the few words. “Touches her in death?” He realized as he crossed the road that he had thought little about Gina, who had been knocked out, and all about Jack, who hadn’t even been present.

  Chapter 9

  PRESENT DAY: BEE COTTAGE, LAKE DISTRICT

  The garden watches. It feels the pressure of life in the house, sees the taking away of the witch’s possessions, the scrubbing and scouring.

  It watches the bats streaming out of the eaves, thin and hungry after the dark months, looking for moths and midges. Lights glow from the back of the house and the garden leans in to look. Two of them: one a witch, one—maybe not. The garden shifts its roots as the ground shrivels under the dry spell, and bursts a few buds into leaves. A pigeon perches in one of the plum trees, cooing nervously, and takes off after no birds reply. Wise. The bones of the previous thieves litter the garden like porcelain shards, bleached by the sun and scattered by burying beetles. The ivy protects its berries.

  Two weeks later, once the rubbish removal firm had emptied the old house and taken away Dumpster after Dumpster of refuse, Jack could inspect the whole property. The top floor had two large front bedrooms, both basically dry except for areas in front of broken windows, and a smaller back room next to a large bathroom. The chipped, claw-footed bath presided over the room with an old toilet in the corner. It had a cistern near the ceiling, which worked, as Sadie had testified. Everything was filthy. The sink was green with algae, and the drain half blocked. The bathroom was a good place to start cleaning. With the glazier replacing window glass at the front of the property, she set to with tools and detergents, scouring off years of grime. Finally, she cut the stinking vinyl flooring into bits, and carried it down to the new Dumpster.

  Sadie met her on the way back into the hall, holding a book. She had been curled up in a folding chair, reading in the sunshine coming through the new glass in the dining room and, Jack suspected, occasionally flirting with the good-looking builders.

  The glazier met her on the landing, sipping from the top of a flask.

  “I can repair the front room window today, but the frames need stripping and repainting. The back windows are much worse, and I can’t get to them without scaffolding. They’re in a terrible mess, and I’m not sure the frames are salvageable.” Jack looked through the open bathroom door to the glass, so covered with leaves they made it feel as if it were underwater, infused with green light.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll call you when the garden’s cleared. Can you board up the back windows where the birds are getting in, anyway?”

  “Of course. I can do that from inside.”

  Banging from a downstairs room suggested the decorators were taking down the lounge ceiling, which had been ruined by the smoke.

  “I need to empty the kitchen first,” she said, “and get all the units out. You could come back then to do the window frames when we have cleared the garden.”

  She smiled at him and went d
ownstairs to see how the dining room was coming on.

  At least the stink of charred flesh from the adjacent room had been reduced, with windows and doors propped open, and wallpaper coming off ready for skimming with new plaster and paint. A company had removed all the internal doors for stripping, and then returned them. Jack rather liked the stripped pine and planned to wax them all. Maggie had given her a recipe for the polish, with its scents of natural turpentine and beeswax, which were melting together on an electric ring in the kitchen. Jack went to prod the lump of wax and stir it. She added half a tiny bottle of lavender oil and a few drops of geranium, as Maggie had prescribed, and the warm scents immediately lifted her mood. She turned off the heat as the last of the solids molded into a teardrop on the bottom of the pan, and left it to dissolve.

  “Hey!” The shout from one of the builders outside made her look up. “There’s a lady here, says she wants someone called Maggie.”

  “I’m coming.” She walked down the hall. An old woman with bright orange hair and scarlet lips, whose age Jack couldn’t begin to guess, was standing at the doorway, leaning on a stick. Her eyes looked pink, as if she’d been crying.

  “You aren’t Magpie.”

  “Magpie? Oh, Maggie. No, I’m sorry. I’m Jack Hammond, Maggie’s foster daughter.”

  The woman’s eyes, almost lost in webs of wrinkles and drooping lids, brightened as she stared at Jack. “You?” she said, looking her up and down. “You are Jackdaw?”

  “I am, Mrs.—?”

  “I am Maisie Talbot. I was Ellen’s friend. She mentioned you, and, of course, I knew Magpie from when she was a child. I was hoping to see her.”

  “She’ll be here next week.”

  “Then she will miss the inquest tomorrow.” The old woman seemed to lean heavily on her stick. “But you’ll be there?”

  “Certainly.” Jack couldn’t even offer her a chair, as most of Ellen’s had gone in the Dumpsters with everything else and the rest were being repaired along with the bedroom furniture. “Are you going?”

  “Of course. I was the last person to see her alive. In fact, I was on my way to see her when it happened.” She nodded to the living-room doorway. “I came in, pushed the door open. It was a terrible sight to see my friend, dead—and like that. Burned up.”

  Jack looked at her feet for a moment, as the old woman dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Just tell Magpie to come and see me, when she gets here. I have to go, I’ve left my taxi driver waiting—” Her face twisted with an expression that looked like something between pain and rage.

  Jack watched her struggle with her cane across to the taxi. “It was a terrible accident,” she said.

  The woman’s voice was suddenly strident. “Accident?” She swung around, holding on to the car door, and pointed a trembling finger at Jack. “It was no accident. Ellen Ratcliffe was murdered.”

  Chapter 10

  The great city of Venetia or Venice is a masterpiece of engineering. It sits upon a multitude of islands, made from Illyrian alder trees thrust into the soft mud of the lagoon and filled with sand and silt. Upon this soft matter are all the houses and churches erected, some as great as such buildings seen in London. Over all, the towering grandeur of St. Mark’s with its stolen treasures.

  —HENRY WOTTON, Upon the State of Venetia, 1589

  My new host could not have been more genial. Although a son of a noble house, Marinello had been sailing with his father, a sea trader, since he was a young boy. He took me around the city on one of his narrow open boats called a pupparin, showing me the wonders of the architecture and the people.

  The waterways fell into deep shadows between the palazzos, gaudy in their brightly painted windows and walls. Everywhere bridges, walkways and boats filled every available space on the canals, which, according to Marinello, were created by the ancestors of modern Venice.

  We shivered in the shade then basked in the spring sun as the boatman criss-crossed the city. The air was not fresh, having a scent of fish and ordure, but Marinello laughed at my wrinkled nose. “I have seen the waters clogged with everything from dead horses to whole trees,” he said. “Then a spring tide and whoosh!” He waved his arm over the side of the boat. “It is gone, and the sea returns.”

  “But what of potable water to drink?” I said, looking at the tightly woven houses.

  “Aquifers, under the city. Each large house and some courtyards have one. Water is precious currency in Venice. In long summers, people suffer.” He stretched back on the cushions behind him. “Not me. My ships trade mostly between Easter and winter, bringing everything from spices and silk to meats and wine. I sail with them in the dry season.”

  Music drifted out of the back of a tall building, the sweet thrum of a harp perhaps and some sort of viol, followed by the voice of a young man. “Your people are always singing,” I observed, seeing a group of children stop playing to crowd under the window and listen.

  “Yes, we sing.” He turned his head toward me. “You English are more…how would you say, dour?”

  I smiled. “We are a serious people, yes, but we love our theater, our poetry, our music, also. And dancing.” It seemed a long time since I had been there, yet it was scarcely two months. It had been my first visit in several years, and it had been pleasant to think and speak English again.

  “Tell me of your great houses, your lords,” he said, smiling and waving at two women laughing on one of the bridges. They blew him kisses as we passed underneath them.

  I thought back to Knowle Castle, the great seat of the Dannicks. “My patron, Lord Robert Dannick, his castle is a great house indeed.” I embellished a little here, for, in truth, the place is a gray fortress. “His great hall can have several hundred dancers and revelers. He has hosted hunting parties for the queen herself.”

  “Is she a great beauty, as you English claim?”

  I moderated my more loyal answer in favor of a modicum of truth. “She is a handsome lady, my lord, for her age, which is over fifty years. Slender still, with a fine figure and brilliant eyes.” I had seen her twice, once in Dee’s employ and once in Dannick’s. She looked like a hawk, her eyes darting everywhere as if looking to pounce. No beauty, but a queen in every inch.

  “And your mission here, Master Kelley? For I know you are a scholar of the new science of nature.” Although he lay back on the cushions and played with a pomander, sometimes lifting it to his face to overcome the stink of the water, I was sure he was listening carefully.

  “I have an interest in meeting a count of Padua and Venice, my lord,” I said. “A Lord Contarini, who I was advised shall be able to advance my studies in alchemy. I have information for his lordship, and am willing to share my own knowledge.”

  He looked at me, and sat forward in his seat. “Contarini? I know of him, of course, but we move in different circles.”

  “I bear letters from Lord Robert Dannick. They seek information about a cure for one of his sons who is mortally sick.”

  Marinello dangled the pomander from a ribbon, swinging it back and forth. “Some medicine? The Contarinis are not doctors. Perhaps you should consult one of our physicians.”

  I thought swiftly, for it is foolish to advance knowledge too quickly, or to the wrong ears. “Perhaps I shall. And you, my lord? You must have visited many distant lands, and seen many strange things.”

  “Some.” He grinned at me, his face lightening. “I have certainly met some strange people. But you were telling me about the Dannicks.”

  Since Marinello’s tastes ran to adventuring, I told him of Lord Robert’s battles in Ireland on behalf of the queen. He soon tired of this, and diverted the conversation back to me.

  “Tell me, what riches lie in alchemy?”

  I took a deep breath, and outlined some of what I had myself seen and experienced. He showed a keen interest and some knowledge of science.

  “So,” he said, swinging the pomander. “You need funds for these experiment
s to buy base metals such as silver and mercury, as well as rare minerals?”

  Hope burned briefly in my breast. “Indeed, for I have known an alchemist transmute such a volume of silver into gold that his fortunes were made for generations. He was my master, one Seabourne, and shared many of his secrets with me.”

  He smiled at me. “But not the secret of unlimited wealth.”

  “I need but some sponsorship—”

  “Sad for both of us then, that I barely have one ducat to rub against another.”

  “But, my lord?” I was astonished, as such wealth seemed to exist within his palazzo and upon his person.

  “Last winter we lost three ships, two of them filled with pepper and silk. That is the nature of seafaring for profit, Master Kelley, it is a gamble. I throw the dice, and there! My family fortunes are gone.”

  “I am sorry, my lord.” I was, and not just for myself, for he was a likable companion.

  “And this year I shall win it all back, no doubt.” He shrugged. “I would not have it different. My mistress is lending me gold so I can repair a couple of old ships to carry goods to Constantinople and Candia. I also have warehoused goods under guard in Alexandria.”

  I recognized Marinello’s palazzo in the distance as our oarsman rowed against the current along the Canałasso, the great canal. “So, this one meeting with the guest of the doge will relieve both our financial embarrassments?” I said.

  “That is true.” He grinned at me. “For a generous price, the work of a few minutes. It seems that neither of us can refuse.”

  “And when I can do so,” I said, in a gush of enthusiasm I shortly regretted, “I shall pay back the money you have already spent to succor me. For I hope to earn a good bonus visiting Count Contarini, from my Lord Dannick.” Easy offered, thought I, since I shall be far away in England when I am paid.