Goblin Moon

by Teresa Edgerton

  Skogsrå sneered; it was not an expression that went well with the golden lovelocks and the delicately painted eyebrows. "You speak as though the creature were human."

  The Duchess smiled sweetly. "Surely that is a distinction, my dear good Jarl, over which the pair of us are singularly unqualified to quibble."

  The Hospital of the Celestial Names occupied what had once been a fine large house: a sprawling structure of wood, plaster, and brick, some three or four centuries old, which was situated on the outskirts of the town. The Duchess left her grotesque little pet behind her in the carriage in the charge of her coachman, and Skogsrå escorted her into the building.

  A stench of blood and of unwashed bodies, the sickly sweet odor of rotting flesh, assailed them as soon as they stepped through the door. The Jarl pulled a scented handkerchief out of his sleeve and held it up to his nose. "This place is filthy," he said, surveying, with marked disfavor, the dingy entry hall. "It reeks of contagion."

  An ill-dressed young man, carrying a mere stub of a lighted candle, shortly appeared to show them the way. He took them down a tunnel-like corridor, up a narrow, creaking stair, and along a dark, echoing gallery, passing by many open rooms along the way. The Duchess stopped in one such doorway, peered inside, then signaled to the Jarl to do the same. Reluctantly, he complied.

  It was a warm day, but the windows were closed and shuttered, the low chamber dimly lit by a single oil lamp suspended from a beam in the ceiling. On a narrow table within the circle of lamp light lay the grey-skinned figure of a young man, naked to the waist. At the patient's head stood a slatternly woman in a shapeless gown, holding a wet piece of rag over his mouth and nose. His legs and his arms—which were covered with running sores—had been secured to the table by iron bands. The patient's eyes were closed and he appeared to be unconscious, if not already dead, mercifully oblivious to the clumsy operations of the blood-stained chirurgeons who were sawing off his right arm just below the elbow.

  Skogsrå gagged quietly into his handkerchief. He turned away, and found the Duchess watching him with a speculative eye.

  "You find this place unappetizing?" the Duchess inquired archly.

  "I abhor the very appearance of diseased flesh," Skogsrå replied, walking away from the door—not altogether steadily.

  "Ah . . ." said the Duchess maliciously. "But of course, you would be particular about these things, would you not?"

  The Jarl did not reply. Their escort had paused to wait for them much farther along the gallery, and they hurried to catch up with him. He took them through one of the wards—past row upon row of low beds, where emaciated figures shivered with ague or tossed feverishly under ragged blankets, and the stench of the dead and the dying was stronger than before—then down another dark corridor.

  At last they came into a larger and lighter chamber which had been thoroughly outfitted as a medical laboratory, with wooden vats and great brick furnaces; stills, crucibles, baths, and athenors; long tables filled with gleaming glass beakers, aludels, and retorts; and other apparatus, less easily identified, all joined together by yards and yards of glass and copper tubing. The young man in the shabby coat promised to summon Mr. von Eichstatt, bowed to the Duchess, and withdrew.

  "But it seems that you were not expected, after all," said the Jarl. He was beginning to recover a little and was pleased to witness the Duchess at a slight disadvantage. "There is no one here greet you, no one to welcome the Gracious Lady."

  "I am a trifle early," she replied, dropping gracefully into chair and unfurling her fan. "Or rather, I am not so late as was perhaps anticipated. Sit down, Lord Skogsrå. We apparently have the time for a little private conversation, and indeed, it was with that in mind that I asked you to accompany me."

  Conscious of an undercurrent of displeasure in her words, the Jarl hastened to obey her. As the Duchess occupied the only real chair in the room, he perched, rather awkwardly, on one of a dozen or so high stools. "The lady has only to speak, and I am all attention."

  The Duchess waved her fan. "As you know, I leave for the Wichtelberg at the end of the season. I had hoped to see things settled between you and Elsie before I set out, but I fear that will not be. Perhaps I ought to take the pair of you with me, so that I may continue to oversee your affair. The country air—so notoriously salubrious!—ought to be just the thing for my poor ailing godchild."

  The Jarl crumbled up his handkerchief and put it into his pocket. "If you can obtain the permission of her mama, who seems to regard Elsie's presence in Thornburg, with all of her so interesting afflictions, as something of a social asset."

  "It is true that Clothilde must be handled very carefully," said the Duchess. "But after all, her position in Society is largely based on the consequence she derives as my friend. As reluctant as she may be to relinquish Elsie for a season or two, how much more reluctant to risk offending me?

  "As for you, my dear Skogsrå, I apprehend that you are entirely at my disposal."

  The Jarl slipped off his stool and bowed his assent. "That is naturally understood. And I suppose. But yes, of course. You will invite the other Miss Vorder as well. It is not to be thought that Elsie would think of traveling without her. She will be on hand to flout me—and to tempt me into some indiscretion—at every turn."

  The Duchess snapped her fan shut. "But of course Sera must come with us—and you shall just have to control whatever grotesque impulses she may inspire in you! Indeed, I shall be glad of the opportunity to cultivate her friendship. Were you aware that she is the granddaughter of Jenk the bookseller? I see you were not. I do not like to leave town just when Jenk's experiments seem likely to bear such interesting fruit, but what else can I do?"

  The Jarl resumed his perch. "You might, one supposes, postpone your visit to Zar-Wildungen."

  "Then one supposes wrongly," said the Duchess, dropping her fan into her lap and beginning to remove the lavender gloves. "The Duke asks very little of me—only that I spend eight or ten weeks out of the year with him at the Wichtelberg—and in return for all that he gives me, his many indulgences, I am glad enough to oblige him."

  "Ah, yes," said Skogsrå. "I have always thought the Duke the most admirably indulgent of husbands."

  The Duchess glared at him. "More indulgent than you guess and considerably less stupid than you mean to imply. The Duke knows all about me and understands my needs. Surely you, who are obsessed by your own impulses, should understand as well."

  The Jarl shrugged his shoulders. "It is my nature to be obsessed by my impulses, as you are pleased to call them."

  "As it is also mine," said the Duchess, folding her gloves. "It is not a matter of mere inclination: I require passion, I must have gaiety, I live for admiration. But most of all, there must be new experiences. If (as I must confess it seems unlikely) you ever live to be as old as I am, you will understand that boredom means death."

  The Jarl began to look interested. "And just how old is the Gracious Lady, if one is permitted to ask?"

  "Older than the Duke . . . and younger," said the Duchess. "I am one hundred and eighty years old, and I confidently expect to live at least another century.

  Jarl Skogsrå was visibly impressed. "Then it is true what I have heard rumored, and what you have often hinted, a trace of fairy blood?"

  "More than a trace," said the Duchess. "My mother was a half-breed, human and Farisee; my father is a full-blooded fairy. His people are the Fees—and a strange and terrible folk they are! I am three-quarters fairy, yes, fully three-quarters.

  "And yet," said the Jarl, "you live in Thornburg and shun the company of your own kind."

  The Duchess picked up her fan. "Ah, well . . . you must understand, they are so very different, Men and fairies, so different in their interests, their needs, and their passions, it is a wonder that they should ever meet and mate at all. And yet it does happen, and when it does: the result is a most remarkable hybrid.

  "But fairy Society," said the Duchess, "and most particularly
the fairy court, is by nature so very conservative that there is no place—no place at all—for hybrids of any sort. We do much better in the society of Men, dwarves, and gnomes, which by its very nature must make room for a little variety."

  They left the hospital an hour or two later, and the Jarl was not sorry to leave that place and its stifling, unwholesome atmosphere. Yet he remained a little uneasy about the Duchess's motives in asking him to accompany her.

  She, on the other hand, had apparently gained considerable satisfaction from the visit. Her mood was lighter and her manner gracious as he handed her up into the carnage. "Would you care to follow me home and join me there for a little supper?"

  "Alas, no," said the Jarl. "Your chosen mode of transportation—if one may say so—obliges you to travel at such a leisurely pace, and my poor horse appears to be growing restive."

  He took up the reins and swung into the saddle. "No doubt you shall employ a swifter means of travel on your journey to Zar-Wildungen?"

  "I shall travel in a coach with six horses," said the Duchess. "I and my companions, for I believe that I shall take Sera and Elsie with me. As for you, your presence and that of the other gentleman I have invited might make things rather crowded. You can hire your own conveyance, or ride along beside us, exactly as you choose."

  The Jarl's grey gelding was indeed growing restive, and it was increasingly difficult to keep the beast standing, but the Duchess had not yet dismissed him. "I shall begin to make my preparations at once," said Skogsrå. "And this other gentleman you spoke of . . . I suppose you mean Lord Skelbrooke?"

  "I do not," replied the Duchess. "It is true that I originally intended to invite him, but I have since revised my plans. He seems a shade too interested in our Miss Sera, and I would not wish to throw them too much into each other's company."

  The grey gelding dipped his head and moved sideways; the Jarl's hands tightened on the reins. "Ah, yes," he said, with a suggestive smile. "Leave the neglectful young lover behind, to languish and reproach himself. It will teach him the lesson that he deserves."

  The Duchess stiffened. "I cannot imagine what you are talking about. Skelbrooke is devoted to me—completely devoted. Any interest he takes in Miss Sera Vorder is an entirely fraternal one, and as for any other woman—"

  "—as for any other woman, it is not to be thought of," the Jarl finished for her. "But of course, that goes without saying."

  CHAPTER 21

  Which ought to Confirm certain Suppositions

  on the part of the Reader.

  On the road between Thornburg and Gdanze, in the village of Lüftmal, about ten miles from the ducal seat in Zar-Wildungen, stood a humble country inn called the Head of Cabbage. The landlord at the Cabbage kept a respectable house, but the inn was small and not a favorite among travelers, who generally preferred to stop the night at the Hanging Sword in Pfalz, which was a larger and altogether grander establishment. Yet the occasional traveler, less affluent or more frugal, did stop in.

  Such, apparently, was the fresh-faced young clergyman in a neat brown wig, who rode into the village late one morning. He was dressed, as became his calling, all in sober black, except for a plain neckcloth without a bit of lace, and narrow ruffles at his wrists. He spent an hour or two wandering through the village—he seemed particularly interested in the church and the churchyard cemetery—made some inquiries as to the quality of the food served at the inn, and at last strolled into the Cabbage.

  The interior was rather more prepossessing than the exterior, with gay chintz curtains and scrubbed flagstone floors and a fine display of well-polished pewter on the sideboard in the common room. The gentleman spoke at some length with Mr. Chawettys the landlord, and ended by securing a room for a fortnight.

  His name (he told the landlord) was Marcus Sylvester Crow, Doctor of Divine Philosophy. He had recently been ill. His physicians advised a visit to the country in order to hasten his recovery, and he hoped that the inn was as clean and quiet, the fare as simple and wholesome, as he had been led to believe. He spoke with a faint accent, a sort of rising inflection at the end of each sentence, which suggested he was a native of the island of Mawbri.

  He ate a good dinner, served by Charlotte the ancient barmaid in a private parlor at the back, told the landlord that his baggage would arrive on the morrow, and allowed Mr. Chawettys to escort him upstairs to the best bedchamber.

  He reappeared that evening and ate his supper by the fire in the common room, with a book lying open on the table before him. He appeared to be ill or depressed in his spirits, for he picked at his food and said nothing to anyone—until Tilda, the new girl, brought him a tankard of ale.

  He looked up, met the girl's curious gaze, and started almost imperceptibly.

  "Sorry, sir," said Tilda. "I know you didn't order none, but it's a good brown ale, and you being so recently ill and all . . ."

  "I do beg your pardon. You did not really startle me; it is only that my nerves are sadly weakened," said Dr. Crow. "In any case, it was a kindly thought. I am normally an abstemious man, but perhaps under the circumstances—yes, my physicians have recommended to me the benefits to be derived from a good strong, country ale."

  He accepted the tankard and returned to his book. He continued in the same fashion for another hour or so, until a low-voiced conversation between two farmers attracted his attention.

  "—a pauper's grave, and you'll know what that means," said the first farmer, a big-shouldered rustic with a mop of straw-colored hair. "Seems to me the decent folk in these parts could arrange it between them, so nobody goes into the ground without some manner of an offering. If the dead of Luftmal don't rest safe in their graves, how can the living rest easy in their beds?"

  The other man, leaner and more weathered-looking, scratched his head. "A handful of copper pennies ain't sufficient; it takes gold and silver to sanctify a grave. We learned that lesson, if we didn't know it already, when that old beggar died last winter. No, and there ain't many in these parts has the means to be charitable to the living, much less the dead. We offer up our gold and our silver for the sake of our neighbors, there won't be nothing left for our own kinfolk when their hour comes around."

  "I beg your pardon," said Dr. Crow, glancing up from his book. "I could not help overhearing—and naturally, as a man of the cloth, the matter is of some interest. Have you really reason to suppose that the dead do not rest as peacefully in Lüftmal as they do elsewhere?"

  The two farmers squirmed in their seats. They had arrived after the incident with the ale and had not noticed the stranger reading so quietly by the fire.

  "Don't you pay no mind to what you just heard, for there ain't nothing in it," said the lean, leathery man. He gestured toward his stocky companion: "My friend here, he's a cautious man, always aworrying what will happen when things ain't done proper—particular when the doing things right means dipping a hand into his neighbor's purse." And he glared fiercely at the other farmer.

  "That's right . . . he has the right of it," the big man agreed, perhaps a little too heartily. "Speculation, that's all it was. We've a fine churchyard here, a grand old graveyard with lovely old stones. Scholarly gentlemen from the town come down to look at 'em all the time. You might want to take a look yourself, Parson."

  Dr. Crow realized he had hit on a topic the locals did not care to discuss with outsiders. It was also plain that the subject of the antique stones in the churchyard had been introduced by way of a distraction.

  "Thank you," he said, "I have already seen the graveyard. The older stones are indeed a fine example of the funerary arts as they were practiced in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. You are fortunate in being located on rising ground and so far from the river, else your graveyard had not survived so long. When I had my health, I traveled extensively and always made a particular point of stopping to look at cemeteries along the way. I find yours of great interest."

  He took a sip of ale and cleared his throat. "However, I also take a
deep interest in the history of these places, and especially in local traditions and superstitions relating to graveyards. I have heard some disturbing tales in my time, as you may well imagine, and I find there is often a direct relationship between a wave of . . . well, we can scarcely call them grave-robberies, for those who are buried in unhallowed graves do not possess anything to attract the ordinary scoundrel . . . let us say, then, a relationship between a wave of clandestine exhumations and an increase in black witchcraft in the country around. It seems that practitioners of the dark arts make use of the bodies in some of their more appalling rituals. The Hand of Glory, for instance—I do crave your pardon," he said, looking around him at the sullen faces of his listeners, "I did not mean to bore you or to make you uneasy by this somewhat grisly hobby-horse of mine. I can see very plainly that nothing of the sort is happening here."

  And so saying, Dr. Crow returned to his book. For all that he sat so near the fire, he was aware of a pronounced chill in the common room. Yet he had learned much more than any of them realized: in his experience most villagers were all too willing to regale inquisitive outsiders with hair-raising tales of local horrors, so long as the ghosts and ghouls were purely imaginary. It was only when the horrors were genuine that everyone in the vicinity began to clam up.

  Certainly, no one approached him or spoke to him after that, except for Tilda, when she came to remove the empty pewter tankard. "I had a fancy, sir, when I first saw you, that I met you somewheres afore."

  The clergyman turned a page before looking up. Tilda was a remarkably pretty girl, no more than seventeen or eighteen, with long, silky, corn-colored hair, which she wore in a single plait.