Widdershins

by Alexander, Alex

  ‘I do hope I haven’t frightened you, child?’ said Lord Barton.

  Cassandra stirred. ‘No. Not at all.’

  ‘Please, do continue, Lord Barton,’ said the Queen.

  ‘We, myself and a few other Lords have been talking and–’

  ‘First I’ve heard of it!’ said Lord Quincy.

  ‘–and we’ve decided it would be in the Crown’s best interest if we lent you guardsmen from the City Watch.’

  ‘You want to put men with guns in my home to protect me?’ said the Queen.

  ‘They don’t have to be armed, Your Majesty, but yes, we think that would be wise given the information we have.’

  ‘I have my own guards. The Palace Guard and the Queen’s Watch are enough to keep us safe. Have you informed Rufus about this?’

  ‘We haven’t yet spoken to the Queen’s Watch, no. We’re waiting for a couple of leads to come in.’

  ‘Don’t you think that the personnel who are tasked with my family’s protection should be at the forefront of any leads you might have?’

  ‘We don’t have any particular evidence as of yet, and what the City Watch does have, Inspector Forsyth and his men are working around the clock to get to the bottom of.’

  ‘There’s always been danger with this job, Lord Barton, but if you are seriously suggesting that there could be a real threat to our safety, you should have informed Rufus immediately.’

  ‘We aren’t certain, Your Majesty, exactly the grander details of this plot. But, there is a minor issue in that potentially, one or two of the individuals in your household guard could be implemented in it. Of course, I’m not accusing anybody in particular, but it would be logical, you understand, to keep this conversation between us – at least until we know the full details.’

  ‘Rufus is a loyal bodyguard. He’s given his life to serve the Crown, my late husband and his father before him. I can certainly rest assured that he has no part at all in whatever you are suggesting.’

  ‘I didn’t say he did but precautions, Your Majesty, precautions.’

  ‘We would offer you twenty Watchmen, they would work in shifts, be at your command of course and as Lord Barton said, they need not be armed. It’s their presence we want more than anything,’ added Lord Darby.

  Lord Quincy had finished the plate of bourbons, and was looking sad about it.

  ‘I think it’s a good idea,’ he said. ‘Prevention is better than cure.’

  The Queen looked at all three Lords carefully, then to the Princess. Cassandra didn’t know what she was thinking, but knew how she would answer.

  ‘And how will we explain this to Rufus? He’s the head of the Queen’s Watch and the Palace Guard, he manages all issues of security. He won’t take lightly to City Watchmen being here. He’ll want to know why?’ she said.

  ‘The Queen’s word is final, My Lady, I suggest you use it,’ said Lord Barton.

  ‘He won’t be happy.’

  ‘He will be to know that you are safe once all this has blown over,’ said Lord Darby.

  There was a stiffening silence. Lord Quincy filled it, slurping the remainder of his tea, which was more of a caramelised sugary dessert.

  ‘It will not be permanent. At my request you are to remove them,’ said the Queen.

  ‘Of course, My Lady, at your request.’

  Cassandra didn’t like the idea of secrets. She didn’t like the idea of City Watchmen walking about her halls and chambers. But she even less liked the idea of danger, and part of her, as did part of the Queen, thought it was best.

  Now we return to the stranger in the dead of night, just north of the river, a little west of the Brewery Quarter.

  But he’s not a stranger to us anymore. And from now on should really be known by his profession. A profession he shares with few others.

  But first, a warning.

  A city like Laburnum looks different to different people. A drunk will know it for its drink, its rough streets and for its banter. A pauper will know it for its cold nights, rat infested slums and cruel upper classes. A monarch will know it for its majesty, its history, its standing amongst other cities. And a pigeon, a pigeon will know all the best places to relieve itself mid-flight. These perspectives differ so much, that the city can appear a completely different place depending on what you have and haven’t seen. But, know this: once you have been introduced to the dark, clandestine underworld that exists beneath its layers, you shall never quite see Laburnum the same again.

  And so we continue. In the dewy mist of Bloomhill Cemetery, the stranger, or to those who know: the Witchhunter, followed his leads.

  Bloomhill Cemetery was oddly named. There was more gloom than bloom, and there were no hills, except the mounds of dirt above the freshly dug graves.

  The trees were the same shade of grey as the headstones. They were the kind of trees that moved their arms when they weren’t being watched.

  The Witchhunter found a spot beneath them where he could view both the ways in and out of the cemetery.

  He had been there on a stakeout for the last few nights, taking note of the regulars: two owls, a stray dog and a rat.

  The owls talked amongst themselves, filling the eerie quiet with eerie hoots. The dog wandered lost along the path with a flaccid tongue bouncing up and down, flicking its rabid drool from nose to ear. Only the rat paid him any attention, scuttling to a nearby tree and watching him with its beady eyes and wiggling nose. Rats knew when food was about. This one could sense that the man’s being there was down to grave robbing. And that meant one thing. Leftovers.

  The Witchhunter and the rat waited together each night. They didn’t make each other’s acquaintance but they became used to each other’s company.

  Each morning, when the sun started to rise, the Witchhunter would take his leave and check into a nearby public house. It would always be a different place so as to keep his nightly habits secret.

  He was a patient man, but as each night past with nothing to show for itself, his doubt in Job Button grew. He was close to tracking down the informant and retracting his down payment.

  But that night his patience was rewarded. That night, he and the rat were joined by a suspicious figure.

  Suspicious in that only someone with motives that veered on the unorthodox side of things would be there at such a time. And if that didn’t raise any alarms, he was also cloaked and armed with a shovel. His walk was curious too, a hobbling hunchbacked style.

  The Witchhunter kept as still as a birdwatcher, cautious not to spook the grave robber. And a grave robber he was indeed. The figure teetered between the graves, stopping at one that seemed to hook his attention. Then in went the shovel and up came the dirt.

  The robber was a cagey individual, darting looks over his shoulder between bouts of digging. Sometimes he paused for longer and listened to the owls and the stirring of branches in the wind.

  Once a small mountain of dirt had been uprooted, he left and returned with a horse and cart.

  The steed was old and sick and the cart was slipshod and rickety. The two as a combination made for the least efficient and most conspicuous mode of transport.

  The robber stepped down into the grave with his shovel, and the thud of iron on wood rang out.

  THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

  Then the sound of the coffin’s lid being pried aside.

  KEREEEEEEK! THUD!

  The Witchhunter watched closely as the robber heaved something large out of the ground and onto his shoulder, then up into the cart. He unfurled a large brown sheet and wrapped his find tightly within.

  Then he was up behind the reins – a lash of the whip and the horse fell into a lazy trot.

  The Witchhunter didn’t follow right away. The grave required inspection.

  Inside, amongst broken soil and dead worms was a set of silverware. Obviously the kind that’s best buried with loved ones because it just clogs up good cupboard space.

  There was no corpse. That had been taken for sure.
But there was something more chilling about this particular robbery. On the headstone, the name and a small message about what a lovely man the deceased had been. And there, etched below, the date he was born and the date he had passed. The body had been buried almost four weeks ago and was certainly decayed beyond an anatomist’s use.

  The Witchhunter caught up with the rickety cart. It was going slowly, keeping the noise of its creaking wood to a low. Mind you, it couldn’t go much faster without falling apart.

  The Witchhunter kept to the shadows, trailing behind. He followed it south, along the canals and across the water into Bog End. It kept to the quiet roads, the dark roads that weren’t lit with lanterns.

  If there was any dabbling in the Black Science he would find it south of the river. Those who dabbled valued their privacy. And there was no place more private than this, the poorest, dirtiest, most wretched of neighbourhoods. There were parts of Bog End not even criminals would go down. Areas that were known by name and rumour alone.

  The horse stopped. It wouldn’t move a hoof further. It was frightened, spooked by something peculiar in the air.

  The cloaked robber stepped down from the cart.

  He lifted the wrapped corpse onto his shoulder and left the horse standing in the road.

  This was it. The Witchhunter was close. He moved in.

  The streets were getting tighter. The buildings that lined them couldn’t be inhabited, they were far too barren and wasted. Soon the moonlight couldn’t reach the cobblestone and the streets turned to dark alleyways of shadow.

  It was difficult to keep on the robber’s tail and soon he vanished ahead, around the corners and into the blackness.

  The Witchhunter reached into his coat. He pulled out a rusty old pocket watch by its chain and flicked open the little lid. At the centre there was no clock. Instead, behind the dusty glass, a diced piece of meat pulsed as if it were alive. As if a heartbeat possessed it. The black, congealed ink it was set in, was turning red. The colour of blood.

  Whatever was here had a strong presence. Only the Black Science could make the Necrocardium beat.

  The Witchhunter took in his surroundings.

  He felt the uncanny chill in the air, the breeze that felt like whispers tempting him deeper into the alleyways.

  His profession had certain skill sets. One such was survival. It was no good going around being a witchhunter if you were easily killed. In his time in the trade he had learned when to walk away and this was without a doubt one of those times.

  He was in a dark, dark place and something evil was at work.

  He pocketed the watch, and reluctantly, turned back.

  PART THREE

  The Man with the Dead Heart

  Niclas didn’t have much of a short term memory. He didn’t have much of a long term memory either. He wouldn’t have been able to read a shopping list let alone write one, so Balthazar figured it was best to go with him.

  There were only a handful of items to find, fewer than last time, yet they were the most obscure things anyone had ever heard of. Who knew what a Salamander Stone was? Or where it was sold? Where did one even begin to look for Danga Root? And what in all the moons was an Egg White? Niclas imagined it to be some sort of luxury you got in toff restaurants – a kind of albino egg.

  All cities tend to have a few of those shops that sell merchandise of a peculiar sort; emporiums for the weird and not really that wonderful. But in Laburnum, a logical city with logical shops selling only logical things, there’s little room for bits and bobs that have no use in the logical world. In other words, it was going to be bloody hard to find those three things.

  Yet there was one shop the cat knew of. It was in a shady part of town not far from the Brewery Quarter. The sign on the front read:

  VERY VERY SPENNY POTS & PANS THAT’S ALL

  Indeed, inside there were lots of shelves stocked with lots of pots and pans. They looked like ordinary pots and pans to Niclas, but the little paper tags on their handles suggested otherwise.

  ‘Looking for a pot? Or is it a pan?’ said a fat, foreign man from behind the counter.

  ‘Sorry, gov?’

  ‘I think you are in the wrong place, my boy, we have only very, very spenny pots and pans that’s all,’ came the accented voice of the shopkeeper.

  Niclas looked to his feet for back up.

  The cat seemed to think this was the right place.

  ‘I ain’t lookin’ for pots and pans, sir, I begs your pardon. I’s lookin’ for some other fings. Uh, sort o’ weird fings.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, boy. This is a pots and pans shop only. I not sell… weird things.’

  ‘Oh… err… well, my mistake. Sorry to ’av’ boverd you.’ Niclas, who was always one to give up easy, turned and stepped towards the door. But Balthazar cut him off and with an insisting shake of the tail turned him back.

  ‘Uh…’ said Niclas, ‘beggin’ your pardon, sir, but you sure you ain’t got anyfing else…’

  The foreigner raised an eyebrow. Niclas had never seen anyone raise an eyebrow quite that high. Must have been a foreign thing.

  ‘What is it you’re looking for exactly?’

  ‘Uhh…’ Niclas lifted a finger to think and Balthazar watched with mild anticipation. ‘Danga Root or summin like that. And, uhhh… Sal-ah-man-dar Stone?’ he said, watching the cat’s expression and gauging it to each syllable.

  ‘Danga Root and Salamander Stone you say? Why you need these things?’

  ‘It’s not me who needs ’em, sir. It’s me master.’

  ‘And what does your master want these things for?’

  ‘Uhh…’ Niclas looked to his feet for answers once more. ‘I don’t know, sir, I guess I’m not bright nuff to be filled in on all the deeeetails just yet. But I gots to find ’em, else I’d ’av’ done a bad job. I’m new in the business see and I ain’t ’ad the best o’ starts if I’m tellin’ the troof.’

  ‘And what makes you think you will find these things here. In this very expensive pots and pans shop?’

  ‘To be honest, sir, I don’t know wot I’m doin’ ’ere. But me master is pretty sure this is the right place.’

  The foreigner had picked up on the weird exchange of body language between the cat and the boy. The cat seemed to be watching and listening.

  Balthazar caught him looking and meowed softly.

  ‘You have money?’

  ‘Yessir. This bag ’ere look.’ Niclas held up the large purse of coins and gave it a jingle.

  The shopkeeper licked his lips.

  ‘Alright,’ he said, ‘come with me.’

  Downstairs, behind a curtain of multicoloured beads (which Niclas nearly got stuck in), was an entirely different shop to the one above. It was a museum of strange odds and ends. There were jars of dirt and desert dust, corked bottles of all sizes and shades, crystal stones, some of which could be seen through, some were dull and foggy, some sparkled like a night sky full of stars. There were big plants, small plants. There were glass boxes of crickets and worms and next to those, glass boxes of black, velvety snakes that lay coiled on each other deep in sleep. There were books too. Lots of them. Though Niclas hadn’t a clue what any of them said. Had he been able to read he might have browsed the spines. Culpeper's Herbalis, The Secret of Spice, Healing with Flowers, How to: Acupuncture, Food for Health, Food for Wealth, The Encyclopaedia of Tonics… to name a few.

  ‘I have to be careful all the time,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘Very, very careful. The Academy is always watching. Always watching. Always! They don’t like the studies of my people. They think it old, barbaric, illogical. They don’t understand that it works. One day, I beg to the fates that an inquisitor gets sick – very, very sick – on his deathbed almost. And I hope he stumbles down here for shop’s help. Then maybe, who knows, they would change their minds about my people’s traditions. Meh! Until then, it forbidden. So must be very, very careful. It is a science… Just not a recognised one.’
>
  ‘Oh. I see,’ said Niclas, in a way that suggested he really didn’t see anything at all.

  ‘Now, what do you need? Salamander Stone and Danga Root?’

  ‘And an Egg White if you ’av’ one.’

  The shopkeeper raised his brow again.

  ‘Salamander Stone. Very good for the blood.’ He wandered around the shelves looking a bit lost, but soon returned with a crumbling yellow rock. ‘Yes, very good for sick hearts this stone is. What else was it? Danga Root? Ah, the whispering root. A very rare nightshade that is. I think I have some around here somewhere. Yes. Here it is.’ The root was fat and twisted like ginger, but lustrous, black and brittle like coal. It was flecked with dark purple specks, evocative of its rarely seen purple bell flower. ‘Good remedy for sea sickness. But be careful. Very poisonous. Very dangerous. I trust your master knows what he’s doing with it? Was there something else?’

  ‘An Egg White, sir.’

  ‘Hmm…’ The shopkeeper stood for a moment, perplexed. Then he reached into an egg crate and handed Niclas an egg.

  ‘Is that… an Egg White?’ Niclas asked.

  ‘It’s egg. Egg white is inside.’

  Niclas stared at the egg with curious eyes.

  ‘Tell me, do you know which of the Five Isles your master calls home?’

  ‘Five Isles?’

  ‘Yes, the Five Isles. You know? Meh! Your people call them the Colonies.’

  ‘Uhh, just… just down the road actually, sir.’

  ‘Not from Five Isles then?’

  Balthazar, who had been taking note of the shop’s unusual stock for future reference, caught Niclas’ eye and slowly shook his head from left to right.

  Niclas shook his head from left to right too.

  ‘I don’t reckon so, sir,’ he said.

  The shopkeeper followed Niclas’ gaze to where Balthazar was sitting. Then he squinted sceptically and looked back at the boy.