by Lois Greiman
Chapter 23
Rogan strode between the rows of booths and stalls that lined Long Acre. A carnival had been assembled, and every conceivable delicacy seemed to be available. The intoxicating aroma of pork pies and chocolate soufflés melded uneasily with the coal soot that perpetually saturated the city. But Rogan’s normally impressive appetite was not up to his usual standards, for he was a man with a purpose. He was having a rather difficult time, however, remembering just what that purpose was. Something about a death, he thought, but the memory of a faerielike creature kept distracting him.
Had she truly agreed to meet him in Wrenwall’s garden? And if so, what did that mean? Did she intend to share his bed? Or had his blatant desires driven him mad?
To his left, a small, golden-haired lass lifted her wares high beside a battered dogcart. “Buy me sausages,” she said. Her voice was singsong, her smudged cheeks pinkened from the chafing evening wind. She had solemn sea-green eyes and a cherry bow mouth.
Rogan hunched his shoulders and hurried on, passing an idle pair of jugglers.
“You’ve power in you.”
Glancing to his left he spied a bright-eyed crone behind a wooden counter covered in small, dark bottles and sprigs of dried herbs tied in hemp.
“What say you?” he asked.
She nodded once, as if answering a voice in her head instead of responding to him “Even from here I can feel it in you.”
She was old and bent and knobby, standing behind her bevy of strangely shaped bottles. But he stepped toward her, realizing suddenly that this was where he had planned to come at the outset. This was where he would find his answers.
“You are the proprietress of this shop?” he asked.
“The proprietress?” she said, and titled her head a little, studying him with an almost girlish glint to her eye. “I suspect one might call me such. Certainly they have called me worse. But I did not suspect such naïveté from one such as yourself.”
“Like myself?” he asked. What went on here?
“You have strength, but not just in your brawn,” she said, skimming his torso.
“I am no great scholar,” he said, confused, and she laughed as if she understood much that he did not.
“There are many sorts of strength. This one was given to you by another,” she said, then shook her head as if drawing herself into the present. “But you did not come to hear of her. What is your question for me?”
He scowled, but focused on the problem at hand. “I but wondered if there is a potion of sorts…an herb, perhaps, some concoction that could cause a man’s death and make it appear as if he did naught but die in his sleep.”
She looked at him askance, sparse brows raised over faded eyes. “You look more like the sort to kill outright than to trust to secret herbs.”
“I’ve no intention of killing,” he said.
She watched him in heavy silence for a moment. “And yet you have.”
He felt his stomach pitch again, for she was correct, and though he mourned the deaths he had caused during battle, there were other tragedies even more shameful. “I have,” he admitted, for honesty was as much a part of him as the color of his eyes or the width of his shoulders.
She nodded. “But now you wish to know how another has died.”
It was his turn to nod. “Can it be done undetected?”
She bent over her stall, waving him closer. He leaned in. “Any sorceress worthy of her grimoire could brew such a potion.”
He drew back abruptly. “Do you say you’re a witch?”
She laughed. “You, of all persons, should not be surprised to know such exist.”
In fact, until that moment, he would have been. For though the Church had oft blamed the troubles of the world on the mystic, he had seen true evil and knew it to be caused by naught but greed. Yet she looked to be the very personification of a witch.
“And what about those who do not dabble in sorcery. Could they, too, obtain such a potion?”
She shrugged. “In truth, lad, the king’s own surgeon would be hard-pressed to tell if a swain had died of a simple blend of hensbane and poppy or from pleasuring his young mistress.”
“Hensbane and poppy?” he said, but she had turned to the right, brows crinkled, not listening for a moment.
“Would there not be signs that he had consumed poison if—”
“Prickly poppy soothes—” she began, then jerked her attention away again. “Go,” she said.
“Where might one find—” he began, but she was already stepping back. With a quickness that belied her age, she slammed down the shutters that closed her inside her simple stall.
He scowled at the wooden enclosure, then turned to stare back in the direction he had come, wondering at this strange turn of events.
The young girl’s singsong pitch sounded hollow and lonely. “Buy me lovely sausages. Lovely sausages to buy.”
Two grand ladies passed to his left. Their petal-bright gowns brushed the street and each other’s. Perhaps their frilly parasols held the city’s heavy soot at bay, for their gloves looked as white as summer clouds. Behind them, a dark, liveried boy of less than ten years carried a bundle of new purchases. The underlings of London might be half-starved and much beaten, but they were often well dressed.
It was forever a city of disturbing variables. An aging woman in a pink frock coaxed a complaining ass down the rutted street, hawking the fine qualities of the animal’s milk. A plump maid removed a baked apple from a charcoal stove stowed in a rickety barrow. Wrapping it in brown paper, she promptly sold it to a gentleman sporting a pristine cravat and creamy, strapped pantaloons. Nearer by, an old man sat on a three-legged stool in the mouth of a listing canvas tent.
Rogan stepped inside to peruse the titles. There were a number of books of poetry and a good many devoted to religion and science, but stashed among the weighty volumes he found a slim, leather-bound volume of animal illustrations. Leafing through the book, he was struck by the lyrical beauty of the paintings, for the artist had seen his subjects not as beasts of burden but as entities with souls and feelings that shone from their eyes. He shifted through the pages, admiring.
“Lovely sausages. Sausages to buy.”
The girl’s litany melded forlornly with the sound of hoofbeats from the street behind him as the city took on a rhythm of its own. A dog snarled. A woman laughed. But the paintings were entrancing—a wolf bitch smiling at her young. A mare nuzzling her wobbly-legged foal.
“Buy me sausages—”
A dog growled again. Someone gasped. And suddenly the world seemed eerily still just as it had a hundred times on distant fields, stunned to silence by impending violence. Rogan turned in slow, silent motion, and it was as if the image before him was framed by the mouth of the tent. The tattered sausage girl stood perfectly still. Her sea-green eyes were as wide as forever against the now-pale curve of her cheeks. Her scrawny arm was lifted, wares dangling, seeming to be the only motion in a world gone still. Not three feet away stood a gaunt hound, glazed eyes fixed on the child’s face. The hair along the cur’s spine stood up in a primeval arc, and its fangs showed yellow beneath snarling lips.
“Dear God,” breathed the proprietor, but in that instant, the cur coiled to leap, and there was no more time.
Reaching to his right, Rogan snatched a heavy volume from the nearest shelf and heaved it toward the slavering hound. The book slammed into the beast’s ribs like a missile. The animal went down with a snarl, tumbling to the ground. But in a moment it had found its feet. Eyes glaring, it swept its attention back to the petrified girl, and in that moment Rogan lunged from the tent.
Grabbing the child about the waist, he swung her into the air. The dog sprang just as Rogan slammed his fist sideways. The animal snapped at Rogan’s forearm, felt the crunch of knuckles, and hit the ground hard. For a moment it lay still, stunned and disoriented. Still holding the fair-haired lass aloft, Rogan shifted his feet wide and braced himself for the next assault,
but the hound only found its balance, stood uncertainly, then trotted shakily away.
The world returned to normal by unsteady degrees. Sounds gradually seeped into Rogan’s recognition. Colors bloomed in the flowers of a vendor’s bouquets. But nothing seemed to make sense. Only memories remained. Cold and ashy in his reeling mind.
“Posie.”
Someone spoke, but he was lost in the past where haunting eyes watched with silent horror.
“Release her.”
Tears streaked a tiny round face capped with silken curls.
“Sir!”
Rogan blinked and stepped shakily into the present.
A woman stood before him, lips pursed, chin uplifted haughtily to gaze into his face.
“Is this your maid?” he asked.
She nodded primly.
Rage coursed through him. “Could you not find a larger servant to abuse?” he asked, and swept an angry hand over the city at large. “This place is filled with the downcast. Why not throw some larger morsel to the hounds rather than—”
But suddenly the woman’s face crumpled. She dropped to her knees and covered her face with one shaky hand. “Tell me she is unhurt.”
He tightened his grip as memories consumed him. “If she is, it is because of nothing you’ve done to make certain—” he began, but she was weeping now, gasping nearly silent breaths.
“Posie, my love…” she croaked, and with the sound of the woman’s voice, the girl struggled from his grip and leaped into the other’s embrace. Tears streamed like rivulets down the woman’s face as she enveloped the thin lass in her arms. Eyes squeezed shut, she rocked sideways in rhythm to their tandem tears.
Rogan could do nothing but watch. Nothing but stare. So he had been wrong again. The girl was not neglected. Was not left alone to fend for herself and turn over a few meager shillings to a harsh master. The girl was loved. Cherished as every child should be. As so few children were.
“My husband…” The woman had cupped the back of the girl’s head with chapped, reddened fingers, seeming to soak solace from the feel of the child’s silken hair against her skin. The girl had turned her little face against her mother’s neck. “He suffers from consumption. I left Posie with the sausages whilst I brought him a tonic.”
Rogan felt foolish suddenly, as if the world watched, knowing how little he understood of love, how little he comprehended of caring. “The child is too small to be left with such a task,” he rumbled.
“I know, sir. I know.” The mother’s throat contracted, and her mouth twitched as she rose shakily to her feet, bearing the clinging child on her hip. “But I’ve no wish to beg for help,” she said. “My husband says my pride will be the death of me.” Closing her eyes, she allowed herself a moment to turn her face into her daughter’s fair curls. “Better that than to lose…” Tightening her arm around her baby’s back, she drew a shuddering breath and turned toward him again, a smidgen of her former attitude returning to her proud features. “I can never repay you for what you’ve done, sir, but my sausages are fresh and hearty if you’d care to take—”
“See to the child,” he said, and turned away, but his legs still felt weak, his heartbeat uncertain as he strode away, memories swirling like a whirling dervish in his mind. From behind him the stench and noise made his gut clench, and finally, hidden behind a wooden stall, he stopped to grit his teeth against his roiling stomach, to cover his eyes with a shaky palm.
“Mr. McBain?”
The voice was sweet and summer soft. He turned slowly, letting his hand drop from his face.
“Mr. McBain.” Faye stood before him. Her costume was perfect, an azure confection that flowed about her lissome body like sun-swept waves. But it was her eyes that captured him. For they were bright and wide and worried, as if she cared for naught but him alone. “Are you well? I saw what happened. Were you hurt? I was—”
“Why are you here?” Against the feathery beauty of her voice, his own sounded like the rough scrape of a whetting stone.
“I was…Rogan!” She paused, face as pale as sea foam as she stared at him. “You’ve been injured.”
Scowling downward, he glanced at his chest, but all seemed to be well.
“Your arm,” she said and sure enough when he looked to the left, he saw that his sleeve was rent near the elbow. A ragged laceration skittered a couple inches across his forearm, and blood dripped easily from the wound.
Somehow it barely registered, however, for in his mind’s eye he again saw the shattered expression of a child. A child whose world he had ruined.
He glanced up, seeing the beautiful faerielike face blend with another. “Were you cherished?” he asked.
“What?” Her voice was breathy, and though he’d asked before, he needed reassurance yet again, longed to believe that she had been loved, that she had been held as the sausage girl had been held. Cuddled like a precious gift.
“As a child,” he said. “As a wee lass.” A muscle twitched almost painfully in his jaw, a remnant of the terror he had felt only moments before. “Tell me ye were adored?”
“Rogan, please…” she said, and reached for his hand. Her skin felt like a cool balm against his. Her eyes found his in a moment, evergreen flecks against an amber backdrop. “You’re shaking.”
“Tell me your da doted on you.”
“Where’s your mount?”
“Gave you piggyback rides. Sang to you in the wee hours of the morning.”
“You’re scaring me,” she said.
“Tell me,” he said, and tightened his grip on her hand.
“I was…I was cherished,” she said.
But she was lying. He could feel it like a bayonet to his soul and winced at the pain. “What of your mum?”
“Rogan, where is your Colt? You did ride here, did you not?”
He wanted to shake her, to demand the truth, but who was he to think he deserved that much? Nodding brokenly, he glanced down the street. In a matter of moments he was astride, but truth to tell he remembered little of the journey to his house though he eventually found himself inside.
Connelly appeared, making some sort of questioning noises. But the little faerie sent him on a mission, and in a few moments, the irritating Irishman handed over a bowl of water, gave Rogan a foolish wink, and declared he was about to leave for an important meeting. The door closed behind him. The house went silent.
“You must remove your shirt.” Faye’s voice was quiet but firm, bringing him vaguely back to the moment at hand.
He glanced to the side, noting the basin of steaming water. Then, turning his gaze upward, he saw her. Fragile yet strangely tough. Young yet seasoned. So bonny and fair he longed to feel her heartbeat beneath his fingertips, to know she was well. But he held himself carefully from her, for she looked pale and troubled.
“Are you feeling unwell, lass?” he asked, wondering about the water. Steam curled upward in the darkening room.
She shook her head, scowling a little. “It’s you who has been injured.”
Ah yes, the dog. He glanced at the wound, but it mattered little.
She, on the other hand, he could consider all day. Could spend the rest of his life watching emotions chase through her eyes and wonder if any artist could catch the mercurial moods that enlivened her elfish face.
“You look pale. You’d best sit,” he said, and began to rise to his feet, but she pushed him back down.
“’Tis you that needs tending.”
He didn’t bother to glance at the offending appendage this time. “That?” he asked, nodding to it.
“Yes, that. It’s…” she began, then started as a kit popped into the doorway, dark eyes shining beneath peaked ears before scampering from sight. “Was that a fox?”
“Mayhap.”
“They run…Never mind,” she said, and shook her head. He clasped her arm, stood, then lowered her carefully to his just-vacated chair. “You’re bleeding,” she said, but her voice was weak.
“Breath
e,” he ordered.
“I am breathing,” she said, but didn’t manage to glance up.
“Do not rise. I’ll fetch you something to drink.” It took him only a moment to discover that the pitcher of water usually kept in the kitchen was dry. True to Connelly’s debauching ways, however, there was a bottle of red wine in the pantry. Pouring a liberal dose into a marmalade jar, Rogan hurried back to her. “Drink this.”
“I’m fine,” she said, voice infused with indignation, face still pale as winter.
“Drink it,” he insisted. She did so finally, and though her sips were ridiculously small, her cheeks seemed to take on some color.
“I can see to your injury,” she said, but though her tone was defiant, he noticed with some amusement that she failed to look directly at the silly wound.
“’Tis not necessary, lass,” he assured her.
“Of course it’s…” she began, then paused as she accidentally skimmed his arm. “I’m a…” She stopped herself, exhaled carefully. “I’ve some small capability with healing wounds,” she said.
“I can attest to that,” he said.
She skittered her eyes to his as if searching his face for mockery. Perhaps his tone had implied some cynicism, but if that was the case, it was completely inadvertent. ’Twas obvious she could heal. One glance into her ethereal, wounded eyes made that clear, but he moved the collar of his shirt aside, revealing the bloodstone that caressed his skin.
“I’m not one to believe old wives’ tales,” he said. “But sometimes the ancients knew best. I’ve been healing well since the day you gifted it to me.”
Her gaze seemed to be captured on his chest.
“Another scar,” she said. Her voice sounded small, sweet, so concerned it made his heart feel weak.
“That?” he said, and rubbed the old wound that ran diagonally across his pectorals to his left arm. “’Tis naught to worry on.”
She stared at him. “You lie,” she said, and he smiled.
“’Tis naught to worry on any longer,” he corrected.