IV.2
HAVING DONE HIS DUTIES at the palace, Michaels made his way into the town. The market square was swarming with workmen who were building stands on three sides; they looked as if they aimed to dwarf the cathedral. He paused to watch them work, and thought after a few minutes of observation that he would trust them enough to sit there, were he invited. Not that he would be. These were the stands where the nobility of Maulberg would wait, carefully ranked and placed to watch the arrival of their new Duchess in two days’ time. Michaels rolled his shoulders and set off at an easy pace for the house of Colonel and Mrs Padfield.
On his arrival he was shown into the library. It was a rather grand name for a modest room, about the size of the third-best private parlour at the Bear and Crown. He mostly used it to store furniture that needed mending. Michaels sometimes thought houses were built with libraries in order to provide a place for men such as himself to be received. His thick beard and rough coat were not in keeping with the delicate decoration of a fashionable lady’s salon, but he had become too powerful a man to keep standing in the hall.
He had come to Maulberg to assist his friends, knowing that with his guidance they would cross Europe a great deal more quickly, and he aimed to speed their return in the same way. He was happy to leave his business in the care of his wife and thought it might be a chance for his eldest son, a boy of fifteen or so, to step out from his shadow. His time in Maulberg he had intended to spend in looking around at the land his mother had been born in, see how the locals managed their horses and their brewing, and find out if there were any interesting opportunities in which to invest his growing wealth. Still, the mysterious request for an audience from these friends of Mrs Clode’s was intriguing. And he was at liberty while Mr Crowther and Mrs Westerman harried out the truth from this place.
Mrs Padfield did not keep him waiting long. She was a good-looking young woman with a pointed chin and round eyes that seemed to bulge a little from her head, and though she was slight, her movements were quick and her orders to her maid brisk.
‘Did anyone see you come in?’ she asked at once.
Michaels affected a slightly befuddled surprise. ‘No, ma’am.’ In front of this thin-edged woman, he thickened his accent a trifle. Her bright little eyes danced over him as he shifted from foot to foot and turned his round hat in his hands.
She watched him for a few moments longer, then laughed. ‘All right, Mr Michaels. No need to play the yokel with me.’ He kept his eyes low, though he let a smile lift the corner of his mouth. ‘The palace gossips say you are a wealthy man, and one to be treated with respect. Mrs Clode has told us of your authority in your village.’
He looked up at her. ‘What do you want of me then, madam?’
She took a seat and nodded to the chair opposite. ‘Sit down, please, Mr Michaels. What I am about to tell you is known only to one other person, my husband, and to my shame he only learned of it two nights ago. I have decided to take a great risk in sharing this with you. I hope Mrs Clode is right, and you are a man to be trusted as well as respected.’
Michaels sat, but made no comment, asked no further question. She sighed and turned away from him. ‘When we met I told my husband that before I arrived in Ulrichsberg, I worked as a governess. That I came here in search of work. In truth, between the ages of twelve and twenty I helped my sister and uncle trick the rich into giving us their gold, and that is how we ate.’ Her words came out quickly towards the end, and as she finished she looked him boldly in the eye, her chin in the air.
He pulled on his beard. ‘What manner of stealing? Can’t see you raiding travellers at twelve, and someone’s taken pains over your education, haven’t they? No one bothers to teach a pick-pocket or a house-breaker lady’s manners.’
She nodded. ‘The man who called himself our uncle took me and my sister from the orphanage in Leipzig and trained us to be mediums for the spirit world. We had a talent for it.’
‘You’re some manner of witch then?’
She smiled and shook her head. ‘More an actress. It was all theatrics, a keen eye, a few tricks. Imagine a young girl, all dressed in white in a dark room with my uncle murmuring incantations, telling you all your secrets and giving you messages from your dead friends and enemies. I grew used to the sound of gold coins rattling on the table-top.’
Michaels had met a fair number of tricksters and fools in his time, but his scepticism must have shown on his face. She reached over and touched his hand and he looked up. Her voice became very soft. ‘Your son is quite well, Michaels. He has had a more gentle start than you did, but he has your eye for people. Trust him. He will not grow soft because he did not have to earn his first money with his fists.’ She sat back again and laughed at the expression on his face. ‘Worth a coin or two?’
‘Fair play, lady. I’m impressed. You have a talent for reading people. How did you know of my son?’
Still smiling, she picked up an ivory puzzle ball from the table at her side. It was a narrow tower with a ball on top, pierced and carved to show another ball within, also pierced, also containing another. ‘Mrs Clode mentioned your family. Your history as a fighter is written in your face and hands if you know how to read it. It doesn’t always work. We’d arrive in a town where there were enough bored rich nobles, and set about milking them with tales of their future, their dead loved ones. Once we’d made a few too many mistakes, my uncle would sweep us off to the next place. An unsettled life. But he fed us and clothed us, gave us an education and never tried …’ She shrugged.
‘So what happened? Ran out of towns, did you?’
‘Not quite. But my sister was ambitious. She heard that there were nobles ready to pay through the nose if you could convince them you knew the secrets of alchemy. But my uncle was getting old, and did not like the risks. When he got sick, she ran off with half our money, and half our jewels. Beatrice is her name. Sharp as a pin. Hair black as a crow’s wing. She was proud of it. Made her stand out among all the fair-haired peasants and the powdered rich.’ She moved the puzzle ball so the ivory spheres turned and clicked against each other.
‘What happened to your uncle?’
She smiled sadly, and Michaels wondered what she was seeing. ‘I looked after him. Saw him buried decently.’ Her voice lost its softness. ‘Then I came looking for her. I’d had a letter from her saying she was in Ulrichsberg, calling herself Beatrice Lachapelle, and that she had found a magus – someone to teach her. I met the Colonel when he arrived at the hotel where I was staying here.’
‘And of your sister?’
She shook her head. ‘Not a trace.’
Pegel woke and stretched very carefully. Bruises mostly, he thought. He’d have rather done three rounds with his pet giant than take that fall again. The ankle was bad though. Well, he had to spend the day organising the papers he had got anyway. What was left of it. He had slept long and hard and the sun was already at its height. He looked at his right palm. Torn, ugly and dirty. He needed food and watering. He got slowly to his feet, hobbled over to the window and opened the latch. There was a pair of boys playing below him. He whistled, and after a good bit of miming and a coin that glinted in the sunshine, he heard small steps thundering up the staircase.
By the time his window rattled with a pebble hurled by Florian, his dirty clothes had been carried off, his wounds washed and his ankle was supported on a mound of blankets. The brighter of the two children he had held on to as a servant for the day. When the pebble struck, Pegel sent him to see who it was.
‘Fella.’
‘What sort of fella, genius?’
‘Yellow hair and all very ladidah!’ The boy performed a little mincing walk across the window and Pegel tried not to smile.
‘All right, go and fetch him in then.’
He went without a word and when he returned, presented Florian with a flourish. ‘Here he is! What do you want me to do now then?’
‘Bottle of wine and a bit of bread and cheese from Mothe
r Brown’s. Go on then!’
‘They ain’t going to give it to me for free, are they?’
Pegel shrugged. ‘Fair point. Florian, give the boy some money, will you?’
Florian reached into his pocket automatically and handed the child a couple of coins. The door slammed and his wooden soles clattered down the stairs like a drum roll.
Florian had been staring at him open-mouthed. ‘Jacob, what on earth happened to you?’
Pegel crossed his arms and lowered his chin, looking sulky. ‘I met your friend in the brown coat again. He was running up from Fluss Strasse in a ripping hurry, but that giant wasn’t with him so I thought I’d try to have a word. Judged it wrong. He threw me over, turned my ankle.’
‘Oh Jacob, I’m so sorry. Did he hurt you badly?’
‘Oh, I’m fine, don’t fuss! He just got lucky, had some momentum build up. I could have taken him, no problem, otherwise.’
Florian came over and placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it. For some reason Pegel’s eyes stung a little. ‘What time of day was this?’ Florian asked. ‘I came looking for you yesterday.’
‘Out walking most of the afternoon. Clears my head. I was just coming back – it was dark, or getting there, I suppose.’
Florian picked up a chair from the other side of the room and brought it over so he could sit with Pegel at the desk. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and looked deeply into his friend’s eyes. ‘A most terrible thing. It seems this man had found his way into the depths of a … society of friends of which I am part.’
‘What society of friends?’
‘The ones I told you of the other night. Men ready to rule, ready to guide us to a better future.’
Pegel scratched his head. ‘Those dreams – you saying they’re real? What are you going to do? Hang all the Dukes? Kill the Kings?’
Florian smiled. His face really did glow when he talked of these things. ‘There will be no violence, Jacob. Our people will take positions of power in every court and country in Europe. We will convert to our cause those rulers who can be reasoned with. The others we will control, then educate their heirs. Slowly, all of this,’ he waved his hand, taking in the attic, but Pegel supposed Maulberg, the Empire, ‘all this will wither away and once again people can live as nature intended.’
‘You’re mad.’
‘Inspired! But it is vital that secrecy is preserved until the world is ready. Vital. And now, somehow, someone has done what no one thought possible and identified the leader of our group in Leuchtenstadt.’ Pegel scratched behind his ear in hopes of hiding a slightly smug expression. Florian, however, had turned to watch the blue spring sky through Pegel’s huge window. ‘It is such a closely guarded secret, only two or three people know his name.’
‘You do not know your own leader?’
‘It is much safer so! I only know the names of two or three members of my own rank, and then there is my guide in the rank above. He will decide when I am ready to be initiated into the next rank, then pass my advancement over to another man who will guide me to the next stage. I told you, secrecy is vital.’
‘Sounds like the army. What’s your rank now then?’
Frenzel hesitated. ‘Master Knight of the Chosen Company of the Elected.’ Pegel snorted. ‘Jacob! This is very serious!’
‘Too bloody right it’s serious – look at my ankle!’
The stairs gave notice that food was arriving and Jacob’s young butler slapped it down on the table. ‘What else?’
‘Nothing for now. Go and run about in the square and scare the old ladies, or whatever it is you do,’ Pegel said. ‘Stay within earshot, though. I may want you later.’ And when the boy stayed where he was: ‘What?’
‘Retainer.’
Florian reached into his pocket and pulled out yet another coin. He placed it in the boy’s hand, saying, ‘Look after my friend.’
The boy grinned and began to run the coin back and forth between his fingers. ‘I’ll wipe his arse if you carry on paying like that.’
Pegel grinned. ‘Not required. Now sod off, there’s a good boy.’ As the lad went on his way again, Pegel noticed that Florian was blushing slightly. Good Lord, this man was brought up in a nunnery, he thought, and felt a stab of affection.
‘The house of this man, our leader here, was broken into last evening. His papers were searched. That man must have been fleeing the chase when you encountered him.’
‘I wish I could have stopped him.’
‘If the thief had found anything of value we should all be ruined, our project at an end. Our leader here is in constant communication with a network of superiors, our leaders across Europe.’
Is he now, Pegel thought. He said, ‘The thief had no luck then?’
‘No, the significant papers were very cleverly concealed, and found undisturbed.’
Pegel shifted in his seat to try and ease the ache in his leg. ‘So you know who the leader is now then?’ Florian shook his head, and Pegel rolled his eyes.
‘But it’d be so simple to find out! I told you, that fellow was running up from Fluss Strasse when I had my “encounter” with him, as you call it. All you need to do is wander down that way and ask in a casual manner whose house was broken into last evening, and there you go! They’re probably all talking about it.’
‘Jacob, you don’t understand. The society requires loyalty, obedience. I shall be introduced to him at the proper time.’
‘I thought you were a brotherhood. How can you be brothers if all these layers of secrecy are required?’
‘It is for the greater good.’
‘Greater good! Well, if you say so. So are there other bands of merry revolutionaries – sorry, visionaries – elsewhere in Maulberg? Do you actually have a chance of doing any good, or have my sacrifices been in vain?’
Florian shook his head again, and Jacob thought of a young horse, troubled with flies. ‘Oh no, Jacob. I told you much good has already been done. The leaders of our group first came together almost seven years ago. There are many of our mind who hold high positions at court in Ulrichsberg. So I have been told.’
‘But you don’t know who?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Can we eat?’ Pegel said, apparently losing interest. ‘Healing makes me hungry.’
‘When I talk of the greater good, Jacob, I mean something real. It’s not just an idea. I have something to show you. I thought of it as soon as I saw the equation you wrote out, and well … after what we’ve been speaking of.’ Florian reached into his pocket and took something out of it, then held it between his fingers, hesitating.
‘Oh, give it here then.’ Pegel took it and looked. It was the small medallion struck in silver. On its face was an owl holding open a book. On the pages were legible four letters: PMCV. On the reverse was an outline of the state of Maulberg.
‘Confident lot, aren’t you? Claiming Maulberg for your own already.’
‘It is just to show where we are from,’ Frenzel said earnestly. ‘There are many places in Europe where our members hold great power.’
‘Hmm. What does PMCV stand for?’
‘Per me caeci vident.’
‘“Through me the blind shall see.” Interesting claim. Now you said you thought of it when I wrote out that equation. Does that make me the owl? Yet in talking about your owl it sounds like you think me blind.’
‘You just need to be led towards the light, Pegel.’ Florian looked confused suddenly and made to reach for the coin again. ‘I shouldn’t have given it to you; they are only for those who have taken the oaths. Give it back.’
Pegel held it out of his reach. ‘Hang on there, you can’t give a man a present then snatch it back.’
‘Please, Jacob, it was a stupid idea.’ Pegel looked at him. There were tears in his eyes.
‘All right, all right. Per me caeci vident, eh?’ He ran his finger over the raised body of the owl, then passed it back to Florian. ‘Then talk, owl, and I shall eat.�
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Michaels set down the letter on the table. It was the short note from Beatrice that had brought Mrs Padfield to Ulrichsberg. ‘So you think this man Kupfel is the magus she wanted to learn from?’
‘He’s the only alchemist in town.’
‘You haven’t been to see him yourself?’
‘I intended to do so, but by the time I had found out his name, an attachment had formed between Colonel Padfield and myself. I did not want to risk his affection, which was foolish. I find I have married a generous man. And then …’
‘What, lady?’
She smiled briefly, sadly. ‘I was sure she would come to me. I married under my true name, and we always read the papers wherever we lived. She would have seen I had married well, and come to pick my pockets. She has not.’
Michaels stroked his jaw. ‘She could be anywhere by now. What’s to say she’s not in Spain, telling fortunes there?’
‘If you find signs she had gone there, I will not ask you to follow. But I am sure she would have written. I can only think she either has married very well indeed, so wishes to keep our past as secret as I do, or she is dead. I would like to know which. I hope you will help me, though I know there is no reason why you should.’
He considered, and thought of his wife and son, the mantelpiece in the kitchen where the family liked to spend their time with its pewter-ware laid out. ‘That ivory puzzle-ball you were playing with – I think my wife would like it. If I find you certain word of your sister, I’ll take that for her.’
‘Very well.’
Michaels got to his feet and his greatcoat knocked against the table and made the tea cups rattle. Mrs Padfield stood also and rang the bell for the maid.
‘Why now?’ he asked. ‘You lived with the not-knowing all this time. Why confess all to your husband, then me?’
She clasped her hands loosely in front of her. ‘I think I have been looking for a way to tell my husband the truth for some time. I am … very fond of him. Then I heard a man like yourself had arrived in court and it gave me hope.’
‘Any other way to know her, other than the name and the hair?’
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