The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters (56 page)

“Who offers sin shall brave Paradise,” said Svenson. Elöise sniffed, nodding.

“The others were all like me—relations or servants or partners or associates of the very powerful. All of us bearing secrets. One at a time, Miss Poole led us from the parlor to another room. Several men were there, wearing masks. When my turn came I told them what I knew—about Henry Xonck and Arthur Trapping, about Charlotte Trapping’s hunger and ambition—I am ashamed of it, and I am ashamed that while part of my mind did this in earnest hope to save the missing man, another part—the truth of this is bitter to me—was greedy to see what Paradise I’d find. And now…now I cannot even recall what I said, what might have been so important—the Trappings are not scandalous people. I am a fool—”

“Do not—do not,” whispered Svenson. “We are all so foolish, believe me.”

“That cannot be an excuse,” she answered him flatly. “We are all also given the chance to be strong.”

“You were strong to come so far alone,” he said, “and you were even stronger…in the attic.”

She shut her eyes and sighed. Svenson tried to speak gently. He felt utterly convinced by her story, and yet wished he was not so predisposed to believe it. She had been at Harschmort—with the Trappings, as explained—but still, he needed more before he could trust her fully.

“You said that Miss Poole had a book…”

“She laid it on the table, after I’d told them what I thought they wanted to hear. It was wrapped in silk, like—like some kind of Bible, or the Jewish Torah—and when she revealed it—”

“It was made of blue glass.”

She gasped at the word. “It was! And you had mentioned glass on the train—and I hadn’t known, but then—I thought of you—and I knew I did not understand my situation—and just at that moment I had the most vivid recollection of the chill of Mr. Francis Xonck’s eyes—and then Miss Poole opened the glass book…and I read…or should I say that it read me. That makes no sense—but
it
made no sense at all. I fell into it like a pool, like falling into another person’s body, only it was more than one—there were dreams, desires, such thrills that I blush to recall them—and such visions…of power…and then—Miss Poole—she must have placed my hand on the book, for I remember her laughing…and then…I cannot convey it…I was deep…so deep, and so cold, drowning—holding my breath but finally I had to breathe and gulped in—I don’t know what—freezing liquid glass. It…felt like dying.” She paused and wiped her eyes and glanced back at the hatch. “I woke up there. I am lucky—I know that I am lucky. I know I should have perished like the others, my skin glowing blue.”

“Can you walk?” he asked.

“I can.” She stood, and smoothed out her dress, still holding his hand, and reached down to replace her shoes. “After all the trouble to gather me here they have cast me aside without a care, with so little thought! If you had not come, Captain Blach—I shudder to think—”

“Do not,” said Svenson. “We must leave this house. Come…the next floors are dark—the house seems to be abandoned, at least for now. I have followed the party of men, who I believe went elsewhere on the estate. Perhaps Miss Poole and the other ladies have gone to join them.”

“Captain Blach—”

He stopped her. “My name is Svenson. Abelard Svenson, Captain-Surgeon of the Macklenburg Navy, attached to the service of a very foolish young Prince who I, also a fool, yet retain a hope of saving. As you say, there is not enough time to tell the necessary tale. Arthur Trapping is dead. Earlier this morning Francis Xonck tried to sink me in the river, in the same iron casket as Colonel Trapping’s corpse. It may well be that he schemes to undo both of his siblings as his own part of these machinations—and indeed, damn it all, there is too much to say—we have no time—they could return. The man you sat with on the train, Mr. Coates—”

“I did not know—”

“His name, no, nor he yours—but he is dead. They have killed him for as little cause as can be imagined. They are all dangerous, without scruple. Listen to me—I do recognize you, I have seen you among them—I must say this—at Harschmort House, not two nights past—”

Her hand went to her mouth. “You! You brought word of the Prince to Lydia Vandaariff! But—but it wasn’t about that at all, was it? It was Colonel Trapping—”

“Found dead, yes—murdered, for what and by whom I’ve no idea—but what I am saying, what—I am deciding to trust you, despite your connection to the Xonck family, despite—”

“But you have seen them try to kill me—”

“Yes—though apparently some among them are happy to kill each other—no matter, please, what I need to tell you—should we escape, as I hope we shall, but if we are separated…Oh, this is ridiculous—”

“What? What?”

“There are two people you may trust—though I don’t know how you should find them. One is the man I described on the train—in red, dark glasses, very dangerous, a rogue—Cardinal Chang. I am to meet him tomorrow at noon under the clock at Stropping Station.”

“But why—”

“Because…Elöise…if the last days have taught me anything it is that I do not know where I shall be tomorrow at noon. Perhaps you will be there instead…perhaps we have met one another for just that purpose.”

She nodded. “And the other? You said two people.”

“Her name is Celeste Temple. A young woman, very…
determined,
chestnut hair, of small stature—she is the ex-fiancée of Roger Bascombe—a Ministry official who figures in this—who owns this house! Oh, this is foolish, there is no time. We must be off.”

Svenson led her by the hand down the successive flights, a nagging anxiety rising along his spine. They had taken too long. And even if they escaped the house—where to go? The two men knew he was at the King Crow—it could not be safe if they were part of the Cabal, as of course they must be—but the train was not until next morning. Could he sleep in someone’s shed? Could Elöise? He flushed at the very idea, and squeezed her hand in instinctive assurance that the thoughts in his head would not be succumbed to—a certainty challenged by her squeeze of his own hand in return.

At the top of the last staircase—leading down to the brightly lit first floor and the parlor where he’d left the Bascombe woman—he stopped again, indicating they should be especially silent. Svenson listened…the house was still. They crept down one stair at a time until Svenson could step to the parlor door itself and peer in. It was empty, the dishes still there (but not the cake). He looked the other direction—another parlor, also empty. He turned back to Elöise and whispered.

“No one. Which way is the door?”

She finished descending the stairs and crossed to him, standing close and leaning past his chest to look for herself. She stepped back, still quite close, and whispered in return. “I believe it is through that room and one other, not far at all.”

Svenson barely took in her words. In her exertions in the attic, her dress had opened another button. Looking down at her—she was not so very short, but still his was a lovely view—he could see the determination in her face and eyes, the naked skin of her throat and then, through the opened collar of her dress, the join of her clavicles to her sternum—bones that always made him think with a strange sensual stirring of bird skeletons. She looked up at him. Without moving her eyes he knew she saw him looking at her body. She said nothing. Around Doctor Svenson time had slowed—perhaps it was all this talk of ice and freezing—and he drank in the sight of her and her acceptance of his gaze equally. He was as helpless as he had been before the Contessa. He swallowed and attempted to speak.

“This afternoon…do you know…on the train…I had…such a dream…”

“Did you?”

“I did…goodness, yes…”

“Do you remember it?”

“I do…”

He had no idea what lay behind her eyes. He was about to kiss her when they heard the screaming.

It was a woman, somewhere in the house. Svenson spun his head toward either parlor but could not tell in which direction to go. The woman screamed again. Svenson snatched hold of Elöise’s hand and pulled her back through the tea cups and cake plates to the corridor where he’d first arrived, his hand digging at his greatcoat as they went. He quickly opened the door and thrust her into the study. She tried to protest, but her words were stopped as he placed the heavy service revolver in her hands. Her mouth opened with shock, and Svenson gently forced her fingers around the butt of the gun, so she was holding it correctly. This got her attention enough that he could whisper and know she would understand him. Behind them the woman screamed again.

“This is Lord Tarr’s study. The garden door”—he pointed to it—“is open, and the stone wall is low enough to climb. I will be right back. If I am not, go—do not hesitate. There is a train at eight o’clock tomorrow morning to the city. If anyone accosts you—anyone who is not a man in red or a woman wearing green shoes—shoot them dead.”

She nodded. Doctor Svenson leaned forward and placed his lips on hers. She responded fervently, emitting the softest small moan of encouragement and regret and delight and despair all together. He stepped back and pulled the door closed. He walked down the hallway to the other end, passed through a small service room. Svenson availed himself of a heavy candlestick, twisting it in his hand to get a firm grip. The woman was no longer screaming. He strode forward to his best estimate of where the sound had been with five pounds of brass in his hand.

Another hallway fed Svenson into a large carpeted dining room, the high walls covered with oil paintings, the floor dominated by an enormous table surrounded by perhaps twenty high-backed chairs. At the far end stood a knot of men in black coats. Curled into a ball on her side, on top of the table, was the Bascombe woman, her shoulders heaving. As he walked toward them—the carpet absorbing the sound of his step—Svenson saw the man in the middle take hold of her jaw and bend her head so she must face him. Her eyes were screwed shut and her wig dislodged, revealing the poignantly thin, lank, dull hair beneath. The man was tall, with iron grey hair worn down to his collar—and Svenson saw with alarm the medals on the chest of his tailcoat and the scarlet sash that crossed his shoulder, signs of the highest levels of nobility. If he were a native he felt sure he would have known the man…could he be
Royal
? To his left were the two men from the tavern. To his right was Harald Crabbé, who—pricked by some presentiment—looked up, eyes widening, at Svenson’s grim-faced approach.

“Get away from her,” Svenson called coldly. No one moved.

“It is Doctor Svenson,” said Crabbé, for the benefit of his superior.

Svenson saw that the Royal’s other gloved hand held a lozenge of blue glass above the struggling woman’s mouth. At Svenson’s call she had opened her eyes. She saw the lozenge and her throat gurgled in protest.

“Like this?” the man idly asked Crabbé, taking the lozenge between two fingers.

“Indeed, Highness,” replied the Deputy Minister, with all deference, his widening eyes on Svenson’s approach.

“Get away from her!” Svenson cried again. He was perhaps ten feet away and approaching fast.

“Doctor Svenson is the Macklenburg
rebel
…,” intoned Crabbé.

The man shrugged with indifference and stuffed the glass into her mouth, snapping the woman’s jaw between his two hands, holding it tight, her voice rising to a muted scream as the effects within intensified. He met Svenson’s hot gaze with disdain and did not move. Svenson raised the candlestick—for the first time the others saw it—fully intending to dash the fellow’s brains out, no matter who he was, never breaking stride.

“Phelps!” Crabbé snapped, a sudden, desperate imperative in his voice. The shorter of the two men—with the Empire hairstyle—rushed forward, a hand out toward Svenson in reasonable supplication, but the Doctor was already swinging and the candlestick caught the man across the forearm, snapping both bones. He screamed and dropped to the side with the momentum of the blow. Svenson kept coming and now Crabbé was between him and the Royal—who still had not moved.

“Starck! Stop it! Stop him!
Starck!
” Crabbé barked, backing up, exerting his full authority. Over his shoulder dove the other man from the tavern—Mr. Starck—reaching for Svenson with both hands. Svenson met him with his own outstretched left arm. For a moment they grappled at such arm’s length, which left Svenson’s other hand, with the candlestick, free to swing. The blow caught Starck squarely on the ear with a sickening, pumpkin-thwacking thud, dropping him like a stone. Crabbé stumbled into the Royal personage, who was finally taking note of the mayhem around him. He had released the woman’s jaw—the bubbles at her mouth a foaming mix of blue and pink. Svenson prepared to strike over the shorter diplomat’s head directly at the offending aristocrat—Prince, Duke, whoever—and realized, somewhere in the periphery of his mind, that he was acting just like Chang. He was astonished at how
good
it felt, and how much
better
it would feel as soon as he’d broken the face of this monster into pulp…but it was just then that the ceiling of the room—he did not know, as he fell, what else could have been so heavy—collapsed without warning on the back of Doctor Svenson’s head.

He opened his eyes with the distinct memory of having been in this exact lamentable situation before, only this time he was not in a moving horse-cart. The back of his head throbbed mercilessly and the muscles of his neck and right shoulder felt as if they’d been set aflame. His right arm was numb. Svenson looked over to see it shackled above his head to a wooden post. He was sitting in the dirt, leaning against the side of a wooden staircase. He squinted his eyes, trying to focus through the pain in his head. The staircase wound back and forth many times above him, climbing close to a hundred feet. Finally the truth dawned on his dimmed intelligence. He was in the quarry.

He struggled to his feet, desperately craving a cigarette despite the bitter dryness of his throat. Doctor Svenson squinted and shaded his eyes against the glaring torchlight and the quite oppressive heat. He had awoken into a very hive of activity. He fished for his monocle and attempted to take it all in.