Goblin Moon (26 page)

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?”