The Crimson Shard (7 page)

In the gathering gloom of nightfall, the candle flames in the Academy of Wonders became bright jewels against the dim walls. The boys lit more lanterns and rearranged the lights nearest their worktables, settling down again after a brief meal of bread, cheese, and cups of tea in the kitchen. The cook, Mistress Biggins, had shooed them away before they could even finish swallowing their second cup. There had been no sign of Throgmorton or Livia, and every door in the quiet house was shut, but as Mary and the cook bustled to prepare a lavish evening meal, a current of excitement spread from the cellar kitchen to the Academy workshop.

After several rounds of snuff and a barrage of sneezes, Jeremiah rapped on a tabletop for the boys’ attention. “Make not a sound tonight, lads, not one sound. There will be guests in the dining parlor, and Mr. Throgmorton warns you not to spoil their pleasure.”

“What sound? It’s already like a tomb in here,” whispered Sunni, working her quill pen in more curves and lines on yet another sheet of paper.

“Except for my stomach rumbling.” Blaise squirmed. “Bread and cheese isn’t going to cut it for me. How can these guys live on that?”

“Look at the size of them. They’d dry up and blow away if the sun ever hit their skin.”

Blaise tried to check the time, but there was only a pale patch on his wrist where his watch had been. It now lay with his other belongings in the trunk under his cot. “Excuse me, Mr. Starling?”

Jeremiah ambled over, cradling a stoneware bowl filled with small animal skulls. He picked through them with care, making sure the jawbones did not become separated.

“A question?” He peered over Blaise’s practice sheets and nodded. “You handle the pen well.”

“How much longer do we work tonight?”

The boys all glanced up.

“Answer him, Robert.” Jeremiah selected a blunt-nosed skull, perhaps of a dog, and laid it in front of Blaise.

“We work until first sleep,” said a dark-haired boy with very few front teeth. “Then we awake and work on till second sleep. We rise with the morning light, break our fast, and work again.”

“Thank you, Robert,” Jeremiah said, placing a delicate specimen in front of Sunni. This skull was small enough to fit in her hand. It brought a lump to her throat wondering what animal it had been.

“First sleep?”

“We have a few hours yet till then,” said Jeremiah. “And we wake again at midnight.”

Blaise exhaled noisily and exchanged a look with Sunni. “Where we come from, people sleep through the whole night, unless they’re worried or sick. I can sleep for ten hours straight — even longer on weekends.”

“Ten hours,” Toby murmured. “I have never slept so long.”

“Nor I,” said Samuel. The other boys murmured agreement.

“A waste of time,” Jeremiah said. “One can complete a drawing in the space of time between first and second sleep. You shall see. Sunniver and Blaise,” he continued, “you may try drawing these creatures’ skulls with ink now. But remember, draw first with charcoal, then brush the excess away.” He put down his bowl of skulls and dragged a clean sheet of paper onto Sunni’s table. “Let me show you.”

He picked up a tiny stump of charcoal that had rolled onto the floor and began sketching out Sunni’s specimen on the paper. He made a sweeping line with his right hand, then changed hands and kept drawing with his left. He mumbled as he went along, “Make the overall shape with a light hand. . . . Refine it. . . . This curves in here. . . . The eye socket. . . . Mark the teeth in last. . . . Take care not to press too hard.”

Jeremiah looked around and noticed that his pupils were secretly watching him. “Very well, you imps. You have seen me do this many times before, but it will not harm you to see it once more.”

The boys gathered around and watched the Master draw, leaning on each other’s shoulders, chins cupped in their hands. It was the first time Sunni had seen some of them smile, and she guessed that this was as close to fun as they got.

Jeremiah eventually whipped the paper off the table and shook it, blowing off the excess charcoal. He took up Sunni’s quill pen and drew over his sketch. When it was finished, he left it to dry and threw a feather down on top of it. “You may dust off charcoal lines with that.”

“You is a right genius, Mr. Starling,” said a deep male voice somewhere near them.

“Hear, hear,” drawled another voice.

All heads jerked up to see two men in dark clothing looming behind them.

T
he first man was tall and slender, with a long nose and chin. The other was slight but well proportioned, with a smirking face. Both had ebony-colored hair pulled back tightly under their three-cornered hats.

“Egad,” Jeremiah erupted. “The two of you shall stop my heart dead one day!”

“Apologies,” said the smaller man, tipping his hat with one black-gloved hand and revealing a parcel tucked under his other arm. “Delivery.”

“Yes, yes, thank you, Mr. Sleek,” grumbled Jeremiah, leading the men away and whispering something to them as they went.

The tall man gnawed on a fingernail and pointed to a large wrapped parcel against a wall. “Brought you a rather a significant delivery tonight, Mr. Starling.” He tripped over the
r
’s in his words, morphing them into soft
w
sounds.

“Thank you, Mr. Fleet.”

Sunni and Blaise stared after Fleet, who had the look of a greyhound ready to bolt on command, and the feline Sleek, who moved smoothly and silently beside him. In their dusky clothes of no nameable color, they brought the night’s darkness in with them.

“Who are they?” Sunni whispered to Toby.

The boys had scattered back to their seats, but Toby was seated close by.

“They work for Mr. Throgmorton. They bring us artworks to copy for our learnin’ and take them away when we are finished.”

Sleek tilted his head to study Sunni and Blaise. His smirk made Sunni feel that he had figured out her secret within five seconds, but when he shifted his gaze to Blaise, his expression did not change.

“New apprentices,” Sleek said, raising his forefinger in greeting and touching it to the brim of his hat.

“Rather different from the others,” Fleet observed. “What poorhouse did he find these in?”

“I have not been told,” Jeremiah said. “Their origins matter not to me.”

Sleek raised his eyebrows and did not remove his gaze from the pair.

“Odd.”

“Odd?” Fleet repeated. “What is odd, Sleek?”

Sleek tapped his forefinger against his lips. “Well fed.”

“Aye, they is rather well fed, now you mention it,” said Fleet.

“Mr. Throgmorton is selective in his new apprentices,” Jeremiah said abruptly. “Now, show me the specimens.”

Fleet unwrapped the cloth that protected his painting and threw it over his shoulder. He just managed to hold both edges of the wide gilded frame and gave the painting a critical once-over.

“Not a mark on it,” Fleet said, leaning it against the wall. “Painted by the French master, Caradas.”

Jeremiah peered at the portrait of a young man in musketeer’s clothing and examined the signature. A brief cloud of anger crossed his face as he pulled the cloth off Fleet’s shoulder and draped it across the painting, tucking it in firmly at the back.

“Does the picture vex you, Mr. Starling?” asked Fleet.

“Not in the least.” Jeremiah took the other package from Sleek and unwrapped it, revealing a small drawing of a lady with pearls woven through her braided hair.

“Italian,” said Sleek, brushing his gloved hands together.

“Florentine,” Jeremiah added. He gently covered up the lady and placed her on a high shelf away from the candles and paints.

“Has you anything needing to be taken away, Mr. Starling?” asked Fleet.

“I do, sir, as it happens.” Jeremiah moved toward three loosely wrapped paintings propped against a wall. “The Flemish angel is not ready, but that still life may go. Pray also remove the drawing of the sleeping shepherdess. Jacob will soon be finished working upon the Tuscan landscape, now that he has enough vermilion paint.”

Fleet lifted a cloth covering to reveal the Flemish angel, and Sunni’s pulse quickened. “I recognize that painting,” she whispered to Blaise.

“So do I. We saw it in the National Gallery yesterday.”

“How did those two get hold of a famous painting?”

Fleet scooped the packaged artworks up and handed the smallest to Sleek.

“Mr. Fleet, Mr. Sleek, our business is concluded,” said Jeremiah. “Please see yourselves out.”

But neither man moved.

“Old Slaughter’s,” said Sleek with a glint in his eye.

“Aye! I nearly forgot. But Mr. Sleek misses nothing,” said Fleet. “You was discussed at Old Slaughter’s coffeehouse last night, Mr. Starling.”

“By whom?” asked Jeremiah, fumbling for his snuffbox.

“By all who was there, Mr. Starling. All the gentlemen remarked upon your rather long absence from their company and drank your good health.”

“What else was said of me?”

“No more than that,” said Fleet. “There wasn’t nothing else said, was there, Sleek?”

His companion shook his head. “Nothing.”

“How did you come to be at Old Slaughter’s? That is hardly your sort of . . .” Jeremiah stopped. “Did you say anything to them? Anything of me?”

Fleet stroked his long chin. “Nay, of course not, Mr. Starling. We was just passing by and heard the jabber.”

“Discretion,” said Sleek with his finger to his lips.

“Aye, discretion,” said Fleet. “Secrets is always safe with us.”

With that, he and Sleek gave the boys a parting glance and slipped out of the workshop, arms wrapped around their packages. Sunni and Blaise waited for the sound of shoes on stairs but heard nothing. It was as if the two men had sprouted wings and floated down the stairwell, making no noise and barely causing the candles on the landing to twitch.

Sunni and Blaise managed to make five halfhearted drawings under Jeremiah’s watchful eye. At times, fear gripped Sunni and she battled to keep it under control. She kept telling herself to be cool and alert, in case a chance of escape came, and concentrated on drawing obediently. From skulls to shells to horned beetles, she had drawn and redrawn, erased with the feather, and inked in with her quill pen. Even so, she constantly checked the painted door, praying it would rematerialize and they could make a dash for it.

Eventually Sunni’s eyes swam in the warm lantern light and her chin dropped to her chest. She awoke with a jerk, looking around to see whether anyone had noticed. But all the boys, Blaise included, were engrossed in their work, and Jeremiah was downstairs, attending Throgmorton’s dinner.

When her resistance to sleep finally broke, she slumped forward and the quill rolled out of her hand. The next thing she knew, Gus and Toby were standing over her.

“You’d best go down to Mistress Biggins,” said Toby. “She’s made you a bed near the kitchen.”

Her mouth was parched, and a red lump was coming up on her middle finger, where the quill pen rubbed as she drew. “See you at midnight, I guess.”

“We need to talk,” Blaise whispered as she passed.

“I know. Later.” Sunni wound down the stairs, perking up at the sound of laughter and voices from below. The door to the dining parlor was ajar, its interior glowing with candlelight. The room hummed with men’s voices, punctuated by ladies’ laughter.

She hovered by the door.
I could just go in and tell them we’re being held prisoner. But would they believe me over Throgmorton?

Just as Sunni was getting her courage up, Mary burst from the dining parlor, laden down with dirty tureens and plates.

“Take something!” the servant girl hissed, a greasy sweat across her forehead.

Sunni took the most precariously balanced bowls from her and led the way to the kitchen. She nearly toppled down the uneven stairs at the bottom of the house and picked her way along a short, dingy corridor. Edging carefully into the kitchen, she placed her burden on the first clear surface she could find.

Two familiar figures sat in wooden chairs on either side of the blue-and-white tiled hearth, one warming his mantislike legs and the other smoking a long-stemmed clay pipe, his eyes following the shapely cook. The packages they had taken from Jeremiah leaned against a bit of wall underneath one of the shuttered subterranean windows.

“’Tis the new apprentice,” said Fleet. “Or is you rather the new maid?”

“Both,” said Sleek, his pipe smoke curling up toward the low ceiling.

“I wish he was the new maid,” said Mistress Biggins, as she laid out jellies, syllabub, and potted cheeses on the large table. “Mary is obliged to do the work of three and does not even manage to do the work of one.”

The heat blasting from the fire and oven sent Sunni cowering to the far wall. The sideboards were heaving with picked-over skeletons of pigeon and carp, bowls still green with slicks of pea soup, and the discarded peelings from potato pudding. To Sunni, the smoke-stained ceiling seemed to grow lower and lower, as if it would flatten them all.

“Mary!” said Mistress Biggins. “Upstairs with all this — now!”

The serving girl hung her head and began ferrying the sweets upstairs.