The Golden Specific (13 page)

A deafening crash sounded above.

Abruptly, Miles and Shadrack stopped their futile efforts to revive the prime minister. “Sophia!” Shadrack shouted, rushing toward the stairs, as the sound of pounding footsteps filled the house. Theo grabbed the bloody instruments from the table and made for the familiar wardrobe at the back of the room. In a matter of seconds, he was closeted within it.

A phalanx of police officers rushed down the stairs, meeting Shadrack halfway with their pistols drawn. “Shadrack Elli and Miles Countryman,” the leading officer shouted, far louder than was necessary. “Put your hands over your heads. You are under arrest for conspiracy and treason, and for the murder of Prime Minister Cyril Bligh.”

 12 

Adrift

B
OSTON
H
ARBOR
WAS
hectic with the cries of gulls and the shouts of mariners. Its distinctive smells—molasses and sugar, coffee and rum, ocean air and seaweed—drifted by like restless travelers disembarking from their long voyages. Sophia wove her way through the crowd to the harbormaster's office, where she posted a letter to Calixta and Burr asking them to meet her and Theo in Seville in one month. She showed her papers to one of the officers who patrolled the harbor, ensuring that no foreigners entered and that any traveling citizens had the proper paperwork. Then, her pulse quickening, she searched for the
Verity
.

She found the name in white paint on a ship with tall masts and a smooth hull. The figurehead, a woman in blue wearing a white blindfold, echoed the blindfolded gargoyle at the entrance of the Nihilismian Archive. The tightly furled sails seemed ready to spring open, anticipating an imminent journey.

As she stood gazing at the ship, a middle-aged man in a trim blue uniform approached her. He carried a Nihilismian amulet around his neck and a notebook and pencil in his hands. “Are you sailing with the mission to the Papal States?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied with a shaky exhalation.

“Your name?”

“Every Tims.”

He scanned the pages of his notebook. “Here you are. I remember now. Remorse arranged for your passage. And you are traveling with someone else? It says ‘Every Tims and her guest, Shadrack Elli.'”

“The name Remorse gave you is incorrect. And he isn't here yet.”

“You may board and I will direct him when he arrives. What is the correct name?”

“Theodore Constantine Thackary.”

“Very well.” He gave a brief nod. “Welcome aboard the
Verity
, Miss Tims. Your cabin is number seven.”

“Thank you.”

Sophia climbed the gangplank. The moment she reached the top, she felt the waters of the harbor gently rocking the
Verity
, and the seasickness she had come to know so well the
previous summer struck her with full force. She took a deep breath and steadied herself, then slowly followed the signs to the cabins. As she passed the open doors, she saw more than one Nihilismian unpacking: other missionaries, like Remorse, preparing for the long Atlantic crossing. With deliberate movements, they placed folded clothes in drawers, books onto shelves, bedding onto the mattresses. Sophia opened the door to cabin 7 and surveyed the tiny room. A bunk bed with netted curtains filled half the space. A wooden chair and a desk stood under the round window, its frame painted blue.

Sophia put her pack on the floor and her satchel on the desk. She sat down and inhaled deeply, trying to calm her stomach. She reached into her pocket and clasped the spool of silver thread.
I'm here,
she said to herself.
I'm here and this is going to be fine. Theo and I faced worse together last year. This will be easy.
Through the open door, she could hear the seagulls and the waves splashing against the ship. There was no other sound. She watched the curtains on the bed ruffle gently in the breeze in smooth, unpredictable patterns.

The seasickness troubled her less when she closed her eyes; she had been told that ordinary seasickness improved by fixing the eye upon a steady horizon, but she knew the malady that arose from being adrift in the timelessness of the ocean manifested differently. Closing her eyes, Sophia focused on a single point in time: the morning before, when Minna had appeared to her and spoken those simple words:
Take the offered sail.
She saw the figure's hazy contours and heard the voice; she pictured the rest of her room in the dawn light;
slowly, she began to feel herself settle and the seasickness abate. It was such a relief to feel well again that she kept herself in the moment for as long as she could.

The sound of the waves beyond the open doorway changed. Sophia opened her eyes and realized at once that the light had shifted and yellowed. She scrambled for her watch but could not believe what it said: fifteen-hour, seven.

With panicked steps, she flung herself from her cabin and out into the corridor, running until she reached the rail. The city of Boston was rapidly shrinking. The
Verity
had set sail. And as far as she knew, neither Theo nor Remorse was aboard.

 13 

The Malady

February 25, 1881

The
Roost
arrived in Seville the following day, as Captain Wren had predicted. The parting from Wren and his crew left us rather wistful, for the final twenty hours were the most enjoyable we spent aboard. Released from their self-imposed subterfuge, the Australians were able to behave as they really were—that is, loud, inquisitive, and riotously good-humored.

Much of the afternoon was spent in eager interrogation of our history and habits; they were infinitely curious about the world of New Occident and the Baldlands, which most had never seen. We found them less forthcoming about their Age, and we quickly learned that if we were to keep them cheerful, we were not to ask questions. But the evening was enjoyable as well, and we went to bed far too late and woke to find we had nearly docked. For the last portion of our journey, Captain Wren slowed the ship to a less astonishing speed, so as not to draw attention.

As we disembarked in Seville, Captain Wren made us a gift of a watch on a heavy chain. While at first glance it seemed ordinary, a watch that might be found in any Boston shop, on closer inspection it proved to have twelve hours on
its face, rather than twenty. It was Australian in more ways than this, according to Captain Wren. “I'm really not supposed to give you anything,” he said, “but as I've bent the rules so far already, I figured I may as well bend them a little more.” He turned the watch over. “If you press here, you'll see that the back flips open.” We watched as he revealed a compartment with three bronze buttons the size of pinheads. “Think of this watch as a kind of magnet,” Wren explained, to our surprise, “that draws me to you should you ever need assistance. The top button will activate the magnet, and I will be alerted. Should you be in serious danger, do not hesitate to press it. I'll find a way to reach you.”

“What do the others do?” Bronson asked.

“You won't need them; they won't be useful while you're in the Papal States—or New Occident, for that matter.”

“Thank you, Captain Wren, for all your kindness,” I said, pressing his hand. “I hope we never have an emergency that requires calling you, but this watch will serve as a wonderful reminder of you and the days we spent aboard the
Roost
.”

After we said our good-byes, Wren sailed almost immediately, without so much as restocking his ship. He had explained that there were more than enough provisions in the hold, and that they needed to make up for lost time. We were left, rather forlornly, by ourselves on the streets of Seville.

The city is probably quite beautiful, though I am sure we did not enjoy it as we might have. The mood of the populace was withdrawn and uneasy. On the way to the city center, we were nearly robbed twice, and it is only thanks
to Bronson's long sword and my passable Castilian that we arrived safely in the Jewish quarter, where we knew of a map store and an inn friendly to foreign travelers. Our information proved correct, and the elderly innkeeper demonstrated himself to be the kindest man we met in all the Papal States. Hearing we had nearly been robbed, Gilberto Jerez shook his head of white hair with exaggerated grief and thanked the heavens for our safe delivery. He showed us to our small but very clean room and fed us excessively with a stew of chicken and chickpeas and a dessert of figs and almonds.

Though Seville was, on the whole, as backward and primitive as is to be expected of such an early Age, I would have stayed in Gilberto's little inn quite happily for an entire month.

If only the Fates had allowed us some foresight, so that we might have done so.

Instead, we explained the urgency of our mission to the kindly Gilberto, who insisted the following day on accompanying us personally to the home of his nephew, a reliable if taciturn man of roughly my years by the name of Ildefonso. Gilberto had suggested that Ildefonso, who was a merchant and often traveled the route east, might accompany us to Murtea. Ildefonso admitted that he had no plans to travel for another few weeks in that direction, but we were able to persuade him to serve as our guide by offering fair payment in gold. Shadrack had told us, and he was right, that the Papal States value gold above all else. It is well known that in the Spains and their empire—that is to say, in the place that existed in our Age, hundreds of years earlier—gold was also
valued highly. But, as with so many things, the world was not the same after the Great Disruption; the Papal States are not the Spains. In the Papal States, gold is valued above all else for a different reason.

The dreaded Dark Age, which sits on the road between Seville and Granada, is thought to be the source of a plague known as
lapena
. Bruno had warned us of it in his letter, and his warning proved correct: even in Seville, where the other dangers of the Dark Age are proximate, the plague is the most feared.

The illness begins with a marked wave of exhaustion and lethargy. The victim's spirits become very downcast, such that all the world seems dark and oppressive. It has been described by survivors as a gradual loss of vision, so that the victim's world seems to shrink from the edges outward. As the days pass, the victim languishes more and more, turning away all food and drink, feeling nothing for loved ones, and, finally, caring nothing for his or her own life. I have seen people afflicted with
lapena,
and I can confirm that it is terrible to witness. Usually, the victim dies slowly of thirst or starvation, making the grief of the victim's family all the more terrible. It seems a choice, though clearly it is not; it is a disease that the sufferer has no power to resist. And there is one other thing which I should have mentioned at the start:
lapena
is contagious. Terribly so.

There is no proven cure, but for reasons that physicians do not fully understand, there is one substance that on occasion has been observed to have an ameliorating or
preventative effect: gold. More often than not, it has no effect at all. But rumor has it that the precious metal has more than once prevented the disease from taking root or even kept a sufferer from death. Gilberto himself told us that he had seen a distant relative cured after she was forced to look at her face in a mirror of beaten gold. But people have attempted far more radical cures: wearing a golden breastplate like a shield; drinking water mixed with gold flakes; even piercing the body with gold needles. For this reason, gold is in high demand in the Papal States, and every ounce of it is gathered for the purpose of warding off
lapena
.

In any case, we arrived well equipped. We had spent a small fortune in Boston changing currency for gold in preparation for the journey, and we considered the gold we gave Ildefonso well spent if it would carry us to our destination safely. Shadrack had also equipped us with the best possible maps: his own of the Papal States, a glass map from a friend who had journeyed to Toledo a decade earlier, and a tea map to find lodging.

I will say little of our journey east to Murtea, because thanks to Ildefonso it was mostly uneventful. We had thought that our gold was buying only his services as a guide, but perhaps due to Gilberto's urging, or perhaps due to a surprising generosity, he brought along two cousins for additional protection. Ostensibly, they were to defend us from the
cuatroala
or “fourwing,” a fearsome beast, with, as the name would suggest, four wings; it resides in the Dark Age and ventures from that black forest to pillage and scavenge for food. We
did not encounter any fourwings, but the presence of the two cousins, whom we only knew by their nicknames—“Rubio” and “El Sapo”—effectively dissuaded any highway robber who might have been tempted to make our journey difficult. Rubio, a tall, thin man with curly blond locks, carried a long sword and a dagger and made a great show of cleaning his teeth with the short blade whenever we stopped for a meal. El Sapo, who was nearly as wide as he was tall, had lost most of his teeth in previous brawls, and his callused fists were like clubs. Thanks to them and Ildefonso's vaguely menacing silence, everyone left us to ourselves.

The country outside of Seville was dry, even in February, and though Ildefonso considered it hilly, the landscape was in reality quite flat. We traveled on horseback, fed the horses at the roadside inns, and saw very little of the villages along the way. The farther east we traveled, the closer we came to the Dark Age, and we saw empty villages everywhere. The people in those villages still populated kept to themselves and were wary of strangers. We appreciated all the more that our guide was well-known on the route as a merchant. Instead of viewing us with suspicion, innkeepers almost universally accepted us without comment. It was evident, nonetheless, that the epidemic had done more than isolate the villages. It had also, to my eye, made the population generally sullen, unwelcoming, and hostile. As we continued along, encountering the hard faces of innkeepers and other travelers, I realized how exceptional Gilberto's lively and generous outpouring of kindness had been.

Our traveling companions had been very quiet on the last day of our journey; though, to be fair, they were rarely talkative. Rubio occasionally had moments of effervescent sociability, but for the most part they were a serious—that is to say, dull—trio of bodyguards. I was beginning to feel nervous about the encounter that lay before us. Either we would find Bruno dead, or we would be faced with an unpleasant confrontation with the village authorities. Riding into Murtea around midday, we asked directions from the sentry, and he pointed us to the sheriff's office.

Murtea was ringed by a stone wall, and once we had passed through its gate we found ourselves in a labyrinth of narrow streets, some of them cobbled, some of them dirt. It took several tries to reach the fountain at the village center and then locate beside it the sheriff's office. Bronson and I rode in front, and our supposed guides, riding more and more slowly, followed. Here and there we passed villagers on the street, and they glanced at us warily and made no sign of welcome. When we finally found the sheriff's office, we were greeted at the doorway—if such a scowl can be considered greeting—by a thin man wearing a long sword tipped with gold and a tattered black cape.

We had agreed some days earlier that, while my Castilian was adequate, Ildefonso would be the one to ask the Murtean sheriff what had happened to Bruno. However, as we dismounted, I found that our three bodyguards were no longer beside us. Their horses stood with ours, seemingly as perplexed as Bronson and I; they shook their loose reins with
surprised gratification. Looking quickly around the plaza, I realized that Ildefonso, Rubio, and El Sapo were sitting at some distance from each other, near the fountain. My first thought was that they were exhausted by the heat. But then, with dawning horror, I saw El Sapo fall to his side listlessly as if in a faint. He lay there, insensible to the dust and punishing sun. I knew then, without any doubt, what afflicted him. Bronson and I looked at each other, sharing the same, panicked thought:
What are we to do?

The decision was made for us. A woman we had not seen, who was standing in the shade of a building not far from the fountain, let out a piercing scream.
“
Lapena, lapena!”
she cried, her voice rising to a shriek as she repeated the dread word over and over again, running from the plaza. Our three companions did not so much as move. Bronson and I turned as one to the sheriff, but he had already disappeared. For one deluded moment, we imagined we would go free. I think, to my shame, I actually contemplated riding off and leaving Ildefonso, Rubio, and El Sapo.

Then four figures emerged from the sheriff's office. They wore full suits of armor under white capes with hoods, and upon their faces were long-beaked masks of pounded gold. The white fabric of the capes glinted in the bright sunlight, and I realized that golden thread had been woven into the cloth. With their beaks and armor and white garments, the men seemed like strange, silent raptors. I recognized the sheriff only by the gold-tipped sword with which he held us at bay. While his three assistants strode purposefully toward
the fountain, the sheriff curtly ordered us to raise our hands.