Imogen Robertson - Circle of Shadows

‘It is nothing to do with Daniel, dear. If you would stay here and finish your tea, then perhaps the gentlemen may escort you back to the palace.’

‘Don’t be foolish, Harry. I am coming with you.’

‘Stay here.’ She said it so sharply, Rachel almost shrank away. Without trusting herself to speak further, and with only a nod to the astonished brothers, Harriet hurriedly left the house and started out along the northward path from the village.

The directions she had received were very clear. Harriet found the Temple of Apollo at the far end of the formal gardens, at the summit of an artificial hill which gave it views back across the expanse of water, hedges and flower gardens to the pink face of the palace itself. It was a smallish, circular domed building, the roof supported by Doric columns. Below them was a wall covered in frescoes of the Muses. She mounted the steps and found herself in its stone interior. A marble bench curved round the low wall, and taking his ease on it, a lazy smile on his lips and surrounded by various gods apparently offering him lyres and laurel wreaths, was Manzerotti. He was as beautiful as ever. She hesitated.

‘Mrs Westerman,’ he said, his voice light and high as a dove cooing to its mate, and nodded to his right. On the bench, just out of his reach was an open walnut case with a pair of travelling pistols in it. She did not speak but took a seat next to it and removed one of the guns. It was a beautiful object — walnut grip, full silver mount. It was cold and smooth in her hand. Heavy without being cumbersome, it felt full of its purpose. She glanced up at its owner. It was like him to own something so perfect, so lovingly made and so deadly.

‘Are we to fight a duel?’ she said at last. Her voice broke in her throat; it sounded harsh and ugly in her ears.

He shook his head and looked out across the view away from the palace and towards the great forests of Maulberg swelling and falling over the hills.

‘I would not challenge you, madam. There are the guns. Do with them what you will.’

In her mind, during the three years since she had seen him in triumph on the stage of His Majesty’s Theatre, she had tried to make him ugly. She felt his sins should show in his face: this spy-master, for whoever would pay him, this monster without principle or ideal who had sown destruction then fled England, protected by her government. They had made use of him in the past too, and his work meant they were willing to let him leave trailing glory and fame, adored and mourned by the public while others who had done less than he were hung as traitors. Harriet remembered that before she had first laid eyes on Manzerotti, she had been told that a woman had gone mad with love for him and thrown herself under his coach. She had thought the story ridiculous, then having seen him and heard him sing, she had believed it. The years had made no mark on him. He was still an ideal model of a human. And with a casual command from his rosebud mouth, he had ordered the murder of her husband.

She lifted the powder flask from its niche among the velvet and unscrewed the lid, noticing that the motif of leaves and flowers from the metalwork on the gun was repeated round the shoulder of the flask. It was full. There was enough powder there to kill Manzerotti a dozen times over.

Crowther and Graves hurried along the path without any clear idea of where they were going.

‘Why is he here?’ Graves hissed. ‘We should never have agreed to keep silent!’

‘It was an order from the King, Graves. Even if it was framed as a request.’ Crowther could move with surprising speed when he wished. Graves jogged along at his side. Crowther continued. ‘Manzerotti, I am sure, is here on his usual business. The marriage of a sovereign Duke, a murder. The foreign powers will be interested in Maulberg at the moment. No doubt Manzerotti is working for Catherine, or Frederick of Prussia. Both, possibly. There is Mrs Clode … I cannot see Mrs Westerman.’

Rachel had just emerged from one of the side paths, accompanied by a dark-complexioned man. Crowther did not take any trouble with formalities. ‘Where is she?’

Rachel looked between them. ‘She received a note and left at once. I thought she would be meeting you, Crowther.’

‘Manzerotti is here,’ Graves said, and Rachel covered her mouth with her hand. ‘Do you have any notion where she went?’

Rachel shook her head. Al-Said frowned. ‘I think I saw her take the path towards the Temple of Apollo.’

‘Manzerotti absolutely,’ Crowther said through gritted teeth. ‘Can you take us there, sir? As quickly as possible, please.’

Al-Said hesitated, then nodded. ‘This way.’

‘I am sorry your husband was killed, Mrs Westerman.’ Manzerotti still had the trick of making every phrase he spoke sound like a snatch of music in his lightly accented English. He crossed his legs and the black silk whispered. He seemed quite calm.

‘Murdered. On your order.’ She rolled one of the lead bullets around the centre of her palm.

‘All wars have casualties. Your husband sank many ships, drowned many men, and was called a hero.’

Harriet made a sound of disgust in her throat.

Manzerotti continued as if he had not heard her. ‘I regret his death now. It proved unnecessary, given my identity was already discovered, but we were not to know that then.’ Harriet picked up the gun again and examined the mechanism. ‘But then I was not the only person to order a murder, was I, Mrs Westerman?’

She paused. ‘I do not know what you mean, Manzerotti.’

He watched her carefully, examining her face as if he were about to draw it.

‘I think the authorities would have preferred my friend Johannes delivered to them alive, yet he was given over to an angry mob. Mr Crowther is hardly the creature to do such a thing unprompted. His blood, for the most part, runs too cold.’ Harriet felt herself flinch, felt it seen. ‘No, Mrs Westerman, I believe it was you that ordered Johannes’ death. Asked Crowther to perform that act of revenge on your behalf from your husband’s bedside. Johannes had been my companion since childhood, you know.’

Harriet tried to concentrate on the pistol, heavy in her hand, and tapped powder into the muzzle. Her hand had begun to shake a little. ‘He was your knife-man. Did you keep a tally of the murders he did for you?’

Manzerotti nodded, his eyebrows slightly lifted as if considering what she said. ‘I am sure you thought the murder justified. Though I have never murdered for revenge. And that is what it was, my dear, revenge.’ She dropped the ball into the barrel and rammed home the charge with all her strength. ‘And you have killed since, I understand, with your own hand. Some evil-doer in Keswick, was it not? The same man who shot Mr Crowther?’

‘I was defending my son.’

‘I applauded you then, as I do now, but tell me, do you think that business would have been tidied away so neatly, just as the removal of Johannes was forgiven so completely, were you not thought of as useful? I suspect England holds you in reserve.’

‘Your point, Manzerotti?’

‘My individual talents have made me of help to many governments, and many individuals; my sins have likewise been occasionally overlooked. I can be useful too, Mrs Westerman. I might even be of help to you. What do you know of this place? These people?’

Harriet pointed the pistol at Manzerotti’s chest; she could feel the pulse of blood in her brain. ‘We are not the same, Manzerotti.’

He licked his lips. ‘No, my dear, I do not think we are. In fact, I seem to be betting my life on it. I only say we can be of use to each other. Now either you must shoot me, or we must come to some sort of accommodation. The world is too small to prevent us from bumping into each other from time to time.’