Imogen Robertson - Circle of Shadows

‘What is the time?’

Pegel glanced out at the clock in the market square. ‘Something after ten. Are you hungry? Shall we eat?’

Florian pulled himself into a sitting position and ran his fingers through his hair. ‘No, no. I have … I have business I must attend to. How is your jaw?’

‘Stiff, but it still works. What of your ribs?’

Florian got to his feet and pressed his hand gingerly to his side. ‘Sore, but I am whole, I think. Will you attend lectures today?’

Pegel shook his head. ‘No, my head is too swollen with your talk to deal with the Professor. I will work here.’

Florian buttoned his waistcoat, wincing, then picked up his coat. ‘Will you be here this afternoon? I still have questions about your formula, if I may call on you?’ There was a slight, awkward formality in his tone.

‘Just as you wish. I shall probably be here. Throw a rock at the window, if you want to save yourself the climb. If I’m here, I shall hear it and call down to you.’

‘Very well.’ Florian picked up his satchel and fitted it over his shoulder. ‘Jacob …?’

‘Hmm?’ Pegel said, already apparently engrossed by the papers on his desk.

‘Thank you.’

Pegel raised his hand in a lazy farewell, and Florian left the room. Jacob heard his steps disappearing down the stairs, then went to the side of his window and looked out. Charles emerged into the square, hesitated and then headed north.

‘Home rather than the lecture hall, hey?’ Pegel said to himself, then grabbed up his coat and tripped off in pursuit.

It was not that Pegel went in disguise, but rather he had the talent to assume a shape in the air that seemed to take up no room in it. He waited in the shadows opposite Florian’s lodgings, a straw in his mouth and his hands in his pockets, and no one paid any mind to him. He might have been one of the paintings on the Town Hall watching the people move about him and no one ever looking up and across. Florian’s rooms were in a far nicer corner of Leuchtenstadt than Pegel’s. But then Florian was nobility, and though he might not seem to like the system of nobility, he took the money, it seemed, and spent it. It was almost half an hour before the door opened again and a young woman stepped out into the road. She wore the neat linen and slightly harried expression of a maid asked to abandon her duties when she had not time enough as it was to complete them. She looked up and down the street. Still with his straw and his slouch, Pegel emerged from the shadows and joined the stream of people passing, just glancing up as he got close to her.

‘You there!’

He paused and touched the brim of his hat. ‘All right there, miss? Cold again, ain’t it?’

‘Can you read?’

‘My name and numbers.’

She put a folded note into his hand. ‘Now this is to go to Mr Wilhelm Grey, he’s a lawyer at the university. You’re to take it to him and wait for a reply. Bring it straight back and there’ll be a fair reward for it.’

Pegel considered telling her he’d do it for a kiss. But she’d start looking at him then whether she’d pay the price or no. Better to resist the temptation to make conversation for now. Wilhelm Grey, was it? He’d seen him around. A wizened-faced old bird who had a fondness for folding lavender into his worn cloak and a liking for his more fresh-faced young students. Pegel touched his hat and pocketed the note. It was time to summon his irregular little army of urchins. If this went the way he thought it might, he’d need extra feet and extra hands to track the little rabbits home. As soon as he turned the corner he pulled the note out of his pocket and looked at it more closely. Sealed. Well, Florian was not a complete fool.

Krall returned to the palace, cold from his early ride but content, and made his way at once to Chancellor Swann with Clode’s carnival mask wrapped in linen in his hands. He found the Chancellor with the Duke and a mass of papers. There was a harpsichord in the room, and as was his custom, the Duke was signing his papers to its accompaniment. In the other corner of the room the Countess Dieth sat at a small table, amusing herself, it seemed, playing games of Patience. Krall made his bow and readied himself to wait until business was concluded, but the Duke had seen the package in his hands and, it appeared, wanted distraction.

‘What do you have there, Krall?’ It was a point of pride among his people that their Duke spoke the local dialect as fluently as they. He used it now.

‘Mr Clode’s carnival mask, sire,’ he replied.

The Duke put down his pen and beckoned Krall over. Krall approached, and as he unwrapped the mask explained the theory that it had been used to drug Mr Clode in some way, as suggested in Mrs Westerman’s note.

The Duke smiled broadly. ‘Fascinating! How do you propose to test the theory?’

‘I thought to ask for a volunteer from among the servants, and observe the results, sire.’

The Duke sat back in his chair. ‘Oh, what an excellent idea! I should like to see that. May we try it at once?’

The music stopped and Krall glanced towards the musician. Turning from the keyboard was an extremely handsome man Krall did not recognise.

‘With your permission, sire,’ the man said in precise German.

‘What is it, Manzerotti?’

‘If the mask were drugged, its effects may have weakened over time. It might be better to experiment on a child. I think I know where one might be found at this time.’

The Duke crossed his legs. ‘Thank you, Manzerotti. Fetch it at once. Countess Dieth? Would you be so kind as to gather our English friends? It was Mrs Westerman’s suggestion, after all. She should see it tried.’

The lady stood up. ‘It is nonsense. You should have executed that monstrous Englishman a month ago.’

‘Now, now, my dear,’ the Duke said very softly. ‘Indulge me.’

From the moment they were introduced, Harriet realised Krall was cut of a very different cloth to the other people she had met at court so far. He looked, Harriet realised, a little like Michaels, though he was clean-shaven. His face was deeply lined, a granite escarpment weathered and harried by the elements, and his coat was far more workaday than any others worn at court. She could hardly imagine him moving among them. He was a charcoal sketch among the heavy oils around him. She found she was being studied in her turn, though with a friendly eye.

The Countess Dieth had hardly shared a word with them on their walk through the mirrored and shining corridors of the palace. She had simply told them to come with her. Rachel had shaken her head, saying she needed to rest, but Graves, Crowther and Harriet had followed in her silken wake, though Harriet saw signs of irritation on both their faces. Chancellor Swann was standing by the desk when they entered and bowed politely to them. Countess Dieth immediately retook her seat at the card-table and turned away from them all.

The Duke sat on a small daybed and indicated the area of carpet in front of the marble fireplace with a jewelled hand. He had his spaniel on his lap again. ‘If you would just stand there … excellent. Now we shall all have a perfect view. Continue, Krall.’

Krall bowed a little awkwardly, as if the movement did not come naturally to him. The Duke began to feed his dog sweetmeats from between his own lips. Harriet looked about her. After the Great Hall, this room seemed almost domestic. Classical drapery, but it had some lightness to it. If Harriet had chosen to fill the ceiling of the Long Salon in Caveley with putti and fill the walls with oil paintings, it might look something like this.

‘By your leave, sire.’ Krall pushed open a door just behind him, and from the antechamber beyond entered a young woman, fashionably if not richly dressed, who led by the hand a little girl of some seven or eight years of age.