Imogen Robertson - Circle of Shadows

‘Fair play, lady. I’m impressed. You have a talent for reading people. How did you know of my son?’

Still smiling, she picked up an ivory puzzle ball from the table at her side. It was a narrow tower with a ball on top, pierced and carved to show another ball within, also pierced, also containing another. ‘Mrs Clode mentioned your family. Your history as a fighter is written in your face and hands if you know how to read it. It doesn’t always work. We’d arrive in a town where there were enough bored rich nobles, and set about milking them with tales of their future, their dead loved ones. Once we’d made a few too many mistakes, my uncle would sweep us off to the next place. An unsettled life. But he fed us and clothed us, gave us an education and never tried …’ She shrugged.

‘So what happened? Ran out of towns, did you?’

‘Not quite. But my sister was ambitious. She heard that there were nobles ready to pay through the nose if you could convince them you knew the secrets of alchemy. But my uncle was getting old, and did not like the risks. When he got sick, she ran off with half our money, and half our jewels. Beatrice is her name. Sharp as a pin. Hair black as a crow’s wing. She was proud of it. Made her stand out among all the fair-haired peasants and the powdered rich.’ She moved the puzzle ball so the ivory spheres turned and clicked against each other.

‘What happened to your uncle?’

She smiled sadly, and Michaels wondered what she was seeing. ‘I looked after him. Saw him buried decently.’ Her voice lost its softness. ‘Then I came looking for her. I’d had a letter from her saying she was in Ulrichsberg, calling herself Beatrice Lachapelle, and that she had found a magus — someone to teach her. I met the Colonel when he arrived at the hotel where I was staying here.’

‘And of your sister?’

She shook her head. ‘Not a trace.’

Pegel woke and stretched very carefully. Bruises mostly, he thought. He’d have rather done three rounds with his pet giant than take that fall again. The ankle was bad though. Well, he had to spend the day organising the papers he had got anyway. What was left of it. He had slept long and hard and the sun was already at its height. He looked at his right palm. Torn, ugly and dirty. He needed food and watering. He got slowly to his feet, hobbled over to the window and opened the latch. There was a pair of boys playing below him. He whistled, and after a good bit of miming and a coin that glinted in the sunshine, he heard small steps thundering up the staircase.

By the time his window rattled with a pebble hurled by Florian, his dirty clothes had been carried off, his wounds washed and his ankle was supported on a mound of blankets. The brighter of the two children he had held on to as a servant for the day. When the pebble struck, Pegel sent him to see who it was.

‘Fella.’

‘What sort of fella, genius?’

‘Yellow hair and all very ladidah!’ The boy performed a little mincing walk across the window and Pegel tried not to smile.

‘All right, go and fetch him in then.’

He went without a word and when he returned, presented Florian with a flourish. ‘Here he is! What do you want me to do now then?’

‘Bottle of wine and a bit of bread and cheese from Mother Brown’s. Go on then!’

‘They ain’t going to give it to me for free, are they?’

Pegel shrugged. ‘Fair point. Florian, give the boy some money, will you?’

Florian reached into his pocket automatically and handed the child a couple of coins. The door slammed and his wooden soles clattered down the stairs like a drum roll.

Florian had been staring at him open-mouthed. ‘Jacob, what on earth happened to you?’

Pegel crossed his arms and lowered his chin, looking sulky. ‘I met your friend in the brown coat again. He was running up from Fluss Strasse in a ripping hurry, but that giant wasn’t with him so I thought I’d try to have a word. Judged it wrong. He threw me over, turned my ankle.’

‘Oh Jacob, I’m so sorry. Did he hurt you badly?’

‘Oh, I’m fine, don’t fuss! He just got lucky, had some momentum build up. I could have taken him, no problem, otherwise.’

Florian came over and placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it. For some reason Pegel’s eyes stung a little. ‘What time of day was this?’ Florian asked. ‘I came looking for you yesterday.’

‘Out walking most of the afternoon. Clears my head. I was just coming back — it was dark, or getting there, I suppose.’

Florian picked up a chair from the other side of the room and brought it over so he could sit with Pegel at the desk. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and looked deeply into his friend’s eyes. ‘A most terrible thing. It seems this man had found his way into the depths of a … society of friends of which I am part.’

‘What society of friends?’

‘The ones I told you of the other night. Men ready to rule, ready to guide us to a better future.’

Pegel scratched his head. ‘Those dreams — you saying they’re real? What are you going to do? Hang all the Dukes? Kill the Kings?’

Florian smiled. His face really did glow when he talked of these things. ‘There will be no violence, Jacob. Our people will take positions of power in every court and country in Europe. We will convert to our cause those rulers who can be reasoned with. The others we will control, then educate their heirs. Slowly, all of this,’ he waved his hand, taking in the attic, but Pegel supposed Maulberg, the Empire, ‘all this will wither away and once again people can live as nature intended.’

‘You’re mad.’

‘Inspired! But it is vital that secrecy is preserved until the world is ready. Vital. And now, somehow, someone has done what no one thought possible and identified the leader of our group in Leuchtenstadt.’ Pegel scratched behind his ear in hopes of hiding a slightly smug expression. Florian, however, had turned to watch the blue spring sky through Pegel’s huge window. ‘It is such a closely guarded secret, only two or three people know his name.’

‘You do not know your own leader?’

‘It is much safer so! I only know the names of two or three members of my own rank, and then there is my guide in the rank above. He will decide when I am ready to be initiated into the next rank, then pass my advancement over to another man who will guide me to the next stage. I told you, secrecy is vital.’

‘Sounds like the army. What’s your rank now then?’

Frenzel hesitated. ‘Master Knight of the Chosen Company of the Elected.’ Pegel snorted. ‘Jacob! This is very serious!’

‘Too bloody right it’s serious — look at my ankle!’

The stairs gave notice that food was arriving and Jacob’s young butler slapped it down on the table. ‘What else?’

‘Nothing for now. Go and run about in the square and scare the old ladies, or whatever it is you do,’ Pegel said. ‘Stay within earshot, though. I may want you later.’ And when the boy stayed where he was: ‘What?’

‘Retainer.’

Florian reached into his pocket and pulled out yet another coin. He placed it in the boy’s hand, saying, ‘Look after my friend.’

The boy grinned and began to run the coin back and forth between his fingers. ‘I’ll wipe his arse if you carry on paying like that.’

Pegel grinned. ‘Not required. Now sod off, there’s a good boy.’ As the lad went on his way again, Pegel noticed that Florian was blushing slightly. Good Lord, this man was brought up in a nunnery, he thought, and felt a stab of affection.

‘The house of this man, our leader here, was broken into last evening. His papers were searched. That man must have been fleeing the chase when you encountered him.’