Imogen Robertson - Circle of Shadows

‘There is ritual in these murders, Graves. Why drown a woman on dry land, or choke another with earth in the confines of the palace, if it were not vital to the killer that they die in such a manner?’

‘A sense of the theatrical?’ Graves said. ‘A demonstration of power? There is something grandiose here, don’t you think? Overblown? I saw a production of Caractacus at Covent Garden in seventy-six where the gold of the setting overpowered the music so completely, they might as well have not bothered giving it voice at all.’

When she did not reply, he looked up. Mrs Westerman was a little too casual for him in her handling of the rare texts of the Sovereign’s Collection; she had in her hands a volume he suspected of being a survivor of the Renaissance, and was holding it at arm’s length and turning one way and another. ‘Do treat those poor things carefully, Mrs Westerman,’ he said in a pleading tone.

Harriet turned the book towards him. It was open at a double page showing a variety of strange-looking symbols, pentangles studded about with astronomical figures picked out in gold and red.

‘Beautiful,’ he said.

‘Do you think so? Perhaps, but this one’ — she tapped one in the centre of the right-hand page — ‘I am sure I have seen this somewhere before.’

Graves realised she was already alone with her studies so stood to take his leave. ‘Are you sure you will not come to the castle?’

She looked up at him. ‘No, I think not. I must read.’ She flashed him a tight quick smile and returned to her books.

Crowther found Harriet some time later, still surrounded by the volumes from the library, but with a light in her eyes. She became still while he told her of the body of Countess Dieth and what he had learned from it, but when he asked her about the fruits of her own labours she became quite animated again.

‘These are fascinating, Crowther,’ she said. ‘In another hour I shall have the secret for making gold from lead.’

‘I had quite enough of alchemy yesterday, Mrs Westerman. Do not tell me you have turned mystic?’

She smiled. ‘It is strange, many of the books Beatrice took were not about alchemy as such, but more about magic generally. Spells and seals. Ways to become invisible, discover secrets or treasure. No, I have not turned mystic, but there is beauty here, and such imagination.’

‘It is nonsense,’ he said.

She raised a hand and let it fall again. ‘Powerful nonsense, if you believe in it. I have also been thinking of Kupfel’s shaman and his ingredients. Many of the men who sailed with my husband knew the waters round the Dominican Isles,’ she said, ‘and they feared what they found there. They would tell legends of men brought back from the dead and made to serve the magicians that summoned them. If one were ever allowed on the ship, they said the spirits of the sea would rise up in rage and drown everyone on board. Do you see what I mean, when I say belief gives these things power? Perhaps those men were people who had been treated with some of the strange remnants Kupfel has gathered together. He thought himself in hell when he took the paralysing drops; whatever Clode took made him see devils. Many men might think they had died and been summoned again from hell.’ Crowther nodded reluctantly. ‘I thought them only stories that sailors tell, like the kraken and mermaids. Horrible to think there might be some truth in them.’

‘But why, Mrs Westerman? Why have these individuals been chosen to suffer such torments and then be killed in such a way?’

‘Are you encouraging me to speculate, Crowther?’ She was teasing him, but he could not help that.

‘I suppose I am to a degree. I will try not to do so again.’

Her eyes danced then she turned towards the window again and became serious. ‘Opportunity? This madman wants blood, so he takes it where he can and then performs his strange killings. That might answer for those earlier deaths — men who lived on their own. But what could be more difficult than killing in the middle of the palace! It does not answer.’

She put her chin in her hand and drummed her fingers on one of the volumes on the table. Crowther watched her. It had, he admitted silently to himself, become one of his pleasures over the last years to watch Mrs Westerman think.

‘Let us suppose we are right about those previous deaths. These are all individuals who had great influence with the Duke, or in the case of the writer, some influence on the general society. Could they be political assassinations? But then this element of theatre in the deaths, the ritual …’

Crowther picked up one of the volumes from her pile and began to turn the pages as he spoke. ‘A performance, but a private performance; a ritual, but it has some purpose. The removal of the blood …’

‘Blood has great significance in all these volumes, it seems to me. Though they normally ask that the magician use his own. There then follows a great deal of chanting.’

‘Of course blood is significant,’ he said. ‘Every child knows blood somehow contains the spark of life, and that if we lose enough of it we cease to be. But what led you into these paths, Mrs Westerman? This symbol?’

‘And your list of what was pilfered from Herr Kupfel. The librarian, Zeller, was intrigued by our little design. He says it is an emblem of alchemy.’ She took one of the volumes from behind her, opened it and turned it to face him. The picture was a complex one, filled with figures and symbols. A crown, a salamander, a bearded face, but the central form of a seven-spoked wheel placed over a triangle seemed identical to the design chalked on the door to the room where Dieth was murdered.

‘It seems very like.’

‘It is, isn’t it? And it appears in one of the books stolen from Kupfel. Shall I explain the symbolism of the original to you?’

‘I don’t think that is necessary,’ Crowther said, studying it. ‘The spokes are the seven stages of alchemy, each also related to one of the seven heavenly bodies; here are the four elements; the three points of the triangle are labelled body, spirit and soul. It is like one of Mrs Bligh’s fortune-telling cards, full of great, but somewhat imprecise meanings. What is it, Mrs Westerman?’

‘Just that I was at some pains to commit to memory the seven stages of alchemy.’

He smiled.

‘Seven stages, just as there were seven glasses,’ she added. ‘Now what else, seven ages of man, days in the weeks …’

‘Celestial bodies, as I said. By the old count.’

‘A number of some significance then?’

‘Most of them are.’

She leaned back in her chair. Crowther noticed for the first time the remains of a meal amongst the books. He hoped the books would be returned to Herr Zeller unstained.

‘But do you not think, Crowther, you would have to hate someone very much, to kill them in this way? These people were not chosen at random. It feels … like revenge.’ She twisted her mourning band on her finger, thinking of Manzerotti.

‘Mrs Westerman, give me your hand.’ Crowther spoke quite sharply, so she put it out to him at once. He took it between his own and twisted up the mourning band to the knuckle. In the three years she had worn it, the ring had made itself part of her. The space below was a little paler than the rest of her finger and slightly indented. Crowther’s touch was dry and cool. ‘I am a fool,’ he said.

‘Probably. May I have my hand back?’

‘Hmm … yes, of course. Countess Dieth wore no rings. Necklace, eardrops, yes, but no rings when I examined her, yet she had a band on her flesh like yours.’

‘So she did wear one.’

‘Habitually, as you do that mourning band for Captain Westerman. Yet it was not on the body.’