Imogen Robertson - Circle of Shadows

‘Why did you summon her last night, Swann?’

His voice was becoming slurred. ‘There was no meeting. We did not meet.’

‘Crowther! Now!’

‘Yes, Mrs Westerman! Go, fetch help. And Manzerotti.’

Harriet set off across through the hedges and back towards the palace at a run. Crowther let Swann slump against him. He could hear Harriet calling out, her shouts bouncing off the cold stone and amazing the statues.

Swann was half-carried into his chamber by Crowther and one of the footmen while Harriet followed with his cane and flask. As they let him fall onto the bed Harriet heard the clip of heels on the wood floor and Manzerotti appeared in the doorway; he paused there a moment to take in the scene.

‘My dear Mrs Westerman, Mr Crowther, what on earth have you been up to?’

Crowther disentangled himself from Swann’s flowing cloak; Harriet saw him flinch as his injured shoulder jarred. He turned first to the footman. ‘Salt, water, a basin. Now .’

The man turned to go, but Manzerotti put a hand out. ‘First, give me your gloves.’

The servant looked amazed, but stripped them off and handed them to the singer before running for the door.

‘He was distracted, but able to walk and speak some fifteen minutes ago,’ Crowther said. ‘Then his speech became slurred and he was no longer able to stand unassisted.’

Manzerotti nodded.

‘This fell from his pocket,’ Harriet added, and handed Manzerotti the flask.

He took it, now wearing the footman’s gloves, unstoppered and sniffed it. ‘Nothing obvious.’ Harriet undid her cloak and began to undo the buttons at her wrist. ‘Keep your gloves on, Mrs Westerman,’ Manzerotti said sharply. Harriet became absolutely still, remembering the mask for the first time. He set the flask down and bent over Swann’s body. He was murmuring and his lips were a little blue.

‘Your assistance, Mr Crowther.’

Crowther managed to lift Swann into a seated position while Manzerotti removed cloak, hat and wig. Harriet took the Chancellor’s hands and pulled off his black gloves. It was awkward, the hands loose, but still twitching from time to time, her own fingers made clumsy by her gloves. They came away. The skin of Swann’s hands was mottled and red.

‘Gentlemen.’

Manzerotti and Crowther paused to turn towards her. Then looked at each other.

‘It may be a symptom rather than the cause, but he must be washed,’ Manzerotti said. Crowther nodded. The footman returned and Crowther began to mix salt and water. His hand hovered over the glass by the Chancellor’s bed.

‘A different glass,’ Manzerotti said to the servant, ‘more water and flannel.’

Harriet shifted to begin unbuttoning Swann’s waistcoat. She noticed that it was beautifully made, and on each button, a half-shade lighter than the black velvet that covered them, was embroidered the arms of the House of Maulberg.

The footman was back again. ‘Shall I get the physician, sir?’ he said.

‘If you must,’ Manzerotti snapped. The footman backed away, bewildered, then, noticing the gloves and cloak on the floor, bent down automatically to pick them up. Manzerotti’s arm shot out. ‘Don’t touch them.’

Crowther put the fresh glass to Swann’s mouth and forced the contents down his throat. Almost at once his stomach began to heave and Manzerotti sprang out of the way. Harriet managed to get the basin under Swann’s head almost at once. It started to slip in her hand and she felt Manzerotti’s fingers round her own for a moment to steady it. Swann vomited up liquid and bile, and she heard Manzerotti tut as his sleeve was splashed. Then he moved Harriet out of the way as he took Swann’s forearms and plunged his hands into the other bowl of water.

Swann groaned. Crowther tilted his head against his own chest and poured more of the salt water down his throat, and at once new shudders ran through Swann’s body and Harriet gripped the bowl. Crowther took a cloth from the stack that had been brought in and wiped the vomit and spittle from Swann’s face.

Harriet set the bowl on the floor and staggered back towards an armchair, suddenly aware of her own laboured breathing and the thudding of her heart. Manzerotti glanced towards her. ‘Mrs Westerman, if you would be so kind?’

She nodded and struggled to her feet, then took the bowl in which Manzerotti had washed Swann’s hands. He began to dry them with another cloth. She knelt and removed Swann’s shoes.

‘Well?’ Manzerotti asked.

Crowther had tilted Swann’s head back and opened his right eyelid with thumb and forefinger. Harriet could hear the Chancellor’s breathing. Heavy, rasping. It made her own lungs sore just to hear it.

‘I don’t know,’ Crowther replied. ‘He’s not dead yet. There is nothing obvious in the vomit. If some substance has been ingested through the skin, perhaps it can be sweated out.’ Harriet retreated again and the two gentlemen manhandled Swann under his covers. She noticed that Manzerotti lifted out Swann’s hands and laid them on top of the sheets. Crowther banked up the fire. Then they took seats either side of her and all three watched the figure in the bed.

‘It is Swann’s habit to walk in the garden every day at this time for an hour or so,’ Manzerotti said; his light high voice sounded almost soothing. ‘It is usual that he ask not to be disturbed.’

‘He asked to see us.’

‘Lucky that he did. He would most certainly have died otherwise.’ Manzerotti stripped the footman’s gloves from his hands and threw them in the fire as he spoke. Without further comment Harriet and Crowther did the same with their own. Harriet watched hers burn with regret. She had intended to give them to her maid when they returned to England. The fire caught and crisped the leather, making the fingers curl together. Then they waited in silence for the court physician.

By the time Georg had come back with another man, a bedsheet taken from his own house, a wide plank and a number of ropes, Michaels had cleared the rest of the earth away from the body. Her legs were curled up under her dress. He laid the donated linen over her, and then tried to push it into the soil below. The colour of the earth around the body was changed, darker, thicker somehow. The body rolled back into his arms like a lover sleeping and he found himself staring into a death’s head. There was a leathery skin clinging to parts of the skull. The long dark hair was loose, seemed unattached to the skull, but rather laid over it. The dress was thin and stained dark along the length of the body. Michaels held himself still. He thought of what the boy had told him, tried to make her alive again in his mind, laughing at simple magic tricks, worrying a system of magic of her own out of the library of the Alchemist. They had taken their chances, she and her sister. Now her sister had a house with a library in it and a reputation to protect, and this girl’s path had led her into the forest and the earth. He saw the glint at her neck, the little gold cross Mrs Padfield had told him of. He lifted the remains up in his arms, placed them on the board and folded the cloth around her while the priest continued to pray. He hoped she’d died quick, and not known the blow was coming.

Harriet did not have long to recover herself from the shock of Swann’s collapse before the Duke himself arrived. She, Crowther and Manzerotti stood and the Duke nodded to them, remaining just inside the door with his spaniel in his arms and with Colonel Padfield and Count Frenzel at his side.

It was Frenzel who spoke first. The skin around his mouth was white.

‘Who has done this?’

The Duke looked at him askance. ‘I rather think you have stolen my line, Count,’ he said. ‘However, I feel sure if our guests knew, they would tell us. Reymen?’ His personal physician scurried past him to the bed and took Swann’s wrist in his hand.