Imogen Robertson - Circle of Shadows

‘I need things.’

‘What can I do for you, sir?’ Clode asked.

The Alchemist rattled off a list of equipment and ingredients in a mixture of French, English and German that made Clode’s head spin. ‘I shall do my best,’ he said doubtfully and Kupfel rolled his eyes and shuffled back towards the bed again, where he stood, staring down at Swann’s sweating, sleeping form.

‘Don’t worry, Daniel. I think it best if I go. They know me in the kitchen and gardens,’ Rachel said, a little wearily.

Kupfel turned to her with a look of deep suspicion. ‘You remember the list?’ he said at last. His accent in English was heavy, as if the words had to be spat out individually like rocks.

Rachel repeated it back to him. ‘Would you like the Creeping Jenny fresh or dried? It is just coming into flower, but I know the cook has a store from last season. She takes it for her cough.’

‘Creeping Jenny?’

‘ Lysimachia nummularia .’

‘Fresh.’

Rachel simply nodded. Her husband and Kupfel watched her leave, a little open-mouthed. Crowther smiled.

Evening, and Harriet found herself once more changing her costume. To listen to music in the court, it seemed, required a different standard of dress than was thought seemly during the day. It was lucky that Dido had been insistent about the proper number of dresses, gowns, gloves and jewels that were necessary for residence at a foreign court. Harriet said so, and Dido grinned. ‘It is a pleasure to dress you up nice from time to time, Mrs Westerman. You’re never out of riding dress at home, and before then, of course, it was the mourning clothes — such dull colours.’ She put her hand over her mouth. ‘I’m so sorry, madam.’

Harriet shook her head. ‘Don’t worry, Dido. They were dull colours. James said so himself when I wore them for my father.’

‘I wish I’d known the Captain better, madam,’ she said. ‘Everyone is full of stories about him at Caveley. He sounds like a good man.’

Harriet looked at herself in the mirror. The dress was cut quite low and showed off the length of her neck and the paleness of her skin.

‘He was, Dido, and much loved by his family and his friends.’ She turned and smiled at the maid. ‘But it is just as you said before, my dear, about travel. We must make our own stories now.’

Harriet met Crowther in the concert chamber. He raised his eyebrows when he saw her and nodded in approval. Having enjoyed that minor triumph, Harriet wondered where to begin. Most of the faces in the room were strangers to her. She thought of Mrs Padfield: perhaps she might be able to offer some insight into old stories that could have driven someone to wreak a terrible revenge. Tomorrow morning, she would return to the Al-Saids’ workshop and see what other threads they could offer. She and Crowther joined the Colonel and Mrs Padfield as the company began to take their seats. They shook hands and Harriet was glad to notice the Colonel looking at his wife with affectionate admiration.

‘Lord, what a crush!’ the Colonel said, a little loudly. Mrs Padfield put her arm on his sleeve and he blushed and said more quietly, ‘So many strangers here for the wedding.’

His wife was looking around the room. ‘Yet I do not see Glucke, do you, my dear?’ The Colonel shook his head. ‘Strange,’ Mrs Padfield continued. ‘He is such a lover of music.’

Harriet smiled. ‘That is the gentleman who keeps cats, if I remember rightly.’

‘Indeed. But he is almost as passionate about opera. He helped design the Opera House, and I have never seen a man so delighted as the day he heard that Manzerotti was coming here.’

They found their places but, frustratingly, Harriet found herself next to the Colonel rather than his wife.

The Duke entered, alone apart from his dog, and once the room had risen to greet him and all had taken their seats again, Manzerotti strolled out on to the stage and bowed. Seeing him on stage was somehow worse than sitting with him in Swann’s chamber. The leader of the opera band played a shimmering clamber of notes on the harpsichord, the violinists began a rhythm, dance-like, neat and tripping, then Manzerotti began to sing. It was as beautiful as ever. Light, dancing over the air rather than through it, a thing as perfect and fleeting as the glimmer on the crystal chandeliers. Harriet felt her lungs compress. It seemed so very wrong to take pleasure in his music, but her body simply ignored her objections as she was lifted and fell with it. She raised her fan to cover her eyes. What would it be, to know such perfect lightness?

The aria ended to the usual storm of applause, and with a bow to the Duke, Manzerotti made way for the dancers. Crowther saw something in Harriet’s expression and turned his head towards her, saying softly, ‘You cannot blame yourself, Mrs Westerman, for the effects Manzerotti produces.’

Colonel Padfield, who was seated on her right, was obviously one of those gentlemen who saw instrumental music as an invitation to general conversation. ‘Amazing thing, power of music, isn’t it, madam? And the fairer sex are particularly prone to it, I believe.’

‘Indeed?’ Harriet said, steadying her breathing and wishing him in Hades.

‘Oh yes,’ he said comfortably. ‘There was a woman here at the court some six years ago, before my time, you know, who was so taken with some Italian violin player she made quite a fool of herself. Apparently the Duke was on the point of putting her under his protection, but she couldn’t resist her passion for the fiddler. Had to leave court under a cloud, of course, and her son was taken away from her. Then the sovereign’s eye landed on Countess Dieth. There was quite an amusing anecdote about it. When they told the Duke what the lady was up to, apparently he said, “But I have estates in Italy, and I play the flute very well!”’

‘They removed her child from her?’

‘Lord, they had to! She was the widow of one of the officers, and the son was a godson of the Duke. Couldn’t let him be raised by such a woman.’

One of the dancers was lifted across the stage in a series of leaps that seemed designed to show off her form rather than advance the drama to any degree that Harriet could understand, but the general applause provoked drew Colonel Padfield’s attention back to the stage once more. Harriet closed her eyes briefly and thought of her son and daughter at Caveley. She knew what she was capable of if they were under threat. She wondered.

Kupfel received the basket from Rachel with a suspicious eye. He rifled through it, then placing it on the floor by the fire, said only, ‘Good.’

Clode took a seat next to his wife.

‘Rachel, how did you ever manage to gather all those things in an hour?’

She yawned for she was tired now. ‘I made some friends among the servants, and learned something of their cures. The nobility thinking you a murderer gave me the opportunity for some study.’

Clode removed his hand from her arm and Rachel bit her lip. She was becoming as outspoken as her sister. She glanced at Herr Kupfel. He was on his knees in front of the fire with the basket at his side. He was quite still and Rachel realised, with a slight shock, that he was praying. It had never occurred to her to pray before she started similar work. Kupfel brushed something from his eye, then picked up the saucepan and the crock of milk.

Manzerotti began his second aria. Harriet let it carry her. She did not know the piece, only that the music seemed to rage as it rose, then in a moment became slow, thick and open, grieving alongside the hautbois before becoming a battle again. His audience applauded and the Duke rose and walked to meet him on the stage. Manzerotti went down on one knee to kiss his hand.