T.F. Banks: The Emperor's assassin

March on, march on!

Let their impure blood Nourish our sacred ground!”

Whether it was the undeniable power of her performance or some other reason, now suddenly there was a flurry of activity high up on deck of the man-of-war. Then the sailors fore and aft all at once began taking their hats off.

“He's coming up! That means he's coming up!” cried a voice from one of the boats.

Arabella Malibrant turned toward the ship, even as she continued to sing. She lowered her arm and let her voice subside a little into the thumping of the band. There were times, after all, when one allowed oneself to be upstaged. Lucy, too, rose to stand on the thwart beside her. All around people were getting to their feet, craning their heads and shading their eyes against the afternoon sun, while some of the boats started making convulsive efforts to get closer, causing the whole mass to buckle and heave.

“Take care! Hold off, there!”

A woman's shriek. And then suddenly the loud report of a ship's gun from above, trying to warn them back, and near bedlam in the boats, more screams and cries, startled people stumbling and falling. The music faltered and stopped. The second cutter was coming round, its crew bawling. There was a collision, and craft on all sides rocked and bumped wildly, causing even more people to topple. A woman's face rose from a tumble of her fellow passengers, her nose bloodied. Arabella kept her feet, barely, lurching and steadying herself on the shoulder of the man in front of her. Lucy tumbled back into the bit of water slopping about the bottom of the boat, then scrabbled desperately to get up again.

Just ahead of them people were shouting and struggling. Near the cutter a boat had capsized. There were people in the water, thrashing desperately, and many voices were calling out angrily for someone to do something.

“There! There! Reach an oar!”

The sailors above hollered and pointed. Spotting a thrashing woman whose face was barely above the rolling surface, Arabella added her voice to the cry. “Seize hold of her! Seize hold of her dress! She's going under!”

The cutter was trying to come round and return to the place where it had struck the smaller boat, but it could make no headway against the confused mass. A man leapt into the sea, and a knotted rope splashed into the water just beyond the woman's reach.

She gave a last frenzied flail to reach an oar someone held out and went under as though pulled down from below. There was a stunned silence, everyone staring as though they expected her to reappear. And then a child began to scream and cry and beat her fists upon the gunwale.

Lucy put her arms awkwardly about Arabella's waist, and the actress reached out and pulled her close. Darley looked back at her, his dignified manner fallen away, three fingers laid alongside his nose. Arabella thought he might offer the poor woman a tear. People murmured and cried.

Then, in quite different tones, someone else called out.

“ Look! There he is!” All eyes turned upward again.

From the quarterdeck, gazing down at them imperturbably. The small, stout figure. The famous profile. The cockaded hat.

The genius of sixty battlefields. The man who'd had all Europe at his feet.

“ That can't be him,” someone nearby said.

But it was.

And then, from beyond the horrified circle that had witnessed the tragedy, a familiar sound. Slowly at first, uncertain, then with growing conviction, the English began to applaud . The sound seemed to course down the line of boats, like a rolling barrage.

Darley, however, had not even raised his eyes to the deck. His gaze was still fixed on the lapping waters, the unconsolable child. “May that be the last death to be laid at his feet,” he said softly, as though it were a prayer.

The dead woman lay draped in a sheet, once white, blemished now with faint smears of brown and sickly yellow. Henry Morton stood in the doorway of the dimly lighted surgery, gazing at the familiar shape beneath its blank covering.

As though beneath a fall of snow , he thought suddenly.

The place unsettled him, a man not unused to death. On a small table the surgeon's instruments lay: a darkly stained tourniquet, several knives of differing sizes, a bone saw with a fringe of pale pink flesh still caught in its teeth. The smell of the slaughterhouse could be detected here-faintly, but still there-and Morton was instinctively repelled by it. He cleared his throat.

“Death by misadventure, Presley told me,” offered Morton. “Perhaps a self-murder.”

The surgeon, Skelton, continued writing at his stand. His beadle had shown the Runner in a moment before, even announcing Morton's name, but the surgeon apparently had not heard.

“Is that what Mr. Presley said?” The man did not look up; the sound of his pen, scratching over the surface of the paper, continued.

Morton rocked back on his heels, trying to calm his impatience. Skelton was an eccentric man, but the Runner had deep respect for his skills and was willing to wait at least a short while to find out why he'd been summoned.

Around Bow Street Skelton had acquired the moniker “Skeleton,” and one look at the ungainly surgeon was all the explanation this required. Morton had never seen a man of apparent good health so bony and angular. The surgeon removed a pair of spectacles, returned the pen to its stand, stared down at the paper on which he'd been writing, and sighed. He looked up at Morton and offered an unhappy smile.

“Let us look at the sad evidence of this act,” he said.

He walked stiffly over the sawdust floor to the table upon which the body lay, and very softly set a hand upon the thigh, as though on familiar, indeed intimate terms with this cadaver. “Presley told you what he found?”

“Only that she was discovered in a little played-out sand pit, dead upon the rocks there, as though she had cast herself from the rim above.”

“Yes, though whether she threw herself upon the rocks is difficult to say.” Skelton put the curve of one spectacle arm between his lips, his gaze losing focus for an instant. “I wonder, in truth, if she cast herself upon those rocks at all. I wonder if she even met her end where she was found.” He looked down at the covered form. “Certainly she might have died as a result of a fall-her injuries would not contradict it. But there is more, Mr. Morton.” He pulled back the covering, revealing the unclothed corpse. Morton shut his eyes for a second. The skin had lost its plasticity, its life, and was dull, almost grey. The lips had pulled back, exposing the teeth. Upon her forehead was a wound, oddly concave. Only the hair still looked as Morton guessed it once had-honey coloured, fine, lustrous in the dull light.

“You see this contusion upon her skull? 'Twas this did her in. But look here.” He pointed closely at the upper arm. “Do you see the bruising? And here on the other side …” He turned the arm a little, though it resisted stiffly. “Those are the marks of someone's fingers. She was restrained or held by someone-someone stronger than she.”

“Well,” Morton whispered.

“But there is more,” Skelton said. “Upon her left arm you will find identical marks, or nearly so, suggesting that she was held from behind.”

“Or held and then pushed.”

The surgeon nodded.

“But look at this, Mr. Morton.” He turned her hand. A dark welt encircled the narrow wrist.

“Her hand was bound.”

“So I would say, though it was not when she was found.” The surgeon bent down awkwardly and replaced his spectacles. “And look further. Here, upon her thumb.”

Morton crouched down so that he might see. The smell of the cadaver repelled him, but he bent his head near and tried not to breathe. The thumb was dusky blue, as though terribly bruised.