Marie Brennan: The Tropic of Serpents

My mother’s outstretched hand stopped me before I could stand. “Not at all. I think we’re all eager to hear what this Mr. Wilker has to say.”

“Indeed,” Judith said faintly, obeying the unspoken order woven through my mother’s words. “Send him in, Londwin.”

The butler bowed and retired. By the alacrity with which Mr. Wilker appeared, he must have sprang forward the instant he was welcomed in; agitation still showed in his movements. But he had long since taken pains to cultivate better manners than those he had grown up with, and so he presented himself first to Judith. “Good morning, Mrs. Hendemore. My name is Thomas Wilker. I’m sorry to trouble you, but I have a message for Mrs. Camherst. We must have passed one another on the road; I only just missed her at her house. And I’m afraid the news is unfortunate enough that it could not wait. I was told she would be visiting here.”

The curt, disjointed way in which he delivered these words made my hands tighten in apprehension. Mr. Wilker was, quite rightly, looking only at Judith, save a brief nod when he spoke my name; with no hint forthcoming from him, I found myself exchanging a glance instead with my mother.

What I saw there startled me. We’re all eager to hear what this Mr. Wilker has to say —she thought he was my lover! An overstatement, perhaps, but she had the expression of a woman looking for signs of inappropriate attachment, and coming up empty-handed.

As well she should. Mr. Wilker and I might no longer be at loggerheads the way we had been in Vystrana, but I felt no romantic affection for him, nor he for me. Our relationship was purely one of business.

I wanted to set my mother down in no uncertain terms for harboring such thoughts, but forbore. Not so much because of the sheer inappropriateness of having that conversation in public, but because it occurred to me that Mr. Wilker and I were engaged in two matters of business, of which the Erigan expedition was only one.

Judith, fortunately, waved Mr. Wilker on before I could burst out with my questions unbidden. “By all means, Mr. Wilker. Or is your message private?”

I would not have taken the message privately for a hundred sovereigns, not with such suspicions in my mother’s mind. “Please,” I said. “What has happened?”

Mr. Wilker blew out a long breath, and the urgency drained from him in a sudden rush, leaving him sagging and defeated. “There’s been a break-in at Kemble’s.”

“Kemble’s… oh, no.” My own shoulders sagged, a mirror to his. “What did they destroy? Or—”

He nodded, grimly. “Took. His notes.”

Theft, not destruction. Someone knew what Kemble was working on, and was determined to steal it for their own.

I slumped back in my chair, ladylike dignity the furthest thing from my mind. Frederick Kemble was the chemist Mr. Wilker had hired—or rather I had hired; the money was mine, although the choice of recipient was his—to continue the research we ourselves had stolen in the mountains of Vystrana, three years ago. Research that documented a method for preserving dragonbone: an amazing substance, strong and light, but one that decayed quickly outside a living body.

The Chiavoran who developed that method was not the first one to try. What had begun as a mere challenge of taxidermy—born from the desire of hunters to preserve trophies from the dragons they killed, and the desire of natural historians to preserve specimens for study—had become a great point of curiosity for chemists. Several were racing to be the first (or so they thought) to solve that puzzle. Despite our best efforts to maintain secrecy around Kemble’s work, it seemed someone had learned of it.

“When?” I asked, then waved the question away as foolish. “Last night, and I doubt we’ll get any time more specific than that.” Mr. Wilker shook his head. He lived in the city, and visited Kemble first thing in the morning every Selemer. This news was as fresh as it could be, short of Kemble having heard the intruder and come downstairs in his nightclothes to see.

I wondered, suddenly cold, what would have happened if he had. Would the intruder have fled? Or would Mr. Wilker have found our chemist dead this morning?

Such thoughts were unnecessarily dramatic—or so I chided myself. Whether they were or not, I did not have the leisure to dwell on them, for my mother’s sharp voice roused me from my thoughts. “Isabella. What in heaven is this man talking about?”

I took a measure of comfort in the irreverent thought that at least she could not read any hint of personal indiscretion in the message Mr. Wilker had brought. “Research, Mama,” I said, pulling myself straight in my chair, and thence to my feet. “Nothing that need concern you. But I’m afraid I must cut this visit short; it is vital that I speak to Mr. Kemble at once. If you will excuse me—”

My mother, too, rose to her feet, one hand outstretched. “Please, Isabella. I’m dreadfully concerned for you. This expedition you intend…”

She must be concerned indeed, to broach such a personal matter before a stranger like Mr. Wilker. “We will speak of it later, Mama,” I said, intending no such thing. “This truly is a pressing matter. I’ve invested a great deal of money in Mr. Kemble’s work, and must find out how much I have lost.”

Being a recluse is not good for one’s conversational agility. I was accustomed to thinking over my words, revising them, and writing fair copy before sending the final draft of my letter to its recipient. My comment accomplished its intended purpose—she let me go at last, with Judith’s polite farewells to fill in the awkward gaps—but my satisfaction faded rapidly as I went out into the street. “I fear I will regret that,” I admitted to Mr. Wilker, pulling on my gloves.

“I don’t think you’ve lost much of your money,” he said, raising his hand to signal a hansom on its way to the nearest cab stand.

Sighing, I drew his arm down. “My carriage is across the street. No, I don’t mean the investment; I don’t regret that in the least. Only that I said anything of it to my mother. She is determined to see bad judgment in everything I do nowadays.”

Mr. Wilker did not respond to that. Although we were on more cordial terms by then, we were not in the habit of sharing our personal troubles with one another. He said, “All is not lost, though. Kemble took his current notebook upstairs with him last night, so that he could read over his thoughts as he prepared for bed. His wife may deplore the habit, but in this instance it’s been a godsend.”

(To those of my readers who flinch at minor blasphemies of this sort: I must warn you that there will be more ahead. Mr. Wilker restrained his language around me in our Vystrani days, but as we grew more comfortable with one another, he revealed a casual habit of naming the Lord. If I edited his language here, it would misrepresent his character, and so I pray you pardon his frankness, and mine. We were neither of us very religious.)

Mrs. Kemble was no resentful housewife; she worked alongside her husband, handling the practical matters of ordering and measuring chemicals, while he spent hours staring at the wall and chewing on the battered tail of his pen, mind lost in theoretical matters. But she believed in a separation of work from daily life, and I—who, you may have noticed, am more of Frederick Kemble’s mind—blessed her failure to break him of his habits.

I said as much to her when we arrived at Kemble’s house and laboratory in Tanner Fields, and got a dry look that did not entirely hide the nervous aftereffects of the intrusion. “I appreciate that, Mrs. Camherst, but I’m afraid it didn’t save the glassware.”