Gordon Dahlquist - The Dark Volume

Once there, it was with a sudden urgency that the Doctor began to retrace his steps to the canal. He assumed the women had taken the opposite direction. Perhaps succumbing to cowardice, perhaps to common sense, Svenson fixed his thoughts on Chang waiting at Stropping. He would return to the city.

AS ALWAYS, it seemed to take less time to return than to arrive, and soon, despite the Doctor's still-thrashing thoughts, he found himself at the dark canal's edge. It was not quite the same spot where he had crossed—he could not find the little bridge—but as he looked in its direction he saw this might not matter. Sailing toward him was a low barge, wide enough that even he could hop easily aboard, cross its deck, and just as simply step off onto the far bank. The man waved in a cautious manner—perhaps taken aback by the Doctor's sudden emergence from the wood—and glanced over his shoulder. He whistled, sharp and shrill like an angry jay, and then returned his gaze to Svenson, who was doing his best to smile pleasantly.

“May I use your craft to cross?” he called, pointing to the far bank.

Three other men emerged around a line of large awkward shapes stretched with canvas and lashed to the deck, like a battery of field cannon—and as the bow swept past, the Doctor saw the long deck was covered with this strange, shrouded cargo. One of the three men, more burly and immediately daunting, stretched a hand to Svenson, who caught the man's forearm and leapt aboard. The man clapped Svenson soundly on the back, and with a general conspiratorial grinning all three walked him to the other side and hovered, waiting for a clear spot where the Doctor could easily leap away.

“Belay that, there!”

An older bargeman in a black peaked cap had shouted from the stern. But instead of saying anything further he lowered his head, deferring to a slim, tall man wrapped in a brown topcoat, face pensive, holding a thin cigar some inches from his mouth.

“What is that uniform?” this second man called out.

Svenson paused, then brushed his tunic before the men around him noticed his hesitation.

“The Duchy of Macklenburg!” he shouted back, thickening his accent deliberately. “I would not expect you to know it.”

“On the contrary,” announced the man in a flat voice, the cigar still hovering. “Perhaps you will do me the service of conversation.”

Svenson looked longingly at the far bank, but the muscular bargeman had gracefully interposed his body between the Doctor and the shore.

THE BARGE had nothing so formal as a cabin, but there was a wheel and beyond it a depression in the deck where more canvas had been stretched to shield a small stove. Svenson was directed not unkindly to a wooden crate where he might sit. The man in the black cap, the barge-master, placed a clay mug of tea in the Doctor's hands and then left the two gentlemen alone. The man in the coat sat on a crate of his own and deliberately smoothed his side whiskers with both hands.

Svenson gestured vaguely toward the train tracks, by now invisible beyond the trees.

“You may wonder, if you know Macklenburg, at how far you find me from it. The fact is, this morning I was on a train, but it stopped— some difficulty with valves —and I took it upon myself to explore these lovely woods.” Svenson waved his hand vaguely. “North country— mining has always been an interest, as I hail from our own hills, where there are many minerals. And of course the lives of fishermen. You will see from my buttons that I am of the Macklenburg Navy. One cannot keep a sailor too long from the sea! But I really ought to return, as the train must continue soon—I have no timepiece, you see, and would very much hate to miss it.”

“You are Karl-Horst von Maasmärck's Doctor,” said the man.

“Goodness,” Svenson laughed, “you speak as if you had studied the roster of the Prince's whole party!”

“And where is your Prince now?”

“In Macklenburg, of course,” said Svenson. “Where else could he be? Unless you know more than I do.”

The man narrowed his eyes. The Doctor allowed himself to become visibly exasperated.

“If there has been other news, I beg you do not trifle with me—”

He made to rise, hoping more than anything to get a current sense of where the other bargemen stood, but the man in the topcoat pulled him back onto the crate.

“Do not distress yourself,” the man hissed.

“If you will excuse me! My train—”

“Forget your damnable train!” barked the man, but the force of his words was mixed with peevish displeasure, as if he resented the necessity of their entire conversation, and even his own presence on this barge to begin with.

“Will you constrain me?”

“What happened to your head?” the man demanded. “There is blood!”

“There were difficulties with the train, as I told you—a sudden stop, falling luggage—”

“Then perhaps you can tell me instead who made up the traveling party for the Prince's return.”

The man had spoken too easily, as if the question meant nothing. Svenson shrugged, again exaggerating his accent.

“Is that any secret? I am sure your own newspapers—”

“Newspapers are trash.”

“And yet for these simple facts—”

“I insist that you tell me!”

The man balled both hands together in his lap and squeezed his fists. Svenson looked away to give himself time—was the situation so unpleasant already?

“ Well … since you make such a demand … let me see… the Prince's intended bride, of course. Who else? Diplomats—your own Deputy Minister Crabbé; his assistant, Mr. Bascombe; dignitaries—the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza, the Comte d'Orkancz, both new friends of the Prince, Mr. Francis Xonck—”

He stopped at the subtle catch of his captor's breath. The man leaned closer, speaking low. “And, if you will indulge me…just exactly how did they travel?”

“You will understand,” replied the Doctor, “that however strange it may seem to find a Macklenburg Naval Surgeon in this forest, it is just as odd for me to find not only a man who knows me, but one engaged on an equally mysterious journey of… commerce.”

“Nothing mysterious at all!” snapped the man. “It is a commercial canal!”

The man took his own moment to peer over the canvas barrier. The canal had twisted more deeply into the forest and the overhanging branches blotted out so much of the pallid light that it seemed near dusk. With the thickening trees came less wind, and Svenson saw the entirety of the crew, save the master, had taken up poles. The man sat back down on his own crate, frowning that his captive had seen fit to rise along with him.

Svenson studied his adversary. The brown topcoat was of an excellent cloth, but cautious in its cut, just like the cravat—silk, but the inoffensive color of orange pith. The man's thinning hair had been pasted to his scalp that morning with pomade, but with the breeze now sported an insolent fringe.

“What a strange cargo you seem to be carrying.” The Doctor waved a hand toward the front of the barge. “All wrapped up and odd-shaped, rather like different cuts of meat from a butcher's—”

The man seized Svenson's knee. Svenson glared at the point of contact. His host removed his hand, then cleared his throat and stuck out his chin.

“You will tell me what you know of Robert Vandaariff.”

“I do not know anything.”

“Did he travel with your Prince?”

“Was there not some story of fever—that Harschmort was under quarantine?”

The man thrust his face close to Svenson's, his lips pursed and white. “I will ask you again: if he did not travel with the Prince in secret, where is Robert Vandaariff?”