An autumn wind coursed down the old boulevard. Atop their rusted poles, gaslamps flared and died. Gabron drew his powder blue bailiff’s coat tight against the gathering cold and stopped beneath a lamp whose panes were intact enough to keep a flame. He cast his eyes down the cobbled street: there was little life. What denizens of this street that were employed were obliged to rise before dawn.
If the battered facades had ever been numbered, they were no longer. Guarding it carefully against the wind, Gabron slipped a scrap of paper from his pocket and unfolded it. He found north, then compared the layout of the street with what the drunk had marked down in smeared pencil. The second building on the right - and sure enough a light burned in its garret. He exchanged the crude map for a palm sized photographic plate and studied it intensely in the quivering light, memorizing the face depicted there once again.
Gabron crossed the boulevard and entered the building. The brass buttons of his coat shone in the dark foyer as he undid them and drew a hulking five line revolver. When the first stair creaked, he stepped off and removed his boots, tucking them in a far corner.
Each floor passed agonizingly. With each movement he risked kicking over some toy or bit of trash and waking the whole building. Among these people the burglar that he was by necessity imitating or the bailiff he was would draw equal, considerable, anger. Reaching the uppermost landing his head nearly hit the rafters. He breathed, swore, and approached the garret’s scant door.
There was no lock, there never was, and a tentative push indicated it was not barred. With his left hand he swung it open, keeping the revolver poised with his right. The gas pipes did not go this high in the ratty building, so instead a cheap lantern with a warped tin shade hung from the highest rafter. Its dancing light fell on a straw covered floor, a small coal stove with a dead fire, and an easel. On the easel were the beginnings of a disreputable painting of a black haired girl, who, he noticed when looking beyond the canvas, slept in the corner having, it appeared, drifted off while posing. On this observation he wheeled around and found just behind him the sleeping form of another girl in a man’s linen shirt marked all over with drips of paint.
She was nestled far more deeply in the straw than her counterpart, having, he supposed, gone to bed with greater intent. He studied the two faces of the black haired girl, one painted, and recognized neither. He then appraised the artist. Her hair was red - too foolish to change it, or too vane - and this was a heartening sign. He approached her and regarded her face, taking care to turn his head away whenever he so much as exhaled. With a craftsman’s precision he reached with a single finger for her right cheek and gently cleared away a patch of soot, sweat, and makeup to reveal a pale, well cared for fencing scar running a few lines long.
That sealed it.
He slapped her.
She rose with a start and screamed, awaking her companion. The latter found herself starting down the barrel of Gabron’s revolver. He could shoot her then and there, his brief made no mention of her, but he could not be sure that would improve compliance.
“Kindly come with me, or she dies.” Gabron snarled in a voice cultivated and reserved for this work. The red-haired girl looked past him.
“We knew this might happen.” She half-whispered.
The black-haired girl was weeping now but dared not move.
“You can write to me, I should at least live that long.” Red-hair stammered.
Gabron began to haul her from the garret.
In that moment Bethany was struck by how strange it was to be carried. Her legs moved but she was not walking, the vast man in the blue coat had lifted her with one arm hooked beneath her shoulders. More often than not he dragged her as they navigated the stairs, but sometimes her bare feet floated completely free.
Marah ran behind them screaming. She could do nothing but would never accept that. The other residents peered from the doorways to their little rooms, and a few seemed ready to act. None did. They had no special feeling for her. Had she been one of them, they would have battered the man with rolling pins, boots, and irons, but she was not.
The man collected something from the foyer, then bustled her onto the street. The chilled cobblestones stung her feet as he set her down. Marah was behind them, panting in the doorway.
“Tell her not to follow. I am within my rights to shoot her down.” The man commanded.
“Did you hear him, Marah? You’re little good to me dead!”
Marah had heard. She slumped onto the stoop and buried her head in her hands.
The man marched her down the street and around a corner until the commotion from her building faded into the night. Finding another working gaslamp he holstered his revolver and slid his boots - lace-less, cavalry models - on.
She could run, he was looking away and his gun was unready. She did not. After the sixth year away she had forgotten the fear of being hunted, but she knew now, even if she escaped, it would cripple her again. Perhaps, though, he would shoot her if she ran. That would save the trial, the cell, the scaffold. No. His calm unsettled her - he was the type to wait until her feet bled and her breath failed her, then amble up to her hiding place.
The man stood. “My name is Gabron. You may call me that. Follow me.”
Bethany was led away from the river, toward the center of town. In a borough near the shipping exchange, Gabron abruptly swung into a coffeehouse. The porter at the door glared at her but was mollified by her keeper’s powder blue coat.
A pall of tobacco smoke filled the shop and twirled in the light of the few candles that still burned at occupied tables. At this late hour the others had been snuffed. By a central table a gaggle of brokers and captains gambled on something, and Bethany suspected their custom was the only reason the place was open at all.
Gabron took a booth in the back and they sat in darkness until a half-drunk waiter wandered over with matches. The severe darkness of the house’s most remote corner called for four candles, which he dutifully lit.
“You take sugar, don’t you?” Gabron inquired of her.
Bethany said nothing.
“Two, with sugar. Bring also bread and your least suspect meat.”
Bethany watched the man at the bar add finely ground coffee and sugar to the bottom of a flared copper pot with a long handle. He placed it on something just out her view, which she knew was likely a red hot coal stove, until it frothed. He gingerly transferred some of the froth to the bottom of each of their cups, then let the brew continue to boil for a while before filling the cups. These were placed on a tray with two small glasses of water, a half loaf of brown bread, and veal.
When the tray arrived Gabron overpaid the waiter and whispered something that sent him scurrying away.
He took a sip of coffee, a bite of bread, then removed a heavy envelope from somewhere in the lining of his coat and opened it.
He slapped a small booklet bound in green leather and sealed with red ribbon onto the table.
“A passport in your true name.”
He followed this with a small bundle of banknotes. “1000 Ritters.”
With some ceremony he next handed her a neatly folded document: “A full pardon for which you would be right to kiss your father.”
“He said that was impossible. They all did.” Bethany protested.
Gabron took another pull on his coffee. “Six years is a long time and suffice it to say he’s not grown poorer.”
Bethany wanted to vomit. “Did he order you to ruin my life before you saved it, just for spite?”
“You could not stay living like that. You are needed at home. Now eat. Our train leaves at midnight.”
Bethany drank her coffee.
“Can I write Marah? If she thinks I’m bound to hang she may do something rash.”
“All the better for us if she does.” Gabron began, chewing brown bread. “You must understand this, girl, your very survival is contingent on your following my instructions and, when the time comes, your father’s. That pardon can be canceled and an arrest warrant issued, with your updated description and whereabouts, within six hours of my signal. Interacting with any person from your time in this city would be a calamity for you.”
Bethany closed her eyes. Were she in a song of the kind sung by drunks in these very rooms she would storm out, curse her deceitful family and go to her true friends to live or die an honest soul.
She was not though, and the pardon in her hands was preciously powerful. It carried the hope of real beds, decent food, a chance at repairing her name.
She heard an object roll across the table and felt it drop in her lap. Opening her eyes she found a small syringe, capped and filled with clear liquid.
“We knew, of course.” Gabron mused.
“Is there more?” Bethany demanded.
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“On the train, yes.”
They left the coffeehouse with more ease than they had entered. Gabron continued to lead her but Bethany knew the way to the railway terminal and was reassured to see it was being followed. As they drew toward the city center, more windows bore lights and chatter. Fights and dances spilled from tavern doors into the streets, where parties of drunks waited for the little, cream colored steam trams to halt and accept them. Bethany watched such a group board, heard the driver protest something, and then the clink of coins. On this the machine began to move again, its wheels slipping as it mounted a hill, belching sparks and ash from the stack at its middle and high into the night.
“Must we walk?” Bethany inquired, her bare feet growing ever colder.
Gabron seemed to consider it. Drawing a plain but enormous watch from his pocket he consulted its glowing hands. “Yes, we are making fine time.”
Fleeing again entered her mind. She had the 1000 Ritters and the pardon, but Gabron had kept her passport. The money was good, but the pardon could be canceled, and without her passport there was no leaving the city. With the Ritters she could hide for a while - take rooms, make a bribe - but she could not run. It was clever. As much as she knew she was being taken against her will, she could not help but feel that she was now an accomplice. There was, had to be, a way out she failed to see. She knew of men that had built entire merchant empires from 500 Ritters but she could not, with 1000, make a simple escape.
A fountain stood before the railway terminal. Around the fountain was a looping track on which the trams turned around. Several stood idle there while hackney carriages deposited a trickle of rail travelers before the great arches of the terminal house. Gas chandeliers with naked flames burned brightly in the main hall and hundreds more benches than were presently required lay like pews beneath. A man in a holed felt cap sat in the very center, plucking a zither and chewing on an unlit pipe. The travelers assiduously avoided him, staking out instead the edges of the formation of benches. Most were lone men who had come in on whatever business and were now taking the night train home. One family with two young girls and seven pieces of luggage were far brighter eyed and seemed bound for the country.
Gabron proceeded with her past the benches to a small office next to the ticket windows. On the door “Public Scribe, Keeps All Hours” was written in block letters.
He entered, and seemed to consider leaving Bethany outside for a moment before pulling her across the threshold. Slamming the door, they both regarded a dozing adolescent start awake. He presided over a small desk.
“Good night, are you the proprietor?” Gabron asked.
“Well, strictly no...” He stammered.
Gabron advanced on him. “But you can...”
“Oh, naturally, surely, of course, honored sir.”
Gabron unbuttoned his coat and whipped a folded letter from a pocket. “This, to Mr. Esterhouse in Bray. He has his own man, send nothing to the town Scribe.”
The Scribe unfolded the letter and appraised it.
“With respect, sir, this is nonsense. Did you write it yourself? Perhaps I can help you...”
Gabron pressed a massive hand on the desk such that it tilted. “Kindly send it as written.”
The Scribe set the letter down and rose. Turning his back on Bethany and Gabron he took a key from his pocket and opened a safe on the highest shelf of the pigeon-hole cabinet that occupied the rear wall of the office. He took a pen from the safe and returned to his desk.
The Scribe sat again and, with great care, placed the pen to his left. Holding the letter in his right hand, he rested the first two fingers of his left hand on the barrel of the pen.
Gabron and Bethany knew to remain silent. The Scribe read the letter at a deliberate pace. The gas sconce behind him flickered.
Folding the letter, the Scribe looked up at Gabron and nodded, then plucked a message form from a desk drawer and laid the pen lengthwise atop it.
“So there is a response then?” Gabron asked.
“Yes. Might I have quiet?” The Scribe snapped. Again the gas sconce flickered.
The pen moved, rising vertically until it was 10 lines above the paper. The Scribe held his hand around it, but did not grip it, as if he was trying to restrain a small bird. On this, it rotated to point its nib at the paper and slowly moved downward once more until it touched the form. The Scribe followed its movements, but never touched it, as it marked out a string of words in tense longhand. After a moment it was finished, and clattered to the desk before the Scribe could catch it.
“Nonsense as well I’m afraid.”
“Give it to me, and a pen - a proper one.” Gabron ordered.
The Scribe took his time in returning the pen to its safe before giving the message form and a pencil to Gabron.
Gabron retreated to a corner of the office and produced a small book from yet another pocket. Bethany watched him move the pencil back and forth from the message to book and write, haltingly, beneath the nonsense on the message form, real words.
“Has it been a while since you’ve seen it done?” The Scribe asked Bethany as Gabron beavered away.
“Yes. I haven’t had the occasion to send one, I suppose. Bray though? Such a distance directly? When I was away at school I remember they had to be relayed from town to town.”
“Well the Moldavite is much more refined now. That increases range.” He answered, reclining in his desk chair.
Bethany cocked her head. “Moldavite?”
“The new trademark. I suppose out south it is still ‘witch glass’ but none of the lads really liked calling it that. I mean, I’m no witch, dearie, I’m a technician. Not that I mean anything by it.”
“Mean what?”
The Scribe looked a bit stunned. “There was a second signal. I buried it easily enough, and I figured between you and your companion you were the likely source.”
Bethany flushed. “It couldn’t be me.”
Shrugging the Scribe hypothesized: “In the hall then? That old man certainly looks queer enough.”
Gabron abruptly exited his corner and wheeled on the Scribe, Ritters in hand. He took them, and before they reached his pocket, Gabron and Bethany were out of the room.
A railway officer with a speaking trumpet was calling for “Passengers to Bray and points between.” The small group of waiting passengers rose and began to line up. Gabron ignored them and made instead for an ashtray standing near one of the benches. He tore the page from his book that had so recently held his concentration and lit it with a short match. Dropping it flaming in the ashtray he also added the message form and outbound letter. He watched them burn to nothing before turning around.
“What was that?” Bethany wondered.
“A small fire.”
“Tell me. Why send my father nonsense?”
“It is only nonsense without the key. Your father’s man keeps a book like this, and with each message we use a new key, destroying the old. You should never trust a scribe with anything you would not shout in the market. My little cousin is one, he commits to memory every love letter he sends and recites the worst over beer that evening. Now come along.”
Gabron bypassed the line of passengers and flashed two tickets at a Railway Officer. “First class. Official Business. No baggage. Thank you.”
A cold, smoky wind met them as they stepped on the platform. An ornate glass and iron ceiling rose high above them and covered tens of tracks. Bethany knew that during the day, each one would be occupied, but now only the nearest one was. An apple green locomotive, lined in gold paint, with a black nose led a fifteen carriage train. It sat on the tall driving wheels of an express engine but had a largely open cab and other features that spoke to old age. This night duty would likely be its last before the scrappers.
It had a good fire built and was hissing excess steam from its underside, stack, and dome-mounted valves, sending warm clouds down the platform.
Bethany was led to the first passenger carriage, made of teak lined in gold paint. The sleeping car attendant welcomed them in a polite whisper that suggested some of his guests were already down for the night.
Gabron and her were, of course, to share a compartment. He took the lower berth, ensuring he would be alerted if she tried to climb down from her berth, let alone leave the compartment.
Bethany heard the guards whistle which the locomotive answered, followed by a shudder as the brakes released and the whole apparatus began to move. She moved to the small basin in the corner of the compartment and retrieved the syringe Gabron has supplied her. The sleeves of the man’s shirt she wore were much too large, and she pushed the left one up without unbuttoning the cuff. She injected herself and closed her eyes as a fine, warm calm passed through her.
When the initial lift passed she wetted her hands in the basin and began to wash her face. While doing so she addressed Gabron. “You have more? I’ll need another if you’d like me to sleep.”
Gabron had removed his boots and coat and was sitting on his berth.
“Is it only for sleep? He asked.
“No.” She intoned.
Gabron handed her another from a small box intended for use by martial surgeons. She injected it quickly and retreated to her berth.
Bethany awoke to the smell of sea air and citrus. It was light outside and far warmer than it had been in the city. Through the compartment’s open windows the seaside raced by. This was the water-level line, built to be dead flat and plumb straight whenever possible. It was said that only here were the engine drivers allowed to make their best possible pace. Indeed, the locomotive’s broad driving wheels were blurred and the sound of its whistle seemed to stretch with the speed as it announced its coming and going through the little shore towns. Beyond these lay fields of flax, cotton, and tobacco interspersed with vast groves of fruit trees. An old steam packet chuffed its way north near inshore, farther out the white sails of pleasure and fishing boats shimmered.
Gabron’s berth had already been made up into a seat for daytime, and he sat on it in his undershirt with two newspapers and a coffee to occupy him.
“How long now?” Bethany asked.
Gabron checked his watch. “Thirty minutes.”
Bethany descended the ladder from her berth and entered the corridor in search of the sleeping car porter. She found him with a tray bearing someone else’s sprawling breakfast.
“Might I have the same and sweet coffee?”
The man looked her up and down, fixating on the paint spattered old shirt.
“Which compartment is yours miss?”
Bethany did not know, but pointed.
“Certainly, just allow to me finish here.”
By the time Bethany had eaten the train was nearing Bray. It rounded a broad turn and slowed considerably as it steamed more-or-less along the beach. Bethany regarded the sights of her youth, white clapboard houses and pale blue stucco hotels, the boardwalk, and unpaved streets overhung with faded cafe awnings. A horse drawn omnibus rolled beside the train for a while, crammed with beach-goers.
The train eased to a stop in Bray’s unremarkable, pale brick station and began to disgorge passengers, many of whom had been sleeping until their porters awoke them at the last possible moment. They stepped blearily into the morning sun. Gabron, carrying his heavy coat under one arm, led her off the train and hurriedly through the station house. Her father’s phaeton carriage waited just beyond the doors.
The library of William Whitney Esterhouse was lined on one side with books and the other with windows. The latter stood open, and their curtains fluttered in the ocean breeze. Mr. Esterhouse sat behind a vast desk that Bethany knew to be made from an old ship. On one corner sat a small, silver plated machine. Mr. Esterhouse turned its handle causing it to ingest ribbon tobacco from a hopper and roll a single, perfect cigarette that it then spat onto a platter. Esterhouse snapped up the cigarette and a servant appeared to light it with a long match. After pulling at it for a considered moment, he rose.
Bethany approached the desk from across the vast room. There were no chairs near the desk except for Esterhouse’s - his guests stood - as Bethany did now.
Esterhouse studied her in the brilliant morning light. She was bathed, and wearing a dress that had appeared, wrapped as new, on the bed in her old room.
“It doesn’t fit, alas. I told them to try but we only had third-hand reports of how you’d grown.” He remarked, turning to face a window. “Your brother is dead, your mother is dead, your sister is in a locked hospital, and we are at war.”
Bethany reeled, the same servant that had borne the match stepped forward and held her gently. “These revelations are not strictly related, save that you have not heard them. Lemuel was thrown from his horse, that was three years ago. Your mother was sick even when you left. As for Gabrielle, well you know she never quite grew up, and the decision was made in consultation with her doctors. Your mother would have approved. As for the war, ten months past the Bexarians raided four coaling stations and sank a frigate, we demanded that they make recompense and depart the stations, they have not, today was the last of the ultimatum. When the Assembly meets at noon it will be officially declared and the calling-out shall begin.”
Bethany tried to step forward, the servant held her back, but relented when Mr. Esterhouse made no sign. “You have your solitude at last and a fine sporting war to watch! Why drag me back?! I was disowned, damned! You did nothing then against the family, the law, the mob and now you conjure a pardon!”
“This family has been a friend of the Assembly since long before this old house stood. Our compatriots up north will send their grand cavalry, in the middle they will raise their old militias, we will - we must - send a ship and you must be on it. The last time our nation was menaced, your grandfather sent me, the eldest son. Had he not, it would have shown scandalous disloyalty - any man can risk his hulls but it takes faith to send flesh. I no longer have an eldest son to send, and so you must go.”
“And your sailors will follow a murderous cheat?” Bethany sneered.
Mr. Esterhouse ashed his cigarette. “You may be a murderer, but you are no cheat.” Turning the servant he commanded: “Fetch Merkur.”
The servant removed himself and returned moments later with a smartly dressed, middle-aged man carrying a long wooden box. He placed the box on the desk before Esterhouse and his daughter.
“Bethany, this Dr. Emil Merkur, of the Bray Polytechnic Institute.” Mr. Esterhouse explained.
“Good morning.” Merkur nodded. “Shall I begin?”
“Yes, thank you.” Esterhouse instructed.
Merkur slid the lid off his box to reveal a slender sword wrapped in paper, which he gently cleared away. “This is an ordinary academic fencing rapier, of the size and weight specified for ladies’ competition. Before it was taken into evidence by the constabulary it belonged to you, and your mother and grandmother. You, I am sure, know it as the weapon with which you killed Angeline Becker, but in the state you wielded it that day, it was no weapon. At 18, for University use, an edge is made on the blade but you were merely 14. It was dull. It might break bone if swung hard enough, but was no threat to flesh. The constables said that you edged the blade yourself in secret, for you hated Angeline and thought to kill her at fencing practice. There can be no dispute that Angeline was killed with an edged sword, and indeed with this sword, but as I am sure you know you did not enter the fencing ground that day with a plan to kill. I have examined the edge under extreme magnification - no grinder or whetstone could have made it. The edge exists only as far as the blade entered Miss Becker’s chest, and is perfectly consistent - the constituent particles of the steel formed the edge perfectly and, in my view, virtually instantaneously.”
Merkur looked down the length of the blade at Bethany, expecting some response, he received none he went on: “You are far from cleared, understand, you killed her as surely as I stand here, but you did not plan to. In a moment of rage, or whatever girlish equivalent you mustered, you willed the edge to be as you struck Becker. This blade, like most, was forged with a touch of Moldavite as a blessing, and it is through it that you made the command. Like your sister you were born with an ability to interact with Moldavite at a distance - a condition I am working even now to explain - in the common parlance you were born a witch. Your childhood physicians said your abilities were too weak to bother cultivating, and a certain individual...” Merkur indicated Esterhouse, who grimaced “...agreed and sent you away to school with what may have well been a timed bomb.”
Bethany sat on the edge of her father’s desk and seemed to shrink.
“Don’t despair. At your age, with no training and the meager life you led since the killing, it is unlikely you will ever repeat such an act. You are no danger. The sword itself must also be considered - a very personal weapon owned by three generations of Moldavite-attuned females.”
During Merkur’s lecture Esterhouse had finished his cigarette and cranked out another, which he lit with his own gold lighter. “We brought the Doctor’s findings to the constabulary and the courts. On account of your age at the time of the murder and the apparent lack of malice-aforethought they agreed to the pardon. The Becker’s were not pleased, but they are not so rich anymore. Though I must remind you, it would be entirely possible for the good Doctor to retract his findings - science is so fluid today. If you break with me I cannot promise that such a reversal would be prevented.”
Merkur began to pack away the sword. Bethany stopped him. “May I keep that?” She asked.
“You may, but I can’t imagine why you would want to.” Merkur replied.
Bethany grasped the rapier’s hilt. “I’m meant to be going to war, aren’t I?”