Circle of Shadows

III.3

Harriet all but fled the room and not until they were a hundred feet of gallery away did she speak. ‘Will you come to the Castle, Crowther?’

‘If you will excuse me, I think I should serve Clode better by consulting about the provenance of the drug on the mask.’

‘In other words you do not think you can stand another tearful reunion so soon,’ Graves said under his breath. Harriet smiled then found herself looking around guiltily. Something in the atmosphere of the palace made her fear she was in danger of being constantly overheard.

‘What did you say to Krall as we left? He looked as if you had struck him,’ Graves asked Crowther. Harriet realised he was talking in low tones as well. Only a day and the palace had them fearing their own shadows.

‘After asking him to come to our private room at his first opportunity, I said, “I believe she drowned”, of course. What else would I say?’

‘Social pleasantries have never been your strong suit, have they, Crowther?’ Harriet said with a sigh. ‘Well, that explains the poor man’s expression.’

‘At least I have not interrogated any despots about their amours today, Mrs Westerman.’

She grimaced. Their footsteps echoed up the corridor which was lined with yet more classical statuary. Muses, heroes and a smattering of Dukes observed them as they passed. The Muses looked at them slyly over their shoulders. The heroes stared boldly and the Dukes looked down their noses. ‘A fair point. Why did you not tell the Duke about the manner of Lady Martesen’s death?’

‘I feared he might fetch in another child to demonstrate,’ Crowther said simply.

Graves shook his head. ‘That man almost frightens me.’

‘He is an absolute ruler, Mr Graves. He has been obeyed his entire life. Perhaps it is not surprising to find that produces a slightly … warping effect. Give Mr Clode my best wishes.’ He nodded to them as if he intended to leave their side, but she put out her hand.

‘Crowther, Rachel has been worried about Daniel. The state of his mind. This drug, do you think the effects might be long-lasting?’

He paused for a moment, putting his weight onto his cane, his long fingers spread out over its silver head, and looked at their faces, all concern. ‘Not the drug itself, I think, given what Rachel has said. But you have been under fire in battle, Mrs Westerman.’

‘A number of times on my husband’s ships.’

‘So you have seen the effects, not on the body, but on the mind such extremes of fear and confusion can have?’

‘More often than I would like. I think I understand you, Crowther.’

‘I fear I do not,’ Graves said.

‘The effects of battle are cruel enough, Graves, but they are at least both understandable and shared. Even so, they can haunt men for years. Daniel’s visions were his alone and included the bizarre murder of a young woman, the cutting of his own wrists and being arrested.’

‘What do you advise, sir?’ Graves’s voice was low and serious.

‘That we find out the truth behind his visions. We are haunted by what we do not understand.’

‘Then we shall. Come, Mrs Westerman. Let us go and find our captured Prince.’ Graves offered her his arm, Harriet took it and they disappeared up the corridor. Crowther watched them go, then turned to search out his quarry.

He found Manzerotti at play in the rooms adjoining the ballroom which had been set aside for cards. The castrato noticed Crowther and at once handed his cards to a gentleman behind him and spoke to his companions. His soft cooing voice made each word a pearl.

‘My nemesis approaches, ladies!’ His French was as perfect as his English. The three women, middle-aged, heavily rouged and jewelled, hid their automatic smiles behind their fans. ‘Please allow the Comte de Grieve to take my place among you.’

Crowther did not smile, but simply watched him get up from his chair and bow the Count into his place with the same interest with which he would watch an exotic animal. He could not help thinking of the muscles and tendons of the body when he observed Manzerotti in motion; his physical grace was astonishing. The air seemed to ripple and part for him, allowing him to move through the world without the effort other mortals needed to shift their bodies from place to place. When he approached and made his bow, and Crowther returned it, he felt his own body to be an inferior machine, unlubricated and fixed with cogs and gears more clumsily wrought.

‘Mr Crowther, have you had leisure to examine His Highness’s Cabinet of Curiosities? Of course not. Let us have a look at them together.’

Crowther followed him without a word through a set of heavy double doors into a room, octagonal in shape and lit from above by a glass roof and a series of high windows. The air tasted unused. Against each wall was a display case, panelled over with glass at its top, and set with narrow drawers below. Crowther organised his anatomical samples in something similar in his house at Hartswood, but his cabinet was a far more utilitarian object. These seven cabinets were wonders in themselves. Each was inlayed with mother of pearl into a themed profusion of life. The example to Crowther’s right was smothered in inlays of flowers and vines that tumbled over each other, the stems seeming to thrust and grow under the eye. To his left, animals real and apocryphal clambered on each other’s backs to peer in through the glass at the bones and preserved fragments of their fellows.

In the centre of the room was a large table, octagonal also, and crowded with domed glass cases for larger curiosities. Crowther noticed the skeleton of a two-headed baby. It had been provided with an ivory violin and stood on top of a small mossy rise, one foot lifted as if dancing to its own tune.

‘It was the current Duke’s uncle who created this room,’ Manzerotti said.

‘Ludwig Christoph prefers living curiosities?’ Crowther replied, but Manzerotti only smiled.

‘He prefers the opera. Your rudeness is terribly clever, but not very useful, is it? Come now, Mr Crowther, do I have to put a loaded gun in your hand too before we can talk like civilised men?’

‘Would you?’

Manzerotti bent to examine the skeleton as he spoke, ‘I think not. You calculate more methodically than Mrs Westerman. That makes you more dangerous in some ways. In truth, the more I consider it, the more I think you an exemplary pairing. You complement each other to an unusual degree.’

‘You heard of the demonstration?’

‘Yes, I have already had a full report. You need not trouble yourself.’

‘Did you suggest using a child for the experiment?’

‘Yes.’ He continued to stare at the two-headed baby. ‘Do you know, Crowther, I think the vegetation around this little monster’s feet is actually injected lung tissue! Is that a kidney stone? My Lord, what imagination. Have you ever made anything like this?’

Crowther felt his mouth set in a thin line. ‘It is a work of Frederick Ruysch, I believe. And no, I do not build little tableaux.’ Manzerotti shrugged. ‘So the mask is drugged in some way,’ Crowther continued. ‘How did you know? Can you identify the substance?’

‘Here is an instance. I am sure when next I meet her, Mrs Westerman will want to ask me again of my general purpose here. If she can bring herself to do so, she will enquire as to the personalities and scandals of the court, then stare out of the window and wonder until her imagination proffers scenarios which her mind considers worthy of pursuit. You, meanwhile, latch onto facts. Hard, nuggety little facts. She is the artist, you are the craftsman. On balance, I doubt you’d have the imagination to create a horrid little tableau like this.’ Crowther did not reply. ‘The symptoms Mr Clode displayed, and the manner they came on suggested a certain substance to me. Something of which I have heard reports, but never encountered in the flesh, as it were. The fact that the rest of the party remained unaffected suggested the manner in which it was delivered. Do not blame yourself. I came to Maulberg from the south, reaching the border before you and travelling a little further before I reached court. I therefore had longer to study my supply of papers. I am sure you would have realised the mask was the source of Clode’s confusion before long.’

‘The substance, Manzerotti. How did you know it? What do you know of it?’

‘I have made the study of drugs and poisons a pastime in the last years.’ He paused and lifted one immaculate eyebrow. ‘I am surprised a man who spends his time dissecting the dead curls his lip at such an interest, but of course, how foolish of me. Poisons are evil, sneaking and covert, as I am evil. Is that how you figure it?’

‘I do not style myself a theologian, Manzerotti, to speak of good and evil.’

‘Yet you are, in a way. I have no doubt that in your time investigating violent death in the company of Mrs Westerman, you have delivered any number of stirring speeches on the greater good and the absolute value of truth.’ Crowther scowled. ‘I thought you had. You must realise that even a monster such as myself can contribute to that greater good when it suits me, such as giving Mrs Westerman a little hint about the mask. Did you know there is a devil hidden in the organ of the cathedral in Leuchtenstadt? When the player pulls a certain level, he pops out to play upon his own little set of pipes, forced to sing the Good Lord’s praises whether he wills it or no. Does the analogy please you?’

‘Who arranged for those papers to be sent to you, Manzerotti? Who pulls the levers that control you? I suspect you function somewhat … independently.’

‘Perhaps. And like the little devil, sometimes I do not play exactly the tune my masters would wish.’ He seemed to brighten. ‘The composition of the poison on the mask I cannot swear to exactly, but I have thought it might owe its effects to the inclusion in the mix of a powder of one of the datura family.’

Crowther brought his cane down on the polished floor with a sharp rap. ‘Yet you encouraged the Duke to experiment on a child?’

‘Hardly encouraged! Suggested in passing, and do be careful of the parquet, Crowther, I understand it was imported at great expense. You do know something of the subject then? But not a great deal. I imagine your expertise stops at identifying arsenic poisoning, and the effects of strychnine. A plant of the datura family must be ingested to prove fatal. The child would only have been in danger if she had started licking the horrid thing. Besides, I do not think anyone was particularly fond of her …’

‘Manzerotti …’

The castrato’s eyes seemed to darken for a second. ‘I hope you are not going to deliver a lecture on the sanctity of human life, Crowther. Such hypocrisy would surely choke you.’

Crowther looked away.

When Manzerotti spoke his voice was light again. ‘Now, to cement this pleasant fellow-feeling between us, have you anything to tell me? Has your expertise anything to show for itself?’

Almost against his own will, Crowther found himself replying: ‘She was drowned.’

Manzerotti rapped his fingers lightly on the table-top. Crowther wondered if he were trying to make the skeleton dance.

‘Indeed? How fascinating! Are you certain? Of course you are, you would never speculate in front of me. No crime of passion this, then. Drowned on dry land … There’s something almost ritualistic about it. There, Gabriel, you see? We can rub along. Dressed as a Goddess of the Moon, and drowned. Interesting.’

‘Manzerotti, what are you doing here?’

‘Mrs Westerman’s spirit has entered the room at last!’ He opened his arms wide and lifted his chin. ‘Was it the use of your Christian name conjured her? No need to frown so. Why am I here? Do not trouble yourself. It is largely a question of politics, so too dull for Mrs Westerman and too abstract for you. As it happens, I believe Clode quite innocent, and am curious to know who is to blame for the death of Lady Martesen. I am happy to offer you my co-operation therefore, for the time being.’

Crowther looked into Manzerotti’s face and his mind filled with images of flowers that poisoned and rotted those unfortunate enough to consume them from within. ‘And if our interests diverge, Manzerotti?’

‘I will always dance to my own tune, Crowther. Your best hope is that they will not diverge. Now be not downcast, my friend! There cannot be many here who have the knowledge and wit to make that poison and who had the opportunity to treat the mask. Trust my expertise on that: whoever made that drug was instructed by an adept.’

Having Manzerotti address him in such warm and encouraging terms was as much as Crowther could bear, and without speaking again he turned away, and left him among the other exotics gathered together to amaze and confound in the Duke’s chamber of wonders.