The Equivoque Principle (21 page)

C
ORNELIUS
Q
UAINT STORMED
out of the fortune-teller’s tent, with Destine trailing after him. ‘He’s done
what?
’ he raged. ‘After I explicitly told him
not
to? This is intolerable Destine, it really is! I’ll have to get there right away.’

‘No, Cornelius, I beg of you—wait,’ implored Destine. ‘He’s been gone for hours, just after you left for the prison. You’ll never catch up with him.’

‘Why on earth didn’t you try to stop him?’

‘What chance would I have of stopping a thundering titan like him? He is more involved in this than even you are, Cornelius. Do not forget that he stands accused of murdering the woman he loved. He just needs to
do
something.’

‘Madame, how could I forget?’ Quaint paused, rubbing at the back of his head as he tried to think what to do next. ‘This is just typical. Just when we actually
get
somewhere, we end up taking two steps
back.’

‘I can see you’re angry, Cornelius, but Prometheus is a big boy. He knows what he’s doing, of that I am sure.’

‘He
thinks
he knows what he’s doing, you mean! I told him that Crawditch was a dangerous place for him to be, and I warned him about Dray—but he’s just ridden roughshod over it. I wanted him
kept away from that place because I saw the look of desperation in Dray’s eyes—they
need
him to be their killer, Madame, he’s all Dray’s got, and he’s too perfect a fit to let slip through his fingers…the leopard has not changed his spots after all.’

Destine placed her hand upon Quaint’s shoulder, bringing the man towards her as she did so. ‘Cornelius…Prometheus feels his very soul is in torment, and unless he walks right into that police station—and at least
tries
to get them to listen to him—he will always feel the hunted quarry.’

Quaint pulled away from her embrace, rubbing at his forehead furiously, as if trying to remove a dirty smudge. ‘Hell’s teeth, Destine, now of all times—why did he have to go to Crawditch alone? With what I learned at Blackstaff, that district is the last place on earth that Prometheus can expect to see justice.’ Quaint rubbed his palms into his eyes, trying to clear the day’s remnants from his head.

Destine moistened her lips, almost petrified to ask the question that formed itself in her mind, but she had to know what Quaint had discovered, perhaps giving her just enough breathing space to try and explain her actions to him. ‘And what did you learn, my sweetheart?’ she asked.

‘I learned much, Madame. Not only was someone named Bishop Courtney responsible for Tom Hawkspear’s release, but also, more importantly than that…it seems I have been extremely foolish. I have misjudged someone very dearly…at the cost of others’ lives. It seems there is betrayal on all sides in this caper, it surely knows no limits,’ said Quaint, striding away from the tent, the wind whipping at his clothes fiercely. ‘I just don’t know who I can trust any more.’

Destine gulped hard, remembering the haunting realisation of her deepest and greatest fear. The fire within Cornelius’s eyes was something she had seen many times before.

‘I have uncovered the person responsible for this whole damn
mess, Madame,’ he countered, ‘and you’ll not believe the trouble he’s gone to, purely to get his revenge upon me, although I can’t blame him—considering our history. I had thought never to set eyes upon him again, but it seems Fate had other ideas. Our foe is none other than–’

‘My son,’ blurted out Destine. ‘Our foe is…Antoine Renard…yes I know,’ she said. The words tumbled from her mouth clumsily as if she were unburdening herself of a great weight.

Quaint spun on his heels, glaring at Destine. If the fire within his eyes was ablaze before, it was positively volcanic now.

‘What…did you just say?’ he asked.

‘I know how you must feel, Cornelius, and I share your horror, believe me,’ protested Destine, pacing in circles around and around on the grassy verge. ‘I had a most terrifying vision of him myself just yesterday that shook me to the core. I…I’m so sorry that I could not tell you sooner…please believe me, but I knew how it would affect you,’ The Frenchwoman buried her head in her hands and sobbed a distraught, weighty sob that came from the very depths of her soul.

Quaint approached her shattered form, mere inches from her face. His voice was calm and quiet, yet bubbling with rage. ‘Madame…what is this you’re saying to me? Antoine Renard? Now, that’s a name not spoken in my presence for a very long time…and you know damn well why.’

‘But…you said…you knew who was to blame,’ sniffed Destine.

‘I do…or at least I
thought
I did. I was about to name Oliver Dray—for it was his man Jennings who countersigned Hawks-pear’s release papers. What has this to do with your son? The man’s been dead fifteen years!’

‘I had thought so myself…until recently. My premonitions were coming erratically, they made less and less sense, and after
each one, I was left feeling exhausted. I had a vision such as this yesterday, a vision unlike any other, Cornelius. I felt an intense punch hit me right in my mind’s eye…the last time I felt one as strong was in 1838…the night you shot Antoine dead.’

‘Not dead enough, obviously,’ said Quaint.

He made several attempts to begin a sentence, to say something to Destine that would encapsulate just how he felt about her betrayal, but nothing seemed appropriate. He grabbed handfuls of his coat’s material, squeezing them tight into his fists. He yanked, stretched and tugged harshly at the coat, serving as a surrogate for the vocalisation of his anger. Tears flooded his dark eyes, and his lips trembled nervously. He couldn’t even look at Destine, for he feared his heart would shatter into a million pieces.

‘Cornelius, please say something,’ said Destine, approaching Quaint, but he turned away brusquely, leaving the fortune-teller’s hand grasping nothing but air. ‘Please…let me explain. I knew that learning of this without confirmation would terrorise you. It would blind you; intoxicate your ability to think clearly.’

Quaint’s voice was shaky, his jaw clenched tight. ‘Madame,’ he began, turning away from her beseeching stare. ‘This is true, then? Is Renard still alive?’

Madame Destine lowered her head onto her chest, the word ‘Yes’ barely audible.

‘And…and why did you not sense him before? If he’s been involved in this from the beginning, why did your foresight not give you—give
me
—warning?’ blazed Quaint, the tears flowing freely now from his face, following the tracks of his ingrained wrinkles. ‘Fifteen years ago…when I pulled that trigger, I thought the man responsible for my wife’s death—your blasted devil of a son, Antoine Renard—had finally faced justice, that I’d completed a circle of hate that’d been raging for so long. And now…you’re standing there…after keeping this from me for God knows how
long, telling me that I have been living naught but a
lie
!’

‘No, Cornelius, I only suspected his return recently…nothing definite. He appeared on the periphery of my premonitions,’ protested Destine. ‘I had no way of knowing for sure.’

‘Oh? And what clues do you have
now
that makes you so sure he’s alive?’

‘The vision I had last night…it was him, Cornelius…and as much as I would like to deny it, he’s my son. Antoine shares my blood, and he and I do seem to have an unnaturally clairvoyant link. Perhaps our kinship shielded him from me before.’

‘What excellent timing,’ snapped Quaint.

‘I do understand your anger, my sweet…as much as I understand how much of a bloody monster he was…and still is.’

‘Don’t remind me,’ Quaint yelled. ‘For it was my trust of you and your bloody monster of a son that invited him into our house, remember? Where was your damn foresight then? Notably absent—as it is
now
it seems!’

Quaint stared blankly into Madame Destine’s eyes, unable to resist his memory recalling the first time that he had met Antoine Renard, when the Frenchman was nineteen and Quaint was twenty-four. As Destine had been his governess from the age of seven, Quaint was aware that she had a son. He had been educated and raised by his father in Paris whilst Destine estranged herself from her family to live in England—for what reason, Quaint never asked. The subdued, inward-looking boy had left his family home in Paris to seek out his mother.

Antoine Renard’s confidence was shattered by the break-up of his family, a condition made worse by years of indoctrination by his father. The young man had been raised to hate his mother, in fact only seeking her out to quell his curiosity rather than rectify any broken maternal bonds. But Antoine’s own rage was not solely the by-product of his father, for the Frenchman was capable
of breeding his own seeds of hate all by himself. He became convinced that Cornelius was the root of his evil, the reason why his mother had left Paris, the reason why she had never come to collect him, the reason why she had created a surrogate son in Cornelius—to replace him.

This bitter hatred festered, kept just under the surface of Renard’s skin. He would search for anything with which to best Cornelius at, be it sports, intellect or duelling and, locked in a constant battle of one-upmanship, he and Cornelius were destined for disaster. The rivalry continued for nearly two years—until one fateful night when Antoine found himself alone with Cornelius’s wife Margarite. Seeing Cornelius as his enemy, Antoine savagely assaulted Margarite, then fled the Quaint homestead, with the knowledge that it was one victory he would forever hold over Cornelius.

Cornelius returned home to find his bloodied wife barely alive, and she died in his arms that same night. It was only many years later that the Quaint family doctor informed the conjuror that Margarite had been pregnant at the time of her death. Pregnant with a child he would never see, never hold, never love. From that moment, a fuse was lit inside Quaint’s heart that raged on unchecked as he spent the rest of his young years trekking across the globe on one fruitless quest after another. The search for Renard consumed him.

Horrified at what her son had become, Madame Destine turned away from Renard and promised to aid Quaint in his quest to bring Renard to justice. It took a further decade of uncovering many deceits and false trails before they found Renard, now working as a murderer for hire across Europe, selling his trade to the highest bidder. With Quaint’s and Renard’s paths seemingly irrevocably linked, a final confrontation between them was inevitable, and after many close calls and near-misses, in Paris in 1838 Quaint
found himself face to face with Renard once again. The two opponents fought, and Quaint shot Renard in the chest. The Frenchman toppled over a wall into the River Seine—seemingly to his death—and Quaint had thought that was the last time he would ever hear the name ‘Antoine Renard’. Hearing it again now, spoken by Renard’s blood mother, Quaint felt a lancing jolt of pain hit him square in the gut.

‘Please, Cornelius…’ pleaded Madame Destine. ‘I am not your enemy. I did not commit his crimes! Until yesterday, I
too
thought Antoine dead.’ She reached out to him, resting her hand upon his wrist. ‘I could not have even
guessed
that he had returned. I did not set out to deliberately deceive you.’

‘Oh, but you
did
deceive me none the less, Madame.’ ‘No! I merely did not mention all my feelings…my instincts.’ ‘Renard is alive, and you
knew
it! How many more times have you misled me over the years, hmm? Or chosen not to
mention all your feelings
, as you put it?’ Quaint tousled his curled locks severely. ‘I’ve known you since I was seven years old, and not once have I been forced to question your loyalty to me…until now.’

‘Cornelius, no!’ wept Destine. ‘I have not betrayed you.’ ‘I don’t know how to
feel
about you any longer, Madame…knowing how I feel about
him!
’

‘I have been torn! Since I began sensing these
feelings
about my son, they have dominated my thoughts. Should I tell you my fears and risk you running off to your death? What if I was wrong? What if it was all a mistake and I had reopened old wounds for nothing? I did not know what to do for the best, Cornelius.’ ‘And so you did
nothing
?’ ‘Cornelius—please! I have been distracted.’ ‘No, Madame…you have been distracting
me.’
‘Only to keep your path from crossing Renard’s!’ Destine
cleared her throat, the tears choking her, the guilt constricting her. ‘I only wished to guide you away from him…keep you safe.’

Quaint grabbed her wrist, and forcefully removed her hand from his shoulder. ‘Your so-called
advice
has been leading me astray all week, hasn’t it? Sending me to the fish warehouse in search of Prometheus? Sending me off to Blackstaff instead of Crawditch? I take it that was designed to delay me too?’

‘I…I had to make sure your path did not cross Antoine’s until I could fathom whether it was real. I have only been trying to protect you, my sweet. If I had told you of Antoine’s return we both know what you would have done.’

‘I would have tracked the bastard down and squeezed the life out of him!’ snapped Quaint.

‘Oui
, and what if he had done so to you instead? What then? How then would I have felt, knowing that I had led you to your demise? Think about it, Cornelius—this deceit may have
you
at the centre of the web, but the slightest touch to that web sends out shockwaves that cause disruption for all,’ Destine dabbed her eyes. ‘I…I had one such premonition that burned itself into my conscious mind.’

‘What? A vision of me discovering the truth?’ asked Quaint.

‘No. It was of you and my son. You were both locked in an eternal combat. Surrounded by corpses—victims of the battle that raged between you—and you were blind to them all, Cornelius. All you could see was your rage…pure and unrestrained. I was lying there too…as were Prometheus, Butter, Ruby…everyone we love was dead—because of your and Antoine’s conflict—now, if I had to risk your loyalty in order to prevent that future from coming to pass, then
that
is my fate! That is my punishment.’