The Transference Engine (24 page)

He hadn't shaved in several days and his frock coat looked rumpled, as if he'd slept in his clothes.

My helpers all withdrew, deeper into the kitchen so as not to appear to eavesdrop. But I knew they would. I'd taught them to do that.

“What?” I asked quietly, keeping my distance when all I wanted was to throw my arms around him and kiss away his distress, to offer him the bath and bed he obviously sorely needed.

“No matter what you hear or see, don't believe all of it. Nothing is as it seems right now.” He kissed my cheek and darted back out the way he'd come.

He smelled of whitewash.

Chapter Twenty-Four

T
HOUGH MY HEART GREW heavy and sank toward my gut, I turned a blank face back to my helpers who all leaned slightly forward as if to capture every last nuance of my conversation with Sir Andrew Fitzandrew.

“I see you have begun carving the roast. Let me show you how to angle around the bone for the most tender meat,” I said, anxious to divert attention away from me and my recent visitor.

“What's you going to do, Missus?” Mickey asked, tugging on my skirt. He let his fingers entwine with my apron, clinging to me as he never had before.

My heart stuttered and swelled with long suppressed emotions. I gulped and swallowed, then ruffled his silkily clean light auburn curls.

“In the morning I shall send a note to the archbishop to see if he learned anything useful from his interview with Dr. Chaturvedi.”

“What . . . what about Father Rigby?” Lucy asked. Her eyes grew wide and her chin trembled.

“If he is still resident with the archbishop, I suspect he will deliver the reply.” I bent my head to the roast and proceeded to serve up dinner for my family.

The scent of whitewash lingered.

When the kitchen was clean and tomorrow's bread mixed and set to rise slowly overnight, I excused myself from the others and retired with a glass or two of wine intent upon trying to read once again The Book. I desperately needed to know to what depths Sir Andrew might have fallen.

Search as I might I could not find it. Not on my nightstand, not in my private parlor, not in the semiprivate parlor or anywhere else above- or belowstairs. I even went so far as to let the machine search among its shelves for the tome. Perhaps I'd absently returned the book to the chute when tidying. Or one of the girls had.

Nothing. The machine clacked and rotated and circled for many long moments before sending only a whoosh of hot air down the chute.

The book had gone missing.

When had I seen it last?

In Father Rigby's hands the night I first met him.

I tried to remember if he'd returned it to me or laid it on the side table. The wine clouding my brain held the exact memory hostage.

“Lucy?” I called up the stairs to the attic rooms.

“Yes, ma'am?” She appeared at the head of the steep steps, still fully clothed and hair still tidy. Did she have a clandestine rendezvous?

I shook off that thought. I would not suspect her of anything until I had more proof.

“Have you seen the big book with the blood-red leather cover? The one Dr. Badenough returned as unreadable?”

“No. You had it last.” Her color remained neutral and her eyes stayed fixed on my own. She did not lie. I knew my girls and could tell when they did. “Did you look behind the cushions of the settee? You sometimes put a book down and it slips down when you change positions.”

“Not this book. It is much too fat for that.” I had to pause a moment to measure the next words I knew I must speak. “Has anyone been abovestairs of late?” Meaning, had she brought Father Rigby up here secretly to continue their courtship?

“No, ma'am,” she replied just a little too hastily and firmly, as if she'd rehearsed the line until she considered it true and I could not detect, for certain, the lie behind it.

I dismissed her and returned to my search. Just in case, I did search between cushions and behind furniture.

The book had completely disappeared, and Father Rigby, special agent for the archbishop, had been the last one to touch it. If, indeed, he truly was an agent for God's representative in our Church, and not a consummate liar pretending to work for the archbishop. A year on the streets between cosseted home and expensive schools instilled a lot of survival skills and bad habits.

I wished I could ask the archbishop directly if Rigby were indeed the illegitimate child of his wife. I couldn't. We'd trusted each other for a brief time while we worked on his treatise. Since then, we'd rarely seen each other and never spoken. I did not number him among my acquaintances.

I shivered and wrapped my arms tightly around myself. My confidence in judging character slid into the ether. I couldn't trust anyone anymore.

Dr. Ishwardas Chaturvedi replied to my query about his discoveries himself the next morning. “I need a crystal,” he said, leaning on the carousel of the café.

“What kind of crystal?” I asked, already thinking of the codes necessary to find a book on the subject.

“A special crystal that I do not know if it exists anywhere but mythology. The ancients claimed it rested in the center of the forehead on the statue of Kali to hold the souls of those killed in her honor.” He pointed to the place on his brow where a caste mark might reside, if he still held to that rigid system. He then went on to describe density and refraction as well as the number and placements of facets.

Facets I knew about. The angle and number of them could enhance or ruin the value of a precious gem. The rest meant nothing to me, but I'm sure explained a lot to him. A flash of purple in the black satin gown of a new customer just entering the café sent my memory reeling back to the whitewashed basement of a house on the edge of the heath. A purple crystal the size of a large hen's egg dangling between the breasts of Stamata and reflecting prismatic light in all directions.

“If Kali's third eye exists, where would it be now?” I asked. Hot and cold flashed through my veins.

Ish shrugged. “I study physics, not folklore. I know more about the properties and the mineral content of the crystal I need than half-remembered tales from my childhood. I left India before I was ten to attend school in England and have not returned.” There was a story there I needed to explore, but not now. Later, in privacy, when he was less obsessed with this cutting light.

“Would the minerals turn the crystal purple and be about this big?” I circled thumb and middle finger to describe the size, as best I could remember.

“Yes!”

Blood left my head in a rush. “I think I know who has it. How she came by it and where she is now I do not know.”

“Then we must find her. Quickly. It is the only way I can replicate the searing light cannon.”

“But that light was green.”

“The operator was using a different chemical base, possibly a liquid to conduct electricity into a clear crystal. Not a pure Yuenite and unless he has discovered some new combination or alloy, I do not think his weapon will work as he planned.”

“I don't know that name, Yuenite.” I tasted the word, testing nuances and sources. Something Asian and beyond my experience.

“A newly discovered mineral in the mountains of northern China, near the boundary with Korea. It crystallizes quite nicely, though the raw crystals grow in awkward columns. A cultured crystal grown with clean facets is quite useful in magnifying light for close work in dark rooms. I believe lacemakers and clockmakers find it useful, better than passing light through a clear bowl of water.”

“Is it becoming common?”

“Unfortunately, no. It is quite rare in pure form. Mostly it is blended with and tainted by other minerals and chemicals. The lesser, blue Kenjite is more common, but not as powerful in its magnification properties.”

He gathered his hat and gloves from the sill of the carousel, very much the proper Englishman in all but the color of his skin and the exotic shape of his eyes. “Now we must find this woman with the crystal. You're certain it was a crystal and not an amethyst?”

“She referred to it as a crystal . . . and she thought it might be useful in a necromantic procedure.” Relief lightened the restrictions around my lungs. I had not told her to channel the electricity through the crystal. Was she intelligent enough—desperate enough—to think of that on her own? She knew how to force a soul from body to jar and jar to body—both only temporarily. But from body to body—I guessed a stronger and more permanent transfer—eluded her. She'd said there had to be a connection between the two bodies. A connection . . . Oh, God, I had to warn Ada to be more vigilant and to be extra vigilant in guarding herself and her children against ephemeral invasion by her father. She knew to fear her father, but now he was closer than ever. Was he in the crystal? Perhaps it preserved the soul more completely than the jars.

“How do we find this woman with the crystal?” Ish asked, suddenly eager again.

“I doubt she resides in the house where I last saw her. She and her minions would need a safer place to hide.”

“Oh.” Disappointment seemed to deflate him, and he sank onto a high stool.

“But I know some people who may have kept watch, possibly followed her.”

“Then let us go. Now.” Energy nearly vibrated out of him.

If the crystal was necessary for Ruthven's necromancy, then I needed to make certain he and Stamata did not meet and transfer possession of that crystal.

If we weren't too late.

Chapter Twenty-Five

I
SH AND I HIRED horses and rode west, much as Miss Ada and I had done a decade ago. Only that time, Ada and I rode the fine horses from her mother's stable.

Romany camps are not hard to find, if you know what to look for.

I followed the signs, much as I had the first time I tried to introduce Ada to the Romany.

An eight-pointed star above the stable door at an inn read hospitality and warm welcome then and now. I asked the right questions of a dark-haired man with gnarled hands who shoveled soiled straw from stall to wheelbarrow. A younger, and different man had worked there seven years before.

Farther along, other symbols scratched into fence posts or the way a hedgerow had been trimmed at ditch level told me whom to pass by, and who might part with information.

Ever the good student, Ada made careful note of where I looked for signs. By the time we left the main road and urged our mounts onto barely visible tracks, I felt certain that my girl would be able to find the signs anywhere. Would she find refuge there, as I had? On that day, just before her fifteenth birthday, I needed to make certain the Rom knew her, and would value her.

Her mother allowed the Rom to camp on her lands and made certain they had food and medical care when needed. But she did not pass among them as I did. She stayed safely indoors, and kept Ada with her when they were near.

“This branch has been bent, by a hand,” Ada said, cupping her own hand around the tip of a hawthorn in full bloom. She had to stand in her stirrups and reach higher than where a mounted man might casually brush his hand against the flowers.

“Very good, my girl.” I hadn't seen that but was too embarrassed to admit it. “What does it tell you?”

“The hawthorn is a puzzling tree; while very beautiful in bloom, it hides wicked thorns that can take out the eye of the unwary. I suspect this is a warning of a trap.”

Patrins
.

I hadn't told her that! She'd puzzled it out herself like any logic problem presented her. Only Rom logic is different from the other kinds of logic.

“We need to ask who laid the trap and who is the intended victim,” I said, trying to think in the convoluted twists and turns that made sense only to the Rom.

I scrutinized the ground for other signs, the
patrins
. We both spotted a pile of five stones atop a nearly flat and overgrown boulder. We spotted it at the same moment. Nestled amongst the ivy vines the stones remained almost invisible, especially the arrangement of twigs and bird feathers. She would have exclaimed aloud in triumph. Instead, I gestured her to silence.

Eyes wide and alarmed, she nodded slightly. “Outlaws,” I mouthed.

She paled.

The
patrins
did not specify what kind of outlaws. But the symbolism was slightly off, not a band of normal criminals that plagued our highways and byways. The trap indicated someone organized enough to lay a trap. Someone organized enough to expect me to bring Ada in this direction. Someone who'd been watching the manor for more than a few days.

While dangerous enough, homeless ruffians were not the ones who sought Miss Ada and launched a kidnap attempt every year or so. I backed my horse toward a slightly wider spot on the track and turned it around. Ada mimicked my movements.

The beasts made an enormous amount of noise.

I looked around sharply, not at all surprised to see a man in a broad-brimmed hat from a century ago blocking our way. He drew a pistol from the depths of his greatcoat. Disguised as he was by the bulk and shadows of his garments I had no idea of his true size, age, or fitness. But he was tall; hunching his upper back couldn't disguise its length or how well he fit a large horse.

I cursed volubly in a mixture of Romany and German. A touch of my heel to the horse's flank sent him sidling restlessly, straining at the reins and stamping his heavy, shod feet. A big horse to fit my stature, and intact for breeding.

The best kind of horse. He'd trained easily and protected me as fiercely as he did his mares.

Ada used the distraction of my horse's movements to back hers away from the highwayman.

A second and third man appeared out of nowhere, unmounted, but brandishing old-fashioned muskets. Five stones. I was certain two more lurked in the shadows, ready to rush in and help if needed.

Miss Ada stayed in place, calming her horse with a balanced seat and quiet hand to the mane.

“I'll take the girl. You'll live if you do not interfere,” the mounted man said in surprisingly educated tones.

I couldn't place his accent—which meant good schools and many years of them. Nor did his voice sound familiar. Lady Byron frequented the salons and parties of London, ever hopeful of finding a highly placed protector for Ada, royal interest if possible. I kept Miss Ada in isolation, as was expected of a girl not yet out in society. So I'd little chance to know if this man supplemented a bankrupt estate with outlawry, or was a younger son not suited for either the military or Church who'd taken to the road as his only income.

“Why?” I asked, keeping my horse restless and unpredictable.

“I'm to be paid a great deal of money to deliver her to interested parties.” He chuckled.

“Enough money to overlook any sense of morality?” I asked.

This time he laughed out loud. “And how moral is it to keep a father from his daughter?” His attention on his pistol did not waver.

“You have not the accent or mannerisms of her father,” I said plainly. “Lord Byron has been dead five years and more, so I can only presume you will deliver her to her grave.”

“There you are mistaken, Miss Elise. Lord Byron did not die as reported.”

I thought as much. His body may have died, or may not have. Either way, his spirit and his fanatical followers kept alive his memory and the hope of resurrecting him. How many had died for that? How many had become ensorcelled by the codes in his poetry?

Miss Ada declared her mathematical formulae as beautiful as poetry. Her arcane symbols might be as much magical code as her father's words.

His I could decipher. Hers I couldn't.

I shook my head free of such nonsense. Miss Ada would never misuse her math. She loved it too much.

Suddenly, with the lightest of commands, my horse reared, slashing those wicked iron-shod hooves in the face of the gelding in front of us. He snorted and squealed a dramatic challenge. Ada sent her mare prancing in a tight circle, also lifting hooves menacingly.

The outlaws backed up, too shocked to fire their weapons straight. But fire they did, in the air, into the ground, at each other.

Ada needed no other encouragement. She dug in her heel and galloped away, past the mounted man, using the horse's shoulder to push him back.

I followed, lashing out with my crop toward the eyes of the enemy horse.

We raced, dodging under branches, and jumping small obstacles. As wild a run as any fox hunt.

And then we burst free into the wide lane where it opened onto the highway little more than two miles from the manor. I turned us toward home and kept running until I judged it safe. No matter how much money he was promised, the highwayman would not dare to follow. We dropped to a walk that would give the horses a chance to breathe.

My stallion tossed his head, thankful for the gallop, and equally grateful for the easier road.

“Are we abandoning the rendezvous?” Ada asked quietly as we dismounted in front of our own stable.

“For today. My friends will have moved their camp away from the intruders.”

“But I thought they were expecting us. Wouldn't they place new directions for us?”

“No. Not until the outlaws have shown their hand to either settle in or move on in a day or so.” I urged my girl into the house, needing to put stout walls between us and the unwanted. Only this time the unwanted were
gorgí
and not the Rom.

Ish and I traveled quickly. Within an hour, perhaps a little longer—hard to tell time by the sun this close to the solstice when daylight stretched to past eight of the clock in the evening—we turned off the road onto a narrow path that quickly became overgrown, nearly impassable atop a horse. I silently signaled Ish to dismount and maintain quiet.

I led the way, holding back drooping branches and kicking aside dead underbrush piled alongside the narrow track and spilled over to inhibit or deter casual inspection. Not
patrins
, just enough deadfall to make the path look undisturbed. For about the thousandth time I thanked my practical sense that sometimes overrode fashion. I felt safer riding astride and wore knee breeches and tall boots as part of my riding habit—less fabric to get in the way or catch on reaching brambles.

Then suddenly the overgrowth retreated, and the path became more a lane.

“I come in peace,” I said, a little too loudly for casual conversation, but in a tone that would carry far in this green glade. Useless to proceed at this point. I spotted no clear path except back the way we'd come.

A giggle high among the branches off to my left alerted me to the presence of young watchers.

“Are you not afraid?” Ish asked, turning around and around, searching every shadow.

“No. If they'd wanted to harm us, they would have ambushed us back in the overgrowth where we had no maneuvering room.”

“You know these people well?”

“I have helped them many times in the past.” The smell of gunpowder and strong drink on men who blindly followed a French vicomte to murder an entire tribe of Rom filled my senses. I shuddered in remembered fear. I had to warn the innocent. I had to get them out of their sheltered glade and over the treacherous pass into Italy. Away from the French. Away from the Swiss, too.

Then I shook myself back into the present. “The Rom in turn have helped me more times than I can count.” Like that time with Ada. If they hadn't warned us with their
patrins
, we might have fallen prey to the highwayman and Ada's enemies.

“The Rom consider me among their wise elders and do not enforce upon me the restrictions they require of their own women. They have given me a secret Romany name, a masculinized version of one of their distant ancestors. I may not tell it to you, or anyone, except another Rom. And they do not use names much.”

Ah, a tiny shift of movement straight ahead. I led my horse in that direction. Ish stayed behind me, so close a less well-behaved mount would kick back at him and his own gelding.

A few yards beyond the next line of trees, the forest opened into a larger clearing that rose toward a knoll. A chuckling brook divided the open ground into neat halves. Our side of the running water sheltered horses and a few goats in a makeshift corral constructed of dead brush and brambles. The goats ate the brambles while the horses grazed the lush grass. Convenient rocks provided a ford across the creek, natural or placed, I could not tell. We left our mounts with a tall young man who hid his eyes beneath a snap-brim cap and balanced our way across fast running water toward the central campfire.