A Broom at the Masthead (The Drowned Books Book 1) (31 page)

That
was what Rupert thought, anyway, and seeing the older man's embarrassment and
distress at thinking himself the cause of such an incident, Russell was not of
a mind to argue. Of course that was what had happened. The hireling had
panicked, not unreasonably, and in his panic had misremembered his way, in the
dark, in the strange streets.

And
in the prince's own private apartments, it seemed so very likely. The whole
thing was just
odd
- that he was standing in his old enemy's personal
quarters, while a man he'd faced down across a battlefield and cordially
loathed twenty years ago fussed and fretted like some greying old mastiff,
muttering self-reproach. Rupert had wanted to summon his own personal physician
to examine Russell's ankle - unless, he said earnestly, Russell had his own
that he should prefer to consult? (To which Russell had murmured something
polite and non-committal, thinking of Luce Pettitt, and what he might say if summoned
at gone midnight on a wet November night to come to Westminster and poke his
friend in the ankle.)

Looking
at the supply of potions and nostrums scattered around, it was clear that
Rupert had a personal physician. One, if not several. Russell's ankle was not
broken, though it was badly sprained, and had it not been for the presence of
his wife he would have sworn more considerably than he did, having a prissy
gentlemen in a nightcap wrenching at it. It was also clear from the stained
linen covering the old wound on Rupert's bristly skull, and the faint scent of
rotten meat, that the prissy gentleman in the nightcap was perhaps not so
efficient as he might be.

He
was tired. He was getting old, and he was not used to being thrown around the
cobbles as much as he might have been twenty years ago, and he wanted nothing
more than to limp to his bed - a bed -
any
bed. Rupert had been very
apologetic about Thomazine's state of undress, and had been very courteous to
her with his eyes averted, which was somehow rather touching. Still, he was a
bachelor and not well-equipped with ladies' clothing, and so he had lent her a
vast silk brocade dressing-gown which had pooled about her feet, tall as she
was, and she had sat with her dirty bare feet tucked up underneath her in the
big carved chair by the fireside, with her chin on her hand and her hair in a
wild tangle about her face. (To Russell's sure and certain knowledge, Rupert
was very well-equipped indeed with a fairly intimate knowledge of ladies'
clothing and a number of mistresses with whom he was on very fond terms. But
perhaps that was a matter best left for another day.)

There
was a beautiful little French clock, all gilt and intricate traceries, on the
table, next to a blue and white Delftware bowl of cooling water and a pile of
fine linen patched with stains. It chimed the quarter hour, the half hour, the
hour...Russell could have willingly thrown it on the fire. It kept chiming. It
was relentless. And Thomazine was long in bed, and still Rupert would go on and
on, talking of the good old days. And it was sad, and Russell pitied him, that
he had no one else who would talk to him of those days when he had been a man
of fire and glory, and not an ageing, ailing man of letters living on memory.
It was sad. And Russell, who had been a man of fire and a little glory himself
in those days, and who was now a staid old married man with a throbbing ankle
and not an inch of his person that was neither scraped nor bruised, was just
plain weary, and he wanted to go to bed, and not re-live the great battle at
Edgehill.

Struggling
to keep his eyes open, in the stuffy warmth, half-numb with too much good
brandy, and he sat upright quite suddenly and said,
"Willis."

Rupert,
stopped short in the middle of an anecdote of some petty skirmish at some
bridge or another, blinked. "Was he there?"

"No.
Willis. Royal Society Willis. You mentioned him."

“I
had not realised you were interested in natural science, Major Russell? Perhaps
you would like to join one of the society’s lectures, at another time? Master
Willis is one of its founders, you know. He has done some fascinating work into
the brain –“

Thankful
Russell’s brain had ceased to function with any clarity about an hour ago.
“Tomorrow,” he said firmly, and rudely, and stood up. Being on the outside of
the better part of a pint of brandy, and having forgotten all about his
sprained ankle due to the numbing properties of same, he gave a yelp of
anguish.

Rupert
grinned. “Help yourself to a cane. I’ve a number. And - welcome to the society
of the walking wounded, major.” He raised his glass mockingly. “It only gets
better. Good night.”

56

He
got lost, of course, but there seemed to be silent and officious servants in
every corridor, and they were all very kind, and he was very aware that he’d
been rolling in the filth of some backstreet midden. Tap. Tap. Tap. Hobbling
along, slowly and painfully, trying not to crane his neck at the works of art
so casually displayed on the clean sky-blue and gilt walls amongst the
antiquated and downright bizarre weaponry – dear God, he’d never seen so many
paintings of ladies with their shifts off, and he a most respectable married
man, and he wasn’t sure whether it was entirely loyal to look, but he did
anyway, for the purpose of later comparison.

“Here
we are, sir. I’ll have a man bring you hot water and fresh linen in the
morning.”

“And,
ah, my wife?”

Which
embarrassed the servant not at all. He merely dropped his eyes in a knowing
manner, as if they were two men of the world who knew exactly what the other
was saying without a word being exchanged. “I’m sure something may be found,
sir. Good night.”

And
then departed as noiselessly as he’d come, leaving Russell wishing, most
fervently, for a length of twine with which he might later find his way back to
Rupert’s parlour, like Ariadne in the maze. (It
was
Ariadne he was
thinking of, he thought. Probably. She was definitely the one with the big ball
of string and the bare bubbies, painted in about twice life size at the top of
the stairs.)

“Thankful,
‘s that you?”

She
sounded all sleepy and cross, and did not sit up. He sat down, though, on the
bed with a thump, and she said something rude at him because he’d sat on her
foot.

“And
you
stink
of brandy,” she muttered, and then rolled over and looked up
at him through a red-amber curtain of loose hair. “Well? What did you
discover?”

He
yawned. “That I’ve no head for spirits?”

“Thankful!”

He
thought she might have hit him, but since everything hurt anyway, one more jab
in his much-abused ribs more or less was little hardship.

He
was fairly sure, after she curled herself up to his back under the blankets,
that she cursed him some more for taking over the warm patch in that vast
expanse of icy sheet, and having cold feet.

But
he was
very
sure she’d missed him. A while later, when she folded her
arms over his, about her middle, he lay there thinking that life was, actually,
rather wonderful. Would not be wonderful in the morning, but right now, right
this minute, he could have asked for nothing more.

57

He
was afraid, and that was a thing he had not been, of anything, in twenty years
and more. And he hated it, and more and more, he thought it was not coincidence
- that it was not, as he suspected Thomazine imagined and was too kind to say
to him, the black humour of a man who imagined slights where there were none,
and thought himself the object of every eye when he was not.

He
could not see how the things were connected. But there was starting to
be
a
pattern, of blood and fire, and of - of coincidence, if you could call a random
pattern a pattern. What he could not conceive was why some vengeful eye might
have chosen to light on
him
, save that he was wholly unremarkable.

And
twenty years ago he might have tossed his head, and said that it was proof of
his having been marked especially for the Lord's trials, to test his mettle.
And now, with - with
dependents
, damn it, with roots and ties and
obligations - he just tossed his head and said, under his breath, that if he
found the son-of-a-bitch who had hurt and frightened his wife, he was going to
skin them and roll their bleeding carcass in
salt
.

It
was personal. And the thought that someone had marked him as sufficient of a
man to be hurt and frightened, and not as a frigid automaton, frightened him
more than anything else.

She
was wan and a little forlorn this morning, and there was a bluish-yellow to her
skin like spoiled milk that he did not like. Not sick, not feverish, but
wanting sleep and wanting to be comforted; he could comfort her a little, but
not in Prince Rupert's lodgings, which were not home. Where you could not
whisper endearments without an echo, and where there were impassive servants in
every place you might consider being private with your wife. She had crumbled
her bread on her plate at breakfast and smiled nicely at the Prince, but her
eyes were heavy, and her mouth had a sweet downward curve. (He thought her
cheeks were thinner, too, and he did not care for that. He might have words
with this son of his, if the child was going to wear his mother to a pack-thread
before even his entry into the world.)

And
Rupert had precious little experience with breeding women of his own, which was
a petty and cruel consolation.

No,
he had spent most of the morning with his hand on the hilt of his sword - which
was stupid, when he thought about it. Stiffening at the rumble of carriage
wheels, for fear of a second attempt at their kidnap, although he had endorsed
Rupert's tale of the hireling taking fright for Thomazine's benefit. (She's
pregnant, Russell. A condition which affects her belly, not her brain. She will
not thank you for treating her as a child. Even so.) She hadn't believed him,
but she had feigned comfort by the pretence for his sake, and he had pretended
to be comforted by her unconvincing comfort, and so they lied to each other,
without words.

She
had not wanted him to see the great blue-black splash of bruising on her poor
flank, where the snapped stay-bone had stabbed her like a dagger. It had bled a
little, on her shift. He said nothing. He had suggested that she, perhaps,
leave off her pretence, and wear loose jackets.

"Then
all would know I am carrying your son," she said, and he wondered if she
knew her hand had gone to her belly, where the child did not yet show as any
more than a glow in the heart.

He
had been going to say that he did not mind, that he was proud, that he was the
happiest man alive: and then he looked at her shadowed green-gold eyes and he
understood her point.

He
had said nothing, had only kissed her gently, and she had clung to him a
little. But it was a little something else to add to his list of vengeance.
Thankful Russell was a great believer in meeting fire with fire. And
someone
was going to burn, for this work.

"And
this is my wife," Russell said proudly, and Thomazine gave a feeble smile
and allowed him to pull her forward.

Willis
was a sober, respectable, gentleman of prosperous appearance and intelligent
demeanour, the sort of kindly, trustworthy doctor that would see to a family of
the better sort, in a little country town. Neither too high nor too low, not
too plain and not too fashionable. He bowed politely over her hand and
Thomazine caught a glimpse of something dreadful on the elbow of his good black
coat, and her eyes flew to Russell's face in absolute horror.

Not
quite so much like a plain county-town doctor as he thought, then. Her Uncle
Luce was a sober and mostly-respectable medical man of prosperous appearance,
and Russell was fairly sure that he'd never been seen in public with the
contents of a man's brain-pan on his sleeve.

"Charmed,"
she said faintly, and looked at her husband instead, he being apparently easier
on the eye than a thing that looked like grey porridge.

Rupert
had not accompanied them. He had looked somewhat wan himself that morning,
picking at his breakfast like an ageing raven, peevish and sore. (He hadn't had
his wig on, either, and Thomazine had been hard pressed not to stare at his
close-cropped head. It was not a look she had ever taken to, she said
afterwards, and she had not the faintest idea why a man should choose to crop
himself like a convict in the name of vanity.) He had written them a note of
introduction to Dr Willis, and then he seemed relieved to be free of them.

It
was a relief to Russell too, to be fair, because he could not and would not be
comfortable in the apartments of a man who'd spent most of his gilded boyhood
attacking not only Russell himself, but his father-in-law and most of his
friends. He seemed very old - and he wasn't so much older than Thankful, but
being dark and sallow, he seemed that much more - well. Aged. Thomazine put her
hand his again, and he squeezed her fingers comfortingly, and then glanced down
at her, frowning slightly. "You all right, my tibber? Hands are
cold?"