A Broom at the Masthead (The Drowned Books Book 1) (32 page)

"It
isn't the warmest," she agreed faintly. And how should it be? Because Dr
Willis chopped off the tops of hanged villains' skulls and stirred about the
insides with a spoon in here, and it must stink like a shambles, on a hot day,
and it was truly astonishing how much of an unladylike turn of speed the demure
Mistress Russell could put on in her fashionable borrowed skirts.

"We
had something of an accident yesterday evening," Russell said absently,
watching the door swing ponderously closed behind her. "Unsettled in her
stomach, poor maid. She didn't sleep well, either."

"I've
a colleague who'll see to her," Willis said, and left his cadaver with as
much good cheer as if he'd been getting up from his armchair to greet a guest.

"Sorry,"
Russell said to the flabby, bluish-white body on the table. Seemed rude not to.

It
did stink, mind, though it wasn't a smell he was likely to forget. Did know
what rotten blood smelt like, thank you. Had spent rather a lot of time after
the battle at Edgehill, with the scent of his own in his nostrils. And he had a
fairly good idea what it felt like, having your brains scrambled. From the
inside. He had every sympathy for the ne'er-do-well on the table, with his
greasy, hairy scalp peeled back like the shell of a boiled egg.

Willis
came back in, dusting his hands on his white linen apron like a grocer.
"There we go, major, your good lady all settled in the kitchen with my
housekeeper. They can have a lovely little coze while we talk of - what was
your interest, sir? Anatomy?"

"I
imagine," Russell said warily, because he wasn't quite sure what his
interest
was
.

Willis
nodded. "Poor soul," he said, and Russell had the disconcerting
impression the doctor was talking of the body on the table, and not Thomazine.
Advancing on the cadaver with an air of purpose, and a saw, and Russell winced.

Willis
glanced up, his eyes bright under fierce triangular brows. "It's all
right, major. He doesn't mind. He can't feel it, you know."

"I'm
sure. I - " and why not? Touched his fingers to the scar under his hair,
just above his ear. "Was shot in the head myself, after Naseby. I have a
degree of fellow-feeling."

"Ah?"

And
backed up a step sharply as Willis put his saw down and came for a closer look.
"There is nothing to see!" he yelped.

"Just
there, where the -? You intrigue me, sir. Pray, be seated."

Had
little choice, at a head taller than the good doctor, unless the man was likely
to provide himself with a mounting-block to poke at the dents in Russell's
skull. Which, ordinarily, pained him not at all, until the man started jabbing
his sharp fingers into the scar. "Any pain, sir? Tenderness?"

"Yes!"

"Ah,
I see why you have consulted me, then!" And the wretched leech was
actually reaching across the table for a pair of scissors, with every intent of
cropping Russell's hair to the skin for a better poke.

"It
hurts, sir, because you are pulling my hair! Kindly desist!" He yanked
himself free and glowered, panting, with most of his hair worked free from its
bindings and fallen in his eyes.

"Do
you suffer from the headache at all, I mean. Any disturbances in your vision,
or imbalance?"

Only,
he thought, after an evening with the indestructible Rupert. "Not in these
twenty years, doctor, and I am not here to discuss
my
anatomy."

"Such
a shame," Willis said, and his fingers lingered tenderly over the old scar
on Russell's head. "Would you consider -"

"No."

"In
the interests of science, you understand. It would be perfectly safe.
Fascinating -"

"
No!"

"Would
it not be astonishing were we able to see a man's bones, without harming
him?" Willis said longingly, and Russell, who was presently in possession
of those coveted bones, bridled.

"Indeed,
sir, but I happen to be using 'em at the moment!"

"Ah,
but Major." The doctor's eyes were bright with longing. "You would be
amazed, were I to reveal to you the secrets of the human frame."

"I
should probably be as sick as Thomazine," he said dryly. "But. It is,
indeed, of bones - and, possibly, of brains - that I wish to speak to
you."

"Then
you're in the right place, sir. Shall I call for some refreshment, if you don't
require a professional consultation?"

The
man was stark mad. No, that was untrue, he was
enthusiastic
.
Evangelical, even. Russell's experience of the human body was that it broke, far
too easily, but Thomas Willis was determined to demonstrate the beauty of a
man's inner workings, thinking he had found a fellow enthusiast. He had not. He
had found a man with a slightly stronger stomach than most who was capable of
looking on flayed scalps and opened heads without puking up his breakfast, and
that by the simple expedient of reciting the Acts of the Apostles from memory.

"I
am an
anatomist
," he said proudly, and Russell could only think,
no, you're a zealot.

The
circle of arteries at the base of the brain was his latest discovery.
Delightful. Russell was never going to eat blood pudding again. Or, possibly,
drink red wine.

The
clock was almost chiming the noonday hour, when the man finally ran out of
specimens. "My dear major," he said happily, "I hope I have been
of some help to you?"

"Surely,
sir. This - that -" he pointed at the convict's peeled skull - "what
might you tell, from a - a body? A corpus?"

The
doctor blinked at him, frowning. "What do you mean?"

"Well,
if someone were to be killed, unlawfully, and their body put into a fire, how
should you know? That they hadn't just died, I mean? By accident?"

Willis
gave him a reassuring smile, and tapped Russell on the side of the head.
"By the bone, sir. The secrets of the bones. A man whose neck is broken
-" he prodded the cadaver, and the flayed head wobbled rather horribly
-"the bone would remain broken, did you bury him, burn him, or hew him in
pieces. 'Tis a common misconception, that a fire will hide all. The soft flesh
may wither, major, but not the bone. Oh no, sir. No, major, only God's fire
will consume whole. Why do you ask?"

For
the first time, he thought of her with sympathy. If she had been alive, when
the house burned around her. She'd always been keen on the flames of hellfire,
had Fly, especially where other people were concerned. It had a certain black
irony, that Fly Coventry might have burned. He shook his head, trying to clear
the shadows. "My sister," he said, "she - died. I was
away." And thank God for that one bright mercy. "I was abroad,"
he said, and suddenly his eyes blurred and he had to put his hand on the table
to stay himself. "I was not there. There is talk, you see. That she,
perhaps, was -"

And
he loathed Fly, he'd hated her when she was alive and he hated her just as much
now she was dead, but he could not stop that picture in his head, of her, her
hair as pale as his own flaring out in strands of bright fire across the bare
boards, her cap spilled, her skirts starting to catch in traceries of flame -
"Was murdered," he said, in a strained voice that he did not
recognise. "It makes." The muscle in his scarred cheek was starting
to twitch again, a thing it had not done since he was married. "Makes my
wife. Fearful."

Willis
nodded, understandingly. "Of course."

Was
it Russell's imagination, or was the doctor looking at him oddly? Suspiciously?
"I wondered. You know."

It
was not a question. Willis raised an eyebrow. "Do I know what they say of
you, sir? I do. And yet you say you were overseas when your sister was
burned."

"I
was. I am - in addition to my duties as a soldier, which are light - I am
engaged in trade. I was about that business. I did not know I was to be
married, you see, I had no idea that she - that I -"

"You
have no need to convince me," Willis said gruffly, and Russell nodded.

"To
convince
myself
, perhaps. But I had no reason to wish her harm - she and
I had led wholly separate lives, for twenty years and more - I had not spoken
to her since the year of Naseby, when she asked me - told me - to come back and
play the man of the house in her widowhood."

"To
play?” Willis cocked his head, frowning. “You would not, truly, have held the
reins?"

He
laughed, for it still made him bitter. "An excellent metaphor, sir, though
I think an unwitting one. When a man mounts a horse, who holds charge - the
beast, though he may be the stronger, or the man with the bridle? No, sir, I
would have been in charge of nothing. I should have been her puppet, her
mouthpiece. I am not ashamed to own that, either. Death was the only thing that
could have broken a habit of twenty years' standing, whether it be hers or
mine. No - 'tis not her death I seek answers to."

Willis'
eyebrows raised. "You make a habit of it?"

"
Someone
would have it so. A watchman at the docks - strangled, and someone tried to
set the dock alight. A few ships were damaged, but the crew of my own - the
ship in which I have an interest, then - were, uh, celebrating their safe
return, and saw the fire, and raised the alarm."

"And
you were?"

"In
bed, quite blamelessly, and sick of a recurrent fever."

"Alone,
I assume."

"But
for my wife and the widow who keeps our lodgings, indeed. I am not accustomed
to make my illness a social occasion. So. Both times I have been elsewhere, and
both times the only people who can vouch for my innocence are people whose word
is not - wholly - unbiased. How, then, would I prove for sure that I had not
strangled Thomas Jephcott?"

It
was not one of his better mornings, strangling the life out of a corpse that
was already dead, and leaking fluid to prove it. In Russell's feeble, squalmish
opinion, Willis could simply have
told
him, and not sought to
demonstrate -

"
Nullius in verba
," Willis said happily, and applied his own strong
fingers to the livid bruises on the poor body's abused throat. "D'you
see?"

"What
am I looking for?"

"Put
your hands next to mine."

"I
thank you, no!"

"The
pattern of bruising, sir. Your hands are bigger than mine, and you have a
greater reach - being, as you see, taller. On the other hand, I flatter myself
that I am the stronger - experience of lifting dead weights, you might say -
and so the marks
my
fingers leave are deeper."

"That's
revolting," Russell said, quite involuntarily.

"And
anyway, you didn’t do it."

"Your
confidence heartens me, sir. On what evidence? The honesty of my
countenance?"

"Have
you ever been strangled, or throttled, or hanged, major?"

"I
am pleased to say, not being a felon, I have not!"

Willis
nodded, and then, quite without warning, lunged with his hands outstretched,
and grabbed Russell about the throat - quite gently, as it happened, but
sufficient to startle him. He broke a number of glasses and pieces of surgical
paraphernalia, he almost overturned the table, corpus and all, and he came
embarrassingly close to breaking Willis's nose.

And
when his heart had started beating again, and when the good doctor had finished
stanching his nose on a square of linen that had been used for God knows what
fell purpose, Russell yelped, "What the hell d'you do
that
for?"

Willis
looked smug. "What did you do?"

"I
damn' near pissed myself, sir!"

"You
went for my hands, major. As any man would." The doctor put his square,
workworn surgeon's hands up against Russell’s throat again. "You sought to
break my hold. And that, sir, that will leave a mark. If you throttle a man, he
will fight you. He will fight for his very life. It would have left marks on
your fingers, Major Russell. Bruises, at the least - the desperate clawings of
a man's fingers as he fights for breath. It is not a gentle death, sir, and I
would judge that your preferred mode of execution would be a little kinder. But
that
I could not prove. No, major, I can give you your evidence, for
what good it will do you. Your hands are quite clean."

58

She
raised her head as he came out of the room with Dr Willis on a waft of cold and
corruption. 

He
looked as if he may have regretted his breakfast, but he was radiant,
bloodstains and brain matter notwithstanding, and she found herself grinning at
him quite helplessly. And he wriggled back at her, almost imperceptibly, that
lovely happy-puppy twist of the shoulders that was his expression of joy.

Willis
was speaking to her, and she was nodding intelligently, and saying polite and
meaningless things, and all the time she wanted to say - what is it? What do
you
know
?

And
then they were out in the street, and she put her arm through his, and said, at
last, "
Well
?"

"I
did not do it," he said smugly.

"I
know that, Thankful!"

"So
does the doctor."

"
What
?"
She pulled her arm free and whirled to face him, much to the consternation of a
portly gentleman with a beribboned cane who was edging his way past. "What
do you - how did he - how can he
tell
?"

And
he held his hands up for her bemused inspection.

"My
hands are too big, tibber. Or too small, or something." He caught one of
her hands, and pressed his palm up against hers. "See? 'Tis a different
shape to yours."

"Obviously,
dear, but -"

"Then
it would leave different marks on a man. Would it not?"

"But
-"

"I
know, my tibber, I know, the man was done to death with a ribbon.
My
bloody
ribbon, damn it all, I was attached to that ribbon -" He was still cross
about it, too, and that tickled her, though she thought it should not, under
the circumstances - "but Thomazine, think on. Even those marks would be
linked to a man's shape and size, and as he assuredly was not me, they would
equally assuredly not correspond to my form. And besides." He was looking
smug again, and she shook her head, feeling very stupid. "A man would not
die so without a struggle. This is not a fitting conversation to have with my wife,
dear."

"I
don't understand?"

"Zee,
if I were to show you in the manner requested by Lady Talbot, I imagine people
would stare. If I were to put my hands about your throat - or a ribbon, or any
other instrument - you would struggle, and you would hurt me. Presumably, in
poor Master Jephcott's case, not sufficient to make the culprit desist in his
activity, but there it is. You would endeavour to break my hold, in order to
preserve your life."

"Yes?"

"And
my hands - my shins, in all probability," he said dryly, "would bear
the marks of it. A desperate man does not pull his blows, love."

She
remembered his pride, at setting in that row of nails the day the glazier had
mended the street window in their lodgings. He had been quite unreasonably
proud of the most uncharacteristic wholeness of his skin after a job of work,
and that was why she remembered it. A day - two days - after they said he'd
choked the life out of a man. Her heart jumped singing like a lark.