A Little Knowledge (37 page)

He called Amesbury’s mobile. “I’ve got a positive ID.”

“He’s in there now?”

Max could hear the emotion in the usually calm voice. “Amesbury, you’re going to go back to Cambridge House and wait for me there. Do you understand?” There was a pause. “If you go in there now, you will be at risk. He will Charm you again, and you will make the arrest very difficult. Keep control of yourself. I will bring the one responsible to justice, but only if you don’t interfere.”

“I understand,” Amesbury replied, sounding more like himself. “I’ll call you when I’m back at Cambridge House.”

Max ended the call and kept watching the office. Now it wasn’t just a matter of observing the relationship between the Iris and the police chief, it was also to check that Amesbury hadn’t lost his reason and gone storming in. This was why he needed another Arbiter on his team.

Twenty minutes later there was no sign of anyone else in the office and then he got the call confirming that Amesbury had indeed done what he’d promised. When Max tried to confirm through the gargoyle’s eyes, he discovered it wasn’t in the office anymore and was sniffing around Victoria Park. Probably looking for the bench Kay was talking about. Max couldn’t fathom why; it bore no relevance to either of his investigations and a dedication on a piece of public furniture was hardly anything of note. When he was done with the Iris, he would have to have a conversation with it. He couldn’t afford to have the gargoyle wandering off whenever it felt like it. No wonder the Chapter used to keep the souls in jars.

At half past eight, the chief constable and Mr Iris parted ways, the police chief locking up the office after himself. Mr Iris left the building and walked back down the street he had come from earlier. Once the police chief left the building, Max abandoned his position, stretching out his leg which ached from being cold and still for so long.

He left the carpark, heading for an alleyway to cut through to the centre of town along a different route from the Iris. No doubt they had the same intention: to get to a place that was reflected into Aquae Sulis and open a Way to get to the Nether city.

Max took his time, giving his leg a chance to loosen up, as he knew exactly where Mr Iris lived. He hobbled to the top of Lansdown Road until he reached one of the Peonia properties. He used their garden wall to access the Nether, left their garden as quickly as he’d arrived, and then walked down the hill in Aquae Sulis, believing it was no bad thing for any puppets out strolling that evening to see an Arbiter keeping an eye on things.

A few couples were out, walking arm in arm towards Lunn’s or some restaurant, or other puppet’s houses. He didn’t care, ignoring them as he steadily made his way to the Royal Crescent. People crossed the road to avoid him, looking anywhere but at him. Carriages passed, either with faces pressed to the windows, staring fearfully, or with curtains rapidly drawn to block the sight of him from those with delicate dispositions.

Reaching the edge of the Crescent, he paused to identify the correct door and then headed towards it. The building’s sandstone was dull beneath the silver sky; behind him was the landscaped hill that dropped down away from the Crescent, giving views over greenery for the innocents of Mundanus, which simply gave way to the silvery mists as if the place were in an island of permanent fog.

He knocked on the door of number one. The Iris residence took up half of the Crescent, with the other half rented to the Lavandulas so that they might house guests to the city in one of its most admired locations.

A butler answered the door, pausing very briefly as he took in the sight of an Arbiter on the doorstep before bowing. “Good evening, Mr Arbiter. How may I help you?”

“I’m here to see Mr George Reticulata-Iris.”

“I see, sir. Please come in. May I take your coat and hat?”

“No.” Max stepped into the entrance hall and the door was shut behind him. It was the typical Georgian decor he had expected, along with the predictable vase of iris flowers arranged in a prominent place for all to see as soon as they arrived.

“If you’d like to follow me, you can wait in the drawing room whilst I inform Mr Iris that you are here.”

“I’ll wait here.” He had no interest in a sofa and drink as he waited.

The butler nodded and left, going up the stairs at a brisk pace. There was the usual sound of the news passing through the household, resulting in the running of feet upstairs—probably a maid who’d never seen an Arbiter before—and a few doors slamming. Sure enough, the face of a young woman peered over the balustrade at the top of the stairs, a lace maid’s cap framing her round face. She gasped when he looked up at her, and pulled back, then he heard the same footsteps running back in the direction they’d come from.

More footsteps, and then Mrs Reticulata-Iris arrived at the top of the stairs, dressed in a gold evening gown. “Good evening, Mr Arbiter. I’m sorry for the delay, but my husband was dressing for an engagement when you arrived. He’s just making himself presentable.”

Max nodded. At least he wasn’t trying to climb out of a window, as had happened on a few occasions during his career. He didn’t expect anything like that from someone so prominent in the city, however. Even though he had more to lose, Mr Iris undoubtedly had more arrogance.

Mrs Iris came down the stairs, smiling at him all the way, as if he were a tradesman waiting to be paid who didn’t have the manners to wait in the servants’ wing. She paused next to a mirror at the foot of the stairs, checked the position of her necklace, and then adjusted one of the irises in the vase.

“Have you been offered refreshments?”

“No, but I’m not in need of any.”

“I do apologise; I imagine poor Jones was caught off balance by your arrival. Ah, I think that’s my husband now.”

Mr Iris arrived at the top of the stairs, dressed in white tie, adjusting a cufflink. “Good evening, Mr Arbiter,” he said as he came down the stairs. “How may I help you?”

Max was about to launch into his arrest, but as he’d waited, he’d considered his next move more carefully. Someone so high-profile would have the favour of his Patroon, and he needed to be able to present irrefutable evidence to push for a harsher punishment than might be given in the event of doubt.

“Mr Iris, I need you to show me your arms.”

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“Take off your tailcoat and roll up your sleeves.”

He noted how the man’s lips paled.

“What is the meaning of this?” Mrs Iris asked.

“If you do not cooperate, I shall be forced to take you into custody,” Max said.

“Do it, George!” she said. “There must have been a silly mistake. There’s nothing wrong with your arms! Are you looking for a birthmark? He doesn’t have any!”

“Anna-Marie,” Iris hissed. “Do be quiet, woman!” He shrugged off his tailcoat, gave it to his wife, and then undid the left-hand cufflink to roll up the sleeve of his shirt. He held out his arm, turning it to show the underside, and looked at Max. “There, nothing to see.”

“And the other one.”

“This is so humiliating,” Mrs Iris whispered. “Can’t we at least do this in the drawing room, Mr Arbiter?”

“No.”

Mr Iris fumbled with the other cufflink, either stalling or too nervous to remove it quickly, but eventually he pulled the sleeve up, his face now very pale.

A lurid purple scar ran from his wrist, up his forearm, and stopped near his elbow. It had been stitched, judging from the marks either side of it, and it matched the location mentioned in Lord Iron’s file. As Max suspected, no Charms of the Fae could perfectly heal a wound made by Lord Iron’s blade.

“See! Nothing at all!” Mrs Iris said, rather shrill. “Now can we please be left alone. We’re going to be late.”

Mr Iris stared at Max, seeing that the glamour hadn’t worked on the Arbiter. He closed his eyes, a sheen of sweat covering his brow. Slowly, he let the sleeve drop and replaced the cufflink.

“George Reticulata-Iris, in accordance with the Split Worlds Treaty and with the sanction of the Sorcerer Guardian of the Kingdom of Wessex, I’m taking you into custody.”

“But whatever for?” Mrs Iris shrieked. “There was nothing on his arm!”

Mr Iris took the tailcoat from her and shrugged it on, tugging the ends of his sleeves into place. “Now, don’t make a fuss,” he said to his wife. “Tell the Lavandulas I’ve been called to help the Arbiter with his enquiries and regrettably, we won’t be able to attend this evening.” Seeing the tears in her eyes, he held up a finger. “Now, now. No silliness. Go and send the note. I will be back as soon as I can.”

She hurried off, bursting into tears once she was out of sight, as Mr Iris smoothed his waistcoat and checked his cravat in the mirror. Satisfied that he looked presentable, he turned to Max. “Well then, Mr Arbiter. Time to go, I believe.”

Tom watched Cathy stare out of the window into the mists. She looked shaken and occasionally tearful, but was quieter than he’d expected.

“Don’t you want to know what I’ve arrested her for?”

Cathy looked at him. “Does it matter?”

What an odd response. “She’s the one behind those awful pamphlets. I thought it was you.”

Cathy smirked. “That’s why you were investigating it? To get one over on me?”

How did she do that? How did she make him furious with so few words? “Blast it all, Cat, you really are insufferable. I wanted to get it squared away before the Patroons came after you. They were getting close when I found Rainer.”

“Incredible, the things men do to protect women,” she muttered. “I’m sure it wasn’t all altruistic.”

“Why are you being like this? You must have seen one of those disgusting things. They were being read by young ladies, Cat.”

“I did see one of them, yes,” Cathy said, fiery again. “And I thought it was bloody brilliant. There’s nothing disgusting about educating a woman about her own body.”

“It wasn’t just biology, as if that weren’t distasteful enough!”

“Oh, Tom! You’re such a bloody prude. That pamphlet was empowering. Girls get married off without having a clue about what’s going to happen to them. If I hadn’t gone to university, I’d have been the same. Mother didn’t tell me a thing—she just drugged me and shoved me in a carriage! Girls have the right to be informed!”

“It was seditious material.”

“Seditious? Bollocks!”

“Catherine, I simply cannot bear it when you talk like a common mundane. You’re the Duchess of Londinium, for goodness’ sake! Why must you cling to their way of speech? It’s such a crude affectation.”

She was stunned into silence. He savoured it.

“How was that material seditious?”

“It encouraged young women to question the wisdom of accepting their natural place in Society. It contained information on birth control! Encouraging unnatural behaviour threatens the peace and stability of Society.”

“Unnatural behaviour? Is that what you call a woman having the right to choose when to—”

“I am not going to have an argument with you about this. I simply cannot bear any more of it.”

“More? We’ve never talked about it.” She peered at him. “Did Lucy read one of those pamphlets?”

He looked out of the other window.

“Shit! That’s why you’re so upset about it! How dare your wife be educated, eh?”

“Be quiet!”

“Did she start to ask difficult questions? Not so keen to just accept it all without complaint?”

“Cat, I’m warning you—”

“Is it harder to keep her happy now she knows what—”

“God damn it, Catherine, she knew it all already!” He tried not to blush at the memory of the night he’d found the pamphlet. “They do things differently in the colonies,” he added.

“No wonder they want to declare independence,” Cathy said. “They must think we’re a bunch of backward idiots!”

He frowned at her. “Independence?”

Cathy pressed her lips together. Under the pressure of his stare, she sighed. “The Princess of Rajkot delivered a message to our household when I was…indisposed. They’ve declared independence from Albion. Rajkot is no more. It’s Gujarat now.”

Tom closed his mouth, realising it had dropped open. “And did she mention the American colonies?”

Cathy nodded. “According to Morgan. But it’s all secondhand information.” She waved a hand, trying to fool him into thinking it was unimportant. “Anyway, that’s for Will to worry about.”

He raised an eyebrow at her bluff. “Happy to pass it on to your husband when it suits you, eh?”

She blushed at that. “Shut up.”

Tom made a mental note to raise the issue with the Duke. And his wife, for that matter. Though whether Lucy would tell him of any plans within her family to break away from Albion’s rule was another matter entirely. Surely they wouldn’t have married their daughter into a prominent Albion family if they planned to break away.

“How did you find her?” he asked after a while.

Cat, still guarded, had the wherewithal to look innocent. “Who?”

“I’m not a complete buffoon, Cat. We hear nothing of Miss Rainer for years and then, mere weeks after you became Duchess, I find her at the centre of a network distributing dangerous material that bears an uncanny resemblance to some of the opinions you’ve expressed to me. She says she’s been acting alone but someone is funding her. It’s you, isn’t it?”

“Where are we going?” she said, evading the question with one of her own.

“The Tower. She’s in one of the cells there.”

Her pained expression touched something in him too. It had been hard putting his former governess into that cold stone room and locking the door. She’d been nothing but kind to him as a child.

“She hasn’t been mistreated,” he said. “I’m not a monster, Cat.”

“But we both know you’re prepared to do terrible things when you have to.”

“Bringing you home was far from terrible! You shouldn’t have run away in the first place!”

Cathy glared at him but didn’t talk back. Was she learning restraint at last? “What will happen to her?”

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether she cooperates. I have to root out the funding, Cat. I have to. If I leave any loose ends it’s my and the Duke’s necks on the line. She was operating from a London printer. It’s on our patch.”