Goblin Moon (22 page)

“But be that as it may,” he continued, “the Duke (or
his secretary, writing on his behalf) goes on to say:
‘The internal organs, not only in their form and
complexity but in their location as well, bear an amazing
resemblance to human anatomy—far more than in dwarves or gnomes,
though not so marked as in fays or giants—yet for all that, there
was no evidence either to prove or disprove that the tissue had
ever quickened—or if it had, that the creature was (as you inform
me) an artificial creation and not a human fetus which had
naturally aborted due to its slight internal deformities. All this,
I feel obliged to point out, speaking as a scholar and a scientist.
Speaking as one gentleman to another, however, and as one who knows
you of old, I reject any suspicion of a deliberate deception on
your part and am ready to accept the mannikin you sent me as proof
positive that you have indeed unlocked the mysteries of ages past
and created a living creature by wholly artificial means. In
earnest of further support in the future, I send you . . . ‘
He sends me,” said Jenk, “a substantial sum of money, all in
gold.”

He unwound a cord that had been wrapped around the
mouth of the velvet bag, and emptied a shower of golden coins onto
the table, where they lay in a gleaming pile. “He makes but two
conditions, should I wish to obtain that future patronage:
‘Whatever other experiments you may currently
be engaged upon, you must not neglect this one. I am a wealthy man
and have little interest in any process which purports to change
lead into silver or gold, nor do I care for elixirs or precious
stones. The other condition is simply this: when the present
homunculus comes to term, you must send word to me at once.
Immediately thereafter, which is to say, as soon as traveling
conditions permit, you will admit my representative—one Baron
Vodni—to examine the results.’
“

“Well then,” said Caleb, with evident satisfaction,
“you’ve succeeded so far: you’ve gained the old Duke’s interest and
his gold. Now you can meet Jakob’s price and buy them tinctures,
and there shouldn’t be no more obstacles.”

“I wonder . . .” said Jenk, drawing up a stool and
sitting down on it. “I cannot help but wonder. Not only is the
letter written in another hand, but it is scarcely like the Duke to
write of sending a representative, when he might ask to view the
living homunculus himself.”

“The Duke is old and ailing; you said so yourself,”
Caleb reminded him. “It may be that he ain’t well enough to
travel.”

“But he might send for me,” said Jenk: “He might
inquire whether I am able to travel to the Wichtelberg, carrying
the homunculus with me. And as he is an old man and in feeble
health, I wonder that he expresses such a profound disinterest in
elixirs.”

Caleb shook his head. “The letter was sealed with the
Duke’s seal, delivered by the Duke’s man—and someone’s taken it
onto hisself to send you a good fair portion of the Duke’s gold.
You’ve gained yourself a generous patron, Gottfried; why not
content yourself with that?”

Jenk opened his mouth to reply, but a loud, impatient
pounding on the bookshop door distracted him. Caleb heaved himself
to his feet and went off to answer it.

He returned a few minutes later, scratching his head.
“It’s that foreign gentleman, Colonel Jolerei. He seems set on
speaking to you, for all I told him we was closed for the
holiday:”

“I will see him, then,” said Jenk. Rising to his
feet, he shrugged into his coat and went into the bookshop to greet
his visitor.

Colonel Jolerei was a sleek-looking individual in the
uniform of a Nordic cavalry officer. He wore his fair hair
unpowdered and tied back in a neat queue with a plain black ribbon.
He bowed stiffly when Jenk came into the room, and immediately
stated his business.

“The volumes we spoke of during my previous
visit—most particularly Catalana’s
Book of
Silences
—you have succeeded in finding them?” The Colonel
tapped a short riding whip impatiently against one highly polished
boot as he spoke.

“I am sorry that you were put to the trouble of
returning here,” said Jenk, removing his spectacles, “for it
appears that none of those books are to be had in Thornburg, or any
of the towns around. I shall, of course, continue the search. So if
you would be good enough to leave me your direction—“

“My address would be of no use—I do not remain in
Marstadtt much longer,” the Colonel interrupted him. “My regiment,
you understand, has been recalled to active duty.”

“Then perhaps you have some friend or relative in the
town, who would be willing to forward—“

“That will not be necessary. You do not have the
book; you say it cannot be obtained at the present time. I am as
likely to find the book in Nordmark, I think.” The foreigner bowed
curtly and turned to go; Jenk followed him to the door and bolted
it behind him.

He returned to the laboratory frowning thoughtfully.
“I should not like to think that the nature of our experiments were
common knowledge,” he told Caleb. “And yet I cannot but harbor a
suspicion. It seemed to me, when the Colonel called before, that he
had less interest in obtaining any books than in gauging my
reaction when he named some of the authors.”

“Then why did you ask him to come back for? Why did
you pretend you was going to look for them books?”

“Because if I had not, I might have aroused his
suspicion—as he must have feared to arouse mine, if he did not call
again. I fear that we have both wasted our time, for I am certainly
suspicious of him, and he appears to be equally distrustful of
me.”

Jenk sank down on the stool he had vacated earlier.
“Is it likely,” he asked, “that a man with such a pronounced limp
would be recalled to active duty, even in a Nordic cavalry
regiment?”

The candle in the single lanthorn hanging from the
ceiling began to flicker wildly. Caleb left his own seat, took up
another candle, and opened the glass case. “He had a sly look about
him, that I won’t deny. But who do you reckon it was that sent
him?” Caleb lit the new candle and snuffed out the old one.

“He looked entirely the gentleman to me,” said Jenk,
“and acted one, too, though his manner was somewhat abrupt. Yet I
had the feeling the whole time that I was in the presence of a
serpent. As to who sent him . . . perhaps one of the guilds caught
wind of our activities.”

“Not the Glassmakers!” Caleb protested. “I’d swear by
all the Powers, it weren’t Jed who blabbed.” He slammed the glass
case shut.

“I am far more inclined to suspect either Matthias or
Walther,” said Jenk. “And to do the Glassmakers no more than simple
justice, I doubt that a man such as Colonel Jolerei—who aroused in
both of us such an instinctive mistrust—would ever be admitted into
the inner circles of the Glassmakers’ Lodge.”

“Well, whosoever he was, and whosoever it was that
sent him, he didn’t learn nothing from you,” Caleb said. “You was
as cool as ice, and I’ll lay any wager he never suspected you had
the book right here in the shop the whole time.”

“We must hope not,” said Jenk. “But of course you are
right. If he had gained any inkling during his previous visit and
passed that information on to anyone else, someone would have
attempted to break into the shop long since and taken the book
either by force or by stealth.”

He shook his head and smiled a weary smile. “Perhaps
it is only that I am inclined to mistrust our current good fortune.
Our luck has turned on us so many times before, and now it all
appears to be going our way: the books, the homunculus, the Duke
and his gold.” He took one of the coins into his hand, held it
close to the lanthorn, so that it caught and reflected the light.
“And yet . . . why should we not finally come to good fortune,
after all the long years of struggle and regret?”

He came to a sudden decision. “I believe you are
right, Caleb. We should not ask too many questions, but simply
accept the gold. I shall take a few of these coins with me on the
morrow, and with them I shall purchase the tinctures. It may well
be that our luck
has
turned, for the
better this time, and that the Elixir and the stone Seramarias have
finally come within our grasp.”

Chapter
18

In which Sera appears at a considerable
Disadvantage.

It was Count Xebo’s custom, each year, to hold a
grand ball at some time early in the season of Ripening. For this
event, invitations were eagerly sought and eagerly awaited, for
Count Xebo’s ball was the focal point of the entire season.

This year, however, anticipation ran even higher than
usual, for in addition to the customary feasting and dancing, the
Count promised his guests an opportunity to view the splendid new
wax statues depicting the Nine Seasons, which he had recently
commissioned. Count Xebo was known to be a collector and a
connoisseur of wax; moreover, it was rumored that he had spent a
princely sum on these latest acquisitions, therefore an expectation
grew on the part of the Thornburg elite, that the new statues would
be truly extraordinary.

As might be expected, Clothilde Vorder was more than
willing to accept the Count’s intriguing invitation, while her
husband would have preferred a quiet evening at home, sequestered
in his study. But the lady carried her point—in part because Jarl
Skogsrå offered to escort the ladies home afterwards, offering the
reluctant Benjamin an early escape. So it was arranged that the
family would attend.

A pair of sedan chairs were ordered for eight, but
the ladies dressed early and assembled in the downstairs sitting
room at seven forty-five: Clothilde, imposing in diamonds and
purple satin; Elsie, as dainty as meadowflowers and twice as sweet,
in a gown consisting of layer upon layer of spangled tulle; and
Sera, in one of Clothilde’s cast-offs, cut down and remade to
fit.

Sera sat on a loveseat by the fireplace, utterly
dissatisfied with her own appearance. With a sigh, she spread out
the skirts of her gown. It was an excellent wine-colored watered
silk, trimmed with black lace, and still in good condition—but
decidedly matronly in color and cut, manifestly unsuitable for a
girl of eighteen. Compared to Elsie’s youthful freshness, Sera in
her heavy claret silk felt old and plain and dull.

Not that it’s entirely the fault
of the dress,
thought Sera.
I wish I had a
tenth of Elsie’s beauty! Here am I with these dreadful crow-colored
locks . . . and there is Elsie with her pure living gold. But I
think the difference between us might not be so very noticeable, if
only I had something attractive to wear.

That, however, would never happen while Sera lived
under Clothilde Vorder’s roof. Elsie was generous; she always
shared her fans, her lace mittens, her parasols, and her Mawbri
silk shawls. It was not her fault that Sera was too large to fit
into her dresses as well. But Cousin Clothilde seemed to take a
positive delight in playing up the contrast between them.
She might have given me the primrose satin—she
hasn’t worn it in years. It would have looked well with Elsie’s
white . . . but perhaps then Elsie’s gown would not have displayed
to such
particular
advantage.

“Dearest Sera,” said Elsie, sitting down beside her
and lifting a raven lock, “your hair is so thick and glossy, and
the color in your cheeks so ravishing, I vow you’ll be the
prettiest girl at the ball.”

Sera’s cheeks grew pinker still. How could she think
of envying Elsie—Elsie with her ill health and a thousand other
cares to plague her?
I am becoming so wicked, I
hardly know myself.

But before she could scold herself as she deserved,
the clock struck the hour and Cousin Benjamin appeared, languidly
announcing that the sedan chairs were at the door. The ladies
gathered up their fans and their shawls and followed him out of the
room.

The night was warm and the walk to Count Xebo’s
imposing grey mansion was not a long one, so Mistress Vorder and
Elsie traveled by chair. Though no conveyance had been ordered for
Sera, she was perfectly content to make the short trip on foot,
leaning on Cousin Benjamin’s arm.

Six footmen and two page-boys escorted them, the
pages to act as linkmen and carry torches, the footmen bearing the
long spiked poles known as “hobstickers” that were designed to fend
off marauding hobgoblins. Even though the moon was so small and
young, and there was no real danger of encountering any hobs, the
Vorder servants went armed—it was a matter (Cousin Clothilde liked
to say) of maintaining the family dignity.

As they climbed Thorn Hill, one of the men struck out
with his pole, skewering something small and grey that squeaked and
struggled at the end of the spike, then shuddered and went
completely still. Sera shuddered, too, though she knew the footman
had only spiked a rat. It seemed a bad beginning to the evening’s
entertainment.

Surrounded by gardens and high stone walls, the Xebo
mansion generally gave the impression of a walled fortress. But
tonight the heavy wrought-iron gates stood wide open, the grounds
glowed with a thousand tiny fairy-lanthorns, and it was possible
for the coaches and the chairs which brought the Count’s guests to
come directly up to the front steps.

A serving man carrying a lighted flambeau escorted
the Vorders to the door and admitted them into the lower hall.
Another led them up a curving onyx staircase and into the vast
glittering ball-room.

The two girls looked around them curiously, for
Elsie, at sixteen, had been out less than a year, and this was
their first time inside a ballroom. It was a magnificent chamber,
if somewhat oppressive.

The south and the east walls were all windows and
gilded stucco; the other two walls had been covered with mirrors.
The dance floor and the massive pillars supporting the roof were
black marble veined with gold, polished to a glassy brightness.
Crystal chandeliers suspended from the frescoed ceiling looked so
huge and so heavy, it seemed they must shortly come crashing down
by their very weight.