The Best of Penny Dread Tales (30 page)

Anne-Cathleen gripped the back of the bench to keep her hands from shaking. Under the fusillade of bullets and debris, the steamer’s crew cut the ropes holding them against the quay. The riverboat began to drift sluggishly away from the shore, the river’s current slow to take hold. Anne-Cathleen fancied that she could hear the mob’s roar, denied their chance to escape the city. A treacherous part of her sympathised with them, but for the grace of God, and Ábel’s love, went she.

All her sympathy disappeared with a single act of cold-hearted savagery.

A few people had tried to leap the growing gap between the dockside and the steamer’s low gunwale but had fallen short or were pushed off by the crew as they scrambled for purchase. That alone was a terrible sight, but worse followed. From somewhere within the mob’s press an oil lamp arced through the air, crashing against the steamer’s smoke stack. Burning oil rained down on the steamer’s wooden deck, and the crew turned in an instant from vengeful demons into panicking children.

Anne-Cathleen cried aloud, stunned as more burning torches and oil were thrown onto the riverboat. Such stupidity! Such violence and malevolence of spirit! Anne-Cathleen watched the crew fight the flames, beating with their jackets despite the heat that scorched their arms and faces. She heard in her mind their screams as they died, and the hateful laughter of the mob that had turned to murder out of spite.

Anne-Cathleen turned from the window, unable to watch anymore. The bounds of society and decency were falling away, and the wicked and lawless were boiling out of their rookeries and slums. Worse, Anne-Cathleen knew in her rational way that it was not just the criminal and the destitute that had killed the river men and cavorted in the streets. More terrible were the ordinary people, the clerks and linesmen and dockers that had seen the bonds of discipline fraying and chosen to give vent to their darkest emotions, freed from responsibility and consequence by the city’s impending doom.

The Ottomans had sealed the city and let terror do its work.

A loud hammering echoed through the house, making Anne-Cathleen jump. Her gaze jerked towards the study’s door at the sound, her mind conjuring a gang of housebreakers and cutthroats hammering at the entrance to her home. A tremor took hold of her hands, and reflexively she cast about herself for a weapon. Her hand brushed against the carpetbag, and she spun to look out of the window once more, the thick fabric’s rough touch pulling her senses back to the real. Anne-Cathleen looked down at the street and smiled involuntarily, and her hand grasped the leather handles of her bag.

Ábel stood beside a short two-horse trap, looked up at the face of the house, and his grim, earnest expression brought a surge of relief and happiness to her lips. He evidently did not see Anne-Cathleen at the window, for he stepped towards the house, disappearing from view beneath the portico’s roof. Another set of urgent blows rang through the house. Anne-Cathleen turned and ran from the drawing room.

The hallway beyond was dark, its lamps unlit. Anne-Cathleen ran unheeding to the staircase and plunged down. With each step she felt excitement swelling in her breast, the contending pressures of fear, anger, and self-pity evaporating as she came closer to the door, closer to the escape she had craved since long before the Ottomans had come.

She reached the bottom of the staircase and leapt the final stair, buoyed by unfamiliar joy. She crossed the parquet floor of the reception hall with quick strides and heaved open the stout oak door. Ábel was beyond, staring up at the townhouse’s face once again. He wore a long dark coat that fell to his knees, and in his hand was a pistol that he clutched tightly. A peaked tricorne concealed his bandaged brow.

At the sound of the door’s opening, he looked down and saw Anne-Cathleen. Their eyes met, and she smiled.

“Anne?” Her name carried across the hall, uttered by a thin, nasal voice.

Anne-Cathleen looked away from Ábel and stared at her husband. Gusztáv stood in the archway that led to his wing of the house, a red gown tied loosely about his midriff. He blinked, taking in her bag and coat. “What are you doing?” His tone was of curiosity, not anger, as if her were asking her why she wore blue instead of green to dinner.

Ábel reached out and took her hand. Without a word she stepped over the threshold of the house and ran. If Gusztáv protested, she did not hear him. Their boots kicked up the gravel path as she and Ábel ran hand in hand to the trap. Ábel leapt aboard and pulled Anne-Cathleen up beside him. She might have been laughing as Ábel took up the reins, standing up on the board as if he were a Hellenic charioteer, and with a snap of his wrists set the horses into motion. Anne-Cathleen’s bag tumbled from her grasp into the foot-well, unheeded. As the street moved past her she really did start to laugh, huge choking laughs that escaped her mouth as sobs. The doors and windows blurred as she saw the world through tears of joy.

They drove in silence, Ábel sternly fixed on manoeuvring the trap, Anne-Cathleen lost in a world of her own. The gleeful escape from the house, from her husband, replayed over and over in her mind. It was everything she had wished for, and yet it had been so simply done; a single step and she was free. Why had she not done it sooner? Perhaps she was as mad as the crowd at the dock, giving in to abandon and desire with her doom so close.

Ábel did not intrude on her thoughts and took the trap south, obliquely climbing Gellért Hill. As they passed the Mohács memorial park, the slope began to level out, and Ábel eased the horses’ pace. He worked stiff joints and sat down in the seat beside her.

Anne-Cathleen slipped a hand into his and kissed his cheek.

“Where are we going?”

A house we use in Újbuda,” Ábel replied. He took several deep breaths, though he seemed unaffected by the excitement rushing through Anne-Cathleen. He took his eyes from the road for a moment. “I am sorry, Anne.”

“What for?”

“Where we are going, it is not like you are used to. My comrades are not like the men you have known.”

“Are they all like you? Sterling, upright, with principles emblazoned upon their breasts?” Anne-Cathleen grinned girlishly at him. Ábel’s answer dampened her newfound cheerfulness.

“No. They are not like me.”

Ábel guided the horses around a corner. On their left, bounded by stone walls topped with iron rails, was a red brick townhouse of a size with Gusztáv’s. Gas-lamps fixed to the brickwork illuminated the darkness, revealing tall windows with veils drawn and ornamental bushes cut back severely against the house. Three men stood in the courtyard, dressed in the same long woollen overcoats as Ábel, all smoking thin cigars and sporting harsh, unshaven faces. Anne-Cathleen’s joyful mood wavered.

“You will be safe here, Anne,” Ábel said, “but you must do as I say.” Anne-Cathleen bridled but was confused by the sadness in his voice. Ábel turned the trap off the street and beneath an arched gatehouse that led into the courtyard. As a boy ran over to take the horses’ reins, Ábel looked over at her. “I did not want to bring you here.”

Gravel crunching underfoot, Ábel and Anne-Cathleen crossed the courtyard towards the townhouse’s open door. As they walked, Anne-Cathleen noticed Ábel carefully interposed himself between her and the huddle of smoking men. She fought the urge to grip his hand tighter and instead held fast to the straps of her carpet bag. She was off-balance and uncertain. The house loomed over her, a dark shape silhouetted against the night sky despite the flickering gas lamps. She could see nothing of the house’s interior. The windows that faced the street were dirty, and thick drapes concealed the rooms beyond.

As they reached the portico, a man emerged from the house and stood beneath the doorway. He wore shirtsleeves and braces, standing with exaggerated ease, arms crossed as he leaned against the doorjamb. Black hair streaked with grey fell in greasy ringlets about a lined, pugnacious face. His hands and face were streaked with oil, through which yellow teeth flashed in a predatory smile.

Ábel squeezed her hand as he caught sight of him. “I urge you, say nothing,” he whispered.

“My dear madam, welcome!” The man boomed, his voice echoing around the courtyard. “For the life of me I cannot think why it has taken Ábel so long to introduce us!” The man spoke atrocious French in a loud, mocking tone, waving his arms expansively in a derisive gesture of welcome.

Ábel kept walking, almost pulling Anne-Cathleen behind him. They pushed past the villainous man and into the house. He leered at her as she passed, making Anne-Cathleen squirm against Abel’s grip. “Oh, yes. Oh, you are a lucky lad,” he muttered. Ábel ignored him.

The receiving hall of the townhouse was much like Anne-Cathleen’s own. Not her own, she thought with a start; like Gusztáv’s. The same parquet floor extended out to the two wings of the house, although it was scuffed and ill maintained. A double staircase climbed each side of the hall, its carpet pattern hard to make out in the gloom. In place of the modern gasolier that lit the hall in her former home, a simple candelabrum hung from the ceiling, its few candles casting a wan light that served only to reveal the dirt and grime that would have shamed any home of hers. Men and women milled about the hall, all staring at her with the same grim, hostile look. A woman with grey hair sat in a thin rocking chair, holding a long and battered rifle.

Ábel headed towards the nearest wing of the staircase, towing Anne-Cathleen behind him. She started to ask something, but a curt “Be quiet!” from Ábel cowed her. She had never seen him so agitated, and the way he gripped her hand was frightening.

She followed him up the staircase and into a small, featureless room at the summit. As soon as she was inside, Ábel shut the door and leaned back against it.

“What is going on, Ábel?” Anne-Cathleen rounded on him, tossing her carpetbag onto an oddly ornate four-poster bed that filled the room. “Why have you brought me here? That man was vile; you should have struck anyone that spoke to me like that. This place is awful!” She spat the words at him, her uncertainty pouring out as anger.

Ábel, far from being chastised, replied in kind. “What do you want, Anne? Do you think I wanted you to see this?” He paced away from the door and sat down on the edge of the bed. Ábel rubbed his face with his hands. “In this world a man like me, with my convictions, cannot choose his comrades. And if you want to escape from here, from Budapest, you will be polite and silent around them.”

Anne-Cathleen glared at him. Before she could reply, the door swung open and a man of middling age and fine patrician features entered. Ábel sat up straight, and Anne-Cathleen unthinkingly stepped back a few paces to give him some space in the small room.

“Ah, Ábel. And good evening, Madam Béres.” Unlike the brute that had barred their way into the house, he spoke polite, if somewhat accented French, and held himself with a far less barbarian manner. He spoke in a way that suggested he was familiar with Anne-Cathleen, although she was sure they had never met.

“Rikárd. I did not expect you to be back.” Ábel sounded far from pleased to see him; if anything he was more anxious than ever.

“Neither did I, but Captain Watson was not in a conversational mood.”

“Is everything arranged?” asked Ábel. Anne-Cathleen watched him closely; it was as if Rikárd had Ábel in thrall.

“One berth on the
Artemis
, as agreed. The fee was extortionate.” His stare bored into Ábel, who did not meet his gaze. Rikárd turned to Anne-Cathleen. “I apologise, Madam, it must seem that we speak in riddles. Ábel spoke of your desire to escape our ill-fated city. Fortunately, we are in a position to help.”

“I am in your debt, sir,” said Anne-Cathleen carefully. “As to the question of payment, I will do what I can to compensate any expense you have gone to.”

“Your husband is famously wealthy, yes, I know.” Anne-Cathleen was taken aback. She tried to summon a response, but the words would not come. “I am afraid Sir Gusztáv’s money is of little use in these troubled times. We are more interested in his more tangible assets.”

Anne-Cathleen’s brow creased in confusion. “I do not understand.”

“Your husband is the Master of the Royal Armoury, Madam.” Rikárd said, his tone patronising. “He is the possessor of the city’s weapons, and for a long while we have had designs on his inventory.” Rikárd looked at Ábel, expression blank but eyes wrathful. “I had asked young Ábel to arrange for you to help us. I was very disappointed some weeks ago when he told me that you were … incorruptible.” Anne-Cathleen looked at Ábel, mute horror etched on her face.

“Ábel?”

He could not meet her eyes. She could not believe it, would not believe it. He had made her love him, manipulating her at the orders of this horrible, silver-tongued anarchist?

“I had no idea he had continued his little fling. When he came to us to ask that we help you, he was most contrite. He really does love you, you know. How does it feel to know that that first kiss was by my arrangement?”

Anne-Cathleen threw herself at Rikárd. Her fingernails caught his cheek, breaking the skin. She screamed obscenities as she flailed at him, hatred drowning out the aching sorrow that burned in her chest. She felt hands pull her away from Rikárd, and she turned on Ábel, whirling with a hand outstretched to land with a whip crack against his face.

He stood still, eyes wet but locked with hers. She started to speak, but all that came out was a low moan.

“Anne, I love-”—”

“No!” Anne-Cathleen screamed, another hand flashing at his face.

A pair of hands at her back shoved her forward, and she landed on her stomach on the bed. Ábel drew a fist back to strike Rikárd, but a venomous look made him stay his hand. Anne-Cathleen turned over and hugged her chest.

“You would do well to be more civil, Madam.” Rikárd lifted a hand to his cheek. Red stained his fingers. “It is only through my very generous nature that we will keep to the arrangement Ábel made and put you on the
Artemis
. Until the morning, you will stay here.”

Rikárd turned to leave, clutching his face. “Good night, Madam Béres.”