End of the Century (5 page)

Galaad took a ragged breath and tried to will himself to calm. “I'll try to start at the beginning. You see, two springs ago there was an accident, and I…” Galaad broke off, involuntarily reaching up and touching the scar that ran above his hairline, just above his right eye. “No,” he said, resolute. “That's not the beginning. I'll start again. It was last summer that I first saw her.”

“Saw who?” Lugh asked, his tone impatient.

“The White Lady,” Galaad answered. “At least, that's what I call her. At first I thought she was the Holy Mother, but then I began to suspect that perhaps she was instead one of the goddesses of our grandfathers. Perhaps she
was Ceridwen, who made the potion greal in her magic cauldron, on her island in the middle of a lake.” He shook his head, lips pursed as though he'd just eaten something distasteful. As a follower of the precepts of Pelagianism, he knew there were many paths to the divine, but still the thought of pagan goddesses contacting him made Galaad uneasy. “But perhaps it doesn't matter who she is, only what she is showing me.”

“So you see visions of a woman,” Artor said, his tone slow and deliberate, like one speaking to a child or an imbecile. “And she shows you things.” Galaad nodded, eagerly. “What things?”

Galaad closed his eyes for a moment, and he could see the vision before him, as clear and bright as if he saw it beneath the midday sun. The visions came at first only in his sleep, but in time had visited him in the waking hours of daylight, as well.

“It is a tower of glass,” he said, opening his eyes. “It sits atop a smooth-sided mound, round on one end and pointed the other, which is itself upon an island in the middle of a lake or sea, connected to the mainland by a spit of land.”

Artor nodded, his lips drawn into a line. “Go on.”

“The White Lady is within the tower,” Galaad continued. “I'm not sure how I know, but I do. And I feel that I must go there and help her, but I don't know why.”

“Help her?” Caradog looked at him askance. “Why does she require help, this imaginary woman of yours?”

“I don't know,” Galaad said. “I simply know that she requires help, and that I must give it to her.” He paused and took in the hostile glances from around the table. “She doesn't speak to me in words, you see. Only images. Only feelings.”

“I have a feeling,” Lugh said with a smile, lacing his fingers behind his head and leaning back. “I feel like you're a lunatic.”

Galaad's face burned with shame commingled with anger. He remembered others saying much the same thing, not long before. The townspeople of Glevum had whispered behind their hands as he passed, saying that his injury had done more than give him a scar, but cost him the use of his senses, as well. And his own wife, to whom he looked for support when everyone else
had turned their backs, had looked away, saying she wanted nothing more to do with him.

As laughter rippled around the table, Artor steepled his fingers and regarded Galaad thoughtfully.

“This island you speak of,” the High King said at last. “You say the hill is shaped like the bob on a mason's plumb line, yes? Round on one side and coming to a point on the other?”

Galaad nodded, dispirited, expecting some fresh mockery.

“I know of such a place.”

All eyes turned to the High King, and Galaad's mouth hung open, his jaw slack.

“Have you ever been in Dumnonia?” Artor asked.

“No, majesty.” Galaad shook his head.

“There is an island there just as you describe,” the High King went on. “I saw it years ago, when I was in the area with the forces of Ambrosius.”

“And was it then topped by a glass tower?” one of the captains asked.

“No,” Artor said, either not noticing the captain's ironic tone or choosing not to acknowledge it. “But in every other particular it coincides with this man's tale. The island is linked to the Dumnonian coast by a thin sliver of land, just as he says.”

“You're not suggesting that this man is telling the truth, are you?” Caradog asked, aghast.

Artor offered his counselor a smile. “Apparitions appearing to men of Powys? Towers of glass?” He shrugged. “It seems difficult to credit, to say the least.” He paused, and then turned his attentions back to Galaad. “But I'd like to hear more about this, still and all. Galaad, was it?”

Galaad nodded, eagerly, when he realized the High King was awaiting a response.

“You will stay here in the palace tonight as my guest. Does that suit you?”

Galaad gaped, and then quickly nodded his assent. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, majesty.”

“Good.” Artor rose to his feet and hung his sword once more at his belt. “Well, that's an end to it, gentles. I, for one, am starving.”

With that, the High King turned on his heel and retreated from the audience chamber.

Galaad stood stock still, unsure what to do, his hands gripped tightly on his bundle. Fortunate for him, as the rest of the captains filed out of the room, one of them, a tall, fair-haired man with clean-shaven cheek and chin, came to his rescue.

“Come along, then,” the man said in well-formed Latin. “Let's get you cleaned up.”

ONLY TWO WEEKS REMAINED
until the observance of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, and London already swelled with well-wishers and dignitaries from all across the empire. Sandford Blank and Roxanne Bonaventure gazed idly out the windows as the four-wheeled “growler” cab rumbled through the thronged streets, while the police constable sat opposite them, stone-faced and unspeaking.

The participants in the Jubilee procession, the jewel in the celebration's crown, had been gathering for weeks. The Colonial contingent were mostly encamped at Chelsea, while the premiers of the eleven self-governing colonies had been put up at the Cecil, the largest hotel in Europe. There were no rooms to let anywhere in the greater London area, nor would there be for weeks, even months, following the Jubilee.

The city, never provincial, had taken on an even more cosmopolitan feel in recent weeks, with the parks and cafés, music halls and theaters crowded with a Babel of a hundred tongues, the more sedate tones of London attire enlivened by the introduction of the colorful silks and linens. Sikh businessmen rubbed elbows with Chinese diplomats, while Malay ladies exotic and serene fluttered their long lashes at Australian cattle ranchers, and West African policemen far from their usual rounds walked the streets ill at ease in the first boots they had ever worn.

Union Flags fluttered from streetlamps and posts, draped from window
sills and awnings, and when the wind blew gave a sound like a flock of birds taking flight, the snapping flags closely approximating the flapping of wings. It had been ten years since the queen's Golden Jubilee, but if the preparations were any indication, this new celebration threatened to be even more ostentatious.

Blank remembered all too well the events of 1887, which seemed to him no more than a heartbeat before. He only hoped that the anniversary of the queen's sixtieth year on the throne cost him not as much, personally and professionally, as her fiftieth anniversary had done.

Finally, the Tower of London hove into view, its ever-present ravens starkly black against the morning sky, and the police constable called for the drive to stop.

As Blank helped Miss Bonaventure down from the cab, he noted that while the bascules of Tower Bridge were raised, the stairs leading to the elevated walkways overhead were closed to the public, blocked by one of their escort's brothers in arms. Blank could hardly imagine that it mattered, since in the short years since the bridge's opening virtually all of the foot traffic had remained on the ground while the bridge was raised, preferring to watch the bascules rise up and down to climbing the steps and crossing more quickly. But for whatever reason, the authorities did not want anyone to ascend, just now. He could only surmise that it had something to do with their summons from his house in York Place.

With that in mind, Blank did not wait for their escort to finish clambering down from the growler, but set off across the pavement towards the guarded steps with a will. Miss Bonaventure followed close behind, her heels dogged by the police constable as quickly as he was able. As it happened, their escort did not catch up with Blank until he'd reached the bridge, made his way through the crowd, and stopped just short of the steps leading to the elevated walkway.

“Sorry, sir,” said the constable barring their way, “but there's no admittance to the stairs, just now.”

“I shouldn't worry,” Blank said, smiling. “I expect you'll find your masters are expecting me.”

Just at that moment their escort huffed up, coming abreast of Blank and Miss Bonaventure, panting. “S'alright, Cogsgrove. This'n is Sandford Blank.”

The constable's eyes widened, and he took in Blank's appearance—gray coat, waistcoat, and trousers, bowler hat, and silver-topped cane, an orchid in his buttonhole—before finally stepping to one side. “Go on up, guv. They're waiting for you.”

Blank couldn't imagine what the constable had heard about him to elicit that sort of reaction, but he hoped it was down to the cases in which he'd been called to assist Her Majesty's Government, and not for the less savory aspects of his past which he hoped would remain hidden and forgot.

Miss Bonaventure in the lead, Blank following close behind, and their escort bringing up the rear, they mounted the stair.

The warm June wind whistled in their ears as they stepped out onto the western walkway, blowing through the white-painted girders of steel that formed the walls, a crisscrossed thatch of sturdy steel beams with large open spaces in between the intersections. To their left, a short distance off, was the eastern walkway. To their right snaked the River Thames, the Tower of London on one side, Southwark on the other. Ahead of them, under a tarp stained dark by the blood seeping through, was clearly the reason that they had been summoned.

Blank remembered another bridge, and other bodies. Watermen had loved “shooting the bridge,” riding under the old London Bridge at high tide, when the water level on one side could be as much as six feet higher than the downstream side. But it had been a dangerous pastime, to say the least. “The bridge is for wise men to cross over, and for fools to go under,” or so the popular saying of the day went. But old London Bridge had been pulled down long years ago, and Blank doubted that one in a hundred Londoners had ever heard that saying, or knew the stories behind it if they had.

Whatever had befallen the body under the bloodied tarp, Blank suspected it wasn't something likely to engender quaint and good-humored popular sayings, however quickly forgotten and lost to history.

There were two men standing just the other side of the body, one a stout, ruddy-faced Irishman with a full mustache, his hands folded behind his back, the other of a more delicate nature, holding a handkerchief over his nose and glancing with distaste at the bloodied tarp. Even if Blank hadn't recognized them at first glance, he would have known them in an instant as a policeman and a bureaucrat, respectively.

“Ah, Blank,” said William Melville, superintendent of the Metropolitan Police's Special Branch. While he apparently was striving for lighthearted, he could not entirely hide the tone of disapproval in his voice, and his expression of distaste on seeing Blank was a close cousin to the bureaucrat's sour look. “About time you made an appearance.”

“Sorry to keep you gentlemen waiting,” Blank said, having to raise his voice slightly to be heard over the whistling wind. He fingered the orchid at his coat's lapel. “I had the deuce of a time finding the right flower for the day. I'd thought to go with a lily, but they so often seem to give an unnecessarily funereal look, don't they?” He paused and glanced at the body that lay on the floor of the walkway between them. “There again, perhaps funereal would have been more appropriate to the day, at that.” He paused, and then tipped his bowler back on his head with the silver-chased top of his cane. “But where are my manners. You remember my associate, Miss Roxanne Bonaventure?”

Melville nodded in Miss Bonaventure's direction, dismissively. It was only after seeing Blank's gaze flicking meaningfully between himself and the bureaucrat at his side that Melville finally said, “Oh, yes, of course. Blank, this is Chalmers.” He nodded to the thin man behind the handkerchief, as though that was sufficient.

“Lionel Chalmers,” the thin man said, holding out a hand like a dead fish he was desperate to discard. Blank took the proffered hand. “I'm here representing the prime minister himself.”

“Oh, Salisbury, is it?” Blank smiled. “And how is old Bobby, at that?”

Chalmers bristled, brow furrowed at hearing his lord and master being referenced so casually, but refrained from making any comment. Which, Blank quickly surmised, said a great deal about the circumstances in which he now found himself.

“What's this about, Melville?” Blank was suddenly all business, his mannered pose of indifference, for the moment, abandoned.

He and Melville had had run-ins before, having met the first time during their separate investigations of the Torso Murders. The case had dragged out from 1887 through to 1889, without clear resolution. Blank did not doubt that Melville felt the sting of leaving the case unsolved, especially considering that the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, New Scotland Yard,
was built on the site of the unsolved Whitehall Mystery itself. But if Melville felt a sting, then what Blank felt was more like a gaping wound. It haunted him that he was never able to solve the Torso Murders, in all the years since. He was sure that, had he not been distracted momentarily from his responsibilities, allowed for a brief moment to feel that he could live as a normal man and give in to his hidden passions, then the case would have been solved, and sooner, and the nameless victims of the Torso Killer would have remained unharmed. As it was, they were anonymous, unknown, bodies found with head, arms, or legs severed and missing, discarded in the street like yesterday's rubbish. Five vicious murders, and then they'd stopped as suddenly as they'd begun.

He'd assuaged himself a bit with the knowledge that he'd soon afterwards solved the Whitechapel Ripper case—though in circumstances that the public could never know—but it came as cold comfort, if any. He had pledged never again to allow his personal appetites to distract himself from his responsibilities, and to date never had.

“Look, Blank,” Melville said, eyes narrowed, “it's not my decision that you be called in. If it were down to me, my boys'd take care of this business all on our own. But the P.M.”—Melville rolled his eyes towards Chalmers—“doesn't quite agree, and here we find ourselves.”

“As I'm sure we're all aware,” Chalmers said, sounding breathless despite his Eton accent, “the Queen's Jubilee Procession is scant days away, and the remit of Special Branch in this instance is to ensure the safety of the Queen herself, not be mired in the trivial investigation of…” His expression of distaste deepened, and he finished, “…sordid
murders
.”

Blank could see his point. About the queen and her procession, at any rate, if not perhaps the trivial nature of murder investigation. It had been nearly ten years to the day since Melville had covered himself in glory by foiling a plan by Irish nationalists to blow up Westminster Abbey while Queen Victoria attended a service of thanksgiving there during her Golden Jubilee. If he'd not been Irish, there was every chance he'd have ended up winning his spurs, but instead of a knighthood, he saw his Special Irish Branch rechristened simply Special Branch, and his charter expanded from protecting crown and country against Fenians, republican dynamiters, and
anarchists, to facing down all and sundry dangers to the empire. It had been four years since Melville was promoted to superintendent of Special Branch, raised up from the rank and file, and in that time he'd carried out his assigned office with vigor. It was a lofty height for the son of a baker and publican to reach, and Blank could see that Melville was ever mindful of his station and responsibilities.

“So it
is
murder, then?” Miss Bonaventure said, stifling a yawn. “I was beginning to wonder.”

Blank flashed her a quick smile, then turned back to lock eyes with Melville. “Miss Bonaventure is quite right. Shall we see what we were brought here to see, or will you let us get about our business?”

Melville's expression darkened, but he motioned for the constable who'd escorted them to flip back the tarp.

It took a moment for the shapes and curves to resolve themselves into a unified image. It seemed to Blank as if his mind were refusing to process the visual information his eyes were providing, but while his thoughts recoiled, his exterior betrayed no turmoil.

It was a woman, or rather was the partial remains of what had once been a woman. Both hands had been severed, and the head cut off, and all three were missing, nowhere in evidence.

Blank remembered another Jubilee, other bodies, and suddenly even a practiced indifference was out of the question.

Blank examined the body more closely. The cuts were clean and precise, skin, muscle, and bone sheared off in an even plane.