But in this it had nothing on the dagger, which was a serpentine blade of watered steel, astonishingly sharp on both edges. This style had become necessary when some Italian fighters, more sophisticated than Johann would ever be, had learnt the trick of reaching out with one hand to grab the blade of the foe’s dagger. The tactic actually worked, if the grip was firm and the dagger’s blade was straight; but it was most inadvisable to try it with a dagger such as this one. At any rate, the hilts of this dagger and this rapier were comparatively simple: Renaissance rather than Barock, and a world away from Rokoko. The scabbards were as plain as they could be, being simple undecorated black leather. Johann had belted them on this morning. Round midday he had finally stopped whacking the huge scabbard against tables’ legs and funeral-guests’ ankles. Now he was using the dagger to harvest flowers.
The light now came predominantly from the orange western sky, not the direct rays of the sun. The bouquet had to be re-examined in this new light. Johann returned to Venus, sheathing the serpentine dagger with extreme caution, and devoted a few moments to sifting through the pile of blossoms he’d made. Then he looked back at the palace, more out of habit than hope. But he noticed that clear orange sky-light was now shining in one side of Caroline’s apartment and out the other. The sheers had been drawn back from the windows; she was on her way. In a panic—convinced, suddenly, that all his flower-hunting efforts had been misspent—Johann rummaged through his harvest and drew out a generous arm-load of flowers that caught his fancy. He left the remainder as a sacrifice to the love-goddess and began moving toward the compound of the Teufelsbaum in the comical gait of one who is trying to put distance behind him as quickly as possible without breaking into a run. For there was only one portal in the triangular fence that imprisoned the serpent-like tree, and it was a good distance from here; meanwhile a carriage had set out from the palace stables and was moving down the garden path at a healthy clip. God help him if he were late.
Johann reached the iron gate with some moments to spare and slipped through it into the realm of the Teufelsbaum, which was an hour deeper into twilight than the rest of the garden. Having passed through, he about-faced, thrust his head back out over the path, and turned it to look both ways, making sure that no evening stroller had seen him entering the place where the Princess would soon arrive for two hours’ silent and solitary meditation.
Satisfied that no one was there, he drew back and closed the gate, carefully, so as not to make a clang. And there he stood, at attention, in the pose of a musketeer at port arms, save that he cradled a bouquet instead of a weapon. Presently a single great draught-horse boomed around the corner, constrained between a pair of long stout carriage-poles, which led back to a little coach. The driver had a terse exchange of noises with the horse. The horse slowed, passed the gate, stopped, and then (for he’d gone a bit too far, and the driver was remonstrating) backed up until the carriage’s side door was aligned with the iron gate. Quelled, the driver now set the brake, perhaps showing an excess of prudence. Johann stepped forward and opened the iron gate. Then he reached up to unlatch the carriage’s side door.
He swung it open to reveal a pair of mastiffs.
Their eyes were rolling and bulging. Their nostrils were seething, as each was being straddled by a strong man with both hands clasped around its muzzle to keep it from barking. Johann stepped out of the way. The dogs were launched.
Neither Scylla nor Charybdis appeared to touch the ground until they were twenty feet inside the gate. They bounded into the Teufelsbaum, bashing branches out of the way like runaway gun-carriages. Only after they had disappeared did they think to bark, and then as an afterthought. These were not hunters, bred to bay. They were workers.
On the path that ran along the back of the plot, hooves were cantering—then they changed over to a gallop. Johann looked up to the intersection just in time to see the rider flash across drawing a cutlass. It was one of his Leipziger cousins. From the back of the Teufelsbaum came a welter of furious barking and a yelp of pain. The two dog-wranglers—Eliza’s footmen—dove out the open door and ran after the dogs. Johann dropped his bouquet, for it had served its purpose, and followed them. He thought of drawing his rapier, but it would get hung up in the unfathomable windings of those branches. So he drew his dagger instead, and transferred it to his right hand.
He need not have bothered. By the time he stumbled to the back fence, the matter had been concluded. One of the dogs—Johann could not tell them apart in this light—was back in the corner, attending to a long dark robe that had fallen to the ground. On the off chance that the garment was a foe, he was doing battle with it. And on the assumption that it was a vertebrate, he was shaking it back and forth in a bid to crack its spinal column like a bullwhip.
The other dog was being soothed and attended to by one of the footmen—this had suffered a diagonal gash across the muzzle, which was bleeding a lot, though it was not an especially serious wound.
The second footman was kneeling beside a man in a dark robe who lay sprawled on his stomach near the fence. This footman must have been a student of anatomy, for with both hands he was methodically driving a dagger with a foot-long blade into diverse carefully selected locations in the fallen man’s back.
The injured dog—which had reluctantly been squatting on its haunches—got up. But its legs were twitching and it could not remain standing. It fell onto its side and gagged convulsively.
Johann went over to the dead man—for he had to be called dead now, even if his heart were still beating—and picked up with great care a small dagger that lay on the ground near his right hand. He raised it up into a shaft of light that still pierced the branches. One edge was red, and glistening wet, with the dog’s blood; but the entire blade gleamed with a shiny brown coating glazed with an oily rainbow sheen.
“Don’t touch it,” said a familiar woman’s voice. “Some are absorbed through the skin.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“I CANNOT IMAGINE A STATE of affairs more awkward than this,” Eliza thought out loud. They were walking back toward the palace, she picking up her skirts and breaking into a run from time to time to keep up with his strides. Normally Johann was more considerate. This evening, his mind was elsewhere. She wanted it back.
“Two dead assassins in the Electress’s—I mean, the Elector’s garden? Yes, I should say so.”
It was only a few moments since they had witnessed the terminal moments of some unpleasantness in the canal. They were walking along one of the garden’s transverse paths, glancing to the right at every intersection, looking for a straight route back to the palace. Now suddenly they saw it sprawling against a purple and orange sky at a distance of some five hundred Johann-paces, or seven hundred of Eliza’s. Johann snapped the right turn like a soldier at drill, and stormed on.
“No, the hashishin are easily managed,” Eliza said. “One died in the woods, the other in the canal—we’ll say that the latter got drunk, fell in, and drowned. The former has already vanished.”
“Then what is so damned awkward about it? By your leave.”
Eliza let it be seen that she was exasperated. “Think, son. Spies are ubiquitous, obviously. But this spy works for the Jacobites, and he—or to be precise, his wife—is Caroline’s lady-in-waiting—”
“She can be replaced.”
“—and the declared mistress of George Augustus!”
“Again, Mother, almost the whole point of mistresses is that they may be hot-swapped.”
“Caroline says that her husband is quite infatuated with this Henrietta. Short of actually dragging the corpses of the hashishin into his Presence, it is difficult for me to see how we can get him to comprehend—”
“Pardon me for interrupting, Mother, but Caroline also says that Henrietta is unlikely to be the spy. So perhaps it is Harold Braithwaite we ought to be speaking of.”
Eliza did pardon the interruption, if only because she had to stop talking anyway to catch her breath.
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“They are married to each other, the Braithwaites are,” Eliza reminded her son, “joined together in God’s sight.” They had plunged out into the northern half of the garden, nearer the palace. This meant they’d emerged from a realm of higher trees, and deeper shadows, onto an open flat plain of clear light. A row of four rectangular pools stretched across their way. The water was perfectly smooth, and reflected the fiery colors of the heavens, creating an illusion that these were but Hell’s sky-lights, lit from below.
Johann had a ready answer to this, but he bit it off. Fifty more strides along, he said: “If spoken to in the right way he might elect to remove himself.”
“In a minor provincial court, who would mind such an arrangement? But when George Augustus is King of England, it will not be acceptable for his mistress’s husband to be permanently absent.”
“Very well, Mother, I agree with you! It is most awkward.” Johann spoke the last sentence sotto voce as they were drawing near to a couple of strolling courtiers—like Braithwaite, English Whigs who’d moved here recently to curry favor with the man they were gambling would be their next Sovereign. They had names and even titles; but for all that it really mattered, they could be called Smith and Jones.
“I beg your pardon, sirs, but have you any notions as to where I—we, rather—might find Mr. Braithwaite?”
“Yes, mein Herr, we spied him not a quarter of an hour ago, showing some French guests round the garden. They went to see the Maze,” said Smith.
“The Maze, now that is an excellent place for such an a-mazing fellow.”
“No,” said Jones, “I do believe that that is Mr. Braithwaite and his party, just yonder, bound for the other side of the garden.” He pointed to several men in black struggling across in front of the palace.
“Finished with the Maze so soon!” exclaimed Smith.
“I’m sure it is but a miserable imitation of the French labyrinths, and quite disappointing to his companions,” Johann said.
“They are going to the theatre, I’ll wager,” said Jones. “Oh, there is no play to-night. But they might be going to have a look round.”
“And who better to escort them than Mr. Braithwaite, who is an actor of note,” reflected Johann. “Mother, would you please go to the palace and relate all of the very latest gossip to our friend? She will be on tenterhooks.”
Eliza suddenly looked young, because uncertain. She glanced after Braithwaite.
“I shall be in with you momentarily, after I have spoken to Mr. Braithwaite concerning his travel plans.”
“Is Mr. Braithwaite to go on a journey?” asked Smith.
“A lengthy one, ’tis rumored,” Johann confirmed. “Mother? If you please?”
“If these two gentlemen would be so good as to accompany you—” Eliza suggested.
Smith and Jones exchanged a look. “Braithwaite is a merry sort of chap, he shan’t be offended if we cross paths with him—?” said Smith.
“I see no reason to suppose otherwise,” said Jones.
“Very well. I will see you in a quarter of an hour,” said Eliza, in adamant maternal style.
“Oh, Mama, it shall not even be that long.”
Eliza departed. Johann stood for a few moments, watching her go, then announced, distractedly: “Let’s to it. We are losing the light!”
“Er, why do you need light, my lord?” Smith inquired, after he had caught up, which took some exertion. Jones was already miles behind.
“Why, so that Mr. Braithwaite can see the going-away present that I will give him!”
THE GARDEN-THEATRE WAS A SLOPING rectangle of ground, walled in by hedges, and guarded by a picket line of white marble cherubs. These were charming in daylight but now took on the spectral, glabrous appearance of stillborns. A raised stage was at one end. Several of the French guests had climbed atop it and were amusing themselves with the trap-door. Braithwaite stood below the stage, in the orchestra, conversing with a man who like everyone else was dressed in black. But his clothing did not consist of the usual breeches, waistcoat, &c. but rather a ground-seeping cassock with a hundred silver buttons. As Johann drew nearer he recognized the man as Father Édouard de Gex, a Jesuit of noble birth, who’d figured into some of mother’s more disturbing Versailles anecdotes.
Johann stopped about ten paces short of this pair—close enough to interrupt their conversation. Bringing both hands together at his left flank, he gripped the junction of scabbard and baldric with his left, and the hilt of the rapier with his right. He drew the blade out a foot or so—enough to loosen it. But knowing the weapon was too long to pull free in a single movement, he then raised the whole rig—rapier, baldric, and scabbard—up in front of his face and lifted it clear of his shoulders. A sideways gesture sent the leather goods hurtling away into the cheap seats, leaving him free of all encumbrances, with exposed rapier in hand. His left hand was now free to draw the serpentine dagger as before. He stood squarely facing Braithwaite, dagger and rapier in front of him, both tips aimed at the hollow at the base of Braithwaite’s throat, knuckles down and backs of hands facing outwards, for Johann had been trained by Hungarians.
By this time Braithwaite, and all of the Frenchmen save one, had got their own swords half drawn—a cultivated reflex. De Gex had slipped his right hand into a slit-pocket in the breast of his cassock.
“Father de Gex,” Johann announced, “you shall not be needing whatever that is.”
De Gex’s hand dropped to his side. Johann made sure it was empty. “This is not a melee but a duel. Your presence is requested, padre; first, to act as Mr. Braithwaite’s second; after, to give him last rites. My second is one of these two gentlemen behind me; I care not which, and leave them to sort it out. If I should be struck by a meteorite during this combat, and killed, they will convey my apologies and my love to my mother.”
Johann guessed that he might have derived some low entertainment from observing the faces of Smith and of Jones at hearing this unexpected news; but having gone this far, he could not now remove his gaze from Braithwaite’s eyes until Braithwaite’s heart had stopped beating. De Gex uttered something that caused all of the Frenchmen to re-sheathe their swords. Then he said something rather different to Braithwaite; but Braithwaite remained frozen with his blade half out.
“Braithwaite! It is my prerogative as a gentleman to make you defend yourself with that weapon you are forever carrying around; will you please act like a gentleman, and draw it?”
“I propose tomorrow at dawn—”
“By which time you shall be where? Prague?”
“A proper duel is never conducted in haste—”
“This looks like dawn to me,” Johann answered. He could not even tell what language he was speaking now. He advanced a step, quickly, which finally prompted Braithwaite to draw his small-sword. Johann continued, “Dusk and dawn come so close to kissing at this time of year I never know which is which.”
Braithwaite had finally extracted his small-sword, and, with some assistance from de Gex, got himself disentangled from the scabbard and its strap-work. He got into a stance resembling Johann’s, but with the hand oddly curled under, in the English style. De Gex withdrew. Braithwaite had already cornered himself by standing with his back to the stage. Johann advanced. Braithwaite raised his weapon. Johann stung it out of the way with his dagger, put the tip of his rapier against Braithwaite’s solar plexus, shoved it in six inches, and then punched the hilt downward. Then he jerked it out, turned around, and walked back towards the palace where his mother and his sweetheart were waiting for him. “So much for awkward,” he said.
DANIEL WATERHOUSE REMOVED a handkerchief from his breast pocket, draped it over his hand, and used it to grip the handle of the assassin’s dagger. The weapon had been borne into the room—a servants’ pantry near Princess Caroline’s apartment—on a silver tray, like an hors d’ouevre. Daniel held it several inches above a candle, so that the blade split the current of warm air rising from the flame. Then he
leaned forward and got his beak into a position some distance above that. He gave the air the tiniest sniff, then recoiled and turned away from it. The dagger he set back on the tray, and the handkerchief he wadded up and threw into a cold fireplace in the corner of the pantry.
Johann could smell it now, too: an acrid, smoky reek that reminded him of something.
“Nicotine,” said Daniel.
“Never heard of it.”
“That may be, but you have some in you right now, if you have smoked a pipe in the last few hours.”
“That’s what the smell reminds me of, a bit—an old pipe-bowl that has never been cleaned out.”
“It is an extract of the tobacco plant. When I was your age, it was in vogue, among certain Fellows of the Royal Society, to prepare this poison and inflict it on small animals. It is soluble in oil. It is bitter—”
“You’ve tasted it?!”
“No, but persons who have, invariably remark on its bitterness before they stop breathing.”