Chapter 33 #2
Mr. Verling ducked into the kitchen to remove his apron and slip on his coat. He also paused in the butler’s room to retrieve a cloak. “Miss Sauber, your task is to distract Mr. Drydale and, more importantly, your aunt, so that they may not know we have left for as long as possible.”
Phoebe looked like she had been asked to clean the privy. “Why must I remain here with them?” She seemed more upset about the fact that she would be in the house with Lady Wynwood and Mr. Drydale as opposed to being excluded from their company.
Mr. Verling didn’t quite smile, but there was a mischievous glint in his eye. “Why, because Mr. Drydale has a soft spot for you. He is less likely to rant and rave quite so much at you as opposed to one of us.”
Phoebe began to sputter, but Mr. Verling added, “And if you would be so good as to make sandwiches while we are gone, I would be most grateful. Good day!”
And with that, he headed for the half-basement door, leaving Phoebe gaping like a fish.
It was still quite early in the morning, hours before the lords and ladies of the ton would rise from their beds after late-night revelries.
The same held true for the gentlemen who visited the discreet townhouses on the street.
It was the reason Keriah had chosen to leave at this hour.
She and Mr. Verling walked unobserved to a hackney stand nearby.
Rasken Hill lay on the far border of the Long Glades. Once the sun set, the area was a dangerous place, with the abundance of old, decrepit buildings forming a twisting warren of streets as dark as chimney shafts.
But in the daytime, it was like an old, tired woman, with the streets spreading out like sagging wrinkles, meandering here, ending abruptly there.
Keriah had asked Aya for directions to Lady Nola’s home, which was where the woman usually treated her patients.
The only exception had been when she was called to Brannon Church to tend to the wounds of any of Shepherd Willie’s men.
But after Jack killed the gang leader, his men could no longer be certain they would be treated at the church, and they had stopped going there.
Even with Aya’s instructions, Keriah found it difficult to find the correct building.
The houses on the street leaned upon one another like old soldiers too weary to stand alone.
The brickwork was cracked and mottled with soot, the small-paned windows begrimed, many of them stuffed with rags where the glass had broken long ago.
Strangely, there were signs of more recent, violent damage—cracks in plank doors as if a runaway cart had managed to slam into it, some glass windows recently broken with shards glittering on the stone beneath.
There was also a dark spot on the ground, nearly the size of a tablecloth from a round table, that smelled like rotting meat.
The sight made her pause for some reason. But between one breath and the next, the thought eluded her, and she continued following Mr. Verling down the street.
Lady Nola had no sign-board for her services. Aya had said that the herb woman’s house was distinguished by the picture of an herb carved into the wooden beam above the door, but all the houses on the street were blackened with soot and mold, and she could see nothing.
“It must be here,” Keriah said. “We followed Aya’s instructions carefully.”
“Then let us look again,” Mr. Verling said.
They went back down the street once more, and Mr. Verling reached up to scrub at the doorframes. Finally, at the fourth house from the end, he knocked off a large flake of soot, which revealed the dim outline of a plant roughly carved into the wood.
It was a squat little house pressed between two taller ones. Its upper windows were dark, missing several panes of glass, and the lower shutters were warped with age. A crooked chimney rose from the roof.
There was nothing to distinguish it from the other miserable dwellings—nothing but the faint, bitter scent of herbs drifting through the cracks around the frame. The door was a plain plank door, and the latch looked like it had once been broken and then inexpertly repaired.
Mr. Verling placed his hand on the latch, but Keriah stopped him. “Should we not knock?” she asked.
He glanced at the door, and then the closed window shutters next to it. “Yes, perhaps we should. This is not an apothecary shop, but apparently her home.” He rapped sharply on the door, which rattled.
There was no answer, neither did Keriah hear the sound of anyone crossing the wooden floor to answer their knock.
But Mr. Verling’s brow furrowed, and he tilted his head toward the door, listening intently. Without looking at her, he gestured for her to move behind him. “I shall enter first.”
He tried the latch, and although it stuck, the door eventually opened with a hideous screech that sounded like a dozen suffering cats.
The interior of the house was dark, and Keriah realized that their figures were silhouetted against the dim morning light outside, whereas they could see nothing within. Mr. Verling stood tall as he strode through the door.
There was a sudden sharp whistling, and then a thump!
Mr. Verling jerked to the side, while at the same time his arm swung back, forcefully pushing Keriah to the side along with him. She stumbled on her bad leg.
She recognized the sound—it had been that of a knife embedding itself into wood. She had thrown knives at targets often enough with Phoebe to recognize the sound.
Mr. Verling darted forward into the blackness. Keriah followed, glancing at the wooden door frame.
Sticking out of the wood was a short throwing knife, still quivering slightly from the impact.
Keriah swallowed, trying to force her eyes away from the sight. She had been behind Mr. Verling and slightly to the side. If he had not shoved her behind him, the knife would have buried itself in her skull.
The sound of footsteps receded toward the back of the house, Mr. Verling’s heavier steps chasing after. With her injured leg, Keriah wouldn’t be able to follow him, so she instead looked around the room.
She remained alert, as she had been trained, in case there was still another person in the room, but she was alone. The walls of the front room were covered with wooden shelving, upon which were crammed baskets of dried herbs and bottles containing more herbs, oils, and tinctures.
The smell was especially pungent as she stepped further inside, but rather than the slightly grassy medicinal smell of Dr. Shokes’s brother’s apothecary shop or Keriah’s aunt’s still room, the air in this room felt heavy with the stench of mold.
Keriah would guess that several of the ingredients on the shelves were spoiling but had not been replaced.
There was a badly stained rectangular table in the near corner next to a grate that was fitfully burning with a few dull coals. The scent of rot grew stronger as she stepped closer to the table, and she realized what the stains were.
In the far corner, another considerably cleaner table was cluttered with instruments she recognized—a mortar and pestle, earthenware bowls, wooden stirring spoons. The floor was thick with the debris swept off the worktable as well as dirt and dust that had accumulated.
There was an open doorway into another room with only a curtain across it, so Keriah gingerly moved aside the shabby piece of cloth and entered.
The room beyond was far more cluttered than the one where Lady Nola received her patients. A small hearth smoldered against the wall, an iron kettle set among the coals, and the air was thick with the sharp, bitter scent of herbs.
She nearly knocked her head into bundles of dried plants hanging from cords stretched beneath the low beams. Baskets of roots and tangled stems covered a rough table near the fire.
The back wall had a window with small glass panes, a bit cleaner than the front windows, which let in a thin wash of light.
Along another wall stood a narrow shelf crowded with earthenware jars and cloudy glass bottles stoppered with cork.
A narrow, badly warped door in the other corner likely led to stairs to the first floor.
There was a back door that stood open. It led to a cramped alley beyond, little more than a slit between the buildings, where broken barrels and coal bins crowded the shadows. She saw no sign of Mr. Verling or whomever he was chasing—she suspected it was Lady Nola.
She returned inside and paused. Keriah hadn’t noticed it when she first entered the back room, but a satchel lay on the floor against the far wall. A dark cloak had been roughly tossed on top of it, but the corner of the leather bag peeked out beneath the woolen folds.
Keriah removed the cloak and peered inside the opened bag. A dress of brown wool had been roughly shoved inside, which cushioned some dark glass bottles of tinctures scattered on top.
Lady Nola had been packing to leave.
There was the dim outline of roots in a dark jar which aroused her suspicions. Keriah opened it.
She smelled the Goldensuit even before she peered inside and saw the pale yellow roots in the jar. They were spindly and fine, unlike the thick, long roots of the healthy plants Phoebe had cultivated.
How in the world had Lady Nola procured a Goldensuit plant?
No, not a Goldensuit plant. A hybrid plant. Which meant she somehow stole it from Jack. She might have tried to grow it, but it died too quickly and she was forced to dry the roots rather than experimenting with the pollen.
Keriah then recalled the damage to the buildings on the street and realized why it had seemed familiar to her. She’d seen such battering after Mr. Coulton-Jones had turned into a Berserker.
Lady Nola had tried to make the Root. And yet, nothing had been even whispered about a Berserker in Rasken Hill.
She recalled the pool of blood. Perhaps, compared to the Long Glades, the residents of Rasken Hill had more efficient means of preventing such devastation.
Still holding the jar, Keriah walked to the back door and looked out.
The alley that ran behind the row of houses was so narrow that she was certain Mr. Verling’s shoulders would have brushed the sides.
It stank from refuse from a shared privy as well as some refuse that had been thrown down onto the muddy ground, and it was dim since the buildings blocked the morning light.
It emptied on either side onto streets, where she could see the occasional cart or pedestrian going past. She was about to duck her head back inside when she saw a figure appear at one end of the alleyway, and she recognized Mr. Verling.
He shook his head as he approached. “I lost sight of her.”
“Was it indeed Lady Nola?”
He paused. “I assume so. Older woman, but still spry on her feet. She wore a dark dress and a stained apron. She had no cloak or bonnet, but she wore a dirty mobcap.”
“Did you not see her face? Aya mentioned that there is a scar across her left eyebrow.”
He shook his head and followed Keriah back inside, closing the door behind him. “Did you find anything that might tell us where she would have gone?”
“There is no need.” She glanced down at the jar in her hands. “I’m fairly certain that Lady Nola will return.”