Chapter 5 #2
“And so, have you made progress on the Blood Nectar? As I recall, Jack sent several new hybrid plants to you just before he was captured, which was over three weeks ago.”
“I have made some progress.”
Maxham heard Ward’s elevated heart rate and knew that he was lying. While he needed the doctor to continue to believe that he held control over him, he was also not an unpaid servant.
Before he could speak, they both heard the tapping of shoes on the wooden floor. Someone was … skipping up the stairs. Maxham knew it could only be one person.
He was correct. Within moments, Jack swung open the door to Maxham’s apartments without knocking. “Oh, is that tea?”
Maxham had forgotten he had set the kettle to boiling—it was hissing and steaming, with droplets popping on the coals. He warmed the teapot with a splash of water, then scooped in some (cheaper) tea before pouring in more water for the tea to steep.
Jack took one of the empty earthenware cups and sat in Maxham’s chair.
He opened a metal flask from his coat pocket and poured into the cup a stream of liquid that immediately filled the space with fumes that smelled like someone had tried to turn a potato into poison.
“So, Wardy-boy, you’ve made progress, have you? ” Jack asked.
Jack must have overheard them as he twirled up the stairs.
“Are you mocking me?” Ward answered, which wasn’t an answer at all.
“Jack and I have provided a variety of plants, and blood, and a great deal of money,” Maxham said. “We are merely ensuring we will receive a return on what we have invested.”
“I hope you’re not merely playing around in your laboratory,” Jack drawled between sips.
Ward drew himself up in outrage. “I am hardly playing?—!”
“Then you understand that we require results, else we shall lose everything.” Maxham poured the steeped tea. “Not simply myself and Jack, but also you and Lizabeth.”
“Are you threatening me and my wife? Lest you forget, I am the only person in this entire world who can create the Blood Nectar. You would do well to watch your tone.”
Maxham’s entire body grew cold, as if he had become a statue of ice. He leveled a frigid glare at Ward. “What shall you do if Jack and I do not supply you with Goldensuit and with blood? The two of us can survive on the Root for quite some time.”
“But not forever,” Ward sneered at him.
“That is true.” Jack was a terrible chemist, but under Dr. Heddetch’s guidance, they had done extensive testing of the Root potion when he first created it.
Maxham and Jack had been hoping for an alternative to the Blood Nectar.
Alas, it was not to be—men given the Blood Nectar first and then the Root thereafter steadily declined in health until they went mad or died abruptly.
Ward began to smirk at him until Jack said, “But since the Blood Nectar cannot be stored for very long, we know that you will die first.”
The doctor stiffened, but then hid his reaction with a scowl. “I can only work so quickly. If Jack would provide me with more hybrids to test?—”
It was the same argument he had made several times before. Maxham’s temper twanged like a string pulled taut. “What evidence do you have that it is the Goldensuit that will enable the Blood Nectar to last longer before rotting?” Maxham asked.
At the same time, Jack snapped, “How do you know that the type of Goldensuit will make a difference? What if it is the recipe?”
“You and the doctor tested different hybrids quite extensively, if I recall.” Maxham knew that mention of the doctor would enrage Ward.
The young man’s face tightened as if he would snarl and bite at Maxham. “More tests can still be performed?—”
Maxham sighed. “Just so you are aware, Theobald, currently we have enough funds for half a year. You have that long to perfect the Blood Nectar.”
“I thought Jack had his wonderful new plan to make us some money,” Ward retorted.
“As I recall, you’ve been against it since I proposed it,” Jack said snidely.
“Well, I cannot promise to provide a lasting version within only six months!”
Maxham interjected in as calm a voice as he could, “Ward, calm yourself. Jack, hold your tongue. While Napoleon has indicated interest in the Root, we have yet to receive the first payment, since he wishes to see the proof of its power. And that first payment is needed to increase the number of hybrid plants and the blood needed to create enough vials to give to them.”
“Blood?” Ward objected. “You only need a small amount for the Root potion.”
“It may be a small amount, but it is still necessary,” Maxham said.
“So you still only have six months, Wardy-boy,” Jack said.
“Be quiet,” Ward flared at him. He took a breath, attempting to rein in his emotions.
His hands smoothed the front of his elaborately embroidered waistcoat and then reached up to smooth his hair, which was unnecessary because his riotous curls had been ruthlessly restrained with pomatum.
“Very well,” he said stiffly. “I shall test how long the Blood Nectar retains its freshness when I return to my country laboratory. Now, where are Bianca’s notebooks? ”
The way that he carelessly tried to reassure them made Maxham almost certain that Ward had not been putting any thought or effort at all into making a longer-lasting potion.
It angered him because Jadis and Mifflin had left a great deal of valuable information, as well as sacks of gold, in the greenhouse in France.
Ward’s focused pursuit of his own goals was beginning to become a hindrance to them all.
As he had felt many times in the past few years, he was thankful he had thought to arrange for the development of his own Blood Nectar potion in the Colonies. He was certain Jack was also trying to adjust his Root recipe to bring it closer to the Blood Nectar.
Jack had likely also guessed that Ward was not adjusting the recipe as he was supposed to be doing, because his voice was low, like a beast’s growl, when he said, “Maybe we should hold the notebooks until we get that improved Blood Nectar.”
Ward exploded—not simply with anger, but also with disbelief that they were challenging his superior position in the Citadel, and a faint thread of panic that they had the gall to do so.
“You know precisely why I must have Bianca’s notes!
” His voice echoed off of the bare walls of the apartment, and Maxham could hear that the young attorney who lived next door paused as he was eating his dinner, his heart rate rising for a few seconds before he returned to his meal.
There was an expression of disgust openly displayed on Jack’s face. He clearly did not understand Ward’s all-consuming love for his wife.
Maxham was also uninterested in Ward’s crusade for her, but he was also aware that while they could push him, they also must keep him placated. “And how is Lizabeth doing?” Maxham asked in a mild voice.
Still sulking, Ward muttered, “The same.”
Maxham thought Lizabeth a horrible woman.
She was hard and brutal, and she sounded suspiciously similar to how Ward had described his own abusive father, who had battered him not only with fists but also with vicious words.
Ward had hated his father, which made Maxham wonder what he saw in Lizabeth.
His obsession with her now was likely watered by the intervening years, falsifying her true nature with a completely fictional image of a princess upon whom he might lavish his love.
Maxham recalled the one woman he had loved.
If he had been more mature, the pain might have been exquisite rather than devastating.
Instead, it had carved out a piece of his soul that he had cauterized with the fire of his rage and savagery.
It was a piece gone forever, but he found he did not miss it.
He thought he would be more likely to miss a hand or foot than that innermost portion of himself.
It often made him wonder why it had been so painful when it was excised, but perhaps that was simply his character.
The people in his life—the pain in his life—had shaped him.
Perhaps one day, when he saw the pattern of the roads he had taken, they would be the exquisite chaos he had been trying to orchestrate. Or perhaps it would disappoint him.
Ward likely knew that Maxham didn’t care the least about his wife, for he impatiently held a hand out. “The notebooks.”
Maxham disliked how he spoke the words as if ordering a servant, but he did not feel like contending with Ward any longer.
Luckily, he had removed the books from the hidden storage area in his apartment last night in order to peruse the pages before bed, and he had left them out, so he had no need to reveal his hiding place to Jack or Ward.
He entered his bedchamber and plucked the three leather-bound books from the shelf on the wall next to his bed. Ward practically snatched them from his hands when he reentered the sitting room.
Maxham watched with genuine amusement as Ward’s face lit up with anticipation over the first few pages, then settled into a frown, then finally into bewilderment and aggravation by the time he reached the end. He flipped through the pages of the other two books, which did not improve his mood.
“What is the meaning of this?!” He opened the notebook to its pages of numbers and held them out for Maxham and Jack to see.
Before Maxham could explain, Jack suddenly burst out into uproarious laughter. He pointed at Ward, hooting and howling and snorting, and the attorney in the next apartment froze in fright at the sound.
Outraged, Ward attacked him.
Neither man was very athletic, although Jack had more wiry muscle while Ward was slightly pudgy around his midsection. It took Maxham nearly ten minutes to get them to stop yelling and slapping at each other before he could explain about the code.