Collations

An excerpt from Shadow Game, by J. G. Arceneaux, still at large

August 15, 1867, Thursday
Bow Street Magistrate’s Court, London
0048 hrs

Ezekiel had disappeared under escort as summoned and Katherine was yet engaged in conversation with Beignet, leaving me the odd woman out. That suited me well enough. I had much to think on in the aftermath of my debriefing with Sir John and the inclusion of information from my conversation with Ezekiel would take some time.

Sir John had given me a wealth of information in an astonishingly short interview. I merely had to collate it into a cohesive whole as one would a jigsaw puzzle. There were pieces missing, however, and I am ashamed to admit the lack of knowledge they represented was entirely mine. Sir John had mentioned several names of which I had no inkling as to the bearers, even though at least one was attached to a man who meant everything to me.

Father is Spectacle. I am “Spectacle’s Kid”. My father is a legend. A legend that cannot be discussed. Not that the last was at all surprising—by their natures spies require the cloak of secrecy in which to pursue their work. Else they cease to be spies … or breathing living beings for that matter. No, what caught me by surprise was that my father was a legend at all. At best, I had thought him a cog in the massive shadow machine of Her Majesty’s secret service, not someone with a larger role to play. Stop. You are theorizing in advance of the data. Nothing said tonight verified Father is anything more than a field agent with a single asset in play. You know full well how a trifle can be exaggerated to legendary proportions through iteration. Perhaps that is the legend Phillip referred to.

What I had said to Ezekiel about the utility of lies in service of the truth held true in this instance. Spies perforce lived their lives as a lie in service of their country, maintaining a false identity so as to uncover the truth. They also engaged and manipulated anyone as required to get information, assets, or entrance to that which they sought. Many were the nights I’d lain awake wondering if that was how my father and mother met. Did he really love her, I would ask when the nights were especially hard. Did he love me? Or were we just convenient props to his story? Guilt would inevitably twist my conscience into knots before common sense reasserted itself. Yes. He did. Both of us. Why else did he marry her? Why else did he take me on those long walks, teach me his craft? A magician never gives up his secrets … except to his successor.

Was that his plan? Was I to be his successor? Is that why he left me with William and his troupe, instead of packing me off to his sister, my aunt—a relative, I must add, I’d been left in the care of before he’d disappeared on the Continent and from whom I’d escaped in order to find him again. What my father had begun on our long walks during my childhood, William and his troupe had expanded upon as we moved from pillar to post as an itinerant theatre company.

It was an odd combination of stage work and circus act. We’d roll into town by wagon or train, pitch our tents outside our chosen town, erect our stage, and put on a performance. We had a fire eater, a knife thrower, a juggler, and a magician. We all doubled as actors, staging everything from Shakespeare to music hall favorites and we shared the duties of prop master, horse wrangler, stagehand and costume mistress. And after the torches and lime lights were doused, the stage darkened and secured for the night, we would pursue our other profession as clandestine agents for the Queen. In my ten years with them, I’d picked up an odd assortment of skills, skills that served well in either the overt and covert sphere, and in those ten years, never had I been given an assignment alone. Instead I’d worked on the sidelines as support personnel, participating in group surveillance, creating concealed caches, providing back-up to the agent on the ground. Lady Katherine’s dinner party and salon was to be an introductory assignment, nothing critical or sensitive, as befitted a junior agent. Instead it quickly became something of greater importance and risk.

Sir John had said it himself: You were just there to observe. I did not know that was going to happen. Otherwise I frankly would have sent someone else. And yet he’d also said: I have augurs and they say that you are important for this as are your compatriots.

He hadn’t clarified if the augurs had spoken before or after the fact. Foreknowledge of the evening’s outcome must have influenced his decision to send me, yet he claimed he hadn’t anticipated the turn of events that had occurred. If his auguries had been after the kidnapping, then what purpose did they serve? Would the magic not have been better spent in divining where Rembecki had taken Mortimer, rather than verifying that somehow my companions and I were important?

You’re missing something, whispered the small voice in my head. Think again. What had Sir John said?

Yes. Not wings, he’d said to himself. Was it my imagination or had he spoken in the tone of someone confirming what he already knew? I closed my eyes and pulled up the rest of the conversation. Of course, magic. It’s Rembecki. That whole group. Of course, it’s magic. And: Now, Rembecki, she’s headed back to Germany. Well, Bohemia. Perhaps Hungary.

He must have known there would be magic involved. His augurs must have told him where she was headed, that much was apparent by his words. If so, why not wire ahead to the Continent and warn the agents already in place to intercept and capture her, and secure Mortimer? As to those agents in place, he’d given me a tantalizing clue.

Now, when you get there, if you need to, track down Clockwork, Sir John had told me next. Clockwork was always your father’s best agent.

Who was Clockwork? For that matter, who were the others Sir John had mentioned, Drum and Zig Zag and Fanny? Clockwork was known to my father. Did that mean Clockwork was also known to me, albeit unwitting? How could I verify it? Who could I ask? And who were Drum and Zig Zag and Fanny? Did my father know them too?

One step at a time. Go back to what you know. Sir John mentioned Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary. If Rembecki is working for Bismark or Catherine the Great, she would have to pass through those places. Start there.

Sir John had also mentioned Beignet in our interview and at the time, he had specifically asked if I’d taken anything that had been in Rembecki’s possession. I’d offered up the napkin without thinking and was warned against touching the napkin more than I had to and to give it to Beignet. The combination of the personal item of Rembecki’s and the admonition to touch it as little as possible suggested that perhaps magic was to be brought to bear on it. What little I knew of magic would fill a thimble, but as the popular serials would have one to believe, sympathetic magic involving the napkin, a length of weighted string, and a map might be sufficient to scry Rembecki’s location.

Stop. You don’t have the data to support that line of reasoning. Although that’s what I would have done with the napkin were I Sir John, there is no evidence to verify that the napkin is anything more than a napkin or that Beignet is a mage. I looked at the stuffy little man sitting next to Lady Katherine. He did not cut the figure of a mage but if he were … He could be very useful in finding Rembecki. And Sir John did not exclude him when he mentioned my ‘compatriots’.

So who was Beignet, really? An overly meticulous butler and chaperone? Or a mage? Was it possible to be both? And what about my other compatriots? Lady Katherine was a young woman in her twenties, a few years my junior, and from what I’d gathered from her speech, not well traveled abroad. And yet, she was also Eldren and they had abilities and skills beyond mere human ken. Ezekiel was likewise extraordinary, being blessed with visions from God, and he’d been visited with a vision of the Russian standard flying over Westminster Abbey. All three of my compatriots had the touch of the other about them, had the potential to bring esoteric options into play. Was this what Sir John had meant about us being important? And what could I possibly bring to the mix that could be as valuable as visions from God or magic or the Eldren? My connection to Father and from him, Clockwork?

There was no telling. Not until I found Rembecki and Mortimer. Not even, perhaps, until I found Clockwork. I sighed and sank lower on the bench. Until Sir John released us, there was little good I could do and much harm if I eliminated my options by deciding on a course of action too soon.

Be patient, Jo. Acting too quickly can be as disastrous as acting too slow. You cannot leave without the others in either case. So came my father’s voice from the past. It may have been the lateness of the hour or the consequences of my head wound, but my eyelids grew heavy. Swamping waves of fatigue sent me fluttering on the edge of consciousness, left me nodding and blinking to stay awake. I had been called to London not two days past, had traveled nonstop from Paris to Le Havre to Dover, and thence to London herself before washing ashore on Lady Katherine’s doorstep. I’d followed it with a vigorous chase on foot against a superior foe and topped it off with physical injury. Had another person been in my place, I would not have faulted them for weakness, but since it was none other than myself, I refused to give in and struggled to stay awake.

I was not up to the task. My last coherent thought was to contact William on the Continent to ask him if he’d heard anything of Rembecki’s passing on her way east, before exhaustion slammed down and the world went away.

You are reading Josephine's journal. Since any campaign is a collaborative effort, Journal and RP entries by our other players can be read here.

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