When the ashen-faced young man departed, leaving them momentarily alone in the hideous cellar, Onsofruct whispered, “Was her death a final act of worship?”
“Not a voluntary one,” murmured D’Jevier. “Which doesn’t mean Morrigan didn’t relish it. I think it’s clear Marool was murdered by two of the boys she got from House Genevois. The order of disappearance is probably significant. First the entourage, without the Questioner’s knowledge. Then, the two Old Earthians, then the Questioner and two gardener’s helpers, one Mouche, a Consort trainee, and one Ornery, a sailor lad. Finally, only after Marool’s body is discovered are the other Consort trainees found to be gone. We assume they left Marool dead or dying and may, in fact, have been the first to depart. I wonder who turned off the machine and took her out of it before she was dismembered.”
Onsofruct shuddered. “Is that what it would have done?”
“Oh, yes. The mechanical linkages led next to knives and then to a leveraged system which would quite effectively have quartered her after disembowelment. There has not been any such barbarism among mankind for millennia. Marool had reinvented it.”
She fell silent, wanting to spit the foul taste from her mouth, taking refuge in changing the subject. “I’ve noticed quite a draft. Look at the smoke from those candles.” She pointed at a branched iron stand where guttering candles unskeined black smoke that drifted sideways to disappear along a wall. The paneling was ajar. They tugged it open to reveal a shadowy sneakway running along the walls. D’Jevier went in and peered at the dusty floor, noting the footprints there, noting the spyholes in the walls.
“See, here.” She pointed. “There, those depressions which are not quite footlike. The Questioner. And two pairs of boots, the Consort and the sailor. Some other tracks beneath, too scuffed to read, all of them headed in the same direction.” She stood staring into the dark. “The murderers went some other way. I want to see Madame Genevois. Let us go to her, woman to woman. It will save time.”
Madame was in her office, off the welcome suite. She greeted D’Jevier as an old friend, and, after a look at their haggard faces, offered brandy. When she’d heard what they had to say about Marool’s death, she rang for Simon and sent him with one of the workmen to fetch a picture from the hallway upstairs.
“I collect a certain kind of thing. It’s as well to be somewhat cautionary with the young men, and also to blunt their curiosity.” She sipped, and poured, and in moments, Simon was back, bearing the picture as though it were a long-dead fish.
“By all the Hagions,” murmured D’Jevier. “Where did you get it?”
“The artist disappeared. His body showed up, later, giving evidence that he had died by this machine or some similar. Someone had rifled his studio and then tried, unsuccessfully, to burn it down. This painting was found, quite undamaged, among several others in a kind of vault he had built below his house. His heirs sold it to me.”
“If Marool had known you had it … “
“She didn’t know. I’ve always refused to deal with Mistress Mantelby. Even if I’d never seen this, I’d have refused to deal with her. There was always something … possessed about her.”
“You say ‘always’ … “
Madame sat back comfortably and stared beyond them, into the past. “I saw her first at a Family Men’s Soiree at her parent’s house. I often attend such events. It gives me an opportunity to get off in a corner with a patroness to discuss what I might have in stock to interest her, or for her to tell me what she’s looking for. Marool was at the time about four, but her expression was merciless, like a hungry animal watching prey. Her eyes were without humanity. I saw her several times after that, as she grew older, and I thought each time that her eyes were like viper’s eyes.
“After she ran off to join the Wasters, I saw her in their company from time to time, and of course, after she returned from her so-called pilgrimage, I saw her at the Panhagion and at the theater, and I heard things from other Houses about Mantelby Consorts who disappeared or died without explanation.”