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It took several minutes for Barnabas’s increasingly impatient knocking to be answered. By the time it was, he thought his hand might be frozen to the metal knocker. Mercifully the door creaked open, though only by an inch or so; in the low lamplight Barnabas could just about make out the pale face of Mary, one of the younger servants.
“For goodness’ sake,” Barnabas said irritably, pushing on the door until Mary finally allowed it to open wide enough to permit him access. “Why have you locked the door?”
“Master’s orders,” Mary said curtly, closing the door immediately and clicking the lock into place. “Every door and window.”
“Well, why the devil did he say that?” Barnabas asked. He shrugged his coat off; it was heavy with rain, and almost stiff from promising frost.
“It’s late,” Mary said. “He wasn’t expecting you gone this long. Did you manage to get it sent?”
“Manage?” Barnabas snapped. “Only after three hours of—never mind. I suppose I shall have to tell him myself, won’t I? Where is he? Still in his study?”
Mary paused, and then exchanged glances with an as yet unseen figure lurking in one of the passages. Barnabas followed her gaze, seeing another one of the servants lurking in the passage, matching Mary in her look of trepidation.
“What’s the matter?” Barnabas asked. “The two of you skulking around like you’ve seen a ghost. Don’t tell me the master’s finally succeeded in summoning something.”
He laughed, but the humour wasn’t shared by the two young servants. Barnabas was well aware of the fact that they had plenty of misgivings about the kinds of things that occurred in the house, and he continued to delight in tormenting the lot of them over it. Occupying the position that he did – not quite servant, not quite gentleman – he had no real need to keep the peace with the house staff, considering his orders came direct from the master and were not to be questioned regardless of Barnabas’s own popularity. It was a relief, because Barnabas was not known for his self-control when it came to the superstitions of the lower orders – and certainly not when it came with the subtle condemnation of their master. In Barnabas’s eyes, these people lived a life of luxury compared to others of their station. They were kept in warm lodgings with all the food they could ask for; their clothing and board was all provided for. In exchange they had to cook, clean, darn, launder, and garden – and keep their mouths shut about anything they might see or overhear. It didn’t seem to be much different from the duties of any other house staff in the area, but it seemed that the lack of information provided about the kinds of goings-on in the house had proven to be a terrible thing to mix with the fertile imagination of these country folk.
“Oh, come on!” Barnabas snapped, losing his temper. “What is it? Come on, spit it out!”
“It’s nothing like that,” Mary said quickly. “To be fair, I don’t know what the master’s been up to. I just know he’s in a fine bad mood.”
“Well, what’s new?” Barnabas muttered. “He was in a rotten moon when I left.”
“You’ve not seen nothing yet,” said Maggie. Slightly older than Mary, she had a broad Scottish accent that Barnabas struggled to understand at the best of times. To make matters worse, she had seemingly skipped the education that most people of her master’s standing had received, and still insisted on speaking with what Jonah called a dialect and what Barnabas privately thought of as a god-awful accent. The fact that Jonah could understand her perfectly and even match her strange sayings with something that even to Barnabas’s foreign ears sounded like fluency was something he avoided considering when as annoyed as he was. “He’s gone off his heed.”
“Maggie,” Mary said, shooting a worried look at Barnabas. “We can’t say things like that.”
“Why not?” Maggie asked. “It’s true enough. Pretend all you like – you’ll no catch me going up there.” She looked backed to Barnabas. “You’ll have tae watch yersel. I’ve no been intae his study the night, but such a racket you’ve never heard. Banging and crashing fit tae wake the devil.”
“Wonderful,” Barnabas said, after a brief pause for translation purposes. He got the feeling that Maggie was deliberately speaking more slowly, trying to ensure that Barnabas understood her. That, more than anything she had actually said, impressed upon Barnabas the seriousness of the situation. “Well. I suppose I had better get it over with, then.”
As he moved up the hallway and towards the stairs, he could feel Mary and Maggie watching him, their stares boring into his back in a manner that reminded him of two soon-to-be widows watching their husbands ascend the gallows. He was glad when the stairs curved, and he was able to slip out of their view.
Now that he didn’t have an image to uphold, Barnabas slowed his steps and allowed some of his apprehension to become apparent. Around him the house was silent, but that was by no means a good thing. He had witnessed enough of Jonah’s rages to know that they could last an incredible amount of time, and sudden lapses like this were far from reassurance that he had spent all his fury. It was much more likely that he was catching his breath for another round, nursing an injury inflicted upon himself courtesy of the latest glass object to be destroyed, or – and this Barnabas dreaded the most, all things considered – waiting for a new target for his anger. It was no wonder that the servants all avoided him in such moods, though as far as Barnabas was aware Jonah had never been terribly cruel to them. He had punched a couple of the men a few times, though it was more laughable than anything – both the gardener and the stable head were twice the weight of Jonah and had been perfectly fine, with the stable head turning away upon dismissal clearly struggling not to smile. The women lived in fear of being hit only by the objects that Jonah might hurl in their direction, and this was more often than not a notice for them to get out immediately rather than any true desire to injure anybody. For the servants, Jonah’s moods were the most normal thing to understand about him.
“He’s a poet type,” Barnabas had heard the gardener gruffly saying, warming himself by the fire in the kitchen. “One of those scholar types. They’re all like that, ain’t they? Bit delicate in the head. Emotional.”
“It’s almost womanly,” the cook had replied, edging around him to get at the pot. “Don’t you think that? He would make a remarkable woman.”
“Spoiled as a child, no doubt,” the gardener said, before spotting Barnabas in the doorway, and heading quickly for the rear door, replacing his hat and touching it as he slipped out of view.
Barnabas all but slowed to a crawl as he approached Jonah’s study. The doors were firmly closed, as they usually were, and Barnabas quickly had no time left to waste. Reluctantly he reached out and tapped lightly on the door, hearing no response from within. He thought about returning to his own quarters, letting himself assume that Jonah was busy or had perhaps tired himself out and fallen asleep before the fire, but he knew that he had barely made a tap against the door. If Jonah was awake, in there waiting for him, and heard no knock – yet Barnabas tried to tell him that he’d been there and heard no response? It would only set him off again. Barnabas sighed and knocked again, this time harder.
To his surprise the door was pulled open immediately, before he had even pulled his hand back. Jonah stood there, his usually pale face flushed an angry red that clashed terribly with his hair. His gaze was hard, already fixed upon Barnabas’s own eyes, and not for the first time in his association with Jonah did Barnabas feel like Jonah had known he was coming; had been standing there the entire time waiting for him.
“If you’re going to knock, at least do well to make it audible,” Jonah snapped.
“You were standing there, were you not?” Barnabas asked, confused. “If you can criticise me, surely you heard—”
Barnabas broke off as Jonah deftly punched him, a short and well-practised jab that made Barnabas duck away and reach up to hold his jaw, now throbbing with dull pain. Jonah took the opportunity to grab Barnabas’s arm in an unexpectedly tight grip and pull him into the room, kicking the door closed after them and not caring in the slightest that his heel caught against Barnabas’s shin as he did so.
In terms of height and build, Barnabas and Jonah were not so different. Barnabas was perhaps a touch taller, though the difference was only noticeable if the two of them stood back-to-back. Jonah was certainly the slighter of the two, almost frail, with a narrow frame and delicate hands that did put Barnabas in mind of a woman’s. The rest of his features were similar – Jonah has a soft face, remarkably untouched by any onset of age, with long eyelashes and full lips. He looked almost incapable of the violence that could brew up in him without a moment’s notice, and while Barnabas was his opposite in appearance – a little broader, a littler stockier from heavier work, with dark hair and eyes and a five o’clock shadow that would reappear by noon – it was he who seemed incapable of any violence that was not verbal.
“Well?” Jonah demanded expectantly. To Barnabas’s relief he moved away, stepping around an overturned chair and returning to his spot at the fireplace where, Barnabas presumed, he had been brooding prior to his arrival.
Barnabas massaged his jaw for a moment – the only length of time he dared – and then spoke, his jaw uncomfortably stiff. “I managed to leave it with the night staff.”
Jonah looked at him sharply, and Barnabas noticed an almost feverish sheen to his grey eyes. “That isn’t what I asked you to do.”
“Well, no,” Barnabas admitted, “but I don’t see what other choice I had at this time of the night. It was an hour and a half riding in this weather, and that was just one way; by the time I arrived the night was well underway and nobody but the night staff was there. He will receive it, I presume, first thing in the morning.”
“In eight hours,” Jonah said quietly. “That isn’t exactly efficient, is it?”
“It would have taken me about as long to find him and then ride to his location in this weather,” Barnabas pointed out. “Really, this is the most efficient thing we could have done.” He noted that Jonah’s glare was not lessening, and hastened to add something at least a little conciliatory. “As you mentioned. That would be the best and most likely place to find him in a timely manner, wouldn’t you say?”
“Perhaps if you had left when I instructed,” Jonah said, turning back to the fire.
Barnabas held his tongue. The pain throbbing up the length of his jaw was a good reminder that exercising some of his limited self-control would be far more beneficial to him than lashing out with anything that he wanted to say. He contented himself with thinking it instead, carrying on the argument in his mind and leading it to a much more satisfying conclusion. Well, Jonah, in order to have left when you told me I would have needed the letter, which you still hadn’t written, because you were too busy shouting at me about how the hour was too late anyway and so what would be the point? And when I pointed out that the time lost would be lesser if you committed to writing the note and decided whether or not to try and have it sent afterwards, you threw a book at my head and then had the audacity to get mad at me when I didn’t stand obediently in place to receive it. You see, Jonah, I did try my very best you help you out this evening, but you were quite intent on being the most insufferable wretch.
Barnabas had been looking at the fire as he thought these things, and in his peripheral vision he was aware that Jonah had tensed; that the hand resting on the mantlepiece had tightened against the stonework until the knuckles shone pale white. This much hadn’t raised too much alarm – it wasn’t uncommon to see Jonah standing quite still, somehow working himself up into a further rage, and Barnabas supposed that a man’s inner life was always its own mystery. Only when Jonah began to visibly tremble with unmistakable anger did Barnabas notice that he was very much in some peril, and as he looked up and caught Jonah’s eye, he was possessed by the sudden thought that he had accidentally spoken his thoughts out loud. Seeing Jonah’s gaze, the brightness of the anger in it, the malice directed at Barnabas and him alone, Barnabas had but one clear thought in his head.
He knows. By God, he knows.
As for how he knew, Barnabas could only fall back on the assumption that he had accidentally muttered his thoughts under his breath. The fact that he was not prone to doing such things seemed irrelevant now, as did the fact that he could feel no words in his throat or on his tongue; that his jaw did not ache with any new movement. It was true that he couldn’t have possibly spoken any words aloud, but at the same time it was true that he must. How else would Jonah know? Undoubtedly, Jonah did know.
Barnabas stared at him helplessly, a man caught in the act of an unspeakable crime. He waited for Jonah to say anything and agonised when he didn’t; he knew Jonah’s tricks well, to say nothing until his victim, tormented by the silence, spoke his way into his own grave, but even with this knowledge it was almost too much to bear. Barnabas wanted to say something to break the silence, to work out where he stood, but the last vestiges of his pride and his self-preservation told him to remain perfectly still and perfectly silent, like a prey animal face-to-face with a predator. He had heard such things about the big cats that roamed on the continents of Asia, the great tigers that padded along man-made paths through the jungle and occasionally came across a luckless villager. To turn one’s back upon such a beast was death. Barnabas thought he understood somewhat how they must have felt.
Finally, still trembling, Jonah turned and marched back to his desk, his fists clenched at his sides. Barnabas remained by the fire, still frozen in place, hardly able to believe his luck. Even as the relief washed over him he knew that he was being foolish. Jonah’s anger never evaporated – it had to be spent. Right now it was still coiled up inside him, and Barnabas was all too aware of this when Jonah softly called him over to his desk, his voice firm, the command clear. Barnabas had nowhere to go. To refuse would be to defy an order, and that would be all Jonah needed. To go to him would be to consent to whatever Jonah was about to do to him – because Barnabas recognised it now, as his feet dragged him reluctantly closer. He recognised this brand of anger, the calm and controlled anger that only came when Jonah had surpassed rage and entered something that ran much deeper. Barnabas would have much preferred a repeat performance of the usual episodes, where Jonah might strike him a few times but would mostly keep to shaking him by the lapels and throwing him against the walls. It was easy to remain silent and simply imitate a ragdoll until Jonah inevitably turned his frustrations on the surrounding inanimate objects, usually with a furious command for Barnabas to get out. Such directionless anger caused pain, but it didn’t hurt as controlled anger did. It was steam issuing from an overboiled teapot, a relief of pressure, natural and easily spent.
Controlled anger brought out in Jonah a side to him that Barnabas deeply feared.
Now Jonah pointed to something on his desk, a random point that Barnabas could not see the use of. He knew that to lean closer was to seal his fate, but he had no choice. From somewhere outside himself he watched almost impassively as he did so, and how Jonah almost calmly grabbed him by the back of the neck and slammed his head into the oak surface. Dazed by the blow, Barnabas had to allow himself to be unceremoniously wrenched back by the hair at the nape of his neck and endure his head being slammed twice more against the desk, all of this occurring within seconds. When the pain came it came all at once, the triple assault converging on him in a sickening band of burning pressure around his head, the skin at the nape of his neck pulled taut by Jonah’s grip in his hair. As Jonah went to repeat the assault for a fourth time Barnabas managed to regain himself enough to throw his hands out and brace himself against the desk, thus avoiding a fourth collision with it, but Jonah had clearly anticipated the move. His right hand was tangled in Barnabas’s hair, and Barnabas, in his momentary relief at avoiding another appointment with the desk, had forgotten entirely about Jonah’s left hand until it smashed something heavy into the back of his head. Whatever it was exploded on impact; Barnabas felt shards dig into his skin along with the deep burn of whatever liquid remnants had been in there before. From the sharp smell in the air, he suspected whisky.
Barnabas let out a soft groan. The grip at the nape of his neck relaxed and he slumped heavily to the ground, his arm uncomfortably twisted beneath him. He tried to move to a more comfortable position but his body was in full revolt against him, all of its energy diverted to the pain in his head, the unnatural heaviness of the ache that had settled there. Barnabas felt suddenly drunk, and with some disbelief he heard a low giggle escape his lips. A deft kick to the centre of his back forced the air out of him and turned the laugh into a quickly stifled squeak, and stillness followed.
Somewhere above him, Barnabas heard Jonah let out a long sigh.
“Right,” Jonah said, and moved away.
A brief blur told Barnabas that Jonah had passed him by and returned to his seat behind his desk. After another second, Barnabas heard the scratching sound of pen on paper.
The fire crackled and popped in the grate. The pain in Barnabas’s head seemed to grow and grow, until his head felt ten times the size and he was sure his skull would crack like an egg from the pressure. Enough of his senses returned that he began to moan, softly and unable to stop himself. Every time he did so his heart clenched in fear that Jonah’s temper should be further inspired, but it seemed the other man had completely forgotten he was in the room. His pen went on uninterrupted, aside from brief pauses where the sound of rustling pages replaced it.
Barnabas began to feel nauseous. He became convinced he was drunk. How embarrassing, to be so drunk that he was insensible on the floor of Jonah’s study! He became convinced of the fact that he was in grave error of his duties; that when his master returned, he would be incensed – and quite rightly, too! Barnabas wasn’t paid to sit around in the kitchen downstairs and drunk questionable concoctions courtesy of the gardener’s shed; he wasn’t given his wages so he could sink them at the nearest tavern or inn that he came across. Whatever had possessed him to do such a thing was beyond him, but to then have the audacity to return here of all places, and sprawl himself prone right at the foot of his master’s desk? It was a travesty.
At some point he became aware of the fact that he was bleeding profusely, the hair at the back of his head matted with it. The metallic scent was strong in the air and revived his nausea with relish, and Barnabas experienced a sudden jolt in the pit of his stomach, the sensation that he was falling. In his mind he was briefly certain that he was falling from a horse; that the beast had taken fright at something in the road and reared up, staggering to the side and toppling over. Barnabas felt the shock of panic, the rush to untangle his feet from the stirrups and throw himself clear of the animal, but he only half succeeded. When the horse fell and leapt up again, snorting wildly, it avoided Barnabas with both its body and its hooves – but Barnabas, unfortunately, had paid for the luck by landing full on his back, his head hitting the cobblestones with a sickening and final crack.
The memory hung there, stronger than the unquestionable reality of a dream, and then faded. Barnabas went with it.
When he returned to himself the fire had been replaced by the dull grey of a rainy morning, and there were voices hovering above him, their owners unseen.
“How long did you say he’d been here?”
“I can’t say for sure. He was here when I arrived this morning. I suppose he’s been here all night.”
Barnabas was suddenly assaulted by the stench of whisky. It made his stomach turn over and he retched, finding strong hands slipped under his arms at the sound and moved him, groaning weakly, onto his side.
“He’s lucky he didn’t vomit,” the other voice said, nearer now. Barnabas became aware that both voices sounded familiar, though he was as incapable of assigning them to names as he was of understanding Maggie after a few too many Hogmanay sherries. “Good Lord. There’s an awful lot of blood.”
“Hence why I sent for you. I wouldn’t bother you for something as simple as too many whiskies.”
“Rather unlike Barnabas, wouldn’t you say, Jonah?”
“Every man is entitled to a tipple now and then,” Jonah said charitably. “I’m sure he was only trying to warm himself on the journey home. Really, Jonathan, I’m more worried about the blood. I’m not going to turn into a brute because a member of my staff wants to have a few too many every now and again. I’m just thankful he made it back here, and didn’t end up drowned in a ditch.”
“There’s a lot of swelling. It’s difficult to assess the damage. Some nasty lacerations on the back of his head.”
Barnabas felt fingers prodding the swollen skin, and he groaned again. This time he managed to find enough energy to try and shift away, but Jonathan held him quite firmly.
“Easy now,” he said. “Jonah, do be ready to help me out. Head injuries can make a patient combative.”
“In his state, I would be surprised if he landed a punch,” Jonah said, amused.
“I’m more worried about him injuring himself,” Jonathan said. “Help me roll him over.”
For some reason the shift onto his back seemed to bring clarity with it; the identities of the speakers returned to Barnabas in a rush, as did the room around him. His face felt alien to him, large and swollen, his left eye unable to open fully; through his bleary right eye he could make out Jonathan’s face, looking at him with no small amount of concern.
Standing next to him, watching impassively, stood Jonah Magnus, impeccably put together as always and not seeming overly concerned.
“Good morning, Barnabas,” he said. “Some night you had.”
Barnabas felt his cheeks warm. He had few memories of the night before, aside from finding himself on Jonah’s carpet with the whole room pitching around him, and the feeling of embarrassment as he considered this precise scenario. The only thing he hadn’t anticipated was the appearance of Dr Fanshawe, but if the blood staining the floor was anything to go by, he perhaps should have done.
For some reason, Barnabas was surprised at the lack of glass shards. Shouldn’t there be glass on the floor? He didn’t know where the thought had come from, but it briefly rose up in him with a kind of indignant rage, only to be abruptly smothered by the sudden sensation of falling, of a horse’s distressed whinnying. He supposed it was a memory, and – yes, he could recall something like that from the night before, though whether it had been dream or reality he couldn’t say. Judging by the state of himself, he supposed it had happened, but at the same time he could not fit it into place. He had no recollection of the previous night, meaning it could have quite easily happened – and indeed, it must have. At the same time, it was not a satisfying answer. It did not seem to fit.
“Well, Barnabas,” Jonathan said. “Do you recall what happened?”
Barnabas looked at him, struggling to understand the words. Sound came to him slowly, and he couldn’t focus his gaze.
“Christ,” Jonah said. “Is he still drunk?”
“I imagine it’s the head injury,” Jonathan replied. “The two can often look the same. I suppose that’s part of why they’re so dangerous. It can make a person totally incoherent, unable to explain themselves while simultaneously making them act like a typical drunkard. People would pass by on the street.” He reached up and lightly slapped Barnabas’s cheek. “Barnabas. Do you recall what happened?”
Something about the slap, light though it was, caused the ache in Barnabas’s jaw to shift allegiances, moving from the assumption of the fall and instead into that murky area he couldn’t identify. He blinked slowly, forcing his eyes to focus on Jonathan.
His attempt to speak more closely resembled the low bleat of an injured farmyard animal.
“Can you say anything at all?” Jonathan asked, a little more serious now. “Barnabas. Can you speak?”
“Jonah,” Barnabas said, for reasons he could not explain.
“He’s here,” Jonathan said. “I don’t think you’re in any trouble, though I think you can say goodbye to your pay for the days you’re recovering. My goodness, Barnabas. This is unlike you.”
Barnabas gave a helpless shrug. It seemed the story was well established; with some creeping shame, he recalled one of the servants must have let him in and had probably seen his terrible state. Covered in blood and mud from the roadway, no doubt reeking even more strongly of alcohol than he did now, the poor girl had likely been terrified out of her wits. Come to think of it, he did remember standing on the step banging for some time before the door opened. No doubt they had been reluctant to let him in, taking him for a vagrant.
“Think,” Jonathan urged him, and Barnabas realised that the doctor had been speaking for several moments beforehand. “What do you remember?”
“Horse,” Barnabas managed. His tongue felt dry and swollen, and his words were heavily slurred. “Fell.”
“Did it land on you? Did it kick you?”
Barnabas slowly shook his head. The world flipped, and he abruptly stopped, groaning.
“Try not to move your head too much,” Jonathan advised, needlessly.
“Jumped,” Barnabas said. “I… think? Horse reared. Fell. I jumped. Cobbles,” he added helpfully.
It seemed to be enough to get the story across. Jonah looked at Jonathan, raising an eyebrow, and Jonathan sighed.
“I’m going to have to stay with him, probably for the rest of the day and the coming night,” he said, straightening up. “I’d advise getting one of the men to move him to his bed, while I go and collect the rest of my things from downstairs. He’ll likely be insensible for several days, and then he’ll need bedrest.”
“Well,” Jonah said amiably, “I suppose it can’t be helped.”
“I’ll advise one of the servants on my way downstairs and have them send somebody up to assist,” Jonathan said. “I won’t be long.”
He moved to the door, and Barnabas had the sudden urge to call after him, to beg him not to leave him alone with Jonah. He held his tongue, unable to understand why he would feel the need, realising that he likely lacked the strength to do so anyway. Jonathan left the room completely unaware of the inexplicable security he took with him, and as Barnabas moved his gaze away and let them drift back towards the ceiling, he was aware of Jonah’s watchful gaze resting on him.
Silent and ceaseless, it felt like a warning.