Work Text:
It happened in the virginal days of spring, when winter still passed his covetous hands through the hedgerows and tree branches, stealing frail blossoms from their tentative branches and casting them to the frigid winds. Across England, the wide open sky appeared so very enclosed, being hung with dense clouds of mottled white and grey; even the birds appeared yet frightened, for those early mornings remained still in the long darkness of the night. Even the rain appeared to linger, leaving deep puddles along the highways that ferried ill-equipped travellers through the temperamental weather; now and then, when the wind lowed through those pastoral corridors, it bestirred the surface of the water, turning the grey mirror into rippling isinglass.
But spring is not a dead creature and its progress, though oft times delayed, cannot be halted so that, even in these morose landscapes, new life was putting itself forth even then – for the blackthorns, those early risers, had all come out in a white array, as though it were an event agreed upon by every tree of its kind but a day before. In a blink, it seemed, the black, stout boughs had disappeared beneath their bridal veils and when that pond-stirrer shook them, it sent a snow of blossoms flying, filling the air with a thick, sweet aroma.
How much sweeter those gentle charities of nature when put against her harshest tendencies.
So it was too on the Northeastern turnpike to York, where we see two figures coming up the deserted way, almost obscured by the flurries of petals which even once settled, are rapidly bestirred again into active flight. They had accumulated now in the leather collar of the foremost rider and in the brim of his old topper, and also in the strands of his long hair, settling the starker against the blackness there. On his companion, the blackthorn cover had almost a hygienic effect, obscuring much of the raggedness of his patched and wildly accumulated dress and sticking like the mouches of yesteryear on his sore-riddled face. Despite his haggard appearance, this man had less of the retirement of the leper about him and was instead, in the moment we first espy the companions, projecting a vigorous rendition of some folkish ditty towards an invisible sylphean audience – this we must assume, for it cannot be understood to be for the sake of his earthly partner, who was achieving a particularly impressive shade of ignorance towards the din.
Childermass (for it was he) may have been so tempted to allow sleep to vanish the time it would take them to reach York, had it not been for his understanding that the road which they now travelled had recently experiences a spate of violent crimes, being such robberies, assaults and murders as had been almost a part of nature a few centuries past but which had since then commonly dropped into negligible potentials. Now, he undertook to observe the road about them, knowing that Vinculus, for his part, could not be bent to it – that is to say, with no sense of regularity.
It was in this manner that he saw the great mound at the side of the road, pushed up against the border hedges, when otherwise he might have been tempted to ignore it; the manner of his childhood had revealed to him many ways in which a person might be deprived of his livelihood – both figuratively and quite literally – one of which was to feign at injury and to await the Samaritan fool who would be first to place his charitable neck inside that noose.
Upon their cautious approach, however, Childermass quickly realised there was to be no such villainy in that moment, unless horses had revealed themselves to be far cleverer than supposed and liable to covet human vices as much as turnips. For it was indeed one of those loyal beasts of burden who now lay dead upon the side of the road, also peppered with funerary blossoms against the still brown flank, it’s dark eyes open and staring unseeingly from the mortal sphere into the heavenly one, where there was undoubtedly an abundance of pastures for the new arrival and a lack of saddles. Blood, half-dried into a dark, clotting lacework, had recently poured from a bullet-wound evident upon the strong neck and sunk into the ground below and swirled like ponceau in the nearby puddles. Despite the riding gear still decorating the corpse, the person to whom it belonged was nowhere to be seen.
Before Childermass could make to ride past it, Vinculus had already dismounted his own placid mare, landing with a stagger, as though surprised that gravity had done her work once more and set the ground beneath his feet. He had the grace of an inveterate sot, which meant that, despite being more or less unable to walk a straight line, he nonetheless could navigate life admirably if encouraged by the potential of getting his hands on his next cup. Likely it was this that prompted his meander from horse to horse-shaped-meat and his subsequent rifle through the worn saddlebags, speckled themselves with flung mud and the trails of rain long past. Childermass watched him with mounting impatience as his charge unearthed several napkin-wrapped Eccles cakes, a jar of radishes and a sandwich of coarse rye in which had been placed a few choice cold-cuts of meat; these, having been disturbed by the overturn of the horse, Vinculus fished out from the bottom of the bags. When he had unearthed a wooden flask (which had lost it's cork and thus left the bags smelling strongly of small beer) Childermass clucked his tongue.
"If you're finished, we've a while to go fore we reach York," he drawled, ensuring that, whilst the words insinuated a choice in the matter, his tone did not.
Vinculus grinned at him, a piece of flitch vanishing between his wooden teeth. "Beggin' your highness' pardon but luncheon's not to be trifled with," he cackled, spraying crumbs. "We'll get there when we gets there."
Having been a long time in service, and used to getting things done in a timely manner when and where it was required, this was not an attitude well at home with Childermass' proclivities. Urging Brewer in closer to his wandering book (the poor horse pricking up his ears and snorting in an uncommon display of discomfort) he got within kicking range, leaned down and repeated himself, slowly: "I said, we've a while to go yet. You might be used to sleeping in hedgerows an' rabbit warrens but I'm not inclined to lose a thing like you to an overzealous poached firing in t'dark."
"I've four more wives'n the church thinks proper, Reader, I don't need a fifth, 'specially not with a mug like yours."
When Childermass did kick him, none could call it undeserved.
A touch as gentle as this however, did little more to quell Vinculus' habits than to get him back atop his mount and riding and so as they started up once more, he returned to his song.
"But of all the colours natures bear,
These one that stands without compare,
On land or sea or in the air,
As which ornaments my lady fair.
'Tis the rose that rises o'er the crest,
The rose that blushes 'pon the breast,
The rose that dips into the nest,
Aye, 'tis the rose that I love best.
The rose that gardens fragrant makes,
The rose that tames the wildest rake-"
The boughs of the blackthorns shook once more as the wind began its own lusty tune and played across the fallow fields, picking up the short pieces of crop discarded by last year's gleaning and skipping them here and there across the charcoal soil.
Upon the sudden, a smell like iron on that breeze cut through the country air. A splash of scarlet had appeared upon the path, first in little dots like those of oncoming rain, and then in greater marks, becoming splashes and smears and turning rapidly into the imprint of footsteps, which wound from one side of the road to the other in a ragged trail. Finally, the gory sign pointed towards its origin where, in the same sloping ditch beneath the blackthorn hedge where the horse had passed, lay the presumed rider.
The body had collapsed prone to the ground and had no doubt been there a while, for the whole back of the modest brown waistcoat the man wore, and his breeches and the blue of his stockings, were all over covered in little white flowers and where all was pale above, it was dark below, the seep of his lifeblood spreading out from beneath him like the red sun at dusk. He was very still and if some of his dark hair drifted in soft touch of the wind, he had no part in it.
The sight of the corpse generated nothing in Childermass but a greater awareness of his surroundings, now that the news of brigands upon the path had been demonstrated so incontrovertibly. Lest Vinculus attempt to search this body too, Childermass spake.
"Keep going."
And keeping on going he was fully intent upon, turning from the sight of the victim to that of their path, when a great flap of wings drew his eyes immediately. A black form descended from the sky with an imperious air, landing upon the cadaver and as it landed, it seemed to meet Childermass' gaze with intent. The two pairs of dark eyes stared at one another as the raven cocked its head - no bird has Childermass yet met who seemed so upon the verge of human speech as this one; he made no move to dig his sable beak into the fleshly hummock below, but only rested there and looked at Childermass.
And looked.
And looked.
All over his skin rose in goose-pimples and his heart began a contrapuntal beat to some supernatural rhythm in the air. The raven upon the field of white called to him for some unknown purpose and Childermass, who had forsworn service now to all but the Raven King, felt himself compelled to answer.
He was hardly aware of dismounting, but for a grumble from Vinculus about hypocrisy. Childermass took one step towards the body when the raven turned its head to the sky, barked out a cacophonous crow, perhaps in triumph of his goal, and leapt away in another flurry of feathers, gleaming onyx and blue in the dim light. He croaked again, twitched his head in Childermass' direction and became nothing more than a vanishing dot of darkness against the grey cloud cover.
Childermass blinked, then returned his attentions to the argent field. He approached the body, now curious as to why he should have been called thither (for he had no doubt this was so); he felt no magic in the air, no distortion of the world about him, no great prescience of wonders (or horrors) to come. With a grunt, he knelt down beside the corpse, grabbed it by one heavy shoulder and hauled it over.
"Ah."
It was John Segundus. Childermass could hardly fathom it at first, could hardly transpose the man he knew into so cruel and bloody a situation, but reality, ultimately, prevailed. It was John Segundus, with his face a picture of timidity even as white and blue in the lips as it was, his dark, silvered hair plastered into odd geometries with dried blood, the greater part of this inherent mixture having been smeared liberally across his abdomen and his thin-fingered hands. His eyes were closed and ne'er did flutter. Having so rolled him over, Childermass now saw why he had been in his shirt-sleeves, for his worsted coat of faded blue had been pressed into his stomach and had now gone a deep mulberry where it had acted as a primitive sticking-plaster.
It was John Segundus.
So it was. And what of it? Men are born and men die, and a gentleman in his middling age had experienced a great deal more of life than many and ought not consider himself hard-done by the end. And yet…
It was John Segundus.
Childermass became now a little tired of having this point repeated to himself within his own mind, for with every reminder that it was so, it appeared to grow in importance, until it consumed his thoughts as he stared down at the dead man.
A blossom from Childermass' topper fell and drifted down towards Segundus' sallow face - it alighted upon his lips. And then it rose up again. Childermass leaned down abruptly and felt the tentative, weak brush of breath on his face. He barked out a laugh and it was rough and deep, not unlike that of the departed raven.
"What's got you so merry, O miserable pile?" Vinculus called out. He was ignored.
"So you are not so meek-hearted as they call you, sir. Very well, call it well done," he said, addressing the body who was a man who was John Segundus still.
Rapidly, he began to pat himself down, turning out of his pockets the myriad trinkets and ephemera which collect in the pockets of every traveller - out with the bits of string and buttons and crumpled papers; out with the bootblack and the gloves and the scraps of leather he had before shoved into his shoes when the heel had worn away and-
As he was so occupied, Brewer had come up to his master and first attempted to put his nose into Childermass' pockets too, in the hopes that the man was simply slow in retrieving him food, but tired of being removed quickly and turned instead to Segundus, nosing at his cold face and beginning to nibble at the loose strands of his hair.
Childermass' hands closed about a little tube, and finally he pulled forth the steel pen, the Sheffield mark glinting at its exposure. At his continued search, he grew frustrated when he failed to turn up anything of use, until his eyes fell again upon the faint man, and the appearance at his waist of the fob of a pocket watch, a plain piece of ribbon with a simple ivy leaf embroidered upon it. Not suppressing a smirk at the simplicity of the man, Childermass plucked up the watch and found, with satisfaction, that Segundus was, for all his naive follies, a practical man who had attached his watch to its key, a long-stemmed piece of metal with a quatrefoil top which Childermass quickly decoupled. It was still warm from the warmth of Segundus' failing body.
Crossing the two pieces of metal, he deftly tied them about with the string that normally contained his queue. Then, as he went to press it to Segundus' breast, he paused, and looked up, where the white of the blackthorn almost blended into the sky above, becoming an endless firmament which held within it all the mysteries of life and fate that escaped the simple mind of man. Then, he glanced down, where Segundus was attempting the one act which comes naturally to all men and women.
"You are lucky, sir," Childermass said. "But to whom you owe this luck, I cannot tell."
And then Childermass did the magic.
If before Segundus' dying performance had been something akin to the vanishing of the light, Pale's Restoration & Rectification imbued in him something of the dawn; the blueness vanished from his lips and was replaced instead by the rosiness of life, the flush of which spread also to his cheeks. The vital breath grew stronger, the chest began once more it's rise and fall and, faster than Childermass might have anticipated, the shuttered eyes began to open, blinking slow and wincing even in the sunless grey of the day. Briefly, his gaze wandered, unmoored and apparently unseeing, across the world until, finally, they came to rest on Childermass. His lips moved, though no sound forth at first.
"Are you then…," he whispered roughly, "to be my angel?"
Now, I should hope that my dear reader understands the decorum to assume at the bedside of an invalid but recently recovered from a terrible ordeal, and even if they should not have the whole etiquette memorised, they ought to know enough not to follow John Childermass' example in this moment, which was to throw his head back and laugh.
Segundus startled, then groaned, then began to awake entirely. His hands, clutched against the blood-soaked coat twitched and loosened their paralysed hold and he turned his head a little as one who has spent the day poring over old books might upon feeling a twinge therein.
Interrupting his Lazarian paroxysms, Childermass spoke, though not without mirth still in his voice. "Some time ago I had the fortune to witness a performance of Shakespeare by a Mr Romeo Coates, who hails from Antigua and proclaimed himself a very astonishing miracle upon the boards; aye, astonishing he was, for all that he dressed himself in diamonds and ermine, he was the most ridiculed and mocked thespian I should think that has ever earned hisself a name for it. And yet, he continued on to believe himself a genius and an actor beyond compare - so you see, sir, there are men of similar levels of delusion as yourself in this moment."
"…Mr Childermass?" Segundus stared at him as though he were indeed one of those apparitions for which he had been initially mistook. He reached out for his saviour and touched his hand; dried red came off in flakes and the sight seemed to thrust him into the fullness of his intellect.
"Mr Childermass!" he then cried and, snatching his hand back, demonstrated the fullness of his recovery by immediately removing all his restored blood to his face.
Brewer reared back and snorted as Segundus made to sit up, only to sway a little with the sudden change. Childermass had the idea that the man was going to faint and so, in the interest of preventing a blow to the head when he fell and thus rendering the magician's act void, he supported him with an arm around his back.
"You were attacked, I assume, sir, unless you are in t'habit of shooting your own horse."
"I was…I was, yes, I think- there was something," Segundus murmured, leaning without thinking into the other man's solidity. He glanced down and attempted, with shaking fingers, to peel his coat from his stomach, only to find it apparently glued in place. As he tugged upon the cloth, the realisation of why this should be paled his previous blush. "Oh dear."
"Hmm."
"Was it…very bad?"
"I suppose it depends upon your definition. Death being the very worst, it was not entirely that."
This did not reassure the victim, who twisted his face and finally removed coat from waistcoat with the sounds of a dissection of the skin layers, and as he did so, a small iron ball rolled from his body and into a shallow puddle nearby. It sank to the bottom immediately.
"Th- that was-," Segundus stammered.
Childermass leaned over and plucked the shot from the water, the diluted blood running down his fingers in pink trickles.
"You ought to keep it, sir," Childermass said and tucked it swiftly into the pocket of Segundus' waistcoat.
"Keep it?" Segundus cried, aghast.
Childermass shrugged. "It is not often one gets to keep these sorts of mementos. Most men are buried with them."
Segundus paled the more but made no move to discard the injurious piece. "I suppose…," he hesitated, "it might be a reminder that there are good people yet willing to help those in need."
I had planned to leave you, Childermass did not say. I should have left you, and you would have died in this ditch, alone.
But he did not say so, perhaps due to some selfish part of him that did not wish to sour the good opinion of the other man, to whom he had previously engendered so much disappointment in his life, or perhaps simply for the sake of simplicity in the moment; who could say which it was? The human instinct is rarely so easy to define.
In the midst of his ruminations, a thought appeared to have occurred to Segundus, who proceeded to pat himself down with increasing agitation.
"I doubt an assailant would have left any of your valuables behind; had your watch been more than a nickel-piece, it too would likely have been vanished."
"It's not- my book!" Segundus said in distress. "My book!"
Childermass, knowing Segundus' occupation, was now supremely interested. "A very valuable book?"
"A copy of The Seven Keys of the Masters of Asphodel."
Childermass whistled through his teeth. "A very valuable book. I had no idea there was a copy yet in circulation." If he had, Norrell would have too, and it would have been brought to Hurtfew Abbey no matter the cost.
"It is a legitimate text - what I read therein…," Segundus made one last desperate sally and checked his shoes, as though any book might be so small or tricky as to have slipped into that place. On the other hand, books of magic have been known to manifest many peculiar properties. "It is why I was bringing it to the Society. It is - as your former master likely would have put it - rather mystic in its wording."
"Vinculus!" Childermass shouted, turning and waking the man who had evidently decided he was bored of the drama unfolding before him and who had set to nodding in his saddle; Childermass woke him with such vigour that Vinculus almost slipped off his mount entirely, and was saved only by the act of grabbing onto the poor mare's mane, who rewarded this uncouth manner by throwing back her head and hitting the vagrant hard enough for him to curse and hold his nose.
When next he spoke, it was nasal and muffled.
"First it's 'Vinculus, be quiet', then it's 'Vinculus, keep going', then he takes hisself off to wherever he please, now it's 'Vinculus, solve my problems for me'. I should not, out of pride. Man has pride, even a poor traveller like myself," he muttered, as his mare snorted and bounced a little as she settled.
"Did you see a book in those saddlebags?"
"What?"
"Saddlebags," Childermass ground out. "A book. You know t'looks of such things, tho' you can read them good as yoursen I am sure."
"Speak so to me and I'm sure my memory's going. On account of me age, don't you know. You shouldn't treat the elderly in that manner, you cur," Vinculus grumbled.
"I could treat you worse."
"No, I ent seen a book in no saddlebags," Vinculus said.
"Are you certain?"
"It is an octavo," Segundus provided, demonstrating the size with his hands, as though Vinculus might not recognise a book so diminished.
"Haven't seen none," Vinculus said again, removing his hands and scrunching his nose.
Childermass did kiss his teeth as Vinculus touched the appendage. "'Tis still attached," he said drolly, "to t'great misfortune of your wives."
"Perhaps I ought to go back and check," Segundus fretted and levered himself to his feet, immediately tipping to so great a degree that Childermass was compelled to stand also in order to prevent his collapse.
"You ought to go see a physician," Childermass said. "Unless you intend to waste my magic."
At the insinuation of ungratefulness, Segundus rallied admirably.
"I would never, sir! The debt in which I am now in to you- why, if ever there is something I might do to repay you, say it only and everything in my power-,"
"Well, I have just told thee," Childermass interrupted him. "If you wish to honour my actions, go to York and ensure there are no lingering ill effects from your adventure."
Segundus looked at him queerly, still clutching Childermass' arm for stability.
"But that cannot be all-,"
"What my wishes can and cannot be is my own business, Mr Segundus," Childermass said.
"Go to York…," Segundus said, glancing down to where they joined. "But how…"
"Most men ride, tho if you insist upon walking," Childermass drawled.
The other man sighed. "I suppose I must resign myself to it. Poor Betsy, that she should die in so awful a manner."
Childermass grunted in exasperation.
"Come, sir, you need not prevaricate. We too are bound for York, you shall go with us. I am not a kind man, but neither so cruel as to make a man upon t'edge of expiry walk all t'way."
Segundus blinked. "I meant to make no such demands," he stammered.
"Perhaps I might make Vinculus walk, and you shall ride his mare."
What Vinculus said to this we should not like to put down so frivolously.
"But then," Childermass continued, "who is to say what you might catch therefrom. Ride on Brewer; he is a stout bearer." With his free hand, he stroked Brewer's neck and the horse whinnied, his long black tail swishing as though in agreement.
"Mr Childermass, you are too- too kind, but I really couldn't impose-,"
"If you are afeared of imposition, you have done so already." Undoubtedly this was meant as a form of reassurance, but Segundus interpreted it in the more common way and hung his head.
"Forgive me," he said glumly.
Childermass regarded him for a moment.
"Need I put you on t'horse?"
Whether or not Childermass could have actioned this threat - for all that Segundus was a small man, a man he nonetheless was, and Childermass one more at home with a pen than lifting hay bales and the like - it worked as intended and Segundus, intent on being the least trouble he could in the circumstances, tentatively heaved himself up onto Brewer, though he could not quite manage it with enough adroitness to avoid the need for Childermass to place a helping hand beneath his boot as he did so.
Casting his eyes about him, Childermass picked up the discarded coat and snapped it a few times to shake off the dried blood on its surface; it cracked and came off in crimson flakes which mingled with the blackthorn blossoms as they too whirled off into the vast aether.
"'Tis cold," Childermass said in explanation as he handed the article up. Indeed, the early spring was none so kind nor soothing yet and as Childermass mentioned it, this seemed to occur to Segundus, who began to shiver. It was likely only this that made him to draw it back on, for he had looked at the blue-turned-purple coat with such distress Childermass almost thought him to take it only to cast it off again.
"It is cold," Vinculus complained and took a draught from Segundus' flask, offering none of it to the owner.
Childermass mounted with the ease of familiarity, but as he settled, he had to contend with the rather less familiar feeling of a body riding in front of him. In such proximity, it was impossible to remain politely apart and so they settled together.
"It is not so cold," Segundus choked out and now, without a good view of his face, Childermass found it more difficult to read his meaning. The tops of his ears were rose-coloured and where his chest was pressed to Segundus' back, they stood out to him clearly.
Childermass snorted, and without needing to prompt him, Brewer began to plod along the road, Vinculus' mare following sedately. For a moment, there was an uncomfortable silence - tho Brewer had but one way to go and so needed to instructions, Childermass was somewhat proprietary of his mount and so held the reigns none the less, which pressed the length of his arms to Segundus' sides.
"….Do you suppose, sir, the book-," Segundus eventually began, awkwardly intent on filling the silence.
Vinculus himself had been suspiciously silent, and when Childermass cast back a look at him in case of mischief, he found the vagrant looking back at him - at them - and he appeared to be silently laughing. For all that he cared little for the opinions of others for him, Childermass did not like Vinculus' amusement when he did not know the reason for it.
He narrowed his eyes at him, and Vinculus merely raised his eyebrows enigmatically, toasting him comically with the flash and taking another healthy dram.
"-intentionally?"
Childermass grunted and turned back to Segundus.
"Perhaps it was t'primary target of your…incident," Childermass said. "Norrell and Strange have left all of England in the grips of a magiomania and if ever books of magic had been dearly priced before, they are now worth triple that. If one had heard of such a book coming into your possession, and then to know of t'way you come to York, it would have been worth it indeed. Men have been killed for less."
"I see. I had not thought, in truth, to keep it a secret," Segundus winced, and absently stroked Brewer's mane, running his fingers through the coarse hair there simply for something to occupy his hands. "I do not like to think we must become so guarded about our possessions even now. We ought to have come into a great new age for English magic! Not to retreat and covet the few remnants of its history we have left. It is a poor showing; it is too much like a return to the old ways," he lamented.
"I s'pose that is something you can bring before t'Society," Childermass said, and decided to keep in personal confidence the opinion that such positions would not be welcome amongst those traditionalists.
His passenger sighed. "I do not like to speak disparagingly, but I fear such things would find little sympathy amongst them."
"Hmm."
"Yes," Segundus said as they once more lapsed into silence.
"Perhaps we should enquire at Coffee-yard. If there is a place to sell magical books, Thoroughgood is a likely one."
At this, Segundus abruptly turned to him, as much as one can in a saddle, in astonishment.
"'We', sir?"
Childermass hesitated. He did not think he had intended to say so. On the other hand, should Segundus make hisself known in York, at a booksellers where an almost-murderer might appear, it would all undoubtedly end with the other magician stabbed in an alley instead of shot in a ditch, and so would all Childermass' efforts of preservation go to waste.
"…It is a book I would be much interested in seeing. I have had dealings with Thoroughgood," as Segundus was well-aware, "he may be inclined to reveal to me things he otherwise would hide. And t'other sellers besides."
The sound of Vinculus snorting could be heard from behind.
"Oh. Yes, of course, that- that is very sensible. Then I shall hope it is as easy as that, for I would be most eager to hear your opinions on."
"So we are in agreement."
"With pleasure."
"Sure it is," Vinculus muttered and was fortunate in that it is very difficult for a rider to do violence to one behind him without a weapon to hand.
"Then to York."
And so they went and the blackthorn blossoms filled the air and the clouds went about their own mysterious ways and somewhere, in the far, far distance, a raven croaked a sound like laughter.