A Beggar's Kingdom Page 45

  I didn’t know I had to kill them.

  So this is what Prunella and Filippa plotted in the garden while other people danced and laughed. Oh, the charade Filippa played with him. Can you walk me home, Julian, it’s not far, and it’s so late. All that pretend laughing, learning poker, throwing them both off their guard with her high spirits. Filippa wanted to cause Mirabelle harm, and she succeeded. She and Prunella wanted to hurt Mirabelle so much, they risked killing Julian, risked maiming him. They threatened his life to break her heart.

  Julian had been set up, exposed, ambushed. Did they think he wouldn’t figure out their conspiracy until Mirabelle left for Paris? And that afterward, he would somehow fall into Filippa’s arms to be comforted while Mirabelle traveled desolate and abandoned to Scutari?

  The monumental injustice of it drips bile into his throat.

  It takes him several concussed days to conclude he is wrong. The attack on him was too vicious to allow for a possibility of a rapprochement. It’s as if Filippa realized in the few days that had passed since the dance that Julian would never be hers. The assault was vengeance on him for not loving Filippa, it was payback to Mirabelle for being loved. If I can’t have what I want, the venomous girl said, and her mother agreed and helped her, then no one will have what they want.

  And it’s not over. There’s no saying Julian won’t be killed. The infection in the gash in his arm isn’t going away.

  That means that for Filippa and her mother, a man’s death was a fair price to pay. They assessed the cost, the risk, the danger, and decided it was worth it, as long as Mirabelle didn’t get what she wanted.

  Julian has never hated anyone more in his life.

  Not Fario Rima, not Lord Falk, not Fabian, not poor, pathetic Fulko.

  All the rough fights he’s had, all the times he has battled and boxed, won and lost, none of them made him feel the way he feels now. It’s the first time in his life that Julian wants to kill another human being. Kill them with his bare hands.

  Julian has plenty of time for his hatred to animate and harden him, to make him colder and crueler. He’s got nothing but time.

  He counts the days by the plates that pile up. The flies enjoy the remains of his bread and the hole in his floor. The days are long and empty, and his ribs hurt nonstop. There’s too much time to think, to change your mind, to believe one thing, to stop believing.

  Is Julian irrelevant? No one wants to feel this about himself, but every once in a while, it must be true. Perhaps Julian is one of the irrelevant few. Hollow is his belief, dull and faded his faith.

  No man can think this about himself and stay sane. If Julian truly believed he was irrelevant, and that Mirabelle would be better off without him, then why search the world for her, why do anything? Why live?

  He thinks back to the things Charles Spurgeon had told him. Anyone’s life can be cut short, anyone’s. The depth of your life’s meaning doesn’t depend on how long or short it is. It cannot depend on it.

  That is so true.

  Another true thing: now that Julian has been wrenched from Mirabelle, how clarifying his path has become! How fast the scales have fallen from his eyes. Separation is the opposite of love. Without each other, he is no good and she is no good. There is no protection for her when he is not by her side, and there was no protection for him. Because he wasn’t safe, now she is not safe; he feels the evil omen inside every wound that throbs on his body. Oh, Mirabelle. What have I done?

  What have I done again.

  The darkness has divided them. Charles was right. But Julian has to find a way to fight against it. Charles was right about that, too.

  Groaning with every step, with every deep breath, Julian slowly manages to drag his fleabag mattress under the small window. He rolls it up and stands on tip toes to glimpse what’s outside. Where is he? There is a stone wall in a narrow alley. All day he watches for people, hoping someone will pass by, one measly human being!

  No one comes. He could be anywhere. From the bit of sky above the back of the building, he thinks he’s facing east. Facing Sydenham, where Mirabelle might be.

  The days drag, and then they fly. Each morning and night when he hears the hatch open, Julian falls to the floor and yells to be let out. They laugh at him, foolish Mervyn and crazy-eyed Sly. They’re outside his locked door, they can afford to be brave.

  “I’m injured,” he shouts. “My arm is infected. If you don’t get me a doctor, my arm will gangrene. And then I will die. Is that what you want?” They don’t reply, but the next morning, there’s a bottle of iodine on his tray and some rolled gauze. There’s also a bottle of Smith’s Glyco-heroin. Why does Julian feel grateful to his captors? Is he insane?

  He pours the iodine into his wound, gritting his teeth through the sting, and bandages his arm. The heroin is in liquid form and bitter, bitter, bitter on his tongue like an alkaloid. He doesn’t know the dosage. He’s never taken it, by any method. Shuddering, he swallows down a gulp with some water. “Heroin,” the bottle reads, “scientifically compounded, scientifically conceived, simply stands on its merits before the profession, ready to prove its efficacy to all who are interested in the art of medication.”

  It’s true.

  In a half-hour, all of Julian’s problems have been solved. He stops caring about his arm, his rib, his head, his shoulder, his jaw. He stops caring about everything. He cannot adequately explain the absolute neutralizing of his pain. Klonopin was a placebo, a baby aspirin, compared to the soul-balm that is heroin. Everything that was bad has gone away. Everything that hurt has gone away. All worry, all frenzy is gone. All fury has vanished. Everything will be fine, Julian thinks, laid out on the mattress, staring up at the ceiling with a benevolent smile. This is exactly what’s needed. For her to have any chance of survival, I do need to stay away from her. I need to stay right here. This imprisonment is the universe sending me a sign. Thank you, O wise universe. I’ll be here, and she’ll be there, and everything will turn out fine. It feels good for everything to finally feel so right.

  In the middle of the night Julian bolts up, sick in his body and soul. He’s sweating and aching. Even with the iodine, his wound continues to fester. His broken rib is a crippling injury. But nothing hurts like his heart hurts. He has never felt worse or more terrible or more scared. He will die, he is convinced, and then she will die and she will never know how much he loved her and how hard he tried to get to her.

  A small voice in his head says, well, Jules, let’s get real here, how hard are you trying? Yelling into the door and sucking down liquid heroin I know might seem like trying, but is it really?

  Julian can’t stand another second of being alone with himself. He swallows another bitter ugly gulp, this time without the water.

  And another.

  And another.

  And each time, after thirty minutes, everything becomes wonderful in his world, on a wretched mattress in a cage, beaten and humiliated. There is nothing to worry about. It’s all going to work out, just the way it’s supposed to.

  He doesn’t know how many days pass like this. When he opens his eyes one afternoon, naked with soul-sickness, Julian thinks, I can drink what’s left of the bottle right now. This second I can tip the rest into my throat, lie down, and never feel this bad again. There is nothing I can do to save her, I know that now, so what’s the point. I can’t even save myself.

  Before he can do it, or talk himself into it, Julian crawls to the gutter drain, opens the bottle and pours out the rest of the heroin into the hole in the concrete, tears rolling down his face from the effort and regret.

  When Mervyn and Sly come to trade him food for his empty plates, Julian lies on the floor and begs them. “Whatever you want, I’ll pay,” he says. “Whatever you’re getting, I’ll double it. I’ll triple it.” Mervyn and Sly scoff. They don’t believe he has any money. “I have money,” Julian says. “Name your price.”

  “Yeah, sure,” they sneer. “How about five quid?”


  “Done,” Julian says.

  “How about ten?”

  “Done,” Julian says.

  Oh, how they laugh.

  “Fifty?”

  “Done.”

  They roll in the corridor. “Why don’t you give us a hundred pound, mate, and then we’ll let you out.”

  “Done,” Julian says. “Let me out and I’ll give you a hundred pounds.”

  He can hear their laughter echo off the walls long after they leave.

  With no heroin to heal him and no money to bribe them with, Julian steeps and boils inside his murderous hatred until his mind clears enough for him to remember some of the prison-break movies he’s seen. With the help of movie magic, Julian devises a new plan and with grim determination proceeds to execute it. He is going to need some grim determination. It’s going to be brutal.

  He stops the nonsense of yelling and beating at the door when he hears them coming. The first part of his plan consists of making no sound at all. With his legs tucked under him, he sits on the floor against the wall to the left of the door where they can’t see him even if they peeked through the hatch. To see him, they’d have to open the door—which is what Julian is counting on.

  Mervyn and Sly come, they slide in the plate of bread and the mug of water, they wait a moment. “Hey, you,” Sly says. “Your breakfast’s ’ere.” Julian stays silent. They leave, their footsteps receding. “What d’you think,” Sly asks Mervyn. “He’s sleeping in the corner on the floor or something? Because he’s not on his bed.”

  “Suppose so.”

  Why didn’t Julian think of this sooner? After he’s sure they’re gone, he covers up the little window with his jacket, so if they decided to walk down the alley, and peek inside the cell, they couldn’t do it. It physically hurts him to reach up and cover his one bit of gray light, to remain in darkness, but better that than indefinite darkness.

  He stays silent, as if he’s already dead, and waits for his next meal.

  It comes.

  He doesn’t touch it.

  And the next.

  He doesn’t touch it.

  “Fine,” Mervyn says, “you want to play games, we can play, too. Eat, don’t eat, what do we care.”

  They stop bringing him any new bread or water, but they keep checking on him to see if he’s touched what’s there.

  They malinger at the door, whispering, trying to look in. After they leave, he drinks only the water, a small sip from each mug.

  It’s agonizing to remain on the floor in one position and do nothing but lie in wait, but Julian feels he’s close, he feels they’ll break soon.

  On the fifth morning they come earlier than usual. It’s still dark outside. They’re worried about his lack of activity. He’s either vanished using black magic, or he’s dead. He hears their muffled voices, the bolt sliding sideways. The hatch is left open, and Julian can hear their heavy breathing, their anxious whispering. They throw in another hunk of bread.

  “Sly, what are we going to do? It’s been nearly a week and he hasn’t touched his food.”

  “I see that, Merv. I ain’t completely blind. Maybe he’s sick.”

  “A week sick?”

  “It’s still early. Let’s come back in a few hours, check on him then.”

  And in a few hours they are back. Julian can hear them on their knees, peering in.

  “Can you see him?”

  “No, I can’t see him, Sly. If I could see him, I’d tell you, don’t you think?”

  “So where is he?”

  “I don’t fucking know, do I?”

  “Did he escape?”

  “How? Through what, the shit drain?”

  “Smell it, does it smell like a dead body?”

  “It stinks to high heaven.”

  “But does it smell like a body, Sly?”

  “How the fuck should I know! Call for him. The dead don’t answer.”

  “Hey!” Mervyn yells. “Hey, you! You! Wake up. Wake up!”

  Julian holds his breath, standing flush against the wall. The morons don’t even know his name. He squeezes a metal plate and a pewter water goblet in his tense hands. They’ve kept him in captivity for weeks, and they don’t even know his fucking name. Bastards.

  How many weeks has it been? Two, three? He can’t bear to think about it. He lost a week to heroin, a week to the concussion. He could’ve lost longer to both. It’s hard to tell.

  Finally, Julian hears the key turning, the lock popping, metal against metal, the big door hesitantly creaking open. Thank you. He clenches his fists around the makeshift weapons.

  “You go first.”

  “No, you go first.”

  “I can’t take it. If he’s dead we won’t get the rest of our money. I’ve been counting on it. Go and look.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake!”

  Julian wants Sly to be first. He’s faster. He needs to be disabled. The door swings out into the corridor, and Sly takes a tentative step in. It’s too tentative. Sly’s body is barely inside the frame. He carries a stick with him and a set of keys. Here, Julian is helped by the nerves of the impatient, foolish Mervyn who is so eager to see if Julian has kicked the bucket. Merv shoves Sly forward. That’s all Julian needs. Sly turns his head to the left, sees Julian, very much alive, standing mute and grim against the wall, opens his mouth to scream, but it’s too late. Julian slams the edge of the plate into Sly’s head and kicks him as hard as he can in his knee. By the way Sly screams and falls, clutching his leg, Julian is sure the knee is shattered. Mervyn doesn’t even try to fight. It’s flight all the way for foolish Mervyn. In slow motion, he turns to run, but shock has paralyzed him, immobilized him just long enough for Julian to smash the pewter mug into his face, not once, not twice, but over and over. Julian sees nothing but red as Mervyn falls onto the concrete floor in the corridor.

  Julian wastes no time asking questions. He drags Mervyn by his ankles inside the cell, leaving a snail-like trail of blood on the floor, and as the hobbled bald Sly twists in pain, Julian grabs the keys that have fallen out of Sly’s hands. Mervyn is making only the smallest of sounds.

  “You two are such fucking idiots,” Julian says. “Enjoy your stale bread. But I’d ration your water if I were you. Because this is it. There ain’t no more, and there’s no more coming.”

  “Please don’t, mate, please don’t! We treated you good!” Sly cries.

  “Fuck you.”

  “We was going to let you go tomorrow, honest!”

  “Fuck you.”

  Sly grabs for Julian’s leg. Julian stomps on Sly’s wrist, kicks him again as hard as he can in his broken knee, and limps out.

  They were going to let him go tomorrow? Why tomorrow? What day is tomorrow?

  And more important—what day is today?

  Julian stumbles down the putrid cellar corridor, holding his arm and his throbbing ribs, hurrying, almost running. At the end of the hall, he drops the cell keys in the corner and hobbles up the stairs.

  ∞

  It takes him a few minutes to adjust to the blinding daylight. Where is he?

  Oh, look where he is. Jacob’s Island. The capital of cholera, the Venice of drains, a rookery to equal St. Giles in the Fields. He’s been kept in a drunk tank of some lowly tavern called the Goat and Compasses, a perversion, Julian thinks, of the phrase “And God encompasses all.” He’s read about this place. It’s a cantina for smugglers, villains, and pirates who sell the bodies that sometimes wash up from the nearby Thames.

  He looks around to see if he can find a carriage. He has no money. He had gone to walk Filippa home with only a few shillings in his pocket and the grifters took even that from him before they threw him inside the bunker. He is lucky they missed his crystal. In the fight, it got tangled around his neck and slipped to the back.

  He smells awful, the sourest man on the street, a sham deaf mute. Groaning with every step, Julian lowers his head and walks, as fast as his injuries will allow him, walks seven long miles from J
acob’s Island to Sydenham. He stops a man to ask for today’s date.

  It’s September 20, 1854. After he learns that, Julian almost can’t walk any farther. Noon of the autumnal equinox has come and gone. The flare has flared, the floodgate has flooded, the portal has opened or not. Julian will never know.

  Here’s what he does know. His body is stinging. He stares into his shaking hands. He thought he was reacting to being in motion for the first time in weeks. But that’s not it.

  He has answers to so many questions he no longer wants any answers to.

  Hurry, Julian, hurry.

  By the time he gets to Taylor’s Lane and bangs on the black door of Vine Cottage, it’s early evening. He is humbled, bloodied, broken, filthy, grimy. He is a wretch.

  The door is flung open by a distraught, ungroomed Aubrey. “Oh, Julian!” she cries. “Where have you been? What happened to you?” She pulls him inside, oblivious to the state of his body, as if she doesn’t see it, as if it’s the least important thing.

  In the parlor room, sitting with a pallid John Taylor, are Prunella and Filippa. They jump up at the sight of Julian. They look shocked to see him.

  “Oh, my word, Mr. Cruz!” Prunella says. “Where have you been?”

  “Yes,” Filippa exclaims, “we were so worried about you.”

  Julian trembles from the effort to control his emotion, from the scathing words that threaten to tear apart his mouth, he trembles from the forces that are about to break apart his body.