He stopped at the subtle catch of his captor's breath. The man leaned closer, speaking low. “And, if you will indulge me…just exactly how did they travel?”
“You will understand,” replied the Doctor, “that however strange it may seem to find a Macklenburg Naval Surgeon in this forest, it is just as odd for me to find not only a man who knows me, but one engaged on an equally mysterious journey of… commerce.”
“Nothing mysterious at all!” snapped the man. “It is a commercial canal!”
The man took his own moment to peer over the canvas barrier. The canal had twisted more deeply into the forest and the overhanging branches blotted out so much of the pallid light that it seemed near dusk. With the thickening trees came less wind, and Svenson saw the entirety of the crew, save the master, had taken up poles. The man sat back down on his own crate, frowning that his captive had seen fit to rise along with him.
Svenson studied his adversary. The brown topcoat was of an excellent cloth, but cautious in its cut, just like the cravat—silk, but the inoffensive color of orange pith. The man's thinning hair had been pasted to his scalp that morning with pomade, but with the breeze now sported an insolent fringe.
“What a strange cargo you seem to be carrying.” The Doctor waved a hand toward the front of the barge. “All wrapped up and odd-shaped, rather like different cuts of meat from a butcher's—”
The man seized Svenson's knee. Svenson glared at the point of contact. His host removed his hand, then cleared his throat and stuck out his chin.
“You will tell me what you know of Robert Vandaariff.”
“I do not know anything.”
“Did he travel with your Prince?”
“Was there not some story of fever—that Harschmort was under quarantine?”
The man thrust his face close to Svenson's, his lips pursed and white. “I will ask you again: if he did not travel with the Prince in secret, where is Robert Vandaariff?”
“Could he not be in the city? Or elsewhere in the country—surely he owns many—”
“He is nowhere!”
“Perhaps if I knew why you need him—”
“No, you will answer me!”
“O come,” sighed Svenson. “You are no policeman—and nor am I. We are not fitted for interrogation. I am a foreigner in an unfamiliar country—an unfamiliar language—”
“You speak it perfectly well,” muttered the man.
“But I possess no subtlety. I can only be plain, Mr…. come now, your name can not be so precious…” Svenson raised his eyebrows hopefully.
“Mr.—ah—Mr…. Fruitricks.”
Svenson nodded, as if this were not an especially obvious fabrication.
“Well, Mr. Fruitricks… it would seem, and I offer this out of pure scientific deductive reasoning, that you are in—as it is said amongst your people—a spot.”
“I'm sure I am in no such thing.”
“As you insist. And yet, even the crates we are sitting on—”
“Crates are common on a barge.”
“Come, sir. I am also a soldier, though I should hardly need to be to recognize so famous a seal as the one upon your seat.”
The man looked awkwardly between his legs. The crate was stamped with a simple coat of arms in black—three running hounds, with crossed cannon barrels below.
“Are you insolent?” the man bleated.
“The only question that matters,” continued Svenson mildly, “is which member of the Xonck family you serve.”
“YOU DID not say what happened to your head,” said Mr. Fruitricks sullenly.
“I am sure I mentioned luggage.”
“You wander in a forest without any possessions? Without hat or coat—”
“Again, sir, all of this was left on the train.”
“I do not believe you!”
“What else would I be doing here?”
Svenson gestured at the trees with exasperation. The canal had curved more deeply into the park, and when Svenson looked through a small break in the trees, there was no longer any sign of the track bed. The pain in his arm was pulsing again, the disturbing overlay of images seeping up through his thoughts like bubbles of corruption in swamp water—the cenotaph, the fossil, Elöise… Svenson felt dizzy. He nodded to the stove.
“Would there be any more tea?”
“There would not,” replied Mr. Fruitricks, whose mood had soured even more. He sniffed at Svenson like a thin, suspicious dog. “You seem unwell.”
“The… ah…” The Doctor motioned vaguely toward the back of his head. “Blow… bag… hitting me—”
“You will not vomit on my barge. It has new brass fittings.”
“Wouldn't dream of it,” rasped Svenson, his throat tightening. He stood. The barge-master, who had approached without any warning at all, caught his shoulder and steadied him from pitching over the side. Svenson looked down at Fruitricks' crate.
“That has been opened,” he said.
“The Prince would not travel without you,” snarled Fruitricks, petulantly throwing his cigar into the water. “You know where he is, where they all are, what has happened! Who has attacked them? Why have I heard nothing? Why have they said nothing to the Palace?”
The questions flew at Svenson with such speed and invective that each one caused him to blink. His tongue was thick, but he knew that the situation ought not to be beyond him. Fruitricks was exactly the sort of desperate man—officious courtiers, ambitious minions—he had spent years doggedly manipulating in the service of the Macklenburg court.
The sky spun, as if a very large bird had silently swept past. Doctor Svenson lay on his back. He squeezed his eyes tightly, embracing the dark.
SVENSON WOKE slowly, his entire body stiff and chilled, and attempted to lift his arm. He could not. He craned his aching head—which felt the size of a moderate sweet melon—and saw the arm had been bound to a bolt on the deck with hemp rope. His other arm was tied as well, and both legs lashed together at the ankle and the knee: he lay cruciform between two of the canvas-wrapped objects. The sky was empty and white. He closed his eyes again and did his best to concentrate. The barge was no longer moving. He heard no footstep, call, or conversation. He opened his eyes and turned to the nearest piece of cargo. From within the canvas Svenson smelled indigo clay.
The hammer was gone from his belt. He brought his legs up and bent forward. The knot binding his knees came well within the reach of his teeth. The Doctor's naval service did not call for any particular knowledge of sailing, yet he had often found his interest piqued by older members of the crews he tended, and the earlier, vanished world those men had known. His awkward but honest attempts at friendship were often met with some practical demonstration—easier than conversation for all concerned—and in more than one instance this had involved knots and ropework. With some satisfaction, biting at the fraying hemp like a crow at a sinewy carcass, Svenson realized he knew both the knot in question—what Seaman Unger called a “Norwegian horse”—and the simplest way to pluck it apart.
With his knees free and his legs beneath him, he could bend to reach his right hand. The knot was the same—he had no high opinion of his captors' creativity—and, a few moments aside for spitting out hemp fiber, his hand was quickly free, then the second hand, and at last his ankles. Doctor Svenson crouched at a gap between the swathed pieces of cargo, working the stiffness from his wrists.