The Undying Legion Read online

  “Finish?” Barnes rose suddenly. “That is a mere exercise. Eleanor, go! Clear this room!”

  Everyone immediately began to file out. Kate watched the exodus in surprise. They seemed excited by being ejected, chattering to one another about Kate and the new painting that was about to begin. When Rowan Barnes was operating in the pure fire of creation, the entire salon vibrated with joy.

  Simon stood to one side of the door, nodding politely to those who departed. He glanced up to see Barnes glaring at him.

  “You!” the painter cried. “Out!”

  “Me? Surely you can’t expect me to leave Miss Anstruther unchaperoned.”

  Barnes was walking back toward his easel. “Take your bourgeois foolishness and be gone. There can be no audience.”

  Kate took a step toward Simon and nodded confidently. He adopted the outraged face of the scorned man, but his whisper to her was calm. “I’ll be watching.” Then he stormed out with much display of anger.

  Kate called, “Don’t worry, darling. I’ll make sure he uses enough green in my eyes.” She laughed and said to a passing woman who looked at her with awe, “He’s just upset that Barnes isn’t painting him.”

  The blond nude who had been Barnes’s model stared at Kate for a long moment before leaving her spot by the pedestal. She strode to the door with her bare feet slapping the wood floor, weaving through the other departing salonistes. Finally the room was empty and the door closed.

  Barnes paused in his gathering of paints. “You may disrobe.”

  “Oh, may I?” Kate snorted. “I prefer not.”

  His disappointment was plain for an instant. Then with a wave of a color-filled hand, he brushed it away. “Remember, you are the primordial female. You are Jerusalem.”

  “Isn’t that a city in Palestine?”

  “Jerusalem is everything.” Barnes placed a fresh white canvas on the easel and led Kate some yards away to a short pillar surrounded by large, potted ferns. He took her arm and extended it with a caress of his fingers. “Here is where you will ponder your nature. Jerusalem is the emanation of Albion. She is the first woman to his first man, but it is even more than that because they are the same. Together, they are one, all humanity. You are she. You are the creative spark of the world. The lush forest of birth. The warm haven of life. You must embrace that power and that freedom. Before you was nothing but God.”

  Kate hid her reaction to the mention of Albion. Barnes was certainly conversant in the elements of William Blake’s mythology. Though, as Malcolm had pointed out, many people had read his poetry.

  Barnes touched her hair gently, breathing in her scent. “You are my masterpiece, the envy of every woman and the desire of every man.” He arranged her again, touching and prodding her into position. He studied her face with the disturbing intensity of a scientist staring through a microscope, no longer seeing her, but minute parts of her. His hands lingered a bit long on her hips, taking slight liberties in arranging the folds of her dress. Finally, he took her hand and kissed it, his eyes boring into hers.

  Inwardly, Kate shuddered at the caress of his soft wet lips.

  Barnes returned to the canvas and took up his brush and palette with the vigor of a hunter snatching up his gun. He enfolded her in a heated gaze that penetrated her in a threatening way. He frantically began to paint without taking his manic attention from her. There was a compelling power in his manner and Kate began to feel that same intensity growing again inside her. She almost bolted for the door. She wasn’t sure if it was her determination or his that kept her leaning against the cold marble amidst the forest of ferns.

  “You are familiar with the works of William Blake?” she asked a little breathlessly, thinking that obsessed was a more appropriate word.

  Barnes stopped in midstroke and stared at her. “How can one answer that? The entire cosmos is in that statement. I knew the great man. He was my guide, and I am his chosen successor. What was hidden, he saw. He saw the past. He saw the future. He laid out the path.” Barnes rested the brush against the canvas. “I now stand where the master did. My mission is to bring a light that will free this world from a shadow of oppression that hovers over it.”

  He walked to a table in the corner and poured a glass of wine. He didn’t offer anything to Kate. He drank and studied her from this new angle, swirling the wine in the goblet. After another moment, he returned to the easel and took up his brush, still holding the wine in the other hand.

  “That sounds radical,” Kate tried not to sound too dismissive, “for a man who so openly welcomes the approval of aristocrats.”

  “I use those people for my own purposes,” Barnes said smugly. “The Red Orchid has created a steady stream of upper-class ants plowing through the dim refuse of this parish to reach my shining light of London art.” He held the brush just off the canvas, waiting for her to be ready again. “I’ve seen the fire in your eyes. Your own father was a man who made his bold way in the world. And for his efforts, they castrated him.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Kate’s eyes narrowed to slits.

  “They made him one of them—Sir Roland—and attached him to their failed world so he would stop striving against them. It wasn’t a reward; it was a bribe. He forgot his obligations to those who helped him.”

  Kate glared with a balled fist on her hip. “How do you deign to speak of my father?”

  “I know him. I have known countless men who feared to be as great as they should. And women too. I have invited you to join us so you will not succumb to those fears. Britain will need you and every ounce of bravery you can muster.” Barnes stared at her with hunger. “Would you please resume your pose?”

  Kate considered storming out. The door was only a few steps away. No one would blame her for leaving, certainly not Simon. Still, she hadn’t learned anything useful yet except that Barnes was a coffeehouse Jacobin who despised the rich while becoming one. She owed it to those two poor women slaughtered and left exposed on church floors to swallow her disdain and stay until she found what she needed. Proof he murdered them.

  She placed her hand lightly on the column and turned her head back to face the window.

  Chapter 15

  It had been over an hour since Malcolm watched Kate venture upstairs in search of Rowan Barnes. Everything remained quiet. Malcolm heard fascinating snippets of readings and mentions of Shakespeare, Milton, Shelley, and most often, Blake. He had spent time with writers and poets in Edinburgh as a university student, and these people had that same hungry contemplation of the world. In fact, the only picture in the house, so far as Malcolm could tell, that was not a Barnes was a small watercolor by Blake. It was a naked young man with arms spread wide and blossoming colors behind him.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” came a voice.

  Malcolm noticed a young woman standing next to him peering at the painting, and then at him. She was blond and voluptuous, amply shown by the simple dress and full blouse scandalously unbuttoned to display her cleavage. She seemed oddly unaware of her state of dress. Even odder, she was barefoot.

  Malcolm felt his strict upbringing welling up and fought the urge to scowl in Presbyterian judgment. He shrugged wordlessly at her art appraisal, preferring that to contradicting her.

  She stared at him incredulously. “You don’t like it?”

  “It’s dramatic,” he said begrudgingly. “And there’s color.”

  “It’s glorious. Don’t you perceive that?”

  He found her tone annoying with its implication that he was incapable of deep thought if he didn’t appreciate the picture. He dug in his artistic heels. “It’s mediocre.”

  Her mouth fell open as if he had just denied that the Earth was round or fire was hot. Then she grew suspicious and challenging. “Clearly you have no artistic training.”

  “As much as he.” Malcolm tried not to smile proudly at his off-the-cuff jab. He would remember to tell it to Simon later.

  The blonde ran a ferocious hand through her hair
and practically growled. “Perhaps you found your way here by accident, sir. Did you mean to stop into a country house so you could admire the oils of heifers and farm maids?”

  Malcolm snorted in amusement. “Perhaps you’re correct, miss. I am no artist. I am more moved to poetry.”

  She brightened with excitement. “As am I! Surely then you appreciated Master Blake’s brilliance in verse.” As he turned his sour expression to her, she gasped in shocked disbelief. “No! You cannot possibly call yourself a poet and find disfavor with the Master. Have you truly read him?”

  “I truly have. And then I truly reread him because I couldn’t credit the rubbish I was reading the first time.”

  The woman couldn’t find words to reply. Her eyes wavered between pity, horror, and fury.

  “You realize,” Malcolm pointed at her as if lecturing, “there is room in the vast universe for different views.”

  “Perhaps over minor issues such as the existence of God, but Master Blake’s words are the music of the spheres made solid. He is the soul of mankind.”

  Malcolm rolled his eyes. She seized his arm and for a second, he feared she was going to attempt to throw him out. Instead, she tugged him down the corridor to a room that had likely been servants’ quarters. It was small, but with a serviceable grate where glowing coals threw off a fine heat. Four women sat on the floor, with a brass tray between them and long-stemmed opium pipes resting there. They all looked up blearily at the frantic blonde and confused man. They were older than the young woman towing Malcolm, and they regarded her with the comforting welcome of older sisters.

  “Eleanor?” one of the reclining women, a grim-eyed redhead, exclaimed. “What have you there?”

  “A Scotsman,” Eleanor replied. “He claims to be a poet yet he disdains the Master.”

  Malcolm prepared to bolt for freedom from the clutch of frenzied cultists, but the blonde shoved down on his shoulders. “Sit.” One of the others reached back and dragged a heavy folio into the circle.

  Malcolm lowered himself awkwardly because the pistols under his coat were digging into his waist and thighs. Once he was settled with young true-believer Eleanor at his side, the redhead opened the book and pronounced, “From Jerusalem.”

  Malcolm exhaled with annoyance. “Please, we’re all Christians here, have mercy.”

  “Quiet!” Eleanor barked. “Proceed, Lilith.”

  The redheaded Lilith cleared her throat and intoned:

  “ ‘And the Four Zoa’s clouded rage East & West & North & South

  They change their situations, in the Universal Man.

  Albion groans, he sees the Elements divide before his face.

  And England who is Brittania divided into Jerusalem and Vala

  And Urizen assumes the East, Luvah assumes the South

  In his dark Spectre ravening from his open Sepulcher.’ ”

  Malcolm buried his face in his hand and wished for an opium pipe to blunt the blows of those banal words. “Blake is a bloody disturbance.”

  “He was a visionary,” Eleanor explained. “He didn’t experience the world as we do.”

  “That’s plain.” Malcolm stared at the blank euphoric faces around him and felt frustration rising. He practically shouted, “You can’t tell me you understood a syllable of that!”

  “Of course we did,” Eleanor said with a sly wink at her fellows. “And bellowing is the refuge of a man with no reason. Shall we enlighten you on the Master’s meaning?”

  “Pray do,” Malcolm replied in a whisper.

  Eleanor now leafed through the book, cleared her throat, and began:

  “ ‘Her voice pierc’d Albions clay cold ear. he moved upon the Rock

  The Breath Divine went forth upon the morning hills, Albion mov’d

  Upon the Rock, he opened his eyelids in pain; in pain he mov’d

  His stony members, he saw England. Ah! shall the Dead live again

  The Breath Divine went forth over the morning hills Albion rose

  In anger: the wrath of God breaking bright flaming on all sides around

  His awful limbs: into the Heavens he walked clothed in flames”

  She stopped and breathed in, letting the words soak into her. “That was one of Cecilia’s favorite passages. She used it when she ascended.”

  The dead live again, Malcolm noted to himself. Cecilia’s favorite passage indeed. However, he remained visibly unimpressed. “Is ascended a Blakesian term for going round the shop?”

  “No, you would call it dying, but that isn’t correct at all. She is waiting in Jerusalem.” Eleanor turned to Lilith with disappointment. “Where I thought I would be soon.”

  “You will,” the other woman said.

  “Perhaps not.” Eleanor gave a tragic sigh. “He has a new one.”

  “No, dear. You will be one. He chose you. He doesn’t lie.”

  Lilith now stared at Malcolm as if suddenly remembering he was present. He tried to keep his manner unconcerned, studying the five passionate faces shining around him. These women could have been nothing more than intense but harmless enthusiasts, however he felt an odd sense of unease spreading.

  He tensed to move quickly if necessary. “Two women from your salon were murdered recently. Cecilia and Madeleine Hawley. You knew this, yes? And their bodies were claimed by Rowan Barnes? Do you know why?”

  “Because that’s what you do for family,” Lilith replied serenely. “What would you have him do, let their bodies go to some nameless parish plot? No, sir. They are our sisters. We brought them home.”

  “Can you tell me where they’re buried?”

  “You needn’t worry about Cecilia or Madeleine,” Eleanor said. “Perhaps you knew them before they came to the Red Orchid, but they are no longer those people. None of us are. They are emanations waiting. In Jerusalem. For Albion.”

  Lilith hissed, “Eleanor, shh.”

  The young blonde smiled innocently. “I don’t see a problem, Lilith. He’s probably looking for an old friend. He surely didn’t come here because of his knowledge of poetry or art because he has none.” She touched Malcolm on the arm. “I’m sorry, but neither Cecilia nor Madeleine is here any longer. And when they rise, you will not know them.”

  Lilith motioned Malcolm toward the door with her pipe. “Will you leave us now?”

  Eleanor looked a bit embarrassed, as if this was poor etiquette. “But we are discussing the Master.”

  “Eleanor, please.” Lilith narrowed her eyes at the younger woman. The rest of the women exchanged glances and instantly adjusted their postures to become withdrawn.

  Lilith regarded the Scotsman. “Sir, if you will, leave us, please.”

  Malcolm rose, keeping track of all the women, watching for any sudden movements. He bowed and backed to the door. Before he went out, Eleanor scampered to him.

  “I hope you will come back,” she said. “I would enjoy teaching you about poetry. Wait!” She leaned back into the dim room and shuffled through books and pamphlets on a side table. She handed Malcolm a small, cheaply printed volume with a yellow cover. “These are my poems. I wrote them before I came to the Red Orchid, but they’re all I’ve had published. I’m afraid they’re not very good.”

  Malcolm glanced at the book. It was truly a published volume of poems by a reputable, if small, London printer. He nodded in appreciation. “I’m sure they’re very good. Thank you, Eleanor.”

  “And do reread Jerusalem.”

  “If you wish it.”

  The pretty young blonde smiled at him and disappeared back into the room, closing the door.

  Malcolm slipped the small book into his coat pocket and continued down the corridor. There was a sense of ecstatic dedication in those women. Their lack of concern about their two friends who died disturbed him. They knew what had happened; they just didn’t care. And their use of the word ascending to diminish the idea they were murdered was ritualistic and unnerving.

  Malcolm noticed another door, narrower and shorter than
the rest, which had odd runic symbols painted on it. He checked around him before opening it. Behind the door were dark steps to a cellar. He found a lit candle on a side table and took it down creaking stairs. At the bottom, his foot stepped into soft dirt. The musty smell of damp earth rose around him. The ceiling was only five feet so Malcolm had to crouch. The faint candlelight hinted at heavy beams and rough brick walls. Spiderwebs crinkled across his face. He saw a shelf with jars of preserves and another with bottles of wine. Next to those shelves, Malcolm noted something square about five feet high, covered with a tarp and leaning against the wall.

  Malcolm dripped wax on a shelf and fixed the candle. He then began to work with the tarp. Beneath it, he found a portrait of a beautiful nude woman. Olive skin and black hair. She stared back openly at the viewer. One hand extended out and the other lay on her stomach. She was serene, even beatific. She wasn’t oversexualized, nor idealized. The setting of the painting appeared to be the interior of a church. The juxtaposition of the nude woman with the holy setting seemed purposefully indecent. Then Malcolm noticed at the bottom of the painting was a symbol. It was a series of Egyptian hieroglyphs, the same as those in the Pendragon/Hawksmoor churches.

  There was a second portrait and he felt a shock seeing it. The woman in the painting was the living portrayal of the lovely young blonde whom he had seen lying naked and vulnerable in a pool of blood at St. George’s Bloomsbury with her chest cut open and her heart branded. Madeleine Hawley. The poet.

  “Here, what are you doing?”

  Malcolm spun around with his hand slipping inside his coat for the butt of his pistol. He saw a burly man in a tweed jacket hunched on the bottom step. His face was wide and his nose flattened from numerous breakages. His massive hands had fingers like iron bars. His ratlike eyes burrowed into Malcolm, squinting ominously at the Scotsman’s hand buried in his coat.

  Malcolm thought he saw a glimpse of red hair as the door closed upstairs. “Lilith asked me to bring up a bottle of wine.”