The Translated Man Read online

  “I’m not.” Beckett touched his forehead, and his invisible fingertips came away bloody. Shit. He went to the mirror over his washbasin. There was a small purple lump above his right eye, and a shallow cut that had leaked blood all down the side of his face. He ran the tap, and cold, brownish water streamed into the basin. He dabbed at his face with a washcloth. “How did you get in?”

  “I Knocked.”

  “Are you serious? I didn’t know you could do that.”

  Skinner shrugged. “The telerhythmia isn’t much good for moving things, but there’s some force behind it. Enough to rattle the pins in a lock, anyway.”

  Beckett tried to clean up his face. The cut wasn’t as bad as it looked—cuts on the scalp rarely wore—and he’d taken worse bumps to the head. “What are you doing here?”

  She handed him a small, folded piece of parchment. “Mr. Stitch sent me. He wanted you to read this. What does it say?”

  Suspiciously, Beckett took the note and unfolded it. “Beckett,” he read. “You need to get out more. Stitch.”

  “Hah.” Skinner said.

  “Why ‘hah’?”

  “Because those were my thoughts exactly. Come on,” she tapped her cane on the floor. “You’re taking me to the theatre.”

  “Have you eaten?” Skinner asked quietly, while they were in the coach.

  Beckett shrugged. “Not hungry.”

  Skinner nodded but said nothing. For a few moments, they listened to the rhythmic creaking of the carriage’s wheels.

  “Skinner…” Beckett said, eventually.

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t.” He shifted uncomfortably. “I haven’t really got a lot of money…”

  “It’s all right.” She produced a second envelope. “Two tickets to The Bone-Collector’s Daughter, a new play in the style of Canthi Pantomime by . . . somebody. I don’t remember who.” She handed the envelope to Beckett. “It probably says so on the tickets.”

  The coroner extracted and examined them. Using his keen eye for detail, he eventually spotted the author’s name. “Bertram Sitwell. Never heard of him.”

  “Do you see a lot of plays?”

  “No.”

  “Well,” Skinner said, snatching the tickets back. “That explains that then, doesn’t it?”

  “Hnf.” Beckett was silent again. Then, “This isn’t going to be like what’s-his-name, right? Elias Warrant?”

  “When have you seen Warrant’s plays?”

  “Didn’t. Had to read them in school.” He made a disgusted face that Skinner couldn’t see, but presumably could hear in his voice.

  “You didn’t like him.” This was not a question.

  “Rattling on and on about the nobility of wealth and all that? About how the best thing in the world you could be was a merchant? Selling lard to the natives and making off with their phlogiston or gold or what?” Beckett grunted. “Couldn’t stand him.”

  “You probably liked the plays with all the murders and ghosts and things.” The bird had vanished from Skinner’s shoulder, but Beckett could now see centipedes moving around in the shadows.

  “Didn’t get to read much of them,” Beckett replied. “Didn’t you go to public school?”

  “Not once I’d manifested as a Knocker.” Skinner tapped the silver plate over her eyes. “They send us to special schools.”

  “Oh. Lucky you.”

  Silence again.

  “When did you manifest?” Beckett asked.

  “I was thirteen. Just come from seeing…Capale. That’s another Canthi Pantomime. I used to love those when I was a girl. I read them all. I’d seen all sixteen of the canonical pantomimes, and a couple of the newer ones by the time…” She smiled ruefully. “Well, let’s just say I’d have paid better attention to Capale if I’d known it was going to be the last thing I ever saw.”

  “Hm.” Beckett struggled with his words, trying to find something both sympathetic and supportive to say. He settled on changing the subject. “At school, everything they had us read was a moral lesson. Always something about the Word, and how we could apply it to our lives.”

  Skinner said nothing, then leaned forward. “Elijah,” she whispered, her voice amused and scandalous. “You sound like a man that doesn’t believe.”

  “Heh.”

  “How does that happen? How does a non-believer end up hunting down people for committing heresy?”

  The old coroner shrugged. The centipedes had started crawling down the back of his coat, but he ignored them. It was easier to ignore things that he was sure were hallucinations. “There’s steady work in it, for one.” He paused thoughtfully. “The Heretical Sciences are dangerous, Skinner. Really dangerous. They never work the way people want them to, and someone ends up dying. That’s why the church made them illegal.”

  “So, you hunt down heretics out of what . . . civic responsibility? Concern for your fellow man?” He was a liar, and Skinner knew it. It was a delicate process, teasing Beckett’s motivations out of the iron trap he kept them locked in. He deflected questions away from himself by old habit, and had probably spent little time considering the why of his life.

  The tone of his voice shifted, slightly, to the gruff-but-jocular tone he used as a shield, and Skinner realized that she’d lost this round. “You could say that. Really, it’s just for the money.” He shifted around in his seat and tried to squish the centipede between his shoulder blades. “Where did you get these tickets, by the way?”

  “Stitch. He gave them to me when he sent me to find you.”

  “Did he, now?”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” Beckett pursed his lips. “It’s just . . . well. It’s just interesting.”

  Beckett was silent then, and Skinner considered the sound of his voice. It wasn’t just cold, or gruff. There was a ragged pain to the sound of him, and there had been for the months that Skinner had known him. That had come as a surprise. Beckett didn’t know it, but Skinner had specifically requested the opportunity to work with him, once she’d been inducted into the coroners. The sour, wounded, sick old man was a legend in certain circles. Old Adelwulf Vie-Gorgon, who’d led the department before Mr. Stitch took over, had only ever spoken of Beckett with the utmost respect. Elijah Beckett was a man who had sacrificed everything for the purpose that he’d chosen for himself: defending the Crown from its strangest and most dangerous threats.

  If Skinner had been a little more honest with herself, she’d have admitted that she was a little in love with Elijah Beckett, but if she’d been brutally honest, she’d be forced to admit that she was really in love with the idea of Elijah Beckett. There always seemed to be a noble, poetic soul lurking beneath the damaged, brittle exterior, but the fact was that there was probably little left of Beckett except for that infallible devotion to his task.

  She had a sudden vision of the old man in his youth: a bare-knuckle boxer snatched up into the service, with fire in his eyes and a chip on his shoulder, ready to take on all comers.

  “What?” Beckett snapped.

  “What, ‘what’?”

  “You’re listening at me. Stop it.”

  “Sorry.”

  They rode the rest of the way in silence.

  Ten: The Theater

  The two coroners arrived at what would eventually be known as Sitwell’s masterpiece well before the show. Since the beginning of the war with the ettercap, Trowthi citizens had begun to work later and later hours, both to support the weakening Trowth economy, and to be off the streets when the pressgangs came by. Later work hours meant later mealtimes. Later mealtimes meant later shows. And the one thing that was not diminished by Trowth’s agonizingly long war with the ettercap in Gorcia was its appetite for entertainment. The Trowthi Theatra Popula in Red Lanes, a privately-funded theatre that was known for doing works much more risqué than those performed by the more staid and conservative Royal Theatre in Old Bank, was packed to the rafters when the coroners arrived.

  Beckett showed the
ir tickets to an usher, who took them up a wide, marble-banister staircase to the mezzanine seats. Beckett and Skinner’s seats were in a small box all the way to the side of the theatre house, giving Beckett a terrible view of the stage, but an excellent view of the boxes directly across from him.

  “These seats are awful,” he complained. He had a small vial of veneine cut with brandy, and took a sip from it. The bitter taste made him shudder, but it was warm at least.

  “Hush.”

  Someone dimmed phlogiston lamps in the house, and bright yellow light flooded the stage. Beckett had to crane his neck and lean a little bit over the railing in order to be able to see it at all.

  “I can’t tell what’s happening,” he said.

  “Sh!” Skinner chided him.

  “What?” He lowered his voice. “It’s a pantomime. It’s not like we’re going to miss anything if we talk.”

  “It’s a Canthi Pantomime,” Skinner whispered. “You’re thinking of Thranc mime-shows. They talk in Canthi Pantomime.”

  “Oh.” He leaned back in his seat. “Do…do you need me to tell you what’s happening?”

  “No. Just be quiet.”

  Good. Beckett thought, then wondered how Skinner could appreciate a play that she couldn’t see. It didn’t take long to figure out; the characters announced virtually everything that they did. They came on in pairs and did short scenes together to introduce themselves, and then proceeded to enact an intricate plot. Beckett had trouble following it.

  The characters were old stand-bys from the Canthi repertory, back when they did all of their plays with the same seven characters, who all behaved the same way every time: the Young Master enlisted his Servant to help him win the Young Girl, who was courted by the Captain and the Doctor, while the Miser plotted with the Loogaroo. In the end, the Young Girl and the Young Master end up together, the Servant, if not free and rich, is at least shown to be clever. The Captain and the Doctor are embarrassed, the Miser robbed, and the Loogaroo is banished. Sometimes, the roles were switched around, and the Young Master and the Captain spoil the plans of the Servant, who was secretly working for the Loogaroo. Sometimes, the Miser is replaced by the Old Widow, who longs to wed the Doctor. In the end, the stories all turn out happily: good people discover they have secret fortunes, bad people are hanged with their own ropes.

  In The Bone-Collector’s Daughter, Sitwell had positioned the Doctor with the Loogaroo, which was practically unheard of. The Doctor was traditionally a doctor of theology, not a medical doctor, and so his relationship with the Loogaroo, the King of the Bogeymen, would have been heresy. Certainly, Sitwell would have been hanged already if his play had premiered in Canth, where the Convocus ruled the Goetic Church. But the Trowthi Church Royal was a little more relaxed about fictional heresy. Still, the play was shocking and scandalous. It would provoke reviews in every broadsheet in the city, ranging from the vitriolic: “…repetitive, inane tripe…” to the luminous “…spectacular, a work of genius!” The Bone-Collector’s Daughter would briefly turn Bertram Sitwell into the most popular playwright of the era, before it became apparent that, if this one was a masterpiece, poor Mr. Sitwell didn’t seem to have any left in him.

  All in all, Beckett would one day regret not paying attention for more than the first fifteen minutes. Still, after hearing, “What are you saying? Let me approach, so I can hear more clearly,” three times in the first scene, Beckett found his attention wandering.

  “These are terrible seats,” he whispered to Skinner. She didn’t respond, and Beckett realized that she was using her Knocker talent to project her hearing right onto the stage. As far as she was concerned, they might as well have been front row center.

  Beckett sighed, and let his eyes meander around the theatre, while he sipped from his veneine-brandy. The Theatra Popula was richly appointed; its walls and ceilings were covered with ornate plaster sculptures of leaves or fruit or something; Beckett had a hard time seeing them in the dark. Along the walls were small box seats; little alcoves that could fit four or five people, and keep them well away from the riff-raff sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in the floor seats. The boxes were angled towards the center of the theatre, not the stage; presumably, this was because having a box seat at the Theatra Popula was more about being seen than it was about seeing anything. Some of the boxes even had family crests emblazoned on them. There was the apple and feather of the Crabtree-Feathersmith, the three bees of Ennering-Vie…

  The lantern and staff of the Wyndham-Vies. Edgar Wyndham-Vie’s box seats were directly across from Beckett’s, and Edgar himself was there, along with another man. It was hard to see from where he sat. He nudged Skinner.

  “What?” She snapped at him.

  “The box, straight across from it. It’s Edgar Wyndham-Vie and someone else. Can you tell who’s with him?”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it.”

  Skinner sighed. She tilted her head and pursed her lips in the gestures that Beckett knew bespoke concentration. “No.”

  “You don’t recognize him.”

  “It’s not that…” she shook her head. “There’s a weird echo. I can’t get a bead on any of the voices.”

  “All right.” Beckett stood up.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Stretch my legs. I’ll be back.”

  The coroner slipped out through the curtains in the back of the box, and down the great staircase to the lobby. In his defense, his legs did ache. It happened sometimes if he sat for too long. He took another sip of veneine, and found an usher.

  “How do I get to the Family boxes?” He asked the man, who looked to be about ten thousand years old.

  “Family boxes are…” the old man said, his voice a dry rattle that came between deep breaths. “…private…”

  Beckett took out the brass shield that had the coroners’ crest on it. He held the double-eagle under the usher’s nose. The old man stared at it blankly for a few moments, then his eyes suddenly widened. “Official business,” Beckett said. “You understand.”

  The old man avowed that he certainly did understand, and if Beckett wanted to get to the family boxes he need only take the stair all the way to his left, go to the very top, and turn right at the end of the hall.

  The Family boxes all had little brass plaques with their names on them above the red curtains that served as doors. Beckett wandered down the hall until he found the one that said “Wyndham-Vie,” then leaned against the wall and waited.

  His patience was rewarded. The boxes began to empty at intermission. Pairs and trios of the well-dressed, highlyesteemed citizenry of Trowth strolled down the hallway, taking the opportunity to stretch their legs, and to see who had come to the theatre with whom. Wyndham-Vie and his friend left their own box in the midst of conversation.

  Edgar, as he stepped through the curtains: “...don’t care what you say, I still think it’s tedious…”

  His friend: “…but you have to understand, it’s a comment on the style of modern . . . oh. Hello.”

  Edgar Wyndham-Vie was glaring furiously at Beckett. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  “Language, Eddie. Whose your friend?”

  “Robert Rowan-Harshank,” the man said, extending a hand. “I work at—”

  “Shut up, Robbie,” Wyndham-Vie snapped at him. “He doesn’t care who you are.” Edgar took a step closer to Beckett. He was taller than the coroner by a few inches, but not as blocky. Beckett wasn’t sure his joints could handle it if the gentleman was spoiling for a fight; they felt like someone had crushed had filled them with jagged metal splinters. Edgar clenched and unclenched his fists. “Do you think your little brass shield means anything to me, junkie?” He practically spat the words into Beckett’s face. “I am a Wyndham-Vie. My Family has the ear of the Emperor…”

  No way, Beckett told himself, as his choler rose. It was old and the pipes were rusty, but that black-and-red fury of his youth still clutched at his heart. He pushed it down. N
o anger. No fear. I am too old to fight young kids nowadays. Look at him. He’s too tall. I’m too old.

  “…I could have you stripped of your authority…”

  Too old, he insisted, as recklessness surged again.

  “…and thrown into a cell in Old Bank so fast…”

  To…aw, the hell with it. Beckett balled up his fist and punched Edgar Wyndham-Vie in the face. Beckett’s withered body remembered the old ways, and for a fraction of a second Edgar’s cheekbone was connected by a line of force that passed through Beckett’s fist, shoulder, and hip, straight to the ground. The blow was hard enough to send Wyndham-Vie crashing against the wall, and painful enough to keep the man from getting up right away. It was hard enough to split Beckett’s knuckles, too, but between the veneine and the numbness in his fingers he hadn’t felt it. All in all, Beckett found the experience to be extremely satisfying.

  The Esteemed Family members moved quietly back into their boxes, pointedly not noticing the altercation in the hallway. The only thing worse than being involved in scandal was being seen to take too much of an interest in one.

  While Edgar Wyndham-Vie was still stunned, Beckett whirled on his companion.

  “Now, hang on a second here, friend…” Robert said, backing away. He held up his hands. “I don’t . . . just . . .I mean… who do you think you are?”

  “Beckett. Detective-Inspector, Coroners.” He thought about flashing his shield again, but his hand had gone completely numb, and Beckett didn’t want to spoil the effect by dropping it.

  Robert Rowan-Harshank blanched, and his eyes grew very wide. “Oh. Oh. I see. Well, look…” he smiled weakly, and tried to help Edgar to his feet. “I mean, look. Eddie…he’s got a bit of a temper, that’s all. I’m sure he didn’t mean anything…”

  “Shut up Robbie,” Edgar muttered thickly to his friend. A dark purple swelling was beginning to grow beneath his eye, and blood trickled from his nose. He jabbed a finger at Beckett. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re doing, junkie…”