Cover

Epigraph

What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god!

—Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2, William Shakespeare

Pinion

noun

The outer part of a bird’s wing including the flight feathers.

verb

1 Restrain or immobilise (someone) by tying up or holding their arms or legs.

2 Cut off the pinion (of a wing or bird) to prevent flight.

origin

Late Middle English: from Old French pignon, based on Latin pinna, penna ‘feather’.

October, 1840

October, 1840

Shropshire

The bark is rough under her hands, scratching at her palms and fingers as she stumbles between the trees. She retches violently, her body jerking and shaking as the convulsions push her forward, deep into the clutches of the forest.

Copper and bronze leaves dance around as the wind shoves at her, roars like a rushing river. She is aware of everything. Breath and heartbeat. Colour and sound. The smell of the dank autumnal air. All of it heightened somehow. More vivid, more real.

She coughs, chokes in agony, tears streaming down her face as she gasps for breath. Make it stop, she begs, silently. Whatever hell this is, make it stop!

She had left the cottage mere hours ago. A bright autumn day, a long walk in the low golden sun. She had desperately needed to clear her mind. Scout was gone, her beloved companion buried just this morning. She had seen to it herself. Sobbing tears of anger as well as sorrow into the thick clay soil as she had dug his grave. His faithfulness for so many years cut short by some poisoned meat from who knows where. Her pleas to Walter to help her find the dog’s murderer had fallen on deaf ears. Her half-brother disliked the black-and-white pointer only marginally more than he disliked her. ‘My father’s exotic bastard,’ she had once heard him call her as she left the drawing room. The words had cut into her, carving at her heart, as his friends had laughed, the sound of them echoing down the long hallway as she had fled.

And now she was fleeing again. Distraught at having buried her most loyal, most faithful of friends and reeling from her loss, she had done what she always did when she was unsure of herself – she walked. Walked until her feet were sore and the fog in her head began to slowly lift.

She had gone beyond the field edges of Juniper Hill, heading round and up towards the peak of High Vinnalls when she’d seen it. Out of the corner of her eye, something in the ditch by the side of the narrow path. She had thought it was a branch at first until her eyes adjusted to the muddy fur. A badger, long dead now. She turned it over, gingerly, with the scuffed toe of her boot. One of the paws had rotted clean away, leaving just the white coral bones. A hand reaching out. Fingers not unlike her own. She held her palms in front of her, turned them over and examined them. Flesh over bare bone, knuckle and sinew. A flash of understanding. A moment of wonder deep in her heart and brain alike. Was this what Scout’s soft, leathery paw had been hiding too? A hand more like hers than she could have imagined? And what of his heart, his brain . . . ? Her mind had whirled, spun on its heel and fizzed off in a million and more different directions. Had that not been less than an hour since?

She gags again, a dry empty bark like a wounded fox. Harder this time, more painful. The next retch throws her to her knees at the edge of a small clearing, palms damp on the forest floor. The sun disappears behind the clouds for a moment, throwing her into the forest’s grey shadows. She cries out, roars, as a searing pain cracks across her back, twists her agonisingly over herself once, twice, and then a third and final time.

The wind drops and the world stops.

All becomes silent – not even a solitary bird sings.

A weight of something sits behind her, a shadow of a presence. The pain has gone, burst right out of her, drained all her energy too, but something else sits on her shoulders now. Scarlet blood drips down from them onto the back of her hands. She has survived – for now at least – when she feared she might not. Breathless and shivering, she sits slowly back on her haunches, not daring to look behind. The skirt of her dress is sodden with damp autumn leaves. Birch and beech. Oak and larch.

Come, Etta, she says to herself. Come. Open your eyes. Whatever it is, the worst must surely be over. Wrung out and exhausted, she edges slowly to her feet, wobbles as she comes to stand. But she has no need to turn her head. The sun emerges from the clouds above, stretching Etta’s shadow far in front, taking her breath away with it.

It is impossible.

It cannot be.

But there before her stands a winged silhouette. The shadow lifts its arm to its face and she sees herself, feels herself, as her hand softly touches her own tear-stained cheek and the birds resume their orchestra.

She turns her head, half dazed as if in a dream. And yet there they are. Russet wings, larger than an eagle’s, fanning slowly out from her shoulders. Part of her. She lets out a short laugh, a yelp of disbelief, as thoughts tumble through her head, a discordant jumble of noise.

A branch snaps, crackles through the air. Etta glances up to see a youth at the opposite edge of the clearing, eyes wide, confused and scared. A poacher, looking for something for the pot. Tensed and primed, ready to spring, his crossbow is already raised towards her, hands trembling.

‘No,’ she says, holding her hand up as if to ward him off. ‘No!’

But the word has barely left her mouth before the bolt flies towards her, slicing through the air. Her feet no longer touch the dank leaves of the forest, but instead hover an inch or so above it. She has no time to consider this, this sense of being both herself and something more, before the bolt thuds home, knocking her backwards and forcing her to the ground. Her breath rasps, bubbles up inside, thick with crimson blood. The boy’s boots thud towards her, his face swimming into view but she can no longer find any words within.

She gasps for air. Newly formed impossible wings dig hard into her back as she looks up at the canopy of trees. Papery leaves whirl down towards her in a cascade of colour. Remnants of the summer past. It reminds her of something and she grasps for the memory, deep in the labyrinth of her mind: the tiny motes of dust trapped in the sunbeams of her father’s library when she was a child. Patterns in the air. Angel dust, he used to call it. Angel dust.

Etta smiles as her eyes close, the darkness already settling in.

Eight days earlier

Eight days earlier

LONDON

The pocket watches are already being pulled out by the time Samuel Covell cries, ‘Time me, gentleman, please!’ to the baying crowd of spectators crammed tightly within the small operating theatre at St Peter’s Hospital.

Edward Meake, his best friend and dearest rival, watches from the side, a faint amused smile on his lips as Samuel flamboyantly wields a long sharp knife in one hand and a bone saw in the other, both of which he will shortly use to amputate the patient’s leg. Edward’s elder by a handful of months, Samuel and he had first bonded when they both studied medicine some many moons ago. They had dissected, dissolved, sliced and preserved in the name of science and got royally drunk numerous times in the name of friendship. Samuel was Edward’s closest friend and he loved him almost as much as he envied him.

Samuel, basking in the glory of all eyes being upon him, hands the saw to the dresser who assists him. He holds his preferred knife aloft one more time to the packed auditorium, standing room only in all four tiers, a final charming smile, and then, ‘Gentlemen! Let us commence!’

No matter how many times Edward has borne witness to or taken part in an amputation, they still thrill him to the very marrow. The tick of the watches, the thrum of the saw, the glorious risk of it all! The knowledge that you could save a man’s life or destroy it in an instant, all with but a single slip of a knife.

Samuel inhales deeply as the eager audience jostle for the best view before he deftly inserts his knife into the patient’s thigh, slicing swiftly through the flesh around the lower part of the femur. The man screams once, loudly, through the stick clamped tightly between his jaws before promptly passing out. Better for him that he does so, thinks Edward. Samuel has been known to take the top off a man’s testes on more than one occasion in his quest to be the fastest in London.

As the dresser bends in to tie off the man’s arteries, Samuel reaches for the saw. Tourniquet tightened, the bone now exposed higher up the thigh, Samuel leans over and begins, pinning the now limp patient down with some not inconsiderable strength. Edward counts just eight long strokes before the stump is set free. With a flourish, Samuel stands back up, bows to the crowd and drops the severed limb with a dull thud into a waiting box of sawdust.

‘Forty-two seconds!’ cries a member of the audience, to groans of assent.

‘Ah,’ Samuel tuts, shakes his head. ‘A tad slower than usual, but one would be hard pushed to witness a finer demonstration in our beloved capital. Is that not so?’ Ever the showman, he bows again to a round of applause, before returning his attention to the unconscious patient. Working swiftly and closely with the dresser, Samuel ties off the smaller blood vessels, thread in mouth, before leaving his assistant to stitch the flap of loose skin back over the stump.

Satisfied with his work, Samuel steps back from the operating table, a fever of elation across his face. He catches Edward’s eye and Edward cannot help but return the grin, even as Samuel goes to clap him on the shoulder and Edward ducks swiftly away from his friend’s hands, red with blood.

‘Was that not well done, my friend? Truly well done?’ Samuel’s eyes are bright and wild, cheeks flushed with both his achievement and the heat of the crammed room. He wipes his hands on his already stained coat.

‘I believe there is nothing I cannot do if I put my mind to it!’ Samuel exclaims, high on euphoria. ‘The age of science is upon us and we are at the vanguard.’ He leans forward, whispers in Edward’s ear, ‘And yet, are we not in our own way gods you and I, eh?’

It is a phrase that will play upon Edward’s mind in the days to come, words that will rack him to his core, keep him awake in the small hours until he is half-driven mad with it. For now, though, he simply shakes his head, a wry grin writ large upon his face.

‘Come, Meake, I need a drink!’ says Samuel. ‘For what is man if he cannot imbibe the finest of liquor after saving another’s life? Let us liquor up!’ He laughs to himself as he struts out, still in his blood-encrusted frock coat, footsteps muffled by the sawdust scattered thickly on the floor. He leaves the hubbub of the crowd behind, knowing full well that they know to find him at the Blood Bay.

Edward follows close behind, glancing back at the patient lying prone on the bloodied table. A more careful man, Edward would have gone for accuracy over speed, for success over showmanship. He would still be finishing up on the operating table even as Samuel delights in his first taste of beer in the tavern around the corner.

‘To friendship!’ Edward says as he raises his tankard to Samuel and towards the smoke-stained ceiling of the Blood Bay.

‘To success, Meake!’ says Samuel, as his ever-growing fan club of young medical men gather around him. ‘For any fool can have friends, but only the gifted obtain success!’ And with that, he downs his beer in one, slamming the empty tankard down on the curved wooden counter, calling noisily for more.

Edward watches Samuel in the small beerhouse, watches the clamour of others around him, bees to a honeypot, even as he is himself edged to the sidelines. A twinge of envy rattles through him as he leans against the brown matchboard walls in the corner of the room. He knows that he is not as charismatic as Samuel, not as natural a performer nor as tall or broad. Yet he comforts himself for a moment as he allows his thumb to feel the smooth, cold metal of the wedding band that his wife insists he wear. For Edward has something Samuel does not. Samuel may be the better known, the fastest, most flamboyant surgeon in all of England but when Samuel returns home, staggering drunk, to the cold sheets of an empty bed, Edward will return instead to the warmth of his own home and the arms of his dear wife, Annie.

She remains the only prize Edward has yet beaten Samuel to, but for now, at least, it is enough.

Mary takes the creaky wooden stairs quickly. She is small and light of foot, but the harsh croak of Mrs Barrett’s reprimand follows her up to the first floor and beyond. She is regularly told off by her landlady for being noisy despite the fact that, as Mary would one day love to point out, Mrs Barrett hasn’t seen fit to put even threadbare carpet on the stairs beyond the first landing.

The two paper-wrapped pies that Mary carries are hot in her hands and she is both hungry and eager to share her spoils. By the time she reaches the third and final floor, she is breathless and full of laughter but, after a brief struggle to open the door with her hands full, her smile turns to dismay. Her beloved, kind-hearted Uncle Jos is once again knocked-out drunk.

Uncle Jos, red of face and portly of stomach, is slumped over the worn wooden table that doubles as a writing desk and a dining table, although, truth be told, it is used for far more than that implies. It has been a ship on the high seas, a cave full of dragons, a tent in the wilderness and many more play scenarios from Mary’s somewhat unconventional childhood. These days, it is more often than not covered in articles and notes from Jos’s work or pieces of material for dresses, waistcoats and the like, for Mary is a dab hand at sewing and often helps with costumes for the penny gaff. But for now it is simply a plain table, an arm and headrest for a drunk man and a lost soul.

An empty bottle is clutched tightly in Uncle Jos’s right hand and Mary gently prises it from his fingers, sniffing it with distaste before putting it to one side. Sheets of paper are scattered in front of him, most blank and just one half-filled with writing. In the midst lies his precious notepad, full of scribbled hieroglyphs decipherable only to a handful of others. Mary glances over it, huffing to herself. Another unwritten piece, no doubt with a looming deadline.

The fire is low and the evening is getting chill. She prods at the embers with the poker, taking out her bad mood with angry jabs until the flames yawn themselves back into life, brightening the corner of the cramped little room. It is still too dark to work, though, and so she must light a candle too. She brings it close, throwing a circle of light onto Uncle Jos’s small notepad. Slowly, thoughtfully, she reads the half-written piece before scanning his notes, flicking through the pages to unravel the article he should have finished hours ago.

Uncle Jos snorts and mutters to himself in his drunken haze as Mary makes a start on finishing his piece for him, the words scratching themselves onto the page in front of her. He has taught her well without even knowing it. She has read so many of his articles over the years that mimicking his turn of phrase comes naturally to her.

Mary is a fast and economical writer and there is still some semblance of warmth in the pies when, with great satisfaction, she places the final full stop on the page. She is halfway through a sigh of relief when there is a knock at the door. It is not too late for visitors – after all, she is used to Uncle Jos’s tipsters calling with a snippet of news in exchange for a coin – but no one is expected tonight.

Mary straightens both her dress and posture, takes a moment to check herself in the faded mirror on the bare plaster wall. She pinches her cheeks to put a little colour in them, but there is nothing to be done with her uncle. She will have to send away whoever is calling for no one else must see Jos like this.

She opens the door a crack, but both her mouth and the door fall open at the same time and somehow he is already within before she can think to make an excuse.

He is even taller than she remembers, his hair as wild and curly as ever. It’s as if his hat is sprung off his head simply from the power of his compressed curls. He is all limbs and angles and energy, an eager young colt made human.

‘Hmm,’ he says, as he carefully places his hat on the table and nods towards Uncle Jos. ‘How long has he been like this?’

They are too familiar in many ways to need the usual civilities of introduction, but she is irked that he has not at least attempted it. He is part family, part friend, part something she is not yet sure of. This is Richard Gibbs, journalist, wit and consumer of coffee in large quantities. He is as fiercely intelligent as his sparkling eyes suggest, but also profoundly shy behind his recently discovered cloak of confidence and they both know it.

Richard had been a big part of their lives since Uncle Jos trained him up as a young court reporter some six years ago, but, just as swiftly as he’d been incorporated into their little circle, he had departed from it. An unexpected offer of a senior job in Edinburgh eighteen months ago had been irresistible. No one could blame Richard for taking up the opportunity, but Jos had felt abandoned. He had not been easy with his forgiveness, and yet, at George’s funeral, he had fallen upon Richard almost as a long-lost son. In the two months since, Richard’s letters had become considerably more frequent. Mary too had been sorry to see Richard leave; he was glorious company and had always treated her as his intellectual equal. And now, here he was again. More outwardly assured now that he’d reached the grand old age of twenty-three but, underneath it all, still the same old Richard.

‘How long?’ he asks again. ‘Please, Mary.’

She looks at him for a moment, head to one side.

‘Well, good evening to you too, Mr Gibbs,’ she says, with a faint air of sarcasm. ‘What a pleasant and unexpected surprise. We had not been expecting company. I trust you have been faring well since we last met?’

‘Miss Ward.’ Richard bows, ashamed for a moment. ‘Mary. Forgive me. I had not meant to offend. Only that . . .’

‘I am quite well, thank you,’ she says, archly. ‘I trust you are too. And how was your journey from Edinburgh, Mr Gibbs?’

Richard isn’t sure what to make of this unexpected sharpness. The black mourning dress becomes her, although he’s surprised to find her still wearing it. She catches his puzzlement, reads him like a book.

‘Uncle George was as a father to me,’ she says, and Richard nods. Of course. Two months for an aunt or uncle, a year of mourning for a parent. His gaze wanders to Jos again and Mary softens.

‘He has been like this since George died, but it has become worse of late.’

Richard glances at the finished article on the table, having already noted the ink stains on the fingers of Mary’s right hand.

‘I see that, despite his obvious inebriation, he is still managing to write,’ Richard says, the corner of his mouth twitching. Mary starts towards him but he has already snatched up the piece and is reading it. She watches him in silent apprehension as the fire spits in the grate.

He inhales deeply when he is done. ‘Ha! Very good,’ he says. ‘Oh, well done, Mary. Bravo! You’ve captured his voice exactly. Good Lord, were it not for the change in hand, I would not even be able to see the join!’ He smiles at her, a warm grin that lights up his entire face, and she cannot help but smile back.

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