The Seer's Choice: A Novella of the Golden City Page 4

  Now that she’d spent time in his company, she could see why he’d been made captain. He handled people well. He assessed others quickly. And he listened, which was a gift all its own. Most people didn’t know how to do that. But he’d sat through Mrs. Ventura’s banter and hadn’t rolled his eyes or tried to hurry the old woman. He’d been patient. She liked him even better for that.

  Chapter 3

  * * *

  Thursday, 30 April 1903

  RAFAEL WOKE EARLY on Thursday morning, as he often did. After visiting the water closet, he returned to his bedroom, sat down with his back against the headboard, crossed his ankles, and closed his eyes. He took several deep breaths and said a quick prayer to Saint Ágabo, asking for guidance as the Jesuit brothers had taught him.

  It had been his morning ritual for months now, a meditative period during which he accessed his seer’s gift. And while he could rarely foretell events weeks away, he was very accurate in the short term. He went through his normal queries, asking himself if each of his men would get through the day safely, the inspectors and their wives, his family, his friends.

  His cousin Joaquim would be in danger today. He tried to chase down exactly how, but Rafael didn’t know enough of his situation to know what sort of danger Joaquim would land in. His other cousin, Duilio, would be going to Joaquim’s aid, but since Duilio was far away on the Ilhas das Sereias, it would take days to reach Barcelona, where Joaquim and his wife were now.

  Rafael considered taking the train to Barcelona, but he worried that the man chasing Miss Jardim might catch her. He felt unsafe leaving the Golden City at the moment.

  Who could go in his place? He had no contacts in Barcelona, but his aunt did. Perhaps if he went later this morning and asked her, she might have an answer.

  That decided, he turned his meditations on Genoveva Jardim herself. Would she be safe? The answer that came back to him didn’t tell him of death, but it certainly indicated a threat. His eyes opened. Surely that meant her attacker would return. Didn’t it?

  He closed his eyes again and sought an answer. Unfortunately, his gift didn’t give him one. That meant that either the situation was too unpredictable, or the person threatening her was. He didn’t like either possibility. He spent some time posing questions one way and then another, trying to figure out what that unpredictable factor was, but failed.

  He rarely asked himself the next question. It seemed indulgent and self-serving, and nearly an improper use of his gift.

  Will I marry Genoveva?

  For the first time in months, the answer didn’t come back as yes. It wasn’t no, either. It was uncertain.

  Rafael opened his eyes and swung his feet over the side of his bed. Whatever was threatening her safety must also be threatening his future. And he couldn’t let that happen. Not now that he’d let himself begin to care about her. That would be damnably unfair.

  He’d been meditating longer than usual, so he hurriedly dressed and headed for the station. Once on the street, though, he changed his mind. Instead of the station, he headed down toward the Clérigos Church with its tall tower where Miss Jardim attended Mass.

  Since she’d first spotted her attacker a week before as she left Mass, Rafael stayed to the far side of the street and watched as the parishioners began to file out of the church. There were plenty of men who fit the description she’d given, but none seemed inclined to stay about and wait for her to emerge. She finally came out of the church and almost immediately spotted him standing there across the street.

  Rafael gestured for her to go on her way. She nodded once, and began walking uphill toward Boavista and the police station. He trailed her at some distance, catching up while she paused at a café and ordered a coffee with milk. As she stood at the counter sipping her coffee, he came up behind her. “It’s only me, Miss Jardim.”

  “Did you see anyone?” she asked after he ordered a coffee and a sweet roll.

  Rafael shook his head. “He didn’t follow you out of Mass, at least.”

  “Did you think he would come back today?”

  She hadn’t seen the man since the incident, so her question made sense. She likely hoped it was all over with.

  “I had a bad feeling about today,” he admitted. “Nothing more specific than that, I’m afraid. So I thought I should check on you.”

  “You mean you had a bad feeling about me today.”

  He wasn’t going to lie. “Yes, Miss Jardim.”

  The waiter set his coffee on the counter. Rafael picked up the little cup and drank half of it at once. Miss Jardim’s brows rose, but she merely smiled as she took another sip of hers. “Yes, I’m rushing,” he admitted. “I’d prefer not to linger here.”

  This was an indefensible spot, since there was a crowd of people pushed up close together at the counter, standing there to drink their coffee. When she set down her cup, he drank the last of his. He left enough money on the counter to pay for both their tabs, grabbed the sweet roll, and steered Miss Jardim out of the crowd and back onto the sidewalk.

  Once they were on their way again, she said, “You didn’t have to pay for mine, Captain. I can pay you back.”

  Rafael glanced behind them, but didn’t see anyone following them. “It saved time, Miss Jardim.” He tore the sweet roll in half, and offered one piece to her.

  “I’ve become accustomed to skipping breakfast,” she said quickly.

  He hadn’t missed the yearning manner in which she’d eyed his breakfast in the café. “Yes, I’ve noted that you’ve lost weight since you came to work for the police.” She flushed when he said that, but he didn’t back down. He continued to hold out the roll. “You must love your coffee if that’s what you choose to spend your money on.”

  She finally took the roll from him and tucked it in her pocket rather than eating as she walked along the street. Eating while walking probably wasn’t done in polite society. “I am very fond of coffee,” she said mildly.

  They’d reached the station, so he opened up the courtyard gate and let her precede him inside. They made their way up the stairs toward the main office. “If you do see that man at any time today,” Rafael told her, “please come to find me immediately. Failing that, find one of the inspectors. They know about the threat, and will see that you’re safe.”

  She nodded quickly and left him at the door to his office, on her way to find Mrs. Anjos.

  Rafael watched her go, frowning. His gift wasn’t any happier now than before.

  

  When the doctors sent for them, Genoveva was startled. They rarely asked the healers for their help. The doctors and surgeons preferred Science. If it wasn’t written in a book, they didn’t trust it.

  But she and Mrs. Anjos followed the worried doctor down a white-plastered hallway to a tiny room at the end of one hall. And she knew immediately why. A woman lay on the bed—not a soldier. The hospital must have taken her in because she was clearly in a dire condition. The sheets laid over her were stained bright red with her blood. A pile of linens—no, towels—already lay in a basin in the corner, showing that the doctors had been trying to staunch the bleeding. The room stank of fear.

  A woman sat in a chair at the patient’s side, her eyes reddened with crying. Her plain black skirt and white shirtwaist made Genoveva think of a factory worker, and the faded knitted shawl around her shoulders spoke of poverty. She glanced up when they entered the room, hope flaring in her dark eyes. She rose and came to them. “Please, you must help my sister.”

  Mrs. Anjos cast a questioning glance at the doctor.

  “She came in a couple of hours ago,” he said. “We have not been able to stop the bleeding, and I recalled that healers could.”

  Mrs. Anjos cast her eyes over the piles of stained fabric, then went to the woman’s bed and gently drew back the bloodied sheet that covered her. It had only hidden more blood, staining the woman’s underskirt and the linens on the bed. “That is too much blood,” she said softly. “You should have sent fo
r us sooner.”

  At that pronouncement, the sister covered her face with her shawl and sobbed.

  The doctor shook his head. “We tried everything we could.”

  Mrs. Anjos turned to the sister and tugged the shawl away from the woman’s face. “What happened to her?”

  The woman’s eyes slid toward the doctor guiltily. “She was with child,” she whispered.

  Mrs. Anjos turned to the doctor, her young face implacable. “Will you leave us for a few minutes, Doctor?”

  The doctor’s eyes flicked between the two women and he nodded and left, tacitly admitting that this was women’s business. Genoveva shut the door behind him.

  Mrs. Anjos turned back to the sister. “What did she take?”

  The woman wrung her hands together. “Poejo,” she whispered, and then more loudly insisted, “Her husband has abandoned her and she had two children already. She cannot afford to lose her place at the factory.”

  Genoveva knew the name of that herb, one sold by apothecaries to promote bleeding. But it was difficult to know how a woman would be affected by it, and thus it was dangerous. It had clearly been so for the young woman lying on the bed.

  “When did she start bleeding?” Mrs. Anjos pressed.

  “At work this morning,” the sister said. “She said she felt faint, and then dropped to the floor. This hospital was close, so I begged them to see her.”

  It was surprising that the hospital hadn’t sent them away, but the blood must have convinced the doctors of the severity of the situation.

  Mrs. Anjos turned toward the insensible young woman and laid one hand gently on her belly. She closed her eyes and concentrated.

  “What is her name,” Genoveva asked the sister.

  “Elpidia,” the woman said.

  Mrs. Anjos turned back to her, lifting her hand as she did so. “There is little hope,” she said softly. “We can stop her bleeding, but we cannot replace the blood she has lost. And her heart and lungs will fail, I believe.”

  The sister paled and covered her face again. Mrs. Anjos turned to Genoveva. “Miss Jardim, I need you to help me.”

  Genoveva touched the sister’s hand, where she had her rosary wrapped around her palm. “She needs your prayers now.”

  The woman returned to her chair and began to recite her prayers, working along the rosary as she did so. Genoveva went to Mrs. Anjos’ side. “What should I do?”

  “I want you to feel her centers of power, to see if you sense what I do.”

  So Genoveva did so, her hand lightly on the woman’s abdomen. There was so little blood left in the body. The heart barely beat, having little to move. The woman’s life force ebbed. “The bleeding is stopped.”

  “Yes, I managed to stop it,” Mrs. Anjos confirmed. “But . . .” She shook her head.

  That night six months ago, Inspector Anjos had nearly bled to death, but his now-wife saved him by using the life force that Genoveva’s father had stolen from several guards and Special Police officers. “Could we not give her our strength?” Genoveva asked in a whisper.

  “It would take more than either of us could spare,” the Russian woman answered, clearly knowing where her thoughts had gone. “It would take lives, and I will not do that.”

  “Could the doctors not. . . ?” Genoveva stopped herself. There was no point. Blood transfusions were rare and risky, and they would need a donor of the correct blood group, if she recalled her studies correctly. The doctors surely had considered that, and dismissed the possibility. There was no time.

  Genoveva kept her hand over the patient’s abdomen, feeling the woman’s life slipping away.

  

  Rafael embraced his aunt and kissed both her cheeks. “Aunt Giana, I’m afraid I’ve come with ill news,” he began. “My gift says that Joaquim is in peril in Barcelona, but I cannot go there right now. I have . . . another problem that needs attention. I wondered if you had any contacts there able to go to his aid.”

  Lady Ferreira’s head tilted gracefully, and she gazed at him with narrowed eyes. She was a lovely woman who appeared younger than her fifty years, a benefit of her selkie blood. “What manner of trouble?”

  “I don’t know, Aunt. I only know that it’s dire enough that he needs help. Duilio is heading there, but Joaquim will need help before he arrives. And I cannot go myself. Not with things as they are.”

  Lady Ferreira gestured for him to sit on the pale leather sofa before the hearth and she settled in an ivory brocaded chair. “I do have some business associates there, but they’re mostly involved in the ship-building industry.” She tapped one finger against her cheek. “No. I will go myself.”

  “To Barcelona?” Rafael asked. His aunt was headstrong, but he hadn’t thought she would go herself.

  “Of course. A train to Galicia, then Madrid, then to Barcelona. I could be there by tomorrow night. I need to place a telephone call, but I can get Felis packing immediately.”

  He forgot how quickly she acted when she took a mind to do something. “I would go with you, but . . .”

  She’d half risen as if to go begin packing, but sat again. “Yes, you said you had another problem, Rafael. Is there any way I could help?”

  His aunt was unfailingly generous. “Well . . . I believe Miss Jardim is in danger, and I don’t want to leave the city until I’m certain it’s passed. A man pursued her to her boarding house last Saturday night. I wondered if she might . . . hide here should it be necessary.”

  A mischievous smile touched Lady Ferreira’s lips. “Ah, it’s like that.”

  He tried for an innocent expression. “What do you mean?”

  “Rafael,” she said with an amused shake of her head. “I raised three seers in this house. I know what it means when one takes such an interest in a young woman.”

  There was no point in denying it to her. She was a clever woman, and would see right through him. Also, his aunt was a close friend of Genoveva Jardim’s mother, Lady Carvalho. “So, do you think her mother would object to me? I am, after all, merely a police officer.”

  Lady Ferreira smiled. “She will adore you.”

  

  Genoveva walked back across the street from the hospital to the police station. She didn’t have any blood on her uniform—not any that she could see—but Mrs. Anjos had blood on the hem of her skirt. Neither of them spoke as they walked. It hadn’t been a good day.

  When they reached the station, they headed up toward Captain Pinheiro’s office since it was nearly four, time for them to practice shooting again. Genoveva was less than pleased to see Officer Medeiros standing at the captain’s desk, but the man didn’t even glance her way.

  “I want you to take the list of Duarte’s regular haunts. Divide it up with Forsythe and check where you can this evening. I’ll make a formal request with the regular police in the morning,” the captain said, “and we’ll go from there.”

  “Yes, sir.” Medeiros grabbed up his cap and headed out of the office, merely nodding to Genoveva and Mrs. Anjos as he passed.

  “I am going back to my rooms to bathe,” Mrs. Anjos said to the captain once Medeiros was out of earshot. “I have no stomach for shooting today.” The woman didn’t wait for an answer, but simply walked away. Normally that would be considered a breach of proper conduct, but Genoveva didn’t blame her. It had been a terrible day.

  The captain gestured for Genoveva to take the chair in front of his desk. When she’d settled, he said, “You don’t look in the mood for it, either, Miss Jardim. Did your pursuer appear while I was out?”

  Genoveva shook her head. “There was a patient at the hospital. The doctors couldn’t stop her bleeding, so they let us try, but she died.”

  The captain’s brows drew together. “After childbirth?”

  How should she explain it? “No. She drank an herbal tea which started her bleeding, but then it wouldn’t stop.”

  “An abortifacient?”

  Genoveva looked up at him, startled that a man would even
know such a thing existed. And he didn’t even seem offended that the woman had tried to abort her unborn child. The Church condemned what the woman had done, and Genoveva was unsure of how she felt about it herself. “Yes,” she said after a moment. “She must have just discovered she was pregnant, and didn’t know she had a propensity for bleeding. By the time we got to her, she’d lost so much blood . . .”

  He sighed. “Was she poor?”

  “A factory worker,” Genoveva said. “Not destitute, but she had two children already, and her husband abandoned her.”

  “Did they say what would become of the children?”

  “Her sister was there. She plans to take them in.”

  The captain shook his head. “I’d wager she can’t afford them, either.”

  Recalling the state of the woman’s worn attire, Genoveva suspected he was correct.

  “If you’ll wait a few minutes,” the captain said, “I’ll escort you back home.”

  “There’s no need, Captain,” she said wearily. “I didn’t see him at all today. And you must have better ways to spend your time than worrying about me.”

  Despite the way their day of work at the hospital had ended, the true low point of her day had come when talking with Mrs. Anjos while waiting for Elpidia to live or die. Genoveva had mentioned how kind the captain had been to her, no more than a passing comment. Mrs. Anjos had responded by saying that the captain was bound to her. The woman explained that in that terrible moment where Genoveva thought she’d nearly killed him, when she’d held too much of his life force inside her, she’d left her imprint on his psyche. As a result, he felt tied to her. It made sense of all his subsequent actions, no matter how much she wished that wasn’t true.

  “I’m off work in a few minutes, and then I can spend my time on whatever I choose. Would you like to join me for supper?” he asked as he locked his desk.