The Romulus Equation (3 page)

‘I don't wish to be disturbed, thank you, Madame.'

‘Are you going to open this door, or must we discuss our business within earshot of the whole troupe?' Destine intentionally phrased her words as a request rather than the command it truly was. ‘You have been doing your best to avoid me for several days now, Cornelius, but this cannot wait any longer.'

Inside his office, Quaint felt his body compress. Destine was correct, as always. He had been avoiding both her and this particular conversation ever since his return from China. But he knew that he was only delaying the inevitable. The Frenchwoman's sensitivity to others' emotions always guided her right to him.

From her, he could never truly hide.

He reluctantly opened the door, finding Destine dressed in a flowing emerald gown with a corseted waist and billowing bustle. She was absent of her trademark veil; her porcelain skin taut and blemish-free. Although a fraction into her seventies, the elixir that flowed within her veins had endowed her with youthful vitality, a fact that caused Quaint much grief, for his own features remained as well trodden as before.

‘I'm a bit busy at the moment, Madame,' he said, blunting the edge to his voice.

‘This cannot wait,' replied Destine.

‘I see. In that case, you'd better come in then,' said Quaint.

He rolled up the sleeves of his crisp white shirt and buttoned his waistcoat, tucking his neckerchief inside it. He rested his broad frame into his high-backed wooden chair and weaved his fingers, laying them in his lap. ‘Well?'

‘Should that not be my question to you, my sweet?' asked the fortune-teller.

Quaint frowned. ‘I'm not sure. Should it?'

‘You have been locked away in your carriage ever since your return from China and we all know why. There is no need to distance yourself from the rest of the troupe, Cornelius. I know that you miss Butter, as do we all. He was always the beating heart of this circus, and there is an immeasurable emptiness formed by his death. But the troupe is still in shock. They are lost… directionless.'

‘What would you have me do, Madame?' asked Quaint. ‘Buy them a compass?'

‘
Speak
to them!' said Destine, fiercely. ‘
Reassure
them! As their leader, they look to you for guidance. Tell them that we must not dwell on painful memories… that we must pull together as a family and look to the future. They need to know that things will get back to normal!'

‘I'm not much of an expert on the subject these days,' said Quaint. ‘Ever since you and I gained immortality, it seems that we're constantly reminded of the mortality of those we care for. It's as if their lives have suddenly become so fleeting. First Twinkle was taken from us and now Butter. Who's next? Prometheus? Ruby? As we live for ever, how many more of our friends must we be forced to bury? Maybe I'd be doing everyone a favour if I just… disappeared.'

Destine froze. ‘You are starting to worry me, Cornelius.'

‘I am starting to worry myself!' Quaint snapped. ‘After everything I've learned of late, who can blame me? Whilst I was in China I met this wise man that claimed to see the future, as long as you could decipher it from within his confounding riddles. You'd have liked him. He was called “The All-Knowing One”, which at first I took to be a self-imposed boast, yet later I had reason to believe that it was well earned. On my way back to England I had plenty of time to digest all that he told me… and now I know that he was right about something… which is a bit worrying, because if he was right about that then I can't help wondering if he was right about everything else.'

Madame Destine cleared her throat. ‘Cornelius, might I say that I find it mildly insulting how you regularly disregard the premonitions that
I
supply, yet you believe this stranger so readily?'

Quaint smiled. ‘Don't tell me you're jealous.'

‘
Curious
as to what he could possibly have imparted to your deaf ears to have such an effect on you,' said Destine. ‘And
oui
… perhaps a little jealous too.'

‘He said that my meeting Cho-zen Li was no accident, that our paths were destined to converge,' Quaint explained, reaching into his waistcoat pocket, lifting out a fob watch attached to a gold chain. ‘The link turned out to be this old thing. It was a gift to my father. Apparently, he and Cho-zen Li were friends once, a long time ago. He engraved a warning inside, the name of the man that intended to kill my father, only the warning came too late. Now I know the name too, but not the rhyme or reason behind it. One link in the chain has been made, but it is far from complete.

If I really am to live an eternal future, I need to fortify the foundations of my past. I need to know why my mother and father were murdered… and to do that I need to find Adolfo Remus… if he still lives. I need answers, Madame, no matter what they may cost.'

‘You have changed, my sweet,' said Destine. ‘I remember when you used to share all your troubles with me, no matter how trivial they were. What to have for breakfast, what elements of the circus programme need attention, what town we should visit next – even what colour tie to wear!'

‘With respect, I'd hardly call that trivial,' said Quaint.

‘Please do not jest with me, Cornelius, not when I am trying to get a serious point across!' snapped the Frenchwoman. ‘What has changed between us that now you close your shutters and lock your door?'

‘Nothing's changed… or maybe everything's changed, I don't know,' Quaint sighed. ‘I can't just
carry on
with my life ignorant as to what I know. I
must
confront the Hades Consortium.'

‘But you of all people know that conflicts with those people never end well. The balance between good and evil is tipped squarely in their favour!'

‘That's never stopped me before.'

‘Is that supposed to be your defence?' asked Destine, sudden fury sparkling in her eyes. ‘Have you forgotten what they did to Antoine? The Hades Consortium twisted his mind, twisted his soul and in the end it consumed him. What if this pursuit of yours does the same to you? What if I lose you too?'

‘I am not your son, Destine,' said Quaint. ‘I didn't expect you to condone what I'm doing, but I'd at least hoped you'd understand.'

‘
Understand?
' cried Destine. ‘Ask of me anything that you wish, but never ask me to understand why you keep sticking your head in the lion's mouth!'

Quaint grinned. ‘Is that a circus joke, Madame?'

‘This is no laughing matter!' said Destine. ‘If you are fixed upon this course of action, and by that I mean if you do eventually find this Remus, what do you think will happen?'

‘One of us will die,' said Quaint. ‘Obviously, I'd prefer it to be him.'

‘How can you be so flippant?' asked Destine. ‘Have you not learned by now that digging up the past only leads to pain? I urge you to reconsider this course, Cornelius. The circus needs you.
I
need you. Now more than ever it is not the time to do anything reckless!'

Quaint frowned. ‘Why?'

‘Why what?'

‘Why did you say ‘
now more than ever
'? What's so special about now?'

Destine closed her eyes. ‘I… I am not certain, yet I sense something… something elusive. It feels as though you are hiding something, Cornelius. Something that you do not wish me to know.'

The fortune-teller was as astute as ever. Quaint was using his own needs to mask his true intentions, and his reasons for doing so were most ironic. Usually it was Destine that steered him out of harm's way, but this time the boot was on the other foot and for Quaint the fit was an uncomfortable one. It was not easy keeping secrets from a clairvoyant.

‘Destine, I want you to do something for me,' said Quaint. ‘I want you to promise that you won't follow me to Rome.'

‘
Rome?
Why should I ever—?'

‘Promise me,' said Quaint, forcefully. ‘This is my choice, my fate, and my life… and this journey is one that I take willingly. Considering how I saved Her Majesty's life recently, I've called in a little favour with Buckingham Palace. A vessel is already prepared and waiting to take me to Italy. I want your word that no matter what happens, you won't try to follow me. Are we absolutely clear on this?'

Madame Destine pondered his request for only a moment. There was clearly no room for compromise. ‘We are clear,' she said, softly. ‘Whatever demons you are to face – and face them you shall – I swear that I shall not intervene. You are at least resigned to the fact that you are in danger. That is a start.'

‘I am resigned to nothing, Madame,' said Quaint. ‘It's just that where I need to go, they don't exactly welcome guardian angels.'

It was a cold morning and Cornelius Quaint buttoned his overcoat to the top. He tapped his stout top hat into place and stepped down onto the platform of Grosvenor Park station. Wisps of smoke gushed from the underside of the locomotive, and they parted for him reluctantly, as if eager to delay his departure. The circus troupe was busy preparing for a performance, and with their attention elsewhere, the conjuror's egress went unnoticed.

By all but one.

Madame Destine pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders. ‘I promised that I would not follow you towards your destiny, my sweet, but I said nothing about sending someone else to watch over you… if only he receives my plea in time.'

Before his journey to Rome could begin, Cornelius Quaint was compelled to make a minor detour. He asked the driver of his cab to wait, and jumped down into deep snow. Quaint ploughed his way through it, damp to his ankles within moments. The sky above him was as white as the ground, blending the world into one. The conjuror pulled his top hat down further onto his mass of silver-white curls and pushed open a pair of tall iron gates leading into a cemetery.

With his black cloak pulled tight around his body, Quaint walked the familiar yet seldom-trod path. The cemetery was completely empty, and the chill gnawed at his bones, but still he kept on walking. He had put off this visit for many years, perhaps too many, and nothing was going to alter his course this time.

He soon came upon an ivy-shrouded mausoleum nestled within a circle of barren trees, far from the main cemetery. The stone had aged considerably since his last visit and it looked at home in its surroundings now, as if it had always been there. He had lost track of exactly how many years it had been. More than ten, at least. If he was being honest, it was probably closer to twenty, and he felt a sudden stab of guilt. He was not the type that liked to be reminded of what he had lost, and he needed no mausoleum to remember them, choosing to grieve his own way, on his own terms. Reacquainting himself with old ghosts was always something he left to people with a more spiritual outlook on life (and death), people like Destine.

Falling to his knees in the snow, with his cloak splayed out across the ground like a shadow peeled from darkness, Quaint stared up at the stone mausoleum. It was still early morning, but the sky darkened quickly as he ran his fingertips over the words chiselled into the marble.

A lone tear followed one of the many lines of Quaint's face down to the corner of his mouth and he tasted its sweetness with a smile. This was a surprise. He had not thought himself still capable of tears after all this time. As much as he had tried to forget all the bad memories that he had accrued throughout his life (in some cases going out of his way to avoid them) the pain of his biggest loss was always there. It never went away, never ceased. His only protection was to lock the memories, the feelings, away in a strongbox inside his mind. He had lived that way all of his life, treating things with either disdain or ambivalence. One thing or the other, hot or cold. He knew where he was with those feelings. He trusted himself. To those that did not know him well, he was a gruff, sometimes harsh man, with little in the way of a sense of humour and a permanent frown etched on his brow. But one thing that makes a good conjuror is the ability to put on an act. It was a familiar mask that he had pulled on years ago, until it had become so much more comfortable than his real face. But here, faced with a monument to his parents' deaths, there was nowhere for him to hide and his emotions ran rampant.

He'd been but a boy when his parents had been taken from him, yet old enough to know the pain of his loss. Had it not been for his French governess, he would have crawled up into a ball and sobbed until the tears ran out. He wanted to retreat from the world; Destine had forced him to face his sorrow, shown him that the greatest tragedy would be if he allowed his grief to claim his life too. It was her guidance in those fragile years closest to his parents' passing that had moulded Quaint into the man that he was, and that was partly the reason for the cloud of guilt hanging over his head, for he knew that if he was to redress the balance of his life, he would have no recourse but to go against everything she had ever taught him.

‘I pray that you can hear me for I am in desperate need of your counsel,' Quaint whispered softly, clawing at the snow with his fingertips, bringing handfuls of it to his face, bewitched by the glints of light dancing across its surface. ‘Destine says that digging up the past always leads to pain, but how can I forget what I have learned? I have nowhere else to turn… no one else to turn to. So tell me… what must I do?' Quaint stared up at the mausoleum, a silent witness to his pleas. ‘By the way, this is the part where you're supposed to give me a sign. You know, a ghostly apparition, a lightning bolt striking the ground at my feet, a bright light in the sky – anything!'