The Fall of Rowland Graves

He didn't even see the halls or grounds of his beloved Oxford, so dark and encompassing were this thoughts during his leave-taking. It was a blessing in disguise that no other soul crossed his path along the way. His angel was back in Bristol and there was no one here to inspire temperance and mercy in him the way she always did. And the portions of Rowland Graves roiling about on the surface on this chill October morning were not temperate nor merciful at all.

* * * *

Five days.

He had five days to spend alone in a carriage with his thoughts, and this was proving to be extremely unhelpful.

That was how long it would take to travel back with empty hands to Bristol. What would he tell Elinor when he got there? How could she possibly persuade her father that Rowland would be a suitable husband now?

The sound of the carriage wheels ground out his thoughts, refining them as grain against a millstone.

Medicine had been his life, his calling. To delve deep, to discover the root of an ailment and cut or flush it out, to shake his fist and laugh at the weaknesses of the flesh, the vagaries of Fate. These things drove Rowland on in his quest for knowledge. But more, he truly wished to teach. To help other men learn the ways they could snatch the reins away from Fortune. To be a part of educating others, so that they might heal, might cure. A soul recovered at his hand was a shining reward, but the idea that he could show others, and that his teachings might cause dozens of men, scores, to go into the world and do the same ...

And now it was gone. Thanks to that contemptible Judith Barlow.

His coachman was shouting something to another driver passing in the opposite direction. Rowland wished he would be silent.

How could someone as lovely and perfect as Elinor have a sister so vile and pestilent? They'd been brought up in the same household. He and his brother Jonathan weren't so different. Though his brother was more interested in ships and commerce than medicine, they shared most of the same sensibilities.

The one thing Rowland was certain of, though, was that it was indeed the elder Barlow sister who was behind this catastrophe. She'd already made use of her wiles to manufacture a sudden engagement, conveniently just before he'd planned to announce his own intentions. It was clear that she'd discovered his involvement with Elinor, and that she didn't approve. But why?

He popped his knuckles one by one as he sat, fermenting in his own ire inside the shell of his carriage. Out the window the shadowless light of an overcast afternoon made the entire landscape look as he felt. Colourless. Oppressed. Hopeless.

And angry now as well. A slow simmer of wrath, the sort normally doused by Elinor's patient, calming presence, was bubbling away inside him.

He reached into his coat pocket and brought out the scalpel. A gift, almost a jest, from Doctor Ellery, given upon his having earned his doctoral degree. Rowland never used it for actual practice; it was more of a sentimental token. Now, though, he applied it to removing non-existent dirt from under his already immaculate nails.

Who, exactly, did that shrew imagine she was toying with? First to meddle in his plans for engagement, and now to ruin his career? Daughters of gentlemen indeed! He suspected she knew very well that her younger sister was far from unwilling, but to spread a tale that he was simply forcing himself? On both of them? He could see the lies dripping from her tongue, poisoning the goodwill of Francis Ellery. The man had been his mentor and now he would take Rowland for a knave, a defiler of young women. The interior of the carriage felt as if it was growing impossibly hot, despite the grey afternoon.

With a thump and a dull clatter, the carriage jolted over what must have been a sizable rock in the road. He heard the coachman give a low grunt outside, likely at being jostled in his seat.

A thin sting made Rowland look down and a tiny, precise cut was spelled out in red alongside the nail of his first finger. He glanced at the scalpel in his other hand before staring blankly back at the cut. The thin scarlet line was welling up, becoming bloated under his gaze. His attention was rapt as it swelled into a precarious, wobbling ruby bead, swaying impossibly under the motion of the carriage before the tension finally broke and it escaped in a red path down the side of his finger.

He popped the digit into his mouth without thought. Blood didn't disturb him. How could it? Who could make a career as a medical man and have trouble with the sight? If he were honest with himself, he found it beautiful, in its own wet, macabre fashion. It was the most vibrant colour a body could make.

The most vibrant perhaps, but not nearly the most lovely. That honour he'd save for the pale delicate blue of Elinor's eyes. Or perhaps the white gold of her hair. The pink of her lips, or of her ...

Rowland returned the scalpel to his pocket, lest he cut something on purpose.

His angel was engaged to another man and now his future lay in ruins! How could this happen? How in two weeks could his universe be so upended?

You know precisely how, Rowland: the vicious meddling of a disapproving sister.

He squeezed at the tip of his finger and watched as another fat, ruddy pearl grew out of the cut. This time he held his hand upright and looked on as the droplet rolled down over his knuckle before losing volume and momentum in the valley between his first two fingers.

Other than the dull thud of hooves and the muted rolling of carriage wheels, it was so very quiet within the curved walls of the coach. Odd, he thought, as blood so often came with such a great deal of noise. Crying. Screaming. Pleading.

Rowland thought of such sounds. And he thought of Judith Barlow, destroyer of dreams. A doctor was supposed to make the pain stop, not awaken it. Not cultivate it like a fine, rare botanical specimen.

The bloodied hand had become a fist, and now his nails were dirty in truth, with red seeping beneath their edges.

Five days was too long to spend alone. He needed Elinor, needed her now. He never had these sort of thoughts if she was with him. His dove, his perfect angel, would chase this part of him away. Black, skittering things clawed at him, and her pure light could not come soon enough.

The light of early evening was bright enough, though low clouds covered the sky, but it was dark as a winter midnight inside the carriage that trundled westward toward Bristol.

* * * *

Moonlight sliced the darkness inside the carriage house like a blade as the servants' door cracked cautiously open. He could see her from his place in the shadows, but she couldn't see him.

A step, and then another. She was coming closer.

Rowland caught her up, pulling her fast against him, silencing her startled gasp with a hand over her lips from behind.

"Does anyone know you're here?" he asked, as quietly as he was able. His fingers came away from her face, and he released her from his hold.

"No, my love," she whispered, straightening her shawl, eyes wide as they tried to adjust to the dark.

Praying for forgiveness, Rowland abruptly seized her again in his embrace and captured her mouth in a hungry, desperate kiss. He couldn't stand to be in her presence and not touch her, not after the days of torture he'd spent alone on the road. As always, his angel knew without words what he needed and offered back yielding lips, a caressing tongue, and the faintest of approving whimpers.

"Rowland," she said in hushed tones when they finally parted, "we don't need to meet at midnight in my father's carriage house to simply trade kisses. What has happened?"

He set his forehead to hers, gripping her by the upper arms, unsure of how to explain, to tell what must be told. Delays would not improve matters, however.

"Oxford," he managed to grind out, "did not go well, Dove. No, not well at all."

She held her tongue, waiting for him to continue.

"I won't be getting the professorship."

"But Rowland, that's terrible!" Her voice rose a bit louder than it ought to be in her concern. "Why ever not?"

"Shhh, love. It seems that ... it seems that Doctor Ellery has rescinded his recommendation. The Fellows will not approve me for the post."

Her palms came up to his chest, stroking in soothing lines over the front of his shirt. "I don't understand, Love," she said, "Doctor Ellery chose you himself to follow in his place. He introduced you to Father before he retired. Why would he —"

"Someone has filled his head with lies, Elinor. Someone has convinced him that I've behaved improperly with several 'daughters of gentlemen,' including one already affianced."

The fine layer of grit on the floor crunched under the soles of his shoes as he shifted his stance, waiting for her to understand. He made an effort to loosen his grip on her arms. His angel was no place to leave the marks of his anger.

"Who would tell him such a thing?" Her tone was wound tight with confusion. It would do him good to remember that someone as innocent as Elinor Barlow would not immediately see the root of trickery, even when it tripped her up at her feet.

"A person who doesn't want us to be together, Dove. A person who wants to make sure your father will never approve of me as a husband, who needs to see my future ruined to do so!"

"But ... but ..." She was stepping away from him now, realisation washing over her. "How could she?"

"I don't understand it myself," he admitted, moving toward her again, "Why this hatred? What have I done to make an enemy of her? Family not agreeing on a suitor for a young lady, this I've heard of. But these lies? This sneaking and treachery in the dark? What sort of person does these things?"

The light was dim to the point of playing tricks on his eyes, but Rowland was sure he could see her shoulders begin to quake. A sniffle then, and a cough. He stepped forward in a rush, folding her into his arms, letting her hot cheek bury into the side of his neck.

"I'm sorry, Love. Please. Shhhh ... " He stroked at her hair, her back. "I didn't want to tell you. I'm sorry."

"She isn't my sister, Rowland," she said against his collar bone, almost too quietly to be heard.

"Oh, Love ... "

"No!" He felt her fingers tightening on his coat sleeves. "There's no reason! No reason at all for a person to be so wicked!"

Elinor's skin was flushed, heated against him wherever they touched, and he knew, in her own way, she was brushing against a bit of the same fury he'd known on his endless carriage ride. A nobler man would have been terribly distraught by the idea of his only love feeling this way, but certain grim, outlying facets of himself were beginning to make Rowland believe that he might not be such a noble man.

If she hates her own sister, this will all be so much easier now, won't it?

He pushed the thought down. They were out here in this carriage house to discuss plans. Best to be about it.

"Elinor."

Hearing her name seemed to break her from her spiral of despair and she tilted her face up to him.

"Do you want us to be together?"

"You know I do!"

"It seems hope is lost for us here in Bristol," he began, chest tightening in anticipation of how she might react. "Will you come away with me?"

"To where, my love?"

A fine start. She had not balked or rejected the idea out of hand. He ploughed ahead.

"Amsterdam. My cousin Ruth married a printer some three years ago, and her husband set up his business there. I'm sure they would take us under their roof for a time, at least until I could establish myself."

"But ... Amsterdam?" She sounded sceptical. "Will your cousin not simply relay your whereabouts to your family? And if Judith suspects ... will my family not come asking yours about where you've disappeared to?"

"She hasn't spoken to my father's side of the family since her wedding. I don't think they much approved of her choice of husband, either. I'm sure she'll keep her silence, if I ask it."

His angel was very still in his arms. He could nearly feel the churn of her considering.

"Elinor?"

Silence.

"Yes. We'll do it. We'll go to Amsterdam."

He might have broken her in half, he squeezed her to him so tightly then.

"Thank you, my love! Thank you!" He all but twirled her about. "Now we must only think of a way to —"

"I have a way."

"You do?" he held her now at arm's length, blinking into the darkness. It was his turn to be caught off guard.

"Yes. The feast. Do you remember? At the end of the month? The one Father has planned on Hallowtide?"

"The one you insisted I had that silly raven mask made for? With the odd name? Where did he get the idea for that again?" He took up her hand and pulled her deeper into the darkened building, peering about for somewhere they could sit.

"The masquerade. Yes. And it was Mr Ashford's idea, one of Father's friends. He spent the last year in Venice; it seems this sort of thing is the latest style there." Rowland had spied out a low bench against the rear wall and sat, drawing her onto his knee. "If you ask me," she giggled, quietly against his ear, "Mr Ashford must have shown Father the bottom of several glasses of wine, Love. He'd normally never agree to an event such as this. At least not after Mother died."

As much as he was relieved to hear her calming from her earlier upset, Rowland didn't understand how this odd party was going to help them, and he said as much.

"Don't you see, Rowland?" She straightened, doing her best to look him in the eye in the dark. "It's perfect. There will be so many faces hidden behind masks, no one will know who's going where or top from bottom. You can find me there and we'll slip away before anyone is the wiser."

His heart swelled with pride at such clever words from his angel. Framing her lovely face with both his hands, he kissed her again, wanting to nearly consume her with approval.

"Brilliant," he said to her, "You surprise me every day, Elinor."

She wriggled on his knee at his words and threw her arms about his neck, and for a time they simply dappled each other in sweet, hopeful kisses.

"How will I know you?" he asked once they settled. "You'll see me in black with the face of a raven, but how will I find you?"

"I'll be in grey and white," she said, leaning her head against his shoulder, "I had a mask made to look like a dove. Since that's what you always call me." He could almost feel her blushing in the dark, and he stroked at the back of her hand with his fingertips.

Something in him began to coil about, however, the first burn of venom lapping at his insides. His throat tightened.

"That sister of yours will be there ... won't she."

It was not a question.

"Yes, Rowland." He could tell by Elinor's voice that she'd rather he'd not brought it up. He found himself unable to resist another jab.

"And what will she be dressed as? A serpent?"

The Devil himself?

"You're horrible!" She swatted at him half-heartedly, though he suspected the vehemence of her protest was dulled considering her current disposition toward her elder sister. "She'll be in russet and black. She chose to have a mask fashioned after a fox."

Rowland harrumphed to himself. A fox. Almost as appropriate as his guess of 'serpent.' His mind was not truly on costumes, though.

"I think I may know how we can find our way to Amsterdam," he told her. "Once your father finds you missing, Bristol Port will be watched. My brother is assistant to the Harbourmaster, you know — he'll be the first one your family will seek out once they realise what's happened."

"Then what will we do?" she asked, her voice offering complete faith that he would have an answer as she tangled her slim fingers up in the dark queue of his hair where it trailed down his neck.

"I'll have a carriage waiting. I'll find you at this ... masquerade ... and tell you where to meet me. We'll leave for London, and sail from there instead, where no one will be looking for us. I've enough money saved, I'm sure of it. I'll take everything, to be safe."

"Oh, Rowland! Will we truly do this? I want to be yours but ... my family? Yours? Will we ever see them again?"

"I don't know, Love," he answered truthfully, gathering her against him, burying his face in the smooth skin under her jaw, hiding from the possibility that she might change her mind.

He could feel her pulse against his lips, and he let its warm rhythm calm him as he waiting for her next words in the silence.

"We'll go," she finally said, "It's the only way. I love you, Rowland."

"And I love you."

Yes. The only way.

His mind whirled with ravens and doves as he held her. Ships and carriages, and his eyes clenched tight in the darkness. Foxes and single drops of blood on the road between here and Oxford. Nothing further would be allowed to hinder them.

The only way.

* * * *

The Hatchet Inn was noisy, but it suited him well enough. Graves wanted to be away from his family this night, from his normal circles entirely, and so, as he often did when his affairs were troubling him, he called upon Bernard Helsby.

"It's only three days, Graves. You've only to stay with your first plan, which is mad enough, if I do say. There's no need for all the rest."

Helsby frowned into his mug, clearly not wanting to look Rowland in the eye as he prodded him toward reason.

"Isn't there?" Rowland's voice was tired as he leaned back against the wall of the common room, sloshing his own drink in lazy circles.

He eyed the man sitting next to him, sturdily built and, as his clothing indicated, not of the same social sphere as Rowland at all. Helsby's father had been farrier to Rowland's family, among others, for ages, and the two had been boys together. Though one had followed in his father's trade and the other had gone on to Oxford, they always seemed to know how to find each other when an ear was needed on either side.

"You'll have the girl!" the other man said, finally looking at him, "This other bit? Revenge? It's pointless! Just sail for Amsterdam and have done."

"It isn't revenge, Friend," he tried to explain, setting his own mostly empty mug back on the table, "It's only a preventative measure. She's maliciously fouled my plans twice now! Who's to say she won't find some way to do it again? And we'll be in Amsterdam before my Elinor is any the wiser."

"Do you hear yourself, Graves?" Helsby hissed at him, glancing quickly about the room, "This isn't some business matter, old friend. What you speak of is ... well, it's murder!" His last word was huffed out in a low breath, and now Rowland, too, cast an eye about. A man shifted position at the end of the long table, but he appeared to be mostly asleep with his head in the crook of his arm. Hearing a faint snort from the drunk, he turned his attention back to the one person he trusted aside from Elinor.

He sighed, pushing his fingers through his hair. "I know. I know what it is, Helsby."

"Then don't do it!" the other, more sober man snapped at him under his breath. Rowland turned his head to the side and blinked at his friend. The room swam a bit and he decided that this would need to be his last drink for the night.

Reassure him, Rowland. It was a mistake to think you could confess such an idea, even to him.

The merest hint of a laugh heaved out of him and he graced his confidante with a wry look. "You know I won't, Helsby. Can you imagine such a thing? I'm merely furious and full of ale."

The other man shook his head and mopped at his brow with the back of a sleeve, downing another draught as though his friend had made him sorely need it. "You're full of something, Doctor Graves, I'll warrant you that. Just you dress up as a ... as a ... crow was it?"