Noble Beasts

Prologue

A thing of beauty is a great temptation. A tragedy can be just as hard to resist.  

The bottle offers both. In the light of the dying fire, its smooth, dark surface is a canvas for distorted images: places and faces painted long ago, his own silhouette, antlers, skulls. 

Edwin knows he shouldn’t drink any more. He hesitates, letting his eyes trace the curve of the shoulders, watch the trembling, dark ripples that shake the surface of the liquid as his fingers close on the cool glass.

In the grate, the fire sighs, then hisses. Lifting the cup to his lips, he can’t face reading Lu’s letter again but tells himself a final time that it gives cause for hope, before leaning forward and feeding it to the fire, watching it curl and burn like so many others. 

As the flames crackle and flare, his own reflection sharpens. In this light, it could be now or 30 years since. The outline is the same: he has neither grown fat nor thin; he does not stoop; he still boasts a mane of hair, even if the gold has become grey. But the inside…

He seizes the thing by the neck, pours out the dregs and banishes the doppelgänger. But other images are already rising to take its place and they won’t be dismissed as easily. 

But other images have already risen to take its place and they won’t be dismissed as easily. Scenes begin to play out, scenes he cannot resist watching, even though he knows the dangers. It’s like a magic lantern, but – he swallows, feels the liquid burn his throat – what sort of magic is behind it? 

A thing of beauty is a great temptation. A tragedy is equally compelling.

Even when it is your own.

One

July 1858, London

“We need lions, Sir Edwin. England expects lions. She’s been expecting them for too long. Fifteen years to finish a monument like this is a disgrace.” 

Lord John Manners from the Office of Works indicates the four empty pedestals beneath the Nelson column. His words would have more gravity if they weren’t muffled by the cream silk handkerchief he is holding over his mouth and nose. Edwin follows his gaze, pressing a crumpled piece of cloth to his own face. 

Trafalgar Square is unusually empty. The river smells bad every summer, but this year’s sun-ripened sewage reeks so much that everyone who can afford to has fled to the country. Edwin fancies that even the horses are trying to keep their nostrils closed.

“I thought you’d invited submissions months ago?” he says, trying not to inhale. “I’d heard Milne was your man.” He wishes they could get to the point.

“Hmph,” says Manners. “Her Majesty isn’t overly enamoured with Mr Milne’s lions. Said they were heraldic but not heroic. Not that it’s her choice, of course, but … you know …”

Edwin says nothing. Manners’s secretary, William Russell’s son, George, raises his eyebrows meaningfully over his own garish silk handkerchief.