The Friday Society Page 4

  Why and how he’d come to London was still a mystery to her. Again, Nellie was sure it had something to do with this princess girl. Anyway, when the Magician had arrived with his strange pets and exotic appearance, he immediately landed work in the music halls. To make extra cash, he’d worked the burlesque house—which is, of course, where she’d met him. The rest was history. When he and Nellie eventually teamed up, real magic happened. She knew she was the missing link, the special ingredient that had brought the word “great” to the Great Raheem’s name. And she knew he knew.

  Which was why he treated her so well.

  Almost like a daughter.

  So odd, being appreciated. Even back when she was performing her very popular “breeches part” (dressing as a boy so that the men could stare at her legs) in the burlesque house, the owner had taken all the credit for her success since he had discovered her.

  Now she and the Magician were famous. They were given gifts by royalty—she jewelry, he a painting or other piece of art or historical artifact. They were also hated. By fellow illusionists.

  And she’d never been happier.

  Even when he made her eat really weird stuff.

  “You need your strength for tonight,” said the Magician, watching her push the snails around her plate.

  “Meat and potatoes. That gives a body strength, not slimy garden creatures.” She picked one of them up in her fingers and looked at it closely.

  “The French consider them quite the delicacy.”

  “Exactly. What does that tell you?”

  The Magician laughed. Nellie couldn’t help but grin back. She liked that he would just laugh at her jokes like that. Boys had always found it necessary to comment about how peculiar it was that she was so funny. Like girls couldn’t be funny or something?

  She offered the snail to Scheherazade, who was sitting on her shoulder. The parrot made a gagging sound and turned away.

  “See?”

  “I don’t consider the opinion of a bird the last word on good taste,” replied the Magician.

  “Nah, but maybe on what tastes good?”

  Their conversation was suddenly interrupted by a loud banging at the front door.

  “You expectin’ someone?” asked Nellie.

  The Magician shook his head. “Strange.”

  The Magician started to stand, but Nellie took the chance to escape from this revolting dinner by beating him to her feet.

  “I’ll get it, don’t want to be interruptin’ your feast, now,” she said. “Come on, Sherry, let’s see who it is.”

  She walked down the dark narrow hall, past the two Turner paintings that the Magician had received last fall from the Earl of Essex, toward the small, plain front door. The banging was getting more persistent, and Nellie picked up her pace, more out of frustration than anything else.

  “Keep yer shirt on,” she said.

  “Shirt!” agreed Scheherazade.

  The banging continued as she started on the first of half a dozen intricate locks that had been custom-made to the Magician’s specifications. By the time she reached the last one, Nellie was so annoyed with the nonstop knocking that she was beginning to think that she should just lock them all up again and walk away.

  “What the hell do you want?” she asked, flinging the door open wide.

  The man fell past her into the hallway, and she jumped out of the way just in time. Scheherazade let out a screech and flew off her shoulder, landing on the top of the door. The man convulsed on the floor, his arms and legs twitching in spasms. As he rolled onto his back, Nellie saw white foam at this mouth and finally got her voice back.

  “Raheem!” she cried out.

  In an instant the Magician was at her side, kneeling down to examine the man, whose eyes had now rolled into the back of his head, revealing just the whites. Nellie couldn’t see what the Magician was doing, but then, suddenly, she heard a snap and the twitching stopped.

  “What did you do?” asked Nellie, her voice rising in pitch.

  “He was poisoned, suffering an excruciating death,” replied the Magician.

  “Did you . . . did you . . .”

  “I broke his neck.” Lost in thought, the Magician stood up and stared down at the man.

  “Broke his neck—”

  “Death!” interrupted Scheherazade.

  “Do you, did you . . . know him?” asked Nellie, watching the Magician. Her hands were shaking, and she hid them behind her back so the Magician wouldn’t see. She always tried to follow his example, to stay calm in the face of danger, but she really wasn’t that good at it. Her temper especially got her in trouble. The Magician had said he’d always enjoyed her fiery personality, but she wished that in moments like these she could be cool and thoughtful, and not in a complete panic like she was now.

  “I did not.” He bent over again, this time going through the man’s pockets. He found a few pound notes in a clip and a large square ring. He stood up. “Look at this.”

  He handed Nellie the ring, and she looked at the engraving on the top. It was of a bird, slender, with an elegant long neck.

  “What’s that?” asked Nellie, returning the ring to the Magician.

  “I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.” Without another word, he moved past her through the open door. “Lock it shut behind me,” he ordered.

  She nodded and watched him as he swept down the hall. Once the last of his robes disappeared around the corner down the stairs, she closed the door and fastened all the latches as quickly as she could, realizing only after she had done so that she had just locked herself in the room with a dead body.

  7

  Michiko Takeda

  AND THEN THERE was an explosion.

  “You stupid, blasted Jap! What the hell did you think you were doing? You’ve gone and created a right mess now, haven’t you? You stupid, stupid girl!”

  Michiko didn’t understand much of what Callum was saying to her in his sudden eruption of anger, though she understood the cause. But really. Was it her fault that she’d been taught to practice and practice until her fingers bled? Until her joints were so sore she could hardly move? Until a weapon became an extension of herself, not just something she was holding?

  No. It wasn’t. Just because Callum didn’t share her philosophy, and the philosophy of her masters back in Japan, that did not mean she shouldn’t still follow her strict regime. And it certainly wasn’t her fault that Callum couldn’t tell well-made weapons from crap ones. That putting crap weapons through rigorous practice might cause them to break. Even quality weapons broke every once in a while.

  What she did know was that Callum was angry. She also knew why he was angry. They needed the rapiers for the demonstration that night, and she’d gone and destroyed not just one, but both.

  Michiko pointed toward the arsenal.

  “No!” yelled Callum. “No more. Those were the last.”

  That she understood. The last? No more?

  What an idiot he was.

  “Apologies, Callum-kun,” she replied, the words coming out in an annoyingly thick accent. Why was it so hard to speak English properly? She’d been here six months already, and she was usually such a quick study.

  Callum stormed out of the room and Michiko sighed. This was not what she had signed up for, all this abuse. Maybe it was a good thing that nine times out of ten she had no idea what he was yelling at her.

  It hadn’t always been this way. When she’d first met him, she’d admired him. She remembered the moment as if it was yesterday, even though it had been over a year now. A whole year. She’d been practicing in the yard, fighting against two of her fellow samurai apprentices. When she defeated both, boys who were several years older than she and twice her size, she’d looked up to her sensei to see if he approved. But he was deep in conversation with some foreign man. And the foreign man was staring right at her.

  She remembered what it was like to look into those eyes for the first time. Those incredibly roun
d eyes that were so unnerving. They were so open, so wide, as if they were absorbing the smallest of details about her. Not that she wasn’t used to being looked at.

  Men had been staring at her for years, ever since she’d been a young girl. Of course, back then their stares weren’t as obvious. There was too much respect for her family and its position in society for men to just gawk at her. But the attention existed.

  She saw it when her father’s friends came over to play cards. And she more than noticed it the day she watched the men enter her father’s study to speak with him. One after the other. It was time to begin marriage negotiations. Her mother gave her other reasons why all those men were coming over. But she wasn’t stupid. She’d seen it happen with her sister. With her best friend. Even at eleven years old, she knew why they were going in to talk to her father.

  That’s why she’d had to get out of there.

  She’d crossed the country all on her own, and was lucky to meet an old retired geisha in one of the carriages she was traveling in. The old woman took her in as her servant and spent time teaching her how to play the shamisen and other instruments. She’d even shown her how to perform many of the geisha dances. She took Michiko with her everywhere, almost like a pet. In fact, Michiko was nicknamed “Kitten” by the men at the teahouses. Everyone expected that someday soon she would begin her geisha training. But then one day she saw a secret underground demonstration of the now-banned art of samurai combat, and everything changed.

  She ran away. Again. She was good at doing that.

  What she wasn’t as good at was convincing a samurai master to take a girl on as an apprentice. She knew her age wasn’t a problem. The great Kyoshi Adachi had students younger than thirteen studying with him already. It was the whole girl thing.

  He tested her. Over and over again. Made her do things that none of the boys had had to do. Stay out all night in meditation during the winter and then perform her kata when the sun rose, her body blistered from the cold.

  She had to serve tea, and play music for them as they ate, as well as study and practice. She had to work twice as hard as any of the boys. But finally, on her fourteenth birthday, she was officially welcomed into the school.

  When she had met Callum the next year, she hadn’t been sure at first what she thought of him. Of course, he fascinated her. And when he’d ask to train with her, to have her teach him, she had been flattered. Not that she could blame him, really. Of all of Adachi’s students, she was by far the best. Even if Adachi would never admit it.

  Even if he refused to present her with her sword.

  So when a year later Callum suggested she come back with him to England to help him teach self-defense to English ladies and gentlemen, Michiko was intrigued. Aside from the fact that she was getting tired of living a life in fear of the authorities discovering their training camp and being thrown in jail or worse, it had been pretty obvious that her sensei was not going to let her get much further in her illicit training. And here was a man who could take her to a country where she could fight openly, who, moreover, respected what she could do, so much so that he thought she could be a teacher.

  How naive she’d been.

  8

  And Introducing Sir Callum Fielding-Shaw

  THEY ARRIVED AT the market twenty minutes later. Michiko knew Callum probably would have preferred to go on his own, but whenever he went out in public, she went along, too. She was his “kitten” now, but not treated with half so much love or even respect as the old geisha woman had given her. Everyone knew that Sir Callum Fielding-Shaw had a young Japanese assistant. She was an accessory, like the customized walking stick that he’d had Japanese characters engraved on. Though Michiko was pretty sure that “a pig is a small pie” was not what he thought the characters meant.

  He led her under the archway that bridged two teetering tenements and into a small bustling square.

  Callum cut an impressive swath through the market. Everyone in the square knew the great fight instructor Sir Callum Fielding-Shaw. It was hard to mistake that swagger and that thick curling mustache. They knew he’d traveled the world to become a master of his craft, even returning from Japan with an ethereal-looking, exotic young female protégée. They knew he trained everyone from princes to actors and had had an audience with the Queen. More importantly, everyone knew he had money to spend. Or, at least, they thought he had money to spend.

  Like everything else, the whole rich thing was just a front. Not that he couldn’t have been rich. Michiko knew this. If he didn’t waste his money as he did, he’d have been fine. Instead, he hosted huge parties that put him in the hole, and bought new gadgets for his physiotherapy business. He was in debt to many merchants around the city, including several tailors along Savile Row.

  Michiko was pretty impressed by his ability to spend the huge fees he charged for his teaching, especially because not much of it wound up in her pocket, or the pockets of any of his servants. It was one of the reasons she was stuck working with him. All she wanted to do was to leave, but she just couldn’t afford to do it. Not yet. Besides, what other job could she get, a girl who didn’t speak the language? Certainly not one that allowed her to fight, and fighting made her happy.

  So she’d been saving her money. Not buying the weapons she so desperately wanted. Not buying new clothes that she really needed. Just saving and saving.

  So that once more she could run away.

  But no one else knew about Callum’s poverty, and so, as he made his way through the crowd, people would either step aside in reverence to let him by or accost him with their wares. The many Chinese would bow their heads as he passed, and he always had sweets for the beggar children who swarmed briefly at his feet and then vanished back into the crowd. Michiko stayed back, watching him, as she always did. He was completely enjoying being the center of this little world, and he had no idea that they were all just taking advantage of him.

  There was a loud bang as a door at the far end of the square was flung open. Michiko turned and stared across the square. The most magnificent-looking man she had ever seen stood in the doorway. He was tall, with dark skin. He had long, thick black hair that fell down his back and a trim beard, both of which were peppered with gray. His robes—yes, he was actually wearing robes—were a deep midnight blue with an intricate abstract pattern embroidered onto them in a dark silver. They were cinched at the waist with a thick black belt. He stood for a moment, looking around the square. Michiko couldn’t look away. His eyes were so bright and, even from some distance, appeared clear and sharp. Penetrating.

  A small skinny man approached him with a concern, and Michiko watched the magnificent-looking man kindly but firmly send him away. She then noticed that everyone else had stopped doing whatever they were doing to watch, too. Callum was the only person still moving through the crowd, totally confused about why he was no longer the center of attention.

  A neat path was cleared immediately for the dark man as he made his way through the square, directly past Michiko, and out onto the high street.

  “Michiko!” She turned and rushed over to join Callum at the edge of the market by the weaponry stand run by the old Japanese samurai. Callum yelled something at her about having his grand arrival so rudely interrupted, and she bowed her head.

  “Forgiveness, Callum-kun,” she said. She caught a movement out of the corner of her eye and realized the old samurai sitting in the corner had looked up as she spoke. It startled her, as typically he didn’t pay any attention to her. Or really to anyone. Usually he just sat, smoking his pipe, staring into the space before him, as he let his assistants make all the deals.

  Callum made a strange, exacerbated puffing sound and then turned to the old samurai’s young assistant to bargain over a new case of rapiers. They began haggling over prices, and Michiko, as stealthily as she could, made her way to the far end of the table to examine the other swords. She noticed one in particular and gaped. Quickly closing her mouth tightly, she glanced ove
r at Callum, but he wasn’t paying any attention to her.

  She returned her focus to the sword in front of her. It was so beautiful, and she’d never seen it at the stall before. A katana. The samurai’s sword. The one she had never been presented with at her school, even though all the boys had one. Unable to hold back, she reached out and touched the hilt.

  “You called him Callum-kun,” said the old samurai.

  Michiko’s head snapped up. She was shocked to see the old samurai looking right at her, almost as if he had been looking at her the whole time. What struck her even more was the feeling that overwhelmed her at hearing her own language spoken. It was such relief to be able to understand, such a comfort.

  Too bad the words were spoken to shame her.

  “Yes.” She could feel the redness rise in her cheeks.

  “That is extremely disrespectful.”

  Michiko nodded. “I know.” She lowered her eyes and kept her gaze on the sword. She was feeling completely ashamed of herself at the moment.

  “Unless he is your husband.”

  “He is not.”

  “And even then . . .”

  Michiko nodded. There weren’t that many people in this country whose opinions mattered to her. The old samurai was the rare exception. After all, no matter what he looked like now, withered and small, he’d once been a great warrior. He probably still was. He was deserving of respect, and she really wanted his respect in return. Though she knew she wasn’t likely to get it.

  She understood the importance of respect; it had been ingrained into her at a very young age, and it was driven home even more to her with her old geisha mistress and, of course, her sensei. She didn’t want the old samurai before her to think she didn’t understand how important respect was. She did. Which is why she’d decided to call Callum “kun” in the first place.