“I have need of Tygo as well,” Sousa was protesting. “More so, I say, than you. He’s told me that he predicted this comet, he has writings that prove it. I was skeptical. It seems a ploy to save himself. But as further proof, he’s offered another prediction, one that I am at pains to discover the truth of. That is the most important matter at hand.”
“I would say discovering the nature of the outlaw carnival is the most important matter at hand.”
“And you would be mistaken, as you usually are.” Sousa flashed his teeth in what Marvel supposed was meant as a smile, but which came off nothing like one. “These occurrences are connected. Have no doubt. If this convict has predicted the comet’s arrival, then there is a chance we can ascertain the Return Date. Do you understand? We will know once and for all. We could know.”
Marvel’s certainty that the Return—if it happened at all—would happen in Kansas was firm, but he couldn’t say it aloud. “The day that you could tell me anything I don’t already know has not yet dawned, Astronomer. Michael may be in your thrall, but that’s why I’m here, to make sense of the preposterous. You’ve calculated for twenty years, yet we’ve never had the Date from you. Why would you suddenly know it now?”
Sousa pointed to the heavens and then flung his hands to his sides. “I’d say there’s your reason. Things are a bit different now.”
Marvel snapped, “What is the prediction you’re trying to prove?”
“There are two, I said. Weren’t you listening? The prisoner claims he recorded this … comet, this stella nova, whatever it is, in his journals. They were confiscated when he entered the prison.”
“Well, then, they are gone.” Marvel shrugged. “Our common practice is to destroy the belongings of the condemned.”
Tygo closed his eyes like he was in pain.
“Of all the idiotic excuses,” Sousa exclaimed. “I simply disbelieve it. You expect me to believe that all prisoners’ effects are burned with the trash?”
“I don’t expect you to believe anything. This prisoner is only a Walking Doctor, why should we keep his filth around? He is to be executed forthwith.”
Sousa, growing ever more annoyed, looked from Tygo to Juniper, who seemed somewhat bewildered, then came forward alone and spoke in a low voice. “Very well. I should have known you would have some bureaucratic reason for doing what you do. The prisoner’s second prediction is more sensitive, and I’ve already sent someone to find out if it’s true.” Now he whispered. “The prisoner has informed me that all the ladies in the compound are bleeding in the feminine way.”
Marvel knitted his brow. “What?”
“They are bleeding. In the feminine way.”
Marvel stared at Tygo. Tygo met his gaze evenly. Those ears were the Mystagogue’s work, or at the very least an apostle of his. Which meant Tygo’s presence could not be accidental. The Mystagogue’s priests did not simply run away. There was no escape from that place.
It was indeed strange that three monumental things had occurred at once—the comet, the outlaw carnival, and now this man who claimed he could heal people and predict things. Marvel’s blood turned. He must secure his pardon. There was absolutely no going without it. He was too superstitious now, in his old age, to risk his salvation. He said, “Your name is William Tygo, do I have that right?”
“A name I have is William Tygo.”
“You’re a Surgeon?”
Tygo looked at Sousa before he looked at Marvel again, a fact that did not escape him. “The very best. My mother was Gimbal. The Witch, they called her. She crossed the continent in her youth. You won’t have heard of her, you being religious lunatics. But others will have.” He glanced at Juniper hopefully, but the young guard stared directly ahead.
“You can perform Surgery?”
“With my eyes closed.”
He nodded. “I have a task for you, then. A very important person in this palace is in need of a complicated surgery. You will do it. Perhaps in the process you will save your own life.”
“No, no,” interrupted Sousa. “I doubt he is a Surgeon, but I’m beginning not to doubt that he’s a visionary, and I must have my proof. Today. I want an answer about the bleeding.”
Marvel chuckled. “You are very much in demand, William Tygo. It couldn’t be that you say what you need to say in order to please whatever person you’re trying to win over. Never that, eh?”
Tygo smiled. “Of course it’s that.”
“So you admit you are not a Surgeon?” Marvel raised his eyebrow.
“This is incredible,” Sousa said. “The time we are wasting! I will go to Michael myself this instant if you do not release Tygo into my custody. You know I’ll do it. And you know Michael will take my side.”
He was right, of course. Michael was obsessed with the horoscopes Sousa drew for him on a near daily basis, no matter how Marvel had tried to dissuade him from the practice. In Marvel’s experience, horoscopes relied nearly entirely on their interpreter: this was why the Mystagogue had hated them. When John Sousa interpreted them, they contained all the deleterious possibilities the heavens could dream up. Marvel frowned at the disagreeableness of the situation. Then he frowned at Tygo, the hard nubs of his eyes boring into the smaller man like parasites. It was better not to involve Michael at all right now—Michael’s gullibility would make things harder for Marvel. The king would ask, simply, why it was so important that Marvel send an illegal doctor to the Pardoness. And Marvel would have no answer.
In a black mood, he dismissed them, but not before Sousa’s messenger burst in with the news that the ladies of the palace were bleeding, each one, profusely. At his words, Sousa turned somewhat dazedly to Tygo, who
