The Bloodless Boy Read Online Free PDF

that of my parents. It is learnt; it is not a thing innate. The Royal Society dictates modesty of aim and expression. We depend neither on Revelation, nor Epiphany. Too many before have used this pretence. We have learnt through this century how such dogmatisers hold a grip on our imaginations, urging men to unpardonable acts.’
    ‘And yet belief has been shown to alter the flesh,’ Harry persevered. ‘To be brought up a Catholic is to be brought up to believe. Belief in a cure, for example, may lead to recovery, ’though nothing medicinal resides within the palliative. Sailors tell of voodoo spells of the Western Indies, where to tell a man that he is dead is enough to kill him, and then to show him that he can live again is enough to revivify him.’
    ‘Perhaps, then, Sir Edmund’s fears are not to be so easily dismissed. We are left with the questions: Why was this boy murdered? Why was his blood taken? How was it used? If for infusion, into whom was it infused?’
    ‘And who killed him?’ Harry added simply.
    ‘The Justice kept the letter left on the body. I am sure that will tell us all.’
    ‘Not if he chooses to keep it from us. The eeler-man spoke of seeing just numbers.’
    ‘I will not speculate, Harry, with such little information. I have only imagination .’
    Hooke used the word as if it were something to despise. Harry fell silent, seeing again the boy lying in the snow, seeming to be pushed up from the earth. His mouth began to water again, his own imagination making his nausea return.
    The noise of Tom Gyles disturbed them, as he dropped his model onto one of the piles of books, which rocked perilously before finally settling.
    ‘A carriage arrives, Mr. Hooke,’ he announced.
    Observation IV
Of Presentation
    One of Sir Edmund’s horses released a piss stream into the snow, a hot fog rising behind it. His man, Welkin, rested his arms over the handles of the tumbrel, summoning the strength for another push. A crust of snow worked into the folds of his coat. His face shone from the effort of bringing down the trader’s tumbrel from the carriage, tied on it the body of the boy, covered by a cloth.
    He was older than Harry expected, and looked too frail to be doing such business in such weather.
    ‘The Justice is delayed,’ Welkin managed. ‘He will come later for the anatomising.’
    Hooke had never agreed to an autopsy, only to store him in the Air-pump, as Sir Edmund well knew; Harry wondered how the Curator would respond.
    Together they steered the tumbrel around the College, no more talk between them, following the trail of Hooke’s footprints.
    This trail disappeared in front of a door. Hooke had left it unlocked; Harry took the lantern, already lit, hanging inside. He led Welkin down the stairway, into the maze of passages and cellar rooms spreading like roots beneath the College.
    Their boots slipped on the stone, and the lantern, suspended over Harry’s elbow, swung awkwardly before them.
    Welkin’s face showed no sympathy for the load that they carried, but he was the Justice’s man, and so quite used to the carrying of bodies, Harry supposed.
    He took a care to keep his own feelings from his face – so what did Welkin presume of him?
    Harry led him through a long, low corridor, under the brick arches supporting the floors above. They passed various doors, signifying rooms behind. Whatever else was kept inside them, the corridor itself was used as a storeroom; along its sides hung various tools and pieces of machinery, and more of Hooke’s models and machines, those that there was no room for in his rooms or in the College’s repository. Woods, hides, ropes and yarns, fabrics of all thicknesses, and different grades of papers, were boxed and stacked along the walls. Sacks of plasters, minerals, pigments and ores leaned against one another. With only the single light’s illumination, to navigate the tumbrel needed patience and determination. The flying machine, in which Harry had