The Resurrection Fireplace by Hiroko Minagawa

Author:Hiroko Minagawa [Minagawa, Hiroko]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Bento Books
Published: 2019-04-01T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

Edward, Nigel,

Help me.

Hearing footsteps, Nathan turned over the paper and covered it with a blank leaf.

Evans burst into the room.

It was evening, and Nathan’s dinner tray had already been removed. He had not expected Evans to return tonight, and his guard was down. With no appetite, he had barely touched his food.

Evans was carrying a candlestick with a lit candle. He walked about lighting the candles in the room one after another.

Nathan noted the strap in his captor’s hand. Every act of defiance earned him a whipping, and not a gentle one. He had tried to be obedient of late—had his failure to eat aggravated Evans anyway? His stomach was so constricted by anxiety that he could not have eaten even if he had wished to.

Evans pointedly brought the candle near the blank sheet of paper. “Perhaps my eyes are failing,” he said. “I cannot see a single word.”

“You understand nothing about the creative process, Mr. Evans. A single line can take days to complete.”

“A chicken that lays no eggs, like a goat that gives no milk, is useless,” he said coldly. He raised the strap. “Clearly this has no sting for you. Perhaps I should use a blade.”

Nathan had concluded that his life was safe until he finished the Elegy, but that Evans could not publish the work of “Thomas Howard” while Nathan was alive to reveal its false provenance. And Evans was growing tired of waiting.

“I shall write,” said Nathan. “I shall write the poem. Let me live.”

Evans’s smile did not extend beyond the corners of his mouth. “I am not known for much patience,” he said. “As for your talent, it seems it may have dried up.” Then he left the room.

Nathan looked around him.

The bed was too heavy. Moving the wardrobe would be quite beyond him. The writing desk he did not wish to move from its place by the window. That left the small bookcase filled with part of Evans’s library. Nathan removed the books to lighten it—although not, unfortunately, very much—and then pushed it in front of the door before replacing the books again. Leaving Shakespeare, Pope, and Milton to guard the door for him, Nathan returned to his desk and continued writing his letter.

I am imprisoned against my will. I have no way to communicate with you.

My gaoler is a man called Guy Evans. He lives in London, but I do not know the address.

On the day of the riot, I was caught up in the disturbance and arrested. Despite my innocence, I was imprisoned in Newgate. That such a hellish place should exist! I was put in leg irons like the worst of miscreants. Could there be any greater insult? The fetters marked my flesh, as if to brand me a criminal. These scars will be with me until I die. I could not move without feeling the heavy iron scrape at my flesh, bite into my bones. The message they sent me was clear: You are a worthless being whose life is of no account.

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