In the great history of the land,
A noble type of good,
Heroic womanhood.”
Sister Camberwick's lower lip trembled.
“‘Santa Filomena’ by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,” Burton murmured. “Look at me, Sister.”
She looked. Her eyes slid away, returned, held.
Burton began to rock back and forth very slightly, almost imperceptibly.
“It is fine work you have done.”
She leaned forward to better hear him.
“And it is fine work you continue to do.”
She seemed transfixed by the deep, soothing quality of his voice, and, unaware that she was doing it, she began to sway, keeping in time with his own movement.
“For the purposes of this interview,” he said, in almost a whisper, “it is important that you relax. This exercise will help. I want you to breathe with me. Feel the air entering your right lung. In. Out. Now breathe into your left. In. Out. Slowly, slowly.”
Gently and patiently he guided her through a Sufi meditation technique, watching as her attention centred on him to the exclusion of all else. He softly issued instructions, taking her from a cycle of two breaths to a cycle of four, subduing her mind through the complexity of the exercise until she was entirely under his control.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Patricia Camberwick,” she answered.
“And behind that? The other name? The one that you've been forbidden to use?”
“Florence Nightingale.”
“Tell me about the circumstances that led to your presence here, Miss Nightingale.”
“I-I can't-I can't remember.”
“I know. The memory has been blocked. What occurred to you happened while you were enslaved by a mesmeric influence. Can you feel that blockage, like a wall in your mind?”
“Yes.”
“It is only a wall because you've been made to think so. The truth is, it's a door. Just walk through it, Florence. Open it and pass straight through.”
Silently, Burton thanked Herbert Spencer for inspiring this mesmeric technique.
“Yes. I'm through.”
“You see how easy that was? The barriers planted in your mind have no power now.”
“No power.”
“So, tell me. What happened?”
“The woman.”
“Woman? Who?”
“The Russian. I don't know how she entered my surgery. I was conducting an experiment and had locked the doors. I didn't want to be disturbed. I heard a footstep behind me. I turned and there was the woman.”
“What did she look like?”
“Medium height. Heavy. The maternal type. Horrible black eyes.”
“Was she solid? I mean to say, was she an apparition?”
“An apparition? A ghost? No, she was there.”
“What happened next?”
“I-I-I fell into her eyes. Those eyes! I fell right into them!”
“She mesmerised you. What did she instruct you to do?”
“She told me to travel to Santiago in South America, to go to the asylum there and use the authority of my name to take charge of a patient named Tomas Castro. I was to escort him back here to Bethlem Royal, but upon entering this hospital I must use the name Patricia Camberwick and forget my true name. Service here had been prearranged for me and my primary duty was to care for and guard Mr. Castro. I must not allow anyone to see him apart from the woman and a man named Edward Kenealy.”
“Castro is still here?”
“Yes, on this floor, in the observation chamber.”
“Why were we not shown that room?”
“Doctor Monroe and the senior staff have had their memory of the room removed. An aversion to the door that leads to it has been implanted into them. They think it's a broom cupboard.”
“So, with the exception of the Russian and Kenealy, are you the only person who visits Castro?”
“Yes.”
“Take me to him.”
“Yes.”
Nightingale stood and, as if sleepwalking, drifted across and out of the room, leading Burton along the corridor to a nondescript door. She pulled a bunch of keys from her apron pocket and unlocked it. Burton followed her across the threshold and down a short passage leading to a heavily bolted portal.
“There,” Nightingale said.
“Lead the way,” he replied.
Keys were inserted and turned, bolts drawn, a padlock opened, and a chain removed. With the nurse's shoulder pressed against it, the barrier swung aside with a painful creak. She stepped onto a platform that ran around the wall of a tall circular chamber, about fifteen feet up from the floor. The room was fifty feet or so in diameter, fitfully illuminated by four gas lamps, and was sparsely furnished with a bed, table, chair, and a wooden screen, which, Burton guessed, concealed a toilet and basin.
A thin chain, attached to an iron ring set in the middle of the floor, snaked across to where a man lay on the bed. It was joined to a manacle that encircled his left ankle.
He was dressed only in ragged trousers and an undershirt, and was dreadfully thin. His left arm ended in a bandaged stump just below the elbow. His face was encased in an iron mask, featureless but for four horizontal slits, one for each eye, one level with his nostrils, and one for the mouth.
Tomas Castro.
The man struggled to a sitting position and looked up at them.
“ Ce qui maintenant? ” he whispered huskily. “Is there to be more torment? Who is this? I have not seen him before.”
He spoke with a French accent.
Burton turned to Nightingale. “Follow me.”
He walked along the platform until he came to a ladder and descended to the chamber floor.
Castro rose weakly to his feet as Burton approached.
“Please, don't exert yourself,” the king's agent said. “Remain seated. You are Sir Roger Tichborne, I take it?”
“Tichborne? Mon dieu! You are the first to call me that in a long time. It has been Castro, only Castro.” His voice sounded hollow behind the mask.
Burton took the chair and placed it near the bed. He sat down. Tichborne fell back onto the thin mattress and said: “But you address me as ‘Sir.’ Is it that I have inherited the baronetcy?”
“No little time ago. I'm afraid your uncle and father both died within a week of each other back in ’54, shortly before you were committed. It was reported that you were lost at sea whilst voyaging back to England. Your brother Alfred took the title. I regret to inform you that he, too, is dead. He was murdered by your enemies earlier this year.”
“Alfred,” Tichborne croaked. “ Mon cher frere! ” He raised his hand and rested the front of his mask against it. “And this year, it is?” came his muffled voice.
“It is now September of 1862.”
There was a moment of silence, broken when the prisoner began to quietly weep.
Burton leaned forward and placed a hand on the man's upper arm.
“Sir, there has been a vast and terrible conspiracy against you. I am trying to untangle the web, to discover who has spun it and why. It would help considerably if you could tell me your story. Do you have the strength?”
Tichborne raised his head. “Then you mean to help me?”
“I will do everything in my power. My name is Richard Burton. I am an agent of the king.”
“No, wait,” said Tichborne. “ Non. Non. It cannot be. Non. This, it is a trick. That-” he pointed at Nightingale “-that fiend is one of the conspirators. If she is with you, then you are with them! ”
“You are mistaken, sir. This woman, who you may know as Sister Camberwick, is, in fact, named Florence Nightingale. She has been operating under a deep mesmeric trance. She knows neither what she has done nor why. She is as much a victim as you are.”
“Ce n'est pas possible! And now? Why is she not screaming for help?”
“Because I myself have a modicum of talent as a mesmerist and have gained control of her.”
Tichborne sat silently, gazing at the nurse. Burton could see his wet, lidless eyes shining through the slits of the mask.