Read Online Rook by Daniel O'Malley - Free Book Online

Ingrid looked at her a little strangely, for which Myfanwy couldn’t blame her at all, but took the coffee and went to modify it.
God, who knew it would be so horrendously complicated impersonating oneself?
she thought, and opened up Myfanwy’s folder.
     
Assassination of Court Members
    One of the reasons this whole plot has been so difficult for me to suss out is that there has been relatively little internal assassination of Court members in the history of the Checquy. Given that it’s a centuries-old militant organization that operates under a shroud of secrecy with a plethora of baroque (and sometimes rococo) traditions and bureaucracy,
and
that most members are trained to kill and equipped with supernatural capabilities,
and
that members of the Court wield authority with a terrifyingly free hand, you might expect there’d be more internal violence.
    But no.
    Oh, there’s been some assassination by outside organizations (supernatural and otherwise—Lord Palmerston had a Bishop shot), and plenty of deaths in the field, but as far as I can tell, there have been only four illegal deaths of Court members that were the work of other Court members. Therehave been a few legal executions, of course, including a monumental slaughter in 1788 that was only later declared legal, but the big four illegal ones are notorious:
     
In 1678 Lord Charles Huxley was thrown down a well on the orders of his wife, Lady Adelia Huxley.
In 1679, Lady Adelia Huxley was beaten to death with a kettle by her husband’s lover, Bishop Roger Torville.
In 1845, Rook Angelina Corfax was run over by a barouche. It was eventually discovered that this was done at the command of her counterpart, Rook Cassandra Bartlett.
In 1951, Bishop Donald Montgomery was strangled with his own tie by Rook Juniper Constable.
     
    Naturally, it is illegal for one member of the Checquy to kill another—not just because it’s murder, but because it strips the British Isles of part of their defense. In the cases above, all but one of the murderers were briskly tracked down, briskly tried, and then executed with a conspicuous lack of briskness. The exception was Rook Cassandra Bartlett, who successfully concealed her part in Corfax’s death; it was discovered in her journals years after she’d died. She must have been a fucking genius to avoid the tracking abilities of the Checquy.
    My point is, it isn’t done.
    And it certainly isn’t done to me.
    Whoever tries to have me killed, whoever succeeds in destroying my memory, well, they’re placing themselves in an awful lot of danger to do so. I can’t imagine their risking doing it in the Rookery.
    Now, one of my initial thoughts was that you could request a full-time bodyguard, but you’d have to explain why, and that would lead to all sorts of speculation about you. You’d then have someone with you all the time, and, frankly, we don’t want to draw that much attention to you. The reason I didn’t get a bodyguard was I knew it wouldn’t do any good.
     
    “Rook Thomas, I just got a call from your counterpart’s assistant—all of the bodies were out of town on different assignments over the weekend, and none of them will be back for a few hours, so yourMonday-morning meeting is going to be pushed back,” said Ingrid, coming in with the renovated coffee.
    “My counterpart? Yes…” replied Myfanwy, beginning with a question but frantically shifting it into a musing declarative sentence. She now scrabbled for some sort of comment to make and settled for stating the obvious. “So, the meeting is being pushed back.”
    “Yes,” said Ingrid. “All of Rook Gestalt should be back after your meeting with the headmistress from the Estate, except possibly Eliza, depending on how the antler-cult assault goes.”
    “Oh, okay,” said Myfanwy, trying to work out what had just been said.
    I think I get it,
she thought.
One of the two Rooks. There are two Rooks. Like chess. I am one, and the other is my