KATE MACDONALD
1 Master Sacristan Eberhart
bulls eye, quarries: bulls eye glass is the thicker central part of a pane of glass blown using centrifugal force, so the thickest part of the glass rests in the centre. Quarries are pieces of glass cut into geometric shapes to form a regular pattern within a leaded framework. The quarries would be much clearer than the bulls-eye glass.
leads: the tiled roof; lead was used extensively as a roofing material for its waterproof and sealing qualities.
common deal: pine, a fast-growing wood used for cheap furniture.
gurgoils: one of several variant spellings used before 1860 for gargoyles.
Te lucis ante terminum: the Latin hymn chanted at the end of the day’s work.
shooting lips: the exaggerated stone lips through which rainwater was expected to flow.
St Simon Stylites:a fifth-century Christian monk who lived for 37 years on top of a pillar in Syria, near Aleppo.
Æolian: from the Greek gods of the winds.
the death watch: the death watch beetle, so named for its audible clicking which can be heard clearly in a quiet house.
luffer boards: louvre-boards, thin boards fixed at an angle in a door or window frame to form a partial screen open to air and light.
2 The Marble Hands
prie-dieu chair: originally a desk designed for kneeling at while reading a devotional work in private prayer; later evolved into a small kneeling stool with a raised arm-rest or shelf for a prayerbook or for the hands to rest on while praying.
The King in Yellow: an invented play by Chambers that recurs as a motif of horror throughout his linked short story collection The King in Yellow (1895).
mahl-stick: a short stick or rod with a padded head used to support a painter’s arm while they work on a detailed part of the painting.
morion: an iron soldier’s helmet from the sixteenth century.
signed myself: made the sign of the Cross.
academic: a piece of art demonstrating or exhibiting technical achievement, but which might lack aesthetic perfection.
Beaux Arts: intended to suggest a Parisian art school, an École de Beaux Arts, rather than the Académie de Beaux Arts itself.
J’avais bien l’honneur, madame: French, I had the honour, Madam.
À la bonheur!: French, To happiness! O Happiness!
hôtel: French; not an inn, but a private house.
‘over the mouth’s good mark, that made the smile’: a quotation from Robert Browning’s long poem Andrea del Sarto (1855), about an artist and his art.
6 The Duchess at Prayer
escutcheon: heraldic shield, or a carved coat of arms
laminae: Latin, a thin sheet.
saurian: lizard-like.
Como: Lake Como, at the foothills of the Alps where summer weather is cooler than in southern Italy.
Proprio: Italian, just so, that’s right.
scagliola volutes: ornamental scrollwork made from crushed pigment in plaster.
baldachin: ornamental canopy.
Bernini: the leading sculptor of the seventeenth century.
fraise: a delicate ruff rising from the neckline to frame the head.
suffered: endured, allowed to remain.
abates: possibly the Italian for abbots or confessors.
cadet: a younger son.
pezzi grossi of the Golden Book: a leading family in the Libro d’Oro, the directory of the noble families of the Venetian Republic.
bravi: Italian, a superior henchman or follower.
the Ten: presumably the leaders of the Republic.
cabinet: an adjoining room to her bedroom.
7 Benlian
Prussian: Prussian Blue, an intense dark blue pigment.
ivory: miniatures have been painted on ivory plaques since the eighteenth century, since these are easier to prepare than vellum and support flesh tones more effectively.
zygomatics: his cheekbones.
hyper-space: this is one of the earliest known uses of this term in a non-mathematical setting.
Noah’s ark figure: toy sets of Noah’s Ark animal and figures often had the Biblical characters as columnar figures in long robes, easy to manufacture while suggesting Palestinian robes.
SPR: Society for Psychical Research, founded in 1881.
8 The Marble Hands
plunging: liable to play a risky move, to bet all.
Pentelicus: a mountain north-east of Athens, famous for the pure quality of its marble.
11 Bagnell Terrace
Naboth: Naboth owned a vineyard which was much coveted by King Ahab, and who was executed when he would not give it up (1 Kings 21 1–16).
12 At Simmel Acres Farm
stair: students at Oxford colleges who lived on the same staircase had rooms above and below each other, and consequently saw more of each other than other students in the same college.
Hilary term: the Oxford term between January and March.
vac: university vacation, the long break over Easter.
penthouse: a projecting porch formed by the roof alone, without walls or sides.
Et te simulacrum: Latin, ‘and the image of you’.
Simulacrum, et te — require: Latin, ‘image, and you – I require’.
Cupper rag: a Cupper is slang for a competition between Oxford and Cambridge university sports teams; a rag is a prank, a showy performance to tease and enrage the opposing team.
I could stick: I could endure.
libatio aquae: Latin, libation of water.
fillet: a ribbon or headband on classical statuary to keep the hair in place.
13 The Maker of Gargoyles
ferine: feral, wild.
vans: wings supported by struts or (in animals) bone or cartilage.
loups-garous: French, werewolves.
stryge: a winged creature of ill-omen; also a name for a witch.
aspergillus: an aspergillum, a holy-water sprinkler.
14 The Man of Stone
Damon and Pythias: two close friends from Classical Greek legend who trusted each other so much that Damon offered himself as a hostage to prove the integrity of Pythias’s promise to return.
The mills of the gods: a proverb about inexorable Fate dating from Classical Greek times, now most well-known from a quotation from Longfellow: ‘The mills of God grind slowly but they grind exceedingly small’, from his ‘Retribution’ (1846).
15 The Menhir
tors: distinctive outcrops of rock in open moorland, often weathered or eroded into arresting shapes.
finger-post: a direction sign on a tall pole.
rubified: made red in colour.
Isaacs: this may be an anti-Semitic slur, suggesting that Jews were more likely to be afraid of superstition than Christians.
16 The Living Stone
Ancient Hindu saying: the quotation has also been attributed to Pythagoras, Ibn Arabi and Rumi.
Nippies: the name for waitresses at the chain of Lyons tea-shops.