Simon gazed again into his empty glass. “A man should do something if his father is killed.”
“You’re doing something. Look, Simon, the years after Pendragon were chaos. A lot of scores were settled in the shadows. And most of the good members of the Order played it smart and kept their heads down. If you wander off into that darkness now, you’ll never find the path again. You will be acting for the benefit of no one but yourself.”
Simon slowly shook his head in confusion.
Nick continued, “You said yourself that something is growing in the dark. If you leave now, who will stand in its way? Your father waited this long for vengeance. He knows what you’re about, and I’m sure he approves.”
Simon sat still for a long moment. “I’ll do you the courtesy of considering what you’ve said. However, to do so I need another drink, but this place has obviously dried up.” He stood and reached for a jacket that wasn’t there. He tugged on his unfastened shirt cuffs. He did a credible job walking, only bumping into two tables and three chairs on the path to the door, where he paused. “I bid you good evening, Mr. Barker.”
“That isn’t your hat.”
“Good.” Simon replaced a soft hat on the rack. “I was distraught at my taste when I thought it was.”
The two men stumbled together out into the cold and stood underneath the pub’s sign, which featured a cloven-hooved goat man weaving what appeared to be a human shape on a fantastical loom. Simon immediately went to turn up his nonexistent coat collar. He tried several times before acting as if he was suddenly warmer. He studied the street in one direction, then the other.
“Now,” Simon said, “would you direct me to the Pall Mall Club? Or the Mayfair.”
Nick settled against the brick wall. “You’re unfit.”
Simon glowered. “Do you mind showing some good manners? Is the Cagliostro Club in this neighborhood?”
“It moves. I believe it’s in Greenwich for the winter.”
“Excellent. I’ll find it.” Simon staggered off to the north, not toward Greenwich at all.
Nick caught Simon by the arm and steered him in a homeward direction. The pair walked in silence for a while, with Simon leaning heavily on Nick.
“I’ve decided you’re right, Nick,” the scribe said suddenly. “I trust you.”
“Do you now?” Nick nodded silently as he shifted Simon’s weight to get a better grip on the drunk magician. Simon could barely manage a grin between his pounding head and his bone-weary exhaustion. With Nick supporting him, his feet slapped down one after another as they lurched along the sidewalk.
Simon started to chuckle. “Stay on the path now, my good man.”
Nick grunted, and the two men staggered toward home through the dark and cold, leaning on one another.
Chapter Eight
Kate Anstruther strode up the front steps of Hartley Hall bathed in stark, cold morning sunlight, her cheeks ruddy and her hair unkempt. Beside her padded the long, graceful form of an Irish wolfhound. Laying a hand on his massive head, she gave him leave to continue patrolling the grounds. The hound bounded away.
As soon as Kate entered the house a footman came forward to wrestle off her mud-caked black boots as she leaned against the doorframe. She also surrendered her heavy leather coat and padded off in stocking feet, taking the stack of newspapers from the butler. A maid trailed behind carrying clean shoes and a change of clothes. Kate took the shoes but waved off the clothes, feeling the maid was overstating the condition of her mud-specked breeches and heavy cotton blouse.
She entered the morning room, where a fire had been laid and breakfast prepared on the sideboard. She took a cup of coffee and flipped through the first newspaper until she found the story she sought: the report of Lord Oakham’s death at Viscount Gillingham’s party. Apparently, according to knowledgeable sources, poor Lord Oakham succumbed to a violent fit. The prime minister and wife were on hand to comfort his lordship in his last moments. Funeral arrangements were pending.
She opened a second paper that was known to be a bit less friendly to the regime and found a small item that the noted Tory, Lord Oakham, had perished at a party of Whigs attended by the Whiggish prime minister and his beloved wife. There was no attribution of cause of death, but there was a hint that his lordship might have died in a violent way, perhaps in a duel, perhaps linked to Lord Oakham’s radical politics.