The Emperor of All Things

4

Pig and Rooster



QUARE DREW ON his pipe and tilted his chair back against the wall, gazing through a fog of tobacco smoke at the other tavern patrons eating and drinking at tables and along the bar. Wheels of candles hanging on chains from the beams of the ceiling provided a wan illumination. According to the clock on the wall above the fireplace, it was approaching nine o’clock. Quare had no reason to doubt the time, though he had not checked it against his pocket watch as he was normally wont to do. Nor could he locate in himself the remotest desire to do so.

The Pig and Rooster was packed, the atmosphere boisterous. A man wearing an eye patch had taken out a fiddle and begun scratching a tune in the far corner, and an appreciative audience had gathered round, clapping and shouting encouragement as a little capuchin monkey done up as a Turk, a bright red turban strapped to its head, capered and turned somersaults on a table beside the fiddler. Elsewhere, men were playing at cards, chess and draughts, and at a nearby table a rowdy group of apprentices from assorted guilds, including his own, was engaged in a – so far – good-natured drinking game mediated by a pair of dice … or perhaps it was a dice game mediated by draughts of ale. Three barmaids – a brunette, Martha, and two blondes, Arabella and Clara, who looked enough alike to be sisters – hustled back and forth across the sawdust-covered floor with loaded trays, bantering with the men they served while expertly dodging groping and grasping hands … and just as expertly, it seemed, failing to dodge others. A fire crackled in the hearth, adding to the smoke and heat.

Quare sat at the back of the tavern, his only companions a mug of ale and a steak and kidney pie, both barely touched. Beside them on the stained and gouged table top a candle burned in a battered tin holder, the flame bending and swaying. He had come to the Pig and Rooster, a favourite haunt, to lose himself in the easy good-fellowship of the public house, yet instead he felt cut off from everything and everyone around him, as if the smoke from his pipe had wrapped him in a hazy cocoon.

The horror of all that had happened in Master Magnus’s study lingered like a nightmare that refused to fade. It clung to him like a leech – a leech of the mind. Of the very soul. He could still feel the throbbing pulse of the hunter in his hand, strong and regular as the beat of a living heart. Against his palm, like the ticklish scrabbling of an insect, he had felt the hands of the watch moving. He would have dropped it, thrown it away, but Master Magnus had clamped his wrist in a grip of iron.

‘Control yourself, sir! Master your fear, damn you, or you’re of no use to me!’

He’d turned his head away with a groan.

‘Look at it!’ Master Magnus had hissed. ‘And you call yourself a clockmaker? Look you, sir. Look you!’

Quare looked.

The fiery crimson glow of the pocket watch had faded to something like the cherry blush of colour on a young girl’s cheek. The rotation of the wheels and pinions was slowing, and the vigour of the pulsations communicating themselves through the case to his hand was weakening, the interval between them growing wider. The watch was running down. Its ruddy colour waned, passing from apple red to strawberry to rose to a wan pink, like wine diluted in water, as the fuel of Quare’s blood thinned, consumed by the uncanny engine in his hand. Another moment and the movement had returned to its original appearance of pale, unblemished silver, and the wheels once again were still.

The watch had stopped.

Only then did Master Magnus release him. Quare gasped, vaguely conscious that he’d been holding his breath. His thoughts were sluggish; he felt as if he’d taken a blow to the head. His fingers opened reflexively, and the watch slid to the table top; it landed face up, and Quare saw that the hands had moved from their former positions, pointing now at sigils whose significance he did not know any more than he had a moment ago but which nevertheless seemed invested with sinister import. He drew back as though afraid the watch might fling itself upon him.

‘What in God’s name is that thing?’ he demanded. And then: ‘How does it work?’

At which the master gave a satisfied chuckle. ‘You’ll do, Quare. You’ll do.’ He reached past Quare to retrieve watch, case, and crystal, tucking all three into his waistcoat pocket without pausing to reassemble them. When he turned, his eyes narrowed and he said, ‘You might want to tend to that finger.’

‘What? Oh.’ Blood oozed from the cut. He had thought the master had but pricked his finger; now it was clear the blade had sunk deeper. Digging a handkerchief from his pocket, he fashioned a makeshift bandage. The finger throbbed as though from a bee sting, reminding him of how the watch had pulsed in his palm. He shot Master Magnus a trenchant look and opened his mouth to demand an accounting, but before he could get a word out, a shadow passed before his eyes like the wing of a great black bird.

The next thing he knew, he was gazing up at the frowning face of Master Magnus, which seemed to be suspended some considerable distance above him, hanging down as if attached by invisible wires to the still-more-distant ceiling.

‘Well,’ demanded that face, ‘are you going to lie there all day like a lazy dog? Get up, sir! Get up! We have much to discuss.’ And one of the walking sticks struck against his shoulder.

Or, no, not a walking stick. A cat, butting its head against him. In fact, numerous cats were prowling about his person, rubbing against him, patting him with their paws, purring as if very pleased indeed to find him stretched out upon the floor. No doubt they were just being friendly, but even so there were rather a lot of them. He sat up with alacrity, and they scattered.

‘I never figured you for a fainter,’ Master Magnus said with a sniff. ‘Does this happen often?’

Head swimming, Quare climbed to his feet. ‘I’ve never fainted in my life,’ he protested, steadying himself with one hand upon a stack of books that was almost more in need of steadying than he was. ‘I don’t know what—’ He stopped short at the sight of the handkerchief swaddling his finger.

‘God help me,’ sighed the master, rolling his eyes. ‘You’re not going to faint again, are you?’

Quare glared at him. ‘I appreciate your concern, Master. I’m quite well.’

‘I should hope so. What possible use will you be if you go around fainting every five minutes like some overdelicate young miss suffering from the vapours?’

‘I don’t know what use I can be at all,’ he answered. ‘You’ve told me nothing, explained nothing, just shown me something possible by no natural science with which I am acquainted – a watch that runs on human blood. My blood, as it happens, drawn without a by-your-leave! And you wonder, after such shocks to the body and the mind, that a man might find himself a trifle unsteady on his feet?’

Master Magnus shrugged. ‘I did not faint when it happened to me. Oh, yes, my boy – how do you think I knew to prick your finger? I cut myself accidentally while examining the watch, and my blood was drawn into the movement just as yours was, and with the same intriguing if admittedly disquieting result. But why do you look at me so sceptically, sir? You have experienced for yourself the truth of what I am telling you.’

‘I am merely surprised to find that blood and not oil circulates in your veins.’

‘Hmph. Come, let us sit and talk.’ As he spoke, the master swung himself about on his sticks and led Quare to a small round table flanked by a pair of chairs, all three pieces of furniture covered with various combinations of books and cats and their respective sheddings of loose pages and hair.

‘Clear them away,’ he directed, and Quare evicted all the cats save one, a fat old orange tom that lay draped in a peculiarly boneless fashion over two books whose much-clawed bindings had the look of despoiled antiquity. This surly beast hissed and swatted a hefty paw at him when he made to remove it, and he balked at a further attempt, deciding that he had already been wounded enough for one day. Master Magnus, not so easily deterred, delivered a thump with his stick that sent the feline yowling in retreat.

‘The books as well,’ he said in a tone of impatience, gesturing with the stick as though threatening Quare with the same treatment.

‘Where shall I put them?’

‘Anywhere. It doesn’t matter.’

Quare transferred the books and papers to the floor. There was no organizing principle to maintain; Greek and Arabian treatises on horology lay alongside volumes by Newton, Descartes, Leibniz and Spinoza, which in turn sat upon anonymous pamphlets setting forth systems of astrology, alchemy and numerology. Interspersed throughout were pages covered with diagrams and calculations and Latin scribblings in the master’s own crabbed hand.

‘You should have all this put in the proper order,’ Quare admonished, not for the first time. He couldn’t help thinking that the books and papers – the property of the Worshipful Company, after all – deserved a kinder master, or at any rate a more meticulous one.

‘I like to keep them near to hand,’ Master Magnus said, manoeuvring himself in front of a chair and then toppling back into it with a grunt. His misshapen legs flew up, resembling the flippers of a seal. ‘This way, I know exactly where everything is.’ He laid his walking sticks against the side of the chair.

‘But what of the other masters?’ Quare persisted. ‘What if they should require a particular book? How will they ever find it?’

‘They will ask me, and I will procure it for them. The system is practical and convenient. Now, sit you down, sir.’

Quare began to brush cat hair from the upholstery of the remaining chair. But he soon gave it up as a lost cause and seated himself with a sigh. Master Magnus, he noted with some foreboding, was once again gazing at him with that unsettling grimace-cum-smile. Without a word, the master reached into his pocket. Quare flinched, fearing that he was about to draw forth the watch; despite his curiosity, he was not eager to renew his acquaintance with the timepiece just yet. But instead, Master Magnus produced a small tin whistle. Putting it to his lips, he blew three shrill blasts in quick succession.

A door opened, and a servant entered the room carrying a tray on which sat two glasses and a bottle of port. The man approached smoothly, something of a feat considering that he did not glance even once at the array of animate and inanimate obstacles bestrewing his path, but avoided them as if by instinct or some sense other than sight, his gaze fixed on a distant point. Quare studied him, trying to ascertain if this was the same servant who had fetched him in the stair-master, but there was no way of telling; perhaps if the servant had spoken he might have recognized the man’s voice, but he lowered the tray to the table without a word and then, with a stiff bow, his powdered face so devoid of expression that it seemed to indicate a lack of consciousness itself, turned and left the room, shutting the door behind him.

The master filled the glasses. He lifted one and indicated that Quare should do likewise. Half wondering if he were still unconscious and dreaming, for he had that sense, peculiar to dreams, that the most fantastic events could take place at any moment, and indeed most probably would take place, and, moreover, if he but knew it, were very likely taking place already, Quare followed suit. Master Magnus made the toast: ‘To His Majesty.’

‘His Majesty,’ echoed Quare, rising to his feet and drinking.

‘No need to be so formal, Quare. It’s just the two of us, after all.’ The master refilled his own glass, then reached up with the bottle to refill Quare’s. ‘Tempus Imperator Rerum.’

The motto of the Worshipful Company. Time, Emperor of All Things. A reminder that even His Majesty had a master greater still. As did all men.

Quare drank. The sweet wine went straight to his head, accentuating his sense of inhabiting a dream. He cleared his throat, set the glass down on the table as though to reassure himself of its solidity, and his own, and took his seat again. ‘How did the servant know to bring the wine, Master?’

‘Oh, I’ve got them trained,’ said Master Magnus, holding up the whistle. ‘They’re under strict orders not to enter unless summoned with this. I’ve devised a kind of code, you see, to communicate simple commands by means of the number and duration of blasts on a whistle. It’s quicker and more effective than calling them in here and explaining what I want. The Vikings used a similar method in bygone days. The longboats of a raiding party would speak to each other over great distances or through inclement weather by blowing upon their horns. My system adapts their barbarous custom for civilized use. I call it “Norse Code”.’

‘Impressive,’ said Quare. ‘But still, the servant must have been expecting the command. He appeared immediately with his tray.’

‘Despite all that has transpired, you remain observant. Excellent.’ The master gave a satisfied nod. ‘Yes, Mr Quare, he was expecting the command. I thought it only right that we celebrate your success with a glass or two.’

‘Then you knew I would succeed in opening the watch.’

‘Your horological talents have never been questioned. At least, not by me.’

Quare sighed, reminded of his interview with Grandmaster Wolfe.

‘Your suspension irks you,’ Master Magnus said. ‘You feel the insult keenly.’

‘Wouldn’t you?’

‘Indeed, I would not! The Most Secret and Exalted Order of Regulators. Bah! How secret can they be when they are named thus?’

‘But, Master, it was you who created the Order. You who named it. You recruit the regulators from among the journeymen of the Worshipful Company, oversee their training, dispatch them on their missions—’

‘Then perhaps you will grant that I know what I am talking about,’ Master Magnus interrupted. He reached for the port, then seemed to think better of it, making a dismissive motion as if shooing the bottle away. ‘Oh, the Order serves its purpose. The regulators do good and necessary work in thwarting the efforts of our enemies and their agents. But they are men of reason. Men of science. And there are other forces at work in the world, as you have now experienced for yourself. Thus I require other agents. Agents who belong to no named order, however secretly styled.’

‘I am surprised to hear you, of all people, disparage reason and science.’

‘I do not disparage them. On the contrary, I embrace them as fervently as I can. I have struggled my whole life to see them triumph. Look at me, Mr Quare. What do you see in this twisted body of mine?’

Quare hesitated, uncertain how to answer.

‘Come now, sir. Am I a spawn of evil? Does my misshapen outer aspect proclaim a soul bent equally out of true?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Yet many would say otherwise, even today, in this supposedly enlightened age. Do you know how many years it has been since I dared to leave the safety of the guild hall? It is my sanctuary and my prison all in one, for I cannot walk the streets of London without being followed by whispers of the devil. Adults mock me, children hurl insults and worse.’

‘Ignorance and superstition. No thinking man believes such foolishness.’

‘Perhaps not. Unfortunately, there are few men who can truly be said to think, even among the so-called educated classes. Why, even here in the Worshipful Company, I am looked upon as a monster. Apprentices fear me. Journeymen mock me, call me Master Mephistopheles. And my fellow masters, while content to reap the rewards of my genius, keep me hidden away, buried alive in the very bowels of the guild hall.’

The master paused, but before Quare could interject a word, he raised a forestalling hand; taking this for an invitation, a blue-grey cat jumped into his lap. He stroked it as he continued. ‘Do not misunderstand me, Quare. I am grateful to the guild. It gave me shelter, a home. I do not believe I would be alive today if the guild hadn’t taken me in, a friendless orphan, and trained me. But am I permitted to express my gratitude openly, like other men? Can I acknowledge my debt before the world and be seen by the world to pay it back tenfold, a hundredfold, a thousand, so that people might say, “Behold Theophilus Magnus, a credit to his guild and to his city!”? No. I must keep to the shadows like a skulking kobold. Allow lesser men to take credit for my work and receive the rewards and honours that rightfully belong to me. While it is true that I have the ear of Pitt, I do not believe that His Majesty even knows I exist!’

‘But surely Grandmaster Wolfe—’

‘Do not speak to me of that mendacious mediocrity! He has stolen everything from me. Everything! Do you think he would stand at the head of our guild if my back and legs were straight? Eh? Sir Thaddeus, indeed! Where is my title, I should like to know?’ He gave a bitter laugh.

Quare had seen Master Magnus lose his temper, but never his self-control. Yet here he was, the legendary Master Mephistopheles, he of the iron will and clockwork heart, confessing a petty litany of secret hurts and thwarted ambitions such as might be found smouldering in the breast of any disgruntled apprentice set to scrubbing floors. It was a breach of decorum every bit as shocking as the baring of his hump would have been.

‘But here is one thing he will not steal,’ the master continued. He drew the still-disassembled watch from his pocket and brandished it triumphantly; the silvery movement winked between his fingers, looking more like metal than any kind of bone with which Quare was familiar. ‘With this, I will pull the teeth from the Old Wolf and— God in heaven!’

A spitting and hissing ball of blue-grey fury had replaced the cat purring placidly in his lap. Master Magnus stared goggle-eyed at the animal, the watch raised level with his ear.

‘Do you see, Quare?’ demanded the master. All peevishness had vanished from his voice, replaced by boyish enthusiasm. ‘As with Calpurnia a moment ago, her instincts tell her plainly what our vaunted intellects strain uselessly to comprehend! If only you could speak, Marissa!’ He brought the watch closer to the cat, intent on her reaction. ‘If only you c—’

He broke off with a curse as claws raked the back of his hand. Blood flew, and so did both cat and watch, the latter sailing high in the air behind the master, the former leaping after it as though it were a bird. Still cursing, Master Magnus groped for his walking sticks but succeeded only in pushing them out of reach, and, for good measure, knocking the bottle of port off the table. Quare, meanwhile, remained rooted in place, watching the timepiece as it tumbled through the air, the movement no longer silver but red: a baleful crimson eye.

‘Get it, you fool!’ cried the master.

The room was in an uproar. Earlier, Calpurnia’s distress had infected the other cats. Now the rage of Marissa transmitted itself, and when the watch fell to the floor in the centre of the room, bouncing twice on the thick carpet, what seemed a single furry mass of teeth and claws fell upon it with a ferocity that curdled Quare’s blood.

‘Mr Quare!’ the master half shrieked, having turned himself within the prison of his chair to gaze in horror at the frenzied swarm.

The anguished voice pierced the caterwauling, jolting Quare out of his daze. He did not relish the idea of wading into that angry mob, but neither, he discovered, could he allow such a marvellous timepiece to come to harm. He sprang from his chair.

A flicker of darkness. It was as though all the candles in the room had gone out at once, then rekindled. Or a great black wing had passed before his eyes. Had he fainted again? But no: he was still on his feet, the cats still …

He stopped short. His heart throbbed in his chest, as if he had run for miles across the rooftops of London and not merely taken a few quick steps across the floor of the study.

The cats …

In the stillness and silence of the room, the drawn-out howl that issued from the mouth of Master Magnus seemed all the more terrible. It was like the sound of a hinge creaking as a door was forced open that had been rusted shut for centuries.

Quare stepped wonderingly into the midst of them. They lay motionless in concentric circles radiating out from a point of pale silver that seemed to shine with a light of its own. The outermost rings were sparsely populated, giving Quare room to walk, if he placed his feet with care, but the inner rings were so packed with bodies that he knew he would have to clear a path if he wished to reach the centre. There must have been close to fifty, perhaps even more.

‘Quare, are they … are they all …’

‘It would seem so.’ He felt giddy, as if he might break into laughter, although in fact he had never been so frightened in his life. Yet he couldn’t turn away. Something held him, a sense of being implicated in what had taken place, not simply as a witness to it – or rather to its aftermath, for whatever had been unleashed here had done its work in darkness, in the blink of an eye – but as a participant, however unwilling or unaware. Perhaps it was that he had been spared. He and the master both. As if, because the watch had drunk their blood, they were connected to it now. Part of it somehow. And therefore complicitous in its actions – for despite how little he understood of what had happened, he had no doubt that the watch had lashed out in self-defence, like a living thing.

The words of Grimalkin came back to him: ‘This clock will not yield up its secrets to such as you – no, nor to your masters, not even the greatest of them. Believe me, rather than answer your questions, it will punish you for asking them – and it will be a punishment that strikes the guilty and the innocent alike.’

He shuddered, wondering if the effect was limited to this room or extended beyond it, into the rest of the guild hall, the city, the world. If Master Magnus should blow on his whistle now, who would answer the summons? Was there anyone left to answer?

From behind him came the sounds of ragged sobbing, and it seemed to Quare that the master was grieving a loss greater than his precious cats. But he didn’t want to learn the truth of it. Didn’t want to witness the master’s mourning or even acknowledge it. Instead, he picked his way among the outliers, stooping here and there as he went, looking for some sign of what had killed them, as if that were the only question that mattered. But he could find no evidence of injury: bodies unmarked, unbloodied, limbs whole and positioned with the regal insouciance common to sleeping cats, so that he found it difficult to remember at times that they were not sleeping.

When Master Magnus next spoke, his voice was raw. ‘And the watch?’

‘I-it appears to be undamaged, Master. But I need to clear a path—’

‘You shall not touch them!’

This was no voice he knew. Quare turned at the shrill and fearful cry, nearly crying out himself at the sight that greeted him. The master seemed to have aged ten years or more.

The horror that came over him then was so much greater than what he’d felt before as to deserve another name. He told himself that the watch was responsible, that it had killed the cats by aging them, and that Master Magnus – and, no doubt, himself as well – had been similarly aged. But then he realized that it was an illusion, a trick of candlelight and the naked play of emotions across the master’s tearful face. He had not grown older; rather, a customary mask had fallen away, a mask of iron self-control that disguised his true age, made him seem not younger, exactly, but ageless. Now that mask was gone, and Quare beheld a face that Master Magnus himself might not have recognized had he chanced to see it in a mirror: the ravaged face of a man whose greatest solace has been ripped from him. But the understanding of what he was seeing came as no relief to Quare. Nor did the swift return of the mask.

‘Forgive me, Mr Quare.’ The master’s voice was as it always had been … only more so. It made Quare shudder to hear it.

‘Of course, Master,’ he somehow managed to bring himself to say.

‘You are quite correct. It is the watch that matters. Clear your path and bring it to me.’

Quare hesitated. He had no desire to touch the cats, and even less, if possible, to touch the watch. ‘Perhaps the servants …?’

‘No,’ the master said in a tone that brooked no argument. ‘There will be talk enough among the servants as it is. But the existence of the watch must remain our secret. At least for now, until we can understand better what has happened, and how. Move the cats aside. But do it gently, sir, I beg you. As gently as ever you can.’

‘Care for some company?’

Startled out of his reverie, Quare looked up to see a woman standing beside the table and smiling down at him, her eyes hooded by a ruffled blue bonnet but the rest of her face garishly painted, so that it was impossible to tell what her true features, or even her age, might be. ‘Sorry, love,’ he answered. ‘Not in the mood tonight.’

Like many such establishments, the Pig and Rooster had its share of prostitutes who either worked outright for the business or kicked back a share of their earnings in exchange for the right to troll the premises.

Rather than accepting the rebuff, the woman seated herself.

‘See here—’ Quare began.

She interrupted: ‘I believe you have mistaken me, sir.’

Quare knew that voice. Those dark eyes newly revealed in the light of the candle. ‘Grimalkin,’ he whispered.

With infuriating insouciance, she lifted his mug of ale, saluted him, and sipped from it. ‘I promised we would meet again.’

‘You are a fool to come here.’ He made to rise, then stopped as the point of a sword pricked his belly. He felt the blood drain from his face. The minx had drawn on him under the table.

‘Do not prove yourself a bigger fool. Sit down, Mr Quare.’

He settled back in the chair. ‘How do you know my name?’

The sword point did not retreat an inch, even as she took another sip of ale. ‘I have many resources at my disposal,’ she said with a smile made grotesque by the red paint smeared over her lips. When she lowered the mug to the table, a grey mouse darted from her sleeve, ran across the table top to his plate, and nibbled at his steak and kidney pie.

‘Look here!’ he exclaimed, and would have shot to his feet had not the tip of the sword impressed upon him the wisdom of remaining seated. ‘Can you not control that infernal rodent?’

‘Come, Henrietta,’ she called, and the mouse, after standing upon its hind legs to observe him, pink nose twitching, scampered back up her sleeve like a witch’s familiar.

‘Why do you carry that vermin upon your person?’

‘You have seen yourself how useful she can be,’ Grimalkin replied. ‘Now, sir: to business.’

‘I do not see what business you can possibly have with me, or I with you.’

‘Can you not? Have you forgotten that we are linked, you and I? Blood calls to blood, Mr Quare.’

‘Blood …’ He could not suppress a shudder. ‘Has this aught to do with that cursed timepiece?’

‘Cursed, is it? You were singing a different tune last night.’

‘I have since had the opportunity to examine its workings more … intimately.’ His finger throbbed at the memory.

‘Then you understand the danger.’

‘I understand nothing whatsoever! How it works, or how such a thing could even exist. ’Tis unnatural, an affront to God and science alike.’

‘That’s as may be. Yet it does exist.’

‘What do you know of it?’ he asked. ‘Who made it, and why?’

‘None of that matters now,’ she said. ‘I have come to ask your help – to beg it, rather.’

‘Beg, is it? At swordpoint? I believe the proper word is threaten.’

She winced at that, and, beneath the table, he felt the blade withdraw. ‘Your pardon. We must trust each other, you and I.’

‘You have given me no reason to trust you.’

‘I have not killed you. Is that not reason enough?’

‘You said yourself there were other reasons for that – reasons that have remained as cloaked in mystery as everything else about you. You wish my trust? Then speak plainly.’

‘Very well. Bring me the watch, Mr Quare. I would steal it back myself, but I dare not enter your guild hall. It is not safe for such as I.’

‘What, for a thief, you mean?’

‘If you like. Will you help me?’

‘I did not give you the watch last night, madam, when I knew nothing of its true nature. Now, having experienced the horror of it for myself, I am even less inclined to do so. I know nothing of who you are, really, or of why you want the watch. I only know that it is too dangerous to fall into the wrong hands.’

‘Where that watch is concerned, there are no right hands,’ she said.

‘Right or wrong, I should prefer it remain in English hands.’

She frowned; for an instant he thought to feel himself pierced by her blade. But then she sighed, and her shoulders slumped. ‘I was a fool after all. To come here and expect your help. Why should you help me when you understand nothing of what is at stake?’

‘Enlighten me, then. After all, we are bound, are we not? Blood to blood?’

Her eyes flashed. ‘You would not joke if you understood what that meant. It is the watch that binds us, for it has drunk of our blood.’

‘You speak as if it were alive.’

‘It contains life and death, yet is beyond both.’

‘More obfuscation. I begin to wonder—’

A shout interrupted him. ‘Quare! Ho, Quare, old son!’

Quare turned his head and squinted through the drifting smoke towards the front of the Pig and Rooster, where four men had just entered. He recognized three of them as friends and fellow journeymen. The quartet made for him at once, calling loudly for ale.

Grimacing at the interruption, Quare turned back to Grimalkin. She was gone. He shot to his feet, searching for the blue bonnet, but there was no sign of it, or of her, amidst the patrons of the Pig and Rooster. Once again, it was as if she had vanished into thin air.

He was still standing, mouth agape, when the new arrivals reached him: Francis Farthingale, a handsome, dark-haired giant who claimed to be the illegitimate son of a European monarch – which monarch, he was never prepared to say, but his insistence upon this circumstance, plus the fact that he received a regular sum of money from a mysterious source, had earned him the nickname Prince Farthing; fat Henry Mansfield, whose round, smallpox-ravaged face always wore a baffled smile, as if the world were a perpetual wonderment to him; and Gerald Pickens, the youngest son of a master clockmaker in far-away Boston in the Colonies, who had a comfortable allowance from his father but no hope of inheriting the prosperous family shop, which would go to his elder brother. The fourth man, a slender, red-haired youth, Quare did not know.

‘You look as though you have seen a ghost,’ said Mansfield, clapping Quare on the back. He pulled out a chair and sat down, as did the others.

Quare sank back into his own chair. Not a ghost, he thought, yet was there not something ghostlike about Grimalkin? She was as uncanny in her way as the timepiece she sought. And as dangerous.

Mansfield reached for the steak and kidney pie. ‘I say, Quaresy, are you going to finish this?’

Before Quare could reply, Farthingale interjected with a laugh: ‘Speaking of ghosts, did you hear about Master Mephistopheles? It seems the old boy poisoned his p-ssycats!’

Quare bristled. ‘You shouldn’t be spreading lies, Farthingale.’

‘It’s true,’ the dark-haired youth protested indignantly, looking to his fellows for support. ‘I had it from one of the servants, who saw it with his own eyes. A whole roomful of dead cats! And the master right there in the midst of them, cool as you please, picking out corpses for dissection as if choosing melons at the market!’

Mansfield spoke around a mouthful of steak and kidney pie, his lips glistening with grease. ‘His children, he liked to call ’em, remember? Some father, eh?’ He licked his fingers as fastidiously as any cat cleaning itself.

‘It’s as close to paternity as he’s ever likely to come,’ laughed Farthingale. ‘Even if he could pay a woman enough to lie with him, what’s between his legs is probably just as shrivelled and useless as they are!’

‘For God’s sake, Farthingale,’ said Mansfield. ‘Some of us are trying to eat!’

‘Even if it were true,’ Quare said tight-lipped, ignoring the sniggers provoked by Mansfield’s remark, ‘it must have been an accident.’ He wanted to say more, but the master had sworn him to silence. And even if he had not been so sworn, he knew that he could not unburden himself of what he had seen and experienced, not to this audience or any other. Men of reason would dismiss him as a lunatic, while the religious would see proof of witchery. Nor was he by any means certain that witchery had not been involved. Or lunacy, for that matter.

He doubted that he would ever forget those fraught, disjointed moments, the dark flash of the event itself, and, in some ways worse, the dreadful aftermath: how he’d cleared a path through the cats, gingerly lifting the limp, still-warm bodies and moving them aside, and then, more gingerly still, as if reaching for an infernal device primed to explode, picked up the watch … or tried to, for the timepiece, which was glowing with an unnatural white light, like a scale of moonstuff fallen to earth, had burned his fingers, though with cold rather than fire, forcing him to fetch a pair of iron tongs from the fireplace in order to ferry it back to the worktable.

There a shaken Master Magnus had confessed himself unable to go on. He’d instructed Quare to come back in the morning, when, the master promised, he would answer his questions as best he could and give him a new assignment: a confidential brief that would make up for the sting of his suspension from the Most Secret and Exalted Order.

Now, surrounded by his high-spirited fellows, Quare was sensible of a gulf between them – a gulf of knowledge and experience. Of terror. He looked at their lively, animated faces with a pang of loss, and of envy.

‘Accident or not,’ Mansfield said meanwhile, ‘what’s he doing with poison anyhow? Is the man a clockmaker or an apothecary, eh?’ He helped himself to Quare’s mug of ale.

Gerald Pickens spoke up for the first time. ‘Why, he’s both, Henry. And a bit of an alchemist into the bargain. After all, he is in charge of the Most Secret and Exalted Order. Oh, don’t fret, Daniel,’ he added, noting Quare’s sharp, admonitory glance towards the fourth member of the quartet, the slight, red-headed stranger, who had been following the conversation with glittering blue eyes and a ready if rather brittle laugh, ‘I’m not spilling any secrets. Aylesford here is a fellow journeyman, newly arrived from … from … what was the name of your village, Tom?’

Aylesford, who appeared to be still in his teens, his cheeks smooth as a maid’s, blushed scarlet in what Quare took for shyness … until he spoke. ‘Rannaknok,’ he declared rather too loudly, in an assertive tone and a rough Scots accent, as if daring anyone to dispute him. ‘’Tis a town on the Meggerny River, in Perth.’

‘Nobody ever said it wasn’t,’ said Farthingale, rolling his eyes.

‘You wouldn’t think it to look at him,’ Pickens confided to Quare with a wink, ‘but young Tom is quite the swordsman. He’s been in London for but two days and has already fought four duels.’

‘Five,’ Aylesford corrected, then added ruefully: ‘But Grandmaster Wolfe has forbidden me to fight any more. He says I may draw my sword only in self-defence.’

‘That is the rule of the guild,’ Quare pointed out. ‘We are, after all, supposed to repair timepieces, not put holes in their owners.’

‘I have come to London to be confirmed as a master clockman,’ Aylesford stated, eyeing Quare as if daring him to dispute the assertion. It was little wonder the fellow had found himself embroiled in five duels, thought Quare, if this was his customary manner of conversation. He was as brazen and disputatious as a bantam rooster. But Quare had no interest in quarrelling, not on this night of all nights, when he craved distraction above anything. True enough, Aylesford seemed too young to have earned the title of master, but that was not Quare’s affair. He offered his congratulations, which the other man accepted as if they were no more than his due.

‘But my dream,’ he went on, lowering his voice but not his intense gaze, ‘is to become a regulator like you, Mr Quare.’

‘Someone has misinformed you,’ Quare answered, glaring at Pickens, who smiled placidly in return. Only Master Magnus and Grandmaster Wolfe knew the identities of those inducted into the Most Secret and Exalted Order: not even the newly inducted agents themselves knew who their fellows were, and each took an oath to keep his membership secret, on pain of death. While in the course of his duties a regulator could expect to learn the identities of some, at least, of his fellows, that knowledge was subject to the same strictures of secrecy, and to the same harsh penalty. Quare suspected Pickens of being a regulator, but he had no proof other than the fact that the man expressed the same suspicion about him and had made a running joke of it.

‘There! Didn’t I tell you he would deny it?’ Pickens demanded of Aylesford, thumping the table top with his open hand for emphasis.

The redhead nodded, as if Quare’s denial constituted greater proof than even an outright admission would have done. ‘I had hoped that report of my skill with a sword would reach the ears of Master Magnus, but despite my efforts, I have not been summoned to meet with that gentleman. Nor have I received the slightest indication that he is aware of my existence. Perhaps, Mr Quare, if you were to put in a good word …’

‘Listen, Mr Aylesford—’

‘Call me Tom,’ Aylesford invited.

‘All right. Tom,’ Quare said testily. ‘But the point is, Pickens here has been having you on. He knows damn well that I’m no regulator. I have no influence with Master Magnus or any of the masters, at least not in the way you mean.’ He gave a sour laugh. ‘In fact, just now a word from me on your behalf would likely do more harm than good. But, do you know, I believe there is a regulator among us.’

‘Whom do you mean?’ Aylesford asked eagerly, eyes shining.

Quare pointed with the slender, gracefully curving stem of his clay pipe. ‘Why, who else but Pickens here?’

‘Ridiculous!’ scoffed the man in question.

‘He names others to deflect attention from himself,’ said Quare. ‘What could be a more transparent ploy?’

‘Sheer, unmitigated fantasy!’

Aylesford looked in confusion from one to the other as Mansfield and Farthingale sat back grinning. He pushed back from the table and stood, hand on the pommel of his sword. ‘If either of you gentlemen thinks to make sport of me …’

‘Whoa,’ said Farthingale, leaning forward to grasp him by the elbow. ‘Self-defence, old son. Self-defence.’

The redhead shook him off. ‘I do not know about London, but in Rannaknok a man’s honour is considered a thing worth defending.’

‘Honour?’ Quare laughed again, more sourly this time. ‘How fortunate for you, then, that I was instructed on the subject only today, by no less an authority than the Old Wolf himself. It is a lesson I’m happy to pass along, if you’d care to hear it.’

Aylesford nodded warily, his hand still resting on the pommel.

‘It’s quite simple. Honour is superfluous in a journeyman. We are mere tools to be used by the guild leadership, flesh-and-blood automatons to be sent wherever they will, for whatever reason. What need has an automaton of honour? None. In fact, it’s a positive hindrance. What counts for us is obedience. So relax, Tom. Sit down and drink with us. You have nothing to defend.’

‘Grandmaster Wolfe told you that?’ asked Aylesford, who had gone rather pale.

‘Perhaps not in those exact words,’ Quare granted, ‘but his meaning was crystal clear, I assure you. The only measure of honour a journeyman possesses consists in the thoroughness of his submission to the authority of the guild. I’m surprised the grandmaster didn’t speak to you in a like manner about your duelling habits.’

‘He did.’ Aylesford slumped into his chair. ‘Only I didn’t understand until now. I guess I didn’t want to.’

‘Ah, there you are, darling!’ exclaimed Mansfield, his ugly face beaming up at the blonde barmaid who had arrived at last, a tray with five brimming mugs balanced on one shoulder. She set the tray down on the table, providing a generous flash of cleavage as she dispensed the drinks. Mansfield snaked a hand into the folds of her dress, and she brushed him away without a glance, as if he were a bothersome fly. Then, retrieving the empty tray, she stood back out of reach and eyed them with a tired but not entirely unsporting expression on her plump, pretty face.

‘Why do you treat me so cruelly, dear Clara?’ Mansfield complained. ‘Can’t you see how much I love you?’

The barmaid rolled her blue eyes. ‘I’m Arabella,’ she said, and jerked her chin in the direction of the other blonde barmaid. ‘That’s Clara.’

Mocking laughter erupted from around the table, though Aylesford did not join in. Nor did Mansfield, who flushed crimson and attempted to rally: ‘As the Bard has it, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet …’

Arabella sniffed. ‘I do smell an odour, but it has little of the rose about it!’

Mansfield’s colouring grew redder still, as if in emulation of that flower, and he developed a sudden interest in his ale.

‘You journeymen of the Worshipful Company are all alike,’ Arabella went on archly. ‘Only interested in one thing.’

‘And what might that be?’ asked Pickens with a leer.

‘Why, your clocks,’ she said, not missing a beat.

More laughter, after which Pickens added: ‘And our stomachs. We’ll have another of your tasty pies, Arabella, if you please.’

At which Mansfield, who had already drained his mug, spoke up: ‘And more ale.’

After Arabella had gone, Farthingale slapped the gloomy Aylesford on the back and returned to the earlier topic of conversation. ‘Buck up, old son. Honour is vastly overrated. What is it good for anyway except to make people puffed up or miserable or dead? Take it from me, you’re better off without it. Why, I’m a bastard, the whelp of a man who sits on an august throne, a man so far above the likes of you and me that there is more honour in one of his turds than in all the patrons of this fine establishment put together! And yet, which of us do you suppose is happier, eh? My right noble sire, whose every waking moment is spent in terror of some slight to his precious honour, who sees everyone in the world as his inferior, to be scorned or ignored accordingly, and who cannot publicly acknowledge the existence of his only son, or’ – and here he laid a hand over his heart – ‘that selfsame son, a humble journeyman so far below the notice of the great as to be invisible, a man who, having no honour, need never fear its loss, or risk life and limb in its defence, or say to himself that he cannot stoop to befriend this man or to bed that woman, who—’

‘For God’s sake, Prince Farthing,’ cut in Mansfield. ‘Must you drone on so?’

Farthingale was always rattling on about his royal father, much to Quare’s annoyance. The man wore his bastardy like a badge of honour despite his disparagement of the term. But all bastards are not created equal, Quare had found. Farthingale at least knew, or claimed to know, who his father was – and did receive a regular allowance … a liberal allowance. Quare, on the other hand, lacked all knowledge of his origins. Even the name of Daniel Quare had been given to him by a stranger, thrust upon him when he was a mere babe at the orphanage in Dorchester. Yet one day he would learn the truth. One day he would stand face to face with his father. On that day, he swore now for the millionth time, all debts between them would be paid, with interest, one way or another.

Farthingale, meanwhile, glared at Mansfield. ‘Lucky for you I have no honour, sir, or I’d be forced to demand satisfaction!’

‘Lucky for you I have no honour, or I’d be forced to accept!’

Pickens raised his mug. ‘To dishonour!’

Quare lifted his mug along with Farthingale and Mansfield, his voice joining with theirs: ‘Dishonour!’

There followed a pause, during which four mugs remained aloft and four pairs of eyes regarded Aylesford, who gazed back glumly.

‘Come on, Tom, old son,’ Farthingale coaxed, nudging him with an elbow. ‘Forget your troubles. Drink up!’

Aylesford sighed, rolled his shoulders as if divesting himself of a great weight, and lifted his mug. ‘To dishonour,’ he echoed, albeit without enthusiasm. The same lack, however, could not be ascribed to his drinking, as he gulped down what seemed like half the mug’s contents before lowering it from his lips, leaving a frothy moustache, which he wiped away with the back of one sleeve.

‘Well?’ prodded Farthingale after wiping away a moustache of his own.

‘I begin to see the merits of your argument,’ Aylesford admitted, and in fact the colour had returned to his cheeks, and his eyes shone.

‘Keep drinking – soon you will be completely convinced!’

‘Only until the effects of the ale wear off.’

‘What of that, eh?’ Mansfield scoffed. ‘Is there a shortage of ale in London? Conviction, once lost, is easily regained.’ He raised his mug. ‘To conviction!’

‘Conviction!’ echoed four voices, of which Quare’s was by no means the weakest.