But all of that is nothing compared to the horror to come. For Tristan’s crew is an evil one, and never was there more evidence of that than the story of Lester Holgate. ’Tis a fell tale I’m about to impart to you, so I hope you are nursing some potent spirits to get you through it.
Tristan was giving it a rest with Sir Edward. As soon as he arrived and told me and Rose all (for didn’t I summon Rose to be a witness to his story too), he went from the Tearsheet Brewery with Rose. She was friendlier to him now, given as how he had spoken with us more openly, as he’d promised. In fact, she had offered to introduce him to other witches around, of whom she knows more than I, having family here. She is about to be married off to a gentleman, pleasant enough, but very dull, and it appealed to her sense of adventure to be assisting a handsome fella from the future, especially in the name of magic. The plan was that Rose would take him to meet her mother and aunts, as they’re a whole family of witches (like Breda and myself), with the grandmother out on the Fulanham estate by the Sheppards Bush Green. So it’s an overnight trip he had left on, and didn’t I feel like a mother seeing her son off to the wars?
No, in fact, I didn’t. A bit of a relief it was.
So there I was on my lonesome upstairs at the tavern, taking the rare chance to air out the closet and the bedding, when suddenly there was a shimmer in the corner of the room and there’s another naked fella, with his hair cut in a peculiar way. He’s about as tall as Tristan but thinner, less imposing (good teeth though), and he falls to the floor moaning like they do. He most certainly does not seem familiar, telling me he’s only on this one Strand—something strange is afoot here, one of those things that Tristan would call an Anomaly.
As soon as he could speak, he looks around the closet like it’s Newgate Prison and he’s no idea how he got condemned to be there. “Have a seat,” I say, and pat the mattress beside me, but Mr. Anomaly looks nauseated and stays where he is, covering his shaft but feigning not to. I give him a moment to collect himself, chuck an extra set of drawers and shirt at him and wait for him to dress himself (he’s not so much to look at, a wee bit soft around the waist like a bride he is). As it happens we’ve collected some of Ned Alleyn’s fancier costumes from Dick Burbage, should Tristan ever have occasion to chat up the Court Witches, or courtly associates of Sir Edward, in nicer places. But Tristan was wearing his regular costume that day, so the fancier one was at hand, and I gave it to this new fella. Such a mess he made of putting it on, you’d think he was from the Indies. “Can’t you lace a doublet?” I asked in amazement, and he doesn’t even seem to hear me as he’s trying to figure out what the devil to do with the codpiece. I barely keep myself from crying with the laughter, but finally we get him dressed, and then for the first time, a quarter hour after my hands have been all over him to help him dress, he looks at me directly.
He’s not a bad-looking fellow but it’s city air he breathes a lot, I’m guessing, not like our Tristan, for his complexion is sallow like a hatter’s (although fashionably pale) and he squints a bit like a tailor. He carries himself well enough but unsteady he seems to be, as if a permanent amazement he is trying to hide. And his hair, Your Grace—’tis a thing best not spoken of, but I’ll speak of it anyway, as there is much worse to come, and as it enters into the narrative in a small way. The whole time we were struggling with the doublet his colorless limp hair kept straggling down over his brow and nervous he was in tucking it away.
And didn’t I then remember a thing that Tristan had told me, concerning his unlovable colleague, Les Holgate: “He employs a surfeit of Product.” I’d no idea what he meant by it, but he’d said it as if revealing it was, of something important concerning the man. So I had pressed Tristan for an explanation and didn’t he say, “That means his hair is gelled until it’s hard and shiny as a beetle’s back. It is a kind of pomade that some in my time use.” Tristan, understanding that none of this “Product” or pomade would be Sent with him, had grown out his own hair and had it trimmed in accord with our fashions, so that conspicuous he wouldn’t be. But this fellow hadn’t done so much. And since his Product has stayed behind in the chamber whence he’d been Sent, wasn’t his hair now all over the bloody place and a court fool he seemed to be.
“Les Holgate,” I say.
“The same,” he says, and he holds his outstretched hand toward me. I look at it, wondering if I am expected to kiss it, which I’ve no intention of doing. So I wait. After a moment, he drops it onto his lap. “You must be Gráinne.” He pronounces it wrong and he knows it.
“Why must I? And what business is it of yours if I am?”
“I’m a colleague of Tristan Lyons. You know, from the future?”
“I know.”
“I’m here to help him with his deed.” He pats his hands on the bombast of his hosen, then crosses his arms, then puts his arms akimbo, as if arms are something he’s just acquired and hasn’t yet worked out what they’re good for.
“A colleague, are you now?” I ask. “Let’s have you prove it. Tell me a bit about his deed, and why he would be needing your help, and what kind of help you’re intending to give him.”
“We have no time for that,” he says, frowning. To be honest he looks almost confused that I would be questioning him. Quite peremptory he seems to me.
“I have no time for foolishness,” I retort. “These are dangerous times and I dare not take a stranger at’s word. I’m needing evidence you’re Tristan’s fellow. Tell true.”
Mr. Anomaly harrumphed a bit at that. Then he pushed his hair back, rubbed his hands together, and said briskly, “We are trying to disincent Sir Edward Greylock from investing in the Boston Council. Tristan has tried speaking to him on multiple occasions but the results we seek have yet to eventuate.”
“And those results are?” I asked.
Irked he looked, as if it were an imposition to speak of it. “The removal of a certain building forty years from now in Massive Shoe Hits.”
I continued to question him in this vein, with his impatience and irritation compounding, until, despite his queer language and displeasing attitude, I had satisfied myself that he was indeed on Tristan’s crew, and served the same masters, with the same ends in mind.
“So what exactly are you here to do?” I concluded my questioning.