City of Time and Magic, page 20
Taverstock fought a battle within himself, affronted at the slight on his home, not wishing to be thought small or unworldly, tempted to make some sharp remark, but pulled toward the possibility of using the newcomer to line his own pockets. If he had not heard of him, nor would others have, but that need not stand in the way of a lucrative match.
“What use have I for traveling to Scotland, when Scotland so readily comes to me?” he replied, treating Liam to a gappy smile. “If your lad be a prizewinner, we can find him a worthy opponent, do not fear on that score, Mister…?”
“Harley. Of Glenawer.”
“Mister Harley. Of Glenawer.” He paused to wipe grease from his mouth with the uppermost bedcover. “In point of fact, I have just such a contender in mind, would suit very well indeed. A little heavier than your boy, a little taller, maybe a few years more experienced, but slower with it. He should put up a good fight, give the crowd what they want, but I fancy your lad might be up to him.”
Harley looked convincingly insulted. “What? You’d offer us some old lag? A lump past his prime? My lad is at the top o’ his game. If you’ve no one more fitting, we’ll be on our way.” He turned, gesturing at the others to do so, and the three of them made as if to leave.
McBride blanched, but, to his credit, stood firm.
“Why so hasty?” called Taverstock from his bed. “Gentlemen can always agree on terms. Let us say I was to find you an opponent you deem worthy for your prodigy—and I grant you his talent appeared to me to be prodigious—how much of the prize money would you be financing?”
At this Harley gasped and then scowled. “What? Not content with insulting my lad, you ask for us to provide the purse! Hell’s teeth, man, the ways of you southerners are not to be tolerated! I offer you the pride of the north! The one to beat to make any man’s name! Such an opportunity walks into your … establishment and yet you ask for prize money? Come, Rabbie, my boy, let us waste no more time here.” He took a purposeful stride toward the door, jaw set, eyes murderous. McBride balked and stepped aside. Harley wrenched open the door.
At last, Taverstock was compelled to leave off feasting. “Stay! Mister Harley, again I urge you not to act in haste, for we are both about the same purpose here, are we not?” The stout little man heaved back the covers, revealing a nightshirt that was as worn as his cap, and swung his bare, bandy legs out from their hiding. Filthy toes protruded through the holes in his hosiery. Whatever money the entrepreneur made from the pain and exertions of others, evidently he did not spend much of it on his clothes. He pushed those same feet into napless velvet slippers and became a most solicitous host. “Come, sit, be at ease. I promise you, an arrangement can be made to the satisfaction of all concerned.” Here he pulled out dusty chairs from their random stations.
Harley paused for effect before nodding at the others. He and Liam seated themselves, while Nipper remained standing, marking McBride in a very obvious way, much to the doorman’s dislike.
Encouraged by this cooperation, Taverstock opened the cabinet and pulled from it a decanter containing a golden liquor. “Not Scotch, I confess, but the best the Irish have to offer, I assure you. A sweetener, this was, from a happy manager, a man such as yourself, yes, such as yourself. A fine lad he brought to London, and fortunes improved all round. Here, you will try a glass? If only to compare it with your own…?”
Harley nodded. “Aye, let’s see what watery beverage those Irish can manage to muster from their peat bogs.”
Beside him Liam winced, not sure whether to be impressed or appalled at how easily and how quickly Harley was able to take on the sensibilities of the time. He leaned close to his friend and whispered in his ear, as they had earlier agreed he would do when the moment was right.
Harley nodded again as he took the smeary glass from Taverstock. “Rabbie wants to know, how soon can ye arrange a fight? He’s a sweetheart back in the Highlands he’s pining for. We’ll stay no longer than we must.”
“Well, now, once we agree on our second player in this game, I can move forward swift as a hare before a hound, I promise you that. Let me see, if it’s someone younger you want, a true match…”
“Aye, that…”
“I’ve a fella comes to mind might suit. He is a little untried, but the coming thing, word is.”
“People hereabouts will know of him? I’ll have no nameless boy.”
“Oh, he’s known. His father was a fighter before him, and his brother too. The family is held in high regard in and out of the ring. The name of Wilkes always draws a crowd, and a crowd with money to wager.”
“Ha! Let them come. Let them think they can beat my lad!” He turned to give Liam a rather too hearty slap on the back. “We’ll have a surprise for them, that I guarantee.”
“Your boy is gifted, I will not argue different, no I will not, sir. But mark my words, a Wilkes will not go down easy. A Wilkes will test him. Test him hard.”
“He is not afeared of some southern whippersnapper! Let them meet, I say! We’ll show them what a Highland man is made of.”
“Do we have an arrangement, then?”
“If you can have them toeing the line by tomorrow night we do.”
“Tomorrow! That leaves precious little time for spreading the word.…”
“Such a match? Surely word will travel like salts through the belly!”
“Quite so, quite so. Then yes! I will put up a purse sufficient to tempt the Wilkes and his clan, we will pull plenty who will wager grandly, and you and I will split the proceeds of the door, what say you to that?”
“I say we drink to seal our arrangement! No, not for the lad. Do not spoil him.” He batted away the glass Taverstock was offering to Liam. Nipper, holding his position, was seen as muscle only, clearly, and not part of the proceedings.
Taverstock raised his glass. “To a fine match, and an even finer haul,” he said, a gleam of excitement lighting up his ruddy face.
“I’ll drink to that!” Harley agreed, tipping his glass to down the whiskey in one swift gulp.
Liam watched him closely. He could detect a slight bulging of his friend’s eyes and a swift intake of breath, but he withstood the rough liquor well enough. However harsh it was, he found himself wishing he had the chance of at least some of it, as the realization of what he had just been put up for hit home. Whatever Harley’s thoughts about him being spoiled, when the time came he would not be stepping into that ring without a decent helping of Dutch courage.
14
Alone in her room at Erasmus’s house, getting undressed, Xanthe at last had time to process recent events and prepare herself for what was to come. Her relief at finding Liam had freed her mind to focus on the mission she had been called to by both the writing slope and the mourning brooch. Since Elizabeth had revealed her true identity to her, the writing box had taken on a new significance. She was still buzzing from the thrill of seeing real magic performed in front of her. A thrill that was heightened by the knowledge that she and Elizabeth had so much in common. She herself might not be able to cast spells and move objects without touching them, but being a Spinner, and connecting with the hidden histories of treasures in the way that she had all her life, was a very real kind of magic. As Elizabeth had been quick to point out. This shared aspect of their natures, this overlap of their talents, made her feel strongly connected to her new friend. Was that why the writing box had summoned her? To allow them to meet so that she should have a new ally? If so, there had to be a specific purpose to their meeting beyond a helpful friendship. Xanthe knew that found things only sang to her for an immediate and particular reason. She was meant to do something with Elizabeth’s help that she could not do without it. From what Lydia Flyte had told her, the Visionary Society Spinners were to be challenging adversaries. It seemed likely, then, that she would indeed need Elizabeth’s special talents to be successful in her task. For the society had to be stopped, defeated, disbanded forever. The mourning brooch had helped her find Liam, but as far as her duties as a Spinner went, it had led her to Mistress Flyte. She was still struggling to organize her thoughts regarding the old woman. She had been so hurt when Mistress Flyte had betrayed her, and that betrayal was not easily forgiven or forgotten. But, as seemed to be the case, if Lydia’s sole aim had been to get Xanthe—and therefore Erasmus and Elizabeth—to halt the actions of the Visionary Society, how could she hold a grudge? Mistress Flyte was right; Brook-Morton and Dawlish were the very worst kind of Spinners, who had to be stopped, not only to put an end to their own dangerous exploits, but as a warning to any others who might think to abuse their gifts that this would not be tolerated. She wanted to forgive her old friend, to repair that friendship, but she doubted she would easily trust her again. And that thought saddened her.
There was another factor that niggled away at her reasoning. Mistress Flyte’s health. It was obvious to Xanthe just by looking at her, and reinforced by what Liam had told her, that the old woman was seriously ill. In fact, now that she formed the thought calmly and sensibly, she knew that the elderly Spinner was dying. Which would go some way to explaining, perhaps, why she had taken such drastic steps to ensure Xanthe would step up and deal with the society. She hadn’t the luxury of time to persuade her gently, or wait until such time as suited her. The mourning brooch, then, had called her to the shabby dockland house as part of the mission to confront Brook-Morton and Dawlish. This seemed to make sense, and yet there was something not quite right about it as an explanation. It felt like she was forcing a piece of the puzzle into a space that wasn’t a proper fit. She was missing something, and for the life of her she could not see what it was.
As darkness deepened over London, she climbed into the brass bed and snuggled beneath the patchwork quilt that covered it. Outside she could hear church bells chiming the house. She recalled the nursery rhyme of her childhood and wondered which towers the great iron bells were swinging in.
Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St. Clement’s,
You owe me five farthings, say the bells of St. Martin’s.
When will you pay me, say the bells of Old Bailey?
When I grow rich, say the bells of Shoreditch.
The sounds were muffled by distance and by the heavy atmosphere of the city, but she could make out at least three different chimes. The ringing was strangely comforting and made her sleepy, putting her in mind of Flora and her bell-ringing sessions back home in Marlborough. How far away home seemed at that moment. She had traveled greater distances in time before, but on this journey felt somehow more disconnected from her own time and her own life than ever. While the pull of family, of the familiar, of her own home, would always be there, it was not as strong as it used to be. Why was that? Could it be that with Elizabeth and Erasmus she had found a second family and that in some way softened the way she missed those she loved? Or was it because she had Liam there with her, in Victorian London, an important part of her mission? She had taken him with her before, of course, but now things had changed. Now, after their reunion, and after the way Elizabeth had questioned her about her feelings for him, there had been a shifting in his importance in her life. Because now, at last, she had admitted, at least to herself, that she was in love with him.
Forcing herself to push this enormous thought to one side, Xanthe brought her mind to bear on the plan that she and Erasmus had been developing. Liam having offered to take part in a fight was not something she was happy about, but the money could not be found quickly any other way. With the brooch pawned, they had their stake. Erasmus, not being known to the boxing fraternity, would buy a ticket for the fight and place his bet. Harley and Nipper would be there as Liam’s manager and second, and would help make sure Erasmus was allowed to leave the premises with his winnings safely. Elizabeth and Harley would present themselves as husband and wife buying their seat at the table of the Visionary Society’s next meeting. After much debate, Xanthe had convinced them to take her as their daughter. Erasmus had argued that they would detect a Spinner, to which Elizabeth had replied that she could cloak her so that she would not be discovered. But Xanthe had her own idea. She considered it best to wrong-foot the men. Let them expect to impress new clients and take their money, and then see how unsettled they were when they realized they had another Spinner in their home. If they already knew who she was—which would confirm they were connected to the Spinner she had seen following her and Elizabeth—it would be one more question answered. If they did not, they had to keep in mind that there was someone else, someone whose identity they had no knowledge of, who knew of her existence and, more important, knew about the Spinners book, its importance, and where it was being kept. It was also agreed that Mistress Flyte and Liam would attend the meeting, dangling the prospect of his agreeing to cooperate with their spinning as a way to get him into the building and add a further distraction for Brook-Morton and Dawlish.
The second part of their plan relied on those of them who had legitimately gained entry into the society’s headquarters doing two things successfully. They had to find the talismans or treasures that the men were using to help them travel, and they had to make sure that Erasmus and Nipper were let into the building. Fairfax had needed his astrolabe to travel. Xanthe needed her found things to travel and her locket to return home. It seemed to her reasonable to expect these Spinners would also have artifacts or devices that they used to journey. As with Fairfax, she saw it as her task to remove these precious treasures from them. To destroy them, preferably. After that it was very much a matter of playing things by ear, which was not a tactic that had found favor with either Harley or Elizabeth but no one could improve upon it. Xanthe made the point that they must keep their main goals in mind: to stop the men in their work, remove their ability to spin through time ever again, and permanently disband the society. As long as they kept to the brief of their mission, with so many of them there to help, they stood a good chance of succeeding.
Her mind still whirring, she was at last lulled to sleep by the clocks chiming the quarter hour. Her sleep was peopled with strangers and disjointed stories, with snatches of conversations and moments of darkness so that nothing made any sense when she woke again only three hours later. She sat up and used one of her own matches to light the candle beside her bed. She fetched the Spinners book from its hiding place beneath the false floor of the oak wardrobe and climbed back under the covers, shivering against the cool night air that seeped through the thin glass of the window. She had no specific question for the book’s authors this time; she knew only that she was drawn to communicate with those Spinners who had gone before her. That she needed to feel that kinship, that connection, so that she could most effectively complete the tasks she had been called upon to do. As she opened the book, leaning its weight against her knees, she heard again the whispered voices of people like her who had, in their own time, followed the path of a Spinner. She turned the pages, studying the maps, charts, portraits, and sundry images that revealed themselves to her.
She soon realized that the book was behaving a little differently to what she had come to expect. Instead of mostly blank pages among which stories and illustrations gradually appeared, the book was full. There was not an empty page to be seen. Every leaf was covered in flowing script or colorful images. She did not have to wait for writing to materialize on the paper; it was there already. Where before there might have been modest line drawings or faded charts, now everything was displayed in fabulously rich colors, illuminated with gold lettering, bordered with vibrant reds and greens, each page more beautiful and more detailed than the last. Flowers and vines trailed up the margins, overflowing each page, bursting into bloom and perfuming the air with sweet scents of orange blossom and lily of the valley and honeysuckle. All the contents of the book were laid bare for her, and with it the voices of those who had inscribed their stories, or penned their incantations, or printed their own likenesses, or given the gift of a man or plan. She sat up straighter. The covers fell from her, but she wasn’t cold. She was enveloped in the warmth that emanated from Spinners. She was overwhelmed with the feeling that she would never know loneliness again; that she would always and forever have the companionship and support of her brother and sister Spinners. It was an utterly joyous moment of revelation and she felt both humbled and elated.
“Thank you!” she whispered in reply to the many voices that filled the room with their welcomes and greetings. “I won’t let you down, I promise!”
She gently closed the book and sat quietly for some time, allowing herself to process what had just happened. She believed she had been given the full approval of her fellow Spinners, and that now she had to reward their trust with the success of her actions. Beyond rescuing Liam, the reputation of all Spinners was at stake, as well as the need to put an end to the damaging work of the Visionary Society. A great deal depended on what she did next. Instead of feeling a burden of responsibility, however, she felt empowered, strengthened, and reassured. At last, knowing she would not get back to sleep, she returned the book to its hiding place. She shrugged on a warm brocade nightgown Elizabeth had lent her and pushed her bare feet into her own boots, grateful for the familiar feel of the old worn leather and the firmness they added to her step. She decided to go down to the kitchen and attempt to make herself some tea. The kettle was always on the range, and Elizabeth labeled all her supplies with great care, so it should not prove beyond her. It was still dark, so she took the bedside candle in its brass holder, rather than tackle the gas lights that made her a little nervous.
As she descended the stairs she noticed the flicker of more candlelight coming from Erasmus’s workshop, the door of which was ajar. She stepped into the room, raising her candle, which had the unhelpful knack of illuminating herself rather than what she was trying to see if she did not hold it at precisely the right height. She saw Erasmus, still dressed, sitting at his workbench. The shutters of the windows were open, but the room was too high in the building to benefit from the streetlights, and he had only a stub of candle beside him, so that he sat mostly in shadow.
