Infernal Devices

9

"The man's insane – we have to stop him! Before he destroys the world!"

Even through the blue lenses, Scape's pitying glance was clearly readable. He tilted a bottle of port, identical to that private stock from which Lord Bendray had served me, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Did he lay that tired old wheeze on you? What a jerk." He shook his head in disgust.

I was still out of breath owing to my panicked flight from Lord Bendray's subterranean laboratory, my hands bruised from collision with the stone arches. Guided only by desperation, I had blundered my way up into the Hall itself, and had at last found Scape in one of the upstairs rooms, sitting in his shirtsleeves on the corner of a bed. My brain was still awhirl with the quavering voice and its words. "Don't you understand?" I cried. "The cataclysm – everything, bits and pieces – like marching soldiers-"

Miss McThane wandered in from an adjoining bathroom, her arms bare as she rubbed her damp hair with a towel. "What's all the shouting about?"

Scape pointed his thumb at me. "Ol' Bendray just told Dower that he's planning on blowing up the world."

"Oh, that." She drifted back out of the room.

I grasped him by the shoulder. "But, we have to do something-"

He shook me off. "Simmer down, for Christ's sake. I can't believe you just now flashed on the fact that Bendray's crazy."

"But – the machine – underneath the Hall-"

"Cause he is nuts, you know. Completely round the bend. I could tell that the first time I ever laid eyes on the sucker. That's where all that stuff about blowing up the world comes from – right out of his little loosescrew skull."

I took a step backwards. "You mean… it's not true?"

"Shee-it." The bottle lifted to his mouth again. "He couldn't crack an egg with that pile of junk. Your old man was running a fraud on Bendray – one of several, actually. Did he give you that line about people from other planets zipping around in the sky? Yeah, well, I got my suspicions about where he got that one from, too. Him and the rest of his buddies in that dingbat Royal Anti-Society of theirs; if one of 'em wanted anything from a perpetual motion machine to a – whatever; pogo stick that worked on the ceiling, or some damn thing – your father would throw one together for 'em. Most of these old boys are so senile they wouldn't notice if any of it worked or not."

"Really…" I stood amazed. This was an aspect – or the imputation of it – to my father's character that I had never encountered before. "I can scarcely believe it."

"Come on, Dower. Two minutes ago, you were running around here, quacking that the whole world was gonna go bang. You gotta get hold of yourself, man."

My thoughts, that had been so agitated, began to settle into some form of order. 'Then the Regulator – the device that you had me bring with us from London…'

"No sweat," said Scape. "Granted, the old boy's been looking for it, but he's not gonna be able to turn on that giant cuckoo clock in the basement with it. I mean, after all; one of the reasons tried to swipe that gizmo out of your shop was because I knew Bendray wanted it. You really think I would've sold it to him if I thought he was gonna be able to blow up the world with it?"

"I suppose not," I mused. "Just a moment – how did you know that I had the device?"

"Jesus, Dower – what kind of business do you think I'm in? I'm supposed to find out about stuff like that. I got ways."

I nodded, undisturbed by this frank admission of criminality of his part. A great sense of relief had come over me; whatever mysteries still surrounded me, they were at least not compounded by the imminent annihilation of the earth.

"Maybe you better go lie down or something," advised Scape. "You look wiped." He stood up and guided me by the elbow to the doorway, from where he pointed out the room farther along the hallway that had been designated as mine. "Get some rest, man – Bendray's head butler told me there's a dinner party tonight; some of the old boy's Royal Anti-Society bunch are coming over."

"Who are they?" I had been mystified by the term when I had heard it before from Lord Bendray.

"Nobody." Scape gave me a push towards my room. "Just a buncha old geezers. Crackpots. Nothing to worry about." The door closed in my face before I could ask any more questions.

I found Creff laying out my clothes upon the bed. The dog Abel was curled asleep upon the pillow; his ears pricked up on my entrance, but he made no other motion. "Rum lot round here," grumbled Creff as he pulled more items from the trunk. "Never seen such queer coves, have I."

Weary, I sat down in a convenient chair. "You little know," I said, "how true you speak." I tilted my head back and closed my eyes.

I awoke some hours later, with the gas-mantles lit to dispel the evening gloom. Creff was prodding my shoulder. "There's people arriving soon, sir. For some sort of to-do."

"Um… yes. Quite." I tasted my sour, dry mouth, and pushed myself up in the chair.

A vigorous application of soap and water brought me back to full consciousness. As I dressed, I felt an oddly familiar weight in the waistcoat pocket of the suit Creff had laid out. I drew out the Saint Monkfish crown and stood gazing at it for a moment.

How far had this mere bit of metal brought me, and yet no closer to answering the riddles it posed! That day on which the Brown Leather Man had given me the coin in payment seemed ever more from another time, another life. I had set out in blithe curiosity to ascertain this mysterious saint's identity, and to what end? The coin had bought me only the witnessing of two deaths – poor Fexton, and that dark-skinned progenitor of so many enigmas – and the threat of my own in the chill waters of the Thames. Those who promised to answer my queries, such as Lord Bendray, did so only by interjecting fresh conundrums.

There had to be an end to this. I re-pocketed the coin, resolving that if my demands for clarification were not met in the course of the evening, then I would strike out on my own for London, and have nothing more to do with these "queer coves", as Creff so aptly called them. An honest confession of my folly would be my shield against whatever spurious charges were being laid against me.

"Jesus H. Christ!" An out-of-breath Scape collided with me when I stepped out of my room. "Quick!" he said, and pulled me back into the doorway. "Now listen to me-"

I drew back from his flushed and panting face. "Whatever's the matter?"

He clutched my arm tighter. "I'm trying to tell ya, all right? Just listen, okay? I didn't know these people were gonna show up here tonight. So you gotta-"

"Who?" My resolve extended to refusing to be chivvied about by this excitable character. "What people?"

Scape brought himself under control, lowering his voice. "A guy named Wrath. Okay? Sir Charles Wrath, and his wife. They're the ones. I got told that Bendray had invited some of his Royal Anti-Society bunch over tonight, but nobody told me it was gonna be friggin' Wroth. So what you have to do-"

I peeled his hand fram my sleeve and dropped it. "I don't have to do anything," I said testily. "Unless I'm given a bloody good reason. What's so significant about this – Wroth, or whoever it is?"

"That's what I'm trying to tell ya, Dower." Scape's voice constricted to a hoarse whisper. "He's kind of… another client of mine. So to speak. You get what I mean?"

"You mean," I said coldly, "you engage in some sort of criminal activity on behalf of this gentleman."

"Well… yeah! Jeez!!" His words went up in pitch. "Give me the firing squad for trying to make a buck, you smug sonuvabitch!" He mastered himself again. "Look do me a favour, will ya? When you talk to the guy, just act natural. Okay? But don't-"

"Dower! There you are – come and meet my guests."

Scape was interrupted by Lord Bendray. The old man, returned to an apparent state of sobriety, came down the hallway and fastened on to my arm, by which he pulled me towards the stairs. "I'm sure you'll find them most interesting," he said. "Sir Charles has a keen interest in all things Scientific."

Beside me as we walked, Scape leaned close to my ear and whispered: "Just be cool, okay?"

As was often the case, I remained baffled by his puzzling syntax. I took it to be some sort of warning, but of what I had no idea.

I shortly found myself in a chandeliered banqueting room, under the inspection of a figure whose grey-haired age was belied by his upright military bearing. "I hope you'll excuse me," said Lord Bendray. "Small matters to attend to." He then scurried away.

Sir Charles leaned forward, peering at me even more intently. "Marvellous," he murmured to himself. "Really quite extraordinary." Surprisingly, he prodded at my chest with one finger. "Most lifelike. Do you speak?" he suddenly addressed me.

I was somewhat taken aback by this odd query. "Well, yes. Of course." Behind him, I saw Scape making a variety of surreptitious hand gestures to me; they puzzled me enough to keep me from saying anything more. Beyond this, I was disturbed by an odd familiarity to Sir Charles' voice; it seemed to me I had heard him speak some time before, but I could not imagine where.

"'Of course,'" repeated Sir Charles with a smile. "Very droll, that." He turned round to Scape, who hastily ceased his signalling. "My congratulations – you've produced it here in remarkably fine operating order."

Scape shrugged modestly. "Yeah, well… we try our best." Miss McThane, her hair in an upswept coif, had entered the room, and stood beside him, smiling graciously.

A woman, younger than Sir Charles, and of considerable beauty and startling decolletage, stepped from beside him for a closer look. "Yes," Mrs Wroth said huskily, reaching up to run a silk-gloved hand down the side of my face. "Very… lifelike." Her hand trembled as it smoothed the curve of my shoulder; her eyes, limpid cerulean, narrowed in the manner I had observed before in Miss McThane. J could not speak for the sudden congestion of my pulse in my throat; Sir Charles seemed oblivious to the evident nature of her interest in me.

"I congratulate your maker – or I would, if he were still alive." Sir Charles served himself and his wife from a tray of claret brought around by one of Bendray's staff. "Superb workmanship – simply superb. I look forward to tonight's performance."

Mrs Wroth took a sip of wine; the tip of her tongue caught a red drop at the corner of her mouth. Her elegant hands toyed with the stem of her glass as she gazed at me. "Yes," she said. "It should be… very moving." She looked round at Miss McThane; the two women exchanged venomous glances.

Scape strode over to me and grabbed me by the arm. "Needs some minor adjustments, however, folks." He smiled and gave a small wave with his free hand, as he tugged me away from the others. "Drink up… you know, kick back… we'll see you in a little bit." He forced his smile even wider. "Show time, right?" To me he whispered under his breath: "Come on. Don't blow it now."

"What is the meaning of all this nonsense?" I demanded as soon as Scape had pulled shut a door between us and those in the banqueting room. "What was he talking about – "superb workmanship" and all that-"

"Hey! I can explain." Scape made a pacifying gesture with the palms of his hands outward. "It's nothing to get worked up over – Sir Charles just happens to believe that you're… um… made out of clockwork. That's all."

I stared at him. "What?"

"Clockwork. You know – like machines. Like your father built. Sir Charles thinks you're a machine. Simple, huh?"

The absurdity of the explanation nettled me. "That may well be; however, I see no point in letting him go on suffering this misapprehension."

"Well…" Scape sucked his breath in through his teeth. "Actually, there is."

"If you expect me to help perpetrate some fraud upon this gentleman, for the benefit of your criminal enterprise-"

"Hey." He spread his hands farther apart. "It ain't just my ass on the line here, sucker. Sir Charles is a heavy dude in the Royal Anti-Society. They don't all take as kindly to somebody sailing in under false pretences as ol' Bendray did. I mean, they're a kick-ass bunch. They haven't lasted for a couple of hundred years by being all sweetness and light. They've had people snuffed for less."

"Snuffed…" I had a mental image of a candle flame being extinguished between a thumb and forefinger. "You mean, killed?"

"Way to go – you get the cigar."

"You told me they were a harmless bunch of old men!" Scape shrugged. "Harmless, shmarmless; you don't screw with them and you won't get harmed. All right? And if you do what I tell you to do, you'll be okay."

I glanced nervously over my shoulder, concerned that the others might have heard our rising voices through the door. "What do I have to do?" I whispered. The threat of violence had dissipated my earlier resolve.

"Piece of cake." Scape took an elongated leather case from a sideboard and laid it on the table in front of me. He snapped it open and withdrew a violin and bow, which he then held out to me. "All you gotta do is… play a little."

"Pardon?" I looked at the instrument in his hands. "You mean – play the violin?"

"What's it look like, a friggin' trumpet? Yeah, the violin. Go on, take it." He thrust it towards me.

I shrank back from it. "But why?"

He sighed with exaggerated patience. "Look. Sir Charles thinks… that you… are a device… created by your father. Called the Paganinicon-"

" The what -"

"Listen up, will ya? The Paganinicon. A clockwork violinist. Modelled after the big wha-hah virtuoso. You follow? You are a clockwork – what's it – automaton, right; and you can play the violin as good as the real Paganini. Or at least that's what we want Sir Charles to go on thinking. See? I told you it was simple."

"But-" I looked in bewilderment from his face to the instrument. "I've never heard Paganini play; I've never even held a violin in my life!"

"So? How hard can it be?" Scape thrust it into my hands. "Go on, take it."

I held it awkwardly, the bow somehow having got tangled with the strings. "This is impossible-"

"Not like that; the other way around. Don't drop it, for Christ's sake – that's a genuine Guarnerius, that Sir Charles sent over. Worth a lotta money someday; already is, probably."

"No; no, I can't do it." The violin felt incredibly light in my hands, as though it could float off into the air if I released it. The glowing wood trembled with my pulse. "They'll never believe it-"

My protests were interrupted by the door being pulled open by one of Lord Bendray's servants. I could see beyond him that the banqueting room was now empty, as he informed us that the other guests were awaiting us in the music room. "Is your boss there?" asked Scape.

"No, sir; he is in his laboratory, with orders not to be disturbed."

Scape breathed a sigh of relief, and I realised a further extent of his duplicity; neither Lord Bendray nor Sir Charles was aware of how he had represented me to the other. Thus his panicky state when he had discovered that Sir Charles was here at Bendray Hall; his intrigues depended upon the two men being kept apart, at least as long as their attentions were centred upon me.

"It won't work," I whispered to him as the servant led us down another of the Hall's great high-ceilinged corridors. "This is madness!"

His words came from the corner of his mouth, as the blue lenses of his spectacles stayed fixed ahead: "Just give it your best shot. What've you got to lose?"

From a small curtained alcove, I could see Sir Charles and Mrs Wroth seated some distance from a grand piano. The same butler as before served them from a tray held between them. When they had their sherry glasses in hand, the butler turned to Miss McThane, just behind them; his eyes widened a bit when she took the bottle off the tray and kept it. Her sullen, narrow-eyed gaze bored into the back of Mrs Wroth's neck as she drained her first glassful.

Scape prodded me forward. "Go on. Break a leg."

"What?" The neck of the violin slid in my sweating grip.

"Never mind – just get out there." He placed both hands in the small of my back and pushed with some violence. I found myself next to the grand piano, blinking at my audience, with the violin in one hand and its bow in the other.

Sir Charles frowned as he gazed at me. He leaned forward, cupping his chin in the angle between thumb and forefinger as he studied the actions of what he assumed to be a mechanical automaton. As before, he took no notice of the disturbing interest – of an entirely different sort that his wife signalled with her small half-smile and unnerving gaze.

Unseen by their intimidating eyes, my mind was spinning through ever-faster revolutions. The violin Paganini – what did I know about either? As a trickle of salt ran from my upper lip into the corner of my mouth, I racked my brain for some fragment of memory, some overheard and half-forgotten scrap of information cursed myself for having paid no attention to the breathless accounts of the virtuoso's performances that had appeared in various journals; how was I to have known that the topic would ever have any importance to me?

I could recall nothing, not a word of anything that anyone had said about this musical conqueror astride the world of concert stages and salons; a vague impression, gleaned more from occasional comment and witty allusion by those more au courant with the refined realms of culture – that was all my frantic scurrying through the cupboards of memory produced. Had one of my titled clientele, pleased with the restoration of his timepiece to working order, called me "a veritable Paganini of watch menders"? And had I not smiled at the compliment, as thought I had known exactly what had been meant, the two of us being such well-informed men of discernment and taste? A common failing, this; we pretend to knowledge, and never find out; until at some final assize, our ignorance becomes both accusation and confession.

Sir Charles continued to stare disconcertingly at me how soon would he guess the truth? My life had already been threatened at short notice; it was easy enough to imagine that this grey-haired, erect gentleman would also be capable of issuing such an order on behalf of the mysterious Royal Anti-Society. My fingers squeaked on the taut strings as I gripped the violin's neck tighter.

A steel engraving – where had I seen that? The image of a sharp-faced man, of skeletal physique, his long fingers bending with the flying pressure exerted on the instrument, the sweep of dark hair tangling over his piercing mad eyes – it must have been some journal's illustration of the virtuoso. Mad; surely he was mad; in every picture of him I had ever seen, he had certainly looked mad. And satanic – yes, that sounded right. A hint of sulphur and brimstone clinging to him; hadn't there been some silly story of him having sold his soul to the devil in return for his proficiency? Moody; temperamental; towering rages – but then weren't all virtuosi supposed to be like that?

Either they started out that way, or ended up so. Very likely a good number of the audience would be disappointed if there were no flash of temper, having come more to see that than to hear the music.

I seized on this notion with the desperation of a man being dragged to his execution. "The-" I made a hopefully dramatic gesture with the bow. "The light is too bright in here. It – it's entirely unsuitable."

Sir Charles leaned forward with evident interest. Beside him, Mrs Wroth opened her eyes a bit wider.

Thus encouraged, I pressed forward. "How can I be expected to perform under these conditions?" For a moment, I wondered if I was merely sounding peevish. Stronger stuff was called for. "It is an outrage," I cried, my voice rising to what I imagined was a madman's pitch. "And for – for an audience the size of this? An insult! I play for hundreds, thousands – the whole world! Not for any mere gaping handful! The crowned heads of Europe take their humble places with the rest – I am no children's conjuror hired for a birthday fete."

I heard Scape hissing at me from the alcove, and saw from the corner of my eye his frantic gestures to capture my attention. I ignored him; he had got me into this predicament; obviously it was up to myself to achieve extrication.

Perhaps it was the repeated contact with so many obviously unhinged people, that gave my own enactment an edge of veracity. I strode back and forth in front of the onlookers, waving the violin above my head in a transport of emotion. "An outrage, I tell you. Such ignorant peasants do not deserve my genius!"

Sir Charles and Mrs Wroth seemed more entranced as my display of anger mounted.

I felt quite dizzy, as if all my breath had been exhausted through my shouting. Delirious, no longer mindful of any division between a placid shopkeeper and the insane virtuoso I had conjured up, I swung the violin aloft as if threatening violence. "The light! You, you fools! Great art cannot be born in these circumstances! Those hideous draperies! And-" I halted, gazing at the grand piano as if seeing it for the first time. "Where is my accompanist?"

A red haze drifted over the faces watching me.

"Where is my accompanist?" I thundered. My towering rage elevated me above the piano. I heard a crash of wood and a discordant echo; I looked down at my hand and saw my fist grasping only the neck of the violin, its strings curling loose around my wrist. The lid of the piano was scarred from the impact; splinters rained down upon me.

"Magnificent!" I heard someone shout. Dazed, my mock virtuoso evaporated in the aftermath of the violin's destruction, I saw Sir Charles leap from his seat and dash towards me. He went past and pulled Scape from the alcove.

"Simply marvellous," said Sir Charles, pumping Scape's hand in his. "A magnificent achievement – the exact duplicate the real Paganini's temperament in every detail! You are to be congratulated."

Scape regained his composure after a moment's confusion.

"Yeah, well… It's no big thing, really." He smiled modestly.

As I watched them, I felt the uncomfortable sensation of another's gaze fastened upon me. I turned with the remains of the shattered violin in my hand, and saw Mrs Wroth, head tilted to one side, eyeing me with an even more disturbing interest.

Before another word could be spoken by any of us, we were frozen by the sound of a window shivering into bits. A heavy curtain at the side of the room flapped with the impact of some missile. Sir Charles let go of Scape's hand and rushed to the spot. The shards of glass crunched under his boots as he flung aside the curtain, revealing the evening's fading light outside. "They're here!" he shouted. "The Godly Army!" He turned and rushed from the room, his face contorted with anger.

There were shouts and more noises from without. I joined Scape at the window. "Shit," he muttered under his breath. "Why'd these turkeys have to show up now?"

It required a few moments to perceive the shapes moving in the advancing darkness. A torch flared, revealing the cloaked riders I had seen pursuing the carriage that had brought us to Bendray Hall; now there were several score of them. A glitter of light on steel showed the weapons in their hands.

"To arms!" sounded from the corridor. I heard feet running in the Hall's corridors, and excited shouting close at hand. Scape had disappeared from my side, taking Miss McThane with him; I crossed to the music room's doors and threw them open.

From the head of the great staircase, I could see Lord Bendray with an antique musket under his arm. He was still in his shirtsleeves, with his magnifying spectacles perched upon his forehead, having been apparently summoned from his laboratory by this emergency. The household staff, butlers and footmen, milled about him. Swords and pikestaffs had been stripped from the various suits of armour that stood beside the doorways, and Lord Bendray was intent upon distributing these and organising the defence of the Hall. Some little distance away, Sir Charles concentrated upon the loading of a brace of pistols. As I watched, the front door boomed with the impact of a battering ram against it.

"Come with me," said a voice at my ear. I turned round and saw Mrs Wroth. She pulled me away from the banister. "Quickly – there's not much time."

I had no desire to be pressed into the martial preparations on the ground floor; as she led me down the corridor, I glanced nervously over. my shoulder as the shouts and clanging weapons sounded. "What is happening? Who is it outside?"

Mrs Wroth pushed me up one of the house's rear staircases. "The Godly Army," she answered me. "Best to stay out of their path."

"But Scape told me they were nothing to worry about."

Behind me on the stairs, she laughed scornfully. "My husband may trust that fellow, and Lord Bendray may think equally highly of him; but I know that he is an unmitigated rascal. I would advise you to regard all of his assertions with the greatest scepticism."

I was out of breath, having come up two flights at a quick pace. Panting, I halted at the next landing's rail. "Who – who are these people, then?"

She stood beside me, her roseate bosom rising with her deep inhalation. "The Godly Army?" She reached up and solicitously brushed a strand of hair from my sweating brow. "Ah, they go a long way back – a very long way, Nearly as far as the Royal Anti-Society itself."

I would have asked her about the latter organization as well, but I was distracted by straining to listen for the noises of attack and repulse filtering up the stairwell.

"Some of the more Puritanical elements of Cromwell's forces," said Mrs Wroth as she playfully wound a lock of my hair around her forefinger. "They heard about what sorts of things the noblemen in the Royal Anti-Society were getting up to – all sorts of… mmm… deviltry, they probably thought it was."

Her last few words were whispered in my ear, as she leaned close to me. I drew away, seeing in her intent gaze the same disturbing expression I had spotted there before.

Voices, shouting but incomprehensible, came from downstairs. "Perhaps… we'd better-"

She brought her hand down, caressing my neck. "So you've got one secret organization," she went on, "and another secret organization combating it. They've both rather declined in number over the years – I'm afraid those… old passions… die out after a while. Like old families – the blood gets thin." She levelled her disconcerting stare straight into my eyes.

I slid away against the bannister. "Are – are we safe here?"

Taking my hand, she drew me to the next flight of steps. "We don't want to be disturbed," she said, smiling.

A musty odour of long-shut-off rooms greeted us on the next storey. In the dark, Mrs Wroth pulled me along. "Quickly – they won't find us in here." Enough moonlight filtered in through an uncurtained window for me to discern her fumbling about at a small table. A safety match flared, then the warmer glow of a candle cast about us. A cloud of dust blossomed as she sat down on the side of a bed. "Now let's see." Her smile grew as she grabbed me by the wrist.

"God in Heaven! What? Mrs Wroth-" Clasped to her bosom, I tumbled back with her full-length on the bed. Her arms, as slender and delicate as the rest of her, were imbued with the fierce strength of her desire. I struggled vainly, scarcely able to breathe, by the force of her embrace. "Please – what are you doing-?"

She rolled over, pinning me against the bare mattress. I looked up into eyes glittering with a lust bordering on madness; her gown had become disarrayed in the sudden assault, revealing an expanse of pearl-like flesh shining with perspiration. "Tick-tock," she said, and giggled as she bent low to bring the sharp points of her teeth into my chin.

"What?" I managed to wriggle one arm free, but only for a moment until she had bound it with hers again.

"You clockwork confection, you." Her bite, going lower, brought a yelp from me. "Tick-tock, mmm." Her hands busied themselves at my clothing. "Let's just see if we can find the key to wind you up."

"Madam – good God-" I gasped for air. Somewhere far off, voices were shouting. "Don't… most improper-"

"Just a moment – what-" She suddenly reared back, pushing herself away from me. She gazed down at me, her eyes wide. "What's the meaning of this? You're not clockwork at all!"

I caught enough breath to speak. "No… no, I'm not…"

"You're flesh and blood!" she shouted angrily. "You're no Paganinicon!"

I pulled my shirt. together. "I'm afraid not, madam." The back of my head bumped against the wall as I pushed myself away on my elbows. "I'm sorry…"

"That bastard." Mrs Wroth's face darkened, her eyes narrowing to slits. "He told me…"

"Pardon?" I was relieved that her attention had turned elsewhere. "Who's that?"

"Sir Charles," she muttered. "My husband. I'll pay him out for this. He informed me that there would be a clockwork replica of Paganini here tonight. An exact duplicate, in every detail." She gnawed furiously at one of her fingernails.

"Well… I'm afraid I can't play the violin." I looked past her to the door; the shouting sounded louder.

"To hell with the bloody violin. It was the other thing I was interested in. That blackguard…"

"'Other thing?'" I inquired.

She glared at me, as if I were the general representative of the gender that included her perfidious husband. "You know very well what I'm talking about. The great Paganini… he has a reputation for virtuosity in more areas than just music. He's cut a swath through the rich and titled ladies of every country in Europe. Some of them – my friends, ha! Bitches – have told me what it was like. Those eyes… those piercing eyes…" Her own drifted away in contemplation of this romantic vision, then swung viciously back. "And what do I find here? You!"

I shrank back from her fury. "There… has been a misunderstanding," I allowed.

She snorted in disgust and stood up from the bed. Straightening her bodice, she marched out of the room.

After I had managed what repairs I could to my own clothing, I went to the door and looked out. There was no sign of her in the hallway, but the sounds of pitched battles were frighteningly closer. The Godly Army had apparently managed to penetrate Lord Bendray's defences, and the struggle had climbed relentlessly up through the Hall's storeys.

Crossing to the head of the stairs, I looked downover the rail. A mistake on my part; no sooner had I done this, than one of the combatants, face sweating, spotted me above. "There it is!" he cried, pointing me out to his cohort. "The devilish machine itself! Blasphemous parody of God's creation!" Thus inspired, they renewed their attack. They mounted the stairs, flailing about with fist and stick, only slightly impeded by Lord Bendray's rapidly flagging household staff. "Destroy the mocking puppet!" cried their leader.

I stood frozen in horror for a moment, then darted back to the room. There was no bolt on the inside of the door; if there had been, it would not have provided security for long against the furious tide rising towards me. I ran to the window.

In the darkness, the horses milled about, their riders engaged in the battle inside the Hall. I crawled up on to the sill and grasped the ancient vine growing up the stones. The shouts rang in the corridor as I clambered out into the chill air.

No sooner had I descended but a few feet, scraping my knuckles and shins against the wall, than my weight began to pull the vine loose from its moorings. With a sound of ripping cloth, the vine dangled me as though I were a fish on a line. Desperately, I scrambled to get my bootsoles a purchase on the rough wall, but to no avail. The vine pulled free along its entire length, dropping me stone-like to the ground.

My fall was impeded sufficiently by the foliage to save my spine from shattering when I landed on my back. The stars whirled overhead as I struggled to regain the breath that had been knocked from my chest. Still gasping, I managed to wobble upright.

The shouts came from above me now. I looked up and saw faces in the window from which I had made my exit; they scanned the grounds for any sign of me.

Panic overcame any further thought of strategy. Trailing the vines that had become wrapped about my limbs, I ran towards the darkest limits of the Hall's gardens, the castellated walls and the sheltering marshes beyond. I tumbled headlong when the vine reached its full length, the other end of it still being rooted to the ground at the foot of the building. Tearing myself free, I picked myself up and renewed my flight.