The Emperor of all Things

Prologue

CLOCKS. CLOCKS EVERYWHERE, on the wooden shelves and tables, even upon the sawdust-covered floor of the attic room: clocks of all shapes and sizes limned in the light of a gibbous moon that did not so much pierce the skylight as sift through its sooty glass – tall clocks in finely carved and polished casings of exotic woods with brass pendulums winking back and forth; ornate mantel clocks of ormolu and mahogany, marble and tortoiseshell; clocks of gold and silver set into or alongside precious metal and porcelain renderings of human figures in varied states of dress and undress as well as representations of beasts real and fabulous: lions consorting with unicorns, eagles and gryphons roosting side by side; cuckoo clocks and carriage clocks and tambour clocks and skeleton clocks; even pocket watches with their chains and ribbons neatly coiled or dangling free and loose as slipped lanyards. The ticking of so many timepieces, no two synchronized, filled the space with a facsimile of whispered conversation, as if some ghostly parliament were meeting in the dead of night.

Scattered among the clocks were glass flasks and vials of assorted shapes and sizes, some containing clear or opaque liquids, others quite empty, along with mortars and pestles, iron tongs, funnels, crucibles, and other such instruments bespeaking the practice of alchemy. Set in a row along one wall were three brick furnaces, one in the shape of a tower and as tall as a man, the other two smaller and squat in shape, like ornamental toads.

A mouse was making its way across the surface of one table, nosing amid a clutter of clock parts and tools: pins, clicks, rivets, coiled springs, tweezers, clamps, winders, files, and like essentials of the horologist’s trade. Every so often it rose off its tiny front paws to sniff the air, whiskers twitching, eyes aglitter like apple seeds in a bed of ash.

From a shelf overhead, a black cat followed its progress with glowing tourmaline eyes. The noise in the back of its throat, somewhere between a growl and a purr, was cloaked by the gossipy muttering of the clocks. The tip of its tail lashed from side to side like a metronome.

When the meanderings of the mouse brought it conveniently near, the cat moved with the grace of a gliding shadow, seeming as insubstantial … until it struck. In leaping to the table top, it did not disturb a single item yet knocked the rodent onto its side, pressing the half-stunned creature down with one paw and slashing with its teeth at the grey fur.

The cat tensed and flattened at a sound from overhead: a faint click followed by a drawn-out creaking, as if the old house were settling on its foundations. Hissing, the cat darted a glance upwards as a thin rope dropped through the now-open skylight to dangle above the floor a few feet away. The rope had not reached the end of its length before the cat bolted, with less stealth or silence than just moments before; small gears and other items scattered under its paws as it fled into the shadows. An empty vial slipped to the floor and shattered. The mouse was long gone. Drops of its blood glistened on the table, dark as oil.

A svelte figure slid down the rope and dropped soundlessly to the floor. The intruder was dressed in grey: soft grey boots, grey breeches, a grey shirt beneath a grey cloak. Strapped to its back was a small crossbow, and a blade as slender as a rapier yet no longer than a short sword hung in a grey scabbard from its belt, as did six leather pouches, also grey. A grey kerchief pulled across the nose hid the bottom half of the face; a grey hood cloaked the upper; in between, eyes as dark as the mouse’s glittered as they probed the shadowy corners of the room. The intruder strode to one of the tables.

The timepieces on this particular table were clearly the work of master craftsmen. Many were made with precious metals; not a few were inset with jewels. A single one of these clocks, selected at random, would have made a rich prize for a thief. Yet the grey-clad figure reached without hesitation for a mantel clock that appeared as out of place as an ordinary goblet set alongside the Holy Grail.

At a whisper of displaced air, the intruder turned, clock in one hand, the rapier-like blade in the other.

The casing of a tall clock some twelve feet away swung open. Out stepped a gentleman of middling height wearing a powdered wig and an elegant sky-blue coat over a lace-adorned white shirt and embroidered waistcoat, yellow breeches with pale blue hose, and embroidered green silk slippers. His powdered face glowed corpse white in the moonlight; a conspicuous beauty mark adorned his left cheek, and his lips were as red as cherries half sunk in a bowl of cream. He had the look of extreme age masquerading as youth … or perhaps it was the other way around. But the most striking feature of his appearance was the cocked duelling pistol that he held in the most negligent manner imaginable, as though it was by the merest chance that this object happened to be pointing at the breast of the intruder. ‘So good of you to drop in, Grimalkin,’ he drawled.

The hooded figure executed a slight but meticulous bow. ‘Lord Wichcote.’

‘I had thought you retired – or dead.’

‘Merely … elsewhere. Now, as you see, I have returned.’

‘And come to pay me a visit. I’m honoured. But my guests generally call at the front door. Many of them are thieves, it is true, but few take the trouble to mask themselves. Are you a coward, sir?’

‘Simply modest, my lord,’ answered the one addressed as Grimalkin.

‘Why, damn me if you are not a smooth-tongued rascal! But I will see who is beneath that mask.’ He gestured with the pistol. ‘Remove it, sir.’

‘As your lordship can see, my hands are occupied at present.’

‘Then I suggest you un-occupy them.’

‘Gladly, but your pistol is making me somewhat nervous.’

‘Afraid it might go off? You should be.’

‘I am more concerned that, in my nervousness, I might drop the clock.’

The tremor that shook the hand holding the pistol was evident in the man’s voice as well. ‘If you damage that clock, sir, I will kill you.’

‘Such is already your intent, is it not?’

‘Even if it were, some deaths are less pleasant than others. Now, set the clock down, sir. Gently.’

‘Since you will shoot me the instant I do so, that would be most foolish.’

‘Perhaps I will shoot you in any case.’

‘I think not. Even a steady hand is no guarantee of accuracy at this distance, in this poor light, and your hand is far from steady. Should you fire, you are as likely to strike the clock as to strike me. And if you do strike me, why, then I will drop the clock after all, and your precious timepiece will suffer the very damage you seek to avoid.’

‘I would sooner see it destroyed than give it up to you and your masters.’

‘I serve no masters,’ Grimalkin stated.

This provoked a laugh. ‘Come now, sir. It is common knowledge that you are, or at any rate used to be, an agent of those confounded meddlers, the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers.’

‘Common knowledge often masks uncommon ignorance.’

‘Hmph. How else would you know the value of that particular timepiece?’

‘Why, half of London knows it, sir, the way you have been broadcasting your acquisition of it! Indeed, the wonder is that no one has got here before me.’

‘It was to entice you to my workshop that I spoke so freely,’ Lord Wichcote said. ‘I had heard rumours of your return, and wished to see for myself.’

‘That was obvious. Still, I am nothing if not curious. And so I accepted your lordship’s invitation. I take it you are not normally in the habit of leaving the skylight unlocked, or your treasures unguarded.’

‘Most assuredly not.’

Grimalkin bowed again, making a mocking flourish with the blade, then straightened and said: ‘In that case, put up your pistol, sir. I do not think you have gone to so much trouble merely to kill me.’

Lord Wichcote cackled. ‘I like you, sir, damned if I do not!’ He kept the pistol pointed at the other’s chest, however. ‘Very well then: to business. It happens that I am an admirer of your peculiar talents. I have followed your career, if I may term it such, with avid interest, despite your efforts to cover your trail. Your pursuit of rare and unusual timepieces has led you from far Cathay to the New World and everywhere in between. The mysterious Grimalkin – the grey shadow whose identity is known to no man! Some say you are of noble, even royal blood. Others maintain you are naught but a brash commoner. Still others hold that you are no man at all, but a devil sworn to the service of Lucifer.’

Grimalkin shrugged. ‘People say many things, my lord. One grows weary of idle talk.’

‘Then I shall come straight to the point. I wish to employ you as my confidential agent, sir. Whatever the Worshipful Company is paying you, I shall double it. They need never know.’

‘I have told you that I am not in the service of that guild.’

‘Who then?’ A look of repugnance, as if an offensive odour had wafted into the room, came over the powdered features. ‘Surely not the Frogs?’

‘I serve no master,’ Grimalkin repeated. ‘Not English, not French. None.’

Lord Wichcote smirked, revealing teeth as yellow as aged ivory. ‘Every man serves a master, my dear Grimalkin. Whether king or commoner, all of us bend the knee to someone or something.’

‘And who is your master, my lord?’

‘Why, His Majesty, of course. And Almighty God.’

‘So say you. Yet by the laws of His Majesty, only the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers has the right to such a workshop as this.’

The man bristled. ‘Do you take me for a shopkeeper, sir? A common artisan? I am a peer of the realm! Such petty restrictions do not apply to the likes of me. Nor do I claim exemption on the grounds of rank alone. I am a natural scientist. An investigator into the secret nature of the most elusive and mysterious of all substances in God’s creation. I refer, of course, to time. That is our true master, is it not, Grimalkin? Tempus Rerum Imperator , as the Worshipful Company has it. Time, the emperor of all things.’

‘Not of me.’

‘You would be time’s master?’ Lord Wichcote laughed. ‘You have the heart of a rebel, I find. Well, no matter. Worship who or what you will, or nothing at all, if it please you. I care only for my collection and my experiments. With your help, Grimalkin, that collection can be the finest in the world, and the fruit of my labours can be yours to share.’

‘What fruit?’

‘The very distillate of time, sir.’

‘You seek immortality?’

Lord Wichcote twitched the barrel of the pistol in a dismissive fashion. ‘That is the least of it. What men call time is the mind of God in its most subtle manifestation. Its purest essence, if you will. Imagine the potency of that divine essence, distilled into an elixir! To drink of it would be to become as God Himself.’

Now it was Grimalkin’s turn to laugh. ‘And you call me a rebel?’

‘I had hoped that you, of all men, might understand.’

‘Oh, I understand very well, my lord. Very well indeed. How much of this fabulous elixir have you managed to distil thus far?’

Lord Wichcote frowned. ‘Certain … difficulties in the refining process remain to be overcome, but—’

‘In other words, none,’ Grimalkin interrupted. ‘I thought as much. Alas, I fear I must decline your offer.’

‘Do not be hasty. You will not find a more generous patron. My fortune is vast, my influence at court vaster still. All I require to succeed are various timepieces that I regret to say are beyond my reach at present. My reach, but not yours.’

‘Your confidence is flattering. But the only collection that interests me is my own. As for this elixir of yours, it smacks more of alchemy than natural science. I do not believe that you have the skill to make it, nor even that it can be made.’

‘Is that your final answer?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

Lord Wichcote sighed. ‘A pity. But not entirely unexpected.’ He pulled the trigger of the duelling pistol. There was a spark, a roar, a cloud of smoke that reeked of sulphur.

Grimalkin flinched as the clock, struck, was torn free of the hand that held it.

At the same instant, the front panels of three other tall clocks swung open . From each emerged a man with a drawn rapier. One to Grimalkin’s right; another to the left; the third stood beside Lord Wichcote, who seemed vastly amused.

‘The clock,’ he said, ‘was of course a facsimile only.’

‘I am relieved to hear it,’ said Grimalkin, flexing the fingers of a now-empty hand. ‘Your lordship is a most excellent shot.’

‘I spend an hour each day at target practice.’ As he spoke, Lord Wichcote began the laborious process of reloading his pistol. ‘I want him alive,’ he added, addressing the three swordsmen without bothering to look up. ‘And take care you do not damage any of my timepieces in the process.’

‘Aye, m’lud,’ chorused the new arrivals. Rapiers held en garde, they converged on the intruder with the wary grace of professionals; they were met by a grey blur. The music of swordplay filled the room, providing a lively accompaniment to the stolid ticking of so many clocks.

Preoccupied with the pistol, it was some seconds before Lord Wichcote, in response to a groan that seemed more a product of dismay than pain, glanced up to gauge the progress of the fight. There were now two men facing the masked intruder; the third was sprawled on the floor, a rose blooming on his chest. Frowning, Lord Wichcote returned to his work, a certain agitation visible in his movements. When next he glanced up, the intruder was facing but a single man. Lord Wichcote’s efforts now took on an unmistakable urgency, accompanied by a marked deterioration in manual dexterity. Gunpowder spilled over his shirt, and the ball he was trying to insert into the pistol’s muzzle seemed possessed of a perverse desire to go elsewhere. At last he rammed it home. But no sooner had he done so than he found the red-stained tip of a blade hovering near his throat.

‘Perhaps you should devote more time in your practice sessions to the loading rather than the firing of your pistols,’ Grimalkin suggested, somewhat breathlessly.

‘No doubt you have a point,’ Lord Wichcote conceded through gritted teeth.

‘Indeed I do. And you will become more intimately acquainted with my point unless you drop your pistol.’

The pistol dropped.

Grimalkin kicked the weapon aside.

‘You would not dare to shed even a single drop of my blood,’ Lord Wichcote declared, though he did not sound convinced of it. The powder on his face was streaked with sweat. The skin underneath was neither so white nor so smooth.

‘Would I not?’ The tip of the blade indented his throat, where the skin was as yellowed – and as thin – as ancient parchment. A red bead appeared there.

The man gasped but said nothing more.

‘Give me your parole, as a gentleman and a peer of the realm, that you will not cry out or otherwise attempt to impede me, and I will take my leave without doing you graver injury.’ Grimalkin pulled the blade back a fraction of an inch.

‘You have it,’ Lord Wichcote said.

As Grimalkin retreated a step, still holding the blade ready, the other pressed a white handkerchief to his throat and said in a tone of deepest disapproval, ‘What manner of fencing do you call that, sir? Three of my finest swordsmen dispatched in under two minutes! I have never seen a man wield a blade in such an outlandish fashion!’

‘I have travelled widely, my lord, and learned much along the way – not all of it to do with clocks.’ Grimalkin leaned forward to wipe the blade clean on the edge of his lordship’s sky-blue coat, then returned it to its scabbard.

This affront Lord Wichcote bore with barely controlled fury. ‘Do you know, Grimalkin, I don’t believe you are a gentleman at all.’

‘I have never claimed that distinction. And now, sir, I bid you adieu.’ Grimalkin gave another precise bow and backed away, moving towards the rope that dangled from the open skylight. In passing a table bestrewn with timepieces in various stages of assembly and disassembly – the very table, as it happened, where cat and mouse had earlier disported themselves – Grimalkin paused. A grey-gloved hand shot out.

Lord Wichcote gave a wordless cry.

‘I’ll take this for my trouble.’ A clock very like the one that had been the target of the gentleman’s pistol disappeared into the folds of Grimalkin’s cloak – as, moving more swiftly still, like a liquid shadow, did the mouse that had escaped the cat. ‘Did you really think you could hide it from me?’

The gentleman’s only reply was to begin shouting for help at the top of his lungs.

‘I don’t know what England is coming to when the parole of a lord cannot be trusted by an honest thief,’ Grimalkin muttered, reaching into a belt pouch. A small glass vial glittered in an upraised hand, then was flung to the floor. Thick clouds of smoke boiled up, filling the room.

By the time the air in the attic had cleared, the masked intruder stood on an empty rooftop half a mile away. Tendrils of fog and coal smoke eeled through the streets below, but a strong breeze, carrying the effluvial reek of the Thames, had swept the rooftops clear. Grimalkin fished out the timepiece and turned it this way and that in the silvery light of the moon. The exterior was unremarkable.

The whiskered nose of the mouse peeked out inquisitively from the collar of the grey hood.

‘Well, Henrietta,’ whispered the thief. ‘Let us see what hatches out of—’

A muffled footfall. Grimalkin spun, blade already sliding from scabbard …

Too late. With a sharp crack, the hilt of a rapier slammed into the side of the grey hood. The thief crumpled without another word.

1 Honour

DANIEL QUARE, JOURNEYMAN of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers and confidential agent of the Most Secret and Exalted Order of Regulators, stood in flickering candlelight and listened to the synchronized ticking of the dozens of timepieces that filled the room. The longer he listened, the more the sound suggested the marching of a vast insect army to his weary yet overstimulated brain. He could picture it clearly, row upon row of black ants, as many of them as the number of seconds ordained from the Creation until the Last Judgement. He felt as though he had been standing here for a substantial part of that time already. His injured leg, which had stiffened overnight, throbbed painfully.

Before him was an oaken desk of such prodigious dimensions that a scout from that ant army might have spent a considerable portion of its life journeying from one side to the other. An immensely fat man wearing a powdered wig and a dark blue greatcoat sat across the desk from him in a high-backed wooden chair of thronelike proportions. The windowless room was stifling, with a fire burning in a tiled fireplace set into one wall amid shelves filled with clocks and leather-bound books. It might have been the dead of winter and not midway through an unseasonably warm September. Quare was sweating profusely.

So was the man behind the desk. The play of light across his features made it appear as if invisible fingers were moulding the soft wax of his face . At one moment he seemed a well-preserved man of sixty, flush with vigour; in the next, he had aged a good twenty years; and which of these two impressions, if either, struck closest to the truth, Quare did not know. Moisture dripped from the man’s round, red, flabby-jowled face, yet he made no move to wipe the sweat away or to divest himself of his powdered wig or greatcoat, as if oblivious to the heat, to everything save the disassembled clock spread out before him. He examined its innards closely, hunched over the desktop and squinting through a loupe as he wielded a variety of slender metal tools with the dexterity of a surgeon. Jewelled rings flashed on the plump sausages of his fingers. Occasionally, without glancing up, he reached out to shift the position of a large silver and crystal candelabrum, drawing it closer or pushing it away. His breathing was laboured, as if from strenuous physical activity, and was interspersed with low grunts of inscrutable import.

Quare had been ushered into the room by a servant who’d announced him in a mournful voice, bowed low, and departed. Not once in the interminable moments since had the man behind the desk looked up or acknowledged his presence in any way, though Quare had cleared his throat more than once. He did so again now.

The man raised his head with the slow deliberation of a tortoise. The loupe dropped from an eye as round and blue as a cephalopod’s. It came to rest, suspended on a fine silver chain, upon the mountainous swell of the man’s belly. He scrunched his eyes shut and then opened them wide, as if he were in some doubt as to the substantiality of the young man before him. ‘Ah, Journeyman Quare,’ he wheezed at last. ‘Been expecting you.’

Quare gave a stiff bow. ‘Grandmaster Wolfe.’

The grandmaster waved a massive hand like a king commanding a courtier. ‘Sit you down, sir, sit you down. You must be weary after last night’s exertions.’

That was an understatement. Quare had returned to the guild hall late, and had not repaired to his own lodgings, and to bed, until even later – only to be summoned back two hours ago, at just past eight in the morning. Still, that was more sleep than Grandmaster Wolfe had managed, by the look of him. Quare perched on the edge of an armchair so lavishly upholstered and thickly pillowed he feared it might swallow him if he relaxed into its embrace.

‘Comfortable, are you?’ inquired Grandmaster Wolfe with the same look of sceptical curiosity he had worn while examining the clock. He seemed to be considering the possibility that Quare was a timekeeping mechanism … and a flawed one at that, in need of repair.

‘Yes, thank you, Sir Thaddeus.’

‘Hmph.’ The man took a ready-filled long-stemmed clay pipe from a stand on the desk. He touched a spill to the flame of one of the candles in the candelabrum and held it above the bowl, puffing fiercely. Grey smoke wreathed his flushed and perspiring face.

Quare waited. Sir Thaddeus Wolfe, who had led the Worshipful Company for more than thirty years, was notoriously difficult to please. The fact that Quare had completed his mission successfully was no guarantee of praise from the man who masters and journeymen alike referred to – though never to his face – as the Old Wolf.

‘You were dispatched to secure a certain timepiece,’ Wolfe said now, speaking in a measured tone, like a barrister setting out the facts of a case. ‘A timepiece illegally in the possession of a gentleman whose connections at Court precluded a more … direct approach. Thanks to your efforts, that clock, and its secrets, now belong to us. And yet, a greater prize was within your grasp. Do you take my meaning, sir?’

‘I do.’

‘Has it a name, this prize?’

Quare did not hesitate. ‘Grimalkin.’

‘Grimalkin,’ the Old Wolf echoed with a growl that sent smoke billowing from between his lips. ‘Our enemies have no more skilful agent than that cursed man. For all his absurd affectations – the grey clothing, the mask, the infernal devices, the ridiculous name itself – he has never failed his masters … until now. You, sir, a mere neophyte but recently admitted to the active ranks of our Most Secret and Exalted Order, achieved what your more experienced brethren have long dreamed of accomplishing. You tracked Grimalkin, took him by surprise, rendered him unconscious. And then … did you kill him?’

‘No.’

‘Did you, perhaps, question him?’

‘I did not.’

‘No, you did neither of these things. May I ask why you chose to spare the enemy of your guild, your king, and your country?’

Quare frowned. He had expected the question, and had prepared an answer, but he had hoped his success in procuring the timepiece would have earned him a measure of leniency. ‘As you say, Grimalkin was unconscious. To kill him under the circumstances would have been cold-blooded murder. It would not have been honourable.’

Alarming quantities of smoke poured from between the grandmaster’s lips and jetted from his nostrils. ‘And was it also a consideration of honour that prevented you from peeking beneath the rascal’s mask to discover his identity?’

‘It did not seem the act of a gentleman,’ Quare affirmed. His words sounded foolish even to his own ears.

‘A gentleman, is it?’ The smoke grew denser still. ‘I was under the impression that I had dispatched a spy.’

‘I hope I may still comport myself as befits a gentleman.’

A choking sound emerged from the old man, and he spat out upon the desk what Quare at first took to be a tooth but then realized was the tip of the pipe stem, bitten off. Grandmaster Wolfe flung the ruined pipe down to one side of the exposed clockworks, sending a scattering of coals across the desktop; burn marks on the wood indicated that this was not the first time he had done so. ‘Dolt!’ he thundered, red-faced. ‘Imbecile! You will comport yourself in whatever manner best advances the interests of His Majesty and this guild!’ Then, his voice tightly controlled, he continued: ‘As to considerations of honour, Mr Quare, allow me to instruct you, as it appears Master Magnus has been lax in seeing to your education on this point. A regulator must be many things. A gentleman, yes, if circumstances warrant. But also a thief. An assassin. Or a cold-blooded murderer. In short, sir, a chameleon. A regulator does not have the luxury of weighing his actions against abstract notions of gentlemanly honour – notions which, in any case, do not apply to you, as neither your present rank of journeyman nor your condition as bastard entitles you to claim them. Is that clear?’

‘Yes, Grandmaster,’ said Quare. But inside he was seething; how long would his bastardy be held against him? Would nothing he achieved be sufficient to weigh against it? Oh, to discover the name of his true father, the cowardly blackguard! If he could but solve that riddle, he would pay the man a visit, no matter how high his rank, and demand acknowledgement … or satisfaction.

‘And what of putting Grimalkin to the question while he was in your power?’ the Old Wolf went on meanwhile. ‘How, may I ask, did that offend your fine scruples?’

‘It did not. I merely thought it was more important that I return with the timepiece, in case he had associates near by, ready to come to his aid. I did bind him, and made report of where I had left him as soon as I returned to the guild hall.’

‘And by the time we dispatched a team to the rooftop, the villain was long gone.’ The Old Wolf took a fresh pipe from the stand on his desk and lit it with the spill. ‘You are talented, Mr Quare. When it comes to the horological arts, you are most promising. But I find myself questioning whether you have the temperament to be an effective regulator.’

‘I—’

‘How old are you, sir?’ Grandmaster Wolfe interrupted through puffs of smoke.

‘Twenty-one,’ Quare admitted.

‘That is young for a regulator.’

‘Master Magnus did not think so when he recruited me for the Order.’

‘I remember his report. I thought that he was being overhasty, bringing you along too quickly. Patience is not among Magnus’s many virtues. Still, he argued your case persuasively, and in the end I gave approval for your induction. I feel now that I may have been mistaken.’

‘Begging your pardon, Sir Thaddeus, but that is most unjust!’ The words were out before Quare could consider the wisdom of saying them. ‘I completed the mission successfully, despite the unforeseen complication of Grimalkin! I brought back the clock, and you must have noted the innovation to the verge escapement …’

‘In this business, Mr Quare, a missed opportunity can be worse than outright failure,’ answered the Old Wolf. ‘As in a game of chess, when a player blunders and puts his queen in jeopardy, only a fool passes up the chance to sweep that lady from the board. As for the escapement, I am surprised to hear you mention it. That is not your affair. You were dispatched to gain possession of a timepiece, not to plumb its secrets. Your orders were explicit on that point, were they not?’

‘I-I merely wished to make certain it had not been damaged,’ Quare stammered.

‘Do not compound the severity of your transgression by inventing feeble excuses. You know very well that the secrets of this particular clock were reserved for the masters of the guild alone.’

‘A moment ago, you criticized me for not displaying initiative. Yet now it seems you would prefer me to follow my orders to the letter, without departing from them in any respect whatsoever!’

‘That is a specious argument, sir.’ The Old Wolf jabbed the end of his pipe towards Quare. ‘Save such pettifoggery for the barristers, if you please. The difference is this: in the former case, you would have been acting in the interests of your king and your guild, while in the latter, you were merely satisfying your own curiosity and ambition. There is a time for initiative and a time for obedience, and you need to start distinguishing between the two if you ever hope to rise above the rank of journeyman, my lad. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Abundantly,’ said Quare.

The old man puffed at his pipe for a moment, then sighed. ‘Well, what’s done is done. You have seen what you have seen. I would hear your opinion.’

‘I-I didn’t examine the escapement in detail …’

‘The truth, sir, I pray you.’

Quare cleared his throat. ‘The innovation to the mechanism is clever but not significant. It is an elegant if somewhat impractical solution to a problem that others are close to solving. In truth, I was surprised; it didn’t seem substantial enough to account for the urgency of my mission or the interest of Grimalkin. I can only assume I missed something.’

The Old Wolf gave a phlegmatic chuckle. ‘You missed nothing. Your assessment is entirely correct. When Lord Wichcote began to boast of his recent acquisition, claiming that it represented an astonishing breakthrough in the horological arts, we had no choice but to act with dispatch , sending the only regulator available, despite your regrettable lack of experience. Who controls the measurement of time controls the world, Mr Quare. It is imperative that every major horological advance become the exclusive property of this guild … and, through us, of His Majesty. Luckily, Wichcote is as deficient in his knowledge of horology as in his exercise of discretion.’ He waved the pipe over the disassembled clockworks like a priest dispensing a blessing of incense over a corpse. ‘As you point out, the innovation to the escapement is clever but no more than that. Spying, like clockmaking, is unfortunately an imprecise art.’

‘Then it was for nothing.’

‘Nothing?’ Grandmaster Wolfe shook his head; a fine dust of powder sifted down from his wig to settle on the shoulders of his greatcoat. ‘Every scrap of knowledge is valuable in itself. And consider that Grimalkin did not have an opportunity to examine the clock. The fact that it was stolen from him before he could do so will only support the rumour that it embodied some grand stroke of genius. Our enemies will now assume that we possess this knowledge, and we can use their assumption, mistaken though it may be, to our advantage.’

‘So I was right after all not to kill him.’

‘That we can turn your failure to good account does not excuse it. I would rather have Grimalkin dead than possess a thousand clever clocks. Yet it’s possible his masters will dispatch him to retrieve the clock or to learn its secrets. In that case, we may have the opportunity to rectify your mistake.’

‘Surely not even Grimalkin would dare to come here!’

‘Perhaps not. But as long as we have the proper bait, we may lay a trap for him wherever we please. And this time, I dare say, that grey-suited rogue will not escape.’

‘I hope I will be allowed the chance to redeem my honour.’

‘There is that detestable word again,’ said the Old Wolf with a sour grimace. ‘No, Mr Quare, I think you’ve had enough of honour for now. Perhaps it is best that you put aside the cloak and dagger of the regulator and return for a time to a typical journeyman’s life. There you may learn the value of obedience.’

Quare had thought himself prepared for the blow, yet it was a moment before he found his voice again. ‘Am I expelled from the Order, then?’

‘Suspended, rather. You need a bit of seasoning, I find. Some added experience under your belt before you can be trusted with the responsibilities of membership in the Most Secret and Exalted Order of Regulators.’

Quare stood, hands clenched at his sides. ‘If you would give me another chance …’

Grandmaster Wolfe studied him through impassive blue eyes. ‘I am giving you that chance, sir, provided you have the wit to take it.’ He waved the pipe stem in the direction of the door. ‘You are dismissed.’

Quare bowed more stiffly than before, turned, and stalked from the stifling room.

A servant waited outside. Guild hall servants dressed in identical livery, wore identical wigs, even had identical expressions painted on their identically powdered faces, making it difficult if not impossible to tell them apart, especially since they were all of middling heft and height, as if cast from the same mould. There was an ongoing conflict between the journeymen of the guild and its servants, a kind of low-grade class warfare that took place within well-defined boundaries and was fought with weapons of juvenile provocation, on the one hand, and, on the other, a sangfroid so impermeable as to verge on the inhuman. Indeed, Quare’s friend and fellow journeyman Pickens maintained, not entirely facetiously, that the servants were not human beings at all but automatons, sophisticated mechanical devices crafted by the masters, golems of natural science.

‘Master Magnus wishes to see you, sir,’ the servant intoned. His powdered face, rouged lips, and pale blue livery put Quare in mind of a well-spoken carp.

Quare gestured for the servant to precede him, then limped in his wake. Candles set in wall sconces cast a murky, tremulous light, like moonlight sifting into a sunken ship. Quare always felt a peculiar shortness of breath here in the guild hall, as if the presence of so many clocks had concentrated time itself, causing a change of state analogous to the condensation of a gas into a liquid. He even thought he could smell it – time, that is: an odour composed of smoke and wax and human sweat, of ancient wood, and stone more ancient still, of lives forgotten but not entirely vanished, ghostly remnants of all those who had walked these halls.

Dark oil paintings of guild masters and grandmasters from the last three hundred and fifty years glowered down at him from the walls of the narrow hallway like Old Testament prophets. Bastard , he imagined them sneering. Failure . Now he must face the judgement of Master Magnus.

Magnus and the Old Wolf were rivals for power, each believing that he and he alone knew the best way to shepherd the Worshipful Company through these perilous times. Grandmaster Wolfe clung to the past, to the guild’s traditional prerogatives, as a bulwark against the uncertainties of change, while Magnus championed a future in which innovation, rather than hoarded knowledge, would be the guarantor of the guild’s wealth and influence. Each man had his followers, but Quare – although his personal sympathies were with Master Magnus – had done his best to steer a middle course between them, knowing that the key to advancement lay in keeping his options open. He had no father or family to look to for support and could depend only upon his own native wit. Yet despite his care, he had become caught between them, like Odysseus between Scylla and Charybdis. Now, if he were not careful, they would grind him down to nothing. Indeed, he reflected gloomily, had not the process already begun?

At last the servant pushed open a door and stepped aside. Quare walked past him into a small room whose wood panelling bore gilded bas-reliefs of grandfatherly, bearded Chronos with his hourglass and hungry scythe, winged cherubs carrying bows and arrows in their pudgy hands, and scantily clad nymphs cavorting amidst scenery symbolizing the changing of the seasons. There was a smell of beeswax, though the candles were unlit, the room illuminated by the morning sun streaming through two large windows. One of these looked out upon a busy street – whose cacophony of carriages and wagons, pedestrians, sedan chairs, and pedlars crying their wares was so intrinsic a part of London’s aural landscape that Quare scarcely noticed it any more, though upon his arrival in the city just over five years ago he had imagined himself in a very Bedlam of noise – the other upon a time garden: a secluded outdoor space, reserved for the meditations of the masters, in which a variety of timepieces antique and modern, from simple gnomons to more fanciful sundials, along with water clocks, hourglasses, and other constructs, sprouted with the profligacy of weeds.

In the centre of the room, on a spindly-legged wooden table so delicate in appearance that it seemed in danger of collapsing under the weight of Quare’s gaze, was a clock topped by the figure of fleet-footed Hermes captured in mid stride, caduceus upraised. A settee upholstered in red and white striped satin stood against one wall, beneath a large oval mirror set in a dark wooden frame carved into the semblance of a wreath of burgeoning grape vines. Against the wall opposite were two chairs done in the same style as the settee.

The room was otherwise empty; there was no door save the one through which he had entered. Quare did not think he had come here before, though it was difficult to be sure; the layout of the guild hall – the gloomy corridors, tight, twisty staircases, and mazelike clusters of rooms – seemed to change from one visit to the next. ‘I thought you were bringing me to Master Magnus,’ he said, turning to the servant.

‘The master asks that you wait,’ the servant answered. He bowed low and departed, pulling the door shut behind him.

When he had gone, no sign of the door was visible in the carved panelling. Likely there were other concealed doors in the room. And not only doors. Quare felt the prickly sensation of unseen eyes. In the guild hall, it was always safest to assume that someone was looking on or listening; the Old Wolf and Master Magnus, along with their factions and others harbouring ambitions or resentments, schemed incessantly with and against each other, jockeying for information and the power that came with it. Let them look, he thought; he would betray nothing. That was one lesson among many that bastardy had taught him, and he had learned it well.

Quare approached the mirror. His light brown coat and the cream-coloured waistcoat beneath it, as well as the white shirt under that, bore sweat stains from the inferno of the Old Wolf’s private study. He could do nothing about that. But he could and did wipe the sweat from his stubbled face and neck – he had not had time to shave – with an almond-scented handkerchief, then gathered up some lank black locks that had slipped free from the ribbon with which he usually secured his long hair; he detested wigs and wore them as seldom as possible.

Turning from the mirror, Quare fished his pocket watch from his coat and checked it: seventeen minutes past ten. He was gratified to note that the table clock showed the identical time, to the minute. He’d crafted the watch himself, incorporating certain innovations he’d come across in his travels … innovations proscribed to the general public.

By royal decree, the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers was the sole arbiter of the techniques and tools that horologists throughout Britain, whether members of the guild or amateurs, were permitted to employ in the manufacture of timepieces. All journeymen of the Worshipful Company had the duty of protecting its patents and interests. Any timepiece that utilized an already forbidden technology was destroyed, its maker reported to the local authorities, while those clocks evidencing new technologies and methods were confiscated and sent to London for study. The prosperity and safety of the nation depended upon superiority in business as well as in battle, and nothing was a surer guarantee of dominance in both realms than the ability to measure the passage of time more accurately than one’s adversaries. Whether coordinating the shipment and delivery of merchandise over land and sea or troop movements upon a battlefield, the advantage belonged to the side with the best timepieces.

Quare considered himself as patriotic as the next fellow, but it was really his fascination with clocks – or, rather, with time itself – that had caused him to accept Master Magnus’s invitation to join the Most Secret and Exalted Order of Regulators, an elite corps of journeymen trained as spies and dispatched on missions throughout the country and beyond.

But in this, too, he found himself at odds with Grandmaster Wolfe and his faction: men who regarded all horological innovation with profound mistrust, forever apprehensive that the measurement of time would slip out of their grasp and control, rendering the guild superfluous. Such had been the fate of other guilds, left behind by the rapid changes of the modern world. Thus they behaved as jealous priests, withholding approval from all but the most innocuous improvements while keeping the truly important advances to themselves. As a consequence, the timepieces made by the journeymen and masters of the Worshipful Company, whether for the public or for private collectors, no longer embodied the latest technologies, as they once had; now, by design, they were always some years behind the true state of the art. Only the scientists of the Royal Society, and of course the army and navy, received the benefit of the guild’s secret knowledge, and even there, or so Quare would have been willing to bet, certain things were kept back. The result of this (in his view) short-sighted policy was that practical innovation in the horological arts no longer came from within the guild, but from without: from self-taught amateurs – like Lord Wichcote, he was chagrined to admit – whose work was often strange and eccentric, wild. Quare loved the life of a journeyman because it brought him into contact with ideas and methods that had not yet come to the attention of the guild’s censorious authorities. On occasion – by no means often, yet not infrequently, either – he had encountered timepieces of such radical ingenuity, not to say genius, that he had trembled with excitement as he plumbed their workings and let the beauty of another man’s ideas take fire in his mind. No matter that his sworn oath required him to destroy or confiscate these timepieces and suppress the knowledge behind them; he took no pleasure in his inquisitorial powers but exercised them with cold-blooded efficiency because that was the price of admission to and advancement within the guild. He had accepted Master Magnus’s invitation to join the Most Secret and Exalted Order for the same reason, figuring that, as a regulator, he would be able to dip into streams of knowledge more esoteric still, though he’d realized that his acceptance would make it more difficult to avoid becoming enmeshed in the byzantine coils of guild politics … as indeed had been the case.

His mission to the attic workshop of the very eccentric, very wealthy, and very well-connected collector and inventor Lord Wichcote had been his first solo assignment after more than a year of intensive training in spycraft, swordplay, and bare-knuckle boxing … among other subjects he had never thought to learn. Master Magnus had told him only that the viscount had acquired a most unusual and potentially valuable timepiece, one whose secrets could not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands, either within the country or abroad – not with war between the Great Powers in this Year of Our Lord 1758 approaching a climax on which the fate of England hinged.

Quare had set off at nightfall from the top of the guild hall and made his way swiftly but with care across the eerie moonlit and fog-wrapped roofscape of London, his only witnesses skulking cats and startled birds, until he reached Wichcote House, an imposing edifice that towered immodestly above its neighbours. He had studied plans of the house and knew that access to the attic could be had through a skylight; to reach it, he would have to climb.

The brickwork afforded sufficient purchase for him to clamber up the wall with ease, moving with a silence that was already second nature. And this ingrained caution was rewarded: before his head topped the ledge, he heard the faint sound of a creaking hinge from above. He froze, clinging to the wall, whose bricks soon showed themselves to be far less suited for hanging on to than for climbing. He dug in with his fingers and toes, muscles aching and sweat drenching his clothes. When some moments had passed with no further sound, he ventured to peek above the parapet.

At this height, the fog was thinner than it had been when he’d started his climb, and the moonlight was bright enough to read by, quite diminishing the stars. As he’d suspected, the skylight had been opened. The roof was deserted; whoever had opened the skylight was now inside the workshop below. His pulse quickened: the mission had just grown more complicated – and dangerous – than he’d been led to expect. But what of it? Whoever had entered the workshop would have to leave it at some point, no doubt through the skylight, and Quare would be waiting when he came out. The fact that someone else should be prowling about the roof of this particular house of all houses, on this particular night of all nights, was sufficient proof for Quare that the prowler, whoever it was, was here for the same purpose as he. Quare would allow the interloper to do all the work and then step in to claim the prize.

He hoisted himself onto the roof and took cover behind one of the house’s many chimneys. From there he had a clear view of the skylight, though he could neither see nor hear what was taking place in the attic below. He drew his primed and loaded pistol, and waited.

It was not long before the sound of a pistol firing broke the silence, sending pigeons wheeling from their roosts and making Quare start and curse under his breath. Seconds later, the music of swordplay rose from the open skylight. Part of Quare’s training as a regulator had involved learning to distinguish the salient details of a melee by sound alone, and he judged that there were at least four men engaged below. In a belated rush of understanding, he realized how close he had come to walking into a trap.

The sounds of fighting ceased. The always surprising quiet of a London night resettled over the rooftop. What was happening down there?

‘Help! Help!’

Quare drew back behind the chimney at the shrill cries rising from the attic. When he peeked again, billowing clouds of grey smoke were pouring from the skylight. Then, from the midst of the fog, like a materializing phantom, stepped a figure cloaked all in grey.

Quare felt a thrill of fear: it could only be the notorious thief, assassin and spy, Grimalkin.

Nothing was known for certain about Grimalkin. His name, his face, his history: all was mysterious, the subject of endless gossip and conjecture among the apprentices, journeymen and masters of the Worshipful Company. Some said he was a rich and eccentric private collector, of the same irresponsible stamp as Lord Wichcote. Others held him to be a member – or former member – of the Worshipful Company. Still others maintained that he was a spy in the service of a foreign power: France or Austria, or even of an ally, like Prussia, for alliances were matters of expedience among the Great Powers, and allies no more to be trusted than enemies … indeed, sometimes rather less so.

Not even Master Magnus, with the resources of the Most Secret and Exalted Order of Regulators at his fingertips, and his connections to the vast intelligence-gathering network of Mr Pitt, had been able to dig up any useful information about Grimalkin. For years, the man had been hunted … without success. All the efforts of the Order had failed to kill, capture, or even, it appeared, inconvenience the rogue – which had only led to another surmise, the most outrageous of all: that Grimalkin was himself a regulator.

Grimalkin had not been seen in the city for some years, leading to the general belief – or rather hope – that he had been captured or killed elsewhere. But recently there had been rumours of his return – rumours that were apparently well founded.

The thief, without a glance in Quare’s direction, set off across the roof at a loping run and disappeared over the ledge. The outraged shouts from below convinced Quare that it was time for him to make his escape as well. Tucking away his pistol, he followed Grimalkin across the roof, pausing at the ledge to peer down – just in time to see a lithe grey figure sprint up and over the tiled roof of a neighbouring townhouse. Grimalkin had left a rope behind, which Quare wasted no time in shimmying down.

The chase was on.

In his training, Quare had played the roles of fox and hound in gambols across the rooftops of London, but those affairs were mere amusements compared to the reality he experienced now. The need to remain unseen was paramount, and yet he also had to keep his quarry in sight while managing not to fall to his death – three imperatives that proved difficult to reconcile given the speed and daring with which Grimalkin navigated a terrain as treacherous – and starkly beautiful – as the crags and crevices of a desolate mountain range. Yet even as he laboured to keep up, Quare couldn’t help admiring the man’s graceful athleticism. There was something almost uncanny about the sureness of Grimalkin’s balance and the swiftness of his reactions as he hurtled along narrow ledges of marble or slate tiles slick with damp soot and the slimy droppings of birds and leapt without hesitation across open spaces where the slightest misstep meant certain death. Equally amazing was the fact that he made no more sound than his feline namesake might have done.

Quare could not keep pace; with each rooftop he surmounted, scrambling up the tiles, heart hammering in his chest, Grimalkin was farther away, a shadow half lost amidst other shadows. Nor could Quare , for all his efforts, keep quiet; tiles came loose beneath his feet, skittering down the long slopes to crash upon the ground – yet not once did Grimalkin glance back, as if ignorant or scornful of pursuit.

Just when Quare was about to give up the chase, Grimalkin halted. Quare flung himself flat, but his quarry appeared to take no notice. Instead, angled to make the most of the moonlight – which kept his back to Quare – he pulled an object from the folds of his cape. Quare’s heart throbbed. The clock – for so the object must be, though he could not see more than the rough shape and size of it, as big as a big man’s fist – was nearly in his grasp. All thought of Grimalkin’s fabled fighting prowess was gone from his mind; a predatory instinct welled up from he knew not where. He slid back down the slope of the roof, then rose to a crouch and circled to the right, where, he had ascertained from his former perch, a path led to Grimalkin across a series of connected rooftops.

After what seemed an eternity, he crossed to the flat roof on which Grimalkin stood, intent on his prize. A warm breeze freighted with the stink of the Thames kept the fog at bay. Holding his breath, he slid his rapier from its sheath and crept forward a step, then another.

A tile shifted beneath his foot.

Grimalkin spun, sword in hand, with a speed beyond anything Quare had ever seen … but Quare was already lunging to close the distance and could not pull back. All his training in swordplay deserted him in that terrifying instant. He made no attempt to bring his point en garde but instead stepped close, inside Grimalkin’s guard, and punched wildly, frantically. More by luck than skill, the hilt of the rapier slammed into the grey-hooded skull, and the man collapsed like a puppet with cut strings.

The clock dropped from Grimalkin’s hand and fell towards the roof. Almost indolently, Quare plucked it from the air. Then reeled, stumbling, as if the weight of the clock had unbalanced him. But really it was just the weight of all that had happened this night: the unlooked-for appearance of Grimalkin; the long, harrowing chase by moonlight; the confusion of his clumsy attack – which had by some miracle ended with Grimalkin, a master swordsman, lying unconscious at his feet. Or was the villain shamming?

Quare took a step towards the man, then halted at another wave of dizziness. His hands were trembling; he felt an incongruous urge to laugh. Perhaps he would have – if a sudden burning sensation in the vicinity of his thigh had not directed his eyes downward to torn fabric and a spreading stain. His legs gave way, and he sprawled on the roof alongside Grimalkin – who, he was now certain, was truly unconscious.

Dropping his rapier – though his other hand maintained its hold on the clock – Quare examined his leg as best he could by the light of the moon. The wound did not seem deep: just a long and bloody gash along the outside of his thigh. It burned like hell, though. Recalling how quickly Grimalkin had turned to meet him, he felt almost sick with a visceral understanding of how lucky he had been: a fraction of an inch to one side, and the odd-looking weapon of his grey-cloaked adversary would have punched into his thigh; a fraction higher, and the same move that had ended the fight would instead have impaled him on Grimalkin’s blade.

Wounded as he was, he would be even less of a match for the man now. He had to get away before Grimalkin regained consciousness. Or, no … Quare drew a deep breath and mastered his emotions. He knew his duty and would not shirk it, however unpleasant.

Quare shifted his legs beneath him – grimacing as the movement aggravated his wound – and pushed himself to his knees. Grimalkin had fallen onto his back and lay as if peacefully sleeping, one arm flung over his head, the other draped across his chest. All that Quare could see of the man’s face between his grey hood and mask were his eyes, and even they were closed. He drew his dagger, then hesitated.

What was he doing? He was about to murder a man who was at his mercy. Surely what was wanted now was questioning, not killing. Here was an opportunity to learn not only Grimalkin’s identity but that of his masters.

Setting down the clock, Quare used his dagger to cut lengths from the coiled rope he carried, then bound Grimalkin’s wrists and ankles. All the while, Grimalkin lay motionless, though his light eyelashes fluttered and a faint moan escaped his lips, as if he were coming round.

Quare reached out to remove the grey mask covering the lower half of the man’s face. It was not only curiosity that impelled him; should the rogue awaken and begin shouting for help, he could use the mask as a gag. But it was fastened tightly and would not come away, so he began to tug it down instead, past the nose, the lips …

Quare rocked back on his heels. Disbelieving, he yanked the hood away … and saw a luxuriant coil of blonde hair silvered in moonlight.

Grimalkin – renowned spy, deadly fighter, consummate thief – was a woman.

2 Master Mephistopheles

A SECTION OF panelling scythed inwards, and a liveried servant glided into the room like a spectre. Quare, who had just lowered himself gingerly onto the settee – his leg was troubling him – sprang up with an oath upon catching sight of the man.

‘For God’s sake,’ he cried in irritation, ‘must you skulk about like some damned red Indian?’ No sooner were the words out of his mouth than he regretted them; the real source of his anger was the Old Wolf, not this blameless – and to all appearances bloodless – factotum … but it was too late now; he would not apologize to a servant.

‘Very good, sir,’ the man intoned as if incapable of taking offence. He inclined his head towards the open door through which he had entered the room. ‘Master Magnus will see you now.’

Quare strode past him into a closet bare of all amenities save a thin wooden railing that circled the enclosed space at waist height, two wall sconces with burning candles caged in glass, and a tasselled bell pull hanging in one corner, beside the door. He did not understand why the master would want to meet him in such close confines. Mystified, he turned to address the servant, who, meanwhile, had stepped in behind him and pulled the door shut. Before Quare could get a word out, the man, with no warning or explanation, tugged the bell pull.

The closet jerked and slid sideways, throwing Quare into the servant. Almost immediately, it changed direction like a swerving carriage, and he was flung away, his shoulder striking hard against the opposite wall. ‘What in God’s name …!’

‘Your pardon, sir.’

‘The room is moving!’

‘Indeed, sir.’

Grasping the railing with both hands, Quare shot the imperturbable servant an exasperated glance but knew better than to press him further: the guild hall servants could make life miserable for journeymen if they chose – as, no doubt, he was being reminded after his impolitic outburst of a moment ago. Nor, to be honest, was he capable of speech. Indeed, it was all he could do to keep from screaming, for the closet now abandoned the horizontal for the vertical, dropping like a stone.

It was a common conceit among the journeymen of the Worshipful Company that the guild hall was itself a great clock, and that to step through its doors was not merely to enter into its workings but to become a part of them, incorporated into a vast and intricate – if maddeningly obscure – design; Quare suddenly felt that this was no mere metaphor but the literal truth, and that he stood now inside the plunging weight of what must be the guild hall’s remontoir. Though he was well acquainted with the functioning of this device, which provided motive force to the escapement of a timepiece, his mechanical knowledge was no comfort. On the contrary, as in a nightmare, the familiar was turned strange and inimical. His heart was racing, his reason overcome by a vertiginous terror that shamed him but could not be dispelled by any appeal to reason. The tight dimensions of the closet only made things worse, as if he had been locked, still alive, in a coffin that devils were dragging down to hell. Quare squeezed his eyes shut and glued his hands to the railing.

At last there came a loud clicking noise, followed by a drawn-out growl that made him wince and brace in expectation of a shattering impact. The closet began to shudder, but it also began to slow, and the more it slowed, the less it shuddered, until, mercifully, it came to rest. Quare let out a breath he hadn’t been aware of holding and dared to open his eyes.

The door through which he had entered the closet was open again, and beyond it, like a vision of some dishevelled paradise, lay the private study of Master Magnus, though there was no sign of the master himself. Nor did Quare wait for one. He bolted from the room like a prisoner escaping his cell. Once outside, he turned to examine the torture chamber that had conveyed him here, but the servant was already pulling the door closed.

‘Wait, damn you—’

Too late; the door snicked shut, fitting so snugly into the wall that there was no sign of its ever having been there at all; nor was there a knob or handle of any sort to pull it open again.

Quare laid his hand against the wall. He felt a steady vibration through his palm, an industrious humming that suggested a hive of bees. Intrigued, he placed his ear where his hand had been and heard the muted music of gears and pulleys – a pleasing harmony nothing at all like the cacophony of screeches and rattles that had attended his arrival. Why, the impudent rogue , Quare thought, straightening up. The servant had interfered somehow with the proper working of this device, whatever it was, in order to teach him a lesson. Such cavalier treatment went well beyond the pale; he would have to devise a suitable revenge.

But this was not the time. Sighing, he turned about. As ever, Master Magnus’s study was in a state of disorder bordering on chaos. Books and papers covered every available surface, including the floor and the tiled fireplace across the room, in whose capacious interior bound volumes and loose papers were piled as if in readiness for an auto-da-fé. In fact, with candles as likely to be found balanced on stacks of manuscripts as stowed in sconces and candelabra, it was a wonder the master hadn’t burned the entire guild hall to the ground by now. On one wall, behind the mound of debris that Quare knew from previous visits marked the master’s desk, was a map of Europe reflecting the boundaries drawn in the second Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which had ended the War of the Austrian Succession ten years before, in 1748 – boundaries the current conflict had rendered irrelevant. The map’s surface bristled with pins that had variously coloured ribbons attached, giving the appearance of a half-unravelled tapestry; these indicated the locations of regulators dispatched across the Channel as well as other spies and agents in the master’s wide-flung network of informants. The wall opposite was given over to bookshelves that stretched from floor to ceiling; so packed were the books in this space that Quare doubted a mouse could have wriggled between them. Master Magnus had charge of the guild library, and he treated its contents as his personal property. Though the other masters grumbled at this presumption, the Old Wolf tolerated it for reasons beyond Quare’s understanding.

Quare, picking up a candle along the way, trod a careful path across the room to the shelves, still favouring his wounded leg, and let his eyes rove over the books assembled there. They were not organized by title, author, date of publication, or any other discernible bibliographical system; they weren’t even all upright, with spines facing outward for ease of inspection, but jammed higgledy-piggledy wherever there was space, like fieldstones in a wall. It bothered Quare to see books treated like stones; there were treasures in the library of the Worshipful Company that could be found nowhere else in the world, ancient horological texts long forgotten or believed irretrievably lost, as well as more recent publications and private correspondence by some of the greatest minds of Europe, the Orient, and the New World. Master Magnus respected knowledge, indeed had an insatiable appetite for it, but he was less than scrupulous about books, like a connoisseur of wine who cared nothing for the bottles it came in. Why, there, wedged into a space that would not have easily admitted a volume half its size, was the Horologium Oscillatorium of Huyghens! Quare reached for it.

‘I have always maintained, if one wishes to discover the true character of a man, it is but necessary to set him loose in a library and let him think himself unobserved.’

Quare turned towards the voice, a smile on his lips. ‘Your pardon, Master Magnus. I did not see you.’

‘Few do,’ came the reply, ‘unless I wish to be seen.’

Across the room, beside the desk, a vigorous-looking elderly man as slender and hooked as a sickle stood hunched over a pair of stout black walking sticks. The pronounced curvature of his spine forced him to look up at Quare, although if he could have stood unbowed he would have been Quare’s equal in height. His dark breeches were finely tailored but could not disguise how twisted were the legs within, and from the cut of his blocky shoes it seemed more likely that they contained pig’s trotters than human feet. He had a pronounced humpback, a nose that echoed his posture in miniature, and a wild if thinning mane of white hair that framed his craggy face as if the area around his head were subject to violent crosswinds. A pair of round, dark-tinged spectacles reflected the flames of the candles scattered about the room, giving Quare the disconcerting impression of being stared at by a creature with eyes of fire. Little wonder that fearful, malicious apprentices had bestowed the nickname Master Mephistopheles upon him. Twining in and out of the space between his legs and the two sticks were a number of cats that, like the man, seemed to have materialized out of thin air. The notion that this person could make himself inconspicuous or unseen would have been laughable were it not for the fact that Quare had ample evidence of its truth.

‘The moving closet, master,’ he burst out, navigating his way past piled books and manuscripts on which certain of the cats – there seemed to be more of the animals by the second – had taken up residence; some ignored him, others regarded him through slitted eyes with something like contempt, a few hissed at his passage. ‘Is it your invention? How does it work?’

Master Theophilus Magnus bared white teeth in the feral grimace that served him for a smile. Those teeth were the only uncrooked thing about him. ‘You like that, eh? Just a little something I threw together. Employs the same principle as the gravity escapement. Saves me the trouble of climbing stairs. I call it the “stair-master”.’

‘Ingenious,’ said Quare.

Master Magnus tossed his head dismissively. ‘A curiosity, nothing more. Of use only to cripples like me.’

‘What is the name of the man who operated it?’

‘Ha ha! Did the rascal give you a scare? Ruffled your dignity, did he? I’ll speak to the fellow, never fear. Now, my boy, take a seat and tell me how things went with Sir Thaddeus. Don’t worry – here of all places, in the very bowels of the guild hall, you may speak freely. This is my domain.’

Quare could not find a chair that wasn’t covered with books or cats, or both, so remained standing. ‘As well – that is to say as badly – as one could have hoped. I am suspended from the Most Secret and Exalted Order of Regulators.’

‘Capital,’ said Master Magnus, flashing his bright grimace again. ‘The Old Wolf took the bait, eh?’

‘I begged him to reconsider, but he refused.’

‘Of course he did. Predictable as a pendulum. And the clock? Any suspicions there?’

‘Not that I could see. He identified the improvement to the escapement and dismissed it out of hand, just as you said he would. But I confess, I don’t understand the need for this obfuscation.’

‘It is obedience that I require from you, Mr Quare, not understanding,’ Master Magnus replied.

‘But surely you don’t suspect the Old Wolf of treason!’

‘I suspect everyone, yourself included. That is the task appointed to me by Mr Pitt and His Majesty. Your task is to follow my orders without tedious questions and objections. And I must say, my boy, you did well with Sir Thaddeus. Very well indeed. Should your horological talents ever desert you, I advise you to take up the stage.’ Raising one stick in a swordsman’s flourish, he repeated: ‘Now, sit, sir – take the weight off that leg of yours.’

As Quare sank dejectedly into the nearest chair, a calico cat leapt clear with a yowl. ‘If I were on the stage, at least my efforts would be applauded.’

‘Have I not applauded them? You must be satisfied with an audience of one, my boy. Such is a regulator’s lot.’

‘But thanks to you, I am no longer a regulator.’

‘Pishposh. Regardless of what Sir Thaddeus and the rest of the Order may believe, you are a regulator until I say otherwise.’

‘That is small consolation, sir, for the public humiliation. News travels fast within these walls – and beyond them. Soon all of London will think me disgraced.’

‘Hardly all. All of London does not know of our Most Secret Order’s existence. Even the masters of the Worshipful Company know little enough of our business, and the majority of journeymen still less. We are a subject of rumour and speculation, not knowledge. But perhaps you deserve a little disgrace, sir. You let a rare opportunity slip. That grey-clad popinjay has robbed us of too many prizes.’

‘But—’

‘You had Grimalkin at your mercy,’ Master Magnus interrupted sternly. ‘With only the moon as witness. Sir Thaddeus may be wrong about any number of things when it comes to the management of this guild, but he is right to be angry when a regulator fails in the clear requirements of his duty.’

‘Master, as I told you when I placed the clock into your hands last night, I was concerned about my wound and feared the rogue’s blade was poisoned. There was no time to question or dispatch him.’

‘I know you, Mr Quare. I trained you. You are no milksop to flinch from what needs doing. So do not think to pull the wool over these eyes. There is more to your rooftop encounter with Grimalkin than you have divulged to me. I knew it at once, as soon as you began to spin your preposterous tale, but I decided to wait until this morning, after your interview with Sir Thaddeus, to prise the truth out of you. I knew it would be easier for you to play your part with the Old Wolf if you believed your story had taken me in. So I pretended to believe that poppycock about a poisoned blade, and I pretended to be relieved when my surgeon determined the wound was not poisoned after all. That you should attempt to deceive me was surprising, I confess – but I had other priorities than ferreting out the truth just then. Namely, the clock you had placed into my hands, the secrets of which could not be trusted to anyone else but me, not even Sir Thaddeus. That is why I rehearsed you in a tale more preposterous still, a tale of gross ineptitude conducted under the flag of honour, a tale apt to be so infuriating to a man of Sir Thaddeus’s saturnine temperament that he would overlook any inconsistencies in the timepiece before him and focus instead on the inadequacies of the man who had recovered it.’

‘I did as you asked, and look what it has cost me. Do I not deserve to know why?’

‘Why? Because it suits my purposes to have the Old Wolf and his partisans believe you dismissed from the Order and out of my favour. But do not attempt to divert me, Mr Quare. You would do well to remember that I am not so credulous as Sir Thaddeus. No, not by a long shot. So do not try my patience with any more flimsy fictions, sir – or you will find me as temperate as the Lisbon earthquake. Now, if you please , the truth. What really happened between you and Grimalkin on that rooftop?’

Quare swallowed, his mouth gone dry. ‘I fear you will not believe me.’

‘I will believe the truth, when I hear it.’

‘Will you hold it in confidence?’

‘Why, damn your impudence!’ Master Magnus slammed one of his sticks hard against the floor, putting a passel of cats to flight. ‘I will not parley with you! If you would remain a regulator, then speak. But understand this – one way or another, I will learn the truth. I have other devices at my disposal, devices every bit as ingenious as the stair-master … though much less pleasant to ride upon, I assure you.’

At this, Quare realized that the servant had been following Master Magnus’s orders in conveying him here so roughly. The master had foreseen this moment from the first and had planned accordingly; truly, he had a better chance of trouncing the great Philidor across a chessboard than of winning a battle of wits with Master Theophilus Magnus, who had built the Most Secret and Exalted Order of Regulators into a secret service said to rival that of Pitt himself. Yet the knowledge that he was almost certainly overmatched served only to stiffen his spine. ‘I do not take kindly to threats,’ he said, glowering.

‘Think of it rather as a reminder,’ Master Magnus answered.

‘A reminder of what?’

‘Of the oath you swore upon becoming a journeyman of this company. Why, one would think you were trying to protect Grimalkin!’

‘It’s not that. It’s … Well, it’s …’

‘Out with it, sir!’

Quare sighed. There was no help for it. ‘He … Grimalkin, that is … is a woman.’

For a moment, the only sound was the purring of the cats. Quare had always found a cat’s purr soothing, but there was a peculiar quality about a roomful of purring cats that was, he decided, not very soothing at all. Master Magnus, meanwhile, studied him from behind those dark lenses filled with flickering flames. That wasn’t too soothing, either. Despite his twisted legs, or rather because of them, the master possessed unusual upper-body strength – Quare had seen him lift, with minimal effort, gear assemblies for tower clocks that two men would have struggled to raise – and to watch him now, propped upon his sticks, ominously silent, was to see not a crippled man but a coiled spring. ‘A woman,’ he said at last. ‘Grimalkin a woman, you say?’

‘There can be no doubt of it.’

‘Grimalkin, who has outfought the deadliest swordsmen in Europe and outthought their masters, not once but again and again, that Grimalkin, the spy supreme, the paragon of thieves, is a female.’

‘It’s hard to believe, I know. But it’s true. I saw her with my own eyes. That’s why I couldn’t— You said the moon was the only witness, master. But God was watching, too. How could I slay a woman in cold blood?’

Master Magnus grunted as if he might be prepared to offer some practical suggestions. But instead he said, ‘Tell me everything that happened from the moment you first saw Grimalkin. Leave nothing out, Mr Quare, no matter how insignificant it may seem.’

Quare related how he had seen Grimalkin emerge, wreathed in smoke, from the attic skylight of Lord Wichcote’s house, then shadowed the grey-clad figure from rooftop to rooftop under the gibbous moon, crept close enough to deliver a knockout blow, more by luck than skill, and at the cost of a painful gash to his leg, and then lifted the grey mask only to find himself gazing at a face unmistakably female. Apart from the lifting of the mask, and what he had found beneath it, it was all as he had related to Master Magnus the previous night, while his leg was being tended to.

‘Describe this woman,’ Master Magnus instructed with sceptical interest.

‘It was not a face I had seen before,’ Quare replied. ‘Youngish, I would say.’

‘Attractive?’

‘I was too taken aback to notice.’

‘Were you? In my experience, regardless of the circumstances, the attractiveness of a young female is among the few things a young male may be depended upon to notice.’

Quare felt himself blushing. ‘The light was poor, and one side of her face was bruised and bleeding,’ he explained.

‘Did you move her? Staunch the bleeding?’

‘No, master.’

‘You did not … touch her at all?’

Quare bristled. ‘What do you mean?’

Master Magnus raised a bushy white eyebrow above the gold frames of his spectacles. ‘You would not be the first to take advantage of such an opportunity. Alone with a helpless young woman – a woman, moreover, who by her wanton actions might be said to have forfeited the protections a civilized society accords the weaker sex.’

‘Do you think I would spare a woman’s life only to violate that which is more precious than life?’

‘Fine sentiments, sir. They do you credit, I’m sure. Yet I cannot help but notice that you did not attempt to aid her. A strange sort of chivalry, that.’

‘I …’

‘No matter. Surely you questioned the woman once she had regained consciousness.’

Quare started as a cat – the same calico he had evicted earlier – leapt into his lap. He stroked the animal, grateful for the distraction. ‘Er, no. In truth, I was worried that her blade had been poisoned. You will grant, master, that poison is a woman’s weapon.’

At this, Master Magnus gave a stiff nod, as though compelled against his will to acknowledge the point.

Encouraged, Quare went on. ‘I thought it best to return the timepiece to you as quickly as possible – before the poison took effect or any accomplices came to Grimalkin’s aid. I was loath to lose the prize so soon after having won it.’

Master Magnus chuckled. ‘I do not mean to denigrate your bravery and resourcefulness, my boy. But even you must realize how unlikely – inconceivable, rather – it is that a regulator of your limited experience could take a seasoned agent like Grimalkin by surprise. No, sir, no. That alone proves – were the idea itself not absurd on its face – that the woman you overcame on the rooftop was not Grimalkin, but an imposter.’

‘An imposter! But she stole the clock from Lord Wichcote – and, by the sound of it, crossed blades with more than one adversary to do so!’

‘Pishposh. By your own testimony, you did not see what went on in that attic. For all you know, the woman was aided by an accomplished swordsman, who sacrificed his life – or at least his liberty – in order to facilitate her escape. That seems more likely, does it not, than a lone woman besting multiple swordsmen? No doubt the woman and her accomplice believed their chances of robbing Lord Wichcote would be improved if one of them dressed as the notorious Grimalkin. Such a stratagem would also enable the woman to conceal her gender beneath a mask – thus giving Lord Wichcote the mistaken impression that he was facing two men.’

‘But I saw no evidence of an accomplice!’

‘Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.’

‘If only you had seen the speed and skill with which she moved, master. She very nearly skewered me! How do you explain that?’

‘You believed you were facing Grimalkin – and believing made it so. Preconceptions colour perceptions, my boy.’

‘What of your preconceptions, then? Because you cannot entertain the possibility of a female Grimalkin, you spin hypotheses out of whole cloth!’

‘No, sir, no,’ the master repeated, giving the floor another thump with his stick. ‘Why, it were as likely for me to dance a jig atop this desk as for Grimalkin to be a woman! Put the notion from your mind. That was not Grimalkin you fought. And a good thing, too, else you would not have survived, much less come back in triumph, bearing the prize.’

Quare was not in a mood to be mollified. ‘If not Grimalkin, then who?’

‘That is precisely the question, Mr Quare. And you may rest assured that it is a question I mean to get to the bottom of. Not just the woman’s identity – and that of her accomplice, should he be proved to exist – but the identity of the person or persons who engaged them to steal that timepiece from Lord Wichcote. I do not believe they were common criminals. Far from it. They were in the service of England’s enemies, of that I have no doubt.’

‘Then perhaps they are allied with Grimalkin in some way.’

‘That is indeed a troubling possibility.’ Master Magnus adopted a severe expression. ‘You were wrong to try and keep this from me, Mr Quare , as you were wrong not to question the woman posing as Grimalkin. But I will forgive these wrongs, just this once, because you did bring the clock to me, after all, and played your part to perfection with the Old Wolf. Yet I must say, I find your account, even in its amended form, an odd one – so odd, in fact, that I cannot help but wonder if you are holding something back even now.’

‘I’ve told you everything, master – I swear it!’

‘We shall see,’ he answered, and his expression turned more ominous still. ‘You were not my first choice for this assignment, Mr Quare. Had a more seasoned regulator been available, I would have sent him. But with the French, Russians, and Austrians moving against us on the Continent, as well as in Scotland and in Ireland, to say nothing of the Colonies, I’ve had to dispatch my best men far and wide, and you – to be blunt – were simply the best of what remained. I was, I confess, somewhat apprehensive as to your chances. Nor has your success in securing the timepiece against all odds laid those apprehensions to rest – on the contrary, in some respects what you have just told me has exacerbated them. If you are to continue as my special agent, I must have your solemn oath that you are prepared to harden your heart, put conscience aside, and act in the best interests of your country and your guild as circumstances require. Can you do that, Mr Quare? Because I assure you, if you cannot, I can find another man who will.’

‘I am your man,’ Quare said, anxious to assuage the master’s doubts. It had not only been from a desire to draw closer to the mysteries of time that he had accepted Master Magnus’s invitation to become a regulator; the master had promised to utilize his intelligence network on Quare’s behalf, to uncover the identity of his father. He did not wish to jeopardize that promise now. ‘You have my word.’

‘Hmm … Perhaps there is someone I can assign to help you,’ Master Magnus said. ‘Someone with more experience …’

‘I thought all the experienced agents were on assignment,’ Quare said. ‘Anyway, I prefer to work alone.’

‘Your preferences do not concern me,’ the master answered. ‘There are regulators no longer on active duty but still competent enough to support you in the field.’

‘To spy on me, you mean.’

This the master did not trouble to deny. ‘Do we have an understanding, Mr Quare?’

‘It appears I have no choice.’

‘Quite.’

‘Then, yes, I agree, of course. Who will you assign to me?’

‘I must think on it.’ And with that, the storm clouds lifted from the master’s expression, and he looked younger, almost boyish – as if the flames dancing in his spectacles had burned away half a lifetime in an instant. The change did not make his appearance any more regular or pleasing to behold, yet it made Quare smile even so, for he had never yet witnessed this transformation in Master Magnus without being rewarded by some astonishing glimpse into the man’s fertile mind: a hint of some heretofore veiled mystery of time, or a wondrous invention like the stair-master, which put horological principles to unexpected use.

‘Now, my boy,’ said Master Magnus, a mischievous lilt to his voice, his stature seeming to grow straighter as he spoke, ‘would you care to have a look at the timepiece you have risked – and sacrificed – so much to procure?’

3 Three Questions

USING HIS WALKING sticks, master magnus pulled himself across the floor of the study. He stabbed one forward, then the other, dragging his legs along behind with sharp wrenchings of his hips, like a man toiling through drifts of snow. Once again Quare was struck by the strength of his arms and upper body. Mewling cats slipped in and out of his path, rubbing against the sticks and his twisted legs. He ignored them.

‘Word of what I am about to show you can go no further,’ he said. ‘Is that understood?’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Quare, wondering what was about to be revealed to him. He would have risen to assist Master Magnus but knew from experience that any such attempt would meet with an angry rejection.

The master paused before Quare, his face shining with sweat. Now it was his own reflection Quare beheld in the dark spectacles; though he was seated, his eyes were nearly level with the master’s, so pronounced was the curvature of his spine. ‘Swear it,’ growled Master Magnus. ‘Swear it on your honour .’

There was more mischief than malice to the barb; still, Quare couldn’t help flinching as it struck home. ‘I swear it.’

‘One day I will perfect a set of mechanical limbs,’ the master said as he resumed his halting progress. ‘Think of it, sir. Legs for the legless. Arms for the armless. Hands as clever and supple as your own. Better, even. Stronger. Then cripples such as I will be envied instead of scorned.’

His destination was the bookshelves. A cluttered space Quare could have crossed in five seconds was for Master Magnus a labour of as many minutes, though he did not once complain of it. But at last he stood before the solid mass of books and papers, his misshapen back to Quare. The phlegmatic rasp of his breathing was the loudest sound in the room, but it did not drown out the purring of the cats; it seemed almost to rise out of those lesser rumblings, riding above them like the foaming crest of a wave. Quare felt an answering vibration in himself, transmitted through the air, or through the calico cat still curled on his lap, as if all his nerves, pulled taut, had been plucked like the strings of a guitar. He got to his feet (displacing the cat, which leapt to the floor) and stepped – or, rather, felt himself drawn – towards the shelves. Was the timepiece hidden there?

‘Bring a light,’ said Master Magnus, who must have heard Quare move, for he had not turned to look at him, his attention fixed on the shelves before him. He reached up with one of his walking sticks to stab at the fat, leather-bound spine of a nameless volume. There came a clicking sound, and a section of shelving slid away from the rest, scattering cats as it pivoted through one hundred and eighty degrees to bring into view a worktable outfitted with all the familiar accoutrements of the clockmaker’s trade … and some not so familiar.

Quare’s heart was beating fast as he joined the master, who motioned for him to set down the candlestick he had fetched along. This Quare managed with difficulty, as the surface of the worktable was strewn with disassembled or partially assembled clocks and watches – a spilled cornucopia of gears and gauges, wheels and wires and other glittery objects he would have given much to examine at his leisure. Though he had spent a fair amount of time in Master Magnus’s study of late, and had on occasion even assisted him in his researches, he had never before seen this hidden worktable, or so much as suspected its existence. How many other secrets were concealed here?

‘Now, where did I put the cursed thing?’ muttered the master. Having set one of his sticks against the worktable, he leaned upon the other as he rummaged one-handed, and with a roughness that made Quare wince, through the mechanical treasure trove atop the table. ‘I could have sworn … ah!’ His hand rose, still empty, and plunged into the pocket of his waistcoat, whence it emerged clutching an object about the size and shape of a quail’s egg. This he held up between thumb and forefinger as if presenting a precious jewel for Quare’s inspection.

It was, he saw at once, a pocket watch of the type known as a hunter, the case of which included a metal lid covering the dial. The watch was ovoid, as he had already noted, the case of polished but otherwise unembellished silver, including the cover.

‘Well, sir?’ demanded Master Magnus.

‘But that is not the clock I brought you!’

‘No, it is not … and yet it is. Here, take it.’

Quare accepted the watch. It was unusually thin, less than half the width of his index finger, and lighter than he had expected. He prised the cover apart with his thumbnail and swung it open, revealing a mi-concave crystal and an enamel dial with twelve black symbols – neither numbers nor astrological signs; at least, not any that he recognized – painted upon it. His horological studies had exposed him to the alphabetic and numerical systems of foreign lands: he could recognize Cyrillic, Chinese, and Arabic, among others, but these symbols were new to him, rendered in a style so fluid as to almost swim before his eyes, as if the marks were changing in subtle ways beyond his ability to register. He found it difficult to focus on them; they seemed to squirm not only against the backdrop of the dial but, as it were, against the backdrop of his mind. The sensation was uncomfortable enough that he let his gaze slide away, to the inside of the silver cover, which he noticed was engraved. He held it closer to the candle, angling it until he could make out the initials JW in fancy script, and a date: 1652 .

Quare frowned; given the thinness and lightness of the watch, he would have guessed it to be of more recent manufacture. The hour and minute hands were gilded and fancifully shaped to resemble the head and tail, respectively, of a dragon, and, as he determined after a quick check against his own pocket watch, were not positioned to anything near the correct time. He raised the watch to his ear, but heard no ticking; the mainspring had run down and was in need of winding. But the stem proved decorative only, and there was no opening for a key. Nor any indication that there ever had been. He shot Master Magnus a questioning look, but the master returned his gaze expressionlessly.

‘Well?’ he repeated.

‘An intriguing watch,’ Quare acknowledged. ‘Am I to infer that you found it secreted inside the clock I brought you?’

‘Like a pearl within an oyster.’

‘Was there a master with the initials JW on the rolls of the Worshipful Company in 1652?’

‘More than one,’ said Master Magnus, manoeuvring himself towards a nearby armchair covered with loose papers and cat hair, into which he collapsed with a grunt of voluptuous satisfaction. ‘Journeymen, too. But after studying the archives thoroughly, I have ruled out each of them as the maker.’

‘Perhaps JW was a foreigner,’ Quare mused. ‘Or an amateur, like Lord Wichcote—’ He paused, struck by a sudden notion: ‘What is that gentleman’s first name, by the way?’

‘It is Josiah,’ the master said, stroking a fat black and white cat that had wasted no time in leaping into his lap and settling itself there with an air of entitlement a pasha would have envied. ‘But that is mere coincidence. Why, the man was not yet born in 1652! And his father, the late Lord Wichcote, was named Cecil … and had no better acquaintance with the insides of a timepiece than does this cat. No, it is the watch you should be interrogating, sir, not me. The answers you seek lie there, provided you can unlock them.’

Quare accepted the challenge with a nod, remembering how, at his first meeting with Master Magnus, years before, the master had similarly challenged him with a pocket watch. Now, turning back to the worktable, he fished a loupe from his waistcoat pocket and held it to his eye while examining the watch more closely in the candlelight – though, as before, his eyes slid past the figures painted onto the dial, as if their flowing shapes offered no purchase for his sight.

‘These markings are most curious.’

‘Indeed,’ Master Magnus agreed. ‘What do you make of them?’

‘I assume they are numbers, though none that I recognize. Still, there are twelve of them, arranged in the traditional manner upon the face – what else could they be?’

Master Magnus shrugged in a most maddening manner.

Quare told himself that he would subject the numbers – if numbers they were – to a more rigorous inspection at some later time. They were, after all, the very least of the wonders and mysteries of what was unquestionably a masterpiece. The detail of the draconic hands was particularly well done, the filigree as fine as gilded frost, evidence of a keen eye and an exceptionally steady hand. Yet the secret of its winding eluded him, unless …

Could the watch be self-winding? Such a timepiece was theoretically possible, and many gifted clockmakers, Master Magnus included, had sought to solve the considerable practical difficulties involved in making one. Yet as far as Quare knew, no one had succeeded, or come close to succeeding. Certainly his own efforts in that line had met with abject failure. How likely was it that some solitary genius had done it more than a century ago? He needed to open the case.

Quare could feel Master Magnus’s probing gaze. The master was studying him as intently as he was studying the watch … and with an identical purpose: to divine his secrets. He had said he trusted no one, suspected everyone, and just because Quare was no traitor did not mean he had no secrets he wished to hide.

Of course, Master Magnus had been correct in his suspicion that Quare had not been entirely forthcoming about his rooftop encounter with the woman – a woman whom, despite the master’s scorn, he still believed to have been the real Grimalkin and not an imposter.

After all, she had told him so.

She had regained consciousness while he was still marvelling at her unmasking. Master Magnus had asked if he had found her attractive, but the truth was that neither at the time nor later had he thought in such conventional terms. The woman was not beautiful but uncanny, her pale blonde hair seemingly spun out of moonlight, her skin like ivory, an exotic cast to her angled features – features streaked now with soot and grime and blood from where he had struck her – that provoked his fascination rather than his admiration. He saw a blend of races there but could not identify the mixture. She might have fallen from the moon, a handmaiden of Selene.

She didn’t make a sound. All at once the dark pools of her eyes opened, and she regarded him with frank but calm curiosity. Such self-possession threw Quare further off his mark. It was as if their positions had been reversed, and he was the one who had been surprised and rendered helpless, his secret exposed, his prize stolen, his honour – indeed, his very life – hanging by the thread of a stranger’s mercy. He felt interrogated by her stare and drew back, as if, bound though she was, she still constituted a danger. ‘I warn you,’ he said. ‘Do not cry out.’

She laughed softly … and, he thought, sadly; the sound sent a shiver down his spine. ‘I congratulate you, sir.’

‘What?’ Her voice made him think of fresh country breezes and springtime rain showers, as if he were back in his native Dorchester and not squatting upon a foul London rooftop. Her accent, like her features, was hard to place.

‘You have caught the great Grimalkin.’ She seemed to mock herself, and him. ‘Now, what will you do with her?’

Quare felt drunk, or under a spell. He swallowed and attempted to marshal his wits. ‘You are my prisoner, madam. I will ask the questions.’

She laughed again, but this time there was no sadness in it; eagerness, rather. ‘Ask, then. I am bound to answer.’

‘Are you really Grimalkin? A woman?’

‘Have I not said it? You are a spendthrift with your questions, man. That is one of your three gone already.’

‘Three? What folly is this?’

She grinned. ‘And there is question two, fled as quickly as a man’s life. But I shall answer, as I must. You have captured me, sir, knocked me out and restrained me as I lay senseless. Yet it is not these ropes that bind me. By ancient compact must I answer truthfully three questions put to me by any man who holds me in his power.’

‘You’re mad,’ he said.

‘Ask your third question, and you shall see my madness,’ she promised. And there was that in her voice and her dark eyes which made him shudder and draw back farther still.

‘I know not what tricks you have up your sleeve, nor do I care.’ Quare sheathed his dagger and drew his pistol, which he cocked and held at the ready. ‘Do not think your sex will save you. Believe me, I will not hesitate to fire.’

This seemed to recall the woman to the reality of her circumstances. Or perhaps it was the reassuring feel of the pistol grip in his hand that made him see her in a more realistic light. In any case, she no longer seemed so eerie. The wild provocation of her manner, which had puffed her up like the bristling fur of a cat seeking to warn off a larger enemy, fell away, revealing a bedraggled creature more to be pitied than feared, a young woman – certainly no older than he, and perhaps younger – who lay entirely at his mercy. ‘Don’t,’ she said, and shrank back against the filthy tiles of the roof. ‘I beg you …’

‘I won’t, unless you force me to it,’ he reassured her. ‘Now, you will tell me who you are working for, and why you have stolen this timepiece from Lord Wichcote.’

She answered with another question. ‘What is your name?’

‘Give me yours, and perhaps I will tell you.’

‘You know my name.’

‘Grimalkin? That is but an alias. I mean your true name.’

She glared at him defiantly.

He shrugged. ‘No matter. I am more interested in hearing the name of your masters.’

‘I know your masters,’ she replied. ‘You are of the Worshipful Company. There is the stink of the regulator about you.’

‘The existence of the Worshipful Company is no secret,’ he said, ‘but few indeed are those who know of the regulators, and common thieves are not of that number.’

‘There is nothing common about me,’ she declared, eyes flashing with a trace of their former fire.

In that, he was forced to agree, though he was not about to admit it to her. ‘Come now,’ he said instead. ‘I watched you enter Lord Wichcote’s attic through the skylight and leave the same way, bearing your prize. Those are the actions of a thief.’

‘A thief steals the property of others. I take what belongs to me, wherever I chance to find it.’

‘Chance?’ He laughed. ‘I suppose you will tell me next that you were simply out for a moonlight stroll across the rooftops of London and happened to fall through Lord Wichcote’s open skylight!’

She glowered but said nothing in reply.

Keeping the pistol trained upon her, he lifted the clock from the rooftop with his free hand. ‘So, you maintain that this clock is your property. That Lord Wichcote stole it from you, and you were but retrieving it.’

‘Careful,’ she cautioned, and it seemed to him that there was more than just concern for a rare and valuable timepiece in the tone of her voice.

‘It seems an ordinary clock to me.’

‘It is no more ordinary than I am.’

‘Indeed? I am glad to hear it. I should hate to think I have engaged in this merry chase for nothing.’

‘You are a fool.’

He felt the blood rush to his face. ‘At least I am no traitor, madam. You would betray your country, and your king.’

‘There is more to the world than England. If my allegiance lies elsewhere, that does not make me a traitor.’

‘No matter. Whatever you are, my masters will ferret out your secrets. Just as they will the secrets of this timepiece.’

‘I do not think so.’ Suddenly the woman was free, her hands no longer bound behind her; they were pointing at him, and they were not empty, either, but held a brace of small pistols. He had seen only a grey blur. He cursed, realizing too late that she hadn’t been cowering at all but somehow cutting herself free of the ropes he had lashed about her wrists. Or, no … not cutting herself free, but instead being freed by the sharp teeth of a small grey mouse that he now saw scamper up her sleeve and disappear into the folds of her cloak.

Though he could scarcely believe his eyes, he forced himself to show no surprise. ‘Your little pet is resourceful,’ he said.

‘Henrietta is no pet but a friend and companion. And now’ – she gave him a mocking smile – ‘hand over the clock, and I will spare your life.’

He shook his head. ‘Lay down your pistols, and I shall spare yours.’

‘Why do you not fire?’ she demanded. ‘Are you a coward?’

Truthfully, he did not think he could beat her to the trigger. She was that fast. He would have to find another way. ‘You have not fired, either,’ he observed. ‘It would appear we are at an impasse.’

For a moment, they faced off in silence. Then the woman groaned with frustration. ‘Damn you, sir, for a dunce! Why will you not ask your third question?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Your third question, man! Until you ask it, I am bound to do you no harm, unless you should first attempt to harm me. If you would but try to shoot, or if you would but ask – yet you do neither, as if you somehow know our ways!’

He blinked, taken aback by the return of the madwoman of moments before. Mad, yes, but could he not use that to his advantage? ‘Perhaps I am not such a dunce after all, madam. And perhaps I know more of your ways than you think.’

She regarded him with something like horror. ‘No. That is not possible.’

‘And yet, as you say, I have not posed my third question.’ Until she’d spoken of it, he’d had no idea that he hadn’t asked her a third question; indeed, even now he could not have sworn to it with certainty. Yet she obviously believed it, and, with the capricious logic of the mad, attached a dire significance to the omission. Thus Quare resolved to continue as he had started – though he soon discovered that it was more difficult to avoid asking a question than he would have imagined, even knowing that his mission, and likely his life, hung in the balance. What ignorance had allowed him to accomplish with thoughtless ease took all his concentration to continue now that his mind was fixed upon it. ‘Nor shall I pose it,’ he added. ‘No, nor attack you, either, though I will not hesitate to defend myself. I have the clock, after all, and I reckon that my masters and I may pose it as many questions as we like without fear of retribution.’

‘You could not be more wrong.’

He couldn’t help chuckling at such arrant lunacy. ‘Why, you speak as if I held a weapon rather than a timepiece!’

‘That is precisely what you hold. A weapon so dangerous, so deadly, that it cannot be allowed to fall into careless hands. That is why I was sent to retrieve it from that supercilious bumbler, Lord Wichcote. And why you must return it to me now. Believe me, it is for your own sake. For the sake of all mankind.’

A thousand questions clustered at his lips; he bit them back. ‘Better that such a weapon – if weapon it be – fall into English hands than into the hands of the French and their allies. These are perilous times for England , madam. We fight for our survival against foes – as I have no doubt you know very well – who would show us not a scintilla of mercy. Against such enemies, the champions of an absolutism abhorrent to every freeborn Englishman and woman, we must grasp at every advantage, no matter how slight. It is our duty, to ourselves and our posterity.’

‘You speak of your petty wars as if they matter.’

‘They matter to me.’

‘There are other wars, sir, greater wars than you know, the consequences of which you cannot begin to imagine.’

‘Then I will leave such imaginings to you.’

‘If only you would. Yet in your ignorance, you and your masters thrust yourselves into matters that are beyond you in every way. In doing so, you will bring ruin upon the very posterity whose safety you seek to ensure.’

‘I am touched by your concern.’

Now it was the woman’s turn to chuckle. ‘If that were all, I would leave you to your fate, and gladly. But like curious children bearing lit candles into a cellar where gunpowder is stored, thinking to find toys and sweetmeats hidden amid the barrels, your greedy stupidity threatens more than your own lives. 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.’

‘What sort—’ He stopped himself in time. ‘That is to say, even if this clock were stuffed with gunpowder and primed to explode like a grenado, it would scarcely pose a danger to anyone beyond its immediate vicinity.’

‘Were I to explain, you would think me madder than you do already,’ she answered. ‘“There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”’

‘I am no Horatio, madam; nor, I think, are you Prince Hamlet – though I begin to wonder if you are but mad north-northwest. You speak in riddles and hint at powers beyond mortal ken, yet whether you truly believe these things or say them to play upon my fancy, as if I were some superstitious rustic or smooth-cheeked schoolboy, I cannot tell. But it matters not. I am a man of science. I place my faith in reason. Thus will we unlock the secrets of this clock. Thus will we make use of them in defence of our hard-won liberties. And now’ – he struggled to his feet, keeping his pistol trained upon her and ignoring the sharp, stabbing pain in his thigh, as if his movements had started his wound to bleeding again – ‘as much as I have enjoyed matching wits with you, the hour grows late. I—’

‘But you are wounded!’ she interrupted, her pale face turning paler still. ‘Blood has been spilled!’

‘Indeed, we have spilled each other’s blood this night.’

‘Then it is already too late,’ she said, and, to his astonishment, lowered her pistols. Even more astonishing, a tear rolled down her ivory cheek. Most astonishing of all, at the sight of that glistening track, silvered in moonlight, he felt an answering shiver pass across his heart, and an impulse to comfort her so strong that it took all his will to resist it. ‘But perhaps not,’ she said, wiping the tear away and looking up at him with pleading eyes. ‘There may yet be time to undo what you have unwittingly set in motion, or at least to avert the worst of it. Give me the clock, I beg you. I will take my leave, and no one need be the wiser. You will never see me again, I swear it.’

And those words, too, flew straight to his heart, echoing in that chamber with a hollow pang. Why should the thought of never seeing her again seem like such a terrible thing? ‘Madam, I cannot. My duty is clear.’

‘Then you have doomed us all.’ She put her pistols away – where they went, Quare didn’t see; one second they were in her hands; the next, her hands were empty. She stood with graceful dignity, her eyes fixed on him all the while, full of reproach and disappointment. ‘Would that I had slain you,’ she said with quiet bitterness. ‘Or that you had killed me. Better still if we had never been born. But I see now that there could be no escaping this moment for either of us. From the very beginning, we two were fated to mingle our blood upon this rooftop.’

As she spoke, her voice heavy with resignation, she pulled the hood back over her head and drew the scarf up to cover her mouth and nose. Yet it was not just a rearrangement of clothing; her voice, her posture, even the quality of her eyes underwent a transformation, until, at the end of it, the woman was gone so thoroughly as to never have existed, and in her place stood Grimalkin. It was a change so convincing, so complete, that Quare stepped back and brought his pistol – which, without noticing, he had lowered – back into line.

‘You do not need to fear me,’ said Grimalkin, sounding very much as if she wished it were otherwise. ‘Even were you to ask your third question, I could not harm you now. We are bound, you and I, by ties of blood and destiny.’

But Quare asked nothing. He could not find his voice, and even if he could have spoken, he would not have questioned her, wary of a trick. He watched, heart pounding.

‘Besides,’ Grimalkin added with a weary shrug, ‘my time here is done. The sky grows pale with the approach of dawn, and I am called Otherwhere.’

That was news to Quare; as far as he could tell, sparing a quick glance upwards, the sky was as dark as ever, and the light of the moon had no rival. He did not think it could be any later than three in the morning; dawn was hours off.

The noise of a small concussion, a hollow popping sound, drew his attention. Clouds of thick grey smoke boiled up from the rooftop to cloak the figure of Grimalkin. He cursed himself for a fool. But he would not compound his foolishness by entering that cloud to grapple with her; nor could he bring himself to fire into it. Instead, keeping his pistol raised, he backed away. The cloud seemed to follow him with an intent all its own, as if it might reach out with smoky tendrils to snatch the clock from his grasp.

‘We are not finished, you and I,’ came her voice from out of the murk. ‘We shall meet again, I promise you.’

He saw – or thought he saw – a serpentine form flex within the billowing, and at that he cursed again, in fear this time, and pulled the trigger. The pistol misfired, the hammer clicking without effect. But already the cloud was thinning, breaking into patchy wisps that drifted with the wind, indistinguishable from the general fog of the city. Another moment, and no trace remained. He stood alone on the rooftop. Grimalkin was gone.

Nor did Quare linger, afraid she would return, either alone or with allies who would not let an unasked question keep them from their objective. He set off at once for the guild hall, retracing his path across the roofs, cursing himself for having misloaded the pistol. He had been lucky many times over this night.

He moved slowly, thanks to his injured leg, which had resumed bleeding and soon stiffened into the bargain. All the while, he debated what to tell Master Magnus. It was crystal clear to him that he couldn’t relate all that had occurred, not if he wished to continue as a regulator, or, for that matter, a journeyman in good standing. He knew there was no way he could make the master understand why he had not captured or killed Grimalkin; he did not really understand it himself. It wasn’t because he had found himself facing a woman – or not only because of that … and there, too, was a thing better left unsaid; without proof, no one would credit such an outlandish claim. Grimalkin a woman? He scarcely believed it himself. As for her warnings about the clock … What were they but the ravings of a lunatic? Even if the workings of the timepiece belied its plain exterior, he did not see how this clock, or, indeed, any clock, could be a weapon, unless the woman had spoken metaphorically, referring to some martial use to which the secrets of its mechanism might be put, beating ploughshare into sword, as it were, but even that possibility did not seem of sufficient gravity to warrant such desperate words.

No, he would say nothing of that, either. He would hand over the clock and leave the rest to Master Magnus. Yet he would have to mention Grimalkin; Lord Wichcote was the sort of man who would take a perverse pride in having been robbed by the notorious Grimalkin, and he would no more be able to resist boasting of his attic encounter than he had of possessing the clock that had occasioned it. The news would no doubt spread quickly, reaching the ears of Master Magnus in short order. So he must confess that much, at least. And, too, there was his wounded leg to explain. It occurred to him that the latter might serve as an excuse for his failure to kill or capture Grimalkin.

Thus it was that by the time he returned to the guild hall, Quare had concocted the story, a blend of truth, lies, and omissions, that he had related to Master Magnus while suffering the none-too-gentle ministrations of the man’s surgeon. And thus it was that he had found himself caught in the strands of his own web – or, rather, swept up in the larger web of Master Magnus, who, after seeing his wound treated, had ensnared him in a further fabrication, this one directed at no less a target than Grandmaster Wolfe himself. As Quare took a carriage home in the early morning hours, a luxury provided by Master Magnus, he’d cursed the luck that had caused this night’s mission to fall into his lap; the result of his success had not been the praise and advancement he deserved but an injured leg and recruitment into a power struggle between two giants who could crush him as thoughtlessly as he might crush a fly.

He had sought to make his own way in the Worshipful Company, beholden to no faction but to his talents only; no doubt he had been naïve. But that was finished now. Or would be, once he was called before the Old Wolf to give his report, a summons that Master Magnus had advised him to expect by the afternoon at the latest. Then he would relate the fabrication he had been rehearsed in and suffer the consequences of it – disgrace, suspension, perhaps outright expulsion – all in the service of a scheme whose purpose was as obscure to him as were the plans of the Almighty. Yet as he lay back on the cushions of the carriage seat, it was not the base machinations of guild politics that whirled feverishly through his brain but instead the features of the woman he had discovered behind Grimalkin’s mask.

Those exotic features were still present in his mind, or at the back of his mind, seeming, as it were, to gaze down over his shoulder as he examined the hunter that Master Magnus had placed into his hands. The woman’s dire warnings echoed in his memory. They seemed crazier than ever now that their object had been revealed to be a pocket watch barely thicker than his dagger’s blade; yet though he could not credit her warnings, neither could he dismiss them, any more than he could dismiss the memory of the woman herself: her vernal voice, the quickness of her wit and of her movements, the sense that there had been, and perhaps still was, a connection between them, one that went deeper than words unsaid, questions unasked, and ancient compacts born of a moonstruck fancy: a bond brought into being by the shedding and , as she had put it, the mingling of blood, as though what had passed between them on that rooftop had been some kind of ceremony and not a shabby paroxysm of violence that had left her unconscious from a blow to the head and himself run through the leg and lucky to be alive. He wondered if he would ever see her again, and though he felt no certainty that he would survive a second encounter, he found that he desired it almost as much as he desired to possess the secret of the timepiece he had taken from her.

Now, after clearing a work space on the cluttered table, he set loupe and hunter down and pulled from an interior pocket of his waistcoat a well-worn leather-bound wallet tied shut with a length of dark ribbon. This he untied, placed on the table to one side, and flicked open with practised ease. Laid out within was a tidy assortment of files, calipers, pliers, tweezers, wires, springs, small glass vials containing various chemicals, a watchmaker’s hammer, an equally diminutive screwdriver, and other items needful for the interrogation and repair of timepieces. He glanced at Master Magnus for permission.

The master inclined his head while continuing to stroke the cat in his lap. ‘Have you enough light?’

Quare nodded; the single candle, while not ideal, would suffice for now. Turning back to the table, he screwed the loupe to his left eye and bent to his work. In one hand he held the watch; in the other, a long, scalpel-like tool he had adapted for horological use from a surgeon’s kit. Many of his most useful tools were based on or even made from surgical implements; the clockmaker and the surgeon, he had found, had much in common. But before he could begin in earnest, a movement to one side startled him, and he stepped back as a small black cat leapt onto the table.

Behind him, Master Magnus laughed. ‘Why, it would appear that Calpurnia wishes to observe your technique!’

The small cat sat regarding him through unblinking green-gold eyes, its tail curled primly about its front paws. It might almost have been a marble statuette, save for the vigorous purring that seemed to emanate from its entire body. ‘That is a very large purr for such a small cat,’ Quare remarked. ‘But if she has any advice, I would welcome it.’

‘Cats do not advise,’ said Master Magnus. ‘They command.’

At present, Calpurnia seemed inclined to do neither. Once, Quare would have found the animal’s presence a distraction, but among the many things he had learned from Master Magnus was a tolerance, even a kind of grudging affection, for cats. The master had an absolute mania for the creatures; he could identify each of his vast menagerie by name, and seemed to prefer their company to that of human beings.

‘They accept me for who I am,’ he had once told Quare. ‘They do not judge by appearances but see past the surface of things. Dogs have no choice but to love us; it is how they are made. Despite their many fine qualities, one cannot help but pity them. A cat, however, bestows its affections where it will. Thus the companionship of a cat is to be more highly valued, for cats are like mirrors in which we may see ourselves as we truly are, not as we appear to others, and still less as we would prefer ourselves to be.’

The cases of most pocket watches were easily removed, opening from the back, but in this, too, the watch at hand proved an exception to the rule: the case was all of a piece. The crystal came away without trouble, but once he had laid it upon the inside flap of his tool kit, Quare was baffled. There seemed no way inside. The edge of the dial met the side of the case precisely, and not even the fine, sharp edge of his scalpel could find purchase there. He did not probe too forcibly, however, for fear of scratching the dial.

He straightened with a sigh, replacing the loupe on the table, and rubbed his watering eye as Calpurnia gave a querulous miaow.

‘Giving up so soon?’ Master Magnus echoed rather smugly.

Quare couldn’t help but glare. ‘I suppose you opened it right away, without any trouble.’

‘On the contrary, it took me the better part of an hour.’

‘And you expect me to do it faster? You must have a higher opinion of my abilities than you’ve admitted so far, Master Magnus.’

‘No higher than your own,’ the master replied.

Quare opened his mouth to answer, then thought better of it; he couldn’t decide if he’d just been complimented or insulted. He returned his attention to the watch. It was infuriating but at least would not talk back. Cupping it in one hand, he used the scalpel to push the fancifully shaped hands around the dial, once again experiencing that strange disinclination to focus upon the glyphs painted there; his gaze glided over each one as smoothly as did the hands themselves … which, as he now ascertained, moved with equal facility in a counterclockwise direction. But these idle exercises brought him no nearer to his goal. What was he missing? He ground his teeth in frustration. Again he thought of Grimalkin. He did not doubt for an instant that she would have already prised the watch open somehow. He felt clumsy and stupid, like a thief standing before a locked steel vault deep in the bowels of the Bank of England.

Then Quare smiled. Of course. The master himself had provided a clue. Watches and locks were not so different, after all. Not inside, where it counted. He gave a little laugh of admiration at the cleverness of it.

‘Got it, have you?’ asked Master Magnus.

‘We’ll see.’ What if the number inscribed on the inside of the cover, 1652, was not just a date but a combination? It was both obvious and ingenious; yet there were many possible ways of representing that number, or sequence of numbers, using the hour and minute hands of the watch. For all he knew, some complicated formula was required. But he would eliminate the obvious choices before worrying about more arcane possibilities. Could it be as simple as moving one hand to sixteen and the other to fifty-two? The strange glyphs on the face of the watch had no meaning to him in themselves, but that did not mean they could not correspond to the numbers he knew; after all, there were twelve of them, just as with any ordinary timepiece. But on further reflection, that solution made no sense … for then the case would automatically open twice every twenty-four hours, whenever the minute and hour hands, in their quotidian revolutions, passed over the necessary points on the watch face: not at all the sort of feature typically valued by purchasers of pocket watches.

Indeed, this objection held for any sequence of numbers arrived at by rotating the hands in a clockwise direction. Thus, Quare reasoned, the numbers of the combination, or at least one of them, must be arrived at by means of a retrograde motion, by which the locking mechanism would be engaged or disengaged. He began to try various possibilities, moving the hands backwards and forwards around the dial until, after no more than five minutes, to the accompaniment of a sharp click, he felt the back of the watch detach from the case and drop into his palm.

‘Bravo,’ said Master Magnus. ‘Well done!’

‘You provided the clue,’ Quare acknowledged, grinning, ‘when you challenged me to unlock the secrets of the watch. Otherwise I could never have opened it so quickly, if at all.’

‘You would have hit upon it sooner or later,’ the master said. ‘But that is only one mystery solved. You have work yet to do.’

Quare nodded and turned back to the table, feeling quite pleased with himself – an opinion not shared by the black cat, Calpurnia, who was grooming herself fastidiously, taking no notice of him whatsoever. A man could not get too full of himself, Quare reflected, in the company of a cat.

Placing the scalpel on the table beside the loupe, Quare shifted the watch to his free hand and set the detached back of the case on the flap of his tool kit alongside the crystal he’d placed there earlier. Only then did he turn the watch over to reveal the exposed movement.

His initial impression was of a three-quarter plate construction, with overlapping wheels and pinions neatly packed into the available space, all of a silver so pale that it seemed almost translucent. Yet no clockmaker with an ounce of experience or common sense would choose silver over brass and steel for the inner workings of a watch. But then, he thought, perhaps the metal was not silver after all. He was reaching for his loupe when a sudden hissing caused him to start. ‘What the devil?’

Beside him, standing with spine arched, tail stiff, ears flat, and fur gone all spiky, a hissing and growling Calpurnia eyed the watch in Quare’s hand as if it were a serpent poised to strike.

‘God in heaven, what’s got into the beast?’ Quare demanded.

‘Fascinating,’ said Master Magnus. The black and white cat in his lap had fled at Calpurnia’s outburst, and now Calpurnia herself did likewise, springing down from the table and rushing headlong away. Her fear had transmitted itself to the other cats, and, in the blink of an eye, the study became a roiling mass of fast-moving felines and their shadows, the two not always distinguishable in the candlelight. Yowls and hisses filled the air. Stacks of books and papers toppled, which further agitated the cats, who in turn knocked over more stacks in a chain reaction that continued for some time as Quare and Master Magnus looked on in astonishment.

‘That didn’t happen when I opened the case,’ the master commented when things had quieted somewhat. He sounded almost regretful. ‘But then,’ he continued, ‘no cat was as near to the watch as Calpurnia was just now. She smelled the strangeness of it, no doubt. Or saw something. They are perspicacious creatures, cats.’

‘They’re only animals, master,’ Quare said with a laugh. ‘They start at moonbeams and chase shadows. They know nothing of watches.’

‘What do any of us know?’

‘Master?’

He shook his head. ‘Go on, Quare. The test isn’t over yet.’

‘Is that what this is? A test?’

Now it was the master’s turn to laugh. But he did not otherwise answer, merely gestured with one hand for Quare to get back to work.

Quare bent close over the watch. With the aid of the loupe, he saw that, as he’d begun to suspect before Calpurnia had gone mad, the wheels and pinions and plates of the movement were not made of silver. Indeed, they did not appear to be made of metal at all. The substance looked more like wood … which perhaps accounted for the lightness of the watch. Yet the grain was curious, like no wood he was familiar with, and not even birch had such a silvery shine. Nor, as far as he knew, was wood of any kind suitable for the stresses and strains, the wear and tear, of a watch movement: even less so than silver, in fact. But perhaps the wood had been treated with some chemical unknown to him to give it added strength and resilience. He set down the loupe and retrieved the scalpel. He scraped softly at one wheel, to no effect. Whatever it was, it was hard . He gave the wheel a cautious tap with the tip of the scalpel. ‘Why, it’s hollow!’ he exclaimed in wonder, looking to Master Magnus, who, after his peculiar fashion, grinned – that is, grimaced – in reply. Quare tapped the escapement, the fusee. ‘They’re all hollow! Master, I don’t believe this is a real watch at all.’

‘Isn’t it?’

‘I confess I thought at first that it might be self-winding, but now I perceive that it lacks a winding mechanism of any kind. There is simply no source of power. Yet the wheels turn easily; the teeth of the gears fall smoothly into place; the escapement, the fusee – all else is as it should be. This is a model of a watch, a toy, not the thing itself. And even if it could be wound, what time would it keep, with its parts all of hollow wood?’

‘What kind of wood is it, then, Quare, at once light, hard, and hollow?’

He shrugged. ‘I’m no wood-carver.’ An idea struck him: ‘Why, he wasn’t a clockmaker at all! The mysterious JW, I mean. No wonder he wasn’t mentioned in the archives. He must have been a master wood-carver.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Master Magnus, lurching to his feet with an abrupt rocking motion. He swayed for an instant, then planted his walking sticks on the floor and hauled himself over to Quare, again seeming to wade through some invisible medium sensible to himself alone, as if the air around him were as thick as mud. ‘But do you know, I don’t believe it is carved of wood.’

‘Indeed? What then?’

‘Bone.’

‘Bone?’ Quare glanced at the watch in his hand and shook his head sceptically. ‘What kind of bone is so hard, yet so light?’

‘That I cannot say. But I have examined the movement under the microscope, compared the grain of the stuff with samples of wood and of bone, and though I did not find an exact match, it is unquestionably closer in nature to the latter than to the former.’

Quare shrugged. ‘Even so, it is still no more than a curiosity, a toy.’

‘Do you suppose I would attach so much importance to a mere curiosity? Would Lord Wichcote risk so much to possess it, or the thief you encountered upon the rooftop go to such trouble to steal it?’

‘I don’t understand …’

‘I wonder if I might borrow that sharp little tool of yours.’

‘Of course.’ Quare reversed the scalpel and held it out.

Resting his weight on one stick and letting the other fall back against his hip, the master took the tool in a rock-steady hand. Before Quare could react, the hand darted out.

Quare yelped, more in surprise than pain, and watched a bead of blood appear on the tip of his finger. ‘What—’

‘Quickly,’ Master Magnus interrupted. ‘Hold it over the watch!’

Quare was too stunned to do anything but obey. Drop after drop of his blood dripped into the pale silver insides of the watch. It pooled there like the shadow of the sun creeping across the face of the moon in swift eclipse, a dark stain that must soon spill over.

But it did not spill over.

Instead, it seeped into the watch. The parts of the movement, the wheels and pinions and plates, the escapement, the fusee, all the pieces so cunningly carved out of … something … sucked in the blood. Drank it in like water absorbed by a sponge. And as they did, they changed colour, took on the redness of Quare’s blood. Or perhaps it was that they turned translucent as glass, only seeming to take on the hue of what filled them.

But Quare was not interested in such distinctions. He stood transfixed with awe and creeping horror, mesmerized by the sight of the watch so engorged with blood that it seemed to glow like a hot coal in the palm of his hand. He would not have been surprised had it burned him. But the watch, already warmed to his body temperature, grew not a whit warmer.

Then he felt it faintly shudder. Felt a convulsion spark and bloom within the watch and pass through it into his flesh, his blood, like a call seeking answer.

He would have dropped it then, cast it from him like a loathsome, cursed thing, but Master Magnus took hold of his wrist in an unbreakable grip, preventing him.

Quare moaned, words as far beyond him as thought, as reason. For now, as if his heart had answered the call, the watch throbbed to life, pulsing in time to the rhythm in his chest, the wheels and pinions turning, the teeth meshing: the movement running, keeping time.

‘ There is your source of power,’ Master Magnus said, his voice fierce, triumphant.

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 pussycats!’

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.

5 Impossible Things

QUARE WOKE TO find himself naked in an unfamiliar bed. An unfamiliar body, also naked, was nestled familiarly within the curve of his own, facing away. Wisps of blonde hair, edged with gold in the fall of sunlight past a drab curtain, tickled his nose. He smelled sweat and sex, stale beer and tobacco smoke. His mysterious companion was snoring; he had no idea who she was or how they had come to be together. There was a sour taste in his mouth, as though he had vomited during the night. His head throbbed, and his brains seemed to have been reduced to a semi-liquid state: the slightest movement sent them sloshing against the walls of his cranium. Meanwhile, his bladder burned. To relieve the latter misery was to invite the former; he lay still, suspended in a murky zone of suffering in which the flow of time itself seemed to have, not stopped precisely, but rather encountered an obstacle. It circled sluggishly, like a backed-up eddy in a street sewer.

The previous night was a smear of colour and noise across his memory. He recalled a succession of toasts that spread from table to table until the whole tavern was taking part. Songs were sung to the accompaniment of the one-eyed fiddler and his dancing monkey. Eternal friendships were pledged and broken and tearfully pledged again. He remembered conversing with the red-haired journeyman, what was his name, Argyle? No, Aylesford. The two of them sitting with arms flung about each other’s shoulders, commiserating over the sad lot of journeymen in the guild, the forfeiting of honour and other sacrifices that could only be alluded to … at least, Quare hoped he had gone no further than allusion. Surely he hadn’t said anything about the Most Secret and Exalted Order, his recent mission to Wichcote House, Grimalkin, or the uncanny pocket watch in the possession of Master Magnus. He racked his brains but could think of no indiscretion. This was not entirely comforting, however, since so much of the night was a blur.

There had been a disturbance. A fight … The Pig and Rooster in an uproar, chairs and fists flying, swords unsheathed, the little capuchin, its turban knocked off, screaming as it leapt from table to table and took refuge at last in one of the wagon-wheel chandeliers, where it crouched gargoyle-like within the swaying circle of candles, teeth bared, eyes agleam, seeming to preside over the madness below like some savage demigod. That nightmarish image was the last thing he remembered.

He disengaged himself from his companion, careful not to wake her, and sat up with a groan at a sharp twinge in his upper back, between his shoulder blades, as if he had pulled a muscle during the night. He thought for a second that he might be sick, but nausea receded as his bladder reasserted its primacy. He got to his feet, shivering in the morning chill, espied the chamber pot tucked beneath a cabinet across the room, and set out for it as though embarked upon a journey of miles. Other aches and pains announced themselves with each step. The bandage on his thigh bore a dark stain, as if the wound had opened again … though it didn’t seem to be bleeding at the moment.

He recognized nothing in his trek across the shabby room save his own scattered clothing. He hooked the chamber pot out with his foot and relieved himself with another groan, this one expressing a pleasure almost sexual in its intensity. When he had finished, he turned and saw that the sleeping blonde was asleep no longer. She lay on her side, propped on one elbow and regarding him with amusement, as if she was not only aware of his confusion but enjoying it. A dingy bed-sheet draped the plump swell of one hip, leaving pendulous breasts the colour of rice pudding exposed. Both her face and its expression were known to him.

He cleared his throat and assayed a smile and a bow. ‘Good morning, Arabella ,’ he said as if it were the most natural thing in the world to find himself here, stark naked.

Arabella smirked, tossed her blonde curls, and said, ‘I’m Clara.’

At which he blushed from head to toe.

Her laughter was easy and forgiving. ‘It’s all right, love. You’re not the first, and you won’t be the last. Share and share alike, that’s what I say.’ She sat up, rearranging the sheet to cover her breasts. ‘Where’s Tom got to?’

‘Tom …?’ Quare’s hands cupped over his cock, which, a bit slow on the uptake, had only begun to respond to the sight of her voluptuous body now that she had covered herself.

Clara seemed not to notice. ‘Your friend. Redhead, looks about sixteen or so?’

‘Aylesford.’ He had no memory of coming here in his company. Or, for that matter, coming here at all. Wherever here was.

‘That’s the one.’ Clara got to her feet, the sheet tucked about her, and approached him with short, mincing steps. He drew back to let her by. She looked back coyly over her bare shoulder. ‘Can’t a girl get a little privacy?’

He blushed again and turned away. ‘Sorry.’ What had happened last night? He retrieved his clothing from the floor and laid it out on the bed as, behind him, Clara’s forceful stream rang against the sides of the chamber pot. There were some unsavoury-looking stains on his breeches and stockings, and dark splotches of what appeared to be dried blood on his shirt and coat … and, he now saw, more bloodstains on the sheets as well. A cursory examination of his body revealed some minor scrapes and scratches on his arms and chest, not enough to account for the stains. He supposed it must have been the wound that Grimalkin had given him. Or perhaps Clara had started her monthlies.

‘What’s your rush, love?’ Clara called.

‘I’ve an appointment.’ According to his pocket watch, it was nearing eight-thirty, and nine-thirty was the time Master Magnus had set for their morning meeting. The actual time, he knew, must be somewhat later, as his watch bled minutes if not kept tightly wound, a duty he’d neglected to perform last night. He remedied it now. But even so, he had no idea what the true time was. The uncertainty only added to his sense of dislocation.

‘But I haven’t had a chance to thank you proper for last night.’

Quare turned. Clara was advancing towards him, bed-sheet cast aside. Gravity and time would bring those pert breasts low one day, but this, he noted, was not that day. Her creamy white hips and belly had the soft roundness of still-ripening flesh, and the hair between her thighs was so blonde and fine that he could see right through to the pink flower beneath … at which point he, or rather a portion of his anatomy, decided that his meeting with Master Magnus was perhaps not so urgent, after all.

‘That’s more like it,’ she said with a smile, her gaze rising to meet his own.

‘I’m afraid I’ve bloodied your sheets,’ he said, embarrassed.

‘Your poor leg. But don’t fret, love. What’s a little blood between friends, eh?’ Taking him in hand, she pressed him back onto the bed.

‘Wait,’ he said, though he offered no resistance. ‘What did you mean about thanking me?’

She knelt on the edge of the bed. ‘Why, you saved my life last night, Dan. You and Tom both. Don’t you remember?’

‘Well, er …’ He shifted as she stroked his erection.

‘There was a brawl, a big one.’

‘I remember that. Or some of it, at least.’

‘The worst I’ve seen,’ she declared with relish, continuing to stroke him as she spoke, ‘and the Pig and Rooster’s had its share of nasty ones. I don’t know what started it, but all of a sudden the whole place was a battlefield. Martha and Arabella and I tried to get away through the kitchen, but we got separated, like, and I was cornered by five blackguards with more than brawling on their minds. Said they was going to carve their initials into my pretty face, they did.’ Her eyes widened as she produced – from where, he knew not, nor cared at the moment – a pig-bladder sheath, which she slipped over his manhood.

‘That’s to keep the brats off, love. A girl can’t be too careful.’

Nor a man, he thought; he had been lucky in his amorous pursuits, never having contracted the pox, but he had witnessed enough of its effects never to enter the lists of love unarmoured. To say nothing of his determination to bring no more bastards into the world.

Clara straddled him and guided him inside her. ‘I had a knife from the kitchen ,’ she went on breathlessly, ‘but they had swords. Young noblemen, by the looks of them. Out for a bit of fun.’

‘You’re’ – he gasped as she rocked above him – ‘saying I stopped them somehow?’

‘And Tom, yes. Came to my rescue like knights in shining armour.’ She grunted and ground. ‘He took one through the back before they even knew you were there.’

‘What? Killed him, you mean?’

‘All I know is that the villain went down and didn’t get up again.’

‘The damned fool!’ He squirmed to get out from under Clara, but she redoubled her efforts, perhaps mistaking his panic for passion, or just not caring. Nor did his erection wilt along with his spirits, deciding, not for the first time, to go its own way regardless of his wishes. Quare’s groan had more than just frustration in it. But his mind, walled away from his body, worked with the precision of a timepiece. A commoner drawing a blade against a nobleman was serious business. To wound one, or God forbid kill one, even in self-defence, was a death sentence. The Worshipful Company couldn’t protect them from that. What had Aylesford done?

‘After that, it come fast and furious,’ Clara continued meanwhile, suiting her actions to her words. ‘I wanted to run, but I was terrified. I couldn’t hardly bring myself to look. I thought you and Tom was finished, outnumbered two to one. Then it would be my turn.’ Clara gave a little scream, her breasts smacking against her chest as she climaxed, and he felt his own climax rise up in answer. Clara clung to him. But even then, her stream of words did not slow. ‘Turned out to be the other way round. Your friend mightn’t look like much, but he’s a demon with a sword. Two clockmen plucking those feathered popinjays: it did my heart good to see!’ She laughed, then at last took notice of his struggles. ‘Why, what’s the matter, love? Crushing you, am I?’

‘Nothing personal.’ Quare pushed her away and sat up. He pulled the sheath from his drooping member and let it fall to the dirty floor. He must have been drunk indeed to have drawn his sword against nobility, regardless of the provocation. No doubt the hot-headed Aylesford had acted first, and he’d followed suit, swept up in the excitement. But that wouldn’t save him from punishment. That he remembered none of it only added to his anxiety. He wondered what had happened to Mansfield, Farthingale and Pickens. ‘It was just the two of us, you say? No others?’

‘That’s right.’

He rubbed his throbbing temples and groaned. ‘Then what happened?’

‘Why, you cut down one man, and Tom took care of two.’ Clara, sitting cross-legged beside him, pantomimed two quick sword thrusts to his chest. ‘The last man tried to run, but the two of you got him before he’d taken half a step.’ A third thrust illustrated the man’s fate.

Clammy horror settled over Quare. ‘We killed them all?’

‘Nobody stopped to check the bodies,’ she said with a shrug. ‘The three of us beat it out the back door before the Charleys or the redbreasts could show up.’

Quare groaned again. If any of the men had survived, no doubt they’d already provided descriptions of their attackers. If, on the other hand, he and Aylesford had killed them all, it was possible that the Charleys – the city watch – didn’t have any leads. But that wouldn’t be the case for long. The watch – or, more likely, Sir John Fielding’s red-waistcoated Bow Street Runners – would want to interview all those present at the Pig and Rooster last night, and the table of journeymen hadn’t exactly been inconspicuous. With the exception of Aylesford, a stranger (who would have attracted notice for that reason alone), they were all regulars at the tavern, known by name. Sooner or later, the Charleys would hear of them and come looking. And when, inevitably, someone – perhaps Mansfield or one of the others – spilled the beans about Aylesford’s penchant for duelling, the prickly redhead would find himself a wanted man. And if, as seemed likely, the two of them had been seen together during the fracas, so would Quare. He felt the remorseless logic of the situation closing around him like the bars of a Newgate prison cell.

‘It’s funny,’ Clara mused meanwhile. ‘The fight sobered Tom right up, but it made you even drunker. You could barely walk. The two of us practically had to carry you through the streets. I was afraid you’d been wounded, stabbed; there was blood on your coat and hands. But you swore you was fine. I didn’t like to send you off in such a state, so I brought you here instead, both of you. My heroes.’

Quare still remembered none of it. She might have been talking about someone else entirely. It gave him an eerie feeling, as if his body had a life of its own, separate from his mind, and though he’d just had a vivid illustration of that very fact here in bed with Clara, what she was relating to him now went well beyond that momentary estrangement.

‘I offered to take you on free of charge, however you wanted, one at a time or both together,’ Clara went on, blushing like the innocent girl she must have been once upon a time. ‘Tom was shy, said he was saving himself, but you were willing enough. He went out onto the landing to give us a bit of privacy, but we’d barely started before you jumped up, ran to the window and … Well, you can guess the rest, I’m sure, love, even if you don’t remember. A blessing there. Afterwards, you came back to bed and passed out, like. That left Tom and me. I wanted to do something for him – to show my appreciation – but he brushed me off again, told me he couldn’t even if he’d wanted to, that he was too tired to think of anything but sleep. I said he was welcome to share the bed with us, and so he did.’

‘I wish he had woken me before he left,’ Quare said. ‘We could be in big trouble. We need to get our stories straight.’

At which Clara blushed more deeply than ever.

‘What?’

‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘It’s just’ – she shifted, averting her eyes, then looking at him again – ‘I did wake up once last night and saw the two of you …’

‘Yes?’ he prompted.

‘Mind you, I’ve nothing against it. Live and let live, I always say.’

‘I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Don’t worry, I won’t breathe a word to anyone.’

Comprehension dawned. ‘You think …?’ He burst into laughter.

‘I know what I saw.’

‘And just what was that?’

‘Tom was cleaving to you from behind, one hand clapped over your mouth. He saw me looking and winked at me over your shoulder, hissed at me to go back to sleep.’

‘You were already asleep,’ Quare said, disconcerted by the image. ‘You dreamed the whole thing.’

She shook her head and repeated, ‘I know what I saw.’

‘And I suppose I slept right through everything?’

‘Slept through it?’ She gave a disbelieving laugh. ‘Why, bless me, you were grunting like a pig the whole time!’

Quare’s amusement had soured altogether. He got out of bed and began to dress. ‘I think I’d remember if anything like that had happened.’

‘Like you remember killing them men in the Pig and Rooster?’

That gave him pause. After all, what did he really know about Aylesford? The man was a stranger. Perhaps he had attacked him in the dark. But it strained credulity to think that he would have slept through such an assault as Clara had described. Quare considered himself a man of the world; his life as a journeyman had brought him into contact with men who loved other men, or who sought out both sexes. Though sodomy was a crime punishable by death, his philosophy, like Clara’s, had always been live and let live. There had been furtive gropings in his boyhood with others his age, but those games had stopped even before his seduction, at the age of thirteen, by Emma Halsted, the wife of his master. But the whole thing was ridiculous. Surely there would be physical evidence of such an assault, and while his body bore its litany of cuts and scratches, aches and bruises, there was nothing to suggest he’d been raped. Either Clara had been dreaming, or, more likely, she’d misinterpreted what she’d seen. But what, then, had she seen? ‘And afterwards? What did I do then?’

‘Why, slept like a baby. But here’s a laugh! Maybe you was done in, but Tom was just getting warmed up, like. Took me twice before he left, he did!’

‘And I slept through that as well, I suppose.’

‘Like a lamb,’ she said.

‘I never knew I was such a heavy sleeper.’

‘A good rogering will do that. I’m feeling a mite sleepy myself,’ she added with a giggle.

He sighed. ‘Believe what you like, Clara. I’ll not argue with you.’

‘Why, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, love. Don’t I like it that way myself sometimes?’ She turned onto her knees and waggled her fleshy backside at him, though whether in mockery or invitation he couldn’t tell. ‘No need to go rushing off,’ she said, gazing over her shoulder with a wicked grin that seemed to settle the question.

But Clara’s abundant charms were not as enticing as they’d been a moment ago. There was too much he didn’t know about what had happened last night and what might be awaiting him this morning. Aylesford might have been taken already; the Scottish journeyman could have spilled his guts by now, blaming everything on Quare. He didn’t think it likely, but it was certainly possible, and growing more so with every moment. There was no time to lose. He had to find Aylesford, and fast. If only he hadn’t drunk so much last night … That had been his undoing. He pulled on his coat, searched the floor for his shoes. ‘I’ve got to go, Clara. I need to find Aylesford before he’s picked up. No doubt they’ll question you as well. Don’t tell them anything.’

She flounced on the bed. ‘What kind of rat do you take me for?’

‘Sorry,’ he said with an apologetic smile. ‘I know you’re no rat.’

‘Hmph.’ She tossed her head. ‘Under the bed.’

‘What?’

‘Your shoes.’

‘Oh.’ Sure enough, there they were … splashed with blood and other stains he preferred not to examine too closely. Quare sat down on the bed and pulled the shoes on over his stockings, then stood.

Clara leaned forward. ‘Give us a kiss before you go, love.’

He obliged. ‘You won’t be seeing me at the Pig and Rooster for a while.’

‘You know where I live. Stop by sometime.’

‘Maybe I will,’ he said; he did not bother to inform her that he had no idea where he was at present – he would discover that soon enough. He paused at the door to belt on his sword. Then, drawing the blade halfway from its scabbard, he noted with a sinking heart that brown streaks of dried blood were clinging to the steel; he would have to clean and oil the weapon as soon as he got back to his lodgings. ‘Have you seen my hat?’ he asked, looking for his black tricorn.

‘Another casualty of the night, I suppose,’ Clara said from the bed. ‘Here , take my cloak, love. You can’t step out like that – you look as if you’ve just come from a murder.’

‘I’m obliged to you.’ He took the dark brown cloak that hung from the back of the door. Though short on him, it covered the worst of the previous night’s leavings. He waved a last goodbye to Clara and hurried out into the morning.

As eager as Quare was to get to the guild hall, where Master Magnus was waiting, no doubt impatiently, to resume their conversation of the day before, and where he hoped as well to hear news of Aylesford and the others, he knew he needed to clean up and change into fresh clothes first. Wrapped in Clara’s cloak, he kept to back streets and alleys as he made his way from her lodgings in Clerkenwell to his own in Cheapside; it made for a longer journey, but he met fewer people along the way, and those he did encounter seemed as shy of attention as he, keeping their heads down and their steps hurried, as if upon urgent business of their own.

It occurred to him that he was not the only one with secrets to hide; it was a peculiar sensation to imagine that everyone he encountered, young and old, rich and poor, had committed some crime or harboured some guilt that, if it were publicly known, would take them to the pillory or to Tyburn. He had often felt himself part of the London mob – known that joyful if also thrillingly perilous sense of belonging to something greater than himself, which buoyed him up and swept him along: a vigorous, industrious, prosperous, high-spirited throng. This was the obverse of that, furtive, skulking, mistrustful … yet still, he realized, a true if heretofore unsuspected aspect of the city, the experience of which he would have gladly forgone. But London was always revealing fresh aspects of itself. He could live here a hundred years, he thought, and still not scrape the bottom of it.

He kept a wary eye out but saw no evidence of undue interest or pursuit from any quarter. So far, his luck was holding.

Guild masters and apprentices alike enjoyed free room and board at the guild hall in Bishopsgate Street, but journeymen were expected to fend for themselves. For the past year, Quare had taken lodgings at a comfortable if somewhat run-down house in Basing Lane, near Cheapside , that catered to journeymen of the Worshipful Company.

Quare surveyed the approach to this establishment from the shadows of an alley across the way. He watched carriages and wagons move along to the cracking of whips and curses as pedlars afoot sang out their wares, everything from candles to flowers to lemons and limes; saw ragged urchins darting quick as starlings up and down the walks, ignored by one and all, while overhead, like flags of battle displayed by a victorious army, ponderous painted wooden signs creaked as they swung, as if stirred by no other wind than that which arose from below, and higher still, from open windows along the street, women leaned out to shout down orders for whatever was needful: in short, all the normal colourful caterwauling that constituted life on Basing Lane or indeed any other London street.

The bells of St Mary-le-Bow began to ring out. Quare started then fished out his pocket watch, which displayed a time of nine minutes to ten. He wound the watch and adjusted the hands, gratified to see that the timepiece was still, as it were, within striking distance of the correct hour. Not that the bells of St Mary’s were to be trusted, exactly, but for the moment they were no doubt a more accurate indication of the proper time than his own neglected watch. He wouldn’t encounter a truly trustworthy timepiece until he reached the guild hall. But this would do for now. Amidst all the irregularities of the morning, and indeed the previous night, this small measure of certainty, however imperfect, was most welcome. Though the reminder that he was late and growing later for his meeting with Master Magnus was not.

Meanwhile, other bells had begun to chime in, adding their disparate voices to the hour. The monumental clocks of London, resident in cathedrals and churches, or presiding over public squares, did not keep a common time. They struck askew, filling the air, as now, with a cacophony made worse by the fact that, while the bells of each clock were tuned to produce a pleasant melody, no thought had been given to the effect of a number of pleasant melodies ringing out on top of each other – which, as it turned out, proved neither pleasant nor melodious. A clockcophony, Master Magnus called it. There had been talk of regulating the striking of the hours, so that only one clock’s bells would be heard at a time, but the owners of the various clocks, who had spent large sums of money in building and maintaining their instruments, fought every proposal. Instead, they vied – with the assistance of the Worshipful Company available to all who could afford it – in making their particular clocks either the first or the last to strike, and this incremental competition, which had been going on for years now, with passions swelling in inverse proportion to the ever-smaller intervals of time involved, had served only to render the bells increasingly useless in what was, after all, their primary function: the imposition of a central temporal authority over the city and its environs. At least, so it seemed to Quare and his fellow guildsmen, whose sensitivity to such things was far more acute than that of even the most time-conscious curate or man of business, men who made use of time but did not, so to speak, inhabit it as Quare and his fellows did.

He could delay no longer. Telling himself that he was being foolishly suspicious, he took a deep breath and came out into the street. Though he felt as if a hundred hostile eyes were following him, he reached the boarding house without incident and entered, only to find himself face to face with his landlady, Mrs Puddinge, who drew back from the door with a small shriek of surprise, her face going as white as her apron. In her fifties, the childless widow of a master in the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers, she was a merry matchstick of a woman who took a lively maternal interest in her ‘young men’, as she called them.

‘Merciful God in heaven, is it you, then, Mr Quare?’ Mrs Puddinge’s brown eyes narrowed beneath her cap as she took in his dishevelled state. ‘Lord bless us, but he told me you were dead!’

‘Dead?’ Quare echoed, the surprise now on his side. ‘What do you mean, Mrs P? Who told you?’

She pursed her lips, giving her face the aspect of a shrivelled prune. ‘Why, your friend and fellow guildsman, Mr Aylesford. He told me there was a brawl last night at the Pig and Rooster. How often have I warned you young men against that den of iniquity?’ Tears sprang to her eyes, and she wrung her hands in the folds of her apron. ‘He told me you were all killed.’

‘All?’ Quare’s brain was reeling.

‘Mr Farthingale, Mr Pickens, Mr Mansfield and yourself.’ She raised the apron to dab at her eyes. ‘He said some young lords started it, and that they were killed as well. Made it sound a regular massacre, he did! And now here you are, a bit worse for wear but still among the living, after all! Why, ’tis a miracle! That’s what it is. A blessed miracle. And the others? Are they also alive and well?’

‘I-I don’t know,’ he stammered, trying to make sense of things. ‘We were separated … When did Mr Aylesford tell you this?’

‘Why, not half an hour ago! The poor lad was beside himself with grieving. Said he’d come straight from the guild hall, with orders to clear out your room before the city watch could trace you here. Seems the masters are afraid of scandal. They know where the blame will fall, with aristocrats and journeymen among the dead!’

An icy quiver ran down his spine. ‘You let Aylesford into my room?’

‘And why would I not? With you dead and him about the business of the Company?’

‘But I’m not dead!’ Nor, Quare was beginning to think, had Aylesford been about Company business – now or ever.

‘Oh, aye, and God be praised for it. But how was I to know that at the time? Go up, Mr Quare, and surprise him! The poor lad will be overjoyed to see you, I’ll warrant. Quite downhearted, he was.’

‘What, is he still here?’

‘Unless he’s gone out by the window. I— merciful heavens!’

Quare pushed past Mrs Puddinge with a hasty apology, mounting the stairs two at a time, then strode down the empty third-floor landing and flung open the door to his room.

It was as empty as the landing. His trunk was open, his things strewn across the floor. Quare crossed to the open window, which gave onto an alley behind the boarding house, but there was no sign of Aylesford below. Cursing under his breath, he turned back to survey the mess Aylesford had left behind … only to see the man himself step from behind the door, closing it with the heel of his boot.

‘Mr Quare, as I live and breathe,’ said Aylesford wonderingly, sword in hand.

‘Not for long,’ said Quare, shrugging out of Clara‘s cloak and drawing his own sword, ‘unless you supply some answers, and quickly. What are you doing here? What happened last night? Where are Pickens and the others?’

‘You have a lot of questions for a dead man.’

‘You are overconfident, sir. You will not find me an easy mark.’ Quare hoped he sounded more certain of that than he felt. Up until yesterday, he had never drawn his sword in earnest. Now, for the third time in as many days, he was facing an armed foe: first Grimalkin, a fight he had been lucky to win, much less survive; then last night, at the Pig and Rooster, a fight he barely remembered; and now, facing a man he felt sure was not what or who he claimed to be.

Aylesford gave a nervous titter. ‘Why, I left you stabbed through the heart in that harlot’s bed! I made sure of it. Are you a ghost, then? I’m not afraid of you! I’ll send you straight back to hell!’

Yet he did not attack, or even step forward. And, Quare noticed, his sword arm was trembling.

But Quare did not move, either. He was trying to construe the man’s words. He remembered what Clara had told him she had witnessed during the night, only it seemed, at least according to Aylesford, that what she had taken for an act of sodomy had in fact been murder. And yet, despite Aylesford’s apparent confusion and fright in encountering him here, alive, Quare couldn’t credit such an outlandish claim. How could he? Stabbed through the heart? It was preposterous, insane. He had no memory of being stabbed or of any struggle whatsoever. It made no sense. A man did not die and then rise again to walk among the living. But then how to explain Aylesford’s seeming certainty or his evident fear? What kind of game was the man playing? ‘You are no journeyman of the Worshipful Company,’ he said, forcing his mind along more reasonable lines of inquiry.

‘ Je suis de la Corporation des maîtres horlogers ,’ Aylesford answered in Scots-accented French, giving the name of the Parisian clockmakers’ guild, great rival to the Worshipful Company.

‘So, you are a traitor to your country and your king,’ Quare said with contempt.

‘My country is Scotland,’ Aylesford replied. ‘And Bonnie Prince Charlie is my king.’ This affirmation seemed to infuse the man with fresh courage, for now, circling his sword point with lethal intent, he came forward.

Quare advanced to meet him. In his rooftop clash with Grimalkin, Quare had let panic overwhelm him, driving out his training in the art of swordplay. Now he resolved to keep a cooler head.

They came together in the centre of the room, a quick exchange of thrusts and parries, each man feeling out the defences of the other.

‘Did you kill Pickens and the others?’ Quare demanded, drawing back.

Aylesford smiled and circled, looking for an opening. ‘With this very blade. In the confusion of the brawl, a quick thrust through the back, with no one the wiser.’

Quare pushed aside his grief and anger. They could not help him now. ‘But why? What wrong had they done you?’

‘’Twas nothing personal. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I saw my chance, and I took it. Are we not at war?’

Quare had eaten and drunk with these men, laughed with them, worked beside them. This news of their cowardly murders stabbed him as surely as any sword. But it was hot anger, not blood, that spilled from the wound. He squeezed the grip of his sword as though it were Aylesford’s scrawny neck. ‘They were journeymen, not soldiers.’

‘They were Englishmen,’ Aylesford answered, as if that explained everything.

Quare snarled and struck at him, coming in with a high thrust and then disengaging the tip of his blade as Aylesford moved to parry. He flicked his wrist, bringing the point around in a cutting motion that slashed down the side of his adversary’s sword arm. Blood bloomed against the white of Aylesford’s sleeve. But even as Quare took satisfaction in the touch, Aylesford’s sword point came flashing in towards his face, and his frantic parry was barely in time to slap the steel aside. The man was devilishly fast. He danced back, only then becoming aware of a burning along the shoulder of his sword arm, right through his coat.

‘Behold, a ghost that bleeds,’ said Aylesford with a wolfish smile.

Quare did not dare shift his eyes to take stock of the wound. ‘And what of me?’ he asked, continuing to circle his blade as he moved to Aylesford’s left. ‘Why did you not kill me with the others?’

‘I would have,’ Aylesford said, turning with him, his sword in line, ‘but when I found you, you were facing down five men in defence of that harlot’s honour – which, I feel sure, is more than she ever did. Still, a woman’s a woman for all that, and no honourable man turns his back on a member of the fairer sex in need. Besides, it was a chance to add a fine gaggle of English lordlings to my night’s tally. Then, once we had dispatched them, the arrival of the watch compelled me to postpone our reckoning again. And, I confess, when it became clear that the wench intended to reward our services with her own, I thought to myself, ‘Why not give the poor sod one last happy memory?’ Ah, my gentle heart will be the death of me! But from what the sow told me, you were too pissed to take advantage. She offered me her bed, and once she dropped off, I clamped one hand over your mouth and with the other drove my dagger between your shoulder blades and into your heart. Do you know, your struggles woke her! Yes, and the wench must have thought we were going at it fine and proper, for she smiled at me in the moonlight and giggled and turned her back to give us a bit of privacy. And what is more, the sight of her bare rump stirred me, sir, indeed it did! I left you dead as a doornail and had my way with her twice – God willing, I planted a Scotsman in her belly. Yet here you are, all lively and disputatious, bleeding like a stuck pig. I confess, I am at a loss to account for it.’

‘You’re a madman. And a murderer. There’s your accounting.’

‘I know what I know,’ Aylesford insisted, and lunged.

Quare parried and counter-thrust. Aylesford knocked his blade aside with a snap of his wrist and riposted, and Quare, realizing a beat too late that he had fallen for a feint and was overextended as a consequence, had to scramble back for dear life. Aylesford came on, his sword a silvery blur. Quare, hard pressed, was backed towards one wall. Sweat poured off him, and he couldn’t help but recall Aylesford’s boast of having fought and won five duels since coming to London; that was one claim he found all too easy to credit. He had no breath left for idle speech, but Aylesford more than made up for the lack. He was one of those fighters who seeks to distract his opponent with words. Quare knew he shouldn’t listen, that he could trust nothing of what he heard, yet the man’s words were as deft as his sword strokes, and more difficult to deflect.

‘Last night, in your cups, you mentioned a clock,’ Aylesford said now, ‘a most wondrous clock. And do you know, it was in quest of just such a timepiece that I was dispatched to London. Here I would find a clock, or so my masters told me, whose secrets, once unravelled, would confer so great an advantage upon whichever side possessed it as to all but guarantee victory upon the battlefield … and beyond. The mechanics of a clock, after all, differ merely in degree, not kind, from those of certain engines of war, and a device that can more accurately measure out minutes and seconds can more rapidly fling shot and more accurately hurl shell. Or perhaps the clock contained a solution to the problem of longitude at long last, conferring supremacy of the seas. Whatever the truth, it was plain that this paragon could not be allowed to remain in English hands. Lord Wichcote had it in his possession until just two nights ago, or so my informants told me – but it had been stolen from him … and by no less a thief than the fabled Grimalkin, come out of retirement expressly for the purpose, apparently! Well, when Grimalkin steals something, it stays stolen. Everyone knows that. It seemed that my mission was a failure before it had scarce begun! So you may imagine my surprise and joy when I chanced upon you last night, sir. A most opportune encounter!’

All the while he spoke, his blade was never still. It darted like a needle, seeming to stitch an invisible net in the air, the strands of which inexorably tightened about Quare, constricting his possible countermoves, like an attack in chess that does not succeed by a lightning strike of checkmate but rather by closing off every avenue of opportunity until only defeat remains, a defeat not so much inflicted as collaborated in. That Aylesford had not drawn blood again seemed less due to Quare’s defensive skills than to a smothering intent which Quare could sense enveloping him but could not comprehend fully enough to escape. It was maddening. He was fighting tactically, Aylesford strategically. He knew it, but the knowledge was no help to him. His wounded shoulder was stiffening up, which was no help, either.

‘From what you let slip,’ Aylesford continued breezily, ‘I realized that the clock must be in the guild hall, in the possession of that aptly named monstrosity, Master Mephistopheles. So, early this morning, with the guild hall in an uproar following news of the tragic deaths of four journeymen in a tavern brawl the night before, I took advantage of the confusion and went in quest of the clock.’

At that, Quare found his tongue again. ‘If you’ve harmed him …’

‘Oh, aye, what then?’ Aylesford mocked. ‘But ’twas not I who harmed him. I could not even find him in that blasted labyrinth! Yet it seems I was not the only one to seek him out. Some Theseus had threaded the maze before me. Or such was the rumour on every man’s lips. Why, even those liveried corpses you employ as servants spoke of little else.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘Is it not clear? Master Minotaur is dead. Someone – I know not who; perhaps Grimalkin himself, or a man dispatched by Lord Wichcote to retrieve his property, or a patriot like myself, or a French assassin; or one of the Old Wolf’s cubs; the man had no shortage of enemies who might wish him dead – visited the cripple in the night and slew him.’

‘You lie,’ Quare said, wishing it to be so but afraid in his heart that the man spoke the truth. Aylesford cast death about him the way other men cast a shadow.

‘I merely report what I heard. I do not vouch for its truth. But with that avenue closed to me, I came here, thinking I might find some clue to the location of the clock, or to its nature, in your belongings, before the watch beat me to it. Imagine, then, my surprise, when I found myself interrupted in my search not by some bumbling Charley but by a man I had left for dead scant hours ago! Ah, well, I suppose I shall just have to be more thorough this time.’

And with that, before Quare could reply, or even react, Aylesford’s blade spun through a dazzling series of moves whose result was to disarm him as easily as he might have plucked a wooden sword from the grip of a child. In the blink of an eye, or so it seemed, the tip of Aylesford’s blade hovered at his throat.

‘I do not think you will rise again from this death,’ Aylesford said with a satisfied smile. ‘But the priests do tell us that confession is good for the soul, Mr Quare. So may it prove for you. Tell me all you know of the clock, and I will make your end quick and painless. Perhaps I will even spare your life.’

‘I would be a fool indeed to believe that,’ Quare rasped, his mouth dry with fatigue and fear. ‘And even if I did, I would not tell you anything. Perhaps you should have questioned me more closely last night, while I was too drunk to guard my tongue. You know – before, as you claim, you killed me.’

Aylesford winced. ‘Aye, ’tis poor spycraft, I’ll grant you, to kill a man first and then put the question to him. My masters tell me I am too impulsive, and I do acknowledge the fault. Clearly I should have made more certain of your demise. But I can’t regret it, since I have the chance now to rectify my mistake. So, I’ll ask you but once more before I begin carving – what do you know of this marvellous clock?’

‘Go to the devil.’

‘Let us see if—’

‘Merciful heavens!’

This exclamation was followed by the sound of smashing crockery. Mrs Puddinge stood in the doorway, gazing at them in horrified dismay, her hands clutching the folds of her white apron. A serving tray and the shards of a teapot and cups lay on the floor at her feet. ‘Mr Aylesford! Mr Quare! What is the meaning of this?’

Taking advantage of the distraction, Quare swung his arm to club Aylesford’s sword point out of line. Before he could recover, Quare darted inside his guard, slamming his good shoulder into the other man’s chest to shove him backward. Aylesford reeled, cursing, a panicky look in his blue eyes. For a moment it seemed he would fall, but somehow he managed to stay on his feet and bring his blade back into play. Yet by that time, Quare had retrieved his own blade from where it had fallen.

‘Gentlemen,’ cried Mrs Puddinge shrilly, her face flushed with anger beneath her white cap, ‘put up your swords this instant! I’ll have no bloodshed here! Why, the very idea!’

‘He’s a French spy,’ Quare snarled out.

‘A spy? Lord help us!’ The landlady raised the hem of her apron to her face and peered wide-eyed over the edge of it as though looking on from behind the safety of a brick wall.

‘Get help, Mrs P – I’ll hold him here!’

‘It will take a better man than you to do that,’ Aylesford answered and rushed past the now-shrieking Mrs Puddinge. Quare started after him , but before he had taken two steps, Aylesford had thrown the hysterical woman into his path. She clung to him as fiercely as a drowning cat to a tree limb. In the moments it took him to calm her sufficiently to, as it were, retract her claws, Aylesford made his escape. As Quare moved to follow, she latched on to him again.

‘Don’t leave me, Mr Quare,’ she begged, shaking like a leaf in a storm.

‘I must make certain Aylesford has fled,’ he answered, disengaging himself from her grasp. ‘Stay here, Mrs P. You’ll be perfectly safe, I assure you.’

She nodded, seemingly incapable of further speech.

Quare edged out through the doorway, alert for an ambush. The landing was empty. At this hour, all the lodgers would be about their business in the guild hall and city. He continued down the stairs and then out of the house, still meeting no one. The street outside, and the broad expanse of Cheapside beyond, were more crowded and bustling than they had been when he had entered the house just moments ago. There was no trace of Aylesford. London had swallowed him up, not caring a whit that the man was no friend to it or to England.

Quare sheathed his blade and made his way back to his room, where he found Mrs Puddinge seated on the bed, wringing her hands together. Her tear-stained face rose fearfully as he entered, and she sprang to her feet. ‘What of Mr Aylesford? Is he …’

‘No sign of him, I’m afraid,’ Quare said. ‘But I doubt he’ll be back.’

‘To think that one of my young men should turn out to be a spy,’ she said.

‘What, do you mean that Aylesford was lodging here?’

She nodded, drying her face with the edge of the apron. ‘Since yesterday evening – Mr Mansfield brought him to me. Poor Mr Mansfield!’ And the tears began flowing again. ‘Oh, Mr Quare,’ she said between sobs, ‘do you suppose it was Mr Aylesford who killed him and the others?’

‘I’m afraid it rather looks that way.’ Quare moved to comfort her, patting her heaving shoulders as she wept into her apron. ‘There, there, Mrs P,’ he said. ‘There, there. You must try to get hold of yourself.’

She nodded, drying her red-rimmed eyes. ‘Such sweet young men,’ she said. ‘Not an ounce of harm in any of them.’ She gave him a bashful, half-embarrassed smile that became a look of concern. ‘Why, you’re wounded, Mr Quare! Your shoulder … You must let me see to it at once!’

‘I’m perfectly well,’ he told her.

‘Nonsense,’ she said, already moving to divest him of his coat.

‘There’s no time for that, Mrs P,’ he said, attempting no more successfully than with Aylesford to keep her at bay. ‘I feel sure the watch will learn of my presence at the Pig and Rooster and come looking for me here. I will speak to them, but not until I have spoken to my masters at the guild and warned them of the spy in our midst. And before I do that, I must have a quick look through Mr Aylesford’s things. Will you take me to his room?’

‘Oh, aye. Just as soon as I’ve seen to that shoulder. Do not struggle so, Mr Quare! I know you are pressed for time, but bleeding to death won’t make things go any quicker. Now, sit down on the bed, sir. Sit, I say!’

Quare sighed grimly and gave himself up to her ministrations. In a flash, she had helped him out of his coat and waistcoat, both of which looked to be quite ruined with blood. The shirt beneath was in even worse shape. After her initial assertiveness, Mrs Puddinge appeared uncertain how to proceed, as if it had been a long time indeed since she had undressed a man.

‘Can you …’ She motioned with her hands, a blush rising to her cheeks.

Quare stripped off the shirt, wincing at the pain in his shoulder. Mrs Puddinge, meanwhile, had gone to a table across the room, where there was a wash basin and a pitcher of water, along with some folded cloths. She filled the basin, grabbed a cloth, and carried them both back to the bed. Setting the basin down beside him, she wet the cloth and began to wipe the blood away. He winced again at her touch, light as it was.

‘There, there, Mr Quare,’ she said as she cleaned the wound, seeming to have recovered from her earlier upset, as if caring for another was the best medicine for what had ailed her. ‘’Tis not so bad, after all. A nasty gash, to be sure, but not a deep one. You’ll not be needing a surgeon to sew it up. Here … Press the cloth to the wound, just there – that’s right. I’m going to fetch some clean cloths to make a bandage. I’ll just be a moment.’

And with that, she bustled out of the room.

Quare got to his feet and crossed to the table from which Mrs Puddinge had taken the wash basin. There was a fly-specked square of mirror hanging frameless on the wall above the table, and Quare now angled himself so as to be able to see his back reflected in the glass. Specifically, the area between his shoulder blades, where Aylesford said he had stabbed him as they lay in Clara’s bed.

The indirect light from the window, coupled with the awkward positioning necessary to see anything useful, defeated him. He groaned in frustration. But he could at least examine his shoulder. Lifting the cloth, he saw a long, shallow gash; a sluggish upwelling of blood accompanied the removal of pressure. No doubt there would be a scar, to go with the one that Grimalkin had given him. He had never imagined that a career in horology would mark him so. He thought of the grizzled old soldiers he had seen in taverns, swapping stories and matching scars over glasses of gin. At this rate, he would soon be joining them.

‘Mr Quare, come back to bed this instant.’

He turned to see Mrs Puddinge glaring at him from the door, her arms bearing enough cloths to swaddle a small army. ‘A man would have to be foolish indeed to reject that invitation,’ he replied rakishly.

She blushed again, but couldn’t suppress a smile. ‘Get along with you.’

Once he was seated on the edge of the bed, she tended to his shoulder with practised efficiency, first cleaning the wound again, then placing a folded cloth over it, which she secured with a long strip of cloth wound about his torso. He had intended to ask her to have a look between his shoulder blades, but, as it turned out, there was no need.

‘Merciful heavens!’ she cried out.

‘What is it?’

‘Why, another wound. A worse one. Much worse! Can you not feel it?’

‘No. Or rather, a slight discomfort only between my shoulder blades, like an annoying itch I cannot scratch.’

‘That would be the scab. Here, let me show you …’ She fetched the mirror down from the wall and returned to the bed, where she held it at such an angle as to give him the clear view he had been unable to acquire for himself.

What he saw both shocked and fascinated; it felt strangely removed from him, or he from it, as though he were looking at someone else’s body, or, as in a dream, gazing down at his own from a superior vantage like a ghost or angel. Nestled between his shoulder blades was a blood-crusted incision no more than an inch long. The skin to either side was as purple as the petals of a violet, yet also streaked with scarlet and yellow and a sickly, algal green. It was a wonder that his fight with Aylesford had not reopened the wound. A clammy sweat broke out on his skin, and he felt as if he’d swallowed a knot of writhing eels.

‘Are you all right, Mr Quare?’ Mrs Puddinge asked in concern at his sudden pallor.

He took a deep breath and looked away. ‘I’m well,’ he said, but the croak of his voice belied it. Obviously, Aylesford had failed to pierce his heart with his knife thrust in the dark. But even so, Quare felt sure that a wound such as this should have done more than merely itch. It seemed the sort of wound one might see upon a corpse. Yet there was not even a twinge of pain. His heart was beating strongly, rapidly, and his lungs had no difficulty drawing breath. He didn’t understand it.

‘I’m afraid that’s beyond my poor skills,’ said Mrs Puddinge, shaking her head. ‘You’ll need a surgeon to sew that up, you will.’

‘I’ll have it seen to at the guild hall,’ he promised; now that he wasn’t looking at the wound, he was able to think more clearly, though the nausea showed no sign of receding. ‘Can you just bind it up for now?’

‘I’ll try, but God help you if it opens again.’ She set to work. ‘This is older than the one on your shoulder,’ she observed as she twined a strip of cloth about his chest. ‘You must’ve got it at the Pig and Rooster, a craven blow from behind, in the midst of the brawl.’

‘No doubt,’ he said. Perhaps it was the sensation of her hands upon the skin of his back, but he began to feel the stirrings of memory; or, rather, it was as if his body remembered what his mind could not. He began to tremble.

‘There, there,’ Mrs Puddinge repeated. ‘Almost done …’

No, it was not memory. More like the way he had seemed, upon being shown the crusted wound, to separate from his own skin. So now did he see in his mind’s eye the stark tableau, lit by moonlight, of himself and Aylesford pressed close on Clara’s bed in a travesty of intimate congress. He seemed to feel the other man’s body cleaving to his own, his hand clamped over his mouth; saw, or imagined that he saw, the wide eyes of Clara gazing at them, and then her knowing smirk as she turned away into shadows and tangled bed-sheets.

He rose to his feet and rushed to the open window, arriving just in time to spew the contents of his stomach into the alley below. Ignoring Mrs Puddinge, who, after an initial exclamation, had hurried to stand at his side, one hand stroking his arm, her touch like sandpaper despite her kindly intent, he leaned forward, arms bracing himself on the sill, closed his eyes, and let the cool city air – carrying its quotidian stinks of coal smoke and river stench and the waste of animals and human beings, odours that had sickened him during his first days and weeks in London, but which were now as familiar as the smells of his own body, and as reassuring – play over his face and torso. He was alive, damn it. Despite Aylesford’s efforts. And he had work to do.

Taking a breath, he straightened and pulled away from Mrs Puddinge. ‘I’d better have a look at Aylesford’s room,’ he said.

‘Shouldn’t I call for a doctor, after all?’ she asked, concern in her voice and in her eyes.

He shook his head. ‘Please, Mrs P. I’ve no time to argue.’ He crossed the room and pulled a clean shirt from amidst the scattered pieces of clothing Aylesford had strewn about in the course of ransacking his trunk. ‘There is more at stake here than one man’s health. At any rate, as I told you, I’m perfectly well.’ He turned away from her and drew the shirt over his head with a grimace, but schooled his expression to equanimity when he faced her again. ‘Now, if you will lead the way …’

‘Perfectly well, he says,’ Mrs Puddinge muttered as she preceded him out of the room, down the still-empty landing and up to the fourth floor. ‘With a hole in his back and a shoulder sliced open like a side of roast beef.’ She stopped before a door, produced her ring of keys from somewhere beneath her apron, and glared up at him. ‘You’re not a well man, Mr Quare. Deny it all you like, but the longer you do, the worse price you’ll pay. Heed your stomach, sir. It’s wiser than you are.’

‘The door, if you please, Mrs P.’

Scowling, she fitted the key to the lock. ‘Why, it’s unlocked!’ She pushed the door open. ‘Here you go, then, Mr Quare. I hope you find enough to hang—’

She broke off, and Quare pushed past her into the room, his hand on the pommel of his sword.

The room was empty, which was no more than he had expected. But it was not simply empty of Aylesford – it was empty of all trace of the man.

‘Why, his things … they’re gone!’ Mrs Puddinge said from just behind him.

‘What things?’ he asked, turning to her.

‘He had a small trunk that he carried in on his shoulder last evening,’ Mrs Puddinge said. ‘It was still here this morning – I’m sure of it. He … Oh, dear Lord in heaven!’ She looked as if she might faint, and Quare reached out to steady her. ‘There on the floor!’ She pointed with the hand that held the keys; they rattled with her shaking. ‘Blood, Mr Quare! He must’ve come back here after he fled your room! He must’ve come back here and waited until you had satisfied yourself that he was gone from the house! Then, when you returned to your room, he must have taken his trunk and crept out of here as quiet as a mouse!’

Quare felt close to fainting himself. Mrs Puddinge was right. The drops of blood on the wooden slats of the floor confirmed it. He’d assumed that Aylesford had escaped into the bustling streets, but instead he’d retired here, to this room, biding his time until Quare had given up the chase. Then – he could picture it as clearly in his mind as if he’d witnessed it himself – he’d hoisted his trunk onto his shoulder and left … along with any evidence that might incriminate him or shed light on his mission. Quare cursed – he had badly misplayed the situation. Master Magnus would not be pleased.

Master Magnus!

Aylesford had said the master was dead. Murdered in the night, like Mansfield and the rest. Quayle prayed to God that it was a lie, but he was forced to admit that everything Aylesford had told him this morning had thus far turned out to be true. He had to get to the guild hall.

Mrs Puddinge, meanwhile, was edging into hysterics. ‘Why, he could have slipped back into your room while you were searching the street outside and slit my throat! Or when I went to fetch bandages, I might have met him in the hall or on the stairs, and what then? Oh, Mr Quare, he might still be lurking about, waiting for the chance to finish me off!’

‘I’m sure he’s not,’ said Quare. ‘He’s gone to report back to his masters, just as I must do.’

‘No,’ she shrieked, grabbing hold of his arm. ‘You can’t leave me! He’ll kill me, he will! Just as he did those poor young men!’

‘Mrs Puddinge,’ Quare said as forcefully and yet calmly as he could, ‘Aylesford has no interest in harming you, I assure you.’

‘Oh, aye, like you assured me I would be perfectly safe when you went gallivanting off after him!’

Quare felt his cheeks flush. Damn it, the woman was right. He had left her in danger. Once again, as in his confrontation with Grimalkin, he was forced to admit that he was ill-prepared for this game in which he suddenly found himself immersed right up to his eyeballs. He knew that he was lucky to have survived this long. And, no thanks to him, so was Mrs Puddinge. Nevertheless, he felt certain that Aylesford was long gone, and that Mrs Puddinge was in no further danger. ‘It’s me that he’s after,’ he told her now. ‘But if it will set your mind at ease, I’ll look for other lodgings as soon as I’ve spoken to my masters.’

‘What, so that you can put some other innocent at risk? But even if you were to move out, Mr Quare, he still knows that I know he’s a French spy,’ Mrs Puddinge pointed out, not unreasonably. ‘He’ll still have cause enough to want me dead!’

‘Once I’ve exposed him, the whole guild will know – and my masters will see that the news reaches the ear of Mr Pitt himself. Will Aylesford kill us all, then? Don’t you see, Mrs P? The more people who know, the safer we are. Your surest protection lies in my getting to the guild hall!’

She pondered this for a moment, then nodded, a look of steely determination on her face, where, just a moment ago, he had seen only terror. ‘I’m going, too, Mr Quare.’ And, before he could object: ‘I won’t sit here all alone, waiting patiently for my throat to be cut. Say what you will, but you can’t know for certain that he’s not lurking about somewhere close by, watching and waiting like a cat at a mouse hole. As long as he sees that we’re together, he’ll not dare to strike. And if he sees us both go to the guild hall, he’ll know the jig is up, and that it will avail him nothing to creep back here in the dead of night and silence me.’

Quare could not fault the woman’s logic. ‘Very well, but we must make haste. Give me a moment to clean myself up and finish dressing, and we’ll go together.’

‘I’m not letting you out of my sight,’ she declared.

In the end, he prevailed upon her to allow him a modicum of privacy, standing with her arms crossed and her back to him just outside his cracked-open door. After dumping the bloody water out of the window and refilling the wash basin with the last of the fresh water from the pitcher, he undressed and hurriedly wiped the worst of the blood, grime, and sweat from his skin, shivering all the while. Then he dressed more quickly still, pulling fresh linen and clothes from the floor. He drew his hair back in a tight queue. His coat, if it were even salvageable, which he doubted, required more time and attention than he could spare just now, and so he wore only a waistcoat, once blue but now so threadbare and faded that it merely aspired to that colour. He tucked his spare hat, a battered tricorn, under one arm.

‘Well?’ he demanded of Mrs Puddinge at last. ‘How do I look?’ He did not want to draw unnecessary attention on the streets.

She opened the door fully and regarded him with a critical eye. ‘I shouldn’t care to present you to His Majesty,’ she said at last, ‘but I suppose it could be worse. Have you no spare coat?’

‘Such luxuries are beyond a journeyman’s purse, Mrs P.’

‘Why, ’tis no luxury! Here, now, I’ve still got my husband’s second-best coat – I buried him in his best, God bless his bones. I believe it will fit you very well indeed. Come along while I fetch it.’

So saying, she started off down the landing; her own rooms were on the ground floor of the house. Quare closed and locked the door to his room and followed her. At the top of the stairs, she paused and waited for him to catch up. ‘I’ll feel safer if you go first, Mr Quare.’

He nodded and slipped past her, descending with caution, his hand on the pommel of his sword. But, as before, he encountered no one. Mrs Puddinge unlocked the door to her private chambers, and again Quare preceded her inside, checking to make sure Aylesford was not hiding there. Only when he had searched every inch, including under the bed, did she deign to enter. Then, brisk about her business, she bustled to a trunk, threw it open, rummaged inside and drew forth a drab brownish grey monstrosity of a coat. This relic of a bygone age she unfolded and let hang from one hand while beating the dust from it with the other. Quare found it difficult to believe this garment had been anyone’s second-best anything. He would have been embarrassed to see another person wearing it, let alone himself. It seemed to have been stitched together from the skins of dried mushrooms. He sneezed, then sneezed again more violently, as an odour reached him, redolent of the ground if not the grave.

‘Here you go, Mr Quare,’ said Mrs Puddinge, advancing towards him with the mouldering coat extended before her like a weapon. ‘Not the height of fashion, I know, but sufficient unto the day, eh?’

He eyed the thing with something like horror. ‘Er, I can see how much the coat means to you, Mrs P. As a keepsake of your late husband, that is. I couldn’t possibly take it.’

‘Stuff and nonsense,’ she insisted. ‘I won’t have one of my young men walking about the streets without a coat. What will people think?’ She pressed it upon him again, and, after setting his tricorn upon his head, he reluctantly took it.

‘Got a bit of a smell,’ he suggested, holding his breath.

‘Beggars can’t be choosers, Mr Quare,’ she responded, as if offended by his observation.

Quare bowed to the inevitable with a sigh. He advanced his arms through the sleeves, half expecting to encounter a mouse or spider. Perhaps a colony of moths. The coat proved to be a trifle large, even roomy. It settled heavily across his shoulders, and the stench of it was like a further weight. He didn’t think he could bear it. Yet before he could say another word, there came a sharp rapping at the front door of the house.

Mrs Puddinge shot him a fearful look.

‘That must be the watch or, worse, the redbreasts,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Quick, Mrs P – you delay them, and I’ll go out through the window. You can stay here; you’ll be safe with these men.’

‘I’ll do no such thing!’ Even as she spoke, she was crossing the room to a casement window looking out on the same alley as the window in his room above. She quickly threw it open, then turned to him as another round of hammering began at the front door. ‘We’ve no time to argue, Mr Quare. Are you coming or not?’

Again he seemed to have no choice but to accede. Beneath her matronly exterior, Mrs Puddinge was a force to be reckoned with. Quare helped her over the sill and out of the window, then followed, pushing the glass-paned wings closed again behind him.

It was a chill, grey day, with more than a taste of encroaching autumn. Despite the lateness of the hour – nearly eleven by his watch – tendrils of fog snaked through the air, obscuring the sun and congealing in pockets along the cobbled pavement of the alley.

‘What now, Mr Quare?’ Mrs Puddinge asked, eyes shining beneath her bonnet, for all the world like a girl swept up in a childhood game.

‘Now we make for the guild hall,’ he said in a low voice. ‘We’ll go this way, up the alley, away from your house. Once we reach Cheapside, we’ll blend in with the flow. Just act naturally, Mrs P. Don’t hurry or do anything that might draw unwanted attention.’

‘I confess I am rather enjoying this,’ she confided as they walked up the alley side by side, avoiding as best they could the night’s detritus thrown from upper storeys. The stench was enough to make him glad of the second-best coat, whose dank odour, however unpleasant, was preferable to that of offal and excrement. ‘Why, it’s as if it were five years ago, and Mr Puddinge still among the living! Many the morning I would walk him to the guild hall, he wearing the very coat you have on now, the two of us talking of everything and of nothing, happy as two peas in a pod!’ As they reached the end of the alley and turned into the bustling thoroughfare beyond, she slipped her arm through his, giving him a warm smile, which he could not help but return.

But his own thoughts were far from dwelling on happier days of yore. Instead, they were all on what news he would find at the guild hall. Was Master Magnus really dead? He could not imagine a world without that outsized personality and quicksilver mind trapped in its stunted, misshapen body. As an orphan with no memory of his parents, Quare had been raised in a Dorchester workhouse, and from there, to his great good fortune, had gone in an apprenticeship to Robert Halsted, who had initiated him into the clockmaker’s art … and whose wife , some years later, had initiated him into other, equally pleasurable arts. The couple had been kind to him, and generous, but he had at no point thought of them as substitutes for the parents he had never known yet often fantasized about, especially at night, when he lay abed unable to sleep, his fellow apprentice, Jim Grimsby, snoring and snuffling beside him like a hibernating bear. Then he would feel his loneliness most keenly and imagine himself surrounded by a loving family, or, in his more melancholic moments, as having been stolen away from his parents, a lord and his lady who had never ceased to search for him and would one day sweep him up in their arms and return him to his rightful place as heir to a title and the fortune that went with it.

Quare had given up such fancies long ago. He knew that no such life would be restored to him, even if he had once briefly possessed it – which, of course, he hadn’t. He had long since come to accept that the only life he would have was what he made for himself, fashioned from the materials at hand with what skills he could master, assembling it piece by piece as if it were a kind of clock, one that would take an entire lifetime to finish. And in that respect, it was Master Magnus who stood in the nearest approximation of a father to him. Or, not quite a paternal influence, but an avuncular one. It was Master Magnus, not some mythical knight or lordship in shining armour, who had rescued him from Dorchester: a journeyman passing through town had brought the master a report of his horological skills, the master had come himself to inspect his work, and afterwards, Halsted had released Quare into his care. Master Magnus had struck him at the time as both frightening and comic, like a figure out of a fairy tale, Tom Tit Tot sprung to life. He hadn’t realized then what a singular occurrence it was for Master Magnus to travel out of London to fetch a new apprentice, nor had he appreciated the agony the master had endured in the simple act of travelling the hundred-odd miles between London and Dorchester in a carriage that rattled his bones like dice in a cup. That Master Magnus was an orphan – to Quare’s way of thinking, kissing-cousin to bastardy – constituted another bond between them. This was never talked about; indeed, sometimes months would pass in which he did not catch a glimpse of the man, much less exchange a word with him – even longer once he had attained the rank of journeyman. Yet Quare was always somehow aware that Master Magnus was keeping an eye on him and had his future in mind – as proved to be the case when, just over a year ago, the master had recruited him into the ranks of the regulators.

But it was not just gratitude for all that Master Magnus had done on his behalf that made Quare’s heart ache with apprehension. He had embraced the master’s plan without knowing its full extent, and now, like it or not, he was stuck in the middle of it, like a man crossing a flooded stream who finds himself in higher waters than he’d anticipated. It was too late to return to the safe shore from which he’d started; he could only press forward, into waters that might well sweep him away. He had lied to the Old Wolf, lost his place among the regulators, put his reputation and his hopes for advancement into the hands of a man who on the authority of a confessed murderer was now dead. And where would that leave Quare, who had always tried to cut an inconspicuous course through the treacherous shoals of guild politics? He feared that, without the master’s protection, he would be expelled from the Worshipful Company or at best discarded, relegated to some backward sinecure, a small town far from London, where he would be permitted to open a shop but would never again taste the excitement of life so near to the centre of things. Nor, without the assistance of the master’s intelligence network, would he ever learn the identity of his father.

And what of the watch he had taken from Grimalkin, the beautiful but deadly hunter with its bone-white workings and evident thirst for blood? Who else but Master Magnus could decipher its secrets? The mystery of it lay at the heart of everything that had happened. It was the reason Aylesford had been dispatched to London in the first place, the reason for the murder of his friends and the others Aylesford had killed, the reason Aylesford had lain close behind him in Clara’s bed and slipped a knife between his shoulder blades. And it was the reason, too, that he had survived what should have been a mortal wound.

Quare knew this without question, deep in his bones. He had seen the hole punched into his back, the flowering bruise and scab. How, after the violation of such a stabbing, could he be walking now, heart beating , lungs drawing air? It was, he knew, a pure impossibility. Yet equally impossible was a pocket watch that derived its motive energy from blood and was capable of killing a roomful of cats in the blink of an eye. That these two impossible things should not be linked as closely as effect and cause struck Quare as a third, and even greater, impossibility.

Somehow, when the watch had drunk his blood, it had done something to him, changed his inner workings. There was no other explanation. Yet what the change consisted of, he could not say. Certainly it had not rendered him impervious to injury, as his wounded leg and shoulder both reminded him at every step. What then? It was a mystery as profound as that of the watch itself. Quare considered himself to be a man of science, of reason, but this went far beyond any science or reason that he knew of or could even imagine. It was as if objects had begun to fall upwards in his vicinity, the laws of Nature, and of Nature’s God, suddenly and arbitrarily set aside. And what of Grimalkin, who sought the watch for her own purposes, and had tracked him down on the basis of some asserted sanguinary bond to demand or rather beg his assistance in stealing back the very object he had stolen from her in the first place? What had happened to her? Where had she disappeared to … and why, if she were looking out for him, as she had implied, had she not helped him in turn, when he was most in need of it? The whole business was disturbing on a number of levels, from the physical to the metaphysical.

To Quare’s relief, he and Mrs Puddinge arrived at the guild hall without incident. He had chosen a somewhat roundabout route for the journey, via Bread Street, Milk Street, Aldermanbury and Jasper Street, thence to London Wall and eastward to Wormwood Street, but approaching now down crowded Bishopsgate Street he had a good view of the venerable Gothic-style building with its broad front steps, thick wooden double doors, and, presiding over the façade from above, the great turret clock built by Thomas Tompion more than fifty years ago to replace the clock that had been there since long before the guild was founded, it having been decided around the turn of the century that the timepiece which was, as it were, the public face of the Worshipful Company should at least be seen to keep accurate time. Tompion’s clock, known affectionately as Old Tom, with its hourly parade of fanciful figures from fairy tales, mythology, and the Bible, all somehow related to time – cowled Death with his hourglass and scythe; Joshua commanding the sun to stand still; the christening of Sleeping Beauty, with the twelve invited fairies, and the unlucky thirteenth, clustered around the cradle – presented a marvellous spectacle to the eye but was equally marvellous in what was hidden from public view: a double three-legged gravity escapement, one of the many horological innovations jealously hoarded by the guild – a secret technology which, even after more than half a century, had yet to pass into common knowledge. That, Quare thought now, and not for the first time, was a perfect allegory for the guild itself: a beautiful exterior concealing something wondrous made ugly – the avariciousness with which the masters sat atop their piled treasures like cold-blooded dragons coiled on heaps of stolen gold.

He did not advance straight to the hall but spent some moments observing its environs from what he judged a safe distance, looking for any sign that men of the watch were lying in wait. He saw nothing that raised his suspicions, only the everyday hustle and bustle. Mrs Puddinge urged him forward, afraid that Aylesford might take this final opportunity to prevent them from reaching their goal, and at last he bowed to her impatience, and to his own, and led her across the crowded thoroughfare, weaving with practised ease through the noisy flow of pedestrians, carriages and carts, Mrs Puddinge clasping his arm with one hand while, with the other, she lifted her skirts above the appalling filth of the cobblestones.

Quare more than half expected to hear a shouted demand to halt, or to feel a hand clamp down on his shoulder from behind, but no one interfered as they climbed the steps to the front doors. The entrance of the hall was open to all, and thus there was no need to knock; he pushed one of the double doors open and strode into a gloomy, cavernous space, like the nave of a cathedral, in which stalls for the sale and repair of clocks and watches did a brisk business by candlelight and what drab illumination filtered through tall lancet windows high above, the glass of which, though daily cleaned by apprentices, seemed always coated with coal dust and grime.

A swell of murmurous voices echoed in the chill air. In lulls of conversation , Quare heard the ticking of a host of clocks, a welcome sound under the circumstances even though there was scant agreement between them, like a roomful of pedants talking past each other in urgent whispers. Here, too, the Charleys could have been waiting, but even if they had been – which did not seem to be the case – they could not touch him; the Worshipful Company had been granted certain privileges in its charter, prerogatives that it clung to as jealously as it clung to its hoard of secrets, if not more so, and by those terms it was the Worshipful Company, not the city watch, that, at least initially, exercised legal authority over its own members within the environs of the guild hall. Even had the watch been present, and tried to question him, the guild would not have permitted it. He was safe here, among his brothers, his family. He felt a weight slip from his shoulders.

‘The moneychangers in the temple,’ said Mrs Puddinge in a low voice beside him as they crossed the space to the far side, where another door barred the way to the inner reaches of the hall.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Quare glanced down at her, surprised at the vehemence in her tone. She was surveying the stalls with evident disapproval.

‘That’s what Mr Puddinge called them,’ she told him with a self-conscious smile. ‘He thought the guild hall should be free of commerce, that at least here, within these walls, the Worshipful Company should be more, well, worshipful .’

‘Sounds like a man after my own heart, Mrs P.’

She gave his arm a companionable squeeze.

‘Strange,’ he said, dropping his own voice. ‘Everything seems so normal, does it not?’

‘Yes, I was noticing that,’ she agreed. ‘Do you suppose Mr Aylesford was lying about everything? That no one has died after all?’

‘We shall soon learn the truth of it,’ he said.

As they crossed the floor, Quare saw a number of journeymen and apprentices known to him, men and boys he would ordinarily have stopped and spoken to, for this antechamber of the guild hall was a great place for gossip and socializing. But now the urgency he felt in communicating what he had learned of Aylesford, along with his need to know Master Magnus’s fate, impelled him past his acquaintances with nothing more than a nod and a searching glance. He found it odd, however, that not one of his fellows attempted to address him, and that few of them would meet his gaze … and when they did, there was an unaccustomed hardness in their eyes, a kind of reproach that filled him with misgivings. Behind them, he heard fresh whisperings, like dry leaves stirred up in the wake of a breeze. The skin at the back of his neck prickled. Mrs Puddinge seemed to sense it, too, for she grew silent and tightened her grip on his arm.

They drew up to the inner door, and Quare knocked – admittance beyond this point was reserved to guild members. The door opened, and a liveried servant asked him his business, his powdered face expressionless; even his voice seemed dusted with powder.

‘I’ve urgent business with Master Magnus,’ he said. ‘He’s expecting me.’

The man bowed and stepped aside. Quare could not tell if this action constituted an implicit refutation of Aylesford’s claims or not. He made to enter; then, considering, paused on the threshold and turned to Mrs Puddinge. ‘I’m afraid you can’t accompany me any further, Mrs P,’ he said. ‘But if it will make you feel better, I’ll ask the masters to send another journeyman to escort you safely home.’

‘Very kind of you, I’m sure, Mr Quare,’ she said, ‘but I didn’t come all this way just to turn back now. I mean to see justice done.’

‘But—’

‘I’m known here,’ Mrs Puddinge stated. ‘As the widow of a master, it’s my right to enter the guild hall. Why, I’d like to see anyone try to stop me!’ This with a challenging glare at the liveried servant, who showed as much reaction as if she had addressed a brick wall.

Quare shrugged and gestured for her to precede him, not at all convinced the servant would not step up to bar her way. But she bustled past the man without difficulty.

‘Come along, Mr Quare,’ she commanded, glancing back over her shoulder.

Marvelling, Quare stepped through the door.

At once, to his utter surprise and confusion, strong hands took hold of him. It was the servant, and another, indistinguishable from the first, who had been lurking, unseen, behind the door, which now swung shut with a bang.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ he demanded, too shocked even to struggle in the grasp of the two men. ‘Release me at once! When Master Magnus hears of this—’

Mrs Puddinge interrupted him. ‘Master Mephistopheles can’t protect you now, Mr Quare.’ Reaching forward, she deftly unbelted his rapier and its scabbard. Then, addressing the servants in an imperious tone he had not heard from her before: ‘Fetch him along, you two. We mustn’t keep Sir Thaddeus waiting.’

6 Gears Within Gears

QUARE FELT AS if he had entered into an oppressive dream as the two servants frogmarched him through empty corridors. Mrs Puddinge preceded them in frosty silence, navigating the maze of the guild hall with an assurance that bespoke considerable familiarity. Quare held his tongue as well; in truth, speech was beyond him. He’d walked these hallways just yesterday, feeling himself judged and found wanting by the dour-faced portraits looking down from the walls. Now that gloomy gallery seemed to regard him with outright hostility. So, too, the servants who had bent his arms behind his back and held them in a grip of iron as they impelled him – rather more roughly than necessary, he thought – in Mrs Puddinge’s wake. What was happening? Why was he being brought to the Old Wolf in a manner more befitting a criminal than a journeyman of the guild? And how was it that Mrs Puddinge, of all people, had ordered the servants to lay hold of him … and been obeyed without hesitation?

Mrs Puddinge did not pause to knock at the door to Grandmaster Wolfe’s study but pushed it open and strode inside. The servants bustled Quare across the threshold behind her. The room was as sweltering as ever, yet Quare perceived a distinct chill in the air.

The Old Wolf sat behind his desk as if he had not risen from it since Quare had last seen him. He took a long-stemmed clay pipe from his lips and exhaled a dense cloud of smoke, through which he gazed at Quare as balefully as a dragon. Mrs Puddinge, meanwhile, still holding his sword and scabbard, crossed the room to the Old Wolf’s side and bent low to whisper into his ear. Quare felt his arms released; rubbing them briskly, he glanced back to see that the two servants had taken positions to either side of the now-closed door. They stared ahead like twin statues. Then the rumble of Grandmaster Wolfe’s voice pulled his gaze forward again.

‘Well, Mr Quare, it would appear that you’ve had quite a busy night and morning. What do you have to say for yourself, sir?’

‘I-I’ve come to warn you,’ Quare stammered, removing his tricorn and tucking it under his arm. He scarcely knew where to begin. He had so much to tell, so many questions to ask. Mrs Puddinge, standing beside the grandmaster’s chair with her arms crossed over her chest – she had laid his weapon upon the desk – gazed at him inscrutably. He marshalled his thoughts. ‘The French have sent a spy among us – a spy and a murderer. Aylesford, a journeyman claiming to be from Scotland, a man who—’

‘Yes, yes, we know all about Mr Aylesford,’ interrupted the Old Wolf, giving his pipe an airy wave. ‘Master Magnus was not the only one with a network of spies and informants, you know.’

Mrs Puddinge gave a satisfied smirk.

But Quare was not concerned with Mrs Puddinge at the moment. ‘Was,’ he echoed dully. ‘You said was . Is Master Magnus dead then?’

‘Dead?’ repeated Grandmaster Wolfe. ‘Regrettably, yes.’ Though if there was an iota of actual regret in his tone, Quare couldn’t hear it. ‘Murdered, in fact. But then, that is not news to you, is it, Mr Quare? Don’t bother to lie – I can see right through you, sir.’

In truth, it was no more than Quare had feared – yet that fear hadn’t prepared him for the reality. A kind of shudder seemed to pass through the floor, as if he were standing on the deck of a ship. Or perhaps the unsteadiness was his own. In any case, it was a moment before he felt in sufficient command of himself to reply. ‘I had heard … That is, Aylesford said …’ He paused to clear his throat. ‘Aylesford told me Master Magnus was dead. Said that he’d come to do the job himself, but that someone had beaten him to it.’

‘I don’t suppose he mentioned a name.’

‘No. But tell me, sir, how did he die? Who found him?’

‘You were working closely with him, were you not?’

‘Indeed, we were very close. That is why I wish to know—’

The Old Wolf overrode him. ‘You were present, I believe, at what the wits of the Worshipful Company have dubbed the Massacre of the Cats?’

Quare gave a wary nod.

‘And that unfortunate event, unless I am gravely misinformed, had something to do with an unusual timepiece, a pocket watch – this pocket watch, in fact.’ At which, with a triumphant flourish, he pulled from beneath the desk the silver-cased hunter that was at the centre of all that had occurred.

So, Quare thought with a sinking heart, despite all the efforts of Master Magnus to keep the watch out of his rival’s hands, Grandmaster Wolfe had ended up with it anyway. And now, he realized further, his own role in deceiving the grandmaster must come to light. He did not know what the repercussions would be, but he did not doubt they would be severe. This was not the time to mourn his master. Nor to solve the mystery of his death. His own life might well be hanging in the balance. He must weigh every word with the utmost care.

‘Well, Mr Quare? Do you recognize this watch? It was found in Master Magnus’s hand, clutched so tightly in death that, I regret to say, his fingers had to be broken in order to extract it.’

‘I …’ How much should he admit to? How much did the Old Wolf already know? ‘I may have seen it before …’

‘Do not fence with me, sir,’ barked Grandmaster Wolfe. ‘This is the very timepiece that you took from Grimalkin, is it not? The timepiece that originally belonged to Lord Wichcote?’

Quare sighed; it seemed he had no choice now but to reveal the truth – or, at least, that portion of the truth which was known to him. ‘Yes, though I didn’t realize it at the time. That timepiece – the one you are holding, I mean – was hidden within the one I took from Grimalkin. Or so Master Magnus told me.’ He judged it best to say nothing yet of Grimalkin’s gender.

‘And what of the clock you brought to me, sir?’

‘Master Magnus gave it to me.’

‘And the story that went with it?’

‘Master Magnus provided that as well.’

‘I see. Both were counterfeit, then. I will hear the true story of what took place on that night from you, Mr Quare. But first, you will explain to me why Master Magnus took such extraordinary precautions to keep this watch from me. For I have examined it, and in truth I find it baffling. It seems no more than a model, a toy. Exquisitely crafted, to be sure. But useless as a means of telling time. Yet it was coveted by Lord Wichcote, Grimalkin, and Master Magnus – three men uncommonly well versed in the horological arts, whatever else one may say about them. The French, too, desired it, and dispatched Mr Aylesford to acquire it for them, by hook or by crook. Shall I tell you what I believe? If this hunter does not tell the time, then it must perform some other function – and somehow that function must be related to the Massacre of the Cats. It is, in short, despite its appearance, a weapon of some kind. A weapon with the potential to win the war for whichever side possesses it – for what may kill a cat may kill a man as well. Have I struck close to the mark, sir?’

‘I do not know,’ Quare answered. ‘I cannot explain the purpose of that watch. I do not know the secret of its functioning. If Master Magnus knew these things, he did not share them with me.’

‘You would do well to reconsider your loyalty to that man,’ said the Old Wolf, frowning. ‘He cannot protect you any longer – you must shift for yourself now, sir. Master Magnus had a duty to turn over this timepiece to me immediately. Yet he did not. What am I to think of that? What is Mr Pitt to think of it?’ He held up a hand to forestall any response. ‘Now you come to me with news of a French spy in our midst – Thomas Aylesford, to be precise. A man who is implicated in the murders of three journeymen of this guild, as well as in the deaths of some young noblemen who had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. You yourself are wanted for questioning in the matter of these killings. Yes, I know all about your disgraceful exploits at the Pig and Rooster. I will be blunt, sir. Some suspect that Aylesford was not the only spy among us. That he had accomplices. Master Magnus, for one. And yourself, for another.’

‘What? That’s absurd!’ Quare exclaimed in disbelief. ‘Why, the man tried to kill me! Mrs Puddinge, you were there – you saw it!’

Mrs Puddinge shrugged and gave a tight-lipped smile, then addressed the Old Wolf. ‘I saw the two of ’em fighting, true enough, Sir Thaddeus, but I don’t know what caused the quarrel. I have only Mr Quare’s word for that. Perhaps they had a falling out.’

‘I didn’t even know the man before yesterday,’ protested Quare. ‘I met him for the first time last night at the Pig and Rooster – Mansfield brought him. Yet you don’t suggest Mansfield was a spy!’

‘We are looking into Mansfield, never fear, as we are everyone who had aught to do with Aylesford. But Mansfield is dead. You, sir, are alive.’

‘You say that as if it were a piece of evidence against me.’

‘As well it might be. But surely you can prove your innocence, Mr Quare … if, that is, you are innocent as you claim.’

‘I’m no spy,’ he repeated. ‘I’m a loyal Englishman. As was Master Magnus.’

‘Are you so sure of that? Sure enough to bet your life on it? I do not think you are sufficiently aware of your position, sir. Five young noblemen were slain last night. Witnesses have placed you at the scene, in the very thick of the brawl. Already, powerful voices are clamouring for your death. It is only with difficulty that I have been able to protect you. But that protection cannot last for ever. Either you will tell me the truth now, or we shall see how you fare in the hands of the watch. You will find their methods crude, but quite persuasive.’

Now anger crept into Quare’s voice. He was no less afraid, but he did not like being threatened. ‘I’ve told you the truth, Sir Thaddeus. I do not know the secret of that watch. And if Master Magnus knew it, he did not reveal it to me. Nor do I know why he kept the watch from you, unless it was part of some scheme he had to take your place at the head of the Worshipful Company.’

‘I can well believe that he sought my place. He was a brilliant man but also a vain and bitter one, always seeking to rise above his station and supplant his betters. But that is merely a slice of truth, not the whole pie. You can do better.’

‘You don’t want the truth,’ Quare said as understanding dawned. ‘You wish me to accuse Master Magnus. To testify against him. That is the price of my life, is it not?’

The Old Wolf sighed. ‘You are not going to climb on your high horse again, are you, Mr Quare? How tedious. More is at stake here than you realize. The war is not going well. Even now, the French prepare an invasion fleet – a fleet that will make the Spanish Armada look like an afternoon boating party on the Thames. There are rumours that Bonnie Prince Charlie will soon land once more in Scotland, if he is not there already, to rally an army of rebels to his cause – a distraction His Majesty can ill afford at present. In the midst of all this, a watch comes into our possession – a weapon, rather – which, properly understood, promises to be of more value than a thousand cannon. Yet instead of turning this marvellous weapon over to myself or Mr Pitt, Master Magnus keeps it for himself. And, with the aid of an accomplice – that would be you, sir – concocts a story to cover his tracks. I ask you, are those the actions of a loyal Englishman?’

‘He wasn’t keeping it for himself,’ Quare insisted.

‘For whom, then? Aylesford? Or was he in league with Grimalkin after all?’

‘You misconstrue my words, Sir Thaddeus. He merely wished to study it. To understand it before passing it on to Mr Pitt. What you call the Massacre of the Cats was an accident. The last I saw him, Master Magnus had no understanding of how it had happened. You see this watch as the answer to all our problems, a way to reverse the tide of the war. You think that it can be used to massacre men instead of cats. And you may be right. But consider this, Sir Thaddeus. That watch killed dozens of cats in the blink of an eye, by a means that neither Master Magnus nor myself could discern, let alone comprehend … and even less control. We did not direct its deadly effects; they could just as easily have struck us down. That watch is dangerous, sir. Too dangerous to be waved around like a loaded pistol.’

Grandmaster Wolfe’s florid features blanched, and he lowered the timepiece to the top of his desk with one hand while the other replaced his still-smoking pipe in its stand. Mrs Puddinge’s smug expression dissolved into a look of nervous apprehension, and she stepped away from the Old Wolf as if he had just laid down a hissing grenado.

‘Are you saying that we could be struck down at any moment?’ the grandmaster demanded.

Quare shook his head, once again remembering Grimalkin’s warning, which seemed to be coming true with a vengeance. ‘I’m saying I do not know. And that it is foolish to tempt fate by poking about in a science – if indeed it is a science – beyond our understanding.’

‘You surprise me, Mr Quare. I thought you a man of reason. What is this watch, then, if not an instrument of science? Some kind of magic talisman, perhaps?’ He gave a scornful laugh. ‘Was Master Magnus dabbling in witchcraft?’

‘Witchcraft?’ echoed Mrs Puddinge with a little shriek. ‘God preserve us! I always knew that horrid man was up to no good. Anyone with a pair of eyes in their head could see he was in league with the devil. Master Mephistopheles, indeed! Why, I’ll wager he had hooves at the ends of those twisted legs. Yes, and a tail!’

‘We are men of science here,’ said the Old Wolf, shooting her a stern glance. ‘We deal in facts, my good woman, not superstitions or old wives’ tales.’

‘Superstitions, is it?’ she demanded. ‘Old wives’ tales? God knows I don’t have the learning of men like yourself and Mr Quare, but at least I can recognize the devil’s work when I see it! Spying is one thing, Sir Thaddeus, but I’ll not put my immortal soul at risk by dabbling in witchcraft – no, not if His Majesty himself were to ask it of me!’

‘Then by all means take your leave, Mrs Puddinge. There is no more that you can do here in any case. I’m sure I do not need to add that everything you have heard is to be held in the strictest confidence.’

Despite her words, and the grandmaster’s dismissal, however, she appeared loath to go.

‘Well?’ asked the Old Wolf, raising his eyebrows. ‘Your usual emolument will be waiting,’ he said. ‘With something extra added for your trouble and your diligence in bringing Mr Quare to us.’

‘It’s not that, sir,’ she said, wringing her hands together, her combativeness gone as if it had never existed.

‘What then?’

‘Mr Aylesford,’ she said in a whisper. ‘He’s still out there!’

‘My good woman,’ said Grandmaster Wolfe with the barely patient air of a parent schooling a child in the obvious, ‘you may set your mind at ease on that score. Mr Aylesford is no doubt on his way back to France by now. His cover has been blown. He knows there is naught for him here but interrogation and the hangman’s noose.’

‘Oh, aye, very sensible, I’m sure. But I looked into his eyes, Sir Thaddeus! The man is not sensible. He is a fanatic. A madman! Ask Mr Quare – he’ll tell you!’

Quare, who felt it was rather rich for Mrs Puddinge to be appealing to him now, said nothing.

The Old Wolf, meanwhile, sighed heavily. ‘I am far from trusting Mr Quare’s word on anything at the moment,’ he said. ‘But I will have a journeyman escort you home, Mrs Puddinge. And remain with you overnight. That should be sufficient to put your fears to rest.’

‘Aye, and what about tomorrow, then?’

‘I cannot guarantee your safety,’ the grandmaster said. ‘No one can. Why, just walking down Bishopsgate Street can be fatal. Not to mention the fact that you have chosen of your own free will to become involved in patriotic work that carries a substantial risk. This is something I told you at the outset of your service and have repeated many times since. But it would appear that my warnings have fallen on deaf ears.’

‘I never saw no harm in keeping an eye on my young men like you asked of me, Sir Thaddeus. It were only good business, after all. But this is different. Mr Aylesford is different. He killed three of my young men! Who will want to lodge with me now?’

‘Good Lord, madam, is that your concern?’

‘All I have is Mr Puddinge’s pension and that old house. Now no one will feel safe under my roof.’

‘Why, our journeymen are not so squeamish as that. Besides, the murders took place at the Pig and Rooster – surely it is that establishment which will bear the brunt of any opprobrium, not your own. In any case, Mrs Puddinge, they’ll lodge where I send ’em, and until you give me cause to do otherwise, I’ll keep sending ’em to you. Do we understand each other?’

‘I didn’t mean nothing by it, Sir Thaddeus,’ she said, bobbing a curtsy. ‘A woman’s got to make a living, ain’t she?’

‘Indubitably,’ the grandmaster agreed.

Mrs Puddinge glanced at Quare and coloured. ‘I hope as there are no hard feelings, Mr Quare. You was a good lodger. I only done my duty, and you can’t blame a body for that, can you?’

‘I would appreciate it if you sent my things on to the guild hall, Mrs Puddinge,’ he replied. ‘Once this matter is cleared up, I believe I will seek other lodgings.’

‘There’s no cause to get huffy,’ she said, flushing more deeply still. ‘Your things will be safe with me. I run an honest house, I do. But, not to put too fine a point on it, if it’s a French spy you are, Mr Quare, why, then by law your things are rightfully mine, as it were me that nicked you. So if you don’t mind, I’ll be holding on to them for now.’

‘I do mind,’ he said.

‘That’s as may be. If, God willing, you’re found innocent, then you can come and fetch everything – after payment of a small storage fee, of course. Good day, sirs.’ With a stiff nod to Quare, and another curtsy to Grandmaster Wolfe, she left the study, escorted out by one of the servants.

‘A formidable woman,’ said the Old Wolf once she had gone. ‘I sometimes think that if we could but ship a hundred like her across the Channel, the war would be won in no time.’

‘Sir Thaddeus—’

‘Have no fear for your possessions, Mr Quare. I have already dispatched agents to bring everything here.’

‘Thank you for that, at least.’

‘I have not done it for your sake, but so that we may examine your things with a fine-toothed comb. Once we are done, if you are judged to be a spy, then what is left – after the Crown has taken its share – will indeed go to Mrs Puddinge. That is the law. Now, sir. Let us return to the matter at hand.’

‘I will not lie about Master Magnus,’ Quare said. ‘He suffered enough calumny while alive. I’ll not add to it now, when he can no longer defend himself.’

‘Noble sentiments, no doubt.’ The Old Wolf leaned back in his chair – it creaked ominously – and regarded him for a moment, placid blue eyes unblinking. Then, seeming to come to a decision, he leaned forward again, to the accompaniment of further creaking, and placed his elbows on the desk, careful to avoid coming anywhere near the watch . ‘You must consider the living, Mr Quare, and leave the dead to bury the dead. That is my advice to you. Now that Master Magnus is gone, I will be taking his place at the head of the Most Secret and Exalted Order. In these perilous times, it no longer makes sense – if it ever did – to divide the reins of guild authority between two men. I have already appointed Master Malrubius to assist me.’

Quare flinched at the name. Master Malrubius modelled himself upon the Old Wolf in his style of dress, his mannerisms, even his very girth; but the man was physically and mentally smaller than his model, and the contrast made him an object of ridicule and contempt among the apprentices and journeymen. But he was also an object of fear, for his dull wits did not preclude the frequent use of his fists, which were not at all dull. They struck with the force of small hammers.

Meanwhile, the Old Wolf had continued to address him. ‘I do not yet know if Master Magnus was a traitor to his guild and his king – and do not imagine, by the way, that your testimony alone will acquit or convict him; you are not as important as all that, Mr Quare. It is the master’s own writings that will testify most strongly to his guilt or innocence, and we have only just begun to sort through them; as you know, he was not what could be called an orderly man, at least not where his papers were concerned. But regardless of whether or not he was a French spy, it is already clear that Master Magnus used the regulators as a kind of private army, keeping secrets from me and from Mr Pitt alike, while pursuing an agenda of his own. You, sir, were a part of that agenda. And for whatever reason, when it came to this particular timepiece, the master chose to involve you, rather than a more experienced regulator. Now, however lax he may have been in the disposition of his books and papers, when it came to matters of horology and spycraft, the master was meticulous, as I think you will agree. Thus I conclude that it was not by chance or circumstance that he dispatched you to procure this timepiece. Nor, though the Massacre of the Cats may have been an accident, as you say, was your presence there accidental.’

This had not occurred to Quare. But he was quick to dismiss it. ‘Master Magnus told me that all the more experienced regulators were on assignment. There was no one else close enough at hand to dispatch to Lord Wichcote’s.’

‘He told me the same, and I trusted him – I had no reason not to. Our rivalry was no secret, of course, yet I had always believed that, beyond these walls, we set our differences aside for the good of king and country. I know I did. But since his death – or, rather, since you came to me with that appalling and quite frankly fantastic tale of sparing Grimalkin’s life out of a finicky sense of honour, a tale I did not believe for one instant – since that bit of uncharacteristic sloppiness on Master Magnus’s part, as if events had taken an unexpected turn and forced him to a clumsy improvisation – I began to suspect that he had not been entirely truthful with me. I made inquiries. And so it proved. There were other regulators available that night, Mr Quare. Indeed, the master could have picked among half a dozen men with more field experience than you. And yet he chose you, a regulator still wet behind the ears, for a mission of, as it appears, extraordinary importance. Why would that be?’

‘I-I don’t know,’ confessed Quare, taken aback by this information. He did not think the Old Wolf was lying to him. With Master Magnus, there had always been gears within gears. Not that his opinion of the man’s loyalty had changed, but in this matter, he realized, he might have been too credulous. Loyalty, after all, did not preclude self-interest; aye, or the settling of old scores. ‘The master intended for you to suspend me from the regulators,’ he admitted. ‘That was why he fabricated that story.’

‘Now we are getting somewhere. You will tell me what truly happened between you and Grimalkin, Mr Quare. But first I will hear the reason that Master Magnus wished you suspended.’

‘I don’t know,’ Quare repeated. ‘He said he had some kind of special assignment in mind for me, one in which I would have more freedom if my connection to the Most Secret and Exalted Order was believed to have been severed, but he never had a chance to tell me what it was.’

‘Perhaps we will find a clue in his papers,’ mused Grandmaster Wolfe. ‘But I think you yourself possess many if not most of the answers I seek, though you may not realize it. Answers having to do with the nature and purpose of this watch, for one, and with Master Magnus’s relationship to Aylesford and Grimalkin, for another. Either you are withholding these answers to protect a perfidious scheme in which you are involved right up to your eyeballs, or, more charitably, out of misguided loyalty to a man undeserving of it, or you have simply failed to grasp the significance of certain details known only to you.’

‘Sir Thaddeus, I swear—’

‘Do not protest your innocence to me, sir. Or your ignorance. Mere words will not convince me of either. It is details I want. And details I shall have. Whether you provide those details willingly or require the persuasion of Master Malrubius is immaterial. Is that clear?’

Quare nodded. He did not see any alternative now to confessing everything: the fact that Grimalkin was a woman, along with her dire if imprecise warnings about the dangers of the timepiece – warnings that circumstances had borne out in such disturbing and incredible ways, from the discovery that the watch ran on blood, to the Massacre of the Cats, to his own unaccountable surviving of a wound that, to all appearances, should have been fatal. The watch was the key to all of these mysteries, and more, yet was itself, he felt certain, a greater mystery still. Its nature, its origin, its purpose – he knew none of these things, could not even begin to guess at them. He did not think he could convince the Old Wolf of what little he knew … or of how much he didn’t know. He could, of course, offer to demonstrate the watch to Sir Thaddeus – could prick his finger and let his blood drip into its bone-white workings. But even if the hunter reacted as it had before, seeming to come to life with stolen vitality, Quare thought it entirely possible that such an action would merely light the fuse of some new and still more terrible manifestation of the object’s parlous energies. ‘Sir Thaddeus,’ he began.

But the Old Wolf interrupted him again. ‘I do not wish to hear anything more from you at present, Mr Quare. No, I think it best that you have some time to ponder your situation. To review all that you have told me … and all that you have not. Solitude, I find, can be a helpful goad to reflection, a powerful stimulus to memory.’ He gave a nod, and Quare turned to see the remaining servant advancing upon him from his position beside the door. He backed away.

‘This isn’t necessary, Sir Thaddeus,’ he protested.

‘Oh, but I believe it is,’ the grandmaster said. He had risen while Quare’s back was turned, and now, moving with a swiftness at odds with his bulk, he laid hands on Quare from behind. The man’s aged, sweaty reek enveloped him. His grip was like iron, and Quare did not attempt to break free. The Old Wolf spoke low in his ear, his breath stinking of tobacco. ‘Think on anything that Master Magnus may have revealed to you, whether in words or actions or otherwise, about the nature of this timepiece and his plans for it. Review your encounters with Grimalkin and Aylesford. Meanwhile, Master Malrubius and I will make a more thorough examination of the master’s papers, and of your possessions as well. I think perhaps I will have him pay you a visit. I find he can be most persuasive. Be assured, if you attempt to mislead him, or hold anything back, I shall hear of it and take it as proof of your guilt, at which point I will not hesitate to turn you over to the watch – or to Mr Pitt himself, whose methods of interrogation, I am given to understand, are more exacting still. Do we understand each other, Mr Quare?’

‘We do,’ he said tersely, trying not to breathe in the man’s rank odours, as if they would leave a stain upon his insides.

‘Good.’ The Old Wolf released him, pushing him towards the servant, who did not take hold of him but gave every appearance of being prepared to do so should it prove necessary. But all the fight had gone out of Quare. He turned back to the grandmaster.

‘Where …’

A satisfied smile lit the fat, florid face. ‘You will be lodged with us, Mr Quare. We have rooms prepared for such occasions as this. Granted, it has not proved necessary to use them for some time, but they exist, and you will find them adequate, if, no doubt, lacking the amenities of Mrs Puddinge’s establishment.’ He nodded, and the servant spoke in the sepulchral tones cultivated by all his fellows.

‘If you would come with me, sir.’

Quare glanced at the man. His powdered features might have been carved of stone, and his slate grey eyes gave no hint of the thoughts and emotions – if any – that were present behind them. Was he judging Quare now? Did he believe him to be a traitor to his guild, his country? Quare felt a deep-seated impulse to justify himself, to break through that impenetrable façade and evoke some kind of bare human acknowledgement, as if it were this nameless servant, not Grandmaster Wolfe, who would decide his guilt or innocence. But he said nothing, merely nodded his acquiescence.

Nor did the servant speak again. He turned about and strode to the door, opening it and then stepping aside for Quare to precede him. This he did, without another word to the Old Wolf, or even a backward glance. When the door closed, he felt as if he had left a portion of himself behind, along with his sword: and even if the sword were returned to him in the fullness of time, along with his other possessions, as he hoped would be the case, it didn’t seem to him that the life those objects had ornamented would be as easily regained; indeed, that life seemed irretrievably lost to him, regardless of what happened next. Even if he were not expelled from the guild, he would never be elevated to the rank of master now. Instead, it seemed the best he could hope for was a beating from Master Malrubius, followed by an ignominious expulsion from the company.

He felt it likely things would go considerably worse.

It was in this morose frame of mind that Quare followed the servant down a series of candlelit halls and stairways clutching his tricorn as though it were a shield. They encountered no one. The only sound, other than the scrape of their footfalls, came from a bristling ring of keys that the servant held in one hand: a faint, discordant chiming that punctuated their progress. Every so often, he would pause before a particular door and without hurry or hesitation select a particular key from among dozens, unlock and open the door onto another hallway or staircase, wait for Quare to enter, then, after following him through, fastidiously lock the door again behind him before resuming the lead. All without a word. His grey eyes uninterested as mud.

At first Quare was equally uninterested, mired in his own muddy thoughts, but soon he began to take note of how, in their steady downward progress, the paintings and tapestries covering the panelled walls gave way to bare wooden panelling, which in turn gave way to stone, while, on the floor, tiles were succeeded by wood, then stone. The air grew cooler and damper, yet also cleaner, more pure. The candles in their wall sconces were set farther and farther apart, like stars in the night sky, so that the servant was finally obliged to lift one down and carry it before him to light the way. After this, whenever he had to unlock a door, the servant would pass the candle to Quare, then, on the other side, the door closed and locked again, take the candle back.

Quare felt as if he were descending through time as much as through space, traversing past iterations of the guild hall preserved intact like the chambers of a nautilus shell. How deep were the roots of this place sunk into London’s rich soil? Who had walked here before him in years gone by? He shivered not only from the chill but from the sense that he might, at any moment, encounter the ghost of a Roman legionary or one of Boadicea’s warriors; even the sight of a gnome did not seem out of the question.

But at last, without incident, they came to a section of passage lined with stout wooden doors, each, so far as he could tell in the meagre light, equipped with an iron grille set at eye level. Quare stopped in surprise and consternation. The servant had conducted him to a dungeon. He had not known, would not have guessed in a thousand years, that the guild hall even had a dungeon. Doubtless it was an atavistic survival of less civilized times, pre-dating the establishment of the Worshipful Company and perhaps the raising of the hall itself. Buried deep … but not forgotten. The Old Wolf had said that these rooms were kept ready, though they had not been used for some time. Quare wondered how long. Years? Decades? Who had been the last prisoner here, and what had been his fate? Such speculations were not helpful, yet he could not keep them at bay.

The servant, meanwhile, had stopped before one of the doors midway down the passage and was looking back at Quare. The raised candle imparted a ghastly cast to his powdered face, as if he were a shambling corpse. He did not speak but gave his ring of keys an eloquent shake.

Quare’s heart quailed at the prospect of being shut up here for however long Grandmaster Wolfe chose to imprison him, but, really, what could he do? Even if he escaped from this servant, and managed to avoid the others who would surely be sent after him, he had no hope of finding his way out of this underground warren. He could no more retrace the route they had taken than he could flap his arms and fly. The servant shook his keys again, more vehemently this time, and Quare, taking a deep breath, obeyed the summons.

The servant handed the candle to Quare, who accepted it wordlessly, feeling not only helpless but humiliated to be thus rendered complicit in his own captivity. The lock clicked open, and the man gave the door a firm push; it swung inwards on well-oiled hinges, evidence that, indeed, the rooms had been well maintained. Beyond was a darkness that seemed loath to yield even an inch to the small candle Quare held in his trembling hand. But before he could put that to the test, the servant reclaimed the candle and stepped past him into the room. Once inside he ferried the flame to half a dozen fresh candles set in sconces on three of the four stone walls. Quare, continuing to hover at the threshold, watched as the darkness melted away, revealing a comfortably appointed chamber with a narrow pallet for a bed, a desk and chair, a chamber pot, and – taking up much of the fourth wall – a cavernous fireplace in whose deep recesses a fire had been laid. This the servant now brought to roaring life with another touch of the candle, the flames springing up with such alacrity that for an instant they seemed about to leap to the man himself, who, however, drew back unflappably and turned to Quare.

‘I trust all is to your satisfaction, sir.’

‘My satisfaction?’ he echoed, disbelieving. ‘And if it were not?’

‘There are other rooms, though they are less well appointed.’

‘I’m sure they are,’ said Quare, and entered the room at last, looking about with wary interest. It was so far from the crude cell of his imaginings that, despite the bare stone walls and the scant, simple furnishings, he felt as if he had entered the bedchamber of a king. Already the heat of the fire was making itself felt. He tossed his hat onto the desk, then turned to the servant. ‘It’s not quite what I had expected.’

The servant raised an eyebrow. ‘You are a journeyman of the Worshipful Company, Mr Quare, and as such entitled to certain amenities. Should that change, your accommodations will change accordingly.’

‘Of course,’ Quare said. ‘How long must I remain here?’

‘Why, until you are sent for, sir.’

‘And how long might that be?’

‘It might be any time at all, from hours to days. That is for the grandmaster to decide.’

‘What am I to do in the meantime?’

‘That is for you to decide. My suggestion, if you don’t mind, sir, would be to spend your time in reflection, so that, when next questioned, your answers will prove more satisfactory. You will find paper and writing implements in the desk, should you care to avail yourself of them.’

‘I see,’ said Quare. He eyed the servant critically. ‘Was it you who conveyed me to Master Magnus the other day? In the stair-master?’

The servant gave a slight bow. ‘I had that honour.’

‘I thought there was something familiar about you. See here – what’s your name, my good fellow?’

‘You may call me Longinus, sir.’

‘Longinus … An unusual name.’

‘Perhaps I am an unusual person.’

Quare let this pass without comment. ‘What can you tell me of Master Magnus’s death, Longinus?’

‘Nothing at all, sir.’

‘Why, you must have seen or heard something.’

‘Indeed. What I meant was that I have been instructed not to tell you anything more about it than you already know. The grandmaster wishes you to probe your own memories, not mine or anyone else’s.’

‘Don’t you care that he was murdered, Longinus? Aren’t you at all interested in finding the killer and seeing justice served?’

‘Most assuredly, sir. That is why I volunteered to serve as your jailer – for, make no mistake, despite the comforts of this room, you are a prisoner of the Worshipful Company. The sooner you realize that, the better off you will be, if you don’t mind my saying so.’

Quare shook his head. ‘You are unusually solicitous, for a jailer.’

‘As I said, sir, so long as you are a journeyman of this guild, you are entitled to certain amenities.’

‘I see. And if that should change …’

‘Let us hope it does not come to that, Mr Quare. And now I must go. Either I or another servant will bring you food and drink this evening. Until then, I will leave you to your business.’

Quare said nothing until the man was through the door. Then he called out: ‘I’m no traitor, Longinus. And neither was Master Magnus.’

The only response was the shutting of the door and the click of the key turning in the lock.

Alone, Quare felt the weight of all that had happened settle once again on his shoulders. As an orphan, he had known his share of hopeless moments, but nothing quite like this, with the threat of a hangman’s noose staring him in the face. His friends and fellow journeymen were dead, murdered by a maniac who was still at large, perhaps even, despite what he had told Mrs Puddinge, still in the city. His landlady, whom he had heretofore thought of in maternal terms, had revealed herself as a spy – and what’s more, a spy motivated not by patriotism but by avarice. Nor did it seem to him that his own motivations in that regard were any purer, any less selfish, for hadn’t he become a regulator in order to advance his prospects in the guild, to acquire knowledge of horological innovations that would have been unavailable to him otherwise, and to learn the truth about his parentage? To ask the question was to answer it. No, he had no right to cast stones at Mrs Puddinge. He felt as if he had soiled his soul, and though Sir Thaddeus’s suspicions of his loyalty were unfounded, he could not really claim to be innocent. London, he perceived, was a great murderer of innocence. But who could hold the city to account for its crimes?

Without noticing it, he had begun to pace the room like an animal in a cage. This was all Master Magnus’s fault, he told himself bitterly. If only the man had not involved him in his schemes, he would not be here now, a prisoner of his own guild. And if the master had not been so damned curious, so fond of machinations mechanical and otherwise, he would very probably still be alive, for though Quare did not know who had killed Master Magnus, or how, he did not doubt that the man’s death was related to his pursuit and investigation of the pocket watch he had sent Quare to retrieve from Lord Wichcote.

Could Lord Wichcote have engineered the master’s death, having learned through his own sources of the master’s interest in that timepiece, perhaps believing that Grimalkin was in the service of the guild, as was rumoured, and had therefore been sent to his house that night on the guild’s business? It seemed possible. He was a wealthy and powerful man, used to living beyond the law. But Lord Wichcote was not the only suspect. Not by a long shot. There was Grimalkin, for one. And Aylesford, for another – despite his disavowal of the deed. Even the Old Wolf was not above suspicion; certainly he had wasted no time in turning the situation to his advantage by seizing control of the Most Secret and Exalted Order; after all, it was common knowledge that he had envied Master Magnus his leadership of that order and coveted it for himself. The same was true, to a lesser degree, of Master Malrubius, who nurtured not only his own ambitions but those of the Old Wolf as well. It sickened Quare to think that the Worshipful Company was so riddled with corruption and intrigue as to render the murder of one master by another an eventuality impossible to reject out of hand, yet, all things considered, he couldn’t argue against it. Whether that was a result of his own predicament or an accurate reflection of the facts, he was unable to judge.

By now the fire had raised the temperature of the room a considerable amount. Quare had long since divested himself of the second-best coat; only with difficulty had he refrained from throwing the odious – and odiferous – garment on the flames, reminding himself that his prospects were uncertain, and that he might very well be glad of a warm coat soon enough. It lay like a heap of refuse on the floor in the furthest corner. Quare, tired of his circular perambulations, sat on the edge of the pallet and stared into the flames as if their dancing shapes held the answers to all the questions that plagued him. Yet he found no answers there, only further questions, not the least of which was whether the fire had been lit not for his comfort but as a preliminary to other, graver tortures. He could not help recalling that Master Magnus had threatened him with devices as wondrous in their way as the stair-master, only turned to a darker purpose. Now the decision to introduce him to any such devices rested with the Old Wolf and Master Malrubius. Quare could not be sanguine at the prospect.

He considered scattering the logs to diminish the blaze, but to do so would have required him to enter the cavernous mouth of the fireplace, which was so deep that it might almost have been a separate room. Besides, there was no poker at hand, and he didn’t think his well-worn boots were up to kicking apart such a conflagration. He would have to wait for the fire to burn itself out. He wished now that he had thought to ask Longinus for water. When would the man return? How long had he been gone? Quare fished out his pocket watch: barely two hours had gone by since he’d left Mrs Puddinge’s house. He would have guessed twice that, and he found the discrepancy unsettling; his two clocks, the inner and the outer, so to speak, were usually in closer agreement, and the fact that he should be so badly mistaken in his estimate now seemed due less to the finicky nature of time than to the radical upending of his life. He was running out of true, and he did not know how to put himself right again.

As Quare’s anger ebbed, wilting in the heat, grief took its place – a grief that had been there all the time, biding beneath the agitated surface of his feelings. The faces of Farthingale, Mansfield and Pickens appeared to his mind’s eye as he last remembered seeing them, flushed with drink and laughter in the smoke-filled confines of the Pig and Rooster. Try as he might, he could not recall anything of the fight that had ended the night … and their lives. His memories cut off so abruptly that it was as if they had been surgically excised, and he wondered if the cause had less to do with the amount of alcohol he’d consumed than the watch that had somehow, or so he believed, protected him from what should have been a fatal wound.

The trio of grinning faces seemed to reproach him now – for what, exactly, he didn’t know. Perhaps for having survived. He mourned them, and in doing so mourned something in himself. He prayed for the repose of their souls.

His grief for Master Magnus was of a different order, mixed as it was with anger, guilt, gratitude, and a host of other emotions he felt keenly but could not put a name to. He well remembered his first sight of the man. It had been six years ago, in Mr Halsted’s Dorchester shop, late on a Saturday morning in June. Mrs Halsted, who usually manned the front desk, was busy in the kitchen, while Master Halsted and Quare’s fellow apprentice, Jim Grimsby, were in the back room that served as both a workshop and sleeping quarters for the two apprentices.

Quare had been examining a mantel clock brought in for repair by Mr Symonds, the vicar, who stood on the other side of the desk, gazing down at the disassembled timepiece spread out between them, an anxious look on his face as though it were a sickly living creature, a beloved pet, perhaps, and not a mechanical device. Elsewhere in the shop, the vicar’s wife and his beribboned young daughter, thirteen-year-old Emily, a vivacious blonde-haired girl whose bright blue eyes were of more interest to Quare at present than the insides of her father’s clock, were examining a case of pocket and pendant watches: Mrs Symonds with unfeigned interest, while Emily’s blue eyes kept rising to meet Quare’s gaze, then darting away, a pretty blush colouring her cheeks. This heated if innocent flirtation, which had been going on between them for months now despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that the participants had not spoken more than a handful of times, and then only to exchange platitudes in the constraining presence of their elders, had made for as diverting a morning as Quare could desire, but he knew at once, upon looking up at the jingle of the bell announcing a new customer, that things were about to get a lot more diverting.

Bustling into the shop like a fairy-tale figure sprung to life was a humpbacked dwarf dressed all in black who pulled himself along with a pair of slender but stout walking sticks, pivoting with each ‘step’ on twisted legs that, wrapped in metal braces, seemed more like clever machines than appendages of flesh and blood. He was lean as a whippet, with a head whose wild mane of white hair made it seem even larger than it actually was, as out of proportion to the stunted body beneath as the heavy head of a sunflower to its stalk. And as the head to the body, so the nose to the head: a carbuncled, tuberous growth that appeared to have usurped the place of a nose; and upon that prodigious organ, nestled there like a black and gold insect, a pair of spectacles so darkly tinted that it seemed impossible anyone could see through them.

Yet see through them he obviously could, and did, for the man – the apparition, rather, since fifteen-year-old Quare could scarcely credit what his own eyes were showing him – had stumped across the shop floor, bringing all conversation to a halt. Even Mr Symonds drew back from the new arrival as he came to stand beside him. Without so much as a by-your-leave, the man tilted his leonine face up at Quare – he scarcely topped the desk; yet Quare realized that the man was not in truth a dwarf, but only so hunched over as to be indistinguishable from one – and demanded, in a voice that had more than a touch of the lion in it as well, ‘Are you Quare?’

Quare gazed back open-mouthed.

‘Well?’ the man continued. ‘It seems a simple enough question. Are you or are you not the apprentice Daniel Quare?’

At that, he found his voice. ‘I am, sir. If you would but wait a moment, I will be with you as soon as I finish with this gentleman.’

‘I would see your master,’ said the man as if he hadn’t heard. He struck the floor with one of his sticks for emphasis, like a goat stamping a hoof, at which Quare started and Emily gave a cry from across the room. Quare glanced at her and saw that the poor creature was white as a sheet and close to tears, at which indignation rose in his breast.

‘See here, my good sir,’ interjected Mr Symonds before Quare could speak, recalled by his daughter’s distress to his paternal and churchly authority. ‘There is no need to be so brusque. Young Mr Quare is having a look at my clock, and—’ He got no further.

‘Clock?’ interrupted the man. ‘You call that a clock?’ He seemed amused and affronted in equal measure. ‘Why, I would wager that object is more accurate in its timekeeping now than it ever has been!’

‘More accurate?’ the vicar echoed, uncomprehending. ‘But it is broken, as you see.’

Quare rolled his eyes. ‘The gentleman refers to the fact that even a stopped clock is right twice a day.’

‘Ah,’ said Mr Symonds. ‘Why, bless my soul, so it is …’

Again the petulant stamp of a walking stick. Again a girlish cry.

Quare felt himself losing the reins of his temper. He looked to Mr Symonds, but the man appeared to be engrossed in contemplation of the horological profundity just revealed to him. Perhaps, Quare thought, he was considering how best to work it into a sermon. At any rate, the task of dealing with this unpleasant little man had now fallen to him.

‘I ask you again to wait your turn,’ he said as politely as he could manage. ‘And to refrain, if you would, from upsetting Miss Symonds’ – this with a significant look in Emily’s direction.

The grotesque creature swivelled its body to regard the young lady in question, who burst into tears. ‘My pardon,’ he said, though there was nothing apologetic in his tone, ‘if my appearance has upset you, Miss Symonds.’ And here he sketched a bow, or something redolent of a bow; Quare could not decide if he meant the gesture to be as much of a mockery as it appeared, or whether his deformities, and the sticks and braces meant to correct them, rendered his movements, regardless of the intent behind them, naturally – or, rather, unnaturally – graceless and parodistic. ‘I am but as God made me.’

Mrs Symonds seemed to have no difficulty in deciding the question. ‘Come, Emily,’ she said, throwing an arm about her daughter’s shoulders and shepherding her, sniffling behind a handkerchief, from the shop, all the while staring daggers at Quare, as though he were somehow responsible. ‘Henry,’ she called from the doorway, at which Mr Symonds emerged from his trance.

‘Ah, yes, dear,’ he said, giving Quare a distracted smile. ‘I trust the clock will present no difficulties, Mr Quare?’

‘None at all,’ Quare affirmed. ‘It will be ready on Monday.’

‘So soon?’ queried the vicar. ‘I would not have you working on the Lord’s day, Mr Quare, not on my account or any man’s.’

‘We keep the sabbath in this shop, vicar,’ said Quare.

‘I am glad to hear it,’ said Mr Symonds and turned to the dwarf, who was watching this exchange with unconcealed impatience, lips twitching in his eagerness to speak. ‘Good day to you, sir.’

‘And to you, vicar,’ he growled. He did not even wait for the man to exit the shop before importuning Quare again, once more accompanying his words with a thump of his stick. ‘Now, Mr Quare, if it would not be too much trouble – your master, if you please.’

As if on cue, Mr Halsted poked his bald head through the door leading from the workshop. ‘What is that c-confounded noise, Da—’ He broke off upon catching sight of the dwarf. ‘G-good g-gracious,’ he stammered, stepping into the room, his ruddy complexion blanching to the paleness of a sheet. ‘As I live and b-breathe. M-master M-magnus.’

‘How are you, Halsted?’ the man inquired. ‘Glib as ever, I see.’

Quare’s master had a fierce stammer that emerged whenever he was flustered or excited; the neighbourhood street urchins mocked this impediment ruthlessly, both behind his back and, the better to elicit it, to his face, but Quare had not thought to find such cruelty in an adult.

Making a visible effort, Mr Halsted calmed himself, or tried to – with scant success, however. ‘Daniel, this g-gentleman is one of the g-great masters of our g-guild, come all the way from L-London, or so I imagine.’

‘You imagine correctly,’ said Master Magnus. ‘And a damned uncomfortable journey it was, too, with more bumps and jolts in the road than are to be found even in one of your utterances, Mr Halsted.’

‘I am sorry to hear it. M-mayhap you will take refreshment here. My home is yours. Daniel, c-close the shop. Oh – my apprentice Daniel Quare, m-master. A m-most promising young m-man. Mr Quare, M-master M-magnus.’

‘An honour, sir,’ said Quare, and meant it: though he was only fifteen, it had long been apparent to him that Dorchester was a backwater, horologically speaking, and that the only place for an ambitious and talented young man like himself was London. The journeymen who passed through town had whetted his appetite for years with stories of the great guild hall of the Worshipful Company and the masters who ruled it, led by Grandmaster Wolfe. Halsted had his own tales to tell, for he had travelled to London for his investiture as a master of the guild, and had returned twice, for brief periods, in the years since Quare had become his apprentice, lodging each time at the guild hall, and each time coming home full to bursting with the wonders he’d seen and experienced there. Now one of that august company stood before him in the flesh. And not just anyone, but Master Magnus – or Mephistopheles, as the journeymen had called him – a man they had variously termed a genius, a terror, a monster, a freak of nature, and whom Master Halsted, in hushed tones, as if he feared being overheard even at such a distance, had once compared to a spider in its web. Quare studied the man with fresh interest, wondering what secrets he could impart, what lessons he could offer; Quare had already absorbed everything Halsted could teach him, and his horological skills now outstripped those of his master. ‘I apologize for not recognizing you at once, Master Magnus.’

‘And how should you recognize a man you have never seen?’ came the sharp inquiry.

‘Why, your reputation precedes you, sir,’ Quare answered, ignoring Halsted’s cautionary glance. ‘The journeymen who stop by our shop on their travels speak of you as a man of great learning and application.’

‘Do they now?’ mused the master. ‘Are you quite sure, Mr Quare, that it is not the size of my body, rather than the size of my intellect or accomplishments, that precedes me?’

Quare saw too late the trap he had fallen into, for in fact the journeymen who had recounted Master Magnus’s accomplishments with awe had also spoken fearfully of his temper and sensitivity to any perceived insult or slight on account of his size or other handicaps.

‘C-close up the shop, now, Daniel, as I t-told you,’ Halsted interjected, coming to Quare’s rescue.

This Quare moved to do, blushing fiercely as he came around the counter.

‘To what do we owe the p-pleasure of your visit, master?’ Halsted continued, seeking to shift the conversation to safer ground. ‘If you had but n-notified me that you were c-coming, I would have received you with m-more ceremony.’

‘Bah, I require no ceremony, Halsted, as you should know very well.’

‘Still, I feel sure, after your long and d-difficult journey, that some refreshment would not c-come amiss. C-come into the k-kitchen, sir, and do me the honour of meeting m-my wife … and, of c-course, my other apprentice, James G-grimsby.’

‘A cup of tea would suit me very well,’ Master Magnus admitted.

Halsted conducted the older man through the door that led to the workshop and, beyond it, the kitchen, while Quare closed up the front of the shop. By the time he had joined the others, Master Magnus was seated at the kitchen table in a chair that accommodated him as well as it would have done a child of ten – less well, in fact, for his metal-caged legs did not bend at the knees but instead stuck out parallel to the floor. His chin barely overtopped the table, where a steaming cup of tea was set on a saucer, beside a plate of biscuits and butter; it did not escape Quare’s notice that Mrs Halsted was using her good china. His walking sticks were propped against the edge of the table, close to hand.

Standing opposite him on the far side of the table were Mr and Mrs Halsted, along with Grimsby. Halsted and his wife regarded their visitor with some apprehension, nervous smiles plastered on their faces, as if he were not entirely tamed and might be set off by a wrong word or gesture, while the freckled, red-headed Grimsby, who had listened, along with Quare, to tales of mad Master Mephistopheles from the journeymen who lodged with them on their way through town, gawped in open-mouthed astonishment. Everyone, save Grimsby, turned to Quare as he entered the room.

‘Mr Quare, thank the Almighty,’ said Master Magnus. ‘Sit you down, sir.’ His gesture encompassed the entire kitchen. ‘All of you, sit, please. You are making me feel like a baboon on display at Covent Garden. And Mr Grimsby, pray close your mouth, lest what little wit you possess escape entirely.’

Grimsby flushed to the roots of his red hair and shut his mouth with an audible snap. Mr and Mrs Halsted wasted no time in seating themselves, followed, seconds later, by Grimsby, which left but two chairs for Quare, one on either side of Master Magnus. He took the nearer.

A tense and expectant silence filled the kitchen, punctuated only by the regular ticking of a small tower clock situated above the hearth – an exact replica of Master Halsted’s masterpiece, in fact, the original of which resided, as did all masterpieces, in the vaults of the Worshipful Company; this modest timepiece was the pride of the house, horologically speaking, though it was, in Quare’s considered opinion, barely adequate as a specimen of the clockmaker’s art.

Master Magnus, as if oblivious to the strained atmosphere, reached with some difficulty for his tea, which he sipped noisily and with apparent relish, holding the china cup in both hands; the steam rising from the liquid testified to a heat that should have communicated itself to the cup, but Master Magnus gave no sign of discomfort, though he did blow, between sips, upon the top of the tea, as if to cool it. Quare noticed both the suppleness of the man’s hands and fingers and the fact that they bore a multitude of small scars, as if from a lifetime of nicks and cuts; later he would learn that the master’s hands, for all their dexterity, had not escaped the general blighting of his body: though able to discriminate by touch among gradations of pressure and texture too fine for Quare’s rough senses to perceive, his fingers were entirely numb to pain.

Master Magnus drank until the cup was empty, at which he smacked his lips and, once again contorting his body, replaced the cup on its saucer with a rattle that brought a look of distress to Mrs Halsted’s blue eyes, though her polite smile never wavered. ‘An exquisite brewing, Mrs Halsted,’ the master said graciously.

‘I try, sir,’ she answered, blushing beneath her white cap. ‘I do try. We do like our tea in this house, sir.’

‘You do more than try, madam. Why, it is plain that this house is blessed with two masters. Indeed, I would go so far as to suggest that you might dispense with clocks entirely and open a tea house instead.’

This barbed and backhanded compliment left his hosts speechless. Smiling, with the air of a guest fulfilling his conversational duties, Master Magnus turned his dark spectacles towards Grimsby, who actually flinched back in his chair.

‘Steady, Mr Grimsby – steady on, sir,’ he said as if to comfort the apprentice, who was Quare’s junior by two years. ‘I have read the reports of your work dispatched to me by your good master here. Amidst so much tedious verbiage, one word leaps out, and I find it so apt that I have already employed it in reference to you myself and am about to do so again. That word, if you cannot guess it, is steady . Your hands are steady, your mind equally so; in short, you are as dependable and dull as a bullock, destined, I have no doubt, for a life of plodding but honourable labour in the fields of time, much like Master Halsted himself. Of such as you is the backbone of our guild – and, indeed, our country – constituted, and I salute you, sir, most sincerely, in your majestic mediocrity.’

Grimsby’s face bore an expression of intense concentration, as if he were attempting, without notable success, to untangle majestic from mediocrity . ‘Er, you are too k-kind, Master Magnus,’ he said, seeming to have caught Master Halsted’s stammer.

‘Not at all,’ the master rejoined and turned now to Quare, who just managed to keep from flinching as Grimsby had done under that blank, reflective gaze, in which he saw himself not merely reflected but belittled. ‘Your master has written to me of you as well, Mr Quare. It is a duty I require of every master in our company, for how else am I to separate the wheat from the chaff, as it were, crippled as I am and able to leave London only with the greatest difficulty and inconvenience?’

‘Yet you have come to Dorchester now, master,’ Quare observed.

‘Quite,’ said Master Magnus, and without further ado removed a pocket watch from within his black coat. This he laid upon the table, then pushed over towards Quare. ‘Do you recognize this, Mr Quare?’

Quare shook his head, mystified.

‘Go on,’ said Master Magnus. ‘Have a closer look.’

Quare picked up the watch. He was struck at once by the plainness of it: no lid covered the glass; the hands were simple stark pointers; the black numbers on the white face had been painted without embellishment; the silver backing was bare of any engraved mark or design. He held it to his ear and heard a steady ticking.

‘Well?’ asked Master Magnus.

The others looked on with mystified expressions.

He was being tested; that much was clear. But as to the purpose of the test, let alone its consequences, he had no idea. ‘It is very plain,’ he said, weighing his words with care. ‘But it seems well made for all that. I would need to open it up before I could venture anything more.’

‘Then do so,’ the master said, inclining his head.

Quare always carried a small tool kit with him; in a moment, he had prised the back of the pocket watch open. The inner workings of the timepiece did not match the drabness of its outer appearance. There were a number of small but significant innovations to the mechanisms that powered and regulated the watch. This in itself was unexpected; he knew very well – what apprentice did not? – that the Worshipful Company took a dim view of innovation, confiscating or destroying outright any timepieces that departed from what had been officially sanctioned. So it came as a surprise to have such a watch handed to him by no less an authority of the guild than Master Magnus. Surprise turned into something approaching shock a moment later when he recognized the innovations as his own. For some time now, Quare had been keeping a notebook that he filled with sketches of improvements to the mechanisms he worked upon each and every day in Master Halsted’s shop. But he had not yet found the courage to actually translate one of his sketches into reality. Nor had he shown the notebook to anyone. Yet here was a watch that incorporated not one but a good half-dozen of his ideas. It seemed impossible.

‘I ask again,’ said Master Magnus. ‘Do you recognize anything about this watch?’

Quare glanced up, surveying the faces that were regarding him in turn. With his eyes hidden behind his dark spectacles, Master Magnus’s expression was inscrutable. Grimsby’s mouth had fallen open again. Mrs Halsted’s blue eyes shone with a tender concern he blushed to see: the look of a fond mistress. Halsted looked away, his cheeks flaming, and Quare wondered if the man suspected what his wife and his apprentice got up to when he was away.

‘Well?’ Master Magnus prompted.

Quare swallowed, mouth gone dry. He felt as if he’d been manoeuvred into a trap. Just a moment ago, Master Magnus had spoken of reports he’d received from Master Halsted; he realized now that those reports must have contained copies of his sketches. He felt a sharp sense of betrayal – ridiculous, as he had betrayed his master’s trust in a more tangible fashion: but feelings are not reasonable things, and he felt what he felt regardless. Apprehension, too, crept along his veins, for he did not doubt that his sketches alone could result in a stiff sanction from the guild, if not outright expulsion. And then where would he go, with no family and no trade? Yet despite this, one other feeling surged through him, stronger than the others.

Pride.

Though he had not cut and filed the parts of this watch with his own hands, nevertheless they were realizations of his designs. Something that had existed only on the page and in his mind had been made real and tangible. And, at least as far as he could tell from such a cursory examination, the mechanisms worked as he had anticipated. How could he deny this thing he had created? To do so would be to deny himself.

‘I didn’t make this watch,’ he said, ‘but I suppose you could say that I designed it.’

‘Daniel, I—’ Halsted began, but Master Magnus, lifting a hand, overrode him.

‘So, you admit that the watch is based on your designs?’

‘Yes.’

‘By keeping those designs to yourself and not showing them to your master, so that he, in turn, could forward them to me for review, you have failed in your obligations as an apprentice of this guild. Do you dispute that?’

‘No. I don’t dispute it.’

‘Very well.’ Master Magnus nodded in satisfaction … or so it seemed to Quare. ‘I will tell you, sir, that the small improvements you have made were known to us already. This watch was not crafted to your specifications. I made it myself when I was a mere apprentice, more years ago than I care to admit. Nor is it the only such example in our archives. So you see, you are not as clever as you may think, Mr Quare – not by a long shot. You are not the first to have had these insights. Others have been here before you. Still, I won’t deny that you have talent.’

As soon as he had registered what the master was telling him, Quare had turned all his attention back to the watch. And indeed, now that he looked more closely, he could see that the various parts of the watch that reflected his sketches did not do so with the fidelity he had at first thought to find there. In some cases, it seemed to him that his design was the more elegant; in others he saw that, on the contrary, he had not found the best solution. But the truth was plain: the sketches he had struggled over in solitude, the innovations he had dreamed would revolutionize horology and win him acclaim and riches, were no more than instances of reinventing the wheel. Yet though he was disappointed, he was not as crushed as he might have imagined; instead, it was as if an unexpected vista had opened out before him. Who could say what wonders were to be found there? He seemed to see them in the distance, glittering like the gold-leafed spires and towers of a fabulous city: a city built entirely of clocks. At the same time, he feared that he would be denied entrance to that city, permitted only to glimpse its wonders from afar. He looked up at Master Magnus. ‘I assume I am to be punished?’

‘Oh, indeed,’ said the master. ‘Most dreadfully punished. To begin with, you may consider your apprenticeship with Master Halsted over.’

Again Master Halsted began to speak. Again Master Magnus silenced him with a gesture. No one else said a word.

So that was it, then. It was to be expulsion. Now, indeed, Quare felt crushed, the very breath squeezed out of him.

‘You will be coming back to London with me,’ Master Magnus continued. ‘You will continue your apprenticeship there, at the guild hall, under my supervision.’

‘I … what?’

‘Go and get your things ready, Mr Quare. We leave within the hour.’ He turned towards the others as a dazed Quare rose to his feet. ‘Mr Grimsby, your presence is no longer required. Perhaps you can assist Mr Quare in packing.’ Grimsby nodded, looking as dazed as Quare, and stood.

As Quare left the room, Grimsby trailing behind him, he heard Master Magnus’s voice: ‘If I might trouble you for another cup of tea, Mrs Halsted, your husband and I will work out the transfer of Mr Quare’s indenture.’

In the workroom, he hurriedly packed his things as Grimsby pestered him with questions he scarcely heard and in any case could not answer. His life had been turned upside down in an instant, and his thoughts, divided between what he was leaving behind and what awaited him in London, had no purchase on the present. In what seemed the blink of an eye, he was shaking Mr Halsted’s hand as his master – former master! – stammered out an awkward goodbye, then embracing a tearful Mrs Halsted, who pressed him to her ample bosom with more-than-maternal zeal, or so it seemed to Quare, though no one else appeared to find the embrace remarkable. Nor were his own eyes empty of tears; he was, after all, leaving the closest approximation to a family that he had ever known.

Then he was seated across from Master Magnus in a jolting carriage that bore the arms of the Worshipful Company – a great golden clock showing the hour of twelve, surmounted by a crown and cross, itself surmounted by a plumed silver helmet, which was in turn topped by a banded sphere of gold; the whole supported on one side by the figure of Father Time with his scythe and hourglass, and on the other by a monarch with a golden sceptre, and beneath it all, as if inscribed on a flowing scroll, the words of the guild’s motto: Tempus Rerum Imperator . Time, Emperor of All Things.

Quare watched the familiar sights of Dorchester pass by the open window of the carriage. Streets and buildings he had seen a thousand times without emotion tugged at his heart like burrs that had become fastened there without his knowledge and now came away grudgingly and not entirely without pain.

‘Dry your eyes, Mr Quare,’ commanded his companion, who even now, in the dim confines of the conveyance, wore his dark glasses. The man’s perch on the padded bench was a precarious one; each bounce and swerve threatened to throw him down and doubtless would have done so already were it not for a strap that was bolted to the bench and which he had drawn about his waist and torso upon first clambering onto the seat – ‘My own invention,’ the master had explained in response to Quare’s inquiry.

‘After a day or two in London,’ he continued now, ‘Dorchester will seem no more than a childish fancy, a dull dream from which you will be glad to have awoken. Your real life is about to begin, sir. It will not be easy, but you will have a chance to put your talents to their best use, I assure you.’

‘I can scarcely credit all that has happened to me today, Master Magnus,’ Quare said. ‘I hope I don’t seem ungrateful or ignorant of the honour you have shown me. I will do my best to be a good apprentice to you and assist you in all your labours.’

The master laughed. ‘You mistake me, sir. I do not require your assistance. Perhaps one day, if you are diligent and obedient, and progress to the rank of journeyman, I will make use of you. But that day will not come for years, and to be frank may never come. “Many are called, but few are chosen”, Mr Quare.’

‘Then whose apprentice will I be?’

‘Why, on paper, my own. But I have many such apprentices. Do not consider yourself a special case. I had other business in Dorchester, and it was convenient to fetch you at the same time; otherwise a journeyman would be conveying you now. Once settled in London, you will not serve a single master but will instead be placed at the disposal of all the masters of the guild hall. Your day-to-day training will be overseen by journeymen – more than that, I cannot say; I find such details tedious and leave them to others.’

‘What … what is London like, master?’

‘London? She is a painted strumpet – loud, boisterous, full of frantic energy , beguiling seductions, and desperate schemes. She will stroke you with one hand and pick your pocket with the other, and leave you with the pox besides. She is life itself, Mr Quare – and death. And the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers is a microcosm of that city. Life within the guild hall could not be more different than the cosy situation you are leaving behind. We are a brotherhood, true enough, yet Cain and Abel were also brothers, were they not? But you will discover all this for yourself soon enough, as I did. You may not believe it to look at me, Mr Quare, but I was once much like you.’

‘Indeed, sir?’ he inquired.

Again the master laughed. ‘I, too, came to the city full of dreams and ambitions, burning to make my mark on the world and to unravel the secrets of time. Like yourself, I have known the tender embrace of the workhouse – the memory is engraved on my bones, on my very soul. And like you, I escaped that hell on Earth and found refuge within the guild.’

‘Why, are you an orphan, too, sir?’

‘As good as. I know nothing of my parents – they abandoned me as soon as they had a good look at me. I suppose I can’t blame them; indeed, I am grateful they didn’t smother me in the cradle.’

‘Have you made no attempt to find them?’

‘To what end? A tearful reconciliation? I leave that to the scribblers. Nor has the prospect of revenge ever interested me. No, I consider my parents dead, and myself an orphan, as I said. It is simpler that way for all concerned. But what of your own parents?’

‘They died in a fire when I was but a babe,’ Quare said. ‘Or so I have been told. I have no memory of them.’ This was not quite true; in fact, Quare possessed certain vague memories – impressions, rather – that he associated with his parents. From time to time, most often as he was lying in bed, on the verge of sleep, a warm peacefulness would settle over him from he knew not where, all the strength would ebb from his limbs, and he would feel himself enveloped in a kind of tender, loving regard that he knew at no other moment in his waking life. As far back as he could remember, he had associated this feeling or mood with the presence of his parents, as if they were watching over him from beyond the grave. But he would not divulge such a private solace to Master Magnus or anyone.

‘I was raised in an orphanage,’ he continued, ‘and from there, at the age of seven or eight – to this day, I am not certain of my exact age – was sent to the workhouse, where I remained until, quite by chance, when I was ten, or perhaps eleven, I made the acquaintance of Mr Halsted, who often, out of Christian charity, hired some of us children to help in his workshop. He encouraged my interest in timepieces and, as my aptitude for the work became plain, arranged to take me on as an apprentice. I owe that gentleman everything. He was like a father to me, and more – like an angel, sir. A guardian angel.’ Indeed, as if the truth of that statement had not been manifest to him until he had spoken it aloud, Quare felt his throat constrict with emotion. He dried his burning eyes with the cuff of his coat and looked again out of the carriage window.

They had left the city of Dorchester behind and were travelling along a dusty road past open fields of rolling farmland. In the distance, under blue skies, he could see the glint of the sun off the River Frome. It was the furthest Quare had ever been from home.

‘What if I were to tell you that you are not an orphan?’

Quare’s head whipped back round to face his companion. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘An orphan is a child deprived by death of father and mother. It’s true your mother is dead – she perished giving birth to you. That is in the parish records. But your father remains very much alive, or so I believe.’

It took Quare a moment to gather his wits. ‘My father … alive?’

‘I have found no evidence to the contrary.’

‘Why has he not come for me? Why has he allowed me to believe I am an orphan for all these years?’

‘Because he does not wish to acknowledge you, sir. He does not wish to know aught of you, and he desires even less that you should know aught of him.’

‘But why?’

‘Is it not obvious? You are no orphan, sir, but a bastard. Some man’s by-blow.’

‘How do you know this?’ Quare demanded, his hands squeezed into fists at his sides.

‘I make it my business to learn what I can about every apprentice.’

‘But then who is my father?’ A sudden foreboding came over him. ‘Is it you, sir? Is that why you have come to fetch me?’

At this, Master Magnus threw back his head and roared with laughter while Quare turned the shade of a beet. When the master had composed himself, he answered: ‘No, I am not your father, young Quare. Have no misapprehensions on that score.’

‘Then Mr Halsted! Perhaps that is why he was so kind to me.’

‘Nor is Halsted your sire. Put such thoughts from your mind.’

‘Then who?’

‘Why, I do not know,’ Master Magnus confessed with good humour. ‘What I have related to you is no more than any man could have found at any time simply by perusing the parish records. Your mother’s name was Mary Trewell. A milkmaid. No doubt seduced and cast aside. A common enough tale, though a sad one, I grant you.’

Quare was reeling; he felt as though he had slipped into a kind of dream. ‘Did … did Mr Halsted know this?’

‘Who do you think it was that examined the records? He dispatched the information to me. A boy, Daniel Quare, born to Mary Trewell, father unknown. Your name, sir, is a witty reflection of that fact, from the Latin quare , which is to say “from what cause”.’

‘I … I scarcely know what to say, what to think,’ Quare mumbled, passing a hand before his eyes. ‘Why have you told me this?’

‘Should I have kept it from you? Surely a man has the right to know the truth of his own parentage.’

‘But you have told me a half truth, no more. Now I must wonder at who my father may be. Does he yet live? And if so, does he dwell close by or far away? Have I seen him, all unknowing? Does he know of me? Perhaps he does not, and would acknowledge me if he but learned of my existence. I must find him! Sir, can you not help me?’

‘I might look for years and never find him. No doubt the trail has gone quite cold. And who is to say that he wishes to be found? A man might very well know that he has a bastard son and yet desire no more intimate acquaintance with him.’

‘Please, sir. I should like to find him anyway.’

‘And what would you do then? What would you say to him?’

‘I … I do not know.’

‘You are no longer a boy, Mr Quare, yet neither are you a man. Wait a while, sir. Complete your apprenticeship. Acquit yourself well in all that is asked of you, and then, in a few years, when you have attained the rank of journeyman, ask me again, and perhaps I will be disposed to assist you.’

‘Thank you, sir. Do you know, I was angry at Mr Halsted for sending you my sketches. But now I see that I have to thank him as well.’

‘Not everyone would be so thankful to learn themselves a bastard.’

‘My whole life, I believed myself an orphan – that is worse. You and Mr Halsted have given me back my father, or hope of him. I will work hard, sir. You shall see! I will acquit myself well – and come to my father as a man he will be proud to acknowledge.’

‘An admirable plan, young Quare. I hope you are not disappointed. But life has a way of disappointing bastards, I have found.’

‘I will pray to God that it may be otherwise, sir, and trust in his providence.’

‘Why, do you imagine that God cares a fig for bastards? Surely he has more important things on his mind.’

‘I … I don’t know, sir. I mean, yes, sir, I suppose he does. Have more important things on his mind, I mean.’

The master’s leonine head nodded approvingly. ‘What sorts of important things?’

‘I’m sure I don’t know.’

‘Then I shall tell you. Time, Mr Quare. Time is the mind of God in motion. His thought, His intent, His very essence. We horologers, as much as or even more than the clergy, are doing His work, for every timepiece is a microcosm of the universe the Almighty created and set in motion. In making and repairing clocks and watches, we of the Worshipful Company expunge the errors and anarchies of the Adversary, restoring a small but significant measure of order to the world, without which the time appointed for the return of our Saviour might be indefinitely delayed, or never draw nigh at all. Do you think I exaggerate? Have you not felt the truth of it? In repairing a damaged timepiece, do you not also repair a part of yourself, some damaged spring or coil or counterweight of the soul, and, in so doing , for a while at least, draw closer to the master of clocks and men?’

Now it was enthusiasm rather than embarrassment that brought a flush to Quare’s cheeks. ‘Yes! I have felt that, or something like it – and …’ He paused, groping for the right words.

‘Go on.’

‘Well, as if, in drawing closer to Him myself, I bring some measure of the world along with me. I know that sounds foolish – to think that my small labours can influence the entire world …’

‘But why should they not? The workings of a clock teach us how even the smallest part or movement can influence the greater whole. In life, as in horology, everything is connected, even if we lack the discernment or wisdom to perceive the nature of the connections. But do not doubt that they exist. Perhaps neither men nor clocks can be made perfect, young Quare, but they can both be made less imperfect, approaching, with each small improvement, in a kind of ceaselessly worshipful striving, ever nearer to that ideal of timeless perfection forever beyond the grasp, though not the aspiration, of mortal hand and mind. Each refinement in the measurement of time brings the world nearer to God, and to the moment, ordained since before the beginning of time itself, when we shall be ransomed from the prison of time and admitted at last into the hallowed precincts of eternity. Such, at any rate, is the belief of our guild, the consummation towards which we struggle.’

‘Mr Halsted never spoke to me of such things.’

‘I should be surprised to hear otherwise. In the guild, as in the wider world, there are gradations of knowledge, strata of understanding. Greater and lesser truths, if you will. Horology is a practical science, but it also has its mystical, or perhaps I should say esoteric, side. Just as the journeyman knows more than the apprentice, and the master more than the journeyman, so, too, do the elect of the Worshipful Company know more than the common herd. I have spoken to you now as I have, young Quare, because I judge that you possess the potential to be one of the elect – your designs proclaim it. Whether you realize this potential is another matter. That is up to you. I have but cracked a door open to give you a glimpse of the secret knowledge shining on the other side like the piled treasure of a dragon’s hoard; now I must pull that door shut, and I will not open it for you again. When the time comes, if it comes, you shall open the door yourself.’

‘I … I don’t understand, sir.’

‘It would be a wonder if you did. For now, it is enough that you reflect upon all that I have told you, and that you keep the memory of it in your thoughts in the weeks and months – indeed, the years – that lie ahead. One more piece of advice I will give you: to the extent you may reasonably do so without causing offence, keep your own counsel. Do not let yourself get tangled in the petty cliques and Machiavellian intrigues that have come to infect the guild under the leadership of our present grandmaster. Steer a middle course, young Quare, for as long as you can. That course, I make bold to say, will lead to mastery in the end. Aye, and to your father as well, like as not.’

‘Why, is he a master horologer, then? Is that what you mean?’

‘I know not what he is, nor who, as I have said. But if you would have my help in finding him, then you must apply yourself as I have suggested. That was my meaning, no more and no less.’

‘I will do my best,’ he answered, and so he had … and now found himself in a prison cell deep beneath the guild hall. Had all the choices he had made, the actions he had taken, or not taken, led him inevitably to this moment, this place? The past could not be changed – but what if the same were true of the present and the future, and all the events of a man’s life were as if carved into stone from the day of his birth, or earlier still, set down by the hand of the Almighty at the beginning of time? Choice, then, would be an illusion, and the course of each man’s life would be as fixed as the movement of a clock. Perhaps there was some comfort in this view – useless, then, to struggle, to regret, to dream. Whatever happened, happened in accordance with God’s plan, and each human being merely played the part assigned to him or her. Yet Quare’s spirit rebelled against this comfort and the attitude of supine passivity it encouraged. He rejected them both. Illusory or not, he would act as if his actions mattered, as if the future were not set in stone.

And how could it be, really? He himself was the proof of it – or, rather, the wound he bore, which by all rights should have been fatal: an assassin’s knife thrust between the shoulder blades and into the heart . Yet when death had come for him, somehow, by some means he did not understand, he had escaped. And if that prison had not been able to hold him, how could this one? He resolved that when Longinus or another servant returned, he would not sit meekly by and wait for whatever fate was in store for him. He was not helpless; he was a regulator, after all. It was time that he started acting like one.

Quare rose from the pallet and crossed the room to the desk. Heedless of the noise, he lifted the wooden chair and, holding it by the back, swung the legs against the wall until, with a loud crack, one splintered; this he prised loose, and as quickly as that held a rude club in his hand. If he could knock whoever came to check on him unconscious, he could take the man’s keys, lock him in the cell, and try to make his way out of the guild hall. It was not much of a plan, but it was the best he could come up with under the circumstances. No doubt, once he was out of the cell, other opportunities would present themselves.

Then, once he was free, he would have to clear his name. Until he did so, he would be a hunted man. But better that than to be hanged as a scapegoat for crimes he had not committed.

He retrieved Mr Puddinge’s foul-smelling coat and arranged it on the pallet to give the impression of a curled and sleeping body. His hat he placed where his head might have been. Then he went to the door, standing to one side, so that, when it was opened, he might surprise whoever entered. He waited, listening for the sound of approaching footsteps and watching for a telltale glimmer of torchlight behind the iron grille set into the door.

Some moments passed. The only sound was the crackling of the fire. Quare’s eyelids began to grow heavy in the stuffy, overheated atmosphere of the room.

‘Waiting for someone?’

The voice came from behind. Quare started then spun to face the speaker.

‘Longinus?’

The servant standing in front of the fireplace nodded, a wary eye on the club in Quare’s hand. In his own hand was a belt and sheathed rapier: the very belt and weapon that Mrs Puddinge had taken from Quare and left with the Old Wolf.

‘Put that down,’ Longinus said. ‘We’ve no time for such foolishness.’

Instead, Quare hefted the club and stepped forward. ‘How did you get in here? What are you doing with my sword?’

‘I’ve come to free you,’ Longinus answered. ‘But I would prefer not to receive a knock on the head in thanks for it.’

At that, Quare stopped short. ‘You’re letting me out?’

Longinus nodded, and for the first time, Quare noted that the servant’s normally fastidious appearance was anything but: his powdered wig had been knocked askew, and the powder on his face was streaked with sweat; his clothes were torn in places and spattered with what looked like blood – whether his own or someone else’s, Quare couldn’t say.

‘The Old Wolf has made his move,’ Longinus said. ‘He’s been preparing this for a long time, but I did not think he would strike so soon after Master Magnus’s death. Something must have forced his hand – I know not what.’

‘What do you mean, made his move? What’s going on out there?’

‘A purge,’ Longinus said, and grimaced. ‘A bloody purge – that’s what’s going on. Every regulator loyal to Master Magnus is being hunted down and killed by the Old Wolf’s men. I barely got away with my life … and your sword. Here.’ He tossed the belt to Quare, who, shifting the club to his other hand, managed to catch the sheathed weapon. Longinus, meanwhile, continued speaking. ‘You’re on the list, too, Mr Quare. Apparently the Old Wolf has decided that you’re worth more to him dead than alive. There’s not a moment to lose: we have to get out of here now. Master Malrubius is on his way here to kill you.’

‘How can I trust you?’ Quare asked. ‘How do I know this isn’t a trick?’

‘Because I know about the hunter and what it can do,’ Longinus replied. ‘I know that it drinks a man’s blood – and I know, too, that it killed Master Magnus.’

‘What? Killed him? How?’

‘As soon as we are safely away from here, I’ll tell you everything I know, I swear it. But for now, you’ll have to trust me. Master Magnus never had a chance to tell you, but he intended for the two of us to work together. Surely you recall his promise to assign a more experienced regulator to assist you. I am he.’

‘You? A regulator?’

‘Retired,’ Longinus said, and sketched a bow. ‘Now, Mr Quare, if you don’t mind, save your questions and follow me.’ With that, he turned and entered the fireplace, leaping as nimbly as Jack of the nursery rhyme over the burning logs to vanish into the back of the cavernous space. ‘Oh,’ came his voice from out of the cavity, ‘you might want to bring that appalling coat of yours.’

This was a turn of events Quare had not anticipated. He didn’t trust Longinus, but neither did he want to take the chance that the Old Wolf really had dispatched men to kill him. With all that had happened, he found that he could not discount the possibility.

The decision was made easier by the sound of voices and hurried footsteps in the corridor outside. It seemed that Quare was about to have visitors.

‘Quare!’ hissed Longinus from behind the flames.

Quare rushed to the pallet, snatched up the coat, which he bundled into his arms, along with his tricorn, and, leaving the makeshift club behind, but clutching his sword and belt, ducked under the cowl of the fireplace.

‘Jump,’ came Longinus’s voice from out of the shadows. ‘It is quite safe, you shall see.’

He heard the click of the lock turning in the door behind him. Without a backward glance, Quare closed his eyes and jumped over the burning logs, feeling the heat of the flames lick across his shins.

‘Good man.’ Strong hands took hold of him and pulled him forward, out of the heat and the smoke.

Opening his eyes, Quare found himself in a small, square room with a bell pull in one corner and a railing that ran horizontally, at waist height, around each of the three walls; each wall bore a sconce with a burning candle. ‘Why, it’s the stair-master,’ he breathed in wonder.

‘Quite,’ said Longinus even as the door to the chamber slid shut, cutting off the shouts of consternation from the cell Quare had just vacated. ‘You would be surprised, I think, to learn just how widely the stair-master may travel throughout the guild hall. Or perhaps not, knowing Master Magnus as you did. He was a man who prepared for every eventuality save one: the bizarre circumstances of his own death. But who in this world could have prepared for such a demise? Who could have imagined that such a timepiece could exist?’ He gave a sharp tug to the bell pull, and the chamber began to move, lurching backwards so suddenly that Quare nearly fell, righting himself only with difficulty by dropping his coat, hat and sword belt and grabbing hold of the rail with both hands.

‘Wh-where are we going?’ he gasped out.

‘Up,’ said Longinus. And, as if that had been a signal, or rather a command, the stair-master jerked to a halt and then shot upwards. Quare’s stomach lagged behind, and his knees almost buckled. ‘Steady on, Mr Quare,’ said Longinus. ‘I hope you are not afraid of heights.’

Quare shook his head, speech beyond him for the moment. He noted that Longinus had belted on a sword, and also that two large cloth bundles, each black as pitch and secured with an assortment of leather straps and clasps, were leaning against one wall of the now smoothly ascending chamber. The bundles looked unwieldy and lacked, as far as he could see, any shoulder straps. He could not imagine what purpose they might serve. Longinus wore a hint of a superior smile on his face as he regarded Quare, who continued to cling to the rail.

‘How high are we going?’ he asked, for, as the seconds ticked by, it seemed impossible to him that they had not yet reached the apex of the guild hall … assuming that was indeed their destination.

‘Why, all the way to the top, of course,’ said Longinus, and again, as if his words had served as a signal, the stair-master jerked, less violently than before, then glided to a stop. The door slid open upon a moonlit rooftop wreathed in drifting tendrils of fog; Quare had not realized how much time had gone by since his incarceration.

‘Buckle on your sword belt,’ Longinus instructed. ‘Gather up your coat and one of those bundles, and follow me.’ He had already lifted one of the bundles himself, which he proceeded to carry out of the stair-master.

Quare buckled on his belt, picked up his coat and hat and the remaining bundle – which was heavier than it appeared, and covered with an unfamiliar substance that clung to his fingers – and followed Longinus onto the rooftop. From this height, Quare could see much of the surrounding roofscape of London, though indistinctly, as a mass of bulky shadows and spindly shapes in which, here and there, like the stars above, tiny flames winked without providing much illumination. To the south, through tears in the curtain of fog and coal smoke, he saw the dull shine of the Thames, a length of tarnished pewter. He was reminded of his rooftop pursuit of Grimalkin – had it really been only two nights ago? But the difference was that the roof of the guild hall was substantially higher than the surrounding buildings, and Quare saw no way to leap from their present perch to an adjoining one, as he had done while scrambling after Grimalkin. They were trapped. Did Longinus mean to betray him?

‘Stop gawking and come over here,’ said Longinus. ‘You will have plenty of time later to admire the view.’ The servant – though Quare supposed he could no longer think of him in that way – was kneeling beside a brick wall some distance away. He had his bundle open and spread out before him. As Quare approached, he saw that there was a large metal canister near by, from which a tube extended into the midst of the opened bundle. There was a hissing sound, as of escaping air.

‘What are you doing? What is that thing?’

‘Lay your bundle down there,’ Longinus replied, pointing to the wall where the canister stood.

Quare placed bundle, hat and coat where Longinus had indicated, then turned, his hand on the hilt of his sword. ‘I want answers, Longinus. And I want them now. Why have you brought me here?’

‘You fool!’ the other hissed. ‘We don’t have time for this! Even now the Old Wolf’s men are climbing towards us – they will not let us escape if they can help it.’

‘Escape? Why, there is no escaping this rooftop – not unless we can sprout wings and fly!’

Longinus laughed and got to his feet. ‘We shall do the next best thing. Behold another of Master Magnus’s wondrous inventions: the Personal Flotation Device. It will lift us from this rooftop and carry us safely through the air.’

Quare’s mouth dropped open. ‘Are you mad?’

‘You know as well as I what Master Magnus was capable of. This canister, which is connected to a substantial reservoir beneath the roof, is filled with flammable air, a gas that is lighter than the air around us – so much lighter that it provides sufficient buoyancy to lift a heavy object … a person, in this case. The device itself consists of a leather harness and a sphere of sailcloth coated with the sap of a Brazilian tree – the natives call it caoutchouc , or so I am told. This sap holds the gas within, while permitting the bladder to expand. Once airborne, the device can be manoeuvred by dropping carefully calibrated weights – packets of sand of varying sizes – and by releasing controlled bursts of flammable air from the sphere.’

‘You are mad!’

‘I have used the Personal Flotation Device many times, Mr Quare. It is quite safe, over relatively short distances.’

‘Right. Safe, is it? I suppose that’s why the gas is called “flammable air”. Because it is so much safer than ordinary air. You know, the nonflammable kind.’

‘The gas is dangerous only if it comes into contact with a spark or flame.’

‘Oh, that’s very comforting. And if it does?’

‘Then, Mr Quare, we shall both go out in a blaze of glory. But if you would rather return to your cell or remain here on the rooftop to await the arrival of Malrubius and his men …’

Quare grimaced. ‘I take your point. How does the damned thing work?’

‘There is not sufficient time to train you in its operation, unfortunately, so I am going to tether us together. Once you are aloft, touch nothing, do nothing, unless at my direction. Is that clear?’

‘As crystal,’ he replied.

‘Put on your coat,’ Longinus directed. ‘You’ll be glad of the warmth, believe me.’

Quare did so, donning his hat as well. Then Longinus fitted him into the leather harness, strapping it snugly about his thighs and across his torso and shoulders. All the while, the sailcloth bladder expanded, retaining its spherical shape; it was bigger than he had realized, perhaps twice his own size, if not more. Soon the sphere rose gently off the roof and into the air, a dark moonlet seeking its rightful place in the sky. Quare could feel it tugging at him. By that time, moving with practised efficiency, Longinus had opened the second bundle and spread it out, attaching a second tube – or ‘umbilical’, as he put it. As the device began to inflate, he strapped himself into its harness, spurning Quare’s offer of help.

‘You would only hinder me,’ he said, ‘or fail to secure the straps properly, and, in your ignorance, however well-meaning, kill us both.’

The whole operation did not take more than a few minutes, objectively speaking, yet all the same, Quare felt as if time had slowed to a crawl. He kept expecting to see armed men burst onto the rooftop, and so fixated was his anxious stare on the trap door that gave access to the roof that he was taken by surprise when, in a gust of wind, the sphere to which he was attached raised itself higher still, pulling him off his feet in the process. There he remained, dangling in the air above the rooftop like a puppet from its strings, secured only by the taut umbilical and the tether with which Longinus had bound their harnesses together. His hands clung to the ropes of the harness that rose from his shoulders to the sphere above as if by doing so he might somehow pull the device back to earth. It was all he could do not to scream. Then another gust of wind snatched the tricorn from his head, and he cursed loudly at the loss of it.

‘A moment more,’ Longinus said. He, too, would have risen into the air were it not for a pair of cables running from his harness to moorings set into the roof. His sphere bobbed below Quare like a cork.

Seeming to strain with the effort, Longinus bent over the canister and turned a small wheel there. Then he slipped the cables from the moorings. Both inflated spheres sprang upwards, carrying their human cargoes along. The umbilicals, pulled free of the spheres, fell back to the rooftop; even amidst his terror, Quare retained sufficient presence of mind to marvel at Master Magnus’s ingenious design, which must have included some sort of self-sealing mechanism.

‘ Allez-houp! ’ cried Longinus.

Quare contributed an incoherent cry of his own as the bladders zoomed up and away – and not a moment too soon, for even as the rooftop receded dizzyingly below them, the trap door opened. ‘Longinus!’ Quare shouted, hoping his voice could be heard over the rush of the wind.

If Longinus responded, Quare didn’t hear it. He watched in near -panic as the men on the rooftop – four of them, as small now as dwarfs, and a fifth, seemingly smaller still: Master Malrubius, nearly as spherical as the inflated bladder that had swept him aloft – raised what could only be pistols and seemed to follow their progress through the air, tracking them with steady hands. Quare felt as if he must loom as vast and ungainly in their sight as an airborne elephant. He cursed as a cluster of bright flashes marked the flintlocks’ firing and strove to somehow make himself smaller. He recalled very well what Longinus had told him about the result should the flammable air in the bladders encounter a spark or flame, and he wondered what effect the strike of a ball would have. Even if the gas in the bladder did not ignite, it was a long way down.

But the bullets did not find their marks – at least in so far as Quare could determine. Certainly he had not been struck, and it didn’t seem that the bladder carrying him ever higher and farther away had suffered injury, either. Nor did it appear that Longinus or his Personal Flotation Device had been hit. And their attackers could not reload fast enough to fire again. Quare watched in amazement, his heart aflutter like a frantic bird, as the men dwindled into insignificance, soon swallowed by shadows and the night.

They had done it. They were free.

A giddy exhilaration swelled in his breast, as if he had just swallowed a dram of strong liquor; under its influence, he could not forbear from shouting in triumph. Even his terror at dangling in mid-air like a mouse caught in the talons of an owl contributed to his sense of having escaped not only his prison cell and the fate Sir Thaddeus had planned for him but the laws of nature itself, as if it were an enchantment and not the application of scientific principles that had lofted him high above the city.

Here the air belonged to a colder season. For once, Quare was glad of Mr Puddinge’s coat, for despite its stench – which the wind of their swift passage kept at bay – it provided some welcome insulation from that same wind’s icy probings. Still, the exposed flesh of his hands and face soon began to sting, and his eyes to water; his mouth had grown so dry that he clamped it resolutely shut.

Longinus soared ahead of him, a dark shape visible against the softer coal of the night sky, where a ceiling of high cloud was silvered with moonlight, suggesting nothing so much to Quare at this moment as the surface of a great sail carrying the entire planet shiplike through the ether. That sail was torn in places, and through the ragged gaps he could see the glimmer of stars far brighter, it seemed, than he had ever perceived them from the level of the streets, even on moonless nights, and the moon, too, though not yet full, seemed, as it drifted behind the clouds, a brighter presence than he had known, a place it might, perhaps, be possible to travel to by this same method. What a journey that would make! What wonders might he find there!

But there were wonders nearer to hand. A wider rent had opened in the clouds, and in the plangent wash of moonlight the whole of London was revealed, extending as far as he could see. From his unaccustomed vantage, it seemed a different city than the one he had come to know, a fairy metropolis spun out of shadow and suggestion, of soft, silvery light and slate-grey webbings of fog, insubstantial as a dream. He passed over a weird terrain of rooftops and spires, chimneys belching smoke, deep valleys of streets, and squares in which the occasional torch flickered like a lonely star reflected in the mirror of a placid lake. There was no sound from below, only the rushing of the air, as noisy – and cold – as if he had plunged his head beneath a freezing cataract. Perhaps they had reached the moon after all, and this was no earthly city but the capital of some lunar country …

The undulating thread of the Thames, stitching in and out of the darker fabric of the night, gave Quare the means to orient himself, and he realized with a shock of recognition that he was passing almost directly above his lodgings – former lodgings, rather. Below him, Mrs Puddinge was no doubt enjoying the slumber of the just. What would she think if she looked up and saw her dead husband’s coat flapping overhead like a ragged spirit condemned to an eternity of restless wandering?

That errant thought reminded him of more recent deaths, of spirits that clamoured for justice and revenge, if only in the court of his own conscience. Was the murderer Aylesford still at large in London, seeking the timepiece that, in some fashion Quare did not understand, had both saved his own life and killed – at least, according to Longinus – Master Magnus? Sir Thaddeus had the hunter now, and Quare shuddered at the thought of what might occur as the Old Wolf subjected the device to a thorough examination. Grimalkin’s warning had been amply borne out, it seemed to him, and he wished that he had thought to question her more closely on the subject when he’d had the chance. He would have given a lot to see her again; she was as intriguing as she was beautiful, and he did not doubt that she could supply answers to many of the mysteries that had so thoroughly entangled him.

As the vertiginous sensations of flight lost their novelty, Quare realized that he and Longinus were not at the mercy of every capricious breeze. They were moving with steady intent, like ships that hold to their course despite the vagaries of the wind. None of this was Quare’s doing. Tethered to Longinus, he could only follow where the other man led; though at times it seemed that he was leading and Longinus following as the two Personal Flotation Devices performed a drunken minuet, each seeking to rotate about the other in a freewheeling demonstration of pendular motion that would have engaged Quare’s mind had it not been so upsetting to his stomach. More than once they collided in midair, pushing themselves apart with grunts and curses before the lines of their harnesses could become fouled.

It seemed impossible that the mere manipulation of sand and gas, as Longinus had described to him, could bring their flight under control. But such was the case. Though there was not sufficient light to observe Longinus, Quare marvelled at the visible results of the man’s unseen actions. Small, purposeful alterations in trajectory, height and velocity nudged the two devices in a particular direction, cutting westward across the city, angling closer to the Thames. Quare felt as if he had been caught up in a waking dream, or come under the influence of a magic spell. All his senses were heightened. He was drunk with wonder and fright.

Then, after an interval that could have been seconds or hours for all his ability to judge it, they began to descend. The city rose to meet them, surfacing out of fog and shadow like a leviathan bestirring itself after a long slumber. Someone – confederates of Longinus, Quare supposed – had set a ring of torches burning atop a particular roof, and it was towards this marker that Longinus steered them now. But how did he mean to set them safely down? It occurred to Quare that landing might prove to be even more dangerous than flying. He watched apprehensively as – far too swiftly, it seemed – the Personal Flotation Devices came swooping in.

He cried out, certain that he was about to die, but then a handful of figures ran into the torchlight, scurrying over the roof as if chasing something too small for Quare to see. Even as they passed above these men, who, he noted, wore the livery of servants, a strong jerk thrust him against his harness, driving the breath from his lungs. Urgent cries rose up from below. When he could breathe again, he saw that the men were holding tightly to ropes that Longinus had let drop from his harness. The servants had caught these ropes in mid-flight and tied them to moorings set into the roof. Now the men were hauling them in hand over hand. Quare smiled at his saviours with a gratitude that bordered on love. They did not spare him a glance, intent on their work, and he loved them all the more for it.

‘That wasn’t so bad, eh, Mr Quare?’ came Longinus’s voice.

Quare could only grin stupidly.

But his grin faded as he took in the details of the roof. He knew them very well. There was the chimney behind which he had concealed himself two nights ago. There the skylight from which, wreathed in grey smoke, Grimalkin had emerged.

Longinus had brought him to Lord Wichcote’s house.

He was betrayed.

7 Lord Wichcote

WHAT SECONDS EARLIER had seemed like salvation took on a very different aspect as the men on the rooftop – there were at least a dozen – reeled Quare in like an eel dragged from the Thames … though that hypothetical eel would have had a better chance of slipping the hook than Quare of escaping his harness. Longinus had liberated him from one jailer only to deliver him, snugly trussed, to another. Perhaps Lord Wichcote did not want him dead, as the Old Wolf did – though it occurred to Quare that he had only Longinus’s word on that – but his lordship was no friend of the Worshipful Company. Lord Wichcote would not have had him brought here out of benevolent philanthropy. He wanted something.

The flickering torchlight imparted a hellish cast to the frantic activity below. Red-glazed hands reached up for him, taking hold of his legs and pulling him roughly down. Even before his feet touched solid ground, other hands were busy at the straps and buckles of his harness. Nearby, Longinus was being similarly attended to. The servants were well practised at this work, and in less than a minute had extracted both men. The Personal Flotation Devices were dragged to the far side of the roof; Quare surmised that the bladders could not be vented near the torches owing to the danger of an explosion. But that was the least of his worries.

The servants had not taken away his sword, as he had feared they would. Nor did they make any attempt to restrain him. In truth, it was all he could do to remain upright. His legs seemed to have become unfamiliar with the ground … either that, or the ground had grown less stable in the time of his absence from it. He would have liked nothing better than to lie down on the rooftop and close his eyes until the world stopped wobbling and his queasy stomach settled. But this was no time to give way to weakness. A grinning Longinus was striding towards him. He had lost his wig in the flight, and his bare scalp gleamed in the torchlight, putting Quare in mind of a vulture. He drew his sword.

Longinus stopped short, smile vanishing. ‘I confess I had expected a warmer thanks for having saved your life, Mr Quare.’ He motioned with one hand for the servants to stay back.

‘Take another step and you will find it hot indeed, I promise you,’ Quare said. ‘Why have you brought me to Lord Wichcote’s house?’

‘Ah, so you recognize it, then. Good.’

‘Lord Wichcote was no friend to Master Magnus, and he is no friend to the Worshipful Company, either.’

‘In that you are quite wrong,’ Longinus said. ‘His lordship has long been a benefactor of the Worshipful Company and a close associate of Master Magnus – I will not say a friend, because that gentleman, God rest his troubled soul, was not capable of genuine friendship with any creature besides a cat. But the two men, for all their differences, had a genuine respect for each other and worked together often, if behind the scenes. They did not always see eye to eye, but when it came to the interests of guild and country, there was no space between them. Only, it suited them to have the world believe them enemies. A secret ally is often of more value than a friend whom all the world can see, as this night has amply demonstrated. So put up your sword, Mr Quare. You have nothing to fear from Lord Wichcote.’

‘I think not,’ said Quare, his glance shifting to the surrounding servants, all of whom were watching intently. Yet not one of them made a threatening move in his direction. It seemed that Longinus had some authority over them.

‘A shame,’ Longinus said meanwhile, and, moving faster than Quare would have guessed possible in a man of his age, drew his own sword.

The next few seconds were a blur to Quare. He had thought Aylesford a skilled swordsman, but Longinus was in another class altogether. Quare managed two weak parries before the sword was wrenched from his hand as if by an invisible force; it clattered to the ground, where one of the servants picked it up. Quare, clutching the wrist of his now empty hand, which had been rendered numb and useless by a blow he had not seen coming – or going, for that matter – could only gape in astonishment as Longinus sheathed his sword.

‘Your technique is woefully inadequate,’ the man remarked with a sad shake of his head. He did not appear in the least winded. ‘I see that I will have my work cut out to make a respectable regulator out of you, as Master Magnus wished me to do.’

‘And what of Lord Wichcote’s wishes?’ Quare demanded. ‘He is your true master, is he not? How much did he pay you to betray me?’

‘Why, nothing at all.’

‘I think I shall call you Judas rather than Longinus. The name suits you better.’

‘I prefer Longinus. But if you would call me something other, then my true name will suffice for now. Josiah Wichcote, sir, at your service.’ He gave a small bow.

Quare’s mouth gaped wider still. ‘L-lord Wichcote?’ he stammered at last.

‘The same.’ As he spoke, it seemed to Quare that the man stood taller, straighter; it was as if he had cast off a subtle disguise. ‘No doubt you have many questions,’ he continued. ‘I will answer them as best I can. But first, I intend to change out of these clothes and enjoy a hot bath. I invite you to do the same. I will have you shown to your rooms; fresh clothes and anything else you may require will be brought to you there. Then, sir, we shall dine together, and I shall tell you everything I know about the circumstances of Master Magnus’s death … and other things you will, I dare say, find equally incredible.’

With that, Longinus – Lord Wichcote, rather, if his assertion could be believed – bowed again and took his leave. Surrounded by a bevy of servants, he strode across the roof and descended through a trap door some distance from the skylight with the ease of a much younger man. Most of the remaining servants busied themselves with the Personal Flotation Devices and harnesses, but a pair of them – including the one who had picked up his sword – presented themselves to Quare.

‘If you please, sir,’ said the one holding his sword, ‘we will conduct you to your rooms now.’

‘Is that really Lord Wichcote?’ he couldn’t help asking.

‘Oh, indeed, yes,’ the servant replied with a note of pride in his voice. ‘His lordship is quite the swordsman, is he not?’

The feeling was only just returning to Quare’s hand. ‘The best I have seen,’ he answered, flexing tingling fingers; it seemed to him that Lord Wichcote would be a match even for Grimalkin. And yet, he reminded himself, Grimalkin must have bested the man two nights ago, when she had stolen the hunter. Of course, that was no proof of superior swordsmanship, for he, in turn, had bested Grimalkin. Luck and surprise went a long way.

‘If you please, sir,’ the servant repeated, gesturing towards the trap door.

‘I am your prisoner,’ Quare said. ‘My pleasure has nothing to do with it.’

‘Our guest, rather,’ said the other servant, who had been silent until now. ‘His lordship has charged us to see to your comfort. We are at your disposal, Mr Quare.’

‘I am glad to hear it,’ Quare said. ‘In that case, I will have my sword back.’

The servant holding the weapon did not hesitate; he passed it back to Quare, hilt first.

Quare accepted it warily, fearing a trick. But the two servants regarded him placidly as he held it. For a long moment, their eyes met, and Quare considered then rejected the idea of fighting his way out; he suspected a second attempt would end no better than the first, and quite possibly worse. The return of his sword had not made him any less a prisoner; if anything, it had made him more conscious of his helplessness. Still, he felt better for having it. He sheathed the weapon. ‘Lead on,’ he said.

Later, as he basked in the waters of a hot, perfumed bath, taking care to keep his bandages dry, Quare reflected that there were jails and then there were jails. His cell in the guild hall had been spare but comfortable , with a pallet to stretch out on, a desk and writing implements, even a roaring fire. But the luxury of his present confinement beggared all comparison. Upon entering the rooms, he had caught his breath at the sumptuousness of the furnishings and other appointments; he had never seen their like, not even in the guild hall. Everywhere was colour and the shine of metal in candlelight; he felt like a savage stumbled into the midst of a civilization he could only marvel at without understanding. There were some objects here he had no name for and whose purpose was as far beyond his grasp as the moon, though their beauty was equally evident. Even the many things he did recognize – the oil paintings and tapestries on the walls, the gold-embroidered curtains hanging before the tall windows, the trompe l’oeil scene of receding clouds and cherubs upon the ceiling, the silk-upholstered chairs and settees, the great four-poster bed – seemed different from similar items in his experience not just in quality but in essence, as if he had entered a realm of Platonic ideals.

After descending through the trap door in the rooftop, he had found himself in a different part of the house entirely from the attic workshop that had been his destination two nights ago. This confused him, but he kept his questions to himself, trying to take everything in as the two servants Lord Wichcote had assigned to him bustled him down a set of stairs, along a sequence of branching corridors and thus into the rooms that, he was told, had been prepared for him; though whether that meant Lord Wichcote had always planned to bring him here, the men would not say.

He could hear them now, moving about behind the flimsy Chinese screen that did not confer privacy so much as the illusion of it. The unfolded panels depicted a vertiginous, mist-shrouded mountain landscape whose gentle colours and sinuous lines appeared drawn from dream rather than nature. It seemed to Quare, made drowsy by the scented waters of the bath, from which tendrils of steam rose like extrusions from the painting itself, that he might, by some small effort of will, drift across whatever boundary separated this world from that one, and thus make his escape. He closed his eyes and imagined himself standing upon those lofty crags, gazing into the fog-patched depths of a strange country.

But though the illusion was a pleasant one, he could not long sustain it; the noise of the servants as they arranged things in the room, and the gradual cooling of the water, kept Quare from entering fully into the peaceful reverie that lay almost but not quite within reach. At last, after he heard the servants leave the room, he rose from the bath. A towel had been laid on a nearby table; he took it and rubbed himself dry, in the process returning welcome heat to his body. He could see from the state of his bandages that his wounds had not started bleeding again.

Wrapped in the towel, he stepped from behind the screen. A fire blazed in the hearth, and fresh clothes had been laid out for him on the four-poster bed; of his old clothes, including Mr Puddinge’s mangy second-best coat, there was no sign. There were a number of clocks in the room – what he had seen so far of the house suggested a quantity and variety of timepieces that rivalled the collection of the guild hall. However, no two were in agreement; each kept its own time, and Quare felt a strange disorientation as he crossed to the bed, as if he were traversing a score of tiny intersecting universes in which different measures of time held sway. Parts of his body seemed to be surging ahead or falling behind; more than once on that epic journey of a dozen feet or so he had to pause and catch his breath, wait for his head to clear. He had intended to dress himself and go to demand answers of Lord Wichcote, but when he reached the bed, he fell into it, and was at once deeply asleep.

Quare woke with a start, shivering atop the bed. The candles in the room had burned low, and the fire was a feeble flickering. His thoughts were thick and muddled, as after a night of drinking. Yet he had not had a drop … which led him to wonder if he had been drugged somehow. His deep and dreamless sleep had not been a natural one, or so it seemed to him now. And how long had he slept? The clocks in the room gave no answer, or, rather, too many answers, impossible to interpret. A gauzy light shone through the curtains that hid the windows. Drawing them aside, he saw that it was morning; his window overlooked a large green garden that, like the house itself, was filled with an abundance of timepieces. It reminded him of the time garden at the guild hall, but seemed even more capacious … and, if possible, capricious, for the variety of horological devices on display, even judged by outward appearance alone, surpassed anything in his experience, ranging from the primitive to the sophisticated to the downright incomprehensible, and, rather than being set aside for study and contemplation, as in the guild hall, the devices here were overgrown with vegetation, like ancient ruins peeking out from a resurgent wilderness. Whatever the truth of Lord Wichcote’s relationship to the Worshipful Company, Quare reflected, his relationship to time was an eccentric one.

He dressed in the clothes that had been laid out for him. His watch he found tucked into a pocket of the waistcoat; it had stopped running and thus was of no use in determining the hour. Still, the familiar heft of it gave him courage, like a friendly talisman amidst so much that was strange. Even more reassuring was the continued presence of his sword, which he now strapped to his side.

Dressed in clothes that were finer than he had ever worn, and that fitted better, too, than anything in his late and lamentable wardrobe, as though Lord Wichcote had known his measurements and had had the clothes tailored for him, Quare felt ready to confront his host. He half expected to find the door locked, but it opened freely. The hallway beyond was empty, lit by tapers set in gleaming sconces at intervals along the walls. Of his two minders from the night before, there was no sign. Quare paused, uncertain which way to go. But he supposed it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to retreat to his rooms and wait there to be summoned. With a shrug, he set off down the hall, his mind on exploration rather than escape.

Closed doors lined both sides of the hall; he stopped before them in turn and listened, but heard nothing from within; when he essayed one, he found that it was locked. Pushing on, he reached a stairway and followed it down; on the next landing, he again chose a direction at random. All the while, the only sounds were his own footsteps and the busy ticking of the many clocks set on the walls or upon shelves or small tables, all of them out of step with each other. His earlier impression had been of a sort of temporal anarchy, with every clock face displaying a different hour and the audible beat of the mechanisms following no common measure, like the mindless clamour of insects crowding a hot summer’s night, but now it struck him that there was order here, too, for it must take considerable effort to ensure that the clocks did not agree in any apparent way. The cumulative effect was claustrophobic; Quare felt hedged in on all sides, as if he were pushing his way through a dense, thorny thicket. The farther he went down the hall, the worse this sensation grew. The air itself seemed resistant to his progress. Was he actually moving more slowly? He halted and took a breath, trying to steady himself and clear his head.

A sharp edge was laid across his throat. A hand had snaked from behind to press a blade there; at its touch, his perceptions cleared, though he did not dare to so much as twitch a muscle. The voice of Longinus – Lord Wichcote, rather – sounded low in his ear.

‘Tick-tock, Mr Quare – you’re dead.’

Quare swallowed.

The knife lifted, and Quare turned – measuredly – to face the man who had either rescued or abducted him … he wasn’t quite sure which. Perhaps both.

‘’Tis worse even than I thought,’ the older man said as he appraised Quare from over the tip of the knife like a butcher examining a side of beef to determine how best to flense it from the bone. Like Quare, he had changed his clothes; but it was more as if he had changed his very skin, for there was no trace of the servant in the man who faced him now, dressed in the bright finery of a foppish aristocrat, complete with white-powdered skin and wig, and a dark beauty mark on his left cheek. Yet Quare, whose experiences of the last few days had given him a new perspective on such things, wondered if this was as much of a costume as the servant’s garb the man had worn earlier – chosen to facilitate the playing of a role. ‘If I had been your Mr Aylesford, you would have been dead now, Mr Quare. And you call yourself a regulator?’

‘I … I would have answers, my lord.’

‘Would you indeed?’ Lord Wichcote tucked the blade into the sleeve of his coat, sliding it hilt-first under the cuff as if this were the natural repository of such objects. ‘First you must get into the habit of calling me Longinus, not Lord Wichcote or my lord or any other such advertisement of identity or rank. I assure you, I shall take no offence. Our lives may depend upon it.’

‘You make demands on me, sir, but you do not give reasons. You rescue me, for which I am not ungrateful, only to drug me – for I can only assume that some drug was placed into my bath last night, so precipitately did I fall asleep afterwards. And now you put a knife to my throat. You promised me answers. I will hear them, or I will take my leave … and you may try to stop me if you like.’ He laid his hand on the hilt of his sword but did not draw it.

‘I think we both know how that would turn out,’ Longinus said with a dismissive shrug. ‘Even if you made it past me, which is highly unlikely, you would not last for long on the streets outside, with both the watch and the Old Wolf’s agents looking for you. You are correct about the drug. I will not apologize for it. You were in need of a good night’s sleep. As for the knife, I wanted to test your alertness, your reflexes. Even I should have had difficulty in creeping up on a properly trained regulator. Yet you showed not the slightest awareness of my presence until the blade touched your skin.’

‘I am still not fully recovered from the drug you administered. My senses are somewhat clouded, as I told you. These infernal clocks of yours – the noise of them …’

‘Indeed? You interest me more and more, Mr Quare. Come, sir: let us eat and drink. You must be famished.’

‘What is the time?’

‘Why, any time you like,’ Longinus answered, gesturing at the clocks that lined the hallway. ‘You may have your pick of the time in this house.’

‘I would prefer to know the true time.’

‘True? If there is such a thing, a timepiece will not tell you. You slept through the night; it is now morning – let that suffice. Come, let us break our fast together. There is much you need to know.’ He gestured Quare forwards.

Thoughts all awhirl, Quare complied, keeping hold of his sword hilt and his questions. His host led him down another flight of stairs and into a dining room where a buffet had been laid out. Large windows looked out on the garden he had seen from his room; the day was bright and clear, at least by London standards. Quare took in the side table laden with fillets of beef, fish, mutton cutlets and poultry, along with sausages, omelettes and soft-boiled eggs, assorted varieties of bread, jams and orange marmalade, plates of cut fruit, and cold game pies. Liveried servants were waiting to pour tea or coffee or chocolate. Here, too, an assortment of clocks kept their sundry times.

‘I like a country-style breakfast,’ commented Longinus, nodding to the servants as he led Quare to the dining table and gestured for him to sit down. A footman had already pulled a chair out for him and was waiting, like an automaton designed for the purpose, to slide it back.

‘Will others be joining us?’ Quare asked as he sat. The table could have accommodated thirty, and there was food enough for twice that number.

Longinus walked around the table to take a seat opposite him. ‘I thought an intimate breakfast might be just the thing to get us off on the proper footing,’ he said as he settled into the upholstered chair another footman had pulled out for him. Already plates of food were appearing on the table. ‘What will you have to drink, Mr Quare? I like a strong cup of coffee in the morning,’ he added as a man stepped forward to pour him one.

‘Coffee will serve,’ said Quare, and found this instantly supplied, as were all his other wants. Still, he did not sip from the cup, nor eat any of the food.

Longinus, who had begun eating, looked up at Quare.

‘I’m afraid I don’t entirely trust you, my lo— er, Longinus. I can’t help but wonder if you are feeding me some other drug or even poison.’

‘Yet you must trust me, Mr Quare. We need not be friends, but we must not be enemies. Partners, rather. We need each other. And England needs us.’

‘That is all very well. I hope I am as patriotic as the next fellow. But actions speak louder than words. You expect me to trust you, yet what do you offer in return?’

‘I have already given you your freedom.’

‘Am I free? Could I get up from this table and walk out of that door and leave this house?’

‘I have explained to you why that would be most unwise.’

‘Yes. But would you seek to prevent me from leaving if I should nevertheless choose to go?’

‘I would.’

Quare nodded. ‘So, we understand each other. I remain your prisoner, though my accommodations are certainly improved, and for that, at least, I do thank you.’

‘I promised you answers, and you shall see that I keep my promises. As for the food – you may do as you like. I cannot force you to eat. But speaking as an old soldier, it is wise to eat when one can while in the midst of a campaign.’

Quare’s misgivings were grave as ever, yet he could not ignore the promptings of his belly, nor the tempting smells of the food. He needed to eat, if only to keep up his strength. Once he began, he could not stop; he had not realized he was so famished, and the food was delicious. He ate everything the servants put in front of him. For some time, he was too busy to ask any questions, or, for that matter, to think of them. But at last his mind and stomach regained their equilibrium, and he sat back to regard Longinus, who was watching him in turn. His host had finished with his own breakfast and was on his third cup of coffee. Quare cleared his throat. ‘That was very good, my l— that is, Longinus.’

‘My cook is first-rate,’ he replied.

‘I have so many questions, I scarce know where to begin.’

‘That is understandable.’ Without looking away, Longinus made a gesture of dismissal, and Quare watched as the servants stopped whatever they had been doing and trooped from the room. When the last of them had gone, closing the door behind him, their master leaned back in his chair and said, ‘Ask me whatever you please, and I will answer as plainly and forthrightly as I can.’

‘Anything?’

‘Anything at all.’

‘Why are all your clocks out of step with each other?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Your clocks, sir. Each reflects a different time. It was the same in the workshop of Master Magnus. I used to think that disorder a reflection or product of the master’s unruly genius, but now I suspect there is something else at work.’

‘You are correct,’ Longinus answered. ‘Your question cuts straight to the heart of the matter. Here, sir. Examine these.’ And so saying, Longinus drew from his coat no fewer than five pocket watches of various designs, which he set on the table and pushed towards Quare.

Quare picked them up one by one. Each registered a different time. Which, if any, was correct, he had no way of knowing. He slid the watches back towards Longinus, who restored them to their original places on his person.

‘Why do you carry those?’ asked Quare, baffled. ‘What possible use can they be?’

‘They protect me.’ He gestured to encompass the room. ‘As do all these other timepieces.’

‘Protect you? From what?’

‘What is time, Mr Quare?’ Longinus asked in turn. ‘What do we measure with our clocks and watches? Is it some ethereal substance, akin to the grains of sand that dribble through an hourglass or the drops of water that power a Chinese clock? Is it, rather, an exhalation, a product of some reaction invisible to us, like the smoke that rises from a burning candle? Or is it simply the creation of man, an illusion that has no objective existence at all? I would be most interested to hear your thoughts on the matter.’

‘Master Magnus once told me that time is the mind of God in motion.’

‘Yes, I have heard him say so. But alas, I do not believe in God any longer, and so I have had to formulate my own understanding of the matter. Does that shock you?’

‘It baffles me, rather. The proofs of God’s existence are all around us; it seems to me that one would have to be blind not to see them.’

‘Perhaps I am blind. But I hope you will grant that a man may learn to navigate his way through the world without sight. Why, I have known blind men – and women, too – whose other senses have, as it were, become all the sharper in compensation for the lack of it. One of the keenest horologists I ever met was a blind man able to repair timepieces by touch and hearing alone. So it may be with a man like myself, blind to what others take for granted. Certainly I do not mean to disparage the genius of your late master. His insights into time and horology were profound, and I never met a quicker, more fertile mind, one better able, moreover, to turn its fancies into facts. And what wondrous facts! Nor did our differences of opinion on this and other matters prevent our long partnership from being, on the whole, a happy and successful one. I mourn his passing, sir, and honour his memory: truly, I do. And I will have more to say about that in due course. But I have pursued my own researches into the nature of time, and I think it fair to say that I have come to an understanding no less profound than your late master’s.’

‘I should like to hear it,’ Quare said.

‘I believe that time is another dimension. A fourth dimension, if you will. It is like a river in which we find ourselves, a great river stretching into the unknowable distance of the future and the irretrievable distance of the past. Yet we know only an infinitesimal portion of this river. Of its depths we can say nothing. Nor do I believe that we are afloat upon its surface; that is an illusion of perspective. Rather, it surrounds us on all sides, and the heights to which it extends above us are as infinite as the depths below. What we perceive as the passing of time, the steady beat of seconds and minutes that we measure out with our clever clocks, the signs of aging that we recognize with dismay upon our faces and the faces of our loved ones, which testify to the briefness of our earthly lives, the progression of the seasons, which, like a rolling wheel, both repeats its revolution and moves forward towards some culmination we cannot know, are but visible indications of an invisible force, just as the rustling of leaves in a tree signifies the passing of a breeze we cannot otherwise perceive. In this great river – or ocean, if you prefer – of time, we are but bits of debris carried along by the current. We mistake, in our ignorance and arrogance, the flow of that current for our own movement, and flatter ourselves that we give shape and direction to our lives by our actions and beliefs. But in fact, the vast majority of us are quite helpless, and all our vaunted intelligence is lost on inconsequential ephemera, bubbles and rainbows, rather than on the mysteries of this wondrous medium that surrounds us.’

‘An interesting theory,’ said Quare.

At which, as if acknowledging the scepticism behind Quare’s politeness, Longinus gave a bark of laughter. ‘It gets better, sir. Imagine, then, a great sea, in which we humans are carried along on a particular current, just as, in our own seas, ships may travel from one place to another simply by catching a certain stream. But would it not be strange if, in this sea of time, there were not other currents? And would it not be stranger still if there were not other creatures also living in this sea – just as, in our own watery seas, there is an abundance of life – life, moreover, that is not captive to one current or to any of them, but may move with freedom and purpose throughout the entire medium?’

‘What sort of creatures do you mean?’

‘Call them what you like: gods or angels, demons or dragons. Fairies, even. Creatures of myth and legend, though quite otherwise than those myths and legends paint them. Names are unimportant; what matters is that they exist. Some are mindless, some harmless, but others are as intelligent as we, or more so, and far more dangerous. These creatures can take many forms. What they look like in their own realm we cannot even imagine; we see them as they choose to appear to us, within the bounds of what our senses are equipped to perceive. Their own senses are quite different from ours, as you might expect, and their perceptions of time far more complex and acute. To some of them, the regular ticking of a clock has a scent as well as a sound – you understand that I am speaking metaphorically – a scent that attracts them to us, as the scent of blood in the water will attract a shark. That is why I keep all the timepieces in my house and on my person out of step. To muddy the waters, so to speak, and thus keep these predators at bay.’

‘I see.’ Quare did not know what to make of the man before him. Was he a lunatic? His words were almost absurdly fanciful … yet not without interest. ‘What of a workshop like Sir Thaddeus’s, where an army of clocks marches to the same drummer?’

‘Such a place is like a beacon in the dark. A veritable lighthouse. Whether he knows it or not – and I believe he knows it very well – Sir Thaddeus has been visited by these creatures. Indeed, I believe he has been suborned by them.’

‘To what end?’

‘Nothing good. They would use him to extend their influence among us, to make our dimension, into which they cannot fully enter, or long remain, a subsidiary of their own – or such is my belief. In short, they war against us. They are a deadlier enemy than the French, more powerful, more subtle … more to be feared. Because they are not human.’

‘And you have proof of this, I suppose?’

‘There are many proofs. You have held one of them in your hands.’

Quare felt a chill. ‘The hunter.’

‘Yes, the hunter.’

‘What did you mean earlier when you said that the hunter had killed Master Magnus?’

At this, Longinus pushed back his chair and stood. He began to pace alongside the edge of the table, his hands clasped behind him. When he reached the far end of the table, he turned and started back. Not until he had drawn level with Quare did he speak again. ‘I wish that damned device had never come into my possession. In truth, part of me was glad to surrender it. And yet, now, I would give anything to have it back. Once he had that watch, Magnus turned the whole of his formidable intellect upon it. He was convinced that, properly understood, it would give us the means to defeat the French for good and all. Especially after the slaughter of his cats, he became obsessed with it. I tried to warn him, but, scornful as ever of my theories of time, he would not heed my entreaties. He was, to the last, a man of science and reason, and he had faith that science and reason would unlock the secrets even of a mechanism whose very existence flouted both. Faith, Mr Quare, is a dangerous thing. Faith in God, faith in reason – each is blinding in its own way. That is why I strive to be as free of it as I can. I recommend the same approach to you, sir. A regulator, above all other men, should take nothing on faith. His life, no less than the success of his mission, depends upon it. But I digress. Magnus knew that blood was the fuel that drove the engine of the thing, but how that was possible, and to what end, he did not know. And it was this that he was determined to discover, using his own blood to power the device while he experimented upon it. After what had happened to the cats, you will understand that I had no desire to be present during those experiments.’

‘Quite,’ said Quare. Even now the memory of his experience with the hunter was fresh enough to make his blood run cold.

‘We had arranged that I should monitor his progress and his safety at regular intervals,’ Longinus continued. ‘Every half an hour, I would send a signal to him via bell pull, and he would signal back the same way. Thus did we continue through that day and into the night. At last, early in the morning, at two-thirty, to be precise, there came no response to my signal. I rushed back to his workroom, and there I discovered my friend stretched upon the floor, on his back, his glasses knocked askew and the eyes behind them open wide and staring sightlessly at whatever horror it is that doomed men see. In his hand was clutched the foul mechanism, glowing cherry red and pulsing like some loathsome organ. Even as I watched, the glow faded, and the thing returned to its former pale appearance – but no paler now than the man who held it, drained of every last drop of blood and stone cold dead.’

Quare could not repress a shudder.

‘I was not eager to touch the thing. Nor did I have the chance to do so. Before I could act, a half-dozen of my fellow servants burst into the workroom – men, I saw at once, loyal to Sir Thaddeus. There was nothing I could do against so many, not without revealing myself, and so I stood aside as they gathered the notes that Magnus had been writing upon his desk and, with a callousness that injured my heart to see, wrested the timepiece from my poor friend’s fingers – which, strangely, were already locked in rigor, though I do not believe he had expired more than ten minutes before my entry. Nonetheless, such was the case, and to free the timepiece from his frozen grasp the servant had first to break those supple fingers, which, as you well know, sir, were as beautiful and well-made as the rest of him was stunted and grotesque – the hands of an angel affixed to the body of a gargoyle. I felt as if I were witnessing a desecration, and I confess I had to look away, though I do not believe I shall ever be able to forget the sounds of his bones snapping like twigs. But forgive me – I did not mean to cause you distress!’

And indeed, Quare had found Longinus’s account of Master Magnus’s end distressing, but not entirely for the reasons the other assumed. Now he too stood, leaning over the table to demand of Longinus: ‘Did you say two-thirty?’

‘Yes. Why? Is there something significant about that time?’

Quare sighed, shoulders drooping. ‘You could say that. It was approximately the time of my death.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘There is a particular detail of my brief acquaintance with Mr Aylesford that I withheld from Sir Thaddeus, for reasons that will become obvious. Following the brawl at the Pig and Rooster, Aylesford and I took refuge at the lodgings of one of the barmaids. I was all but insensible – I realize now that I had been drugged; indeed, I believe that the assassin slipped something into all of our drinks that night, to facilitate his cowardly butchery, but for some reason the drug was slower to act on me than on my unfortunate fellows. My last memory of the night is staggering through empty streets, supported by Aylesford and Clara. When I awoke the next morning, Aylesford was gone, and Clara reported having woken during the night to find Aylesford and myself engaged in an act of sodomy – though in fact, what she witnessed was a crime far worse. Murder. For as I discovered shortly thereafter, I had been stabbed in the back – a wound angled towards the heart, sir, and deep enough to have reached it. Yet there was little blood, no pain to speak of, and, obviously, no death. You may imagine the look of shock on Aylesford’s face when I surprised him later at my lodgings! Because I could not account in any rational way for having survived such a wound, I looked to the irrational, and fixed upon my experiences with the hunter earlier that day, when the device had drunk my blood; it seemed to me that the two events must be related. Somehow, though I could not guess by what means, the watch had saved me – had restored me to life, or, rather, taken away my death. I do not know the exact moment that Aylesford slipped his knife into my heart, but it was early in the morning by Clara’s testimony. Surely the fact of Master Magnus’s death at approximately the same time can be no coincidence – not with that infernal watch involved. Just as, earlier, it had taken the lives of all those cats, so, too, or so I must believe, it transferred my death to Master Magnus, and, perhaps, his life to me.’ Quare slumped back into his chair. ‘It was I who killed Master Magnus. Not the hunter. His blood is on my hands.’

‘That … that is most interesting.’

‘Interesting? Is that all you can say?’

‘Your pardon. I understand your feelings. Yet you must not blame yourself. How were you to know what would come of handling that watch? Magnus himself did not comprehend it, nor did he forbear from risking his life to unlock its secrets.’

‘How did such a thing come into your possession in the first place?’

‘I will tell you. But first – what of your wound? Has it healed?’

‘Honestly, I have been afraid to look.’

‘Let us look now.’

‘Are you a physician, sir?’

‘I have some small skill in physic.’

‘Very well.’ Standing, Quare removed his coat and then his waistcoat and shirt, laying them over the back of the chair. Longinus, meanwhile, had come around the table to stand beside Quare, who now turned away from him, displaying his back. Quickly, using the dagger in his sleeve, he cut away the bandages.

‘Extraordinary.’ Longinus more breathed than spoke the word.

‘What is it? What do you see?’

‘It is as you said. There is a puncture below the left shoulder blade. I confess, I should expect to see such a wound upon a corpse, not a living and breathing man. There is no blood; the wound is quite clean. The flesh shows no sign of infection or of healing. And you say it does not pain you?’

‘There was some pain at first, but now it merely itches, like the bite of a bedbug.’

‘Most extraordinary,’ Longinus repeated. ‘May I examine it more closely?’

Quare nodded. He heard the rattle of metal from the table behind him and turned to see Longinus holding up a butter knife.

‘I do not have my instruments to hand, but this should serve admirably as a probe.’

‘I am not a scone, sir.’

‘That had not escaped my notice. Try to relax, Mr Quare.’

‘That is easy for you to say.’

‘I will stop the instant there is any pain.’ He motioned for Quare to turn.

Sighing, Quare complied and braced himself. He felt the cold but gentle touch of the butter knife at his back, then an altogether unsettling sensation as the flat blade slipped under a flap of skin and entered the wound. He shuddered, gasping, hands fisting at his sides; the knife halted but was not withdrawn.

‘Mr Quare?’

‘I cannot say it is pleasant,’ he answered through clenched teeth, ‘but there is no pain.’

The progress of the knife resumed, accompanied by an outbreak of cold sweat upon his forehead. His insides spasmed most unpleasantly, and he felt his gorge rise – less from the sensation of the intrusion than the unnaturalness of it. ‘Take it out,’ he said at last, when he could stand it no longer.

Longinus did so at once. ‘I apologize for any discomfort,’ he said.

Quare’s body was trembling beneath a sheen of sweat. Speech was beyond him. He held to the back of the chair to keep himself standing. Spots swam before his eyes.

‘You had better sit down,’ came Longinus’s voice; and then Quare felt the man guiding him into the chair. ‘Put your head between your knees.’

Again, Quare complied. It did seem to help.

‘Here.’

He raised his head to see Longinus offering him a tumbler filled with a dram of amber liquid.

‘Brandy,’ he said.

Quare took the glass and drained it at a swallow. The liquor flushed new vigour through his limbs. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘You’re most welcome. I think I could do with one myself. Can I get you another?’

Quare shook his head and stood. He lifted his shirt from the back of the chair and began to dress. ‘Well? What is your diagnosis?’

Longinus, who had crossed to the side table to pour himself a glass of brandy, tossed it back before answering. ‘Diagnosis?’ he echoed, setting down the empty glass. ‘Asclepius himself could not diagnose your condition. You are a walking dead man, sir. A living and breathing impossibility. That is my diagnosis.’

‘But …’

‘I do not doubt that your surmise is correct, and the hunter is holding your death at bay by some mechanism unknown to me. Whether permanently or temporarily, I cannot say. It would be interesting to learn if you are proof now against all mortal injury – in short, whether the watch has conferred a kind of immortality upon you. Unfortunately, I can think of no way to test this hypothesis without risking your life.’

‘Yes, most unfortunate, that,’ Quare said, shrugging into his coat.

‘You asked how the watch came into my possession,’ Longinus said. ‘Come, Mr Quare. A turn in the garden will do you good, I think. And I shall tell you as we walk.’

Longinus crossed the room and opened a glazed door leading out to a terrace. He gestured for Quare to precede him. The morning air was cool and refreshing, the sun bright, the garden green and flowering, woven through with meandering white gravel paths and sequestered behind high brick walls that screened off the neighbouring houses. The two men set off along a path, the crunching of their footsteps over the crushed stones and shells loud and vigorous in the hushed air. The bustle and clamour of London seemed miles away.

‘Are we safe in the open like this?’ Quare inquired. ‘Won’t the Old Wolf send his regulators against us?’

‘Not even Sir Thaddeus would dare to trespass here,’ Longinus replied with confidence. ‘My royal cousin, His Majesty, would look most unkindly upon any such intrusion, as the Old Wolf knows very well indeed. No, you may set your mind at ease on that score, Mr Quare. As long as we remain behind these walls, we are untouchable – at least, by Sir Thaddeus and his minions. Of course, we have other enemies to worry about. Nor can we remain behind these walls for ever. But I think we are safe enough for now. Besides, we are both armed, are we not? And though you cannot see them, rest assured that my own men are present, watching over us.’

Quare glanced about but, indeed, could not detect another soul. ‘They are very well hidden.’

Longinus inclined his head. ‘Now, as to the watch. I have been an avid collector of timepieces for many years, even before my partnership with Magnus. At first it was the exteriors that attracted me: I admired the richness and beauty of ornamentation lavished upon certain clocks and watches, caring nothing for the refinement of their inner works or even how accurately they kept the time. But gradually my interest shifted, and, as I began to pursue my researches into the nature of time, I sought out timepieces of advanced or eccentric design – it was this which brought me to the attention of Master Magnus. He viewed me as little more than a dilettante at first, a mere dabbler, but he did not scorn my wealth and influence, which he perceived, quite rightly, could benefit the Worshipful Company. In exchange for my patronage, I insisted that he take me on as an apprentice – and this he did. Our association was a secret one; not even the Old Wolf knew of it. But from that time, we proceeded in parallel, Magnus and I, our respective researches mutually reinforcing despite their obvious differences. In truth, we learned from each other. My experiments became more rigorously scientific, while he learned to be less scornful of the more esoteric branches of horological inquiry. When my apprenticeship was complete, I joined the ranks of the regulators, just as you did, though, again, the association remained secret, and I functioned more along the lines of a special agent, continuing to undertake my own investigations and acquisitions alongside the occasional mission that Magnus did not wish, for one reason or another, to entrust to the common run of regulator. And so it was, some twenty-odd years ago, that I first began to hear rumours of a timepiece like no other, a clock or watch – opinions varied on this point – that was to other timepieces as the philosopher’s stone is to these stones beneath our feet. Though “rumours” may be putting it too strongly – hints, rather, of something strange and anomalous, of a clockmaker who might as well have been a wizard out of some old fairy tale. When I mentioned them to Magnus, he dismissed them out of hand and advised me against chasing phantoms. Needless to add, I did not heed him. In those days, Mr Quare, I was young and fit – well, younger and fitter – and liked nothing better than a good adventure; my fortune allowed me the luxury of chasing whatever phantoms I pleased. I was absent from England for a number of years, and my quest took me throughout Europe, into Russia, and farther east, to Mongolia, China, and Japan, and thence to India, the Holy Land and Africa, and finally back to Europe again. Such marvels I encountered in my travels, horological and otherwise, that we might walk from here to Edinburgh before I had related even a tenth of them. Yet always the object of my search remained tantalizingly out of reach; the rumours, as it were, seemed to recede before me, drawing me ever onwards. And such, I concluded, was the case – I was being led a merry chase.’

‘By whom?’ asked Quare.

‘Why, the wizard himself – or so I convinced myself. It seemed that wherever I set foot, he had preceded me and left behind traces of his presence designed less to throw me off the track than to entice me farther along it. There was something flattering about it. I felt as if I were being tested like some knight of old, that I must prove myself worthy before I should be permitted to find the grail which I sought.’

‘That being the watch, I assume.’

‘I did not know it at the time. But patience, Mr Quare – you shall hear all. Indeed, you shall be the first to hear it. Not even Magnus knew the whole story. He would not have believed it. I did not fully believe it myself for many years, although it happened to me. I thought much of it a dream. And perhaps it was. But dreams, too, can be real. Never doubt it, sir.’