Touchstone

1

It was scarcely less cold on the street than passing through the Arch. Nordhausen shivered in his heavy overcoat. It occurred to him that his clothes seemed to be completely frozen, much colder than the air, perhaps an effect of the time travel. He rubbed himself vigorously, trying to put some body heat back into the linen, wool and fur that a prosperous gentleman wore against the damp chill. The air was sour, acid, with heavy drops of floating moisture. He had never thought about how a pea soup fog would smell. Welcome to the industrial revolution, he thought.

There was no doubt, this was not the Cretaceous. Kelly couldn’t have botched the numbers this time, because he didn’t even know about this trip! Yes, Nordhausen had promised never to do anything of this sort again, but really… What harm could come of a little visit to Old London—just a sightseeing tour; a brief weekend? He would hardly be gone from Berkeley half an hour and they wouldn’t even miss him. That was the plan and, without any nonsense from Kelly and Maeve, everything would be just fine. This time he was spot on target, obviously in London, on a sidewalk, along a short street surrounded by generous four story buildings faced with stone, marble and plaster. Gas streetlamps shone feebly through the fog in the late afternoon, hazing over the view ahead. Dusk came early in this northern latitude, he reminded himself.

The city was noisy! A racket of wheeled traffic jostled on some nearby invisible block, and he was conscious of the susurrus of human activity that the vast city generated. There were no cars, but he realized what a lot of noise people made underneath the roar of city traffic.

In spite of his excitement, Maeve sat on his shoulder like a bothersome crow. He knew exactly what she would say if she ever found out about this mission. “What on earth were you thinking?… You did what?…”

Nonetheless, the die was cast, he was here for forty-eight hours, so he had better do what he could to avoid causing any problems, like forestalling the First World War or some other calamitous event. He didn’t see how he could change the Meridian if he simply laid low and went about his business as quietly as possible. He knew Maeve wouldn’t buy any of these rationalizations, and that was making him very careful.

Yes, he knew he had joined his hand with those of the other three team members to give his solemn oath. He could hear Maeve’s words, still whispering in his mind even now: “…I’ll say this: if we don’t shut this thing down, and I don’t see how we can with this war business, then we weigh in on the side of Mother Time… We know how things are now. It’s the world we believe to be our own—at least I do. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I need something to hold onto each day; something I can use to make sense of the world. There’s enough uncertainty out there as it is. If we get involved, it must be to preserve the past as we know it now—to put a stop to this time war by foiling their efforts, if we can… only we do it with more sense and direction. We keep watch, and we plan, and we get it all right. Understand?”

Maeve’s point was well taken, but there was a thrill to time travel that she didn’t seem to embrace. Perhaps the brief experience she had while running Kelly’s first “Spook Job” to find Paul had not been enough to get her hooked. She hadn’t really time traveled—at least not to a place where she could open her eyes and breath in the air of a new world. She hadn’t camped under Jurassic skies or shared a meal with men who had died before she was born. And he was willing to bet she hadn’t opened her eyes during that first brief jump either.

Still, there was something to be said for her logic about the situation now. Time war! The thought still sent shivers along Nordhausen’s spine, and the London fog was quick to reinforce them. He drew his overcoat about him tighter, still thinking about something Maeve had said.

We know how things are now… Was that so? The thought that unseen adversaries from the future were creeping along the deep Meridians of time was more than unnerving—it was terrifying. What might they be about? If Paul’s experience after his haphazard stumble into that cavern in the Jordanian Desert was any guide, they were up to a great deal. That nest of Assassins had been festering away in the year 1187 and planning to meddle with the history of the Crusades! Might there be other nests; other key Nexus Points on the Meridian where the Assassins were setting up new operations?

Time war…

Maeve was quite correct. In order to fight that kind of battle one had to have some clear hold on the world before they set to meddling and changing things. Kelly’s RAM bank, and the nifty Golem program he devised to constantly monitor the Web, was a step in the right direction. To tamper with history you needed something, anything, as a sure reference point to measure your success or failure. The first mission, when they struggled to reverse the Palma disaster, they had to rely on their own living memory of Lawrence’s narrative in The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Now, with Kelly’s RAM bank functioning as a kind of constant memory, they had some hold on the moment, some tether on the way things were supposed to be. Surely the Assassins would have faced this problem as well. What were they using? What was their reference point?

That thought brought Robert back to the intent of his mission. Yes, he had always wanted to see old London, but there was more to his weekend plans than a simple jaunt through the foggy streets of Dickens’ era. No, Paul said something that got him thinking, and he was following up his hunch before he brought all this to the others. “…we’ve got our Arch, and Kelly’s Golems, and the RAM bank idea gives us a good touchstone on the history. Now we stand the watch.” Robert remembered how they all nodded agreement, but he was soon thinking about Paul’s last statement.

A touchstone, he mused. While he waited out those anxious hours in the Jordanian desert he had encountered a man named Rasil, the Messenger, as he called himself. Apparently, this fellow had intended to take a little jump through the cavern they had stumbled upon in Wadi Rumm. What an ingenious idea! The technology of the Arch required enormous energy and computing power to work its magic but, somehow, the Assassins had figured a low tech way to achieve the same result. They used the quirky nature of a strange bacterium with an appetite for Uranium ions. Paul called it an Oklo reaction.

It took a month or more, but the subterranean pools of radioactive water were enough to generate the power required for a jump—a precisely calculated jump—from one particular point to another. How they figured it all out and secreted the equipment in the desert was still a mystery, but the cavern in Wadi Rumm was a one way jump to the time of the Crusades—right smack into the midst of Castle Massiaf, the key base for Sinan’s Assassins in that region. Unwittingly, Paul had taken the ride in Rasil’s place, and it was only the incredible ingenuity of Kelly and Maeve that brought him home.

Robert remembered how he wrangled with his captor, Rasil, and that brief moment when he had managed a glimpse into the other man’s haversack. In addition to the satellite phone he had used to alert Kelly and Maeve to their dilemma, he had found an odd scroll, inscribed with strange writing that he immediately recognized. He was still ruminating over the hieroglyphics he had seen there, and an idea began to bubble up. The scroll was obviously a message of sorts. Maeve’s voice was back, her words echoing in his mind as he replayed the conversation from their last meeting.

“What did you find?” she asked.

“It’s what I didn’t find,” Nordhausen replied. “They’ve got every last line of discovered hieroglyphic text on file now, and I know enough about the script to replicate what I saw in that scroll. Using characters dating from the Old Kingdom, I was able to draw out most of what I remembered. I scanned the images and ran comparison queries in the database, but there were no hits on those phrases.”

“It could mean that this Rasil fellow had something from another milieu.” Maeve raced on in her thinking, and it had jogged something loose in Nordhausen’s mind.

“Then you suppose they might be using the hieroglyphics as a kind of code?” he remembered saying. “That would explain why the passages don’t exist in any discovered writings. But I had the distinct impression that the characters I saw were a rubbing—as if they had been pressed onto the scroll from an original stone carving. It was very odd.”

It certainly was, and Robert intended to follow up on his hunch and get to the bottom of this business, here and now. He went through his reasoning again, like a man shuffling through his pockets to be sure he had everything he needed for a trip. There were lots of discoveries from antiquity that failed to survive to his present day. Many artifacts had become lost, damaged or destroyed. Libraries had been looted in ancient times, as at Alexandria, and even in recent years, when the collection of the Baghdad Museum had been plundered at the outset of the war in Iraq. Unless they were utterly destroyed, these things still had to be in the world somewhere. Perhaps he could use the Arch to have a look around in a few promising places. In the process he hoped to find out more about Rasil’s mysterious scroll. If it was indeed a rubbing, as he suspected, it seemed to him that some of the history was written in stone. The more he thought about it the better it sounded in his head, though he did not want to bring his idea up in committee just yet. He had an inkling of where he might find a good cache of old stone carvings from Egypt that had been lost to his day. They were here, right here in London, in the British Museum.

The world had been blissfully ignorant of Egypt and its fabulous history until Napoleon followed his ambitions and invaded that ancient country in 1799. A thousand scholars had accompanied him there, bent on bringing the benefits of Western enlightenment to backward people, yet the inverse had been true. Instead, the troops of savants had uncovered the majesty of the pyramids, of Karnak and Luxor and Thebes. They had sketched it all out in notebooks and carted off hundreds of artifacts and stone carvings to Europe when Napoleon finally fled. Some of the very first finds of the old hieroglyphics had been uncovered during that three year expedition—and many of them were here, in the British Museum. They were all nested away in the showrooms and cellars, long before the greed and neglect of the world saw them scattered or lost. He had them all on hand for his inspection, and he was going to have a very close look before the weekend was through. This was going to be great fun, he thought. Great fun indeed!

He looked about, trying to get oriented. He hadn’t gone far in time. He imagined he should be pretty close to the target date, and pulled out a map of the City while walking to the nearest gas light. The trees were dripping, and his eyes were starting to burn. How on earth could people live like this, he wondered? It was worse than Los Angeles in the summers of his youth. More evidence of human progress, he thought, with a sense of pity. These people suffered from asthma, tuberculosis, chronic alcoholism, tobacco related illnesses… what did they not suffer from? There were hideous chemical toxins in the air, especially heavy metal compounds of lead, arsenic, mercury—not to mention parasites and pathogens. And this was the greatest city in the world at this moment in time. He would be lucky not to come back with cholera! He made a note to drink only brewed, distilled or fermented beverages. Beer, wine or gin were likely to be his tipples this weekend.

He peered at the map while standing below a street sign posted on the side of a wall at the intersection. Paddington Street. Tracing his finger, he found it. Yes, he was smack in the middle of London, close to Covent Garden and the British Museum, just off Baker Street… Baker Street!

The thrill of time travel was on him again. Around every corner would be a new historical landmark. He could not begin to take it all in. He wondered who might have been beheaded on this very spot, 900 years ago. If only it weren’t so murky. At that moment, bells began to peal in the far distance. What time was it? They were immediately picked up by a closer set and, one by one, half a dozen, seven, eight, peals overlaid one another. The gentle tolling hung in the air, almost vibrating the fog molecules, making the entire city hum.

The nursery rhyme came to him, unbidden, from forty years in his past. And indeed, nearby St. Paul’s tolled long and deep, and hung in the air rolling longer than any of the others. He turned toward its sound, but could see nothing in the fog. He counted out four long tolls.

What time was it, indeed? What year was it? This was not the undifferentiated Olden Days, this was a specific moment of time. The Arch had sifted and juggled every quantum particle of the universe to produce this moment—just for him. Now he was in a Deep Nexus, and Time waited, holding her final judgment in abeyance as she watched his every move, like Maeve on his shoulder, her constant whisper in his ear. He would have to be very careful. He couldn’t do anything to inadvertently change things. He would just have a brief look around, steal over to the museum, and then get home. He had studied the maps and social history books (all at home, never at the labs!) But he needed to get oriented. This was quite different from the desert adventure. Here there was a real possibility that he would have to interact with the locals, have conversations, and pass in society. He and the Bedouin might have been space aliens to each other as far as their social intercourse. Here, he must pass; he must fit in and flow along the streets like the genteel soul he made himself to be in his carefully chosen clothing.

Oh, Maeve, perhaps you were right…

2

He decided to head out to Baker Street, which was a thoroughfare, and sounded as if it had more traffic on it. It was six o’clock, and very dark in these northern latitudes by this hour, but the night was still young.

He stood, for a while, at the corner, watching the passersby. This appeared to be a substantial middleclass neighborhood. The street was lined with shop fronts, supporting three brick stories of apartments above them. There were street lights on the corners and, in the middle of each block, a line of fading glows in either direction. The fog was lighter here. People strolled along the street, alone or in couples, mostly in silence, but he caught occasional lines of conversation.

“Evening, Miss Hynes.”

“Evening, Mr. Simms.” The gracious nod as one passed another in the street, and occasionally a casual, courteous remark or two. “You’re looking well tonight. Lovely rose in your cheeks, m’lady. Must be that fine fare you set on table. Such a roast! Enough to feed a brace of yard workers, I’ll warrant.”

“You’re too kind, Mr. Simms.”

Nordhausen smiled, wondering whether Mr. Simms was angling for the lady’s affections or a good meal. Still, the simple humanity of these people was immediately impressed upon him. They were not ‘historical figures,’ subjects for his intellectual digestion and study. They were real flesh and blood now, with quirks and foibles and all too familiar gestures as they spoke to one another in that brief passing. He rubbed his palms together, experiencing a moment of excitement. He was here at last, and this was going to be far more interesting that he could possibly imagine.

He was beside the shop window of Wm. Hycross, Shirtmaker, displaying his wares on fashionable stuffed torsos. Across Baker Street was Curtis and Co., Chemists. Each appeared to be open for business, although neither appeared to have any traffic at the moment. Nordhausen wondered what Mr. Hycross would think about his style. In his preparations, he had shopped eBay for period clothing, and accessorized at the San Francisco antique shops. Dressed as he was, he suddenly felt naked. He hoped he would not appear too au bas du style. What if Mr. Hycross should see a fashion idea that was not to appear for another 10 years! He was certain that his beautiful woolen overcoat with fur collar and lapels was no earlier than 1906. What year was it? He decided to go across the street to the Chemists.

The shop took up the corner of Baker and Crawford Street, and he smiled at the surprise when he realized that Paddington had been renamed here. The establishment had large windows on the intersection, displaying a variety of compounds in attractive jars, bottles, boxes, envelopes. The labels held drawings of happy children, attractive young people, hale and hearty elders, with names like Professor M’omber’s Vegetable Hair Grower, Hemsley’s Worm Destroying Spirit, Dr. J. Hedge’s Fever and Ague Annihilator, Heimbold’s Compound Fluid Extract Buchu (for diseases of the bladder and kidney, obstruction of the urine, chronic gonorrhea and gleets); Taylor’s Celebrated Electric Oil.

Nordhausen’s excitement and curiosity got the better of him. He simply had to go in and have a brief look, so he pushed the heavy door in. It set a bell on a wire to tinkling. He shut the door, and made his way through aisles of display cabinets to the counter in the back of the store. The sudden warmth on his face was comforting, and he caught the distinctive odor of good tobacco in the air. The only light came from a desk lamp, from which the no doubt Mr. Curtis sprang up sprightly to serve him.

“Well, sir, let me see, let me see, what can I prescribe for you today?”

“No, I am…”

“No sir, now don’t tell me. You have come to consult Henry Curtis, the principal prescribing chemist in this part of London, pray allow me to serve you. I see that you are not from these parts, sir?” He peered intently at Nordhausen.

“Yes, I…”

“No, no, sir, let me diagnose.”

Mr. Curtis pursed his lips and looked Nordhausen up and down. He cocked an eyebrow.

“I observe, sir, that although you exhibit signs of radiant good health, you suffer from an insidious internal weakness in your kidneys. Tell me, do you complain of,” he looked about as if a lurker might be eavesdropping, “sporadic urination?”

Nordhausen was taken aback. “Sporadic?”

“Yes, I was certain of it! As well, I observe your color is high. This is a sure sign of an unnatural effusion of blood in the peripheral system. I shall prescribe an anti-apoplectine and a specific for your kidney congestion, perhaps Grover’s Tasteless Elixir.”

He made a few notes on a small pad, then looked back up.

“Where might you be from, sir? Let me see. I observe your clothing was not made by a London tailor, so I take it that you have come recently from foreign shores. Am I not correct, sir?”

“Yes, only just now.”

“You are plainly an American gentleman, your accent is discernible.”

“Yes, I am newly arrived from San Francisco.”

“From San Francisco, indeed! That is a long journey, to be sure. Allow me to recommend Miss Plimsy’s Restorative. Although made for the ladies, between you and me, sir, it has powers for the masculine sex. And I believe it is an American product, containing an invigorating mixture of cocaine tempered with a dash of morphine. Believe me, your first evening in London will be a pleasure!”

“Thank you, no!” Nordhausen burst in. “No doubt you are dead on in your diagnosis, however, I… I… rely on my own physician for treatment of those very ills! Your acuity is remarkable.”

“Thank you, sir, thank you,” Mr. Curtis lowered his voice, “I may say certain crowned heads have graced this shop floor for relief, and gone away satisfied.” He resumed a normal speaking tone. “However, allow me to press on you this bottle of Miss Plimsy’s Restorative, a gift, as it were, of friendship across the waters.”

Nordhausen accepted the gift in the spirit with which it was offered, and shuddered to wonder what other ingredients the bottle might contain.

“So, sir, if you have not come to shop, how else can I serve you?”

“Well, Mr. Curtis, as you have discovered, I am here from America, and I find myself lost in your metropolis, unable to find my station, my hotel or my bags.”

“How did that happen, sir?” Mr. Curtis was concerned.

Nordhausen’s mind flew, beginning to weave tangled webs.

“I had loaded my trunks on a cab at South Kensington Station. When I turned away for a moment, the cab took off with all my baggage. I tried to chase it through the streets, got lost, and now I am here.”

“My dear sir, we must report this to the police, at once!”

“No!” Nordhausen shouted. “I mean, no. I don’t desire to call the police at this time.”

“But, sir, all your effects!”

“No,” Nordhausen said, firmly, “No, sir, I prefer not to. Please respect my wishes in this.”

Mr. Curtis was taken aback, but when presented to him like that, he had no choice. “Very well, sir, but what shall you do?”

“Perhaps you can direct me to a hotel in the neighborhood, where I can spend the night, and determine what to do in the morning?”

Mr. Curtis considered. “I think Halliday’s Private Hotel would serve you well, in Little George Street, which is quite nearby. You will be certain to find good accommodations there, and my cousin is the manager.”

“You are very kind, Mr. Curtis.”

“Not at all, sir, it is a duty and pleasure to assist tourists to our fair city. I strongly recommend you reconsider your decision not to inform the police. This is not only an extreme inconvenience to you, but a stain on London, and its corps of honest, hardworking cabbies. No doubt you were recognized as a foreigner by that robber, just as easily as I recognized it!

“Come, let me direct you, and, if I may say, please consider returning for my own patented rapid hair restorer and scalp calmative, made principally of lead paste with a soupcon of arsenic. Don’t take it orally, of course.”

Nordhausen believed he was supposed to laugh, so he did. Mr. Curtis smiled as his non-failing punch line worked again.

Mr. Curtis directed him down several blocks, and in short order, with the golden currency of Mr. Curtis’ referral, Nordhausen was installed in a third floor room, with bow windows overlooking Little George Street. The check-in was remarkable. No one asked him for money, much less a credit card. Only the most general information was needed for the register, and his word was unquestioned. In fifteen minutes he was lying on his back on the rather firm bed, catching his breath, and reviewing everything that had happened.

It hadn’t taken a clothier to view his ensemble with suspicion, and his clever explanation had almost landed him in the police station. Yet, his chance encounter with Mr. Curtis had gotten him lodging for the night he needed. He might even venture out for the evening.

In fact, he ought to venture out for the evening! He had only 48 hours, of which he had already spent one. Forty seven to go. He should go where no one would ask him questions. He should visit a low dive; some place where he could be quietly inconspicuous and just take in the wonderful atmosphere, no matter how sordid it might be.

A cabby should be able to direct him. He had plenty of money. He had brought fifty pounds in notes, and twenty pounds in coin, all from 1869 through 1882. What year was it? That alone would tell him what kind of holiday he could have.

And again he thought of the bottle of Miss Plimsy’s Restorative in his pocket. Only forty eight hours in Victorian London. A little cocaine? Stay up for two days? If not now, when? If not here, where? A little cocaine wasn’t going to hurt him. It restored the ladies, no?

He looked at the label, which told him nothing. It was an attractive silver paper, printed with robin’s egg blue ink. An illustration of a fine figured young lady holding a parasol, ample bosom, generous bustle, with a winsome smile. Miss Plimsy’s Restorative, for Ladies. A Rejuvenating Elixir and Calmative. (For Peculiarly Feminine Complaints.) He unscrewed the tin cap, and looked at the honey brown fluid. He dipped his finger in the cap, and touched it to his tongue. An intense ginger syrup masked the taste of the drugs. It certainly appeared to be cocaine: his tongue was quickly getting numb!

He took note of a bell pull against the wall by the bed, the pulling of which resulted in the prompt appearance of a tiny Irish chamber maid, who took his order for tea. “Thoroughly boiled? Certainly, sir!” On her return, he ordered hot water, also thoroughly boiled, for his ablutions.

He poured himself a cup of tea, brewed stiff and black. He spooned in a couple spoons of sugar, and added in a dose of Miss Plimsy’s from the bottle. He stirred the concoction, screwed his courage to the sticking point, and drank.

As he savored the potion he wondered about his clothing again. Perhaps he should do something a little more adventurous on this once in a lifetime excursion. Why waste his time in a dive when he might take in some high art at the opera? The thought of seeing an original play from this era was suddenly overwhelming. But he couldn’t very well mix in fine company dressed as he was. If the likes of Mr. Curtis had noticed him, then he would stick out like a proverbial sore thumb at the opera. What to do? Could he rent something?

When the maid returned to see that all was in order he asked about clothiers in the vicinity.

“Oh, yes, sir. You’ll want Madame Tussaud’s for rental of evening dress. There’s a shop over on King Street where you can hire for the night. The usual prices are five shillings for a decent gentleman’s coat, two for a nice vest, three for trousers, and another five if you’ll be needing an overcoat, which I would certainly recommend on a night like this. Of course, a deposit of the value of the articles has to be left during the hiring.”

“You are most kind,” said Nordhausen.

“Pray tell me, sir—will you be off to see H.M.S Pinafore at the Opera Comique? I hear it’s all the rage in town these days.”

“H.M.S Pinafore?” Nordhausen was absolutely delighted to hear that this original Gilbert and Sullivan hit was actually playing in town.

“Why, yes sir. And I hear that you might even find Mr. Gilbert or Mr. Sullivan about in the clubs thereafter.” She gave him a wink.

“Indeed,” said Nordhausen, and the light of discovery was burning fervently in his eyes, fueled by a healthy dose of old Miss Plimsy’s Restorative.

3

He swirled the claret in his goblet, enjoying the light play in its ruddy bowl, and watching the legs ooze down the walls of the glass. It smelled heady, very alcoholic, rich and fruity. As he raised it to take a sip, the front doors burst open, and a small crowd poured in, chattering away in the wake of two men who walked together arm in arm. He immediately took notice, thrilled that he had been correct in his choice of club. Adjacent to the Opera hall, this was a most likely spot for revelry after the show, which he had enjoyed immensely. Several cast members has slipped away soon after, and he followed one to this very spot, staking out a small table near the wall where he could enjoy a drink and let the thrill of his evening subside a bit.

The little group paused for a moment, then headed for a cluster of chairs and sofas with a low serving table that would seat them all.

The younger man, perhaps 25 years old, was strikingly tall, several inches over six feet, and with thick dark brown hair, parted in the middle, and pouring down to his shoulders. He was dressed in a heavy lavender overcoat, with darker purple Astrakhan fur collar and cuffs. Certainly more outré than anything Nordhausen had seen in London so far. He gesticulated languidly as he spoke, his large hands flapping like thick pale birds, punctuating his speech.

“Such a success,” he was saying, “I counted three acclamations, fully fifty three hilarities, two thrilling movements, four renewals of applause and two indefinite explosions. The audience was in the palm of your hand! Perhaps I shall write for the theater…”

The other gentleman was almost as tall, perhaps twenty years older, and seventy pounds heavier, with black hair slicked with macassar oil, and an exuberant mustache blossoming between his nose and lip. He was conventionally dressed for the evening, in black with a white cravat, and a sharp gold headed walking stick. He was listening attentively, with a twinkle in his eye, to the torrent of words flowing from the younger man, as the two made their way to a table in the middle of the club. He held the chair for one his companions, and said, “I have an enthusiastic chef du claque. We almost closed six times during the summer, when the heat was so bad. But more clement weather has revived the aestivating public.” Several hangers-on grabbed seats at their table, the slower ones settling for the surrounding sofas.

The younger man had shed his overcoat and underneath was dressed for evening as well, although he sported a green chrysanthemum on his jacket. Nordhausen’s recollection flashed, and he realized with a start that this must be the young Oscar Wilde! The flower was his signature accessory, and now everything about the man filled in the details in Nordhausen’s mind—his height, his eyes, the effusive energy. And something else… He squinted through the smoky room, thrilled to see that there was a faint sheen of amber about Wilde, just like the aura that he had seen surrounding Lawrence!

The telltale glow was a certain giveaway, and now he saw that it suffused the older man as well. He realized that this must be another important figure. But who? The maid’s tip had been right and he was sitting not twenty feet from Prime Movers! He sat straight and strained to hear the exchanges. At that moment the older man slapped his palm on the table, and stood up, looking around the club.

“Let us settle this democratically, Mr. Wilde,” he boomed. “Let us ask an ordinary man in the club to break our tie vote.”

His eye lit on Nordhausen, caught staring, and in an instant he called to him.

“Sir, you are the gentleman nearest our table, you shall settle this dispute between me and my young friend here!”

Nordhausen was taken aback, “Sir, I… don’t wish to intrude.” His heart began to pound. He was supposed to be invisible. Actually, he wasn’t supposed to be there at all, but he had just opened his mouth and addressed a Prime Mover! Oh God, what have I gotten myself into now, he thought, his neck burning with the heat of embarrassment and his own chiding regret.

“Nonsense, sir, we must have done with this, I insist you come over and join Mr. Wilde and me!” He signaled a waiter and ordered fresh brandies. Nordhausen did not know what to do! Further hesitation would only cast more suspicion on his presence there. He had to move; he had to pass for the very thing that this man believed him to be—just a simple gentleman out for an evening’s entertainment. His legs were rubber as he stood up, moving timorously to join the group.

“Welcome, kind sir! I am William Gilbert, and this is Mr. Oscar Wilde, only lately let loose on London from academic shackles in Oxford, and already making old hands like me take notice of him.”

Gilbert offered his hand, which Nordhausen took by instinct. His mind was a blur now. He had just made physical contact with a Prime, something that was absolutely forbidden under Maeve’s hard charter. What was he doing? If she ever found out about this he would be flayed alive. But the man took hold of his hand with a vigorous shake and radiated so much conviviality that Nordhausen was entirely taken in. Wilde stood up and gracefully put out his own hand, which fully engulfed Nordhausen’s. The warmth of the other man’s palm on his own was electric.

“I… I am Mr. Robert Nordhausen, of San Francisco. It is… a great pleasure to meet you gentlemen, especially Mr. Wilde, of whom I have heard so much.” Nordhausen stammered a bit, but he was running on pure reflex now, trying to be as civil as he could to cover his obvious discomfiture.

Gilbert raised his eyebrows. “Oscar, your fame spans the globe, and you just fresh out of school.”

“Novelty flies like winged thought,” Wilde drawled. “It needs no submarine cables to girdle the sphere. I am the modern Ariel, although more fleshly.”

“Well, Mr. Nordhausen, what brings you to London?” Gilbert asked. “Have you been here long?”

Nordhausen spun out his lie about the stolen luggage, to general expressions of sympathy all round. He told them that he was in London to study at the British Museum.

“What do you read, Mr. Nordhausen?” Wilde inquired. “I have spent countless hours over the last several years drenched in the dusty miasma of that hall.”

“I… am a student of ancient Egypt…” Nordhausen proposed.

“Oh? How ancient, Mr. Nordhausen,” Wilde inquired. “I, myself, spent a term studying the Ptolemaic literature.”

Nordhausen certainly didn’t want to start up a discussion of Hellenistic Greek with Oscar Wilde! He had to keep his contact to the bare minimum. He had to divert attention away from himself and melt away into the anonymity of the crowd. The very notion that he was standing here with two Prime Movers was setting his heart thumping, and he was already sweating profusely.

“Uh, no, dynastic Egypt, before the Greek invasion.”

“Then you are a student of art as well! Gilbert, you have by chance selected the right man for this dispute,” he turned to Nordhausen, “for it is about Art… as what is not?”

Gilbert sat back and began to trim a cigar, while Wilde pondered for a moment how best to put his case.

“Gilbert was educated to the law,” he began, “So he disdains to call what he produces Art. As a practical writer, he sees all Art as he sees his own Art, a circumstantial product, created for the occasion.” He turned to face Gilbert, who by now was huffing on his cigar to light it. “That is the solipsistic fallacy, as you well know.” He rounded on Nordhausen. The surrounding group was focused hypnotically on the large young man with the bright, quick gray eyes. His face was alive as he spoke, his expression flashing to a different mood on almost every word.

“I, on the other hand, maintain that, like it or not, Mr. Gilbert is touched by the Muse. Several Muses no doubt, let me see, Erato, certainly Thalia, and no doubt you flirt with Terpsichore. Art is an attempt by us earthly men to limn the heaven that we know lies beyond. When we envision heaven, we create art.”

“A pretty sort of heaven it is, if one goes by my doggerel,” Gilbert scoffed, puffing great clouds of foul smelling smoke. “I churn out reams of nonsense, which Sullivan somehow ennobles and turns into opera. There is the suffering artist, if you will. This present jolly success of Pinafore was written by Sullivan line by line while he was suffering the most excruciating pain from his illness. There is a man lashed by the Muse… and for what? To set music to popular nonsense verse.” He paused. Nordhausen settled on a chair, his legs still weak, but he was on the edge of his seat.

“Poor Sullivan! Dean Dodgson has been pestering him to write some songs for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The Dean has no ear for music, but he has been told that Sullivan was the man to go to for nonsense. Sullivan cannot bring himself to respond with more than a broad hint that it shall never be, but the Dean has no ear for subtlety either, I fear.”

“Perhaps I shall set myself to comedy, now that I am free from the Classics,” Wilde mused. “We Irish boast a native humor which you English can only appreciate.”

“Perhaps I shall set myself to Aestheticism,” Gilbert returned. “I can make aesthetic doggerel as easily as patriotic sentiment or amatory…” he faded into thought, and suddenly brightened.

“Here, we shall have a contest. Mr. Nordhausen from America will judge it.”

He went on brightly, “Oscar, we shall each compose at this moment, a verse. You may pray to your Muse for inspiration, and create Art! I shall do what I do best, and crank out a quatrain impromptu. But!” he held up a finger. “You shall write a comic verse, and I shall write an aesthetic. And Mr. Nordhausen shall decide if either one of us is struck with fairy dust, or if we have simply churned out an occasional piece, on command. What do you say, Mr. Nordhausen?”

Both men looked to Nordhausen. What could he say, what should he do? “I… wouldn’t dream of judging either one of you gentlemen,” he began, trying to find a way out of his dilemma.

“Not a word of it, Mr. Nordhausen,” Wilde interjected. “You are our Everyman. After all, if my Art does not bring you to want to go to Heaven, I am a failed craftsman.” He looked at Gilbert. “The stakes?”

“The next round.”

“The terms?”

“Five minutes by Mr. Nordhausen’s watch. The first to recite, by coin toss.”

“Agreed.” Gilbert pulled out a large silver coin. “Your call, Mr. Wilde.”

“Heads, Mr. Gilbert, I am ever the optimist, and hope to see our beloved monarch’s face on every toss!”

Gilbert tossed, and caught the coin. “Heads it is, Mr. Wilde. Shall we retire to our corners for the bout? Mr. Nordhausen, this snifter shall be the bell.” He gave it a tap with his nail and it rang. “Five minutes, Mr. Wilde.”

“Have at you, Mr. Gilbert.”

“Geshundheit, Mr. Wilde.”

Nordhausen fumbled about in a near panic. He remembered the pocket watch he had purchased from a curio shop in preparation for this trip and managed to pull it from his coat pocket, relieved that he had the good sense to put it there when he changed into this rented evening wear. Still, he struggled to contain a slight tremor in his hand as he flipped it open and stared at the clock face. The magnitude of what he was doing continued to press itself upon him, cruelly now, as the time piece seemed to taunt him with every tick of the second hand.

God, Oh God… were the seconds all in order? Surely he was not here this evening on the night Wilde and Gilbert decided to have this little contest. He was not the one to judge it. With every tick he could almost hear the corresponding echo of a great hammer beating on the Meridian of Time. Every word he spoke, every movement and gesture he made, was altering the timeline now. His plan had already come unglued, and all history, from this moment forward, would bear the stain of his willful and headstrong folly. He was absolutely mortified, and he knew he deserved the hardest lash that fate could deliver upon him, though he hoped, with all his might, that these seemingly harmless moments would not wreak havoc in some future time.

But what was he to do? Should he turn and rush away into the night and end the contamination here and now? A scene like that would make quite a stir. Should he play out the game, extricate himself as pleasantly as possible and then slip away? That course made more sense to him. In for a penny, in for a pound, he thought, and he swallowed hard as the two men began to write.

Wilde sat at their table, while Gilbert retired to the bar. Wilde snatched a napkin, and drew a slim golden pencil from his pocket and began to scribble. A small coterie had followed Gilbert, and Nordhausen could hear muffled laughter from across the room. Wilde’s junto was standing around him in silence, watching the Master work. He scratched out lines in green pencil, sat back pensively, ran his fingers through his long hair, wrote some more, crossed out the end of a line, closed his eyes and steepled his fingers, wrote some more. He was a man in the grip of a creative urge. To Nordhausen, he did not look like a man who was writing comic verse. On the other hand, the hilarity from Gilbert’s group was various, from chuckles, to snickers to howls.

Gilbert was done. Nordhausen said, “30 seconds, Mr. Wilde.”

“Thank you, Mr. Nordhausen, I shall be done presently.”

At five minutes, Nordhausen tapped the brandy snifter, and called, “Time, gentlemen.” The irony of his statement remained his own private torment for the moment.

Gilbert came back over and settled himself in his chair. “Well, Oscar, what has the Muse of Comic Verse dispatched into your noodle?”

Wilde stood to declaim, his right arm behind his back, his left holding the napkin. He smiled puckishly, and began:

With a flourish, he dropped the napkin on the table, paused briefly, bowed, and delighted applause broke from the listeners. Gilbert nodded and clapped, and rose to his feet.

“Very clever, indeed, Mr. Wilde. Self-deprecation is the surest source of humor. Your lines and words are short, the rhythm is rollicking, and you have a satisfactory ending… all in all a workmanlike production. Writing for the musical theatre, you may want to use a longer line, for the sake of your melodist. Do you maintain this is the inspiration of the Muse or a vision of heaven?”

“A vision of heaven to the extent it describes me, I am sure!” Wilde drawled. “I make no extravagant claims for this trifle. Indeed, this club is hardly the Sanctum of Beauty; I am working at a considerable disadvantage here. But let us see what you have written – an aesthetic quatrain perhaps?”

Gilbert grasped his hands together, and pressed them to his bosom. He looked up wistfully into the vague middle distance, heaved a deep breath and sighed.

He dropped his hands, lowered his eyes for a moment, then bobbed his head up with a huge grin. His cronies burst into applause, and howled at Wilde’s clique, who were not quite certain how to take it.

“Is that feeling? Is that sensitive, Mr. Wilde? As Captain Corcoran says: Though I’m anything but clever, I can talk like that forever!”

Wilde’s grin equaled Gilbert’s. “Mr. Nordhausen, Gilbert’s verse is surely inspired. I wish I had said that!”

Gilbert rejoined, “You will, Oscar, you will!”

Both men turned again to Nordhausen.

“So, Mr. Nordhausen, who is the victor? Who wins the golden apple of the Hesperides?”

Nordhausen despaired.

“You gentlemen have given me quite a challenge. Give me five minutes on the glass, and I will award the prize.”

“Fair enough!”

Nordhausen retired from the group. What on earth was he to say? How could he make a critical evaluation of Oscar Wilde, just out of college, with his entire output ahead of him. Could he say anything which might help the poor man in the horrible future he was going to find? What if he said the wrong thing, and put off Wilde from comedy entirely? That would change everything!

He didn’t imagine Gilbert was as sensitive as Wilde, but how could he judge a man who had taken the world by storm and would churn out brilliant hit after brilliant hit for the next couple decades?

He dug into his pocket and took a pull of Miss Plimsy’s. Thank you, Mr. Curtis. A bit of chemical eloquence. Brrrrr…. nasty stuff straight out of the bottle. And the pesky numbness in the mouth. He’d have to articulate carefully.

He heard the ding, and Gilbert called to him. He nervously walked over to the table, where the entire group, as one, stared at him.

Gilbert handed him a fresh brandy, which he slogged to rinse out Miss Plimsy’s potion. Wilde, the wild Irishman, drank whiskey.

It was show time.

“Mr. Gilbert,” he bowed, “Mr. Wilde,” he turned and bowed.

“This is a hard task you have given me. If I understand it, Mr. Wilde maintains that Art is inspired by a Muse, that it comes through us from something above and beyond, and that the artist drifts with every passion till his soul is a stringed lute on which all winds can play.”

“Well enough put for my side.”

“Mr. Gilbert says all art is occasional, and to prove his point, whipped out his little aesthetic ditty. He says he can do that all day long, and I do believe it.”

“Perhaps we should have an epic competition, eh, Wilde? You can do the Renaissance and I can do the Restoration!”

Nordhausen hurried on, still fretting over every word he spoke. “It is clear that Mr. Wilde produced, on command, a comic verse, which excited laughter in your group, and general approbation. So it would appear that Mr. Gilbert is the winner.”

“Hah, the practical American! I did choose rightly! Let’s have three cheers for me! What ho?”

“On the other hand….” Nordhausen interrupted gingerly.

Gilbert stopped in mid-huzzah. “There is more? Is there a prize for runner-up?”

“On the other hand, no mere mortal can do what Mr. Gilbert does. I could not, no one else in this room can do what you do, sir.”

Gilbert bowed, puzzled. “You honor me, sir, but what you say is no doubt true, although I am forced to acknowledge it.”

“So, if no mere mortal can do what you do, it is clear that your work is inspired, and we may as well attribute the inspiration to a Muse, as to any other source. So, I must say that Mr. Wilde is correct, and is also the winner.”

The group sat hushed for a beat, as they tried to work out the logic of Nordhausen’s exposition. At the exact same moment, Wilde and Gilbert burst into laughter, and stood applauding in acclamation. The rest of the group joined them, and Nordhausen found himself the focus of their adulation. He smiled, pleased that he had come up with something to reward the effort of each man. Perhaps I’ve set it right, he thought hopefully as he fingered his pocket watch. Internally he shrugged his shoulders, dislodging the spectral Maeve from the perch she had occupied for the better part of the evening. The hearty cheers and the glass of champagne he accepted served to ease his troubled conscience.

“But my word!” Nordhausen took a sip of champagne and set the glass down. “I’ve just had a look at the time and I really must be off.”

The gleeful gathering protested, but Nordhausen was determined to extricate himself before he was forced to speak another word. The verse that Gilbert had spun out still haunted him, for it carried the seed of his greatest fear. The dust of this earthly today was indeed the earth of a dusty tomorrow.

I’ve tipped brandy with two Prime Movers, he thought. God only knows what I’ve accomplished. He hurried away from the club, drawing his overcoat close about him against the evening chill. He wondered who actually won the competition in the time line he had come from. He had a 50-50 chance of choosing the same verdict if he could have just mustered the guts to hazard a guess. His solution, awarding victory to both of the contestants, had been clever, but was it wise?

And again, he realized that the man, or woman, who had actually served as judge in the original Meridian, had been unduly robbed of that moment by his interference. While it seemed an insignificant thing, that was exactly the sort of contamination that Paul always warned him about. It was not the great things, but the inconsequential ones that set the wheels of time to turning.

Off in the distance he heard the dull toll of a church bell timing out the half hour, and it gave him little comfort. Some time later, he made it back to his hotel. He had another 24 hours, in this Meridian, before his retraction scheme pulled him out. He needed sleep to gather his wits for the real intent of his journey, but the thought that he had already set the world to havoc with a toast of brandy kept him restless and tossing all through the night.