He told of the tiny harbor outside his window, sparkling blue under the summer sky, providing haven for little ships of all nations and ages: smoky old tramp steamers from nineteenth-century London, triremes and quinquiremes from Corinth or Mycenae, gilded galleys from Byzantium and chubby medieval cogs from the Hanseatic ports of the Baltic. He told how he would wander down there some days and talk with the sailors— Chinese unloading silks, who believed they had sailed their junks to Zanzibar, Arabs carrying coffee, as they thought, to the Andamans, Yankee whalers loading water at Lahaina, caravels from Spain trading in the Indies, brigantines, schooners, and argosies. He watched the skepticism become incredulity, the incredulity grown into trepidation. He was amused and content that it should.
He told of South Gate, leading to the farmlands, the vineyards, and the ranches; of vistas of wheat, of rice paddies planted by Asians, and tulip fields tended by Dutchmen; he described the creaking old waterwheels, the miniature hamlets, the orchards that could have blossom in the morning and bend under fruit by nightfall, or vice versa. He told how Merans living in the city could relive a rural past by helping bring in a harvest or trying their hands at plowing with oxen— and how Killer was partial to sweet-scented haylofts containing sweet-natured milkmaids.
“Damn right!” Killer said. “Nothing like ‘em.”
He told them of the wild lands beyond West Gate, where he had teased trout with Father Julius the previous morning and where Tig would find his boar to hunt, the open spaces and the forests, the hills and the streams, backed by misty ranges where only the setting sun could go. He talked of hiking and boating and riding… “Peggy!” said Lacey sleepily.
And now he was leaning back, squashed together with Ariadne in the chair, and he had his arm around her, and she did not seem to mind.
He told them also of North Gate which led back to reality, where the Oracle sent out its rescuers, where someone like Killer might go to test out a firearm for the armorers. He described the first time he had been sent a wand and how horrified he had been to venture Outside alone; how he had walked out into a grove of trees and then fog and found himself in nineteenth-century London, strolling among trees in Hyde Park. He told how he had obeyed his orders and headed for the slums of Limehouse— and been amazed and astonished to see his reflection in store windows dressed in top hat and tailed coat, although he was conscious only of wearing his usual Meran garb. He told them how he had found the abandoned child where he had been told he would find her and had delivered her safely to Dr. Bernardo’s orphanage… and then sadly returned to Hyde Park and thus to Mera, weighed down by guilt and sorrow that he should have no greater succor to offer among such suffering and that he should be so extraordinarily blessed.
“Why that one, Jerry?” Ariadne asked. “What was special about that child?”
“I have no idea at all,” he said. “I don’t even know her name. Just a girl, one among thousands.”
“That you in there, Jerry?” called Tig from the yard.
“Not a word!” he bellowed, leaping to his feet in terror, seeing the heads all turn and the mouths start to open. He slammed the wand across the door and roared out his conjuration once more. “Not a word!” he repeated. He fetched the fourth wooden chair with hands trembling and sweat on his face and sat down beside the door. That had been very, very close.
Even he had almost answered.
“Now,” he said, when he had his breath back. “We’ll take it one at a time. Mr. Gillis, who did you hear?”
The big man’s eyes narrowed. “It’s Joe, from the office.”
“No it wasn’t Joe. Mrs. Gillis?”
“It was… it sounded like Mother,” she said, looking puzzled, hesitant to contradict her husband, who gave her an astonished look.
“Carlo?”
The boy’s face had closed up tight. He said nothing, but his lips moved as he mouthed another obscenity at Jerry. The kid had hardly spoken six words all night, yet he looked far from stupid— perhaps he was older than his skinny form indicated.
“Lacey? Who did you hear?”
“Gramps,” she said. She was close to tears, frightened by the tension. “Ariadne?” She bit her lip and said, “None of those, anyway.”
“Killer?”
“Clio,” Killer said, and he was looking astonished.
“I thought I heard Tig,” Jerry said. Killer snickered.
Would this convince them? “There you are, ladies and gentlemen. We all heard a very familiar voice. I heard it ask if I was in here. Had I answered in the affirmative, then that would have been as an invitation.
Have I got it through your thick heads?”
Gillis was giving him a long stare. “You have puzzled me, Howard. I can guess how you could have done the other, but I don’t see how you could have pulled that trick— four or five different voices…”
“Thank you,” Jerry said. “You are being honest with me and with yourself. Now, please, will you all go along with my story for now? If I’m a raving maniac or if I’m from a fairy world— in either case, please go along?” This time he got a nod from Gillis and a shrug and a nod from Carlo. He was hoarse from talking and weary from the constant vigilance; they sat in silence for a while, cramped and uncomfortable all in the stuffy and shabby little room.
“Mr. Howard,” Maisie said solemnly. “Have you taken thought for your immortal soul?” Now there was another pail of snakes.
He decided to slide along the boundary between lying and speaking true: “Yesterday morning, Mrs. Gillis, I went fishing with Father Julius, who is a good friend of mine in Mera, and who has lived there more than a thousand years. He is an elderly man— he seems frail, although he can outwalk me easily on the hills— and he is a most saintly, gentle, and devout man of God. He was an abbot in twelfth-century Burgundy. You could not find a more holy or a more studied priest, full of lore and love. We have talked often and at great length about my soul and his and of all the souls in Mera.”
She smiled in relief and nodded.
He hadn’t given her Father Julius’ opinions, though, and Ariadne at least had noticed that omission.
“Just how do you leave here tomorrow, Howard?” Gillis demanded. “And how do we?”
“We have a horse and cart,” Jerry told him. “It is never far to Mera. You will like a ride in a horse and cart, won’t you, Lacey?” The wan little girl nodded. She had put her thumb in her mouth when her parents started savaging each other, and it was there still, small enough comfort for a divided child from a divided marriage.
“And we?” Gillis asked.
“I suggest you wait about twenty minutes after we have gone and then start walking. The countryside will have changed by then. It can’t be far to somewhere. The demons very rarely attack by day, and you are not their targets. Doubtless they have other chances to get you,” he added, smiling at Maisie.
“Jerry?” Killer said faintly. “It’s getting dim in here.”
Jerry looked up and, true enough, the bare bulb was an orange glow. The light had been dying away without his noticing.
He muttered his thanks and jumped up to organize the oil lamps. One had been glowing on low in the corner for hours. He turned it up, and now it was brighter than the electric light. He placed it on the table, lit the other, and put it on top of the piano. He looked in the icebox, and everything was thawing in there.
“Howard?” It was Gillis again. He was beginning to show stress, his bruises dark and his swarthy face livid in patches around the eyes— but he had been standing up to the strain better than any of the rest of them, a strong man. Even the inscrutable Carlo was fidgeting now. Jerry returned to his chair by the door.