Abruptly a shout sounded from the dark periphery of the camp: “Where are you hiding, Romany or whatever your name is? Step forward, you son of a bitch, unless the price of sorcery has left you a cowering eunuch!”
“Yaaah!” exclaimed one of the yags, simultaneously brightening and relaxing its human shape. “Shoes is a cowering eunuch!” A burst of billowing flame shot out, roaring like laughter.
“Ho ho!” the next one yelled. “Young curly-head wants to extinguish our host! Can’t you taste his wrath?”
“Perhaps he’ll work the toy for us!” yipped another, losing all consistency of form in its extreme excitement.
Doctor Romany cast a panicky glance toward the unseen intruder, agonizedly aware that the fire elementals were on the brink of going totally and disastrously out of control. “Richard!” he shouted. “Wilbur! Damn it, get that man at the south end of camp and shut him up!”
“Avo, rya,” wailed an unhappy gypsy’s voice from the darkness.
“If you’ll all just calm down,” Romany roared at the yags, who by this time were exploding fiery pseudopods in all directions, “I’ll turn on the toy one more time.” In addition to being scared, Romany was angry, and it was not so much the intrusion that irritated him as the fact that the yags could see the intruder—and even read his mind to a limited extent.
“Wait a moment,” commanded one of the flame columns to the others. “Shoes is going to work the toy again.” The flames slowly and reluctantly resumed their human template.
There came no more shouting from the edge of camp, and Romany relaxed a little, light-headed in the aftermath of the crisis. His confidence was almost fully restored as he turned once again toward the village Bavarois.
Richard hurried up just as Romany was reaching for the master switch. The old gypsy’s teeth were bared in a rictus of fear at being this close to the yags, but he walked right up next to Doctor Romany and spoke into the sorcerer’s ear. “The m-man shouting, rya, it was your gorgio lord, come home early.”
Romany sagged, his tenuous confidence abruptly eradicated like fresh ink washed from a page by a gush of ice water. “Byron?” he whispered, wanting to be absolutely sure of defeat.
“Avo, Byron,” Richard muttered quickly. “He’s wearing different clothes now, and he’s got two pistols in a case. Wanted to fight a duel with you, but we’ve got him tied up.”
The gypsy bowed and then sprinted wildly back into the darkness toward the tents.
That’s torn it, Romany thought, dazed, as he automatically continued the motion of reaching for the master switch. He must have met someone who knew the real Byron; and whoever it was awakened him, broke my control.
He pushed the switch into the on position, held it there for a few moments while the mannikins moved and the music jingled and honked incongruously away across the nighttime fields, and the yags began billowing and roaring, then he clicked it off.
“I’ve changed my mind!” he shouted. “I’ve decided you can have the toy tonight—never mind London.” The Master, he remembered ruefully, had said that the burning of London alone, if not coupled with both the ruin of the British money and the scandalous regicide, would be an inconclusive blow at best, and a waste of a lot of valuable preparation. “Wait until my men can load it on a cart, and then we’ll carry it way out across the heath to the edge of the woods so you can enjoy it with, uh, a lot of elbow room.”
Romany’s voice was flat with disappointment, though the yags were flaring like powder keg detonations. “Take it easy now,” he told them, “here in camp. Wait till you get to the woods before you cut loose. Listen to me, damn it, or you can’t have the toy!”
At least there’s the time traveling possibility to explore, he told himself as he turned to go fetch Richard and Wilbur. At least I don’t have to report a total failure.
“They’ll be shut down for the night,” said the cab driver for the third time. “I’m certain of it. But see here, I can take you to a palm-reading lady I know in Long Alley.”
“No thank you,” said Doyle, pushing open the little door of the cab. He unfolded his tall frame out and stepped to the ground carefully, for the half-drunk driver hadn’t secured the brake. The air was chilly, and the sight of flames flickering in the distance beyond the dark gypsy tents made the prospect of going in there at least a little more attractive.
“I’d best wait anyway, sir,” the driver said. “It’s a long way back to Fleet Street, and you’ll not get another cab way out here.” The horse stamped a hoof in the dirt impatiently.
“No, you go, I’ll walk back.”
“If you’re sure. Good night then.” The driver snapped his long whip and the cab rocked and thumped away. A few seconds later Doyle heard the wheels rolling on the pavement of Hackney Road, moving back toward the dim glow in the southwest that was the city.
Faintly he could hear voices from the direction of Romany’s camp. I suppose Byron must already be here, he thought. The haberdasher had said he’d left his shop a good half hour before Doyle arrived there, and had paused after getting his boots and clothes only long enough to ask where the nearest gunsmith was; and by the time Doyle had found the gunsmith shop, Byron had moved on from there too, having purchased, with more of the gold sovereigns Romany had given him, a set of duelling pistols. And then Doyle had had to stop a policeman to ask where Doctor Romany’s gypsy camp was currently set up, while Byron already knew the way.
The damn fool, Doyle thought. I told him pistols wouldn’t daunt the likes of Romany.
He took two steps toward the flame-silhouetted tents, then stopped. What exactly do you hope to do here? he asked himself. Rescue Byron, if he’s still alive? The police are the ones for that. Make some kind of deal with Doctor Romany? Oh, right; sure, it would be useful to learn the location of the 1814 gap that Darrow’s employees will jump back to 1983 through, so that I could be there and run up and grab one of them by the hand an instant before the gap closed—but if Romany thought I knew anything he wanted, he’d just seize me, not bargain with me.
Doyle rolled his shoulders back and gripped his hands together hard, feeling the flexed muscles strain against the fabric of his shirt. Though this time, he thought with cautious satisfaction, he might not find me quite so easy to overpower. I wonder how Dog-Face Joe is doing with my old body. I guess he’s not one to worry about going bald, at least.
He could feel the vertigo coming on again, so he shook his head sharply, took several breaths of the chilly night air and strode forward through the grass. I’ll just sneak around and reconnoiter, he told himself. Snoop. I needn’t even get close to the tents. A thought struck him and he paused. Then he grinned deprecatingly and kept walking, but a moment later he stopped again. Why not? he asked himself. Enough insne things are proving to be true for it to be worth a try. He sat down in the grass, pulled his right boot off and, with Dog-Face Joe’s—or possibly Benner’s—pocketknife he hacked a hole through the stitching of the back seam. Then he pulled down his stocking, fished the length of clock chain out of his pocket, tied one end of it around his bare ankle and put the boot back on. With the blade of the knife it wasn’t difficult to draw the trailing end of the chain out through the hole so that the end of it dangled a foot and a half from his heel. He stood up and continued walking toward the tents.