A second, more forceful pulse sent him scrambling from the platform and out of the storeroom. He did not pause to determine if the passage outside was clear; he did not bother to try to keep quiet; he fled headlong, as if pursuing Furies were at his back. But nothing pursued him. Whatever Furies there were, he carried with him.
Thus did Quare retrace the route by which Longinus had spirited them into the guild hall. He did not encounter another person and soon found himself at the stone wall separating the lowest level of the hall from the London underground. He did not pause there, either, but scraped through, hurrying into the rough-hewn passage that led downwards, into the domain of the Morecockneyans.
19
Magic of a Most Ordinary Kind
IT WAS NOT until he’d left the passage behind and burst into the cavern beyond that Quare remembered Cornelius and Starkey. He’d left the two men bound and gagged near the entrance to the passage, but they were bound and gagged no longer. Now they faced him, swords drawn.
And they were not alone. A dozen men or more stood with them, some holding torches, others swords or crossbows.
Quare skidded to a halt.
‘Well, if it ain’t Mr Quare,’ said Starkey with a grin that promised all sorts of unpleasantness. ‘What’s yer ’urry, eh?’
‘Where’s Grimalkin?’ Cornelius demanded, gesturing with his sword. ‘I’ll whittle ’im down to a splinter, see if I don’t!’
‘Oi, look, ’e’s ’oldin a watch!’ Starkey said before Quare could reply, turning to address someone behind him. ‘I told yer they was goin’ ter fetch it right to yer, didn’t I?’
‘So you did, Mr Starkey.’ The man pushed forward into view.
It was Aylesford.
‘Surprised to see me, Quare?’ Aylesford asked as he drew his blade with a flourish.
Quare felt the hunter pulse in his hand. He groaned in despair. ‘Run,’ he gasped out. ‘All of you – before it’s too late!’
This provoked a chorus of mocking laughter and catcalls.
‘I’ve got a better idea,’ said Aylesford when the general mirth had subsided. ‘Hand over the watch, and I’ll spare your life.’
‘’Course, me and Corny might not be so mercerful,’ added Starkey.
‘I don’t feel much inclined in that direction, to be sure,’ Cornelius admitted.
Quare drew his sword. ‘You should have left London, Aylesford. You should have gone back to France and kept on going.’
‘Oh, I mean to return – just as soon as I have the hunter.’
‘It is the hunter that will have you,’ Quare said grimly. ‘All of you.’
‘He’s barmy,’ someone said.
‘Just shoot ’im,’ another voice suggested. ‘Make ’im inter a pincushion!’
Aylesford raised a forestalling hand. ‘You may do what you like with him once I am through, gentlemen. But I have the prior claim. Quare and I have unfinished business.’
‘Go on, then,’ Cornelius said. ‘’Is Majesty said you was ter ’ave carte blanche, Mr Aylesford, and carte blanche you shall ’ave.’
‘His Majesty is most gracious. I won’t forget it … and nor will my prince.’
‘This man is a cowardly murderer and an agent of the French,’ Quare said, glancing over the knot of men arrayed against him. ‘By helping him, you are aiding the enemies of your king and country. Is there no loyal Englishman among you?’
‘We’re Morecockneyans,’ Cornelius answered. ‘ This is our country. Not up there – down ’ere. And we’ve got our own king, fank yer very much.’
‘Enough words,’ Aylesford said, advancing on Quare with his sword at the ready, the tip inscribing tight circles in the air. ‘I prefer to let my blade do the talking.’
Quare readied himself. He knew from his previous encounter with Aylesford that the Scotsman was the better swordsman, but that would not matter now. Aylesford was in for a nasty surprise. They all were. The throbbing of the hunter had grown stronger, more insistent.
‘Gorblimey, ’is ’and!’ exclaimed Starkey, pointing. ‘Look at ’is bleedin’ ’and!’
Quare’s hand rose of its own accord, elevating the hunter like a beacon. It cast a blood-red light upon Aylesford, who came on with a resolute expression despite the fear Quare saw in his eyes. He was right to be afraid. He just wasn’t afraid enough. Quare almost pitied him.
Aylesford was gripping the hilt of his sword with both hands now. He shouted something in his own language that was incomprehensible to Quare as he stepped up and swung with all his might.
Quare watched as if from a safe remove as the blade passed through his wrist. His severed hand spun through the air in a spray of blood. Absurdly, he tried to reach for it, to catch it, with the stump. Yet he felt as if he were the one being cast away, as if his own hand had rejected him.
Then the pain took him. He dropped to his knees with a strangled, disbelieving cry, cradling the stump to his chest as if to smother the flow of blood. Aylesford meanwhile darted to where the hand had fallen. It lay on the ground like something hewn from a statue, the fingers still locked tight about the hunter.
‘Stand back!’ Aylesford cried out in warning to the Morecockneyans, who needed no encouragement on that score and were retreating en masse from the grisly trophy as if from a fizzing grenado. ‘Mr Starkey, if you please.’
Starkey edged forward, holding out a sack of some kind at arm’s length.
Aylesford reached for it …
And someone stepped to block Quare’s view. He glanced up dully. Cornelius loomed over him. ‘Nighty-night, Quaresie.’ The pommel of his sword came down hard on Quare’s skull, and he saw no more.
Quare awoke shivering in a heap of damp, filthy, foul-smelling straw. His head hurt abominably, and there was an excruciating ache in his left hand, as if his fingers were cramping. Yet when he raised his arm, he saw that it ended in a swath of bloodstained bandages even filthier than the straw, if that were possible. He bolted upright as memories flooded back of the confrontation in the Old Wolf’s den, his headlong flight, its gruesome conclusion. Even so, it took him a moment to absorb what he was seeing … or rather not seeing. Then shock at the absence of the hand whose cramping he still felt gave way to gut-wrenching sobs so primal in intensity that he seemed merely to be their conduit, rather than their source. At the same time, the visceral certainty that he was free of the hunter and its control filled him with giddy joy, so that laughter mingled with his tears. He rocked back and forth, weeping and giggling like a madman.
After a time, drained alike of energy and emotion, he subsided into the straw and took in his surroundings. He was in a cell carved out of solid rock, or perhaps it was a wide natural crevice adapted to the purpose of confinement. He could not see much more: the only light came from a flickering torch set outside a barred door across from where he lay. An iron cuff around his right ankle chained him to one stone wall, but he would have been too weak to attempt an escape in any case. It took all the effort of which he was capable to roll onto his side, fumble his breeches open with his remaining hand, and piss away from himself. The acrid smell of his urine did not improve the stench of the straw.
He wondered what had become of the hunter. Why had it failed to protect him as it had done in the Old Wolf’s den? He didn’t understand it. But it was not his problem any more. He no longer felt the slightest connection to it. He was free of that burden. Yet the knowledge that it was still out there weighed on him. Aylesford carried it now, or so he assumed. Perhaps he had already departed, heading back to his masters across the Channel. But Aylesford would soon discover, if he hadn’t yet, that he had a new master now. Nor would that be the end of it. Only the beginning. The beginning of the end of everything. For as bad as things were now, Quare did not think they would improve once the dragon hatched out of the egg.