‘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.